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Who Killed JFK?: Poll and Discussion?


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The meeting took place in a favorite wartering hole downtown Vientaine Laos in a semi-private group of tables at the rear of the "Club" not far from the old USOM mission HDQs, and was a common place to congregate after work as it were. Present at the meeting was; Luong Winh Nguyen, one of Ho Chi Minh's Security officers and the most senior CIA mole in Ho's governmemt, and the resident expert of Kong Le and his Pathet Lao allies; General Vang Pao, commander of the Hmong Tribesmen and his CIA handler, James W. (Bill) Lair, The CIA's far eastern paramilitary expert and creator of PARU from specially recruited and trained Thai military forces; US Special Forces, Lt. Col. Arthor (Bull) Simons and his attache, Major Richard Meadows in charge of all tactical operations under the designation of "Operation Whitestar"; Brig. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, chief of SE Asian Operations, and Ted Shackley the CIA's SE Asian Station Chief.

These seven men had basically set up and were running the Golden Triangle Opium and Heroin processing operations after the French got the boot in '58.

The year was 1961 and the Kennedy administration was less than a year old and already JFK was talking about pulling the plug on the whole operation, and naturally, this was the principal topic of conversation and stratagy planning. The theme being, how were they going to continue in operation if and when JFK pulled the plug.

General Nguyen correctly assessed that Kong Le was amassing a force in northern Laos and would attack at the first indication of an American pullout. General Vang Pao declared he could field up to 35,000 Hmong forces but wanted to relocate his Heroin refinery out of the Coka Cola plant in Vientaine to a secret location known as LC-50.

It was decided that Bull Simons and Major Meadows would recruit up to 8,000 volunteers to be "Sheep-Dipped" into civilian advisors and put under the direct command of Bill Lair and be officially designated civilian advisors and stationed in Unorn, Thailand giving plausable deniability to everyone involved. This would also involve the Air America Jocks who were transporting the drugs.

When queried as to how Lansdale's boss General Maxwell D, Taylor, JFK's National Security Advisor would react to this decision and how JFK would respond upon being briefed by General Taylor, Shackley speakng for Lansdale stated in no uncertain terms that JFK was out of the loop and would soon be out of the game entirely, to which Lansdale agreed.

Bill Lair then asked how could they possibly keep the presence of 8,000 American advisors in Laos a secret and Bull Simons simply declared that no one would be allowed to leave alive, to which Major Meadows made a reference to stocks of nerve-gas being shipped to Johnston Island for storage, some of which could be easily diverted to Udorn for use as a broad area saturation agent, and to be used in conjunction with individual hunter-killer special sanitation teams.

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My scource for this story was old-man Winh himself Whom I extracted from Udon[udorn] Thani Thailand in early August of 1970. He subsequently opened a resterant in Englewood Co. called, The Siagon Palace where his family works feeding PhuVan and NucMom to an upscale crowd to this day. I visit generally once a year. Also certain facts of the meeting were varified to me personally by Michael Cormier, the grandson of Admiral Firth of the O.N.I._now deceased thus my exposure of him as a scource.

In later August 1970, I was informed by another 2 independent scources that elements of the 507th and 524th transportation companies stationed at Ft. Eustice Va. were dispatched to Johnston Island where they took control of some 400 Sarin filled GU-34 cluster bombs which they transported to a secret location inside Laos known as Lima Sierra 54[LS-54] Pao's HDQTRS which were ultimately deployed to sanitize the region during Operation Tailwind which BTW, was only a small facet of the overall operation. Thousands of Americans and Hmong tribesmen were killed.

At the time of the meeting, these principals were already conteplating killing JFK who stood to disrupt a 100 billion dollar a year operation and it is my personal view that when JFK signed NSAM-263 the prosecution of his assassination began in earnest.

Respectfully,

John Ritchson

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There seems to be a problem with a 1961 meeting including Shackley as he had not served in SE Asia at that point, was coming off duty in Berlen as first Deputy of Operations and then COS at JMWAVE in Miami?

He did not go to SE Asia and Laos until 1966.

-- Larry

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... you need an option for the 'lone gunman' too? (Andrew)

Does anyone still believe this? Even the House Select Committee on Assassinations gave up on this in 1979 (therefore the need to blame the Mafia). However, I have now added a Lee Harvey Oswald option (this should ensure John McAdams and his group join under assumed names to vote).

You also state that the conspiracy was a complete success. The Cold War did indeed continue - but would you now link this with the current 'war of terror' - are the same people implicated? (Andrew)

Exactly right. See my posting on this at:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=992

This is extremely interesting as quite literally it gives a really good summary of what you think happened and why. However, have you really put documents in the hands of solicitors in the case of a suspicious death? (Andrew)

As you have probably gathered that much of what have written is based on my understanding of political changes that have taken place since 1945. That material is pure speculation and can never be proved (as I explained earlier).

*******

Would you be privy to infomation pertaining to whether or not these "same people" are members of the "CFR, the Trilateral Commision and the "Illuminati" ? It would be interesting to see if THIS a common threds to all of these people, in varying combinations of course...I just wondered if anyone else 'out there" would happen to have member names for these orgs...

*******

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There seems to be a problem with a 1961 meeting including Shackley as he had not served in SE Asia at that point,  was coming off duty in Berlen as first Deputy of Operations and then COS at JMWAVE in Miami?

He did not go to SE Asia and Laos until 1966.

-- Larry

Howdy Larry, you are of course entirely correct in so far as Shackley would not have been station chief at the time of the meeting. However, it is no great matter to zip in to town for a meeting as it were and since the meeting itself was covert and none of the principals have ever admitted to its occurance, except old Winh himself I see no particular problem with Shackley's presence at that point in time.

And since his presence was varified by a number of independent scources I can only conclude he was in fact at the meeting, although his purpose for attending, his agenda, and who or what he represented remains unclear.

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Would you be privy to infomation pertaining to whether or not these "same people" are members of the "CFR, the Trilateral Commision and the "Illuminati" ? It would be interesting to see if THIS a common threds to all of these people, in varying combinations of course...I just wondered if anyone else 'out there" would happen to have member names for these orgs...

No. The people concerned were involved with a variety of different organizations. This includes Interpen (Intercontinental Penetration Force) and anti-Castro Cuban groups such as Alpha 66. Also involved were people who had done secret freelance work for the CIA.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKalpha.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKinterpen.htm

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John, I do believe there is someone else you've left off your list, a man who on many occasions used unethical means to change the world to his liking. a man whose right hand held influence in both the CIA and the mob, and a man who could have funded the whole operation without batting an eye, Howard Hughes.

Since his right hand was Robert Maheu, and Maheu was the preferred cut-out for the CIA, it would not have been difficult at all for Maheu to have Kennedy killed by the mob and the Cubans and make it look like the CIA did it.  Maheu knew (based upon the wiretapping incident) that he had a get-out-of-jail free card.  It would have been no sweat at all for Maheu, Rosselli, and Giancana, with the help of a few disgruntled CIA operators--perhaps Morales, or even Barnes--to pull off the hit, knowing that LBJ, the CIA and the FBI were too cowardly to come after them.  After all, LBJ had been on Carlos Marcello's payroll in the fifites, and Nixon had been in Hughes' pocket for years.

If Howard Hughes had been involved in the assassination he possibly fits into the Military Industrial Complex category.

During the Second World War Hughes was awarded two contracts, of $18m and $22m each, to create and build two revolutionary aircraft - a giant plywood cargo seaplane that could carry thirty-five tons of men and weapons (HK-1), and a very fast photo-reconnaissance aircraft (F-11).

In 1946 Owen Brewster, chairman of the Senate War Investigating Committee, announced that he was very concerned that the government had given Hughes $40m for the development and production of two aircraft that had never been delivered. Brewster also pointed out the President Franklin D. Roosevelt had overruled his military experts in order to hand out the contracts to Hughes for the F-11 and HK-1 (also known as the Spruce Goose).

Brewster also pointed out that Hughes had provided "softening-up parties" for government officials. Howard paid movie starlets $200 to attend these parties. Their duties included swimming nude in Hughes's swimming pool. Julius Krug, the chief of the War Production Board, was someone who often attended these parties. One congressman who was also a frequent guest at Hughes's home claimed: "If those girls were paid two hundred dollars, they were greatly underpaid".

Hughes, accused of corruption, leaked information to journalists, Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, that Owen Brewster was being paid by Pan American Airways (Pan Am) to cause trouble. According to Hughes, Pan Am was trying to persuade the United States government to set up an official worldwide monopoly under its control. Part of this plan was to force all existing American carriers with overseas operations to close down or merge with Pan Am. As the owner of Trans World Airlines, Hughes posed a serious threat to this plan. Hughes claimed that Brewster had approached him and suggested he merge Trans World with Pan Am. When Hughes refused Brewster began a smear campaign against him.

Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson believed Hughes and began their own campaign against Owen Brewster. They reported that Pan Am had provided Bewster with free flights to Hobe Sound, Florida, where he stayed free of charge at the holiday home of Pan Am Vice President Sam Pryor. These charges were repeated by Hughes when he appeared before the Senate War Investigating Committee. He also accused Brewster of trying to blackmail him into merging Trans World with Pan Am. Brewster denied the charge but it helped divert attention away from the charge that Hughes had wasted $40m of government money.

The Senate War Investigating Committee never completed its report on the non-delivery of the F-11 and the HK-1. The committee stopped meeting and was eventually disbanded. Hughes got away with his $40m.

Hughes was always seen as an opponent of JFK. However, this might not have been the case. During the 1960 presidential campaign someone leaked another story to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson (was it Hughes again). Apparently, in 1956 the Hughes Tool Company provided a $205,000 loan to Nixon Incorporated, a company run by Richard's brother, F. Donald Nixon. The money was never paid back. Soon after the money was paid the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reversed a previous decision to grant tax-exempt status to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

This information was revealed by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson during the presidential campaign. Nixon initially denied the loan but later was forced to admit that this money had been given to his brother. It was claimed that this story helped John F. Kennedy defeat Nixon in the election.

It is true that Hughes was linked to the assassination via Robert Maheu. In the late 1950s Hughes began employing Maheu, a former FBI agent and veteran of CIA counter-espionage activities, on a freelance basis. This included intimidating would be blackmailers and obtaining information on business rivals.

In 1960 Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles decided to work with the Mafia in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Maheu was employed by the CIA to organize the conspiracy. The advantage of employing the Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story. The Mafia were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and casinos in Cuba. If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept that the Mafia were working on their own.

In 1966 Hughes sold his TWA stock for $546m and moved to Las Vegas where he used his money to buy up four hotels and six casinos. He employed Robert Maheu to oversee this business.

If Hughes had been involved in the assassination he would have been very foolish to have used Maheu in the plot. Maheu was well-known to have been closely linked to Hughes.

By the way, has anyone read Maheu’s book, Next to Hughes (1993)? Does it say anything about the assassination of JFK?

Maheu was still alive in 2000? Is he still alive? Has anyone interviewed him about what he knows about the assassination?

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhughesH.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmaheu.htm

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[snipped for brevity]

John Simkin stated, " Or can we fight back?"

B)

Greetings and well said:-) You have pretty much spelled out the thinking of a great many people. It is my thinking that the roots of much of the current world situation lays in the killing of JFK, and it is for this reason if for no other that we must fight back. We must fight back by education, by raising the global conciousness of the entire planet, to drag it kicking and screeming into the 21st century. We must fight back by restoring sanity to a world that very often seems to have gone crazy. We must fight back by instituting a new paradigm into the world conciousness in which people are more important than property, cooperation is superior to competition, and the highest order humans may aspire to is community not empire. We must fight back by becoming better stewards to this planet.

I am not contemplating a utopian pipe-dream but simply a better world for our posterity. History will demand an accounting. How then will we answer?

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John, I didn't include Hughes in the MIC because I believe they had different motivations. While the MIC was organized and all about the $, I believe Hughes was more about the power and that he was basically insane.

Maheu's book was one of the main sources of information which led me to conclude Hughes may have been involved. Maheu is still alive and living in Las Vegas I believe.

Some of the reasons why I'm suspicious of their involvement.

The first attempts on Castro, including the Sturgis/Lorenz attempt, preceded official CIA involvement by months. This leads me to suspect that Maheu convinced the CIA to go after Castro. In his book he details how he was hired by Niarchos, Onassis' brother-in-law, to disrupt Onassis' oil business. Maheu then approached Richard Nixon, who made it a CIA operation and footed the bill. So there's a precedent. The Nixon angle is important. One of Maheu's business partners worked with Nixon and was traveling with Nixon throughout the 1960 campaign, not coincidentally, when the plans for the Bay of Pigs were formalized. Strangely, no one at the CIA could remember where the idea for the assassination came from--Sheff Edwards seemed to think the mafia (through Maheu, no doubt) approached him.

When Maheu approached Roselli, he said that Roselli immediately suspected it was for the CIA, and he admitted it. THIS IS INCREDIBLY UNPROFESSIONAL, destroying the whole reason for his involvement! He was the cut-out. The knowledge that the CIA was officially involved amounted to a get-out-of-jail free card for the participants. Roselli, Giancana and Maheu all used it to their advantage over the next few years.

Maheu, out of some misguided professional loyalty, also told Howard Hughes of the plots. ONCE AGAIN, THIS WAS INCREDIBLY UNPROFESSIONAL. The fact that Maheu was hired by Hughes to hush up the Hughes loan story, but that Nixon over-ruled him and leaked it himself, only to have it explode in his face, may have led Maheu to want to give Hughes something for his money.

Maheu, when testifying before the Church committee, said that the only murders he was aware of in regards to Cuba were performed by the Kennedy Administration when they allowed the invasion at the Bay of Pigs to continue after calling off the air strike.

Towards the end of his book, Maheu brags that Giancana thanked him for never talking about the CIA/Mafia plots. This is b.s. Maheu had been talking about his involvement for years in order to avoid prosection on wiretapping charges, etc. Giancana himself bragged about his own involvement. It seems likely that the "thanks" was for not talking about something else.

Finally, I think it is important to note that even Hughes came to conclude that Maheu was ultimately in bed with the mob.

As for Hughes' insanity, it has been acknowledged that Hughes tried to bribe LBJ to escalate the Vietnam war, for the primary purpose of selling more helicopters. He also tried to buy ABC, so that he could control programming and prevent the showing of movies depicting black people in a sexual light.

That's just a start.

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The fact that Maheu was hired by Hughes to hush up the Hughes loan story, but that Nixon over-ruled him and leaked it himself, only to have it explode in his face, may have led Maheu to want to give Hughes something for his money.

The story of the loan was first obtained by Drew Pearson. Jack Anderson, who worked for Pearson, claims in his book, Confessions of a Muckraker, that the story originally came from James McInerney (Assistant Attorney General under Truman). Pearson’s hatred of Nixon dates back to the fact that he persuaded Joe McCarthy to accuse Pearson of being a communist. This lost Pearson his radio sponsors. His syndicated column was also banned by several newspapers.

Pearson was determined to use the story against Nixon during the presidential campaign. For maximum impact, Pearson planned to publish two weeks before the election. Nixon discovered Pearson had the story and decided to go public with it 16 days before the election. However, Nixon claimed that the loan came from Frank Waters, rather than Howard Hughes. This plan backfired when Waters admitted he had been “acting for Howard Hughes with the approval and knowledge of the Vice President”.

Pearson had a close relationship with Hughes. Pearson helped out Hughes in exchange for information about conservative politicians. Therefore, I suspect the information really came from Hughes and not McInerney.

Pearson and Anderson also worked closely with LBJ. They in fact favoured LBJ over JFK in the 1960 campaign to become the Democratic Party candidate. However, when JFK became the candidate they used their smear stories against Nixon.

Interestingly, LBJ used Anderson to smear Don B. Reynolds when he offered to provide evidence of the president’s corruption. However, this does not appear in Anderson’s books, Confessions of a Muckraker and Peace, War and Politics.

It was also Anderson who was responsible for the story that the Mafia was responsible for the assassination of JFK (1971). Anderson claims the story originally came from the attorney Edward P. Morgan. I suspect the story really came from the people behind the assassination. The lone gunman story was falling apart and they needed a group (rather than an individual) to blame for the assassination. The Mafia was the ideal choice. Maheu eventually told Anderson the story of what happened. However, I believe he was still working for the CIA when he did this. This is not to say the CIA/Mafia meeting did not happen. It just had nothing to do with the assassination of JFK.

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  • 4 weeks later...

John, you neglected to mention LBJ's most egregious use of Pearson/Anderson. While Morgan had given Pearson the Roselli story that blamed the assassination attempts on Bobby's lust for Castro's death, and purported that these assassins were tortured by Castro, came back and killed JFK, in early 67 (An obvious bit of disinformation as far as I'm concerned.) the story didn't appear for weeks later, the day after RFK embarrassed LBJ by coming out against the war. I don't believe this was a coincidence.

Edited by Pat Speer
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John, you neglected to mention LBJ's most egregious use of Pearson/Anderson.  While Morgan had given Pearson the Roselli story that blamed the assassination attempts on Bobby's lust for Castro's death, and purported that these assassins were tortured by Castro, came back and killed JFK, in early 67 (An obvious bit of disinformation as far as I'm concerned.) the story didn't appear for weeks later, the day after RFK embarrassed LBJ by coming out against the war.  I don't believe this was a coincidence.

I agree. Jack Anderson was used several times by Johnson/CIA to provide disinformation on the assassination. They were less successful at using Drew Pearson who was highly suspicious of LBJ. The other important disinformation journalist was Dick Billings. Both Anderson and Billings could be relied upon to publish false information at the appropriate time. I suspect Billings knew what was going on (he was involved in the conspiracy before JFK was killed – see Operation Tilt). However, Anderson, was so keen to publish any scoop he was easily manipulated (especially after his wise boss, Drew Pearson, had died).

Anderson and Billings were both active in providing disinformation at key times in the story. This including the time of the Garrison inquiry. Anderson and Billings were both involved in trying to direct Garrison’s attention towards the Mafia and away from the anti-Castro groups in New Orleans. When that failed, they both became involved in a smear campaign suggesting that Garrison was under the control of organized crime.

Anderson and Billings were both involved in the same strategy during the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation. After forcing the resignation of Richard Sprague, G. Robert Blakey was appointed as chief counsel. He immediately recruited Dick Billings as Editorial Director of the HSCA.

G. Robert Blakey and Dick Billings did what they could to shift attention away from the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans. In 1981 they published The Plot to Kill the President. In the book they argued that Lee Harvey Oswald did kill John F. Kennedy. However, a second gunman, fired from the "grassy knoll" but missed.

Blakey and Billings went on to argue that the conspiracy behind Oswald was rooted in organized crime and was specifically provoked by Kennedy’s anti-crime program. Suspects named included Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and James Hoffa.

The testimony of John Martino was ignored. Nor did the authors explain how these criminals managed to persuade Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, the FBI and members of the Warren Commission to cover-up the crime.

I believe Anderson and Billings are still alive. Has anyone tried to interview them about these issues?

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  • 3 weeks later...

John;

I believe rogue elements of the CIA were the actual shooters. With the cooperation of a few well placed friends in the FBI, Secret Service and The White House (Johnson's White House.) I do NOT believe the mafia was involved because they didn't have the power to cover up the conspiracy. There were only 2 people on earth that had the power to do that and to benifit from the assassination of Kennedy. Both attained something that they had wanted since their government careers started. One wanted at least four years and the other wanted a lifetime in their respective jobs.

Thanks for a great Forum!!

Mike

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  • 4 weeks later...

The highest level at which the actual conspiracy could ever be shown would be Lansdale, then Morales/Shackley/Phillips/Hunt, then a notch down would be anti-Castro/CIA/Mafioso Johnny Roselli (Roselli conveniently tracks back to everyone). But if we're talking about who really did the deed, and not just about approval or quiescence, then the most intriguing is Howard Hughes, through Maheu, then to Roselli. . . . This is Big Oil/Military Industrial Complex/Mafia/POWER. And then of course, there is the fact that Hughes was mad as a hatter. I believe that Angleton and Hoover had serious institutional reasons for covering-up after-the-fact, Oswald having been one of Angleton's in Russia, and then one of Hoover's in Dallas.

Tim

Edited by Tim Carroll
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But if we're talking about who really did the deed, and not just about approval or quiescence, then the most intriguing is Howard Hughes, through Maheu, then to Roselli. . . . 

Tim,

This is indeed an intriguing angle. It's probably way too early in my research to be posting this but I noticed that Tosh has joined the forum and there is a slim chance he may be able to identify this guy below.

This character worked as a bodyguard for Hughes during the early 1960's. I have not been able to find out much about him except that he has a background in the military and that he was familiar to several anti-Castro players during 1963.

This photo was taken in San Diego, 1962.

James

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