The Winnipeg Airport Incident - 3 Views

The Winnipeg Airport Incident

Three Views - Paris Flammonde, Peter Whitmey and John Bevilaqua

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/Conspiracy_theories/Winnipeg/Flammonde.html

Paris Flammonde

from The Kennedy Conspiracy, Meredith Press, New York, 1969, pages 29–32

The Winnipeg Free Press reported that an FBI man, Merryl Nelson, had checked out a story told by a local businessman whose name was withheld for “security reasons” until November 1967. At that timeMaclean’s, a leading Canadian magazine, ran a more complete coverage of the fascinating incident.

The informant, an obviously sincere and sensible Mennonite, and father of four, named Richard Giesbrecht, related a conversation he overheard on February 13, 1964, in the Horizon Room, a cocktail lounge in the sweepingly modern Winnipeg International Airport. The nature of the conversation led the thirty-five-year-old businessman, who was at the flight terminal to meet a client, to quickly conclude the two participants had knowledge regarding the assassination of the President. The more he listened, the more he became certain of his suspicions.

He described one of the men as having “the oddest hair and eyebrows I’d ever seen. The eyebrows were wide and sort of streaky. The hair was very shiny and it started quite far back on his head.” Giesbrecht thought this one of the pair resembled Stan Laurel “when he gets that look as if he’s going to cry,” and he recalls he wore heavy-rimmed glasses. Giesbrecht now says this man was David W. Ferrie.

Ferrie’s companion was described as being, like the pilot, in his middle or late forties, with reddish blond hair and a badly pockmarked neck and jaw. He wore a hearing aid and spoke with a possibly “Latin” accent.

The witness remembered that the men wore casual clothes; light tweed suits and loafer-type shoes. He thought both were homosexuals.

Ferrie indicated he was concerned over how much Oswald had told his wife about the plot to kill Kennedy. Additionally, they discussed a man named Isaacs, his relationship with Oswald, and how curious it was that he would have gotten himself involved with a “psycho” like Oswald.

Isaacs seemed to have allowed himself to be caught on television film near the President when Kennedy arrived in Dallas, and, at the time the conversation was taking place, was under the surveillance of a man named Hoffman, or Hochman, who was to “relieve” him and destroy a 1958 model automobile in Isaacs’ possession.

Richard Giesbrecht heard Ferrie say that “we have more money at our disposal now than at any other time.”

The conversation moved to another area and the two began speaking of a meeting to take place at the Townhouse Motor Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 18. They mentioned that the rendezvous would be registered under the name of a textile firm. It was noted that no meeting had been held since November, 1963.

Ferrie mentioned that an “aunt” (or “auntie”?—gay patois for an older homosexual) would be flying in from California. A name which Giesbrecht thought sounded like “Romeniuk” was mentioned several times; Ferrie inquired about some paper, or merchandise, coming out of Nevada and the other man replied that things had gotten too risky and that the house, or shop, at a place called Mercury had been closed down, but that a “good shipment” had reached Caracas from Newport.

It was also agreed that the Warren Commission would not stop its investigation, even if it did decide Oswald was guilty.

Giesbrecht began to realize that the conversation behind him had dwindled into an innocuous exchange. He became a little “jittery or excited,” and decided to leave and contact the police. As he prepared for his departure, he heard Ferrie remark that he had flown a plane like one standing a short distance beyond the window of the cocktail lounge.

As Giesbrecht quietly slipped from his booth, he became conscious that an entirely new—to him, anyway—element had been introduced into the situation. He was being coldly eyed by a third man who, he now sensed, had been watching him for some time from another table. This ominous individual was about thirty-five, fair-haired, flushed-cheeked, with a slightly deformed nose. He stood about six feet tall, weighed about two hundred pounds, and may have been left-handed. The man from Winnipeg thought that this hand might have been tattooed or scarred.

The overhearer was trailed from the Horizon Room and found the big man standing between him and the stairs leading up to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police office on the next (ground) floor of the airport. Getting to a telephone, he began relating the situation to an RCMP corporal at the downtown headquarters. However, as he saw that the man was rapidly approaching him, he hung up and raced off. Finally, a couple of floors and many doors later he found he had successfully eluded the man, or been abandoned by him. He telephoned his lawyer who contacted the United States Consulate which in turn brought in the FBI.

Giesbrecht was quoted in the Maclean’sarticle as being rather confused by the Bureau’s behavior.

“This looks like the break we’ve been waiting for,” he said FBI agent Merryl Nelson had told him. Then, a few months later, he recalled that he was informed that he should forget about the entire episode as it was “too big,” and “we can’t protect you in Canada.”

On February 23, 1967, while visiting a friend in a hospital, Giesbrecht saw a photograph of David Ferrie in a newspaper. The face pictured struck him as familiar; then he remembered it as that of one of the men he had overheard in the airport.

The Winnipeg Free Press broke his story and one of Jim Garrison’s aides got in touch with him. At last he had found an official who actually wanted to pursue his evidence. Telephone calls were exchanged, including conversations between Giesbrecht and Garrison.

In September, according to Maclean’s, he tentatively agreed to testify at Clay Shaw’s forthcoming trial.

Garrison accepts Ferrie, who was easily recognizable because of his red wig and false eyebrows, as one of the Winnipeg men. It has been suggested that another of the men many have been Maj. L. M. Bloomfield, a former OSS officer, now living in Montreal. Bloomfield was among the members of the board of directors of the CIA-sponsored Centro Mondiale Commerciale in Rome—an organization which also had Clay Shaw on its board.

The author felt that this new development was of sufficient importance to warrant a personal inquiry and Giesbrecht was called, in Winnipeg, from New York. He agreed to answer a few questions. That conversation, between the witness and the author, went as follows:
Q. Is there any doubt in your mind that the conversation you overheard [at the Winnipeg Airport] referred to the conspiracy relating to the assassination of the President?
A. Oh, yes. Most definitely [it was].
Q. There is no doubt in your mind?
A. No, none at all.
…
Q. From the photographs you have seen of David Ferrie, how certain are you that he was one of the two men talking?
A. Well, I’ll put it this way. It was a photo three years after—that I’d seen this man—three years after—without even seeing a story on it, that immediately this stuck out. And I had identified this man three years previous, but not knowing it was a man by the name of Ferrie, you know.
Q. When was the first time you ever saw a photograph of Ferrie?
A. About five or six months ago.
Q. Therefore there would have been a three-year lapse between seeing the man and the photograph?
A. Right, right.
Q. Yet, on the basis of that, what would you say your certainty that it was Ferrie was? Fifty percent? Eighty percent?
A. I would say a hundred percent.

Although declining to comment on whether he had been recently contacted by the FBI or any other United States government intelligence agency, he did recall that he had been initially told that this “was the break they’d probably been looking for.” However, although remarking that he thought the FBI “had done a good job, maybe; the only thing [being] that it is not in the open … what their actual investigation is, I don’t know.”

Giesbrecht had originally mentioned that among the things overheard was a word which sounded like “Romeniuk.” As eastern European undertones had suggested themselves in other aspects of the various investigations, the author inquired whether the word might have been Romanian,” but he did not know. Similarly, shadowy clergy of some branches of the Old Catholic Church in this country had repeatedly appeared in the background. Asked whether any mention had been made of the Old Catholic Church, or related religious bodies, he replied: “No comment.”

The author sought more information regarding the mysterious Winnipeg Airport conversationalists. Giesbrecht continued:
A. I don’t know the size of them. I didn’t see either one of the two standing up. The color of the hair? The one that I thought was Ruby [sic; Ferrie?] would have been a very light brown or red, and the other fellow, he would be blondish, grayish, you know, blond-gray, between red and blond, turning gray.
Q. Right. Do you have any idea who the man was, other than Ferrie?
A. At that time, or now?
Q. Now.
A. Well, I again would say “no comment” there.
Q. Right. But you have no doubt about the one man being Ferrie?
A. No, no doubt in my mind.

Q. So, in summation, we may say that in your mind there is no question that it was Ferrie, you have no comment at this time on who the second man might have been, you have no comment on whether you have been contacted by any intelligence agencies recently.
A. Right.


The Winnipeg Airport Incident Revisited

by Peter R. Whitmey

From The Fourth Decade, March, 1999. Posted with the permission of Peter Whitmey.

Ever since I first became aware of the "Winnipeg Airport Incident" while readingCoup D'Etat in America twelve years ago, (providing a brief and somewhat misleading reference, but which led me to other sources), I have attempted to collect as many of the primary and secondary documents as possible. After writing my first article on the subject ("The Man Who Heard Too Much," Nov. 1990, TTD), based on secondary material as well as numerous interviews, I was pleased to learn from researcher Bill Adams that he had been able to obtain some relevant material from the "Boxley file" through AARC. Included was "Commission No. 645" -- the six-page detailed report provided to the Warren Commission by the FBI (dated March 6, 1964), which had been prepared by the Minneapolis office, based on an interview with Winnipeg resident Richard Giesbrecht, conducted by SA Merle Nelson from the FBI's Grand Forks, ND office.

I also received some documents (but not all) through a FOIPA application, in several stages, which began arriving a year after writing to the FBI. Included amongst them were teletypes sent to FBI offices in Kansas City, Las Vegas and Dallas, dated March 2 and 3, 1964, giving specific instructions to check out certain "leads," along with a detailed summary of the Winnipeg Airport Incident. However, when the official six-page report was distributed on March 6, the cover pages attached to it list one new lead for the New York City office to check out in place of the previous Dallas lead. (I discussed partial results of these leads in my second article "The Winnipeg Airport Incidents" -- TFD, Nov. 1995.)

With the formation of the Assassination Record Review Board in 1992 and the subsequent creation of the NARA website ("Kennedy Assassination Records Collection"), I was finally able to do my own search for other possible documents related to the Winnipeg Airport Incident. When I first used the database, I entered the name "Richard Giesbrecht," which resulted in a listing of thirteen documents, all of which I had received through my earlier FOIPA application. However, I soon discovered other relevant summary pages that did not include the name "Giesbrecht".

One of the most important, given its proximity to the events of Feb. 13, 1964, is a seven-page, hand-written letter from Mr. Giesbrecht's lawyer, Harry Backlin (who had represented him and his brother in business dealings for several years) to Mr. John H. Morris, the U.S. Consulate General in Winnipeg, dated Feb. 18, 1964. The letter was headed "Absolutely Personal" and began:

"Further to our recent telephone conversation in which I set forth certain personal and confidential information concerning the Oswald case. I am writing this memorandum because I do not wish the information herein contained to get into too many hands. I have your undertaking that this information shall be dealt with in the strictest confidence."

Backlin pointed out "..Before passing the information on to you, I checked out the man and firmly believe that what he has divulged to me is fact." (As it turned out, the FBI ended up concluding that Giesbrecht had an overactive imagination.) The remainder of the letter outlines the comments which Mr. Giesbrecht had overheard and noted in writing (he tore up his notes while driving home, but his brother assisted him in rewriting them that evening.)

Here are some excerpts:

"On the afternoon of Feb. 13th my client, a salesman, had an appointment to meet a customer at the new International Airport. My client arrived early and sat in the cocktail lounge to have a drink. After finishing his drink he walked around the new building...then returned to the same table...Immediately behind him were seated two men who were not there previously...he could overhear them talking about the Oswald case. One of the men was wondering 'how much Oswald really knew' and 'how much does she know.' [This was undoubtedly a reference to Marina, who had testified before the Warren Commission on Feb. 4; her photo was on the cover of the most recent issue of Time.]

A name was mentioned -- sounding like 'Isaacs' -- who was apparently seen on film after the landing.' [The FBI later wrote 'Love Field' next to this comment in the six-page report.]

Further conversation could be heard in bits and pieces, such as...'if Oswald is found guilty the bureau will not stop investigation.' They talked about 'merchandise coming from Nevada...too risky in the past months. We'll have to close shop temporarily.' My client couldn't hear everything too clearly about the next matter but it related (to) the subject of 'mercury'."

Reference was made in Backlin's detailed letter to a planned "sales meeting," the first "since November," to be held "in a place sounding like Townhouse in Kansas City". Mention was made of the names "Kellogg" and "Broadway," which turned out to be the main streets in downtown Wichita, KA, where the Townhouse Motor Hotel was located. It would appear that the proposed meeting was slated for March 18, and a "banquet room" had been reserved for the unidentified group in the name of a "textile firm".

Backlin's client (not identified by name in the letter) recalled reference being made to "...the name of a person soundling like 'Hoffman" or "Hauckman" [Troy Houghton of the Minutemen perhaps?] in conjunction again with this man 'Isaacs'." Isaacs was to be relieved and the car destroyed [the FBI report identified it as a 1958 Dodge].
One of the men could clearly be overheard saying ' Isaacs, a man with such a good record would get involved with a psyco (sic)...like Oswald.'" This comment would suggest that "Isaacs" had become a liability to the group because of his connection to Oswald, and implies that the two men were primarily concerned with "guilt by association" in the assassination of JFK.

Backlin goes on to describe a third man who was sitting in front of Giesbrecht, "staring at him" while he was taking notes. Giesbrecht got the impression the man was "trying to get the attention of the other two because the conversation switched to an aeroplane standing outside the building". As Giesbrecht got up and left the cocktail lounge (which also included a restaurant), the "third man got up and followed him." When Giesbrecht headed for the stairs that led to an RCMP office on the main floor, the "third man" was standing there, so instead he headed for a phone and spoke to a "Mr. Pollack of the RCMP, but hung up when he saw the man start walking towards him." However, he was able to leave the building "without the man bothering him."

After leaving the airport, Giesbrecht noticed a friend at a bus stop and picked him up on his way downtown (he was later identified as "David Rock" in the cover pages of the FBI's report, who is apparently deceased.) Backlin had been "unable to contact this man to confirm that my client spoke to him about 'something very important' and what he would do if he had something like that to contend with." However, Backlin had been able to "confirm that Mr. Pollack spoke to my client and he confirmed the conversation." He also learned from Giesbrecht that after speaking to his wife, she had suggested that he contact Backlin (Mrs. Giesbrecht is still alive, but has always refused to speak to me about the incident. I had spoken to Mr. Giesbrecht three times in 1987, although he pretended to be a relative, but a year later he asked me not to contact him again. This was likely because of pressure from his wife, who had not wanted her husband to "go public" in the first place.)

Backlin indicated that his client "seems to be able to describe these men with some degree of accuracy. He has never seen them before or since," although no descriptions are provided in the letter (however, the FBI's report did include a description of each of the three men, one of whom Giesbrecht identified three years later as being David Ferrie, after his picture appeared on the front page of the Winnipeg Tribune, a day after his death in New Orleans. Giesbrecht also told the FBI that the man speaking to "Ferrie" might have been named "Romaniuk").

It would appear that Backlin met with his client on Feb. 14, only a day after the incident at the airport, in that he states that he had spoken to Giesbrecht "...a number of times since Friday," although he had "not had the opportunity of re-examining my client." However, he emphasized again that he was "...sure that the facts related are not of his imagination." He also pointed out that his client did not "...wish his name disclosed but will give his story to the proper authorities only if it is made a condition that his name be kept absolutely confidential. He is quite fearful of what may happen and his wife does not want him to become involved too deeply."

As it turned out, Giesbrecht became frustrated at not being contacted by the Warren Commission after his FBI interview (on Feb. 27 at the Marlborough Hotel in downtown Winnipeg), and contacted the station manager at the Pembina, ND television station in early April (whom the FBI subsequently interviewed.) When a proposed interview fell through, Giesbrecht spoke to a radio station announcer in Winnipeg, who encouraged Giesbrecht to speak to a reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press (Don Newman, now a distinquished television reporter for CBC-Newsworld). His account was a front-page story in the May 2, 1964 issue, although his name was not revealed. A copy was later sent to SA Merle Nelson at the Grand Forks, ND office by RCMP Constable D. P. Wershler, who still lives in Winnipeg.

In the meanwhile, the Minneapolis office of the FBI, who were in charge of the investigation, had sent out teletypes summarizing Nelson's interview to the Dallas, Kansas City, and Las Vegas offices (as well as Headquarters) on March 2 and 3, 1964, along with three "leads:" 1) Dallas was to check "indices to determine whether the name 'Isaacs' has ever appeared in the Oswald or Kennedy investigation; 2) K. C. was to check out the reference to the "Townhouse" and a possible meeting to be held on March 18; 3) Las Vegas was to check the reference to a shop or building in "Mercury, Nevada" that might have closed recently.

As I have previously reported, SA Carl Freeman of the Las Vegas reported back on March 4 that Mercury, Nevada was actually an "atomic testing site" and that there was no evidence of any business or shop closing or planning to close, nor was there any "identifiable information with the last name of ROMANIUK..." in either the AEC's files or those of the FBI and Sheriff's offices in Las Vegas.

In my second article "The Winnipeg Airport Incidents," I had stated that I had no idea whether or not the Kansas City or Wichita offices followed up on the "Townhouse" lead, since I had not received any document in this regard as a result of my FOIPA request. However, by inputting "Townhouse Motor Hotel" during a search of the NARA website, I discovered that there was, indeed, a four-page report, dated April 9, 1964. Initially, the FBI in Kansas City made inquiries with the Townhouse Motor Hotel on Seventh and State Streets in Kansas City, Kansas, as well as the Coates House Hotel on Tenth and Broadway in Kansas City, Missouri to no avail. In addition, the report included the results of a further investigation conducted by the Wichita, Kansas office, after discovering that there was a Townhouse Motel on the corners of Kellogg and Broadway. As in the case of K.C., there was no reservation for a textile group scheduled on or about March 18, nor for anyone by the name "Romaniuk," according to both the hotel and the Wichita Chamber of Commerce. There was no indication, however, as to whether such a meeting might have been cancelled, prior to March 18, at which time the FBI believed the Townhouse was in Kansas City.
The initial lead related to the name "Isaacs," directed to the Dallas FBI office, had intriguing results. Back on Dec. 21, 1963, almost two months before Giesbrecht's allegations surfaced, the Dallas office had sent a teletype to the San Francisco office (44-1639-3139) with the following directions:

"Note pad obtained from Ruby when arrested contained name Chuck Isaacs. Investigation reveals wife of Charles R. Isaacs, ticket agent, American Airlines, formerly assigned Dallas, now assigned San Francisco, made costumes for Ruby's dancers. San Francisco locate Isaacs and obtain all info. re: associates and activities of Ruby & relationship if any between Ruby & Oswald."

On Dec. 23, 1963 the San Francisco office sent a teletype to Dallas with the following instructions:

"American Airlines advises Isaacs presently on vacation in the Dallas, Tex., area and will not return until after the first of the year. Dallas interview Isaacs as set out in retel."

At the bottom of the teletype is a handwritten notation indicating that the instructions had been "covered" and that a teletype had been sent to "...SF, 1/2/64 for interviewing Isaacs & wife." On a faded copy of the teletype, the two agents involved are listed in the handwriting of one of them, namely Clements and Sayers, with the notation "Cc pulled for DL lead."

As stated above, the Dallas office contacted the San Francisco office again by teletype on Jan. 2, 1964, advising them of the following results:

"Remytel December twenty-one, sixty-three and urtel December twenty-three, sixty-three concerning interview of Chuck Isaacs and wife. Dallas unable to locate Isaacs. Since Isaacs returning to San Francisco after first of year, San Francisco handle interview of Isaacs and wife re: Ruby and Oswald...JWS."

On Jan. 6, 1964 the San Francisco office sent "25 copies each of an FD-302 reflecting interviews with Charles R. Isaacs and Mrs. Charles R. Isaacs" to the Dallas office, along with an Airtel, advising Dallas, if not already done so, to "...locate and interview BRECK WALL and JOE PETERSON, producers of shows in the Dallas area, who are acquainted with Ruby. They may possibly be located through JOE REICHMAN, an orchestra leader at the Century Room, Adolphus Hotel, Dallas, Texas." These names had been derived from the interviews with the Isaacs.

As for the interviews with Mr. and Mrs. Isaacs, it was revealed by both that Ruby had given Mrs. Isaacs a "bogus check" about three years ago for some costume work she had done, and when confronted with the check, Ruby had subsequently paid her in cash. There was no comment as to why Chuck Isaacs' name, place of employment, and home phone number (as of 1961) were in Ruby's notebook, which was the initial reason for locating him. When I spoke to Isaacs' former wife (who lives in San Antonio under a different last name) in 1991, she was sure that it was her name that appeared in Ruby's notebook (it wasn't, as displayed in the Warren volumes -- Armstrong Exhibit, No. 5309-A.)

It could be that Isaacs was more involved with Ruby than he was willing to admit to either his wife or the FBI. I find it puzzling why the FBI did not find out the reason for Ruby having listed Isaacs in his notebook -- a notebook which was referred to by Burt Griffin during his interview with Curtis Laverne Crafard on April 9, 1964 (Crafard has since reverted back to the correct spelling of his name which is "C-R-A-F-O-R-D"). What is even more puzzling is the fact that the Dallas FBI did not reinterview Charles Isaacs (or have the San Francisco office do so.)

Instead, a teletype was sent to the New York office on March 3, 1964, most of which is a summary of Giesbrecht's allegations, along with instructions for the New York office to reinterview social worker Martin Isaacs, whose name and business address were listed in Oswald's notebook. He had been interviewed by the FBI on Dec. 17. The Dallas office asked New York to obtain from Isaacs "...his whereabouts on November twenty-two last, and...any information to help resolve identities and conversations in retel." Copies were sent to the K.C., Las Vegas and Minneapolis offices.

The New York FBI office sent an airtel to Headquarters on Mar. 4, 1964 with copies sent to Dallas, K.C., Las Vegas and Minneapolis re: Richard Giesbrecht, indicating Mr. Isaacs, age 59 and an employee of the Dept. of Welfare for 30 years, had never been to Texas, and was working in his office on Nov. 22, 1963. He was not familiar with the names "Hoffman," "Hauchtman" or "Romaniuk," and didn't recognize the descriptions of the men overheard and/or seen by Giesbrecht. He did not own a car, and knew nothing about a '58 Dodge or possibly Mercury car. He had never been to either Kansas City or Winnipeg. In regard to his connection to the Oswalds, Isaacs indicated he had been contacted by the U.S. State Dep't and asked to assist in the relocation of the Oswalds to Texas when they arrived in New York from Russia.

Obviously, the very questions that were put to Martin Isaacs should also have been put to Charles R. Isaacs, especially since he had been an employee of American Airlines at Love Field, and possibly was the person seen on film footage "after the landing". Even if this was not on Nov. 22, 1963, it might have been earlier when JFK came to Dallas during his campaign for the presidency in 1960 (unless "the landing" refers to something else.)

Bill Turner, a former FBI agent andRamparts reporter, certainly recognized the possible connection between the "Isaacs" reference in Winnipeg and the "Chuck Isaacs" in Ruby's notebook, as reflected in a memo he sent to Garrison on August 18, 1967. Turner suggested that "...ISAACS had some assignment in the assassination at the Dallas Love Field, but that he got too close to Kennedy, was in the news TV footage of the arrival, and therefore was considered hot by the conspirators and marked for elimination." Turner thought it would be "...extremely interesting to find out if ISAACS could be the man named in the news article and whether he is still alive and well in Dallas..." Ironically, he was now living in the Bay Area, as was Turner.

In Jan. 1968 Giesbrecht's story was referred to in the U.S. press for the first time, initially by Turner in his lengthy report for Rampartsabout the Garrison case. However, instead of repeating the content of his earlier memo, Turner switched to the possible identity of "Harold R. Isaacs," listed in the title of CD 1080, one of numerous classified documents at the National Archives (listed in the appendix of Farewell America, which Turner was distributing to libraries and researchers.)

Prior to Turner's article, Mary Ferrell had written her own memo to Garrison at the request of Tom Bethell, who had provided her the same classified CD titles (see his book The Electric Windmill). Having become aware of the Winnipeg Airport Incident, Mary discovered a 1961-63 listing in the Dallas directory under the name "Harold R. Isaacs" (and presumably also noticed a listing for "Charles R. Isaacs") and made the following comment:

"Tom requested that I write what I remembered of the Harold R. Isaacs investigation. When I observed that Gen. Walker was 'investigated' in Boston by the F.B.I. on May 21, 1964, the thought occurred to me that Harold R. Isaacs, who was investigated by the F.B.I. in Boston on May 22, 1964, might also be from Dallas..."

At the end of her memo, after making reference to telephone listings under Harold Isaacs' ex-wife and parents, with partial credit given to "Boxley" (actually William Wood) for locating Isaacs in the Houston area (which Wood later wrote about in a 1975 issue of the National Tattler, Mary made the following oblique statement:

"Please read the clipping from the Winnipeg paper re: the conversation overheard in the airport concerning Oswald and Isaacs and the meeting in Kansas City. There is no connection between Chuck Isaacs (in Ruby's notebook) and our Harold R. Isaacs. I determined this in June. I can send you my reasoning on that point if you would like, but it is very conclusive."

It would appear that Turner was persuaded to forget about Charles R. Isaacs, as a result of the efforts of Bethell, Boxley and Ferrell, even though it was a far more solid lead than the one associated with CD 1080 (which turned out to be a reference to Prof. Harold R. Isaacs of M.I.T., who was the target of right-wing journalist Paul Scott, and who had attempted to link the professor to several "Communists," including Marilyn Murret, Oswald's globe-trotting cousin from New Orleans, although unaware they were related.)

Shortly after the reference in Ramparts, Giesbrecht was profiled in the Jan. 28, 1968 issue of the National Enquirer, which included an interview with Garrison's chief investigator, Louis Ivon. He revealed that the D.A.'s office "...was looking in Dallas for Chuck Isaacs and a Paul Hoffman..." After reading the article, a pilot for American Airlines, who had known Chuck Isaacs for several years both in Dallas and Tulsa (where Isaacs grew up), wrote to Garrison to let him know that Isaacs was now living in San Francisco. He described Isaacs as "...personable, alert, intelligent and somewhat of an operator."

(In my conversation with the former pilot, he used the term "wheeler-dealer," and was surprised to learn that Isaacs was married while in Dallas; he was also certain that Chuck had moved after the assassination.)

I also learned from my conversation with Isaacs' second wife (whom I located with the help of a former Dallas neighbour) that her daughter (now deceased) showed theNational Enquirer article to her father, but he had not contacted Garrison himself (nor had he contacted the FBI about his wife's contact with Ruby and his own possible connection, as suggested by the entry in Ruby's notebook.)

Given how thoroughly the FBI had checked out various leads related to Giesbrecht's allegations, it is hard to believe that the Dallas office overlooked Charles R. Isaacs, since his name would have been in their files once Ruby's notebook was examined. The reference to a 1958 Dodge, which was to be destroyed, could also have connected events in Winnipeg with gunrunning activities in Dallas, involving the transfer of stolen weapons from a Dodge to a Thunderbird, only days before the assassination (as described in Oswald Talked, with links to both Ruby and Oswald.) Although the Thunderbird had been seized and the occupants arrested, the Dodge and its driver (possibly Isaacs himself) managed to flee the scene.

Even though I was able to locate Charles R. Isaacs in 1992 (as well as his son), I did not receive a reply to my letter, and later learned that Mr. Isaacs was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, shortly after his third wife died, and that he was now in a rest home in Shreveport, La. The FBI might very well be relieved.

POSTSCRIPT

Recently, on the way to Minneapolis for a JFK assassination conference, I spent two days in Winnipeg researching this aspect of the case. While there, I was able to watch a ten-minute interview conducted with the late Richard Giesbrecht for a CBC-TV program called "Open Seasons;" the interview took place at the very table where Mr. Giesbrecht allegedly overheard the suspicious conversation, in the Horizon Room at the Winnipeg International Airport.

The interview was broadcast on Dec. 12, 1968, only a month or so before the Shaw trial got underway. This is almost a year since Giesbrecht had been interviewed by the National Enquirer and referred to briefly in William Turner's Ramparts report. It also took place on the heels of the assassinations of both Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, and the turbulence at the Chicago Democratic convention. Under the circumstances, Mr. Giesbrecht would have been fully justified to cancel his agreement made with the New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, to testify at Shaw's trial (which he had expected to begin in June, 1968.) I was led to believe that Giesbrecht had, in fact, already notified Garrison that he would not be coming to New Orleans, as a result of threats to his family's welfare. However, when asked about his concern for his own safety during the interview, Giesbrecht indicated that since he had told the RCMP, the FBI and Garrison's staff everything he knew, he didn't feel there was any reason why he would be harmed, although he did state at a later point that his days were probably "numbered," and had "mixed feelings" about having come forward in the first place. He also was familiar with Penn Jones' study suggesting that there were as many as "32 mysterious deaths" associated with the JFK assassination (which had been discussed in a Canadian magazine the previous fall.) There was no indication that any threat had been made towards his wife or four children, however (one of whom drowned in 1969 in a motel pool in Detroit Lakes, Minn. at the age of nine.)

In addition to reviewing the highlights of his experience at the Winnipeg Airport on Feb. 13, 1964 (with no mention of David Ferrie, oddly enough, by either Giesbrecht or the interviewer), Giesbrecht also provided information suggesting a possible link between JFK's assassination and that of Martin Luther King eight months earlier. He mentioned that he had been in contact with Arthur Haynes, one of James Earl Ray's original lawyers, and William Huie, a reporter who was writing a book on MLK's assassination in conjunction with the defense (who subsequently became convinced that Ray was a lone assassin.) While displaying a large police sketch, Giesbrecht referred to the "third man" who had followed him, when he left the airport lounge, as fitting Ray's description of a man seen with him in Montreal (presumably Raoul,, although no name is mentioned). Apparently, Ray's new lawyer (Percy Foreman, not referred to by name) was also aware of this possible connection.

It should be pointed out, however, that the description of the "third man" given by Giesbrecht to the FBI was not consistent in terms of height and weight with the description of "Raoul" given by James Earl Ray, although it is possible that someone else who was seen with Ray was the subject of the discussion. Giesbrecht also pointed out that the incident at the airport and James Earl Ray's post-assassination movements both involved Canada, and believed there was a connec- tion between the two.

In the course of the interview, Giesbrecht also mentioned that there were at least a dozen classified documents in the archives referring to his allegations, implying that the U.S. government was covering up what they had learned during their investigation of Giesbrecht's allegations (that number is correct, which he must have obtained from Garrison). One of the classified documents that he referred to specifically was the "Harold Isaacs" report, which I discussed in this report, which had nothing to do with the Winnipeg investigation (and turned out to be a very large red herring). He emphasized again having been warned to keep quiet by the FBI agent who had interviewed him, in the course of contacting the "U.S. media" (specifically being interviewed by the station manager of a KCND-TV in Pembina, North Dakota in early April, 1964; I spoke to the former manager recently, who now lives in Winnipeg.

I also learned that the station had been purchased by Izzy Asper, who is now "C.E.O." of Canwest Global Communicatons, headquartered in Winnipeg, and one of Canada's private television networks.) Giesbrecht described having become frustrated at the apparent lack of any follow-up on the part of the FBI after such an immediate initial response, causing him to go public with his story (although he didn't reveal his name until he was interviewed by Maclean's magazine for their Nov. 1967 issue.)

Since the Shaw trial did finally get underway in late Jan. 1969 after a long delay (with Shaw's lawyers trying unsuccessfully to get the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the charges), obviously Giesbrecht must have had a change of heart following his television interview (he indicated to the interviewer that the case had been "frozen" for some time and wasn't sure when it would start, if at all). It is possible that the comments made by Giesbrecht in reference to the MLK case had some bearing on his subsequent decision to stay well away from New Orleans (a city which played a significant role in James Earl Ray's claim of being set up.)

It would be interesting to learn whether Garrison was aware of the CBC-TV interview, and the possible links to the MLK case. In addition, it might be significant to learn who was responsible for the police drawing displayed by Giesbrecht.

- Peter R. Whitmey Abbotsford, B.C June 7, 1

BACKGROUND ON PETER WHITMEY

• Born in Brighton, England, in 1945
• Immigrated to Ontario, Canada, in 1951
• Immigrated to Seattle in 1960 (Dad went to Boeing from AVRO)
• Graduated from Sammamish High School in 1962 (first graduating class)
• Graduated from the University of Washington 1967 with a B.A. in Economics and History (had to get approval from draft board to go extra three quarters...told them in response to question that I was planning to join U.S. Army (a fib)

• Went to England for three months in March, 1967. Attended Expo '67 upon return and short trip to Oakville (where I previously lived - home of Donovan Bailey)

• Moved to Vancouver and worked briefly as a probation officer and stock
broker; attended Simon Fraser University in 1968 for teacher's certificate; became high school teacher in 1969; taught until early 1990s at highschool and college level (business education, social studies, English and Math)

• Married in 1970, divorced in 1987, three sons (James - b. 1972, David - b. 1974, and Michael - b. 1977), none of whom will admit to being interested in the JFK assassination, although David came to see "JFK" with me and later an Oliver Stone lecture in Vancouver. James once bought me a book on the subject. Michael periodically reminds me that Kennedy is dead.

• Always followed subject - but not intently - until 1986, when I read BEST EVIDENCE, which blew my mind (although I don't entirely buy Lifton's theory). Began writing after sending a short piece on PJM to Michael Eddowes, who "commissioned" me to write a lengthy report on Priscilla for a book he was supposedly working on at age 86. Mailed it to him, but it was returned months later as the address was slightly wrong (someone had tried to open it)...

• Learned about TTD from Paul Hoch and sent it to Jerry, who suggested revising it, which resulted in, "Did Oswald Come Back?" and "Priscilla and Lee - Parts 1,2, and 3."

• First article published was about the Winnipeg Airport Incident ... I have written 21 articles for TTD/TFD, plus several for other publications.

• I have attended seven conferences (Fredonia, NY in 1991 and 1996; Dallas in 1991, Chicago in 1992 and 1993, Sudbury, Ontario in 1993, and Minneapolis in 1999) and one debate (U.W. in Seattle 1994). I have been interviewed by CBC-TV in Winnipeg for local news program via satellite (Nov. 1993), by Calgary radio station (Nov. 1993) by phone, by Abbotsford radio talk show (Nov. 1993), by Chilliwack, BC talk show (1995) and by local cable station twice (1992 and 1993). Was also profiled in local paper in Jan. 1992 and in VANCOUVER SUN in 1998 (poor job resulting in letter to editor by me which they published).

• Interviewed Perry R. Russo in 1990-91 by mailing him a series of questions (three times, which he answered on audio tape with a girlfriend reading my questions); gave presentation on my contact with Perry at 1996 Fredonia conference, featuring excerpt from interview(s); provided copy of tapes to Perry's brother, who is a professor of engineering in New Orleans, at his request, which he greatly appreciated (he has always believed Perry's "conspiracy talk" allegations, by the way).

• Interviewed Jean Aase in Minneapolis in May, 1997 (who went to Dallas with Chicago businessman Lawrence Meyers, a good friend of Ruby's); interview set up in conjunction with author Anthony Summers, but was hampered by presence of Jean's lawyer, which produced mixed results.

• Ongoing contact with Curtis Craford (aka Larry Crafard), former handyman at Carousel Club, whose interview with W.C. was over 200 pages long and lasted three days; my contact was referred to in TIME article by journalist/author Ron Rosenbaum in Jan. 1992 (republished in JFK: THE BOOK OF THE FILM).

Partial Bibliography of Peter Whitmey


http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/Bevilaqua/Giesbrecht_Incident.html



JFK's real assassins conspired in Winnipeg Airport: theorist

by Lindor Reynolds, Winnipeg Free Press Columnist

Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada November 22, 2000

John Bevilaqua is a conspiracy theorist, a man determined to unearth the real killer or killers of John F. Kennedy.

The Web site developer not only believes Lee Harvey Oswald was a fall guy, he also believes the key to the conspiracy lies in Winnipeg.

It's a strange story that has tenuous roots in reality, anchored by countless pages of supporting documents and computer files that Bevilaqua, 53, uses to support his passionate argument that "The Winnipeg Airport Incident" points to the real killer or killers. Express an interest in the topic and you will be bequeathed a mountain of faxes, emails and relevant Web sites.

Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas 37 years ago today. Thousands of Kennedy buffs, ranging from serious academic researchers to the sort of people who also want to prove that Elvis lives, have spent time speculating on who killed him and why.
"I guess you could call me a mild obsessive-compulsive," says the affable Bevilaqua from his Rhode Island office. "I guess for the past nine years I've spent about 10 per cent of my waking hours on this."

His wife tolerates his obsession, he says.

"When she asks me to do the dishes, I'll say, "Honey, I'm on the trail of the assassins," he laughs.

"The Winnipeg Airport Incident" is also known as "The Richard Giesbrecht Incident." It is important to note that neither name appears in the majority of the legions of books published on the Kennedy assassination. It reigns only on the Internet, safe haven for conspiracy theorists of all stripes. But Bevilaqua is positive that an ordinary Winnipeg accountant (sic), accidentally overheard a conversation between the real killers—or at least the men who hired the killers.

On February 13, 1964, Richard Elvin Giesbrecht was having a drink in the Horizon Room at the Winnipeg airport. Giesbrecht, then 35 and the father of four, overheard three men discussing what appeared to be their involvement in Kennedy's assassination. In his later report to the RCMP and the FBI, Giesbrecht said the men appeared knowledgeable about the murder. He jotted notes while they talked, carefully detailed their appearance and later told officials he felt threatened by the presence of one of the man.

It could have been dismissed as the imagination of a mid afternoon drinker, but wasn't. Giesbrecht was eventually asked to testify at the New Orleans conspiracy trial of Clay Shaw, a businessman charged with conspiracy to murder Kennedy. In the end, the Winnipeg man's story was rejected by authorities. His claims received wide media attention.

Giesbrecht died in 1990. Today his widow, Nadia, refuses to talk about her husband's brush with fame. "My husband has passed away and so has the story.", she said this week.

Bevilaqua isn't about to let the story die.

"I think the killing was the work of The Pioneer Fund, a right-wing organization," he says. "One hundred times, yes, I think they were behind it."

He believes the three men in the airport bar were Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, whom he calls "a Nazi sympathizer"; Anastase "Annie" Vonsiatsky, a German-American once sentenced to five years in prison for violation of The Espionage Act; and either Ronald A. Gostick or Patrick J. Walsh, both allegedly extreme right-wingers. They were in Winnipeg, Bevilaqua believes, to attend a meeting of the Canadian Anti-Communist League.

"This story has unfortunately been relegated to a very, very small footnote in history," he says. "There are a number of us who believe (the) Richard Giesbrecht (Incident) holds the key."

As for Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who took the official blame for the murder, Bevilaqua says he was likely a trained assassin who was selected to go down for the murder. The conspiracy theorist says that if Oswald pulled the trigger, "he was acting under hypnotic suggestion."

The Richard Giesbrecht Incident could be truth, fiction or, more likely, some muddy combination. For John Bevilaqua, it's an historical fact he is determined to prove. It's been 37 years but he's still trying.
Back to John Bevilaqua

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/Bevilaqua/Bevilaqua_bio.html

Personal history

John Bevilaqua was born as John Horvath in Washington, D.C., in 1947. He is currently living in North Providence, RI, where he works as an independent computer consultant. He describes his work as using "computerized database management and analysis techniques for New England corporations as well as applied to the Kennedy assassination." (Testimony to ARRB, 18 November 1994, Dallas) He grew up in Miami, FL, where he attended grammar school at St. Michael's of the Archangel, graduating in 1961, and high school at Christopher Columbus High School, graduating in 1965. In high school he was known as a fine boy, and very smart. He also played on their basketball team. He then enrolled in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1969. He was a Harvard classmate of both Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones.

Bevilaqua's father was Lawrence Horvath, was born in Hungary, with the surname of his stepfather. He later changed the family's surname to his biological father's surname, Bevilaqua, when he learned that his father was still alive. Lawrence was fired from the patent office in Washington during the McCarthy hysteria of the early fifties because of his pro-Communist views. He moved his family to Miami, Florida, where John grew up.

As a result of his father's experience, John Bevilaqua has become a hater of Fascists and neo-Nazis, which he sees everywhere. He is crusading against them and anyone else whom he considers to be using their techniques. In the mid-1990s he wrote a document entitled "Red Scares, White Power and Blue Death," which is based on "personal observation and experience in Miami, Florida, with anti-Castro Cuban exiles of Alpha-66 and the 30th of November Movement, as well as the investigations that I have carried out in the ensuing years."

He typically writes and posts messages under aliases, some related to Naziism. Sometimes he writes under one alias and sends back a congratulatory note under another. A partial list of his aliases includes Michael Kensington (1992), John McLoughlin (1992 to present), Bill Patterson (Oct–Nov 1993), John McArthur (Oct–Nov 1993), Dave Henderson (Nov 1993), Bob Krieble (Nov 1993), Eric Gunderson (Nov–Dec 1993), Kurt Reston (Dec. 18, 1993), Eric Langford (Aug 1994), David R. Mitchell (Aug 1994), David Morgan (December 1994), Jan Mirilovich (1996), James R. Henderson (May 98 to June 99), Tom Jefferson (1997), Igor Beaver (Feb1996), Bill Thomas (April 1996), Richard Elvin Giesbrecht (December 2000), Richard L. Giesbrecht (Nov 2000), and Dr. Hans Eysenck (early 2001). In the early 1990s, he was cut off from the JFK Forum on CompuServe for sending threatening messages to Bill Adams, Dave Stager, and Gordon Winslow. Several times he would reenter under a different alias, only to be cut off again.

He is presently pushing three "causes": the evils of Fascism/Naziism in the world as a whole, Fascists/Nazis as the agent of JFK's assassination, and my (K. Rahn's) allegedly dangerous beliefs about the assassination and allegedly illegal, Nazi-like approach to teaching my URI course on the assassination. (Yes, you read that last part right!) The following sections consider each of these causes in turn.
Naziism in the present world.

John Bevilaqua is waging war on the Far Right, which he refers to variously as Nazis and Fascists. We will use these terms interchangeably. Among the organizations he considers Fascist are the John Birch Society, the Christian Crusade, Alpha-66, the World Anti-Communist League, the American Security Council, the Anti-Communist Liaison Committee of Correspondence, and, most importantly, the Pioneer Fund. Persons he considers Nazi sympathizers and/or participants in the JFK hit include (verbatim) "Dr. Robert J. Morris, Dr. Revilo P. Oliver, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, Ray S. Cline, Wickliffe P. Draper, William H. Draper, Jr., Anastase Vonsiatsky, Edwin A. Walker, Otto F. Otepka, Ronald Gostick, Allen Dulles, John S. Rarick, Patrick Walsh, Andrij Melnyk, Yaroslaw Stetsko, James J. Angleton, Major George Racey Jordan, Senator Barry Goldwater, and Richard Nixon." Another prominent Nazi is our current president George W. Bush. His father, George H. W. Bush, and Richard Nixon surrounded themselves with Nazi advisors like Robert Haldemann and John Erlichmann. "Nazi brain scientists" (those who control people's minds) include Dr. Hans J. Eysenck, Wickliffe P. Draper, Dr. Revilo P. Oliver, me, Prof. John McAdams (who heads the political science department at Marquette University and teaches a course in the JFK assassination), and San Francisco eye surgeon and professor Dr. Gary Aguilar.

From the above list, Bevilaqua holds Drs. Robert Morris and Revilo P. Oliver in particular contempt. Here is a direct quote from one of Bevilaqua's posts: "Robert J. Morris (1917-1997) [was] one of the world's most truly demented beings who ever walked the earth. He was part of the American Security Council along with Angleton, Cline and Willoughby and was identified by Mae Brussel and Bill Turner as being one of the plotmasters and JFK murder lynchpins. He was also identified by pudgy woosy boy Whittaker Chambers who framed Alger Hiss as being "the real brains and power behind McCarthyism" at the time of Morris' obituary." In another post, Bevilaqua went on to note that Robert J. Morris had a long career devoted to conservative causes: Former president of the University of Dallas, in Irving. Chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Internal Security from 1951 to 1953 and 1956 to 1958, "a period when the United States was tormented by the specter of Communist infiltration of every level of life." Had served on a New York State Assembly committee in 1940 that investigated New York's schools and colleges in an attempt to ferret out Communist activities. The subcommittee's hearings "corralled diplomats, scholars, businessmen, refugees and schoolteachers. It opened investigations into a possible Communist takeover of Hawaii, the Communist influence along the New York City waterfront, shipments of propaganda detected in New Orleans and creeping Communist control of U.S. military industries. Concerning the late Prof. Revilo P. Oliver, of the University of Illinois, Bevilaqua posted several of his many essays, accompanying by derogatory comments.

Another "Nazi" condemned at great length by Bevilaqua is Dr. Hans J. Eysenck, whom he called a "Nazi brain scientist." Eysenck allegedly helped prepare candidates for roles as murderers for the Nazi government and for the CIA's MK-ULTRA and Operation Bluebird campaigns. He received funding from Draper and the Pioneer Fund and transferred knowledge to them about his work for Nazis and governments in exile such as the Russian Nationalist organizations of Anastase Vonsiatsky in Harbin, Manchuria. He was the original Manchurian Candidate. Eysenck allegedly watched with great interest as one of the students he trained, Bogdan Stashinsky, personally executed several pro-Nazi colleagues of the Vonsiatsky-affiliated OUN (?), including Dr. Stepan Bandera and Lev Rebet. Stashinsky was forced to participate in the Nazi killings because his parents were Nazi collaborators during WW II and he was afraid this information would be exposed. He penetrated the OUN, learned their habits, and killed them with the Potassium Cyanide Gun known at the "Stashinsky Gun." Vonsiatsky was extremely upset by these killings, but it took him until 1963 to get revenge. They used the very tool of the NKVD assassins, LHO, from the Minsk Academy of Murder and Mayhem, Class of 1961. Bevilaqua tips his hat to Mae Brussel and Bill Turner, who were the first ones onto Willoughby (Adolph Tscheppe-Weidenbach) and Morris, in Larry Flynt's "Realist" magazine in 1983. "

How Nazis killed JFK

John Bevilaqua represents "Citizens for Democracy," an organization that as far as I can tell has only him as a member (like Oswald's New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee). He claims that this group is "on the brink of solving the mystery behind the JFK assassination and finding the identity of the members of the highest levels of the 'cabal.'" He has offered this general explanation:

"JFK was killed by those who suffered from a paranoid over-reaction to the threats from international Communism due to their own mental instability. Or, they were chosen to carry out the murder because the believed so sincerely in the threats he posed. Or they were chosen to lead the murder by the Nazis who were the natural enemies of communism because they were just nuts enough to do it and because they did not possess the normal and natural restraint mechanism that would help them see just how socially unacceptable and illogical their belief systems really were."

He has also offered this specific explanation:

"Robert J. Morris, America's Benedict Arnold, was the one who plotted, managed and executed the plot to kill JFK with his sidekick Charles Willoughby using money advanced by Wickliffe P. Draper of Hopedale, Massachusetts, Draper labs, Remington Arms and Rockwell International who was the paradigm for Big Daddy Warbucks by Harold Grey. Draper's neighbor and partner, Anastase Vonsiatsky, the man who tried to kill FDR joined with Gerald L. K. Smith, the man who killed Huey Long, in running the operational and financial end of the plot, culminating in the meeting in Winnipeg, Canada known as the Winnipeg Airport Incident where the proceeds were divvied up. Smith's share was used to build and finance, Christ of the Ozarks, in Eureka, Arkansas, and Draper received his payback when Rockwell International bailed out his family's failing textile loom equipment machinery company a few years before it went totally belly up and busted. All other theories and attempts at explanation are nothing less then sheer folly and complete lunacy. I have spoken and you have been informed for perhaps the first time in your JFK experience. (Just kidding.) Quod Est Demonstratum."

A shorter version is:

"JFK was killed by those anti-Soviet counter-intelligence Nazi sympathizers at the American Security Council who were part of the Military-Intelligence Complex by the names of: Angleton, Morris, Willoughby and Cline"

As to why the Nazis killed JFK, he has these explanations:

"Fascism killed JFK in order to get free rein against Communism. Their next target is Democracy, since they have already fulfilled their 25 year plan against Communism (1963-1988). Right on schedule, too. The 25 year plan against Democracy (1990-2015) is a bit ahead of schedule as we speak. Democracy should be all done by 2010, I think."

"The Far Right did it and blamed it on the Far Left to ENCOURAGE more attacks on the Far Left and the ultimate destruction of the Russian monolith. Duhhh? Next Problem."

As to assassins, Bevilaqua says that Oswald did it as a Manchurian Candidate:

"Oswald was a trained psychopath with a propensity for violence, whose selection for inclusion in a joint NKVD and US project on programmed assassination because of his attributes and propensities made him the perfect choice as patsy in the assassination of JFK. Once word got out about who the patsy was, every US organization had to go into cover-up and denial mode for fear of having the cover blown on their covert and illegal mind-control operations like MK-ULTRA and Bluebird" and that he had been "programmed" by Dr. Hans J. Eysenck.

Using the mock voice of Eysenck, Bevilaqua wrote:\

"I, Dr. Hans J. Eysenck, stole the MK-ULTRA secrets for programmed assassinations when I worked at Operation Bluebird, and hand delivered to these psychos at least a half-dozen programmed assassins, Oswald among them. This is why we inserted Oswald into the fray. Once his name popped up, there was nothing anyone could do for fear of exposing the US Government exposed plan. Why do you think that Corporal Schrand was shot in the armpit? He had his hands behind his neck and was under armed control at the time and we asked Oswald to shoot him on command. Oswald was a programmed assassin and his cover had to be kept intact."

Bevilaqua's evidence

How does John Bevilaqua know all this about the Nazi killing of JFK? It comes from three pieces of evidence, two conversations overheard by third parties and a set of anagrams in a novel. The first conversation was overheard by his father in November 1963 next door at 3638 NW 15th St., Miami. The conversation concerned a plot to kill JFK. It was actually two conversations, on the 18th and 19th of November, that his father was able to listen to from his backyard. Cubans were speaking in Spanish. The following names were allegedly mentioned: Marita Lorenz, Bosch, Dias Lanz, Pedro, Alex, and Havana Bar. Lawrence reported it to the police by telephone on November 20th. They said that they already knew about it.

The second conversation was overheard after the assassination, on 13 February 1964. As Winnipeg insurance salesman Richard Elvin Giesbrecht was having a drink in the Horizon Room of the Winnipeg airport, he is said to have overheard three men discussing what sounded like the JFK assassination and their involvement in it. When he was noticed, he was chased away. Giesbrecht later testified in Garrison's New Orleans trial of Clay Shaw, but when he could not offer enough information to allow the authorities to identify any of the persons, the lead was abandoned. Bevilaqua believes that the men were Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, Anastase Vonsiatsky, and either Ronald A. Gostick or Patrick J. Walsh, present in Winnipeg, according to Bevilaqua, to attend a meeting of the Canadian anti-Communist League. They were in the process of dividing up the spoils (the payment) of the assassination.

The anagrams come from Richard Condon's 1959 novel "The Manchurian Candidate." Condon knew about JFK's killers but could not say how, where, or when so far in advance. He knew the names, however, and hid them in a series of 12 anagrams in order to protect himself. Bevilaqua is now deciphering these puzzles for all to see. They all point to people who knew each other, associated with each other, were all right-wing extremists, had links to the Winnipeg Airport Incident, had links to the John Birch Society, were McCarthyites, were part of the military/industrial complex, had links and reputations are pro-Nazi sympathizers, and so on.

Eleven of the anagrams, with Bevilaqua's solutions and interpretations, are given below.

• "John Yerkes Iselin" = "John E. is Rey S. Kline." "John E." becomes "Johnny" (a nickname for John Y. Iselin), and Rey S. Kline gets turned into Ray S. Cline. "Rey S. Kline" is "very similar" to Ray S. Cline. "Others" think the same thing.

• "Miss Viola Narvilly, opera singer" ... is a PERFECT anagram for "Revilo P. Oliver, is an SS Girman aly." Kevin Alfred Strom claims that this phrase does not appear in the book. He says that the actual phrases included "Miss Viola Narvilly of the great Indianapolis Opera Company" and "it like to have lifted Miss Narvilly out of her own body by her vocal cords" and "Miss Narvilly's manager tried to throw a punch at the National Chairman" and "not one single television shot had been taken of Miss Narvilly from beginning to end" and "shaking Miss Narvilly's manager loose."

• Dr. Yen Lo = "Only Red," meaning the only Commie among those in the Manchurian Amphitheatre in Manchurian Candidate.

• Etah = "Hate." One of the most common characteristics of right-wingers and inmates of mental institutions.

• Al Melvin = "1 Evil Man." This may refer to Robert J. Morris, who is in at least 5 anagrams from Manchurian Candidate, or Revilo P. Oliver, whose most famous quotation was: "I had a beatific vision last night. I woke up after dreaming that all the Jews had been vaporized." Boston, MA, July 4, 1966 at a John Birch Rally and Conference on "God, Your Country and the Family, or something like that. Oliver was asked to sever his public relationships and ties to the John Birch Society.

• Lord Morris Croftnol = "Lord, Frontal Morris...", a plaintive plea to some superior being. As in "frontal lobotomy," one of the best known but more primitive techniques for reducing aggressive or violent behavior.

• "Miss Dover and Mrs. Diamentez" = "Morris is a Demented Man." (The remaining VZSD can be used any way you like.)

• Tungwha = "What gun?"

• Ole Banstoffsen-Washington" (a fictitious person in Manchurian Candidate) = "H.B. Angleton Waffen SS Notsi" or "H.B. Angleton Waffen SS - No Shit."

• Hugh Bone (another reference to Angleton) = "Hugh B. One" (= Hugh be one (of them), meaning the Reich Wing in America and the Reich Wing internationally.)

• Bennet Arnold Marco = "RM a Benedect Arnold," whoever RM may be.
Note how weak these anagrams are. Several don't work, or make nonsensical phrases. They are obviously being pushed past their limit. The two overheard conversations plus the anagrams sum to zero solid evidence. The ornate scenario spun from them by Bevilaqua is pure fabrication. And yet this is what is supposed to hold the key to the JFK assassination.

How to validate his beliefs

John Bevilaqua has told us exactly how to verify that his beliefs are correct:

"What if I told you that Citizens for Democracy was literally on the brink of solving the mystery behind the John F. Kennedy assassination and finding the identity of the members of the highest levels of the cabal? How would you be able to tell whether or not it was really correct? Simple. If I could show you that two other persons had already solved portions of this case years ago and left clues for everyone to follow to the ultimate conspirators would you be convinced then? Possibly. Then what if I showed you that they also reached the very SAME conclusions that I had via a completely independent set of sources and separate methodologies?

Would you be convinced of it then? Are you willing to hear more?

Well, who are they all saying was behind the JFK murder plot?

The plotters were all members of some of the most fascist and repressive organizations in the 50's and the 60's: the House Un-American activities Committee (HUAC), Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SIS), and the Pioneer Fund (TPF) of New York which is still active today with Proposition 187, the Bell Curve and the Steve Forbes presidential campaign. Later some of them ended up either on the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) or on The Council for National Policy (CNP) or The Liberty Lobby (TLL), all of which are still active today in spreading their particular brand of devisiveness and enmity."

In other words, he is right because two other people partially agreed with him!
Bevilaqua's plan of action

Notwithstanding the facts that he has no evidence and that his conclusions have not been meaningfully validated in any way, John Bevilaqua has an aggressive plan of action:

"The Pioneer Fund, Birmingham Bombers, the Eastland and DeLa Beckwith Klans, Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, the Ghosts of Mississippi. One by one we will hunt them all down and convict them. Just you wait and see. The Pioneer Fund and their Eugenics Master Race Agendas shall be neutralized and aborted for the good of all mankind."

Exterminating the evil and dangerous Ken Rahn

John Bevilaqua, under the alias of John McLoughlin, attended the two Providence conferences on the JFK assassination, the one in 1993 sponsored by Jerry Rose and "The Third Decade," and the one in 1999 sponsored by the University of Rhode Island and my JFK class. He spoke at each, and he and I became acquaintances. After the second conference, he even volunteered to give copies of his manuscript to my class, but never followed through.

Something happened in the fall of 2000, and he turned on me with a vengeance. Writing as "Jim Anderson," he sent a very strong attacking message to alt.conspiracy.jfk, whose contents show that these feelings had been building up inside him for some time. Here is one of the tamer parts of that message:

Hey now, you are talking about our version of Mr. McCarthy, Kenneth Rann, who actually claims that he can, merely by expelling gas from his ass, rise a distance of 9.99999999 (I forget how many 9's) centimeters above a chair while in a seated position with 2 strong, but totally naked, URI football players pressing down on his shoulders, thus proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that the "head snap" could have been produced by gasses coming out of the cranial cavity from bullet number 5 which was a frontal shot thus mimicking the frontal lobotomy that Herr Doktor Rann underwent just to prove, and I quote:

"Vee Ghermans cum frum ze strong breeding stock, and ah soooo schmaaht, zat ve can akchuly undergo Total Frontal Lobotomy and still come up ticking. Vee haff so many exzess brrain zells zat vee can effun donate sum to charatees and still vin ze Nobel Prizes. Yah vohl. You can not effun see zee scarse, because zey vent in behind my eyeballs. Zay popped out the eyeball and poked around for a while and I can still do JFK research. Take a lookie here."

Bevilaqua was apparently set off by earlier comments I had made publicly in support of the theory behind the "jet effect," the idea that the mass of blood and tissue expelled forward from JFK's exploding head would have contributed to his rearward motion seen so dramatically in the Zapruder film. He combined this with my German surname and decided to mock rather than deal with the argument itself.

After falling silent for a time, he surfaced again in mid-April 2001 with a vengeance. This time he was writing as Dr. Hans J. Eysenck, "Nazi brain scientist." Added to list of outrages was the fact that the students in my JFK classes generally agreed with my approach to the assassination, something that Bevilaqua preferred to attribute to brainwashing on my part. Here is part of a message he sent to alt.conspiracy.jfk, in response to a thread on a different topic:

"You know what a shame it is when so called certified and accredited (???) professeurs actually have the audacity, under the guise of academic respectability, to profess baldfaced lies and untruths in front of these poor young kids who are paying about $100,000 to listen to falsehoods. When we were in school we used to hiss in unison if we felt we were being lied to with prevarications, mistruths or falsehoods. I witnessed a handful of students, nice kids otherwise, who had been subjected to an entire semester of distortions and brainwashing at the URI laboratory of Herr Doktor Khan. They babbled the "right" jargon on cue, used politically correct techniques of analysis and "critical thinking," which means they criticized anything that smacked of conspiracy theory, cited party line and party dogma on command, and in general just "followed orders" from above in order to get a good grade from the grade master. INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY is a very strong term, but I mean this in the strongest sense. Academic Freedom does not have any room for Intellectual Dishonesty.
To bend and twist young impressionable minds when one has already revealed a pattern of the destruction of the minds of youths who have put their faith in you is an intellectual atrocity akin to mind rape and mind bending. Anyone guilty of these intellectual atrocities and affronts against humanity should be castigated, reviled, belittled and exposed. And I plan to do just that."

What merited this announced plan to "castigate, revile, belittle, and expose"?

Apparently the combination of my last name, my speaking out about unsupported "conspiracies," my JFK class, and my support for the laws of physics.

Here is part of another post to alt.conspiracy.jfk from that same period of mid-Aril 2001. I am now Nazi scientist Dr. Runwith Khan, and the stakes are being raised to Nazi brain science and mind control:

"Just consider an entire classroom of kids watching Khan essentially using Nazi Brain Science in proving that, let's say, The World is Flat, and the entire class watches in awe and rapture, agreeing with him, writing papers on the topic, and then applauding his efforts without smirking or laughing at his efforts. THAT is Nazi Brain Science at its very best.

Sort of like hypnotized Korean POWs in Manchurian Candidate where Khan is playing the role of Dr. Yen Lo to his audience and his students think they are part of a meeting of a New Jersey Horticulture Club.

Khan even looks and sounds a little like Yen Lo, don't you think? …with that sing-song little pseudo-scientific cadence he has which is intended only to confuse his students into a trance like state so they will be more susceptible to his lies and falsehoods. I am serious folks. This is mind control and altered state consciousness at its very best."

If you think it couldn't get any worse, you are wrong. A week later, Bevilaqua again raised the stakes in a post to alt.conspiracy.jfk, part of which reads:

"If you find and MIT, Draper Labs type he will probably support the Nuke em and Puke em, Military Industrial Complex School of Thought and be...get this....a non-believer in conspiracies in the JFK hit. My suggestion is: DO NOT SUPPORT HIM
DO NOT DEFEND HIM
Villify him.
Pillory him.
Expose him.
Humiliate him.
Badger him.
Call him on everything.
Lambaste him.
Degrade him.
Ream him."

These goals were contained in another message to a poster who commented on so much meanness in one person:

"The meanness comes only from those who deliberately hide or distort the truth. I want to be purged from his website and from his feeble mind forever. I will continue to call him publicly on any forgeries, distortions, or outright lies he publishes or posts, too. Until the end of time. It is a free country."
Not even the University of Rhode Island could escape his aim. Here are two paragraphs from another message to alt.conspiracy.jfk:

"His students think they are actually part of a class on logic and critical thinking when in fact they are part of a class on anything but. They are part of a class on mind control and thought control as part of the Alton W. Jones campus project at a misleading New England University
…
I am serious folks. This is mind control and altered state consciousness at its very best. Check out what Alton W. Jones did at Columbia University in the 1960's and the 1970's regarding the use of Cold War Psycholigical Warfare techniques to convince people that the Cold War was a good thing for the country."
Closing comments

It is appropriate to close this biography of John Bevilaqua by recalling the huge contrast between stimuli and reactions. His huge, complex Nazi scenario for the killing of JFK was a response to two conversations partially overheard by third parties, plus twelve anagrams, mostly imperfect, in a book written years before the assassination. His campaign against me (preceded and followed by similar but less intense actions against others) was apparently stimulated by my criticism of undocumented "conspiracies," my university course on the assassination, and my support for the laws of physics. The responses are entirely disproportionate to the stimuli.

Bevilaqua's "Final Solution" to the JFK assassination

Testimony to the Assassination Records Review Board (November 18, 1994, Dallas, Texas)

Bevilaqua's version of the Winnipeg Airport Incident (Winnipeg Free Press, 22 November 2000)

Peter Whitmey's more-careful version of the Winnipeg Airport Incident (The Fourth Decade, March 1999)

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/Bevilaqua/ARRB.html

Testimony of John Bevilaqua to the ARRB

Dallas, Texas -- November 18, 1994 Hearing

MR. MARWELL: Is Mr. DeBenedictis here?
[No response.]
MR. MARWELL: Dr. Aguilar?
VOICE: He will be right back.
MR. MARWELL: Why don't we ask Mr. John McLaughlin.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Welcome, Mr. McLaughlin.
MR. McLAUGHLIN: Thank you.
First of all, I would like to straighten out the record. I used John McLaughlin as my pseudonym, as my author's pseudonym. My real name is John Bevilaqua.
A quick synopsis or a background, I am a graduate of Harvard University, I was classmates, ironically, of both Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones, and I grew up in the City of Miami, Florida. My only other connection to the assassination investigation is, I also enjoy Lee Harvey Oswald's favorite drink, Dr. Pepper.

MR. MARWELL: Could we just have the spelling of your name?

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Sure. It is B-e-v-i-l-a-q-u-a, and I am currently an independent computer consultant, and I use computerized database management and analysis techniques for New England corporations as well as applied to the Kennedy assassination.

The material I have developed, and I only have three copies of but I would like to circulate it now, it is a document I developed with the help of a lead that Mary Farrell gave me. Mary Farrell has reviewed this document which is titled, Red Scares, White Power and Blue Death, and called it possibly the most interesting and significant piece of material that she has read in the past several years.

It is based on both personal observation and experience in Miami, Florida, with anti-Castro Cuban exiles of Alpha-66 and the 30th of November Movement, as well as the investigations that I have carried out in the ensuing years.

A summary of what I believe to be the two most significant intelligence connections as a result of all my research center around both the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of Senator Thomas Dodd and Senator James Eastland, and the House UnAmerican Activities chaired until his death in the early '60s by representative Francis E. Walter of Pennsylvania and Richard Arrans, who was the Chief Counsel, and in particular I am focusing also on the former Chief Counsel of Joe McCarthy's SISC as well as, I believe, Senator Dodd's SISC, Robert Morris, who is still alive today in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Morris shared a summer home in Miami with me on Northwest 15th Street, as well as also on Northwest 15th Street at 3638 Northwest 15th Street was a safehouse for Alpha-66 and the 30th of November Movement. On November 16th of 1963, my father overheard several conversations in Spanish. He happens to have a Master's Degree in Spanish. He translated those conversations and reported to the City of Miami Police, Intelligence Division, the fact that the Cubans in our neighborhood were talking about going to Dallas and doing something to President Kennedy.

I wrote an article under the name of Michael Kensington which appeared in The Third Decade in November of 1992, I believe, which has been reviewed and researched by both Jerry Rose, Gordon Winslow and other people for its veracity, and they have both concluded that it is a basically accurate and correct account of what occurred.

At the same time, the Miami Police Intelligence Division was examining and investigating the reports about Joseph A. Milteer, which everybody is probably fairly familiar with, and they put my father's report in the same category. And I believe either the Joe Milteer incident or my father's report resulted in the infamous Airtel of November 17th, 1963, sent out by the FBI describing imminent plans of, I quote, "an extremist revolutionary group" who are planning to take action against Kennedy in Dallas. Perhaps they didn't even mention Dallas, but sometime between the 17th and some unnamed date.

I don't know if your power or authority extends to agencies like the City of Miami Police Intelligence Division, but I have had absolutely no luck in recovering any of the lead up information either related to the Joe Milteer incident or to my father's incident regarding the two reports of pending assassination plots that originated from South Florida between November 9th, which was the Milteer incident, and November 16th or 17th, which was my father's reported incident.

Following the leads from Alpha-66 into the World Anti-Communist League, I first investigated both the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and HUAC. In particular the two incidents that I would request additional documentation or release of relates to Peter Dale Scott's reference, and to Senator Thomas J. Dodd's direct request to Oswald to purchase the Mannlicher-Carcano from Kline's Sporting Goods in Chicago. I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was quite possibly an agent of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and he was doing the bidding of Dodd and Eastland and Morris.

I am sorry, I am drying out, and it is a difficult thing to do.

Secondarily, to the incidents surrounding the Clinton, Louisiana, visit of Lee Harvey Oswald on an allegedly exploratory mission regarding voter registration and the difficulty or the ease with which an outsider could register to vote compared to that of a local Louisiana resident who was a member of a minority also was requested and Dodd and further helped implicate Lee Harvey Oswald on his own. It was almost self-implication as was the Kline Sporting Goods.

On the HUAC side and related to a lead that was given to me by Mary Farrell, and it is up to her, I think, to decide whether or not she wants to disclose who it was that gave her this piece of information, this gentleman who was a soldier of fortune, a not well-known soldier of fortune in South Florida indicated to her that the most significant leads that had to be explored involved Thomas F. Ellis, who is currently on the Council of National Policy, he is alive and apparently very well. He is on the Council of National Policy with Oliver J. North, Nelson Bucker Hunt, and Alton Oxner, Jr., who is the son of Dr. Alton Oxner, who was part of INCA in New Orleans.

I have also looked at why Richard Arrans was fired from HUAC, and I have found that the reason Richard Arrans was fired was because he worked for an organization called the Draper Committees and the Draper Genetics Committees, which is part of the Pioneer Fund. The thing that concerns me about the Pioneer Fund is that even today, I have traced them back to 1924, even today they are in California with Proposition 187, sponsoring it, they are the main sponsors and financial backers of Prop. 187, which is the anti-immigration issue.

They have sponsored William Shockley's research into the genetic inferiority of minorities as well as Arthur Jensen's research into the inheritable composition of intelligence as opposed to the environmental, which they say does not exist. They backed Richard Arnstein and the Bell Curve. They were involved, in 1937, they went over to Germany and helped Hitler and Goebbels write the laws against the prevention of hereditarily ill-progeny, which essentially became the holocaust justification laws.

They were involved with involuntary sterilization programs in Virginia. They were involved with the original anti-immigration legislation in 1924 which also was designed to keep Central European minorities, particularly targeted groups, from entering this country.

If you move further and follow them as they develop into the World Anti-Communist League through the Alpha-66 connections, and all of a sudden you find that four of the past presidents of the World Anti-Communist League all have significant ties by researchers into the assassination.

Ray S. Kline was in Taiwan between 1958 and 1962, he is still alive and working at Georgetown University Center for International Studies, he was there when Oswald was there at the Peng Tong Marine Base. I would like to find out what, if anything, the CIA is willing to release regarding the alleged mind control experiments that went on in Taiwan.

Yarzlo Stetsco was another President of the World Anti-Communist League, he was Sposti Reiken's immediate superior and his immediate boss in the anti-Bolshevik nations.

John Singlob and Roger Pearson were also involved and very directly related to not only activities in the Pioneer Fund but also activities at the World Anti-Communist League.

Another word on Thomas F. Ellis, he first gained his fame and recognition as campaign chairman for the 1972 Jesse Helms Senatorial Campaign, and he has been involved quite directly in both Carolina politics as well as U.S. politics.

I would also like to find out if there is anything that can be done regarding quasi-private agencies. I don't know if your jurisdiction also extends into this area of things like the American Security Council and the Liberty Lobby, and Council for National Policy, unfortunately which are primarily private agencies, but have full-time active employees of the government also involved.

I believe that is as complete and as short a summary as I could possibly make of a 70-page document, and I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you and say something.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you, Mr. Bevilaqua.
Any questions?
DR. NELSON: Have you made an attempt to get any documents from HUAC or the Senate Internal Committee?
MR. McLAUGHLIN: I haven't yet submitted any actual FOIAs. I have submitted a FOIA --
DR. NELSON: They are not subject to FOIA.
MR. McLAUGHLIN: They are not.
DR. NELSON: But you can get some of the documents.
MR. McLAUGHLIN: And how could you do that?
DR. NELSON: Well some of the records are in the National Archives. Most of them, you have to appeal to the various congressional committees, or the Secretary of the Senate. But I just wondered if you had made an attempt to do that?
MR. McLAUGHLIN: No, I haven't yet. I requested military record of Wyecliff P. Draper who was the head the Draper Committees and then head of the Pioneer Fund before he died, and he was in Army Intelligence. In World War II he fought on our side, and in World War I he fought on the British side, for whatever reason. But it is a new enough lead and an interesting enough lead that we haven't yet had the chance to do a lot of formal documentation.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you very much.
Questions?
MR. MARWELL: Is your father still living?
MR. McLAUGHLIN: Yes, he is. And I am sure, he can't travel, but I am sure if someone would like to discuss it with him, I am sure he would be able to cooperate.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you.
Back to John Bevilaqua


http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/winnipeg.htm

Obama on Secrecy and Transparancy

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

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

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

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]