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Gene Wheaton


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Larry,

The link requires log in. I clicked on "Register," and it wants me to create a blog or website. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ron Ecker
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Larry - Wheaton didn't name names? I remember him from my Iran Contra trading cards research and the Christic Institute material. Wasn't Wheaten a source for Daniel Sheehan? I'm thinking Rafael Quintero.

Edited by Paul Brancato
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Wheaton did not name the names he heard discussed as having been involved in Dallas.  He did name the individuals he was associated with at the time he heard the Dallas names in reminiscing sessions - that was Jenkins and Quintero, who he indeed was provably associated with at the time.  Wheaton was very firm about not doing anything beyond trying to get those two to offer statements to the government since they would have held the actual information and would have been able to substantiate it while he could not. 

Wheaton was indeed a source for Sheehan but things began to go off the rails shortly afterwards because he had been warned that he would be "poisoned" as  a credible source for trying to get the two on record and sure enough that smear campaign did occur.   If you have the 2010 version of SWHT this is all discussed in some length.  I also go into the overall Contra/drug smuggling thing is another kettle of fish entirely. .

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There is indeed Chris...I bring that up in SWHT (see page 390/391) although its in a couple of places.  I'm not sure I would call them plots though.  There appear to have been at least two sanctioned military missions involving sniper attacks or some sort of ambush of Castro prior to the Bay of Pigs.  One apparently involved  Felix Rodriquez. Those were very serious operations and somebody went to a lot of effort to keep it covert. One of the things that makes Wheaton's story so important is that it was just the two people he mentions - Jenkins and Quintero - who had trained or been in training with some of the key suspects in the Dallas attack. And who were later involved in Contra activities.

When you put that together with RFK's call the afternoon of the assassination to Artime's people (Quintero was his second in command and Felix was on his team)  it continues to take you to the same set of individuals.

Its one of the few places where all the pieces can be proven to fit together.

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2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

There is indeed Chris...I bring that up in SWHT (see page 390/391) although its in a couple of places.  I'm not sure I would call them plots though.  There appear to have been at least two sanctioned military missions involving sniper attacks or some sort of ambush of Castro prior to the Bay of Pigs.  One apparently involved  Felix Rodriquez. Those were very serious operations and somebody went to a lot of effort to keep it covert. One of the things that makes Wheaton's story so important is that it was just the two people he mentions - Jenkins and Quintero - who had trained or been in training with some of the key suspects in the Dallas attack. And who were later involved in Contra activities.

When you put that together with RFK's call the afternoon of the assassination to Artime's people (Quintero was his second in command and Felix was on his team)  it continues to take you to the same set of individuals.

Its one of the few places where all the pieces can be proven to fit together.

Agree Larry. And it's a very short distance to a former president, whose interactions with Felix Rodriguez and the rest spanned 30 years. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is excellent.  Thanks for posting, Larry.  

I'd love to hear the other interviews with the guy in Minnesota that he references at the end.

Wheaton's naming Jenkins and Quintero and the motives of the ground crew corroborates some of what we already know of the hit.  When he says people in power had other reasons for getting rid of Kennedy, it implies the person orchestrating the ground level crew (perhaps Jenkins) was on orders from someone higher up and it wasn't as rogue as even some of the participants thought.  Of course, we'll probably never know the connecting piece between the paramilitary people and the "political elite," but if we did I think it would give us a lot more insight.  It could be Phillips, Harvey, or Shackley, but someone who stuck out to me that would be well placed in all of this is Henry Hecksher.  If it were Hecksher, it may imply it was more of an officially sanctioned job than simply turning the gun on Kennedy for revenge. 

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Brian, there have been efforts to contact some of the folks mentioned and the effort continues. To date all we can say for sure is that they are real people and in a couple of cases most definitely associated with Wheaton.  But we need to be cautious, what we have is information that Jenkins had trained some of the individuals involved and that Quintero might have been part of that training or done some later himself during AM/WORLD. Keep in mind that Jenkins supported individuals like Quintero and Felix Quintero who had been involved in abortive paramilitary style attacks to kill Fidel Castro via ambush and sniper attacks circa 61.  Chronology is critical and by 63 of course Jenkins was working for Hecksher and with Artime and Quintero...and working for them were folks like Felix Rodriquez.  Names that show up again in the time frame where Wheaton is trying to get logistics/supply contracts for phase 2 Contra efforts.

So we are talking about not what Jenkins and Quintero did but what the people associated with them knew in terms of the assassination and the tactical team - as well as what the team itself was told in order to get buy in for murdering a President. In NEXUS I lay out what I think is the most likely chain of events, with people higher up - at the level of Angleton and Helms - being concerned about Kennedy's emerging policies of negotiation, and acceptance of neutrality to turn back Soviet expansion. That was exacerbated by the news of his new back channel approach to Castro.  And who was available to carry that message down to JM/WAVE,  William Harvey with his connections to Morales and all the Castro assassination efforts via Roselli.  That takes you back to exactly the same network of tactical paramilitary folks from 61.

Your point is well taken, certainly the team going to Dallas would have to have been motivated,  something more than just revenge being in play, and they would have needed assurances about support.  That's where extreme caution is involved in using words like rogue, sanctioned, etc.  Probably better to describe it than try to name it.  As to Hecksher, he certainly was not connected in to the CIA  power structure as Harvey via Angleton.  But it is clear that he was bitter about JFK and bitter about his current assignment which nobody involved thought was going to work. Would he have given some sort of assent or support if approached by the right person, very possibly....but its unclear who that would be.  Did he have the reach into the right community that Morales and Robertson did, I don't think so.

At the moment some of us are still exploring Hecksher and his rather interesting role in MC during 1962, maybe we will learn something more about exactly how he got the AM/World assignment but right now its unclear as he had always been a wild card, even back in Laos not to mention Japan.  One clue though, look at who bailed him out and sent him to the Golden Triangle when State wanted him fired as COS in Laos, there might be a clue there.

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Well now if you had SWHT 2010 you would know a lot about him, he is discussed throughout.  Also in Shadow Warfare in regard to Guatemala, Laos, and the Artime project.  Dick Russell also presents new research on him in his most recent book.  There are really two independent (well maybe independent) lines of research on him, one in regard to Nagell's story, about Oswald in Japan and in MC where Hecksher was operating and very possibly the CIA cut out to Nagell in 62.  Then there is the well documente4d story of Hecksher as chief of the AM/World operation in 63, Jenkin's boss and in charge of developing and supporting Artime in Am/World. Probably safe to say that a number of the most interesting folks from 1961 had become embedded in the Artime project by 63 - they would go on afterwards across Lation America, many ending up in North's phase of the Contra project.

I also discuss him in regard to his Golden Triange assignment and in regard to the fact that it was he and his network who Garett Underhill was getting rumors about just before the assassination.  So now you know were to look...grin. 

I'd say Hecksher is somewhat like Morales once was, a key player in CIA covert ops from Guatemala on but simply off the radar of most JFK related dialog. 

 

 

 

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  • 1 year later...

Bill Kelly has revived this topic at on his blog.

 

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/

Pinging Bill on the next post so he is aware of this posting and copy/paste; in case he does not approve..

 

Someone Talked - Gene Wheaton Reconsidered

 
SOMEONE TALKED - GENE WHEATON RECONSIDERED - Part 1 As Amended.

[ Kelly Notes: This is a first draft. My laptop is in the shop and my Pad is on the blink so I'm working off my phone. I appologize for spellings and typos and will correct them ASAP. - I think I got them all.]

It is often said by Warren Commission appologists that if there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, since no one can keep a secret, someone would have talked.

Well someone did talk, but no body paid much attention.

As Larry Hancock clearly points out in his book "Someone Would Have Talked" (JFK Lancer), John Martino talked, John Roselli talked, David Atlee Phillips talked, Antonio Veciana talked, Bradely Ayers talked, and now, most significantly, Gene Wheaton talked.

While each of the others deserve - in James Jesus Angleton's terminology, a serial of their own, I am currently concentrating on what former investigator Gene Wheaton tells us, even though it comes under the category of hearsay. While hearsay may not be admissible in court at a trial, it is admissible in grand jury hearings, and often leads to more substansive evidence, as Wheaton's story does.

In evaluating Wheaton, I use the CIA's case study that evaluates sources and defectors by considering how much new, significant and verifiable information they provide, especially new names, places and events that are not on the record or in the files. In that regard, Wheaton comes up in spades.

Wheaton first came to my attention in Larry Hancock's book  "Someone Would Have Talked,"  which I wrote about in my JFKCountercoup blog at the time. I quoted Wheaton extensively, but I failed to follow up on the many leads he provided, something I am trying to do now.

To establish Wheaton's bonifides right off the bat we will begin with excerpts from his obituary:

Funeral Home Memorial Page for:

Milton Gene Wheaton

May 19, 1935 - December 31, 2015 (age 80)

Milton gene Wheaton passed away peacefully on Dec. 31, 2015 at the age of 80 at the Desert Reginal Medical Center in Palm Springs after suffering from a traumatic head inury due to a fall at his home in Hemet.

He was born in Pawnee, Oklahoma in a Post Office on an Indian reservation. His parents were Bert and Ruth Wheaton.....

He spent a brilliant career in the military as a criminal investigator, ending his career at the rank of Chief Warrent Officer 3.

An example of his many accomplishments was when he was awareded the U.S. Legion of Merit from President Nixon for his exceptionally meritorious conduct in his performance as the Narcotics and Smuggling advisor of the U.S. Military Mission with the Imperial Iranian Grandarmerie from May 1971 through July 1973.

He retired from the military on June 30, 1975. After that he spent many years as a private investigator consultant. Then retired and spent the remaining years in Winchester and Hemet, California......

END OBIT Excerpts

Wheaton first came into the public arena when he was mentioned in a footnote to a legal civil suit prepared by attorney Dan Sheen for the Christic Institute against those principles involved in what would become known as the Iran-Contra affair.

Wheaton was an early whistle blower who first took his inside knowldge of the affair to then CIA director William Casey, who did nothing because he was behind it.

Wheaton realized Casey was in on it and when asked why he blew the whistle on them, he said that Casey and those invovled were taking millions of dollars from a foreign terrorist state (Iran) in exchange for US military supplies (missiles) and using the money to finance secret covert operations without the approval of Congress.

While Sheenan's case was dismissed by the judge,  Sheehan was ordered to pay the defendants $900,000, that put the Christic Institute out of business, The judge said the charges were based on "frivilous" hearsay, ans jst how frivilous it was became sensational a few months later when a CIA Contra support plane was shot down and baggage kicked Eugene Hassenfraus was captured alive. Hassenfraus confessed the CIA was behind the operation and had phone numbers on his possession that linked him to ( "Shadow Warrior") Felix Rodriguez, who took pride in tracking down Che Guevera, executing him and taking his Rolex watch.

The Iran-Contra affair then played out on its own in public and behind the scenes, and Wheton went quiet, for years. Then the JFK Act of 1992 was passed by Congress ordering all of the government records on the assassination of President Kennedy be made public in full by October 2017, something that still hasn't happened.

Wheaton wrote a letter to Judge John Tunheim, the chairman of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB), establishing himself as a responsible person, and saying he knew of people and records that the Review Board would be interested in, and Tunheim reponded favorably.

ARRB staff attorney Ann Buttermer had a telephone conversation with Wheaton, after which she wrote an outside contact report on the details. She then met Wheaton in Washington and got more details, as well as documents and records that Wheaton said supported his story.

According to Buttimer's ARRB report, Wheaton told her Cuban exiles who were originally trained to attack and kill Castro, killed Kennedy instead, considering him a traitor for his failure to support them at the Bay of Pigs. Wheaton said that "people above the Cubans wanted JFK killed for other reasons," and that "the matter is not complex, but convoluted."

While there is only the outside contact report of Buttermer's phone conversation with Wheaton, her report on their meeting in Washington is missing, and shortly after their meeting Buttermer suddenly resigned and disapeared. Malcolm Blunt notes that unlike every other ARRB staff member, there is no separate file for Buttermer, though some of her records are scattered among the ARRB files.

Wheaton then faxed the review board, but only received a generic form reply thanking him for contacting them.

Then things went quiet again, at least on the public front, for over a decade, except for English professor John Simkin, who started the JFK Assassination Debate on his Education Forum web site, and kept track of all of the important players, including Gene Wheaton.

Also during this time some determined researchers plowed through the millions of pages of documents at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Archives II in College Park, Md., where the JFK Collection is kept. Among the records released under the JFK Act are the records of the ARRB, including Wheaton's letter to Judge Tunheim, Ann Buttermer's outside contact report on their phone coversation, and the items Wheaton gave Buttermer as supporting records to what he had to say.

If how many new, significant and verifiable names are the barrometor for bonifides, then Wheaton comes clean, as there are many, they are significant, and many have been verified.

Top of the list is Carl Jenkins, who Wheaton says was his close friend, housemate and business associate in National Airlines, one of many CIA front companies that I wrote about back in the 1980s.

[See: CIAir at JFKCountercoup.blogspot.com the story of Ralph Cox and United Overseas Airlines].

As Hanckock reported in his book, "Research confirms that beyond a doubt, Carl Jenkins was indeed a senior CIA officer who worked on paramilitary activities in support of the Bay of Pigs project and that by 1963-64 he was indeed directly involved with the AM/WORLD project, with Artime (AMBIDDY) and Quintero (AMJAVA4)."

In a September, 1963 memo Jenkins wrote how the anti-Castro Cuban commandos (he was training at JMWAVE) could, "use abductions and assassinations targeted against Cuban G-2 intelligence informants, agents, officer and foreign Communists to raise the morale of people inside Cuba."

Actualy, they were planning, training and preparing to kill Castro, an operation that Wheaton and Jenkins said was redirected to JFK at Dallas.

One of the working hypothesis of this inquiry is that whoever pulled off the Dealey Plaza Operation - they were very good, had done such things before and did it again afterwards, as the careers of Carl Jenkins and the Cubans he trained confirm.

Carl Jenkins was a United States Marine Corps (USMC) Captain in Japan, where he possibly crossed paths with Oswald. Wheaton suspects that is where Wheaton recruited Oswald, as they again crossed paths in the summer of 1963 in New Orleans, where Captain Jenkins established a new USMC Active Reserve unit, and became acquainted with mob boss Carlos Marcello.

Jenkins was known as a commando infiiltration - exfiltraion specialist, working closely with the anti-Castro Cubans before the Bay of Pigs, and at JMWAVE afterwards. At JMWAVE he trained a team of Cubans who Wheaton named as Ralphel "Chi Chi" Quintero, Nester Sanchez, Nestor Pino, Felix Rodriguez, Ricardo Morales, Tony Izquierdo, and others. While we were acquainted with some of these names, like Rodrriguez, others were new.

English professor John Simkin, who was in contact with a CIA media asset who knew Quintero, asked Quintero if Wheaton was correct in his allegations, and Quintero said Wheaton knew part of the story, and if the whole story got out it would be the biggest scandle ever.

Jenkins - and some of his team of Cubans, went on to work other operations - in 1964 Quintero was sent to Euorpe to meet Rolando Cubella (AMLASH), a significant player in the lead up to the assassination of the president.

They all worked for a time in the Congo, another key place of interest to those following the Dealey Plaza drama. And then Jenkins was sent to the Dominican Republic where the dictator Trujulio was assassinated. In response the CIA sent in David Atlee Phillips as the emergency Chief of Station while LBJ sent in the Marines, just to show the generals he would give them some action when JFK wouldn't.

Another name Wheaton gave out was I. Irving Davidson, who Wheaton described as a middleman, cut-out and fixer, whose clients included Clint Murcheson of Dallas, Carlos Marcello of New Orleans and Rafael Trujulio, a client he lost. Oh, yea, Davidson's office mate was Jack Anderson, the muckraking Washington columnist who exposed the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, a scoop he got from Roselli, probalby becaues of the Davidson connection.

A year before Larry Hancock's book came out, in 2005, Wheaton was located and interviewed on videotape by Hancock and William M. Law, a short but concise tape that was premiered at the 2005 JFK Lancer conference in Dallas. But its significance was not immediately recognized. That tape sat on the shelf for another decade, and only this year (2018) was it posted on line for the world to see.

In it, Wheaton confirms all of the above, explains why he became an Iran-Contra whistle blower - "I'm a cop," and gives us more new names, including that of a Minnessotta documentary film maker Matt Ehling, who recorded "hours and hours" of tapes in which he gives more details.

 Another new name is that of one of those CIA small arms and explosive experts who assisted Jenkins in training the Cuban commandos at JMWAVE.

As I listened to the tape I thought Wheaton says the CIA trainer is "Ira" Harper, and could not find anyone by that name, but after I reposted the Wheaton video interview online, a Facebook friend (Pat Dugan) said the name is "I.W." Harper.

And that hit paydirt as "I.W." Harper was, according to a Soldier of Fortune Magazine article, a CIA explosives expert, small arms specialist who also trained Contras in Nicaragua.

While I.W. Harper is the name of a Kentucky whiskey, it's Jewish founder said he named the brand after a horseman he knew, I. W. Harper. It is likely that "I.W." is a nickname applied to the legendary CIA small arms and explosives expert since its not his real name.

There's a photo of Harper in the SOF article, The Wild Bunch, a mission photo of the armed specialists who were then training Contra commandos to fight the leftist Sandinistas in the struggle for power after the fall of the Somoza regime.

Besides Jenkins, Quintero and the Cubans, Davidson and Harper, Gene Wheaton also coughed up the names of others who were in the loop - Bill Bode, Rob Owen, Vaughn Forest and others we have yet to get to.

In the meantime, we have yet to locate the Minnessotta film maker who has hours of tapes of Wheton giving more details on these affairs. If anyone has the time and inclination to track Matt Ehling down, we'd like to hear more from Mr. Wheaton, whose bonifides are established by all of the great names he provides, and a scenario he provides that rings true.

More to come in Wheton Part 2.
 
Edited by Michael Clark
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