Jump to content
The Education Forum

LeMay on 11/22/63


Recommended Posts

For those of you who are following the LeMay aspect of the AF-1 Transcripts here are a few things.

This might not seem important, but I think it rather will.......

15 minutes : General Curtis LeMay and the countdown to nuclear annihilation by Keeney, L. Douglas.

Description: x, 372 p. : ill., map ; 25 cm.

Publisher, Date: New York : St. Martin's Press, 2011.

Edition: 1st ed.

LeMay by Tillman, Barrett.

Description: x, 205 p. : ill., maps ; 22 cm.

Series: Great generals series

Publisher, Date: New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Edition: 1st ed.

Strategic air warfare :An interview with generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton

Description: viii, 146 p., [3] folded leaves of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 24 cm.

Series: USAF warrior studies

Publisher, Date: Washington, D.C. : Office of Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1988.

http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS48716 - Web Site

Mission with LeMay; my story, by LeMay, Curtis E.

Description: xiv, 581 p. illus., ports. 24 cm.

Publisher, Date: Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1965.

Edition: [1st ed.]

Air Power and Warfare — Proceedings of the Eighth Military History Symposium USAF Academy 1978

Commentary and Interviews with General Curtis LeMay, USAF ret.,

Maj. General John F Huston, USAF, Major General Edward Lansdale and others

online link

http://www.archive.org/stream/AirPowerAndWarfareTheProceedingsOfThe8thMilitaryHistorySymposium/air_power__warfare_djvu.txt

I still really want to know who GRANDSON is....,not to mention still unknown codename ID's.

Robert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 31
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Robert: Where all of this gets very compelling in my estimation, are some of the lesser known details of this period in time. Especially regarding the issue of timing.

For example, the following passage

page 105; Harnessing the Genie: Science and Technology Forecasting for the Air Force 1944-1986 - Michael H. Zorn

General Schriever carried these and other conclusions of the Forecast panels with him to an AFSC Commanders’ Conference held at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama,on November 13, and 14, 1963. Attended by General LeMay and all AFSC commanders, it featured two days of briefings by the project’s committee chairs. Schriever told his listeners at the end of the sessions that the Pentagon had so far supported the Forecast interpretation of national policy goals, based upon the principle of “limited and balanced deterrence through flexible and controlled response.” provided “plenty of license to build the kind of Air Force which will implement [the policy goals].” He stressed that neither Zuckert nor LeMay wanted the panel reports to serve as “action” or implementation documents, but only as “blueprints” for the future.

Hence, Schriever, said firmly, “there will be no [organizational] end runs; everything is going to go through the system, through established channels; no surprises; the actions will be ground into the [existing] machinery [of AFSC].”

The general [schreiver] could afford to speak firmly. He had already presented Forecast briefings to Zuckert and LeMay on September 3; to Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatrick and the Defense Director for Research [DDR&E], Harold Brown, on Sept 23; and to Secretary McNamara on October 24.

Every listener liked what he heard. In fact, based upon the preliminary Forecast results, McNamara invited Schriever to submit appropriate adjustments in the fiscal year [FY] 1965 RDT&E budget. To allow the opportunity, the Secretary printing the proposed DOD budget until late November by which time the President would have to see it. Schriever’s amendments reached McNamara’s desk on November 22, 1963, the day of President Kennedy’s assassination. Government activity ground to a standstill, and the Project Forecast recommendations failed to enter the 1965 budget, an unfortunate setback for its implementation.

---------

Robert could you expand and or simplify this a bit? Are you here suggesting that LeMay and or SAC may have been losing a degree of autonomy or flexibility if this new plan went through? If so how?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert could you expand and or simplify this a bit? Are you here suggesting that LeMay and or SAC may have been losing a degree of autonomy or flexibility if this new plan went through? If so how?

Well, the first thing that needs to be emphasized is that what I posted was an excerpt of a single page from Harnessing The Genie, page 105. Nothing is contained except the text. And it is a very lengthy book.

So all I can do is try to explain what my take is on the text. By the way, I believe it says very little, for such a large block of text.

There were five, according to the book, scientific studies conducted by the U.S. Army Air Force and later the U.S.A.F.

Towards New Horizons [1945]

Woods Hole Summer Studies [1957-1958]

Project Forecast [1964]

New Horizons II [1975] and

Project Forecast II [1986]

The excerpt I initially posted was done so, mainly due to the fact that Schriever's proposals reached Bob McNamara's desk on November 22, 1963. It was, as far as I can tell not a very well known area of the activities of some of the big wigs at that time.

As far as understanding the text, the book states that "Towards New Horizons 1945, was initiated to summarize the most advanced air power technologies of World War II and project them into the future."

The Woods Hole Summer Studies [1957-1958], "organized hundreds of academic scientists to predict the short and long-term military uses of space."

Project Forecast [1964] "had the mandate of revitalizing Air Force thinking by linking national policy issues

to scientific vistas and new weapon systems.

So the text I posted was pretty much a precursive beginning to Project Forecast, [personally, the date 1964 seems a little inaccurate, but I didn't write the book].

I could go on about the post JFK era sessions, but I would rather try to frame these events in the context of the post WW II to 1963 ascendancy of, what became the streamlined national security infrastructure.

From the National Security Act of 1947 Pres. Truman oversaw the beginning of the CIA with the disbanding of the OSS.

All the military branches USAF, Army, Navy were very worried about the reorganization of the services adversely affecting their ability to obtain what they each felt was needed to keep their own respective houses in order.

Personnel, Military Hardware, implementation of various programs, etc., all of this had something of creating an practically paranoid vision of what might happen, under each military and intelligence branch of the governments

own house, if a worst case scenario transpired.

The situation by the advent of the Kennedy administration was a good felling in the US Navy hierarchy, to some degree based on, at least one advantage that JFK was, as was RFK a veteran of the US Navy, which is not insignificant.

In the indispensable historical account of the US Navy in that era,

The Admirals Lobby - Vincent Davis - Univ. of North Caroliona Press -1967; Davis mentions that the Air Force in 1963,to paraphrase, was in a siege mentality.....he writes; "General Thomas S. Power in his capacity as the commander of the Strategic Air Command revealed that one important early source of the Air Force's growing anxiety was the possibility that unmanned missiles would replace manned bombers. Power tried to meet this contingency by denying that it was possible, in a manner strongly reminiscent of the Navy's response to a number of technological innovations before World War II. By two years later [1959] the advent of missiles and other developments in national military policy had become so disturbing to the descendants of Billy Mitchell that Hanson W. Baldwin reported in the New York Times: "The Air Force believes it is fighting for the country's life, but it is also fighting for its own [life...."

This grave sense of being under threat of extinction had grown to such proportions by mid-1963 that Jack Raymond [of the New York Times] repeated in more emphatic terms the same observation reported over four years earlier: "Now the mood [of the Air Force] is that of a service approaching a 'fight for existence.'"

See The Air Force Lobby pages 228, 229; referenced pages 201, 202;

So, what I have left out are the intelligence agencies which by 1963 were increasing numerically, while in the mid- 1950's you had the N.S.A, [created in 1952] F.B.I., C.I.A. and subgroups under the Army Navy and Marines such as O.N.I., Air Force Intelligence and Army Security Agency and Army Intelligence, by JFK's last year in office they had been augmented by the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office [created 1960] and it should be pointed out that the organization most associated with the Department of Defense up to 1963 would probably be the N.S.A.

I believe the most important way to approach all of these different military and intelligence structures, insofar as trying to come to some basic conclusions about the interfacing with JFK is on an individual person basis.

Some researchers, and I don't want to sound sarcastic when you get outside the CIA [and I tend to focus on ex-CIA Director Allen Dulles, and Angleton and Bill Harvey, seem to have a habit of wanting to link the assassination with a particular group, for example one person identified the National Reconnaissance Office as being behind the assassination, which just leaves me with not much to say in response.

I believe the devil is in the details, which is why I believe focusing on individuals in these various groups is more logical than not.....

This is about all I can provide

hope it helps, Robert

Edited by Robert Howard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Tom Scully

Robert, you painted a persuasive picture of a vast landscape of competing and insecure organizations made up of intelligence agencies, armed services, and vendors allied with them.

DIA became the largest of the intel shops and the least familiar.

The vastness, even by 1963, seems to make harmless coicidence a less likely explanation for the relationships of individuals and the moves...examples are Gilpatric from General Dynamics counsel to DOD, and his law partner, Tex Moore from publisher of Time to the General Dynamics board, and their pal McCloy, and Crown Hilton sponsored Earl Warren, Albert Jenner, and possibly Howard Willens all packed onto the smallish WC, while Time was suppressing the Zapruder film.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert, you painted a persuasive picture of a vast landscape of competing and insecure organizations made up of intelligence agencies, armed services, and vendors allied with them.

DIA became the largest of the intel shops and the least familiar.

The vastness, even by 1963, seems to make harmless coicidence a less likely explanation for the relationships of individuals and the moves...examples are Gilpatric from General Dynamics counsel to DOD, and his law partner, Tex Moore from publisher of Time to the General Dynamics board, and their pal McCloy, and Crown Hilton sponsored Earl Warren, Albert Jenner, and possibly Howard Willens all packed onto the smallish WC, while Time was suppressing the Zapruder film.

Thanks for the kind words Tom, I have really enjoyed sorting through this LeMay business, the technological advancements

of our times [ie Internet, online books] as well as a virtual encyclopedia of JFK literature are allowing some rather unique helps to, insofar as is possible determining the "center" of the JFK assassination. A crime of such a magnitude

as it was precluded the possibility of any real definitive confession, other than Ricardo Morales, David Atlee Phillips

and those examples are largely in the eye of the beholder.

What I mean is that the list of President Kennedy's ersatz enemies, Dulles, LBJ, J Edgar Hoover, Nixon, members of the much scoffed at by the mainstream media 'military industrial complex' who Eisenhower warned the American people about in his farewell address, were all too smart to leave anything behind that smacks of "I ordered JFK's assassination" although one can always hope, [grins].

Instead we have a couple of tapes and some destroyed files ie Nixon's 18 1/2 minute gap, LBJ's 14 1/2 minute gap

and J Edgar's personal and confidential files destroyed by longtime secretary Helen Gandy. And so it goes.

But just to state the obvious think about the fact that literally anyone who has access to the books I mentioned could arguably, find a passage that identifies "Grandson," although something tells me it won't be quite that easy.

One last thing about the Oswald did it crowd's response to something like this, not that I care, but when JFK

was assassinated, the really cerebral and connected persons of that time knew Oswald was just the fall guy

and they were a pretty small minority, for the most part 48 years later, the same dynamic holds true, I would rather

be labeled a conspiracy theorist mocked and scorned than a person that cant handle the truth, and helps perpetuate

falsehoods tailor made for a false historical vision of history.

And with an eye towards those who are more than somewhat interested

in this thread the following may prove of interest

http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/2194/jfksnew.txt

Edited by Robert Howard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert, you painted a persuasive picture of a vast landscape of competing and insecure organizations made up of intelligence agencies, armed services, and vendors allied with them.

DIA became the largest of the intel shops and the least familiar.

The vastness, even by 1963, seems to make harmless coicidence a less likely explanation for the relationships of individuals and the moves...examples are Gilpatric from General Dynamics counsel to DOD, and his law partner, Tex Moore from publisher of Time to the General Dynamics board, and their pal McCloy, and Crown Hilton sponsored Earl Warren, Albert Jenner, and possibly Howard Willens all packed onto the smallish WC, while Time was suppressing the Zapruder film.

Thanks for the kind words Tom, I have really enjoyed sorting through this LeMay business, the technological advancements

of our times [ie Internet, online books] as well as a virtual encyclopedia of JFK literature are allowing some rather unique helps to, insofar as is possible determining the "center" of the JFK assassination. A crime of such a magnitude

as it was precluded the possibility of any real definitive confession, other than Ricardo Morales, David Atlee Phillips

and those examples are largely in the eye of the beholder.

What I mean is that the list of President Kennedy's ersatz enemies, Dulles, LBJ, J Edgar Hoover, Nixon, members of the much scoffed at by the mainstream media 'military industrial complex' who Eisenhower warned the American people about in his farewell address, were all too smart to leave anything behind that smacks of "I ordered JFK's assassination" although one can always hope, [grins].

Instead we have a couple of tapes and some destroyed files ie Nixon's 18 1/2 minute gap, LBJ's 14 1/2 minute gap

and J Edgar's personal and confidential files destroyed by longtime secretary Helen Gandy. And so it goes.

But just to state the obvious think about the fact that literally anyone who has access to the books I mentioned could arguably, find a passage that identifies "Grandson," although something tells me it won't be quite that easy.

One last thing about the Oswald did it crowd's response to something like this, not that I care, but when JFK

was assassinated, the really cerebral and connected persons of that time knew Oswald was just the fall guy

and they were a pretty small minority, for the most part 48 years later, the same dynamic holds true, I would rather

be labeled a conspiracy theorist mocked and scorned than a person that cant handle the truth, and helps perpetuate

falsehoods tailor made for a false historical vision of history.

And with an eye towards those who are more than somewhat interested

in this thread the following may prove of interest

http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/2194/jfksnew.txt

Interesting stuff. I'm replying to point out that the NARA link appears to be individual log in specific rather than a permanent URL. Perhaps you could share a title or key words so it could be searched for (&/or copy the text if practical), thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert, you painted a persuasive picture of a vast landscape of competing and insecure organizations made up of intelligence agencies, armed services, and vendors allied with them.

DIA became the largest of the intel shops and the least familiar.

The vastness, even by 1963, seems to make harmless coicidence a less likely explanation for the relationships of individuals and the moves...examples are Gilpatric from General Dynamics counsel to DOD, and his law partner, Tex Moore from publisher of Time to the General Dynamics board, and their pal McCloy, and Crown Hilton sponsored Earl Warren, Albert Jenner, and possibly Howard Willens all packed onto the smallish WC, while Time was suppressing the Zapruder film.

Thanks for the kind words Tom, I have really enjoyed sorting through this LeMay business, the technological advancements

of our times [ie Internet, online books] as well as a virtual encyclopedia of JFK literature are allowing some rather unique helps to, insofar as is possible determining the "center" of the JFK assassination. A crime of such a magnitude

as it was precluded the possibility of any real definitive confession, other than Ricardo Morales, David Atlee Phillips

and those examples are largely in the eye of the beholder.

What I mean is that the list of President Kennedy's ersatz enemies, Dulles, LBJ, J Edgar Hoover, Nixon, members of the much scoffed at by the mainstream media 'military industrial complex' who Eisenhower warned the American people about in his farewell address, were all too smart to leave anything behind that smacks of "I ordered JFK's assassination" although one can always hope, [grins].

Instead we have a couple of tapes and some destroyed files ie Nixon's 18 1/2 minute gap, LBJ's 14 1/2 minute gap

and J Edgar's personal and confidential files destroyed by longtime secretary Helen Gandy. And so it goes.

But just to state the obvious think about the fact that literally anyone who has access to the books I mentioned could arguably, find a passage that identifies "Grandson," although something tells me it won't be quite that easy.

One last thing about the Oswald did it crowd's response to something like this, not that I care, but when JFK

was assassinated, the really cerebral and connected persons of that time knew Oswald was just the fall guy

and they were a pretty small minority, for the most part 48 years later, the same dynamic holds true, I would rather

be labeled a conspiracy theorist mocked and scorned than a person that cant handle the truth, and helps perpetuate

falsehoods tailor made for a false historical vision of history.

And with an eye towards those who are more than somewhat interested

in this thread the following may prove of interest

http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/2194/jfksnew.txt

Interesting stuff. I'm replying to point out that the NARA link appears to be individual log in specific rather than a permanent URL. Perhaps you could share a title or key words so it could be searched for (&/or copy the text if practical), thanks.

1 A CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR A COUP IN CUBA JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 01/31/1964

2 ALTERNATE COVER AND DECEPTION PLAN [No From] [No To] 02/02/1962

3 ATTITUDES OF CUBAN GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL REGARDING SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES JOINT SECRETARIAT JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 06/ 21/1963

4 BRIEFING OF JCS BY LT COL VANN ON VIETNAM JOSEPH W. PEZDIRTZ, LTC SECRETARY, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 07/08/1963

5 CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS AFFECTING THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF,RELATED TO THE VIETNAM CRISIS [No From] [No To] 00/00/1963

6 CONDOLENCE FRANK MILLER JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

7 CONDOLENCE GENERAL ROSSI JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

8 CONDOLENCE MESSAGE [No From] JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/22/1963

9 CONDOLENCES COLONEL ROBERT WINTER CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

10 CONDOLENCES DR ENRIQUE HUERTAS JOINT CHIEFS STAFF 11/22/1963

11 CONDOLENCES DR. SEPP ASCHAUER JOINTS CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/22/1963

12 CONDOLENCES GENERAL A. H. HEJAZI CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

13 CONDOLENCES GENERAL BERNABO CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

14 CONDOLENCES GENERAL HARKINS JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

15 CONDOLENCES GENERAL K. RAMBERG CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

16 CONDOLENCES GENERAL LE FEVRE DE MONTIGNY CHAIRMAN US JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/25/1963

17 CONDOLENCES GENERAL PIPILIS JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/23/1963

18 CONDOLENCES GENERAL WAGENER JOINTS CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/22/1963

19 CONDOLENCES MANAGUA, NICARAGUA JOINTS CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/22/1963

20 CONDOLENCES TOKYUASU FUKUDA JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/25/1963

21 CONDOLENCES [No From] CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 11/26/1963

22 CONDOLENCES [No From] GENERAL MAXWELL, JOINT CHIEFS STAFF 11/22/1963

23 COURSES OF ACTION RELATED TO CUBA (CASE II) J-5 JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 05/01/1963

24 COVER AND DECEPTION PLAN [No From] [No To] 02/02/1962

25 CUBAN ARMS TRAFFIC IN THE CARIBBEAN (MEMO) JOSEPH A. CALIFANO, JR SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

Nothing sinister implied by posting this list, consider it as a point of reference.

A FEW DOCUMENTS HAVE LEMAY STRICTLY IN THE TO/FROM FIELD

THIS LIST BELOW MAY HELP SYNCHRONIZE THE USAF PERSONNEL WITH THE NARA LIST

DOD ACCESS LEST – CUBA PLANNING 21 October 1963

Air Force

Gen LeMay

Lt Gen B. Gurchinal

Maj Gen Carpenter

Maj Gen Worden

Col Van Duyn

Lt Col Puchrik

Maj Stutzer

Miss Spruill

As far as maryferrell.org goes, the Department of Defense Documents do not list LeMay

specifically as they do General Wheeler, General Taylor and General Lyman Lemnitzer,

but that is definitely not to say there is no mention of him in those documents by any means. Hope the URL works so one can see for oneself.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/docset/getList.do?docSetId=1021

1. JCS Central Files 1962-63

2. JCS Files, Set J-3

3. Taylor Papers

4. Wheeler Papers

5. Lemnitzer Papers

6. JCS Files, FOIA

7. JCS Files, JFK Library

Edited by Robert Howard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

THE WHITE HOUSE DIARY SEPTEMBER 23 1963: JFK Signs Executive Order “President Kennedy assigns the highest national priority to Project FOUR LEAVES to develop and produce a military communications system.”

“SUBJECT: Assignment of Highest National Security Priority to Project FOUR LEAVES” http://www.jfklibrar...eptember/23.htm

“In response to a recommendation by the Secretary of Defense, the president,under the authority granted by the Defense Production Act of 1950, today established the program listed below as being in the highest national security priority category for development and production.”

On September 24, Lee Harvey Oswald left his New Orleans apartment for Mexico City.

On September 25, 1963 "Secretary of Defense Robert S.McNamara and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Saigon to investigate what effect the political problems in South Vietnam have had on the military situation."

Nathan Raab, owner of the Clifton AF1 Radio Tapes, on theRaab Collection Web site, notes: “LeMay, himself a member of the Joint Chiefs, was in the habit of taking bullying command of Joint Chiefs meetings, and with LeMay leading the charge for war, the other chiefs jumped into the fray, repeating the Air Force general’s call for immediate military action.”

September 25, 1963 Joint Chiefs of Staff Memo for the Record, Walter Higgins, Briefing by Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald on CIA Cuban Operations and Planning, JFK Collection, (JCS Papers, J-3,#29 NARA. Riff202-10001-10028)

[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=5]

This meeting and the memo of what occurred there is important in regards to the assassination of President Kennedy for a number of reasons. For starters, this memo shows that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - Gen. Taylor, was preoccupied with Vietnam and not even at this important meeting on Cuban operations, and that in hisplace, Air Force General Curts LeMay assumed the chair. In this role, it is quite apparent that Gen. LeMay also played a significant role in the military's assistance to the CIA and the anti-Castro Cuban maritime operations, especially the ones connected to the assassination by way of the missions of the Rex and the Collins Radio cover they used.

continued:

JFKcountercoup: LeMay Chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Edited by William Kelly
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

One factoid that I discovered about the intertwining relationships in the JFK versus Joint Chiefs of Staff miasma, is the fact that there was a General, George Scratchley Brown who was an intermediary between General LeMay and Defense Secretary Robert "Bob" McNamara, at least privately, with LeMay. LeMay and McNamara were not exactly best friends, as I mentioned earlier when LeMay retired in February 1965

McNamara was one of the few insiders that didn't attend, although he was cited as having a cold, I believe

the truth may have been a little more scandalous

General Brown wrote his own memoirs, and I have seen the book and perused it enough to realize that he includes some conversations he had with LeMay over some of the divergences of opinion between the Whiz Kids in the JFK Administration, this also was not exactly a love-fest [civilian members in the Pentagon, might be a better description] and the hawks in the Pentagon, of which LeMay was, at least the most well known.

Here is a link bio for General Brown

http://www.arlington...net/gsbrown.htm

Another even more important dynamic that I am sure some of the more experienced researchers have already run across, is what I would describe as the 'crocodile tears syndrome.'

Which is what I call the various books, documents and recollections of the big fish, JCOS, the Kennedy Cabinet and others who wax eloquently about how much they loved or, at least valued, according to officialdom their relationship with President Kennedy, but in some places the facts and actions give the lie to same.

The main example of this, IMO is General LeMay's son attesting that his father, more or less, loved JFK

when some very respected authors, such as David Talbot example pps 163-169

Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, present a very different perception.

The main point about General Brown is that he doesen't seem to appear much in any of the JCOS and related documents, and although on the surface his views appear to less strident than the LeMay, Shoup, Krulak types that does not mean there could be something worth picking up on in his, say, document collection for example.

FWIW

Edited by Robert Howard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One factoid that I discovered about the intertwining relationships in the JFK versus Joint Chiefs of Staff miasma, is the fact that there was a General, George Scratchley Brown who was an intermediary between General LeMay and Defense Secretary Robert "Bob" McNamara, at least privately, with LeMay. LeMay and McNamara were not exactly best friends, as I mentioned earlier when LeMay retired in February 1965

McNamara was one of the few insiders that didn't attend, although he was cited as having a cold, I believe

the truth may have been a little more scandalous

General Brown wrote his own memoirs, and I have seen the book and perused it enough to realize that he includes some conversations he had with LeMay over some of the divergences of opinion between the Whiz Kids in the JFK Administration, this also was not exactly a love-fest [civilian members in the Pentagon, might be a better description] and the hawks in the Pentagon, of which LeMay was, at least the most well known.

Here is a link bio for General Brown

http://www.arlington...net/gsbrown.htm

Another even more important dynamic that I am sure some of the more experienced researchers have already run across, is what I would describe as the 'crocodile tears syndrome.'

Which is what I call the various books, documents and recollections of the big fish, JCOS, the Kennedy Cabinet and others who wax eloquently about how much they loved or, at least valued, according to officialdom their relationship with President Kennedy, but in some places the facts and actions give the lie to same.

The main example of this, IMO is General LeMay's son attesting that his father, more or less, loved JFK

when some very respected authors, such as David Talbot example pps 163-169

Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, present a very different perception.

The main point about General Brown is that he doesen't seem to appear much in any of the JCOS and related documents, and although on the surface his views appear to less strident than the LeMay, Shoup, Krulak types that does not mean there could be something worth picking up on in his, say, document collection for example.

FWIW

Retired General George Brown was interviewed by Raymond Coffey of the Chicago Tribune. Excerpts from

that interview were published in the August 10, 1978 issue of the St Petersburg Evening Independent:

http://news.google.c...ley brown&hl=en

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here’s some updates on the Air Force One Radio Transmission Tapes:

LBJ Library Tape of AF1 Radio Transmissions

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/05/transcript-of-lbj-library-tape-of-af1.html

Clifton Tape of AF1 Radio Transmissions

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/05/af1-radio-transmission-transcript.html

Transcript and Annotated Commentary of Combined LBJ & Clifton AF1 Tapes

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/05/air-force-one-tapes-combined-annotated.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Robert Morrow

Robert Novak on Curtis LeMay who was named George Wallace's running mate on 10/3/68

"What transpired in Pittsburgh after the LeMay announcement produced one of the most bizarre moments in my half century of covering politics. When the general was asked about "your policy in the employment of nuclear weapons," he was off and running.

[LeMay:]

Now, nuclear war would be horrible. To me any war is horrible. It doesn't make much difference to me if I have to go to war and get killed in the jungle of Vietnam with a Russian knife or get killed with a nuclear weapon. As a matter if I had the choice, I'd lean towards the nuclear weapon.

That was incredible, but LeMay was not finished. He launched into discussing what he purported to be a government study of animal life on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific after extensive testing of nuclear weapons there, with the good news that "the rats out there are bigger, fatter, and healthier than they were ever before."

It really did sound like General Jack D. Ripper. I had my eyes fixed on Wallace, his expression betraying astonishment and despair. Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Nelson, a relentless critic of Wallace, asked LeMay about the nuclear bomb: "If you found it necessary to end the [Vietnam] war, you'd use it, wouldn't you?" LeMay replied: "If I found it necessary, I would use anything that we could dream up, including nuclear weapons." ...

[skip to the next page]

Wallace told me he had wanted as his running mate Albert B. (Happy) Chandler- former governor of Kentucky, former U.S. senator, former commissioner of baseball. Chandler was seventy years old and eager to get back into politics on the Wallace ticket. "But mah' money men" - he didn't name them - "vetoed Happy." Chandler was too liberal on economics and race. He had not been forgiven for his role in breaking baseball's color bar with Jackie Robinson.

The "money men" were intent on LeMay, Wallace went on. "I said yes against my better judgement, and I never should have. He's an absolute disaster. Did you hear him yesterday? But that's the last you will ever hear from him. Nothing more! Not a word!""

[Robert Novak, "The Prince of Darkness," pp.173-174]

Note from Robert: Dallas, TX oilman H.L. Hunt, formerly a big supporter of Lyndon Johnson, was a major funder of the George Wallace bid of the American Independent party. H.L. Hunt also lavished money on Gen. Curtis LeMay as well. Hunt may very well have been one of Wallace's "money men" who were insisting that LeMay be on the ticket with Wallace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Although this is Bill's thread, I think he might appreciate the following. The temptation for me to categorize this account, would definitely enter the periphery of crocodile tears, but the idea is

to get factual information about what certain people were doing on that day, on the record.

Office of

Alexander Haig

At the time of President Kennedy's shooting, I was serving as Military Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, Cyrus Vance, with specific responsibility in the area of Central America. These duties involved a close collaboration with the General Counsel of the Army, who at the time was Joseph A. Califano, Jr. I was at my desk in the Pentagon when word was received of the shooting.

The reaction was, of course, one of great shock and genuine concern that the assassination itself was somehow related to the tense relationship between the Administration and Castro Cuba.

Beyond the shock and sadness shared by most Americans, I was greatly concerned that the violent tendencies which mushroomed after that tragic event were somehow a legacy of the exploitation

of the historic quest for social justice by the Soviet Marxist-Leninist system. Clearly, a most sensitive outcome of the Kennedy assassination has remained the degree to which the event itself might be linked

to international communism in the Soviet model. I continue to suspect that the last chapter on this issue

has not been written. In any event, the proliferation of international terrorism and wars of national liberation since that event suggest that the United States and the free world have yet to come to grips with the issue. This is not to suggest any particular insights on the actual motivations for the assassination but subsequent events tend to confirm that the broader problem remains a continuing and perhaps growing threat to rule of law and to international peace and stability.

Sincerely,

Alex Haig Jr.

Reflections On JFK's Assassination: 250 Famous American Remember November 22, 1963 page 79, Edited by John B. Jovitch - Woodbine House - 1988

PS General LeMay is not interviewed in this book, Haig's circle, Joseph Califano and Cyrus Vance

are definite familiar names in the JFK era, Califano with LBJ and Cyrus Vance in the Pentagon.

Edited by Robert Howard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

WAS GENERAL LEMAY AT CAMPX ON 11/22/63?

JFKcountercoup: Was LeMay at Camp X on 11/22/63?

Where was General Curtis LeMay at the time president Kennedy was assassinated?

Was he on vacation hunting and fishing in upstate Michigan, as his official biographies attest, or was he at Camp X or at a secret command & control bunker overseeing the Dealey Plaza operation?

An official biography of Air Force General Curtis LeMay reports that at the time President Kennedy was assassinated he was on vacation, hunting and fishing with family members in upstate Michigan.

"Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay," by Thomas M. Coffey (p.430) reports that LeMay's wife was from Michigan and he had apparently told his biographer he was in Michigan on vacation and "hurried back to Washington in time for the funeral."

But an Andrews Air Force base log book, that was salvaged from the trash and almost destroyed, indicates that LeMay ordered a special Air Force jet to pick him up in Canada shortly after news of the assassination was widely broadcast, which indicated to some that he wasn’t hunting and fishing in Michigan.

Exploring the possibility that Gen. LeMay attended JFK’s autopsy at Bethesda, as Navy medical corpsman Paul O’Conner attests, Doug Horne, the Chief Analyst for Military Records for the Assassination Records Review Board, made note of LeMay’s presence in Canada rather than Michigan, as his official biography reports.

And Larry Hancock, author of “Someone Would Have Talked” and “Nexus,” also thought it significant and notes: "I was struck by the fact that it (LeMay’s bio) made a big deal of his being so remote that he was out of contact and was not even able to make it back to Washington until the funeral. I don't see that as a minor thing, the book definitely creates the impression that he was not back in Washington that weekend. This really is an important point, if Doug is right and can be verified it looks pretty certain that LeMay was handing out disinformation and there would need to be a good reason for that. After all, it would not be unusual for him to rush back to DC or to some other AF base where he could achieve command and control capability. What seems to me not at all understandable is why he would go to Bethesda, and then lie about it."

From the salvaged Andrews Air Force Base Log Book for 11/22/63, it is officially noted that a special order to pick up LeMay in Toronto was requested at 1:20 PM CST (2:20 PM EST, 1420 GMT) and a special SAM – Special Air Mission C-140 jet took off Andrews at 1446 (1:46 PM CST 2:46 PM EST) to pick him up in Toronto, but after the plane took off (1:50 PM CST 2:50 PM EST) it was redirected to Wiarton, a Canadian Air Force base north of Toronto.

The official internet web site for Wiarton includes a photo of the Air Force base, but also makes tantalizing references to Camp X, the secret training camp for spies used by the British and Americans during World War II, and used as a hideaway for a prominent Soviet defector during the Cold War.

“Camp X was the unofficial name of a Second World War paramilitary and commando training installation, on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario between Whitby and Oshawa in Ontario, Canada. The area is known today as Intrepid Park, after the code name for Sir William Stephenson of the British Security Coordination.”

“Camp X was established December 6, 1941 by the chief of British Security Coordination (BSC), Sir William Stephenson, a Canadian from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and a close confidante of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The camp was originally designed to link Britain and the United States at a time when the US was forbidden by the Neutrality Act to be directly involved in World War II. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into the war, Camp X opened for the purpose of training Allied agents from the Special Operations Executive, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) intended to be dropped behind enemy lines as saboteurs and spies. However, even before the United States entered the war on December 7, 1941, agents from America's intelligence services expressed an interest in sending personnel for training at the soon to be opened Camp X. Agents head of the OSS, who credited Sir William Stephenson with teaching Americans about foreign intelligence gathering. The CIA even named their recruit training facility "The Farm", a nod to the original farm that existed at the Camp X site.”

“One of the unique features of Camp X was Hydra, a highly sophisticated telecommunications centre… Hydra also had direct access via land lines to Ottawa, New York and Washington, D.C. for telegraph and telephone communications… In the fall of 1945 Camp X was used by the RCMP as a secure location for interviewing Soviet embassy cypher-clerk Igor Gouzenko who defected to Canada on September 5 and revealed an extensive Soviet espionage operation in the country. Post-war, the camp was renamed the Oshawa Wireless Station and was turned over to the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals as a wireless intercept station, in essence a spy listening station. The Oshawa Wireless Station ceased operations in 1969.”

While the Camp X site was still in use as a top-secret and secure military communications base in 1963, it is located Southeast of Toronto, while Wiarton is located northwest of Toronto, so they are not near each other.

And although both Toronto and Wiarton are in Canada, they are actually south and east of the rural lake area of North Michigan where LeMay was said to have been at the time of the assassination, and it is possible that LeMay flew by private airplane across Lake Huron that separates Michigan and Canada, to Wiarton, which is closer to Michigan than Toronto.

According to the Andrews Log, within an hour of the assassination LeMay requested a P/U Pick Up at Toronto, and twenty minutes later a C-140 – an Air Force version of a small, executive jet, was sent to pick him up, but while it was still in the air, it was diverted to Wiarton, a small military base north west of Toronto.

Canadian researcher, Randy Owen got in touch with an author who was working on a history of Wiarton, who seemed to be genuinely surprised about the LeMay story, and was asked if he could check it out. Owen said he never heard back and, “I'd be surprised if there was someone alive today who remembered the incident, if it happened. And I'm not sure there may be a paper trail, either. My understanding is an organization called Nav Canada could have any records if they still exist. But an inquiry on my part produced a rather arogant response from Nav Canada saying they have no reason to provide the information I was seeking to any member of the public, even if they had it.”

http://www.navcanada.ca/NavCanada.asp?Language=en&Content=ContentDefinitionFiles/default.xml

“NAV CANADA, the country's civil air navigation services provider, is a private sector, non-share capital corporation financed through publicly-traded debt. With operations coast to coast to coast, NAV CANADA provides air traffic control, flight information, weather briefings, aeronautical information services, airport advisory services and electronic aids to navigation. ANS facilities include seven area control centres and 41 control towers. The Company also operates 58 flight service stations and eight flight information centres. These facilities are supported by a network of over 1,000 ground-based aids to navigation located across the country.”

John Judge, while perusing a batch of then recently released JFK assassination records as Archives II, came across some NSA documents on the military alert status in the aftermath of the assassination. Included among them was a newspaper article on false reports that General LeMay had been killed in an airplane accident that day.

From Wiarton, LeMay had been ordered by Air Force Secretary Zuckert to proceed to Andrews Air Force base where they both were to greet Air Force One and meet the new President, but instead LeMay landed at Washington National, which is closer to downtown DC, the Pentagon and the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where some contend LeMay was during the autopsy of the President a few hours later.

While enroute between Wiarton and Washington, LeMay’s deputy, Colonel George Dorman tried to communicate with him via sideband radio using the Andrews Air Force base operations center, who were relaying radio patches between Air Force One and the White House and other locations. Dorman told the Andrews radio operator that he had an important message for LeMay, whose plane was due to arrive in Washington within a half hour. Because the message itself was not recorded on the Air Force One radio tapes, there is much speculation as to what the message actually was.

Although Colonel Dorman was killed in Vietnam a few years later, his wife Mary Dorman, who was working at the White House at the time of the assassination, recalls the events of those days, but she didn’t know what the message was her husband wanted to convey to LeMay.

Her son George Dorman, Jr. a witness to the burial of the President at Arlington cemetery, also recalls the events of that weekend, and suggests a number of possibilities, including what Secretary Zuckart wanted LeMay to know, the possible change in alert status of SAC or where LeMay wanted to go once he arrived in DC, - the Pentagon, Andrews or Bethesda.

Dorman said it was peculiar that his father was not with LeMay in Michigan or Canada, or where ever he was, since he was almost always at LeMay’s side, which supports the contention that LeMay really was on vacation, fishing and hunting at his in-laws Michigan lake resort.

Dorman also thought it odd that LeMay didn’t have his own plane with him, “Speckled Trout,” a special command and control plane that he often used, and a sister plane to “Silver Dollar,” NEACP – the flying “Doomsday” plane.

While we don’t know exactly where LeMay was at the time of the assassination, or where his plane “Speckled Trout” was at the time, we do know that “Silver Dollar” was in the air at the time of the assassination, - above Texas, because at 12:25 PM, five minutes before the assassination, “Silver Dollar” checked in with Fort Sam Houston for what it said was a routine radio communications check.

So the answer to the question of whether Gen. LeMay was at Camp X at the time of the assassination is probably no, but we still have more questions than answers.

Although there should be a more thorough review of the records in the archives of government that could document the whereabouts of General LeMay, it is so far clear that we don’t really know where he was at the time of the assassination, nor where he went after he arrived in Washington, both facts that can and should be established with more certainty.

Dallas CST Andrews EST – GM - Military Time – Andrews Log

12:34 PM CST First UPI "A" wire transmission:

1:00 PM CST(2:00 PM EST) – 1400 GM – JFK pronounced dead.

1:00 PM CST (2:00 PM EST) –1400 GM - Col. Hornbuckle Puts Andrews on Alert

1:20 PM CST (2:20 PM EST) - 1420 Andrews ordered to pick up LeMay at Toronto

1:26 PM CST (2:26 PM EST) – 1426 – LBJ Leaves Parkland for AF1

1:33 PM CST (2:33 PM EST) – 1433 – Kilduff officially announces JFK dead.

1:46 PM CST (2:46 PM EST) - 1446 LeMay’s C-140 Departs Andrews for Toronto

1:46 PM CST (2:46 PM EST) – 1446 Cabinet Plane 86972 Turns Around

1:50 PM CST (2:50 PM EST) P/U for LeMay changed from Toronto to Wiarton, CA.

2:00 PM CST (3:00 PM EST) - 1500 Flight Plan filed for AF1.

3:25 PM CST (4:25 PM EST) 1625 GMT – LeMay dep Wiarton ETA Andrews 5:15

4:00 PM CST (5:00 PM EST) 1700 GMT– LeMay destination DCA not ADW/Andrews

4:30 PM CST (5:30 PM EST) 1730 GMT – Col. Dorman tries to contact LeMay

4:12 PM CST (5:12 PM EST) 1712 LeMay lands at DCA

5:04 PM CST (6:04 P.M. EST) 1800 – AF1 Lands at Andrews 2300 – 2304 Zulu (GMT)

JFKcountercoup: Was LeMay at Camp X on 11/22/63?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

This is off the subject and somewhat, ok a lot, digusting. I believe I read in one of my JFK books that Lemay literally "peed" on President Kennedy's grave. I thought I read it in Doug Horne's five book Magnus Opus, but it is not, unfortunately indexed. I have gone back through several dozen books I have read on the Coup D'etat since last fall and I cannot find this reference. I hope I find it isn't true, but if anyone can substantiate this vulgar act, from a known vulgar man, would you please reference for me?

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...