Shearn Moody Jr

[Ron Ecker]

Mark,

I don't know if and when any merger occurred. Rio Grande National Life Insurance Company was in business for ages, till it merged with Kentucky Central in 1967. Meanwhile Guarantee Reserve Life Insurance Company continues to exist, it did not "become" Rio Grande. At least there is a company named Guarantee Reserve Life Insurance Company presently based in Illinois. That seems a rather unusual name for two different companies to have.

With the dearth of info on the Web about Guarantee Reserve (most of the sites I found had to do with annual records of complaints about insurance companies), one would have to go to the company itself to ask about its history (and if anyone there happens to remember anything about Louie Steven Witt).

Ron

[Mark Stapleton]

Mark,

I don't know if and when any merger occurred. Rio Grande National Life Insurance Company was in business for ages, till it merged with Kentucky Central in 1967. Meanwhile Guarantee Reserve Life Insurance Company continues to exist, it did not "become" Rio Grande. At least there is a company named Guarantee Reserve Life Insurance Company presently based in Illinois. That seems a rather unusual name for two different companies to have.

With the dearth of info on the Web about Guarantee Reserve (most of the sites I found had to do with annual records of complaints about insurance companies), one would have to go to the company itself to ask about its history (and if anyone there happens to remember anything about Louie Steven Witt).

Ron

Ron,

The Companies could continue to operate as separate entities while still being associated Companies, as far as I'm aware. Corporations Law is very technical and I'm probably over my head already, but just the fact that a possible connection has been raised makes me suspicious about who had a controlling interest in both Companies in 1963.

Edited March 15, 2006 by Mark Stapleton

[Lee Forman]

Found online:

What's the difference between an insurance company actuary and a mafia actuary?

An insurance company actuary can tell you how many people will die this year, a mafia actuary can name them.

http://www.longman.com/business/company/mafia.html

History: Origins in Sicily

The island of Sicily has been occupied by foreign powers throughout its history. The Mafia was born when Sicily was under French rule. The oppressed Sicilians formed various secret societies whose aim was to protect the people and expel the French rulers. Their battle cry was 'morte alla Francia Italia anelia' (death to the French is Italy's cry) and from the initial letters of these words the name MAFIA was born.

These secret societies in the hills of Sicily were struggling not only to expel the French but also to protect and feed the people of Palermo and surrounding areas. Indeed, we can see similarities between the origins of the Mafia and the birth of mutual insurance companies and trade unions. The Mafia was a benevolent society which needed to remain secret because of the French occupation. This was an honourable society whose members believed totally in the cause and were willing to die to protect each other. But the Mafia did not continue as a purely benevolent group for very long.

By the 19th century the Mafia had become a large crime organisation. At first their major crime was extortion in exchange for 'protection'. The Mafia would send 'Black Hand' notes to wealthy people asking politely for money in exchange for 'protection' of themselves, their property and businesses. Those who did not pay the request 'insurance premiums' would usually become victims of violence such as 'accidental' fires. If they continued to refuse to pay, they, or more frequently members of their family, were murdered. Although the Mafia used these violent means to collect their 'taxes', they usually tried to avoid destroying the businesses which were feeding them.

Interesting....

The loans that were provided to build the casino's and hotels appear to have been of a questionable nature - which is what led Senator R. Baker to begin his investigations of the Indiana based Insurance Companies to begin with. Much like the unthinkable and absurd destruction and 'mishandling' of the crime scene in Dallas - the most significant crime scene one might say, of the 20th century - it should be nonsensical to consider that any large insurance company would provide loans without security, risk assessments, or an ROI - unless you consider an alternative type of return. Is there another way to see it?

The casino is a notorious operation itself - one wonders how such a Prudish, Victorian society would have tolerated or permitted legal gambling and prostitution in one State, without illicit activity, bribes, threats, and political power to begin with. Conforto must have paid well. The Casino business deals with cash - I don't think that fools anyone.

http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/1999/928.htm

Why We Must Combat Money Laundering

People who commit crimes need to disguise the origin of their criminal money so that they can use it more easily. This fact is the basis for all money laundering, whether that of the drug trafficker, organized criminal, terrorist, arms trafficker, blackmailer, or credit card swindler. Money laundering generally involves a series of multiple transactions used to disguise the source of financial assets so that those assets may be used without compromising the criminals who are seeking to use the funds. Through money laundering, the criminal tries to transform the monetary proceeds derived from illicit activities into funds with an apparently legal source.

Money laundering has devastating social consequences and is a threat to national security because it provides the fuel for drug dealers, terrorists, illegal arms dealers, corrupt public officials and other criminals to operate and expand their criminal enterprises. In doing so, criminals manipulate financial systems in the United States and abroad. Unchecked, money laundering can erode the integrity of a nation's financial institutions. Due to the high integration of capital markets, money laundering can also negatively affect national and global interest rates as launderers reinvest funds where their schemes are less likely to be detected, rather than where rates of return are higher because of sound economic principles. Organized financial crime is assuming an increasingly significant role in money laundering that threatens the safety and security of peoples, states and democratic institutions. Moreover, our ability to conduct foreign policy and to promote our economic security and prosperity is hindered by these threats to our democratic and free-market partners.

In recent years, crime has become increasingly international in scope, and the financial aspects of crime have become more complex, due to rapid advances in technology and the globalization of the financial services industry. Modern financial systems permit criminals to order the transfer of millions of dollars instantly though personal computers and satellite dishes. Money is laundered through currency exchange houses, stock brokerage houses, gold dealers, casinos, automobile dealerships, insurance companies, and trading companies. Private banking facilities, offshore banking, shell corporations, free trade zones, wire systems, and trade financing all have the ability to mask illegal activities. The criminal's choice of money laundering vehicles is limited only by his or her creativity. Ultimately, this laundered money flows into global financial systems where it can undermine national economies and currencies. Money laundering is thus not only a law enforcement problem but a serious national and international security threat as well.

There is now worldwide recognition that we must deal firmly and effectively with increasingly elusive, well-financed and technologically adept criminals who are determined to use every means available to subvert the financial systems that are the cornerstone of legitimate international commerce. Global events over the past year involving offshore financial centers and new cyber money laundering trends point to the necessity of promptly addressing this growing threat.

Money launderers also negatively impact jurisdictions by reducing tax revenues through underground economies, competing unfairly with legitimate businesses, damaging financial systems, and disrupting economic development. Money laundering is now being viewed as a central dilemma in dealing with all forms of international organized crime because financial gain means power. Fighting money launderers not only reduces financial crime; it also deprives criminals and terrorists of the means to commit other serious crimes.

The United States and other nations are victims of tax evasion schemes that use various financial centers around the world and their bank secrecy laws to hide money from tax authorities, thus undermining legitimate tax collection. Financial centers that have strong bank secrecy laws and weak corporate formation regulations, and that do not cooperate in tax inquiries from foreign governments, are found worldwide. These financial centers, known as "tax havens," thrive in providing sanctuary for the deposit of monies from individuals and businesses that evade the payment of taxes in their home jurisdictions and to keep the money they have deposited from the knowledge of tax authorities. Billions of funds on which tax is properly due (marks, lira, pounds, et cetera) are held on deposit in these tax havens.

It makes no difference whether the funds on which tax is due emanate from illegal activity or revenue earned legally. Tax evasion and money laundering are activities that are aided by financial centers that have strong bank secrecy laws and a policy of non-cooperation with foreign tax or law enforcement authorities.

Almost like a commercial funded by the IRS...

On the Insurance bit - that seems to be a very large nut - that I am not interested in trying to crack, frankly. Like Reilly Coffee and NASA - there seem to be lines you could draw all over the place. The bit about 'car dealerships' in the above was also interesting. Good thing there isn't any high frequency of occurrences of car dealerships and the events in Dallas.

http://www.tdu.org/Newsroom/NYTPension/nytpension.html

Teamsters Find Pensions at Risk

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

New York Times: November 15, 2004

In the 1960's and 1970's, the Teamsters' huge Central States pension fund was a wellspring of union corruption. Tens of millions of dollars were loaned to racketeers who used the money to gain control of Las Vegas casinos. Administrative jobs were awarded to favored insiders who paid themselves big fees. A former Teamster president and pension trustee was convicted of trying to bribe a United States senator.

Yet for nearly half a million union members who are expecting the fund to pay for their retirement, those may have been the good old days.

Since 1982, under a consent decree with the federal government, the fund has been run by prominent Wall Street firms and monitored by a federal court and the Labor Department. There have been no more shadowy investments, no more loans to crime bosses. Yet in these expert hands, the aging fund has fallen into greater financial peril than when James R. Hoffa, who built the Teamsters into a national power, used it as a slush fund.

The unfolding situation holds a hard lesson for others with responsibility for retirement money. What may appear as a sensible, conventional approach to investing - seeking a diversified mix of growth and income investments for the long term - can wreak havoc when applied to a pension fund, especially one in a dying industry with older members who are about to make demands of it.

But the kinds of investments that make sense for such a fund - like long-term bonds that will mature as members enter retirement - are not attractive to most money managers, because they generate few fees. Consequently, very few pension funds use such strategies today.

At the end of 2002, the pension fund had 60 cents for every dollar owed to present and future retirees - a dangerous level. In a rough comparison, the pension fund for US Airways' pilots had 74 cents for every dollar it owed in December 2002, just before it defaulted. During the bear market after the technology bubble burst, Central States' assets lost value as its obligations to retirees ballooned, causing a mismatch so severe that the fund had to reduce benefits last winter for the first time in its 49-year history.

"There never were benefit cuts in the 1970's," said Wayne Seale, 52, a long-haul driver from Houston and one of about 460,000 Teamsters participating in the fund. "We were happy. We were being taken care of."

If the pension fund fails, it will be taken over by a government insurance program. In that case, some Teamsters would lose benefits.

Hoffa and his successors had put an extraordinary 80 percent of Central States' money into real estate. Instead of hotels, casinos and resorts, its new managers - first Morgan Stanley and later Bankers Trust, Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan - invested the money mostly in stocks, and to a lesser extent, in bonds. At the end of 2002, about 54 percent of the fund's assets were in stocks, somewhat less than the average corporate pension fund, which had about 74 percent of assets in stocks that year, according to Greenwich Associates, a research and consulting firm.

Federal law calls for fiduciaries to invest pension assets the way a "prudent man" would, and the strategy used for Central States would certainly be familiar to wealthy individuals, philanthropic trusts, university endowments and other pension funds. The fund's investment results in recent years closely track median annual returns for corporate pension funds, according to Mercer Investment Consulting.

The assets lost 4.5 percent of their value in 2001 and 10.9 percent in 2002, but gained 25.5 percent in 2003, according to the fund's executive director and general counsel, Thomas C. Nyhan.

Morgan Stanley and J. P. Morgan declined to comment. Goldman Sachs defended its record, pointing out that it had exceeded its benchmarks in a very tough market.

But the Central States situation shows that using stocks or other volatile assets to secure the obligations of a mature pension fund greatly increases the risk of getting caught short-handed in a down market. If that happens it can be nearly impossible to bring the ailing pension fund back. This is what has happened recently to pension funds at United Airlines and US Airways.

"Stocks are not a hedge against long-term fixed liabilities," said Zvi Bodie, a finance professor at BostonUniversity who has long challenged conventional pension investment strategies. "For many, many years, right down to the present day, the dominant belief among pension investment people is fundamentally wrong. Now that's a big problem."

The record of a second big Teamsters' pension fund, covering members in the West, bolsters Mr. Bodie's arguments. The Western Conference of Teamsters fund has long shunned stocks and uses a totally different investment approach, a portfolio of 20- and 30-year Treasury bonds and other high-grade fixed-income securities that are scheduled to make payments when its retirees will be claiming their money. The Western Conference pension fund was not perceptibly hurt by the bear market.

If the Central States were a younger pension fund, it could wait for the stock market to improve and bolster its value. But it already has more than 200,000 retirees collecting benefits of more than $2 billion a year.

The companies that employ its members currently put in about $1 billion a year. Its trustees, made up of union officials and company representatives in equal numbers, have contemplated raising employer contributions, but the unionized trucking sector has financial problems, and for many companies a higher contribution would be a hardship. The biggest and wealthiest participating company, United Parcel Service, has been trying to leave the pension fund altogether.

The unionized trucking industry was more stable before deregulation in 1979, and so was the Central States pension fund. In the 1970's, the fund's assets grew by as much as 10 percent a year, according to some media reports from that period. Luck played a big part in that success, because the decade was a bad one for stocks and bonds. Thus, the fund made better returns on its unorthodox real estate portfolio than it would have on a conventional mix of investments. The unionized trucking sector was younger, too. And it was growing, so there was more money available from employees and fewer pensions coming due.

Starting in the early 1960's, the fund loaned tens of millions of dollars for investments in Las Vegas casinos, including the Desert Inn, CaesarsPalace, Stardust, Circus Circus, the Landmark Hotel and the Aladdin Hotel, according to a history by Edwin H. Stier, a former federal prosecutor hired by the union as part of its efforts to clean house.

The loans in those days typically involved a front man who signed the papers and a crime family raking off cash behind the scenes. The loan approval process involved kickbacks, threats and, in at least one case, a kidnapping. By the time Hoffa disappeared in 1975, the Central States pension fund had loaned an estimated $600 million to people connected with organized crime, according to Mr. Stier, who resigned his union appointment in April after questioning the union's ongoing commitment to rooting out corruption.

But many of the loans did serve their intended purpose, making money to pay for Teamsters' retirement benefits. The hotels, casinos and other real estate projects, not all of which were connected to organized crime, were generally profitable, according to Mr. Stier, and before his disappearance Hoffa saw to it that his loans were repaid.

By 1977, after years of indictments, prosecutions, Congressional hearings and murders, federal regulators pressured the Central States trustees to resign and turn over the fund's assets to an independent money manager. The 1982 consent decree reduced the trustees' powers permanently, requiring the pension fund to choose an outside fiduciary from America's largest 20 banks, insurance companies and investment advisory firms.

The first to be named fiduciary was Morgan Stanley. Its duties were to pick money managers, to allocate the assets among them and to advise the new board of trustees on investment objectives and strategies.

As it happened, Morgan Stanley got the Central States mandate at a time of explosive growth in the money-management business. A landmark pension reform law had been passed in 1974, requiring all companies to set aside enough money to make good on their pension promises. With assets piling up in trust funds as a result, money managers were competing fiercely for a piece of the business.

Money managers promised pension funds big returns, and to get the big returns they began to add riskier assets to pension portfolios than pension funds had used before. Sleepy bond portfolios were livened up with stocks. Venture capital, junk bonds, securities of companies in developing countries and other exotica began to appear in pension funds.

These investments could be risky, but the industry argued that losses, even big losses, in one year did not matter because a pension fund was a long-term proposition; over time, the losses would be recouped by even bigger gains. Buoyant markets reinforced this thinking in the 1990's, even though by then unionized trucking was in deep decline, and the Central States' ratio of active workers to pensioners was shifting perilously.

Records for the Central States pension fund are not complete, but they indicate that Morgan Stanley kept pace with industry trends, shifting the fund into stocks, particularly international stocks.

By 1997, more than one-third of the pension fund's assets were invested abroad, records show, far more than the norm for such funds. Greenwich Associates surveyed union pension funds in 2003 and found that international equities made up less than 3 percent of their total assets.

A spokesman for Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the Central States investments, citing a policy of not discussing relationships with past clients. He pointed out, however, that international stocks did relatively well in the late 1990's.

Morgan Stanley was replaced as fiduciary by Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan in 1999 and 2000. (Bankers Trust served as fiduciary very briefly.) A spokesman for Goldman Sachs noted that his company inherited many of Morgan Stanley's investments and added, "Over the five years we have managed the fund, our performance has exceeded the relevant benchmarks." A spokeswoman for J. P. Morgan cited a policy of not discussing clients' business.

When the stock market crashed in 2000, the Central States pension fund had big bets on technology and telecommunication stocks, energy trading companies and foreign stocks. Some of these stocks became nearly worthless. But the resulting carnage was not apparent to many rank-and-file Teamsters until last winter, when plan officials announced that benefits would have to be curtailed.

Meanwhile, drivers were making their retirement plans.

Tommy Burke, a U.P.S. driver in Fayetteville, N.C., had been planning to retire in 2005, when he would turn 60, and go into the restaurant business. But when the pension fund reduced benefit accruals, it also began enforcing a rule that pensioners could not re-enter the work force, under penalty of having their pensions stopped. Mr. Burke, frustrated, began to research the pension fund on his own, trying to learn just what had happened. In an annual report for the plan, he was shocked to see a reference to a $77 million uncollectible loan.

"How in the world can you have an unsecured loan in the amount of $77 million?" he asked.

When an official of the pension fund visited his union local hall this year, Mr. Burke put that question to him, but the answer only upset Mr. Burke more.

"He said it wasn't a loan at all," Mr. Burke recalled. "It was shares of stock in a bank in Russia, and it went belly up." Mr. Burke said he didn't understand why pension money had been used to buy something so risky, if the Labor Department and federal court officials were monitoring the pension fund.

The Labor Department does not generally regulate investment strategy, however. It was watching for signs of self-dealing, racketeering or other flagrant abuse. From that perspective, the fund was progressing well.

Some Teamsters say more complete answers lie in the official progress reports for the pension fund, maintained for the federal courts as required by the consent decree. But those are secret. The New York Times and the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a reform group within the union, have filed motions with the federal district court in Chicago to make the documents public.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is legally separate from the pension fund, commissioned independent investment and actuarial analyses of the pension fund in November 2002.

But the study's findings have not been released to the membership.

Many rank-and-file Teamsters complain that their questions about the pension fund have been met with bromides about unforeseeable market forces, and about an unusual convergence of stock market losses and low interest rates that is always described as "the perfect storm." They are unconvinced.

"If this was all about the stock market and this 'perfect storm,' why weren't all these funds affected the same way?" asked Pete Landon, a truck driver from Detroit who participates in the pension fund.

The best clues may lie in the Western Conference of Teamsters pension fund. In the 1980's, when the Central States plan was shifting from real estate into stocks, the Western Conference trustees, acting on actuarial projections of future pension benefits, put together its conservative portfolio of high-quality bonds and other fixed-income securities. The bonds were held until they matured.

Such an investment portfolio requires little stock research or trading and consequently generates little fee revenue for money managers, but it has served the Western Conference of Teamsters well. From 2000 to the end of 2002, when the Central States fund lost $2.8 billion, the Western Conference fund gained $834 million.

"I think the most prudent, most basic pension funding theory would be: You put aside assets today to most precisely meet your obligations in the future," said Edward A. H. Siedle, a Florida lawyer who specializes in pension fund audits. "You do not try to beat the market. You do not try to maximize returns. But in this country, the plan sponsor doesn't want to do that. The corporation wants to put the minimum aside today, and invest it with maximum efficiency. That's the trouble."

What's the source material for this bit below? Same Roy Cohn, who apparently visited Shearn Moody for one of his fetes? Did this come from 'Citizen Cohn,' by Nicholas Von Hoffman, Doubleday New York 1988?

http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/coerci...logical-systems

The CIA has also been accused of brainwashing children to become killers and sex slaves. These projects evolved to become Project Mk-Ultra. Children are used as sex slaves to cater to and compromise government officials. Edwin Wilson began the CIA’s widespread use of sex in the early 1950s when he acquired homosexual and pedophile rings from CIA asset, mafia lawyer, and Joseph McCarthy Committee counsel Roy Cohn. Of course longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover denied the existance of organized crime — ie the Mafia — as the FBI denies organized child sexual abuse today — ie ritual abuse. The idea that drugs, hypnosis and brainwashing would be used on children to cover up abuse is apparently too controversial for the FBI to admit.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:sb8xsc...us&ct=clnk&cd=7

August 21, 1995

The super-rich have their share of eccentrics, but none more bizarre than Shearn Moody, 62, of Galveston, Texas, heir to a cotton-trading and insurance fortune. Moody's quixotic and paranoid behavior makes Howard Hughes look like the guy next door.

Over the past 25 years, Moody--who once built a slide from his bedroom window to a swimming pool where he kept pet penguins--has been tilting at windmills and battling other forces "conspiring" against him, namely the government and organized crime. He says he's hired and fired "several hundred" lawyers, including the late legal bad boy Roy Cohn. He has declared bankruptcy despite a family fortune in the hundreds of millions. He was jailed for bankruptcy fraud.

The Internal Revenue Service began circling Moody in the mid-1980s, eventually charging him with pillaging the family's Moody Foundation, which was established by Shearn's grandparents with $400 million in 1942 (that's some $3.7 billion in today's...

Can't help but wonder how many of these conversations Nixon held that day were related to one another.

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5

[Personal Returnable]

[Duration: 7m 42s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5

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

Connally

-Conversation with the President

Rumsfeld left at 5:30 pm.

-The President's Law Firm

-Arthur J. Mahon

-Estate In Houston

-Shearn Moody, Jr.

-Roy M. Cohn

-Mahon's statements

-The Attorney General

-Connally's law firm

-The President's law firm

-Mitchell's understanding of case

-Moody

-Moody Foundation

-Connally's law firm

-Client

-Ex-convict's statements

-Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service [iRS]

-Mitchell's conversations

-Victor Riesel [?]

-Johnnie M. Walters

-Russell B. Long's committee

-The President's conversation with Connally

-Riesel [?]

[Robert Howard]

Lee, I really think your information on this thread is very intriguing, and I wanted to add a couple of things, which you may or may not find interesting.

The Southland Building in 1963, contained a large number of insurance companies, I have checked and did not find an entry for the one mentioned in this thread, American National Insurance Co. (But that is not to say, some of the companies in the Southland Bdlg. could not have been inter-related in some way with American National).

Ruth Paine’s father was William Avery Hyde, at the time of her testimony before the New Orleans Grand Jury, she was asked about her father, when asked asked ‘what was he doing in 1962 and 1963’ Ruth states

“He worked with Nationwide Insurance until his three year of AID, which ended last June (that would have been June 1967) so that leaves him still with Nationwide, doesn’t it?”……

Later in her testimony, she is asked “When your father traveled for the Agency for International Development, what kind of work did he do?”

Ruth Paine: “No, please understand me, he was with Nationwide when he did these short hops to Germany, stuff like this, or else he was on leave to the International Cooperative Alliance, or some agency like this, which was non-governmental.”

Q: “Who participated in the International Cooperative Alliance?”

Ruth Paine: “I just don’t know.”

I apologize if the information doesen't appear relevant to the thread, but at some point it could, if anything it might be something you should know, if you didn't already.

Also, I believe that Ron Ecker inquired about Louis Steven Witt, recently I discovered that in 1963 Mr Witt maintained an office in the Rio Grande Building - 251 North Field Street, this building also housed offices for such diverse organizations as the Dallas office for US Army Intelligence, the Greater Dallas Council of Churches and the Greater Dallas Religious Survey, J. Walton Moore's CIA office was in the Reliant Life Building. Happy Hunting

Edited March 15, 2006 by Robert Howard

[Lee Forman]

Thanks all.

Interesting stuff. I really don't intend to pursue it much farther - I do believe there are too many closets here on the insurance piece - but I will make mental notes, and maybe come back to it sometime. I think it would be worthwhile to table the companies that existed in 1963 and who worked there, and also to whom they 'loaned' money [if you could even get that info] over the year proceeding and up to 1964. The FBI report on Senator Raymond Baker has the funding running into the 60s, which means it was probably an established routine.

On Paine - why would a company called 'Nationwide,' based in the US, have anyone traveling to Germany...ever?

On Witt - any idea on the odds that a man with an open umbrella would be standing at the Trade Mart with some protest sign on the shaft?

Jerry, I was at the Trade Mart in 1963 when the JFK motorcade raced by on the way to Parkland. I just now got the meaning of the display of a very anti JFK protest sign I saw there that day. Don't really remember the verbage on the sign but it was displayed on the shaft of an open umbrella

[Ron Ecker]

Lee,

Who are you quoting on the umbrella at the Trade Mart?

Ron

[Lee Forman]

Lee,

Who are you quoting on the umbrella at the Trade Mart?

Ron

Hi Ron.

Here:

http://www.dallashistory.org/cgi-bin/webbb...ames;read=27318

There's a few good ones, but no smoking gun. A Dallas history Forum. There is quite a thread on JFK. The next one in line, Joyce Schmidt, is pretty good also.

- lee

"Nixon, Nixon he's our man, Kennedy belongs in the garbage can"

[Douglas Caddy]

It seems that Moody and John Connally didn't exactly see eye to eye.

FWIW.

James

Shearn Moody, Jr. on numerous occasions told me how John Connally had attempted to take over the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas. At one time the Foundation was placed in the hands of strangers and only through a lawsuit filed by Shearn Moody, Jr., did the Moody family regain control.

Moody provided me with documents showing that one means that Connally utilized his power illicitly was through Project Southwest, which was instituted by the Internal Revenue service under the Nixon Administration.

After Professor John A. Andrew of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania published his book titled “The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics,” he informed me that he had begun writing another book. This additional work would deal with abuses by the Internal Revenue Service.

I provided Prof. Andrew with materials that Moody had given me on Project Southwest. Prof. Andrew was intrigued by what he read and through the Freedom of Information Act obtained additional documents on IRS abuses, including more on Project Southwest. However, before he finished his book, he suddenly died in 2000. His manuscript was later completed, using his writings and research materials that he left behind, and was published in 2002. Its title is “Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon” and is available from amazon.com.

Among the documents that I gave to Prof. Andrew was a letter-to-editor from me on Project Southwest that was published in The Wall Street Journal in 1998. A few days after my letter was published, The Wall Street Journal published a letter-to-editor from former IRS Commissioner Johnny Walters, who served in the Nixon Administration, disputing my allegation of IRS abuses through Project Southwest while he was Commissioner.

Prof. John Andrew, who had previously studied at the University of Texas and written a book on Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, contended in his communications to me that Connally, while serving as Secretary of the Treasury in the Nixon Administration, had used IRS Project Southwest to go after his political enemies in Texas. He maintained that Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, also from Texas, had indicted Connally in part in retaliation for devising Project Southwest. The indictment charged that Connally had accepted a bribe while serving as Secretary of the Treasury. The evidence was strong that he had done so but a Washington, D.C. jury, comprised mainly of African-Americans, found Connally not guilty after the Rev. Billy Graham and Member of Congress Barbara Jordan of Texas, a prominent African-American, testified as character witnesses in his behalf.

In 2001, at its Commencement Ceremony Franklin and Marshall College remembered Prof. Andrew in a eulogy that contained, in part, the following words:

History Professor John Andrew Honored

Posthumously at Franklin and Marshall Commencement

A member of the faculty since 1973, Andrew earned his bachelor's and master's at the University of New Hampshire and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas - Austin....At the time of his death, Andrew was deeply immersed in writing a history of the political uses of the Internal Revenue Service from Kennedy to Nixon. He became interested in this subject while researching The Other Side of the Sixties, and soon became an expert in filing Freedom of Information Act petitions to gain access to IRS documents.

http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/Colle...0-01/PR171.html

Publisher’s Weekly in its review had this to say about Prof. Andrew’s book on the IRS:

As historian Prof. Andrew (Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society) shows in this dense study, during the 1960s and '70s the White House used the power of taxation to attack enemies-and reward friends-with relative impunity. President Kennedy, for example, started an "Ideological Organizations Project" that used the IRS to challenge the tax-exempt status of (and thus choke off the funding from) such right-wing opponents as the John Birch Society. Johnson often promised tax favors to wealthy individuals who could deliver votes. But these abuses pale in comparison to the corruption of the Nixon administration, which used the IRS to persecute people on the president's notorious "Enemies List." At Nixon's request, the IRS launched audits and investigations of a host of real and imagined opponents, including the Jerry Rubin Foundation, the Fund for Investigative Journalism (which funded Seymour Hersh's reporting on the My Lai massacre) and the Center for Corporate Responsibility. The basic intent, Nixon aide John Dean wrote, was to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." Though known to Watergate prosecutors, these abuses went largely unreported in the mainstream media because they weren't sexy enough for the general public.

In my opinion, had Watergate not erupted and had not Connally been swept up in its wake, he might well have succeeded in using his position as Secretary of the Treasury to steal the Moody Foundation from the Moody Family. Discussions that took place in the Oval Office in the White House would seem to support this. Thus, Shearn Moody, Jr., had proper reason to be on guard against Connally’s ambitions.

[Lee Forman]

Mr. Caddy - did Shearn ever mention John Tower at all?

- lee

[James Richards]

Thanks, Douglas. Very interesting indeed.

In the mid 1960's, Moody and Jack C. Vaughn tried to merge their companies. Are you aware of any details there?

Also, did you ever cross paths with Moody's lobbyist, Jimmy Day?

Cheers,

James

It seems that Moody and John Connally didn't exactly see eye to eye.

FWIW.

James

Shearn Moody, Jr. on numerous occasions told me how John Connally had attempted to take over the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas. At one time the Foundation was placed in the hands of strangers and only through a lawsuit filed by Shearn Moody, Jr., did the Moody family regain control.

Moody provided me with documents showing that one means that Connally utilized his power illicitly was through Project Southwest, which was instituted by the Internal Revenue service under the Nixon Administration.

After Professor John A. Andrew of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania published his book titled “The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics,” he informed me that he had begun writing another book. This additional work would deal with abuses by the Internal Revenue Service.

I provided Prof. Andrew with materials that Moody had given me on Project Southwest. Prof. Andrew was intrigued by what he read and through the Freedom of Information Act obtained additional documents on IRS abuses, including more on Project Southwest. However, before he finished his book, he suddenly died in 2000. His manuscript was later completed, using his writings and research materials that he left behind, and was published in 2002. Its title is “Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon” and is available from amazon.com.

Among the documents that I gave to Prof. Andrew was a letter-to-editor from me on Project Southwest that was published in The Wall Street Journal in 1998. A few days after my letter was published, The Wall Street Journal published a letter-to-editor from former IRS Commissioner Johnny Walters, who served in the Nixon Administration, disputing my allegation of IRS abuses through Project Southwest while he was Commissioner.

Prof. John Andrew, who had previously studied at the University of Texas and written a book on Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, contended in his communications to me that Connally, while serving as Secretary of the Treasury in the Nixon Administration, had used IRS Project Southwest to go after his political enemies in Texas. He maintained that Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, also from Texas, had indicted Connally in part in retaliation for devising Project Southwest. The indictment charged that Connally had accepted a bribe while serving as Secretary of the Treasury. The evidence was strong that he had done so but a Washington, D.C. jury, comprised mainly of African-Americans, found Connally not guilty after the Rev. Billy Graham and Member of Congress Barbara Jordan of Texas, a prominent African-American, testified as character witnesses in his behalf.

In 2001, at its Commencement Ceremony Franklin and Marshall College remembered Prof. Andrew in a eulogy that contained, in part, the following words:

History Professor John Andrew Honored

Posthumously at Franklin and Marshall Commencement

A member of the faculty since 1973, Andrew earned his bachelor's and master's at the University of New Hampshire and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas - Austin....At the time of his death, Andrew was deeply immersed in writing a history of the political uses of the Internal Revenue Service from Kennedy to Nixon. He became interested in this subject while researching The Other Side of the Sixties, and soon became an expert in filing Freedom of Information Act petitions to gain access to IRS documents.

http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/Colle...0-01/PR171.html

Publisher’s Weekly in its review had this to say about Prof. Andrew’s book on the IRS:

As historian Prof. Andrew (Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society) shows in this dense study, during the 1960s and '70s the White House used the power of taxation to attack enemies-and reward friends-with relative impunity. President Kennedy, for example, started an "Ideological Organizations Project" that used the IRS to challenge the tax-exempt status of (and thus choke off the funding from) such right-wing opponents as the John Birch Society. Johnson often promised tax favors to wealthy individuals who could deliver votes. But these abuses pale in comparison to the corruption of the Nixon administration, which used the IRS to persecute people on the president's notorious "Enemies List." At Nixon's request, the IRS launched audits and investigations of a host of real and imagined opponents, including the Jerry Rubin Foundation, the Fund for Investigative Journalism (which funded Seymour Hersh's reporting on the My Lai massacre) and the Center for Corporate Responsibility. The basic intent, Nixon aide John Dean wrote, was to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." Though known to Watergate prosecutors, these abuses went largely unreported in the mainstream media because they weren't sexy enough for the general public.

In my opinion, had Watergate not erupted and had not Connally been swept up in its wake, he might well have succeeded in using his position as Secretary of the Treasury to steal the Moody Foundation from the Moody Family. Discussions that took place in the Oval Office in the White House would seem to support this. Thus, Shearn Moody, Jr., had proper reason to be on guard against Connally’s ambitions.

[Douglas Caddy]

Mr. Caddy, do you have any insight into Moody's feelings about LBJ? Were they involved in a long-time feud? In your talks with Moody, did the subject of Howard Hughes or Robert Maheu ever come up?

No, the names of Howard Hughes or Robert Maheu were never mentioned by Shearn Moody, Jr. to me.

There was no feud between LBJ and Moody to my knowledge. After Billie Sol Estes from prison initially contacted Moody about getting financial help in telling his story about his relationship with LBJ, Moody did tell me in 1983 that he had heard on reliable authority that Johnson had created "a secret financial empire" while holding public office.

Such a secret LBJ financial empire is, of course, the subject of Barr McClellan's book, "Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ killed JFK", which was published in 2003, some 20 years after Moody talked to me about it.

[Douglas Caddy]

Mr. Caddy - did Shearn ever mention John Tower at all?

- lee

Lee: No, at no time did Shearn Moody, Jr. ever mention the name of John Tower to me.

[Douglas Caddy]

Thanks, Douglas. Very interesting indeed.

In the mid 1960's, Moody and Jack C. Vaughn tried to merge their companies. Are you aware of any details there?

Also, did you ever cross paths with Moody's lobbyist, Jimmy Day?

Cheers,

James

It seems that Moody and John Connally didn't exactly see eye to eye.

FWIW.

James

I have no recollection of Shearn Moody, Jr. ever mentioning that he desired to merge his Alabama insurance company with another entity. Of course, by the time I began working with him he had lost his company to unscrupulous Alabama insurance regulators in years prior, so I don’t have a complete grasp of what transpired in that period.

Jimmy Day was Shearn’s lobbyist in Austin, Texas, the state capital. When Carter was elected President he moved to Washington, D.C. There, according to Shearn, he got himself charged with the felony of “puffery” and was sent to prison. Shearn said that Day “lifted” stationery while visiting the White House and then wrote a letter on the White House letterhead that praised himself as being most meritorious and signed the name of a White House official. He used this to impress potential clients for his lobbying expertise..

Day was sent to federal prison at Big Spring, Texas, which is where Billie Sol Estes was incarcerated. It was Day who suggested to Billie Sol that he call Moody to request a grant from the Moody Foundation to help in getting the story out about his relationship with LBJ.

I met Jimmy Day on only one occasion, when he visited with Shearn soon after his release from Big Spring prison. Subsequently, he disappeared from the scene and Moody never mentioned him again. Billie Sol at no time spoke about Day to me.

In 1984, I invited Shearn to be my guest at the annual dinner of the U.S. Supreme Court Society, which had been organized by Chief Justice Warren Burger. The dinner was held in the Supreme Court building and guests were free to roam around the building before dinner. Shearn went into the conference room where the justices weekly met to discuss the cases before them. In a playful mood he “lifted” a note pad from the conference table that bore the title of “Supreme Court of the United States” on it and started to walk out. Mrs. Burger intercepted him and gently suggested that he return the pad to where it belonged. It was lucky that she was good-natured about it, otherwise he might have found himself later charged with “puffery” also.

Edited March 17, 2006 by Douglas Caddy

[James Richards]

I have no recollection of Shearn Moody, Jr. ever mentioning that he desired to merge his Alabama insurance company with another entity. Of course, by the time I began working with him he had lost his company to unscrupulous Alabama insurance regulators in years prior, so I don’t have a complete grasp of what transpired in that period.

Jimmy Day was Shearn’s lobbyist in Austin, Texas, the state capital. When Carter was elected President he moved to Washington, D.C. There, according to Shearn, he got himself charged with the felony of “puffery” and was sent to prison. Shearn said that Day “lifted” stationery while visiting the White House and then wrote a letter on the White House letterhead that praised himself as being most meritorious and signed the name of a White House official. He used this to impress potential clients for his lobbying expertise..

Day was sent to federal prison at Big Spring, Texas, which is where Billie Sol Estes was incarcerated. It was Day who suggested to Billie Sol that he call Moody to request a grant from the Moody Foundation to help in getting the story out about his relationship with LBJ.

I met Jimmy Day on only one occasion, when he visited with Shearn soon after his release from Big Spring prison. Subsequently, he disappeared from the scene and Moody never mentioned him again. Billie Sol at no time spoke about Day to me.

In 1984, I invited Shearn to be my guest at the annual dinner of the U.S. Supreme Court Society, which had been organized by Chief Justice Warren Burger. The dinner was held in the Supreme Court building and guests were free to roam around the building before dinner. Shearn went into the conference room where the justices weekly met to discuss the cases before them. In a playful mood he “lifted” a note pad from the conference table that bore the title of “Supreme Court of the United States” on it and started to walk out. Mrs. Burger intercepted him and gently suggested that he return the pad to where it belonged. It was lucky that she was good-natured about it, otherwise he might have found himself later charged with “puffery” also. (Douglas Caddy)

Douglas,

Thanks for the terrific information on Jimmy Day.

I don't know a whole lot regarding the merger but in 1966, Shearn Moody Jr. and Jack C. Vaughn wanted to merge the Empire Life Insurance Co. of America based in Alabama with the National Empire Life Insurance Co. of Dallas.

There was a meeting of stockholders from both companies scheduled for the 30th of June to approve the merger. I have no idea what happened.

I was curious because I believe that Moody was funding some covert operations conducted by one Robert Emmett Johnson which included an aspect of the John Kennedy murder and the killing of Martin Luther King in 1968.

Cheers,

James

Edited March 17, 2006 by James Richards

[Lee Forman]

Douglas,

Thanks for the terrific information on Jimmy Day.

I don't know a whole lot regarding the merger but in 1966, Shearn Moody Jr. and Jack C. Vaughn wanted to merge the Empire Life Insurance Co. of America based in Alabama with the National Empire Life Insurance Co. of Dallas.

There was a meeting of stockholders from both companies scheduled for the 30th of June to approve the merger. I have no idea what happened.

I was curious because I believe that Moody was funding some covert operations conducted by one Robert Emmett Johnson which included an aspect of the John Kennedy murder and the killing of Martin Luther King in 1968.

Cheers,

James

Hey James.

Without knowing what was discussed with Nixon, do you suppose Connally may have been using his knowledge of Shearn's contributions as a personal motivation to go after the Moody Foundation? At a minimum, Connally was potentially 'withholding evidence,' in the form of bullet fragments still remaining in his leg. He's calling on Nixon - for leverage? What's he got for cards? Do you suppose that perhaps Connally took it personally that he was shot multiple times, and was looking for some payback? I mean, like Trujillo's son, Connally should have been pissed.

Anyway just speculation, but one wonders as to Connally's motive and why Nixon would be involved. Perhaps there is a transcript or a recording of that session. Here's the Argosy bit.

- lee