Who was QJ/WIN

[Steve Rosen]

Lamar Waldron posted 24 parallels between CIA assassin recruiter QJWIN and Michel Victor Mertz as an endnote supplement to Legacy of Secrecy.

See http://www.legacyofsecrecy.com/documents.html

Similar or the same information was published in Waldron and Hartmann's Ultimate Sacrifice in chapter 43, note 40.

It's worth a look but best understood in the context of the books.

[Guest Tom Scully]

....I felt that the Forum members might find this recent NY Times article interesting......

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/world/af...t=nyt&scp=4

Memories of a C.I.A. Officer Resonate in a New Era

LOCUST GROVE, Va. — Larry Devlin is 85 now, suffering from emphysema and tethered to an oxygen tank, his Central Intelligence Agency career long behind him. But he recalls with sunlit clarity the day in Congo nearly half a century ago when he was handed a packet of poisons, including toxic toothpaste, and ordered to carry out a political assassination.

Mr. Devlin, here in 1960 or 1961, has written about his old job.

“I was totally taken aback,” said Mr. Devlin, sitting in his den, looking out on a small lake in the Virginia countryside. He uttered a mild profanity, he recalled, and asked, “Isn’t this unusual?’ ”

It was 1960, and Mr. Devlin, the C.I.A.’s young station chief, was in the middle of a political maelstrom as Congolese factions fought for control of the newly independent nation and the United States jostled with the Soviet Union for influence and control over deposits of critical metals.

Mr. Devlin had no problems with bribery, blackmail or other varieties of skulduggery — “all part of the game” for the C.I.A. under Allen Dulles at the height of the cold war, he said. But he thought the order to kill Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic Congolese politician the Eisenhower administration feared would become an African Fidel Castro, was both wrong and stupid, a desperate plan that could easily go awry and devastate American influence in Africa.

“Worldwide it would have been disastrous,” he said.

So he stalled. And Lumumba’s political rivals eventually killed him without the C.I.A.’s help.

Today, Mr. Devlin’s story has new resonance amid a renewed debate about the proper limits of C.I.A. actions to counter a different global threat and their cost to the United States’ standing. The C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes of harsh interrogations is under criminal investigation. Congress has been reviewing the C.I.A.’s secret detention program and the transfer of terrorist suspects to countries that practice torture, though so far no inquiry has approached the sweep of the Church Committee in the Senate in the 1970s, whose reports quote Mr. Devlin under a pseudonym, Victor S. Hedgeman.

“I think there’s an eerie and disturbing correlation between that era and this one,” said John Prados, an intelligence historian and the author of “Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the C.I.A.”

He said the threat of terrorism now, like the threat of communism then, was used to justify extreme measures that “later become controversial legally, morally and politically.”

Mr. Prados said the historical record supported Mr. Devlin’s account of his actions, which he described last year in an autobiography, “Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone.”

“I believe there’s no reason to doubt that Mr. Devlin conspired to defuse the orders to kill Lumumba,” he said.

Mr. Devlin, who was station chief in Congo and in Laos during the Vietnam war and retired from the agency in 1974, said he never used force during interrogations and worried that endorsing such methods might put Americans at greater risk of mistreatment.

But he has watched the tribulations of a younger generation at the agency with sympathy. He can attest not only to the quandary of a field officer directed to take extreme measures, but also to the personal cost that can follow. Because his name got associated with the plot against Lumumba, Mr. Devlin was later told, he himself was made a target for death by both a Black Panther faction and Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.

“I can put myself in the shoes of the people who did the waterboarding and who thought they’d get information to save lives,” Mr. Devlin said. “I’ve often wondered: How would I react if I thought I had the man who knows about a bomb?”

The son of an Army colonel and a schoolteacher in San Diego, Mr. Devlin recalls being shaken when he read “Mein Kampf” at the age of 16 and paying 25 cents to hear lectures on foreign affairs at the local Unitarian church.

After serving in combat in North Africa and Europe during World War II, he went to Harvard to pursue a Ph.D. One Sunday afternoon, he was summoned by a professor, William Y. Elliott, a historian and longtime adviser to presidents. Waiting for him was McGeorge Bundy, who went on to be the national security adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Mr. Bundy urged him to join the recently formed C.I.A. to keep the cold war from turning hot.

His first job was as what C.I.A. calls a “noc,” for nonofficial cover, traveling in the guise of a writer of travel guides. At the age of 38, he landed in the tumult of Congo, where he would be jailed, beaten and narrowly escape death on several occasions.

In September 1960, Mr. Devlin received a cable advising him that he would get an important message from “Joe from Paris.” The envoy turned out to be Sidney Gottlieb, the agency’s club-footed poisons expert, whom Mr. Devlin had met during operations to install listening devices overseas, and who would later become notorious for mind-control experiments using L.S.D.

Mr. Gottlieb said that the assassination had been approved by President Eisenhower but admitted that he had not seen the presidential orders. He explained that the poisons, including the spiked toothpaste, had been chosen to make the death appear to result from natural causes.

“Morally I thought it was the wrong thing to do,” Mr. Devlin said. “And I thought it was a very dangerous thing to do. If I screwed up and brought in the wrong person and it got out that the United States had done this, I had visions of even Africans who didn’t like Lumumba wiping out every white man they could find. It might have cost hundreds of lives.”

Mr. Devlin said he figured that if he refused his orders outright, his C.I.A. bosses would simply call him home and send a more willing replacement. So he listened sagely and hid the poisons in his office safe, scribbling a warning on the box — “just in case someone got in and tried the toothpaste.”

After Mr. Lumumba was executed by opponents in January 1961, Mr. Devlin decided he needed to get rid of the poisons in his safe. He took the box to a rocky stretch of the Congo River where no one was likely to stumble upon it, and tossed it in.

Such episodes aside, he defends the C.I.A’ s achievements in Congo, including support for the rise of Mobutu Sese Seko, who would become a symbol of corruption in his 32-year rule. “We prevented the Soviets from taking over a very large part of Africa,” he said.

Though he retired from the C.I.A., Mr. Devlin stayed in Africa and worked in the diamond business for 12 years, until 1988. His boss was Maurice Tempelsman, a Belgian-American diamond importer best known as the companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the last 15 years of her life.

“Diamonds are a political thing,” Mr. Devlin said. “I knew all the ministers of mines. In short, I was in a better position to negotiate than people who knew a lot about diamonds.” When he came across interesting information, he added, he passed it to his old friends in the C.I.A.

Last year, Mr. Devlin was called back to C.I.A. headquarters to receive an award honoring his career and exchanged a few words with Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the chief of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service. He has closely followed the news since Mr. Rodriguez came under investigation for giving the order to destroy the videotapes.

“I feel sorry for the guy,” Mr. Devlin said. “I think I know what he’s going through.”

END

Consider the marriages and family ties of the people I will post documentation about, after this geneology piece. Consider that John McCloy was the personal attorney of the Rockefeller and Aldriches they married, and that he was rewarded upon his resignaton as high commissioner of Germany, with Winthrop Aldrich's job at Chase Bank. Consider that McCloy was chosen as a Warren Commissioner, serving alongside America First Committee co-founder and FBI spy on the WC, Gerald Ford. Consider that Ford was an unelected pick as VP, succeeded to the US presidency, pardoned Nixon before any indictment, and chose Nelson Rockefeller as the nation's second consecutive, unelected VP. Then Ford designated Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller to head a commission to investigate Rockefeller's own family:

From Roberts article (above):

...Mr. Devlin, who was station chief in Congo and in Laos during the Vietnam war and retired from the agency in 1974,...

From Charles Whitehouse's wiki profile:

Upon graduation from Yale in 1947, Mr. Whitehouse joined the Central Intelligence Agency and worked in the Congo, Turkey, Belgium and Cambodia. He moved over to the State Department in 1956 to serve as Assistant to the Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, and in 1959 he became a regular Foreign Service Officer. He later served as the State Department's Congo Desk Officer,...

....In September 1972, Mr. Whitehouse became Ambassador to Laos, his first of two ambassadorships...

http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/10009.html

#

# Charles Crocker (1822-1888) — of Sacramento, Sacramento County, Calif. Born in Troy, Rensselaer County, N.Y., September 16, 1822. Son of Isaac Crocker and Eliza (Wright) Crocker; brother of Edwin Bryant Crocker; married 1852 to Mary Deming; father of Harriet Crocker (who married Charles Beatty Alexander), Charles Frederick Crocker and William Henry Crocker; grandfather of Mary Alexander (who married Sheldon Whitehouse (1883-1965)), Mary Crocker (who married Francis Burton Harrison) and Harriet Crocker Alexander (1888-1972) (who married Winthrop Williams Aldrich); great-grandfather of Charles Sheldon Whitehouse; great-great-grandfather of Sheldon Whitehouse (1955-). Went to California for the 1849 Gold Rush; merchant; banker; member of California state assembly 9th District, 1861-62; one of the builders of the Central Pacific Railroad; first president of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Died in Monterey, Monterey County, Calif., August 14, 1888. Interment at Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, Calif.

* See also: Wikipedia article; Find-A-Grave page.

# Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915) — also known as Nelson W. Aldrich — of Providence, Providence County, R.I.; Warwick, Kent County, R.I. Born in Foster, Providence County, R.I., November 6, 1841. Son of Anan E. Aldrich and Abby Ann (Burgess) Aldrich; cousin of William Aldrich; married, October 9, 1866, to Abby P. Chapman; father of Richard Steere Aldrich and Winthrop Williams Aldrich; grandfather of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller and Winthrop Rockefeller; great-grandfather of John Davison Rockefeller IV and Winthrop Paul Rockefeller. Republican. Served in the Union Army during the Civil War; grocer; director, Roger Williams Bank; president, First National Bank of Providence; trustee, Providence, Hartford and Fishkill Railroad; organizer and president, United Traction and Electric Company; member of Rhode Island state house of representatives, 1875-77; Speaker of the Rhode Island State House of Representatives, 1876-77; U.S. Representative from Rhode Island 1st District, 1879-81; U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, 1881-1911; author of Aldrich-Vreeland Currency Act and Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act. English ancestry. Member, Freemasons. Died in Manhattan, New York County, N.Y., April 16, 1915. Interment at Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, R.I.

* See also: congressional biography; NNDB dossier; Internet Movie Database profile; Find-A-Grave page.

# Charles Beatty Alexander (1849-1927) — also known as Charles B. Alexander — of Tuxedo Park, Orange County, N.Y.; Manhattan, New York County, N.Y. Born in New York, New York County, N.Y., December 6, 1849. Son of Henry Martyn Alexander and Susan Mary (Brown) Alexander; married, April 26, 1887, to Harriet Crocker (daughter of Charles Crocker); father of Mary Alexander (who married Sheldon Whitehouse (1883-1965)) and Harriet Crocker Alexander (1888-1972) (who married Winthrop Williams Aldrich); grandfather of Charles Sheldon Whitehouse; great-grandfather of Sheldon Whitehouse (1955-). Democrat. Lawyer; director and counsel for Equitable Life insurance company; director of the Middletown & Unionville Railroad, the Hocking Valley Railroad, and several banks; delegate to Democratic National Convention from New York, 1912, 1916 (alternate), 1920; member, New York State Board of Regents, 1913-27. Presbyterian. Member, Society of Colonial Wars; Sons of the American Revolution; Sons of the Revolution; Society of the Cincinnati; American Bar Association. Died in Manhattan, New York County, N.Y., February 7, 1927. Interment at Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, N.J.

Winthrop Aldrich was the son of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, (R-RI):

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22...1&scoring=a

BELGIUM HAS PLAN TO DEVELOP CONGO; Project Would Attract Settlers …

- New York Times - Oct 17, 1949

Winthrop Aldrich of the Chase National Bank is understood to hve discussed the po's, sibility of private United

States investment during a recent visit to Brussels:....

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...9609C94659ED7CF

Senator Aldrich And Sugar

The Republican Tariff Leader Owned By the Trust Indebted TO IT FOR FINANCIAL AID...

...Typical of the rhetoric Senator Aldrich inspired in Progressive circles during the last twenty years of his career was an article by David Graham Phillips--called, crudely enough, "The Head of It All"--published in Cosmopolitan magazine in April 1906. It began:

He was born in 1841, is only sixty-four years old, good for another fifteen years at least, in his present rugged health, before the "interests" will have to select another for his safe seat and treacherous task....In 1901, his daughter married the only son and destined successor of John D. Rockefeller. Thus, the chief exploiter of the American people is closely alled by marriage with the chief schemer in the service of their exploiters...Before he reached the Senate, Aldrich had fifteen years of training in how to legislate the proceeds of the labor of the many into the pockets of the few....

So Winthrop Aldrich, a man whose sister was married to John D. Rockefeller Jr., and thus had an inside track to achieving the top office at the Rockefeller's Chase Bank, married one of C.B. Alexander's daughters, and Sheldon Whitehouse married her sister.

Aldrich invested money from the Rockefeller's bank in the Belgian Congo, and a decade later, when he began to feel insecure about investments there, he had only to call on his wife's nephew, CIA man Charles Whitehouse, under official cover from the State Dept., to have the CIA do something about Lumumba, all in the name of fighting communism, and so it went, all the way to the present day when America's elite families control their profit making, monopolistic agenda by duping the patriots on the ground from the US military and the CIA, into protecting the assets and business plans of the elite in the guise of :"fighting terrorism".

And out they go, in service to the corporatist elite without asking any questions, even with the history of Smedley Butler's famous speech, and all that has been revealed since. The good people of Rhode Island still send men of Neslon Aldrich's ilk to represent them in the senate....Claiborne Pell from John Train's mother's family, and now, Charles Whitehouse's son, Sheldon:

Here is how Nelson Rockefeller's cousin, Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., described his own great-granfather, Sen. Neslon Aldrich, the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., and the father of Nelson Jr.'s great uncle, Winthrop Aldrich:

http://books.google.com/books?id=k0jlAGpT6...;q=&f=false

Old Money: The Mythology of Wealth in America‎ - Page 20

by Nelson W. Aldrich - 1996

The conduct of the public's business, in my great=granfather's view, was none of it's business.

The only public whose company the first Nelson W. Aldrich ever sought, whose counsel he considered, or whose interests he chose to advance was the public of the "emerged": the patitrician families of College Hill and their peers who existed in every well-established city in the nation. Primary among them was the man whom he admired over all others, J. P. morgan...

...What history was accomplishing through Morgan was an oligopoly of superior wealth-producing institutions for an oligarchy of patrician men. It was Senator Aldrich's task to help these men and institutions by protecting them from troublesome free-market competition from abroad, and from rivalrous associations of governmental power at home. He did hel[ them, indispensably. He included them in every step of the painstaking process of legislation, going over every detail....

Some background of Winthrop Aldrich's brother-in-law, Sheldon Whitehouse's family:

http://books.google.com/books?id=eAwRQfSop...q=&f=false-

Quest For The Jade Sea

By Pascal James Imperato

Page 222

...Harrison was successful in recruiting several other prominent sportsmen to participate in the expedition. The first of these was an American,

William Fitzhugh Whitehouse, whose signifigant financial contribution made him a cosponser of what became known as the Harrison-Whitehouse Expedition.

Whitehouse was born in Elmhurst, Illinois, on September 6, 1877. The son of Fitzhugh Whitehouse, and international lawyer, and Frances Sheldon, he spent

most of his youth in England, attending Chearn School in Surrey and Winchester College. In 1895, he entered Yale, where he graduated four years laters

with honors in history and economics. At twenty-two, Whitehouse was the youngest member of the party....

http://books.google.com/books?id=eAwRQfSop...;q=&f=false

Page 229

...A pioneer balloonist in his younger years, he later enjoyed quail hunting at his brother Sheldon's estate near Tallahasee, Florida. In 1952, he returned to Africa after a lapse of almost half a century. However, he did not visit either Ethiopia or Kenya but rather accompanied his brother to the Belgian Congo, where his nephew, Charles Whitehouse, was serving at the American consulate. 28

MISS ALEXANDER TO WED W. W. ALDRICH; Eldest Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. B. Alexander Engaged to Son of Late Ex-Senator. OFFICER OF JUNIO LEAGUE Bride to be is Also a Member of Colony Club ;- Her Fiance a Harvard Graduate and a Lawyer.

September 2, 1916, Saturday

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Mr.+and...;fp=DXJ_fV3BfWg

Mrs. Winthrop W. Aldrich was the sister of Mrs. Sheldon Whitehouse (Mary Crocker ... 30, 1920; C.B. Alexander, 77, Noted Lawyer, Dies. New York Times, Feb. 8, 1927.) Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich and Mr. and Mrs. Laurance S. Rockefeller were

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...9669D946195D6CF

MARY C. ALEXANDER WEDS S. WHITEHOUSE; Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.B. Alexander Married in Fifth Av. Presbyterian Church. THRONG AT THE CEREMONY Miss Beatrice Andrew Weds George G. Fry, Jr., and Miss Helen Purdy Robert M. Shedden.

October 15, 1920, Friday

Page 13, 1252 words

The largest of the early Autumn weddings was celebrated yesterday afternoon in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, when Sheldon Whitehouse, a son of Mrs. William Fitz Hugh Whitehouse of New York and Paris, and Miss Mary Crocker Alexander, the third .....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_S._Whitehouse

Charles Sheldon Whitehouse (November 5, 1921 – June 25, 2001) was an American career Foreign Service Officer. He was U.S. Ambassador to Laos and Thailand in the 1970s.

Early Life

Mr. Whitehouse was born November 5, 1921 in Paris, France, the son of Sheldon Whitehouse (1883-1965) and Mary Alexander Whitehouse. His father was a Foreign Service officer, and served as U.S. Minister to Guatemala, 1930-33, and to Colombia, 1933-34. He was a great-grandson of Charles Crocker, and a grandson of Charles Beatty Alexander and Harriet Crocker.[1] He was also a great-grandson of Henry John Whitehouse, Episcopal bishop of Illinois. He was raised in Europe and South America.

U.S. Marine Corps

In 1942, he interrupted his studies at Yale University, where he was a classmate of William F. Buckley[2], to join the United States Marine Corps. He attended Navy flight school and became a Marine dive bomber pilot and saw combat in the Pacific theater, where he was awarded 7 Distinguished Flying Crosses and received 21 Air Medals. After his separation from the Marine Corps in 1946, he reentered Yale University.

Government Career

Upon graduation from Yale in 1947, Mr. Whitehouse joined the Central Intelligence Agency and worked in the Congo, Turkey, Belgium and Cambodia. He moved over to the State Department in 1956 to serve as Assistant to the Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, and in 1959 he became a regular Foreign Service Officer. He later served as the State Department's Congo Desk Officer, and also served on the staff of the Department's Office of Personnel. He attended the National War College, and graduated in 1966.[3][4][5]

Following a tour to Guinea, Mr. Whitehouse served two tours of duty in Vietnam. During his first tour, he was Deputy for Civil Operations and Rural Development Support. He returned to Washington in 1971 to become Acting Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs and returned to Vietnam in 1972 as Deputy Chief of Mission under Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker.[6]

In September 1972, Mr. Whitehouse became Ambassador to Laos, his first of two ambassadorships. In Laos he oversaw decreasing American military aid to Hmong who had been fighting a proxy war against Communist forces (Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army troops) in northern Laos. Eight months after Mr. Whitehouse left Vientiane to take up his new post as Ambassador to Thailand in Bangkok in April 1975, the Communists seized power and proclaimed the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

Mr. Whitehouse's arrival in Bangkok coincided with a crisis in United States-Thai relations that followed the collapse of South Vietnam, and which was aggravated by the Marine recapture of the SS Mayagüez, an American ship that Cambodian Communist gunboats had seized in the Gulf of Thailand. It was also a time of serious political unrest in Thailand, which culminated in the bloody suppression of student demonstrations on October 6, 1976, and a military coup that overthrew the elected government shortly thereafter. Mr. Whitehouse presided over the closing of the last American bases in Thailand in 1976, an action the Thais had requested. He also oversaw the creation and management of the resettlement camps in Thailand that helped refugees from the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia resettle in the U.S. and other countries.[7][8][9]

We have some idea of who was involved in the plot to kill JFK, and then Oswald. All we have to do is consider why McCloy and Ford were put on the Warren Commission to arrive quickly at the determination that Oswald acted alone....Ruby, too....

Edited August 5, 2009 by Tom Scully

[Thomas Graves]

On 2/2/2008 at 8:18 AM, Robert Howard said:

Some excerpts from The Strength of the Wolf - Douglas Valentine......from Chapter 15. The Magic Button

Harvey was in some way’s George White’s doppleganger in the CIA. An overweight, pear-shaped belligerent drunk and womanizer with a close association with James Angleton, he had resigned from the FBI in 1947 to become chief of counterintelligence in the Office of Special Operations.

In 1948, he joined the CIA and achieved instant fame by discovering that Kim Philby, the British liason officer to the CIA, was a Soviet spy. In 1953, he was assigned as chief of the Berlin station, where he served for several years until returning to headquarters to take control of Division D. 9

Division D was cloistered in the most secluded chamber of the CIA’s enchanted mansion, and most of Harvey’s minions remain unknown. The little that is known about them is contained in Harvey’s handwritten notes, outlining his search in the fall of 1960 for a principal agent, codenamed QJ/WIN, whose task was to recruit underworld assassins and burglars. In his notes, HARVEY displays an intimate knowledge of the underworld’s drug smuggling milieu, and in considering candidates for the QJ/WIN position, he suggested using “former resistance personnel” from OSS day’s. “CORSICANS WERE RECOMMENDED,“ Harvey wrote, “as Sicilians could lead to the Mafia.” 10

Note: As an FBN agent and supervisor, SIRAGUSA had extensive "contacts" with Sicilian and CORSICAN (i.e. "French Connection") drug smugglers.] --Tommy

So we have it from the horse’s mouth that the CIA hired CORSICAN drug smugglers as assassins, in order to protect certain Mafiosi in its employ. If only we knew who they were.

Harvey considered nine candidates for the QJ/WIN position, though in the documents the CIA released to the public it deleted the names of eight, as well as the name of the CIA station chief who recommended them. The anonymous station chief said very little about each candidate. Candidate One thought the matter was being handled by the FBN! Two was fully informed and had identified a possible assassin. Four was an American in Rome, experienced with criminals , and may have been Jack Cusack, Hank Manfredi, or Paul Knight. Five was in Milan, which “offered good possibilities.” Six was an multilingual bar owner in Florence, acquainted with Belgium’s criminal milieu, and thus suitable for work in the Congo, where the CIA was planning on assassinating Premiere Patrice Lumumba. Seven had introduced Jack Cusack to two expert safecrackers on 19 July 1960 in Barcelona. Eight was a Russian living in Antwerp, and was reachable through the Army CID in Frankfurt. Nine was a Frenchman involved in the commercial film industry.

And three was Charles Siragusa. The station chief who proposed the list to Harvey described Siragusa as a “source on Corsicans and Sicilians,” and suggested that Harvey “query him whether District 2 [New York] has any West Indian colored contacts usable for our purposes.” 11

Harvey was so dependent on the FBN and its underworld contacts that he scribbled the words “the Magic Button” beside a reference to the Bureau in his notes. But the need to exclude Mafiosi and Americans from the operation prevailed, and another individual was selected in November 1960— although, even then, Harvey wondered, “HOW MUCH DOES SIRAGUSA KNOW?”12

HE KNEW A LOT. Sometime between the summer of 1960 and the spring of 1961, CIA officer Vincent Thill, a veteran of the Berlin station, where he had served under Bill Harvey, asked Siragusa “to recruit an assassination squad.” 13

In making this request, Thill referred to SiIRAGUSA'S many contacts in the underworld and said the CIA was prepared to pay $1 million per hit. He also asked SIRAGUSA to set up a detective agency as a front for illegal CIA Operations in America. 14 Siragusa said he refused on moral grounds, and his acknowledgement of Thill’s overture seems to clear him of any involvement in Harvey’s ZR/RIFLE Program. However, at least one expert, according to Professor Alan Block, believed that Siragusa was disembling, and that he was, in fact QJ/WIN. 15

QJ/WIN’s nationality itself is uncertain. His background file [called a “201-file” by the CIA] contains twenty-seven documents, spanning the period from Februry 1955, when he was caught smuggling nickel behind the Iron Curtain, until his termination as an agent in 1964. NOT THAT IT MATTERS, HARVEY IN HIS NOTES INSISTED ON A 'PHONY 201-FILE” THAT WAS THOROUGHLY "BACK-STOPPED" AND LOOKED LIKE A COUNTER-ESPIONAGE FILE. SO EVEN THE EXTANT EVIDENCE ON QJ/WIN IS DUBIOUS AT BEST. The best evidence suggests that this mysterious operative was Jose Maria Andre Markel, as Mason Cargill [a staff member of vice president Rockefeller’s Commission to Investigate CIA Activities within the United States] reported in a 1 May 1975 memo. 16 Harvey in his notes refers to QJ/WIN as “FNU Mankel,” which seems to corroborate Cargill’s claim. But author Richard Maloney claims that QJ/WIN was Mozes Maschkivitzan, a Russian emigre living in Luxemborg. Mahoney is the son of a CIA officer who served in Africa at the time, and he may have inside knowledge. Without citing sources, he also claims that among the assassins on Harvey’s payroll were two Corsicans, “Santelli and Garioni”, holding Italian passports as well as “Italians from the Trieste area [Manfredi’s area of expertise] who were ready to use the gun.” 17

What is known, and what is most important, is that Harvey wanted to recruit CORSICANS to spy on the Soviets, and the man he selected for QJ/WIN position was hired in Frankfurt on 1 November 1960 for the Lumumba assassination operation in the Congo. He was told that the “Soviet’s were operating in Africa among nationality groups, specifically Corsicans [italics added], and that he was being asked to spot, assess, and recommend some dependable, quick-witted persons for our use.” 18

THE TIE-IN BETWEEN DRUG SMUGGLING AND ESPIONAGE

According to documents in his 201-file, QJ/WIN was tall and thin married (although homosexual), with many friends in well-to do Parisian circles. He was a

conman extraordinaire! He’d been a double-agent during the war and had testified at the trial of Marshall Petain. After the war he got involved in smuggling, and one of four or five FBN agents in Europe at the time recruited him and set him up in a business in Luxembourg. Through this FBN agent, the CIA’s Luxembourg station chief, Arnold Silver, contacted QJ/WIN in the autumn of 1958 “in connection with an illegal narcotic operation into the United States.... in behalf of the Bureau of Narcotics.” 19

END

9 Hersh, The Good Old Boy’s 187-8. David E. Murphy Battle Ground Berlin, CIA vs KGB in the Cold War (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977) 217.

10 “Notes in Draft re: ZR/RIFLE Project,” provided by the National Archives ARRB as part of CIA Historical Review Program, (hereafter known as Harvey’s Notes), 10.

11 Dispatch from Chief of Station (deleted) to William Harvey, 11 October, 1960

12 Harvey’s Notes, 8.

13 Moldea’s. The Hoffa Wars, 127.

14 Michie Memo

15 Scott, Deep Politics, 352 n. 35.

16 Memorandum to David Belin from Mason Cargill, Subject: Search of Files for Materials Relevant to Assassination Plans, 1 May 1975 (hereafter known as Cargill Memo) photocopy from the Gerald R. Ford Library, document provided by Gus Russo.

17 Richard Maloney, Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (New York Arcade Publishing, 1999) 91-2. Drug Trafficker Robert Blemant (object of Paul Knight’s sting operation in 1959 and the founder of Les Trois Canards) is proposed as possibly QJ/WIN by Steve Rivele in “Death of a Double Man,”

Washington, The National Reporter, Spring 1987, 48-50.

18 “QJ/WIN,” HSCA Staff Report 1977, provided by the National Archives ARRB as part of CIA Historical Review Program, 1994,2.

19 Harvey’s Notes, 4.

emphasis ADDED by T. Graves

P.S. Remember that Gerry Patrick Hemming told Tim Gratz that Charles Siragusa (of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics; for William Harvey in ZR/RIFLE) was running Bernardo de Torres. Hemming claimed Bernardo de Torres was the "Leopoldo" who was with Angelo Murgado ("Angel") and LHO at Silvia Odio's house in late September, 1963. As y'all know, Odio said that "Leopoldo" called her a day or two later and told her that "Leon" (LHO) was an ex-Marine, an expert marksman, a little "nuts", was capable of doing "anything", had said that they "should have shot President Kennedy after The Bay of Pigs," and that they should still do it.

--Tommy

Edited April 28, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

Some excerpts from The Strength of the Wolf - Douglas Valentine......from Chapter 15. The Magic Button

Harvey was in some way’s George White’s doppleganger in the CIA. An overweight, pear-shaped belligerent drunk and womanizer with a close association with James Angleton, he had resigned from the FBI in 1947 to become chief of counterintelligence in the Office of Special Operations.

In 1948, he joined the CIA and achieved instant fame by discovering that Kim Philby, the British liason officer to the CIA, was a Soviet spy. In 1953, he was assigned as chief of the Berlin station, where he served for several years until returning to headquarters to take control of Division D. 9

Division D was cloistered in the most secluded chamber of the CIA’s enchanted mansion, and most of Harvey’s minions remain unknown. The little that is known about them is contained in Harvey’s handwritten notes, outlining his search in the fall of 1960 for a principal agent, codenamed QJ/WIN, whose task was to recruit underworld assassins and burglars. In his notes, HARVEY displays an intimate knowledge of the underworld’s drug smuggling milieu, and in considering candidates for the QJ/WIN position, he suggested using “former resistance personnel” from OSS day’s. “CORSICANS WERE RECOMMENDED,“ Harvey wrote, “as Sicilians could lead to the Mafia.” 10

Note: As an FBN agent and supervisor, SIRAGUSA had extensive "contacts" with Sicilian and CORSICAN (i.e. "French Connection") drug smugglers.] --Tommy

So we have it from the horse’s mouth that the CIA hired CORSICAN drug smugglers as assassins, in order to protect certain Mafiosi in its employ. If only we knew who they were.

Harvey considered nine candidates for the QJ/WIN position, though in the documents the CIA released to the public it deleted the names of eight, as well as the name of the CIA station chief who recommended them. The anonymous station chief said very little about each candidate. Candidate One thought the matter was being handled by the FBN! Two was fully informed and had identified a possible assassin. Four was an American in Rome, experienced with criminals , and may have been Jack Cusack, Hank Manfredi, or Paul Knight. Five was in Milan, which “offered good possibilities.” Six was an multilingual bar owner in Florence, acquainted with Belgium’s criminal milieu, and thus suitable for work in the Congo, where the CIA was planning on assassinating Premiere Patrice Lumumba. Seven had introduced Jack Cusack to two expert safecrackers on 19 July 1960 in Barcelona. Eight was a Russian living in Antwerp, and was reachable through the Army CID in Frankfurt. Nine was a Frenchman involved in the commercial film industry.

And three was Charles Siragusa. The station chief who proposed the list to Harvey described Siragusa as a “source on Corsicans and Sicilians,” and suggested that Harvey “query him whether District 2 [New York] has any West Indian colored contacts usable for our purposes.” 11

Harvey was so dependent on the FBN and its underworld contacts that he scribbled the words “the Magic Button” beside a reference to the Bureau in his notes. But the need to exclude Mafiosi and Americans from the operation prevailed, and another individual was selected in November 1960— although, even then, Harvey wondered, “HOW MUCH DOES SIRAGUSA KNOW?”12

HE KNEW A LOT. Sometime between the summer of 1960 and the spring of 1961, CIA officer Vincent Thill, a veteran of the Berlin station, where he had served under Bill Harvey, asked Siragusa “to recruit an assassination squad.” 13

In making this request, Thill referred to SiIRAGUSA'S many contacts in the underworld and said the CIA was prepared to pay $1 million per hit. He also asked SIRAGUSA to set up a detective agency as a front for illegal CIA Operations in America. 14 Siragusa said he refused on moral grounds, and his acknowledgement of Thill’s overture seems to clear him of any involvement in Harvey’s ZR/RIFLE Program. However, at least one expert, according to Professor Alan Block, believed that Siragusa was disembling, and that he was, in fact QJ/WIN. 15

QJ/WIN’s nationality itself is uncertain. His background file [called a “201-file” by the CIA] contains twenty-seven documents, spanning the period from Februry 1955, when he was caught smuggling nickel behind the Iron Curtain, until his termination as an agent in 1964. NOT THAT IT MATTERS, HARVEY IN HIS NOTES INSISTED ON A 'PHONY 201-FILE” THAT WAS THOROUGHLY "BACK-STOPPED" AND LOOKED LIKE A COUNTER-ESPIONAGE FILE. SO EVEN THE EXTANT EVIDENCE ON QJ/WIN IS DUBIOUS AT BEST. The best evidence suggests that this mysterious operative was Jose Maria Andre Markel, as Mason Cargill [a staff member of vice president Rockefeller’s Commission to Investigate CIA Activities within the United States] reported in a 1 May 1975 memo. 16 Harvey in his notes refers to QJ/WIN as “FNU Mankel,” which seems to corroborate Cargill’s claim. But author Richard Maloney claims that QJ/WIN was Mozes Maschkivitzan, a Russian emigre living in Luxemborg. Mahoney is the son of a CIA officer who served in Africa at the time, and he may have inside knowledge. Without citing sources, he also claims that among the assassins on Harvey’s payroll were two Corsicans, “Santelli and Garioni”, holding Italian passports as well as “Italians from the Trieste area [Manfredi’s area of expertise] who were ready to use the gun.” 17

What is known, and what is most important, is that Harvey wanted to recruit CORSICANS to spy on the Soviets, and the man he selected for QJ/WIN position was hired in Frankfurt on 1 November 1960 for the Lumumba assassination operation in the Congo. He was told that the “Soviet’s were operating in Africa among nationality groups, specifically Corsicans [italics added], and that he was being asked to spot, assess, and recommend some dependable, quick-witted persons for our use.” 18

THE TIE-IN BETWEEN DRUG SMUGGLING AND ESPIONAGE

According to documents in his 201-file, QJ/WIN was tall and thin married (although homosexual), with many friends in well-to do Parisian circles. He was a

conman extraordinaire! He’d been a double-agent during the war and had testified at the trial of Marshall Petain. After the war he got involved in smuggling, and one of four or five FBN agents in Europe at the time recruited him and set him up in a business in Luxembourg. Through this FBN agent, the CIA’s Luxembourg station chief, Arnold Silver, contacted QJ/WIN in the autumn of 1958 “in connection with an illegal narcotic operation into the United States.... in behalf of the Bureau of Narcotics.” 19

END

9 Hersh, The Good Old Boy’s 187-8. David E. Murphy Battle Ground Berlin, CIA vs KGB in the Cold War (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977) 217.

10 “Notes in Draft re: ZR/RIFLE Project,” provided by the National Archives ARRB as part of CIA Historical Review Program, (hereafter known as Harvey’s Notes), 10.

11 Dispatch from Chief of Station (deleted) to William Harvey, 11 October, 1960

12 Harvey’s Notes, 8.

13 Moldea’s. The Hoffa Wars, 127.

14 Michie Memo

15 Scott, Deep Politics, 352 n. 35.

16 Memorandum to David Belin from Mason Cargill, Subject: Search of Files for Materials Relevant to Assassination Plans, 1 May 1975 (hereafter known as Cargill Memo) photocopy from the Gerald R. Ford Library, document provided by Gus Russo.

17 Richard Maloney, Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (New York Arcade Publishing, 1999) 91-2. Drug Trafficker Robert Blemant (object of Paul Knight’s sting operation in 1959 and the founder of Les Trois Canards) is proposed as possibly QJ/WIN by Steve Rivele in “Death of a Double Man,”

Washington, The National Reporter, Spring 1987, 48-50.

18 “QJ/WIN,” HSCA Staff Report 1977, provided by the National Archives ARRB as part of CIA Historical Review Program, 1994,2.

19 Harvey’s Notes, 4.

emphasis ADDED by T. Graves

P.S. Remember that Gerry Patrick Hemming told Tim Gratz that Charles Siragusa (of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics; for William Harvey in ZR/RIFLE?) was running Bernardo de Torres. Hemming claimed was Bernardo de Torres was the "Leopoldo" who was with Angelo Murgado ("Angel") and LHO at Silvia Odio's house in late September, 1963. As y'all know, Odio said that "Leopoldo" called her a day or two later and told her that "Leon" (LHO) was an ex-Marine, an expert marksman, a little "nuts", was capable of doing "anything", had said that they "should have shot President Kennedy after The Bay of Pigs," and that they should still do it.

--Tommy

bump

Edited December 10, 2011 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

Lamar Waldron posted 24 parallels between CIA assassin recruiter QJWIN and Michel Victor Mertz as an endnote supplement to Legacy of Secrecy.

See http://www.legacyofsecrecy.com/documents.html

Similar or the same information was published in Waldron and Hartmann's Ultimate Sacrifice in chapter 43, note 40.

It's worth a look but best understood in the context of the books.

According to the article, 'Prince of Theives' by E. Burton Mercer (Probable Cause Australia, 11/1994) the true identity of QJ/WIN was the WW2 French Army captain, Michael Victor Mertz.

[Steve Rosen]

Paul, what basis did the Mercer article have for concluding that QJWIN was Michael Mertz?

[William Kelly]

Lamar Waldron posted 24 parallels between CIA assassin recruiter QJWIN and Michel Victor Mertz as an endnote supplement to Legacy of Secrecy.

See http://www.legacyofs.../documents.html

Similar or the same information was published in Waldron and Hartmann's Ultimate Sacrifice in chapter 43, note 40.

It's worth a look but best understood in the context of the books.

According to the article, 'Prince of Theives' by E. Burton Mercer (Probable Cause Australia, 11/1994) the true identity of QJ/WIN was the WW2 French Army captain, Michael Victor Mertz.

Is this article posted on line, and if not will a forum member with it please post it?

Thanks,

BK

[Thomas Graves]

Lamar Waldron posted 24 parallels between CIA assassin recruiter QJWIN and Michel Victor Mertz as an endnote supplement to Legacy of Secrecy.

See http://www.legacyofs.../documents.html

Similar or the same information was published in Waldron and Hartmann's Ultimate Sacrifice in chapter 43, note 40.

It's worth a look but best understood in the context of the books.

According to the article, 'Prince of Theives' by E. Burton Mercer (Probable Cause Australia, 11/1994) the true identity of QJ/WIN was the WW2 French Army captain, Michael Victor Mertz.

Is this article posted on line, and if not will a forum member with it please post it?

Thanks,

BK

Bill,

Did you try clicking on the link that Steve provided? The article starts below the FBI report.

--Tommy

[William Kelly]

Lamar Waldron posted 24 parallels between CIA assassin recruiter QJWIN and Michel Victor Mertz as an endnote supplement to Legacy of Secrecy.

See http://www.legacyofs.../documents.html

Similar or the same information was published in Waldron and Hartmann's Ultimate Sacrifice in chapter 43, note 40.

It's worth a look but best understood in the context of the books.

According to the article, 'Prince of Theives' by E. Burton Mercer (Probable Cause Australia, 11/1994) the true identity of QJ/WIN was the WW2 French Army captain, Michael Victor Mertz.

Is this article posted on line, and if not will a forum member with it please post it?

Thanks,

BK

Bill,

Did you try clicking on the link that Steve provided? The article starts below the FBI report.

--Tommy

Yes, Tom, but there wasn't the article "Prince of Theives" by E.Burton Mercer (Probable Cause Australia, 11/1994), which is what I asked about.

I'd like to read the whole article, and I think that past issues are somewhere on line.

There is the list of common traits that QJWIN and MVM shared:

According to the article, 'Prince of Theives' by E. Burton Mercer (ProbableCause Australia, 11/1994) the true identity of QJ/WINwas the WW2 French Army captain, Michael Victor Mertz.

The following information is not intended to be read as astand-alone article, but only to supplement in the information in Legacyof Secrecy, Chapter 4, page 71, Endnote 43:

BK Notes: that Legacy of Secrecy and Ultimate Sacrifice contain a lot of good information but promote a false thesis - that has been shown to be wrong - that the CIA had planned a coup in Cuba in December 1963, but the coup leader mentioned happened to be enroute to the Congo at the time. It is interesting that according to this parallel report - Mertz was in the Congo in 1960.

Twenty-four parallels (lettered A-X) between the CIA'sacknowledged European assassin recruiter (1960 to 1964) code-named QJWIN andMichel Victor Mertz, whom a CIA memo saidwas deported from Dallas shortlyafter JFK's murder. Michel Mertz was an experienced assassin and akingpin for the French Connection heroin network that involved both CarlosMarcello and Santo Trafficante.

A. According to Richard Helms, QJWIN was capable of murder,while other testimony described him as a man of few scruples, capable ofanything including assassination. Mertz began his reputation as a cold-bloodedkiller during World War II, killing Germans (he once machine-gunned 15 as theysat in a cafe). Mertz's reputation as a cold-blooded killer continued duringhis service for French Intelligence and the Corsican mob in the 1950s. Eveninto the 1980s, researchers were warned that just trying to talk to Mertz couldprove fatal.

B. QJWIN was suspected of Nazi collaboration in Franceduring World War II. Mertz was a Nazi collaborator in Franceduring World War II, until the tide of war started to turn against the Nazis.

C. William Harvey’s notes recommend using former FrenchResistance personnel, and QJWIN was in the Resistance from 1943 to 1945. Mertzwas a decorated member of the French Resistance in World War II.

D. In 1960, QJWIN was recruited in Frankfurt, Germany. QJWIN wasoriginally approached “in connection with an illegal narcotics operation intothe US.” MichelMertz frequently visited Frankfurt (he made 5 documentedvisits to Frankfurt in 1962 and 1963). Also, Mertz wasone of the primary French Connection heroin smugglers into the US.

E. In November 1960, QJWIN was in the Congo,working for the CIA against leader PatriceLumumba, who was eventually assassinated. Some of Lumumba’s UN guardswere from Morocco,and Mertz had previously worked extensively in Moroccofor French Intelligence. A Moroccan guard reported Lumumba’s escape thateventually led to his death.

F. In late December 1960, QJWIN finished his mission for theCIA in the Congoand returned to Europe. Mertz resumed working on his heroinsmuggling operation (January 1961) only after QJWIN had finished his mission inthe Congo.

G. In February 1961, according to a CIAdocument, QJWIN visited Switzerlandand Italy.Mertz frequently visited Switzerland,since his illegal profits were deposited in bank accounts there that belongedto Mertz and his wife. Since Mertz was preparing to run a carload (220 pounds)of heroin into the USin early March 1961, it’s logical that he would make preparations to handle themoney in Switzerlandprior to that.

H. On March 31, 1961, QJWIN was in Frankfurt, Germany.On March 27, 1961, Mertzreturned to Paris from the US,where he’d smuggled a carload of heroin into New York City.Thus, Mertz was just a few hours away from Frankfurt, acity he often visited.

I. On March 31, 1961, the CIA gave QJWIN a liedetector test to see if he was “presently working for” another country'sintelligence service—and he wasn’t. However, the same document establishes thatQJWIN had worked in the past for French Intelligence (and Luxembourg,Belgium, and West Germany). Prior to that time, Mertz had donework for French Intelligence, the SDECE. And Mertz was just getting ready to domore work for the SDECE (his assignment was to start in April). However, at thetime in question, Mertz was not actually working for the SDECE.

J. QJWIN, on March 31, 1961, said he was known to French and Belgian policedepartments in connection with his illegal business transactions, and engagedin some activities concerning Belgium.Mertz, though based in France,frequently traveled through Belgiumfor his illegal activities. Mertz often traveled to the USvia Brussels, and even received aUS Visa in Belgiumon October 7, 1964.

K. A March 1961 CIAdocument that says QJWIN is a citizen of Luxembourg.The town where Mertz was born and raised, Waldvisse, France, is on the borderwith Luxembourg.Mertz used a variety of aliases and passports from different countries (he evenhad a US passport), and the fact that he spoke perfect German in addition toFrench (the two major languages of Luxembourg), coupled with his growing upnext to Luxembourg, would have made it easy for him to pass as a Luxembourgcitizen. Though QJWIN is supposed to be a Luxembourgcitizen, QJWIN’s monthly salary (at least for 1963, for which there are manymonthly records) is paid through Paris—whereMertz lived—not Luxembourg.

L. QJWIN had a wife during the early 1960s, who was called“extremely discreet.” She was aware of QJWIN’s unsavory activities. She evenhad her own bank account, which was used for one large payment to QJWIN. Mertz's wife was the daughter of one of the most powerful Canadian and Frenchmob bosses and brothel owners, Charles Martel. Later law enforcementinvestigations showed that she maintained her own bank accounts, which wereused to launder large drug payments.

M. In December 1961/January 1962, QJWIN began working onestablishing cover for the CIA operations.Mertz had finished with his assignment for the French SDECE a couple of monthsearlier and would have been free to begin this assignment for the CIA.

N. In 1962, QJWIN was supposed to go on trial in Europeon smuggling charges. But the CIA somehowintervenes and the trial was never held. Considering that CIAdocuments indicate that QJWIN had worked for the French, Luxembourg, Belgian,and West German intelligence services, it’s not clear why QJWIN would need theassistance of the American CIA instead ofusing his own influence with one of the European intelligence agencies he’dworked for. One of Mertz’s French Connection heroin shipments was busted in New York City in January 1962. An arrest was made in the USof a French citizen and the shipment was traced back to France(and to Mertz’s group), but no trials were ever held in Francein connection with the bust. Since the original bust had occurred in the US,it’s logical to assume that the French government would have to have theconcurrence of some USagency in order to let the investigation drop.

O. QJWIN’s contract was terminated in April 1964. In March1964, Mertz’s name surfaced in a USdocument as allegedly being in Dallason the day of the assassination. Also, an article had appeared in Francein late February 1964 about the Mertz/Souetre/Roux incident, which had promptedan investigation of Mertz/Souetre/Roux by French officials (who urged USofficials to do the same). Thus, the CIAcould have had every interest in terminating QJWIN (if he had a connection toMertz) to avoid an embarrassing connection to the assassination.

P. At the time of his termination in April 1964, QJWIN hadreceived clearances to go ahead with a business venture involving a “shop” ofsome sort in Cologne, Germany.Mertz had a history of opening a wide variety of “cover” businesses, such as a New York company that arranged rebuilding of engines forthe French military; a company in Columbus, Ohio;and an automotive company in New Jersey.Mertz had some tie to Cologne, ashe arrived there, from New York,on June 19, 1963.

Q. William Harvey’s notes recommend using Corsicans, since“Sicilians could lead to the Mafia.” Mertz was part of the French CorsicanMafia, though not Corsican himself (the same way the Jewish Jack Ruby workedfor the Mafia).

R. William Harvey notes recommend use of “Silverthorne” andhis “stable in Paris.” Silverthorne(whom some researchers believe to be the CIA’sArnold Silver) was later part of QJWIN’s recruitment. Mertz’s main base ofactivity at the time was Paris.

S. QJWIN suggested to Harveythat leaders of a gambling syndicate in the Middle Easthad a “pool of assassins.” Mertz worked for French Intelligence in Turkeyand Morocco.

T. Someone dealing with QJWIN was supposedly 44 years old asof March 31, 1961,according to one CIA document. Mertz (DOBApril 20, 1920) was almost 41 at that time, and one of his main “coveridentities”—Maurice Valentin—would have been 46 at that time (the fake DOB forValentin was February 3, 1915).

U. On February 19, 1962: Richard Helms authorized Harveyto use QJWIN through the end of the year. Mertz was in the USfrom January 11, 1962 untilFebruary 25, 1962.

V. QJWIN was applied to the ZR/RIFLE assassination programin 1962 and 1963, under William Harvey; the primary focus of Harveyduring that time was assassinating Castro. This would make sense for Mertz,since he had close French associates who maintained ties to Cubaafter Castro took over and the American gangsters were expelled. Peter DaleScott’s Crime and Cover-up and Congressional hearings name these men as AnsanAlbert Bistoni, Jean Baptiste Croce, and Paul Damien Mondoloni. All hadnightclub interests in Havana circa1963, and it’s unclear when Castro forced them to leave.

W. On March 6, 1963,Richard Helms authorized QJWIN’s activities through the end of 1963. Just oneweek earlier, on February 27, 1963,Mertz was able to get a passport renewal in New York City,despite his long criminal record. It’s unclear whether this was a USpassport or a French passport.

X. After more than forty years, files surrounding QJWIN’sidentity and activities, and the criminals he and his associates looked atrecruiting for the CIA, are still being keptclassified or are heavily censored. The same is also true for the CIAfiles of Michel Victor Mertz.

[Ed LeDoux]

Bill, all three parts are here:

http://roswell.fortunecity.com/angelic/96/pconline.htm

Edited December 10, 2011 by Ed LeDoux

[William Kelly]

Bill, all three parts are here:

http://roswell.fortu...96/pconline.htm

Thanks,

Got it.

[Jim Phelps]

QJ/WIN=Jean Souetre Corsican Drug Connection assassin, French Connection to NAZI linked Auguste Ricord, Christian David.

[Thomas Graves]

Some Excerpts from The Strength of the Wolf - Douglas Valentine......from Chapter 15. The Magic Button

Harvey was in some way's George White's doppleganger in the CIA. An overweight, pear-shaped belligerent drunk and womanizer with a close association with James Angleton, he had resigned from the FBI in 1947 to become chief of counterintelligence in the Office of Special Operations.

In 1948, he joined the CIA and achieved instant fame by discovering that Kim Philby, the British liason officer to the CIA, was a Soviet spy. In 1953, he was assigned as chief of the Berlin station, where he served for several years until returning to headquarters to take control of Division D. 9

Division D was cloistered in the most secluded chamber of the CIA's enchanted mansion, and most of Harvey's minions remain unknown. The little that is known about them is contained in Harvey's handwritten notes, outlining his search in the fall of 1960 for a principal agent, codenamed QJ/WIN, whose task was to recruit underworld assassins and burglars. In his notes, Harvey displays an intimate knowledge of the underworld's drug smuggling milieu, and in considering candidates for the QJ/WIN position, he suggested using "former resistance personnel" from OSS day's. "Corsican's were recommended," Harvey

wrote, "as Sicilians could lead to the Mafia." 10

So we have it from the horse's mouth that the CIA hired Corsican drug smugglers as assassins, in order to protect certain Mafiosi in its employ. If only we knew who they were. (emphasis added by T. Graves)

Harvey considered nine candidates for the QJ/WIN position, though in the documents the CIA released to the public it deleted the names of eight, as well as the name of the CIA station chief who recommended them. The anonymous station chief said very little about each candidate. Candidate One thought the matter was being handled by the FBN! Two was fully informed and had identified a possible assassin. Four was an American in Rome, experienced with criminals , and may have been Jack Cusack, Hank Manfredi, or Paul Knight. Five was in Milan, which "offered good possibilities." Six was an multilingual bar owner in Florence, acquainted with Belgium's criminal milieu, and thus suitable for work in the Congo, where the CIA was planning on assassinating Premiere Patrice Lumumba. Seven had introduced Jack Cusack to two expert safecrackers on 19 July 1960 in Barcelona. Eight was a Russian living in Antwerp, and was reachable through the Army CID in Frankfurt. Nine was a Frenchman involved in the commercial film industry.

And three was Charles Siragusa. The station chief who proposed the list to Harvey described Siragusa as a "source on Corsicans and Sicilians," and suggested that Harvey "query him whether District 2 [New York] has any West Indian colored contacts usable for our purposes." 11

Harvey was so dependent on the FBN and its underworld contacts that he scribbled the words "the Magic Button" beside a reference to the Bureau in his notes. But the need to exclude Mafiosi and Americans from the operation prevailed, and another individual was selected in November 1960— although, even then, Harvey wondered, "How much does Siragusa know?"12

He knew a lot. Sometime between the summer of 1960 and the spring of 1961, CIA officer Vincent Thill, a veteran of the Berlin station, where he had served under Bill Harvey, asked Siragusa "to recruit an assassination squad." 13

In making this request, Thill referred to Siragusa's many contacts in the underworld and said the CIA was prepared to pay $1 million per hit. He also asked Siragusa to set up a detective agency as a front for illegal CIA Operations in America. 14 Siragusa said he refused on moral grounds, and his acknowledgement of Thill's overture seems to clear him of any involvement in Harvey's ZR/RIFLE Program. However, at least one expert, according to Professor Alan Block, believed that Siragusa was disembling, and that he was, in fact QJ/WIN. 15

QJ/WIN's nationality itself is uncertain. His background file [called a "201-file" by the CIA] contains twenty-seven documents, spanning the period from Februry 1955, when he was caught smuggling nickel behind the Iron Curtain, until his termination as an agent in 1964. Not that it matters, Harvey in his notes insisted on a "phony 201-file" that was thoroughly "back-stopped" and looked like a counter-espionage file. So even the extant evidence on QJ/WIN is dubious at best. The best evidence suggests that this mysterious operative was Jose Maria Andre Markel, as Mason Cargill [a staff member of vice president Rockefeller's Commission to Investigate CIA Activities within the United States] reported in a 1 May 1975 memo. 16 Harvey in his notes refers to QJ/WIN as "FNU Mankel," which seems to corroborate Cargill's claim. But author Richard Maloney claims that QJ/WIN was Mozes Maschkivitzan, a Russian emigre living in Luxemborg. Mahoney is the son of a CIA officer who served in Africa at the time, and he may have inside knowledge. Without citing sources, he also claims that among the assassins on Harvey's payroll were two Corsicans, "Santelli and Garioni", holding Italian passports as well as "Italians from the Trieste area [Manfredi's area of expertise] who were ready to use the gun." 17

What is known, and what is most important, is that Harvey wanted to recruit Corsican's to spy on the Soviets, and the man he selected for QJ/WIN position was hired in Frankfurt on 1 November 1960 for the Lumumba assassination operation in the Congo. He was told that the "Soviet's were operating in Africa among nationality groups, specifically Corsicans [italics added], and that he was being asked to spot, assess, and recommend some dependable, quick-witted persons for our use." 18

THE TIE-IN BETWEEN DRUG SMUGGLING AND ESPIONAGE

According to documents in his 201-file, QJ/WIN was tall and thin married (although homosexual), with many friends in well-to do Parisian circles. He was a

conman extraordinaire! He'd been a double-agent during the war and had testified at the trial of Marshall Petain. After the war he got involved in smuggling, and one of four or five FBN agents in Europe at the time recruited him and set him up in a business in Luxembourg. Through this FBN agent, the CIA's Luxembourg station chief, Arnold Silver, contacted QJ/WIN in the autumn of 1958 "in connection with an illegal narcotic operation into the United States.... in behalf of the Bureau of Narcotics." 19

END

9 Hersh, The Good Old Boy's 187-8. David E. Murphy Battle Ground Berlin, CIA vs KGB in the Cold War (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977) 217.

10 "Notes in Draft re: ZR/RIFLE Project," provided by the National Archives ARRB as part of CIA Historical Review Program, (hereafter known as Harvey's Notes), 10.

11 Dispatch from Chief of Station (deleted) to William Harvey, 11 October, 1960

12 Harvey's Notes, 8.

13 Moldea's. The Hoffa Wars, 127.

14 Michie Memo

15 Scott, Deep Politics, 352 n. 35.

16 Memorandum to David Belin from Mason Cargill, Subject: Search of Files for Materials Relevant to Assassination Plans, 1 May 1975 (hereafter known as Cargill Memo) photocopy from the Gerald R. Ford Library, document provided by Gus Russo.

17 Richard Maloney, Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (New York Arcade Publishing, 1999) 91-2. Drug Trafficker Robert Blemant (object of Paul Knight's sting operation in 1959 and the founder of Les Trois Canards) is proposed as possibly QJ/WIN by Steve Rivele in "Death of a Double Man,"

Washington, The National Reporter, Spring 1987, 48-50.

18 "QJ/WIN," HSCA Staff Report 1977, provided by the National Archives ARRB as part of CIA Historical Review Program, 1994,2.

19 Harvey's Notes, 4.

bump

P.S. In the Angelo Murgado thread, Hemmings says that FBN/CIA agent John T. "Jack" Cusack (Gerry mis-spells his name) was Bernardo de Torres' controller.

--Tommy

Edited July 7, 2012 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

Bill, all three parts are here:

http://roswell.fortu...96/pconline.htm

Dead link

--Tommy

[Steven Gaal]

P.S. In the Angelo Murgado thread, Hemmings says that FBN/CIA agent John T. "Jack" Cusack (Gerry mis-spells his name) was Bernardo de Torres' controller. THOMAS GRAVES POSTER

JOHN THOMAS CUSACK "Jack"

(Age 88)

On Monday, August 29, 2011, of Bethesda, MD. Beloved husband of the late Mary Josephine Cusack. Loving father of Michael Kelly; Brother of Jean M. Aratingi; Devoted companion of Ginette Baum; Also survived by many other loving family and friends. Friends will be received at PUMPHREY'S BETHESDA CHEVY CHASE FUNERAL HOME, 7557 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814 on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 from 7 to 9 p.m. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at the Church of the Little Flower, 5607 Massachusetts Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20816 on Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 12 p.m. Interment Quantico National Cemetery, Triangle, VA. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in his name to the {C}Alzheimer's Association , National Capital Area Chapter, 3701 Pender Drive, Suite 400, Fairfax, VA 22030. Please view and sign the family guestbook at

www.pumphreyfuneralhome.com

Published in The Washington Post on September 4, 2011

Edited February 10, 2013 by Steven Gaal