Japanese linguist John Hurt

[Jim Root]

For years I have been facinated by the prospect that the John Hurt that Oswald attempted to call, which we associate with the call to Raleign, North Carlolina, may have been made to a "Cut-Out" who would pass up the information that Lee Harvey Oswald was attempting to contact someone by the name of "John Hurt."

The Japanese linguist and NSA employee John Hurt has the distinction of knowing and working with both of the men assigned to by the NSA to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald for potential intelligence contacts (Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner). He also has a proveable connection to Warren Commissioner John J. McCloy and a little more difficult to prove (but can be made) connection to Edwin Walker and Maxwell Taylor.

Hurt can also be connected to an operation near the end of World War II known as Operation Stella Polaris that once again is connected to both Rowlett and Gardner and led to one of the greatest secrets of the Cold War, the Venona Project.

I recently speculated upon whom Oswald might have actually called in Raleigh, North Caroling, just hours before his own death, based on information that I had uncovered about Operation Stella Polaris. This speculation led me to a cache of material that has opened a door into an organization (beyond the CIA) which Richard "Dick" Helms was involved in. It also provides information that this organization was comming together in June of 1959 to collect information on events and people in and around Helsinki, Finland. Coordingating this collection of information and meeting with Helms as the information was being collected was the man who had originated the Council on Foreign Relations, Whitney Shepardson.

Shepardson was the man behind Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe) an organization that Patricia Johnson has recently revealed was the recipeant of a letter from Oswasld apparently while he was in Minsk stating that Oswald was able to receive Radio Liberty broadcasts while in Russia. Working with Shepardson was a man named Demitri De Morhrenschildt brother of George De Mohrenschildt.

Once again this is additional background for a further thread on Richard Helms and his tie in to a secret intelligence organization beyond the CIA.

Jim Root

[Robert Howard]

For years I have been facinated by the prospect that the John Hurt that Oswald attempted to call, which we associate with the call to Raleign, North Carlolina, may have been made to a "Cut-Out" who would pass up the information that Lee Harvey Oswald was attempting to contact someone by the name of "John Hurt."

The Japanese linguist and NSA employee John Hurt has the distinction of knowing and working with both of the men assigned to by the NSA to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald for potential intelligence contacts (Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner). He also has a proveable connection to Warren Commissioner John J. McCloy and a little more difficult to prove (but can be made) connection to Edwin Walker and Maxwell Taylor.

Hurt can also be connected to an operation near the end of World War II known as Operation Stella Polaris that once again is connected to both Rowlett and Gardner and led to one of the greatest secrets of the Cold War, the Venona Project.

I recently speculated upon whom Oswald might have actually called in Raleigh, North Caroling, just hours before his own death, based on information that I had uncovered about Operation Stella Polaris. This speculation led me to a cache of material that has opened a door into an organization (beyond the CIA) which Richard "Dick" Helms was involved in. It also provides information that this organization was comming together in June of 1959 to collect information on events and people in and around Helsinki, Finland. Coordingating this collection of information and meeting with Helms as the information was being collected was the man who had originated the Council on Foreign Relations, Whitney Shepardson.

Shepardson was the man behind Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe) an organization that Patricia Johnson has recently revealed was the recipeant of a letter from Oswasld apparently while he was in Minsk stating that Oswald was able to receive Radio Liberty broadcasts while in Russia. Working with Shepardson was a man named Demitri De Morhrenschildt brother of George De Mohrenschildt.

Once again this is additional background for a further thread on Richard Helms and his tie in to a secret intelligence organization beyond the CIA.

Jim Root

Perhaps the litmus test between Kennedy assassination researchers

and those who love to speak of their own esteemed opinions, is former’s

superior knowledge of the vast amount of names and subtopics that

most Forum members, hopefully are aware of. Another area would be

acute familiarity regarding the state of affairs regarding the seemingly

perpetual “Postponed in Full” documents and the names on that list as

of August 8, 2008.

One of the names listed in the latter category is John Hurt.

See NARA Collection HSCA document,

180-10091-10174

ORIGINATOR: USSS

SUBJECTS : HURT, JOHN; USSS, FILES

Although there is not a great deal of information available about

John Hurt, what is known, is enough to rekindle the interest of

layman and researcher alike. Anyone very interested in the John Hurt whose

phone number was in the pants pocket of Lee Harvey Oswald

on November 22, 1963, would surely also be familiar with William F.

Friedman. Those familiar with cryptography, Bletchley Park and ENIGMA are

knowledgeable about Friedman, and although there are numerous books and

other materials about the aforementioned, not too surprisingly, there seems

to be little material available about John Hurt, but he is mentioned in a book

entitled The American Codebreakers - The U S Role in ULTRA

Thomas Parrish

ISBN:0-8128-8517—1

In the book, there are selections dealing with Herbert Yardley and the American

Black Chamber and The Signal Intelligence Service [sIS].

The Signal Intelligence Service originated in 1930 and it owed its existence

largely through Herbert Yardley. Yardley was also on very good terms with

Britain’s General Marlborough Churchill. Yardley was largely responsible for the

events that led to the U S Army’s formation of MI-8 in the Military Intelligence

Division. Its first location was in a four-story brownstone just off Fifth Avenue

in New York. The group’s first success was in the deciphering of Japanese codes

in the period when the Washington Naval Conference was taking place in 1921.

Which, by all accounts, was a complete success.

In 1924, an Office of Naval Communications subgroup called the Code and

Signal Section formed the Communications Intelligence Organization.

Thus, there were now two different cryptology groups, one, belonging to the

Army, while the CIG was all Navy. SIG’s location near Fifth Avenue was moved to

a midtown Manhattan office Building.

Note: FN is a designation for footnote

Parrish wrote “One day in early May 1930, [FN21 This account from Rowlett, Dec. 27, 1983 & March 22, 1984]

Crawford recieved a caller in his office — Congressman Joe Shaffer, of the ninth district of Virginia.

The congressman had approached the secretary of war, who

had passed him on to the chief signal officer, who had in turn sent him to Crawford.

He understood they were looking for somebody who knew Japanese, Shaffer said

(word had a way of getting around, no matter how secretive you tried to be)

so he had come to tell them about his nephew. The major listened politely as his caller expatiated

on his nephew’s linguistic knowledge; that, after all, was what you did with congressmen. No one knows

whether Crawford was aware of the literal meaning of “nepotism,” but after Shaffer went on his way,

Friedman and Crawford, conferring, agreed that the congressman was undoubtedly trying to use the

suggestion of political muscle to land a good job for his nephew.

But Friedman said all right, he would talk to the boy, whose name was John Hurt. The interview was not

promising.

Far from being a mathematician, Hurt said, he hated the subject. He had dropped out of the University of

Virginia, after twice flunking trigonometry. when it came to math, he was, unquestionably, “a complete

washout.” [FN22 Sinkov interview, February 25, 1984] As for the linguistic side, Friedman, who had no

knowledge of Japanese reserved the right to be skeptical,

but just because he said he would, he sent Hurt to see a G-2 Japanese specialist, Maj. Henry

Creswell, the compiler of a Japanese-English military dictionary. A while later Creswell appeared in Crawford’s

office. [FN23 The following conversation was reported by Rowlett]

He had quizzed young Hurt thoroughly, he said, and even if the boy was a congressman’s

nephew he had the most remarkable knowledge of the Japanese language of any non-Japanese that he had

ever met. “He’s unbelieveable. He’s fluent in conversation, he can read both forms of the written language;

and his vocabulary is fabulous.” Looking at Crawford squarely, Creswell said, Dave, if you don’t hire him,

I’m going to.”

“But what about math?”

“Forget it, Creswell said. “You’ll never find another fellow like this one.”

Yet Hurt had never been to Japan. As a boy in Wyethville, Virginia, a mountain town a few counties east of

Frank Rowlett’s home, he had lived next door to a returned missionary family named Patton; out of interest

in the unusually bright young lad, Mrs. Patton undertook the remarkable project of teaching him Japanese

— and, more remarkably, the project was an absolute sucess. The boy was simply a natural linguistic

whiz, although later he never seemed to find himself in college, attending both Roanoke College and the

University of Virginia, but not graduating from either. His time on campus was hardly squandered,

however. Each year at Charlottesville he roomed with a Japanese student and thus refined his knowledge

of the language, although his major was French, which he learned thoroughly, well enough to compose

poetry in it; he also acquired a good knowledge of German and became respectably acquainted with

various other languages. He was a lively, rather strange fellow, witty, and in many ways destined to be

the exotic plant in Friedman’s orderly hothouse. Clearly he was a priceless addition to the team [at a

salary of $1,800 a year], even without any competence in math. At Friedman’s request he began teaching

his colleagues the rudiments of Japanese: Japan, the director explained was to be the number one priority

of the SIS.

Happy Hunting

Edited August 17, 2008 by Robert Howard

[Jim Root]

Robert

Thank you for the information.

Several things you mention are important to a post I hope to make soon. You brought up the name of Herbert Yardley. If you google John V. Grombach and Herbert Yardley you will find a question that was raised 10 years ago by Louis Kruh. I have had the good fortune of being in communication with Mr Kruh and he has been gracious enough to review some of my information dealing with Yardley and Grombach. I did not in any way make an association to the Kennedy assassination within this information but the tie to Grombach's Secret Intelligence organization is, I believe, a substantial step forward in understanding the way a group of conspirators could have come together to accomplish both the assassination of President Kennedy and to secure a successful outcome for the investigation that was sure to follow.

Your post did suggest that Oswald had a phone number for John Hurt in his pocket at the time of his death. I do believe that the only phone number that was found in Oswald's pocket was for the attorney that he hoped to contact, Jonathan Abt.

Check out the Yardley - Grombach connection. The answer could be very interesting.

Jim Root

[William Kelly]

Robert

Thank you for the information.

Several things you mention are important to a post I hope to make soon. You brought up the name of Herbert Yardley. If you google John V. Grombach and Herbert Yardley you will find a question that was raised 10 years ago by Louis Kruh. I have had the good fortune of being in communication with Mr Kruh and he has been gracious enough to review some of my information dealing with Yardley and Grombach. I did not in any way make an association to the Kennedy assassination within this information but the tie to Grombach's Secret Intelligence organization is, I believe, a substantial step forward in understanding the way a group of conspirators could have come together to accomplish both the assassination of President Kennedy and to secure a successful outcome for the investigation that was sure to follow.

Your post did suggest that Oswald had a phone number for John Hurt in his pocket at the time of his death. I do believe that the only phone number that was found in Oswald's pocket was for the attorney that he hoped to contact, Jonathan Abt.

Check out the Yardley - Grombach connection. The answer could be very interesting.

Jim Root

Jim,

Did you ever check into the Japanese women who attended one of the parties they had in order to get the Oswalds to meet the Paines? Oswald talked with her for quite awhile and got her phone number for future contact. Don't know if there's anything there.

Oswald's notebook is full of codes.

And there was the code/cipher message in the tobocco add in NYT next to Oswald defection story that's pretty interesting.

Win Scott was a code man.

And as for Robert's mention of the move of the Army/Navy Codex team to a Manhattan office building, that wouldn't be Rocky Center would it?

BK

[Charles Drago]

Oswald's notebook is full of codes.

And there was the code/cipher message in the tobocco add in NYT next to Oswald defection story that's pretty interesting.

Win Scott was a code man.

And as for Robert's mention of the move of the Army/Navy Codex team to a Manhattan office building, that wouldn't be Rocky Center would it?

BK

Bill,

To your knowledge, has an expert in code deciphering ever had at the LHO material?

Even if he/she couldn't break it, certainly a forensic examination of the utilized code(s) would shed light on the origin and relative sophistication of the ciphers utilized.

Charles

[Jim Root]

Win Scott was a code man.

BK

BK

There is a connection for Win Scott to John Grombach and Operation Stella Polaris at the end of the war. Since the major impact of Stella Polaris was Soviet Codes....well....just where does this lead?

Jim Root

[Jim Root]

Bill,

To your knowledge, has an expert in code deciphering ever had at the LHO material?

Even if he/she couldn't break it, certainly a forensic examination of the utilized code(s) would shed light on the origin and relative sophistication of the ciphers utilized.

Charles

Charles

In 2004 the National Security Agency released their investigation of Oswald's phone book etc. for possible codes. The two men who did the investigation were Frank Rowlett, a very close associate of Japanese linguist John B. Hurt, and Merideth Gardner, whom, it can be implied, is the person who began working on the Russian Codes mentioned in John B. Hurt's "The Japanese Problem." Rowlett and Gardener, as I have repeatedly stated were, the two NSA personel in charge of the super secret Venona Project that began in ernest with Operation Stella Polaris.

Way to many names from my investigation of the assassiantion of JFK can be associated with Stella Polaris, therefore I find it of interest to say the least!

And who had the power to eliminate the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted an outgoing phone call, while in custody, to someone named John Hurt.....How about the man that during WWII was receiving information translated by John Hurt on a daily basis, John J. McCloy!

Jim Root

[Charles Drago]

Thanks, Jim.

I'm following this thread closely, and I'm sharing it with a person who has an insider's perspective on most of its content. Should anything of value result, I'll be sure to share with one and all.

In the meantime, one of Nagel's most intriguing and least illuminated references is to Field Operations Intelligence, a Far East-based outfit with which Nagel claimed affiliation.

Prior to The Man Who Knew Too Much, the only other public/non-classified reference to FOI was in P.L. Thyrand de Vosjoli's Lamia.

My VERY thin speculation is that FOI had something to do with the Yamaxxxxa gold seam. Sterling Seagrave, to whom I posed this issue and for whom I harbor the deepest respect imaginable, could not confirm my suspicions.

Can you offer anything on FOI?

Best,

Charles

[Robert Howard]

Thanks, Jim.

I'm following this thread closely, and I'm sharing it with a person who has an insider's perspective on most of its content. Should anything of value result, I'll be sure to share with one and all.

In the meantime, one of Nagel's most intriguing and least illuminated references is to Field Operations Intelligence, a Far East-based outfit with which Nagel claimed affiliation.

Prior to The Man Who Knew Too Much, the only other public/non-classified reference to FOI was in P.L. Thyrand de Vosjoli's Lamia.

My VERY thin speculation is that FOI had something to do with the Yamaxxxxa gold seam. Sterling Seagrave, to whom I posed this issue and for whom I harbor the deepest respect imaginable, could not confirm my suspicions.

Can you offer anything on FOI?

Best,

Charles

I wanted to add a few things as an addendum to my previous post, that might get something of substance here......

First

In the book

Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra and the End of Secure Ciphers By Rebecca Ann Ratcliff on page 85, there is a photo

of the Signals Intelligence Group in 1937, the photograph is captioned:

Standing left to right are H. Frank Bearce, Solomon Kullback,

Army Captain Harrod Miller, William Friedman, Abraham Sinkov

Coast Guard Lieutenant L.D. Jones, Frank Rowlett.

Sitting: Louise Newkirk Nelson....Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman

were mathematicians who worked at Bletchley.........

Hut 3 which is mentioned quite a bit was headed

by squadron leader E.M. Jones.

Second

William Friedman filed a patent application for an Enigma-like

encryption device in 1933.

http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?&pn...2__&s_all=1

http://www.swcp.com/~mccurley/cryptographe...hers.html....If you haven't seen this page you will probably get a little excited........

Third

Getting back to the previous post I made, there was something I, and others may also be interested in......

In 1924, an Office of Naval Communications subgroup called the Code and

Signal Section formed the Communications Intelligence Organization.

Would I be correct in assuming that as of 1924 there were [as of then] two different cryptology groups, one, belonging to the Army, with the CIG being Navy?

In any event, SIG’s location near Fifth Avenue was moved to a midtown Manhattan office Building.

In my notes I wrote,

Is that the Navy Building?

I would also strongly advise Jim and other individuals interested in this subject to read, or, download Singmaster's Chronology of Computing

http://www.fbi.h-da.de/fileadmin/vmi/chronologie/main.htm

In that document there is significant data, that allows one to peer through the veil, so to speak.....

Edited August 20, 2008 by Robert Howard

[Robert Howard]

Thanks, Jim.

I'm following this thread closely, and I'm sharing it with a person who has an insider's perspective on most of its content. Should anything of value result, I'll be sure to share with one and all.

In the meantime, one of Nagel's most intriguing and least illuminated references is to Field Operations Intelligence, a Far East-based outfit with which Nagel claimed affiliation.

Prior to The Man Who Knew Too Much, the only other public/non-classified reference to FOI was in P.L. Thyrand de Vosjoli's Lamia.

My VERY thin speculation is that FOI had something to do with the Yamaxxxxa gold seam. Sterling Seagrave, to whom I posed this issue and for whom I harbor the deepest respect imaginable, could not confirm my suspicions.

Can you offer anything on FOI?

Best,

Charles

I wanted to add a few things as an addendum to my previous post, that might get something of substance here......

First

In the book

Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra and the End of Secure Ciphers By Rebecca Ann Ratcliff on page 85, there is a photo

of the Signals Intelligence Group in 1937, the photograph is captioned:

Standing left to right are H. Frank Bearce, Solomon Kullback,

Army Captain Harrod Miller, William Friedman, Abraham Sinkov

Coast Guard Lieutenant L.D. Jones, Frank Rowlett.

Sitting: Louise Newkirk Nelson....Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman

were mathematicians who worked at Bletchley.........

Hut 3 which is mentioned quite a bit was headed

by squadron leader E.M. Jones.

Second

William Friedman filed a patent application for an Enigma-like

encryption device in 1933.

http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?&pn...2__&s_all=1

http://www.swcp.com/~mccurley/cryptographe...hers.html....If you haven't seen this page you will probably get a little excited........

Third

Getting back to the previous post I made, there was something I, and others may also be interested in......

In 1924, an Office of Naval Communications subgroup called the Code and

Signal Section formed the Communications Intelligence Organization.

Would I be correct in assuming that as of 1924 there were [as of then] two different cryptology groups, one, belonging to the Army, with the CIG being Navy?

In any event, SIG’s location near Fifth Avenue was moved to a midtown Manhattan office Building.

In my notes I wrote,

Is that the Navy Building?

I would also strongly advise Jim and other individuals interested in this subject to read, or, download Singmaster's Chronology of Computing

http://www.fbi.h-da.de/fileadmin/vmi/chronologie/main.htm

In that document there is significant data, that allows one to peer through the veil, so to speak.....

A veteran JFK researcher once told me that leads are still out there, if you are interested in doing the legwork.......

Continuing on the subject of Friedman, John Hurt and PURPLE.......Over the weekend, I perused a book about PURPLE that, while it did not mention John Hurt, dealt with Friedman rather extensively, I was not aware of this but according to the material in the book, Friedman, in his latter years had a serious problem with depression, and did not seem to have a grasp of what was causing it......At any rate, I thought the following information was worth noting......

From the following website

http://corregidor.org/chs_crypto1/purple.htm

.....When one gets into any discussion of codebreaking in the Pacific War by far the big noise which grabs almost all the public's attention is the story of Purple. It's so far ahead in the mind of the US public (at least those of the public who care for such things) that there's hardly any room for whatever comes second. It's heroic, it's the success story, and there's nothing an American loves more than a success story. It's the one which gets the publicity and the spotlight, and what comes next is 'close, but no cigar'. You have got to do a lot of reading of a lot of books before you start to question the accepted vision, and the suspicion that the big story of the Pacific War is actually JN-25 and not Purple, comes as a thief in the night.

When you look more closely at the texts, you recognize that it's the decryption of JN-25 which brought on the successes at Coral Sea and Midway, and that it's the reading of JN-25 which got Yamamoto shot down. Where was Purple then? Midway is the first, the classic example of how cryptoanalysis was used to spring a surprise and achieve decisive results in the Pacific War, and it was the reading of JN-25, not Purple that made it so.

Why would there be all the hoopla around Purple and not around JN-25? The answer is that mixed in with JN-25 there are some very serious areas of continuing sensitivity, even fifty years after the cessation of hostilities. And there is no greater sensitivity of Pacific War cryptography that I know of than the issue of when it was that JN-25 first began to be read.

This is an issue which still has some very powerful sectional interest groups protecting their individual interests. The British, one must never forget, were in the war some years prior to the US, and they were sufficiently concerned for the safety of their Far East Empire to have their code-breakers working against Japan from not just from Bletchley Park, but from Hong Kong, Delhi, Columbo and Singapore. There was a Japanese section at Bletchley, staffed to a large degree by young men of ability recruited from Cambridge who had successfully mastered a six month crash course in Japanese. In Ultra Goes To War (1978 Hutchison & Co. Ltd., London), author Ronald Lewin comments of them "the exact function and achievement of this section has never been revealed." Indications raise the probability that they were reading JN-25 well before the US, and that they were withholding from the US, then a neutral, the extent of their success against it.

END

It would seem from some of the posts on John Hurt that if there was more to his connection to Oswald, than the Raleigh phone call, it would have something to do with Japan, since that was Hurt's area of expertise, and relating to Oswald's activities while he had been stationed at Atsugi. A degree of substantiation, it could be argued, lies in the fact that there is still one document "Postponed in Full" regarding John Hurt, see my previous post.

It would be interesting to know whether the cryptology associated with PURPLE in World War II, continued, in some form into the early 1960's, like say, intercepting Japanese messages to explore Communist infiltration of that country, and possibly whatever Japanese intelligence crypts possessed regarding the Soviet Union.

That information, if such were the case would have been helpful to a Lee Harvey Oswald in a situation regarding someone like Colonel Nikolai Eroshkin, whom Richard Nagell states Oswald met with.........or, of benefit to Richard Case Nagell, whom Noel Twyman, author of Bloody Treason wrote that....."Nagell's assignment was to assist in the defection of Soviet Colonel Nikolai Eroshkin from the Soviet embassy."

[Jim Root]

Robert

I would like to share a couple of points that I hope will help to clarify some of the information that you are pointing out.

First: There were several types and levels of codes that were being decrypted by US Intelligence both before during and after the war. Each level of code was given its own priority and attacked based upon that priority. It is also my understanding that while Friedman's group was Army centered there was an ONI group as well. As I recall each group was given priority over particular codes although both groups shared the information gained from the code breaking activities. I also believe that I recall that ONI and Friedman's group alternated days as to whose organization had priority on a particular day to command the limited resources (primarily Japanese linguists) for the translation of decrypted material.

Second: At the end of the war it was decided to keep the information about US code breaking achievments from the Japanese and that the post war Japanese government did in fact continue to use the same codes or code format that they had used throughout the war with the feeling that the codes remained secure.

Third: All of John Hurt's work after 1947 remains classified to this day although code breaking activities of many of his contemporaries has been released (We know about post 1947 work of all original members of Friedman's group except John B. Hurt , most interestingly is that of Frank Rowlett).

Fourth: It seems that the Secret Intelligence (SI) branch of OSS remained involved in their own code breaking adventure as well, this dispite the fact that President Roosevelt had declared that the OSS would not have code breaking capabilities or access to Ultra. We are just now learning that this was not the case!

This is a new area of research, in connection to the Kennedy assassination, that I believe will be very fertile (I do believe that I was the first person to identify John B. Hurt as the potential John Hurt to whom the "Raleigh Call" was intended for for whatever reason. When we start to consider that within the SI group of the OSS we can connect,For example, Winston Scott via Jimmy Murphy, as was Clifton Carter, Whitney Shepardson (who started the CFR), Richard Helms and it seems many others. It now seems probable that there was a parallel organization to the NSA and CIA that continued to operate into the 1950 (I would guess beyond) that maintained a code breaking element under the control of John Grombach (and possibly Richard Helms).

Please take a look at my "In Too Deep, Richard Helms and 'The Pond'" thread so that this discussion can stay alive.

Jim Root

[Robert Howard]

Robert

I would like to share a couple of points that I hope will help to clarify some of the information that you are pointing out.

First: There were several types and levels of codes that were being decrypted by US Intelligence both before during and after the war. Each level of code was given its own priority and attacked based upon that priority. It is also my understanding that while Friedman's group was Army centered there was an ONI group as well. As I recall each group was given priority over particular codes although both groups shared the information gained from the code breaking activities. I also believe that I recall that ONI and Friedman's group alternated days as to whose organization had priority on a particular day to command the limited resources (primarily Japanese linguists) for the translation of decrypted material.

Second: At the end of the war it was decided to keep the information about US code breaking achievments from the Japanese and that the post war Japanese government did in fact continue to use the same codes or code format that they had used throughout the war with the feeling that the codes remained secure.

Third: All of John Hurt's work after 1947 remains classified to this day although code breaking activities of many of his contemporaries has been released (We know about post 1947 work of all original members of Friedman's group except John B. Hurt , most interestingly is that of Frank Rowlett).

Fourth: It seems that the Secret Intelligence (SI) branch of OSS remained involved in their own code breaking adventure as well, this dispite the fact that President Roosevelt had declared that the OSS would not have code breaking capabilities or access to Ultra. We are just now learning that this was not the case!

This is a new area of research, in connection to the Kennedy assassination, that I believe will be very fertile (I do believe that I was the first person to identify John B. Hurt as the potential John Hurt to whom the "Raleigh Call" was intended for for whatever reason. When we start to consider that within the SI group of the OSS we can connect,For example, Winston Scott via Jimmy Murphy, as was Clifton Carter, Whitney Shepardson (who started the CFR), Richard Helms and it seems many others. It now seems probable that there was a parallel organization to the NSA and CIA that continued to operate into the 1950 (I would guess beyond) that maintained a code breaking element under the control of John Grombach (and possibly Richard Helms).

Please take a look at my "In Too Deep, Richard Helms and 'The Pond'" thread so that this discussion can stay alive.

Jim Root

I followed your advice, thought you ight like the following information, even though this might not be the appropriate thread

Whitney Shepardson 0 hits @ NARA

Sherman Kent see

104-10307-10020 MEMO: POSSIBLE SOVIET REACTIONS TO AN ANTI-CASTRO COUP SHERMAN KENT THE DIRECTOR 10/28/1963

Willard Matthias 0 hits @ NARA

Eric "Red" Erickson 0 hits @ NARA

and a "Mr. Seaton" 24 hits under last name Seaton, in the From Field like the 1 document from Sherman Kent

Example 124-90142-10048; 23 of 24 docs are from 1966 virtually all the same date

[Robert Howard]

Robert

I would like to share a couple of points that I hope will help to clarify some of the information that you are pointing out.

First: There were several types and levels of codes that were being decrypted by US Intelligence both before during and after the war. Each level of code was given its own priority and attacked based upon that priority. It is also my understanding that while Friedman's group was Army centered there was an ONI group as well. As I recall each group was given priority over particular codes although both groups shared the information gained from the code breaking activities. I also believe that I recall that ONI and Friedman's group alternated days as to whose organization had priority on a particular day to command the limited resources (primarily Japanese linguists) for the translation of decrypted material.

Second: At the end of the war it was decided to keep the information about US code breaking achievments from the Japanese and that the post war Japanese government did in fact continue to use the same codes or code format that they had used throughout the war with the feeling that the codes remained secure.

Third: All of John Hurt's work after 1947 remains classified to this day although code breaking activities of many of his contemporaries has been released (We know about post 1947 work of all original members of Friedman's group except John B. Hurt , most interestingly is that of Frank Rowlett).

Fourth: It seems that the Secret Intelligence (SI) branch of OSS remained involved in their own code breaking adventure as well, this dispite the fact that President Roosevelt had declared that the OSS would not have code breaking capabilities or access to Ultra. We are just now learning that this was not the case!

This is a new area of research, in connection to the Kennedy assassination, that I believe will be very fertile (I do believe that I was the first person to identify John B. Hurt as the potential John Hurt to whom the "Raleigh Call" was intended for for whatever reason. When we start to consider that within the SI group of the OSS we can connect,For example, Winston Scott via Jimmy Murphy, as was Clifton Carter, Whitney Shepardson (who started the CFR), Richard Helms and it seems many others. It now seems probable that there was a parallel organization to the NSA and CIA that continued to operate into the 1950 (I would guess beyond) that maintained a code breaking element under the control of John Grombach (and possibly Richard Helms).

Please take a look at my "In Too Deep, Richard Helms and 'The Pond'" thread so that this discussion can stay alive.

Jim Root

I followed your advice, thought you ight like the following information, even though this might not be the appropriate thread

Whitney Shepardson 0 hits @ NARA

Sherman Kent see

104-10307-10020 MEMO: POSSIBLE SOVIET REACTIONS TO AN ANTI-CASTRO COUP SHERMAN KENT THE DIRECTOR 10/28/1963

Willard Matthias 0 hits @ NARA

Eric "Red" Erickson 0 hits @ NARA

and a "Mr. Seaton" 24 hits under last name Seaton, in the From Field like the 1 document from Sherman Kent

Example 124-90142-10048; 23 of 24 docs are from 1966 virtually all the same date

I believe there are some rather obvious questions, that are at least in the mind of one person posting on this thread......Specifically, possible intertwining or an ascending, [chronologically] relationship with ONI and/or other personages in the areas of the U S Navy.......

To elaborate...consider the following information which is taken from Yakuza - The Explosive Account of Japan's Criminal Underworld - David E Kaplan & Alec Dubro.

pages.....90-91

"There is one case in which Japanese rightists and American intelligence were caught red-handed. This was the Kaji affair, which began in late 1951. A leftist writer named Waturu Kaji was kidnapped by G-2 and handed over to the newly ensconced CIA. Up until this point Willoughby had assidiously refused to allow the CIA or its predecessor, the OSS, to operate freely in any of his domain. Intelligence in Japan was an Army affair. But Kaji was held incommunicado for more than a year by the CIA and was allegedly subjected to torture. He was reportedly suspected of working as a Soviet spy, although the U S Embassy claimed he was a double agent. When the affair came to light, the Japanese were outraged, because Kaji's detention lasted past April 1952, when Japanese sovereignty was restored. The press also discovered the existence of a Japanese espionage group that aided the Americans in the kidnapping."

....."This group was one of several operating under Willoughby and G-2 and was named for its principal officer ex-Colonel Takushiro Hattori, a former aide to General Tojo. His group the Hittori Kitan (Hattori Agency), was made up of a dozen colonels and 300 lower ranks. Another group the Cannon Agency, named for American colonel J.Y. Cannon, was also accused of involvement in the Kaji affair, although here the hard evidence was lacking. "

Kaplan and Dubro continue to illustrate the importance of these Yakuza groups, as they interfaced within G-2, specifically re: Hasayuki Machii and his involvement in putting an end to violence directed towards the Japanese in 1947 in Yokohama.The quoted portions above, do not decrease in intensity insofar as importance, or content; but one has to stop somewhere, doesent one.

The section quoted below is the most succinct, insofar as my beginning comments are concerned.....

page 61.....Among the groups that exercised "quasi-jurisdiction" was the Counter-Intelligence Corps of G-2. "You had to be lily white to get into CIC and turn coal black to stay in," recalls Harry Burnette, who served as a special agent with CIC during the occupation. "The CIC badge was your authority to do anything. If they told you to break in and steal some documents, you did it. We'd trade with the devil if we had to." Brunette remembers the specially commissioned agents affiliated with the Cannon Agency and similar outfits. "They were almost always linguists, Japanese-Americans, and they were directly responsive to CIC headquarters. They'd only come into our field office to get paid and drop off sealed reports for Tokyo."

[Jim Root]

Robert Howard wrote:

"I followed your advice, thought you might like the following information, even though this might not be the appropriate thread

Whitney Shepardson 0 hits @ NARA

Sherman Kent see

104-10307-10020 MEMO: POSSIBLE SOVIET REACTIONS TO AN ANTI-CASTRO COUP SHERMAN KENT THE DIRECTOR 10/28/1963

Willard Matthias 0 hits @ NARA

Eric "Red" Erickson 0 hits @ NARA

and a "Mr. Seaton" 24 hits under last name Seaton, in the From Field like the 1 document from Sherman Kent

Example 124-90142-10048; 23 of 24 docs are from 1966 virtually all the same date"

Robert

Just out of curiosity what brought you to Eric "Red" Erickson?

Althoiugh I do not have reason to believe Erickson to be in anyway a part of the assassination story, the people who operated him during WWII, I believe, may be part of the assassination story. Whitney Shepardson was in the line of control and aware of the activities of Eric Erickson (along with Richard Helms).

By the way I have read, recently, an account that Whitney Shepardson once considered nixing an operation (after the war) because about 12 people new of the operational plan. It was his feeling that that was to many to keep the operation controlled and secret. In the world of espionage this seems to be realistic. (I might add that that particular operation went forward. One person involved was later killed in the plane crash mentioned below)

From a post I made on January 22, 2008:

"On January 22, 1952 Patterson would die in a plane crash that was credited to "pilot error." Years later the daughter of the pilot (Captain Thomas Reid) would suggest that the plane had been sabotaged and that a severe mechanical malfunction had occured. Thomas Reid, it seems, had worked for ARAMCO and CIA agent Col. William Alfred Eddy in Saudi Arabia prior to becoming an American Airlines pilot.

Patterson's wife would invite nearly 40 people to be honorary pall bearers at the funeral that was attened by Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, George Marshall, Henry Morgenthau, Bernard Baruch, Omar Bradley, Dr. Ralph Bunche, Luciua Clay, J. Lawton Collins, Sam Rayborn, Jimmy Doolittle, Elihu Root, Jr. Ferdinand Eberstadt, Maxwell taylor, etc. etc.

Notably missing from the honorary pall bearer list is John J. MCloy, the only Asst. Sect. of War under Stimson not invited.

I have read that Patterson was slated to become the Chairman of the Counsel on Foreign Relations in 1952. Instead, that horor would go to John J. McCloy."

The interesting point here is that Patterson was killed in a plane that was piloted by a man that was a CIA agent involved in an opperation that Whitney Shepardson was involed in controlling. Shepardson, it seems, wanted McCloy as the head of the CFR (which he had created) and McCloy had been angry with Patterson. Were two birds killed with one stone?

Coincidence perhaps.

Jim Root

Edited October 2, 2008 by Jim Root

[Robert Howard]

Robert Howard wrote:

"I followed your advice, thought you might like the following information, even though this might not be the appropriate thread

Whitney Shepardson 0 hits @ NARA

Sherman Kent see

104-10307-10020 MEMO: POSSIBLE SOVIET REACTIONS TO AN ANTI-CASTRO COUP SHERMAN KENT THE DIRECTOR 10/28/1963

Willard Matthias 0 hits @ NARA

Eric "Red" Erickson 0 hits @ NARA

and a "Mr. Seaton" 24 hits under last name Seaton, in the From Field like the 1 document from Sherman Kent

Example 124-90142-10048; 23 of 24 docs are from 1966 virtually all the same date"

Robert

Just out of curiosity what brought you to Eric "Red" Erickson?

Actually Jim, it was the thread you started entitled Whitney Shepardson Gathering Information in June 1959

See

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12651

In that thread you also referenced Eric "Red" Erickson, which is why I supplied the NARA information as a courtesy to you, or to anyone else who was also interested.

I have always been cognizant of the fact that the information trail is incomplete, insofar as there are still very many "postponed in full" documents regarding the JFK Assassination. Besides the fact that, I, to be blunt, have always found your threads and areas of interest, pertinent to final resolution of those unanswered questions we are all waiting to learn the answers to......

Regarding, Patterson; I don't believe I am familiar with the post of Jan 22, 2008 that you referenced. I used to focus quite a lot on mysterious deaths, but to be honest there are so many of them, and the M.O. of said deaths, generally lead nowhere in terms of culprits, in the literal, specific sense, that I have, to a degree lessened research in those areas.

Getting back to Whitney Shepardson, and Eric Erickson, they are of interest to me, in the sense that I want to be aware of any area that provides answers, in that sacrosanct area of research regarding the who, what, when, where, why of the assassination. Operation Stella Polaris, John Hurt, The JFCOTT/Bray area and Arthur W A Cowan all are important clues, in there own particular way.

While there are several areas of focus in reference to the JFK assassinastion.....[Political and Geopolitical History, History of the Intelligence Agencies and the Mob, big name persons, [LHO, Ruby, Dulles, JCOS, Hoover, Dallas Police, Kennedy Cabinet, places & intertwining relationships].......the fact remains that the active conspiracy, in my opinion, while utilizing various individuals in the above paragraph, was small, in the sense of its core members.

In that respect, the decades between the end of World War 2 to 1963 contains clues that some of these persons were in the OSS, the O.N.I & Armed Forces, many of these persons went on either to politics or deeper into the intelligence agencies. If you look at the voluminous amount of research that has been done since 1963, I believe there is more that is known about the asssassination, than what is not known. Unfortunately, the latter category is still a problem, lol.

My only wish as I approach middle age in this era of massive change here and abroad, is that we still have a democracy to return to in the near future, or, at least something resembling our countries ideals as spelled out in the Constitution.

Without that, revealing those last remaining mysteries re the assassination, might ring pretty hollow.

For the most part, I believe everything that is happening today in the US with regards to corruption in our culture, goes back to November 22, 1963.

To paraphrase, Bertrand Russell, I believe that is when "America, lost its way."

God willing, we may still find it.

I also believe that

Edited October 3, 2008 by Robert Howard