Alexander Haig and the Assassination of JFK

[John Simkin]

Alexander Haig died earlier this month. I thought it might be worth considering the possible links between Haig and the assassination of JFK.

Several of the suspects had links with intelligence activities in post-war China. Haig also falls into this category. Haig graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1947 as 214th in the class of 310. (He had been initially rejected because of his poor academic record but standards were lowered because of the Second World War.) After graduating Lieutenant Haig was sent to Japan and became aide-de-camp to General Alonzo Fox, deputy chief of staff to General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme Allied commander. Haig later married Fox's daughter. According to Harold Jackson: The experience of MacArthur's megalomania left an indelible impression on Haig." Haig admitted later: "I was always interested in politics and started early in Japan, with a rather sophisticated view of how the military ran it." Haig's next assignment was to accompany his father-in-law to Taiwan, on a liaison mission to Chiang Kai-shek.

In 1959 Haig began a master's degree program in international relations at Georgetown University. The topic of his thesis in 1962 was the role of the military officer in the shaping of national security policy. After completing his degree Haig went to the International and Policy Planning Division of the Pentagon. This brought him into contact with Strom Thurmond and Fred Buzhardt.

Haig was considered a hawk during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He later claimed that it disillusioned him with the way the doctrine of flexible response was applied. He complained that JFK "never applied one iota of force" and added "I was against this. It provided an incentive to the other side to up the ante." Soon afterwards he appointed as military assistant to Joe Califano, a lawyer in the army secretary's office. In 1963 Califano arranged for Haig to assimilate into the army some of the Cuban exile veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation.

Haig's connections with the downfall of Nixon. After H. R. Haldeman was forced to resign over the Watergate Scandal, Haig became Nixon's Chief of Staff. In the first week of November, 1973, Deep Throat told Bob Woodward that their were "gaps" in Nixon's tapes. He hinted that these gaps were the result of deliberate erasures. On 8th November, Woodward published an article in the Washington Post that said that according to their source the "conservation on some of the tapes appears to have been erased". According to Fred Emery, the author of Watergate: The Corruption and Fall of Richard Nixon, only Haig, Richard Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Stephen Bull knew about this erased tape before it was made public on 20th November.

Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, the authors of "Silent Coup: The Removal of a President", claimed that Haig was Deep Throat. Jim Hougan (Secret Agenda) and John Dean (Lost Honor) agreed with this analysis. Was Haig working for the CIA in the overthrow of both Kennedy and Nixon?

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

[Jack White]

Alexander Haig died earlier this month. I thought it might be worth considering the possible links between Haig and the assassination of JFK.

Several of the suspects had links with intelligence activities in post-war China. Haig also falls into this category. Haig graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1947 as 214th in the class of 310. (He had been initially rejected because of his poor academic record but standards were lowered because of the Second World War.) After graduating Lieutenant Haig was sent to Japan and became aide-de-camp to General Alonzo Fox, deputy chief of staff to General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme Allied commander. Haig later married Fox's daughter. According to Harold Jackson: The experience of MacArthur's megalomania left an indelible impression on Haig." Haig admitted later: "I was always interested in politics and started early in Japan, with a rather sophisticated view of how the military ran it." Haig's next assignment was to accompany his father-in-law to Taiwan, on a liaison mission to Chiang Kai-shek.

In 1959 Haig began a master's degree program in international relations at Georgetown University. The topic of his thesis in 1962 was the role of the military officer in the shaping of national security policy. After completing his degree Haig went to the International and Policy Planning Division of the Pentagon. This brought him into contact with Strom Thurmond and Fred Buzhardt.

Haig was considered a hawk during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He later claimed that it disillusioned him with the way the doctrine of flexible response was applied. He complained that JFK "never applied one iota of force" and added "I was against this. It provided an incentive to the other side to up the ante." Soon afterwards he appointed as military assistant to Joe Califano, a lawyer in the army secretary's office. In 1963 Califano arranged for Haig to assimilate into the army some of the Cuban exile veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation.

Haig's connections with the downfall of Nixon. After H. R. Haldeman was forced to resign over the Watergate Scandal, Haig became Nixon's Chief of Staff. In the first week of November, 1973, Deep Throat told Bob Woodward that their were "gaps" in Nixon's tapes. He hinted that these gaps were the result of deliberate erasures. On 8th November, Woodward published an article in the Washington Post that said that according to their source the "conservation on some of the tapes appears to have been erased". According to Fred Emery, the author of Watergate: The Corruption and Fall of Richard Nixon, only Haig, Richard Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Stephen Bull knew about this erased tape before it was made public on 20th November.

Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, the authors of "Silent Coup: The Removal of a President", claimed that Haig was Deep Throat. Jim Hougan (Secret Agenda) and John Dean (Lost Honor) agreed with this analysis. Was Haig working for the CIA in the overthrow of both Kennedy and Nixon?

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

Probably.

With his death, will the inventors of Deep Throat come clean as promised?

[William Kelly]

Haig was considered a hawk during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He later claimed that it disillusioned him with the way the doctrine of flexible response was applied. He complained that JFK "never applied one iota of force" and added "I was against this. It provided an incentive to the other side to up the ante." Soon afterwards he appointed as military assistant to Joe Califano, a lawyer in the army secretary's office. In 1963 Califano arranged for Haig to assimilate into the army some of the Cuban exile veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13868

Haig's rapid career rise, from the lowest third of his class at West Point to positions in a succession of Democratic and Republican administrations starting with JFK's, benefited in part from sponsorship by Joseph Califano Jr., a powerful Washington attorney who served in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and was considered a close ally of LBJ's Washington Post chair and publisher Katherine Graham initially brought

Califano and his law partner Edward Bennett Williams together and the two attorneys spoke of lunching frequently on Saturdays with managing editor Ben Bradlee or "Other pals form the Post" Complicating matters and illuminating these tangled alliances, Califano served as counsel for both the Post and the democartaic National Committee-- the very entity purportedly victimized by the president's men. As secretary of the Army under LBJ, Califano had been responsible for looking after Veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion,along with two of his aides: Haig and Alexander Butterfield

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/..._Archive_-_2008

14 Jul 2008 - More Califano Papers: Additional documents from the files of Joseph Califano include List of Cuban Contingencies, Utilization of Alpha 66 in Operations, The Future of Cuba, Cover and Deception Plans for Caribbean Survey Group, and more.

Califano, who testified before the HSCA, was appointed, on January 20, 1964, as the person responsible for the administration of all the Cuban operations, and proceeded to shut them down.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=1843

Record:

CALIFANO, JOSEPH A., JR.

Sources:

SSCIA 157-10002-10081 (MMF 1793-1796); The Fish is Red, Hinckle & Turner (153, 342); Coincidence or Conspiracy, Fensterwald (125); CIA-Mafia Link, Ashman (29); Deep Politics, Scott, p. 306

Mary's Comments:

In the JFK administration. In a Sept 6, 1963, memo from Gordon Chase to Bundy, it was assumed that Cyrus Vance, as a member of the Cuban Coordinating Commmittee, had confided the details of the exile raids and Operation MONGOOSE to Califano. Lyndon Johnson's friend. Attorney.

Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron :

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:kOWZD1...cd=14&gl=us

It was not until 2004 that Joseph Califano, assistant to Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance in 1963, briefly hinted at the sensitive operation that Robert Kennedy had managed and had withheld from the Warren Commission. Califano wrote: "No one on the Warren Commission . . . talked to me or (so far as I know) anyone else involved in the covert attacks on Castro. . . . The Commission was not informed of any of the efforts of Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA and Robert Kennedy to eliminate Castro and stage a coup" in the fall of 1963.[36]

http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Chapter5.htm - _ftn68

Peter Dale Scott – Deep Politics III

The Kennedy-CIA Divergence Over Cuba – Chapter V.

To this preference for control can be added another one. The CIA, despite its fiasco at the Bay of Pigs, was still hoping to reassert itself as the preferred agency for paramilitary operations, which had accounted for the biggest item in its annual budget. In this respect AMTRUNK, an inter-agency operation, may have been distasteful to it, because by all accounts the key co-ordinating role was given, not to the CIA, but to the Department of the Army under Cyrus Vance and his aides Joseph Califano and Alexander Haig.[68]

http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Chapter5.htm#_ftnref68#_ftnref68">

[68://http://www.history-matters.com/pds/...ot;] [68://http://www.history-matters.com/pds/...pds/...ot;] [68://http://www.history-matters.com/pds/...pds/...ot;] [68]

Hinckle and Turner, The Fish Is Red, 153, 342. (Haig was appointed to his position under Vance on June 28, 1963.) The CIA lost this bureaucratic battle to the U.S. Army, which in 1964 took over the CIA's Special Operations Group (SOG) in Vietnam, along with its Green Berets.

MAX HOLLAND:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:tHL4ur...;cd=8&gl=us

…Professor Schlesinger is not going to find many documents, either, that buttress his argument--i.e., that getting rid of Castro was not an obsession within the Kennedy Administration. Forget about the CIA for once. Consider instead the records from a long-forgotten, obscure entity called the Interdepartmental Coordinating Committee on Cuban Affairs (ICCCA). The public is seldom privy to the give-and-take of frequently pivotal, ad hoc task forces. Inter-agency deliberations have their own special exemption under the Freedom of Information Act. Acting on a tip, however, the ARRB located the records of the Defense Department's executive agent for all ICCCA meetings in 1962-­63. He was the Secretary of the Army, a fellow named Cyrus Vance. His special assistant, Joseph Califano, frequently represented Vance at ICCCA meetings and participated in all policy deliberations, as did Vance's military aide, Army Maj. Alexander Haig.

Reading through these records one learns how three future Cabinet officials, including two secretaries of state, partook in deliberations over how to create a real or simulated incident--blowing up vessels, shooting down an airliner--that would provide Washington with the pretext necessary to invade Cuba in 1962, seeing as how another invasion by exiles was out of the question. Concurrently, the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared their own notions of what a usable "Sink the Maine" scenario might look like. Planting arms in a Caribbean country and sending in jets painted to look like Cuban MIGs was one idea. Blaming Havana for the failure of John Glenn's Mercury flight, if it failed, was another brainstorm. Apparently, the entire national security apparatus went mad with near-criminal schemes to get rid of Castro after the Bay of Pigs.

It isn't only the myth-makers who have reason to be concerned about the Assassination Records Review Board's papers neatly shelved at the National Archives

ARRB Records on Cuba

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Dq3KER...cd=18&gl=us

In 1963, Joseph Califano served as both General Counsel to Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance and as Special Assistant to the Army Secretary. NARA identified six Federal Records Center boxes containing the Cuba policy papers of Joseph Califano from 1963. The Review Board designated the six boxes of "Califano Papers," in their entirety, as appropriate for inclusion in the JFK Collection.

During 1963, Secretary Vance was the "DOD Executive Agent" for all meetings of the governmental task force, the "Interdepartmental Coordinating Committee on Cuban Affairs," (ICCCA). As Vance's special assistant, Califano often represented him at meetings of the ICCCA, and was part of all ICCCA policy deliberations. The collection of Califano Papers represents a unique find and reflects much of the interagency planning activities related to Cuba during 1963.

Legacy of Secrecy (p. 790 notes, Chapter 2)

"11. While (Defense Intelligence Agency director) General Carroll probably wouldn't have appreciated knowing his conversations were being reported to the CIA, his own associates were enganged in a similar high level surveillance. In Jospeh Califano's recent autobiography, he points to a time in June 1963 when he and his superior, Army Secretary Cyrus Vance, 'secretly ran all' of 'the White House and Justice Department...communication lines through the Army war room. Sitting there, Vance and I were able to listen to any conversation the President or Attorney General had...Because we assumed Robert Kennedy would have objected to our evesdropping, we never let him know."

Joseph A. Califano, Inside: A Public and Private Life (New York, Public Affaird, 2004, p. 109).

[bK Notes: I think this is a pretty revealing statement. How come the people in on and in some cases responsible for the "Contingency Plans for a Coup in Cuba" - Califano, Vance, Haig, Halpern, et al, are the same guys who Russo and Waldron quote as saying RFK was behind the plots to kill Castro that were used to kill JFK? And now we know the same guys were behind the Venezuelan Arms Cache - Northwoods Operation, run at the same time as Dealey Plaza.

And here, there's Vance and Califano admitting they privately bugged "the White House and Justice Dept. through the Army War Room," so they knew what the bros were really thinking and saying to each other. They also would be tipped off if the bros were suspicious of the plots against them.

I am leaning towards the idea that "the Congingency Plans for a Coup in Cuba" was actually the code for the coup against the Kennedys. -BK ]

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...rt=#entry184789

[ BK: The Contingency Plans for a Coup in Cuba, the basis for the Dealey Plaza operation, which included the Valkyrie Plans to blame the assassination on Castro, were among the Califano papers that were released by the JFK Act. ]

NARA Record Number: 198-10004-10031

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...absPageId=49796

STATUS OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CONTINGENCY-PLANS TO COUNTER CASTRO INSPIRED INSURGENCY ATTACKS AGAINST U.S. MILITARY PROPERTY IN LATIN AMERICA

MEETING AT STATE, 4 DECEMBER 1963 ON CUBA pg 1

Found in: Army - Califano Papers

ARMY FROM A.M HAIG TO JOSEPH CALIFANO TITLE MEETING AT STATE 4 DECEMBER 1963 ON CUBA DATE 12/00/63 PAGES 4 SUBJECTS MULTILATERAL EFFORTS UNDER THE OAS MACHINERY POSSIBLE STEPPED UP POLITICAL

RIF#: 198-10004-10045 (12/00/63)

TESTIMONY OF L. FLETCHER PROUTY, 16 JUL 1975 pg 58

Found in: Church Committee Boxed Files

Counsel who at that time was General Califano And the man that did the job was Haig Haig was assigned to this and Haig has come up and said he was When I would go to Califano office Haig had an office....

RIF#: 157-10011-10041 (07/16/75)

"Recently General Alexander Haig, who in 1963 was Robert Kennedy's right hand man in carrying out military sabotage activities against Cuba, stated:

'Bobby Kennedy is personally responsible for at least 8 assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. Kennedy wanted to get rid of Castro, but Castro got him first.'" - Carlos Bringuier

Edited February 27, 2010 by William Kelly

[John Simkin]

Here is one example of relationships that have received no attention. Discovering these curious bits of disjointed history, and piecing them together, influenced me to ask why theres is such an overwhelming fixation of active posters on the forum, with photos and movies of events in Dealey Plaza, i.e., with all things Dealey Plaza. Has anything definitive resulted in this focus, lately, or even not so lately?

Looking at the threads created in the JFK Debate in the last few months, and the numbers of posts and views they've attracted, depending on the subject, I have to wonder what is going on here? It seems like almost all of the oxygen in this forum is being sucked up in a very narrow line of inquiry. I don't see how it will end up taking us where we need to go.

I don't know where to look next,, but I'll bet the fertile research ground won't be found where the focus of the majority is.

Link to Bill Kelly's 8 months old post. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=169208

This is great stuff. It was apparently released - leaked, in an attempt to defend Alex Haig from the impression portrayed on Oliver Stone's HBO TV special "The Day Reagan Was Shot," which was the raving maniac he was, saying the Secretary of State was next in line for the presidency after the Vice President (G.H.W. Bush I).

Here's a guy who was in the Situation Room when JFK was killed and when Reagan was shot.

What are the odds?

In 1963 Haig was part of the Army's DOD covert ops team at the Pentagon - along with Joe Califano, Gen. Krulack, Col. Higgens, et al., who were running the "Contingency Plans for a Coup in Cuba," that was adapting the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler to use against Castro. They ran the Task Force with the CIA that conducted all of the covert ops against Cuba, including the maritime ops from JMWAVE that became entangled with the Dealey Plaza operation.

So they released THIS transcript to support Haig?

As John Judge says, it's a transcript of "a coup in progress."

It's a shame that Ollie Stone didn't have this when they made the movie, or

they could have just used it as the dialog, something out of Marx Brothers movie.

Who's in charge here, anyway?

Who'se got the football? (You have to imagine Groucho asking this - puff puff).

Who'se on alert?

Who's on first?

It's a real scarry Rod Serling script ripe for the Twilight Zone.

I hope somebody else enjoys this as much as I did.

BK

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articl...26/202623.shtml

Excerpts From the White House Situation Room on the Day Reagan Was Shot

NewsMax.com

Tuesday, March 27, 2001

Transcript of recordings made by National Security Adviser Richard Allen on the day Ronald Reagan was shot, March 30, 1981.

COLSON: Someone out there wants to know if you want the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

ALLEN: I don't think we need him here ... Cap is the – Cap is here.

HAIG: Cap is the – and the football is near the Vice President – so that's fine.

ALLEN: We should get one over here. We have a duplicate one here.

HAIG: Get the football over here.

ALLEN: There is one at the military aide's office. The football is in the closet ... I don't think we need the Chair of the Joint Chiefs over here, do you? Let's leave him over at the NMCC [National Military Command Center, at the Pentagon]. This is a draft statement, but I want to put something else in it.

FIELDING: Do you want any other Cabinet members?

ALLEN: No, they should all be told to stand by. Here's the copy of that draft statement [on the President's condition]. You don't want the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs over here?

WEINBERGER: Well, I want ... not over here, I want him ...

ALLEN: At the NMCC.

WEINBERGER: Yeah, and they should go on alert or be ready to go on alert. SAC [the Strategic Air Command] went on alert with Kennedy's assassination.

***

HAIG: We'll be on a straight line from the hospital. So anything that is said, before it's said, we'll discuss at this table ... and any telephone calls that anybody is getting with instructions from the hospital come to this table first [raising voice] ... RIGHT HERE! And we discuss it and know what's going on.

WEINBERGER: I have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs coming on, Jones, in just a second. We're going to tell him to get alerts to the Strategic Air Command and such other units that seem to him to be desirable at this point.

HAIG: What kind of alert, Cap?

WEINBERGER: It's a standby alert ... just a standby alert.

HAIG: You're not raising readiness?

WEINBERGER: No, but the main thing is that he should stay there in the Command Center. Not here.

HAIG: Right.

DARMAN: Is that information not to be released up till ...

ALLEN: It'll leak ...

WEINBERGER: Well, until we know more about it. The alert, they'll probably put themselves on alert, but I just want to be sure.

HAIG: Do we have a football here? Do we?

ALLEN: Right there.

REGAN: Al! Don't elevate it! Be careful!

HAIG: Absolutely! Absolutely! That's why I toned down the message that was going out ... there's no reason for that.

WEINBERGER: Yeah, I don't think anything that talks about continuity of government or anything ... that sounds like we know a lot more than we do.

REGAN: This is apt to turn out to be a loner.

WEINBERGER: I think it was!

MURPHY: Cap, what do they mean by "alert"?

WEINBERGER: Well, an alert is ...

MURPHY: We've been down this path once before with Henry [Kissinger].

WEINBERGER: That's right. The alert simply is that there are conditions which may require very quick actions.

MURPHY: Are you sure that doesn't mean Defcon Three ... or Four?

WEINBERGER: No, no ... I'll fill in ... It's a matter of being ready for some later call ...

HAIG: Yeah, I think the important thing, fellows, is that these things always generate a lot of dope stories, and everybody is running around telling everybody everything that they can get out of their gut ... and I think it's goddamn important that none of that happens. The President, uh, as long as he is conscious and can function ...

WEINBERGER: Well, that's right ... the Vice President's in an Air Force plane.

ALLEN: Well, just let me point out to you that the President is not now conscious.

HAIG: No, of course not.

***

FIELDING: A rather technical thing is that the President can pass the baton temporarily under the law, and we're preparing that right now ... toward the eventuality ...

HAIG: That's what I was going to ask next. What are the legal ...

FIELDING: It's being prepared right now.

HAIG: That's the pass the baton to the Vice President ...

FIELDING: On a temporary basis. It passes to him in writing from the President until the President rescinds it.

HAIG: Has somebody gone into the Eisenhower precedent on this? I think we need that from a public-relations point of view.

FIELDING: Well, we may not want to put it out.

HAIG: No, the things you want to make note of are first, precisely what happened, notification of the Vice President, assembly of the key crisis Cabinet, preservation of continuity of command, and that it was handled.

WEINBERGER (on the telephone to the Pentagon): No, I think what we want to do is increase the degree of alertness so that in the event there should be anything required shortly, that could be done within a minimum amount of time ...

Gergen interrupted to ask a question, and Haig declared that he himself was constitutionally the person in charge.

GERGEN: Al, a quick question. We need some sense, more better sense of where the President is. Is he under sedation now?

HAIG: He's not on the operating table.

GERGEN: He is on the operating table!

HAIG: So the ... the helm is right here. And that means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the Vice President gets here.

GERGEN: I understand that. I understand that.

HAIG: Yeah.

***

WEINBERGER: We've got the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Joint Chiefs in the Military Command Center. The alert has been raised from a normal condition to a standby condition under which they can move to a much higher degree very quickly. There is no, there will be no publicity about it. And the degree of alertness at the moment is going to commanders only, so that there would not be a lot of leaks right away from the men. All of that on the basis that at this point it looks like an isolated incident, but there isn't enough information and we want to remain alert. So that's where the armed forces stand.

***

HAIG: Why don't you come with me?

Allen (to staff): Okay, I'll be back later ...

HAIG: How do you get to the press room?

ALLEN: Up here.

HAIG: Yeah ... he's just turning this into a goddamned disaster!

ALLEN: Who has?

HAIG: How can he walk into the press room ... Speakes ...

ALLEN: Did he walk in up here?

HAIG: He's up there now.

ALLEN: Christ almighty, why's he doing that?

PRESS STAFFER: They want to know who's running the government.

ALLEN: Oh, well, just a minute ...

HAIG: We'll assemble them ... we'll ...

STAFFER: You're coming back? [shouting] They're coming back again ... The Secretary of State! The Secretary of State!

***

PRESS REPRESENTATIVE: Who is making the decisions for the government right now? Who is making the decisions?

HAIG: Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State, in that order, and should the President decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Vice President, he will do so. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the Vice President and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.

***

REGAN: Preliminary investigation by the FBI and the Secret Service, no plot, no reason why the suspect shouldn't be in the area. They're conducting a background investigation in Lubbock, Texas. He stayed at the Park Central Hotel here, which is one block from the Executive Office Building.

WEINBERGER: We have the SAC bases ... we have the crews who are normally on alert twenty-four hours a day move from the base to their planes. The nearest submarine is [redacted] minutes, forty-seven seconds off, which is about two minutes closer than normal.

ALLEN: Nearest Soviet sub. Al, are you listening? [Redacted] minutes, forty-seven seconds – the nearest Soviet sub.

WEINBERGER: Yeah. Not enough to worry about. They're in and out there all the time, but it is a close approach. And the bomber crews of the Strategic Air Command, they are always on the alert, certain numbers, and those that are on alert now are moving from alert in their quarters and on the post to their planes. Simply stated, that's all ...

HAIG: That's based on the Soviet situation and not on anything here?

WEINBERGER: Well, that's based on the idea that until we know a little bit more about it, it is better to be in the plane which saves three and a half to four minutes than it is to stay in their quarters.

HAIG: I said up there, Cap ... I'm not a xxxx. I said there had been no increased alert.

WEINBERGER: Well, I didn't know you were going up, Al. I think if ...

HAIG: I had to, because we had the question already started and we were going to be in a big flap.

WEINBERGER: Well, I think we could have done a little better if we had concerted on a specific statement to be handed out. When you're up there with questions, why then it's not anything you can control, and ...

HAIG: Well, we had just discussed that here at the table, and we said we were not going to increase alert.

WEINBERGER: It may not be increasing the alert from a technical point of view, but once you get the additional information which I got about the one sub being closer than they've been before, then it seemed prudent to me to save three or four minutes.

HAIG: Yeah, but I think we could have discussed it.

WEINBERGER: Yeah, well, you were not here. I didn't know that you were going to make any statement, and I don't think it was a good idea to make a statement when you are with a question period. I think the best thing ...

HAIG: Well, you have the right to say that when we discuss it, and we did talk about it and everyone agreed there wouldn't be an increased alert.

WEINBERGER: I didn't know you were going up. I didn't have the information about the sub at that time. The stuff is coming in every three or four minutes.

HAIG: Well, you're not telling me we're on increased alert.

WEINBERGER: We have changed the condition to the extent I indicated.

HAIG: Is that a Defcon increase?

WEINBERGER: No, I don't think it is formally classified as such.

ALLEN: It's a change of degree, is it not? It's a change ...

WEINBERGER: It's an increased degree of alertness, yes.

ALLEN: Within Defcon Five, I presume.

WEINBERGER: Yes.

***

HAIG: Let me ask you a question, Cap. Is this submarine approach, is that what's doing this, or is it the fact that the President's under surgery?

WEINBERGER: What's doing what, Al?

HAIG: That we are discussing whether or not to put the NEACP bird up in the air.

WEINBERGER: Well, I'm discussing it from the point of view that at the moment, until the Vice President actually arrives here, the command authority is what I have ... and I have to make sure that it is essential that we do everything that seems proper.

HAIG: You'd better read the Constitution.

WEINBERGER: What?

HAIG (laughing): You'd better read the Constitution. We can get the Vice President any time we want.

WEINBERGER: Well, one way or another, the initial steps, because he's not in a position there to take all of them without consultation, one way or another we ought to prepare at least enough so that we can move more rapidly than we could otherwise.

HAIG: Is it because of the submarine or because of the incident, that's the question I'm asking.

WEINBERGER: The reason that I asked to have them move to the planes is because of the incident, and I would continue to take that position until I know absolutely definitely that it's an isolated incident, which I think it is. But I don't know that yet, and I don't want to take any kinds of risk. The risk of some newspaper story or some rumor is a hell of a lot less than not having things in place.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=GRE...n&scoring=a

Banker is likely choice for Haig's assistant

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Feb 10, 1981

James Greene, president of the American Express International Banking ... GREENE, WHO served as a mid-level State Department official from 1949 to 1956, ...

http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol9/page278.php

(Testimony of George S. De Mohrenschildt Resumed)

Mr. Jenner.

the Commercial Bank of Haiti to be of further advantage to the people of Haiti."

Mr. Jenner.

You have read the two columns appearing under that heading that you described.

Now, would you read the column to the right of those two columns?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. "Mr. C. J. Charles, honorary citizen of the city of New York. Mr. Clemard Joseph Charles, president and director of the Bank Commercial of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, has come back yesterday morning with his charming wife, Sophie, from a trip of 2 weeks in New York, and was accompanied by Mr. James R. Green, vice president of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., which is a large bank of Wall Street, New York.

"Mr. Green spent just a few hours in the capital, just sufficient time to visit the Commercial Bank with which Hanover Trust Co. wants to do business. Mr. Charles is very satisfied from the contacts which he has made during this trip, and satisfied with the promotion of his commercial bank. The Haitian banker was honored by Mayor Wagner of the city of New York, and has made his assistant, Mr. O'Brien, give the key of the city as an honorary citizen, to Mr. Charles."

Mr. Jenner.

Mr. Reporter, would you mark that "George S. De Mohrenschildt Exhibit No. 1"?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. This is by the way the photograph of a paper.

Mr. Jenner.

This is a photostat of two news items, in the Haitian paper in Port-au-Prince, together with a telegram.

Now, all those together comprised, did they, some of the promotion literature with respect to your Haitian venture?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. Jenner.

In what respect? Can you give us the thrust of that?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In the respect that they acquaint the possible investor with the personalities involved.

Mr. Jenner.

All right. Who is the gentleman who sent the telegram?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Mr. Tardieu.

Mr. Jenner.

What is his first name?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Mr. B. Juindine Tardieu, who is the agent and you might say a broker who negotiated the contract with the Haitian Government.

Mr. Jenner.

Well----

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He is domiciled in Haiti.

Mr. Jenner.

All right. Now, you had some correspondence with Clemard Joseph Charles?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. Jenner.

Is the letter I now hand you, which we will identify as George S. De Mohrenschildt Exhibit No. 2, a photostatic copy of correspondence between you and that gentleman, a copy of which you transmitted to Paul Raigorodsky?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; that is the letter I received.

(The document referred to was marked "George S. De Mohrenschildt Exhibit No. 2" for identification.)

Mr. Jenner.

Now I will show you a series of three documents, the first sheet consisting of a photostat of an envelope addressed, I believe in your handwriting, to Mr. Paul Raigorodsky; is that correct?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. Jenner.

In Dallas.

The next being a personal note of yours in your longhand to Mr. Raigorodsky; is that correct?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes, indeed.

Mr. Jenner.

The next being in the form of a copy of a letter from you, dated July 27, 1962, to Mr. Jean de Menil.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes....

Thought that this should be added to this thread.

[Guest Tom Scully]

Since Albert Jenner, Asst. WC counsel is requesting, in the early months of 1964, the reading of the text a newspaper article linking Clemard Joseph Charles and James R. Greene, can we assume the report by CIA's Tony Czaikowsky of May 7, 1963, supports the idea that Czaikowsky's "Mr. Green", is James R. Greene?

http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol9/page278.php

(Testimony of George S. De Mohrenschildt Resumed)

Mr. Jenner.

the Commercial Bank of Haiti to be of further advantage to the people of Haiti."

Mr. Jenner.

You have read the two columns appearing under that heading that you described.

Now, would you read the column to the right of those two columns?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. "Mr. C. J. Charles, honorary citizen of the city of New York. Mr. Clemard Joseph Charles, president and director of the Bank Commercial of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, has come back yesterday morning with his charming wife, Sophie, from a trip of 2 weeks in New York, and was accompanied by Mr. James R. Green, vice president of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., which is a large bank of Wall Street, New York.

"Mr. Green spent just a few hours in the capital, just sufficient time to visit the Commercial Bank with which Hanover Trust Co. wants to do business. Mr. Charles is very satisfied from the contacts which he has made during this trip, and satisfied with the promotion of his commercial bank. The Haitian banker was honored by Mayor Wagner of the city of New York, and has made his assistant, Mr. O'Brien, give the key of the city as an honorary citizen, to Mr. Charles."...

http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=c...nG=Search+Books

The road to Dallas: the assassination of John F. Kennedy‎ - Page 188

David E. Kaiser - History - 2008 - 509 pages

The debrief was handled by a CIA operative from the New York Domestic ... but

Czaikowski promised Charles another meeting with a "Mr. Green" later in the ...

Limited preview -

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=GRE...n&scoring=a

Banker is likely choice for Haig's assistant

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Feb 10, 1981

James Greene, president of the American Express International Banking ... GREENE, WHO served as a mid-level State Department official from 1949 to 1956,

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=hai...n&scoring=a

Haig Sees A-power As Deterring Soviet .

Free-Lance Star - Google News Archive - Jan 10, 1981

But several asked about a report that Haig. as a National Security Council aide, in effect managed the covert oper ations against Allende In Chile. ...

Pentagon Effort In Chile Reported .

Milwaukee Journal - Google News Archive - Sep 4, 1975

Allende led a left-wing coalit io including the Chilean Communist Party, ... But, Senate investigators have been told, Haig and Karamessines met the next ..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...21300288_2.html

Pinochet Death Renews Calls for CIA Files

....Nixon's CIA director, Richard Helms, in handwritten notes said the president, intent on saving Chile from communism, ordered covert operations to "make the economy scream" under Allende.

Contrast author, Mary McCarthy's near real time critique of James R. Greene's November, 1973 Chile speech, with the following description of the CIA's Santiago, Chile station's propaganda campaign, and with the news reporting of the carnage and oppression of the laboring class, resulting from the 1973 coup. The results of the coup were admired by James Greene, and the news report spoke of an "anit-Marxist majority." If this was accurate, a "majority" would indicate that the population of Chile was primarily comprised of middle class to wealthy individuals, but this seems to be contradicted in the same

news reporting.:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/121106.html

Pinochet's Death Spares Bush Family

By Robert Parry

December 12, 2006

....With Pinochet in control, the CIA turned its attention to helping him overcome the negative publicity that his violent coup had engendered around the world. One “secret” CIA memo, written in early 1974, described the success of “the Santiago Station’s propaganda project.” The memo said:

“Prior to the coup the project’s media outlets maintained a steady barrage of anti-government criticism, exploiting every possible point of friction between the government and the democratic opposition, and emphasizing the problems and conflicts that were developing between the government and the armed forces. Since the coup, these media outlets have supported the new military government. They have tried to present the Junta in the most positive light.” [see Peter Kornbluh’s The Pinochet File]....

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/13/weekinre...ml?pagewanted=2

Word for Word/Covert Action; All the President Had to Do Was Ask; The C.I.A. Took Aim at Allende

Published: September 13, 1998 On 15 September 1970, C.I.A. was directed to try to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende's ascent to the Chilean Presidency. . . . A military coup increasingly suggested itself as the only possible solution to the Allende problem. Anti-Allende currents did exist in the military and the Carabineros, but were immobilized by the tradition of military respect for the Constitution. . . . [The C.I.A.'s propaganda efforts included] special intelligence and ''inside'' briefings given to U.S. journalists. . . .

Particularly noteworthy in this connection was the Time cover story which owed a great deal to written materials and briefings provided by C.I.A. . . . C.I.A. briefings in

Washington [deleted] changed the basic thrust of the story in the final stages according to another Time correspondent. It provoked Allende to complain on 13 October, ''We are suffering the most brutal and horrible pressure, both domestic and international,'' singling out Time in particular as having ''openly called'' for an invasion of Chile.

Another report, ''Postmortem on the Chilean Presidential Election,'' by Mr. Helms to Gen. Alexander Haig, Mr. Kissinger's military aide, weighed the stakes.

On 3 November 1970, Dr. Salvador Allende became the first democratically elected Marxist head of state in the history of Latin America -- despite the opposition of the U.S. Government. As a result, U.S. prestige and interests in Latin America and, to some extent, elsewhere are being affected materially at a time when the U.S. can ill afford problems in an area that has traditionally been accepted as the U.S. ''backyard.''

From November 1970 until September 1973, when the military seized power, the C.I.A. spent $8 million undermining President Allende. When the coup came, the United States knew about the plans and encouraged them, but played no direct role . Three weeks later, a United States military intelligence officer reconstructed the day .....

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=L6ArA...urers&hl=en

Military Junta Holds Tight Reins On Chile Populace

The Telegraph - Google News Archive - Nov 14, 1973

The military men who have replaced the rectors in the universities have depended on the organized support of conservative professors and students to purge

leftists and keep the institutions functioning.

....For the anti-Marxist majority, the euphoria over the Sept. 11 coup has largely worn off....

...The critical shortage of consumer products has ended, at least temporarily, and the rampant black market eliminated, thanks largely

to the right-wing shopkeepers associations, which hoarded huge quantities of goods during the Allende era...

....Dramatic price increases aimed at restoring the true market value of products have reduced real wages and consumption among all economic groups.

Inevitably, the Junta's economic measure had hit the working-class hardest. Faced with inflation that government officials predict will reach 600

per cent for 1973 and at least 200 per cent next year. Workers will have trouble obtaining even the basic necessities.

At the same time, workers will bear the brunt of efforts to increase industrial production. Alreasy the workweek has been lengthened from 44 hours to 48.

...At least 2,000 people have lost their lives--most of the victims of unannounced executions carried out after resistance to the armed forces had ended.--

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&lr=...nG=Search+Books

Occasional prose‎ - Page 83

Mary McCarthy - Literary Criticism - 1985 - 341 pages

...Language and Politics

The other day a headline caught my attention in the financial pages of

the International Herald Tribune.

I normally don't look at the business section or the sports and avoid anything

about astronauts. But that day — November 13 — turning the pages I saw Chilean junta

wins private financial aid.

Then in smaller type: " 'Work spirit' Praised by American Banker."

The news story related that private US bank loans had suddenly become available for Chile —

a dramatic turnabout following on the overthrow of the Allende government.

The previous Ftiday, Manufacturers Hanover Trust

had announced that it was extending a $24 million loan to a Chilian bank.

According to unnamed banking sources, decribed as

reliable, Manufacturers Hanover had lent an additional $20 million to the

central of Santiago. In any case, the $24 million was the largest credit given to Chile by a US bank

since Salvador Allende took office three years ago. Altogether, eight to ten US banks

and two Canadian banks have offered Chile

commercial loans amounting to about $150 million in the two months since Allende was overthrown.

You may wonder what all this has to do with language; the connection with politics is fairly clear.

Well, toward the bottom of the page the writer quoted a vice-president of Manufacturers Hanover,

James R. Greene, who on making the announcement spoke at length — I quote — "about the renewal of

U.S. business faith in Chile." THis is Greene talking: "The work spirit that I have seen in Chile leads

me to fully trust that the international press will correct the negative image that is being spread

about this country abroad."

You will note one split infinitive, two superfluous "that"s, and two cliche

phrases, "work spirit" and "negative image," that also seem to be circumlocutions. Aside from the question of

whether an image can be spread, like butter or like a disease or like a rumor, one asks what the speaker can be alluding to

by the blanket word "negative." It is indeed a blanket covering the summary executions of thousands of

oppositionists, the countless illegal arrests,

the setting-up of camps, the abolition of Parliament, the suppression of

left-wing political parties, the suspension of all other political parties,

press censorship, purges of the universities, factories, and state enterprises.

This is what the colorless "negative image" translates into, and the selection

of the word "image" — in its current PR definition, not yet, I see,

admitted to my dictionary, copyright 1957 — assigns a kind of

deniability to all those public facts, as though they were bodiless,

insubstantial, mere refractions of evanescent appearance, as opposed to reality.

By contrast to his handling of the negative, Greene eventually defines

what heunderstands by the "work spirit." Something positive.

Here he is again:

"The fact that Chileans are working on Saturday is a very good antecedent, as far

as my bank is concerned. This is very important in the financial world.

So work spirit means that the forty-hour week has been abolished by the junta.

He does not say, at least in the Her- ald Tribune quotes from him, that the

junta has promised to return to private capital the "vast majority" of the more

than three hundred foreign and domestic enterprises that were that were nationalized

by the Allende government without compensation. Nor that

it has announced that it is prepared to renew negotiations on compensation to

to the three US companies whose copper mines were taken over —

assets worth between $500 and $700 million. That, the joyful undersong

of the announcement he had to make, possibly did not

need to be put into words. It was tacit. But what about the

word "antecedent"? Working on Saturday is a very good antecedent, he says,

as far as his bank is concerned. I have been asking myself what word he was reaching for.

"Precedent"? But "precedent," though slightly closer to the mark, does not make sense either.

Precedent for what, unless he means working on Sunday? The thing he is trying to

articulate, evidently, is that his bank takes the extension of the work week as a good sign.

Then why not say so?

Maybe, to his ear, sign was too commonplace a word for a $24-million occasion.

Or maybe, grope as he would, he couldn't remember "sign." Not for the life of him.

Was he speaking off the cuff or reading a prepared

statement? The news story does not tell. To get back, though, for a moment to

To get back, though, for a moment to Manufacturers

Hanover — no prior knowledge of the circumstances, of Al- lende's murder, US investments, the blood bath,

would be required by a newspaper reader of Greene's quoted remarks in order to understand that

something was rotten in Chile. His language inadvertently made that clear. In South

Vietnam (when 1 was there in 1967), I noticed the same kind of thing.

If I had dropped straight from Mars, I thought, into one of the daily press briefings,

I would have known from the periphrastic, circumspect way our spokesmen expressed themselves that an

indefensible action of some sort was going on in that country.

As with Greene, just about everything they said, or, rather,

"stated," was in a kind of bumbling code that quickly translated itself into

plain English: eg, for "success," read "failure."

The purpose of language, somebody — probably French — said, is to conceal

thought. I don't agree with the aphorism, yet the American language, as spoken todsy,

often bears it out with comical results: the attempt to

conceal an underlying thought or feeling produces

almost total transparence. As when Nixon, in his letter to Senator Sam Ervin

last summer about why he was not going to hand over the tapes to the

Committee, said they might be subject to misinterpretation by persons "with

other views"; he might as well have made an announcement that he had decided

they were extremely damaging.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...78AD95F478785F9

Private U. S. Loans In Chile Up Sharply; Extension by Manufacturers Hanover of $24-Million to Banco de Chile Highlights a Turnaround American Intervention U.S. BANK CREDITS

TO CHILE SQARING

By JONATHAN KANDELLSpecial to The New York Times

November 12, 1973, Monday

Page 53,

There has been a dramatic turnaround in the availability of private United States bank loans for Chile in the wake of the overthrow of the Marxist coalition government by a military coup last September.

- New York Times - Nov 12, 1973

On Friday, for example, the Manufacturers Hanove Trust Company announced here it was extending to Bance de Chile a $24-million loan. ...

[John Dolva]

A memory from the era is about the role Copper (verdigris?) played. It's interesting that nestled in this is one mention of it, whereas it was central pre coup.

''...it has announced that it is prepared to renew negotiations on compensation to

to the three US companies whose copper mines were taken over —

assets worth between $500 and $700 million. That, the joyful undersong...''

_________

edit add: Haig seems redacted : http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch06-01.htm

____

Cyrus Vance gets a mild treatment from the MSC files and strangely anything related to Haig is not there anymore.

Edited March 1, 2010 by John Dolva

[B. A. Copeland]

Now THIS is something I ALWAYS wondered after the Watergate Affair broke out and realized that most of those who orchestrated that Coup were quite close, Haig being an insider in my personal opinion. That train of thought then lead me to wonder if, at all, he was involved with JFK's death. Excellent topic.

[Jim Feemster]

I seem to remember when Reagan was shot during his assassination attempt, A. Haig had a press conference where he said,

"I AM IN CONTROL"! Later he had to explain himself.

What was that all about?

jim

[David Andrews]

Rockefeller proteges and Rockefeller-affiliated organization members in second Nixon admin (partial list):

Alexander Haig

Alexander Butterfield

Henry Kissinger

Charles Colson

John Dean

Edited March 4, 2010 by David Andrews

[Guest John Gillespie]

Alexander Haig died earlier this month. I thought it might be worth considering the possible links between Haig and the assassination of JFK.

Several of the suspects had links with intelligence activities in post-war China. Haig also falls into this category. Haig graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1947 as 214th in the class of 310. (He had been initially rejected because of his poor academic record but standards were lowered because of the Second World War.) After graduating Lieutenant Haig was sent to Japan and became aide-de-camp to General Alonzo Fox, deputy chief of staff to General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme Allied commander. Haig later married Fox's daughter. According to Harold Jackson: The experience of MacArthur's megalomania left an indelible impression on Haig." Haig admitted later: "I was always interested in politics and started early in Japan, with a rather sophisticated view of how the military ran it." Haig's next assignment was to accompany his father-in-law to Taiwan, on a liaison mission to Chiang Kai-shek.

In 1959 Haig began a master's degree program in international relations at Georgetown University. The topic of his thesis in 1962 was the role of the military officer in the shaping of national security policy. After completing his degree Haig went to the International and Policy Planning Division of the Pentagon. This brought him into contact with Strom Thurmond and Fred Buzhardt.

Haig was considered a hawk during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He later claimed that it disillusioned him with the way the doctrine of flexible response was applied. He complained that JFK "never applied one iota of force" and added "I was against this. It provided an incentive to the other side to up the ante." Soon afterwards he appointed as military assistant to Joe Califano, a lawyer in the army secretary's office. In 1963 Califano arranged for Haig to assimilate into the army some of the Cuban exile veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation.

Haig's connections with the downfall of Nixon. After H. R. Haldeman was forced to resign over the Watergate Scandal, Haig became Nixon's Chief of Staff. In the first week of November, 1973, Deep Throat told Bob Woodward that their were "gaps" in Nixon's tapes. He hinted that these gaps were the result of deliberate erasures. On 8th November, Woodward published an article in the Washington Post that said that according to their source the "conservation on some of the tapes appears to have been erased". According to Fred Emery, the author of Watergate: The Corruption and Fall of Richard Nixon, only Haig, Richard Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Stephen Bull knew about this erased tape before it was made public on 20th November.

Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, the authors of "Silent Coup: The Removal of a President", claimed that Haig was Deep Throat. Jim Hougan (Secret Agenda) and John Dean (Lost Honor) agreed with this analysis. Was Haig working for the CIA in the overthrow of both Kennedy and Nixon?

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

________________________________________________________________________________

__

John,

I must note here that Hougan admitted never being comfortable with the notion of Haig as '...Throat', though he admirably presented that case in true journalistic advocacy fashion within the pages of "Secret Agenda..." He is among those who suggest that the source was a composite. Hougan made an even stronger case, also in "Secret Agenda..." for Bobby Ray Inman, if indeed there was A "...Throat."

But the uncompromising and unequivocating Professor Samuel Dash, Chief Counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, stated his belief in the composite theory quite clearly while a guest on the syndicated "Larry King Show", broadcast to hundreds of U.S. radio stations on the Mutual Broadcasting Network. Dash is still the most credulous source, for my money, sort of unimpeachable if you'll pardon the expression. Fred Thompson was the other guest that night and it made for a point/counterpoint debate for a couple of hours, upon the 10th anniversary of the break-in, 1982. Needless to say, I wish I had taped that particular program. From time to time, whenever the subject of Watergate came up on King's show, he would refer to Dash's very clear statement on the matter.

But getting back to Haig: Colody/Getlin and Hougan - especially the former - showed how Buzhardt and Haig convinced Nixon that they were going to protect and navigate him through the rough seas of Watergate.

A filius to Califano, to Buzhardt? His career remains redolent of the Intelligence milieu.

JG

[Guest John Gillespie]

Rockefeller proteges and Rockefeller-affiliated organization members in second Nixon admin (partial list):

Alexander Haig

Alexander Butterfield

Henry Kissinger

Charles Colson

John Dean

________________________________________________

Dave,

I think you'd be quite interested in this, if in fact you haven't yet read it: http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bus...ized-biography/

Aside from the monumentally worthwhile piece of history that this book represents concerning the Bush clan, it has plenty of tales of the Haig antics.

Regards,

JG