32: "What it is ain't exactly clear"*
On October 4, 1963, The New York Times reported that Republican conservative candidate for President Barry Goldwater believed President Kennedy was helping the Soviets. The President was considering a wheat sale to the Russians, which former Vice President Nixon also spoke adamantly against asserting it would be “harming the cause of freedom.”1
Six days later, asserting it was good for the US economy, JFK announced his approval of the $250 million wheat sale to the Soviet Union while ruling out sales to Cuba and China. A schism between Red China and Russia had appeared at about the same time, and the intelligence and defense communities would debate whether it was real and or a treacherous ploy to deceive the United States.2
On October 11, 1963, President Kennedy approved the National Security Action Memorandum 263 (NSAM 263) recommendations of Secretary of Defense McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor based on their recent trip to Vietnam. They perceived that significant progress had been made against the Viet Cong insurgents and, therefore, the U.S. could begin removing the 16,000 troops there.
Within the week, the Miami Herald—one of Pawley’s local daily newspapers—reported that Democrat Florida Representative James Haley, a former Ringling Brothers Circus executive, was calling for control of the CIA claiming that it had gotten “so powerful it can thumb its nose at the President.” The newspaper also reported that the head of the Democratic Party predicted a re-election win for JFK in 1964.5
On November 1, 1963, President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam was assassinated in a coup. Six days later, a message was sent around the world to CIA stations in Saigon, Rome, and Mexico stating the psychological warfare guidance regarding Diem’s murder. Point number one was to deny that The White House (cryptonym ODYOKE) had any involvement in the coup—it was “initiated and realized by Vietnamese themselves” because, point two, Diem was “despotic and out of touch with the people” and “was losing the war against Viet cong.”
Point three addressed the “obviously touchy issue” regarding the “uncertain” circumstances of the death of Diem and his younger brother, Ngô Dính Nhu, who served as a political advisor and head of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces. “Death never intended by military leadership only removal from power.”
Point four, wanted the US spokespeople to emphasize that the “new regime platform primarily to fight communism, join free world ranks. Honor all agreements and pacts and respect foreign property. New regime promises freedom all sects and religions, invites reps all social classes participate in new govt. Military council disclaims prior fraudulent elections and desires functioning all no communist political parties, popularly elected govt and freedom of press and expression ASAP. Generals declared no political ambitions among military and established provisional political gov’t immediately. Welcomed constructive criticism, released non-communist political detainees, forbade burning and looting and unlawful arrests, and received immediate countrywide support.”6
On November 3, 1963, Clare Boothe Luce’s article in William Buckley’s National Review was reprinted in The News and Tribune of Jefferson City, Missouri. Luce, “one of the most learned ladies in the nation,” wrote, “What seems to be happening to the government in Vietnam is remarkably like what happened to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang in China when the Department of State pulled the rug out from under them; and Mao Tse-tung took China.” Luce asserted that if the war is lost, communism would “gain all of Indochina” and she accused President Kennedy of treating Mme. Nhu “scornfully” while treating Khrushchev “like a public hero.”
To undermine his standing among voters in America, she pointed out that President Kennedy was elected with less than “50 percent of the vote in 1960 and there were even rumors he didn’t get that.” In her final salvo against JFK, Clare Boothe Luce wrote that not only were many in the press against JFK, but also “quite a lot of Americans happen to agree with Madame Nhu, who thinks he is lulling the U.S.A. into a false sense of security about the Communists.” Then, three weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy, Luce went on the record as being opposed to taking action against him—“this is America and we don’t talk about ‘coups’ and overthrowing elected governments. We believe in a democracy. You should wait for elections. But in Vietnam it’s different.”7
In early November, the Kennedy administration butted heads with Senator James Eastland and Jay Sourwine with regard to Otto Otepka, Director of Security in the State Department, who had passed information from confidential files to Sourwine. Long considered an individual of high integrity, Otepka had passed the information to demonstrate what he considered a dangerous loosening of State Department security standards. His defenders felt that his dismissal in early November had to do with the fact that his strict guidelines thwarted the hiring of some individuals favored by the Kennedy Administration.
Otepka’s dismissal came after his phone was tapped and his burn basket was monitored. It seemed to defy safeguards for civil servants, who had the right to petition Congress. Senator Thomas J. Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, who had once worked for the FBI (and was father of a 2008 presidential candidate) stated, “‘No one suspected of espionage or disloyalty has to my knowledge been subjected to such surveillance and humiliation. But Mr. Otepka was not suspected of disloyalty or espionage. He was suspected very simply of cooperating with the senate subcommittee on internal security and of providing it with information that some of his superiors found embarrassing or objectionable.’”8 (It took Otepka five years to regain a government position, when President Nixon appointed him to the Subversive Activities Control Board, which Senator Eastland hailed as a triumph of justice, despite the board’s reputation as a “do-nothing agency.”)9
In an odd twist of fate, a few years earlier “Mr. [Otto] Otepka of the State Department Security Office already has information” on five defectors including “Lee Harvey Oswald, M5- 11164” and Nicholas Petrulli.
Petrulli’s cousin had been an employee of the CIA’s DTROBALO debriefing site in Panama for which Pawley had done work during the Arbenz overthrow. Cousin “Michael Thomas Schiralli, SSD [Security Support Division] 34258, is a former CIA covert employee, who is assigned to the Robalo site in Panama under Project FJ-HOPEFUL also took part in PBFORTUNE which became Project PBSUCCESS, the Arbenz coup. As of July 1954, he [Schiralli] was to be debriefed as he chose to return to private employment.” Nicholas Petrulli defected September 8, 1959 but returned immediately to the U.S. because he failed to follow the accepted procedures to get into the Soviet Union.10
Was Petrulli an intelligence agency spy whose dangle failed? If so, would another dangle be sent carrying the correct credentials to get into the Soviet Union and tantalizing information that would interest America’s adversary?
Within a month of Petrulli’s attempt, Oswald successfully defected to the Soviet Union. He had learned to speak Russian as a United States Marine serving as a radar operator stationed in Japan where CIA U-2 planes took off Atsugi air base to spy at high altitude on Russia and China. The Office of Naval Intelligence, in a post-assassination memorandum, noted that Oswald expressed “considerable bitterness about his being given an undesirable discharge from the Marine Corps Reserve” in a letter to Secretary of the Navy John B. Connally, Jr. because “everything he had done had had the sanction of the U.S. Government, and that following his contemplated return to the U.S. later that year ‘I shall employ all means to right the gross mistake or injustice to a boni-fied (sic) U.S. citizen and ex-service man.’”11
Despite his stated intent to share his top-secret knowledge with the Soviets, Oswald upon his return to the U.S. didn’t encounter the intense CIA/FBI interrogation others faced when they came out of the communist stronghold. One example was an American husband and father, Robert Edward Webster, who had defected around the same time as Oswald after falling in love with a Ukrainian women while on a business trip for Rand Development Corporation in Moscow.12 When Webster eventually returned, he was extensively debriefed for two weeks in July 1962 by the CIA’s Deputy Chief on Soviet matters, two Domestic Contact Division agents, two Air Force Technology Division officials, and several others.13
Oswald on the other hand, who returned with a Soviet wife, was interviewed the same month by two FBI agents John Fain and B. Tom Carter in Dallas. And once again in August by Fain and Arnold J. Brown in Dallas for 75 minutes;14 not in Washington, DC by a dozen CIA interrogators, like Webster.15
As Jefferson Morley pointed out, despite the lack of a CIA debriefing, the CIA monitored Oswald’s behavior especially after his encounter with the DRE and his reported visit to the Mexican Embassy in October 1963. Those reviewing his activities included “assistant deputy director (ADDP) Tom Karamessines; Soviet Russia division counterintelligence officer Stephan Roll; liaison officer Jane Roman, Special Projects Group (SPG) officer Ann Egerter; chief of the WH/3 desk (Mexico) "John Scelso" aka John Whitten; and chief of operations for Western Hemisphere, William J. Hood.” J.C. King, Chief WHD was the October cable’s “Authenticating Officer.”16 Despite this monitoring, Birch D. O’Neal, Chief of the CIA’s Counterintelligence Special Investigations Group (CI/SIG) would tell the FBI a few weeks later that the Agency had nothing in its file about Oswald except what had been provided by the FBI and State Department.17 In fact, while the Johnson administration tried to quickly paint Oswald as a lone nut of no consequence, scores of documents tracked his activities from 1959 to ten weeks before the assassination, including dozens in Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton’s control. Nothing raised his alarm despite his usual paranoia. CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms led the Warren Commission to believe the Agency knew little about him.18
On November 4, 1963, the Pacific Stars and Stripes carried an article appealing for funds for the anti-Castro group, Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba, of which Clare Boothe Luce was a vocal member. The CCFC “publishes a semimonthly periodical, ‘Free Cuba News,’ with a circulation of over 6,000, and on request also supplies special information. Secretary Daniel James insisted the committee operates neither in ‘cooperation nor competition’ with the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency in analyzing the Cuban situation.”
However, CCFC member “Admiral Arleigh A. Burke (ret.), former Chief of Naval Operations” asserted “that greater financial support was necessary to help the committee ‘mobilize American opinion in support of measures needed to defeat communism at our doorsteps.’”
Paul Bethel, the CCFC’s Cuban affairs specialist asserted that Castro’s “‘Cuban government is waging a determined effort to wipe out the labor unions.’” Additional concerns were related to areas within Cuba “being transformed into a large-scale training camp for communist revolutionaries who are being smuggled into Central and South America” and, moreover, that the “gradual departure of Russian personnel and troops from the island ... has been offset by an increase in communists from other Soviet bloc nations and Red China.”19 Bethel, who had previously been the press attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, wrote in his 1969 book The Losers, “‘There is no doubt that President Kennedy and his brother, the Attorney General, consciously set about the business of stopping all efforts to unhorse Fidel Castro—from outside exile attacks, and from Cuba’s internal resistance movement.’”20
On November 21, 1963, a number of cable messages were sent to the CIA Director from JMWAVE, indicating intensive focus on Cuba and plans for action. One asked for extension of SEAL training.21 Another one “reports on 8 Nov Soviets leaving Cuba, top chiefs still there. Soviets spread rumors they will leave Cuba by end Nov.”22
President Kennedy’s plan to visit Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s home state of Texas had been announced in the Dallas Morning News on September 26th. Nestor Castellanos, had even mentioned the specific date in Dallas while lambasting the President at “a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer’s Branch on October 1, 1963.” Castellanos promised the gathering “‘We’re going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas.’”23
On the morning of November 22, 1963, The Dallas Morning News front page detailed the motorcade route through downtown, anticipated thousands would have the opportunity to see Jack and Jackie, and noted that former Vice President “Nixon, who was in Dallas for a meeting of soft drink bottlers convention” urged along with the police department that courteousness be shown his former rival for the presidency.
Hosted by Governor John Connally, the President’s visit to Dallas came after successful appearances in San Antonio and Houston that were intended to create “political harmony” within the feuding Democrat Party; however, Senator Ralph Yarborough chose to ride with Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez rather than with Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson. The fourth leg of the campaign tour to Austin for a $100-a-plate fundraising dinner was negated by the bullets from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that rang out in Dealey Plaza at 12:30 pm that Friday afternoon.24
Two days after JFK’s assassination, Jack Ruby, a strip club operator, shot Lee Harvey Oswald in front of Dallas law enforcement, the press and millions of people watching on television.25
Within hours of Lee Harvey Oswald being arrested as the alleged killer there were attempts to spin the assassination as part of a Cuban plot which should be met swift retaliation by the new President Lyndon Baines Johnson against Fidel Castro—ala Operation Northwoods.26
Not surprisingly, among those immediately linking Lee Harvey Oswald to Cuba were DRE member Jose Lanuza (aka Lanusa); Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba members Paul Bethel and Clare Boothe Luce; William Pawley; Nathaniel Weyl; John Martino; raider Frank Fiorini (Sturgis) and Miami/Fort Lauderdale reporter Jim Buchanan. DRE secretary-general Luis Fernandez Rocha, after speaking with his DRE co-founders, Lanuza and Juan Manual Salvat, contacted their CIA case officer at JMWAVE, George Joannides, who passed the Oswald details to JMWAVE head Ted Shackley for dispatch to CIA headquarters, according to Jefferson Morley’s interview of Rocha, detailed in Scorpions’ Dance.27
An FBI report months after the assassination noted that Rocha in October 1963”stated that the DRE was then active in propaganda and intelligence fields and that no military action was contemplated by the DRE” and that “the DRE prints and distributes 15,000 to 20,000 copies of its biweekly newspaper Trinchera” as well as an English biweekly The Cuban Report targeted at Congress, the media and other influentials. “On November 23, 1963, the DRE published an ‘Extra’ edition of ... Trinchera, which pictured both Lee Harvey Oswald and Fidel Castro as the ’presumed assassins’ of President Kennedy.” Despite Rocha’s proclaimed propaganda- intelligence mission, the DRE did have a Military Coordinator, Isidro Borja, and the year before shelled a hotel in Havana under Military Coordinator Juan Manuel Salvat who declared on April 2, 1963 “that the United States had deserted Cubans in their efforts to overthrow the Castro regime, and, by restrictions and vigilance imposed on exiles, presented attacks on Cuban thus mobilizing U.S. forces in the service of Communist interests.”28
James “Jim” Buchanan had been jailed by Castro for 12 days. In 1961, he covered the Bay of Pigs invasion,29 and later served as ‘Secretary and Director of Propaganda” for Frank Fiorini’s International Anti-Communist Brigade (IACB) churning out anti-Castro dogma; even stamping “’Communism killed Kennedy’” on each copy of the organization’s monthly bulletin.
The FBI interviewed Jim Buchanan in 1964 regarding his assertion that Oswald had distributed Fair Play for Cuba literature near the “Freedom Tower” in Miami and got into a fight with Jim’s brother, Jerry Buchanan—who had recently been released from Florida’s Raiford State Prison after a breaking and entry and forgery conviction. The FBI also was interested in a story that Oswald had called Havana from Miami to get instructions prior to the Kennedy assassination. A December 4, 1963 Sun-Sentinel article titled “Coverup by FBI Charged” was not bylined, Jim Buchanan admitted writing. was a central part of a report FBI Special Agent James J. O’Connor filed. Buchanan said in his FBI interrogations that he could not reveal his source but claimed it was a member of the DRE group. The DRE Secretary General Luis Fernandez Rocha denied knowledge of Oswald in Miami, saying he was only aware of DRE interaction with Oswald in New Orleans.
FBI Special Agent O’Connor’s report stated, “It was pointed out to Mr. Buchanan that efforts to obtain any evidence in support of his article through interviews of several leaders of the DRE had resulted in assertions by these leaders that the article was replete with falsehood. He reiterated that he wrote it as it was told to him.”30
Two people interviewed about spreading the Oswald-in-Miami stories were Nathaniel Weyl, author of Red Star Over Cuba and John Martino whose biography, I Was Castro’s Prisoner, was co-written by Weyl who later briefly assisted Pawley with his autobiography. Weyl “said he had no corroborative information concerning the alleged stay of Oswald in Miami, other than the news articles by Jim Buchanan and contact with Fernando Cabada described as a leader of UR.” Fernando Fernandez Cabada denied having any knowledge of Oswald’s activities. “Mr. Weyl said he had no information that Jack Ruby was a ‘dope pusher’ or was used by
the Communists, but he may have advanced such a theory in the course of conversation.” Weyl also said John Martino, who gives lectures at colleges about the evils of communism, had been the source “of various other pieces of information concerning Oswald.”
Regarding the claim that Oswald printed Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets in Miami, “Mr. Martino stated that whereas he believes only one percent of what Cubans tell him, he is confident” that the Oswald pamphlet story was true “because it came from his Cuban source whom he regards as reliable.” When asked to name the source, Martino balked repeatedly before finally admitting the Cuban wasn’t the original source.31
Buchanan also tried to walk back his own hyperbole by saying he had gotten it “third- hand” and felt “it would not be characteristic of his brother, Jerry, to be violent to another person, and so he did not fully believe such a fight had occurred.”
Jim Buchanan also “stated he had no personal knowledge of any phone calls made by Lee Harvey Oswald from Miami to the office of Cuban Intelligence in Havana, Cuba. He said he relied on Frank Fiorini of the International Anti-Communist Brigade for that information.” Fiorini said “Buchanan had misquoted him as he (Fiorini) had no information Oswald had ever been contacted by the Cuban Government or was ever in Miami.”
Fiorini objected in December 1963 to Buchanan’s “excessive” attacks on the FBI and CIA and labeled “‘President Kennedy as a communist.’” In his anti-Castro battle, “Fiorini stated he believes in utilizing three-fourths truth and one-fourth lie in order to obtain effective propaganda, but he regarded Buchanan as having gone far beyond this point in the propaganda which was being written for the International Anti-Communist Brigade.” Bold emphasis added by D.P. Cannon. Buchanan attacked his inquisitors, saying he felt the FBI wanted to clear “Oswald of any communist affiliation” and he considered the Warren Commission “a farce.”32
While the events in Dallas were unfolding, the FBI contacted JMWAVE to “determine veracity to include sources, of statement made by DRE leader Jose Lanusa Gobel [aka Jose Antonio Gonzalez-Lanuza Mena aka Tony Lanuza] to effect Fidel Castro had threatened lives U.S. leaders in event U.S. aggression against Cuba. Lanusa claimed possession this info in recent telecom with Paul Bethel, acting executive secretary Citizen Committee for Free Cuba in Washington, and attributed above threats to Fidel Castro during reception early Sept at Brazilian Embassy Hava.”
JMWAVE responded that it learned from Lanusa and Luis Fernandez that the DRE sources were actually old September 9th and 13th Miami Herald articles and that “DRE somewhat amateurishly attempted dodge local ODENVY [FBI] query order protect fact that their info stemmed from newspaper article.”33
Tony Lanuza, the DRE spokesperson, had “jarred Kennedy with their attack on a Havana hotel in August 1962 and irked him with the ‘missiles in the caves’ story in November of that year,” according to Jefferson Morley’s book on Winston Scott.34
Pawley, a decade later, would claim in his autobiography it was his network of exiles that “certified that whereas a few missiles were carried away, many were simply dismantled and removed to storage in caves.”35 The DRE “was receiving $51,000 a month according to an agency memo sent to the State Department in April 1963.
Another individual adding to the Oswald-Castro drumbeat was “Daniel James, Executive Secretary of the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba” on G Street NW in Washington, DC. James claimed he was in contact with Life photographer Andrew St. George on November 22, 1963 who informed him that Colombian newspaperman Jose Pardo Llada knew “of a plan of Fidel Castro to kill United States Ambassadors in various countries” and postulated that JFK would be assassinated “by someone of the lunatic fringe who had been influenced by the constant Cuba propaganda directed against the United States” by Castro.36
A week after the assassination, Leo Cherne, head of the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba, had a discussion with Emmons B. Brown in the CIA’s covert operations division. Cherne volunteered his assistance, noting that the International Rescue Committee was “heavily involved with Cuban exiles.” Brown passed on to the CIA Chief, Control Cover Staff highlights of the discussion with Cherne about using the International Rescue Committee “as (a) cover and (b) intelligence operations came up. Cherne said he thought the IRC could be used for these purposes and would welcome further discussion.” Cherne further “said the IRC had offices in Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, Hong Kong, New York; and contacts in South Vietnam, India, and Black Africa. He said the IRC was heavily involved with Cuban exiles.” In conclusion, Brown asked the Chief, “Would you be interested in pursuing this subject?”37
The FBI grew concerned with the spreading propaganda. “DRE has been most active answering press queries re Oswald etc due fact most news media have questioned DRE on their New Orleans TV debate with Oswald. Having obtained media attention DRE trying [to] capitalize on this by making dramatic statements which imply tie-in between Oswald and GOC [Government of Cuba]. WAVE has instructed DRE not [to] dramatize facts or attempt slant news but DRE continues pursue course of action which in their judgment best suited propagandize U.S. re Cuban issue. Hope ODENVY query may inhibit future DRE spokesmen from making slanted or dramatic statements.”38 The next day a cable was sent correcting the name to Jose Antonio Gonzalez-Lanuza Mena.39 Bold emphasis added by D.P. Cannon.
The DRE’s August 9, 1963 encounter with Lee Harvey Oswald on the streets of New Orleans occurred when he began to hand out Fair Play for Cuba literature which took the opposite stand from the anti-Castro Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba. The encounter turned the obscure Oswald into an instant celebrity as a living, breathing Marxist and Castro sympathizer despite the fact that the CIA did not treat him as a threat after he defected to the Soviet Union and later returned to America with a Soviet bride. By August 21st, Oswald was on the radio in New Orleans debating Cuban policy with Carlos Bringuier of the DRE and Ed Butler a conservative expert on the Americas.
When FBI Special Agent Warren C. De Brueys looked into Fair Play for Cuba one of the sources he turned to was Orlando Piedra, former “Chief of Cuban Bureau of Investigation in Batista Government”—one of the “responsible officials considered directly involved in torture and killing of Cuban citizens.” Moreover, “Piedra was in charge of all matters pertaining to gambling, rackets and contraband. In 1955 ... was also involved in business of Chinese contraband.” He “reportedly friendly with Rolando Masferrer Rojas”40 although Masferrer was not a Batista fan.
“Piedra reportedly invested $2,000,000 in the purchase of the Biltmore Terrace Hotel” in Miami along with Roberto Fernandez Miranda, brother-in-law of former Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, and Norman Rothman ... described as a hoodlum and gangster presently awaiting trial on two federal indictments.”” Fernandez was also a source on the FBI Fair Play for Cuba report along with Piedra; International Trade Mart Public Relations spokesperson Jesse Core; and Eduardo Guevara.41
In the same month as the assassination, Pawley’s TILT associate John Martino had his autobiographical book—I Was Castro’s Prisoner: An American Tells His Story— published. It was co-written by Nathaniel Weyl, who asserted “there is more to Marina than meets the eye ... and thinks Oswald’s mother is an old line Communist ... and that Jack Ruby was used by the Communists” according to a debriefing of Prisbeck (aka writer Hede Massing aka Walter James Kearns) who sent information about TILT to the FBI well after the fact.42
John Martino then wrote an article on “Cuba and the Kennedy Assassination” that was printed in Human Events in January 1964. In the article he revisited his days as a prisoner of Castro and how he learned from others there about Castro’s “irrational hatred of President Kennedy.” Martino also paints a picture of Oswald desperately trying to infiltrate anti-Castro Cuban groups including “an organization of Americans engaged in training Cubans in guerilla warfare, headed by Jerry Patrick” where being “a former Marine, Oswald would have been useful, but he failed to pass a security check and was turned down.” Those Cubans who were acquainted with Oswald “are not willing to join the press in dismissing him as a fanatic, a psychopath or a pathetic, maladjusted youth.” Lee Harvey “Oswald made similar approaches to the Cuban Revolutionary Student Directorate (DRE) and to JURE, another organization of Cuban freedom fighters, but was rejected.”
Martino also asserted that the conspiracy involving Castro and Oswald and who knows how many others went all the way to selecting “Dallas, a center of American conservative and nationalist movements” to throw the blame on the enemies of communism.43
A CIA memorandum—withheld in full until 2022—contained fascinating information about the family that had taken care of Lee’s widow, Marina Oswald. Ruth Paine, the Oswald’s former landlady, was the daughter of William Hyde who had been considered “for covert use by this Agency in Viet Nam in 1957 but was not used.” The FBI’s Papich had learned of this “through Mr. O’Neal, CI/SIG.” The security investigation of William “Hyde also contains a 1956 OSI report on Sylvia [Ludlow Hyde] Hoke” who was Ruth Hyde’s sister. William and his wife Carol were associates in the “late 1920s and later” of Talbot Bielefeldt “currently employed by this Agency in FDD”— the CIA’s Foreign Documents Division which translates foreign publications.44
Bielefeldt’s specialty in 1950s was Japanese although he, as Chief of FDD, was asked to report “on a priority basis” on Soviet Press reaction to the JFK assassination news.45 Coincidentally, Oswald learned to speak Russian in the 1950s while in Japan. Bielefeldt told the Warren Commission he only knew Ruth when she was a child.
In 1953, Bielefeldt had received Top Secret certification from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. His classmates were a CIA “Who’s Who” of future operatives and coup leaders: C. Tracy Barnes, E. Howard Hunt, Thomas W. Braden, Cord Meyer, Jr., Edwin M. Ashcraft III, John J. Bagnall and dozens of others.46
After Lee Harvey Oswald’s encounter with the DRE in New Orleans, Ruth Paine picked up Marina Oswald in New Orleans in August 1963 and drove her to stay at the Paine’s home in Irving, Texas. Ruth’s husband Michael Paine worked in research at his father-in-law’s Bell Helicopter. His mom, Ruth Forbes Paine Young—Mrs. William Arthur Young—was a close friend of Mary Bancroft, the wartime OSS mistress of Allen Dulles. Michael Paine’s mom had helped Cord Meyer, Jr. organize the World Federalists and the United Nation’s International Peace Academy prior to his involvement with Barnes, Hunt and Pawley in the CIA’s 1954 Arbenz coup. In the small world of espionage, another coincidence occurred. Cord Meyer’s neighbor, Priscilla Johnson, also was a World Federalist. She became the author of Marina and Lee, a biography of the Oswalds published in 1977 during Congress’s JFK assassination investigation.47 Some have suggested that Marina may have been threatened with deportation if she balked at the image of Lee that Priscilla painted.
Cord Meyer, Jr. had been accused by the FBI and Senator Joseph McCarthy of being a communist but was successfully defended at the highest level by CIA Director Allen Dulles. Meyer was then put in charge of the International Organizations Division, running Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty which broadcast anti-communist propaganda. He eventually headed the Covert Action Staff of the Directorate of Plans in 1962; Assistant Deputy Director of Plans under Thomas Karamessines in 1967; and Chief of Station in London in 1973.48
Within weeks of his DRE debate, Oswald headed to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City, where Winston Scott and David Phillips were running anti-Castro operations. Despite the CIA’s multiple cameras aimed at the embassies, no photo of Oswald entering the embassy surfaced to substantiate claims that he was trying to gain entrance to Cuba.49
In his 1963 “Fitness Review” of David Phillips, Winston Scott stated that Phillips oversees “the KUWOLF program for Mexico City Station” including the “activities of one operations officer, two career agents, four contract agents, and one stenographer” as well as acting as “liaison officer with ODACID [State Dept.] and OKFLOWAGE [USIA] on propaganda and political action matters.” Phillips “is the most outstanding Covert Action officer that this officer has ever worked with,” Scott effused.50
When John Whitten (aka John Scelso), the CIA’s “chief of covert operations for Mexico and Central America” learned that Oswald had been photographed in October at the Cuban consulate, he immediately began investigating and notified his superiors. CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms initially put Whitten in charge of gathering all CIA information on Oswald on November 23rd. Within weeks of Whitten’s zealous pursuit of the truth about Oswald’s Cuba- related activities, he learned that the FBI was not sharing information it had about Oswald. Nor did he hear from George Joannides who was the case officer for the DRE when its members had engaged Oswald in New Orleans.
On Christmas Eve, Whitten suggested to Helms and Angleton that more investigation was needed. Angleton wanted his Counterintelligence Staff to take control because he had a long relationship with the FBI, and Helms agreed, putting the kibosh on Whitten’s role. Oswald’s legend was now in the hands of the man whose career was built on paranoia about the Soviet Union yet appeared to have never questioned what Oswald was doing in the Soviet Union or with Fair Play for Cuba.51 Perhaps he already knew. From 1952 until 1973, the CIA was conducting a program, HTLINGUAL, that intercepted mail sent to the Soviet Union and China that would have picked up communications between Oswald and his Soviet or CIA contacts there but in 1998 it was revealed: “We destroyed all of the HTLINGUAL files under court order, and no record was made of what files existed.”52
George Joannides, the DRE case officer whom Dick Helms had sent to Miami “to rein in the group” some three months later “was promoted to be chief of psychological warfare operations at the agency’s Miami station.” Joannides replaced Ross Crozier (aka Arthur Viavada, Roger Fox, Harold Noemayr) who had been in intelligence in the China-Burma theater, active in Guatemala like Pawley, was fluent in Spanish like him, was approved for covert training in 1956 by Chief of Counterintelligence James Angleton, spied on Communist youth in Havana and got to know both Fidel Castro and Che Guevara under the guise of a public opinion poll staff member, was assigned to in Mexico City by Chief of Western Hemisphere Division J.C. King, and eventually oversaw Rocha, Salvat and other DRE members while at Zenith Electronics, the cover company for JMWAVE. But his control of them was impinged as he became an alcoholic during the failing struggle against Castro.53 Crozier “died in obscurity in 2000.”54
One of the long-running curiosities surrounding Oswald’s New Orleans activities relates to the Fair Play for Cuba literature he handed out the day he encountered the DRE—it was stamped with the address 544 Camp Street, even though Oswald had no office there. This same building was also a hub for anti-communist activities, raising the possibility that Oswald was working undercover to help gather names of people who were more loyal to Castro than the U.S. Such a possibility would be similar to the spying that the FBI conducted as part of its COINTEPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) that was underway from 1956 to 1971.
A Senate investigation of FBI activities found that during “the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the FBI intensified its program for placing pro-Cubans on the Security Index and established a special ‘Cuban Section’ of the Index.” Cuban aliens would be identified for inclusion if they displayed “(1) participation in organizations supporting the Castro regime, (2) participation in picket lines formed in support of the Cuban Government, (3) contacts with Cuban agents operating in this country on behalf of the Cuban Government, or (4) statements or activities on a subject's part establishing reasonable grounds to believe that his loyalty would lie with the Cuban Government in the event of armed conflict between the United States and Cuba.”
By the time of the Kennedy assassination “the Security Index contained the names of 10,519 individuals, of whom 1,967 were designated for the Detcom Priority Apprehension Program because ‘their training, violent tendencies and prominence in subversive activity represent the greatest threat in time of a national emergency.’”55
So the question must be asked: If a defector to Russia, who offered the Soviets secrets, was allowed to roam the streets of New Orleans handing out pro-Cuban literature, who was he working for that provided him immunity from being treated as a subversive?
At the time JFK was shot, Oswald worked at the Texas School Book Depository, where he had been hired by Superintendent Roy Truly on October 15 on the recommendation of Ruth Paine.56
The building had been owned for three decades by David Harold Byrd who in 1941, created the Civil Air Patrol in Texas. Coincidentally, Oswald in his mid-teen years, in 1955, joined the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol in which he would be photographed with David Ferrie who would become a center later speculation.
Byrd had founded Byrd Oil Corporation in 1944. It was eventually purchased by Mobil Oil. In 1952, he formed Three States Natural Gas which was sold to Dehli-Taylor Oil. In 1961, Byrd used his growing wealth to establish Texas Engineering and Manufacturing Company (TEMCO) which merged into Ling-Temco-Vaught (LTV) and become a major aerospace contractor.
Byrd’s multimillion-dollar wealth enabled him to be part of select group of oil barons, industrialists, media moguls, and construction leaders who met at Suite 8F of The Lamar Hotel in Houston to put their imprimatur on the future of the state and rising politicians such as Lyndon Baines Johnson who ascended to the presidency with the demise of JFK. Lyndon Johnson, Tommy “The Cork” Corcoran and Suite 8F Group founding members George and Herman Brown who are pictured in a photo in The Houston Review chuckling together as they walk.57
To preside over TEMCO, Byrd chose Robert McCulloch who had started Atlantic Aircraft Corporation which evolved into North American Aviation where McCulloch served as Factory Manager starting in 1941. At TEMCO, McCulloch’s team of managing officers all came from North American Aviation which had bought Pawley’s Cuban National Airlines in 1932.58
In the 1940s, when Pawley created CAMCO to supply aircraft to the Flying Tiger pilots defending China against the Japanese aerial attack, he offered to build North American Aviation planes in China to save the Chinese government money. CAMCO’s creation was facilitated through funding expedited by the lobbying efforts of Tommy “The Cork” Corcoran and the financial wizardry of Jesse H. Jones, a successful investor in both lumber and the Houston Chronicle, who served under Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Jones, like Byrd, was a member of the Suite 8F Group.
When JFK was shot, David Harold Byrd was nowhere near his Texas School Book Depository nor his office a mile up Elm Street in the Tower Petroleum Building (which housed the FBI in the early 1940s); he was in Africa on a hunting safari with General James Doolittle who headed the 1954 CIA review committee in which William Pawley had served along with John McCloy's law partner, Morris Hadley, when the committee recommended that the U.S. become “more ruthless than the enemy.” The Pawley-Doolittle relationship dated back decades and Doolittle even attended Pawley's swearing in as Ambassador to Peru by President Truman. Shortly after his return to Texas to the presidency, Byrd’s LTV received a major defense contract for attack aircraft under the new President Johnson administration.59 Byrd eventually removed the 6th floor window frame where Oswald allegedly shot from—and kept the window in his home! Byrd coincidentally was a Texas oil geologist as was Oswald's Dallas friend, George DeMohrenschildt.60
Where was Pawley when he heard the news from Dallas on November 22nd? How did he react? If it was revealed by Pawley family to Anthony Carrozza it didn’t make it to the pages of his comprehensive 405-page Pawley biography. Nor to Pawley’s earlier autobiography which includes just one sentence: “On November 22, 1963, came the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as his motorcade moved along a street in Dallas, Texas.”
The assassination was a major embarrassment to Dallas and its Mayor, Earle Cabell, whose dairy-industry family—descendants of Pocahontas—had been part of the Dallas government and law enforcement for nearly a century. Earle’s father, Ben, and grandfather, William, were earlier mayors. What’s more, Earle’s brother, Air Force General Charles Cabell, was the former Deputy Director of the CIA involved in covert activities since the days of the Arbenz coup who failed to convince President Kennedy that air cover was crucial to the success of the Cuban-exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs and was forced to resign the CIA following the failure.61 Between DRE’s anti-Castro propagandists and the CIA/JFK secret operations obfuscation was ready to envelope Dealey Plaza and those who may have crossed paths there.
FOOTNOTES:
* Lyric from Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” written by Steven Stills, released 1967.
1 A Chronology from The New York Times: October 4 and 9, 1963. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, Historical Resources. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/New+York+Times+Chronology/1963/O ctober.htm
2 A Chronology from The New York Times: October 10, 1963. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, Historical Resources, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/New+York+Times+Chronology/1963/O ctober.htm
3 A Chronology from The New York Times: October 4 and 9, 1963. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, Historical Resources, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/New+York+Times+Chronology/1963/O ctober.htm
4 H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (New York: Harper Perennial, 1997). Page 38-40.
5 Miami Herald, October 14, 1963. Page 4.
6 NARA 104-10100-10390 ~ 11/8/1963 Cable “Pych Guidance Vietnam.” To: Multiple Addressees. From: CIA Director. Signed C/AF/CA John Unumb (in draft), C/WE/INT Thomas F. Thiele (in draft), WH/CA/Prop Wm. M. Kent (in draft), Robert J. Myers ACFE, releasing officer.
1. Recommended psych guidance Vietnam. Deny ODYOKE role. New regime states no foreign involvement. ODYOKE position on coup is that it initiated and realized by Vietnamese themselves.
2. Former GVN despotic and out of touch people. Diem Gov’t refused make even basic concessions and reforms during recent crisis, Ngo Dinh Nhu believe secretly negotiating with DRV, Junior and Senior officers and population generally disenchanted and military realized losing war against Viet cong with Diem Gov’t.
3. Circumstances death Diem and Nhu uncertain. This obviously touchy issue and emphasis should be placed following factors. Death never intended by military leadership only removal from power. Revolutionary committee appealed for and gave every possible opportunity surrender throughout period midday 1 Nov thru Morning 3 Nov. Both men guaranteed safe conduct to country their choice on condition the surrender. Cause their death considered accidental and occurred during attempt to escape after capture. Diem and Nhu refused capitulate despite fact they aware could save innocent lives by so doing.
4. Stress new regime platform primarily to fight communism, join free world ranks. Honor all agreements and pacts and respect foreign property. New regime promises freedom all sects and religions, invites reps all social classes participate in new govt. Military council disclaims prior fraudulent elections and desires functioning all no communist political parties, popularly elected govt and freedom of press and expression ASAP. Generals declared no political ambitions among military and established provisional political gov’t immediately. Welcomed constructive criticism, released non-communist political detainees, forbade burning and looting and unlawful arrests, and received immediate countrywide support.
7 “The Truth About Vietnam As Seen by Clare Booth [sic] Luce,” The News and Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) November 3, 1963. Pages 1 & 2.
Now, the American electorate is far from 100 per cent for President Kennedy. Indeed, he got just a fraction less than 50 per cent of the vote in 1960 and there were even rumors he didn't get that. Nor is the press entirely for him. In fact, a lot of it is against him—and quite a lot of Americans happen to agree with Madame Nhu, who thinks he is lulling the USA into a false sense of security about the Communists.
However, this is America and we don’t talk about “coups” and overthrowing elected governments. We believe in a democracy. You should wait for elections. But in Vietnam it’s different.
8 “Otepka’s Dismissal Brings Questions.” By David Lawrence. The Evening Independent (Massillon, Ohio) November 12, 1963.
9 “Quick OK of Otepka Foreseen.” The Times-Standard, March 20, 1969. Page 10.
10 NARA 1993.07.21.16:35:00:000280. October 31, 1960. Ricciardelli, Libero – OS/SAG Security Files for HSCA. Subject: American Defectors. From: M. D. Stevens. To: Chief, Security Research Staff.
NARA 104-10128-10008 ~ 10/31/1960 Memorandum. For: Chief Security Research Staff. “Subject: American Defectors.” From: M.D. Stevens.
VIII. Nicholas Petrulli, HSCA Report, Volume XII. Pages 445 and 446.
11 11/23/1963 U.S. Naval Counterintelligence Memorandum for the Record “Subj. Oswald, Lee Harvey, Ex-PFC, USMCR, 1653230 (U).” Signed by: D.R. Paschal. Pre-11/22/63 ONI Files on Lee Harvey Oswald Received by Paul Hoch from NARA in 1967. Page 7 of 156. Mary Ferrell Foundation website.
12 Section: XI. Robert Webster HSCA Report, Volume XII. Pages 449-451.
13 NARA 104-10182-10065 ~ 4/16/1963 Memorandum For: Chief SR/6 “Debriefing of Robert Edward Webster (201-265472).” Pages1-17. Released in April 2023.4/16/1963.
14 FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 132. Page 22 of 197. Mary Ferrell Foundation website.
15 “Tale of Two Defectors; One was thoroughly debriefed by the CIA. The other was accused of killing JFK.” By
Chad Nagle. JFK Facts (substack), May 15, 2023.
>> This provides much deeper detail about the CIA investigation of Webster.
“Is There Really Nothing New in the JFK Files? Only if you avert your eyes from CIA lies in the case of the murdered president.” By Jefferson Morley, JFK Facts (substack) May 17, 2023.
16 “Six weeks before Dallas, the man who would be accused of killing JFK came to the attention of six top operations officers.” Jefferson Morley. JFK Facts (substack), October 2, 2022.
17 “Behind the CIA’s ‘Benign Cover-Up. What Langley's history of lies about JFK's assassination tells us today” By Jefferson Morley, JFK Facts (substack) June 5, 2023.
>> FBI 11/22/1963 Memorandum “Review of Government Agency Records.” Interview of Birch D. O’Neal, CIA, by SA Courtland J. Jones.
18 Jefferson Morley, Scorpions’ Dance: The President, The Spymaster, and Watergate (New York: Sant Martin’s Press, 2022). Page 65.
19 “Listening Post Keeps Tuned For News of Change in Cuba,” The Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 4, 1963. Page 18.
The committee publishes a semimonthly periodical, “Free Cuba News,” with a circulation of over 6,000, and on request also supplies special information. Secretary Daniel James insisted the committee operates neither in "cooperation nor competition" with the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency in analyzing the Cuban situation ...
Admiral Arleigh A. Burke (ret.), former Chief of Naval Operations...said recently that greater financial support was necessary to help the committee "mobilize American opinion in support of measures needed to defeat communism at our doorsteps."...
"The Cuban government is waging a determined effort to wipe out the labor unions," he [Paul Bethel, the committee's Cuban affairs specialist] said.
Some of the latest internal developments, reported in the committee's news were:
—The off-shore Isle of Pines is one of 10 areas being transformed into a large-scale training camp for communist revolutionaries who are being smuggled into Central and South America.
—There has been a gradual departure of Russian personnel and troops from the island, but this has been offset by an increase in communists from other Soviet bloc nations and Red China ...
20 “Cuban Revolutionary Council: A Concise History.” Submitted by Gaeton Fonzi, Investigator, and Elizabeth J. Palmer, Researcher. House Select Committee on Assassinations Volume X: Anti-Castro Activists and Organizations, Section IV. Page 58.
Paul D. Bethel, The Losers, New Rochelle, NY: (Arlington House, 1969). Pages 398-99.
21 NARA 104-10075-10138 ~ 11/21/1963 JMWAVE Cable “Requesting Six Months Extension.” To: Director. From: JMWAVE. Subjects: JMWAVE Cable Requirements Training.
22 NARA 104-10075-10133. November 21, 1963. Cable Message. To: Director. From: JMWAVE.
A. KUJUMP Intel. Nothing to report.1. Intelligence Highlights
B. WAVE Intel.
- AMDOROTHY-1 reports plans exchange imprisoned Cubans in Dominican Republic for families in Cuba WHD plan immigrate to United States.
- ...
- AMDOROTHY-1 reports on FRD activities
- AMDOROTHY-1 reports Juan Bosch planning retire from politics and move Miami.
- Bosch involved in several business ventures including offer made by motion picture firm
- to film his book “La Vida de David”
- ...Maria Elena...
- UFG 4096 (CABLE) AMBANTY-1 reports 7 Nov 400 Cuban students receiving instruction from Soviets at Cuatro Caminos de Falcon, Habana Province.
- UFG-4096 (CABLE) AMID-1 reports on 8 Nov Soviets leaving Cuba, top chiefs still there. Soviets spread rumors they will leave Cuba by end Nov. Equipment rumored shipped through Preston Oriente Province. In Oct Soviets transferred rockets from Nolguin to La Antia and La Laguna de Godines.
- UFG-4091 (CABLE) AMCUT-1 reports special weapons students assigned to missile bases; radar capabilities and artillery at disposal of Cuban forces.
C. KOLA and KUTUBE/D INothing to report.B. Press and audio
- Miami Herald Nov Reported:
a. There speculation that WU-2 which crashed in Gulf of Mexico 20 Nov could have glided that far if it developed mechanical trouble or was attacked over Cuba.
b. Ronald O’Farrill Jr. IAPA President, told IAPA sessions USSR has poured massive economic and military aid into Cuba, and this aid has saved Castro regime from collapse ...
23 House Select Committee on Assassinations Final Report, Section 3. Page 163 of 762. Mary Ferrell Foundation website: MaryFerrell.org.
24 The Dallas Morning News, November 22, 1963.
25 FBI 44-24016 Ruby HQ File, Section 3. Page 220 of 234.
>> Curtis La Verne Craford (aka Crafard aka Larry Curtis La Verne Craford) worked for Ruby as a handyman, recordkeeper and bar tender at the Carousel Club—where he also slept—testified he left for Michigan the day before Ruby assassinated Oswald after he, Ruby and George Senator photographed an “Impeach Earl Warren” billboard at Ruby’s urging.
26 NARA 104-10308-10308 ~ 3/2/1964 CIA Classified Message. To: Director. From: (Redacted). Page 4 of 42.
>> Castro himself had desired to “negotiate détente with us” fearing Lyndon Johnson’s wild west roots. In retaliation for an exile attack on a fishing boat, Castro chose the less hostile action of “cutting Guantanamo [Naval Base] water” over “firing at ‘U-2’ flights, which Cubans apparently able to track.”)
27 Jefferson Morley, Scorpions’ Dance: The President, The Spymaster, and Watergate (New York: Sant Martin’s Press, 2022). Page 55.
28 Commission Document 1085 - FBI Letter from Director of 11 Jun 1964 with Attached Memoranda and Reports ~ 5/28/1964 FBI Memo “Re: Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantial (DRE) (Revolutionary Student Directorate) (Cuban Student Directorate).” Mary Ferrell Foundation Pages 68-70 of 226.
29 “James Buchanan, 77, a Miami Herald Reporter,” Baltimore Sun, June 29, 1994.
30 NARA 1993.06.09.16:16:46:000000 “Investigation Of Claim By James C. Buchanan That His Brother Jerry Had...” May 11, 1964.
31 Warren Commission Document 812 - FBI O'Connor Report of 04 Apr 1964 re: OSWALD-RUSSIA-MIAMI
32 NARA 1993.06.09.16:16:46:000000 “Investigation Of Claim By James C. Buchanan That His Brother Jerry Had...” May 11, 1964.
33 NARA 104-10079-10050 ~ 11/24/1963 FBI Contacted JMWAVE “Re Statement Made by DRE Leader Jose Lanusa Gobel to Effect Castro Had Threatened Lives U.S. Leaders In Event U.S. Aggression Against Cuba.” To: Director, CIA. From: JMWAVE. Subjects: FBI; Threat; Fidel Castro; Gobel, Jose, L.
34 Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2008).
DRE / AMSPELL was receiving $51,000 a month according to an agency memo sent to the State Department in April 1963. George Joannides, the case officer whom Dick Helms had sent to Miami to rein in the group ... July 31, 1963 was promoted to be chief of psychological warfare operations at the agency’s Miami station.
35 Pawley, Russia is Winning. Chapter 23.
36 FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section 24 ~ 12/4/1963 FBI Memorandum “Re: Fidel Castro Ruz – Internal Security – Cuba.” Page 186 of 256.
>> AMCLANG may have been St. George’s cryptonym, according to the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
37 12/3/1963 Memorandum “Subject: International Rescue Committee (IRC).” To: Chief, Control Cover Staff. Attention: Mr. Glen Moorhouse. From: Emmons B. Brown, Deputy Chief (Operations) Covert Action Staff.
1. I had a talk with Mr. Leo Cherne, Chairman of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), last week
2. Among other things the subject of use of the IRC as (a) cover and (b) intelligence operations came up. Cherne said he thought the IRC could be used for these purposes and would welcome further discussion.
3. He said the IRC had offices in Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, Hong Kong, New York; and contacts in South Vietnam, India, and Black Africa. He said the IRC was heavily involved with Cuban exiles.
4. Would you be interested in pursuing this subject?
Andrew F. Smith, Rescuing the World: The Life and Times of Leo Cherne (State University of New York Press, 2004).
>> Foreword by Henry Kissinger.
James T. Fisher, Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927-1961 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997).
>> An excellent book on Cherne’s earlier activities with General Lansdale and the CIA. On May 6, 1955 Carl Spaatz, William Donovan and Leo Cherne were involved in Operation Brotherhood which had Philippine origins and eventually spread to Vietnam.
Also see Carl Spaatz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1891, June 28: Born, Boyertown, Pa.
1914: B.S., United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. Commissioned second lieutenant, United States Army1915-1916: Student, Aviation School, San Diego, Calif.1916: Assigned to First Aero Squadron, the aviation unit of General John J. Pershing's expedition in Mexico1917: Married Ruth Harrison1917-1918: American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I; commanding officer of American aviation training center at Issoudun; flew combat missions with the Thirteenth Aero Squadron, Second Pursuit Group1920-1933: Command positions in the Army Air Forces1925: Air Service Tactical School1929: Commanded the "Question Mark" flight, crewed by Ira C. Eaker, Elwood R. Quesada, and Harry A Halverson, which set endurance records for completing over 150 hours of continuous flight by refueling in mid-air1933-1935: Chief, Training and Operations Division, Office of the Chief of Air Corps1936: Command and General Staff School1940: Chief, Plans Division, Army Air Force Headquarters; Chief, Materiel Division, Army Air Force Headquarters; Assistant Military Attaché (Air) in London, England, as official observer during the Battle of Britain1941: Chief of Air Staff1942: Commander, Air Force Combat Command; Commander, Eighth Air ForceCommander, Air Force, North African Theater of Operations, United States Army1943: Commander, Northwest African Air Force, Italy1944: Commander in chief, Strategic Air Forces, Europe1945: Commander in chief, Strategic Air Forces, Japan1946: Commanding general, Army Air Forces1947: First chief of staff, United States Air Force1948: Retired from the United States Air Force1948-1961: Military affairs columnist, Newsweek1974, July 14: Died, Washington, D.C.
38 NARA 104-10079-10050 ~ 11/24/1963 FBI Contacted JMWAVE “Re Statement Made by DRE Leader Jose
Lanusa Gobel to Effect Castro Had Threatened Lives Us Leaders In Event Us Aggression Against Cuba.” To:
Director, CIA. From: JMWAVE. Subjects: FBI; Threat; Fidel Castro; Gobel, Jose, L.
1. FYI Local ODENVY [FBI] contacted WAVE 23 to advise they received teletype their HQs requesting local office determine veracity, to include sources, of statement made by DRE leader Jose Lanusa Gobel to effect Fidel Castro had threatened lives U.S. leaders in event U.S. aggression against Cuba. Lanusa claimed possession this info in recent telecom with Paul Bethel, acting executive secretary Citizen Committee for Free Cuba in Washington, and attributed above threats to Fidel Castro during reception early Sept at Brazilian Embassy Hava.
2. ... WAVE checked with Lanusa and Luis Fernandez and determined foll:
A. DRE sources for above info were articles which appeared Miami Herald and Voice of Cuba (Infores Sobre Cuba) 9 and 13 Sept, respectively. It later determined Voice of Cuba had taken its info from Miami Herald article.
B. DRE somewhat amateurishly attempted dodge local ODENVY query order protect fact that their info stemmed from newspaper article.
3. WAVE passed info para 2A above to local ODENVY and it appeared satisfy their query.
4. DRE has been most active answering press queries re Oswald etc due fact most news media have questioned DRE on their New Orleans TV debate with Oswald. Having obtained media attention DRE trying capitalize on this by making dramatic statements which imply tie-in between Oswald and GOC [Government of Cuba]. WAVE has instructed DRE not dramatize facts or attempt slant news but DRE continues pursue course of action which in their judgment best suited propagandize U.S. re Cuban issue. Hope ODENVY query may inhibit future DRE spokesmen from making slanted or dramatic statements.
39 NARA 104-10300-10234 ~ 11/25/1963 Cable “Amending Name—Should Read Jose Antonio Gonzalez-Lanuza.” To: Director. From: JMWAVE.
40 NARA 124-10188-10068 ~ 10/25/1963 FBI Report. “Fair Play for Cuba Committee—New Orleans Division,” Made by: SA Warren c. De Brueys. Released 11/14/2017. (The coversheet does not reflect what is included in the file. However, see pages 4 of 5).
41 NARA 124-10280-10171 ~ No Title. To: Director, FBI. From: FBI Errion, Thomas H. Subjects: NRO, Assoc, B/F Int, Gambling Act. Source: Assassination Archives Research Center.
42 NARA 124-90033-10087 ~ 3/3/1964 FBI Memorandum “Foreign Political Matters—Cuba; IS—Cuba,” To: D.J. Brennan. From: S.J. Papich. To: File. From: Chief, Research Branch/OS/SRS. Signed by: Bruce L. Solie.
NARA 104-10121-10377 ~ 2/12/1964 “Debriefing of PRISBECK 6 or 7 February 1964.” From: Helene Finan.
>> Prisbeck received the impression that Weyls have disassociated themselves from the Birchites” and no longer see
Wollman, the John Birch Society’s representative in Palm Beach.
43 “Cuba and the Kennedy.” By John Martino. Assassination Human Events, January 1964.
The Cubans in the South Florida area have had dealings with Oswald in the past and they are not willing to join the press in dismissing him as a fanatic, a psychopath or a pathetic, maladjusted youth. When he was in Miami, Oswald attempted to join an organization of Americans engaged in training Cubans in guerrilla warfare, headed by Jerry Patrick. As a former Marine, Oswald would have been useful, but he failed to pass a security check and was turned down. Oswald made similar approaches to the Cuban Revolutionary Student Directorate (DRE) and to JURE, another organization of Cuban freedom fighters, but was rejected.
44 NARA 104-10051-10096 ~ 12/5/1963 Memorandum “Subject: Paine, Ruth nee: Hyde aka: Mrs. Michael Paine.”
45 “Lee H. Oswald And Ruth Hyde Paine: The Big Picture.” By Linda Minor. Quixoticjoust.blogspot.com
46 NARA 104-10120-10079 ~ 12/4/1953 “Certification of TS Clearance for Attendance at Defense School Lectures.” To: Director of Training. From: C.V. Broadley.
47 “Arthur Young and Ruth Forbes Paine Young—The Crux of the Matter by William Kelly.” COPA: The Paines, Fair Play, Issue #13, November-December 1996. Page 55 of 154.
48 “Key CIA Figure Cord Meyer Dies.” By Graeme Zielinski. The Washington Post, March 15, 2001.
Cord Meyer, Facing Reality: From World Federation to the Central Intelligence Agency (Harper & Row 1980).
49 Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (Lawrence, Kansas:
University Press of Kansas, 2008). Pages 131, 170, 171, 172, and 199.
>> Winston Scott was Chief of the CIA’s Mexico City station from 1956 to 1969.
50 NARA 104-10194-10030 ~ 5/16/1963 CIA Fitness Report “David A. Phillips.” From Winston M. Scott, Chief of Station
51 “The Good Spy.” By Jefferson Morley, Washington Monthly, December 1, 2003.
52 NARA 104-10331-10186 ~ 8/20/1998 Memorandum For: Chief, JFK Declassification Project/HRP/OIM/DA. “(U) Status of Outstanding JFK Issues.” From: Fredrick C. Wickham, Jr., Chief, Information Management Staff, External Support Group.
53 NARA 104-10215-10214 ~ Collected Documents: “Crozier, Ross, 201-168881.”
>> Crozier’s career covered projects in Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala (PBSUCCESS), Mexico (LIEDGE) and Cuba (AMPHODARCH) before joining the JMWAVE staff in Miami. In addition to Spanish fluency, he had skills as a photographer, athlete, and a pistol expert. When he was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, investigator Gaeton Fonzi gave him the cover name Ron Cross, but David Philipps exposed his real identity and said he was an alcoholic who could not be believed. Crozier had stated that Philipps was aka Maurice Bishop.
>> Photos of Castro’s rebels in the Sierra Maestra appeared in The New York Times, April 8, 1958, and carry the photo credit of his true name Ross L. Crozier.
55 Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book III, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence activities United States Senate April 23 (under authority of the order of April 14), 1976. Pages 375-376.
At the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the FBI intensified its program for placing pro-Cubans on the Security Index and established a special "Cuban Section" of the Index. Among the activities to be considered in placing Cuban aliens on the Index included:
(1) participation in organizations supporting the Castro regime, (2) participation in picket lines formed in support of the Cuban Government, (3) contacts with Cuban agents operating in this country on behalf of the Cuban Government, or (4) statements or activities on a subject's part establishing reasonable grounds to believe that his loyalty would lie with the Cuban Government in the event of armed conflict between the United States and Cuba.
... In late 1963 the Security Index contained the names of 10,519 individuals, of whom 1,967 were designated for the Detcom Priority Apprehension Program because "their training, violent tendencies and prominence in subversive activity represent the greatest threat in time of a national emergency ..."
“JFK files: CIA spy in Cuba ‘befriended’ Castro, Che; played key role amid nuclear-war fears.” By Ed Brackett. USA Today, December 17, 2019.
54 “JFK files: CIA spy in Cuba ‘befriended’ Castro, Che; played key role amid nuclear-war fears.” By Ed Brackett, USA Today, November 21, 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/11/21/jfk-spy-cuba-new-york-times- crozier/2425360001/
56 3/24/1964 Roy Truly testimony. Warren Commission Hearings, Volume III, ID: Page. 213.
57 “8F and Many More: Business and Civic Leadership in Modern Houston.” By Joseph Pratt. The Houston Review,
Volume 1, no. 2, page 32
>> Photo courtesy of Brown & Root.
58 Roger Stone and Mike Colapietro, The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013). Pages 153-4, 176, 186 & 211.
“8F and Many More: Business and Civic Leadership in Modern Houston” by Joseph Pratt, The Houston Review, Volume 1, no. 2. Page 2 https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/8F-HH-1.2-optimized.pdf
59 “8F and Many More: Business and Civic Leadership in Modern Houston.” By Joseph Pratt. The Houston Review, Volume 1, no. 2. Page 32.
“Billionaire Wedding Luau: Texas billionaire marries son’s mother-in-law, Susan Krohn, at lavish New Year’s luau in Hawaii.” By Shelby Hodge. Austin. Culture Map website. January 6, 2015.
“The Daily Post: Billionaire Fund Manager Fayez Sarofim Weds Son’s Mother-in-Law.” By John Nova Lomax. Texas Monthly, January 7/2015.
>> Brown’s adopted daughter, Louisa Stude, married Fayed Sarofim who became an extraordinarily successful money manager in Houston and then had three children with a mistress before getting divorced from Brown’s daughter. He married his son’s mother-in-law in his multimillion-dollar estate in Hawaii once owned by Clare Boothe Luce. Stude died climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
Can’t Buy Me Love.” By Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly October 2000.
Anthony Carrozza, William D. Pawley: The Extraordinary Life of the Adventurer, Entrepreneur, and Diplomat Who Cofounded The Flying Tigers. Page 125.
>> In addition, General James H. Doolittle, those attending William Pawley's swearing ceremony as Ambassador in June 1945 were:
- Mao Pang-chu (Chiang Kai-shek's lead figure on establishing the American Volunteer Group/Flying/Tigers).
- U.S. Navy aviator Captain Bruce Leighton (Vice President of Pawley's Intercontinent Corporation and its subsidiary the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Co. (CAMCO) joint venture with the Chinese Government/Curtiss-Wright/Douglas Aircraft).
- U.S. Marine General Alexander Vandergrift (Medal of Honor winner for his leadership in battling the Japanese in the Solomon Islands).
- U.S. Air Force Major General Pete Quesada (aka Elwood R. Quesda, a pioneer in air-to-air refueling in 1929, who went on to head the Tactical Air Command, then served as head of the Federal Aviation Agency during the Bay of Pigs Invasion planning. According the Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation Volume III, page 94, Quesada and the CIA's Tracy Barnes met to expedite the setup of radio transmitters on Swan Island to support the anti-Castro propaganda under David Phillips. Later, Quesada briefly owned the Washington Senators baseball team.).
- Lt. General H.S. George.
60 Jefferson Morley’s comment on Harold Byrd’s possession of the Texas School Book Depository 6th Floor Window Frame. Minute 34:50 of “Wikipedia’s Lee Harvey Oswald Problem.” JFK Facts Podcast, April 20, 2023.
"NEWS: AARC Seeking Documents relating to D.H. Byrd, Werner von Alvensleben, Jr. and the Doolittle Report." Assassination Archives. https://aarclibrary.org/news-aarc-seeking-documents-relating-to-d-h-byrd-werner-von-alvensleben-jr-and-the-doolittle-report/
On July 4 2020 [the Assassination Archives] AARC and Mr. [James] Lesar sent a FOIA request to the CIA seeking documents relating to David Harold Byrd, Werner von Alvensleben Jr.and the Doolittle Report. Letter from Daniel S. Alcorn Esq. to CIA FOIARequest (July 4, 2020) (attached as Exhibit 1). Specifically AARC requested:
1. Search for and release all records or information in any format related toDavid Harold Byrd (deceased) of Dallas Texas. Mr. Byrd died onSeptember 14 1986 (see attached obituary from the Dallas Times-Herald).Mr. Byrd owned the Texas School Book Depository Building at the time ofthe assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and reportedly removed the“sniper’s window” from the building after the assassination and displayed it in his mansion.
Mr. Byrd was an owner and financier of government contracting companies including Texas Engineering ManufacturingCompany (TEMCO) E-Systems and Ling-TEMCO-Vaught (LTV).E-Systems was well known as a CIA contractor so much so that in 1975CIA solicited E-Systems to purchase its proprietary airline Air America.David Harold Byrd was also active in the oil business and varied otherbusiness enterprises. David Harold Byrd co-founded the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) in 1941 and served in command capacities in CAP until the early1960’s. Civil Air Patrol is the official auxilary of the US Air Force.
In the1950’s Mr. Byrd served with Cord Meyer Sr. on the national executive board of CAP (Cord Meyer, Jr. was a ranking CIA executive).
2. Search for and release all records and information in any format related toWerner von Alvensleben Jr. (died 1998) of Mozambique (formerly Portuguese East Africa). Mr. Alvensleben owned and operated the big game hunting company named Safarilandia in Portuguese East Africa later Mozambique.
According to released Office of Strategic Services (OSS) records, Mr. Alvensleben served as a valued double agent for OSS during World War II in Portuguese East Africa. OSS records state that Mr.Alvensleben was a member of the Bavarian Military Police in 1933 headed by Heinrich Himmler (the Bavarian Military Police became the Nazi SS, according to OSS records). In 1933 Mr. Alvensleben was sent to Austria to participate in the assassination of an Austrian official. Mr. Alvensleben was arrested by the Austrians and imprisoned for this activity. According to reports in the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Alvensleben was in Dallas Texas as a guest of David Harold Byrd in late 1963. Further David Harold Byrd was reported to be present at Mr. Alvensleben’s Safarilandia on November 22, 1963, the day of President Kennedy’s murder.
Due to Mr.Alvensleben’s service as a valued double agent for OSS in World War II it is likely that Mr. Alvensleben served as an asset of the CIA after the war or had contact with the CIA.
3. Search for and release all records and information in any format related tothe Doolittle Report of 1954 and its appendices A-D. The Doolittle Report was the result of a commission established by President Eisenhower to study the activities of the CIA and headed by General James Doolittle. TheDoolittle Report called for more aggressive CIA covert activities that had previously been believed to be repugnant and contrary to American values. Requesters seek full release of the requested materials. As shown in the attached obituary of David Harold Byrd, General Doolittle and Mr. Byrd were substantial friends who shared an interest in aviation from the early years. Mr. Byrd and General Doolittle were Safari hunting partners on several occasions.
61 “Reminiscences of Judge P.A. Martin.” [No longer accessible online.]
>> Ben Cabell previously was Mayor of Dallas and sheriff of Dallas County for several terms.
Jack D. Welsh, Medical Histories of Confederate Generals, (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1995). Page 33.
Alexander Brown, The Cabells and Their Kin: A Memorial Volume of History, Biography, and Genealogy (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1895).
“A Biography of Brigadier General, William Lewis Cabell, C.S.A.” Sons of Confederate Veterans.
“Old Tige.” http://www.texas-scv.org/camps/cabellBio.html
Photo Caption: William L. Cabell. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
>> “William L. Cabell, a Confederate brigadier general who commanded troops in the 1864 Red River Campaign and later served as the mayor of Dallas, Texas. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.”
“Earle Cabell.” Who’s Who in the South & Southwest 1956.
Labels: Angleton, Bethel, Byrd, Cabell, CIA, Dallas, DRE, Eastland, Goldwater, Helms, JFK, Joannides, Kennedy assassination, Knoll, Lanuza, Luce, Oswald, Salvat, Vietnam, William Pawley
posted by David Price Cannon @ 2:09 PM
<< Home