Stan Hayes

I completely agree, David. DeLillo's magnum opus, Underworld, inspired me to begin my first novel, The Rough English Equivalent, which was published in 2002. It introduces, among other things, a character who'll terminate one squad of JFK shooters flying out of Dallas. The Sixties were notable for all manner of bizarre activity, political assassinations, of course, at the top of the list. I offered Mailer's book as Libra's diametric opposite because I was curious to see what opinions Forum members would have of it. In Quintessence, I portray Underhill's killer carrying out a model hit for the still-unsolved murder of LCDR Bruce Pitzer, who's thought by some to have been at Walter Reed to photograph the pre-Bethesda modification of JFK's body. It's a stretch to imagine that these killings will ever be solved, but I hope at least to generate some new interest in the tragic deaths of these two men, both of whom were quite accomplished in their chosen fields.

Stand up for Libra, which is CT-friendly, presents useful speculative insights into small aspects of Oswald's character (apart from the book's own assassination theory), and is an important contributor to making CT reputable and discussable.

Libra is also a stylistically perfect novel, one of the best novels of its time. This is a rich piece of writing that I hope will be remembered in literary opinion.

My newly-released novel, The Quintessence of Quick, looks closely at several aspects of the assassination and its impact on several of the characters. Since a great deal of what we do on the Forum must be classified as informed speculation, I cordially invite the membership to enjoy my addition to the category of outright invention. As you might imagine, I believe that well-executed fiction can and will inspire new research. When time permits, please vote in the poll and take a look at The Quintessence of Quick.

I agree with John. The umbrellaman and his friend were PLAYERS

whose roles are still a mystery.

I have always called Witt the falseumbrellaman.

I have always said it is 95 percent certain that Novel was the umbrellaman.

Jack

Jack, given what's emerged about him since 11/22, Novel looks to be a very likely TUM to me, too. He's rather proficient in handling various sorts of hardware. Assuming a flechette was employed, what bothers me in the umbrella-as-flechette-launcher is its design, at least in the only sketch that I've seen. At what appears to me to be a minimum distance of 25 feet between him and JFK, that rig just doesn't appear to have the necessary sighting mechanism to place a missile of any sort with precision. And precision seems to have been a definite requirement; the base of the throat's a small area. Unless a shot anywhere in the chest/shoulder area would also result in the flechette's complete dissolution, it's a reasonable assumption that the shot went where it was intended to go. The question is, if not from the umbrella, from where was the flechette launched, and with what hardware?

Best

Stan

A quick follow-up on the umbrella itself; I was sufficiently intrigued with the umbrella question that, in my almost-finished sequel to The Rough English Equivalent, I include it in the inventory of weapons that the assassins spirit out of Dallas, hidden in three large golf bags. Wearing golf togs, the men board a Grumman Albatross that's waiting for them a few miles outside of Dallas on the seldom-used seaplane base, Lake Lavon. The idea was to dump the weapons in the Gulf, once the 100-fathom line was behind them enroute to Miami. An unfortunate accident involving the umbrella occurs that results in the death of one of the pilots. For a sneak preview, members are cordially invited to check my website (http://www.stanhayes.com) and for information on the publication of the new book, The Quintessence of Quick.

Best

Stan

I'd like to follow up on Ron's original lead about Crowley and the CIA's Corporate Division.

I wonder if this included the CIA Airlines? Berlitz Language schools? Oil companies? Real Estate? Public Relation firms, domestic and foreign?

Does anybody have anything else on Crowley?

Thanks,

BK

Bill, FWIW, fromTBRNews:

April 2, 2007

by Brian Harring

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal , Virginia, he called a well-known Washngton fix lawyer with the news.of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment. Three months before, July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and a well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

A small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A number were found but, to their consternation, a number of files Crowley was known to have had vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to others and these included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of former CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired.

A massive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

It came to the attention of Dr. Peter Janney, a Massachusetts clinical psychologist and son of Wistar Janney, another career senior CIA official, colleague of not only Bob Crowley but Cord Meyer, Richard Helms, Jim Angleton and others. Dr. Janney has personally researched the life and murder (or should we say assassination?) of Mary Pinchot Meyer for more than thirty years, ever since the story broke in the National Enquirer in 1976. He knew the Meyer family well, his best friend was Michael Meyer, Mary and Cord Meyer’s middle son, who was hit and killed by an automobile when they were both 9 year old boys.

For a long time, all Dr. Janney had were supposition, opinions and circulating rumor and without any kind of concrete proof, his thesis was interesting but unproven In the midst of his investigations, Dr. Janney discovered the original Zipper file and began the lengthy and time-consuming process of authentication. He was in a unique position to accomplish this because of the extant archives of family and friends. Signatures and other identifying information that would be impossible for an outsider to locate were available to him.

For the last three years, Dr. Janney has collaborated on a Hollywood film script entitled Lost Light about the life and romance of Mary Pinchot Meyer and JFK. The project is currently being represented by one of Hollywood’s top deal-makers and is now being packaged for production.

Peter Janney grew up in Washington with the families of top CIA brass. He is now at work on a book tentatively entitled ‘Mary’s Mosiac, that he hopes will be published when the film is initially released.

According to Janney, Mary Meyer was not murdered by a young, innocent Afro-American male by the name of Raymond Crump, Jr., who happened to be ensconced in a tryst adjacent to the C&O Canal Towpath in Georgetown on October 12, 1964. Crump was framed, according to Janney, and he believes he can now prove it. The real assassin was interviewed, according to Janney, by the late author Leo Damore in March of 1993 who was writing a book on the subject (Damore committed suicide in 1995; his book was never published). Janney told us that the assassin was a former FBI agent and CIA contract agent who was assigned to surveillance of Mary Meyer right after the Warren Commission Report was released in late September, 1964. Janney is not the repository of all of Damore’s research.

It had always been rumored in the elite CIA circles that James Angleton, head of CIA’s counter intelligence and a fellow Crowley plotter, had ordered her murder because she was threatening to reveal what she knew of her lover’s murder, and the fact that the Warren Commission Report was nothing but a farce and an egregious public-relations venture. For a long time, all Dr. Janney had were supposition, opinions and circulating rumor and without any kind of concrete proof, his thesis was interesting but unproven In the midst of his investigations, Dr. Janney discovered the original Zipper file and the Driscoll Report and has now embarked on a lengthy and time-consuming process of authentication. He is possibly in a unique position to accomplish this because of the extant archives of family and friends. Signatures and other identifying information that would be impossible for an outsider to locate may, in fact, be available to him.

The hitherto unknown role of the very secret Naval Security Group surfaced when a former member recalled the activities of Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Bevan Cass while he was discussing his own role in the assassination of Dominican dictator Trujillo and contemporary conversations he had with Cass who was involved in this assassination as well as the Kennedy one.

In spite of the burn bags, the top secret safes and the vigilance of the CIA to keep its own secrets, the truth has an embarrassing and often very fatal habit of emerging, albeit decades later. When it is complete, the Janney book on the Mary Mayer murder will certainly spill over into areas the author never thought he would be able to explore.

While CIA drug running , money-launderings and brutal assassinations are very often strongly rumored and suspected, it has so far not been possible to actually pin them down but this book will do this with their own reports.

Unless they include someone blowing Jeb's head off and massacring his family, Godfather Bush should just spare us the hypocricy go back to barfing on people.

Myra, you make ME puke.

Sincerely,

Stan Hayes

John-

You seem to believe that the only bias in U.S. news media is that of Fox News. I hope that you'll be open to observations of some of the more blatant left-wing utterances of NBC, CBS & ABC. How about balancing the Ailes probe with one of, say Dan Rather?

Best

Stan

The experience of a lifetime, including military service, academia and business, prompts my conclusion that most professional chroniclers of human events are (a) employees and ( respecters of the status quo. This both directs their areas of interest and subjects their final drafts to way too much "reinterpretation" before they reach an audience. John Newman may be the exception that proves the rule.

In any case, fear is a powerful motivator, whether it's of peer ridicule, being fired or, in extreme circumstances, death. What the boss wants said is generally what is said.

Why is it that most books written about political conspiracies: assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc. are written by journalists rather than historians? Is it because of fear or is it something to do with the nature of being a historian?

For example, The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that the “committee believes, on the basis of the available evidence, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”. However, very few historians have been willing to explore this area of American history. Lawrence E. Walsh’s Iran-Contra Report suggests that senior politicians were involved in and covered-up serious crimes. Yet very few historians have written about this case in any detail? Why do you think that historians and journalists appear to be so unwilling to investigate political conspiracies?

I agree with John. The umbrellaman and his friend were PLAYERS

whose roles are still a mystery.

I have always called Witt the falseumbrellaman.

I have always said it is 95 percent certain that Novel was the umbrellaman.

Jack

Jack, given what's emerged about him since 11/22, Novel looks to be a very likely TUM to me, too. He's rather proficient in handling various sorts of hardware. Assuming a flechette was employed, what bothers me in the umbrella-as-flechette-launcher is its design, at least in the only sketch that I've seen. At what appears to me to be a minimum distance of 25 feet between him and JFK, that rig just doesn't appear to have the necessary sighting mechanism to place a missile of any sort with precision. And precision seems to have been a definite requirement; the base of the throat's a small area. Unless a shot anywhere in the chest/shoulder area would also result in the flechette's complete dissolution, it's a reasonable assumption that the shot went where it was intended to go. The question is, if not from the umbrella, from where was the flechette launched, and with what hardware?

Best

Stan

Thanks, John. It's obviously been "out there" for awhile, and not quite as provocative as I imagined. No wonder he keeps Felix happy, though!

Best

Stan

A newly discovered FBI document reveals that George Bush was directly involved in the 1963 murder of President John Kennedy. The document places Bush working with the now-famous CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez, recruiting right-wing Cuban exiles for the invasion of Cuba. It was Bush's CIA job to organize the Cuban community in Miami for the invasion. The Cubans were trained as marksmen by the CIA. Bush at that time lived in Texas. Hopping from Houston to Miami weekly, Bush spent 1960 and '61 recruiting Cubans in Miami for the invasion. That is how he met Felix Rodriguez.

Hi Gary-

This FBI doc may prove to be GHWB's worst nightmare. Can you quote the source for it (better yet, the text)?

Best

Stan

Allen Dulles said that covert operations should remain secret from "inception to eternity."

Another favorite of mine is his "Think of the CIA as the State Department for unfriendly countries."

Fascinating article. Why is Hunt so reluctant to talk about Watergate? Why the "no comment" to the questions about the JFK assassination?

Hunt's a subscriber, it would seem, to the "no snitch" rule, possibly harking back to his OSS days. I think this old prolific scribbler's saving the best for last. The VERY last. Don't think he could resist telling the whole story in his inimitable style...

Barr McClellan phrased it best “Blood, Money and Power” (That's) How LBJ Killed JFK.

That’s what I think. How about you?

Hi Glen-

Welcome to the forum! I've really enjoyed The Guilty Men DVD that you sent me. No doubt of LBJ's deep involvement, but I'm including several of the usual suspects in my rogue's gallery, i.e. Dulles, Lansdale, Helms, Hoover, Marcello, Shackley, Morales and Hunt. Too many Cubans to itemize...

Best

Stan

. My guess is that he's put the full story in the hands of one or more unknown/unassailable custodians, "to be opened in the event of my death."

Hi Stan, My guess, is your guess is just about on the money, There sure will be some undignified scrambling in certain quarters when the old boy does shuffle of this mortal coil. BTW welcome to the Forum.

Hi Stephen-

Thanks for the welcome! Just ran across this relatively recent interview of the (now) peg-legged pirate...

Best

Stan

interrogation

Scavenger Hunt

E. Howard Hunt talks about Guatemala, the Bay of Pigs, and what really happened to Che.

By A.L. Bardach

Updated Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004, at 8:04 AM ET

MIAMI, Aug. 25, 2004—E. Howard Hunt is one of the most notorious spies of the 20th century. The son of an influential Republican leader in upstate New York, Hunt began his career as a founding member of the OSS, the precursor of the CIA in the 1940s. After beginning as an intelligence operative in China, Hunt trailblazed the path for the CIA in Latin America from 1950 to 1970, ever on the lookout for the Communist menace. By his account, he was the architect of the 1954 U.S.-backed coup ("Operation Success") in Guatemala that deposed democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz. Adept at psych ops (propaganda and subversion) and running "black flights" (covert operations), he also played a role in the Bay of Pigs: He was responsible for propaganda operations and the organization of a post-Castro government. Such exploits and excesses led to the scaling back of the CIA's prerogatives following hearings by the Church Committee in 1976.

In July 1970, Hunt went into "private practice," taking with him the tools he acquired during his 25 years in the intelligence business. His most famous black-bag jobs were breaking into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office and, later, Watergate, where Hunt's "plumbers" cadre, recruited from among his Cuban exile comrades, rifled and bugged the offices of the Democratic Party in May and June of 1972.

Since pleading guilty to his role in Watergate and spending "33 months in 13 federal prisons," Howard Hunt has lived in Miami where he met and married his second wife of 27 years, Laura. An expert storyteller, Hunt has had a second career as a spy novelist. The couple live in a modest ranch house at the end of a cul-de-sac in north Miami. Posted around his door are warnings against trespassing, which seems somehow appropriate for a man with a history of illegal entry.

Hunt answered the door in a wheelchair. One of his legs has been amputated due to atherosclerosis, and for the past few months, he's battled lymphoma localized in his jaw (it is now in remission). He wears a hearing aid and sports rimless, bifocal glasses. While no longer the dapper spymaster, he remains salty and unremorseful.

As a general rule, Hunt said, he doesn't talk about Watergate or "the old days." But with his 86th birthday soon to occur on Oct. 9, he was feeling a bit more chatty.

Slate: You started the CIA's first bureau in Mexico in 1949. Did you first start working on Guatemala from there?

Hunt: In Mexico, I had a few agents from Washington with me, and I had recruited a few others … [including] a young Catholic priest. So the priest came to me one time, and he said, "I'm sending down several young men to Guatemala to get a view of the situation there. It's not good." He said, "My people were beaten up and put into jail, and then exiled from the country." And he sort of sat back expectantly. And I said, "That's certainly not right. I'll let Washington know what's going on in Guatemala." So I retold the story of Guatemala and the treatment of my young Catholic friend. I found that there was a lot of intense interest in what I had to say.

Slate: We're talking about the time after 1952, the year Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala.

Hunt: He was in power then, yes. But his wife was by far the smarter of the two and sort of told him what to do. She was a convinced communist. … I waited for orders [from Washington]. A couple of [CIA and military] officers came down to join me, and it became apparent that there was going to be an effort to dislodge the communist management [laughs] of Guatemala. Which indeed happened. We set up shop and had some very bright guys working against Arbenz, and the long and short of it was that we got Arbenz defenestrated. Out the window. [Laughs]

Slate: But President Arbenz ended up in exile—not really out the window?

Hunt: Yeah. In Czechoslovakia. With his very bright and attractive wife.

Slate: So it seems you were the architect for the Guatemalan operation?

Hunt: It was mine because nobody else knew more than I did. I would say that I had more knowledge about it than anybody did. I knew all the players on both sides.

Slate: How did you run the Guatemalan operation?

Hunt: We set up the first Guatemalan operation/shop at Opa-Locka [airport in Miami, formerly an Army base]. There were three barracks, and we used the airstrip to fly in people from Guatemala and to send our people into Guatemala. These were known as "the black flights." They always occurred at night; they are a secret and officially do not exist as having happened.

Slate: Do you think the Guatemala coup went well?

Hunt: Yes—it did. And I'm glad I kept Arbenz from being executed.

Slate: How did you do that?

Hunt: By passing the word out to the people at the airport who had Arbenz to "let him go."

Slate: To whom did you give the word?

Hunt: It was a mixed band of CIA and Guatemalans at the airport and their hatred for him was palpable.

Slate: You were worried they would assassinate him right there?

Hunt: Yeah. … And we'd [the CIA and the United States] get blamed for it.

Slate: Some 200,000 civilians were killed in the civil war following the coup, which lasted for the next 40 years. Were all those deaths unforeseen?

Hunt: Deaths? What deaths?

Slate: Well, the civil war that ensued for the next 40 years after the coup.

Hunt: Well, we should have done something we never do—we should have maintained a constant presence in Guatemala after getting rid of Arbenz.

Slate: Did you ever actually meet Jacobo Arbenz?

Hunt: They [he and his wife] were neighbors of mine—years later—on the same street in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Slate: What were you doing there?

Hunt: I was the CIA chief of station.

They had come from [exile in] Czechoslovakia, and nobody in Washington had told me they were coming and so it was a big surprise to me, to my wife and me. We went to the country club for dinner one evening and lo and behold, the Arbenzes were seated a few tables away.

Slate: What did you do?

Hunt: Well, nothing. I sent a cable to Washington saying, "In the future when we have important arrivals, please let me know." It's the least they could do.

Slate: I'd like to talk about Cuba now. Did you have a lot of responsibility during Bay of Pigs?

Hunt: Leading up to it.

Slate: How so?

Hunt: I came to Miami, and of course there were [Cuban] exiles, all anxious to take weapons in hand and charge back [to Cuba]. And the CIA was given the responsibility of a twofold action against Cuba. There was the psychological warfare branch which I headed [propaganda, covert operations], and the paramilitary which oversaw the training [of Cuban exiles] that took place in Guatemala.

My [other] responsibility was to form and manage the future government of Cuba. At that point I formed the Cuban government-in-exile with Manuel Artime [bay of Pigs veteran designated by the United States to succeed Castro]. I had told them [the exile trainees] to meet me in my safe house in Coconut Grove. An FBI guy whom I knew came to me and he said your neighbor has reported you to the police saying that men are coming and going at all hours of the night. … He said he thought it was a gay brothel.

Slate: Did you go to Cuba after Castro took power in January 1959?

Hunt: I did go to Cuba. I went there under a very flimsy cover. Batista was out—it was 1959. I'd been sent to Havana to nose around and get a grass-roots feeling and talk to the proverbial taxi drivers and find out what their likely response would be to a possible U.S. invasion. And I did. And I told them don't count on it because it's not going to happen. But that is exactly what happened.

Slate: Did you help in the planning of Bay of Pigs?

Hunt: Not the military [planning]. And I couldn't find anybody who thought that it was a good plan.

Slate: What were the objections?

Hunt: There was an objection on the part of Dean Rusk, secretary of state under Kennedy. He didn't want a "go-and-see invasion"—that was the term he used. And our people [CIA planners] had planned an invasion that combined both a seaborne assault and an airlift. Dean Rusk was a great naysayer—he was not a fellow with useful ideas. When our plan was submitted to Rusk for his OK, he said, "This is too noisy, you gotta do something else." So the assault point was moved to the Bahia de Cochinos—the Bay of Pigs. Which had nothing in its favor. It was a beach that came down from the jungle. A lot of mosquitoes. Our people made that beach landing and they were scooped up pretty soon thereafter.

Slate: Did you ever think there was a way to get rid of Castro, short of a military coup?

Hunt: No. When Castro went into Cuba and took over, this was the moment—with all the chaos and disorganization—that our forces could have gone in and unseated him. But we always confronted this dreadful organization called the Department of State. Who needs it?!

Slate: What was your feeling about Batista?

Hunt: Well, I thought he ran a good government there. There was a lot of corruption, but there's always been corruption in Latin America. We can't be too purist about these things.

Slate: Let's talk about the finals days and execution of Che. Do you know what the real story was there?

Hunt: I do. El Che was becoming a popular threat to Castro. Castro was a gradualist; his view was that great changes couldn't take place immediately. But El Che had a different idea—he had wanted the entire continent of Latin America to become Communist. And Castro, sort of to get rid of him, said, "Take a band down to Bolivia. Here's money, and radio phones, and all that." So Che went down there. But Che's very first [radio] transmissions were picked up by our people at the National Security Agency. The agency was able to track him wherever he went with his little forlorn band. The Bolivians wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible, and our people kept the Bolivian army informed as to where he was.

Slate: So you knew where he was all the time?

Hunt: Yes. There was no question about where he was or what he was trying to do. The Bolivians had gone through this kind of BS before, and they wanted to put an end to it as soon as possible. Eventually they just said, "We're gonna put an end to this farce," and they rounded up this little band of Che's, and they didn't kill anybody except Che.

Slate: I thought it was Felix Rodriguez, the Bay of Pigs Cuban exile, who says he killed Che.

Hunt: No, the Bolivians did.

Slate: What did the Americans want to do with Che?

Hunt: We wanted deniability. We made it possible for him to be killed.

Slate: Do you think anybody back then was thinking this guy would become a cult figure, that he might be more trouble dead than alive?

Hunt: No, nobody had the foresight for that. … What I thought was great foresight was that the Bolivian colonel had Che's hands cut off.

Slate: Why did he do that?

Hunt: So he couldn't be identified by fingerprints. That was a pretty good idea—if you don't want somebody identified. People still shiver a little when they think about hands being cut off.

Slate: Did that idea come from the Bolivian colonel or from the CIA?

Hunt: I have no idea. But I talked with Felix about it. I said, "You were there when Che expired." He said they had taken him into this room, and they shot him there and killed him. And they had kind of a medical examination table. They put his body on that and cut off his hands. They fooled around for a day or so before they disposed of the body. And that was done in a very sloppy fashion. The colonel had a shallow grave dug and his remains were dumped in there.

Laura Hunt: [interjects] For all we know, Felix [Rodriguez] did shoot him.

Hunt: It was just important that it was done.

Slate: Maybe Rodriguez arranged for the Bolivians to do the killing and then took credit?

Hunt: What we certainly didn't want was a public monument to Che. We wanted his memory to vanish as soon as possible. But it never did. Even my son goes on about Che.

Slate: What do you think of Felix Rodriguez campaigning these days against John Kerry, who questioned him at the Iran-Contra hearings?

Hunt: I think that's great! Felix can do no wrong in my book.

Slate: What led you to leave the CIA?

Hunt: I found out the CIA was just infested with Democrats. I retired in '70. I got out as soon as I could. I wrote several books immediately thereafter.

Slate: I still don't understand how you get involved in Watergate later. Through the CIA?

Hunt: I had been a consultant to the White House. I greatly respected Nixon. When Chuck Colson [special counsel to Nixon] asked me to work for the administration, I said yes. Colson phoned one day and said, "I have a job you might be interested in." This was before Colson got religion.

Slate: How long were you in prison for the Watergate break-in?

Hunt: All told, 33 months.

Slate: That's a lot of time.

Hunt: It's a lot of time. And I've often said, what did I do?

Slate: Did you get a pardon?

Hunt: No. Never did. I'd applied for one, and there was no action taken, and I thought I'd just humiliate myself if I asked for a pardon.

Laura Hunt: He was sort of numb because all of this happened to his wife and his family, his children went into drugs while he was still in prison.

Slate: Wasn't your first wife killed in a plane crash?

Laura Hunt: She was killed when her plane crash-landed at Chicago's Midway Airport. And there was all this speculation from conspiracy buffs that the FBI blew the plane up or something … so that she would never talk, all this ridiculous stuff.

Slate: How do you feel about Chuck Colson?

Hunt: He failed to come to my assistance, which would have helped Nixon and me.

Slate: Do you hold anyone responsible for Watergate?

Hunt: No, I don't.

Slate: And you didn't apologize?

Hunt: No. It never occurred to me to apologize.

Slate: Should Nixon have resigned?

Hunt: No.

Slate: I know there is a conspiracy theory saying that David Atlee Phillips—the Miami CIA station chief—was involved with the assassination of JFK.

Hunt: [Visibly uncomfortable] I have no comment.

Slate: I know you hired him early on, to work with you in Mexico, to help with Guatemala propaganda.

Hunt: He was one of the best briefers I ever saw.

Slate: And there were even conspiracy theories about you being in Dallas the day JFK was killed.

Hunt: No comment.

Laura Hunt: Howard says he wasn't, and I believe him.

Slate: Any regrets?

Hunt: No, none. [Long pause] Well, it would have been nice to do Bay of Pigs differently.

A.L. Bardach regularly writes "Interrogations" for Slate. She is the author of Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana and the editor of Cuba: A Traveler's Literary Companion.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2107718/

Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

E. Howard Hunt, the man the Washington Post called the “Great Gatsby of the cloak and walkie-talkie set,” had been sent to Cuba to check things out for himself and upon returning submitted an itemized list of suggestions geared toward toppling Castro:

1. Assassinate Castro before or coincident with the invasion (a task for Cuban patriots);

2. Destroy the Cuban radio and television transmitters before or coincident with the invasion;

3. Destroy the island’s microwave relay system just before the invasion begins;

4. Discard any thought of a popular uprising against Castro until the issue has already been militarily decided.

Hi Tim-

I'm still in the early stage of getting a feel for the forum, and as yet haven't run across any speculation about why, given all he knows about so much, Hunt's still alive. So many who knew less have died, more or less prematurely and under more or less questionable circumstances. My guess is that he's put the full story in the hands of one or more unknown/unassailable custodians, "to be opened in the event of my death."

I'd be interested in your opinion, and in those of other members, concerning this or any other explanation of Hunt's charmed life...

Best

Stan

Hi Dawn-

Thanks for sharing your views (with most of which I'm in profound disagreement), but, with respect, you didn't answer my question...

Best

Stan

Stan:

I did answer your question as best I can. I am not ashamed of a particular nationality. I meant that I am ashamed to see what is taking place in America. I guess I simply worded it wrongly. I would not want to live elsewhere.

In fact I am not sure why are are even posting on a thread dovoted to Tim Gratz' political views.

What is our view on this case?

Dawn

Hi Dawn-

Appreciate your clearing the air! Re the case, I can only speak for myself, but curiosity "R" I. I suspect that's why most of us signed on to the forum...

Best

Stan

Very good posts. I don't know how anyone with a conscience is not ashamed to be an American.

Dawn

I'm new here, Dawn, so I'll open with a question. What nationality would you be unashamed of?

Stan,

I am an American by naturalization. I moved to the Boston area, from Canada, in 1968, becoming a US citizen in 1976. I was so proud to become a citizen that day. There were a lot of things wrong with this government, coming out daily in the news back then, but I was (and am) a firm believer that if you don't like something, be involved in affecting change, not just complaining.

I believe this last election was stolen. The policies that W and his neocons have put forth are erroding very important Consitutional privileges. That our attorney general could actually SAY that torture is acceptable horrifies me. That people can be held without being told of the charges or given the right to consult with an attorney flies in the face of the principals we hold dear. That the press has become so gultless is troublesome. For example:

Are you aware that 11 US seaports are operated by a shipping company owned by the Chinese government ? Do you see this in the news?

We need to be vigiliant about seeing that our once- taken- for granted rights are not further eroded.

In the name of "national security" the current administration has shown utter disregard for the rule of law, or the checks and balances necessary to ensure that we don't have an imperial presidency. If citizens dare question Bush's policies they are called unpatriotic.

It's the Patriot Act that is unAmerican, not we who criticise these undemocratic measures.

Dawn

Hi Dawn-

Thanks for sharing your views (with most of which I'm in profound disagreement), but, with respect, you didn't answer my question...

Best

Stan

Very good posts. I don't know how anyone with a conscience is not ashamed to be an American.

Dawn

I'm new here, Dawn, so I'll open with a question. What nationality would you be unashamed of?

They, like me, took out an insurance policy. They recorded what they knew about the case and placed the information with lawyers, solicitors, etc. These documents, tapes, etc. were only to be released in event of their dying in suspicious circumstances. These people have become untouchable. They are the only ones who will ever be able to provide any hard evidence of this conspiracy. Even if they do talk, they will only have evidence of a small part of the plot. No one will have information that implicates anyone higher than Morales.

John, I think that most reasonable people would include Howard Hunt as the holder of an "insurance policy," and it could well be one that might implicate one or more of Morales' superiors...

It seems that Stan Hayes is a distinguished author, who follows in the self-publishing tradition of Mark Twain and Thomas Paine. Hayes's work gets rave reviews on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/059524579...glance&n=283155

I plan to read Mr. Hayes's work, and I promise to advise the forum if Jack Mason compares well to Leopold Bloom.

Mr. Carroll is too kind; in any case, old Jack will more likely call Buck Mulligan to mind...

Does anyone have any information about Banister's last days? People with whom he was seen, etc., other than his usual associates?

Guy Banister has been mentioned several times on this forum. I think he deserves his own thread.

Guy Banister died of coronary thrombosis on June 6, 1964.

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

Does anyone know if Banister was autopsied?

A while back, well before writing this first of three books about the adventures of the reluctant rogue, Jack Mason, I quit college and took off for Pensacola to cast my lot with Naval Aviation. Saw a nice chunk of the world as a Naval Flight Officer with the Hurricane Hunters and the Military Air Transport Service. Never fired a shot in anger, but sniffed strong Commie spoor during the Cuban Crisis and in the ever-fragrant Congo. After that, the pesky last year of college, graduate school, a tad of corporate strife in New York, and a Big Apple bailout about half an hour before my liver morphed into a bookend. Now my battered skidlid hangs in Atlanta, GA, by the banks of the Chattahoochee, where I indulge the tendency to overrev my ol' Honda VFR, sail now and then, shoot a rapid or two and generally operate at the limit of public tolerance. If you're ordering, mine's an arid Stoli Gibson, up.