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Eugene Dinkin: The Saga of an Unsung Hero


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Request for info:

Could someone please reproduce page 555 of the book The Man Who Knew Too Much?

or, reproduce CIA Cable No. 56631," dated November 7, 1963 from the Geneva Station to Washington?

 

This is supposed to be the first alert on Dinkin. I tried searching the MFF by that cable number, but that didn't work for me.

 

Thanks,

 

Steve Thomas

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Steve - The cable is excerpted on page 555. I'd rather see the cable itself, which is apparently dated Nov 7, 1963. I can't get a good pic of it. 

the relevant paragraph refers to 56631 and he quotes only the end of the cable, where the CIA Geneva office asks:

"DIRECTOR: ADVISE ANY ACTION DESIRED. WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR DEVELOPMENTS VIA ARMY ATTACHÉ, FBI, GENEVA CINTACTS, BUT WILL NOT BECOME INVOLVED VISAVIS SWISS UNLESS SO DIRECTED"

As usual, the problem is there are two documents, and Russell does not produce either in full. One is a document prepared by Helms for the WC. The other one which you are asking about is a CIA "in cable no. 56631. 

"

 

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Hi Steve,

I value and appreciate your fine work. Your request concerning page 555 in TMWKTM must have referred to the 1993 edition of Russell’s book. I don’t find the Nov 7, 1963 cable in the newer edition, but what Dick Russell wrote about Dinkin on pages 349 through 352 in his 2003 edition of TMWKTM is fairly interesting and informative: 

 

In March 1962, a Army private first class Eugene B Dinkin was assigned to the 529th Ordnance Company in Metz, France, “as a crypto operator [who] was awarded the requisite security clearance,” according to Lieutenant Colonel John C. Lippincott of the Pentagon’s Legislative Liaison Office. 32 A crypto clearance is among the highest that the military gives, making Dinkin, in effect, part of the National Security Agency, the CIA’s Top-Secret communications counterpart.

Until 1976, when portions of some documents on Dinkin were finally released, everything supplied to the Warren Commission about him was withheld from the public. But an FBI report of April 3, 1964, recounted Dinkin’s projection - several weeks before the assassination - “that a conspiracy was in the making by the ‘military’ of the United States, perhaps combined with an ‘ultra-right economic group.’. . .” 33

According to since-declassified CIA files, Dinkin’s warning was known to a number of people before November 22, 1963. It began on October 22, 1963, when Dinkin writes that he mailed a letter to Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

Dinkin said,

“I did offer in this letter a warning that an attempt to assassinate President Kennedy would occur on November 28th, 1963; that if it were to succeed, blame would then be placed upon a Communist or Negro, who would be designated the assassin; and believing the conspiracy was being engineered by elements of the Military, I did speculate that a military coup might ensue. I did request of the Attorney General that he dispatch a representative of the Justice Department to Metz, France to discuss this warning….”

Dinkin realized, he continued, that his letter of Robert Kennedy had an “extremely minimal . . . probability of . . . coming into the direct attention of the Attorney General.” So Dinkin suddenly left his unit. On October 25, he set out to try and contact certain European ambassadors in the nearby nation of Luxembourg, in hopes that his message would then filter through their intelligence networks back to the United States. Nobody would give him the time of day except the Israeli ambassador to Luxembourg, who, Dinkin writes, advised him how best to present his case at the American embassy there. Dinkin says,

“At the U.S. Embassy I was interviewed by Charge d’Affaires Mr. [first name unknown] Cunningham, who told me that the Ambassador was playing tennis and was therefore unavailable. I did relate to Mr. Cunningham that I had information indicative of a political assassination to occur in late November in the United States, and he did then guarantee to convey this message to Ambassador [FNU] Rivkin, who would notify me at my military base of an appointment.” 

A week passed, and no such notice came. Then, Dinkin explains,

“I did however learn through the military grapevine that I was to be locked up as a psychotic. I did on November 2nd, 1963 obtain a signed and officially stamped leave permit from the commanding officer of Metz General Depot, and when summoned back to the CO’s office to be told that the leave was cancelled, having concealed the signed form, I did then tear up a blank form. That evening I left Metz, France by train and used the signed leave permit to gain entry to Stitzerland on the morning of November 3rd, 1963.”

Thus Private Dinkin went AWOL, and his quest grew stranger still. On November 6 he showed up at the U.N. press office in Geneva where, failing to find the American correspondent he was seeking, he told his tale to “the owner-editor of the Geneva Diplomat.”

The CIA verified this in a document prepared for the Warren Commission by Richard Helms on May 19, 1964, and released in 1976 with Dinkin’s name deleted. “Immediately after the assassination the CIA [deleted]reported allegations concerning a plot to assassinated President Kennedy that were made by Pfc. [deleted], U.S. Army, serial number [deleted] of 6 and 7 November 1963, in Geneva while absent without leave from his unit in Metz, France.” In other words, someone with the CIA was aware, at least “immediately after the assassination,” that Dinkin had made such “allegations” two weeks prior.

After describing Dinkin’s appearance at the press office, the CIA file continued:

“Around 26 November 1963, after President Kennedy had been assassinated, a Geneva journalist named Alex des Fontaines, stringer for Time-Life and correspondent for Radio Canada, was reported to be filing a story to the Paris office of Time-Life recounting Private [deleted] visit to Geneva and quoting [deleted] as having said that “they” were plotting against President Kennedy and that “something” would happen in Texas….”

On the evening of November 6, Dinkin writes that he left Switzerland by train and arrived in Frankfurt, West Germany, the following morning. “I proceeded on that date to speak to the editor of the Overseas Weekly, who did regard my warning to be farfetched, and did recommend that I return in haste to the military base to avoid an AWOL charge being converted to Desertion charge.”

So Private Dinkin journeyed on to Bonn, where the next afternoon,

“I decided that the only remaining alternative would be to return to Metz General Depot and try to deceive the authorities with a story that I had been successful in attending to a “political matter” in Switzerland. Upon my return to Metz on the evening of November 8th, 1963, I did maintain this line with CIC [Army Counter Intelligence Corps] officer Mr. [FNU] McNair, who had been assigned to conduct the investigation [into Dinkin’s disappearance]. I was then notified that I was under arrest and spent the next five days in the depot jail.

On November 13th, 1963 I was “hospitalized” at Landstuhl General Hospital in a closed psychiatric ward and was kept virtually incommunicado for approximately one week.”

Private Dinkin was still in the hospital ward when, on the evening after the assassination, he says he was visited

“by a gentleman claiming to be a “Secret Service agent” who had flown to Europe to interview me regarding the letter written to the Attorney General. He asked the following questions and my answers were as follows:

(1) “Do you believe it was the Right or the Left?”Answer: “The Right”.

(2) “Why was the date changed from November 28th to November 22nd?”Answer: “I knew of exact date and gave November 28th as an approximate date.”

“I then informed the gentleman that under the circumstances of being locked up in a psychiatric ward I would give the government absolutely no information.”

Dinkin continues,

“Upon being transferred on December 5th, 1963 to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. I began receiving “therapy” to help me understand that my warning of the assassination had been “coincidental” and represented a projection of hostility toward authority figures in my family and a displacement of my internal conflicts about inability to adjust to military life. In order to “get well” I was to understand that in approaching European ambassadors I was “really looking for attention and assistance to obtain psychiatric treatment.”…I was let to understand that if my condition did not improve that I could be treated with ECT [electric shock treatment] and I consequently feigned cooperation and understanding of my unfortunate condition (schizo-assassination prognostication) and pretended to participate in group therapy and pharmacological treatment (I faked swallowing pills throughout)….

I was given an injection of a strong drug which left me dazed and was then introduced to a “psychologist from Case Institue of Cleveland” and told that be was conducting a research project requiring my cooperation. I was then required to free associate to a list of words while a tape recorder was in process of recording….”

What was happening to Private Dinkin? Was his “therapy” intended to alter or nullify what he may have known in advance about the assassination? Shortly thereafter, he was released from Walter Reed - and the U.S. Army - on a medical discharge.

Dinkin’s name first came up in the Garrison investigation, wherein interviews with some of Dinkin’s former Army associates led to the conclusion that he had been hospitalized until he memorized a cover story. And as Garrison’s people pieced the story together, they discovered that one of Dinkin’s duties as a code breaker had been to decipher telegraphic traffic that originated with the French OAS. 34

33: FBI report: WCD 1107.

34: Dinkin as code breaker: transcript, New Orleans researchers' conference (September 21, 1968), pp.73-75.

 
 
Edited by Tom Hume
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1 hour ago, Tom Hume said:

 

Hi Steve,

I don’t find the Nov 7, 1963 cable in the newer edition, but what Dick Russell wrote about Dinkin on pages 349 through 352 in his 2003 edition of TMWKTM is fairly interesting and informative: 

 

In March 1962, a Army private first class Eugene B Dinkin was assigned to the 529th Ordnance Company in Metz, France, “as a crypto operator [who] was awarded the requisite security clearance,” according to Lieutenant Colonel John C. Lippincott of the Pentagon’s Legislative Liaison Office. 32 A crypto clearance is among the highest that the military gives, making Dinkin, in effect, part of the National Security Agency, the CIA’s Top-Secret communications counterpart.

Until 1976, when portions of some documents on Dinkin were finally released, everything supplied to the Warren Commission about him was withheld from the public. But an FBI report of April 3, 1964, recounted Dinkin’s projection

Dinkin’s name first came up in the Garrison investigation, wherein interviews with some of Dinkin’s former Army associates led to the conclusion that he had been hospitalized until he memorized a cover story. And as Garrison’s people pieced the story together, they discovered that one of Dinkin’s duties as a code breaker had been to decipher telegraphic traffic that originated with the French OAS. 34

33: FBI report: WCD 1107.

34: Dinkin as code breaker: transcript, New Orleans researchers' conference (September 21, 1968), pp.73-75.

 
 

Tom,

 

Thank you.

 

I don't suppose you have foot note number 32 do you?

 

You can see the FBI report in CD 788 here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11186#relPageId=4&tab=page

It's interesting that these are memorandums of Dinkins' FBI interview, and not the interview itself, which is on a Form 302 isn't it? It says that on April 1st, Dinkin told "agents" of the FBI that...

We don't know who those "agents" were. The reason I bring that up is that according to Lippincott (as told to Russell supposedly,) Dinkin was assigned to the 529th Ordnance Company; but according to the FBI (as told to them by Dinkin supposedly), he was assigned to the 599th Ordnance Group.

Different animals altogether.

 

I don't suppose you have a copy of the New Orleans research conference transcript as cited in footnote 34 do you? I'd like to know where that OAS business came from.

One minute, Dinkin is intercepting NATO cable traffic (according to Redmon), and the next he's deciphering OAS "telegraph traffic" (according to Nagell).

 

The inconsistencies abound.

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

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Sorry for the omission, 

Footnote 32: Lippincott on Dinkin: filed as Exhibit B, Dinkin lawsuit, February 10, 1964, letter from John C. Lippincott to Honorable Everett McKinley Dirksen, U.S. Senate.

Steve: “I don't suppose you have a copy of the New Orleans research conference transcript as cited in footnote 34 do you?”

Nope, sorry again.

Tom

 
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On 10/20/2017 at 10:34 AM, Steve Thomas said:

This web page: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=8407#relPageId=2&tab=page

gives Dinkin's military ID number as: Serial number RA-76710292.

Is this even a valid military ID? I didn't serve in the military, so I don't know. Do the armed forces issue military personnel, serial numbers? And/or numbers that start with RA?

 

 

 

 

On 10/20/17 I asked if RA-76710292 was a valid ID number.

According to this web site: Service number (United States Armed Forces)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_number_(United_States_Armed_Forces)

The RA is a prefix " Used by Regular Army enlisted personnel ".

 

Steve Thomas

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16 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

On 10/20/17 I asked if RA-76710292 was a valid ID number.

According to this web site: Service number (United States Armed Forces)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_number_(United_States_Armed_Forces)

The RA is a prefix " Used by Regular Army enlisted personnel ".

 

Steve Thomas

I don't know what to make of this because I am not an expert, but 76710292 is an eight digit number.

According to this same website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_number_(United_States_Armed_Forces)

eight digit numbers between 70,000,000 and 90,000,000 were not issued.

 

Steve Thomas

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I'm not trying to be a Eugene Dinkin...but has anyone else here noticed the huge MSM news story buildup of a conflict with North Korea with a massive increase in just the last week?

Almost as if it is a given?

Trump gives okay to "recall" 1,000 retired Air Force pilots?

What a perfect event ( war ) to block out and perhaps even close the Trump/Russia investigation story.

We are at WAR people!

Sorry, but we will have to shelve the Meuller investigation for now... highest alert National Security TRUMPS political investigations any day.

God help us all if this turns out to be true.

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Wag the Dog?

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On 10/21/2017 at 11:33 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

 

This may be a case of splitting fine hairs, but the O.A.S. was dissolved by Salan in 1962 and its remnants were folded into the C.N.R. (the Consèil de Resistance National).

You might be interested in this document:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=64993#relPageId=3&tab=page

It's case of;  you say tomato and I say tomato, I think.

 

Steve Thomas

 

On 10/21/2017 at 11:33 AM, Steve Thomas said:
  On 10/21/2017 at 8:20 AM, James DiEugenio said:

In some form, the OAS lasted at least until 1964, some say 1965. 

I think I owe Jim DiEugenio an apology. I pooh-pood his statement that the OAS were around as late as 1964 or 5, but I ran across (again) an article from LeMonde that's dated July 8, 1963 about a communique issued in the name of the C.N.R. and the OAS.

The thrust of the article is that the communique was posted using the National Assembly's own fracking machine!

That's like saying that someone snuck into our own House of Representatives and posted a nationwide press release using the House's postal machine.

Le Monde, Paris July 8, 1963

http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1963/07/08/un-tract-de-l-o-a-s-c-n-r-est-poste-au-palais-bourbon_2208937_1819218.html?xtmc=souetre&xtcr=10

 

UN TRACT DE L'O.A.S.-C.N.R. est posté au Palais-Bourbon

 

Steve Thomas

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Here's a psychological set for us all, from online feature story headlines:

"8 Most Bizarre, Outlandish Details from New JFK Files" -- Business Insider

"Strippers, Surveillance and Assassination Plots: The Wildest JFK Files" - Washington Post

From his secluded retirement, former Army private Eugene Dinkin recognized mainstream media slurs on the JFK assassination investigation, and again became a worried man...

I'm kidding, but I'm not joking.

Edited by David Andrews
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