The Mysterious Life and Death of James McCord

[David Andrews]

Just a thought: did Nixon become estranged from the Eastern Establishment and the CIA because of his Mob support?  Some interesting connections explored, and old bodies exhumed, in this 1987 radio show segment, starting at 25:28.

I wish there were more on Mary Carter Paints and Resorts International in this show.  New Jersey attorney Paddy McGahn helped broker the deal that changed state law to bring Resorts International casinos into Atlantic City.  Decades later, whose relative works for...what other former AC casino owner?

 

[Jim Harwood]

Estranged from the eastern establishment and CIA because of his mob connections? That's funny David. A wise old bird said to me once that the only reason we have organized crime in this country is because the blue bloods (Eastern Establishment) needed "money launderers". 

Nixon actually launched a war on drugs and the Eastern Establishment Tories and their cousins in the British Empire didn't like that. These two groups had been in the business at least as far back as the British Opium Wars against China.

When they got Nixon to cancel FDR's Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in favor of today's City of London's floating exchange rates they no longer needed him and ousting Nixon helped their longer range plan of weakening the office of President. The British still had a fresh memory of what FDR did during his twelve years in office and they didn't want to be subjected to that ever again. In fact what FDR intended to do post WWII was even more frightening to the British. FDR intended to do away with the British Empire. According to FDR's son Elliot who wrote a book "As I saw it" said that Clay Shaw's buddy Winston Churchill almost went mad when FDR told him point blank  "No more British colonial system". FDR planned to use the American System to modernize the old British, French colonial nations and bring them into the 20th century.  

Edited April 10, 2019 by Jim Harwood

[Michael Clark]

On 4/8/2019 at 10:49 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Just reading the Secret Memo of Understanding is Wow!  Same day as  O starts at TSBD?  Considering McCord's previous affiliation's with the Company it's quite interesting.  He was already on board, why the official proclamation? 

McCord was given a “Q” nuclear clearance from the Department of Energy 14 months prior to this oath. Something was more important when October of ‘63 rolled around.

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, Jim Harwood said:

 In fact what FDR intended to do post WWII was even more frightening to the British. FDR intended to do away with the British Empire. According to FDR's son Elliot who wrote a book "As I saw it" said that Clay Shaw's buddy Winston Churchill almost went mad when FDR told him point blank  "No more British colonial system". FDR planned to use the American System to modernize the old British, French colonial nations and bring them into the 20th century.  

Of course, what effectively brought an end to the British Empire by the late 1940's was not FDR's policies (whatever his post-war intent may have been), but the cost and results of WWII itself, which ironically the British government in general, and Churchill in particular, had done so much to bring about. (The argument is that the British made a conscious decision to enter WWII - the German invasion of Poland did not endanger Britain or her empire. In 1939 the Germans did not want war with Britain - instead it was the other way round. This huge and fascinating topic deserves a separate thread,  but not here in the JFK forum.)

FWIW, Jim, I completely agree with you that the "Mob" and the CIA are two sides of the same coin.

[Jim Harwood]

Thanks Paul. Excerpts from Elliott Roosevelt's book "As He saw it" . FDR and Churchill were going at each other tooth and nail regarding how the world would look after the fascist menace had been defeated. Some historians think the British extended the war in Africa (Montgomery) in the hopes that a frail FDR would die, and they could get regain  ownership of their former colonial Empire. Essentially if FDR had lived and carried out his plan there would have been no return of the French or British colonialists retaking Vietnam, which of course became a waterloo for a post war America. We still have not recovered from that debacle. 

QUOTE:

Roosevelt and Churchill Discuss Colonial Questions, August 10, 1941, excerpt from Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946).

---

Father [FDR] started it.

"Of course," he remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, "of course, after the war, one of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of trade."

He paused. The P.M.'s [Churchill's] head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one eyebrow.

"No artificial barriers," Father pursued. "As few favored economic agreements as possible. Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition." His eye wandered innocently around the room.

Churchill shifted in his armchair. "The British Empire trade agreements," he began heavily, "are--"

Father broke in. "Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It's because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are."

Churchill's neck reddened and he crouched forward. "Mr. President, England does not propose for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Do-minions. The trade that has made England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England's ministers."

"You see," said Father slowly, "it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.

"I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can't be done, obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now-"

"Who's talking eighteenth-century methods?"

"Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration. Twentieth-centurymethods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation-by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community."

Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. [Harry] Hopkins [a major FDR adviser] was grinning. Commander [C. R.] Thompson, Churchill's aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to look apoplectic.

"You mentioned India," he growled.

"Yes. I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy"

"What about the Philippines?"

"I'm glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they've gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down

"There can be no tampering with the Empire's economic agreements."

"They're artificial ..."

"They're the foundation of our greatness."

"The peace," said Father firmly, "cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade. . ."

It was after two in the morning when finally the British party said their good nights. I helped Father into his cabin, and sat down to smoke a last cigarette with him.

Father grunted. "A real old Tory, isn't he? A real old Tory, of the old school."

"I thought for a minute he was going to bust, Pop."

"Oh," he smiled, "I'll be able to work with him. Don't worry about that. We'll get along famously."

"So long as you keep off the subject of India."

"Mmm, I don't know. I think we'll even talk some more about India, before we're through. And Burma. And Java. And Indo-China. And Indonesia. And all the African colonies. And Egypt and Palestine. We'll talk about 'em all."

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Jim Harwood said:

Estranged from the eastern establishment and CIA because of his mob connections? That's funny David. A wise old bird said to me once that the only reason we have organized crime in this country is because the blue bloods (Eastern Establishment) needed "money launderers". 

Nixon actually launched a war on drugs and the Eastern Establishment Tories and their cousins in the British Empire didn't like that. These two groups had been in the business at least as far back as the British Opium Wars against China.

 

There are connections, and then there are too-powerful connections.  Nixon was mobbed-up to higher echelons than his two predecessors.

Also, Nixon's BNDD had a more Byzantine history with CIA and the international drug trade than your neo-LaRoucheist description admits.  Competition may have been emerged.

Edited April 10, 2019 by David Andrews

[Jim Harwood]

50 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Of course, what effectively brought an end to the British Empire by the late 1940's was not FDR's policies (whatever his post-war intent may have been), but the cost and results of WWII itself, which ironically the British government in general, and Churchill in particular, had done so much to bring about. (The argument is that the British made a conscious decision to enter WWII - the German invasion of Poland did not endanger Britain or her empire. In 1939 the Germans did not want war with Britain - instead it was the other way round. This huge and fascinating topic deserves a separate thread,  but not here in the JFK forum.)

FWIW, Jim, I completely agree with you that the "Mob" and the CIA are two sides of the same coin.

And further quotes:

Roosevelt's understanding of the threat posed to world peace by the continuation of imperialism, was recorded by his son Elliott in his book, As He Saw It. FDR told his son,

``The colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all the wealth out of these countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements--all you're doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you're doing is negating the value of any kind of organizational structure for peace before it begins.''

 

At the Casablanca conference in January of 1943, Roosevelt was even more emphatic:

``I'm talking about another war. I'm talking about what will happen to our world, if after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery! Don't think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if it hadn't been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or twenty years from now.''

 

Roosevelt understood the danger that British imperial policies posed to the world, and he was acutely aware that he would have to deal with this threat, in a forceful manner, at the conclusion of the war. In 1942, Roosevelt quipped, prophetically, to one of his advisors:

``We will have more trouble with Great Britain after the war than we are having with Germany now.''

[Jim Harwood]

20 minutes ago, David Andrews said:

There are connections, and then there are too-powerful connections.  Nixon was mobbed-up to higher echelons than his two predecessors.

Also, Nixon's BNDD had a more Byzantine history with CIA and the international  drug trade than your neo-LaRoucheist description admits.  Competition may have been emrged.

I'm sorry David I cannot follow your comment although I am sure it's very insightful. I don't know what "neo-LaRoucheist" means nor do I know what the acronym BNDD means. I do disagree with your assessment that Nixon was mobbed up higher than his two predecessors. The Kennedy political machine was organized crime in government. Just look at who went on to run Meyer Lansky's Resorts International subsidiary INTERTEL, all the Kennedy justice boys. Those that didn't join INTERTEL joined the Jacobs money laundering apparatus Emprise. 

I think Tricky Dick had one of his advisors Jack Caufield (???) warn him about what he called the Kennedy machine using their Stephen Smith run private intelligence apparatus INTERTEL to run some kind of operation against him in 1972. We got Watergate so it looks like caufield was at least correct about an operation run against Nixon. 

And by the way Pierre Salinger and five of JFK' s white house staff and advisors (they were Larry O'brien boys-- wasn't Larry the head of the DNC when Watergate burglary happened?) went on to run GRAMCO Management Ltd. a London , Bahamas based "off shore" hot money company that planned to merge with Robert Vesco and Bernie Cornfield's Investors Overseas Services in 1970. Now that's Dope Inc. and you might want to answer what the Kennedy machine is doing running security for Meyer Lansky and laundering dirty money at GRAMCO. It's a puzzle isn't it? 

Edited April 10, 2019 by Jim Harwood

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, Jim Harwood said:

And further quotes:

Roosevelt's understanding of the threat posed to world peace by the continuation of imperialism, was recorded by his son Elliott in his book, As He Saw It. FDR told his son,

``The colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all the wealth out of these countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements--all you're doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you're doing is negating the value of any kind of organizational structure for peace before it begins.''

 

At the Casablanca conference in January of 1943, Roosevelt was even more emphatic:

``I'm talking about another war. I'm talking about what will happen to our world, if after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery! Don't think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if it hadn't been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or twenty years from now.''

 

Roosevelt understood the danger that British imperial policies posed to the world, and he was acutely aware that he would have to deal with this threat, in a forceful manner, at the conclusion of the war. In 1942, Roosevelt quipped, prophetically, to one of his advisors:

``We will have more trouble with Great Britain after the war than we are having with Germany now.''

All true. FDR, had he lived to implement the policies he outlined to his son, may well have ended the old Colonial/Imperial System a few years before it all came crashing down anyway. But he didn't live and his future showdowns with Churchill in the post-war world never happened. 

My simple point, stated earlier, was that the real end to the British Empire was . . . the costs (financial, political, moral, social, not to mention in human lives) and the results of WWII itself.

Within just a few years of the end of WWII, the British Empire was done.

And the irony was that they brought it on themselves. The British did not have to declare war on Germany in 1939, certainly not over the issue over who was going to rule Danzig. They chose to do so, and lost their empire as a result of the horrific war that followed.  

Edited April 10, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe

[Joe Bauer]

27 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

All true. FDR, had he lived to implement the policies he outlined to his son, may well have ended the old Colonial/Imperial System a few years before it all came crashing down anyway. But he didn't live and his future showdowns with Churchill in the post-war world never happened. 

My simple point, stated earlier, was that the real end to the British Empire was . . . the costs (financial, political, moral, social, not to mention in human lives) and the results of WWII itself.

Within just a few years of the end of WWII, the British Empire was done.

And the irony was that they brought it on themselves. The British did not have to declare war on Germany in 1939, certainly not over the issue over who was going to rule Danzig. They chose to do so, and lost their empire as a result of the horrific war that followed.  

The simple truth above regards the eventual price of country raping colonialism.

However, I don't think the last paragraph applies to the truth as well. 

I don't know how anyone could not know that there was so much more involved in England and Churchill's early war stance against Hitler.

They knew Hitler was mad with aggression and had built a war machine that was already so vast and powerful and he would certainly use it on England unfettered as soon as he and it had consumed and consolidated the greater part of continental Europe.

Why wait for the inevitable which would have only made it easier for Hitler?

We should have declared war with Germany much earlier also as we knew what Churchill knew.

[Michael Clark]

On 4/6/2019 at 4:41 PM, Shane O'Sullivan said:

Joe - I think it's worth exploring McCord's possible presence in Dallas that day, particularly when I discovered after finishing the book that McCord headed up a team which brought Nosenko out of Switzerland and into the US in early 1964. I am currently researching a lead in this direction. 

James Rosen worked for Fox News for some time and wrote a biography of John Mitchell, who directed Nixon's election campaigns in 1968 and 1972. The call girl theory is interesting -  and, as you say, sexual blackmail is a timeless tactic - but I wasn't completely convinced by it for reasons described in the book. 

Jim - of course, McCord was involved in all four attempted DNC break-ins, what I am saying is he was never a part of the special investigations unit at the White House. He first met Liddy after Liddy moved from the Plumbers unit to CRP. Yes, the faulty bug was the ostensible purpose for the second break-in but as I discuss at length in the book, McCord made a mistake and planted it in the wrong office, so there was not a faulty bug in O'Brien's office. 

The other two statements are incorrect because you overlooked the sources in my endnotes. Thanks for correcting them for accuracy. I share your admiration for Jim Hougan. He was the only author who read my manuscript in advance and gave me the following blurb: “While we have fundamental disagreements about 'Watergate' and the Deep State agenda that shaped it, O’Sullivan is to be congratulated on an impeccably researched work of investigative reporting that adds greatly to our understanding of the affair and its mysteries."

 

 

I’m hoping this James McCord thread can get back on track.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

From Jim’s writeup on James McCord...

https://kennedysandking.com/obituaries/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-james-w-mccord

“John Newman later discovered, it was here where McCord teamed up with David Phillips to supervise the Agency’s anti-Fair Play for Cuba Committee campaign, of which Lee Harvey Oswald had all the earmarks of being a component. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, p. 158)”

Jim mentioned, previously, that John Newman provided a footnote for this assertion in his (Newman’s) book. Can anyone give us that footnote or provide the reference itself?

[Michael Clark]

On 4/3/2018 at 7:28 PM, Michael Clark said:

It strikes me as odd that that it was deemed necessary to swear McCord to secrecy on October, 16, 1963; 14 months after he received his Q clearance from The Atomic Energy Agency. What was going on, in October of 1963, that required his being sworn, and was deemed more important than his access to nuclear secrets over the previous year?

Here is the Q clearance Document for James McCord Jr.

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 4/8/2019 at 6:32 PM, David Josephs said:

From the "ain't it strange" coincidence files.....

On the same day Oswald starts at the TSBD... James McCord takes his CIA Oath

 

David, 

This is one hell of a secrecy agreement!

McCord could not divulge anything, even to a court of law, an administrative proceeding, or any other tribunal without "notifying a duly authorized representative of the United States government immediately" and the burden was on McCord to "advise the court or tribunal of (his) oath" and "request that (his) need to testify be established before (he was) required to do so."

So, it was really, really important to the CIA that McCord sign this secrecy agreement just as the CIA was sending and receiving all kinds of mysterious cables from Mexico City and Langley about the visit of "Oswald' to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies from two weeks before.

I doubt that is a coincidence.
 

[Paul Jolliffe]

3 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

Here is the Q clearance Document for James McCord Jr.

Michael,

You asked an excellent question: since McCord already received his "Q" clearance from the AEC (exactly what was a "Q" clearance, anyway?), why this additional October 16, 1963, clearance? 

Maybe this has something to do with it?

According to the CIA itself, McCord's AEC "Q" clearance on July 27, 1962, came just as 

"Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev decided to develop Cuba into a nuclear base, and in mid-July Soviet shipments of conventional weapons and military equipment intensified. Throughout the summer, American policymakers and intelligence officials speculated about what the buildup meant. The IC concluded that Moscow's actions in Cuba were defensive, designed mainly to shore up a revolutionary ally while marginally improving its own political position in the region.

Director of Central Intelligence John McCone was virtually alone in assessing that the Kremlin had more malevolent intentions: the buildup was a prelude to the deployment of nuclear missiles. McCone believed that Khrushchev was trying to overcome US strategic superiority and extort diplomatic concessions by establishing a nuclear outpost near the United States."

So McCord's 1962 "Q" clearance came just as the CIA was looking for evidence to make its case that the missiles in Cuba were offensive, not defensive.

And so perhaps McCord's October 1963 clearance came just as the CIA was looking for/planting/creating wiretap evidence in Mexico City . . . that Castro - with Soviet approval - would kill Kennedy?

I think there is a connection between the timing of McCord's two clearances and US/Soviet relations. Both times his clearances came just as we were on the brink.

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2007-featured-story-archive/a-look-back-remembering-the-cuban-missile-crisis.html

Edited April 10, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe