Bernard Fensterwald Options

[John Simkin]

I thought it would be worthwhile to have a thread on Bernard Fensterwald. It is difficult to know what to make of Fensterwald. Anyway, here are the basic facts of his life.

Fensterwald, the son of a wealthy clothing merchant, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on 2nd August, 1921. Fensterwald served in the US Navy during the Second World War.

Fensterwald graduated from Harvard Law School in 1949. He entered the Georgetown University School of Advanced International Studies, a private institution, and received an M.A. in 1950. From 1951 to 1956 Fensterwald worked for the State Department as an Assistant Legal Advisor. This included defending State Department employees accused by Joseph McCarthy of being members of the American Communist Party.

In 1957 Fensterwald was hired by Thomas C. Hennings as an investigator for the Senate Committee on Constitutional Rights. Later that year Fensterwald visited the Soviet Union. According to Alan Weberman on his return the FBI stated, "Fensterwald has gone out of his way to be helpful."

Fensterwald also worked as a foreign policy advisor to Estes Kefauver. On March 12, 1961, Fensterwald became an investigator for the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee that was headed by Kefauver. However the two men fell out and later that year Kefauver sacked Fensterwald.

Edward V. Long selected Bernard Fensterwald as his Chief Counsel when he had been accused of being corruptly involved with Jimmy Hoffa. The two men lived in the same apartment building in Washington. Long was also connected to Robert Maheu and Sam Giancanna.

In 1967 Long was called before the Senate Ethics Committee and questioned about his connections to Hoffa. As a result of this investigation Long was was forced to resign in December 1968. Long's book, The Intruders, was dedicated to Fensterwald.

Fensterwald became involved with Jim Garrison and his investigation of the John F. Kennedy assassination. In January 1969, Fensterwald joined forces with Richard E. Sprague to form the Committee To Investigate Assassinations, which was mainly concerned with finding the people responsible for killing Kennedy. As a result of the investigation Fensterwald and Michael Ewing co-authored Assassination of JFK: Coincidence or Conspiracy (1974).

In 1974 Richard Case Nagell employed Fensterwald as his lawyer. In September, 1963, Nagell had walked into a bank in El Paso, Texas, and fired two shots into the ceiling and then waited to be arrested. Nagell claimed he did this to isolate himself from the JFK assassination plot. This was successful and Nagell was charged with armed robbery and ended up spending the next five years in prison.

On his release Nagell told Jim Garrison about his knowledge of the assassination of JFK. He claimed that David Ferrie, Guy Banister, and Clay Shaw were involved in this plot with Oswald.

Fensterwald employed Lou Russell as a private detective to help him with some of his legal cases. One of Russell's first tasks was to investigate the journalist Jack Anderson. Russell also purchased $3,000 in electronic eavesdropping equipment from John Leon of Allied Investigators. Russell's friend, Charles F. Knight, was told that this equipment had been purchased for James W. McCord. At the time, Russell also did part-time work for McCord. This equipment was used to tape the telephone conversations between politicians based at the Democratic Party National Committee and a small group of prostitutes run by Phillip Mackin Bailley that worked their trade in the Columbia Plaza. Russell was almost certainly involved in the Watergate break-in.

When McCord were arrested while in the Democratic Party headquarters in Watergate he employed Fensterwald as his lawyer.

On 21st December, 1972, McCord wrote a letter to Jack Caulfield: " Sorry to have to write you this letter but felt you had to know. if Helms goes, and if the WG (Watergate) operation is laid at the CIA's feet, where it does not belong, every tree in the forest will fall. It will be a scorched desert. The whole matter is at the precipice right now. Just pass the message that if they want it to blow, they are on exactly the right course. I'm sorry that you will get hurt in the fallout.”

Caulfield was unable to persuade Richard Nixon to leave the CIA alone. In February, 1973, Richard Helms was sacked by Nixon. The following month McCord carried out his threat. On 19th March, 1973, McCord wrote a letter to Judge John J. Sirica claiming that the defendants had pleaded guilty under pressure (from John Dean and John N. Mitchell) and that perjury had been committed. McCord also gave details about Operation Gemstone.

In April 1973, Lou Russell suffered a heart attack. However, despite being unable to work, McCord continued to pay him as an employee of Security International. Russell did not have a bank account and Fensterwald paid his cheques into his Committee to Investigate Assassinations.

Another of Fensterwald's famous client was James Earl Ray, the man who had been found guilty of killing Martin Luther King. In June 1974 Fensterwald filed a motion to grant Ray a new trial on the basis of alleged collusion between his former attorney and the author William Bradford Huie. In 1976 Ray dismissed Fensterwald as his lawyer. Fensterwald also represented Andrew St. George, a journalist who was considered to be a CIA asset.

On 24th September, 1978, John Paisley, the former CIA official, took a trip on his motorized sailboat on Chesapeake Bay. Two days later his boat was found moored in Solomons, Maryland. Paisley's body was found in Maryland's Patuxent River. The body was fixed to diving weights. He had been shot in the head. Police investigators described it as "an execution-type murder". However, officially Paisley's death was recorded as a suicide. In June 1979 Fensterwald represented Paisley's family but was unable to solve the case.

According to Robert D. Morrow, Fensterwald in February, 1991 arranged "to interview an Air Force colonel... who I had identified as the possible bagman (responsible for paying the conspirators) for the JFK assassination". Morrow told Gus Russo that "Bud is going to get himself killed" if he went ahead with this interview.

On April 2, 1991, Bernard Fensterwald, 69, died of a heart attack at his home in Alexandria, Virginia. Morrow is convinced he was murdered but his wife insists he died of natural causes.

[Jack White]

Fensterwald and Robert Cutler were financial backers of the JFK Assassination Information Center in Dallas' West End in the 90s. The Center was operated by J. Gary Shaw and the late Larry Howard and Larry Harris.

Two days before he died, I saw Bud, Larry Howard, Gary Shaw and Mary Ferrell dining at a West End eatery, The Brewery. During the meal Bud became ill and flew home immediately, and died soon thereafter. The deaths of Fensterwald, Harris and Howard convinced Shaw that he should "retire" from JFK research. Mary Ferrell found Bud's death "suspicious".

Jack

[John Simkin]

Pat, John, et al.:

During a series of meetings with Bud [during May 1975], I was introduced to his #1 investigator (The last of "The Untouchables") at a luncheon held at his favorite Chinese restaurant in D.C. -- and wherein he asked for my assistance in the investigation of a scam being orchestrated as a CIA covert Op soliciting funds from wealthy VIPS.

This lead me to the legal defense team of the "Bell Morgage Case".  That same week I reviewed Bud's drafts on a JFK thesis, and when asked as to style recommendations -- I suggested that the better format would be in a series of QUESTIONS which to date remained unanswered.  He agreed wholeheartedly, and thereafter produced his tome in that format.

Bud left us in Dallas while filming "JFK" to travel to OK City in order to interview Loran Hall -- who was then in the County Jail under drug charges (with his son & Son's girlfriend).  Via Larry Howard [West End Marketplace Museum] we had used a jailor to pass the word to Hall that if he would give a deposition [under polygraph -- backed-up by Stress Analysis machine] as to who in the FBI forced his perjured WC testimony RE: the Silvia Odio matter.  Days later we learned of his death from the FLU ??!!.

[John Simkin]

AJ Weberman has argued that Bernard Fensterwald could have been working for the CIA.

http://www.ajweberman.com/nodules/nodule25.htm

Pat Speer has suggested that Weberman’s hostility towards Fensterwald could be connected to his criticisms of the book, Coup D'Etat in America. However, looking closely at Fensterwald’s career I tend to agree with Weberman that he was indeed a CIA asset.

As a young man he clearly held liberal views, possibly as a result of the influence of his mother, Blanche Fensterwald.

In 1951 Fensterwald began work for the State Department as an Assistant Legal Advisor. This included defending State Department employees accused by Joseph McCarthy of being members of the American Communist Party. I think that there is a very good chance that this would have meant helping two key CIA officials accused of being subversives, Frank Wisner and Cord Meyer. Both men were senior figures in the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), the CIA unit that was responsible for covert operations. Hoover had described the OPC as "Wisner's gang of weirdos" and the FBI began supplying information about them to McCarthy. It has to be remembered that at the time the OPC was mainly staffed by men who had been active “liberals” in the 1930s. Hoover and McCarthy therefore considered them to be dangerous subversives in the 1950s.

People like Fensterwald did a good job and the charges against Wisner and Meyer were dropped. I suspect it was at this time that Fensterwald was recruited as a CIA asset. Tom Braden, who was head of the CIA’s International Organizations Division (IOD), later admitted that in the early 1950s a large number of “liberals” became CIA assets. It is also possible that he also became an informer for the FBI.

In 1957 Fensterwald and his mother visited the Soviet Union. According to Weberman on his return the FBI stated, "Fensterwald has gone out of his way to be helpful."

Fensterwald also worked for two senior politicians, Edward V. Long and Estes Kefauver. On March 12, 1961, Fensterwald became an investigator for the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee that was headed by Kefauver. However the two men fell out and later that year Kefauver sacked Fensterwald. This might have been something to do with Fensterwald’s relationship with Long, who had been accused of being corruptly involved with Jimmy Hoffa, Robert Maheu and Sam Giancana. Long was eventually forced to resign. Long's book, The Intruders, was dedicated to Fensterwald.

Fensterwald became involved with Jim Garrison and his investigation of the JFK assassination. However, was Fensterwald on a “fishing mission”. We know that two other CIA assets, Dick Billings and Bernardo de Torres, also became involved in the Garrison investigation during this period. Billings attempted to direct Garrison towards the “Mafia did it” theory. Did Fensterwald do the same thing?

In January 1969, Fensterwald formed the Committee To Investigate Assassinations. It his work with this organization that has given Fensterwald his reputation as a JFK assassination researcher. Fensterwald employed Lou Russell, a former FBI agent, to help him with this investigation. This was a strange choice as Russell was an extreme right-winger who had worked for the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). It was while working on the Alger Hiss case he met Richard Nixon. Russell, an alcoholic, had been fired from the FBI for his drinking. He was also dismissed from the HCUA in 1954 for his drinking. However, he was reinstated by Francis Walter, another extreme right-winger who was associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Russell was also connected to other far right groups.

Fensterwald and Russell enjoyed a long friendship. According to Jim Hougan Fensterwald paid him for work he did not do. Hougan also discovered that Russell received large payments via William Birely. Hougan believes this could have been CIA money.

It is generally believed that Russell was involved in the Watergate operation. Hougan suspects he along with James McCord and Alfred Baldwin, were trying to sabotage the operation.

When James McCord was first arrested he employed Gerald Alch as his lawyer. McCord sacked Alch and replaced him with Fensterwald. McCord’s attitude changed towards the case at this point. He writes to Jack Caulfield (head of Operation Sandwedge) that is going to reveal all unless Nixon stops trying to blame the CIA for Watergate. He also warns against Richard Helms being fired as head of the CIA. Nixon refuses to bring an end to this strategy and dismisses Helms. Soon afterwards McCord writes to John J. Sirica disclosing details of the Watergate operation. The evidence suggests that the CIA sent Fensterwald to McCord in an attempt to direct attention away from its involvement in Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign. As I have speculated on another thread, I believe Nixon’s strategy was to implicate the CIA in his dirty tricks campaign in order that they would, if necessary, organize a cover-up. This of course mirrors what happened during the JFK assassination.

Fensterwald seems to have played a similar role in the cases of Richard Case Nagell (1974) and John Paisley (1978). Both cases had the potential to link the CIA with the JFK assassination. However, in both cases, Fensterwald was unable to find this evidence. Had he been brought in by the CIA to make sure it did not happen? Did he play the same role in the case of James Earl Ray (1974-76)? Once again, he fails to deliver the goods.

Fensterwald’s supporters will refer to the book he co-authored with Michael Ewing: Assassination of JFK: Coincidence or Conspiracy (1974). The book is a collection of biographies of people that Fensterwald believed was involved in the JFK assassination. It is a useful reference book. However, it is noticeable that certain suspects do not appear in the book. The section on the CIA is very short and does not include entries for David Attlee Phillips, David Morales, Rip Robertson, Tracy Barnes, John Paisley, Ted Shackley, etc. Nor are there entries for people such as William Seymour, Bernardo de Torres, Gerry P. Hemming, Roy Hargraves, Lawrence Howard, Steve Wilson, Howard K. Davis, Edwin Collins, James Arthur Lewis and Dennis Harber. In fact, the anti-Castro angle is virtually completely missing from the book.

The largest section of the book concerns the “Mafia Connection”. This of course fits in with the CIA “Plan B” being pushed by people like Dick Billings and Jack Anderson at this time. That is no doubt what Fensterwald was up to when he got involved in the Jim Garrison investigation. However, Garrison refused to buy the “Mafia theory” and was therefore smeared by Billings and Anderson as being in the pay of organized crime. A smear that was eventually to cause him to lose his job as District Attorney of New Orleans.

There is also a section on Watergate. However, Fensterwald does not mention Lou Russell or Alfred Baldwin. Even McCord only gets three brief mentions.

I believe that Fensterwald was part of a long-term “limited hangout” strategy. Whenever, it looked like some investigation would lead to the CIA being exposed as being involved in the assassination of JFK, Fensterwald was sent in to block or redirect the investigation. He could only get away with this if he was portrayed as a genuine seeker of truth concerning the JFK assassination. The establishment of the formed the Committee To Investigate Assassinations was part of his “legend”.

[Pat Speer]

While I could speculate on Fensterwald's connections, I'll leave his defense to someone who actually knew him. I would like to gently correct John, before he decides that I'm CIA, that it was HUAC, not HCUA. I think it also should be pointed out that there was at least some truth to the Garrison/mob connection story, in that Garrison made several trips to Vegas on the house and was believed to have met with Rosselli. What's worse is Garrison denied knowledge of Marcello's position in the mob until the day he died. I also think it was inaccurate to say that Garrison's ties to the mob cost him politically. I seem to remember it was an unsubstantiated allegation that he'd molested a young boy that brought about his downfall.

I honestly believe the wide-spread theory that BillingsBlakeyFensterwald were all CIA assets is a bit paranoid. I think the idea that CIA would try and use the mob as a "patsy" is ridiculous. Anyone who looks closely at the mob, will see CIA. Anyone who looks closely at the CIA, will see the mob. They were business partners.

[A.J. Weberman]

AJ Weberman has argued that Bernard Fensterwald could have been working for the CIA.

http://www.ajweberman.com/nodules/nodule25.htm

Pat Speer has suggested that Weberman’s hostility towards Fensterwald could be connected to his criticisms of the book, Coup D'Etat in America. However, looking closely at Fensterwald’s career I tend to agree with Weberman that he was indeed a CIA asset.

As a young man he clearly held liberal views, possibly as a result of the influence of his mother, Blanche Fensterwald.

In 1951 Fensterwald began work for the State Department as an Assistant Legal Advisor. This included defending State Department employees accused by Joseph McCarthy of being members of the American Communist Party. I think that there is a very good chance that this would have meant helping two key CIA officials accused of being subversives, Frank Wisner and Cord Meyer. Both men were senior figures in the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), the CIA unit that was responsible for covert operations. Hoover had described the OPC as "Wisner's gang of weirdos" and the FBI began supplying information about them to McCarthy. It has to be remembered that at the time the OPC was mainly staffed by men who had been active “liberals” in the 1930s. Hoover and McCarthy therefore considered them to be dangerous subversives in the 1950s.

People like Fensterwald did a good job and the charges against Wisner and Meyer were dropped. I suspect it was at this time that Fensterwald was recruited as a CIA asset. Tom Braden, who was head of the CIA’s International Organizations Division (IOD), later admitted that in the early 1950s a large number of “liberals” became CIA assets. It is also possible that he also became an informer for the FBI. 

In 1957 Fensterwald and his mother visited the Soviet Union. According to Weberman on his return the FBI stated, "Fensterwald has gone out of his way to be helpful."

Fensterwald also worked for two senior politicians, Edward V. Long  and Estes Kefauver. On March 12, 1961, Fensterwald became an investigator for the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee that was headed by Kefauver. However the two men fell out and later that year Kefauver sacked Fensterwald. This might have been something to do with Fensterwald’s relationship with Long, who had been accused of being corruptly involved with Jimmy Hoffa, Robert Maheu and Sam Giancana. Long was eventually forced to resign. Long's book, The Intruders, was dedicated to Fensterwald.

Fensterwald became involved with Jim Garrison and his investigation of the JFK assassination. However, was Fensterwald on a “fishing mission”. We know that two other CIA assets, Dick Billings and Bernardo de Torres, also became involved in the Garrison investigation during this period. Billings attempted to direct Garrison towards the “Mafia did it” theory. Did Fensterwald do the same thing?

In January 1969, Fensterwald formed the Committee To Investigate Assassinations. It his work with this organization that has given Fensterwald his reputation as a JFK assassination researcher. Fensterwald employed Lou Russell, a former FBI agent, to help him with this investigation. This was a strange choice as Russell was an extreme right-winger who had worked for the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). It was while working on the Alger Hiss case he met Richard Nixon. Russell, an alcoholic, had been fired from the FBI for his drinking. He was also dismissed from the HCUA in 1954 for his drinking. However, he was reinstated by Francis Walter, another extreme right-winger who was associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Russell was also connected to other far right groups.

Fensterwald and Russell enjoyed a long friendship. According to Jim Hougan Fensterwald paid him for work he did not do. Hougan also discovered that Russell received large payments via William Birely. Hougan believes this could have been CIA money.

It is generally believed that Russell was involved in the Watergate operation. Hougan suspects he along with James McCord and Alfred Baldwin, were trying to sabotage the operation.

When James McCord was first arrested he employed Gerald Alch as his lawyer. McCord sacked Alch and replaced him with Fensterwald. McCord’s attitude changed towards the case at this point. He writes to Jack Caulfield (head of Operation Sandwedge) that is going to reveal all unless Nixon stops trying to blame the CIA for Watergate. He also warns against Richard Helms being fired as head of the CIA. Nixon refuses to bring an end to this strategy and dismisses Helms. Soon afterwards McCord writes to John J. Sirica disclosing details of the Watergate operation. The evidence suggests that the CIA sent Fensterwald to McCord in an attempt to direct attention away from its involvement in Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign. As I have speculated on another thread, I believe Nixon’s strategy was to implicate the CIA in his dirty tricks campaign in order that they would, if necessary, organize a cover-up. This of course mirrors what happened during the JFK assassination.

Fensterwald seems to have played a similar role in the cases of Richard Case Nagell (1974) and John Paisley (1978). Both cases had the potential to link the CIA with the JFK assassination. However, in both cases, Fensterwald was unable to find this evidence. Had he been brought in by the CIA to make sure it did not happen? Did he play the same role in the case of James Earl Ray (1974-76)? Once again, he fails to deliver the goods.

Fensterwald’s supporters will refer to the book he co-authored with Michael Ewing: Assassination of JFK: Coincidence or Conspiracy (1974). The book is a collection of biographies of people that Fensterwald believed was involved in the JFK assassination. It is a useful reference book. However, it is noticeable that certain suspects do not appear in the book. The section on the CIA is very short and does not include entries for David Attlee Phillips, David Morales, Rip Robertson, Tracy Barnes, John Paisley, Ted Shackley, etc. Nor are there entries for people such as William Seymour, Bernardo de Torres, Gerry P. Hemming, Roy Hargraves, Lawrence Howard, Steve Wilson, Howard K. Davis, Edwin Collins, James Arthur Lewis and  Dennis Harber. In fact, the anti-Castro angle is virtually completely missing from the book.

The largest section of the book concerns the “Mafia Connection”. This of course fits in with the CIA “Plan B” being pushed by people like Dick Billings and Jack Anderson at this time. That is no doubt what Fensterwald was up to when he got involved in the Jim Garrison investigation. However, Garrison refused to buy the “Mafia theory” and was therefore smeared by Billings and Anderson as being in the pay of organized crime. A smear that was eventually to cause him to lose his job as District Attorney of New Orleans.

There is also a section on Watergate. However, Fensterwald does not mention Lou Russell or Alfred Baldwin. Even McCord only gets three brief mentions.

I believe that Fensterwald was part of a long-term “limited hangout” strategy. Whenever, it looked like some investigation would lead to the CIA being exposed as being involved in the assassination of JFK, Fensterwald was sent in to block or redirect the investigation. He could only get away with this if he was portrayed as a genuine seeker of truth concerning the JFK assassination. The establishment of the formed the Committee To Investigate Assassinations was part of his “legend”.

[A.J. Weberman]

The Fenster was a low-life piece of shit and I am happy that weasel is dead. He and Richard Sprague did everything in their power to supress the presence of Hunt, Sturgis and Christ disguised as tramps at the scene of the Kennedy Assassination. In fact, when Steven Soter first showed the pix of Sturgis and the tramp he said, "I thought it was him but Fensterwald told me there was a height discrepancy." Richard Sprague and Fensterwald would show up at the office of any public official before Canfield and I visited them and say, "Weberman is a pot smoking hippie from the East Village, don't believe a word he says. We are respectable, Bud is a lawyer and I am a computer programer." Sprague eventually was appointed to the Committee on Electronic Funds Transfer by Ford.

Fensterwald was a CIA agent who pretended to be an assassination researcher in order to make sure the Agency was not harmed by the activities of a number of rogue agents. Having the reputation of someone who went up against the agency was invaluable to the CIA when a flap occurred, like the Paisley incident. The only good thing I can say about the Fenster was that his motive in all of this was to strengthen the position of pro-Israel forces within the Agency AS HE WAS A GOOD JEW. I am all for this but refuse to do it at the expense of the American people, who I also owe my loyalty to - having dual citizenship.

[John Simkin]

I also think it was inaccurate to say that Garrison's ties to the mob cost him politically.  I seem to remember it was an unsubstantiated allegation that he'd molested a young boy that brought about his downfall.

Garrison was arrested on 30th June, 1971 by the FBI. He was accused of participating in organized crime. It was not until August, 1973, that he was put on trial. (Garrison was due to stand for re-election in November, 1973). The case was based on the testimony of Pershing Gervais, Garrison’s former chief investigator. Gervais had been sacked by Garrison after he was reported for taking bribes. He was finally arrested for corruption and was then persuaded to be wired up in order to trap Garrison into accepting a bribe. The problem was that Gervais had been taped by Rosemary James, a television reporter in Canada, saying that he was part of a plot to “silence Jim Garrison” by the US government. He told James that he had participated in a “total, complete political frame-up”. During the trial Dr. Louis Gerstman testified that the tape used as evidence against Garrison had been doctored. Garrison was found not guilty but as he says in his book, On the Trail of the Assassins, “unfortunately, there was not sufficient time to get a re-election campaign off the ground, and my opponent won by 2,000 votes.” It is true that rumours were also circulated that Garrison was a gay paedophile. No evidence was ever provided for this claim but no doubt the rumours had there desired effect.

I honestly believe the wide-spread theory that BillingsBlakeyFensterwald were all CIA assets is a bit paranoid.  I think the idea that CIA would try and use the mob as a "patsy" is ridiculous. Anyone who looks closely at the mob, will see CIA.  Anyone who looks closely at the CIA, will see the mob.  They were business partners.

Of course conspiracy theorists are always accused of being paranoid. I suppose Pat has been called paranoid in the past. I think it is important to stick to the evidence. It seems to me that during the Garrison investigation it became impossible for the authorities to stick to the lone-gunman theory. It was therefore necessary to come up with a theory that would get the support of the public while protecting government agencies such as the CIA and the FBI. The Mafia was the obvious target. It was important not to give the impression that the Warren Commission framed Oswald. Therefore, Oswald still had to be one of the gunman. It was now necessary to link Oswald with organized crime. The process started with leaks to Jack Anderson and the activities of Dick Billings, Bernard Fensterwald and Bernardo de Torres. Finally, one of the leading experts on organized crime, G. Robert Blakey, was brought in to make it official.

[Ron Ecker]

It is true that rumours were also circulated that Garrison was a gay paedophile. No evidence was ever provided for this claim but no doubt the rumours had there desired effect.

Where was Karl Rove when these rumors started? (Somewhere up to doing good, I'm sure.)

Ron

[Pat Speer]

The Fenster was a low-life piece of shit and I am happy that weasel is dead. He and Richard Sprague did everything in their power to supress the presence of Hunt, Sturgis and Christ disguised as tramps at the scene of the Kennedy Assassination. In fact, when Steven Soter first showed the pix of Sturgis and the tramp he said, "I thought it was him but Fensterwald told me there was a height discrepancy." Richard Sprague and Fensterwald would show up at the office of any public official before Canfield and I visited them and say, "Weberman is a pot smoking hippie from the East Village, don't believe a word he says. We are respectable, Bud is a lawyer and I am a computer programer." Sprague eventually was appointed to the Committee on Electronic Funds Transfer by Ford.

Fensterwald was a CIA agent who pretended to be an assassination researcher in order to make sure the Agency was not harmed by the activities of a number of rogue agents. Having the reputation of someone who went up against the agency was invaluable to the CIA when a flap occurred, like the Paisley incident. The only good thing I can say about the Fenster was that his motive in all of this was to strengthen the position of pro-Israel forces within the Agency AS HE WAS A GOOD JEW. I am all for this but refuse to do it at the expense of the American people, who I also owe my loyalty to - having dual citizenship.

I stand by my assertion that Weberman's opinion of Fensterwald is connected to Fensterwald's disagreement with Weberman regarding the tramps. In that case, the LaFontaine's must be CIA, too. Heck, I could even be CIA.