John Simkin Posted November 18, 2008 Share Posted November 18, 2008 In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world." Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. This included James Truitt, Russell Wiggins, Phil Geyelin, John Hayes and Alan Barth. Others like Stewart Alsop, Joseph Alsop and James Reston, were recruited from within the Georgetown Set. According to Deborah Davis (Katharine the Great): "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles." (1) Wisner was also interested in influencing Hollywood. As Hugh Wilford points out in The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) “Fortunately for the CIA, two factors predisposed the major Hollywood studios that dominated the industry to take a "responsible" position in the cultural Cold War. One was a strong tendency toward self-censorship, the result of many years' experience avoiding the commercially disastrous effects of giving offense to either domestic pressure groups like the American Legion or foreign audiences. The other was the fact that the men who ran the studios were intensely patriotic and anticommunist - they saw it as their duty to help their government defeat the Soviet threat. (2) Wisner was helped by the fact that the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, was carrying out an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. The HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood. These people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses". During their interviews they named nineteen people who they accused of holding left-wing views. One of those named, Bertolt Brecht, a playwright, gave evidence and then left for East Germany. Ten others: Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz,, Dalton Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie refused to answer any questions and were sent to prison and were blacklisted from the industry. The CIA and FBI also provided right-wing television producer, Vincent Harnett, with information about left-wing figures in the industry. In June 1950 Harnett published Red Channels, a pamphlet listing the names of 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive organisations before the Second World War but had not so far been blacklisted. Lee J. Cobb was one of those actors who was originally blacklisted but eventually cooperated with the HUAC: “When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can be terrifying. The blacklist is just the opening gambit - being deprived of work. Your passport is confiscated. That's minor. But not being able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. In 1953 the HCUA did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn't borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I'd do it. I had to be employable again.” According to Frances Stonor Saunders, the author of Who Paid the Piper (2000), Wisner recruited several important figures for Operation Mockingbird. This included former OSS filmmaker John Ford and studio bosses Cecil B. DeMille (Paramount Pictures) and Darryl Zanack (Twentieth Century-Fox). Saunders calls this group the “Hollywood consortium” (3). Another important figure in this group was Howard Hughes, the boss of RKO Pictures. As Charles Higham points out in “Howard Hughes: The Secret Life” (2004), this was also good for business: “Hughes’s crusade against Communism” was “exacerbated by his desire to have Hughes Aircraft profit from the Korean and any future anti-Soviet wars”. For example, in June 1950, General Ira Eaker “signed an across-the-board agreement giving Hughes a monopoly in interceptors for the U.S. Air Force… despite the fact that it was in breach of the Sherman anti-monopolies act… By the end of 1950, the war had made Hughes even richer than before.” (4) Another important figure in this conspiracy was Charles Douglas Jackson. He had joined the OSS in 1943 and the following year he was appointed as Deputy Chief at the Psychological Warfare Division, SHAEF. After the war, he became Managing Director of Time-Life International. When it became clear that Dwight Eisenhower stood a good chance of becoming president, the CIA arranged for Jackson to join his campaign. This involved Jackson writing speeches for Eisenhower. Jackson was rewarded in February 1953 by being appointed as Special Assistant to the President. This included the role of Eisenhower's liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon. According to the Eisenhower Library files in Abilene, Kansas, Jackson's "area responsibility was loosely defined as international affairs, cold war planning, and psychological warfare. His main function was the coordination of activities aimed at interpreting world situations to the best advantage of the United States and her allies and exploiting incidents which reflected negatively on the Soviet Union, Communist China and other enemies in the Cold War." (5) Jackson was also involved in Operation Mockingbird. This was revealed after the death of Jackson. On December 15, 1971, Mrs. C.D. Jackson gave her husband’s papers to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. This included details that Jackson was in contact with a CIA agent in Hollywood’s Paramount Studios. This agent was involved in trying to influence the content of the films the company was making. The agent is not named by Jackson but Frances Stoner Saunders believes it was Carleton Alsop, a CIA agent employed by Frank Wisner. (6) There is no doubt that Alsop was one of the CIA agents working at Paramount. However, Hugh Wilford argues that it was a senior executive at Paramount, Lugi G. Laraschi, was the most important CIA figure at the studio. (7) Laraschi was the head of foreign and domestic censorship at the studio, whose job was to “iron out any political, moral or religious problems”. Other studios, including MGM and RKO, had similar officers, and were probably CIA placements. In a private letter to Sherman Adams, Jackson claims the role of these CIA placements was “to insert in their scripts and in their action the right ideas with the proper subtlety”. (8) Although the main objective of Operation Mockingbird was to influence the production of commercial films the CIA also occasionally initiated film projects. The best documented instance of this concerns an animated version of Animal Farm, a satirical allegory about Stalinism by George Orwell. The book was highly popular when it was published in 1945 and it was only natural that the studios should be interested in making a film of the book. The problem for the CIA was that Orwell was a socialist whose book attacked both communism and capitalism. Therefore, it was important to make a film that restricted it to a condemnation of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1950 Wisner’s OPC arranged for Joe Bryan to recruit anti-communist documentary-maker Louis de Rochemont to produce a movie version of the tale. (9) It was decided to get the film made in Britain to disguise CIA involvement in the project. Rochemont employed the British animation studio of husband and wife John Halas and Joy Batchelor to make the film. Most of the funding came from a CIA shell corporation, Touchstone. E. Howard Hunt was one of those agents involved in the production of the film whose role was to remove the socialist elements in Orwell’s allegory. (10) One unnamed member of the OPC sent a letter to John Halas called for the addition of scenes showing the other farms (that represented capitalist countries) in a more flattering light. The most important demand was to change the ending. The CIA did not like the scene where the pigs and dogs face a liberation-style uprising of the other animals. The letter included the following: “It is reasonable to expect that if Orwell were to write the book today, it would be considerably different and that the changes would tend to make it even more positively anti-Communist and possibly somewhat more favorable to the Western powers.” (11) One of the main concerns of the CIA was the portrayal of race-relations in Hollywood movies. It was argued that the left was using this issue to undermine the idea that America was a democracy based on equal rights. Letters from Jackson sent to the producers of films called for scenes showing African Americans mixing on equal terms with whites. One of Jackson’s proposals involved “planting black spectators in a crowd watching a golf game in the Martin and Lewis comedy The Caddy”. (12) In 1955 Graham Greene published "The Quiet American". The novel is set in Vietnam and involves the relationship between Thomas Fowler, the narrator and main character, is a veteran British journalist in his fifties, who has been covering the war in Vietnam for over two years and Alden Pyle, the “Quiet American” of the title. Although Pyle is officially an aid worker, he is really employed by the CIA. It is believed that the Pyle character is partly based on Edward Lansdale. (13) Greene had worked for the British Secret Service during the Second World War. Although a fairly successful novelist at the time, Greene was also employed by The Times and Le Figaro as a journalist. Between 1951 to 1954 spent a long period of time in Saigon. In 1953 Lansdale became a CIA advisor on special counter-guerrilla operations to French forces against the Viet Minh. When the book was published in the United States in 1956 it was condemned as anti-American. Pyle (Lansdale) is portrayed as someone whose belief in the justice of American foreign policy allows him to ignore the appalling consequences of his actions. It was criticized by The New Yorker for portraying Americans as murderers, largely based on one scene in which a bomb explodes in a crowd of people. It is suggested that Pyle is behind the planting of the bomb. The director, producer and screenwriter, Joseph Mankewiecz was chosen to make the film of “The Quiet American”. He visited Saigon in 1956 and was introduced to Lansdale, whose cover was working at the International Rescue Committee’s office. The most controversial scene in the book is the bombing of a Saigon square in 1952 by a Vietnamese associate of Lansdale’s, General Trinh Minh. In the novel, Greene suggests that Pyle/Lansdale, was behind the bombing. Lansdale suggested to Mankewiecz that the film should show that the bombing was “actually having been a Communist action”. When he returned home Mankewiecz wrote to Mike O’Daniel, the chairman of the American Friends of Vietnam (a CIA front) that he intended to completely change the anti-American attitude of Greene’s book. This included the casting of Second World War hero, Audie Murphy, as Alden Pyle. (14) In a letter that Lansdale wrote to Ngo Dinh Diem he praised Mankiewicz’s treatment of the story as “an excellent change from Mr. Greene’s novel of despair” and “that it will help win more friends for you and Vietnam in many places in the world where it is shown.” (15) As Hugh Wilford pointed out: “It was a brilliantly devious maneuver of postmodern literary complexity: by helping to rewrite a story featuring a character reputedly based on himself, Lansdale had transformed an anti-American tract into a cinematic apology for U.S. policy - and his own actions-in Vietnam.” (16) Greene was furious with Mankiewicz’s treatment of his novel. "Far was it from my mind, when I wrote The Quiet American that the book would become a source of spiritual profit to one of the most corrupt governments in Southeast Asia." (17) Notes (1) Deborah Davis, Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and the "Washington Post (1979) page 138 (2) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) page 117 (3) Frances Stonor Saunders Who Paid the Piper (2000) page 286 (4) Howard Hughes: The Secret Life” (2004) page 174 (5) Papers of C.D. Jackson at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. See also the following: http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/Eisen..._CD_Papers.html http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=C.D._Jackson (6) Frances Stonor Saunders Who Paid the Piper (2000) page 290 (7) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) page 121 (8) C.D. Jackson, letter to Sherman Adams (19th January 1954) (9) David Caute & Hugh Wilford, CIA, British Left, and Cold War (2003) page 58 (10) E. Howard Hunt, Undercover: Memoirs of a Secret Agent (1974) page 70 (11) Daniel J. Leab, “The American Government and Animal Farm” (Media History 12: 2006) (12) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) page 121 (13) Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, An Offer They Could Not Refuse, The Guardian (14th November 2008) (14) Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War (2004) page 290 (15) Edward Lansdale, letter to Ngo Dinh Diem (28th October 1957) (16) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) pages 177-78 (17) Seth Jacobs, America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam (2005) page 110 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted November 18, 2008 Share Posted November 18, 2008 In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. This included James Truitt, Russell Wiggins, Phil Geyelin, John Hayes and Alan Barth. Others like Stewart Alsop, Joseph Alsop and James Reston, were recruited from within the Georgetown Set. According to Deborah Davis (Katharine the Great): "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles." (1) Wisner was also interested in influencing Hollywood. As Hugh Wilford points out in The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) “Fortunately for the CIA, two factors predisposed the major Hollywood studios that dominated the industry to take a "responsible" position in the cultural Cold War. One was a strong tendency toward self-censorship, the result of many years' experience avoiding the commercially disastrous effects of giving offense to either domestic pressure groups like the American Legion or foreign audiences. The other was the fact that the men who ran the studios were intensely patriotic and anticommunist - they saw it as their duty to help their government defeat the Soviet threat. (2) Wisner was helped by the fact that the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, was carrying out an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. The HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood. These people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses". During their interviews they named nineteen people who they accused of holding left-wing views. One of those named, Bertolt Brecht, a playwright, gave evidence and then left for East Germany. Ten others: Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz,, Dalton Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie refused to answer any questions and were sent to prison and were blacklisted from the industry. The CIA and FBI also provided right-wing television producer, Vincent Harnett, with information about left-wing figures in the industry. In June 1950 Harnett published Red Channels, a pamphlet listing the names of 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive organisations before the Second World War but had not so far been blacklisted. Lee J. Cobb was one of those actors who was originally blacklisted but eventually cooperated with the HUAC: “When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can be terrifying. The blacklist is just the opening gambit - being deprived of work. Your passport is confiscated. That's minor. But not being able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. In 1953 the HCUA did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn't borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I'd do it. I had to be employable again.” According to Frances Stonor Saunders, the author of Who Paid the Piper (2000), Wisner recruited several important figures for Operation Mockingbird. This included former OSS filmmaker John Ford and studio bosses Cecil B. DeMille (Paramount Pictures) and Darryl Zanack (Twentieth Century-Fox). Saunders calls this group the “Hollywood consortium” (3). Another important figure in this group was Howard Hughes, the boss of RKO Pictures. As Charles Higham points out in “Howard Hughes: The Secret Life” (2004), this was also good for business: “Hughes’s crusade against Communism” was “exacerbated by his desire to have Hughes Aircraft profit from the Korean and any future anti-Soviet wars”. For example, in June 1950, General Ira Eaker “signed an across-the-board agreement giving Hughes a monopoly in interceptors for the U.S. Air Force… despite the fact that it was in breach of the Sherman anti-monopolies act… By the end of 1950, the war had made Hughes even richer than before.” (4) Another important figure in this conspiracy was Charles Douglas Jackson. He had joined the OSS in 1943 and the following year he was appointed as Deputy Chief at the Psychological Warfare Division, SHAEF. After the war, he became Managing Director of Time-Life International. When it became clear that Dwight Eisenhower stood a good chance of becoming president, the CIA arranged for Jackson to join his campaign. This involved Jackson writing speeches for Eisenhower. Jackson was rewarded in February 1953 by being appointed as Special Assistant to the President. This included the role of Eisenhower's liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon. According to the Eisenhower Library files in Abilene, Kansas, Jackson's "area responsibility was loosely defined as international affairs, cold war planning, and psychological warfare. His main function was the coordination of activities aimed at interpreting world situations to the best advantage of the United States and her allies and exploiting incidents which reflected negatively on the Soviet Union, Communist China and other enemies in the Cold War." (5) Jackson was also involved in Operation Mockingbird. This was revealed after the death of Jackson. On December 15, 1971, Mrs. C.D. Jackson gave her husband’s papers to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. This included details that Jackson was in contact with a CIA agent in Hollywood’s Paramount Studios. This agent was involved in trying to influence the content of the films the company was making. The agent is not named by Jackson but Frances Stoner Saunders believes it was Carleton Alsop, a CIA agent employed by Frank Wisner. (6) There is no doubt that Alsop was one of the CIA agents working at Paramount. However, Hugh Wilford argues that it was a senior executive at Paramount, Lugi G. Laraschi, was the most important CIA figure at the studio. (7) Laraschi was the head of foreign and domestic censorship at the studio, whose job was to “iron out any political, moral or religious problems”. Other studios, including MGM and RKO, had similar officers, and were probably CIA placements. In a private letter to Sherman Adams, Jackson claims the role of these CIA placements was “to insert in their scripts and in their action the right ideas with the proper subtlety”. (8) Although the main objective of Operation Mockingbird was to influence the production of commercial films the CIA also occasionally initiated film projects. The best documented instance of this concerns an animated version of Animal Farm, a satirical allegory about Stalinism by George Orwell. The book was highly popular when it was published in 1945 and it was only natural that the studios should be interested in making a film of the book. The problem for the CIA was that Orwell was a socialist whose book attacked both communism and capitalism. Therefore, it was important to make a film that restricted it to a condemnation of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1950 Wisner’s OPC arranged for Joe Bryan to recruit anti-communist documentary-maker Louis de Rochemont to produce a movie version of the tale. (9) It was decided to get the film made in Britain to disguise CIA involvement in the project. Rochemont employed the British animation studio of husband and wife John Halas and Joy Batchelor to make the film. Most of the funding came from a CIA shell corporation, Touchstone. E. Howard Hunt was one of those agents involved in the production of the film whose role was to remove the socialist elements in Orwell’s allegory. (10) One unnamed member of the OPC sent a letter to John Halas called for the addition of scenes showing the other farms (that represented capitalist countries) in a more flattering light. The most important demand was to change the ending. The CIA did not like the scene where the pigs and dogs face a liberation-style uprising of the other animals. The letter included the following: “It is reasonable to expect that if Orwell were to write the book today, it would be considerably different and that the changes would tend to make it even more positively anti-Communist and possibly somewhat more favorable to the Western powers.” (11) One of the main concerns of the CIA was the portrayal of race-relations in Hollywood movies. It was argued that the left was using this issue to undermine the idea that America was a democracy based on equal rights. Letters from Jackson sent to the producers of films called for scenes showing African Americans mixing on equal terms with whites. One of Jackson’s proposals involved “planting black spectators in a crowd watching a golf game in the Martin and Lewis comedy The Caddy”. (12) In 1955 Graham Greene published "The Quiet American". The novel is set in Vietnam and involves the relationship between Thomas Fowler, the narrator and main character, is a veteran British journalist in his fifties, who has been covering the war in Vietnam for over two years and Alden Pyle, the “Quiet American” of the title. Although Pyle is officially an aid worker, he is really employed by the CIA. It is believed that the Pyle character is partly based on Edward Lansdale. (13) Greene had worked for the British Secret Service during the Second World War. Although a fairly successful novelist at the time, Greene was also employed by The Times and Le Figaro as a journalist. Between 1951 to 1954 spent a long period of time in Saigon. In 1953 Lansdale became a CIA advisor on special counter-guerrilla operations to French forces against the Viet Minh. When the book was published in the United States in 1956 it was condemned as anti-American. Pyle (Lansdale) is portrayed as someone whose belief in the justice of American foreign policy allows him to ignore the appalling consequences of his actions. It was criticized by The New Yorker for portraying Americans as murderers, largely based on one scene in which a bomb explodes in a crowd of people. It is suggested that Pyle is behind the planting of the bomb. The director, producer and screenwriter, Joseph Mankewiecz was chosen to make the film of “The Quiet American”. He visited Saigon in 1956 and was introduced to Lansdale, whose cover was working at the International Rescue Committee’s office. The most controversial scene in the book is the bombing of a Saigon square in 1952 by a Vietnamese associate of Lansdale’s, General Trinh Minh. In the novel, Greene suggests that Pyle/Lansdale, was behind the bombing. Lansdale suggested to Mankewiecz that the film should show that the bombing was “actually having been a Communist action”. When he returned home Mankewiecz wrote to Mike O’Daniel, the chairman of the American Friends of Vietnam (a CIA front) that he intended to completely change the anti-American attitude of Greene’s book. This included the casting of Second World War hero, Audie Murphy, as Alden Pyle. (14) In a letter that Lansdale wrote to Ngo Dinh Diem he praised Mankiewicz’s treatment of the story as “an excellent change from Mr. Greene’s novel of despair” and “that it will help win more friends for you and Vietnam in many places in the world where it is shown.” (15) As Hugh Wilford pointed out: “It was a brilliantly devious maneuver of postmodern literary complexity: by helping to rewrite a story featuring a character reputedly based on himself, Lansdale had transformed an anti-American tract into a cinematic apology for U.S. policy - and his own actions-in Vietnam.” (16) Greene was furious with Mankiewicz’s treatment of his novel. "Far was it from my mind, when I wrote The Quiet American that the book would become a source of spiritual profit to one of the most corrupt governments in Southeast Asia." (17) Notes (1) Deborah Davis, Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and the "Washington Post (1979) page 138 (2) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) page 117 (3) Frances Stonor Saunders Who Paid the Piper (2000) page 286 (4) Howard Hughes: The Secret Life” (2004) page 174 (5) Papers of C.D. Jackson at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. See also the following: http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/Eisen..._CD_Papers.html http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=C.D._Jackson (6) Frances Stonor Saunders Who Paid the Piper (2000) page 290 (7) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) page 121 (8) C.D. Jackson, letter to Sherman Adams (19th January 1954) (9) David Caute & Hugh Wilford, CIA, British Left, and Cold War (2003) page 58 (10) E. Howard Hunt, Undercover: Memoirs of a Secret Agent (1974) page 70 (11) Daniel J. Leab, “The American Government and Animal Farm” (Media History 12: 2006) (12) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) page 121 (13) Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, An Offer They Could Not Refuse, The Guardian (14th November 2008) (14) Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War (2004) page 290 (15) Edward Lansdale, letter to Ngo Dinh Diem (28th October 1957) (16) Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008) pages 177-78 (17) Seth Jacobs, America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam (2005) page 110 For veteran researchers, John's post here provides a fairly comprehensive background into the labyrinthean world of deep politics, which later became "prime movers" into the murky world of the JFK Assassination. All that I would add is a reminder that President Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson both served in the US Navy during World War II. Lyndon Johnson's relationship with John Connolly began in 1937. See http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,874238,00.html As we all know, there are a myriad of relationships in the time-space continuum. In this context, it does well to remember that the enigmatic George de Mohrenschildt at one time, was roomates with Paul Joachim, a member of the US Navy. Other names to remember in this context, are Lt. Commander Harry Hull and a member of British Intelligence named Quinton Keynes http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=5205 Quinton Keynes, if indeed it is the same person died in 2003 Somewhat recently, the Independent of Merrie Old England posted an obituary of Quinton Keynes, posted below http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituari...nes-730100.html Quentin Keynes Explorer of Africa in the Victorian mould Friday, 7 March 2003 In 1937 Quentin Keynes climbed to the roof of his family's house in Hampstead and refused to come down until his parents agreed he needn't return to boarding school. It was a wilful choice for a 16-year-old, and one he followed for the rest of his life – he would not be told what to do. Quentin George Keynes, film-maker and book collector: born London 17 June 1921; died Cambridge 26 February 2003 In 1937 Quentin Keynes climbed to the roof of his family's house in Hampstead and refused to come down until his parents agreed he needn't return to boarding school. It was a wilful choice for a 16-year-old, and one he followed for the rest of his life – he would not be told what to do. The mould of English public school, Oxbridge and the career expected in an over-achieving family were all refused. Instead there was a pursuit of the unusual, the remote, and the obscure, infused with a mixture of boyish enthusiasm, startling naïveté, keen insight and a sharp intelligence. There were real accomplishments, but they defy conventional description: film-maker, explorer, lecturer, African safari leader, book collector, and connoisseur of rare sports cars. Interests were pursued with curiosity and impulsiveness, unscholarly but astute. His books and manuscripts – ranging from David Livingstone, Sir Richard Burton and Charles Darwin to James Joyce and Ezra Pound – are acknowledged to be among the foremost private collections, and, with respect to the Africana, of considerable historical importance. In the best English tradition, he bristled at the idea that he ever bought anything out of concern for its financial value. He valued what was of particular interest and then felt the need to collect everything associated with it. Connections counted, and were traded on in a way that would now be considered politically incorrect or impolitic. There was much to trade upon: his mother's grandfather was Charles Darwin, his father the renowned surgeon and bibliographer Sir Geoffrey Keynes, and his uncle the great John Maynard Keynes. It was a charmed life of privilege, or privileged associations; for a man whose great-grandfather's picture is on the £10 note it was accepted as the natural order of things. Among his personal effects are letters from Jackie Kennedy Onassis and his fellow members of the Roxburghe Club, and a Virgin Atlantic bag full of dried African elephant dung. In 1939, as Europe slipped toward war, he joined the British embassy in Washington through a connection of his uncle Maynard's; and it was in America that he found his way. With a distinguished surname, tall and handsome, wartime Washington was à go-go for a young English blue-blood – cocktail parties, a dalliance with one of the Roosevelt children, Hollywood acquaintances and the débutante ball of Jackie Bouvier. Back home his three brothers did National Service or dug potatoes. But it was in Africa and equatorial islands that Keynes made a name for himself, embarking on his first adventures in the late 1940s and beginning to film wildlife and whatever he saw. In 1950, he moved among the nomadic Ovahimbas of the Kaokoland in Namibia and photographed the wreck of the Dunedin Star on the Skeleton Coast, the scene of a famous wartime shipwreck rescue. Four years later, in Angola, he became the first person to capture the rare Giant Sable antelope on film. For long he was the last, as war closed the countryside. Only in 2002, as the country emerged from over three decades of conflict, were remnant populations confirmed. He showed equal passion for the pursuit of the prehistoric coelacanth fish in the Comoros Islands, as well as filming in the Galapagos, the Falklands and St Helena. His Africa was essentially the continent of the late colonial period: letters of introduction to governors and camping on the ground amid wild game almost before the first national parks were set up, without guides, guns or a tent. Little changed for him over the next 50 years; the great moral and political issues of modern Africa were generally ignored, luxury game lodges disdained. This was no Wilfred Thesiger, or Leni Riefenstahl, glorying in the tribal or the primitive; while he was impressed by the bushmen, it was the wildlife that interested him. His Africa was in many ways closer to that of the Victorian explorers, of Burton and Speke, Stanley and Livingstone, whose initials he discovered on the banks of the Zambezi river in Mozambique, carved inside a baobab tree. The analogy goes further. This ebullient but intensely private man was in many ways an anachronism from the Victorian era: sexless, or asexual, eschewing family or married life, he subsumed his energies and drive in the pursuit of the unusual and the indulgence of his own interests. He had few encumbrances and recognised few responsibilities. Those left to pick up the tab recall the self-absorption of a man who would rarely reach for a restaurant bill, or the friend who came to stay, and stayed. His beautiful manners, an adolescent enthusiasm and almost naïve purity meant that much was forgiven. It is as a guide, raconteur and safari leader that Quentin Keynes may be best and most fondly remembered. For 50 years touring the private schools of England and North America, showing his adventure films, he brought, or introduced, Africa to countless boys and girls. The tales of waking among lions prowling in the camp, being chased up a tree by a rhino or his search for the spotted zebra, which he filmed in 1964, had a magical effect on the young. Each year a few of the boys would accompany him on his famous expeditions, as willing camera bearers, acolytes and go-fors. Many would go on to distinguished careers in wildlife exploration and film-making. At 81 he was planning his next trip when cancer took hold. Jackie Onassis, a lifelong acquaintance, wrote to him in 1994, "I so admire the verve with which you live your life." Douglas Mason Robert Information about this era, should be assimilated with knowledge of the fact that is fairly well established, that there was, a British spy-ring operating in Washington during World War II. Also in Peter Evans Onassis book, Evans mentions the Office Of Naval Intelligence. For space considerations, I will only provide the footnote which corresponds to the passage from Chapter One, The Blood Trade, page 8....... Footnotes # 22 and 23 on page 314. 22. Authors interview with Constantine Gratsos. This was a moot point, however, Onassis's rival and brother-in-law Stavros Niarchos was already unable to return to the United States because of a sealed US Justice Department indictment against him for violations of the Ships Sales Act of 1946, which threatened his entire American operation. Since his own deals were identical to Niarchos's, they had even used some of the same people in Washington, it was clearly only a matter of time before the Justice Department caught up with Onassis. 23.....From U. S. Office of Naval Intelligence report on Aristotle Onassis in response to FBI request made on 17 January 1943. Acquired by author under FOIA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted November 19, 2008 Share Posted November 19, 2008 Excellent and important thread gentlemen! They may have no morality nor allegiance to the the principles of democracy or the Constitution, itself; but they are not stupid - and they know how much the average American's image of 'reality' is shaped by Hollywood and TV - so they wanted to control the output, to a large extent - the way they wanted to control everything that shaped public perceptions of the world and reality [sic]. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/14...er-ridley-scott I certainly didn't mean to hijack John's thread, my intention was simply to show how the information provided by John and including the Naval background of the aforementioned leads to a more complete background, of what these various groups and persons were doing in the World War II era, the chronology is very important. The Suite 8-F Group, of which John is very correct in identifying as being more than important, is also worth mentioning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted November 19, 2008 Author Share Posted November 19, 2008 Here is an interesting article by Karl Cohen that was published in The Guardian on 7th March 2003 about the making of Animal Farm: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2003/mar...es.georgeorwell America's use of animated propaganda during the second world war is fairly well known, but propaganda made after the iron curtain went up is rarely seen or discussed. By the late 1940s, the CIA was spending tax dollars creating culture as a secret weapon to combat communism around the world. When Frances Stonor Saunders published Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, she mentioned a single animated film, John Halas and Joy Batchelor's Animal Farm, which was made in 1954. The CIA's choice of George Orwell's Animal Farm to produce as an animated film almost makes sense. Almost, but not quite, because the book's ending shows both the pigs and humans joined together as corrupt and evil powers. To use Animal Farm for its purpose, as Stonor Saunders reveals, the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination, which directed covert government operations, had two members of their Psychological Warfare Workshop staff obtain the screen rights to the novel. Howard Hunt, who became infamous as a member of the Watergate break-in team, is identified as head of the operation. His contact in Hollywood was Carleton Alsop, brother of writer Joseph Alsop, who was working undercover at Paramount. Working with Alsop was Finis Farr, a writer living in Los Angeles. It was Alsop and Farr who went to England to negotiate the rights to the property from Sonia Orwell. Mrs Orwell probably knew Farr as she moved in literary and artistic circles as an assistant to the editor of Horizon magazine. This is well documented in The Girl from the Fiction Department by Hilary Spurling. Mrs Orwell signed after Alsop and Farr agreed to arrange for her to meet her hero, Clark Gable. "As a measure of thanks", a CIA official named Joe Bryan made the arrangements for the meeting, according to The Paper Trail, edited by Jon Elliston. Hunt selected Louis De Rochemont to be the film's producer at Paramount. Before the war, in 1935, De Rochemont had created The March of Time, a new form of screen journalism that combined the newsreel and documentary film into a 15- to 20-minute entertaining short that went behind the news to explain the significance of an event. The March of Time, sponsored by the Time-Life Company, was a popular monthly series for over a decade before ending in 1951. Hunt probably chose De Rochemont because he had once worked for him on The March of Time series. De Rochemont had also worked on socially and politically sensitive films for many years. He produced the anti-Nazi spy film The House on 92nd Street (1945) and Lost Boundaries (1949), one of the first racially aware films (it is about a black doctor who passes for white until he is unmasked by the black community). A recently published book, British Cinema and the Cold War: the State, Propaganda and the Consensus by Tony Shaw, suggests De Rochemont chose Halas and Batchelor to animate the film as production costs were lower in England and because he questioned the loyalty of some American animators. The House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on communists in the film industry began in earnest in 1951 (Disney testified at short-lived hearings that were held in 1947) and several people in the animation industry were blacklisted, careers were ruined or disrupted. On the other hand, Vivien Halas, daughter of the film's co-directors John Halas and Joy Batchelor, suggests the real reason they got the contract is that Louis De Rochemont was a Navy buddy and good friend of screenwriters-producers Philip Stapp and Lothar Wolff. De Rochemont had worked with them in the Navy's film unit and Vivien's mother had worked closely with Stapp in 1949 on a Marshall Plan film produced by Halas and Batchelor, The Shoemaker and the Hatter. Eventually Stapp and Wolff would be hired to work on Animal Farm's script. Although the decision on what firm to hire came at a bleak moment for some American animation companies (the film could have been produced in Los Angeles by a studio whose reputation was beyond reproach), I suspect Halas and Batchelor's reputation, personal friendships and budgetary restraints were important factors in the decision to award them the contract. Animal Farm was the first animated feature produced in England. John Halas (1912-1995) was born in Budapest and had worked as an animator before moving to Paris. He moved to England and in 1940 formed Halas and Batchelor with Joy Batchelor (1914-1991), a British animator and scriptwriter. They were married a year later. During the war they were kept busy with training, propaganda and other forms of government-sponsored films. The animation firm was awarded the contract to make the feature in November 1951 and it was completed in April 1954. It is logical to assume that before the contract was signed De Rochemont made it quite clear that the film would not be identical to the book and he may have had a rough script or other guidelines. Vivien says that during the production, the script went through several changes before it was finalised. The production employed about 80 animators. In Halas's book The Technique of Film Animation, 1959, he states that the film's target audience was adults rather than children and that they needed to simplify the plot. Vivien Halas adds that the film wasn't shown in Paris until the 1990s as it was considered too anti-communist. When it finally premiered in Paris about 1993, the mayor of Aubervilliers (a suburb of Paris) "introduced it as a tribute to communism! My father said no, this is not communist or anti-communist. It is a fable for all time. It is anti-totalitarian and it has a humanist message." In a letter to the animation historian Giannalberto Bendazzi in 1981, Joy Batchelor told him they wanted to make a film about freedom. Besides having Philip Stapp and Lothar Wolff working on the script with Joy Batchelor, De Rochemont had another friend from their days in the Navy's film unit working on the project. Borden Mace became president of the company set up to produce Animal Farm by De Rochemont, his mentor. Mace told Vivien in an interview in 2002 that De Rochemont had the ultimate say about script changes. While it isn't clear who suggested the ending used, it was certainly what the CIA needed. To meet the CIA's objectives, the ending was changed to show that only the pigs had become totally corrupt. The film ends with other animals mounting a successful revolt against their rulers. There is no mention of the humans in the film's conclusion. Vivien recalls, "The changes came about as the film evolved. There were at least nine versions of the script and heated discussions about the end. My mother especially felt it was wrong to change the ending." She has a tape recording of her father saying that the ending they used offers a glimmer of hope for the future. In an interview on British television in 1980, he defended the ending as being necessary to give the audience hope for the future. "You can not send home millions in the audience being puzzled." While the film was in production, Fredric Warburg, the book's publisher, visited the studio several times and viewed the work-in-progress. Saunders thinks he may have suggested that old Major, "the prophet of the Revolution, should be given the voice and appearance of Winston Churchill". More importantly, she reveals earlier in her book that Warburg had dealings with the British intelligence group MI6. He fronted for them by taking their cheques, depositing them and then writing personal checks that he gave to Encounter, an anti-communist liberal literary publication. He may or may not have been a "consultant", helping to ensure that the film would be a successful propaganda tool. Howard Beckerman (animator and author of Animation, the Complete Story) comments: "Halas and Batchelor had to compete in the world market with Disney, so a few cartoon gags were introduced into the film to lighten its heaviness, and I believe that whatever the CIA's influence might have been, the choice for an upbeat ending came out of the animator's wish to succeed with the audience. There were movies of the period like the live film, My Son John (1952), which attacked the menace of communism head-on in a contrived and obvious fashion, so I guess anything is possible. If Orwell had lived longer, I suspect he would have vetoed any effort to translate his work into such a film." The film did well at the box office and the reviews were favourable, but some critics suggested people should read the book to learn what was left out. The film was later distributed around the world by the United States Information Agency (USIA) through its overseas libraries. It has also been suggested that the film and book were excellent propaganda in Arab nations "in view of the fact that both pigs and dogs are unclean animals to Muslims" - according to an Egyptian embassy official quoted in the Guardian. When asked if Vivien's parents were aware of the CIA's involvement with the project she said, "I don't believe that my parents were aware of any CIA involvement at the time. Frances reminded me that, in the early 1950s, the CIA was not regarded with the same scorn as today." By the 1980s her parents had heard rumours concerning the CIA's involvement. She says, "My father dismissed the idea, but my mother felt annoyed." Thanks to Saunders's research we now know that Orwell's 1984 was made into a live-action feature with funds from the CIA. Work on the British production began in 1954, and, as with the animated Animal Farm, the ending was changed. We also know that the British government saw Orwell's work as useful for propaganda purposes: in March 1998 the Public Record Office declassified documents revealing that the government funded a newspaper comic strip in the early 1950s based on Animal Farm. It ran in several countries including Brazil, Burma, Eritrea, India, Mexico, Thailand and Venezuela. On a few occasions the CIA's failures have been disclosed to us by the news media, but their successes are almost never made public. No matter how you feel about their meddling with feature films, it appears their involvement in the making of Animal Farm was a successful covert operation and it was kept a secret from the public for almost 50 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted November 20, 2008 Author Share Posted November 20, 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/14...er-ridley-scott Beardon's remark provides a clue to the real reason the CIA likes to offer advice to Hollywood, a clue that was expanded on by Paul Kelbaugh, the former associate general counsel to the CIA - a very senior figure in Langley. In 2007, Kelbaugh spoke at Lynchburg College of Law in Virginia - where he had become an associate professor - about the CIA's relationship with Hollywood. A journalist present at the lecture (who now wishes to be anonymous) reported that Kelbaugh spoke about the 2003 Al Pacino/Colin Farrell vehicle The Recruit. A CIA agent had been on set as a "consultant" throughout the shoot, he said; his real job, however, was to misdirect the film-makers. "We didn't want Hollywood getting too close to the truth," the journalist quoted Kelbaugh as saying. Peculiarly, though, in a strongly worded email to us, Kelbaugh emphatically denied having said such a thing, and said he remembered "very specific discussions with senior [CIA] management that no one was ever to misrepresent to affect [film] content - EVER." The journalist stands by the original report, and Kelbaugh has refused to discuss the matter further. So, altering scripts, financing films, suppressing the truth - it's worrying enough. But there are cases where some believe the CIA's activities in Hollywood have gone further - far enough, in fact, to be the stuff of movies. In June 1997, the screenwriter Gary DeVore was working on the screenplay for his directorial debut. It was to be an action movie set against the backdrop of the US invasion of Panama in 1989, which led to the overthrow of dictator Manuel Noriega. According to his wife, Wendy, DeVore had been talking to an old friend - the CIA's Chase Brandon - about Noriega's regime and US counternarcotic programmes in Latin America. Wendy told CNN: "He had been very disturbed over some of the things that he had been finding in his research. He was researching the United States invasion of Panama, because he was setting the actual story that he was writing against this; and the overthrow of Noriega and the enormous amounts of money laundering in the Panamanian banks, also our own government's money laundering." At the end of that month, DeVore had been in Santa Fe, New Mexico, working on another project. He was travelling back to California when, at 1.15am on June 28, he called Wendy, a call she says has been excised from phone records. She told CNN she was "terribly alarmed" because he was speaking as though he were under duress. She was sure "someone was in the car with him". That was the last time Wendy DeVore heard from her husband. A year passed, but the case refused to die and speculation mounted. Even the Los Angeles Times began contemplating CIA involvement. DeVore was presumed dead, but there was no body, and no end to the questions. Lo and behold, just nine days after the LA Times reported the case, DeVore's body was found, decomposing in his Ford Explorer, in 12 feet of water in the California Aqueduct below the Antelope Valley Freeway, south of Palmdale - a city located in "aerospace valley", so dubbed by locals for its reputation as a US military-industrial-complex stronghold - fuel to the fire for conspiracy theorists. The coroner went on to declare the cause and manner of DeVore's death to be "unknown", but police eventually reached the tentative conclusion that the screenwriter's death was an accident: he had fallen asleep at the wheel, they said, before careening off the highway and into the water, where he drowned. But loose ends remain: DeVore's laptop computer containing his unfinished script was missing from his vehicle, as was the gun he customarily carried on long trips; after his disappearance, a CIA representative allegedly showed up at DeVore's house to request access to his computer; Hollywood private investigator Don Crutchfield noted that previous drafts of DeVore's script were inexplicably wiped from said computer during the same timeframe; police claimed that DeVore's vehicle careened off the highway, yet DeVore's widow was troubled by the absence of visible damage to the guardrail at the scene of the alleged accident; and how come no one noticed an SUV sitting in the water beneath a busy highway for a whole year? Perhaps the whole incident is too like a conspiracy movie to be a real conspiracy - but many remain troubled by De Vore's death. Despite the CIA's professed desire to be more open about the role it plays in Holly-wood, it's hard to take its newfound transparency too seriously. After all, what use is a covert agency that does not act covertly, even if some of its activities are public? And if it is still not open about the truth of events decades ago, many of which have spilled into the public domain accidently, how can we be sure it is telling the truth about its activities now? The spy may have come in from the cold, but he still finds shelter in the dark of the cinema. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted December 24, 2008 Share Posted December 24, 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/14...er-ridley-scottBeardon's remark provides a clue to the real reason the CIA likes to offer advice to Hollywood, a clue that was expanded on by Paul Kelbaugh, the former associate general counsel to the CIA - a very senior figure in Langley. In 2007, Kelbaugh spoke at Lynchburg College of Law in Virginia - where he had become an associate professor - about the CIA's relationship with Hollywood. A journalist present at the lecture (who now wishes to be anonymous) reported that Kelbaugh spoke about the 2003 Al Pacino/Colin Farrell vehicle The Recruit. A CIA agent had been on set as a "consultant" throughout the shoot, he said; his real job, however, was to misdirect the film-makers. "We didn't want Hollywood getting too close to the truth," the journalist quoted Kelbaugh as saying. Peculiarly, though, in a strongly worded email to us, Kelbaugh emphatically denied having said such a thing, and said he remembered "very specific discussions with senior [CIA] management that no one was ever to misrepresent to affect [film] content - EVER." The journalist stands by the original report, and Kelbaugh has refused to discuss the matter further. So, altering scripts, financing films, suppressing the truth - it's worrying enough. But there are cases where some believe the CIA's activities in Hollywood have gone further - far enough, in fact, to be the stuff of movies. In June 1997, the screenwriter Gary DeVore was working on the screenplay for his directorial debut. It was to be an action movie set against the backdrop of the US invasion of Panama in 1989, which led to the overthrow of dictator Manuel Noriega. According to his wife, Wendy, DeVore had been talking to an old friend - the CIA's Chase Brandon - about Noriega's regime and US counternarcotic programmes in Latin America. Wendy told CNN: "He had been very disturbed over some of the things that he had been finding in his research. He was researching the United States invasion of Panama, because he was setting the actual story that he was writing against this; and the overthrow of Noriega and the enormous amounts of money laundering in the Panamanian banks, also our own government's money laundering." At the end of that month, DeVore had been in Santa Fe, New Mexico, working on another project. He was travelling back to California when, at 1.15am on June 28, he called Wendy, a call she says has been excised from phone records. She told CNN she was "terribly alarmed" because he was speaking as though he were under duress. She was sure "someone was in the car with him". That was the last time Wendy DeVore heard from her husband. A year passed, but the case refused to die and speculation mounted. Even the Los Angeles Times began contemplating CIA involvement. DeVore was presumed dead, but there was no body, and no end to the questions. Lo and behold, just nine days after the LA Times reported the case, DeVore's body was found, decomposing in his Ford Explorer, in 12 feet of water in the California Aqueduct below the Antelope Valley Freeway, south of Palmdale - a city located in "aerospace valley", so dubbed by locals for its reputation as a US military-industrial-complex stronghold - fuel to the fire for conspiracy theorists. The coroner went on to declare the cause and manner of DeVore's death to be "unknown", but police eventually reached the tentative conclusion that the screenwriter's death was an accident: he had fallen asleep at the wheel, they said, before careening off the highway and into the water, where he drowned. But loose ends remain: DeVore's laptop computer containing his unfinished script was missing from his vehicle, as was the gun he customarily carried on long trips; after his disappearance, a CIA representative allegedly showed up at DeVore's house to request access to his computer; Hollywood private investigator Don Crutchfield noted that previous drafts of DeVore's script were inexplicably wiped from said computer during the same timeframe; police claimed that DeVore's vehicle careened off the highway, yet DeVore's widow was troubled by the absence of visible damage to the guardrail at the scene of the alleged accident; and how come no one noticed an SUV sitting in the water beneath a busy highway for a whole year? Perhaps the whole incident is too like a conspiracy movie to be a real conspiracy - but many remain troubled by De Vore's death. Despite the CIA's professed desire to be more open about the role it plays in Holly-wood, it's hard to take its newfound transparency too seriously. After all, what use is a covert agency that does not act covertly, even if some of its activities are public? And if it is still not open about the truth of events decades ago, many of which have spilled into the public domain accidently, how can we be sure it is telling the truth about its activities now? The spy may have come in from the cold, but he still finds shelter in the dark of the cinema. Richard Beymer This former teen actor, who after starring in a string of major films in the 1950s and early 60s ("The Diary of Anne Frank" 1959, "West Side Story" 1961, "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man" 1962 and "The Stripper" 1963), never really made the transition to interesting adult roles and came under critical attack for his sometimes wooden performances. Beymer left Hollywood in 1963 to try his hand at directing experimental films and documentaries and lensing TV features. He became involved in the 60s struggles for civil rights and directed and photographed the documentary, "A Regular Bouquet" (1964), which later aired on the PBS series, "Eyes on the Prize". He didn't return to acting (with the exception of starring in his own directed and produced independent film, "Innerview" 1973) until the 1980s with the thriller, "Cross Country" (1983). Beymer also made a TV appearance on "Paper Dolls" (ABC, 1984) and in the exploitation horror film, "Silent Night Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out" (1989). Beymer scored a comeback of sorts in TV's "Twin Peaks" (ABC, 1990-91), as the wildly villainous entrepreneur, Ben Horne, giving a looser, funkier performance than any in his earlier career. In films, Beymer made brief appearances in the sequel "My Girl 2" and the erotic thriller "Under Investigation" (both 1994). http://www.film.com/celebrities/richard-be...graphy/14603106 According to the website below Richard Beymer dated Sharon Tate, from circa 1961-1963 and who was ostensibly murdered by members of the [Charles] Manson “family.” And Beymer also dated the actress Tuesday Weld........ http://www.whosdatedwho.com/celebrities/pe.../richard-beymer The following deserves close scrutiny Robert Document # 104-10018-10002 is a one page cable dated 12/09/63. It is from CIA to FBI. "Richard Beymer, American Movie Actor was in touch with Cuban embassy, Mexico City."1. The Mexico City News of 5 December 1963 carried a picture of Richard Beymer, American movie actor, who was a delegate to the film festival being held in Acapulco."2. Beymer was in touch with the Cuban embassy in Mexico City on 2 December, and a person believed to be Beymer was in touch with the embassy on 30 November. He wanted to speak to Silvia Duran, who was not at the embassy. Another employee told him that no reply had been received from Cuba. "3. This office has no information on Beymer."This is signed by Jane Roman, as the releasing officer, L.N. Gallery, as the authenticating officer, and a B. I. R. or B.E. R handwritten in. END There are 13 docs which pullup under simple search “actor” @ NARA.....It appears 9 of these docs pertain to the actor Richard Beymer http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/20587/jfksnew.txt Now you know why they say truth is stranger than fiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted December 24, 2008 Author Share Posted December 24, 2008 The following deserves close scrutiny RobertDocument # 104-10018-10002 is a one page cable dated 12/09/63. It is from CIA to FBI. "Richard Beymer, American Movie Actor was in touch with Cuban embassy, Mexico City."1. The Mexico City News of 5 December 1963 carried a picture of Richard Beymer, American movie actor, who was a delegate to the film festival being held in Acapulco."2. Beymer was in touch with the Cuban embassy in Mexico City on 2 December, and a person believed to be Beymer was in touch with the embassy on 30 November. He wanted to speak to Silvia Duran, who was not at the embassy. Another employee told him that no reply had been received from Cuba. "3. This office has no information on Beymer."This is signed by Jane Roman, as the releasing officer, L.N. Gallery, as the authenticating officer, and a B. I. R. or B.E. R handwritten in. END There are 13 docs which pullup under simple search “actor” @ NARA.....It appears 9 of these docs pertain to the actor Richard Beymer http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/20587/jfksnew.txt Now you know why they say truth is stranger than fiction. What an amazing story? However, I recently discovered that the CIA made full-use of people working in Hollywood as agents. Christine Keeler met Earl Fenton, at a New Year party. Keeler claims that he was working for the CIA. According to Mandy Rice-Davies, Fenton was a screen-writer who introduced her to Robert Mitchum. The following month Fenton contacted Keeler. According to her account: "Stephen had been telling him lies, feeding him false information and indicating that I was spying for the Russians because of my love for Eugene. The message was to leave the country, say nothing about anything I might have seen or heard." As you can see, Earl Fenton did very little work in Hollywood: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0272037/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted December 24, 2008 Share Posted December 24, 2008 The following deserves close scrutiny RobertDocument # 104-10018-10002 is a one page cable dated 12/09/63. It is from CIA to FBI. "Richard Beymer, American Movie Actor was in touch with Cuban embassy, Mexico City."1. The Mexico City News of 5 December 1963 carried a picture of Richard Beymer, American movie actor, who was a delegate to the film festival being held in Acapulco."2. Beymer was in touch with the Cuban embassy in Mexico City on 2 December, and a person believed to be Beymer was in touch with the embassy on 30 November. He wanted to speak to Silvia Duran, who was not at the embassy. Another employee told him that no reply had been received from Cuba. "3. This office has no information on Beymer."This is signed by Jane Roman, as the releasing officer, L.N. Gallery, as the authenticating officer, and a B. I. R. or B.E. R handwritten in. END There are 13 docs which pullup under simple search “actor” @ NARA.....It appears 9 of these docs pertain to the actor Richard Beymer http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/20587/jfksnew.txt Now you know why they say truth is stranger than fiction. What an amazing story? However, I recently discovered that the CIA made full-use of people working in Hollywood as agents. Christine Keeler met Earl Fenton, at a New Year party. Keeler claims that he was working for the CIA. According to Mandy Rice-Davies, Fenton was a screen-writer who introduced her to Robert Mitchum. The following month Fenton contacted Keeler. According to her account: "Stephen had been telling him lies, feeding him false information and indicating that I was spying for the Russians because of my love for Eugene. The message was to leave the country, say nothing about anything I might have seen or heard." As you can see, Earl Fenton did very little work in Hollywood: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0272037/ I would imagine that this is old news to you but did you see the post I did on the Arthur W A Cowan thread regarding John Houseman..... Here's the link.... http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...=7956&st=15 I don't want to beat a dead horse, as I have stated this a couple of times in the time that I have been a member of the Forum, but JFK Researchers need a resident genealogist, like a blind person needs to be able to use Braille.....I have delved into genealogy researching my own family tree, and although it is rewarding, it was also a time-consuming machine with little payoff, except here and there. Reason being, in part, was that my paternal surname two generations back is Smith. Poor Smith's at that. lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted February 27, 2011 Share Posted February 27, 2011 (edited) In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media.... For veteran researchers, John's post here provides a fairly comprehensive background into the labyrinthean world of deep politics, which later became "prime movers" into the murky world of the JFK Assassination. All that I would add is a reminder that President Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson both served in the US Navy during World War II. Lyndon Johnson's relationship with John Connolly began in 1937. See http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,874238,00.html As we all know, there are a myriad of relationships in the time-space continuum. In this context, it does well to remember that the enigmatic George de Mohrenschildt at one time, was roomates with Paul Joachim, a member of the US Navy. Other names to remember in this context, are Lt. Commander Harry Hull and a member of British Intelligence named Quinton Keynes http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=5205 Quinton Keynes, if indeed it is the same person died in 2003 Somewhat recently, the Independent of Merrie Old England posted an obituary of Quinton Keynes, posted below http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituari...nes-730100.html Quentin Keynes Explorer of Africa in the Victorian mould Friday, 7 March 2003 In 1937 Quentin Keynes climbed to the roof of his family's house in Hampstead and refused to come down until his parents agreed he needn't return to boarding school. It was a wilful choice for a 16-year-old, and one he followed for the rest of his life – he would not be told what to do. Quentin George Keynes, film-maker and book collector: born London 17 June 1921; died Cambridge 26 February 2003 In 1937 Quentin Keynes climbed to the roof of his family's house in Hampstead and refused to come down until his parents agreed he needn't return to boarding school. It was a wilful choice for a 16-year-old, and one he followed for the rest of his life – he would not be told what to do. The mould of English public school, Oxbridge and the career expected in an over-achieving family were all refused. Instead there was a pursuit of the unusual, the remote, and the obscure, infused with a mixture of boyish enthusiasm, startling naïveté, keen insight and a sharp intelligence. There were real accomplishments, but they defy conventional description: film-maker, explorer, lecturer, African safari leader, book collector, and connoisseur of rare sports cars. Interests were pursued with curiosity and impulsiveness, unscholarly but astute. His books and manuscripts – ranging from David Livingstone, Sir Richard Burton and Charles Darwin to James Joyce and Ezra Pound – are acknowledged to be among the foremost private collections, and, with respect to the Africana, of considerable historical importance. In the best English tradition, he bristled at the idea that he ever bought anything out of concern for its financial value. He valued what was of particular interest and then felt the need to collect everything associated with it. Connections counted, and were traded on in a way that would now be considered politically incorrect or impolitic. There was much to trade upon: his mother's grandfather was Charles Darwin, his father the renowned surgeon and bibliographer Sir Geoffrey Keynes, and his uncle the great John Maynard Keynes. It was a charmed life of privilege, or privileged associations; for a man whose great-grandfather's picture is on the £10 note it was accepted as the natural order of things. Among his personal effects are letters from Jackie Kennedy Onassis and his fellow members of the Roxburghe Club, and a Virgin Atlantic bag full of dried African elephant dung. In 1939, as Europe slipped toward war, he joined the British embassy in Washington through a connection of his uncle Maynard's; and it was in America that he found his way. With a distinguished surname, tall and handsome, wartime Washington was à go-go for a young English blue-blood – cocktail parties, a dalliance with one of the Roosevelt children, Hollywood acquaintances and the débutante ball of Jackie Bouvier. Back home his three brothers did National Service or dug potatoes. But it was in Africa and equatorial islands that Keynes made a name for himself, embarking on his first adventures in the late 1940s and beginning to film wildlife and whatever he saw. In 1950, he moved among the nomadic Ovahimbas of the Kaokoland in Namibia and photographed the wreck of the Dunedin Star on the Skeleton Coast, the scene of a famous wartime shipwreck rescue. Four years later, in Angola, he became the first person to capture the rare Giant Sable antelope on film. For long he was the last, as war closed the countryside. Only in 2002, as the country emerged from over three decades of conflict, were remnant populations confirmed. He showed equal passion for the pursuit of the prehistoric coelacanth fish in the Comoros Islands, as well as filming in the Galapagos, the Falklands and St Helena. His Africa was essentially the continent of the late colonial period: letters of introduction to governors and camping on the ground amid wild game almost before the first national parks were set up, without guides, guns or a tent. Little changed for him over the next 50 years; the great moral and political issues of modern Africa were generally ignored, luxury game lodges disdained. This was no Wilfred Thesiger, or Leni Riefenstahl, glorying in the tribal or the primitive; while he was impressed by the bushmen, it was the wildlife that interested him. His Africa was in many ways closer to that of the Victorian explorers, of Burton and Speke, Stanley and Livingstone, whose initials he discovered on the banks of the Zambezi river in Mozambique, carved inside a baobab tree. The analogy goes further. This ebullient but intensely private man was in many ways an anachronism from the Victorian era: sexless, or asexual, eschewing family or married life, he subsumed his energies and drive in the pursuit of the unusual and the indulgence of his own interests. He had few encumbrances and recognised few responsibilities. Those left to pick up the tab recall the self-absorption of a man who would rarely reach for a restaurant bill, or the friend who came to stay, and stayed. His beautiful manners, an adolescent enthusiasm and almost naïve purity meant that much was forgiven. It is as a guide, raconteur and safari leader that Quentin Keynes may be best and most fondly remembered. For 50 years touring the private schools of England and North America, showing his adventure films, he brought, or introduced, Africa to countless boys and girls. The tales of waking among lions prowling in the camp, being chased up a tree by a rhino or his search for the spotted zebra, which he filmed in 1964, had a magical effect on the young. Each year a few of the boys would accompany him on his famous expeditions, as willing camera bearers, acolytes and go-fors. Many would go on to distinguished careers in wildlife exploration and film-making. At 81 he was planning his next trip when cancer took hold. Jackie Onassis, a lifelong acquaintance, wrote to him in 1994, "I so admire the verve with which you live your life." Douglas Mason Robert Information about this era, should be assimilated with knowledge of the fact that is fairly well established, that there was, a British spy-ring operating in Washington during World War II. Also in Peter Evans Onassis book, Evans mentions the Office Of Naval Intelligence. For space considerations, I will only provide the footnote which corresponds to the passage from Chapter One, The Blood Trade, page 8....... Footnotes # 22 and 23 on page 314. 22. Authors interview with Constantine Gratsos. This was a moot point, however, Onassis's rival and brother-in-law Stavros Niarchos was already unable to return to the United States because of a sealed US Justice Department indictment against him for violations of the Ships Sales Act of 1946, which threatened his entire American operation. Since his own deals were identical to Niarchos's, they had even used some of the same people in Washington, it was clearly only a matter of time before the Justice Department caught up with Onassis. 23.....From U. S. Office of Naval Intelligence report on Aristotle Onassis in response to FBI request made on 17 January 1943. Acquired by author under FOIA. For the purpose of attempting to help the following info make as much sense as possible, I am posting it here. (I'll add links to three related posts, soon.) http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3219&pid=220292&st=75entry220292 - http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=17411&st=30&p=220299entry220299 - http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5007&pid=220300&st=0entry220300 Paul L. Joachim was a 1934 Annapolis Academy graduate. During the Korean War, he was executive officer on the USS New Jersey. He attained the rank of Rear Admiral on the occasion of his retirement. Joachim was shot four times and killed in a presumably still unsolved murder on October 21, 1962, in front of 1350 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Joachim was residing at 1400 Lake Shore Drive, in business as an art dealer. Joachim's mother, Elmina Nance, married Dr. Paul L. Joachim of Washington, DC in 1910. Their other son was Phillip Nance Joachim, later an Associated Press editor. The widowed Elmina Nance Joachim later married Carl A. Joerissen, an Underwood Typewriter Co. executive and design engineer based in the Underwood, DC office. Elmina and Carl had a daughter named Kay, who married attorney and Coast Guard Reserve Lt. CDR William Helvestine in 1944. Helvestine died in a January, 1947, private airplace crash. Helvestine's brother, Albert Harrison Helvestine was the US Navy's patent attorney. The most interesting details of Paul L. Joachim's background are that his stepfather, Carl A. Joerissen is reported by one source to have been the chief engineer of LF Safford. In 1924, these two men quickly designed and sold the first KATA-KANA typewriters to ONI (aka CSP-62, RIP-5 or Underwood Code Machine "RIP-5"). Laurance F. Safford went on to oversee the WWII US Navy Cryptographers, and he worked with Frank Rowlett to perfect the PURPLE code breaking machinery. Another curiousity is that Carl A. Joerissen was associated with Gertrude Laughlin Joerissen, a linguist who translated Chinese and Japanese poetry. This Gertrude is not the daughter of US Ambassador to Spain, Laughlin. The fact that the brother-in-law of Paul Joachim's sister, Kay, was the longtime, US Navy patent attorney is also intriguing. How did George De Mohrenschildt manage to insinuate himself with navy officer Paul Joachim, and Henry C. Bruton? Is it only coincidence that Paul Joachim was murdered in the same general time period that Edwin Walker was shot at, and also when Thomas J. Devine's foreign service brother-in-law went missing and washed up dead, considering that the dead man's brother, Howard Bucknell, III was a Navy submarine commander? Does any of this increase the significance of De Morhenschildt's introduction of Oswald to Henry C. Bruton? http://www.genealogybuff.com/md/state/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/199Albert Helvestine Albert Harrison Helvestine, 95, of Epping Forest in Annapolis, a retired Navy lawyer, died of natural causes Nov. 27, 2001 at the Heritage Harbour Rehabilitation Center. Born Sept. 16, 1906, in Washington, D.C., Mr. Helvestine received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and a law degree from George Washington University. During World War II, he served on active duty in the Coast Guard and later in the Coast Guard Reserve, retiring as a commander. For a number of years, he was chief patent counsel for the Navy, including during the development of the nuclear submarine program, until his retirement in 1974. His interests were gardening and woodworking. He is survived by his wife, Mildred W. Helvestine, whom he married in 1938. Visitation is at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Taylor Funeral Home, 147 Duke of Gloucester St., where services will be at 11 a.m. Private burial will follow. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the charity of one's choice. http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=nws:1%2Car%3A1&q=william+and+albert+helvestine&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=william+and+albert+helvestine&psj=1&bav=on.1,or.&fp=1de43bdcbbdc6ace NUPTIALS ARE HELD FOR KAY JOERISSElq; She Is Wed to Lt.... - New York Times - Sep 10, 1944 Wil[liam Helvestine, USCGR, son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Harrison Helvestine of Washington, ... Junior League. 3Irs. William Helvestine Altmarr-Pach. http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=nws:1%2Car%3A1&q=NUPTIALS+ARE+HELD+FOR+KAY+JOERISSElq%3B+She+Is+Wed+to+Lt.+best+man&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=NUPTIALS+ARE+HELD+FOR+KAY+JOERISSElq%3B+She+Is+Wed+to+Lt.+best+man&psj=1&bav=on.1,or.&fp=1de43bdcbbdc6ace NUPTIALS ARE HELD FOR KAY JOERISSElq; She Is Wed to Lt.... - New York Times - Sep 10, 1944 ... in Metropolitan Area NUPTIALS ARE HELD FOR KAY JOERISSElq She Is Wed to Lt. Comdr. Win. ... Albert H. Helvestine Jr., USCGR, was his brother's best man. ... http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/18/style/heidi-swan-has-bridal.html Heidi Swan Has Bridal Published: October 18, 1981 Harriet Stone Swan, an associate director of underwriting for KQED-TV in San Francisco, was married yesterday in New Canaan, Conn., to William Albert Helvestine, a lawyer in San Francisco. The Rev. T. Guthrie Speers Jr. performed the ceremony at the First Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Helvestine, who is known as Heidi, is a daughter of Mrs. William Dickinson Hart Jr. of New Canaan and of John Henry Swan of New York. Mr. Helvestine is a son of Mrs. William Helvestine of Walnut Creek, Calif., and the late Mr. Helvestine. The bride was graduated from the New Canaan Country School, the Westover School and Williams College. Her stepfather is a partner in the New York law firm of Whitman & Ransom and her mother is a broker with Brotherhood & Higley, real-esatate agents in New Canaan. Mr. Helvestine was graduated from the University of North Carolina and from the Georgetown University Law Center. He served as a clerk for District Court Judge Thomas A. Flannery of the District of Columbia and for Judge George E. MacKinnon of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. He is resident partner in the New York and Washington law firm of Epstein, Becker, Borsody & Green. Catherine Swan was her sister's maid of honor and Mrs. Nicholas E. Heyl, matron of honor. The best man was Albert Helvestine, an uncle of the bridegroom. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=OOIcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=n2QEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5952,1183569&dq=helvestine+lawyer&hl=en Three Men Die In Plane Crash . Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Jan 16, 1947 William Helvestine, no address, a lawyer and former Georgetown athlete and national executive secretary of the Coast Guard league. The twin-engine. private .. Now, I've learned that Harry Hull was married to: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=nws:1%2Car%3A1&q="*the+daughter+of+Mrs+Donald+C+Bingham+313"&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq="*the+daughter+of+Mrs+Donald+C+Bingham+313"&psj=1&bav=on.1,or.&fp=1de43bdcbbdc6aceFor Heroism Pay-Per-View - The Sun - Oct 21, 1943 ... submarine operations are secret details of the skippers exploits were not disclosed Mrs Hull is the daughter of Mrs Donald C Bingham 313 Rosemary street ... Harry Hull was, at the time he met De Mohrenschildt, the son-in-law of a daughter of Admiral James Kelsey Cogswell. One of Admiral Cogswell's sons was Capt. Francis Cogswell who died in 1939. His widow was employed by the CIA. The brother of Mrs. Donald C. Bingham and Francis Cogswell happened to be James Kelsey Cogswell, II, inventor of platform tennis. This background supports the observation that Harry Hull's wife was the first cousin of James Kelsey Cogswell, III, the informant of the HSCA who led investigators to Joseph P. Dryer, and thus, Dryer's testimony about George De Mohrenschildt.... http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=nws:1%2Car%3A1&q=%22Harry+Hull%22+Bingham+&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=%22Harry+Hull%22+Bingham+&psj=1&bav=on.1,or.&fp=1de43bdcbbdc6aceNupfials for Ens. Harry Hull 3d . And Elsie Forbes Youngman - New York Times - Feb 4, 1968 Ensign Hull is a grandson of Mrs. Charles T. Phillips of Washington and Athens, Ga., and the late Harry Hull, the late Mrs. Donald C. Bingham of Washington ... Elsie Youngman Planning Nuptials - New York Times - Dec 17, 1967 ... to Harry Hull 3d, son of Rear Adm. Harry Hull, USN, retired, andMrs. ... Mass., and New, 'York amd the late Mrs. Donald' 'C. Bingham of Washington. .. USS Cogswell (DD-651) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Cogswell was launched on 5 June 1943 by Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; cosponsored by Mrs. D. C. Bingham, daughter of Rear Admiral Cogswell, and Mrs. Francis ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cogswell_(DD-651) The simple acts of Dmitri von Mohrenschildt marrying Eddie Hooker's mother, and Dmitri's brother, George, renting a room in Washington, DC, in 1942, seem to have unleashed an astounding number of coincidences, with more still being uncovered 46 years after the WCR pronounced the case "closed". Edited February 27, 2011 by Tom Scully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 (edited) I guess late is hopefully better than never, [inside joke lol] Call this post a little thinking out loud, to some of my friends I have managed to develop here since 2005, when I joined. All of the best and brightest amongst the JFK research community have done such incredible labors for almost five decades now, the point can be argued that when taken as a whole the collective work of research, has revealed so much, the sad part is that the JFK assassination as an event has been relegated to the historical dustbin in much the same way that the Lincoln assassination had been, in about 1910; as an aside Lincoln's grave was exhumed after it was tampered with by some fundamentalists, [loose interpretation] in that day..... There are a few last things I wanted to share before doing anything else. When you get to your fifties, you can lose that feeling of believing you have to save the world, just a figure of speech mind you..... Among the most strange aspects of the assassination, in retrospect are the "dopplegangers" phenomenon, same people same name.....it is rampant, and I have always wondered if it is the law of coincidence or planned, I believe anything is possible at this point.... Over the holidays I decided I would do my last batch of JFK bookbuying, they are listed among one of my last posts. I have always been an avid reader, and always been extremely interested in historical mysteries.... Even before I jumped into JFK research, I had already, at 15 been reading about Amelia Earhart, Hitler and the OSS's preoccupation with his demise, but the JFK assassination has always been a real nightmare for me, because of the fact that when a country has the ability to make an illusion appear as reality, a bellwether of sorts, then there is a discordance that never fully divests itself from its effect on that culture. And it can be done again and again and.... If there is a message I have for persons here it is twofold, one do not fool yourself into believing that it is impossible to realize what really happened on November 22, 1963. My contribution I would like to think, is in pointing out that the following areas are intrinsically linked to the assassination of JFK....... MKULTRA Nazi connections from end of World War II ascending into occult activities at the time of the JFK assassination, which the best kept secret about hidden knowledge is that there is always an "intelligence related" dynamic with the mysterious magicians of esoterism. see Peter Lavenda JFK's cabinet and their friends and the fact that, in the big picture JFK became President at the wrong time as far as longevity was concerned. The Kennedy's were very naive about the wisdom of such matters as having Richard Nixon's running mate as your Ambassador to Vietnam, and the inherent corruption of Republican politicians. The media.....Time. Life the Luces...as Gerry Hemming would intone, Enuff said. Oswald.....Voltaire once said of Martin Luther that if he hadn't had lived it would have been necessary to invent him; one can say the very same exact thing of Lee Harvey Oswald and be every bit as accurate, although I am not a big admirer of the worldview of the Voltaire's and Nietzsche's....Probably a liitle more like Woody Allen....lol Last, but certainly not least, beware of the process of pinning the tail of whodunit to the historical donkey of the Evil man, LBJ seems to be the favorite, although the case could be made equally and with more resonance towards Richard ("I am not a crook") Nixon, circumstantial evidence is not historical reality, that evidence was probably on the erased tapes of both persons....... Cheers Edited January 21, 2012 by Robert Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Mitcham Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 "Voltaire once said of Martin Luther that if he hadn't had lived it would have been necessary to invent him;" Sorry to be pedantic, Robert, but Voltaire's quote was "If God had not existed...." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dolva Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Cheers. Some great pieces of writing today. Always a pleasure to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Cheers. Some great pieces of writing today. Always a pleasure to read. "Voltaire once said of Martin Luther that if he hadn't had lived it would have been necessary to invent him;" Sorry to be pedantic, Robert, but Voltaire's quote was "If God had not existed...." Not being pedantic at all, I deserve to be raked over the coals for screwing that up.....Gosh I feel like a real-life version of Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney. Voltaire: Je suis vraiment désolé! Dear God: I am really, really sorry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 ...... My contribution I would like to think, is in pointing out that the following areas are intrinsically linked to the assassination of JFK....... MKULTRA Nazi connections from end of World War II ascending into occult activities at the time of the JFK assassination, which the best kept secret about hidden knowledge is that there is always an "intelligence related" dynamic with the mysterious magicians of esoterism. see Peter Lavenda JFK's cabinet and their friends and the fact that, in the big picture JFK became President at the wrong time as far as longevity was concerned. The Kennedy's were very naive about the wisdom of such matters as having Richard Nixon's running mate as your Ambassador to Vietnam, and the inherent corruption of Republican politicians. The media.....Time. Life the Luces...as Gerry Hemming would intone, Enuff said. Oswald.....Voltaire once said of Martin Luther that if he hadn't had lived it would have been necessary to invent him; one can say the very same exact thing of Lee Harvey Oswald and be every bit as accurate, although I am not a big admirer of the worldview of the Voltaire's and Nietzsche's....Probably a liitle more like Woody Allen....lol Last, but certainly not least, beware of the process of pinning the tail of whodunit to the historical donkey of the Evil man, LBJ seems to be the favorite, although the case could be made equally and with more resonance towards Richard ("I am not a crook") Nixon, circumstantial evidence is not historical reality, that evidence was probably on the erased tapes of both persons....... Cheers Robert, homing in on just one of a number of rich points to ponder in your post, it would have been one thing if the only misguided gesture the JFK-RFK administration had made was the appointment of election opponent Lodge as Ambassador to South Vietnam, but this sort of bipartisan appointment seemed part of an apolitical pattern of reasonableness I regard as a flaw of all Democratic party administrations since FDR. Obama has probably been as busy doing it as JFK was. Politically, Bartlett, Smathers and Billings seemed more likely adversaries than intimate friends. Jackie and her mother had a history with DeMohrenschildt, Billings was godfather toDeMohrenschildt's cousin, Frances McaDoo's son and namesake. Bush is steered by Bartlett to ask Nixon for the UN Ambassadorship, and Bush is a 20 year acquaintance of DeMohrenschildt in 1963, with Bush friends Hooker and Devine also involved with DeMohrenschildt. At least the Republicans make a good show of being in opposition to Democrats, to give the appearance that for Republicans it is a visceral competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 (edited) ...... My contribution I would like to think, is in pointing out that the following areas are intrinsically linked to the assassination of JFK....... MKULTRA Nazi connections from end of World War II ascending into occult activities at the time of the JFK assassination, which the best kept secret about hidden knowledge is that there is always an "intelligence related" dynamic with the mysterious magicians of esoterism. see Peter Lavenda JFK's cabinet and their friends and the fact that, in the big picture JFK became President at the wrong time as far as longevity was concerned. The Kennedy's were very naive about the wisdom of such matters as having Richard Nixon's running mate as your Ambassador to Vietnam, and the inherent corruption of Republican politicians. The media.....Time. Life the Luces...as Gerry Hemming would intone, Enuff said. Oswald.....Voltaire once said of Martin Luther that if he hadn't had lived it would have been necessary to invent him; one can say the very same exact thing of Lee Harvey Oswald and be every bit as accurate, although I am not a big admirer of the worldview of the Voltaire's and Nietzsche's....Probably a liitle more like Woody Allen....lol Last, but certainly not least, beware of the process of pinning the tail of whodunit to the historical donkey of the Evil man, LBJ seems to be the favorite, although the case could be made equally and with more resonance towards Richard ("I am not a crook") Nixon, circumstantial evidence is not historical reality, that evidence was probably on the erased tapes of both persons....... Cheers Robert, homing in on just one of a number of rich points to ponder in your post, it would have been one thing if the only misguided gesture the JFK-RFK administration had made was the appointment of election opponent Lodge as Ambassador to South Vietnam, but this sort of bipartisan appointment seemed part of an apolitical pattern of reasonableness I regard as a flaw of all Democratic party administrations since FDR. Obama has probably been as busy doing it as JFK was. Politically, Bartlett, Smathers and Billings seemed more likely adversaries than intimate friends. Jackie and her mother had a history with DeMohrenschildt, Billings was godfather to DeMohrenschildt's cousin, Frances McaDoo's son and namesake. Bush is steered by Bartlett to ask Nixon for the UN Ambassadorship, and Bush is a 20 year acquaintance of DeMohrenschildt in 1963, with Bush friends Hooker and Devine also involved with DeMohrenschildt. At least the Republicans make a good show of being in opposition to Democrats, to give the appearance that for Republicans it is a visceral competition. Tom, you are dead-on accurate in your comments, I can't really disagree with anything in that above paragraph, although Billing's is kind of hard to figure, not your mentioning him, but his oddities..... Smather's was a real SOB, IMO to JFK when you get down to it, a real chameleon, that fellow....from what I've read about the intel/political landscape of late fall 1963 there was no way he was not picking up some static on the [Florida] frequency, if you know what I mean....But so were a lot of other people as we all know..... Edited January 21, 2012 by Robert Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now