John J. McCloy

[Ashton Gray]

This page...

http://www.akha.org/news/2006/jan/rachelsainthistory.html

...has the following statement regarding McCloy and United Fruit:

• The Rockefellers' Chase National Bank, with his brother David in charge of Latin American operations, was already involved in Ecuador's banana plantations through its client, Standard Fruit Company. Chase also had an interest in United Fruit Company and was represented on United Fruit's board by Chase's chairman, John J. McCloy.
  

This is a page of "United Fruit Company's Friends":

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showPer...d-Fruit-Company

Clicking on McCloy's entry there takes you here here:

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showCon...38&id2=2865

Which says:

• McCloy was a lead attorney [of United Fruit] and helped promote their "foreign interests". Along with Dulles they led a CIA Coup in Guatemala creating a UFC "Banana Republic".  
  The capital of the United Fruit Company empire was in Guatemala, in the town of Bananera, where it made its headquarters. (...)
  The pressure mounted against UFCO and finally the company complained to the many friends it had within the U.S. government including President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, saying that Guatemala had turned communist.
  The U.S. State Department and United Fruit embarked on a major public relations campaign to convince the American people and the rest of the U.S. government that Guatemala was a Soviet "satellite".
  The campaign succeeded and in 1954 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated a coup, code-named "Operation PBSUCCESS". The invading force numbered only 150 men under the command of Castillo Armas but the CIA convinced the Guatemalan public and President Arbenz that a major invasion was underway.
  The CIA set up a clandestine radio station to carry propaganda, jammed all Guatemalan stations, and hired skilled American pilots to bomb strategic points in Guatemala City.
  The U.S. replaced the freely elected government of Guatemala with another right-wing dictatorship that would again bend to UFCO's will.
  www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm
  

I am particularly interested in the Guatemala factor, given how large a role it played in the Bay of Pigs, which I recently posted about, with George de Mohrenschildt happening to have arrived there just in time for that debacle, and Bringuier having passed through there on his way from Cuba -> Guatemala -> Argentina -> Miami -> New Orleans. They both had one hell of a travel agent.

I still would like to see actual documentation on McCloy's purported connection to United Fruit, but there certainly is quite a lot of smoke here for there to be no fire at all.

Ashton

Edited November 24, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[John Simkin]

John McCloy developed a close relationship with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran), who gained power in Iran during the Second World War. McCloy's legal firm, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, provided legal counsel to Pahlavi. The Chase International Investment Corporation, which McCloy established in the 1950s, had several joint ventures in Iran.

McCloy was also chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Pahlavi had a personal account with the bank. So also did his private family trust, the Pahlavi Foundation. Kai Bird (The Chairman: John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment) has argued: "Each year, the bank handled some $2 billion in Iranian Eurodollar transactions, and throughout the 1970s Iran had at least $6 billion on deposit at various branches around the world." As one financial commentator pointed out: "Iran became the crown jewel of Chase's international banking portfolio."

In January 1978, mass demonstrations took place in Iran. McCloy became concerned that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would be overthrown. This was a major problem as outstanding loans to the regime amounted to over $500 million. McCloy went to see Robert Bowie, deputy director of the CIA. Bowie, who had just returned from Iran, was convinced that the communist Tudeh Party was behind the protests and were guilty of manipulating the Fedayeen and Mujahadeen. Over the next few months, McCloy organized a campaign to persuade President Jimmy Carter to protect the regime. This included David Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger making deputations to the administration.

Despite the fact that Iranian troops had killed over 10,000 demonstrators during the disturbances, on 12th December, 1978, President Carter issued a statement saying: "I fully expect the Shah to maintain power in Iran... I think the predictions of doom and disaster that come from some sources have certainly not been realized at all. The Shah has our support and he also has our confidence."

The following month Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country and on 1st February, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to form a new government.

McCloy asked President Jimmy Carter to allow the Shah to live in the United States. Carter refused because he had told by his diplomats in Iran that such a decision might encourage the embassy being stormed by mobs. As a result McCloy made preparations for the Shah to stay in the Bahamas. David Rockefeller arranged for his personal assistant at Chase Manhattan, Joseph V. Reed, to manage the Shah's finances.

Rockefeller also established the highly secret, Project Alpha. The main objective was to persuade Carter to provide a safe haven for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (code-named "Eagle"). McCloy, Rockefeller and Kissinger were referred to as the "Triumvirate". Rockefeller used money from Chase Manhattan Bank to pay employees of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy who worked on the project. Some of this money was used to persuade academics to write articles defending the record of Pahlavi. For example, George Lenczowski, professor emeritus at the University of California, was paid $40,000 to write a book with the "intention to answer the shah's critics".

Kissinger telephoned Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to Carter, on 7th April, 1979, and berated the president for his emphasis on human rights, which he considered to be "amateurish" and "naive". Brzezinski suggested he talked directly to Carter. Kissinger called Carter and arranged for him to meet David Rockefeller, two days later. Gerald Ford also contacted Carter and urged him to "stand by our friends".

McCloy, Rockefeller and Kissinger arranged for conservative journalists to mount an attack on Carter over this issue. On 19th April, George Will wrote about Carter and the Shah and said; "It is sad that an Administration that knows so much about morality has so little dignity."

On 19th April, Rosalynn Carter wrote in her diary: We can't get away from Iran. Many people - Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Howard Baker, John McCloy, Gerald Ford - all are after Jimmy to bring the shah to the United States, but Jimmy says it's been too long, and anti-American and anti-shah sentiments have escalated so that he doesn't want to. Jimmy said he explained to all of them that the Iranians might kidnap our Americans who are still there."

McCloy had meetings with President Carter in the White House on 16th May and 12th June where he outlined his reasons for providing the Shah with sanctuary. Carter listened politely to his arguments but refused to change his mind.

During the summer of 1979 McCloy contacted Zbigniew Brzezinski, Cyrus Vance, Walter Mondale and Dean Rusk about the Shah being allowed to live in the United States. McCloy told them that Carter's refusal to provide sanctuary to an old U.S. ally was "ungentlemanly" and dismissed the idea that lives in Iran might be jeopardized. Vance later recalled that: "John (McCloy) is a very prolific letter writer. The morning mail often contained something from him about the Shah".

In July 1979, Mondale and Brzezinski told Jimmy Carter that they had changed their minds and now supported asylum for the Shah. Carter replied: "F*** the Shah. I'm not going to welcome him here when he has other places to go where he'll be safe." He added that despite the fact that "Kissinger, Rockefeller and McCloy had been waging a constant campaign on the subject" he did not want the Shah "here playing tennis while Americans in Teheran were being kidnapped or even killed."

McCloy then tried another tactic in order to destabilize Carter's administration. In September, a story was leaked that the CIA had "discovered" a Soviet combat brigade in Cuba. It was claimed that this violated the agreement reached during the Cuban Missile Crisis. McCloy, who had negotiated the agreement with Adlai Stevenson and the Soviets in 1962, knew this was not true. The agreement said that only those Soviet troops associated with the missiles had to leave the island. There was never a complete ban on all Soviet troops in Cuba. Therefore the presence of Soviet combat troops in Cuba was not a violation of the 1962 agreement.

In October, 1979, David Rockefeller's assistant, Joseph Reed, called the State Department and claimed that the Shah had cancer and needed immediate treatment in a U.S. medical facility. Cyrus Vance now told Carter that the Shah should be allowed in as a matter of "common decency". Carter's chief of staff, Hamilton Jordon, argued that if the Shah died outside the United States, Kissinger and his friends would say "that first you caused the Shah's downfall and now you've killed him." Carter replied: "What are you guys going to advise me to do if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?"

Faced with the now unanimous opposition of his closest advisers, the president reluctantly agreed to admit the Shah. He arrived at New York Hospital on 22nd October, 1979. Joseph Reed circulated a memo to McCloy and other members of Project Alpha: "Our mission impossible is completed. My applause is like thunder." Less than two weeks later, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and took hostage 66 Americans.

McCloy now persuaded Jimmy Carter to freeze all Iran's assets in the United States. This was the day before Iran's $4.05 million interest payment was due on its $500 million loan. As this was not now paid, Chase Manhattan Bank announced that the Iranian government was in default. The bank was now allowed to seize all of Iran's Chase accounts and used this money to "offset" any outstanding Iranian loans. In fact, by the end of this process, the bank ended up in profit from the deal.

Is it possible that Project Alpha was really about creating a situation where Chase Manhattan could seize Iranian assets rather than to get the Shah into the United States.

[John Simkin]

In October, 1979, David Rockefeller's assistant, Joseph Reed, called the State Department and claimed that the Shah had cancer and needed immediate treatment in a U.S. medical facility. Cyrus Vance now told Carter that the Shah should be allowed in as a matter of "common decency". Carter's chief of staff, Hamilton Jordon, argued that if the Shah died outside the United States, Kissinger and his friends would say "that first you caused the Shah's downfall and now you've killed him." Carter replied: "What are you guys going to advise me to do if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?"

Faced with the now unanimous opposition of his closest advisers, the president reluctantly agreed to admit the Shah. He arrived at New York Hospital on 22nd October, 1979. Joseph Reed circulated a memo to McCloy and other members of Project Alpha: "Our mission impossible is completed. My applause is like thunder." Less than two weeks later, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and took hostage 66 Americans.

It seems that Joseph Reed was investigated over the October Surprise story:

http://consortiumnews.com/2005/reednotes.html

[John Simkin]

Jack Anderson served alongside Capt. John Birch, Capt. Mitchell L. WerBell III, S/Sgt. Robert Emmett Johnson, USMC, Major John Singlaub, Lt. Roger Hillsman, et al. !! (Gerry Hemming)

It's a pity that Gerry seems to be no longer posting as this information is tantalising to say the least.

I assume Gerry means they were all in China during the Second World War. John Birch was a member of the China Air Task Force when he was killed in 1945. Anderson worked as a foreign correspondent in China. He disliked this work and managed to get involved with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). This is where he made his future CIA contacts including Phil Graham who I suspect helped him get the job with Drew Pearson on the Washington Post in 1947. Mitchell WerBell was also a member of the OSS and saw action in Burma and China. Singlaub was in the OSS in France but moved to China in the final stages of the war. Unfortunately I know very little about Robert Emmett Johnson's war record. Hillsmen was in China but I do not see this as being significant. However, it might have helped shape his views on Vietnam where he was a JFK dove. As a result he was sacked by LBJ after the assassination.

There were other interesting figures in China working with the OSS. This includes William Pawley, Tommy Corcoran, Whitey Willauer, Claire Lee Chennault, Paul Helliwell, E. Howard Hunt, Lucien Conein and Ray Cline.

Why was this important?

(1) This was the first time that these right-wingers joined forces with drug lords to fight communism. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, these OSS members in China were paid for their work with five-pound sacks of opium. When most of these became members of the CIA they continued this relationship with criminals. This was especially true of Cuba in the 1950s and South-East Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. Ted Shackley became the leader of this group and as well as the assassination of JFK they were also the core members of the Iran-Contra scandal.

(2) The other reason China is important is that it was the first time that the intelligence services began to do "private jobs" for right-wing businessmen. Tommy Concoran was the main instigator of this program. Later William Pawley was to play a central role in this. This started in Guatemala in 1954 but then spread to other countries in Latin America. Operation 40 was used to assassinate people who got in their way.

For the full story see the thread on Assassination, Terrorism and the Arms Trade: The Contracting Out of U.S. Foreign Policy: 1940-2006.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5799

A friend of mine has just been reading Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamaxxxxa's Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave. He phoned me last night and suggested that there might be a connection between my theories on the JFK assassination and the information included in the book. For example, here is a reviews that appear on the Amazon website:

Reviewer: Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)

This book is earth-shattering and faith-shaking, a well-documented tale of deceit at the highest levels of the US government. So controversial and potentially explosive are the findings of this book, to wit, that the White House recovered most of the Nazi and Japanese loot and created a secret slush fund for covert political operations world-wide, that the authors go the extra mile and offer, at a nominal price, two CD-ROMS containing 60,000 pages of supporting documentation including the Japanese treasure maps used by the US to recover the gold and other valuables.

Major players include Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Nixon, both Allen and John Foster Dulles, Douglas MacArthur, John McCloy, and the famous unconventional warrior Edward Lansdale. What we learn from this book is that those writing about "blowback" (the consequences of unwise US actions) have barely scratched the surface. What we learn is that rather than truly seeking to help the Japanese, Chinese, and other looted nations recover in the aftermath of WWII, the most senior leaders of the US government, no doubt with the best of intentions, actually conspired with Nazi bankers and the Japanese imperial family to create a Black Eagle Trust controlled by a very select hand-picked cabal in Washington.

Originally used to fight communism, the Black Eagle Trust, according to the authors and as thoroughly documented by the book and the two CD-ROMS (which I am happy to have in hand), quickly became a global slush fund used to bribe national leaders and manipulate elections around the world. This fund remains in existence today, making the Swiss Holocaust funds seem like loose-change. According to the authors, major banks are "addicted" to the funds and would face collapse if public investigations resulted in a forced return of this gold and related certificates to the rightful owners.

The authors have produced a magnificent work of both scholarship and investigative journalism. They document the extent of Japanese looting of Korea (beginning in 1895) and China as well as the other countries in the "co-prosperity sphere." They document the manner in which Japan hid most of the gold in the Philippines (some in Indonesia), and were forced to leave it there from 1943 onwards, when US submarine interdiction became too effective to risk shipments homeward.

I found the level of detail in this book to be quite gripping. The ingenious nature of the Japanese burial sites, with caverns below the more obvious tunnels, with sea-water protection, with maps created in reverse--and the in-bred cruelty of the Japanese, thinking nothing of burying all of the US and other national slave labor *and the Japanese engineers* alive as the final stage of protecting the looted treasure, leave one stunned.

The authors document the central role played by Lansdale in recognizing the opportunity and then briefing MacArthur and then President Truman. According to the authors, the architects of the Black Eagle Trust were three advisors to President's Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson: John McCloy (later head of the World Bank), Robert Lovett (later Secretary of Defense), and Robert Anderson (later Secretary of the Treasury). They made the case to Roosevelt, and presumably to Truman after Roosevelt died, that it would be impractical to return the looted gold to the rightful owners, in part because many of the looted countries were now under Soviet control.

The authors, who conducted many interviews in support of the work, including interviews of former CIA deputy director Ray Cline, who they say was involved with Lansdale and the gold in the 1940's and remained involved with the black gold through the 1980's, provide copies of documents showing the redirection of the looted gold to 176 bank accounts in 42 countries. The gold was then used to support the creation of gold bearer certificates that were in turned used to bribe the most senior officials around the world.

The authors tell a shocking tale of how quickly MacArthur chose to collaborate with the very leadership of Japan that declared war on the USA and was responsible for genocide and looting in Asia on a scale rarely achieved by anyone else. Bringing the story up to date, the authors show how prior attempts to investigate the Black Eagle Trust have led to the ruin of individuals such as Norbert Schlei, at one time deputy attorney general to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. While I have no direct knowledge and cannot be certain myself, I believe the authors have provided a sufficiently compelling case to warrant an international investigation concurrently with a General Accounting Office investigation to be chartered by Congress with unlimited supeona powers specifically directed against classified personalities and archives.

If this story is true, and I personally think that it is, then the US government, in active collusion with the very people the American people fought to defeat in WWII, has been guilty of fraud and depravity on a global scale and against the best interests of both the American people, and the against the rightful owners of the looted gold and other treasures. The authors may well have uncovered the last really big secret of the post-WW II era, and in so doing, opened the way for a restoration of the balance of power among diverse nations, and a sharp delimitation of the abuses that appear to characterize American leadership when it thinks it can rely on secret gold and stolen oil to engage in imperial adventures and domestic improprieties. As an American citizen and voter, and as a person of faith who believes that we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us, I find this book to be shocking, credible, and a basis for popular outrage and demands for truth and reconciliation.

Some interesting names appear in this conspiracy, Allen and John Foster Dulles, Douglas MacArthur, John McCloy, Ray Cline, Robert Anderson, Edward Lansdale, Frank Wisner, etc. My friend tells me that one of the key figures in this conspiracy was Paul Helliwell. I think the book might be worth reading.

[Paul Rigby]

John J. McCloy was a primary mover in setting up the core of CIA as early as late September or early October 1945 as an extra-political, extra-ideological covert machine for the sole purpose of continuing to serve the most powerful international banking, oil, and arms dynasties that these same core people had served during the war, without regard to national boundaries or political or economic ideologies or systems...

JOHN J. McCLOY, letter to fellow-Philadelphian George Wharton Pepper at the end of WWII:

"In the light of what has happened, I would take a chance on this country using its strength tyrannously…We need, if you will, a Pax Americana."

Kai Bird. The Chairman: John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p.661.

JOHN F. KENNEDY, speech delivered at the American University in Washington, 10 June 1963:

"What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war…"

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resou...ity06101963.htm

[Jim Root]

Paul

And the next day (June 11, 1963) McCloy was out chief arms negotiator and W. Averell Harriman was in. On June 12, 1963 McCloy would pen a letter to Maj. General Edwin Anderson Walker (the man Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of attempting to assassinate in April of 1963).

Coincidence?

Jim Root

PS Look at that speech very carfully, remember what Jackie Kennedy said to the Soviet Ambassador after the funeral of John F. Kennedy, speculate on Johnson's millions dead statement and I begin to wonder if arms negotiations played a roll in the assassination of JFK (and for that matter in the downing of Francis Gary Powers and his U-2).

[William Kelly]

If nothing else this admission underlines the fact that McCloy was aware of and reading the "Magic" intercepts which were translated from Japanese by none other than John B. Hurt.

John B. Hurt was a member of the Magic team whose name I came accross inpendently while researching the military career of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker then again (years later) while researching the career of General Maxwell Taylor.

It seems that John J. McCloy is also, in perhaps a very significant way, associated with this same John B. Hurt.

Coincidence?

Jim Root

Jim,

This isn't the same John Hurt of North Carolina who called Oswald or who Oswald called from Dallas jail?

BK

[Shanet Clark]

John J. McCloy

Patriot or Statesman?

[Jim Root]

If nothing else this admission underlines the fact that McCloy was aware of and reading the "Magic" intercepts which were translated from Japanese by none other than John B. Hurt.

John B. Hurt was a member of the Magic team whose name I came accross inpendently while researching the military career of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker then again (years later) while researching the career of General Maxwell Taylor.

It seems that John J. McCloy is also, in perhaps a very significant way, associated with this same John B. Hurt.

Coincidence?

Jim Root

Jim,

This isn't the same John Hurt of North Carolina who called Oswald or who Oswald called from Dallas jail?

BK

William

That is the big question, isn't it? If Oswald attempted to contact a former NSA employee then we have a whole new ball game.

Please allow me to speculate a little based upon some of the information that I have gathered about John B. Hurt and his association to John J. McCloy, Maxwell Taylor and Edwin Walker as well as memories of my own life experiences.

Was the number that Oswald called the number of the person that he asked for? If the person at the other end was, as has been suggested, a cut out and was asked to accept a person to person call from Lee Harvey Oswald to John Hurt, was the ball set in motion to force the elimination of Lee Harvey Oswald? John B. Hurt was a man at the middle of US Intelligence operations for 30 years. Can you imagine the concern of US Intelligence if the assassin of the President of the United States wanted to contact one of their own? This would be a serious problem for US Intelligence and would need to be covered up, dont you think? Well one thing we do know for sure, the Raleigh Call was covered up.

When I was a kid it was not unusual to go to my grandmothers house for dinner and a long distance person to person phone call. That was a different time and era but it was the late 50's early 60's. My grandmother would contact the operator and give the name of the person that she wanted to connect with. Then she would make waffles and we would enjoy dinner. At some point the operator would call and the connection would be made.

When I read the story of the Raleigh Call I drifted back to my youth and the attempts of my grandmother to make a person to person call. I thought, if the operator attempting to make the contact for Oswald finally found that the person at the other end of the number that Oswald had provided did not accept the call or said that there was no one by the name of John Hurt at that number would the operator then locate numbers for other "John Hurt's" in the same area? Would the operator write them down in anticipation of another attempt by Oswald? If no other attempt was made would the operator then toss the numbers away? Were those the numbers that were then retrieved and presented to the HSCA?

Lots of questions. What we do know is that the Warren Commission made no mention of this call. We also know that the call did occur. We also know that Frank Rowlett, a 30 year associate of John B. Hurt as well as Merideth Gardner (another close associate of John B. Hurt) were the two people assigned by the CIA (via the NSA) to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald's potential intelligence background.

Coincidence?

Jim Root

[Tim Gratz]

Shanet asked:

John J. McCloy: Patriot or statesman?

I have no idea what that means. I had no idea the terms were exclusive.

One thing I am sure McCloy was not was an assassin.

[Jim Root]

Shanet asked:

John J. McCloy: Patriot or statesman?

I have no idea what that means. I had no idea the terms were exclusive.

One thing I am sure McCloy was not was an assassin.

Tim

How can you be "SURE?" McCloy was associated with John B. Hurt. McCloy was also a Warren Commissioner. The Warren Commission did not report Oswald's attempt to contact a John Hurt. I would call that a major ommission on their part, wouldn't you also Tim?

McCloy, when questioning FBI Agent James Patrick Hosty, became aware that Hosty had written a note that stated where Oswald was working 18 days before the assassination of JFK. This would be an important piece of information (to know where Oswald was working) for anyone attempting to frame or use Oswald to assassinate the President. Yet McCloy, the man who had cracked the Black Tom case, neglected to give this note a Commission Exhibit number. I would call this a major ommission on his part.

McCloy, who had used information about the travel of German agents during WWI, to break the Black Tom Case did not press the CIA to uncover exactly how Lee Harvey Oswald traveled from London to Helsinki although passenger lists were available in 1964. Why did he allow this ommission if he were truely investigating the assassination and the potential for a conspiracy?

McCloy had the athority to find out whom Oswald traveled with toward Helsinki. He failed to do so. McCloy had the ability to track the Hosty note and find out exactly who knew where Oswald was working before the assassination. He failed to do so. McCloy should have known that Oswald attempted to contact a person named John Hurt after the assassination. McCloy should also have known that Frank Rowlett, a man that McCloy worked with during WWII, was associated with John B. Hurt, a man who had provided McCloy with information during WWII. But once again McCloy failed to enter this information that he had unique knowledge of into the official record of the assassination.

I am sorry Tim but this makes me a little unsure of McCloy's involvement in, if not in the assassination itself, then the coverup of the assassination.

In any event I feel we would all be better served if we held open at least the possibility of McCloy's involvement.

Jim Root

[Tim Gratz]

Very good post, Jim, I always enjoy yours.

But I have this question for you: do you think Oswald was involved in the conspiracy or was a patsy?

If LHO was innocent but on a legitimate CIA operation, could not Hurt have been his contact or connection? The mere fact that Oswald tried to call Hurt does not damn Hurt, does it? And if it does not, then McCloy is not damned by his association with Hurt.

It is interesting that people will see LHO as innocent as a new born babe but assume the CIA plotted the assassination solely because LHO was allegedly seen with a CIA agent (Bishop). As Lamar Waldron argues effectively, if Bishop (Phillips?) was seen with LHO, that tends to exculpate Bishop not inculpate him.

Same thing with Hurt, I think. If Hurt was intelligence-connected, Oswald's attempted call to him presumably demonstrates Oswald's intelligence connections. But those mean nothing if Oswald was innocent, as most of us suspect.

**************************************

I guess McCloy was involved in the "cover-up" if nothing else by virtue of his participation in the WC.

[Jim Root]

Tim

If Lee Harvey Oswald was the shooter the greatest dis-information campaign has been to make the American public believe that he was not the shooter. If that has been the intent of US Intelligence, they have been successful. If they were involved in the assassination, they were also succcessful because more that 40 years later we have not uncovered the information that proves any sort of conspiracy capable of convincing a majority of the people.

For myself I have tried to develop a motive for why Oswald would have attempted to assassinate Edwin Walker. That trail has led to everything I have posted.

The three points (coverups?) I spoke of above all come from my research and are all proveable, travel, Hosty note and Raleigh Call yet are not incorporated into the Warren Report. I continue to ask why?

Maybe we should take Oswald at his word. If he was a Patsy of US Intelligence perhaps he had a motive to shoot the President. But if this is true only those that dispatched him to Helsinki would have understood this. If Walker, as I believe is possible, met Oswald on his way to Helsinki, it would explain alot.

Would you agree that if Oswald met Walker while traveling to Helsinki the assassiantion story would appear to be very different?

By the way, didnt McCloy suggest that at some time evidence might be found that might show that Oswald was an intelligence asset? Why do you think that he would make hat suggestion?

Jim Root

[Tim Gratz]

Jim wrote:

If they [intelligence] were involved in the assassination, they were also succcessful because more that [sic] 40 years later we have not uncovered the information that proves any sort of conspiracy capable of convincing a majority of the people.

Well, it may be true that a majority have not centered on any "suspect", but of course an overwhelming majority believe there was a conspiracy. So in one sense anyway they failed. Had they not done so we would probably not be here.

Jim also wrote:

If he was a Patsy of US Intelligence perhaps he had a motive to shoot the President.

Well (IMO anyway) if he was working for US intelligence then he certainly was not made a patsy by his principal. If he was indeed a patsy, he may have been made one specifically because he WAS working for US intelligence.

Jim, let me offer another scenario for the Walker shooting, although I do not necessarily endorse it and I offer it not as any proof of a Cuban plot. Assume intelligence wanted to use Oswald as a "dangle" to determine IF the Cubans wanted to kill JFK. Hence his trip to Mexico City. But to create his legend as a "hunter of fascists" the Walker shooting is either staged or he aims to miss. Either way, he can convincingly tell the Cubans he has demonstrated his willingness to kill.

Presumably, if that is what happened, then:

(1) The Cubans encouraged him (the Russo scenario in "Live By the Sword");

(2) The Cubans refused him because they were smart enough to know he was a plant.

(3) The Cubans refused him because whether they knew he was a plant or not they had no intention of encouraging his scheme which they thought might backfire on them.

****************************************************************************

Finally, Jim wrote:

By the way, didnt [sic] McCloy suggest that at some time evidence might be found that might show that Oswald was an intelligence asset? Why do you think that he would make hat [sic] suggestion?

I believe he did, Jim. Why he did it was probably because he was astute enough to recognize, as Sen Schweiker put it, "the fingerprints of intelligence" on LHO. But doesn't that very statement by McCloy clearly demonstrate that McCloy was not part of any conspiracy? You see John J. was no assassin; he was the real McCloy.

Edited September 3, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Jim Root]

Tim

Some facts that we do know.

In Oct. of 1959 LHO went to the Soviet Union.

LHO had been a Marine radar operator at U-2 bases

LHO threatened to give up U-2 info

May 1960 a U-2 was shot down

Nov. 1959 John J. McCloy and the US arms negotiators feared the Paris Summit and the Limited Test Ban Treaty.

May 1960 the Paris Summit did not come off.

1963 Oswald makes reference to these events in his speech at Spring Hill College.

When Oswald returned to the US he feared prosecution

If LHO was upset about his possible role in the U-2 incident leading to the failure of the Paris Summit would he have a motive to go after those he felt had used him as a "patsy?"

Did, after the failed assassination attempt on Walker, those same persons (McCloy?) that had dispatched LHO to Russia know that LHO was a potential killer (as the Warren Report suggests) who would act upon his motive of having been made a "patsy?"

Jim Root