Charles Donald Ford

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Bill- did you see this reference to Ford from the thread on DiEugenio's Review of Talbot:

The book features a good discussion of the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. In this section he is explicit about the duplicity of Richard Helms in attempting to switch the blame for those plots from the CIA to the Kennedys. (pgs 87-88) He neatly notes that Helms had photos of all the presidents he served except Kennedy's. He even notes that Helms in death, was still deceptive about those plots in his posthumous memoir. (p. 110) A deft stroke by Talbot in this regard is his (further) exposure of Sy Hersh's hatchet job, The Dark Side of Camelot. He notes how Hersh was so cozy with the CIA in his writing of this book that he trusted covert operator Sam Halpern. Halpern told Hersh that RFK used the late Charles Ford to activate Mafia assets in Cuba to destabilize, and even kill, Castro. Talbot found a Church Committee memorandum by Ford. In discussing his interview with them he explained that his meetings with RFK on Cuba were about "the efforts of a Cuban exile group to foment an anti-Castro uprising, not on Mafia assassination plots." (p. 123) Talbot properly concludes that Helms and Halpern "fabricated their story about Bobby Kennedy and the Mafia ... Officials like Helms and Halpern tried to deflect public outrage over their unseemly collusion by pinning the blame on the late attorney general." Talbot could have added here that Halpern should have already been suspect to Hersh because he is listed as a witness in the CIA IG Report on the plots, which never mentions any of this material. Further, Halpern was placed in charge of the internal investigation of the CIA's supersensitive Operation Forty. A report that, to my knowledge, has yet to surface. The man who placed him in that position was Helms.

The last lines are interesting.

[William Kelly]

Bill- did you see this reference to Ford from the thread on DiEugenio's Review of Talbot:

The book features a good discussion of the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. In this section he is explicit about the duplicity of Richard Helms in attempting to switch the blame for those plots from the CIA to the Kennedys. (pgs 87-88) He neatly notes that Helms had photos of all the presidents he served except Kennedy's. He even notes that Helms in death, was still deceptive about those plots in his posthumous memoir. (p. 110) A deft stroke by Talbot in this regard is his (further) exposure of Sy Hersh's hatchet job, The Dark Side of Camelot. He notes how Hersh was so cozy with the CIA in his writing of this book that he trusted covert operator Sam Halpern. Halpern told Hersh that RFK used the late Charles Ford to activate Mafia assets in Cuba to destabilize, and even kill, Castro. Talbot found a Church Committee memorandum by Ford. In discussing his interview with them he explained that his meetings with RFK on Cuba were about "the efforts of a Cuban exile group to foment an anti-Castro uprising, not on Mafia assassination plots." (p. 123) Talbot properly concludes that Helms and Halpern "fabricated their story about Bobby Kennedy and the Mafia ... Officials like Helms and Halpern tried to deflect public outrage over their unseemly collusion by pinning the blame on the late attorney general." Talbot could have added here that Halpern should have already been suspect to Hersh because he is listed as a witness in the CIA IG Report on the plots, which never mentions any of this material. Further, Halpern was placed in charge of the internal investigation of the CIA's supersensitive Operation Forty. A report that, to my knowledge, has yet to surface. The man who placed him in that position was Helms.

The last lines are interesting.

Thanks Nate, and to Ron Williams for posting Jimmy D's review.

I will have to re-read DT's Brothers, as I didn't recognize the signifiance of C.D. Ford the frist time around. I began to focus on Ford with his mention in the "Costume Jewels."

Like Talbot, I too went to the NARA Riffs, and among those docs released re: Ford is an interview with Ford that Robert Howard recently dug up that is extremely significant.

Will post shortly.

BK

[William Kelly]

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=16067&relPageId=3

AGENCY INFORMATION AGENCY : CIA

RECORD NUMBER : 104-10303-10001

RECORDS SERIES : JFK

AGENCY FILE NUMBER : CIA-OP

DOCUMENT INFORMATION ORIGINATOR : CIA

FROM : [No From]

TO : [No To]

TITLE : FILE ON FORD, CHARLES/RFK-MAFIA

DATE : 01/01/0000

PAGES : 10

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER - TEXTUAL

DOCUMENTSUBJECTS :

CLASSIFICATION :

RESTRICTIONS : 1BDATE OF LAST REVIEW : 09/18/1998COMMENTS : JFK-M-03 : F6 : 1998.09.18.07:48:32:030120 : ARRBREQUEST.CIA - IR 13. CORRECTED TO 10 PAGES VICE 20

Date of interview Sept. 18, 1975

Mike Madigan SSC Staff reports that Mr Helms and Mr Halpern have testified

that in response to a request by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy,

the assigned an officer to establish contacts with the underworld to look

for possible contacts for use against Castro.

Sam Halpern says the officer was Charles Ford who used the name Rocky

Siscalini.

Madigan wants any information we have on this and would like to interview

the Agency officer.

2...........I told them that I joined in 1949; that I was and am now a

member of the Office of Training; That in 1960 or thereabouts I had a

brief tour of duty with the Economic Group in the DDP, and I went directly

from that assignment to WH-4 in Sept., 1961.

3. I was asked to recall my major activities while with the Cuban operation

and I did so. I reported that my first major assignment was the handling

of a Cuban agent, one we were using to build a nucleus of an organization

for eventual operations into Cuba. I identified this man as Mr [ 6 ]. (Mr. Rhea having heard my description of this activity at our earlier session, did not pursue this matter any further.)

4. The investigators were interested in when I was assigned the code name

Fiscalini, the circumstances under which the name was assigned, and who

had assigned it. I told them I had seen a Xerox copy of the memorandum

(I saw this during a meeting with Bill Sturbits last Friday in Bill's

office) which requested that identification in the name of Fiscalini be

assigned to me. I explained the circumstances, which Mr. Postal and

Mr Rhea had heard at our earlier meeting, and said that I thought the

date was the end of March, 1962. The circumstances involved a contact

by a New York lawyer, thru the Department of Justice, concerning a

client who had access to Cuba and wanted to visit Castro to put in a

special plea on behalf of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. I identified the

individual concerned (I still can't remember his name) as the manager

of the Teresa Hotel in New York. I did not identify the lawyer and was

not asked for his name I identified a man I met at a second meeting in

New York as 'Bubbles' Abdallah. I explained that the latter individual

proposed to accompany the manager of the Teresa to Cuba, the manager

being an elderly man with some difficulty in walking. I explained to

the investigators that I had no further contact with these individuals

after I discovered that Abdallah was wanted, or under indictment -

I forget which, by Texas authorities for smuggling drugs from Mexico.

Mr. Robert Kelly was clearly interested in pursuing the matter further

of who assigned my "Code Name." I indicated that the document I received

came from the Office of Security, but that I did not know whether the

Office selected the name or not.

5. We went over again the story of my contact with a Canadian named "Joe,"

(I know this man's last name but have not been asked for it and have

not volunteered it.) I described one meeting and a telephone call

involving Joe. In the meeting he claimed that he could travel back and

forth from Canada to Cuba; revealed to me that he was interested in

starting a smuggling activity involving goods on the proscribed list;

that he wanted United States citizenship and a great deal of money in

exchange for allowing us to send materials or tamper with some of the

shipments if we could get the proscribed goods to Canada. I explained

to the investigators that my interest lay in the fact that Joe claimed

he could speak with Che Guevera and that I had attempted to get Joe to

serve as a means of communications between us and Che, which Joe refused

to do. As for the telephone call, I told them that when Joe returned

from his trip to Cuba he called to say that big things were going on

in Cuba and that we should meet right away. Being aware at that point

that we in the Agency were deep in the middle of what would later be

called the Cuban Missile Crisis, I told Joe I could not see him and

that we probably already knew what he had to tell me.

That was the last I heard of Joe.

6. We spent a great deal of time going over my meetings with the Attorney

General and his interest in a small group of Cubans who claimed to have

supporters ready to create an uprising in Santiago Province. This is the

case described in paragraph 3 of my earlier memorandum. The investigators

were quite interested in the identity of the man whom I saw at the

request of the Attorney General. I went over this again in as much

detail as I could remember, but without being able to recall who this

man was. I was asked if I could describe the man and I said that I

recalled him as a fairly tall man of average build with black hair,

black eyebrows and glasses. Of considerable interest is the fact that

perhaps 15 or 20 minutes later, I was shown an 8 x 10 glossy photograph

of several people walking in front of what appeared to be a public

building and was asked whether I could identify any of the people in

the picture. I could not. Mr. Postal pointed to the central figure

and asked if I could identify him. I said I could not. (The picture

was of a man probably in his mid-sixties with flowing white hair and

somewhat on the order of Sen. Kenneth Keating, a large, down-curving

nose, white straight eyebrows behind dark glasses, a somewhat lined,

puffy face and a slightly receding forehead accentuated by the fact

that his hair was combed straight from front to back. The man was

wearing a dark blue, or black suit, and one man appeared to be

accompanying him to his left and slightly ahead and another man

slightly to his right and rear. Without having any reference points

by which to judge, my best guess would be that the subject was about

5'10 inches tall. He appeared to be rather heavy, perhaps in the range

of 220 lbs. There appeared to be a caption of some sort at the bottom

of the picture, but this was hidden from my view.) Mr. Postal asked

whether the main figure in the photograph could have been the man the

Attorney General directed me to see. I replied that, even allowing for

the difference in years, the man in the photograph in no way resembled

the man I saw on behalf of the Attorney General.

7. Messrs. Postal and Rhea again brought up the topic of assassination and asked whether I had engaged in or had heard mention of, in Task Force

W, or SAS discussions on the subject of assassination either in general

or specifically with regards to Castro. I told the investigators that the

subject name came up repeatedly, when we were speaking with Cubans, many

of whom having bring forced to flee Cuba, sincerely wished for Castrol's

immediate demise. I said that I had never heard of, nor engaged in

conversations with Agency officers about any plan, the direct and only

aspect of which was the assassination of Fidel Castro. I pointed out

that on a number of occasions I dealt with Cubans who wanted to kill

Castro, but that my job was simply to attempt to extract from these

contacts the names of people in Cuba who might be of potential use to

us in intelligence operations. I said that I had never engaged in

plotting with Cubans regarding assassinations, but that I had many

conversations with Cubans regarding their desire to conduct paramilitary

activities which, as a by-product might well result in Castro's death.

I pointed out emphatically that the Agency's policy prohibits political

assassination.

8. I was asked if I know [ 3 ] and Nestor Sanchez. I told them

that I knew them both me and that Nestor and I shared an office for a

short period near the end of my attachment with SAS. I was asked if

AMLASH meant anything to me and I replied in the negative. This was

followed by whether [ 3 ] and Nestor had discussed with me or

mentioned an operation involving a high-level officer of the Cuban

government, a military man who made frequent trips out of Cuba. Again

I could only reply in the negative. I added the juxtaposition of [ 3 ]

and Nestor in the context of a single operation surprised me inasmuch

as I believed Nestor to have been involved only in psychological

operations and [ 3 ] working at collecting foreign intelligence.

I was then asked if the word "AMOTS" meant anything to me and I said

that it did but that all I could say was that it had to do with

counterintelligence activities. Mr. Rhea asked me whether I could

say that the "AMOTS" activity was concerned with contacting Cuban

exiles in the Miami area and I indicated that this was my understanding. The subject was not pursued further.

9. I was asked about my visit to New Orleans (which I had mentioned

during the previous session) and I explained that these two trips were

for the purpose of attempting to find ways of establishing lines of

communications between Cuban's in New Orleans and their friends in Cuba.

I indicated that I had been able to come up with a very fine prospect;

a Cuban, and that I had turned him over to one of our FI Case Officers.

I also said that I had several discussions with an American whom I

declined to identify under the general ground rule relating to sources

of information. Messrs Postal and Rhea asked if I would respond

affirmatively if they were to suggest some initials which might

correspond to my American contact. I agreed to do this but the initials

they mentioned meant nothing. (Unfortunately, I cannot recall them!)

I volunteered the initials of my contact "FJ" and this produced a blank

expression on the part of both of the investigators, and a shrug of

Mr. Rhea's shoulders. The final question I was asked was whether I

had any knowledge of the "Ponchartrain Operation." I told them that

I knew where Lake Ponchartrain was and that's as far as it went.

10. We spent a little time on the subject of General Lansdale.

I admitted I had attended one meeting in General Lansdale's office

in the Pentagon. I was asked whether anyone else was there, and said

I could recall only one name, Cornelius Roosevelt, but that there were

two other people at that meeting. In response to a series of questions,

about what was discussed at that meeting, I said that General Lansdale

was interested in various paramilitary possibilities and that my role was

limited to giving a quick assessment of whether we had the agent assets

to assist in carrying out the various possible operations that General

Lansdale suggested.

11. I was asked whether the term Mongoose meant anything to me and I

indicated that it was a general term to refer to a composite of planned

operational activities. I said that I had no knowledge of any specific

activity being planned under this name and further explained that it was

possible that some of my Cuban contacts may have been taken over by

other case officers for use under "Mongoose," but that I had no direct

knowledge of such having been done.

12. Mr. Robert Kelly expressed considerable interest in the organization

of Task Force W. At one point he asked how many echelons there were

between me and Mr. Helms. I told them that I reported to Bill Harvey;

that my title was Special Assistant; that Mr Harvey reported to Mr Helms;

That I frequently received assignment and reported to Sam Halpern;

and that I occasionally undertook tasks for Bruce Cheever, Harvey's deputy,

although these tasks were concerned with the workings of Task Force W and

did not involve contacts with the Cubans. I was asked if there were any

Special Assistant other than me in Task Force W and I replied that

Mr Zogby, C/WH/4 prior to Mr Harvey's arrival on the scene had been

retained as a member of Task Force W in an SA status. I said that there

may well have been others because people would show up from time to time

for short besides myself for short tours of duty for several months or

so and then depart to carry on their work elsewhere, but that I could

not recall anyone by name at this time

13. I was asked whether I used the name Fiscalini in circumstances other

than those described. I said that I frequently carried identification in

that name and I used it on several occasions. I described one occasion

which was an amusing one-time contact that had no bearing on any item of

interest to the committee. The investigator asked if I ever had contacts

among the Cuban's in Miami, and I replied in the negative.

14. I was asked if I had ever made contact with people in New York City

other than those described. I said that indeed I had; but that in one

case although the man in question lived in New York, the meeting took

place in Newark, New Jersey. In response to a question, I said that the

lead was provided by the FBI. I declined to identify the man involved on

the grounds of the sensitivity of his position at the time.

15. I was asked whether I had any knowledge of a meeting of the Attornel General and Cuban exile leaders in the summer of 1962. I said that sucha meeting would not have been unusual in my opinion, but that I had no knowledge of such a meeting. I pointed out that it was common practice among many Cuban leaders to acquire the support, or the appearance of support of U.S. Agencies and prominent U.S. political figures. I furtherstated that numerous attempts were made to get the U.S. to support a

Cuban government-in-exile and that I had one meeting in Washington with

a Cuban leader who was constantly trying to get us to support him as

head of such an arrangement. I identified this man as Mario Garcia-Kohly

and added that he was sentenced to prison some years later for

counterfeiting Cuban pesos. The name "Kohly" obviously rang a bell with

Mr. Postal as he repeated it in a surprised tone of voice. However,

Mr Postal did not pursue the matter.

16. Some of the other topics which were surfaced in connection with the

above major items: I was asked whether I knew the following people or

recognized the names (My responses are summarized in parentheses and I

can't vouch for all the spellings):

1 Carlos Teppedino (never heard of him)

2 Jose Orta (never heard of him)

3 Sam Giancana (read about him in the newspaper, never met him)

4 Roselli (read about him in the newspaper, never met him)

5 Tafficante (read about him in the newspaper, never met him)

6 Manuel Artime (read about him in the newspaper, never met him)

7 Big Jim O'Connell (heard about him in the newspaper, never met him) I was asked whether "No Name Key" meant anything to me and I gave noresponse.

I was asked whether I had gone to Chicago in the course of my work and

I told them I had not.

17. This is probably the appropriate point to underline my conviction

that the main, if not the only point of concern to the investigators

is whether I was directed to sally forth and initiate contact with

members of the underworld in the U.S. and who directed me to do so.

Their interest is even more pointedly focused on whether I had anything

to do with the Rosselli, Giancana, et al, "operations." Once again, I

explained that my job was broader than this by a longshot and that I

was never directed to take the initiative in establishing contacts with

the "underworld." I said that "several," probably no more than five

or six, of the people with whom I dealt were "somewhat" shady characters

in some cases with recorded "run-ins" with law enforcement agencies.

Charles D. Ford Chief of Training Services Staff, OTR

Edited July 18, 2007 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Knowing from Power's 1997 book review in the NYRB and his more recent book that my main nemesis - Max Holland, Black Slyde Hersh, Sam Halpern and others on the Dark Side were on to Charles Donald Ford, and were saying that he was the CIA man from JM/WAVE who RFK sent on missions like getting the mob to kill Castro, I wondered why they didn't quote Ford directly. After all, they've been chasing Ford for ten years before I even heard of him, and certainly must have gotten the NARA docs that were released by the JFK Act.

Then when Robert Howard sent me the one doc, which referers to others, I could understand why the Dark Siders dropped Ford like a hot tamale. He didn't back their thesis that RFK ordered Ford to get the mob to kill Castro.

As Ford himself says:

6. We spent a great deal of time going over my meetings with the Attorney

General and his interest in a small group of Cubans who claimed to have

supporters ready to create an uprising in Santiago Province. This is the

case described in paragraph 3 of my earlier memorandum. The investigators

were quite interested in the identity of the man whom I saw at the

request of the Attorney General. I went over this again in as much

detail as I could remember, but without being able to recall who this

man was........

17. This is probably the appropriate point to underline my conviction

that the main, if not the only point of concern to the investigators

is whether I was directed to sally forth and initiate contact with

members of the underworld in the U.S. and who directed me to do so.

Their interest is even more pointedly focused on whether I had anything

to do with the Rosselli, Giancana, et al, "operations." Once again, I

explained that my job was broader than this by a longshot and that I

was never directed to take the initiative in establishing contacts with

the "underworld." I said that "several," probably no more than five

or six, of the people with whom I dealt were "somewhat" shady characters

in some cases with recorded "run-ins" with law enforcement agencies.

Charles D. Ford Chief of Training Services Staff, OTR

From the NARA Riffs of C.D. Ford docs released under JFK Act, there is the one doc from OSS days, 1945, in which Ford is sent to China with J. Walton Moore.

The significance of the Ford-Moore association in the OSS has yet to be properly reviewed, but I would think it important, especially if they maintained their association and perhaps even friendship, up to and including 1963.

If DeMorhenschildt asked Moore, his Domestic Contacts Division CIA debriefer, about LHO and Moore checked and came back and said LHO "was okay," that would presumably be a check with DC.

If DeMorn also told Moore about LHO, the rifle and the Walker shooting, then that would or could explain how Dr./Col. Jose Rivera (USAR) in DC knew LHO was suspect in the shooting in April 1963, within weeks of it happening and seven months before the Germans would break the news.

Of course that would presume an association/connection between Moore and Rivera that's yet to be established.

It is more than fascinating that J.W. Moore and J.D. Ford were associated as far back as 0SS in 1945.

So there is a LHO-DeMorn-Moore-Ford connection that is less than six degrees of separation.

Does anybody else see anything in this?

BK

[William Kelly]

"....And there is more, including abundant evidence that Bobby Kennedy with General Edward Lansdale, was involved in his own plots to assassinate Castro, and that to this end he had a CIA employee named Charlie Ford search for Mafia operatives....."

Joan Mellen -

Stewart Mott House, Washington, D.C., September 14, 2007.

WHO RULES AMERICA? HOW DID WE GET HERE?

[Larry Hancock]

Very interesting thread but I must have missed something. From the documents it appears

that Ford was assigned by WAVE as a liason to RFK and assisted in meeting with a variety of

Cubans who might be of interest in a coup or other acts against Castro. We know that RFK

was very interested in that and was reaching out to a lot of exiles ..sometimes using his own

personal network as well. But what (other than some Church committee suspicion) have we seen

that justifies Hersh's comment e.g.

"...According to notes obtained by (Black Slyde) Hersh,...Hersh also learned that in 1962, while the assassination efforts involving the Mafia hit men were still under way, Bobby Kennedy was assigned his own operaitonal officer in the CIA, a man named Charles Ford picked from the staff of Task Force W, then commanded by (William) Harvey. Ford's job was to handle contacts with Mafia chiefs while traveling under the pseudonym of Rocky Fiscalini, a name (along with Ford's own) that appears in Bobby Kennedy's office logs for 1962. But what Ford actually did for Kennedy remains unknown."

And of course Ford reported everything he did and his contacts with RFK back to wave, very handy.

Easy to understand why Bobby used some independent contacts as well.

Not being an avid fan of Hersh I question if he didn't stir in a little of his own agenda in the quote above?

But I may have missed something in the thread...?

-- thanks, Larry

[William Kelly]

Very interesting thread but I must have missed something. From the documents it appears that Ford was assigned by WAVE as a liason to RFK and assisted in meeting with a variety of Cubans who might be of interest in a coup or other acts against Castro. We know that RFK was very interested in that and was reaching out to a lot of exiles ..sometimes using his own personal network as well. But what (other than some Church committee suspicion) have we seen that justifies Hersh's comment e.g.

"...According to notes obtained by (Black Slyde) Hersh,...Hersh also learned that in 1962, while the assassination efforts involving the Mafia hit men were still under way, Bobby Kennedy was assigned his own operaitonal officer in the CIA, a man named Charles Ford picked from the staff of Task Force W, then commanded by (William) Harvey. Ford's job was to handle contacts with Mafia chiefs while traveling under the pseudonym of Rocky Fiscalini, a name (along with Ford's own) that appears in Bobby Kennedy's office logs for 1962. But what Ford actually did for Kennedy remains unknown."

And of course Ford reported everything he did and his contacts with RFK back to wave, very handy.

Easy to understand why Bobby used some independent contacts as well.

Not being an avid fan of Hersh I question if he didn't stir in a little of his own agenda in the quote above?

But I may have missed something in the thread...?

-- thanks, Larry

No Larry, I think you got it all. While Hersh fits in with the level of the Summers/Talbot/Morley standards of journalistic responsibilities, he didn't disguise his feelings in the Dark Side, and certainly stretches reality from what is known of the same public record you and I know.

The C.D. Ford connections only play into the hands of those rabid anti-RFK subjects/suspects - looking for the proof that RFK okayed the kill Castro team who killed his brother.

But the truth of the matter is that Ford was in the same OSS unit as J. W. Moore, same Princeton as Dulles, was from the same old Atlantic City neighborhood as John Martino, and he was part of the JM/WAVE nexus, and he was used to set up RFK as part of the coup to kill the President. Just as the leader of the Northen Alliance had to be assassinated two days before 9/11, cutting off the head of the most immediate response to the attacks - RFK had to be neutralized before his brother was killed.

This is best reflected in the response of the Powers/Hersh/Holland hound dogs hot after Ford years before we ever heard about him - and then silence - After announcing Ford had all the answers, after getting his story, which didn't reflect their world view of things, it was simply discarded.

Well, I think we should find out as much as possible about Charles Donald Ford, "Donny" not "Charlie" Joan - and see what was really going on.

What do you think, Larry?

BK

[Larry Hancock]

OK Bill, that's more like it. If we drop the RFK/Mafia diversion and dig into the connections between Ford and the SE Asian old boy

network I think that is of great interest.

As you know from SWHT, I have strong suspicions that that particular clique may have not only have set a context for the JFK

conspiracy but for a good number of other foul deeds for the next decade or so....fellow travelers on the dark side.

And I don't think that RFK would have been assigned a liason just by taking the first guy who had a free schedule that day...

-- with you now, Larry

[William Kelly]

From David Kaiser's The Road to Dallas, Criminals, Cubans, Kennedys, and the CIA, p. 114

You wouldn't know it from the index, but there is a good, strong reference to C.D. Ford:

"Robert Kennedy's intense personal interest in the Cuban question continued to cause problems for the CIA. Because his support for Cuban rebels was well known, exile groups made many attempts to contact him. On September 24 the attorney general visited with Ernesto Betancourt, leader of a small Cuban Liberation Army (Ejercito de Liberacion Cubana, or ELC), which had apparently opened a modest training camp in Florida with the tolerance, if not the active supervision, of the CIA. 47. Kennedy told the CIA deputy director that, according to this group, an armed uprising was about to take place in Cuba, and they needed help. The attorney general went on to say, 'that Benancourt's group and its plans might fall within the framework of decisions reached by the Special Group about a month ago, and that, therefore, someone appearing to be other than a CIA officer should get in touch with Betancourt' and find out what was happening."

"In an attempt to confirm this story, an unidentified CIA agent spoke to Eduardo Perez Gonzales, also known as Captain Bayo. He had worked in 1961 as a crew member on the CIA-sponsored boat Tejana, which had been active in the waters around Cuba before the Bay of Pigs. Bayo confirmed what Betncourt said. He predicted an uprising of 15,000 men on September 30 and asked an American representative to meet with its leaders at Guantanamo on September 28.

The agent , known as Charles Ford, advised the Cubans to stop the uprising, which was also supposed to involve the assassination of Fidel and Raoul Castro and Che Guevara.

JMWAVE reported that Bayo claimed to have swum from Guantanamo into Cuba and met with rebel leaders in mid month. But when the agency asked the Office of Naval Intelligence at Guantanamo, they replied that Bayo had not made it into Cuba at all. By October 4 a presumably exasperated William Harvey informed the attorney general that Bayo's story did not hold up and that nothing was to be gained by any further contact with him. 48. Despite Bayo's lies, no one serious investigated the possibility that the whole story - and especially the request for a meeting in Guantanamo - might have been a Castro inspired provocation..."

p.115.

No, David, no one except Mad Max Holland, "They call me Gus" Russo and other CIA appologists and propagandists would even think that it all meant that it was "a Castro inspired provocation." Everybody else who knows what's going on would think it was a CIA inspired provocation.

Since we've already established that C.D. Ford and J. Walton Moore were in the same 0SS unit and assigned to Southeast Asia together during WWII, I would think that any and all references to "Charlie" C.D. Ford would be of interest.

Charles, aka C.D. Ford, the Atlantic City native who grew up in the same small, Ducktown neighborhood as one of Kaiser's chief suspects in the conspiracy, John Martino, the same C.D. Ford who attended Holy Spirt High School, Princeton, OSS and career CIA, Domestic Contacts Division and Training for decades, except for a few months when sent "operational" and assigned to JMWAVE, and made RFK's liason to CIA.

Charlie Ford.

Major Player. Knight, Bishop or Rook.

BK

Edited May 19, 2008 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

OK Bill, that's more like it. If we drop the RFK/Mafia diversion and dig into the connections between Ford and the SE Asian old boy

network I think that is of great interest.

As you know from SWHT, I have strong suspicions that that particular clique may have not only have set a context for the JFK

conspiracy but for a good number of other foul deeds for the next decade or so....fellow travelers on the dark side.

And I don't think that RFK would have been assigned a liason just by taking the first guy who had a free schedule that day...

-- with you now, Larry

So we have C. D. Ford and J. Walton Moore together in OSS in SEA during WWII, with Ford going into CIA Training section, where he stayed pretty much his entire career, except for his year or so assignment with JMWAVE and RFK/CIA liason, whatever that means.

J.W. Moore on the other hand, was in the Domestic Contacts Division (DCD), that reputedly interviewed Americans returning from abroad, for most of his career, which was limited for the most part to Dallas/Texas area.

So who did Ford and Moore report to officially, in their respective departments - Training and DOD?

BK

[William Kelly]

OK Bill, that's more like it. If we drop the RFK/Mafia diversion and dig into the connections between Ford and the SE Asian old boy

network I think that is of great interest.

As you know from SWHT, I have strong suspicions that that particular clique may have not only have set a context for the JFK

conspiracy but for a good number of other foul deeds for the next decade or so....fellow travelers on the dark side.

And I don't think that RFK would have been assigned a liason just by taking the first guy who had a free schedule that day...

-- with you now, Larry

Here's an report on Ford:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/....do?docId=16067

So we have C. D. Ford and J. Walton Moore together in OSS in SEA during WWII, with Ford going into CIA Training section, where he stayed pretty much his entire career, except for his year or so assignment with JMWAVE and RFK/CIA liason, whatever that means.

J.W. Moore on the other hand, was in the Domestic Contacts Division (DCD), that reputedly interviewed Americans returning from abroad, for most of his career, which was limited for the most part to Dallas/Texas area.

So who did Ford and Moore report to officially, in their respective departments - Training and DOD?

BK

[William Kelly]

I just had to bring this thread back to life, wondering why Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman don't bother to mention Charles Ford in either Ultimate Sacrifice or Legacy of Secrecy when he cuts to the heart of the JFK/RFK - CIA/Mafia plots.

BK

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

I just had to bring this thread back to life, wondering why Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman don't bother to mention Charles Ford in either Ultimate Sacrifice or Legacy of Secrecy when he cuts to the heart of the JFK/RFK - CIA/Mafia plots.

BK

----good idea William. As I recall we never got any serious answers from Joan Mellen about the document that (I think) you posted that seemed to clear RFK from the charges that Mellen made about Bobby. The idea that Bobby was frozen in his tracks by too-close connections to sundry Cubans needs a lot more work to become a convincing rational for his PERMANENT participation in the coverup of his brothers murder.

[William Kelly]

I just had to bring this thread back to life, wondering why Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman don't bother to mention Charles Ford in either Ultimate Sacrifice or Legacy of Secrecy when he cuts to the heart of the JFK/RFK - CIA/Mafia plots.

BK

----good idea William. As I recall we never got any serious answers from Joan Mellen about the document that (I think) you posted that seemed to clear RFK from the charges that Mellen made about Bobby. The idea that Bobby was frozen in his tracks by too-close connections to sundry Cubans needs a lot more work to become a convincing rational for his PERMANENT participation in the coverup of his brothers murder.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Joan would be a lot more convincing for me if she didn't always seem determined to portray RFK as a Hotheaded Cold Warrior who had to be reigned in by his brother. Yes, we know about his background with McCarthy, et. al. But even as early as the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think that this portrayal can be misleading. Yes, RFK at time sided with the more aggresive folk but his position changed, and many of his comments seem designed to preserve flexibility for the president, while maintaining commity with the extremely hot headed Nitzes and at times nearly deffiant members of the JCS. Then as shown in THy Will Be Done, RFK turned from his cold war persona a lot faster than Joan and some others would have us believe. I think the image we get of RFK as a 1968 sheer opportunist is a severly distorted one, and I wonder sometimes how closely some of his harsher critics have read the record.

Sometimes it seems as if Joan Judges Bobby as if the era between 1961 and 63 were identical to that of the late 1960s. She seems to assume that both RFK and JFK had far more flexibility than we now know that actually had, given the pressures of the permanent millitary and intelligence bureacracies that were pressuring them from relations developed during the 1950s. Though JFK did go over their heads to the people on such issues as the Test Ban Treaty, we need bear in mind that there was still a very strong 50s overhang to these years and as Gareth Porter makes clear the JFK way included waryness over lingering McCarthyist accusations, that made much of his fight against the hawks take the form of silent end runs and bureacratic machinations that were sometimes just ahead of the similar machinations of his enemies. In this context, to criticize both JFK and RFK from a more populist left angle of 1968 can be severely misleading when it comes to analyzing the intentions of both brothers.

Also,sometimes I wonder it there might be a connection between this undeservedly harsh view and the utter lack of interest in his assassination at least in comparison with that of his brother. This question is particularly bothersome, given the ease with which many could be convinced that the investigation into the RFK murder was one of the most ridiculous farces of them all.

Strange neglect indeed. Are audiences being divided? Is the neglect in some way orchastrated?

Edited August 6, 2009 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer