Suite 8F Group

[Mark Stapleton]

It's probably just a coincidence but it should be pointed out that the two men in government Oswald wrote to in order to help him with his dishonorable discharge were John Connally and John Tower.  Both of them would presumably have been aware of Oswald's history and could therefore have been involved in fingering him as a patsy. (Pat Speer)

Indeed, Pat.

This clipping outlines what went down there. Interesting to note the name of Tower's Executive Secretary, a woman named Linda Lee Lovelady. I wonder if she is related to ....

Forget it. Let's not go there.

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

James,

Very good (lol)

[Mark Stapleton]

According to a Phillip Bonsal article in the January 1967 edition of Foreign Affairs, the Castro government was still on the fence in early 1960, but was pushed into the Soviet sphere of influence largely through American miscalculations, many of them made by Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson.  In May 1960, Castro decided to bring in a million barrels of Russian crude oil, and was pressuring the British and American refineries still running in Cuba into refining the crude.  Anderson, however, saw where this was heading, a situation where the Russians could under-cut the over-priced Venezuelan crude of the American companies throughout Latin America, and use their oil to gain leverage.  And this could not be allowed to happen.  And so he called a meeting in early June where he recommended as Secretary of the Treasury that the oil companies refuse to refine the Russian crude.  Of course this caused Castro to nationalize the oil companies, which caused the U.S. to reduce the Cuban sugar quota to zero, which caused Castro to nationalize the Cuban sugar mills, which opened the door for the Russians to buy up all the Cuban sugar and  exchange it for oil, effectively making Cuba a satellite of the Soviets.

Thus, Anderson's misguided loyalty to the U.S. oil industry pushed the world towards the brink of a nuclear war.  This helps explain why Anderson was such a big advocate of assassinating Castro (as per Bissell's memoirs), and makes Ike's near-worship of the man more suspect.  It should be remembered  that Ike supported the oil industry's campaign on off-shore drilling, and that the oil industry supported him right back.

(He does make note in his memoirs, however, of his disgust with an oilman who gave a ton of business to a young businessman who just so happened to be the son of a Senator, in hopes of trying to buy influence with the young man's father.  The father? Prescott Bush.  The son?  George HW Bush. )

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fascinating information about Robert Anderson. Is the article online?

I think I have found another member of the Suite 8F Group. His name is John Tower. He was born in Houston (later moved to Dallas). The key members of the Suite 8F group were all active in the Democratic Party. That had to be the case as the Democrats controlled Texas. However, Tower was a leading figure in the Republican Party and represented the changes that were taking place in the political landscape.

In May, 1961, Tower became the first Republican senator elected in Texas since 1870. This marked the beginning of the end for the Democrats in Texas. The problem got even worse after the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The emergence of John Tower posed a serious threat to the Suite 8F Group. However, by 1965 this problem had obviously been solved as Richard Russell allowed Tower to join his Senate Armed Services Committee. He also became a member of the Joint Committee on Defense Production. The control of both these committees was vitally important to the Suite 8F Group.

In 1981 Tower became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. By this time he had developed a reputation of someone who looked after the oil and armaments industries in Texas. Under Tower’s guidance defense spending rose to $211 billion a year.

In January, 1985, Tower retired from the Senate in order to become a highly-paid defense consultant (his company, Tower, Eggers, and Greene Consulting was based in Dallas and Washington). However, two weeks after leaving the Senate Ronald Reagan appointed him as chief United States negotiator at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in Geneva. I am sure he made a good job of bringing an end to the arms race.

In November 1986, Reagan persuaded Tower to chair the President's Special Review Board to study the actions of the National Security Council and its staff during the Iran-Contra affair. I am sure he made a good job of that as well.

In 1989 President George Bush selected Tower to become his Secretary of Defense. However, the Senate refused to confirm his nomination because of his known links with the arms industry. As Steven Waldman reported in the Washington Monthly: "There was no solid proof Tower did anything illegal when he was a defense consultant after leaving government, but his closeness to the industry makes it doubtful he would have been sufficiently critical of contractors' products and claims." This was the first rejection of a cabinet nominee in more than 30 years.

Tower knew where all the bodies were buried. Was Bush worried that Tower would talk unless he was given a top job like the Secretary of Defense? If that is so, when the Senate rejected him, did he become a man who might talk about what he knew about the CIA and corruption in the Senate.

John Tower was killed in a plane crash new New Brunswick, Georgia, on 5th April, 1991. According to the New York Times the “failure of a severely worn part in the plane’s propeller control unit caused the aircraft to spin out of control.”

I am interested in discovering the names of the oil and armaments companies that Tower was working with. I have ordered a copy of Tower’s autobiography, Consequences: A Personal and Political Memoir. I have also ordered a copy of Rodney Stich’s Defrauding America, that apparently looks at Tower relationship with the CIA and the armaments industry. Does anybody else have copies of these books or any other information that links Tower to the Suite 8F Group?

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

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John,

I will be very interested in the results of the ongoing research of you and the other posters here. I think this thread should be kept alive. It's fascinating. Great work, all.

[Shanet Clark]

The key word here is executive.

The 8F group were executives weighing the political advantages of co-operation and using a very powerful corporate/state ad hoc structure to further their own ends. With at least two Secretary's of the Navy sitting in judgement on John Kennedy, they had files of the Naval Intelligence, from John Kennedy's medical and psychological evaluations and surreptitiously gathered sexual liassons available to them.

Here we see Texas oil, military intelligence (Navy Executives) and top Texas Political Leaders gathering behind closed doors in the Kennedy administration....

The 25th amendment streamlined the impeachment process to an executive committee "removal" and I believe the depth, width, extent and degree of the cover-up shows a joint agency plan, with many of these 8F executives using quasi official and private assets to coordinate the shootings and the frame up.

The Dal Tex/ H.L. Hunt group could quietly combine with the Anderson (Navy) group inside the SUITE EIGHT "F"

[Pat Speer]

One of the things which should not go unnoticed is that Robert Anderson had been Sec. of the Treasury, which means he was the big boss of the Secret Service. It would be interesting then to see what relationships he made while there, and, in particular, if he had any regular contact with any of the SS agents in the motorcade or in Dallas.

[John Simkin]

I will be very interested in the results of the ongoing research of you and the other posters here. I think this thread should be kept alive. It's fascinating. Great work, all.

Yes, I believe we are doing some pioneering work here. After all, as far as I am aware, the Suite 8F Group is not mentioned in any of the assassination of JFK books. I came across the group in a book about political corruption in Texas. However, I had come across the names of the people in this group many times when investigating LBJ’s political career.

[John Simkin]

I have managed to get a copy of William Proxmire's book, Report from Wasteland: America's Military-Industrial Complex. It includes details of how the Suite 8F Group worked (although he does not mention the group by name). Proxmire clearly explains the importance of the chairmen of the key Senate committees. Interestingly, he does not report on the role played by LBJ in this (as Majority Leader he decided on who became chairmen of these committees). In fact, the book only mentions LBJ twice. Like most figures of this period, Proxmire appeared to be frightened of LBJ. There is a good section in the book on the TFX scandal:

Roswell L. Gilpatric, who served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1964. (He was) a member of the law firm of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore, when he became deputy to McNamara in 1961, he and his firm had represented General Dynamics in the period 1958-61. Gilpatric's fees had exceeded $100,000. Although he left his firm, he continued to receive some $20,000 a year in severance pay while at the Pentagon. In the meantime, Cravath, Swaine, and Moore continued to represent General Dynamics.

Like Packard, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric had been a part of the military-industrial-law firm complex for years. He had served as Under Secretary of the Air Force in 1951-53 and as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the nonprofit Aerospace Corporation that President Eisenhower established to conduct studies on major missile systems.

The storm and furor over Gilpatric's relationships were raised during the TFX investigation. It was shown that he had taken a direct part in the negotiations over the highly controversial contract, which went to General Dynamics. He was involved in discussions on the contract. He signed the letter turning down Senator McClellan's request that the formal signing with General Dynamics be delayed.

Fred Korth, Secretary of the Navy in 1962, is another case in point. He had a past close relationship with the Defense Department and with the defense contractors and played a questionable part in the TFX controversy as well.

His official Pentagon biography states that he rose from a second lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel in the Air Transport Command during World War II. After private law practice in Fort Worth, in 1951 he became Department Counselor, Department of the Army. In 1952, he was made an Assistant Secretary of the Army. He returned to Fort Worth where he was elected executive vice president and director of the Continental National Bank and, later, became its president. He was a director of the Bell Aerospace Corporation and active in the Navy League of the United States.

Korth succeeded John B. Connally, Jr., another Texan from Fort Worth, as Secretary of the Navy. When Korth was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, he stated that he had resigned as president of the Fort Worth Continental National Bank. But he retained his stock valued at $160,000 in the bank and told the Committee he intended to return to the bank when he left public office. Only a few months before he was appointed, Korth had approved a $400,000 loan from his old bank to the General Dynamics Corporation. The Convair plant of General Dynamics was in Fort Worth. Although $400,000 may not appear to be a large sum for the largest defense contractor in the country to borrow, it was, nonetheless, two-thirds of the $600,000 loan limit allowed the small Continental National Bank.

As Secretary of the Navy, Korth made the decision about the TFX. The Pentagon's Source Selection Board had recommended that the contract go to Boeing. Korth overruled the Board and recommended General Dynamics. Along with Secretary McNamara and Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert, Navy Secretary Korth signed the five-page memorandum of justification.

The question of a conflict of interest was raised directly with the justice Department by Senator John J. Williams, of Delaware. In fairness to both Korth and Gilpatric, the Justice Department wrote that in their opinion there was no law violation in either Korth's or Gilpatric's role in the TFX contract.

Later, Korth was so indiscreet as to write letters promoting the business of the Continental National Bank on Navy Department stationery. He resigned shortly after this matter was drawn to the attention of Attorney General Robert Kennedy by Senator McClellan.

[Margaret Holborow]

I can't get past Root & Brown AKA Haliburton AKA present day scandal. Oh how it's grown.

[John Simkin]

I have just been reading Anthony Champagne’s biography of Sam Rayburn (1984). He provides a detailed account of Rayburn’s support for the oil depletion allowance. Champagne quotes the chairman of the Democratic State Executive Committee in Texas, Robert W. Calvert in 1947 saying: “It may not be a wholesome thing to say, but the oil industry today is in complete control of the state government and state politics.” (1)

Champagne pointed out that Rayburn was closely linked to the Suite 8F Group. Apparently, the group, via James Elkins and James Abercrombie, ensured that Rayburn never had any serious opposition when he came up for re-election. Champagne quotes a letter in 1943 from Abercrombie to Rayburn explaining how he was arranging for him to be re-elected. Rayburn was also close to Sid Richardson. Abercrombie and Richardson were among the world’s richest people. Abercrombie eventually sold his oil properties for $450 million. (2)

According to several sources, including George Norris Green (3), Jimmy Banks (4) and Dwayne L. Little (5), this oil money was distributed by Rayburn to other leading politicians to keep the oil depletion allowance.

1. Anthony Champagne, Congressman Sam Rayburn, 1984 (page 154)

2. John Bainbridge, The Super Americans, 1961 (page 78)

3. George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, 1979

4. Jimmy Banks, Money, Marbles and Chalk, 1971

5. Dwayne L. Little, The Political Leadership of Speaker Sam Rayburn 1940-1961, 1970

[John Simkin]

The most detailed study of the Suite 8F Group appears in the book, “Builders: Herman and George R. Brown". Written by two local historians, Joseph A. Pratt & Christopher J. Castaneda, the book, published by the Texas A & M University Press, is very difficult to find. However, I have managed to get a copy and it includes some interesting information about the Brown brothers.

First it has to be pointed out that this is not an objective work of history. The authors got a great deal of help from the Brown family, including access to letters and photographs. To give you some idea of the subjective nature of the book, Robert A. Caro is described as “strident” as a result of his comments about the corruption of the Brown brothers. Pratt and Castaneda agree that they were corrupt, but no more than anyone else obtaining federal contracts before Watergate (they take the strange view that politics was cleaned up after the resignation of Nixon).

I knew the names of most of the people mentioned by Pratt and Castaneda. However, there were a few surprises. For example, I did not realize that Sam Rayburn was so intimate with this group. Another interesting name that came up was C. Douglas Dillon. According to August Belmont IV, who worked for Dillon & Read in the 1940s, the company did a great deal of work for the Suite 8F Group. In fact, they seemed to be the New York branch of the operation. This helps to explain why Phil Graham and Lyndon Johnson were so keen that Dillon became JFK’s Secretary of the Treasury. (Maybe it also explains why Tim Gratz used to get so worked up when anyone linked Dillion to the assassination).

Another interesting piece of information was that Ed Clark worked as a lobbyist for the Suite 8F Group. Clark is of course the man named by Barr McClellan (Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK) as the man who organized the assassination of JFK.

Another important lobbyist for the Suite 8F Group was a man named Frank (Posh) Oltorf. I had never come across this man before. You can see a picture of him below (left to right Homer Thornberry, Sam Rayburn, George R. Brown and Frank Oltorf).

Does anyone know anything about Oltorf?

By the way, Thornberry, also a member of the Suite 8F Group, became Judge of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in 1963. Later he tried and convicted Richard Case Nagell.

[James Richards]

Does anyone know anything about Oltorf? (John Simkin)

John,

I don't know a whole lot but I can tell you that during the late 1940's he was the State Representative from Marlin, Texas. He was also the organizer for the Young Democrats - Fred Korth being the State President.

During the 1950's, Oltorf was Brown and Root's eyes and ears for the Washington scene. He took up permanent residence at the Hays-Adams Hotel and was involved in many high level negotiations. Oltorf was also an attorney. He registered as a lobbyist in 1959.

In 1967, Oltorf became the Director of Gulf Insurance Co.

Oltorf also authored a book titled, 'The Marlin Compound' which contained letters and anecdotes of early life in Texas.

FWIW.

Frank Oltorf below.

James

[Pat Speer]

I knew the names of most of the people mentioned by Pratt and Castaneda. However, there were a few surprises. For example, I did not realize that Sam Rayburn was so intimate with this group. Another interesting name that came up was C. Douglas Dillon. According to August Belmont IV, who worked for Dillon & Read in the 1940s, the company did a great deal of work for the Suite 8F Group. In fact, they seemed to be the New York branch of the operation. This helps to explain why Phil Graham and Lyndon Johnson were so keen that Dillon became JFK’s Secretary of the Treasury. (Maybe it also explains why Tim Gratz used to get so worked up when anyone linked Dillion to the assassination).

I seem to remember a tie between Dillon and Prescott Bush as well. Did Dillon & Read have a close working relationship with Brown Brothers Harriman, the bank where Prescott worked? What about Neil Mallon of Dresser Industries? Was he connected to the Suite 8F group?

[James Richards]

What about Neil Mallon of Dresser Industries? Was he connected to the Suite 8F group? (Pat Speer)

George H.W. Bush's son, Neil Mallon Bush was named after Henry Neal Mallon (Dresser Industries) who also put together the Dallas Council on World Affairs. I believe connections to the Suite 8F group are there.

FWIW.

Henry Neal Mallon below.

James

Edited April 5, 2006 by James Richards

[James Richards]

I found the article in a 1972 book called The Borzoi Reader in Latin American History which I picked up for a quarter at a bookstore. Not everything in my post came from the article, e.g. Bonsal never states that the Venezuelan oil was over-priced, and he doesn't trash Anderson by name. He does make it clear the Secretary of the Treasury met with the oil executives in Washington and urged them not to co-operate with Castro, without informing the State Department of this meeting. Bonsal, by the way, is listed as having been the Ambassador to Cuba from 59 to 61, the time in question, so he should have been informed. The Borzoi reader sums up the article by stating that Bonsal maintains the United States did not force Castro and Che Guevara into the Soviet camp but was "unwisely cooperative in removing obstacles to their chosen path." Which I believe is a diplomatic way of saying the Eisenhower Administration, and Anderson in particular, screwed up bigtime. (Pat Speer)

Interesting, Pat.

Does the book go into any details regarding Anderson's involvement with Gen. Lucius B. Clay and their raising of nearly 3 million dollars which was ultimately paid to Castro for the release of 60 wounded Bay of Pigs captives in the spring of 1962?

James

[Douglas Caddy]

I believe this is a valuable thread and worth keeping alive. I recently read something about Robert Anderson which I believe should be included here.

According to a Phillip Bonsal article in the January 1967 edition of Foreign Affairs, the Castro government was still on the fence in early 1960, but was pushed into the Soviet sphere of influence largely through American miscalculations, many of them made by Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson. In May 1960, Castro decided to bring in a million barrels of Russian crude oil, and was pressuring the British and American refineries still running in Cuba into refining the crude. Anderson, however, saw where this was heading, a situation where the Russians could under-cut the over-priced Venezuelan crude of the American companies throughout Latin America, and use their oil to gain leverage. And this could not be allowed to happen. And so he called a meeting in early June where he recommended as Secretary of the Treasury that the oil companies refuse to refine the Russian crude. Of course this caused Castro to nationalize the oil companies, which caused the U.S. to reduce the Cuban sugar quota to zero, which caused Castro to nationalize the Cuban sugar mills, which opened the door for the Russians to buy up all the Cuban sugar and exchange it for oil, effectively making Cuba a satellite of the Soviets.

Thus, Anderson's misguided loyalty to the U.S. oil industry pushed the world towards the brink of a nuclear war. This helps explain why Anderson was such a big advocate of assassinating Castro (as per Bissell's memoirs), and makes Ike's near-worship of the man more suspect. It should be remembered that Ike supported the oil industry's campaign on off-shore drilling, and that the oil industry supported him right back.

(He does make note in his memoirs, however, of his disgust with an oilman who gave a ton of business to a young businessman who just so happened to be the son of a Senator, in hopes of trying to buy influence with the young man's father. The father? Prescott Bush. The son? George HW Bush. )

Is history repeating itself? Is this why Chavez of Venezuela claims that Bush and the CIA are behind attempts to assassinate him? The article below sheds some light.

Oil Shock: No Shortage for 100 Years

05-Apr-2006

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=5212

At $20 a barrel, there's a major world oil shortage. At $50 a barrel, there's enough oil to last well into the next century, regardless of increasing usage. Therefore, the ability of oil to sustain a price much above that level for very long is fictional. This is why Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez intends to ask OPEC to set a minimum price for oil of $50 a barrel.

Venezuela's deposits of extra heavy oil in the Orinoco are the reason. Until recently, the have not been counted among the world's oil reserves because they were too expensive to exploit. But at $50 a barrel, refining them and selling them is a profitable enterprise. The reserves are truly massive. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy believes that they exceed the reserves of the whole Middle East. Including this oil, Venezuela therefore controls 1.3 trillion barrels, more than all of the rest of earth's reserves put together.

Chavez sees an end to the Iraqi war, which is what has driven oil prices from the pre-Bush $20 a barrel level up to the current $50-$60 price range. Like most of the oil patch, he knows that his own reserves will cause the price of more readily available oil to drop back to the $20-$30 range as soon as the Iraqi situation corrects itself. And the gigantic Venezuelan reserves will be there for the 22nd century and beyond to exploit. Assuming the world even uses oil as a fuel by that time. Our real crisis is not an oil crisis at all, it's an emissions crisis. We've got more oil than we need, and will have for at least another one to two hundred years. But what happens to the air when we burn it--that's the danger that we must confront.

[Guest John Gillespie]

I will be very interested in the results of the ongoing research of you and the other posters here. I think this thread should be kept alive. It's fascinating. Great work, all.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, I believe we are doing some pioneering work here. After all, as far as I am aware, the Suite 8F Group is not mentioned in any of the assassination of JFK books. I came across the group in a book about political corruption in Texas. However, I had come across the names of the people in this group many times when investigating LBJ’s political career.

_________________________________

John,

Yes, this is kind of exciting. On a relevant note, I had always wondered why George H.W. Bush, or Bush One, was "briefed" by the FBI on the reaction to the assassination by the Cuban exiles in Miami, according to a famous memo unearthed by researchers and fobbed by Bush One during the fallout/publicity at the time of the movie "JFK." Why did Bush One - someone utterly without status at the time - receive such deference?

Well, according to Dick Russell in TMWKTM (which I thumbed again the last couple of nights because of the Nagell threads), Bush One was working on the staff of none other than John Tower. Is it unreasonable to think or suggest that Bush One was given that briefing following a request he made at the behest of the redoubtable Mr. T., c/o Suite 8F Group, Texas?

Yours Truly,

JG

Edited April 5, 2006 by John Gillespie