Clendenin J. Ryan - Baltimore millionaire and CIA funder

[John Bevilaqua]

From a previous posting by Paul Rigby:

p.142: "Who, Amoss wondered, might be willing to invest in such a scheme? [To smuggle Stalin's son out of the Soviet Union – PR] He found the answer through a complicated chain of contacts, beginning with Mrs. Mary Vaughan King, who runs the Baltimore public relations firm, Counsel Services, of which the colonel is a client. It led to Clendenin Ryan, a somewhat quixotic multi-millionaire, who once served as an assistant to Mayor La Guardia, ran for the New York mayoralty himself on an independent ticket and the governorship of New Jersey, published a semi-political magazine, and sent large sums abroad to break communist-inspired strikes and influence voters in favor of anti-communist candidates for high office."

Amoss ran International Services of Information and worked for Frank Wisner of the CIA. Even Carleton S. Coon worked for Amoss at the OSS as a Major under the Colonel. Coon and Amoss later worked with Robert Emmett Johnson in Baltimore at ISI. So now we have Amoss and Coon linked through Clendenin Ryan right into The Richard Condon Manchurian Candidate crowd like Brig Gen Bonner Fellers who was an ISI patron (Fighting Frank Bollinger), and "...that fascinating young man who wrote about man and God at Yale." (William F. Buckley, Jr. founder of YAF which was funded by Clendenin Ryan) and Ray S. Cline who was John Yerkes Iselin himself in Manchurian Candidate. Cline later took over control of R. E. Johnson when Cline ran WACL and murdered Archbishop Romero.

What was the magazine Clendenin Ryan published? The American Mercury from 1950-1952, the Buckley years.

What other groups did he help to start later in his career perhaps using his son Clendenin Ryan, Jr. as a go between and contact point with Doug Caddy his college roommate? The Young Americans for Freedom started at the Sharon estate of William F. Buckley, Jr.

The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America - Google Books Resultby Ronald Lora, William Henry Longton - 1999 - Social Science - 744 pages

The new purchaser of the Mercury was Clendenin J. Ryan, an erstwhile reformer who was a prominent financier and the son of an even more prominent financier, ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0313213909...

The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the ... - Google Books Resultby John A. Andrew - 1997 - Political Science - 287 pages

... David Franke, George Gaines, Robert Harley, James Kolbe, Richard Noble, Suzanne Regnery, Clendenin Ryan, Scott Stanley, John Weicher, and Brian Whelan. ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0813524016...

Anybody have anything else on this guy Clendenin Ryan? Do a google or a yahoo search on this guy and it may

open your eyes. His family made their money in Copper apparently.

Apparently Clendenin Ryan funded Ulius Amoss and his gang of spies and assassins and somehow Richard Condon found out about Bonner Fellers, Ray S. Cline and Wickliffe Draper and Condon even inserted names of several American

Mercury writers to draw attention to this den of theives and their links to YAF, The American Mercury and The Pioneer Fund. Condon even mentioned American Mercury writers like Arnold Bennett, George Sokolosky, Westbrook Pegler and others from that circle of friends. Clendenin Ryan was involved with the Baltimore & Ohio railroad as well in some form or fashion and Condon mentions that company in ManCand, too.

Richard Condon apparently wanted us to be able to follow the path from Bonner Fellers in Cairo, Egypt through ISI via Amoss and Coon into Baltimore, MD where the trail would be picked up with The American Mercury crowd which was first started in Baltimore by H. L. Mencken then later bought by Clendenin Ryan, who funded several illicit ISI projects. The links back into YAF began with God and Man at Yale (Buckley) via Clendenin Ryan, the publisher of The American Mercury in the early 1950's. Ryan's son also helped start YAF according to Doug Caddy while they were both students at Georgetown. Later the Mercury moved to East 57th Street in NYC when Draper was involved with that publication at the time when he also lived on 57th St in Manhattan. Richard Giesbrecht also isolated American "Mercury" in his statements to the FBI following the Winnipeg Airport Incident.

Will those who could not accept the fact that Richard Condon knew what he was talking about finally admit their

ill conceived or incorrect notions? Does anyone else have any information on Clendenin Ryan to share here?

Edited November 18, 2007 by John Bevilaqua

[James Richards]

During the late 1940's and early 1950's, Clendenin Ryan was the money behind the wiretapping of various government buildings and officials.

His right hand man was an investigator/lawyer named John Broady. Broady was the one who knew where the bodies were buried.

In 1957, Clendenin Ryan allegedly shot himself to death. Some will argue that he had help. Anyway, Broady had connections to Robert Emmett Johnson and to a sophisticated network featuring an intel gathering apparatus that was ultimately recruited by Ulius Amoss.

Clendenin Ryan below.

James

Edited November 18, 2007 by James Richards

[Douglas Caddy]

From a previous posting by Paul Rigby:

p.142: "Who, Amoss wondered, might be willing to invest in such a scheme? [To smuggle Stalin's son out of the Soviet Union – PR] He found the answer through a complicated chain of contacts, beginning with Mrs. Mary Vaughan King, who runs the Baltimore public relations firm, Counsel Services, of which the colonel is a client. It led to Clendenin Ryan, a somewhat quixotic multi-millionaire, who once served as an assistant to Mayor La Guardia, ran for the New York mayoralty himself on an independent ticket and the governorship of New Jersey, published a semi-political magazine, and sent large sums abroad to break communist-inspired strikes and influence voters in favor of anti-communist candidates for high office."

Amoss ran International Services of Information and worked for Frank Wisner of the CIA. Even Carleton S. Coon worked for Amoss at the OSS as a Major under the Colonel. Coon and Amoss later worked with Robert Emmett Johnson in Baltimore at ISI. So now we have Amoss and Coon linked through Clendenin Ryan right into The Richard Condon Manchurian Candidate crowd like Brig Gen Bonner Fellers who was an ISI patron (Fighting Frank Bollinger), and "...that fascinating young man who wrote about man and God at Yale." (William F. Buckley, Jr. founder of YAF which was funded by Clendenin Ryan) and Ray S. Cline who was John Yerkes Iselin himself in Manchurian Candidate. Cline later took over control of R. E. Johnson when Cline ran WACL and murdered Archbishop Romero.

What was the magazine Clendenin Ryan published? The American Mercury from 1950-1952, the Buckley years.

What other groups did he help to fund and found later in his career? Young Americans for Freedom started at the Sharon estate of William F. Buckley, Jr.

The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America - Google Books Resultby Ronald Lora, William Henry Longton - 1999 - Social Science - 744 pages

The new purchaser of the Mercury was Clendenin J. Ryan, an erstwhile reformer who was a prominent financier and the son of an even more prominent financier, ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0313213909...

The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the ... - Google Books Resultby John A. Andrew - 1997 - Political Science - 287 pages

... David Franke, George Gaines, Robert Harley, James Kolbe, Richard Noble, Suzanne Regnery, Clendenin Ryan, Scott Stanley, John Weicher, and Brian Whelan. ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0813524016...

Anybody have anything else on this guy Clendenin Ryan? Do a google or a yahoo search on this guy and it may

open your eyes. His family made their money in Copper apparently.

Apparently Clendenin Ryan funded Ulius Amoss and his gang of spies and assassins and somehow Richard Condon found out about Bonner Fellers, Ray S. Cline and Wickliffe Draper and Condon even inserted names of several American

Mercury writers to draw attention to this den of theives and their links to YAF, The American Mercury and The Pioneer Fund. Condon even mentioned American Mercury writers like Arnold Bennett, George Sokolosky, Westbrook Pegler and others from that circle of friends. Clendenin Ryan was involved with the Baltimore & Ohio railroad as well in some form or fashion and Condon mentions that company in ManCand, too.

Richard Condon apparently wanted us to be able to follow the path from Bonner Fellers in Cairo, Egypt through ISI via Amoss and Coon into Baltimore, MD where the trail would be picked up with The American Mercury crowd which was first started in Baltimore by H. L. Mencken then later bought by Clendenin Ryan, who funded several illicit ISI projects. The links back into YAF began with God and Man at Yale (Buckley) via Clendenin Ryan, the publisher of The American Mercury in the early 1950's. Ryan also helped start YAF. Later the Mercury moved to East 57th Street in NYC. Richard Giesbrecht also isolated American "Mercury" in his statement to the FBI.

when Draper was closely involved with that publication.

Will those who could not accept the fact that Richard Condon knew what he was talking about finally admit their

ill conceived notions? Does anyone else have any information on Clendenin Ryan to share here?

Clendenin Ryan was a student at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, at the same time I was (1956-60). He was one of my roommates in a off-campus house during that period, along with David Franke. Our house was the scene of laying the groundwork for the modern Conservative movement that was about to be born.

From what I vaguely remember, as this occurred some 50 years ago, he was the son of Clendenin Ryan, and grandson of Thomas Fortune Ryan. During one of our talks, Clendenin told me that his father had contributed the beautiful stain glass window that adorns to this day the front of St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Clendenin, my former roommate, was tangentially involved in the founding of YAF. His contribution was in the area of activity, not in funding. YAF was founded by funds advanced by Charles Edison, son of Thomas Edison, for whom I worked following my graduation from Georgetown. Charles Edison, former governor of New Jersay and former Secretary of the Navy under FDR, had his home and office in the Towers of the Waldorf. His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away.

Clendenin Ryan, former roommate and friend, died from cancer in the late 1960's, on a date that I cannot pinpoint from memory. My guess is that he was under 30 years of age when he passed.

I never met his father nor, of course, his grandfather. The posting above about his father's political activity comes as news as his son never mentioned any of this to me.

[John Bevilaqua]

From Time magazine...

Behind the pink, tubby façade of rich Clendenin John Ryan, the soul of the selfless public servant throbbed. Unlike many another son of privilege, he did not collect show girls; he devoted himself to business and the sober pursuit of turning rascals out of government.

His credentials were irreproachable: he was Princeton '28, Republican, a grandson of Financier Thomas Fortune Ryan. With other moneyed political innocents (and some toughened professionals), he plunged eagerly into the Fusion movement which made Fiorello La Guardia mayor of New York in 1934. The Little Flower made him his secretary, later gave him a couple of city posts, until the two reformers had a falling out in 1940.

Noisy & Hopeful. Not until two months ago did Clen Ryan return to New York politics. This time his entry was noisy and his ambitions were high; he might even be a mayor-maker again.

Ryan dumped $500,000 into something he called the National Foundation for Good Government. It would scotch corruption not only in New York but elsewhere. He railed at Governor Tom Dewey for not investigating Mayor Bill O'Dwyer's administration. He trotted down to City Hall with ten questions for O'Dwyer. Their substance: Is Slot Machine Tycoon Frankie Costello the real boss of New York City?

Bill O'Dwyer contemptuously snorted "crackpot." Ryan was undismayed. He chirped back: "A question a day might keep Costello away." The next morning, resplendent in pearl-grey Homburg, Ryan was back at City Hall. This time he nailed to the front door of the Hall photostats of some old (and generally discredited) grand jury charges that O'Dwyer had been grossly lax as district attorney of Brooklyn. Ryan happily held every pose the photographers yelled for, withdrew the nail, and went away.

The Wild Plot. Then the pros—Bill O'Dwyer and Tammany Hall—looked Clen up & down without great passion, spit on their hands and went to work. Before they were even half through they had made Clen Ryan look bad. In the dead of night Bill O'Dwyer summoned newsmen to City Hall, himself broke the wildest wiretapping story to hit the town since Justice Aurelio was overheard thanking Frankie Costello for his nomination (TIME, Feb. 7).

A jaunty, 6 ft. ex-city detective and wiretapping expert named Kenneth Ryan (no kin to Clen) had been picked up. The mayor himself had broken him down in his City Hall office; $10,000 worth of telephone and tapping equipment had been found in the detective's Yonkers home. A plot was afoot, said O'Dwyer, to listen in on the telephones of several score of city officials (including his) and some big wheels in the Midwest. A prominent someone had given Ryan $100,000 to do it.

At 7 that morning, after long questioning, Tapper Ryan asked permission to use a ladies' washroom near the mayor's office. Leaving his hat and coat on a chair, the tap expert beat it out a back window of City Hall and got clean away. While the cops bayed after him, Mayor O'Dwyer brought in the "someone" named by Tapper Ryan. This turned out to be a lawyer and private eye named John Broady, who, as it happens, works for none other than do-gooder Clendenin John Ryan and years before had gathered evidence for Ryan's annulment from the Countess Marie Anne Wurmbrand-Stuppach.

This week Bill O'Dwyer and the rest of the pros handed the case over to the grand jury. Tapper Ryan, who surrendered after 48 hours, was indicted. Rich Man Ryan was questioned by the grand jury. Nobody had actually accused the chubby amateur of anything. They had just roughed him up some. New York City will elect a mayor this November and Tammany, it appeared, was bent on wising up simon-pures like Clen Ryan.

[John Bevilaqua]

Condon and Giesbrecht both mentioned: THE AMERICAN MERCURY

and George Lincoln Rockwell and William F. Buckley, Jr. worked there

at one time or another. Clendenin J. Ryan's ownership of The

Mercury coincided with Buckley's publishing of God and Man at Yale.

The fact that Condon knew about Gen Bonner Fellers, Ray S. Cline, Wickliffe

Draper, Robert J. Morris and many others from that period leads me to believe

he knew what they were up to even then.

During 1923, while he and the noted drama critic George Jean

Nathan were still editing the Smart Set, Henry Louis Mencken gleefully

anticipated the new monthly to be published the following January by

Alfred A. Knopf. Mencken planned "a serious review the gaudiest and

damndest ever seen in the Republic."' Theodore Dreiser suggested several

flashy titles. ''What we need," Mencken explained to his old friend, "is

something that looks highly respectable outwardly. The American Mercury

is almost perfect for that purpose. What will go on inside the tent is another

story. You will recall that the late P. T. Barnum got away with burlesque

shows by calling them moral lectures.''2 During the next decade, Mencken

would thrust his arms wide, gather in as much of America as possible, and

make it all part of the show. Under his forceful hand, the American

Mercury would provide rollicking, highly irreverent commentary upon the

American scene. From 1924 to 1933, ''Mencken'' and the ''Mercury" would

become synonymous. This coupling would prove to be one of the

magazine's greatest strengths as well as a salient factor in its decline.

When the American Mercury was established, Mencken and Nathan

were each given twenty-five shares of stockthe remaining one hundred were

divided among Knopf, his wife, and his fatheras well as full editorial

control.3 The magazine was intended for the intelligent, solvent, urbane

American who was skeptical about brummagem utopias and the yearning to

save humanity. ''The American Mercury will never have a million

circulation,'' Mencken explained. "It is not headed in that direction. Its

function is to depict America for the more enlightened sort of

Americansrealistically, with good humor and wholly without cant. It is

read wherever a civilized minority survives the assaults of the general herd

of yawpers and come-ons. Its aim is to entertain that minority and give it

consolation.''4 The American Mercury was called many things, a number of

them vicious, but few called it dull.

Even fewer called it unattractive. As Mencken wished, the

magazine's rambunctious content was sedately clothed by its respectable

title and the distinctive Paris-green cover. The paper was expensive Scotch

featherweight, and the Garamond type was set in double columns. There

were no illustrations in each issue of 128 pages.5 Mencken had chafed under

what he considered the ostentation of the Smart Set's cover and the poor

quality of its paper. With the Mercury, he had a magazine whose

understated elegance set it apart from many of its competitors.

As he had done when he and Nathan were editing the Smart Set,

Mencken continued to live in Baltimore and make periodic trips to New

York City. Highly efficient, Mencken and Nathan decided to handle

submissions as they had done earlier. If the first reader liked the

manuscript, then he forwarded it to his colleague, whose approval was also

necessary for a piece to be accepted. Disagreements were rare, and authors

received a quick response to their material. Encouragement and incisive

criticism accompanied many letters of rejection. This editorial courtesy,

the prompt response and payment, and the prestige of appearing in the

Mercury helped to atone for the magazine's low rate of pay: two cents per

word for prose, and fifty cents per line for poetry.

During Mencken's editorship, the Mercury published William

Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson,

Sinclair Lewis, and Edgar Lee Masters.6 But the magazine was also

enlivened by a number of writers not actively courted by other magazines.

Convicts and hoboes and dishwashers wrote for Mencken, as did taxi

drivers and businessmen, physicians and clergymen, lawyers and diplomats

and outdoorsmen. The Mercury remained open to newspapermen as well as

academic critics, and the eclectic nature of its contributors benefited the

magazine.

The Smart Set had been primarily a magazine of fiction. But

during his decade with the Mercury, Mencken's interest in fiction declined;

he published less of it and reviewed it infrequently. The Mercury's

nonfiction, as well as some of its more celebrated features, tended to be

satirical. In fact, more than one-third of the essays published between 1924

and 1929 lampooned some aspect of the American scene.7 Some of the

more vulnerable targets were assaulted repeatedly: pedagogy, chiropractic,

Christian Science, Prohibition, puritanism, the sad credulity of rural

America.s In "Americana," a feature continued from the Smart Set, the

editors offered items gleaned from a variety of newspapers and magazines.

Determined to prove the imbecility of the American mind, Mencken and

Nathan did not lack material. For example, the Mercury recounted the

story of the young man in Oregon who, believing that fasting would

improve his health, died of starvation. And there was the sad tale of the

wife who divorced her husband because, at the breakfast table, he took the

milk for his coffee directly from a goat's udder.9

The initial printing for the Mercury's first issue was five thousand; a

second printing was necessary, then a third. The January 1924 Mercury sold

more than fifteen thousand copies, far surpassing the most optimistic

expectations.'! By the end of the year, circulation had climbed past forty-

two thousand." Nathan's resignation as coeditor in 1925 had no noticeable

impact. (The men were heading in opposite directions: Nathan's interest

remained literature, particularly drama, but Mencken was concerned with

the American scene.)'2 By the end of June 1925, circulation had surpassed

forty-six thousand.'3

April 1926 was marked by the uproar over "Hatrack,'' a chapter

from Herbert Asbury's forthcoming book Up from Methodism. This

episode brought the magazine and its editor even greater notoriety and

placed both in the forefront of the battle against censorship. "Hatrack''the

title is taken from an angular prostitute of that nameridicules

evangelicalism, hypocritical religion, and the prurience of small-town life.

The Reverend J. Frank Chase, secretary of the powerful Watch and Ward

Society in Boston, found ''Hatrack" immoral, and a magazine peddler on

Harvard Square was arrested for selling the issue in question. Mencken went

to Boston to challenge the ruling, sold Chase a copy of the magazine, and

was promptly arrested. Mencken was tried the next day and acquitted the

following one. The victory cost over twenty thousand dollars in lost

revenues and legal fees and a substantial loss of advertising, but the Mercury

had taken a stand for freedom of speech, a cause that Mencken championed

above all others. 14 At the end of 1926, Walter Lippmann called Mencken

"the most powerful influence on this whole generation of educated

people.'"5

Circulation approached eighty thousand in 1927 and peaked at

eighty-four thousand in early 1928.'6 It has been argued repeatedly that the

stock-market crash and the resulting depression began the Mercury's decline.

Certainly, they proved to be major factors. Mencken's decision not to take

the depression seriously hurt the magazine's credibility. Moreover, his

iconoclasm proved less agreeable to the empty stomachs of the depression

years. But circulation figures show that the magazine's popularity had begun

to ebb prior to the crash in October 1929.l7 Mencken's satire, it appears,

had run its course. It had been soinsistent, and in the end so successful, that

there was less real need for it. Circulation continued to decline during the

early years of the depression. A Jeffersonian liberal, Mencken defended

laissez-faire capitalism and attacked proletarian literature. He was bitterly

derided by the Left. In 1932, some of Mencken's old friends turned on him.

May of that year saw the publication of the first issue of the American

Spectator, edited by Nathan, Dreiser, Ernest Boyd (an Irish critic who had

written a book about Mencken in 1925), James Branch Cabell, and Eugene

O'Neill. Some of the American Spectator's features were outright

imitations of those in the Mercury. 18

Mencken resigned as editor of the Mercury in December 1933, and

his departure precipitated what Marvin Singleton has called ''the erratic

downward course of the monthly.''l9 Henry Hazlitt, formerly of the

Nation, edited four issues. When he was replaced by Charles Angoff,

previously Mencken's assistant, the magazine moved to the Left. Knopf sold

the magazine in December 1934 for only twenty-five thousand dollarsto

Paul Palmer, formerly of the Baltimore Sunpapers.20 Never again would

the Mercury evidence the quality or stability that it had shown under Knopf.

In October 1936, the magazine was reduced to digest size, and the

price was cut from fifty to thirty-five cents. Three years later, Palmer sold

the magazine to Lawrence E. Spivak, a Harvard graduate who had become

the magazine's business manager in 1933. Some old faces reappeared. In

1940, Nathan returned to his column on the theater. Angoff contributed to

''The Library" and served as both literary editor and managing editor, and

Mencken wrote three pieces during 1939 and 1941.2' Under Spivak, the

Mercury lacked the vitality that it had shown under Mencken. In 1946, the

magazine merged with Common Sense. By December 1950, Spivak was

reportedly losing forty thousand dollars an issue, and he sold the Mercury

to Clendenin J. Ryan, the wealthy son of Thomas Fortune Ryan.22 Ryan

published three issues under the title the New American Mercury and sold

the magazine to William Bradford Huie in February 1951. In the issue of

October 1951, Huie placed the legend ''Founded by Henry L. Mencken''

beneath the table of contents.23 The magazine reprinted several of

Mencken's articles and ran a story by Herben Asbury about the Hatrack

affair. In August 1952, Huie sold the Mercury to J. Russell Maguire, a

wealthy oilman and munitions manufacturer.

During Maguire's eight years, the Mercury ran more articles (much

shorter ones) per issue and took a pronounced step to the Right. J. Edgar

Hoover wrote for the magazine, as did Billy Graham, whose portrait

graced the cover in January 1957. The Mercury defended Senator Joseph

McCarthy and the doctrine of states' rights and attacked, among other

things, the graduated income tax, the NAACP, the United Nations,

NATO, the ACLU, and Zionism. In fact, for the remainder of its days the

Mercury was engaged in a bitter battle with the Anti-Defamation League

over charges of anti-Semitism.

In January 1961, Maguire sold the Mercury to the Defenders of the

Christian Faith, Inc., and the editorial offices were moved to Oklahoma

City. Whereas

earlier the magazine had been shaped by Mencken's skepticism, now it

printed moral lectures and ran a number of reprints from fundamentalist

periodicals. There was even an advertisement for recordings of Billy

Sunday's sermons. Issues were missed now, and the magazine contained only

sixty-four pages. In 1963, the Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Inc.,

bought the magazine and moved its offices to Texas. A religious editor

was added to the staff. The magazine, which sometimes appeared late,

attacked John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. In April 1963, the

Mercury became a quarterly. In June 1966, the magazine announced an

agreement with the Washington Observor, a four-page, semimonthly

publication: the periodicals had to be subscribed to concurrently.24 At the

same time, the Mercury announced a merger with Western Destiny, a

monthly. The Mercury also inherited Northern World, Folk, and Right,

publications that Western Destiny had succeeded.

Beginning with the winter 1966 issue, editorial offices were moved

to Torrance, California. A year later, the Mercury's circulation was under

seven thousand.25 The magazine lambasted the Jews and carried articles on

eugenics.26 Under Mencken, the Mercury had discussed many aspects of

black culture and had published the writing of George Schuyler, James

Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Walter White, and

Countee Cullen.27 In 1967, the Mercury denounced racial integration and

went so far as to state: "Negroes have never, at any time or place in the

entire history of the world, created or maintained a culture above that of the

stone age" (103:3-5).

With the spring 1974 issue, the Mercury celebrated its fiftieth

anniversary. The magazine drew upon its illustrious past in an effort to

enhance its popularity. The lead editorial, ''If Mencken Would Return. . . ,''

announced righteously, and wrongly, that Mencken ''would clearly approve

of the lonely course [the] Mercury has taken since his departure.'' The

editorial spoke confidently of the magazine moving "into its second half-

century" and continuing "in [Mencken's] footsteps' ' (110:3-4) . It was a very

short half-century, and the magazine ' s course was not one that Mencken had

plotted. In 1976, the Mercury published Austin J. App's "H. L. Mencken,

Most Influential German-American Author." Marred by several factual

errors, the piece lamented that Mencken's insistence upon freedom of speech

had unintentionally "furnished ammunition to the proponents of

pornography."28 The Mercury ran anicles attacking black studies, the

supposedly pernicious influence of modern art in general and Picasso's

paintings in particular, and attempts by homosexuals to gain equality under

the law. One editorial questioned the existence of the Holocaust and

declared that ''Adolph Hitler had embarked upon the greatest task of any

man in history . . . the creation of a new culture on the ruins of the old''

(114:3-4).

In the fall 1979 issue, the editor announced a change in ownership

and bravely spoke of returning to monthly publication with a magazine

twice as long as the present one.29 With the winter issue, editorial offices

were moved to Houston. The next year, 1980, marked the centennial of

Mencken's birth, and the spring iSSUe was dedicated to his memory.

Besides reprinting one of Mencken's articles and carrying a centennial

graphic, the Mercury ran a lead editorial about Mencken that elegized an

earlier, simpler time when "the virus of social, racial and sexual equality

did not find fertile soil in the minds of most Amencans" (116:3-4). This

issue ended with a special supplement soliciting contnbutions so that

computers could index biographical information about Amenca's fifteen

thousand most dangerous political activists. This plea marked the

magazine's lugubnous end. With no notice of cessation, the Mercury shut

down after publishing one issue in its fifty-seventh year.30

Few Amencan periodicals have changed as drastically as the

Mercury did. At its best, dunng the early years under Mencken, the

magazine stood at the forefront of Amencan culture by examining this

country with an enlightened skepticism. At its worst, the magazine drifted

into the foul backwaters of fear and intolerance. But the Mercury's demise

should not detract from its achievements. Because of its uncompromising

stand against censorship, its positive influence upon other Amencan

magazines, the cogency of its satire, and the opportunities that it offered to

a variety of wnters, the Mercury succeeded, at least for a while, in fulfilling

the high expectations that Mencken held for it in 1923.

[John Bevilaqua]

Clendenin J. Ryan and his Freeport McMoran Copper hidden CIA interests...

led me to find this page which is only included in its entirety because of numerous cross references.

The Benno C. Schmidt Page

Schmidt bio in "Cancer Crusade: The Story of the National Cancer Act of 1971," by Richard A. Rettig (Joseph Henry Press, 1977). "Rockefeller was instrumental in choosing Benno C. Schmidt for the panel. Around 1960, Schmidt had joined the board of trustees of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center at the request of [Laurance] Rockefeller, but was relatively inactive until 1965. He then became actively involved with Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases, first as a member of the board of trustees and chairman of the executive committee, and by 1970 as chairman of the board. He also became a member of the board of the Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Institute....

"Schmidt, a lawyer, had been a partner since 1946 of J.H. Whitney & Co., a New York investment firm, and managing partner since 1959. Much to the surprise of his staff, [sen.] Ralph Yarborough knew this New York lawyer-businessman. Schmidt was born in Abilene, Texas, in 1909, had attended the University of Texas, and had received both the A.B. and the L.L.B. degrees in 1936. Yarborough, who had a law practice in Abilene at the time, had taught in the Texas Law School and Schmidt had been in his class....

"But Schmidt was a Republican and his ties to Texas were to Yarborough's political opponents. Schmidt was a friend of John Connally, former governor of Texas, whom he had taught in law school. The conservative Connally wing of the Democratic party in Texas constituted the sworn enemy of the liberal Yarborough wing. Lloyd Bentsen, who defeated Yarborough for the Senate Democratic nomination in 1970, was a Connally Democrat. Schmidt was also close to George Bush, who, as the Republican candidate, ran unsuccessfully against Bentsen for the Senate in 1970...." However, these political differences were put aside, and Schmidt was chosen to chair the Yarborough panel.

"He had worked for the general counsel of the War Production Board in 1941-42. Then, after three years as a colonel in the U.S. Army, he returned to Washington as general counsel to the foreign liquidation commission of the economic division of the State Department." He had also been chairman of the board of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Development and Services Corporation, established by Robert F. Kennedy; and chairman of the Ford Foundation's Fund for the City of New York.

Schmidt - Cancer Crusade, p. 86 / National Academy Press, 1977

In 1967, Schmidt was a citizen participant of the Advisory Board of the Metropolitan New York Regional Medical Program, District 25, Yonkers, along with Mary Lasker and Benjamin Buttenweiser of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. (who was a trustee of Lenox Hill Hospital during 1968-72). ASH founder and AHF research director George James, then Health Commissioner of the City of New York, was on the Advisory Committee.

NY Metropolitan RMP / National Library of Medicine (pdf, 9pp)

Former President George Bush was part of the Lasker network: "Schmidt gave a copy of the 'summary and recommendations' to George Bush, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, just before Thanksgiving. Bush was asked to pass this portion of the report on to the president so he would have it prior to the panel's presentation. The ambassador did convey the 'summary and recommendations' to John Ehrlichman, President Nixon's principal advisor on domestic policy, with the request that Ehrlichman transmit it to the president."

Schmidt - Cancer Crusade, p. 122 / National Academy Press, 1977

Schmidt was chairman of the President's Cancer Panel in 1975, and ex officio member of the President's Panel on Biomedical Research. (FASEB Newsletter, Mach 1975.)

President's Panels, FASEB Newsletter 1975 / tobacco document

Sir Richard Doll's award from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation: "Some 'old friends' on the committee which picked Doll, by the way, include: Jonathan Rhoads, Benno Schmidt, Lauren Ackerman, LaSalle Leffall, Brian MacMahon, Lewis Thomas, and Arthur Upton." (Memo from Knopick to Kloepfer, Tobacco Institute SVP of Public Relations, May 2, 1979.)

Knopick to Kloepfer, 1979 / tobacco document

The Advisory Committee of the Symposium on Cancer, presented by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, Sep. 14-18, 1980, included Laurance S. Rockefeller, Chairman of the Board of MSKCC; Benno C. Schmidt, Chairman of the Board of Memorial Hospital; James D. Robinson III, Vice Chairman of the Board of Memorial Hospital; Lane W. Adams, Executive Vice President of the American Cancer Society; Frank J. Rauscher, the ACS's Senior Vice President for Research; and NCI Director Vincent DeVita. The Program Committee included future AHF trustee Jerome J. DeCosse; Mathilde Krim; LaSalle D. Leffall, then immediate past president of the American Cancer Society, who shortly became a trustee of the AHF; and Frank J. Rauscher. Other participants included Sir Richard Doll ("The Interphase Between Epidemiology and Cancer Control"); Arthur C. Upton; Alfred G. Knudson (CTR 1986-94); John Weisburger, longtime research director of the AHF; R. Lee Clark and his assistant, Joseph Painter; and former Rep. Paul G. Rogers.

International Symposium on Cancer, 1980 / tobacco document

Schmidt retired as chairman of the board of overseers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1990. His wife, Nancy, was also a member of its board. Pat Buckley (Mrs. William F. Buckley) and Nan Kempner were chairwomen of the benefit in his honor. (Benefits for Cancer and a Harlem School. New York Times, June 3, 1990.)

CBS Inc.

Benno Schmidt was a director of CBS during the 1980s. Betsey Cushing, a sister of CBS Chairman William S. Paley's second wife, Barbara (Babe), was married to Jock Whitney. Franklin Thomas, President of the Ford Foundation and a director of CBS and Cummins Engine Company, was close to Jock Whitney as well, and Schmidt and Paley had invested in Thomas's Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in the 1960s. CBS director Henry Schacht, the chairman of Cummins Engine Company, was another of Thomas's cronies. (In All His Glory. The Life of William S. Paley. By Sally Bedell Smith. Simon and Schuster, 1990.) Babe Cushing Paley's death from lung cancer was featured in Congressional anti-smoking hearings in 1983. Edson Spencer, the CEO of Honeywell Inc. from 1974 to 1988, who manufactured anti-smoking "clean air" propaganda, was a director of CBS from 1985 until CBS merged with Westinghouse in 1997.

Freeport McMoRan Inc.

In 1935, officers and directors of the Freeport Texas Company included John Hay Whitney, chairman (19,850 common); Langbourne M. Williams Jr., president (1,000 common); Eugene L. Norton, chairman; Monro B. Lanier, vice president (800 common); David M. Goodrich (2,500 common); Godfrey S. Rockefeller (2,600 common); Chauncey D. Stillman (7,100 common); and Frank A. Wills, director (3,600 common). Kidder, Peabody & Co. held 4,728 common and 100 preferred. (78,196 Paid in Year to Grover Whalen. New York Times, May 7, 1935.) Its name was changed to Freeport Sulphur Company the next year. (Freeport Texas Co. Changes Its Name. New York Times, Dec. 10, 1936.) The Cuban-American Manganese Corporation was a subsidiary. M.B. Gentry, who joined Freeport Sulphur in 1935 as assistant to the president, was elected a vice president in 1940. He was a mining engineer who developed the Anaconda Copper Mining Company's Chuquicamata Mine in Chile. (Elected a Vice President Of Freeport Sulphur Co. New York Times, Dec. 27, 1940.)

"Significantly, Freeport-McMoRan, back when it was Freeport Sulphur, positively heaved with CIA and elite heavy-hitters--not to mention persistent whispers of its involvement in the recovery of plundered gold stashed in Indonesia, where Freeport had the world's largest copper mining operation. Over the years, the Freeport senior management has included such luminaries as Augustus 'Gus' Long, Chairman of Texaco, who did 'prodigious volunteer work for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital'--which has been described as a 'hotbed of CIA activity'. Another director was Robert Lovett, who has been described as a 'Cold War architect' and was once an executive at the old Wall Street bank of Brown Brothers Harriman. He also served as an Under Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of War and Secretary of Defense. He was a best friend of Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman (and Warren Commission member) John J. McCloy. The Chase Manhattan and Citibank connection to Freeport was further enhanced by the board appointment of Godfrey Rockefeller, brother of James Stillman Rockefeller who was appointed Chairman of Citibank (then known as First National City Bank, or FNCB for short) in 1959. (Note, too, that Chase Manhattan and Citibank are the exact same two banks that were to issue the Project Hammer documentary letters of credit.) Godfrey Rockefeller was a one-time trustee of the Fairfield Foundation that financed a variety of CIA 'fronts'. Meanwhile, Stillman's cousin, David Rockefeller, was Chairman of Chase Manhattan and regarded as the 'goliath of American banking'. By a strange coincidence of fate, it was Robert Lovett and John J. McCloy who, together with Robert B. Anderson, formed Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's team of financial experts concerned with tracking WWII gold looted by the Axis powers. Indeed, Lovett and McCloy were responsible for negotiating the secret agreement hidden behind the Bretton Woods Agreement concerning the establishment of the Black Eagle trust that was to make use of plundered WWII bullion in the postwar years." (Project Hammer Reloaded. By David G. Guyatt. Nexus Magazine Aug.-Sep. 2003;10(5 ).)

Project Hammer Reloaded / Nexus Magazine

Langbourne M. Williams Jr.

Langbourne Meade Williams Jr. was married to Elizabeth Goodrich Stillman, sister of Chauncey Devereux Stillman, daughter of Charles Chauncey Stillman and granddaughter of James Stillman of the National City Bank, and a niece of Percy A. Rockefeller and Mrs. William G. Rockefeller. He attended the University of Virginia. (Elizabeth Stillman Engaged to Marry. New York Times, Apr. 15, 1930.) He was a boyhood friend of Buford Scott of Scott & Stringfellow, who was a director of P. Lorillard Tobacco Co., and they and a third friend were all married the same week. (3 Richmond Chums to Wed. New York Times, Sep. 11, 1930.) "Mr. Williams Sr. occupied an important position in the social world of Virginia and in the financial world of the nation. Born in Virginia on Sep. 12, 1872, he was descended on his paternal side from Col. John Dandridge, father of Martha Washington, and on his maternal side from Edmund Randolph, Attorney General in Washington's cabinet." His father, John Langbourne, established the Richmond investment banking firm of John L. Williams & Sons. His brother, John Skelton Williams, was a partner until leaving to be Controller of the Currency in the Wilson administration. Williams Sr. led a successful fight to oust E.P. Swenson from Freeport Texas Company, and Williams Jr. was installed as vice president and treasurer. (L.M. Williams Dies; Virginia Financier. New York Times, Apr. 3, 1931.) John L. Williams & Sons was the largest stockholder of Freeport Texas. John Tyler "Ty" Claiborne Jr., who was an usher at Williams Jr.'s wedding and his advisor in the proxy contest, was the principle securities analyst at Lee Higginson & Co. and he recruited John Hay Whitney. (Along the Highways and Byways of Finance. By Robert E. Bedingfield. New York Times, Apr. 18, 1954.) Williams graduated from the University of Virginia in 1924, and received a masters degree in business administration from Harvard two years later. He worked at Lee, Higginson in New York fpr a year before returning to his family investment firm. He became chairman as well as president of Freeport in 1957, after Whitney resigned to be ambassador to Great Britain. He was a governor of New York Hospital from 1941 to 1961, then an honorary governor until his death. (Langbourne Williams Is Dead; Retired Businessman Was 91. By John Holusha. New York Times, Sep. 14, 1994.)

Williams was a trustee of the Bank of New York, and a director of the Sulphur Export Co., B.F. Goodrich Co., and United States Guarantee Co. (On Board of Bank of New York. New York Times, Apr. 16, 1941.) He was elected to the board of governors of the Society of the New York Hospital, which operated the New York Hospital and affiliates, including Cornell University Medical College. (On Hospital Board. New York Times, Sep. 12, 1941.) He succeeded James W. Husted [son of U.S. Rep.James W. Husted, Skull & Bones 1892], as secretary. (New Secretary of Society Of the New York Hospital. New York Times, Nov. 13, 1946.) It acquired land for the construction of a new building of the Hospital for Special Surgury. Stanhope Bayne-Jones, Skull & Bones 1910, was president of the joint administrative board of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. ($400,000 Paid Over For Hospital Site. New York Times, Feb. 27, 1951.) Mrs. Williams, Vassar 1927, was treasurer of the board of managers of the Bellevue Schools of Nursing, a member of the board of the Young Women's Christian Association, and a trustee of Vassar College. Mrs. Morris Hadley, wife of S&B 1916, was chairman of the board. (Leader in Welfare Here Elected Vassar Trustee. New York Times, Oct. 13, 1952; Mrs. Langbourne Williams Dead at 51; Welfare Worker Headed Junior League. New York Times, Nov. 27, 1956.)

In 1948, W. Averell Harriman, S&B 1913, who was ambassador-at-large to Western Europe of the ECA, named Williams a member of his Paris headquarters staff, Alfred Friendly as public relations officer. (Finletter Appointed. New York Times, May 20, 1948.) He was to be a member of the New York City Committee of the Episcopal Church Foundation, headed by Harry M. Addinsell, appointed by Presiding Bishop Henry Knox. Other members were Prescott S. Bush, S&B 1917; Pierpont V. Davis; Russell E. Dill; Gayer G. Dominick, S&B 1909; Jackson A. Dykman; William B. Given Jr.; Eugene W. Stetson; Edwin S.S. Sunderland; Walter C. Teagle; and George Whitney. (Accepts City Leadership Of Episcopal Foundation. New York Times, Dec. 8, 1950.) Circa 1967, Williams was a trustee of the Virginia Institute for Scientific Research, founded in 1948, along with H. Rupert Hamner, former vice president of research of the American Tobacco Co. His boyhood friend, Buford Scott, was a contributor.

Virginia Institute for Scientific Research / tobacco document

The founder of the Institute, Professor of Chemistry Allen T. Gwathmey of the University of Virginia, had been an usher at Langbourne Williams' wedding in 1930. His lifelong research interest was the suface properties of crystals. Gwathmey died in 1963.

Evaluation of Virginia Institute for Scientific Research, 1967 / tobacco document

VISR News, Apr. 1963 No. 13 / tobacco document

VISR News, Nov. 1963 No. 14 / tobacco document

Godfrey S. Rockefeller

Godfrey Stillman Rockefeller was the the grandson of John D. Rockefeller's brother William, and a son of William Goodsell Rockefeller, Yale 1892, whose cousin B. Brewster Jennings was the president of Memorial Hospital from 1958-68. (William Goodsell Rockefeller, B.A. 1892. Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Yale Graduates 1922-1923, pp. 173-174.)

Obituary Record 1922-1923 / Yale University Library (pdf, 385 pp)

Godfrey S. Rockefeller was on the board of directors of Freeport McMoRan for 50 years. He and his cousin Chauncey D. Stillman were elected together (Freeport Texas Elects 2 to Board. New York Times, Dec. 22, 1931.) He graduated from Yale in 1921, and two classmates in Skull & Bones 1921, Charles Harvey Bradley and John Sidney Acosta, were ushers at his wedding; also Henry Mali, John French, Richardson Dilworth, and his brothers, William A. and J. Stillman Rockefeller. Frederick W. Lincoln was his best man, and his uncle, Percy A. Rockefeller, S&B 1900, attended. (Miss Gratz a Bride. New York Times, Jun. 27 1923.) His wife, Helen Gratz, was from St. Louis, Missouri, and Mrs. Prescott S. Bush of Columbus, Ohio, formerly Dorothy Walker of St. Louis, was supposed to have been an attendant (G.S. Rockefeller to Marry June 26. New York Times, Jun. 7, 1923.) Mrs. Rockefeller was president of the Research In Schizophrenia Endowment (RISE), whose activists included Sen. Prescott S. Bush, Mrs. Prescott S. Bush Jr., and Dr. John Walker, S&B 1931, president of the board of managers of Memorial Hospital in New York City from 1965 to 1974. (Greenwich Fete May 4 to Aid Reasearch in Schizophrenia. New York Times, Apr. 24, 1960.) Mrs. Rockefeller also raised funds for the National Association for Mental Health, with Mrs. Albert D. Lasker as a member of her committee. (New Year's Ball Will Take Place In Grand Central. New York Times, Dec. 9, 1963.)

Godfrey S. Rockefeller was a limited partner in Clark, Dodge & Company from 1936 to at least 1945. (Display Ad. 36. New York Times, Jan. 1, 1936 p. 43; Display Ad 194. New York Times, Aug. 9, 1945.) He was a stockholder in the Enterprise Development Corporation, a closed investment trust of heirs of William Rockefeller and Thomas F. Ryan, whose directors included Clendenin J. Ryan, Frederic W. Lincoln, and Morehead Patterson, S&B 1920. (Trust to Supply Venture Capital. New York Times, Mar. 31, 1948.) He was chairman of the Cranston Print Works, a Rockefeller-owned textile company, since 1946. (Godfrey S. Rockefeller, Dies; Executive in Textiles Was 83. New York Times, Feb. 25, 1983.) Godfrey Rockefeller was also elected a director of Benson & Hedges in 1946. (Other Company Meetings. New York Times, Apr. 12, 1946.) He exchanged his shares for those of Philip Morris in 1954. (Letter from Joseph Cullman to Rockefeller, Jan. 18, 1954.)

Godfrey S. Rockefeller Dies / New York Times, Feb. 25, 1983

Cullman to Rockefeller, Jan. 18, 1954 / tobacco document

"Certainly the real monarch of George Bush's Andover secret society, and George's sponsor, was this "Rocky's" father, 'Godfrey S. Rockefeller.' The latter gentleman had been on the staff of the Yale University establishment in China in 1921-22. Yale and the Rockefellers were breeding a grotesque communist insurgency with British Empire ideology; another Yale staffer there was Mao Zedong, later the communist dictator and mass murderer. While he was over in China, Papa Godfrey's cousin Isabel had been the bridesmaid at the wedding of George Bush's parents." (Excerpt from George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Part 2 of 8.)

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography / Internetpirate.com

Charles A. Wight

Charles A. Wight, a vice president of the Bankers Trust Company, was elected to the board of Freeport Sulphur in 1947. He was a director of Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. and McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc. (Banker Elected to Board Of Freeport Sulphur Co. New York Times, Sep. 26, 1947.) In 1950, he was chairman of the executive council of Freeport Sulfur Company, and vice chairman of the 1950 United Hospital Fund Campaign under O. Parker McComas, the president of Philip Morris. Both were trustees of Lenox Hill Hospital, and Wight was treasurer. Wight was also a director of the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Company and McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. (Appointed Vice Chairman Of Hospital Fund's Drive. New York Times, Sep 11, 1950.)

Benno Schmidt was a director of Freeport McMoRan Inc. from 1954 until 1997, when he retired and was named chairman emeritus. (Schmidt's bio also lists him as having been a director of Gilead Sciences Inc., where former AHF Trustee and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been a director since 1988.) Other directors of Freeport McMoRan have included Robert W. Bruce III, president of The Robert Bruce Management Co. investment managers (1989 to the present); former presidential advisor Henry A. Kissinger (1988-1995); George Putnam, chairman of The Putnam Investment Management Co.; and also J. Taylor Wharton, chairman of the Department of Gynecology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Chancellor of the University of Texas System William H. Cunningham.

Freeport McMoRan 1994 DEF 14A / Securities and Exchange Commission

In the 1960s and 70s, Jean Mauze, the husband of Abbey Rockefeller, benefactor of the Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases attack on tobacco, was a director of Freeport Sulfur. (Freeport Sulfur's Powerful Board of Directors; Real History Archive.com; and $10,000,000 Asked in Cancer Attack, by William L. Laurence. New York Times, March 9, 1954.)

Freeport Sulfur's Powerful Board of Directors / Real History Archive.com

$10,000,000 Asked, 1954 / tobacco document

Between 1969 and 1972, Robert C. Hills, the President of Freeport Sulphur, and Charles A. Wight, its retired Vice Chairman, were trustees of Lenox Hill Hospital, whose Chairman expressed the gratitude of its Board of Trustees to the Council for Tobacco Research for funding the work of Sheldon Sommers. Sommers was later a member of the CTR's Scientific Advisory Board. Other trustees of Lenox Hill included Benjamin J. Buttenweiser, Limited Partner, and Thomas E. Dewey, Jr., Partner of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.; and Honorary Life Trustee John J. McCloy, then Chairman of the Salk Institute, whose trustees engaged in assorted anti-smoking activism.

Paul W. Douglas

Paul W. Douglas was the President, CEO, and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Freeport Minerals Company (1975-81) and Freeport McMoRan (1981-83); also Chairman of The Pittston Corp. 1984-91, and a director of Phelps Dodge Corp. from 1983-1999. He was elected to the board of directors of Philip Morris when Mary Woodard Lasker's stepson, Edward Lasker, retired in 1980, and was on the board of Philip Morris until 1995. Paul W. Douglas was the son of Sen. Paul H. Douglas (D-IL), who in 1965 was one of four Senators who urged President Johnson to veto the Cigarette Advertising and Labelling Act because of its provision postponing the Federal Trade Commission's rule requiring health hazard warnings in cigarette advertising. His son, Philip Le Breton Douglas, married Elizabeth S. Kean, the niece of anti-smoker Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey. (Elizabeth S. Kean Affianced. New York Times, Dec. 12, 1982.)

Genetics Institute Inc.

Schmidt was a director of Genetics Institute Inc. from 1980 until it was acquired by American Home Products. James G. Andress joined the board in 1991; Fred Hassan, later the President and CEO of Pharmacia-Upjohn during its "partnership" in the World Health Organization's Tobacco Free Initiative, joined the board in 1992; and former American Health Foundation Trustee and NHLBI director Robert I. Levy, who was president of AHP's pharmaceutics division, joined the board in 1994.

Genetics Institute Inc. 1996 DEF 14A / Securities and Exchange Commission

OTA - Technology Transfer, 1982

Schmidt assisted in the Office of Technology Assessment project on "Technology Transfer at the National Institutes of Health" in 1982. Other participants included David Baltimore, Lester Breslow, Sir Richard Doll, Maureen Henderson, Joshua Lederberg, Arthur Upton, and Ernst Wynder.

OTA - Technology Transfer / Princeton University

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Schmidt was a director since 1989 and retired as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, March 26, 1997. "'Benno Schmidt was instrumental in the founding and early financing of Vertex,' commented Dr. Joshua Boger, President and CEO of Vertex." Charles A. Sanders, the former general director of Massachusetts General Hospital, emeritus director of Research!America and principal of the Washington Advisory Group, was named to the Vertex board on Dec. 12, 1996. (Mr. Benno C. Schmidt Retires as Vertex's Chairman of the Board of Directors, March 26, 1997. Vertex press release March 26, 1997.)

Schmidt Retires, 1997 / Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Vertex Pharmaceuticals 1997 DEF 14A / Securities and Exchange Commission

Benno Schmidt, Walter Cronkite, and Arthur G. Altschul Sr. were honorary chairs of St. Bernard's School's fundraising campaign, circa 1999?. Altschul was a director of General American Investors since 1954, and chairman since 1961, until he retired in 1995. He was the son of Mary Lasker's friend, Frank Altschul.

Benno C. Schmidt Sr. died in October 1999 at the age of 86.

Benno C. Schmidt Sr. obit / St. Bernard's School

Benno C. Schmidt Jr.

Schmidt's son, Benno C. Schmidt Jr. was the president of Yale University from 1986 to 1992. "During his presidency, Yale's endowment grew from $1.7 billion to nearly $3 billion, the highest rate of growth among the major endowed private universities in this country.... Before joining Yale, Benno was the dean of Columbia University Law School where in 1973 he became, at age 29, one of the youngest tenured professors in Columbia's history." Another story of the remarkable success of people with the right connections.

Benno C. Schmidt Jr. bio / Edison Schools

Schmidt has been chairman of the board of Edison Schools (a private school franchise sort of like an educational McDonalds) since 1997. Cheryl Wilhoyte, Madison, Wisconsin's former Superintendant of Schools from 1992 to 1998, joined the company as Executive Vice President in 1998. Deborah M. McGriff, Milwaukee's former Deputy Superintendant of Schools, was Executive Vice President of Development. Joan Ganz Cooney, founder of the Children's Television Workshop, became a director in 2000.

Edison Schools 1999 Form S-1 / Securities and Exchange Commission

Edison Schools 2003 DEF M14A / Securities and Exchange Commission

John Reed Schmidt

Benno Schmidt Sr.'s son John Reed Schmidt is evidently named after his crony from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Philip Morris director John Shepard Reed. He was a senior production associate with ABC News Closeup in New York, and a graduate Yale University."The bride, who will keep her name, is an associate with the New York law firm of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine. She graduated cum laude from Yale University and received her degree from the Northeastern Law School. Her father is a physician in West Hartford." (Wendy Frances Conway Marries John R. Schmidt. New York Times, May 22, 1983.)

Wendy Frances Conway Marries John R. Schmidt, May 22, 1983 / New York Times

[James Richards]

FWIW.

James

[John Bevilaqua]

http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-cr...merican-mercury

Trouble for the Mercury from Time Magazine

Monday, Dec. 08, 1952 When William Bradford Huie took over the American Mercury two years ago, he promised to "recreate" the magazine in the great tradition of its first editor, Henry L. Mencken. But Bill Huie, who has been in hot water before with his books and articles (TIME, May 30, 1949 et seq.), found himself in trouble again. Almost at the start, he fell out with his backer, Manhattan Millionaire Clendenin Ryan. Five months ago the Mercury owed so much money that Huie was ready to close down. In time's nick, Huie found an angel: J. (for John) Russell Maguire, of Greenwich, Conn., who was operating principally as a Wall Street broker until the SEC forced him out for "flagrant violations" of the law. Later he made millions in manufacturing (Thompson submachine guns, electrical equipment, etc.) and oil. Last week Maguire's backing cost Huie the top section of his staff.

Related Articles

Mercury's editors Martin Greenberg, 34, and Gunther Stuhlmann, 26, resigned. Said their joint statement: "It had been our understanding that the magazine would strive to represent dynamic and sophisticated conservatism—in Mencken's words, 'Tory, but civilized Tory'—and that was the direction in which we sought to guide it." But in view of [Maguire's] lack of sympathy [with these views], we feel it impossible to continue."

Recently Maguire put up money to help distribute Iron Curtain over America, by Southern Methodist University Professor John Beaty, a book that the oldest Methodist Church periodical in the U.S., Zion's Herald, calls the "most extensive piece of racist propaganda in the history of the anti-Semitic movement in America." He has also been a supporter of such propagandists as Merwin K. Hart, and worked with Allen A. Zoll, whose American Patriots, Inc. was listed by the U.S. Attorney General as a "Fascist" organization. Zoll at first was an account executive handling the Mercury's ads, later turned up soliciting subscriptions for the Mercury.

To Editor Huie, Maguire's acquaintances came as no surprise. "I knew I was taking a calculated risk," says he. "I knew about Maguire's indiscretions and operations with the Christian Front crowd. But money to me is impersonal. If suddenly I heard Adolf Hitler was alive in South America and wanted to give a million dollars to the American Mercury, I would go down and get it—or Stalin." No matter who the backer is, Huie maintains he can control the Mercury's editorial policy, expects the magazine will ride out this storm, as it has so many others.

Remember it was Russell Maguire who later hired George Lincoln Rockwell to work at The Mercury... Rockwell went to

Brown University along with E. Howard Hunt and Anastase Vonsiatsky. Later Buckley was Godfather to Hunt's children.

Edited November 18, 2007 by John Bevilaqua

[John Bevilaqua]

FWIW.

James

From Time Magazine... Monday, Jan. 05, 1948 The heavyweight fight between Sosthenes Behn and Clendenin Ryan—for control of the International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. (TIME, Dec. 22)—ended this week without so much as a knockdown. Behn remained in control of the $397 million empire, as he had been for 27 years. Ryan, who had tried to get 16 of the 23 directorships (and control of the corporation), had to settle for seven.* Said Ryan: "I am satisfied; it gives the stockholders a bigger voice."

^{*Ryan and his two principal backers, Financier Allan Kirby and Robert McKinney, cousin of Railroader Robert R. Young and chairman of Davis Manufacturing, Inc.; Houston's George R. Brown, who helped finance the purchase of the Big Inch pipelines; National City Bank's W. Randolph Burgess; Boston Shipbuilder Joseph Wright Powell; Missouri-Pacific Director J. Patrick Lannan.}

It appears that later on, Clendenin Ryan took over control of ITT and then used their wire tapping skills to his own ends. One of Broady's clients was Eversharp which was part of the Schick Eversharp group owned by Patrick J. Frawley, Jr. of The John Birch Society and Knights of Malta fame who was a close friend of Robert J. Morriss and Brent Bozell of YAF. Wonder if Robert R. Young was part of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad or some other railroad?

James, given the fact that you have all this background info on Clendenin Ryan, you must have some interest in him either related to his funding of Ulius L. Amoss projects for the Polish MiG incident, the attempted kidnap of the son of Lenin incident or the links back to the death of Lavrenti Beria, correct? Or is it mostly just for his location in Baltimore and his relationship with Amoss as a white knight fund raiser with strong anti communist and anti union leanings?

Did you know that Richard Condon also mentions Lavrenti Beria and The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in passing but not related to each other in any other way?

[John Bevilaqua]

Revolt in I.T. & T.

Time Magazine Monday, Jun. 07, 1954

As founder and ironfisted boss of International Telephone & Telegraph Corp., Cosmopolite Colonel Sosthenes Behn built a $603 million communications empire that stretches from New Zealand to the Americas to Sweden. With 29 manufacturing companies scattered through 20 nations, Behn was still not satisfied. Since World War II he has put I.T. & T. in the consumer-goods business, now turns out such items as Capehart-Farnsworth radio & TV sets and Coolerator refrigerators, in addition to a broad range of microwave, switchboard and other communications equipment. But in Behn's empire all was not well. Last week Behn discreetly announced that he was turning over the operating reins to Major General William H. Harrison, president since 1948, though Behn would remain as chairman.

The announcement did not tell the whole story. Behn, who owns only 17,000 shares, had apparently been squeezed out in the culmination of a fight for control of I.T. & T. that started in 1947. At that time Manhattan Millionaire Clendenin Ryan made a play for the throne, complaining against Behn's one-man rule and the fact that the company had paid no dividends in 14 years. Ryan succeeded in getting seven directors on I.T. & T.'s 23-man board before he gave up the fight (TIME, Jan. 5, 1948). Last March these directors, plus others who have fought Behn, set up an executive committee, began to nibble away at Colonel Behn's power. They thought that Behn was out of the country too much, and should not have gone into consumer goods in the first place. Chief power-nibblers among the old Ryan groups: Alleghany Corp. President Allan Kirby, financial partner of Robert R. Young (see above); New Mexico Publisher Robert McKinney, a cousin of Bob Young; ex-Governor Charles Edison of New Jersey; Chairman Arthur M. Hill of Greyhound Corp.'s executive committee; and Houston Oilman George Brown.

In Manhattan last week, these five and four others on I.T. & T.'s executive committee persuaded the board of directors to change the company's bylaws, clipping Behn's powers and putting top control in the hands of the executive committee. While General Harrison will be nominal boss, the executive committee will run the show. It will not try to expand I.T. & T.'s consumer-goods line, instead will concentrate on I.T. & T.'s transmission equipment and other industrial products, in hopes of cashing in further on the new electronics age.

[Terry Mauro]

From a previous posting by Paul Rigby:

p.142: "Who, Amoss wondered, might be willing to invest in such a scheme? [To smuggle Stalin's son out of the Soviet Union – PR] He found the answer through a complicated chain of contacts, beginning with Mrs. Mary Vaughan King, who runs the Baltimore public relations firm, Counsel Services, of which the colonel is a client. It led to Clendenin Ryan, a somewhat quixotic multi-millionaire, who once served as an assistant to Mayor La Guardia, ran for the New York mayoralty himself on an independent ticket and the governorship of New Jersey, published a semi-political magazine, and sent large sums abroad to break communist-inspired strikes and influence voters in favor of anti-communist candidates for high office."

Amoss ran International Services of Information and worked for Frank Wisner of the CIA. Even Carleton S. Coon worked for Amoss at the OSS as a Major under the Colonel. Coon and Amoss later worked with Robert Emmett Johnson in Baltimore at ISI. So now we have Amoss and Coon linked through Clendenin Ryan right into The Richard Condon Manchurian Candidate crowd like Brig Gen Bonner Fellers who was an ISI patron (Fighting Frank Bollinger), and "...that fascinating young man who wrote about man and God at Yale." (William F. Buckley, Jr. founder of YAF which was funded by Clendenin Ryan) and Ray S. Cline who was John Yerkes Iselin himself in Manchurian Candidate. Cline later took over control of R. E. Johnson when Cline ran WACL and murdered Archbishop Romero.

What was the magazine Clendenin Ryan published? The American Mercury from 1950-1952, the Buckley years.

What other groups did he help to fund and found later in his career? Young Americans for Freedom started at the Sharon estate of William F. Buckley, Jr.

The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America - Google Books Resultby Ronald Lora, William Henry Longton - 1999 - Social Science - 744 pages

The new purchaser of the Mercury was Clendenin J. Ryan, an erstwhile reformer who was a prominent financier and the son of an even more prominent financier, ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0313213909...

The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the ... - Google Books Resultby John A. Andrew - 1997 - Political Science - 287 pages

... David Franke, George Gaines, Robert Harley, James Kolbe, Richard Noble, Suzanne Regnery, Clendenin Ryan, Scott Stanley, John Weicher, and Brian Whelan. ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0813524016...

Anybody have anything else on this guy Clendenin Ryan? Do a google or a yahoo search on this guy and it may

open your eyes. His family made their money in Copper apparently.

Apparently Clendenin Ryan funded Ulius Amoss and his gang of spies and assassins and somehow Richard Condon found out about Bonner Fellers, Ray S. Cline and Wickliffe Draper and Condon even inserted names of several American

Mercury writers to draw attention to this den of theives and their links to YAF, The American Mercury and The Pioneer Fund. Condon even mentioned American Mercury writers like Arnold Bennett, George Sokolosky, Westbrook Pegler and others from that circle of friends. Clendenin Ryan was involved with the Baltimore & Ohio railroad as well in some form or fashion and Condon mentions that company in ManCand, too.

Richard Condon apparently wanted us to be able to follow the path from Bonner Fellers in Cairo, Egypt through ISI via Amoss and Coon into Baltimore, MD where the trail would be picked up with The American Mercury crowd which was first started in Baltimore by H. L. Mencken then later bought by Clendenin Ryan, who funded several illicit ISI projects. The links back into YAF began with God and Man at Yale (Buckley) via Clendenin Ryan, the publisher of The American Mercury in the early 1950's. Ryan also helped start YAF. Later the Mercury moved to East 57th Street in NYC. Richard Giesbrecht also isolated American "Mercury" in his statement to the FBI.

when Draper was closely involved with that publication.

Will those who could not accept the fact that Richard Condon knew what he was talking about finally admit their

ill conceived notions? Does anyone else have any information on Clendenin Ryan to share here?

Clendenin Ryan was a student at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, at the same time I was (1956-60). He was one of my roommates in a off-campus house during that period, along with David Franke. Our house was the scene of laying the groundwork for the modern Conservative movement that was about to be born.

From what I vaguely remember, as this occurred some 50 years ago, he was the son of Clendenin Ryan, and grandson of Thomas Fortune Ryan. During one of our talks, Clendenin told me that his father had contributed the beautiful stain glass window that adorns to this day the front of St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Clendenin, my former roommate, was tangentially involved in the founding of YAF. His contribution was in the area of activity, not in funding. YAF was founded by funds advanced by Charles Edison, son of Thomas Edison, for whom I worked following my graduation from Georgetown. Charles Edison, former governor of New Jersay and former Secretary of the Navy under FDR, had his home and office in the Towers of the Waldorf. His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away.

Clendenin Ryan, former roommate and friend, died from cancer in the late 1960's, on a date that I cannot pinpoint from memory. My guess is that he was under 30 years of age when he passed.

I never met his father nor, of course, his grandfather. The posting above about his father's political activity comes as news as his son never mentioned any of this to me.

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

"His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away."

A wonderful and commendable sentiment, to be sure. But, I have little hope of ever seeing this ideal come to fruition again, Doug. Unfortunately, both parties have become too definitively melded to ever make a reasonable judgment call, in our lifetime. At least, that's how it appears from my P.O.V.

[Douglas Caddy]

From a previous posting by Paul Rigby:

p.142: "Who, Amoss wondered, might be willing to invest in such a scheme? [To smuggle Stalin's son out of the Soviet Union – PR] He found the answer through a complicated chain of contacts, beginning with Mrs. Mary Vaughan King, who runs the Baltimore public relations firm, Counsel Services, of which the colonel is a client. It led to Clendenin Ryan, a somewhat quixotic multi-millionaire, who once served as an assistant to Mayor La Guardia, ran for the New York mayoralty himself on an independent ticket and the governorship of New Jersey, published a semi-political magazine, and sent large sums abroad to break communist-inspired strikes and influence voters in favor of anti-communist candidates for high office."

Amoss ran International Services of Information and worked for Frank Wisner of the CIA. Even Carleton S. Coon worked for Amoss at the OSS as a Major under the Colonel. Coon and Amoss later worked with Robert Emmett Johnson in Baltimore at ISI. So now we have Amoss and Coon linked through Clendenin Ryan right into The Richard Condon Manchurian Candidate crowd like Brig Gen Bonner Fellers who was an ISI patron (Fighting Frank Bollinger), and "...that fascinating young man who wrote about man and God at Yale." (William F. Buckley, Jr. founder of YAF which was funded by Clendenin Ryan) and Ray S. Cline who was John Yerkes Iselin himself in Manchurian Candidate. Cline later took over control of R. E. Johnson when Cline ran WACL and murdered Archbishop Romero.

What was the magazine Clendenin Ryan published? The American Mercury from 1950-1952, the Buckley years.

What other groups did he help to fund and found later in his career? Young Americans for Freedom started at the Sharon estate of William F. Buckley, Jr.

The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America - Google Books Resultby Ronald Lora, William Henry Longton - 1999 - Social Science - 744 pages

The new purchaser of the Mercury was Clendenin J. Ryan, an erstwhile reformer who was a prominent financier and the son of an even more prominent financier, ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0313213909...

The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the ... - Google Books Resultby John A. Andrew - 1997 - Political Science - 287 pages

... David Franke, George Gaines, Robert Harley, James Kolbe, Richard Noble, Suzanne Regnery, Clendenin Ryan, Scott Stanley, John Weicher, and Brian Whelan. ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0813524016...

Anybody have anything else on this guy Clendenin Ryan? Do a google or a yahoo search on this guy and it may

open your eyes. His family made their money in Copper apparently.

Apparently Clendenin Ryan funded Ulius Amoss and his gang of spies and assassins and somehow Richard Condon found out about Bonner Fellers, Ray S. Cline and Wickliffe Draper and Condon even inserted names of several American

Mercury writers to draw attention to this den of theives and their links to YAF, The American Mercury and The Pioneer Fund. Condon even mentioned American Mercury writers like Arnold Bennett, George Sokolosky, Westbrook Pegler and others from that circle of friends. Clendenin Ryan was involved with the Baltimore & Ohio railroad as well in some form or fashion and Condon mentions that company in ManCand, too.

Richard Condon apparently wanted us to be able to follow the path from Bonner Fellers in Cairo, Egypt through ISI via Amoss and Coon into Baltimore, MD where the trail would be picked up with The American Mercury crowd which was first started in Baltimore by H. L. Mencken then later bought by Clendenin Ryan, who funded several illicit ISI projects. The links back into YAF began with God and Man at Yale (Buckley) via Clendenin Ryan, the publisher of The American Mercury in the early 1950's. Ryan also helped start YAF. Later the Mercury moved to East 57th Street in NYC. Richard Giesbrecht also isolated American "Mercury" in his statement to the FBI.

when Draper was closely involved with that publication.

Will those who could not accept the fact that Richard Condon knew what he was talking about finally admit their

ill conceived notions? Does anyone else have any information on Clendenin Ryan to share here?

Clendenin Ryan was a student at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, at the same time I was (1956-60). He was one of my roommates in a off-campus house during that period, along with David Franke. Our house was the scene of laying the groundwork for the modern Conservative movement that was about to be born.

From what I vaguely remember, as this occurred some 50 years ago, he was the son of Clendenin Ryan, and grandson of Thomas Fortune Ryan. During one of our talks, Clendenin told me that his father had contributed the beautiful stain glass window that adorns to this day the front of St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Clendenin, my former roommate, was tangentially involved in the founding of YAF. His contribution was in the area of activity, not in funding. YAF was founded by funds advanced by Charles Edison, son of Thomas Edison, for whom I worked following my graduation from Georgetown. Charles Edison, former governor of New Jersay and former Secretary of the Navy under FDR, had his home and office in the Towers of the Waldorf. His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away.

Clendenin Ryan, former roommate and friend, died from cancer in the late 1960's, on a date that I cannot pinpoint from memory. My guess is that he was under 30 years of age when he passed.

I never met his father nor, of course, his grandfather. The posting above about his father's political activity comes as news as his son never mentioned any of this to me.

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

"His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away."

A wonderful and commendable sentiment, to be sure. But, I have little hope of ever seeing this ideal come to fruition again, Doug. Unfortunately, both parties have become too definitively melded to ever make a reasonable judgment call, in our lifetime. At least, that's how it appears from my P.O.V.

Actually, my p.o.v. is very close to yours. While I was attending Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in the late 1950's, I happened to go into a Hot Shoppes for one of its famous hamburgers (the best ever.) There was a man sitting at the counter and he was talking outloud to himself. One thing that he exclaimed then has stuck with me over the years. He said, "It's amazing how much poison the American system can absorb."

After seven years of Bush and Cheney, I fear that the American system has ingested a fatal dose, one that will lead to the demise of the Republic as we have known it since its founding over 200 years ago.

If the U.S. has a presidential election in 2008 (I write "if"), and a Democrat is elected, that person will face a daunting task in undoing the immense damage that has been inflicted.

Still it is best to try to maintain a positive attitude and cling to the hope that the American Eagle after 2008 will again soar straight-away.

[James Richards]

James, given the fact that you have all this background info on Clendenin Ryan, you must have some interest in him either related to his funding of Ulius L. Amoss projects for the Polish MiG incident, the attempted kidnap of the son of Lenin incident or the links back to the death of Lavrenti Beria, correct? Or is it mostly just for his location in Baltimore and his relationship with Amoss as a white knight fund raiser with strong anti communist and anti union leanings?

John,

My interest in Ryan was his financial contributions which supported aspects of the intelligence community. And yes, some of this money helped Amoss and what was going on in Baltimore.

When Clendenin Ryan allegedly committed suicide in 1957, he was 52 years old. His grandfather was Thomas Fortune Ryan. His father was Clendenin Ryan Sr. who himself committed suicide by gas in 1939. His cousin was Joseph Ryan who owned a ski lodge at Mont Tremblant in Quebec. Joseph jumped from the 22nd floor of a New York hotel in 1950.

To get from this to the Kennedy assassination, one must look into New Yorker John Broady and his vast array of connections. That conduit ultimately leads to Robert E. Johnson and Arturo Espaillat.

In my opinion of course.

James

[John Bevilaqua]

James, given the fact that you have all this background info on Clendenin Ryan, you must have some interest in him either related to his funding of Ulius L. Amoss projects for the Polish MiG incident, the attempted kidnap of the son of Lenin incident or the links back to the death of Lavrenti Beria, correct? Or is it mostly just for his location in Baltimore and his relationship with Amoss as a white knight fund raiser with strong anti communist and anti union leanings?

John,

My interest in Ryan was his financial contributions which supported aspects of the intelligence community. And yes, some of this money helped Amoss and what was going on in Baltimore.

When Clendenin Ryan allegedly committed suicide in 1957, he was 52 years old. His grandfather was Thomas Fortune Ryan. His father was Clendenin Ryan Sr. who himself committed suicide by gas in 1939. His cousin was Joseph Ryan who owned a ski lodge at Mont Tremblant in Quebec. Joseph jumped from the 22nd floor of a New York hotel in 1950.

To get from this to the Kennedy assassination, one must look into New Yorker John Broady and his vast array of connections. That conduit ultimately leads to Robert E. Johnson and Arturo Espaillat.

In my opinion of course.

James

Can you share any of these Broady links publicly on this forum? To what extent did Ryan's efforts at controlling the Board of ITT in a proxy battle with Sosthenes Behn, play into the JFK conundrum? ITT had a major Latin American presence and always seemed to be involved with any CIA operations there, correct? And there was a Texas oil man put on the Board of ITT by Ryan as well. That person was on John Simkin's list of JFK suspects, too. And that reporter for The Miami News where I once worked as a copy boy and intern reporter, Hal Hendrix, had some sort of ITT connections as well, no? By the way that picture on John Simkin's web page for Hal Hendrix does not look anything like the Hal Hendrix I knew in the early 1960's. He had dark, black wavy hair and a very small head with what we used to call oversized Latin American style black horn rimmed glasses making his eyes look very large in his small head because of his very strong prescription. He always wore those glasses and looked sort of like a preying mantis with that combination of a small head and the giant goggles he wore. Any chance you have a more accurate picture of Hal Hendrix around? Not that it matters now, but just for the historical record it might be helpful.

[James Richards]

John,

I am not sure how the Ryan/Behn battle played into the JFK thing as Behn had retired in 1956. He was 74 years old.

IT & T did indeed have a strong Latin American presence and they were utilized by CIA in various operations in that part of the world. The IT & T director for the Latin American division was Francis Harkins. He is definitely worth looking into.

Regarding Broady and his connections, one that does stand out is Allan Kirby, who was mentioned in the 1954 Time Magazine story you posted. Kirby was a New York businessman who had a long time feud running with the Murchison brothers from Texas. Kirby was well acquainted with West Point graduate Arturo Espaillat who went on to work for Rafael Trujillo and was ultimately involved with his demise.

The photo of Hal Hendrix on John's Spartacus site was one I obtained from an article Hendrix wrote that appeared in a newspaper. It may have been one of the Miami publications but I am not sure. Someone else who knew Hendrix said it was him.

FWIW.

James