President Obama gave a speech on National Security today at the National Archives, and mentioned some of the issues on security and transparancy in government.
You can get a copy of the transcript of the entire speech hear, while I will excerpt the relevant passages below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.text.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1
In the speech Obama said:
...Now, let me touch on a second set of issues that relate to security and transparency.
National security requires a delicate balance. One the one hand, our democracy depends on transparency. On the other hand, some information must be protected from public disclosure for the sake of our security - for instance, the movement of our troops, our intelligence-gathering, or the information we have about a terrorist organization and its affiliates. In these and other cases, lives are at stake.
Now, several weeks ago, as part of an ongoing court case, I released memos issued by the previous administration's Office of Legal Counsel. I did not do this because I disagreed with the enhanced interrogation techniques that those memos authorized, and I didn't release the documents because I rejected their legal rationales - although I do on both counts. I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods. The argument that somehow by releasing those memos we are providing terrorists with information about how they will be interrogated makes no sense. We will not be interrogating terrorists using that approach. That approach is now prohibited.
In short, I released these memos because there was no overriding reason to protect them. And the ensuing debate has helped the American people better understand how these interrogation methods came to be authorized and used.
On the other hand, I recently opposed the release of certain photographs that were taken of detainees by U.S. personnel between 2002 and 2004. Individuals who violated standards of behavior in these photos have been investigated and they have been held accountable. There was and is no debate as to whether what is reflected in those photos is wrong. Nothing has been concealed to absolve perpetrators of crimes. However, it was my judgment - informed by my national security team - that releasing these photos would inflame anti-American opinion and allow our enemies to paint U.S. troops with a broad, damning, and inaccurate brush, thereby endangering them in theaters of war.
In short, there is a clear and compelling reason to not release these particular photos. There are nearly 200,000 Americans who are serving in harm's way, and I have a solemn responsibility for their safety as Commander-in-Chief. Nothing would be gained by the release of these photos that matters more than the lives of our young men and women serving in harm's way.
Now, in the press's mind and in some of the public's mind, these two cases are contradictory. They are not to me. In each of these cases, I had to strike the right balance between transparency and national security. And this balance brings with it a precious responsibility. There's no doubt that the American people have seen this balance tested over the last several years. In the images from Abu Ghraib and the brutal interrogation techniques made public long before I was President, the American people learned of actions taken in their name that bear no resemblance to the ideals that generations of Americans have fought for. And whether it was the run-up to the Iraq war or the revelation of secret programs, Americans often felt like part of the story had been unnecessarily withheld from them. And that caused suspicion to build up. And that leads to a thirst for accountability.
I understand that. I ran for President promising transparency, and I meant what I said. And that's why, whenever possible, my administration will make all information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable. But I have never argued - and I never will - that our most sensitive national security matters should simply be an open book. I will never abandon - and will vigorously defend - the necessity of classification to defend our troops at war, to protect sources and methods, and to safeguard confidential actions that keep the American people safe.
Here's the difference though: Whenever we cannot release certain information to the public for valid national security reasons, I will insist that there is oversight of my actions - by Congress or by the courts.
We're currently launching a review of current policies by all those agencies responsible for the classification of documents to determine where reforms are possible, and to assure that the other branches of government will be in a position to review executive branch decisions on these matters. Because in our system of checks and balances, someone must always watch over the watchers - especially when it comes to sensitive administration - information.
Now, along these same lines, my administration is also confronting challenges to what is known as the "state secrets" privilege. This is a doctrine that allows the government to challenge legal cases involving secret programs. It's been used by many past Presidents - Republican and Democrat - for many decades. And while this principle is absolutely necessary in some circumstances to protect national security, I am concerned that it has been over-used. It is also currently the subject of a wide range of lawsuits.
So let me lay out some principles here. We must not protect information merely because it reveals the violation of a law or embarrassment to the government. And that's why my administration is nearing completion of a thorough review of this practice.
And we plan to embrace several principles for reform. We will apply a stricter legal test to material that can be protected under the state secrets privilege. We will not assert the privilege in court without first following our own formal process, including review by a Justice Department committee and the personal approval of the Attorney General. And each year we will voluntarily report to Congress when we have invoked the privilege and why because, as I said before, there must be proper oversight over our actions.
On all these matters related to the disclosure of sensitive information, I wish I could say that there was some simple formula out there to be had. There is not. These often involve tough calls, involve competing concerns, and they require a surgical approach.
But the common thread that runs through all of my decisions is simple: We will safeguard what we must to protect the American people, but we will also ensure the accountability and oversight that is the hallmark of our constitutional system.
I will never hide the truth because it's uncomfortable. I will deal with Congress and the courts as co-equal branches of government. I will tell the American people what I know and don't know, and when I release something publicly or keep something secret, I will tell you why. (Applause.)…….
Here's some responses to the speech:
Obama Opposes Truth Commissions But Not Prosecutions
http://washingtonindependent.com/44090/obama-opposes-truth-commissions-but-not-prosecutions
Just Keep Walking - Patrick Appel
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/the-key-graphs-to-my-mindi-recognize-that-many-still-have-a--strong-desire-to-focus-on-the-past-when-it-comes-to-the-actio.html
A Government Attorney Responds by Lars Thorwald
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/21/733145/-%5BUpdated%5D-A-Government-Attorneys-Take-on-Obamas-Speech
Friday, May 22, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Houma Bunker Raid Revisted
The Houma Bunker Raid Revisited - By William Kelly
The Houma, La. bunker raid of the Schlumbuger Wells Company munitions and arms cache, which took place in the late summer of 1961, included participants who later became entwined in the New Orleans aspects of the assassination of President Kennedy.
The owner of the Schlumberger company, Jean DeMenil, was also a close associate of those in the Texas White Russian community who assisted the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, when he returned from the Soviet Union with his Russian wife and child.
There are a number of covert operations that are related to what happened at Dealey Plaza, but the Houma Bunker Raid is one of the best documented and worthy of further study on a number of levels.
The exact date of the raid has never been established, and it has been published as being in July, August and September, 1961, with Garrison’s Grand Jury investigation saying it occurred “on or around August 22, 1961,” some four months after the Bay of Pigs.
The munitions and arms taken in the raid were originally said to be destined for the Bay of Pigs, or to be used in the OAS revolt of the French Generals against DeGaul. When they weren’t used in either event, they were taken to the New Orleans offices of Guy Bannister at 544 Camp Street, which was used by Lee Harvey Oswald in his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in the summer of 1963, and to the Lake Pontchartrain anti-Castro Cuban training camp owned by William McClaney, which was raided by the FBI in July, 1963.
There has been the question as to whether some of these arms and ammunition were part of the Venezuelan Arms Cache, a Northwoods operation, or used in the attack on Gen. Walker, the assassination of the President or the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit, since the source of the ammunition in those incidents were never determined.
The Houma bunker raid has been the subject of a New Orleans Grand Jury and a libel case brought on by Gordon Novel, and is frequently mentioned in JFK assassination books and articles, including Jim Garrison’s Playboy interview, and is featured in Oliver Stone’s film JFK.
The participants in the raid included David Ferrie, Sergio Aracha Smith, Rancier Blaise Ehlinger, Carlos Quiroga, Layton Martins, Luis Rabel Nunez, Gordon Novel, Novel’s wife Marlene Mancuso and Andrew Blackmon, an ex-Marine who carried around a bolt action rifle that he frequently cocked and dry fired for fun.
Leaving from and returning to David Ferrie’s apartment at night, they traveled in two vehicles, Gordon Novel’s 1959 Lincoln, which he drove, and a laundry truck, which Layton Martins reportedly drove.
Luis Rabel Nunes owned the laundry truck used in the raid that was also used by the Catholic Church to assist Cuban refugees, and resembles a truck said to be seen at Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination.
Luis Rabel Nunez and his brother Capt. Jose Ricardo Rabel Nunez, of the Cuban military, were childhood friends and neighbors of Fidel Castro. Capt. Jose Rabel was well positioned in the Cuban military before he defected and was used by the CIA to identify other disenchanted military officers who could be used in a coup in Cuba, if such a contingency plan developed.
It’s not clear how Luis’ laundry truck was used by the Church for the Cuban Refugees, but Luis was succeeded as head of the New Orleans Cuban Revolutionary Council by Frank Bartes, who owned a Cuban railroad before it was confiscated by Castro, and he ran a Washateria in New Orleans.
A. J. Weberman wrote, “…in a telephone interview Luis Rabel denied he met David Ferrie or Guy Banister, but said he knew Sergio Arcacha Smith. Regarding the burglary, "Well, I used to run a dry cleaners, and I had a truck that I used to loan to about 40 or 50 exiles here. Arcacha asked me to loan him the truck to move some furniture. Whether the truck was used to move anything other than furniture is beyond me."
Well, one thing they used the truck for was to move the munitions from the Houma bunker to Ferrie’s apartment, Bannister’s offices in New Orleans and the Lake Pontchartrain training camp.
According to a CIA memo, the Houma bunker was NOT used to store CIA supplies at all, though they do acknowledge using the Schulmberger Company, whose board of directors today include former CIA head John Deutch and former 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorlick.
The same CIA memo that denies the Houma bunker was used to store CIA supplies also acknowledges that the CIA did operate an anti-Castro Cuban training camp in Louisiana that included a munitions supply cache, which was connected to CIA spymaster David Atlee Phillips.
There was some confusion as to whether it was a burglary at all, as Garrison contended in persuading the grand jury to subpoena and indict Sergio Aracha Smith and Gordon Novel, both of whom fled the state rather than testify. Some of the participants claimed they were given a key to the bunker by a CIA contact, while others testified that burglary tools were used to break into the bunker, which was suppose to be used for securing munitions and blasting caps used in drilling oil wells.
The cases the arms were stored in were said to be labeled either “SCHULMBERGER” or “INTERARMCO,” the company owned by Sam Cummings, the Philadelphia arms merchant who supplied the guns for many a revolution in South and Central America.
On the return trip back to Ferrie’s apartment, some of the participants fell asleep, but were awaken by the explosion of some dynamite that was apparently thrown from the truck by Jerome Andrew Blackmon, the ex-Marine who liked to play with guns.
The most serious connection to the assassination of President Kennedy is Jean DeMenil, the owner of Schlumberger, who lived in Houston and was known for his art collection, and was part of the network of White Russians who befriended Oswald when he returned from the Soviet Union.
While the Catholic Relief Services in Dallas also assisted the Cuban refugees, it was the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia that was the center of the social and religious life of the White Russian community. Both the Catholic Cuban Refuge society and the White Russian Church were financially supported by the CIA through the Catherwood Fund of Philadelphia.
Gus Russo, of course, puts his false spin on the whole episode, trying to pin the blame on RFK, as he does for Dealey Plaza as well, but his version is included here too for you to judge.
The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
By William W. Turner Ramparts Magazine, January, 1968
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Kwkg1gulD7QJ:www.wf.net/~biles/jfk/ramparts.txt+schlumberger+well+jfk&cd=24&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
….A man who knew Banister well has told Garrison that Bannister became associated with the Office of Naval Intelligence through the recommendation of Guy Johnson, an ONI reserve officer and the first attorney for Clay Shaw when he was arrested by Garrison.
A copyrighted story in the New Orleans States-Item, April 25, 1967, further illuminates the Camp Street scene. The newspaper, which at the time had an investigative team working parallel to the Garrison probe, reported that a reliable source close to Banister said he had seen 50 to 100 boxes marked "Schlumberger" in Banister's office-storeroom early in 1961 before the Bay of Pigs. The boxes contained rifle grenades, land mines and unique "little missiles." Banister explained that "the stuff would just be there overnight ... a bunch of fellows connected with the Cuban deal asked to leave it there overnight." It was all right, assured Banister, "I have approval from somebody."
The "somebody," one can surmise from the Gordon Novel episode which follows, was the CIA. Novel is wanted by the DA as a material witness in the 1961 burglary of the Schlumberger Well Co. munitions dump near New Orleans. Subpoenaed by the grand jury last March, Novel fled to McLean, Virginia, next door to the CIA complex at Langley, and took a lie detector test administered by a former Army intelligence officer which, he boasted to the press, proved Garrison's probe was a fraud. He then skipped first to Montreal and then to Columbus, Ohio, from where Governor James Rhodes, in one of the most absurd stipulations ever attached to a normally routine procedure, refuses to extradite him unless Garrison agrees not to question him on the assassination.
From his Ohio sanctuary the fugitive cryptically asserted that the munitions caper was one of "the most patriotic burglaries in history." When an enterprising reporter took him to a marathon party, Novel's indiscreet tongue loosened further. According to the States-Item article, Novel's oft-repeated account was that the munitions bunker was a CIA staging point for war materiel destined for use in the impending Bay of Pigs invasion. He is quoted as saying that on the day the munitions were picked up, he "was called by his CIA contact and told to join a group which was ordered to transport munitions from the bunker to New Orleans." The key to the bunker was provided by his CIA contact. Novel reportedly said the others in the CIA group at the bunker were David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith -- New Orleans delegate to the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front -- and several Cubans. The munitions, according to his account, were dropped in Novel's office, Ferrie's home and Banister's office-storeroom………
From JFK The Book of the Film by Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar :
Ferrie, banister and several anti-Castro activists were implicated in a late 1961 Raid on a munitions bunker leased by Schlumberger Wells services in Houma, Louisiana. [HSCA X. p. 127; Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, p. 118-9; New Orleans States-Item, Apr. 25, 1967; Brener, the Garrison Case; A Study in Abuse of Power, p. 48-9] Some of the material taken in the Houma raid resurfaced on August 1, 1963 when the FBI raided the arms cache at the Cuban exile training camp on Lake Pontchartrain.
Garrison alleged that the Houma raid was organized by the CIA to procure weapons for the local anti-Castro forces – making the Houma outing more of a simple “pick-up” than a “raid” (the HSCA maintained that the arms were “stolen,” avoiding the issue of CIA involvement). There are strong indications that Garrison was right. New Orleans attorney Milton E. Brener represented some of the individuals implicated in the raid and writes: “it appears clear that the Schlumberger Wells bunker was serving that night as a transfer point for explosives with the acquiescence of its management and with officials of the United States Government, including, presumably , the Central Intelligence Agency.” [Brener, The Garrison Case: A Study in the Abuse of Power, p. 48-49]. When reached by telephone, Brener said his information on the raid was subject to attorney-client privilege and would not discuss his sources.”
Gus Russo, Live by the Sword, p. 150-151
The Houma Weapons Transfer
According to the CIA’s own documents and its own admissions, one of the firms that co-operated with the CIA in its preparations to wage secret war against Castro’s recently-declared Marxist government was Schlumberger Wells Services Company. In fact, a 1967 CIA memo released in 1992 confirms that its Domestic Contact Service (DCS) “has discreet and continuing contact with the main Schlumberger office in Houston and branch offices in Minneapolis and elsewhere.” 82
Located in the little town of Houma, deep in the Mississippi River delta, and 50 miles southwest of New Orleans, Schlumberger served as a small arms depot for the CIA. It permitted a bunker leased for storing blasting supplies to be used as a cache for ammunition, bomb casings and other military items, some of which were shipped abroad – presumably to CIA staging areas in Guatemala or areas elsewhere within striking distance of Cuba. The arms were shipped in crates bearing the markings “Schlumberger” and “machinery.” Other weapons were earmarked for rebels in the French West Indies, but were never shipped. Some of the weaponry was to have been used in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The government’s fumbling of the invasion upset the firm, which subsequently decided to terminate its contract with the CIA. 83.
According to Guy Banister’s attorney, Guy Johnson, Banister learned that some of the munitions remained at the Houma depot after the invasion. He thought that they should be put to use in the post Bay of Pigs anti-Castro effort. Even the straight-laced FBI man, Banister wanted to finesse the issue legally.
“Banister went to Washington, and saw a high official in the Justice Department,” says Johnson. “Presumably it was RFK.” 84. At this time, FBI agent Regis Kennedy – who had no blood relationship to the Kennedys in Washington – made one of his regular appearances in Banister’s office. 85 According to Banister associate Jack Martin, “It was about this time that he ‘letters of marque’ and keys showed up.”
A “Letter-Marque” is a legal device, generated by a high federal authority, that hasn’t been employed since the time of Thomas Jefferson. Its purpose is to give legal license to someone who is about to commit a quasi-legal action. More importantly, it prevents prosecution should the person be apprehended by local authorities. Jack Martin recalled some of the wording of the alleged letter: “You are hereby directed to seize munitions or arms, the property of a foreign government, that are illegally located within the United States, using any and all means to do so.” 86
The Letter-Marque was on Justice Department stationary, signed by Robert Kennedy. It was allegedly observed by Jack Martin, Gordon Novel (who says he was involved in the Houma transfer), Guy Johnson, and Banister friend Kent Courtney. Banister and the local anti-Castro activists were thus given the go-ahead to “liberate” the weaponry.
When the weapons transfer was carried out that summer, it became clear that the CIA and the FBI were heavily involved. The transfer didn’t happen overnight; in fact, military supplies were confiscated over a period of three months. In preparation for the transfer, says Jack Martin, Guy Banister (his boss) telephoned M. E. Loy, manager of Schlumberger Well Services Company. The point of the call was to make sure that the FBI or CIA would supply keys to the bunker where the weapons were stored. On another, earlier trip, the work party came armed with a pair of wire cutters in place of the promised keys, which had not been delivered.
“It was a CIA operation,” says Aracha’s attorney, Frank Hernandez. “It was set up so that Schlumberger could report it (the weapons transfer) as a robbery, and be reimbursed by their insurance company. They went in at midnight and the material was waiting for them on a loading dock. We later verified that the CIA indeed reimbursed the insurance company.” 87
Layton Martins, participating in the transfer, remembers one of the trips to the bunker. For this excursion, keys to the depot were in hand and the munitions were delivered to the office of Guy Banister and Associates. “It seemed like there was a whole caravan there, led by David Ferrie,” says Martens. The young participant “didn’t know what the hell was going on,” except for having heard that the transfers were conducted by order of David Ferrie, who participated, and, by inference, under orders of Sergio Arcacha Smith. 88
Arcacha’s attorney, Frank Hernandez, has long believed that Arcacha participated personally in the weapons transfer, but Arcacha denies this. Martens supports Arcacha’s denial, saying, “I don’t remember Sergio there.” However, Arcacha did tell Ronnie Caire that on one occasion, Arcacha drove a truck-load of “plastic explosives” from Houma, Louisiana to New Orleans because no one else wanted to drive the truck.89 Arcacha’s good friend Carlos Quiroga also stated that he participated in the transfer with Banister, Ferrie, Arcacha, and a U.S. Marine named Andrew Blackmon. 90 He put the explosives in a U-Haul trailer to be sent to Miami, Quiroga says, but it stayed in New Orleans for a long time. 91
One of the accomplices in the transfer – unwitting, he insists – was Luis Rabel Nunes, who replaced Sergio Arcacha Smith as New Orleans head of the CRC in 1962. Rabel supplied a laundry truck with which the weapons were transported – but he, like DeLaBarre, didn’t quite know what was up. “I had a laundry truck I used to loan out to help re-settler Cuban refugees – just for humanitarian reasons,” Rabel recalled recently. “The Catholic Church asked us to help out. We also helped the refugees find jobs. In that effort, we had the backing of both Mayors – Mayor Morrison and Mayor Schiro – Dr. Ochsner, and FBI agent Warren De Brueys. It wasn’t until years later that I learned they had sometimes used the truck to transfer weapons.” 92 Rabel gave a bit more information in Congressional testimony: “As far as I knew, they took them (the crates of munitions) to Lake Ponchartrain.” 93 It will be seen that Lake Ponchartrain played host to exile training camps which operated in concert with a White House-backed anti-Castro invasion force training in Central America.
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:tQhGXVbESAQJ:scribblguy.50megs.com/ruby.htm+Houma+munitions+bunker+Raid+JFK&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
MEM: THE SCHLUMBERGER WELLS
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=497125
Rancier Blaise Ehlinger Grand Jury Testimony:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1181&relPageId=3
HSCA Mug Book 48. Marlene Mancuso photo
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/0/03/Photo_hsca_mugbook_048_mmancuso.jpg
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:FpoE3OahsuwJ:www.combat-diaries.co.uk/diary27/diary27chapter12/13.htm+Luis+Rabel+Nunez&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
A.J. WEBERMAN :
LUIS RABEL LUIS
Luis Rabel Nunez, aka Luis Ravel, was the delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in New Orleans from 1960 to 1961. Luis Rabel was the son of a native born American citizen and had been raised in comfortable circumstances, on a farm next to that of the father of Fidel Castro. He had known Fidel when both were children. When interviewed in 1977, Luis Rabel said that he had resigned and moved to Venezuela in October 1962, since the Cuban Revolutionary Council had turned out to be a "complete fiasco."Luis Rabel said the names HEMMING or Lawrence LaBorde did not ring any bells. When questioned in HUNT v. ajweberman, HUNT denied having known Luis Rabel.
FRANK BARTES 1960 TO 1962
Francisco Antonio Bates Clarens [CIA 201-289,005 also CIA 201-289,685], was the delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in New Orleans from November 1962 to 1964. Frank Bartes succeeded Luis Rabel. Frank Bartes had been the president of a private railroad in pre-Castro Cuba. His firm, which employed thousands of workers and had assets of $100 million, was nationalized by Castro in 1960. When he came to the United States, he operated a New Orleans Washeteria from 1961 to 1963.
BARTES: INFORMANT
The CIA: "(Deleted) on Frank Bartes shows that he was an FBI informant (dates not given) and that his contact was with S.A. DeBRUEYS."
NODUL 24
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:ge9d4lhqydQJ:www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/24-20.html+schlumberger+well+CIA&hl=en&gl=us&strip=0
In September 1961 Gordon Novel took part in the burglary of a Schlumberger Well munitions bunker. He informed the FBI: " Schlumberger Well Service had an arrangement with the CIA wherein it leased a bunker in which ammunition, bomb casings and other materiel would be stored for the CIA. Eventually the materiel would be shipped out of the United States in Sclumberger boxes marked 'Machinery.' The explosives would then be shipped by boat to Cuba where they were going to be used in a diversionary operation during the Bay of Pigs invasion." The CIA verified Gordon Novel's statement: "Novel has claimed to the press that the munitions from the bunker were to be used for a diversionary operation during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Agency officers familiar with the operation at the (deleted), have indicated that such a diversionary operation was based at (deleted), but that operation was canceled before a landing was made." Gordon Novel continued: "After the Bay of Pigs, Schlumber became upset and wanted out of its CIA contract; three months after the invasion, arrangements were made for the materiel stored in the bunker to be removed by Novel and his group. At the time the material was removed, an individual involved took some of Schlumberger's low grade powder and fuses and other material, and the incident was reported as a burglary." (Gordon Novel had a previous history of assembling bombs). Gordon Novel said the crates of arms were stamped with the word INTERARMCO. [Police Record Jefferson Parish 1953; Memo Ivan/Garrison re: Novel rec. check; Flammonde Kennedy Conspiracy p76; Wardlaw Plot or Politics p113; New Orleans States-Item4.25.67; HUNT Day p182 CIA 1332-502, 1045] Gordon Novel reported that Andrew Jerome Blackman, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and Luis Rabel were involved in the burglary…..
To comment on this story contact the author:
Bkjfk3@yahoo.com
The Houma, La. bunker raid of the Schlumbuger Wells Company munitions and arms cache, which took place in the late summer of 1961, included participants who later became entwined in the New Orleans aspects of the assassination of President Kennedy.
The owner of the Schlumberger company, Jean DeMenil, was also a close associate of those in the Texas White Russian community who assisted the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, when he returned from the Soviet Union with his Russian wife and child.
There are a number of covert operations that are related to what happened at Dealey Plaza, but the Houma Bunker Raid is one of the best documented and worthy of further study on a number of levels.
The exact date of the raid has never been established, and it has been published as being in July, August and September, 1961, with Garrison’s Grand Jury investigation saying it occurred “on or around August 22, 1961,” some four months after the Bay of Pigs.
The munitions and arms taken in the raid were originally said to be destined for the Bay of Pigs, or to be used in the OAS revolt of the French Generals against DeGaul. When they weren’t used in either event, they were taken to the New Orleans offices of Guy Bannister at 544 Camp Street, which was used by Lee Harvey Oswald in his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in the summer of 1963, and to the Lake Pontchartrain anti-Castro Cuban training camp owned by William McClaney, which was raided by the FBI in July, 1963.
There has been the question as to whether some of these arms and ammunition were part of the Venezuelan Arms Cache, a Northwoods operation, or used in the attack on Gen. Walker, the assassination of the President or the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit, since the source of the ammunition in those incidents were never determined.
The Houma bunker raid has been the subject of a New Orleans Grand Jury and a libel case brought on by Gordon Novel, and is frequently mentioned in JFK assassination books and articles, including Jim Garrison’s Playboy interview, and is featured in Oliver Stone’s film JFK.
The participants in the raid included David Ferrie, Sergio Aracha Smith, Rancier Blaise Ehlinger, Carlos Quiroga, Layton Martins, Luis Rabel Nunez, Gordon Novel, Novel’s wife Marlene Mancuso and Andrew Blackmon, an ex-Marine who carried around a bolt action rifle that he frequently cocked and dry fired for fun.
Leaving from and returning to David Ferrie’s apartment at night, they traveled in two vehicles, Gordon Novel’s 1959 Lincoln, which he drove, and a laundry truck, which Layton Martins reportedly drove.
Luis Rabel Nunes owned the laundry truck used in the raid that was also used by the Catholic Church to assist Cuban refugees, and resembles a truck said to be seen at Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination.
Luis Rabel Nunez and his brother Capt. Jose Ricardo Rabel Nunez, of the Cuban military, were childhood friends and neighbors of Fidel Castro. Capt. Jose Rabel was well positioned in the Cuban military before he defected and was used by the CIA to identify other disenchanted military officers who could be used in a coup in Cuba, if such a contingency plan developed.
It’s not clear how Luis’ laundry truck was used by the Church for the Cuban Refugees, but Luis was succeeded as head of the New Orleans Cuban Revolutionary Council by Frank Bartes, who owned a Cuban railroad before it was confiscated by Castro, and he ran a Washateria in New Orleans.
A. J. Weberman wrote, “…in a telephone interview Luis Rabel denied he met David Ferrie or Guy Banister, but said he knew Sergio Arcacha Smith. Regarding the burglary, "Well, I used to run a dry cleaners, and I had a truck that I used to loan to about 40 or 50 exiles here. Arcacha asked me to loan him the truck to move some furniture. Whether the truck was used to move anything other than furniture is beyond me."
Well, one thing they used the truck for was to move the munitions from the Houma bunker to Ferrie’s apartment, Bannister’s offices in New Orleans and the Lake Pontchartrain training camp.
According to a CIA memo, the Houma bunker was NOT used to store CIA supplies at all, though they do acknowledge using the Schulmberger Company, whose board of directors today include former CIA head John Deutch and former 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorlick.
The same CIA memo that denies the Houma bunker was used to store CIA supplies also acknowledges that the CIA did operate an anti-Castro Cuban training camp in Louisiana that included a munitions supply cache, which was connected to CIA spymaster David Atlee Phillips.
There was some confusion as to whether it was a burglary at all, as Garrison contended in persuading the grand jury to subpoena and indict Sergio Aracha Smith and Gordon Novel, both of whom fled the state rather than testify. Some of the participants claimed they were given a key to the bunker by a CIA contact, while others testified that burglary tools were used to break into the bunker, which was suppose to be used for securing munitions and blasting caps used in drilling oil wells.
The cases the arms were stored in were said to be labeled either “SCHULMBERGER” or “INTERARMCO,” the company owned by Sam Cummings, the Philadelphia arms merchant who supplied the guns for many a revolution in South and Central America.
On the return trip back to Ferrie’s apartment, some of the participants fell asleep, but were awaken by the explosion of some dynamite that was apparently thrown from the truck by Jerome Andrew Blackmon, the ex-Marine who liked to play with guns.
The most serious connection to the assassination of President Kennedy is Jean DeMenil, the owner of Schlumberger, who lived in Houston and was known for his art collection, and was part of the network of White Russians who befriended Oswald when he returned from the Soviet Union.
While the Catholic Relief Services in Dallas also assisted the Cuban refugees, it was the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia that was the center of the social and religious life of the White Russian community. Both the Catholic Cuban Refuge society and the White Russian Church were financially supported by the CIA through the Catherwood Fund of Philadelphia.
Gus Russo, of course, puts his false spin on the whole episode, trying to pin the blame on RFK, as he does for Dealey Plaza as well, but his version is included here too for you to judge.
The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
By William W. Turner Ramparts Magazine, January, 1968
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Kwkg1gulD7QJ:www.wf.net/~biles/jfk/ramparts.txt+schlumberger+well+jfk&cd=24&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
….A man who knew Banister well has told Garrison that Bannister became associated with the Office of Naval Intelligence through the recommendation of Guy Johnson, an ONI reserve officer and the first attorney for Clay Shaw when he was arrested by Garrison.
A copyrighted story in the New Orleans States-Item, April 25, 1967, further illuminates the Camp Street scene. The newspaper, which at the time had an investigative team working parallel to the Garrison probe, reported that a reliable source close to Banister said he had seen 50 to 100 boxes marked "Schlumberger" in Banister's office-storeroom early in 1961 before the Bay of Pigs. The boxes contained rifle grenades, land mines and unique "little missiles." Banister explained that "the stuff would just be there overnight ... a bunch of fellows connected with the Cuban deal asked to leave it there overnight." It was all right, assured Banister, "I have approval from somebody."
The "somebody," one can surmise from the Gordon Novel episode which follows, was the CIA. Novel is wanted by the DA as a material witness in the 1961 burglary of the Schlumberger Well Co. munitions dump near New Orleans. Subpoenaed by the grand jury last March, Novel fled to McLean, Virginia, next door to the CIA complex at Langley, and took a lie detector test administered by a former Army intelligence officer which, he boasted to the press, proved Garrison's probe was a fraud. He then skipped first to Montreal and then to Columbus, Ohio, from where Governor James Rhodes, in one of the most absurd stipulations ever attached to a normally routine procedure, refuses to extradite him unless Garrison agrees not to question him on the assassination.
From his Ohio sanctuary the fugitive cryptically asserted that the munitions caper was one of "the most patriotic burglaries in history." When an enterprising reporter took him to a marathon party, Novel's indiscreet tongue loosened further. According to the States-Item article, Novel's oft-repeated account was that the munitions bunker was a CIA staging point for war materiel destined for use in the impending Bay of Pigs invasion. He is quoted as saying that on the day the munitions were picked up, he "was called by his CIA contact and told to join a group which was ordered to transport munitions from the bunker to New Orleans." The key to the bunker was provided by his CIA contact. Novel reportedly said the others in the CIA group at the bunker were David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith -- New Orleans delegate to the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front -- and several Cubans. The munitions, according to his account, were dropped in Novel's office, Ferrie's home and Banister's office-storeroom………
From JFK The Book of the Film by Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar :
Ferrie, banister and several anti-Castro activists were implicated in a late 1961 Raid on a munitions bunker leased by Schlumberger Wells services in Houma, Louisiana. [HSCA X. p. 127; Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, p. 118-9; New Orleans States-Item, Apr. 25, 1967; Brener, the Garrison Case; A Study in Abuse of Power, p. 48-9] Some of the material taken in the Houma raid resurfaced on August 1, 1963 when the FBI raided the arms cache at the Cuban exile training camp on Lake Pontchartrain.
Garrison alleged that the Houma raid was organized by the CIA to procure weapons for the local anti-Castro forces – making the Houma outing more of a simple “pick-up” than a “raid” (the HSCA maintained that the arms were “stolen,” avoiding the issue of CIA involvement). There are strong indications that Garrison was right. New Orleans attorney Milton E. Brener represented some of the individuals implicated in the raid and writes: “it appears clear that the Schlumberger Wells bunker was serving that night as a transfer point for explosives with the acquiescence of its management and with officials of the United States Government, including, presumably , the Central Intelligence Agency.” [Brener, The Garrison Case: A Study in the Abuse of Power, p. 48-49]. When reached by telephone, Brener said his information on the raid was subject to attorney-client privilege and would not discuss his sources.”
Gus Russo, Live by the Sword, p. 150-151
The Houma Weapons Transfer
According to the CIA’s own documents and its own admissions, one of the firms that co-operated with the CIA in its preparations to wage secret war against Castro’s recently-declared Marxist government was Schlumberger Wells Services Company. In fact, a 1967 CIA memo released in 1992 confirms that its Domestic Contact Service (DCS) “has discreet and continuing contact with the main Schlumberger office in Houston and branch offices in Minneapolis and elsewhere.” 82
Located in the little town of Houma, deep in the Mississippi River delta, and 50 miles southwest of New Orleans, Schlumberger served as a small arms depot for the CIA. It permitted a bunker leased for storing blasting supplies to be used as a cache for ammunition, bomb casings and other military items, some of which were shipped abroad – presumably to CIA staging areas in Guatemala or areas elsewhere within striking distance of Cuba. The arms were shipped in crates bearing the markings “Schlumberger” and “machinery.” Other weapons were earmarked for rebels in the French West Indies, but were never shipped. Some of the weaponry was to have been used in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The government’s fumbling of the invasion upset the firm, which subsequently decided to terminate its contract with the CIA. 83.
According to Guy Banister’s attorney, Guy Johnson, Banister learned that some of the munitions remained at the Houma depot after the invasion. He thought that they should be put to use in the post Bay of Pigs anti-Castro effort. Even the straight-laced FBI man, Banister wanted to finesse the issue legally.
“Banister went to Washington, and saw a high official in the Justice Department,” says Johnson. “Presumably it was RFK.” 84. At this time, FBI agent Regis Kennedy – who had no blood relationship to the Kennedys in Washington – made one of his regular appearances in Banister’s office. 85 According to Banister associate Jack Martin, “It was about this time that he ‘letters of marque’ and keys showed up.”
A “Letter-Marque” is a legal device, generated by a high federal authority, that hasn’t been employed since the time of Thomas Jefferson. Its purpose is to give legal license to someone who is about to commit a quasi-legal action. More importantly, it prevents prosecution should the person be apprehended by local authorities. Jack Martin recalled some of the wording of the alleged letter: “You are hereby directed to seize munitions or arms, the property of a foreign government, that are illegally located within the United States, using any and all means to do so.” 86
The Letter-Marque was on Justice Department stationary, signed by Robert Kennedy. It was allegedly observed by Jack Martin, Gordon Novel (who says he was involved in the Houma transfer), Guy Johnson, and Banister friend Kent Courtney. Banister and the local anti-Castro activists were thus given the go-ahead to “liberate” the weaponry.
When the weapons transfer was carried out that summer, it became clear that the CIA and the FBI were heavily involved. The transfer didn’t happen overnight; in fact, military supplies were confiscated over a period of three months. In preparation for the transfer, says Jack Martin, Guy Banister (his boss) telephoned M. E. Loy, manager of Schlumberger Well Services Company. The point of the call was to make sure that the FBI or CIA would supply keys to the bunker where the weapons were stored. On another, earlier trip, the work party came armed with a pair of wire cutters in place of the promised keys, which had not been delivered.
“It was a CIA operation,” says Aracha’s attorney, Frank Hernandez. “It was set up so that Schlumberger could report it (the weapons transfer) as a robbery, and be reimbursed by their insurance company. They went in at midnight and the material was waiting for them on a loading dock. We later verified that the CIA indeed reimbursed the insurance company.” 87
Layton Martins, participating in the transfer, remembers one of the trips to the bunker. For this excursion, keys to the depot were in hand and the munitions were delivered to the office of Guy Banister and Associates. “It seemed like there was a whole caravan there, led by David Ferrie,” says Martens. The young participant “didn’t know what the hell was going on,” except for having heard that the transfers were conducted by order of David Ferrie, who participated, and, by inference, under orders of Sergio Arcacha Smith. 88
Arcacha’s attorney, Frank Hernandez, has long believed that Arcacha participated personally in the weapons transfer, but Arcacha denies this. Martens supports Arcacha’s denial, saying, “I don’t remember Sergio there.” However, Arcacha did tell Ronnie Caire that on one occasion, Arcacha drove a truck-load of “plastic explosives” from Houma, Louisiana to New Orleans because no one else wanted to drive the truck.89 Arcacha’s good friend Carlos Quiroga also stated that he participated in the transfer with Banister, Ferrie, Arcacha, and a U.S. Marine named Andrew Blackmon. 90 He put the explosives in a U-Haul trailer to be sent to Miami, Quiroga says, but it stayed in New Orleans for a long time. 91
One of the accomplices in the transfer – unwitting, he insists – was Luis Rabel Nunes, who replaced Sergio Arcacha Smith as New Orleans head of the CRC in 1962. Rabel supplied a laundry truck with which the weapons were transported – but he, like DeLaBarre, didn’t quite know what was up. “I had a laundry truck I used to loan out to help re-settler Cuban refugees – just for humanitarian reasons,” Rabel recalled recently. “The Catholic Church asked us to help out. We also helped the refugees find jobs. In that effort, we had the backing of both Mayors – Mayor Morrison and Mayor Schiro – Dr. Ochsner, and FBI agent Warren De Brueys. It wasn’t until years later that I learned they had sometimes used the truck to transfer weapons.” 92 Rabel gave a bit more information in Congressional testimony: “As far as I knew, they took them (the crates of munitions) to Lake Ponchartrain.” 93 It will be seen that Lake Ponchartrain played host to exile training camps which operated in concert with a White House-backed anti-Castro invasion force training in Central America.
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:tQhGXVbESAQJ:scribblguy.50megs.com/ruby.htm+Houma+munitions+bunker+Raid+JFK&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
MEM: THE SCHLUMBERGER WELLS
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=497125
Rancier Blaise Ehlinger Grand Jury Testimony:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1181&relPageId=3
HSCA Mug Book 48. Marlene Mancuso photo
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/0/03/Photo_hsca_mugbook_048_mmancuso.jpg
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:FpoE3OahsuwJ:www.combat-diaries.co.uk/diary27/diary27chapter12/13.htm+Luis+Rabel+Nunez&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
A.J. WEBERMAN :
LUIS RABEL LUIS
Luis Rabel Nunez, aka Luis Ravel, was the delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in New Orleans from 1960 to 1961. Luis Rabel was the son of a native born American citizen and had been raised in comfortable circumstances, on a farm next to that of the father of Fidel Castro. He had known Fidel when both were children. When interviewed in 1977, Luis Rabel said that he had resigned and moved to Venezuela in October 1962, since the Cuban Revolutionary Council had turned out to be a "complete fiasco."Luis Rabel said the names HEMMING or Lawrence LaBorde did not ring any bells. When questioned in HUNT v. ajweberman, HUNT denied having known Luis Rabel.
FRANK BARTES 1960 TO 1962
Francisco Antonio Bates Clarens [CIA 201-289,005 also CIA 201-289,685], was the delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in New Orleans from November 1962 to 1964. Frank Bartes succeeded Luis Rabel. Frank Bartes had been the president of a private railroad in pre-Castro Cuba. His firm, which employed thousands of workers and had assets of $100 million, was nationalized by Castro in 1960. When he came to the United States, he operated a New Orleans Washeteria from 1961 to 1963.
BARTES: INFORMANT
The CIA: "(Deleted) on Frank Bartes shows that he was an FBI informant (dates not given) and that his contact was with S.A. DeBRUEYS."
NODUL 24
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:ge9d4lhqydQJ:www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/24-20.html+schlumberger+well+CIA&hl=en&gl=us&strip=0
In September 1961 Gordon Novel took part in the burglary of a Schlumberger Well munitions bunker. He informed the FBI: " Schlumberger Well Service had an arrangement with the CIA wherein it leased a bunker in which ammunition, bomb casings and other materiel would be stored for the CIA. Eventually the materiel would be shipped out of the United States in Sclumberger boxes marked 'Machinery.' The explosives would then be shipped by boat to Cuba where they were going to be used in a diversionary operation during the Bay of Pigs invasion." The CIA verified Gordon Novel's statement: "Novel has claimed to the press that the munitions from the bunker were to be used for a diversionary operation during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Agency officers familiar with the operation at the (deleted), have indicated that such a diversionary operation was based at (deleted), but that operation was canceled before a landing was made." Gordon Novel continued: "After the Bay of Pigs, Schlumber became upset and wanted out of its CIA contract; three months after the invasion, arrangements were made for the materiel stored in the bunker to be removed by Novel and his group. At the time the material was removed, an individual involved took some of Schlumberger's low grade powder and fuses and other material, and the incident was reported as a burglary." (Gordon Novel had a previous history of assembling bombs). Gordon Novel said the crates of arms were stamped with the word INTERARMCO. [Police Record Jefferson Parish 1953; Memo Ivan/Garrison re: Novel rec. check; Flammonde Kennedy Conspiracy p76; Wardlaw Plot or Politics p113; New Orleans States-Item4.25.67; HUNT Day p182 CIA 1332-502, 1045] Gordon Novel reported that Andrew Jerome Blackman, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and Luis Rabel were involved in the burglary…..
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Bkjfk3@yahoo.com
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Venezuelan Arms Cache - A Northwoods Operation?
Venezuelan Arms Cache - A Northwood’s Operation?
According to the textbook on the investigation of homicide, if the motive is elimination, then attention must be given to the victim's most recent business interest. What was on his desk at the time? (1)
For John F. Kennedy, Cuba was on his mind, and the two most important items on his Oval Office desk at the time were the back channel negotiations with Castro (2), and the discovery of an arms cache on a Venezuelan beach that seemed to have originated in Cuba and were destined to be used by terrorists.(3)
Having the evidence that Castro was exporting his revolution to South America, according to Richard Helms, the messenger, sparked President Kennedy to remark: "Great work, be sure to have complete information when I get back from my trip [to Dallas]. I think we may have got him now." (4)
Of course that never happened, and LBJ, when he did get back to Washington from Dallas, didn't take the bait and refused to have anything more to do with covert Cuban operations, possibly because he knew that those same operations were used to kill Kennedy.
Having Kennedy approve the covert operations against Castro that were used at Dealey Plaza was part of the Valkyrie operation tactics from the General's plot to kill Hitler that were used by the CIA/DOD Special Group counterinsurgency unit against Castro. (5) It was this specific plot that was redirected to kill President Kennedy.
While the President had rejected the Northwood plans to fabricate an incident to provoke an invasion of Cuba, the "black propaganda" operations to justify an invasion continued, including the possibility, probability that the Venezuelan Arms Cache was one such incident. (6)
Framing Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy, the shenanigans at Guatamano (as Greg Parker notes) and the Bay of Tonkin incidents are other Northwoods type - "black propaganda" operations that are specifically designed to appear and are officially designated as the work of the enemy opposition.
The Venezuelan Arms Cache incident stands out however, as it is entwined with the assassination, and affected U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba, justifying the economic sanctions imposed by the Organization of American States (OAS). (7)
I also suspect that if the origin of the 6.5 ammunition found on the sixth floor of the TSBD were actually traced, it would stem from a stash of arms that were taken from either the Huma, La. bunker in 1961, those stolen from a Texas Army Reserve supply dump in 1963, the arms from the Cuban commando training camp at McLaney's in LaComb, La. in July 1963, or somehow related to this Venezuelan Arms Cache, which is said to have originated in Belgium. (8)
It seems like you can't be objective about this incident. On the one hand you have Stephen Rabe using it as an example Kennedy's continued aggression against Castro, David Kaiser and Lamar Waldron citing it to advance their argument of mafia responsibility for Dealey Plaza, while Phil Agee and Joe Burkhauser Smith suspect it’s a Northwood operation that the US spooks manufactured.
Then you have Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, pointing to the fine work of the "Special Group on counterinsurgency" for the success in keeping the arms from the terrorists and democracy alive in Venezuela. (9)
"The Special Group on counterinsurgency," the same guys, under the command of Gen. Krulak, who were utilizing the Valkyrie plot tactics against Castro. (10)
STEPHEN G. RABE
From The Most Dangerous Area in the World – John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution In Latin America, by Stephen G. Rabe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999) [p. 107] :
President Kennedy tried to help his Venezuelan friend find damning evidence against Castro. While in Washington in February 1963, (Venezuelan President Romulo) Betancourt publicly denounced Castro, advising the National Press Club that "we should continue constantly and unremittingly our actions against this regime in Cuba to encircle it, to cut it off without ceasing and failing." 26
After meeting with Betancourt, the president wrote to CIA Director John McCone that "it is obvious that the Communists in Venezuela support Castro. Do we have any information that could be presented in a public forum, such as the OAS, that would indicate that the link between the anti-Betancourt terrorists and Castro is direct? 27
That link surfaced on a Venezuelan beach in November 1963, when Venezuela announced that it had discovered a cache of Cuban arms, consisting of eighty-one rifles, thirty-one machine guns, and ammunition for heavy weapons. These arms were allegedly left for insurgents determined to disrupt the upcoming Venezuelan presidential election. CIA officers brought one of the rifles in the cache to Robert Kennedy, who then sent it on to his brother. The president was shown where the coat of arms was sanded off the rifle. According to Richard Helms, a pleased president said: "Great work. Be sure to have complete information for me when I get back from my trip [to Dallas]. I think maybe we've got him now." 28
The Cuban intervention surprised intelligence analysts in Washington, for Castro had not previously exported arms, although they also noted that Castro reportedly stated "he would like very much to get rid of 'Betancourt and company.'" 29
In fact, some have subsequently questioned the validity of the discovery. Joseph Burkholder Smith, who had previously served as CIA chief of station in Caracas, has implied that CIA operatives, responding to presidential pressure, engaged in a form of "black propaganda" and planted the arms. Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who turned against the agency, also recalled that he immediately suspected that the Caracas station, working with Venezuelan agents, planted the arms. But neither man had hard evidence to sustain his suspicions. As Agee recorded in the diary he reconstructed, "For the sake of discretion I haven't asked." Perhaps predictably, Fidel Castro charged that the CIA had "faked" the evidence. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev seconded the Cuban's allegation. 30.
The arms cache incident provided an opportunity for the Johnson administration to intensify, in McGeorge Bundy's words, "our present nasty course" against Cuba. CIA Director McCone showed President Johnson "the evidence that proved absolutely that arms had been imported into Venezuela from Cuba." 31
The administration, through the U.S. Information Agency, launched a massive anti-Cuban campaign throughout Latin America. Venezuela lobbied Latin Americans, telling them that serial markings on the weapons and intercepted messages provided irrefutable proof that Cuba had violated the nonintervention principle of the OAS charter. In July, 1964, the OAS acted on the Venezuelan complaint; by a vote of 15 to 4, it called on member states to break relations and impose economic sanctions on Cuba. Cuba was effectively ostracized from the inter-American community, with only Mexico ignoring the sanctions…..
p. 108
"Reflecting on Betancourt's constitutional success, Attorney General Kennedy claimed that the Special Group on counterinsurgency that he directed "was responsible for the preservation of the democratic system in Venezuela." Without U.S. assistance to the military and police, "Venezuela would have been taken over by the Communists." 32.
[BK Notes: Stephen Rabe background and his abstract on the Kennedy's aggression against Castro]
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120702476/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
After the Missiles of October: John F. Kennedy and Cuba, November 1962 to November 1963
STEPHEN G. RABE 1
Professor of history at the University of Texas at Dallas. His most recent book is The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America (University of North Carolina Press, 1999). Copyright 2000 Center for the Study of the Presidency
ABSTRACT
In analyzing U.S. relations with Cuba during the Kennedy administration, scholars have focused on the Bay of Pigs invasion, Operation Mongoose, and the Cuban missile crisis. Less attention has been given to the state of U.S.-Cuban relations in the aftermath of the missile crisis and during the last year of President John F. Kennedy's life. Scholars have assumed, however, that Kennedy was in the process of reevaluating his hostile policies toward Cuba. This article challenges those assumptions by closely examining what Kennedy and his administration intended for Cuba. The article is based on new documentary evidence. It suggests that the Kennedy administration never renounced its policy of overthrowing Fidel Castro.
[BK Notes: David Kaiser also mentions the Venezuelan Arms Cache in his book on the assassination, but fails to mention that the Rex was leased by Collins Radio, of Richardson, Texas, which has more direct ties to the assassination]
DAVID KAISER
From: The Road to Dallas (Harvard, 2008)– David Kaiser [Page 295]
…The situation was so potentially explosive that Bundy asked Chase to list all the American officials who knew that the United States was behind the raids. There turned out to be at least thirty, Chase replied, including Thomas Hughes of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Assistant Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance, and Vance's two deputies for Cuban matters, future Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joe Califano and future Secretary of State (then Lieutenant Colonel) Al Haig. 14
A few weeks later, on September 29, Chase asked subordinates to consider the possibility that Castro might somehow retaliate, as he had publicly threatened to do early in the month. 15
And on October 21 he suggested that the government might do well to lift some of its restrictions on autonomous raids, so that the CIA would not be held solely responsible for every action that took place. 16
On October 31 Castro himself identified the 174-foot boat Rex, moored in Palm Beach, as the mother ship for a recent attack that resulted in the capture of several raiders in small boats. Reporters discovered that the Rex's berthing fees were paid by the Sea Key Shipping Company, a mysterious entity with a post office box address. The owner of the Rex, J. A. Belcher, was an oil company executive who bought the ship from a Nicaraguan company owned by the Somoza government. He denied any involvement in the raids. 17
On November 8, 1963, the Venezuelan government indicated that it had discovered a cache of about three tons of arms, with serial numbers removed, on a beach. They accused Castro of having sent the weapons into the country, and an OAS delegation later claimed to have seen Cuban insignia on them. 18
Evidence from American archives, however, suggests that the cache may have been a plant the execution of a long-discussed plan dating back to August 31, 1962. The first hint comes in a memorandum written by General Edward Lansdale, head of Operation Mongoose, listing possible psychological actions against Cuba.
Psychological Activity: 24. Make available to the International Narcotics Commission documented evidence of Cuban exportation /importation of narcotics. (State)…This activity will be undertaken only on a spot basis, coordinated with U.S. objectives in the specific country. 19
The September 6 comment of Thomas Parrott, General Maxwell Taylor's assistant at the White House, on this point are somewhat more enlightening despite deletions in the released version.
I would suggest a couple of additional activities: (a) under number 25, calling for the [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] Bloc arms in Latin American countries, this could be extended to include [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] propaganda materials and perhaps sabotage materials; ( the possibility of [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] Incidents which could lead to the breaking of diplomatic relations by selected countries….
Paragraph 25 was deleted in its entirety from a revised September 12 version that Lansdale submitted for Bundy's approval. In a September 14 meeting of the Mongoose task force, "the 12 September addendum to the Phase Two Mongoose Operation was discussed and the entire Phase Two was approved in principle as a platform from which to proceed. Activities which may be especially sensitive are to be brought before the Group, and this body wishes to be kept generally advised on progress." 21
The minutes continue:
[1 paragraph (3 lines of source text) not declassified]
CIA Headquarters and all WH stations are to be especially alert for any shipments of arms or other subversive material from Cuba to other Latin American countries. (Chief, Task Force W says this alert has been laid on and is in force.)
In May 1963, an undated list of "Additional Actions Against Cuba" included the following (the second paragraph apparently consists of CIA comments):
7. Deception operations involving the laying down of arms caches containing Soviet, Czech and Chicom arms in selected areas of Latin America, ostensibly proving the arms were smuggled from Cuba.
7. [comments] The key consideration in such an operation is the possibility that the 'discovery' of such arms caches might lead to embarrassment for the Administration since arms smuggling is one of the points most often stated for the U.S. possibly taking a more aggressive action against Castro. This type of operation, while feasible, is an extremely difficult and dangerous one to undertake in terms of making the operation plausible and foolproof. 22
Then, six months later, three tons of arms turned up on a northwestern Venezuelan beach. The story broke in the newspapers on November 12, and on November 27 – five days after JFK's assassination – Rusk informed the new President, Lyndon Johnson, that Venezuela planned to make a public announcement that the arms were of Cuban origin. 23
In Richard Helm's fifth appearance before the Church Committee, on September 11, 1975, the former director described the incident this way:
Mr. Kelly. Mr. Ambassador, was it your perception that the Kennedy Administration's program against Cuba and the pressure to implement that program vigorously was any different in 1963 than it was in 1962?
Mr. HELMS. Well, I find this a difficult question to answer for the simple reason that I don't have any recollection in 1963 once the operations – put it this way – cranked up again, that there were any particular limitations placed on what we were attempting to do. I realize that the character of some of them were changed. I think they must have changed because the conditions in Cuba had changed, the Cuban Missile Crisis had changed relations. We learned a great deal about Cuba because of the Cuban Missile Crisis itself.....
…But I do not recall having been told by anyone in authority that there is any less interest or intention on the part of the Kennedy administration to unseat the Castro government. And I do recall that sometime, I guess it was in the summer or fall of 1963, talking to Mr. Robert Kennedy about the problem of Castro's efforts to send arms and trained guerrillas and so forth into other Latin American and Central American countries. And it just seemed to me that this was dangerous indeed, particular after the difficulties we'd had with Castro and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and my general recollection is that Mr. Kennedy said, yes, but what can the President do? If you bring him evidence that Castro is sending arms and trained guerrillas and so forth to Latin American countries, then you give him something to work with. But under the circumstances, what can he do, what can any of us do?
Well, by chance, sometime after that, and I don't recall how long but it wasn't a terribly long time. The Venezuelan authorities, as I recall it, or maybe it was one of the Agency operations in Venezuela in conjunction with the Venezuelan security people or police, found a large arms cache on, I think way out in the country in Venezuela, and they also found through some penetration or agent, rather, a plan of some guerrillas, Venezuelan guerrillas, in touch with the Cubans to tie off certain sections of Caracas with armed men and so forth, and bring the city to a halt…..But out of this cache were found some weapons and among those weapons I actually was given a submachine guns, which I believe was manufactured in Belgium, and on that submachine gun there was a place where there had been an insignia and the insignia had been brazed off, so that to the naked eye you could see nothing. But when the technicians in the Agency actually [began] to work with the chemicals and so forth, they were able to bring up for very short periods what was underneath. In other words, what the insignia had been long enough to photograph it.
And so we had photographs of what was on that thing, and it was the insignia of Castro's Cuba. So that these had obviously been sent from Belgium manufacture for the Cuban account. In other words, they had manufactured them and sent them to Cuba. 24
Given the sensitivity of planting an arms cache, we do not know whether any documents showing that the CIA was actually behind the Venezuelan operations ever existed, much less if they will ever be released.
But the arms cache was discovered, it did not, for reasons we shall examine, lead to any major new action against Castro. [p. 301]
[BK Notes: Ah, but they did lead to major new action against Castro, at least according to the PIIE, whose chronology of key events includes the Venezuelan Arms Cache as the reason the OAS began economic sanctions against Cuba, sanctions that are just now being reversed.]
http://www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/cuba.cfm
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Case Studies in Sanctions and terrorism
Case Study 60-3
US v. Cuba (1960- : Castro)
Chronology of Key Events
Case Studies in Sanctions and Terrorism: Cuba
President John F. Kennedy prohibits shipments of cargoes paid for by the US government ... Following discovery of arms cache of Cuban origin in Venezuela, ...
July 1964
Following discovery of arms cache of Cuban origin in Venezuela, and led by US and Venezuela, OAS calls for mandatory sanctions covering all trade except food, medicine (then about $18 million annually); severing of diplomatic relations (Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico dissent). (Doxey 37; Schreiber 389)
[BK Notes: Don Bohning also calls attention to what an impact the Venezuelan Arms Cache had on OAS]
DON BOHNING
US Policy Towards Cuba: Still Stuck in a Time Warp
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:uHQIZdzoiQcJ:hnn.us/articles/45024.html+Venezuela+arms+cache+JFK&cd=16&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Mongoose was a multi-agency program devised in late 1961 by then White House aide Richard Goodwin and overseen by Bobby Kennedy, the President's brother and U.S. Attorney General. Its day-to-day direction was under Air Force Brig. Gen. Col. Edward Lansdale, a somewhat quirky and flamboyant officer who had made a reputation in the Philippines as a counter-insurgency expert.
Landsdale, in a January 18, 1962, program review of Mongoose, noted under the heading of economic warfare that the "State [Department] is basing future economic actions, including plans for an embargo on Cuban trade, on the outcome of the forthcoming OAS meeting.…" 10
In a follow-up memo to Lansdale dated February 16, 1962, Robert Hurwitch, the State Department's officer in charge of Cuban Affairs and the department's representative for Mongoose, noted that "the outcome of the OAS meeting provided excellent political basis in a multilateral context for a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. Upon termination of the MFM [meeting of foreign ministers] the Department reiterated its previous recommendation that an embargo be imposed. The President took this action February 3, 1962." 11
On two later occasions, decisions affecting the embargo under both the Johnson and the Ford administrations also were predicated on action by the OAS foreign ministers.
Venezuela convoked a July 1964 foreign ministers meeting in Washington after a Cuban arms cache destined for anti-government guerrillas was found on a Venezuelan beach in November 1963.
The meeting's final resolution – with Chile and Mexico dissenting – called on member states to (1) sever diplomatic relations with Cuba; (2) suspend all trade with the island nation except for humanitarian purposes; and (3) suspend all sea transportation except that necessary for reasons of a humanitarian nature. 12
Again, in July 1975, in Costa Rica, the foreign ministers essentially reversed what they had approved in 1964 and resolved that each country was free to "normalize or conduct their relations" with Cuba as they saw fit. 13
While the action served to relieve the pressures within the OAS over Cuba policy, it did nothing to modify the view from Washington. It is a view stuck in a time warp through 47 years, 10 U.S. presidents and 16 years after the end of the Cold War.
[BK Notes: In his review of Legacy of Secrecy, Jimmy DiEugenio calls attention to the way the Venezuelan Arms Cache story is treated by those with an agenda]
Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann. Reviewed by James DiEugenio
http://www.ctka.net/2009/legacy_secrecy.html
...In this regard I must note that the authors pay me a backhanded compliment in this book. My review of Ultimate Sacrifice was fairly coruscating and it received some notoriety within the research community. Waldron and Hartmann clearly read it and took it seriously because they try and counteract several of my criticisms. One of the most serious ones was my relating of an anecdote in Richard Helms' autobiography entitled A Look Over my Shoulder. On November 19, 1963 Helms visited Robert Kennedy's office and told him that Castro was shipping a large amount of arms into Venezuela in order to upset their upcoming elections. (Helms, pgs 226-27). Helms has RFK saying nothing. He looks at the evidence the CIA took in—a foreign made submachine gun allegedly retrieved from an arms cache-and told Helms to go see President Kennedy. Helms and his assistant do so and JFK asked a couple of questions about how that large a shipment of weapons got through. They then left and later that day, Helms asked Kennedy's assistant, Ken O'Donnell, for a picture.
Now, in my original critique I posed the question that if C-Day was coming up in 12 days, and if all the principals involved in this episode were knowledgeable about it i.e. RFK, JFK and Helms, why would the CIA Director even bother to see the Kennedys if he knew we were invading Cuba shortly? This story shot a harpoon into the guts of their whole C-Day scenario. Because the authors maintained that even though McNamara, Rusk, and Bundy did not know about C-Day, Helms did. And it would be impossible for all four not to know. But this story, in Helms' own book, indicates he did not. When they relate this tale in Legacy of Secrecy (p. 36), they leave out the capper. In his book, Portrait of a Cold Warrior (p. 383), CIA analyst Joseph B. Smith mentions this specific arms seizure. And from the reports on it, he deduced that the CIA planted the weapons. So if Helms knew about C-Day, why did he go to the trouble of planting those weapons if he knew we were invading Cuba anyway?
This is their hapless reply to that question: Helms was testing JFK to see if he was getting cold feet about the invasion. But the problem is there is not any indication of this in Helms' book. On anyone's behalf. But further, the authors now contradict themselves in another important way to give their phony spin a pretext in reality. In their first book, they characterized JFK's back channel to Castro through people like Lisa Howard, Jean Daniel, and William Attwood as going nowhere. In my review, I showed this was false. There was progress being made and JFK was very interested in that progress continuing. I postulated that what Helms was actually trying to do with the planted arms cache was to scuttle those talks since he knew that JFK did not want Cuba interfering in Venezuela's elections. Now, sit down before you read the next sentence. Waldron and Hartmann have stolen my explanation and try and make it work for them! Now they say that Helms was doing all this to ensure the invasion against the back channel's imminent success. Without noting that in their previous volume they said there would be no point in doing such a thing since the talks were useless.
To me, the rearranging of facts, recasting of events, and posthumous mind reading into Helms' psyche, all this is not scholarship. Plain and simple, it is CYA….
JOSEPH B. SMITH
Joseph B. Smith, in Portrait of a Cold Warrior (Putnam, 1976), p. 373:
Between the Argentine elections in 1963 and the Chilean election of 1964, my attention was once again focused on Cuba. Gerry Droller had become branch chief of the countries of the "Cono Sur," the southern cone of Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile. He came down to Buenos Aires to remind us Cuba was more important than any of them.
"Listen, this guy Des is a genius and he's got the inside track to the Whit House," Gerry explained. "I also think J.C.'s going to retire soon and Des will run the whole division in name as well as in fact. Already we get dozens of old FE hands in the division and more guys from Germany too. WH Division is now all chopstick users and umlaut speakers. And we're all supposed to concentrate on Cuba."
The matter we all concentrated on from December, 1963, until the summer of 1964 was making the discovery of a small arms cache on the coast of Venezuela seem important enough proof of Castro's interventionist intentions that the OAS would declare Cuba an outlaw nation and refuse to allow OAS members to have political or economic relations with her. I initially paid little attention to the news of the discovery of these arms that came from Caracas just after John Kennedy's assassination. I still hadn't gotten over the terrible shock of the President's death when I received a cable saying headquarters wanted maximum press coverage given to the announcement on December 3, 1963, that the OAS had agreed to investigate Venezuelan charges the arms had been secretly delivered by Castro's forces for the use of Venezuelan leftist guerrillas....
....The new chief of covert action operations for WH came down to Buenos Aires just before Christmas to explain how important the Venezuelan arms cache discovery was considered. Dramatically, he related how much the discovery had meant to John Kennedy. "The President had been pressuring us for months before he was killed to come up with some solid proof that Castro was exporting his revolution. He wanted to make his anti-Castro crusade a Latin American cause not just a U.S. mission. He wanted to have some really convincing evidence of Castro's interference in the affairs of Latin countries so that we could get the OAS to take collective action against Castro. This discovery is what he was looking for."
Herb (Ray Herbert, J.C. King's deputy as chief of Western Hemisphere WH division CIA) explained that the news of the discovery had come in from Caracas just the day before President Kennedy left for Texas. He and another officer rushed over to see Bobby Kennedy with the cable. Bobby called the President and he ordered them to come immediately to the Oval Office. "President Kennedy was extremely pleased and excited about the prospects," Herb said. "It was very late in the evening when we left the White House. I think this was the last piece of business he took up before he left Washington. We all like to think we're running this operation for him."
Herb presented us the case against Cuba. The arms had been found on a remote peninsula served only by one secondary road and with no large settlements nearby. Local fishermen had discovered the cache by accident. No Venezuelan guerillas ever had come near the spot. Herb’s story was that on such a coast a boat could land at night with little chance of being detected, the stuff stashed in the dunes, and picked up some subsequent night by the revolutionaries receiving Castro's assistance.
We were working very closely, Herb said, with the Venezuelan authorities to establish complete proof the arms had come from Castro and investigations were going on in Europe and Canada. Some of the arms had been traced to a Belgian manufacturer and Belgian security officials were helping us find records that would show when they were purchased by the Cubans. The Canadians had already advantageously found us proof that a sixteen-foot aluminum boat found hidden with the arms had been sold by a Canadian firm to the Cuban Agrarian Reform Institute just one month before the arms were discovered.
He was most excited about a story from a Venezuelan leftist in the custody of the Venezuelan security police. The prisoner confessed that maps found in his apartment showed where attacks were to be made in Caracas, using these arms, on the eve of the December 1, 1963, presidential elections. Also found in his apartment were instructions on how to use the arms found in the cache. They were a type of weapon which hitherto had not been used by any Venezuelan rebel groups.
The story of the maps sounded familiar to me. I couldn't remember anything about arms instructions, but I remembered the maps were found in this man's apartment way back when I had been Venezuelan desk chief.
"Aren't these the maps we found the other year and couldn't make any sense of?" I asked.
"Yes, that's right," Herb replied. "Our intelligence assistant on the Venezuelan desk got the material out again right after we found the arms and she came up with a beautiful research job we sent to Caracas for the police to use in questioning the suspect. He's confessed."
I was not too impressed with this evidence of the Venezuelan guerrillas' intended use of the arms. It sounded to me as though we might have manufactured it to meet President Kennedy's requirements for an OAS case. I was especially unimpressed by the confession. There are few prisoners of security police in Latin America who refuse to confess. If they don't confess they usually have died in the process of making up their minds, having thought too long about the matter with their heads under water or something.
"I like the touch about the boat's being sold by Canadians to the Cuban Agrarian Reform Institute. Makes it sound as though Castro's trying to be real spooky, using a cover likes the Agrarian Reform Institute to deliver arms." I couldn't resist saying. "How did we actually get the arms there?"
Herb looked at me very hard. "Joe, you are too fond of black operations. Of course, we didn't put the arms there ourselves. Come on."
.....A week after my visit to the camp, Des Fitzgerald came to Buenos Aires. As Gerry Droller had predicted, Des was now WH Division chief and this was his first swing around the hemisphere to visit his new stations. He gave us all a short pep talk - the theme of which was the importance of the success of the OAS sanctions operation. He also briefed us on the overall status of other operations against Cuba being run from JMWAVE, but he sounded a trifle discouraged.
"If Jack Kennedy had lived," Des said, "I can assure you we would have gotten rid of Castro by last Christmas. Unfortunately, the new President isn't as gung-ho on fighting Castro as Kennedy was."
"What do you mean by 'gotten rid of,' Des?" I asked.
"Assassination?"
"Well, you know, Joe, we don't use that language," he replied. "Just say I mean he wouldn't still be doing business in Havana."
Des asked me what I thought about the guerrillas in Salt. I told him I didn't think there was a shred of evidence that they were receiving any support from Castro. "They're just a bunch of bored middle-class kids, Des, who maybe had a fight with their parents."
..."Well," mused Des, "maybe we have enough friends in Argentina that somebody important might just say he thought Castro was helping them."
VENEZUELAN ARMS CACHE - A NORTHWOODS OPERATION? PART II -
Here's some more docs on the Venezuelan Arms Cache.
(Thanks to Rex at Mary Ferrell)
Of course as soon as you get into the official government records, the first thing you come up with are reports from people like General Krulak at SACSA, Al Haig, Sam Halpern and Joe Califano, who is diligently trying "crash" research into the exact origins of the arms cache, and he finds that they originated with the US military and were shipped to Cuba via the port of New Orleans.
And then there's Frank Forini Sturgis' report from Miami about the relative of a Venezuelan government minister in Miami trying to by guns and ammo in May, 1963, which is disseminated to various government agencies.
I also found a quote from Bohning's Castro Obsession in which President Johnson asks Fulbright's advice and rants about the Cuban arms shipment, and Bohning informs us that Helms showed LBJ the same Cuban machine gun that he showed JFK right before they killed him.
While at least one cable dismisses the Venezuelan Arms Cache as a joke, the other drums up media support and refers to editorials and media assets, including The Miami Herald, who were cranked up to promote the story.
Then there's Luis Eduardo Sanchez Madero, the hapless Venezuelan they arrested and tied to the arms cache, even though the maps found in his apartment were in CIA hands a year earlier (according to Joe B. Smith).
The mainstream media, personified by Mark Weisberd in The Use of Force, pretty much assumes that the OAS explanation that the arms were Cuban is correct and the consequences were the Cubans being booted from the OAS. Not even a hint of a question regarding the origin of the arms cache.
Califano is getting the military investigators in Canada and Europe to investigate the boat, the guns and the ammo in December 1963, at the same time they were investigating the origins of the rifle and the ammo that killed President Kennedy.
Where are their reports on what they found out?
- BILL KELLY
“TO JOINT STAFF, SERVICE AND OSD CONTACT POINTS: This is our final working draft of the paper on Control of Arms Movement. I have sought to work in your contributions whenever feasible. Please submit your views 0900, 14 March 1963.”
V.H. KRULAK
Major General, USMC
SECOND WORKING DRAFT
CUBA
DIRECT CONTROL OF THE MOVEMENT OF ARMS TO AND
WITHIN LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES.
p.20 - 27
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=20
FRANK FORIONI APPROACHED BY VENEZUELAN TO BUY WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=3
ON 22 MAY 1963 WAS APPROACHED BY A VENEZUELAN KNOWN TO HIM ONLY AS FRANK WHO EXPLAINED THAT HE WAS IN MIAMI TO BUY WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION FOR VENEZUELA….FRANK SAID THAT HIS FATHER WAS A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL. FIORINI FIRST MET FRANK THROUGH ALLEN MACDONALD, AN AMERICAN PILOT WHO HAD WORKED WITH THE 26TH OF JULY MOVMENT IN PRE-COMMUNIST DAYS. FRANK CLAIMS TO BE A C-46 PILOT. ON 9 MAY FIORINI SAW FRANK IN THE COMPANY OF BILL JOHNSON, AN AMERICAN PILOT.
FIELD DISSEM: FBI, STATE, CUSTOMS, I&NS, BORDER PATROL.
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=8419
Record: SANCHEZ MADERO, LUIS EDUARDO
Sources: Fortress Cuba, Jay Mallin, p. 103
Mary's
Comments: In Nov 1963, Venezuelan police arrested Sanchez (a Venezuelan citizen) and in his apartment found detailed plans for assassination of President Betancourt. Sanchez had been in Cuba.
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=4
7. COMMENT BY NON-WAVE ASSET MEDIA GAINING MOMENTUM. EXAMPLES INCLUDE STRONG EDITORIAL IN 5 DEC MIAMI HERALD. JURE STATEMENT SUPPORT FOR BETANCOURT AND WEN POSITION AND PAID ANNOUNCEMENT BY ASSOCIATION CUBAN LAWYERS WHICH TIES IN ASSASSINATION PRES. KENNEDY WITH CASTRO COMMUNIST INFLUENCE THAT DISTURBES PEACE OF HEMISPHERE.
8. FURTHER ACTION ALONG LINES REF C BEING INITIATED AND WILL BE REPORTED SUSEQUENTLY.
SECRET
C/3 COMMENT: “DESIRED CONTINUED KUMOLF ACTION RE: ARMS CACHE.
Page 4 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=4
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Interdepartmental Meeting on Communications Pertaining to Contraband Shipments of Arms or Personnel to Venezuela and Columbia.
Participants, John H. Crimmins, Coordinator of Cuban Affairs, State; Vance, Califano, Col. Jack F. Wilm, J-3, Joint Staff; Col. Robart G. Rushforth, J-6, Joint Staff; Haig, Des Fitz, Mr. James Smith of the CIA
“A meeting was held in the office of the Secretary of the Army at 1000 hours on December 14, 1963 for the purpose of discussing problems related to contraband shipments of arms and personnel to Columbia and Venezuela. Specifically, the meeting was convened to initiate appropriate action designed to provide for the prompt communication of intelligence associated with contraband shipments and to provide responsive operational communications associated with cooperative surveillance and intercept efforts by US and indigenous military forces.”
Joseph Califano.
(Source – C.O. Watervliet Arsenal)
“In further reference to the M57 Rifles, it is also verifiable that the US Army did shop weapons of this make and model to Cuba in 1957. Definite proof is available on a shipment of 6 on requisition number HA-10-03-7-009. They were shipped from Anniston Army Depot through the New Orleans Port on Bill of Lading Number 7108185. The commercial carrier was the Cummings Truck Company. The voucher number was 280054. They were physically received in Cuba on 28 March 1957. (Source – MIDA and New Orleans Port.)
cc: Mr. Sam Halpern,
The Castro Obsession by Don Bohning.
Page 239 [/b]
Johnson started thinking about Cuba when he became president, however, as indicated by a December 1 conversation with Senator J. William Fulbright, a conversation which also reflected concerns about Vietnam. Johnson asked Fulbright what he should be doing about Cuba. Fulbright said he didn’t think “we ought to stir that up any. I think this election sound good – what I heard of it today – in Venezuela. I think the god-damned thing ought to be let alone, as of the moment. I think if you don’t stir it up….”
Johnson interrupted: They’re shipping arms all over the damned hemisphere. [Helms had shown him a Cuban rifle two days before that had been seized as part of the Venezuelan arms cache.]
Fulbright: That we ought to stop. I thought you meant about going into Cuba.
Johnson: No, I’m not getting into any Bay of Pigs deal! No, I’m asking you what we ought to do to pinch their nuts more than we’re doing. Whey don’t you give me a one-page memo on what you’d do, if you were President, about Cuba?
Fulbright: You mean, exclusive of any direct interference?
Johnson: I mean what you’d do, if you were President, about Cuba. Inclusive or exclusive of anything. Just what you’d do. And get your good brain to working. I’d like to look at it and see….
As president, Johnson’s first serious formal session on Cuba policy came December 19, 1963, with a high-level briefing in the White house. The meeting generated an advance flood of papers from various agencies and departments, recommending everything from a presidential statement supporting internal dissents to tightening the economic embargo, sabotage air strikes, and accelerating efforts at rapprochement….
…The agency’s covert action program, according to the report “is designed to support other governmental measures to proliferate and intensify the pressures on Castro to encourage dissident elements, particularly in the military, to carry out and eliminate Castro and the Soviet presence in Cuba.”
The report saw the “ultimate objective” as replacing the Castro regime “with one which will be fully compatible with the goals of the US and will cooperate with US efforts to establish friends and stable regimes throughout Latin America.”
…McGeorge Bundy, who had remained in the White House as Johnson’s national security assistant, laid out for his new boss a comprehensive twenty-two page paper on Cuba policy in advance of the December 19 meeting. Its elemental nature clearly indicated the new president had only a basic knowledge of the Kennedy administration’s Cuba policy….
[b]Use of Force, by Arthur Mark Weisburd
Page 186[/b]
Cuba/Venezuela (1963, 1966,1967)
In November 1963 an arms cache, subsequently proven by the OAS to be of Cuban origin, was discovered in Venezuela; the arms were intended to aid Venezuela’s Communist Party overthrow the government of that state. 122
Cuba’s motives, apparently, were straightforwardly ideological – it sought to help bring about the replacement of a non-Communist government with a Communist one. 123
The main international response to this action was that the OAS which voted 15-4 (Venezuela not voting) in July 1964 to impose trade sanctions against Cuba because of its behavior and also called on OAS members to end diplomatic relations with Cuba; only Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay voted against the resolution. All of these except Mexico duly ended diplomatic relations with Cuba by September 1964; all fifteen states that had voted for the resolution had ended relations with Cuba prior to July 1964. 124
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...do?docId=112478
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=3
December 23, 1963
MEMORANDUM NO. XX FOR GENERAL EARL G. WHEELER (JC8)
MR. FRANK K. SLOAN, Dep Asst Sec/Def ISA (Regional Affairs)
MAJOR GENERAL J.D. ALGER, USA
REAR ADMIRAL W.F.A. WENDT, USN
MAJOR GENERAL J.W. CARPENTER, III, USA
BRIGADIER GENERAL C.J. QUILETER, USMC
SUBJECT: Interdepartmental Coordinating Committee of Cuban Affairs:
Interim Report by US Military on Venezuelan Arms Cache
The attached report outlines the status of the US military technical team’s research on the Venezuelan arms cache. It was submitted to State on December 23 and his circulated to points of contact for information.
Joseph A. Califano, Jr.
General Counsel
Cc: Mr. Yarmolinsky (OSD)
Col. LeRoy Nigra (DIA)
Mr. Califano
ASG
LtCol Haig
MEMORANDUM FOR THE COORDINATOR OF CUBAN AFFIARS
Department of State
SUBJECT: interim Report by US Military on Venezuelan Arms Cache
Outlined below is an interim report on the status of the investigation of the US military investigating team concerning the Venezuelan arms cache. It is suggested that a report along the following lines be provided to the Venezuelan government on December 23, 1963.
“The US military investigating team which visited Venezuela from 12 December 1963 to 16 December 1963 succeeded in obtaining clear and adequate identification of many of the items of arms and ammunition found in the Venezuelan arms cache. Photographic evidence as well as the identification by arms and ammunition experts on the team provided clear proof that many of the items found were in fact of US origin. There is evidence that some of the ammunition lots found in Venezuela were shipped to Cuba from the US in 1957. There is also evidence that weapons of the type found in Venezuela were shipped by the US to Cuba in 1956 and 1957.
“Investigation based on the items identified by the team is now progressing. This investigation involves an almost total world-wide survey of the disposition of specific lot numbers of ammunition by caliber and type found. Attempts are being made to trace weapons by serial number from the time of manufacture during the immediate post World War II period. Actual laboratory investigation of certain materials is being pursued to determine their origin and also to trace their transmittal from a US source to a Cuban destination.
OAS, ASG
Mr Califano
LT COL Haig
“Principal difficulties which have been encountered to date have been the problems of researching the records on transactions which took place more than three to five years in the past. The records retirement program of the US Government provides that most records such as shipping documents, bills of lading, requisitions and related records are removed from file and either destroyed or placed in permanent storage. Their identity either becomes lost or confused. Despite the inherent difficulties involved, some significant success has been achieved and at this point it is believed that certain documentation is available which will verify the transmission of particular lots of ammunition from US depot through a US Port of Embarkation to Cuba. Research is continuing on these cases to insure that we have absolute and incontrovertible proof of such transactions. It has been determined that the following items are lots of which were found in the Venezuelan cache which were definitely of US manufacture and origin and which were shipped to Cuba in 1957. Adequate documentation has been found which indicates place of manufacture, and dates of shipment to Cuba with appropriate bills of lading and the Port of Embarkation.
Rocket, HEAT, 3.5 inch M28A2
Lot No. COP 4-802
Cartridge, 57 mm. HE, M306A1 W/F PD
M503A1 Lot No. LOP 13-54
“The team has also researched the source of certain of the weapons contained in the cache. At this point it is know that the 57mm recoilless rifles were fabricated at the following US facilities:
National Pneumatic Corporation
Firestone Corporation
Sunbeam Corporation
Concrete evidence has been uncovered that 57mm recoilless weapons of the make and models found in Venezuela were shipped to Cuba in 1957. Additionally, although no positive identification has been made of the 3.5mm rocket launchers found in the cache, positive proof has been uncovered confirming that weapons of this type were shipped by the US to Cuba in 1956 and 1957.
“The 57mm recoilless weapons referred to above have also been traced to Aberdeen Proving Ground where they were proof-fired prior to delivery. Investigation continues in an effort to trace the onward movement of the weapons. Extreme difficulty is being encountered in this process because of the fact that the US Army, in view of the magnitude of the bookkeeping task, discontinued the shipment of weapons by serial number during World War II. It is therefore very difficult to trace a specific weapon through the supply system. Nevertheless, at present there exists verifiable evidence that US manufactured weapons and ammunition of the type found in the Venezuelan arms cache were shipped to the Cuban government during the period 1956-1957.
“Certain laboratory work has been accomplished on the fabric containers discovered in the cache used to package Composition C3. The Natick Laboratories in the State of Massachusetts have determined that these specific bags are of US origin. The canvas coving is of US Army origin dyed with a US Navy dye. The rope attachments are of both US Navy and US Army and US commercial origin. At this point investigation continues on this item. It is believed, since it is a non-standard item that must have been manufactured for a specific purpose. It has been determined also that the 3.5 inch HEAT rockets bearing lot numbers SZ 1-44A and SZA 1-58 are of Italian origin. The Commanding General of the United States Army, Europe is investigating the disposition of two separate lots manufactured under a US off-shore procurement contract in Italy to determine if documentation exists which could substantiate any shipments having been made to Cuba.
”Lot number AYR L-3 of. .50 caliber ammunition has been determined to be an off-shore procurement item. These items were made in Raufoss Arsenal in Norway in 1958. The entire quantity of ammunition shipped under this contract was a MPA commitment to Pakistan. The Commanding General of the United States Army, Europe has researched this lot and has documentary evidence that 17 boxes containing 3400 rounds of this item disappeared somewhere between Norway and Pakistan. At this point, there appear to be no further means of tracing these rounds and efforts in this regard have been temporarily abandoned.”
Signed
Joseph A. Califano, Jr.
General Counsel
CIA
Friday, April 3, 2009
A Few Good Men from Philly to Gitmo
A Few Good Men from Philly to Gitmo
Two Philly guys at Guantamano – Can You Handle the Truth?
The real story is actually more incredible than the movie or the play.
The play “A Few Good Men,” as recently performed at the historic Ritz Theater [915 White Horse Pike, Haddon Township, New Jersey [www.ritztheatreco.org (856) 858-5230], has called renewed attention to that still sensitive Guantanamo Bay prison issue that just won’t go away.
As an arch typical military court room drama, the story focuses attention on two attorneys defending two Gitmo Marines charged with second-degree murder in a hazing incident gone wrong.
The 1992 film “A Few Good Men,” directed by Rob Reiner and starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon and Jack Nicholson, is a classic of its genre that spawned the JAG TV show, and coined the phrase “You can’t handle the truth!” as a modern cliche.
However exciting Aaron Sorkin’s fictional film and the dramatic Shakespieriean theatrical play may be, the real story of two Philadelphia guys at Guantamano is even more incredible, the details of which stretch imagination and their entanglements with the assassination of President Kennedy.
While the U.S. military prison at Guantamano is now infamous, it was hardly an afterthought in anyone’s mind until after April, 1961, when the failed Bay of Pigs invasion made the contractional lease of the Guantamano naval base a point of contention.
For William Szile and John Gordon it was a pivital point in their respective military careers, and for at least Szile, continues to haunt him up to and including today.
Their stories sound pretty close to the fictional incident of the movie and play, as Szile was in charge of the USMC prison at Guatamano when he was ordered to remove the body of a Cuban national, suspected of being a spy, who died suspiciously on the base. It probably would have been an open and shut case against Szile except for the fact that the other marine accused with him was a medal of honor recipient.
Szile was a home grown Philadelphia boy who lived not far from John Gordon, a Harvard educated navy officer assigned to the Pentagon.
Just after the disasterious Bay of Pigs fiasco, ONI assigned John Gordon to Guantamano where he was to direct the efforts of a Cuban national in an attempt to assassinate Castro. He ended up in the Navy psychiatric ward.
Among the records relased under the JFK Assassinations Records Act (of 1992) is a Congressional committee report from Mason Cargill; Subject: JOHN GORDON, which reads: "The following is Gordon’s story. A few days after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Gordon was told he was being transferred from his job in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations to the Navy base at Guantanamo as Base Intelligence Officer. He was briefed by several agencies including the CIA before heading for Guantanamo."
"At one briefing by officers from a certain office within the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), he was told that there was a Cuban national who lived on our base at Guantanamo and was an employee of the Navy who was willing and able to assassinate Fidel Castro. His name was Alonzo Gonzalez. One of the officers who told him this was Lt. James Carr. Another’s name was Day, although Gordon does not remember his first name or rank."
"Gordon arrived in Guantanamo about the first of June 1961. He began working with certain Cubans on the base including Gonzalez in a program of guerilla activities within the surrounding Cuban territory. The Cubans would surreptitiously leave the base to engage in sabotage and espionage operations and then return to it. Gonzalez was one leader within this Cuban group. Gonzalez during the month of June and during the month of July spoke several times with Gordon about the possibility of assassinating Castro. Gordon however, came to believe that Gonzalez was a double agent. One reason for this was that a certain cache of weapons outside the base of which Gonzalez had knowledge was discovered by Castro agents only an hour or so after it was placed there. Another reason was that he discovered that Gonzalez was teaching his servant how to fire small-arms."
"Sometime, in July 1961 Gordon discovered that dynamite had been brought into the base surreptitiously. He suspected Gonzalez of doing this and immediately telephoned the base commander to suggest that Gonzalez be arrested. According to Gordon, less than one hour after his telephone call to the base commander he himself was arrested by the Shore Patrol and placed in the psychiatric ward of the base hospital. After several days at this hospital he was transferred to Charleston Naval Hospital and then to Philadelphia Naval Hospital, finally being discharged from the hospital in October 1961. He said he was characterized as having a problem of situational adjustment. After being discharged from the hospital, he was sent to the Fourth Naval District Headquarters in New Orleans as an intelligence officer. He heard nothing of Gonzalez until approximately 1966 when he saw something in the Philadelphia newspaper that Gonzalez had been arrested by Castro within Cuba."
"In 1969, Gordon says he wrote to the new Secretary of the Navy requesting an appointment to inform him of the Gonzalez episode. Shortly after writing this letter, Gordon was confined to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for an alleged psychiatric problem. After release from this hospital Gordon retired from the Navy in 1969. Gordon admitted that the only evidence of any CIA connection to Gonzalez, his activities, or the actions on the part of Naval officials in hospitalizing Gordon was the fact that officers in Washington who initially informed him of Gonzalez had responsibility for liason between ONI and the CIA."
"He also admitted that he had no evidence that any domestic CIA activities were involved in this affair. We advised him that as a result this matter did not appear to be within the jurisdiction of this Commission and suggested that he might get in contact with the Senate Select Committee. About one half hour after Gordon left our office, I received a call from Fritz Schwartz of the Senate Committee Staff stating that Gordon had called him requesting an appointment. I briefly described what Gordon had told us and said that the Senate Committee Staff might want to interview him, although Gordon’s story seemed a little incredible to us. Schwartz said they would probably talk to him today."
Mary Ferrell, who maintained files on JFK assassination subjects, Comments: "DOB: 8/19/21. POB: Philadelphia (Upper Darby), PA. Son of Irwin Leslie Gordon who was Naval Intelligence. Gordon's first job was with Reading Railroad. His grandfather had been an executive with Reading Railroad. Social Security Number 726-09-1554 (issued by railroads in lieu of social security numbers - called Railroad Retirement Number). Attended William and Mary 1948-1953. Graduated from Harvard. Joined Navy. Service Number 52-28-50. Married Edna Cox North (granddaughter of Lord and Lady Beckwith), of Leeds, England, March 1954. Gordon was in Pine Beach, NJ, on Mill Creek Road, in 1964. In Morocco in 1956. At Pentagon in 1959 and lived on Dogwood Drive in Alexandria, VA. 1961 at Guantanamo Naval Base. Hospitalized during 1961. 1961 and 1962 at Naval Ship Yard in Philadelphia. 1963 - at Pentagon. 1964 - St. Petersburg, FL. 1965-1967 at 8th Naval District, New Orleans, LA, as Naval Intelligence Officer. 1968-1976 at Framingham, Massachusetts. From 1976 until death at Georgetown, SC. He taught at Coastal Carolina College, a subsidiary of University of South Carolina. Gordon died September 27, 1987...
Since Gordon approached the wrong committee with his information, it doesn't appear anything was done, despite Gordon's attempt to seek redemption.
Szili, William A. – USMC.
Szili's story is even more bizarre, if that's possible.
Guantanamo prison, Cuba, spies, interrogations, torture, executions, death and denials. Everywhere you go – television, radio, newspapers, internet, Guantamano is the story that won’t go away, a message the meaning of which is still being debated.
Bill Szili is tired of hearing about it, and it irks him that it seems we haven’t learned anything from history.
On September 30, 1961, at the height of the Cold War, Bill Szili USMC, was months away from retirement after a distinguished 12 years of service when he was suddenly awaken at his Guantamano, Cuba barracks. As the officer in charge of the base's prison, Szili was being called upon to engage in an act above and beyond the call of duty.
Szili’s company commander, Captain Arthur J. Jackson, shot and killed a Cuban while escorting him off the base for being in a restricted area, an ammunition dump. The Cuban, Ruben Lopez, a bus driver on the base, who commuted to his job from nearby Guantanamo City, Cuba, was said to be No. 16 on a list of Cuban spies operating on the base. After being warned against visiting restricted areas, Lopez was caught near the ammunition dump and personally escorted to the gate by Capt. Arthur J. Jackson.
Jackson said that after being escorted from the base, Lopez “lunged” at him, and was shot by Jackson - the impact of the blast sending Lopez over a cliff to a rocky beach 25 feet below. The following day Jackson and Szili returned to the scene of the shooting, with Jackson descending to the beach and covering the body. Two or three days later, after numerous trips to check on the body, they decided it should be buried. At this point, two other officers and three enlisted men became embroiled in concealing the murder. One officer supplied nylon rope to haul the body up the cliff face, another dug a shallow grave on the base side of the fence, while the enlisted personnel helped with the moving of the body.
Arthur J. Jackson wasn’t just another USMC Captain, he had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor in combat during World War II, and was one of the most highly regarded soldiers in the military service.
JACKSON, ARTHUR J.
Rank and organizations: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Place and date: Island of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18th September 1944. Entered service at: Oregon. Born: 18 October 1924, Cleveland, Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on the Island of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18 September 1944. Boldly taking the initiative when his platoon’s left flank advance was held up by the fire of the Japanese troops concealed in strongly fortified positions, Pfc. Jackson unhesitatingly proceeded forward of our lines and, courageously defying the heavy barrages, charged a large pillbox housing approximately 35 enemy soldiers. Pouring his automatic fire into the opening of the fixed installation to trap the occupying troops, he hurled white phosphorus grenades and explosive charges brought up by a fellow marine, demolishing the pill box and killing all of the enemy. Advancing alone under the continuous fire from other hostile emplacements, he employed similar means to smash 2 smaller positions in the immediate vicinity. Determined to crush the entire pocket of resistance although harassed on all sides by the shattering blasts of Japanese weapons and covered only by small rifle parties, he stored 1 gun position after another, dealing death and destruction to the savagely fighting enemy in his inexorable drive against he remaining defenses, and succeeded in wiping out a total of 12 pillboxes and 50 Japanese soldiers. Stouthearted and indomitable despite the terrific odds, Pfc. Jackson resolutely maintained control of the platoon’s left flank movement throughout his valiant 1-man assault and, by his cool decision and relentless fighting spirit during a critical situation, contributed essentially to the complete annihilation of the enemy in the southern sector of the island. His gallant initiative and heroic conduct in the face of extreme peril reflect the highest credit upon Pfc. Jackson and the U.S. Naval Service.
When the details of the incident concerning the violent death of a Cuban spy at Guantanamo came to light, Jackson resigned from the Marines Corp and two other officers (Pruitt and Steiner), along with the enlisted men, were forced out. Szili was ousted under a law which "permitted the revocation of the commission of an officer with less than three years active service on the active list."
Before leaving the service however, both Jackson and Zsili had been held under guard in the psychiatric ward of the base hospital and likewise later at Camp Lejeune, NC, and were required to sign statements verifying they understood that if they ever spoke about the incident, they could face fines of up to $10,000 and 10 years imprisonment under the Espionage and Sabotage Act.
In the end, none appeared before a military or civil court (the shooting having occurred outside the base) and all left with honorable discharges, with Szili being the only one to eventually speak out.
Jackson became a mailman in San Jose, California. On May 1st, 1963, the White House announced 324 Medal of Honor winners would attend Kennedy's annual military reception the following day. On April 30, Jackson sent a telegram to the President declining the invitation on the grounds that his presence "might possibly be an embarrassment." This was a reversal of a previous acceptance made before the Gitmo story broke. Salinger, on behalf of Kennedy, replied through a press conference that "We respect his decision. Capt Jackson and his wife will always be welcome at the White House." Jackson never surfaced publicly again.
Szili returned home to Philadelphia, where he contacted his Congressman, Senator Richard Schweiker, in an attempt get reinstated in the Marines. Schweiker, a Republican Senator, called for hearings on the matter, but after a secret briefing in April, 1963 involving military officers, Navy Secretary, Fred Korth, Marine Comandant General, David Shoupe, and the Chairman of the Congressional Armed Services Committee, the hearings were cancelled.
Szili was working for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company at the time the story broke in the media (Apr/May '63). According to newspaper accounts, Szili left the Marines in March, 1962.
In a telephone interview with Bill Kelly [10pm – Friday, August 25, 2006] William “Bill” Szili said he was a former Marine stationed at Guantamano. "Yea, I was the brig warden. I was the brig warden there before I got commissioned. I ran the prison."
Does he see the irony today? "Yes I do (Laugh). Oh, yea. My first tour of duty at Guantanamo I was a staff sergeant and Castro was still in the mountains and Batista was in power. And then I went and got my commission and went back later."
As for Castro, Szile says, "He’s giving, six, seven, eight presidents a hard time."
Concerning Schweiker's cancelation of the scheduled committee hearing on his case, Szile said, "I don’t know. Schweiker was just an opportunist. Hell no, he didn't help at all. All he did was to take over the Armed Services Committee when he became a Senator. He just made sure he got in print."
"I got an honorable discharge, but, yea, I didn’t want to leave. All they wanted to do was to hide this thing. And that’s exactly what they did."
Having kept it under wraps all this time, I asked Szile if he was still upset about it, to which he responded, "Well, the Commandant at the time was David Shoup and he said, “Time heals all wounds,” and he’s full of shit too." (Laugh)
What about Fred Korth, the Secretary of the Navy?
"Nobody went to bat for us. I have no idea what happened to anybody. I was held incommunicado for quite awhile. Everybody kind of disappeared. After I left the corps, I...I tried to...keep the family together, you know, took jobs here and there, and finally got into country club management."
There at Guantanamo in the heat of the Cold War, suddenly his story is actually relevant, "We never learn. We haven’t fought a war to win since World War II." And Szile says that he has no problem talking about it today. "Anything that gives someone a kick in the ass, I’m all for it."
Now can you handle that?
[Thanks to Greg Parker and Robert Howard for research assistance on this story]
Two Philly guys at Guantamano – Can You Handle the Truth?
The real story is actually more incredible than the movie or the play.
The play “A Few Good Men,” as recently performed at the historic Ritz Theater [915 White Horse Pike, Haddon Township, New Jersey [www.ritztheatreco.org (856) 858-5230], has called renewed attention to that still sensitive Guantanamo Bay prison issue that just won’t go away.
As an arch typical military court room drama, the story focuses attention on two attorneys defending two Gitmo Marines charged with second-degree murder in a hazing incident gone wrong.
The 1992 film “A Few Good Men,” directed by Rob Reiner and starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon and Jack Nicholson, is a classic of its genre that spawned the JAG TV show, and coined the phrase “You can’t handle the truth!” as a modern cliche.
However exciting Aaron Sorkin’s fictional film and the dramatic Shakespieriean theatrical play may be, the real story of two Philadelphia guys at Guantamano is even more incredible, the details of which stretch imagination and their entanglements with the assassination of President Kennedy.
While the U.S. military prison at Guantamano is now infamous, it was hardly an afterthought in anyone’s mind until after April, 1961, when the failed Bay of Pigs invasion made the contractional lease of the Guantamano naval base a point of contention.
For William Szile and John Gordon it was a pivital point in their respective military careers, and for at least Szile, continues to haunt him up to and including today.
Their stories sound pretty close to the fictional incident of the movie and play, as Szile was in charge of the USMC prison at Guatamano when he was ordered to remove the body of a Cuban national, suspected of being a spy, who died suspiciously on the base. It probably would have been an open and shut case against Szile except for the fact that the other marine accused with him was a medal of honor recipient.
Szile was a home grown Philadelphia boy who lived not far from John Gordon, a Harvard educated navy officer assigned to the Pentagon.
Just after the disasterious Bay of Pigs fiasco, ONI assigned John Gordon to Guantamano where he was to direct the efforts of a Cuban national in an attempt to assassinate Castro. He ended up in the Navy psychiatric ward.
Among the records relased under the JFK Assassinations Records Act (of 1992) is a Congressional committee report from Mason Cargill; Subject: JOHN GORDON, which reads: "The following is Gordon’s story. A few days after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Gordon was told he was being transferred from his job in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations to the Navy base at Guantanamo as Base Intelligence Officer. He was briefed by several agencies including the CIA before heading for Guantanamo."
"At one briefing by officers from a certain office within the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), he was told that there was a Cuban national who lived on our base at Guantanamo and was an employee of the Navy who was willing and able to assassinate Fidel Castro. His name was Alonzo Gonzalez. One of the officers who told him this was Lt. James Carr. Another’s name was Day, although Gordon does not remember his first name or rank."
"Gordon arrived in Guantanamo about the first of June 1961. He began working with certain Cubans on the base including Gonzalez in a program of guerilla activities within the surrounding Cuban territory. The Cubans would surreptitiously leave the base to engage in sabotage and espionage operations and then return to it. Gonzalez was one leader within this Cuban group. Gonzalez during the month of June and during the month of July spoke several times with Gordon about the possibility of assassinating Castro. Gordon however, came to believe that Gonzalez was a double agent. One reason for this was that a certain cache of weapons outside the base of which Gonzalez had knowledge was discovered by Castro agents only an hour or so after it was placed there. Another reason was that he discovered that Gonzalez was teaching his servant how to fire small-arms."
"Sometime, in July 1961 Gordon discovered that dynamite had been brought into the base surreptitiously. He suspected Gonzalez of doing this and immediately telephoned the base commander to suggest that Gonzalez be arrested. According to Gordon, less than one hour after his telephone call to the base commander he himself was arrested by the Shore Patrol and placed in the psychiatric ward of the base hospital. After several days at this hospital he was transferred to Charleston Naval Hospital and then to Philadelphia Naval Hospital, finally being discharged from the hospital in October 1961. He said he was characterized as having a problem of situational adjustment. After being discharged from the hospital, he was sent to the Fourth Naval District Headquarters in New Orleans as an intelligence officer. He heard nothing of Gonzalez until approximately 1966 when he saw something in the Philadelphia newspaper that Gonzalez had been arrested by Castro within Cuba."
"In 1969, Gordon says he wrote to the new Secretary of the Navy requesting an appointment to inform him of the Gonzalez episode. Shortly after writing this letter, Gordon was confined to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for an alleged psychiatric problem. After release from this hospital Gordon retired from the Navy in 1969. Gordon admitted that the only evidence of any CIA connection to Gonzalez, his activities, or the actions on the part of Naval officials in hospitalizing Gordon was the fact that officers in Washington who initially informed him of Gonzalez had responsibility for liason between ONI and the CIA."
"He also admitted that he had no evidence that any domestic CIA activities were involved in this affair. We advised him that as a result this matter did not appear to be within the jurisdiction of this Commission and suggested that he might get in contact with the Senate Select Committee. About one half hour after Gordon left our office, I received a call from Fritz Schwartz of the Senate Committee Staff stating that Gordon had called him requesting an appointment. I briefly described what Gordon had told us and said that the Senate Committee Staff might want to interview him, although Gordon’s story seemed a little incredible to us. Schwartz said they would probably talk to him today."
Mary Ferrell, who maintained files on JFK assassination subjects, Comments: "DOB: 8/19/21. POB: Philadelphia (Upper Darby), PA. Son of Irwin Leslie Gordon who was Naval Intelligence. Gordon's first job was with Reading Railroad. His grandfather had been an executive with Reading Railroad. Social Security Number 726-09-1554 (issued by railroads in lieu of social security numbers - called Railroad Retirement Number). Attended William and Mary 1948-1953. Graduated from Harvard. Joined Navy. Service Number 52-28-50. Married Edna Cox North (granddaughter of Lord and Lady Beckwith), of Leeds, England, March 1954. Gordon was in Pine Beach, NJ, on Mill Creek Road, in 1964. In Morocco in 1956. At Pentagon in 1959 and lived on Dogwood Drive in Alexandria, VA. 1961 at Guantanamo Naval Base. Hospitalized during 1961. 1961 and 1962 at Naval Ship Yard in Philadelphia. 1963 - at Pentagon. 1964 - St. Petersburg, FL. 1965-1967 at 8th Naval District, New Orleans, LA, as Naval Intelligence Officer. 1968-1976 at Framingham, Massachusetts. From 1976 until death at Georgetown, SC. He taught at Coastal Carolina College, a subsidiary of University of South Carolina. Gordon died September 27, 1987...
Since Gordon approached the wrong committee with his information, it doesn't appear anything was done, despite Gordon's attempt to seek redemption.
Szili, William A. – USMC.
Szili's story is even more bizarre, if that's possible.
Guantanamo prison, Cuba, spies, interrogations, torture, executions, death and denials. Everywhere you go – television, radio, newspapers, internet, Guantamano is the story that won’t go away, a message the meaning of which is still being debated.
Bill Szili is tired of hearing about it, and it irks him that it seems we haven’t learned anything from history.
On September 30, 1961, at the height of the Cold War, Bill Szili USMC, was months away from retirement after a distinguished 12 years of service when he was suddenly awaken at his Guantamano, Cuba barracks. As the officer in charge of the base's prison, Szili was being called upon to engage in an act above and beyond the call of duty.
Szili’s company commander, Captain Arthur J. Jackson, shot and killed a Cuban while escorting him off the base for being in a restricted area, an ammunition dump. The Cuban, Ruben Lopez, a bus driver on the base, who commuted to his job from nearby Guantanamo City, Cuba, was said to be No. 16 on a list of Cuban spies operating on the base. After being warned against visiting restricted areas, Lopez was caught near the ammunition dump and personally escorted to the gate by Capt. Arthur J. Jackson.
Jackson said that after being escorted from the base, Lopez “lunged” at him, and was shot by Jackson - the impact of the blast sending Lopez over a cliff to a rocky beach 25 feet below. The following day Jackson and Szili returned to the scene of the shooting, with Jackson descending to the beach and covering the body. Two or three days later, after numerous trips to check on the body, they decided it should be buried. At this point, two other officers and three enlisted men became embroiled in concealing the murder. One officer supplied nylon rope to haul the body up the cliff face, another dug a shallow grave on the base side of the fence, while the enlisted personnel helped with the moving of the body.
Arthur J. Jackson wasn’t just another USMC Captain, he had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor in combat during World War II, and was one of the most highly regarded soldiers in the military service.
JACKSON, ARTHUR J.
Rank and organizations: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Place and date: Island of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18th September 1944. Entered service at: Oregon. Born: 18 October 1924, Cleveland, Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on the Island of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18 September 1944. Boldly taking the initiative when his platoon’s left flank advance was held up by the fire of the Japanese troops concealed in strongly fortified positions, Pfc. Jackson unhesitatingly proceeded forward of our lines and, courageously defying the heavy barrages, charged a large pillbox housing approximately 35 enemy soldiers. Pouring his automatic fire into the opening of the fixed installation to trap the occupying troops, he hurled white phosphorus grenades and explosive charges brought up by a fellow marine, demolishing the pill box and killing all of the enemy. Advancing alone under the continuous fire from other hostile emplacements, he employed similar means to smash 2 smaller positions in the immediate vicinity. Determined to crush the entire pocket of resistance although harassed on all sides by the shattering blasts of Japanese weapons and covered only by small rifle parties, he stored 1 gun position after another, dealing death and destruction to the savagely fighting enemy in his inexorable drive against he remaining defenses, and succeeded in wiping out a total of 12 pillboxes and 50 Japanese soldiers. Stouthearted and indomitable despite the terrific odds, Pfc. Jackson resolutely maintained control of the platoon’s left flank movement throughout his valiant 1-man assault and, by his cool decision and relentless fighting spirit during a critical situation, contributed essentially to the complete annihilation of the enemy in the southern sector of the island. His gallant initiative and heroic conduct in the face of extreme peril reflect the highest credit upon Pfc. Jackson and the U.S. Naval Service.
When the details of the incident concerning the violent death of a Cuban spy at Guantanamo came to light, Jackson resigned from the Marines Corp and two other officers (Pruitt and Steiner), along with the enlisted men, were forced out. Szili was ousted under a law which "permitted the revocation of the commission of an officer with less than three years active service on the active list."
Before leaving the service however, both Jackson and Zsili had been held under guard in the psychiatric ward of the base hospital and likewise later at Camp Lejeune, NC, and were required to sign statements verifying they understood that if they ever spoke about the incident, they could face fines of up to $10,000 and 10 years imprisonment under the Espionage and Sabotage Act.
In the end, none appeared before a military or civil court (the shooting having occurred outside the base) and all left with honorable discharges, with Szili being the only one to eventually speak out.
Jackson became a mailman in San Jose, California. On May 1st, 1963, the White House announced 324 Medal of Honor winners would attend Kennedy's annual military reception the following day. On April 30, Jackson sent a telegram to the President declining the invitation on the grounds that his presence "might possibly be an embarrassment." This was a reversal of a previous acceptance made before the Gitmo story broke. Salinger, on behalf of Kennedy, replied through a press conference that "We respect his decision. Capt Jackson and his wife will always be welcome at the White House." Jackson never surfaced publicly again.
Szili returned home to Philadelphia, where he contacted his Congressman, Senator Richard Schweiker, in an attempt get reinstated in the Marines. Schweiker, a Republican Senator, called for hearings on the matter, but after a secret briefing in April, 1963 involving military officers, Navy Secretary, Fred Korth, Marine Comandant General, David Shoupe, and the Chairman of the Congressional Armed Services Committee, the hearings were cancelled.
Szili was working for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company at the time the story broke in the media (Apr/May '63). According to newspaper accounts, Szili left the Marines in March, 1962.
In a telephone interview with Bill Kelly [10pm – Friday, August 25, 2006] William “Bill” Szili said he was a former Marine stationed at Guantamano. "Yea, I was the brig warden. I was the brig warden there before I got commissioned. I ran the prison."
Does he see the irony today? "Yes I do (Laugh). Oh, yea. My first tour of duty at Guantanamo I was a staff sergeant and Castro was still in the mountains and Batista was in power. And then I went and got my commission and went back later."
As for Castro, Szile says, "He’s giving, six, seven, eight presidents a hard time."
Concerning Schweiker's cancelation of the scheduled committee hearing on his case, Szile said, "I don’t know. Schweiker was just an opportunist. Hell no, he didn't help at all. All he did was to take over the Armed Services Committee when he became a Senator. He just made sure he got in print."
"I got an honorable discharge, but, yea, I didn’t want to leave. All they wanted to do was to hide this thing. And that’s exactly what they did."
Having kept it under wraps all this time, I asked Szile if he was still upset about it, to which he responded, "Well, the Commandant at the time was David Shoup and he said, “Time heals all wounds,” and he’s full of shit too." (Laugh)
What about Fred Korth, the Secretary of the Navy?
"Nobody went to bat for us. I have no idea what happened to anybody. I was held incommunicado for quite awhile. Everybody kind of disappeared. After I left the corps, I...I tried to...keep the family together, you know, took jobs here and there, and finally got into country club management."
There at Guantanamo in the heat of the Cold War, suddenly his story is actually relevant, "We never learn. We haven’t fought a war to win since World War II." And Szile says that he has no problem talking about it today. "Anything that gives someone a kick in the ass, I’m all for it."
Now can you handle that?
[Thanks to Greg Parker and Robert Howard for research assistance on this story]
Friday, March 20, 2009
Sunshine Week Events
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031903806.html
Friday, March 20, 2009; Page A09
Holder Tells Agencies To Open More Records
The Obama administration advised federal agencies Thursday to release their records and information to the public unless foreseeable harm would result.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. issued guidelines fleshing out President Obama's Jan. 21 order to reveal more government records to the public under the Freedom of Information Act, whenever another law doesn't prohibit release.
The new standard essentially returned to one issued by Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration. It replaced a more restrictive policy imposed by the Bush administration under which the Justice Department defended any sound legal argument for withholding records.
"We are making a critical change that will restore the public's ability to access information in a timely manner," Holder said.
Friday, March 20, 2009; Page A09
Holder Tells Agencies To Open More Records
The Obama administration advised federal agencies Thursday to release their records and information to the public unless foreseeable harm would result.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. issued guidelines fleshing out President Obama's Jan. 21 order to reveal more government records to the public under the Freedom of Information Act, whenever another law doesn't prohibit release.
The new standard essentially returned to one issued by Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration. It replaced a more restrictive policy imposed by the Bush administration under which the Justice Department defended any sound legal argument for withholding records.
"We are making a critical change that will restore the public's ability to access information in a timely manner," Holder said.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Executive Orders & Memoranda Day 1
EXECUTIVE ORDERS
January 21, 2009
Executive Order -- Presidential Records
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrderPresidentialRecords/
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish policies and procedures governing the assertion of executive privilege by incumbent and former Presidents in connection with the release of Presidential records by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) pursuant to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Definitions. For purposes of this order:
(a) "Archivist" refers to the Archivist of the United States or his designee.
(b) "NARA" refers to the National Archives and Records Administration.
(c) "Presidential Records Act" refers to the Presidential Records Act, 44 U.S.C. 2201-2207.
(d) "NARA regulations" refers to the NARA regulations implementing the Presidential Records Act, 36 C.F.R. Part 1270.
(e) "Presidential records" refers to those documentary materials maintained by NARA pursuant to the Presidential Records Act, including Vice Presidential records.
(f) "Former President" refers to the former President during whose term or terms of office particular Presidential records were created.
(g) A "substantial question of executive privilege" exists if NARA's disclosure of Presidential records might impair national security (including the conduct of foreign relations), law enforcement, or the deliberative processes of the executive branch.
(h) A "final court order" is a court order from which no appeal may be taken.
Sec. 2. Notice of Intent to Disclose Presidential Records.
(a) When the Archivist provides notice to the incumbent and former Presidents of his intent to disclose Presidential records pursuant to section 1270.46 of the NARA regulations, the Archivist, using any guidelines provided by the incumbent and former Presidents, shall identify any specific materials, the disclosure of which he believes may raise a substantial question of executive privilege. However, nothing in this order is intended to affect the right of the incumbent or former Presidents to invoke executive privilege with respect to materials not identified by the Archivist. Copies of the notice for the incumbent President shall be delivered to the President (through the Counsel to the President) and the Attorney General (through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel). The copy of the notice for the former President shall be delivered to the former President or his designated representative.
(b) Upon the passage of 30 days after receipt by the incumbent and former Presidents of a notice of intent to disclose Presidential records, the Archivist may disclose the records covered by the notice, unless during that time period the Archivist has received a claim of executive privilege by the incumbent or former President or the Archivist has been instructed by the incumbent President or his designee to extend the time period for a time certain and with reason for the extension of time provided in the notice. If a shorter period of time is required under the circumstances set forth in section 1270.44 of the NARA regulations, the Archivist shall so indicate in the notice.
Sec. 3. Claim of Executive Privilege by Incumbent President.
(a) Upon receipt of a notice of intent to disclose Presidential records, the Attorney General (directly or through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel) and the Counsel to the President shall review as they deem appropriate the records covered by the notice and consult with each other, the Archivist, and such other executive agencies as they deem appropriate concerning whether invocation of executive privilege is justified.
(b) The Attorney General and the Counsel to the President, in the exercise of their discretion and after appropriate review and consultation under subsection (a) of this section, may jointly determine that invocation of executive privilege is not justified. The Archivist shall be notified promptly of any such determination.
(c) If either the Attorney General or the Counsel to the President believes that the circumstances justify invocation of executive privilege, the issue shall be presented to the President by the Counsel to the President and the Attorney General.
(d) If the President decides to invoke executive privilege, the Counsel to the President shall notify the former President, the Archivist, and the Attorney General in writing of the claim of privilege and the specific Presidential records to which it relates. After receiving such notice, the Archivist shall not disclose the privileged records unless directed to do so by an incumbent President or by a final court order.
Sec. 4. Claim of Executive Privilege by Former President.
(a) Upon receipt of a claim of executive privilege by a living former President, the Archivist shall consult with the Attorney General (through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel), the Counsel to the President, and such other executive agencies as the Archivist deems appropriate concerning the Archivist's determination as to whether to honor the former President's claim of privilege or instead to disclose the Presidential records notwithstanding the claim of privilege. Any determination under section 3 of this order that executive privilege shall not be invoked by the incumbent President shall not prejudice the Archivist's determination with respect to the former President's claim of privilege.
(b) In making the determination referred to in subsection (a) of this section, the Archivist shall abide by any instructions given him by the incumbent President or his designee unless otherwise directed by a final court order. The Archivist shall notify the incumbent and former Presidents of his determination at least 30 days prior to disclosure of the Presidential records, unless a shorter time period is required in the circumstances set forth in section 1270.44 of the NARA regulations. Copies of the notice for the incumbent President shall be delivered to the President (through the Counsel to the President) and the Attorney General (through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel). The copy of the notice for the former President shall be delivered to the former President or his designated representative.
Sec. 5. General Provisions.
(a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 6. Revocation. Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001, is revoked.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 21, 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/FreedomofInformationAct/
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act
A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.
The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.
All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.
The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.
I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register. In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005. I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.
This memorandum does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
National Security Archive Report:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20090121/index.htm
Washington, D.C., January 21, 2009 - On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order and two presidential memoranda heralding what he called a "new era of openness." Announcing a Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act to reestablish a presumption of disclosure for information requested under FOIA, President Obama said that "every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known."
The FOIA Memorandum articulates a presumption of disclosure for government records and a hostility to the use of secrecy laws to cover up embarrassing information. It directs the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing FOIA and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to improve information dissemination to the public.
President Obama also issued an executive order reversing changes made by President George W. Bush to the Presidential Records Act (PRA), stating he would hold himself and his own records "to a new standard of openness." The PRA order permits only the incumbent president (and not former presidents' heirs or designees or former vice presidents) to assert constitutional privileges to withhold information, and would provide for review by the Attorney General and the White House Counsel before a president could claim privilege over his or her records.
Finally, President Obama also today issued a Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government which recognizes that "[o]penness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government." It directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Chief Technology Officer, and the Administrator of the General Services Administration to develop an Open Government Directive within 120 days to implement the memo.
"This is the earliest and most emphatic call for open government from any president in history," said Archive director Tom Blanton. "President Obama has reversed two of the most dramatic secrecy moves of the Bush initiatives, one that told agencies to withhold whatever they could under FOIA and the other that gave presidential heirs and vice presidents the power to withhold presidential records indefinitely."
In November 2008, the National Security Archive and a coalition of more than 60 organizations called on President Obama to reverse the secrecy trend and issue new directives on openness on Day One of his presidency. Today, President Obama heeded that call and took decisive action to ensure that openness, transparency, and accountability would be the rules and not the exceptions for his administration.
"President Obama is doing what he said he would do from the campaign trail. He is trying to transform how the public will learn about government decisions and actions" said Meredith Fuchs, the Archive's General Counsel. "I hope his decisive leadership on these issues pushes the bureaucracy to make these principles a reality -- to give us an accountable, democratic, national government."
January 21, 2009
Executive Order -- Presidential Records
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrderPresidentialRecords/
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish policies and procedures governing the assertion of executive privilege by incumbent and former Presidents in connection with the release of Presidential records by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) pursuant to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Definitions. For purposes of this order:
(a) "Archivist" refers to the Archivist of the United States or his designee.
(b) "NARA" refers to the National Archives and Records Administration.
(c) "Presidential Records Act" refers to the Presidential Records Act, 44 U.S.C. 2201-2207.
(d) "NARA regulations" refers to the NARA regulations implementing the Presidential Records Act, 36 C.F.R. Part 1270.
(e) "Presidential records" refers to those documentary materials maintained by NARA pursuant to the Presidential Records Act, including Vice Presidential records.
(f) "Former President" refers to the former President during whose term or terms of office particular Presidential records were created.
(g) A "substantial question of executive privilege" exists if NARA's disclosure of Presidential records might impair national security (including the conduct of foreign relations), law enforcement, or the deliberative processes of the executive branch.
(h) A "final court order" is a court order from which no appeal may be taken.
Sec. 2. Notice of Intent to Disclose Presidential Records.
(a) When the Archivist provides notice to the incumbent and former Presidents of his intent to disclose Presidential records pursuant to section 1270.46 of the NARA regulations, the Archivist, using any guidelines provided by the incumbent and former Presidents, shall identify any specific materials, the disclosure of which he believes may raise a substantial question of executive privilege. However, nothing in this order is intended to affect the right of the incumbent or former Presidents to invoke executive privilege with respect to materials not identified by the Archivist. Copies of the notice for the incumbent President shall be delivered to the President (through the Counsel to the President) and the Attorney General (through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel). The copy of the notice for the former President shall be delivered to the former President or his designated representative.
(b) Upon the passage of 30 days after receipt by the incumbent and former Presidents of a notice of intent to disclose Presidential records, the Archivist may disclose the records covered by the notice, unless during that time period the Archivist has received a claim of executive privilege by the incumbent or former President or the Archivist has been instructed by the incumbent President or his designee to extend the time period for a time certain and with reason for the extension of time provided in the notice. If a shorter period of time is required under the circumstances set forth in section 1270.44 of the NARA regulations, the Archivist shall so indicate in the notice.
Sec. 3. Claim of Executive Privilege by Incumbent President.
(a) Upon receipt of a notice of intent to disclose Presidential records, the Attorney General (directly or through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel) and the Counsel to the President shall review as they deem appropriate the records covered by the notice and consult with each other, the Archivist, and such other executive agencies as they deem appropriate concerning whether invocation of executive privilege is justified.
(b) The Attorney General and the Counsel to the President, in the exercise of their discretion and after appropriate review and consultation under subsection (a) of this section, may jointly determine that invocation of executive privilege is not justified. The Archivist shall be notified promptly of any such determination.
(c) If either the Attorney General or the Counsel to the President believes that the circumstances justify invocation of executive privilege, the issue shall be presented to the President by the Counsel to the President and the Attorney General.
(d) If the President decides to invoke executive privilege, the Counsel to the President shall notify the former President, the Archivist, and the Attorney General in writing of the claim of privilege and the specific Presidential records to which it relates. After receiving such notice, the Archivist shall not disclose the privileged records unless directed to do so by an incumbent President or by a final court order.
Sec. 4. Claim of Executive Privilege by Former President.
(a) Upon receipt of a claim of executive privilege by a living former President, the Archivist shall consult with the Attorney General (through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel), the Counsel to the President, and such other executive agencies as the Archivist deems appropriate concerning the Archivist's determination as to whether to honor the former President's claim of privilege or instead to disclose the Presidential records notwithstanding the claim of privilege. Any determination under section 3 of this order that executive privilege shall not be invoked by the incumbent President shall not prejudice the Archivist's determination with respect to the former President's claim of privilege.
(b) In making the determination referred to in subsection (a) of this section, the Archivist shall abide by any instructions given him by the incumbent President or his designee unless otherwise directed by a final court order. The Archivist shall notify the incumbent and former Presidents of his determination at least 30 days prior to disclosure of the Presidential records, unless a shorter time period is required in the circumstances set forth in section 1270.44 of the NARA regulations. Copies of the notice for the incumbent President shall be delivered to the President (through the Counsel to the President) and the Attorney General (through the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel). The copy of the notice for the former President shall be delivered to the former President or his designated representative.
Sec. 5. General Provisions.
(a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 6. Revocation. Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001, is revoked.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 21, 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/FreedomofInformationAct/
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act
A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.
The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.
All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.
The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.
I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register. In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005. I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.
This memorandum does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
National Security Archive Report:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20090121/index.htm
Washington, D.C., January 21, 2009 - On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order and two presidential memoranda heralding what he called a "new era of openness." Announcing a Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act to reestablish a presumption of disclosure for information requested under FOIA, President Obama said that "every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known."
The FOIA Memorandum articulates a presumption of disclosure for government records and a hostility to the use of secrecy laws to cover up embarrassing information. It directs the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing FOIA and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to improve information dissemination to the public.
President Obama also issued an executive order reversing changes made by President George W. Bush to the Presidential Records Act (PRA), stating he would hold himself and his own records "to a new standard of openness." The PRA order permits only the incumbent president (and not former presidents' heirs or designees or former vice presidents) to assert constitutional privileges to withhold information, and would provide for review by the Attorney General and the White House Counsel before a president could claim privilege over his or her records.
Finally, President Obama also today issued a Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government which recognizes that "[o]penness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government." It directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Chief Technology Officer, and the Administrator of the General Services Administration to develop an Open Government Directive within 120 days to implement the memo.
"This is the earliest and most emphatic call for open government from any president in history," said Archive director Tom Blanton. "President Obama has reversed two of the most dramatic secrecy moves of the Bush initiatives, one that told agencies to withhold whatever they could under FOIA and the other that gave presidential heirs and vice presidents the power to withhold presidential records indefinitely."
In November 2008, the National Security Archive and a coalition of more than 60 organizations called on President Obama to reverse the secrecy trend and issue new directives on openness on Day One of his presidency. Today, President Obama heeded that call and took decisive action to ensure that openness, transparency, and accountability would be the rules and not the exceptions for his administration.
"President Obama is doing what he said he would do from the campaign trail. He is trying to transform how the public will learn about government decisions and actions" said Meredith Fuchs, the Archive's General Counsel. "I hope his decisive leadership on these issues pushes the bureaucracy to make these principles a reality -- to give us an accountable, democratic, national government."
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