Three Tramps.

[Ron Ecker]

John,

In case you don't already know, two or three years ago in a TV interview Byrd referred to some folks whom he was criticizing for something as "white niggers."

He later apologized, of course, saying that he didn't mean to offend anybody.

Ron

[Ron Ecker]

Since Prouty was certain that Lansdale is in the photo, it is important to consider what Prouty thought Lansdale was doing there. Here is what Prouty told the ARRB, describing it as his personal opinion: “(Lansdale) was very good at the ‘C and D’ (Cover and Deception) role. He was very good at the scenario role. So I figured, if he’s there, he’s on duty. And if he’s on duty, he’s doing a scenario. Well, the scenario were the tramps. . . . I mean, what a silly thing to run in the middle of the show. But that’s what they were doing. You see, it’s to distract . . . And Howard Hunt has had to admit he was there.”

Does anyone know when Hunt has ever admitted that he was there? Another instance in which Prouty just didn’t know what he was talking about.

And consider this Prouty statement to the ARRB (remember, this man wrote a book on the JFK assassination and helped inspire a movie about it on which he was a paid consultant): “I’ve never even picked up the Warren Commission Report. I wouldn’t know if I saw it.”

This led the ARRB’s Christopher Barger to compare Prouty, in an interview summary, to “a con man selling snake oil to remedy a disease about which he knows nothing.”

But back to the tramps. I’m willing to accept the idea of Prouty and others that the tramps may have been used for deception. But that would hardly be Lansdale’s only reason for being there. If a legendary operator like Lansdale was there, he was probably running the whole show in Dealey Plaza, not just running some tramps for deception. Plus I don’t think the tramp deception worked very well, since this deception occurred about an hour and a half after the assassination. At that time the real deception of the day was being culminated elsewhere, at the Texas Theater.

Or did the plotters foresee the deception of using tramps being effective later, working years afterward through photographs, to keep researchers, before such researchers existed, off track? I think there may be a tendency to give the killers too much prescience of later events and issues as they went about planning their killing.

I just can’t see these tramps or actors as being worth Lansdale’s trouble. If there had been no tramps arrested or photographed that day, what difference would it make? None really, except that we wouldn’t be talking about it. The president would still be dead and we still wouldn’t know who did it.

Ron

[Greg Wagner]

Since Prouty was certain that Lansdale is in the photo, it is important to consider what Prouty thought Lansdale was doing there. Here is what Prouty told the ARRB, describing it as his personal opinion: “(Lansdale) was very good at the ‘C and D’ (Cover and Deception) role. He was very good at the scenario role. So I figured, if he’s there, he’s on duty. And if he’s on duty, he’s doing a scenario. Well, the scenario were the tramps. . . . I mean, what a silly thing to run in the middle of the show. But that’s what they were doing. You see, it’s to distract . . . And Howard Hunt has had to admit he was there.”

Does anyone know when Hunt has ever admitted that he was there? Another instance in which Prouty just didn’t know what he was talking about.

And consider this Prouty statement to the ARRB (remember, this man wrote a book on the JFK assassination and helped inspire a movie about it on which he was a paid consultant): “I’ve never even picked up the Warren Commission Report. I wouldn’t know if I saw it.”

This led the ARRB’s Christopher Barger to compare Prouty, in an interview summary, to “a con man selling snake oil to remedy a disease about which he knows nothing.”

But back to the tramps. I’m willing to accept the idea of Prouty and others that the tramps may have been used for deception. But that would hardly be Lansdale’s only reason for being there. If a legendary operator like Lansdale was there, he was probably running the whole show in Dealey Plaza, not just running some tramps for deception. Plus I don’t think the tramp deception worked very well, since this deception occurred about an hour and a half after the assassination. At that time the real deception of the day was being culminated elsewhere, at the Texas Theater.

Or did the plotters foresee the deception of using tramps being effective later, working years afterward through photographs, to keep researchers, before such researchers existed, off track? I think there may be a tendency to give the killers too much prescience of later events and issues as they went about planning their killing.

I just can’t see these tramps or actors as being worth Lansdale’s trouble. If there had been no tramps arrested or photographed that day, what difference would it make? None really, except that we wouldn’t be talking about it. The president would still be dead and we still wouldn’t know who did it.

Ron

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Ron-

You make very interesting, well-supported points. I don't know if that's Lansdale or not, but I agree with your assessment that IF Lansdale was in DP, he was doing something significant. Whether that would have related to the Tramps is anyone's guess, but in my mind, it would be difficult to believe that those three characters (whoever they were) and Ed Lansdale passing each other in close quarters next to the TSBD, even 1.5 hours later, was just a coincidence.

[Jack White]

But Nixon WAS involved in the assassination, along with LBJ.

Possibly GHWB also. Dulles and conspirators had to cover

ALL FUTURE BASES against investigation and prosecution.

Jack

Edited May 19, 2005 by Jack White

[Ron Ecker]

But Nixon WAS involved in the assassination, along with LBJ.

That's likely, but it doesn't give people the right to lie or make up stuff in order to help convince us that Nixon, LBJ, or whoever was involved.

I just picked up a used copy of a book by Bo Gritz called Called To Serve, hoping that Gritz might have something of interest to say on the assassination. I quickly learned from Gritz that one of the tramps has been "positively identified" as William Seymour. Another, Gritz tells the reader, "is thought to be Albert Osborne."

This is nonsense, but I guess that's not supposed to matter as long as it helps convince people there was a conspiracy.

Ron

[Bernice Moore]

That's not the photo I referred to. The photo is on p. 495 of the book Pictures of the Pain. I would post it but I don't have a scanner. (Ron Ecker)

Is this the one you refer to, Ron? I take it the possible Lansdale figure is the man on the far left?

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In this photograph one can see clearly that the western entrance to the TSBD, through the shipping department, was wide open. I've noticed this before in some of the films. Even so, I don't remember a single person testifying that that door was ever closed or blocked off. When Billy Lovelady discussed this door in his WC testimony it was clear the WC counsel--was it Belin?--had no idea this door existed, and the discussion quickly changed course. Here was an effective escape route. Walk right out the shipping department into the crowd. A year or so ago I read the WC testimony of every DPD officer who went to the building, and I don't remember one of them discussing this door. If anyone has better pictures of it, or if anyone knows of testimony indicating this escape route was blocked off, I'd appreciate it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

*********************

Pat:

This shows you the back of the TSBD......the shipping dock area..it may be of some help...Taken in 1963....credit Scott Myers..

In all I have ever read there was one DPD stationed at the back door entrance, before the assassination..but no name was mentioned...

Edited May 20, 2005 by Bernice Moore

[Bernice Moore]

""The Lansdale story is endless. What people do not do is study the entire environment of his strange career. For example: the most important part of my book, "The Secret Team", is not something that I wrote. It is Appendix III under the title, "Training Under The Mutual Security Program". This is a most important bit of material. It tells more about the period 1963 to 1990 than anything. I fought to have it included verbatim in the book. This material was the work of Lansdale and his crony General Dick Stillwell. Anyone interested in the "JFK Coup d'Etat" ought to know it by heart. ""

**********************

Letter to Jim Garrison from Colonel Prouty:

March 6, 1990

Dear Jim,

It is amazing how things work, I am at home recuperating from a major back operation (to regain my ability to walk); so I was tossing around in bed last night...not too comfortable...and I began to think of Garrison. I thought, "I have got to write Jim a letter detailing how I believe the whole job was done."

By another coincidence I had received a fine set of twenty photos from the Sprague collection in Springfield, Mass. As the odds would have it, he is now living just around the corner here in Alexandria. Why not? Lansdale lived here, Fensterwald lives here, Ford used to live here. Quite a community.

I was studying those photos. One of them is the "Tramps" picture that appears in your book. It is glossy and clear. Lansdale is so clearly identifiable. Why, Lansdale in Dallas? The others don't matter, they are nothing but actors and not gunmen but they are interesting. Others who knew Lansdale as well as I did, have said the same thing, "That's him and what's he doing there?"

As I was reading the paper the Federal Express man came with a book from Jim, that unusual "Lansdale" book. A terrible biography. There could be a great biography about Lansdale. He's no angel; but he is worth a good biography. Currey, a paid hack, did the job. His employers ought to have let him do it right.

I had known Ed since 1952 in the Philippines. I used to fly there regularly with my MATS Heavy Transport Squadron. As a matter of fact, in those days we used to fly wounded men, who were recuperating, from hospitals in Japan to Saigon for R&R on the beaches of Cap St Jacque. That was 1952-1953. Saigon was the Paris of the Orient. And Lansdale was "King Maker" of the Philippines. We always went by way of Manila. I met his team.

He had arrived in Manila in Sept 1945, after the war was over, for a while. He had been sent back there in 1950 by the CIA(OPC) to create a new leader of the Philippines and to get rid of Querino. Sort of like the Marcos deal, or the Noriega operation. Lansdale did it better. I have overthrown a government but I didn't splash it all around like Reagan and Bush have done. Now, who sent him there?

Who sent him there in 1950 (Truman era) to do a job that was not done until 1953 (Ike era)? From 1950 to Feb. 1953 the Director of Central Intelligence was Eisenhower's old Chief of Staff, Gen Walter Bedell Smith. Smith had been Ambassador to Moscow from 1946 to 1949. The lesser guys in the CIA at the time were Allen Dulles, who was Deputy Director Central Intelligence from Aug. 1951 to Feb. 1953. Frank Wisner became the Deputy Director, Plans (Clandestine Activities) when Dulles became DDCI. Lansdale had to have received his orders from among these four men: Truman, Smith, Dulles, and Wisner. Of course the Sec State could have had some input...i.e. Acheson. Who wanted Querino out, that badly? Who wanted HUKS there?

In Jan 1953 Eisenhower arrived. John Foster Dulles was at State and Gen Smith his Deputy. Allen Dulles was the DCI and General Cabel his deputy. None of them changed Lansdale's prior orders to "get" Querino. Lansdale operated with abandon in the Philippines. The Ambassador and the CIA Station Chief, George Aurell, did not know what he was doing. They believed he was some sort of kook Air Force Officer there...a role Lansdale played to the hilt. Magsaysay became President, Dec 30, 1953.

With all of this on the record, and a lot more, this guy Currey comes out of the blue with this purported "Biography". I knew Ed well enough and long enough to know that he was a classic chameleon. He would tell the truth sparingly and he would fabricate a lot. Still, I can not believe that he told Currey the things Currey writes. Why would Lansdale want Currey to perpetuate such out and out bullxxxx about him? Can't be. This is a terribly fabricated book. It's not even true about me. I believe that this book was ordered and delineated by the CIA.

At least I know the truth about myself and about Gen. Krulak. Currey libels us terribly. In fact it may be Krulak who caused the book to be taken off the shelves. Krulak and his Copley Press cohorts have the power to get that done, and I encouraged them to do just that when it first came out. Krulak was mad!

Ed told me many a time how he operated in the Philippines. He said, "All I had was a blank checkbook signed by the U.S. government". He made friends with many influential Filipinos. I have met Johnny Orendain and Col Valeriano, among others, in Manila with Lansdale. He became acquainted with the wealthiest Filipino of them all, Soriano. Currey never even mentions him. Soriano set up Philippine Airlines and owned the big San Miguel beer company, among other things. Key man in Asia.

Lansdale's greatest strategy was to create the "HUKS" as the enemy and to make Magsaysay the "Huk Killer." He would take Magsaysay's battalion out into a "Huk" infested area. He would use movies and "battlefield" sound systems, i.e. fireworks to scare the poor natives. Then one-half of Magsaysay's battalion, dressed as natives, would "attack" the village at night. They'd fire into the air and burn some shacks. In the morning the other half, in uniform, would attack and "capture" the "Huks". They would bind them up in front of the natives who crept back from the forests, and even have a "firing" squad "kill" some of them. Then they would have Magsaysay make a big speech to the people and the whole battalion would roll down the road to have breakfast together somewhere...ready for the next "show".

Ed would always see that someone had arranged to have newsmen and camera men there and Magsaysay soon became a national hero. This was a tough game and Ed bragged that a lot of people were killed; but in the end Magsaysay became the "elected" President and Querino was ousted "legally."

This formula endeared Ed to Allen Dulles. In 1954 Dulles established the Saigon Military Mission in Vietnam...counter to Eisenhower's orders. He had the French accept Lansdale as its chief. This mission was not in Saigon. It was not military, and its job was subversion in Vietnam. Its biggest job was that it got more than 1,100,000 northern Vietnamese to move south. 660,000 by U.S.Navy ships and the rest by CIA airline planes. These 1,100,000 north Vietnamese became the "subversive" element in South Vietnam and the principal cause of the warmaking. Lansdale and his cronies (Bohanon, Arundel, Phillips, Hand, Conein and many others) did all that using the same check book. I was with them many times during 1954. All Malthuseanism.

I have heard him brag about capturing random Vietnamese and putting them in a Helicopter. Then they would work on them to make them "confess" to being Viet Minh. When they would not, they would toss them out of the chopper, one after the other, until the last ones talked. This was Ed's idea of fun...as related to me many times. Then Dulles, Adm. Radford and Cardinal Spellman set up Ngo Dinh Diem. He and his brother, Nhu, became Lansdale proteges.

At about 1957 Lansdale was brought back to Washington and assigned to Air Force Headquarters in a Plans office near mine. He was a fish out of water. He didn't know Air Force people and Air Force ways. After about six months of that, Dulles got the Office of Special Operations under General Erskine to ask for Lansdale to work for the Secretary of Defense. Erskine was man enough to control him.

By 1960 Erskine had me head the Air Force shop there. He had an Army shop and a Navy shop and we were responsible for all CIA relationships as well as for the National Security Agency. Ed was still out of his element because he did not know the services; but the CIA sent work his way.

Then in the Fall of 1960 something happened that fired him up. Kennedy was elected over Nixon. Right away Lansdale figured out what he was going to do with the new President. Overnight he left for Saigon to see Diem and to set up a deal that would make him, Lansdale, Ambassador to Vietnam. He had me buy a "Father of his Country" gift for Diem...$700.00.

I can't repeat all of this but you should get a copy of the Gravel edition, 5 Vol.'s, of the Pentagon Papers and read it. The Lansdale accounts are quite good and reasonably accurate.

Ed came back just before the Inauguration and was brought into the White House for a long presentation to Kennedy about Vietnam. Kennedy was taken by it and promised he would have Lansdale back in Vietnam "in a high office". Ed told us in OSO he had the Ambassadorship sewed up. He lived for that job.

He had not reckoned with some of JFK's inner staff, George Ball, etc. Finally the whole thing turned around and month by month Lansdale's star sank over the horizon. Erskine retired and his whole shop was scattered. The Navy men went back to the navy as did the Army folks. Gen Wheeler in the JCS asked to have me assigned to the Joint Staff. This wiped out the whole Erskine (Office of Special Operations) office. It was comical. There was Lansdale up there all by himself with no office and no one else. He boiled and he blamed it on Kennedy for not giving him the "promised" Ambassadorship to let him "save" Vietnam.

Then with the failure of the Bay of Pigs, caused by that phone call to cancel the air strikes by McGeorge Bundy, the military was given the job of reconstituting some sort of Anti-Castro operation. It was headed by an Army Colonel; but somehow Lansdale (most likely CIA influence) got put into the plans for Operation Mongoose...to get Castro...ostensibly.

The U.S. Army has a think-tank at American University. It was called "Operation Camelot". This is where the "Camelot" concept came from. It was anti-JFK's Vietnam strategy. The men running it were Lansdale types, Special Forces background. "Camelot" was King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table: not JFK...then.

Through 1962 and 1963 Mongoose and "Camelot" became strong and silent organizations dedicated to countering JFK. Mongoose had access to the CIA's best "hit men" in the business and a lot of "strike" capability. Lansdale had many old friends in the media business such as Joe Alsop, Henry Luce among others. With this background and with his poisoned motivation I am positive that he got collateral orders to manage the Dallas event under the guise of "getting" Castro. It is so simple at that level. A nod from the right place, source immaterial, and the job's done.

The "hit" is the easy part. The "escape" must be quick and professional. The cover-up and the scenario are the big jobs. They more than anything else prove the Lansdale mastery.

Lansdale was a master writer and planner. He was a great "scenario" guy. It still have a lot of his personally typed material in my files. I am certain that he was behind the elaborate plan and mostly the intricate and enduring cover-up. Given a little help from friends at PEPSICO he could easily have gotten Nixon into Dallas, for "orientation': and LBJ in the cavalcade at the same time, contrary to Secret Service policy.

He knew the "Protection" units and the "Secret Service", who was needed and who wasn't. Those were routine calls for him, and they would have believed him. Cabell could handle the police.

The "hit men" were from CIA overseas sources, for instance, from the "Camp near Athena, Greece. They are trained, stateless, and ready to go at any time. They ask no questions: speak to no one. They are simply told what to do, when and where. Then they are told how they will be removed and protected. After all, they work for the U.S. Government. The "Tramps" were actors doing the job of cover-up. The hit men are just pros. They do the job for the CIA anywhere. They are impersonal. They get paid. They get protected, and they have enough experience to "blackmail" anyone, if anyone ever turns on them...just like Drug agents. The job was clean, quick and neat. No ripples.

The whole story of the POWER of the Cover-up comes down to a few points. There has never been a Grand Jury and trial in Texas. Without a trial there can be nothing. Without a trial it does no good for researchers to dig up data. It has no place to go and what the researchers reveal just helps make the cover-up tighter, or they eliminate that evidence and the researcher.

The first man LBJ met with on Nov 29th, after he had cleared the foreign dignitaries out of Washington was Waggoner Carr, Atty Gen'l, Texas to tell him, "No trial in Texas...ever."

The next man he met, also on Nov 29th, was J. Edgar Hoover. The first question LBJ asked his old "19 year" neighbor in DC was "Were THEY shooting at me?" LBJ thought that THEY had been shooting at him also as they shot at his friend John Connally. Note that he asked, "Were THEY shooting at me?" LBJ knew there were several hitmen. That's the ultimate clue...THEY.

The Connallys said the same thing...THEY. Not Oswald.

Then came the heavily loaded press releases about Oswald all written before the deal and released actually before LHO had ever been charged with the crime. I bought the first newspaper EXTRA on the streets of Christchurch, New Zealand with the whole LHO story in that first news...photos and columns of it before the police in Dallas had yet to charge him with that crime. All this canned material about LHO was flashed around the world.

Lansdale and his Time-Life and other media friends, with Valenti in Hollywood, have been doing that cover-up since Nov 1963. Even the deMorenschildt story enhances all of this. In deM's personal telephone/address notebook he had the name of an Air Force Colonel friend of mine, Howard Burrus. Burrus was always deep in intelligence. He had been in one of the most sensitive Attache spots in Europe...Switzerland. He was a close friend of another Air Force Colonel and Attache, Godfrey McHugh, who used to date Jackie Bouvier. DeM had Burrus listed under a DC telephone number and on that same telephone number he had "L.B.Johnson, Congressman." Quite a connection. Why...from the Fifties yet.?

Godfrey McHugh was the Air Force Attache in Paris. Another most important job. I knew him well, and I transferred his former Ass't Attache to my office in the Pentagon. This gave me access to a lot of information I wanted in the Fifties. This is how I learned that McHugh's long-time special "date" was the fair Jacqueline...yes, the same Jackie Bouvier. Sen. Kennedy met Jackie in Paris when he was on a trip. At that time JFK was dating a beautiful SAS Airline Stewardess who was the date of that Ass't Attache who came to my office. JFK dumped her and stole Jackie away from McHugh. Leaves McHugh happy????

At the JFK Inaugural Ball who should be there but the SAS stewardess, Jackie--of course, and Col Godfrey McHugh. JFK made McHugh a General and made him his "Military Advisor" in the White House where he was near Jackie while JFK was doing all that official travelling connected with his office AND other special interests. Who recommended McHugh for the job?

General McHugh was in Dallas and was on Air Force One, with Jackie, on the flight back to Washington..as was Jack Valenti. Why was LBJ's old cohort there at that time and why was he on Air Force One? He is now the Movie Czar. Why in Dallas?

See how carefully all of this is interwoven. Burrus is now a very wealthy man in Washington. I have lost track of McHugh. And Jackie is doing well. All in the Lansdale--deM shadows.

One of Lansdale's special "black" intelligence associates in the Pentagon was Dorothy Matlack of U.S. Army Intelligence. How does it happen that when deM. flew from Haiti to testify, he was met at the National Airport by Dorothy?

The Lansdale story is endless. What people do not do is study the entire environment of his strange career. For example: the most important part of my book, "The Secret Team", is not something that I wrote. It is Appendix III under the title, "Training Under The Mutual Security Program". This is a most important bit of material. It tells more about the period 1963 to 1990 than anything. I fought to have it included verbatim in the book. This material was the work of Lansdale and his crony General Dick Stillwell. Anyone interested in the "JFK Coup d'Etat" ought to know it by heart.

I believe this document tells why the Coup took place. It was to reverse the sudden JFK re-orientation of the U.S. Government from Asia to Europe, in keeping with plans made in 1943 at Cairo and Teheran by T.V. Soong and his Asian masterminds. Lansdale and Stillwell were long-time "Asia hands" as were Gen Erskine, Adm Radford, Cardinal Spellman, Henry Luce and so many others.

In October 1963, JFK had just signalled this reversal, to Europe, when he published National Security Action Memorandum #263 saying...among other things...that he was taking 1000 troops home from Vietnam by Christmas 1963 and ALL AMERICANS out of Vietnam by the end of 1965. That cost him his life.

JFK came to that "Pro-Europe" conclusion in the Summer of 1963 and sent Gen Krulak to Vietnam for advance work. Kurlak and I (with others) wrote that long "Taylor-McNamara" Report of their "Visit to Vietnam" (obviously they did not write, illustrate and bind it as they traveled). Krulak got his information daily in the White House. We simply wrote it. That led to NSAM #263. This same Trip Report is Document #142 and appears on page 751 to 766 of Vol. II of the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers. NSAM #263 appears on pages 769-770 (It makes the Report official). This major Report and NSAM indicated an enormous shift in the orientation of U.S. Foreign Policy from Asia back to Europe. JFK was much more Europe- oriented, as was his father, than pro-Asia. This position was anathema to the Asia-born Luces, etc.

There is the story from an insider. I sat in the same office with Lansdale, (OSO of OSD) for years. I listened to him in Manila and read his flurry of notes from 1952 to 1964. I know all this stuff, and much more. I could write ten books. I send this to you because I believe you are one of the most sincere of the "true researchers". You may do with it as you please. I know you will do it right. I may give copies of this to certain other people of our persuasion. (Years ago I told this to Mae Brussell on the promise she would hold it. She did.)

Now you can see why I have always said that identification of the "Tramps" was unnecessary, i.e. they are actors. The first time I saw that picture I saw the man I knew and I realized why he was there. He caused the political world to spin on its axis. Now, back to recuperating.

L. Fletcher Prouty

http://www.prouty.org/garrison.html

http://www.prouty.org/main.html

http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/USO/chp3_p1.html

Edited May 20, 2005 by Bernice Moore

[Lee Forman]

And the Jack Beers Tramp? Has this individual ever been identified?

- lee

[Tim Gratz]

Jack wrote:

But Nixon WAS involved in the assassination, along with LBJ.

Possibly GHWB also. Dulles and conspirators had to cover

ALL FUTURE BASES against investigation and prosecution.

Well we might as well include Carter, Clinton and Reagan as well! I mean if we are talking possibilities anything is possible.

What iota, what one-zillionth of iota, what scintilla of evidence exists that Allen Dulles had anything to do with the assassination?

He can, and should be, criticized for hiding the Castro plots from the Warren Commission (although the record is no more clear that he was witting of them than were the Kennedys).

[Shanet Clark]

Thanks for the PROUTY to GARRISON letter.

It captures the strengths and weaknesses of Fletcher Prouty.

He was often loose with the facts, but his hunches and suspicions shed light on Dallas.

He obviously hated Lansdale, and thought Lansdale had gotten him (Prouty) out of the country for the Dallas ambush.

Prouty was also a firm believer in the flechette dart to the throat being the first shot to hit Kennedy, and paralyze him for the barrage, and he thought UNBRELLA MAN fired the dart through a CIA designed umbrella.

With so much classified, and so many questions unanswered, I tend to take FLETCHER PROUTY"s opinions VERY seriously.

James' new picture of Lansdale shows that body english and stance that PROUTY saw, and he positively identified Lansdale as the man in the frame with the TRAMPS.

Read Chauncey Holt's account. Fake IDs, a radio, a tense team of three men hiding in a boxcar and escorted across the Plaza, no arrrest records, .....

They were operational, and they were escorted to safety..........

[Steven Gaal]

Dear Tim, IMHO from decades of work on the JFK matter - everything points to Dulles. When Dulles died he gave his smoking pipes to JJA- this was a large sign of how close they were. On line you can find the last two issues of PROBE magazine which point to JJA. My original research indicates Dulles started penetration of the SS in the early 1950s. Dulles knew DEMOH brother (see Bruce Adamsons work). Dulles committed a good deal of Treason via his Sullivan & Cromwell investments. When Dewey didnt win - Dulles could have been in trouble. (SEE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE JEWS BOOK). Dulles started the Republican Ethnic Committees with illegal government funds. He also imported neo & just plain ole NAZIs into this organization. From 52 to 71 these Republican Ethnic Committees were to work only = ONLY++ on Presidential elections. This is the way Dulles set them up. Dulles was fixated on control of the Presidency. See post below for further Dulles info. ++ PLEASE NOTE three weeks before JFK died, the WH made a press release indicating that there would be reopening of an investigation of what has been termed the' metal scandal'. The three major companies involved were 1) the British connected Newmont Mining 2) the Dulles and Cabot connected (see below) Hanna Mining and 3) the Clay Shaw/DAP connected Freeport Sulfur company. SEE PROBE (online articles) ON FREEPORT SULFUR AND METAL SCANDAL The Republican Party could have been destroyed if the real nature of the Republican Ethnic Committees been made widespread public knowledge. THANKS STEVE GAAL

Dear Mr. Ayton, Hello ! You have really stimulated my mind. I would like to ask you a simple queston. Lets suppose that the CIA killed JFK,would they release a memo stating such or even hinting at such ?? Please see this link where Dulles briefs President Eisenhower on PBSUCESS. Dulles informs Eisenhower ,at a formal briefing, that only one CIA rebel was killed. In fact many score were killed. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs/message/28051

If they could lie to the President of the United States in a private briefing,what would they say to the average people ? Please keep in mind no one was dreaming of things like FOIA document releases. Further let me add the press had (had ?) a role as a propaganda arm for the CIA. (SEE Simkin's Mockingbird Material)

You use the term 'conspiratorial finger' . I think there is a montain of evidence to ' point' to a conspiracy. Lets take a look at one piece of the mountain - Ruth Paine. Now as per first paragraph above-we are not going to get any direct documents. We need to look at the penumbra and assume there is an object causing the shadow. Please see this link http://www.ajweberman.com/nodules/nodule9.htm

Now we dont have a CIA memo stating that Ruth Paine is CIA,however, there is "penumbra" data indicating such. Ruth's sister and brother-inlaw are CIA. Ruth's father is part of Nationwide Insurance. Per The Kennedy Assassination and Cover-up book by Donald Gisbson, Allen Dulles sat on the Nationwide Board . The CIA considered recriuting Ruth's father (See Weberman link). Further Fredrick Osborne Sr. was a friend of Allen Dulles working at Radio Free Europe (CIA) and his son Osborn Jr. went before the WC to state that Ruth Paine was a good person. (see Article Friends in High Places PROBE magazine). Now Ruth Paine is in contact with numerous Russian youth per Quaker program. CIA states it would like to develope Russian contacts via private organizations.(see Weberman link). Ruth Paine is not on the HT LINGUAL list till 1966,per the direct CIA documents. Seems that Ruth Paine is not on the HT LINGUAL list when she should . I recall that in John Newman's Oswald and the CIA book that- when LHO shouldnt be on the HT LINGUAL list -he is-when he should be on the list - he isnt (???).

Ruth's husband is a CABOT on both sides of his family. (see Weberman link)

I can post a host of data on how the CABOT family benefited three ways from the JFK assassination. I wont go into all my CABOT data,but just state a few facts. The CABOT's were major investors in Hanna Mining. The Dulles brothers were not only major investors in Hanna Mining,they were Hanna Mining's main lawyers at one point (See Bruce Adamson's Vol 9) . The CABOT'S offered the CIA help with their Steamship line for the Bay of Pigs (see Weberman link above). The CABOT'S had a bank nationalized by CASTRO when he came to power. The CABOT's controlled the First National Bank of Boston (FNBB). The FNBB in turn was the main investor-banker in TEXTRON. In 1962 TEXTRON obtained full majority control of Bell Helicopter (though TEXTRON started obtaining Bell Helicopter stocks by 1956 ) -(see history of Bell Helicopter ,numerous websites). Bell Helicopter is where Ruth's husband worked.He really worked for his family - the CABOTS. These datum are only the shadows,however, for you dont seriously think we will see a direct CIA-JFK-ASSASSINATION memo ? The only comment I can make here is an American saying, "Keep your eye on the doughnut,and not the hole". THANKS STEVE GAAL PS Let me add that at one time Mary Bancroft was the simultaneous lover of Henry Luce and Allen Dulles. Further, Mary Bancroft was a long term friend of Ruth Paine husband's mother (Ruth Forbes Paine). We in America have another saying,'Keeping it all in the family". (SEE Bruce Adamson material and also this link for research purposes only) http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/gtds_4.html

Edited May 20, 2005 by Steven Gaal

[Tim Gratz]

Steve wrote:

Lets take a look at one piece of the mountain - Ruth Paine

Aha! I rest my case. The Paines had to be part of the conspiracy, although they perhaps did not know the ultimate objective (Was the statement: "We all know who's behind this?"). The Paines, my friend, point LEFT, not right.

And, in my opinion, James J. Angleton had it right. Rather than being part of the conspiracy, he vainly tried to expose the real conspirators but that was not LBJ's agenda. We know that one reeason JJA suspected Soviet complicity (one of many reasons) was because of Nosenko. Nosenko lied to the CIA about many things. And his polygraph showed he lied about whether the KGB sent Oswald into the US on a mission.

And I do trust polygraphs. Today the police cleared an Idaho man of a murder because he passed a polygraph.

The fact that Nosenko flunked does not conclusively prove he lied. But the rate of "false positives" (i.e. erroneous indications of deception) is far less than fifty per cent. Which means that, more likely than not, LHO was sent to the US on a KGB mission.

And do you know who one of Nosenko's close friends was? A gentleman named Paisley who committed one of those strange suicides. Paisley was a CIA official. And, according to Richard Nagell, Paisley was a Soviet mole.

As has been said, it does not take a rocket scientist. . .

And Allen Dulles was a close friend of the Kennedys. Indeed RFK requested that LBJ put Dulles on the WC.

That being said, I understand that Brutus claimed to be Ceaser's friend, so I will carefully read the information you posted. Be assured I try to read all the information and consider it premature to rule out all but the wackiest theories.

But remember, if the Paines were part of the conspiracy, as they must have been, and as evidence such as the phone call indicates, their involvement points left not right!

And it is possible that Ruby himself was a Communist who took his orders from a Communist master rather than from the Mafia.

The evidence, not idle speculation, points toward the KGB, or, perhaps as Marchetti put it, "the KGB group in the CIA". Some have even suggested that Richard Helms was the ultimate mole.

Edited May 20, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Steven Gaal]

DEAR TIM, The only evidence pointing to the KGB is planted evidence. The actions of Nagell in Mexico City indicate he worked in CI ,thus he worked for CCI JJA. Maybe JJA and JJA thinkers thouight Paisley was KGB,but it could be that Paisley made angry,via his less militant position on arms, people in the TEAM A vs Team B debate. Its odd TIM you think the KGB would leave a body that could be found.

To continue, CNO Arleigh Burke left the NAVY and went to work on the board of FREE PORT SULFUR (see above POST on Freeport Sulfur). Burke as CNO would have been in position to know of CIA MK ULTRA operations run inside of the NAVY. Per Newman's OZ/CIA ,the first Oz docs went to OS/CIA and ONI. This brings us to HELMS. In 62 MK ULTRA was transfered from OS/ CIA to OPS/ CIA. This change, IMHO, was assassinated related,to bring tighter control of the MK GPFLOOR OZ JFK assassination operation under Helm's control. Back to BURKE, you gotta think a man concerned with water operations was an odd choice for a mining company,NO ???

Instead of confinement with torture aspects,and isolation from other CIA personel ,JJA would have made Nosenko more available, if Nosenko had any "REAL" Dallas data. TIM I suggest the following books for your furture education: The Secret War Against the Jews, Thy Will Be Done, The Kennedy Assassination and Cover-up (Gibson) and the new Strenght of the Wolf . The two last PROBES and PROBE Freeport articles (all online BTW) would also be very instructive. THANK STEVE GAAL

Edited May 20, 2005 by Steven Gaal

[Thomas Graves]

Given the time frame and what seems like a very poor escape plan, I agree that logic suggests the Tramps are innocent of being connected to the assassination.

Having said that, there is one sticking point. Fletcher Prouty and Victor Krulak have identified a man in one of the tramp photographs as being Ed Lansdale (two men who would know).

Now if this is Lansdale, then that surely sheds a new light on things. If it is not Lansdale then we have another excellent look-a-like present in Dealey Plaza. Add that frustrating aspect to two of the Tramps themselves being excellent look-a-likes to men who feature heavily in assassination literature, and I for one am not quite ready to put this one to bed.

FWIW.

James

________________________________

Hi James,

I think that the very proximity of the "Lansdale-like figure" to the "tramps" tends to make all four of them look more suspicious than they would otherwise, and makes the "Lansdale figure" look particularly suspicious. Let's face it, it's highly unlikely that an innocent, reasonably-"aware" person would pass through such a potentially dangerous, very narrow "passageway" between the fence on the right and the tramps(?) and cops(?) on the left just a couple of hours after the President of the United States has been assassinated a few freakin' feet away. And here's something else to consider-- what about the potential stench of the "tramps"!? Would anyone in his right mind want to be anywhere near these characters? I think not. In some of the pictures, the old guy looks drunk and about ready to puke! I would't get anywhere near him-- It would be a real "bummer" (no pun intended) for him to wommit all over my Brooks Brothers suit!

As I mentioned recently on another thread, my father is a close friend of Lieutenant General Victor "Brute" Krulak, USMC (Retired), who knew Col. Edward Lansdale quite well. My father, at my request, asked Gen. Krulak a few weeks ago whether or not the General had written the letter (see below) to Col. L. Fletcher Prouty regarding the positive ID-ing of the "suit" passing by the three "tramps" as being none other than Edward Lansdale. (I recommend that everyone read the letter; it was written in 1985 when Krulak was 72 or so.) A couple of days later my father told me that Krulak, now almost 94, "vaguely remembers" writing the letter to Prouty and that Gen. Krulak also told my father that "Prouty was a 'good guy' (sorry Ron Ecker) and that Lansdale was a 'bad guy.'

Here is a link to the letter that Krulak wrote to Prouty and the link to Wikipedia's biography of Krulak:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html#39223

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_H._Krulak]

Cheers,

--Thomas

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Edited October 27, 2006 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

Here is a link to the letter that Krulak wrote to Prouty and the link to Wikipedia's biography of Krulak:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html#39223

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_H._Krulak]

Cheers,

--Thomas

________________________________

I highly edited my previous post and just want to keep the new, "improved" version on the "front page." See post #59.

--Thomas

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Edited October 27, 2006 by Thomas Graves