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Russ Baker: Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty


John Simkin

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Russ Baker has agreed to discuss his new book, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America, on the forum.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Family-Secrets-Dyn...9356&sr=1-1

This is what Nathaniel Heidenheimer has to say about the book:

Incredible break down and analysis of the double alibis of H.W. and Barbara on 11-22 when Bush was in Dallas. Barbaras letter mentions Al Ulmer of Greece CIA stations? The alibi letter mentions Al Ulmer's wife. The emphasis is on the circular nature of the double alibi, and the author seems to suggest that the bloody Ulmers where mentioned in a "why would we mention so contraversial if this was an alibi letter" kind of way.

Does anyone know if Ulmer was in Greece at the time of Karamesines? The book mentions Ulmer there in the late forties and early fifties, and Bush even seemed to visit him there during that bloody time? Am I correct in recalling that Heckscher was also in Greece arount that time?

This book is radically altering my thought on the H.W. role: the author makes it seem as if the 63-64 Senate run may have been more a coordinating higher ups. I had previously known of his work with the right wing cubans via Zapata, but this is a whole new texas coordinating role that I had not previously considered.

Anyone not reading this book right now will need a note from a parent or guardian!

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Review of Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty by David Swanson

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Did-Bush-...081226-372.html

Russ Baker's new book presents an account of the U.S. government that is both remarkably new and extensively documented. According to this account, George H. W. Bush, the father of the current president, devoted his career to secret intelligence work with the CIA many years before he became the CIA director, and the network of spies and petroleum plutocrats he began working with early on has played a powerful but hidden role in determining the direction of the U.S. government up to the current day.

New research and newly highlighted information assembled by Baker presents at least the strong possibility that Bush was involved in assassinating President Kennedy, and that Bush was involved in staging the Watergate break-in (and the break-in at Dan Ellsberg's psychiatrist's) with the purpose of having these break-ins exposed and the blame placed on President Nixon. In this account, those in on the get-Nixon plot included John Dean and Bob Woodward. While this retelling of history would make a certain Robert Redford movie look really, really silly, it would -- on the other hand -- make Woodward's performance during Watergate fit more coherently with everything he's known to have done before and since. It would also give new meaning to Dean's recent book title "Conservatives Without a Conscience." I would love to see either of these men's response to Baker's book.

Many readers of this review may now be rushing off to declare Baker either profoundly insane or (probably in fewer cases) indisputably correct in his views regarding the removal of Kennedy and Nixon from the White House, but I would strongly urge reading the book before doing so. It's called "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It In The White House, And What Their Influence Means for America."

Those of us who have pushed for years now to have Bush Jr. impeached or prosecuted have heard all imaginable excuses and then some. One has been this: "Punishing the figurehead puppet president would amount to excusing the real powers behind the throne." And, of course, some of us have never doubted that such powers existed, but considered letting Bush and Cheney walk free as a surer way to protect other guilty parties than punishing them would be. There are guilty parties in Congress too, of course, but how the pervasiveness of guilt justifies letting everyone off the hook has always escaped me. The arrests have to begin somewhere. In any case, I bring up the image of presidents as puppets because Baker provides a new variation on that theme. In his account, Bush Jr. is indeed not the driving force, but a clique centered around his father is.

Baker does not focus on Bush Jr.'s grandfather, Prescott Bush, and does not even mention his role in the plot to overthrow President Roosevelt in 1933 ( http://davidswanson.org/node/1337 ). Baker's focus is on Poppy, although Prescott and his anger toward Kennedy are in the background. It is not a completely new idea to suppose that Kennedy was killed because he angered the CIA and powerful Americans with business interests in Cuba. It is, as far as I know, new to show, as Baker extensively documents and then summarizes, that:

"Poppy Bush was closely tied to key members of the intelligence community including the deposed CIA head with a known grudge against JFK; he was also tied to Texas oligarchs who hated Kennedy's politics and whose wealth was directly threatened by Kennedy; this network was part of the military/intelligence elite with a history of using assassination as an instrument of policy.

"Poppy Bush was in Dallas on November 21 and most likely the morning of November 22. He hid that fact, he lied about knowing where he was, then he created an alibi based on a lead he knew was false. And he never acknowledged the closeness of his relationship with Oswald's handler George de Mohrenschildt.

"Poppy's business partner Thomas Devine met with de Mohrenschildt during that period, on behalf of the CIA.

"Poppy's eventual Texas running mate in the 1964 election, Jack Crichton, was connected to the military intelligence figures who led Kennedy's motorcade.

"Crichton and D. Harold Byrd, owner of the Texas School Book Depository building, were both connected to de Mohrenschildt -- and directly to each other through oil-business dealings.

"Byrd brought in the tenant that hired Oswald shortly before the assassination.

"Oswald got his job in the building through a friend of de Mohrenschildt's with her own intelligence connections -- including family ties to Allen Dulles."

You start to get a taste of the sort of case Baker builds. It's persuasive, but not conclusive. If you buy into the basic outlines of it, you come up against a history of American politics in which our top "elected" officials are not just chosen through a process openly corrupted by money and media and parties, but are also chosen through a process of covert ops. Kennedy was replaced by Johnson because he was more obedient to Texas oilmen. Nixon was replaced by Ford for similar reasons. Bush Sr. made a deal with Iran not to release American hostages until Reagan defeated Carter. (Baker recounts but adds nothing new to this story, already reported elsewhere.) Bush Sr. and Jr. ran election campaigns that employed CIA-like techniques. It's a compelling narrative with probably a great deal of truth to it, and the viciousness of Republican attacks on President Clinton fits into it. So does the reluctance of Carter, Clinton, Obama, and others to stray too far from positions acceptable to those (like Robert Gates) with places in the more permanent power structure. So does the possibility that Michael Connell was murdered last week.

The interesting thing about Baker's claims regarding Kennedy and Nixon is that they would suggest that the CIA actually succeeded at something, that -- in fact -- the CIA or members thereof managed to keep major secrets for decades. Of course, they were morally reprehensible secrets and provide further rationale for eliminating the CIA and all secret government agencies, not any sort of justification for keeping them going.

While Nixon and Kennedy appear in this account almost exclusively in the role of victims, we should remember that their failures to please a certain powerful group do not absolve them of their own sins, even if that group may have done them in. While Kennedy may have courted the wrath of certain powers by refusing to do to Cuba what Dubya later did to Iraq, Nixon's failing was not any deficiency in the area of war criminality. While part of what Nixon was covering up may have been staged to frame him, his most serious offenses -- those involving the mass slaughter of human beings -- have been marginalized in all accounts, old and new, of our attempts to hold him accountable. And Nixon himself secretly derailed a possible peace agreement in order to get himself into the same White House that he was later chased out of in disgrace.

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TIMELY HEART ATTACK 10,000!! The award--unfortunately he will spend it all in one place-- goes to Edward Gordon Hooker former very very close friend of H.W. Bush at Andover-Yale.

His mum, after divorce, seemed to be getting freaky with one Von oder de Urals: Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt brother of a certain Very White Dallas Magnolia blossom. Baker mentions that Dimitri kept the German Von while his Dallas located brother prefered the french de. Makes sense. There was a need for SOME cultural diversity at those Magnolia parties .. er party.

-----

"When Hooker married, Poppy Bush (H.W.) served as an usher. The relationship between Bush and Hooker lasted for three decades, until 1967, when Hooker died of an apparent heart attack (10) He was just forty-three. SIx years after Hooker's death, Poppy bush woul serve as surrogate father, giving away Hooker's daughter at her wedding to Ames Braga, scion of a Castro-expropriated Cuban Sugar dynasty.

The relationship couldn't have been much closer. Yet Bush never mentions hooker in his memoirs or published recollections, even though he finds room

for scored of more marginal figures. Certainly his family aware of Hooker (p. 73, Family of Secrets)

------

1967 heart attack. Must have been something in the air. Could have doubled with DizzyFits on the courts against Coincidence Theory, though I hear the latter has a wicked serve.

Edited by Nathaniel Heidenheimer
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You can tell the Archbishop of Langley is worried about this one. It was just Drive -By- Christened by Mad Alex with one of his classic Muscle Car Drivebys desgined to put a hic up in the spectrum between left -liberal and further left (read employable or not in the land of the Foundation-Free). See Encounger Magazine, history of.

http://www.counterpunch.org/

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The author notes that Pepsi's Kendall had past connections with the CIA and was later involved in the Chile policy against Allende. He also notes that Kendall knew about the bottling convention in Dallas at the time of the Convention but was responsible for getting Nixon in Dallas by a conversation much later.

------

Another interesting thing about the bottler's convention is that the Army reserves volunteered to help facilitate an unusual extracurricular

activity. As noted in Chepter 6 an 7, Poppy Bush's friend Jack Crichton was head of the local Army Inteliigence unit. Associates of Crichton's

who were involved with the Army Reserves had managed to get into the pilot car of Kennedy's procession, with one as the driver. Chrichton

would also provide the interpreter for Marina Oswald after her husband's arrest as the prime suspect in Kennedy's murder.

According to a short item in the Dallas Morning News the day before Kennedy was shot, members of the Dallas unit of the 90th Artillary

Division of the Army Reserves would be providing trucks and drivers to transport two hundred orphans to a livestock arena for a rodeo sponsored

by the bottler's group. This was to take place at nine P.M. on the night before Kennedy's arrival. The arena was at Fair Park, near the site under

which Crichton's Civil Defense maintained its underground emergency bunker and communications facility. Putting aside the Dickensian aspect of

moving orphans in Army trucks within an afluent American city, this raises some questions about the reason for this odd maneuver. Whatever

the true purpose of a small platoon of Army vehicles being premitted to move about Dallas on purportedly unrelated civilian business as the

president's arrival was imminant, it appears investigators never considered this incident worthy of a closer look.

Cumulatively, the bottler's convention was responsible for a number of curious circumstaces that may be said to have some relevance to the

events surrounding Kennedy's death:

* The convention brought Nixon to Dallas

* It brought eight thousand strangers to Dallas.

* It sent army vehicles into action on city streets the night before the assassination.

* Its early reservation of one large venue helped determine Kennedy's ultimate destination and thus the motercade route.

(p.188-189, Family of Secrets)

There is much more on this guy Jack Crichton and his relationship to H.W. Bush in Family of Secrets than I have seen anywhere else

Edited by Nathaniel Heidenheimer
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TIMELY HEART ATTACK 10,000!! The award--unfortunately he will spend it all in one place-- goes to Edward Gordon Hooker former very very close friend of H.W. Bush at Andover-Yale. ...

-----

"When Hooker married, Poppy Bush (H.W.) served as an usher. The relationship between Bush and Hooker lasted for three decades, until 1967, when Hooker died of an apparent heart attack (10) He was just forty-three. SIx years after Hooker's death, Poppy bush would serve as surrogate father, giving away Hooker's daughter at her wedding to Ames Braga, scion of a Castro-expropriated Cuban Sugar dynasty.

The relationship couldn't have been much closer. Yet Bush never mentions hooker in his memoirs or published recollections, even though he finds room

for scored of more marginal figures. Certainly his family aware of Hooker (p. 73, Family of Secrets)

I think the Braga family connection to wealthy Texans is extremely important, especially since the reason I suspect Poppy Bush to have gone to Texas was actually to find wealthy clients for his dad's investment bank, Brown Brothers Harriman. The Bragas had extensive sugar interests in Cuba, including a partnership with the Kleberg family who had given LBJ his first introduction into Washington D.C. politics. The Klebergs who first came to Texas from Germany were Republicans, and Dick Kleberg never fit into the Democratic mold. The King Ranch empire had spread all over the world, particularly Argentina and Brazil and Spain--where they were close to old fascists. Here are some excerpts from Bob Kleberg and the King Ranch by John Cypher which mention the Bragas or Kleberg politics:

http://books.google.com/books?id=uLsvM__yN...1&ct=result

p. 40--He entered Bob's life as the right-hand man to George and Riondo Braga, principals in a private New York sugar-trading firm. The Bragas formed a partnership with King Ranch in Cuba, and Jack was the liaison between them...

Page 53--... LEFT TO RIGHT: Tom Armstrong, Winthrop Rockefeller, and Bob Kleberg at the annual King Ranch Quarter Horse and Santa Gertrudis bull auction, 1963. ...

p. 75--... George and Riondo Braga of New York, whose family, back to the Spanish colonial era, had been sugar producers in the provinces of Oriente and Camaguey. ...Forming a joint venture with the Manati Sugar Company, one of the Braga subsidiaries, Bob set out to create a beef factory in the brushland and forest near ...

Page 76--The man who was vital to changing this practice was the president of the joint King Ranch-Braga subsidiary, Jack Malone. George Braga had sent Jack to ...

Page 86--One of his neighbors in Camaguey was a sugar producer, mill owner, and the finest Santa Gertrudis cattle breeder in the country, Alvaro Sanchez. ...

Page 89--Gustavo had gotten his information from an officer in Castro's forces, a Colonel Morgan, an American adventurer and double agent for the US George Braga, ...

p. 189--In 1967, Riondo Braga persuaded Bob to accompany him on a trip to the locale around Seville, where the country is similar to our arid Southwest. ...

Page 190--When the ranch was put together, the Braga brothers took a minor interest, continuing their partnership with King Ranch that had begun fifteen years before. ...

Page 209--Through the Braga brothers, in February, 1967 Bob attended a reception in New York for His Majesty King Hassan II, son of Mohammed V. The king was ...

Page 216--Could Bob arrange for him as soon as possible to meet with President Nixon? Bob had been one of Nixon's early presidential backers; faithful to his creed, ...

Page 225--His CLOSE ASSOCIATION with Richard Nixon had brought Bob under the eye of the attorney general's investigation into the Watergate affair. ...

My guess is that the King Ranch/Kleberg/Armstrong-family network was ready to find a replacement for LBJ. They backed Connally in recruiting Nixon to their side and later got Bush to take him out.

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In 1976, more than a decade after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a ltrrer arrived at the CIA, addressed to its director, the Hon.

George Bush. The letter was from a desperate-sounding man in Dallas, who spoke regretfully of having been discreet in talking about Lee Harvey

Oswald and begged Poppi for help:

Maybe you will be able to bring a solution into the hopeless situation I find myself in. My wife and I find ourselves surrounded

by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed verywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want

to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by this situation... I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H.

Oswald and must have angered a lot of people... Could you do something to remove this net around us? This will be the last

request for help and I will not annoy you any more.

The writer signed himself "G. de Mohrenschildt" (1) (p. 67, Family of Secrets)

1. Letter from de Mohrenschildt to Bush, avialable through the Mary Ferrell foundation Web site (www.maryferrell.org) It includes

the official routing slip where Bush checks "yes" after "do you know this individual?" (104-10414-10013). Also available is a

memorandum from Inspector General John Waller to Bush summarizing what is in the CIA files on de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10372);

and a letter from Bush to de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10134).

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In 1976, more than a decade after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a letter arrived at the CIA, addressed to its director, the Hon. George Bush. The letter was from a desperate-sounding man in Dallas, who spoke regretfully of having been discreet in talking about Lee Harvey Oswald and begged Poppy for help:

Maybe you will be able to bring a solution into the hopeless situation I find myself in. My wife and I find ourselves surrounded by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed verywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by this situation... I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H. Oswald and must have angered a lot of people... Could you do something to remove this net around us? This will be the last request for help and I will not annoy you any more.

The writer signed himself "G. de Mohrenschildt" (1) (p. 67, Family of Secrets)

1. Letter from de Mohrenschildt to Bush, avialable through the Mary Ferrell foundation Web site (www.maryferrell.org) It includes the official routing slip where Bush checks "yes" after "do you know this individual?" (104-10414-10013).

2. Also available is a memorandum from Inspector General John Waller to Bush summarizing what is in the CIA files on de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10372); and a letter from Bush to de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10134).

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...sPageId=1136562

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=2

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=2

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...sPageId=1138414

Note from Bush about Win Scott's manuscript which John Waller had briefed him on:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=434931

Relates to the November 29, 1963 memo about the CIA's George Bush:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=217109

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I have been very busy with several projects that all have deadlines and have only managed to find time to read about 20% of the book. However, it is enough to realize that this is a very important book. Russ covers the careers of several characters based in Texas who have not really been covered in any detail by previous researchers. It therefore raises a lot of important questions and opens up new areas of research. It is also is incredibly well written that manages to be both readable and academic.

I have a lot of specific questions for Russ but will start with a couple general questions:

1. Do you plan to send a copy of your book to Barack Obama?

2. Which classified documents concerning the Bush family and their associates would you urge the new president to release?

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I just posed a question to Jefferson Morley who, in his book about Win Scott, mentioned a connection between Scott and Fergie Dempster of British Intelligence, who had helped Scott set up a business in Mexico in 1969 following his retirement. At page 274 he says that Dempster had retired at the same time and brought in "another agency man named Al Ulmer" who had known Scott since their Havana days and while serving as chief of the London CIA station. They set up a company called "Diversified Corporate Services, DiCoSe and opened an office near the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City as consultants for people who wanted to do business in Mexico.

Given what Russ Baker said about Ulmer's being with George and Barbara Bush on and before November 22, 1963, I found this all extremely interesting and was wondering if Russ Baker could comment on it.

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I just posed a question to Jefferson Morley who, in his book about Win Scott, mentioned a connection between Scott and Fergie Dempster of British Intelligence, who had helped Scott set up a business in Mexico in 1969 following his retirement. At page 274 he says that Dempster had retired at the same time and brought in "another agency man named Al Ulmer" who had known Scott since their Havana days and while serving as chief of the London CIA station. They set up a company called "Diversified Corporate Services, DiCoSe and opened an office near the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City as consultants for people who wanted to do business in Mexico.

Given what Russ Baker said about Ulmer's being with George and Barbara Bush on and before November 22, 1963, I found this all extremely interesting and was wondering if Russ Baker could comment on it.

Jeff Morley's material relating to Al Ulmer is news to me, but it fits in rather well with what I report about Ulmer in Family of Secrets (see www.familyofsecrets.com ). He "left" the agency about the same time as his good friend and boss Allen Dulles, and began working with the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, who had a close relationship with the CIA and appears to have provided cover for operations without "official" sanction. I will be sure to look into this further as soon as I can get through our initial book release period, and invite anyone with additional information to contact me.

Edited by Russ Baker
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Guest Tom Scully

Thank you for the opportunity, Russ !

I can understand you wanted to frame your Bush family focus on GHWB and GWB, but I was surprised not to find any mention of Samuel F. Pryor or Sam Pryor Jr, nor of Jupiter Island.

Since Samuel F. Pryor and GH Walker came from St. Louis, as did Samuel Bush, and Pryor and Samuel Bush were Rockefeller family surrogates, and because Jupiter Island became the most concentrated intersection of the wealthiest, Dillon, Mellon, the military industrialist, Walter Carpenter of Dupont, and the defense and intelligence hierarchy (R A. Lovett, asst. sect'y of war for air forces, WWII, Sect'y of War, Patterson's appointee to chair committee creating CIA, and Sect'y of Defense during Korean War), though Carpenter, Du Pont lawyer during Sen. Nye "merchant of death" hearings, "Wild Bill" Donovan, David KE Bruce, brother-in-law of Paul Mellon, Allen Dulles, Harriman Bros. lawyer and OSS chief, NY and Basil, and through Lovett, Trubee Davison, his best friend, early CIA personnel director, fellow Yale bonesman, son of JP Morgan partner, as well as the rest the Jupiter Island cast of characters, did you avoid these GHWB origins, because of Tarpley's earlier book?

You gave Prescott Bush's Pan Am board membership a mention, but wan't it related to Sam Pryor Jr.'s role as executive VP at Pan Am? Sam was Willkie's 1940 eatern states campaign manager. he introduced Willkie to WR Davis, American "oil man" and Nazi abwehr agent C-80. The O. John Rogge Nazi Report, suppressed by Atty. Gen. Tom Clark in 1946, includes verification by Goering and Rippentrop, as told to Rogge in interrogations at Nuremberg, that Davis financed, with Nazi provided funds, union leader John L. Lewis's nationally broadcast, October, 1940 speech endorsing Willkie for president. There are a number of books, published during the last 50 years, confirming that Willkie knew Davis was providing large sums of Nazi money to his campaign.

Sam Pryor Jr. gave Charles Lindbergh, 5 acres of his 100 acre Hawaiin estate, to build Lindbergh's retirement home on. Instead of burial next to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles rests in a small Oahu, HI cemetery next to Sam Pryor Jr. Pryor's father, Samuel F., was an original incorporator, according to National Archive documents in the files of the Alien Property Custodian, of Hamburg America Line, and Union Bank Corp., bot confisacted as Nazi owned corporations in 1942.

You "went there", with your description of William Farish III"s granfather's role at Esso NJ, but you did not include the charge that Farish was a principle in the Farben cartel that provided tetra-ethyl lead to make the "Av-gas" that, if unavailable, would have grounded the Luftwaffe in the battle of Britain. GHWB has referred to Farish III as his "best friend". Is it not significant that, after the 1943 death of Farish III's father in an Army Air Force plane crash, that his male role model was his maternal grandfather, 1940 isolationist movement leader, and extreme right wing organizer, Gen. Robert E. Wood, or that Farish III is married to a Du pont heiress?

My question comes down to whether you deliberately avoided writing about what I am finding, and what is also found in the bio's on John Simkin's Spartacus site.... that GHWB and GWB are "the surface" of an intergenerational movement of right oriented, to the point of fascist, wealthiest, most powerful families who frame (dictate?) the platforms and agendas of both US parties, and US military and foreign policy?

Secondly, I read your great observations and unique facts of Warren Commission senior assistant counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., on page 79 of your book and pages 124 - 128. Were you aware that there is much documentation supporting the idea that Jenner was placed on the WC, and charged with investigating the possibility of a conspiracy, because he was "Mafia financier", Henry Crown's lawyer? Crown's son, John J., joined Jenner's law firm in 1959, and was still there as a partner, in 1969. Jenner seems to have only been Crown's personnel attorney, and by extension, attorney for Material Services Corp., the Crown family corporation, merged into General Dynamics in 1959. There were many reports that Henry Crown, 20 percent owner of General Dynamics and chair of it's executive committee, was exposed financially as LBJ was exposed politically, by the direction the TFX scandal was taking in the months leading up to November 22, 1963. The man who Crown hired in 1960 as president of Material Service and Vice President of General Dynamics, Patrick H. Hoy, was dcoumented by Peter Dale Scott and other sources to be a close friend of Sidney Korshak and of Charles "Babe" Baron. Hoy, manager and then president of the Chicago Hotel Sherman group, also had an at least eleven year, daily relationship with Irv Kupcinet. Irv's daily newspaper column assistant writers, writing under the name, "Ivan Bunny", testified to the WC that they were tell lifelong friends of Jack Ruby, and they owned the Clover bar next to the Hotel Sherman.

You wrote that Earl Warren proposed the appointment of Jenner, but the minutes of that December 16, WC executive session also tell us that Warren had run the name of Jenner by Dean Acheson and Tom Clark, and he explained it was because Acheson and Clark both knew Jenner from serving on panels with him, related to formulation of legal procedure/policy.

McCloy, at the prior WC session, had succeed in removing Earl Warren choice Warren Olney, in favor of J. Lee Rankin as WC Counsel. The history of the Union Pacific railroad reveals that in the same time period, Robert A. Lovett, related to his responsibilities at the Union Pacific, was meeting with "Henry Crown and his lawyer" for the purpose of discussing a merger of Crown's Rock Island RR holdings in a bid to gain control of Rock Island and then a merger.

Do you think it is coincidence, that the presence of three, of "the Six Friends",

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C1A960948260

converge here. around the appointment of Albert Jenner?

Henry Crown's principle business partner was Conrad Hilton, Crown was largest Hilton shareholder. Hilton was "an old friend" of Earl Warren. Warren's daughter, Virginia, was Conrad Hilton's social event escort for at least four years before her 1960 marriage. Henry Crown introduced Virginia to Queen Elizabeth at a 1957 reception that otherwise only included Crown, his wife, and directors of the Empire State Building holding corp. and their wives.

If this additional information about Henry Crown, Earl Warren, and Albert Jenner had been available to you before the final edit of your book, would you have included it? You speculated about Jenner's motivation to avoid digging into George de Mohrenschildt's background and role.

Edited by Tom Scully
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Jeff Morley's material relating to Al Ulmer is news to me, but it fits in rather well with what I report about Ulmer in Family of Secrets (see www.familyofsecrets.com ). He "left" the agency about the same time as his good friend and boss Allen Dulles, and began working with the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, who had a close relationship with the CIA and appears to have provided cover for operations without "official" sanction. I will be sure to look into this further as soon as I can get through our initial book release period, and invite anyone with additional information to contact me.

Morley only has one mention of Ulmer's name and no explanation of who he was. But I saw that reference almost immediately after reading about Ulmer in your book, so I realized it might be significant that he was involved in a consultancy firm with other members of British Intelligence and "former" long-term Mexico City CIA station chief. This would also have covered the time-frame possibly when Bush's friends were laundering money through Mexican bank accounts to hush up the Watergate burglars, as you discuss in several chapters of the book. I found the Watergate revelations to have some very new material presented in a totally new light I had never considered before--even after having read numerous books on Watergate. I've always been a little skeptical of John Dean, but didn't quite know what to make of him.

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...Secondly, I read your great observations and unique facts of Warren Commission senior assistant counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., on page 79 of your book and pages 124 - 128. Were you aware that there is much documentation supporting the idea that Jenner was placed on the WC, and charged with investigating the possibility of a conspiracy, because he was "Mafia financier", Henry Crown's lawyer? Crown's son, John J., joined Jenner's law firm in 1959, and was still there as a partner, in 1969. Jenner seems to have only been Crown's personnel attorney, and by extension, attorney for Material Services Corp., the Crown family corporation, merged into General Dynamics in 1959. There were many reports that Henry Crown, 20 percent owner of General Dynamics and chair of it's executive committee, was exposed financially as LBJ was exposed politically, by the direction the TFX scandal was taking in the months leading up to November 22, 1963. ...

If this additional information about Henry Crown, Earl Warren, and Albert Jenner had been available to you before the final edit of your book, would you have included it? You speculated about Jenner's motivation to avoid digging into George de Mohrenschildt's background and role.

Tom,

It sounds as if you have lots of important information about this subject, but very little of it relates to the title of Mr. Baker's book about the forces that put the Bush Dynasty in the White House.

Why did you, in framing your question, fail to mention that Henry Crown's company was involved in dredging work in the Philippines and in the Caribbean preparing one of the islands to be a casino resort?

I would submit that everyone has a different take on these facts, but, having written articles myself, know that publishers and editors are always cutting out anything that doesn't relate to the specific topic.

My interest in Henry Crown as head of the Materials Service Corp. in Chicago is whether he may have been involved in mining or recovery of strategic minerals that would have necessitated security clearance. It has been discussed in other circles that he was used in the Philippines to recover Japanese gold that was then laundered through gambling casinos somehow which I don't pretend to understand.

In addition, and I would ask Mr. Baker to comment on this:

  • Did you find in your research any common threads to mining operations and covert intelligence operations, and if so, do you think that is significant in understanding the real purpose of, for example, the CIA?

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