Leslie Sharp

Instead of studying the history of the first salvo of what we know now is a slow rolling fascist coup in America launched in 1945, we responded to MAGA-Trump as if created out of whole cloth. The parallels of the sedition charges against dozens of US officials including Congressnen in 1945 and the indictment of Trump and his cadre of protofascists post-January 6 are astounding if one is truly paying attention. Listen to ULTRA podcast. "As a new authoritarian movement rises in American politics, stoked by one of the country’s most outrageous demagogues, there is an all-out international manhunt for an American traitor. The U.S. Army’s Nazi war crimes trials in Germany have been infiltrated by a spy -- a mole for the other side. A gruesome foreign influence operation unfolds in Washington. A blackmail plot turns deadly in the U.S. Senate. A Hail Mary scheme to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes rattles democracy’s cage. With the line between the violent ultra-right and mainstream American politics fraying beyond recognition, with the FBI always one step behind their quarry, Americans of all stripes step up to confront a seemingly unstoppable, ascendant, anti-democratic force. Join Rachel Maddow for Episode One, launching June 10, 2024, and follow now. You can also subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access to every episode the Friday before it drops, and ad-free listening to all episodes in Ultra seasons one and two." Season 2 launched June 10, 2024 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/id1647910854

Why is no one discussing Argentina's agreement, initiated in 1963, to sell yellowcake to Israel? Israel's Quest for Yellowcake: The Secret Argentina-Israel Connection, 1963-1966 During 1963-64, the Israeli government secretly acquired 80-100 tons of Argentine uranium oxide (“yellowcake”) for its nuclear weapons program, according to US and British archival documents published today for the first time jointly by the National Security Archive, the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey institute of International Studies (MIIS). The US government learned about the facts of the sale through Canadian intelligence and found out even more from its Embassy in Argentina. In response to US diplomatic queries about the sale, the government of Israel was evasive in its replies and gave no answers to the US's questions about the transaction. . . . The Israelis evaded answering questions about the transaction. When US scientists visited the Dimona facility in March in March 1966 as part of the August 1963 secret agreement between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Eshkol they asked about the yellowcake but their Israeli hosts said that question was for “higher officials.” . . . For the Dimona project the Israelis initially had gotten uranium from France, but in the early 1960s Paris began to restrict the supply and Israel sought to diversify its sources by securing uranium from Argentina, South Africa and elsewhere.[2] Conversely, because the United States was worried about the Israeli nuclear program and its implications for stability in the region, it made efforts to monitor closely Israeli purchases of nuclear material and investigated the Argentine-Israeli deal. While Washington was then exploring ways to establish a global safeguards system to regulate nuclear supplies through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), nothing yet was available with any teeth, such as the future Nuclear Suppliers Group, to check such sales, much less restrict the Israeli nuclear program. . . . Washington found that the sale was irreversible and that it could learn nothing about its purpose, although it kept trying. The Argentines said they could only apply strong safeguards to future sales while the Israelis evaded all queries about the yellowcake, although as part of a high-level deal between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Eshkol from 1963 Israel had allowed US government experts to visit their nuclear reactor at Dimona. The US team apparently raised the Argentine yellowcake during a 1966 visit but the Israelis were not helpful in providing explanations. The CIA could not learn anything concrete about the transaction either. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/israels-quest-for-yellowcake-the-secret-argentina-israel-connection-1963-1966

And how would he conduct foreign policy if he can't get past customs in dozens of countries? Does the British PM refer to him a "Trump"? Travel trouble, gun restrictions and no more ‘Mr Trump’: the trials of life as a felon A loss of the honorific ‘Mr’ in the UK’s Daily Telegraph may be just the start, after the former president was found guilty in his hush-money trial https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/31/travel-trouble-gun-restrictions-and-no-more-mr-trump-the-trials-of-life-as-a-convicted-felon

RFK Jr's. exploitation of his family legacy without living up to its ideals is possibly more obnoxious than the other Jr's. simpering gibberish about "the Constitution" – which his father plans on dismantling – and Democracy – with an upper and lower case D – which obviously sticks in Don's craw. RFK Jr. argued the Democrats are trying to win 2024 through the court system during 'Jesse Watters Primetime' NO, Bobby, Democrats are committed to the rule of law that no man is above it, a concept your own father committed himself to and that likely contributed to his demise. Don't play this divisive card and then campaign on unity of purpose and preservation of our democracy. We remain vigilant even if you can't. https://www.foxnews.com/media/rfk-jr-warns-trump-conviction-backfire-democrats-bad-our-democracy

Roger Stone's welcome under the JFKA tent – with open arms by far too many gullible researchers – was the harbinger that the community was being infiltrated by those who have no idea what Kennedy represented to the experiment in democracy. Comparing JFK to DJT is insulting to those of us who came of age in the 1960s. Following Trump's defeat in 2020, along comes Tucker Carlson to serve as poster-boy to exploit "free the JFK records" when in fact for the previous thirty years of his career he failed to use his bully pit to advance assassination research. Little if any mention – other than the spin on his "inside source" – that Trump failed his responsibility and refused to release the remaining files. Why is that? Oh, I remember, he was scared. Here, in the first three minutes, Carlson and Don Jr. compare Trump's indictments with the assassination of Pres. Kennedy, even alluding to the boiler plate language on the authorization for the Mar-a-Lago search. If the end game of Dallas, November 22, 1963, was to erode faith in our government, our institutions, and the judicial system toward eventual installation (under minority rule) of the first in a decades-long succession of authoritarians in the White House, then leading members of this "community" that refuse to call out the Goebbels-style propaganda of Carlson et al, will go down in history as having been complicit. It's time to collectively reject this egregiously distorted comparison between JFK and Trump and sound the alarm that, if elected in 2024, Trump will be the culmination of the coup in Dallas. https://www.wnd.com/2024/05/watch-tucker-carlson-listen-trump-jr/

I wonder why this wasn't this included in the initial link for public consumption?

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2023/docid-32423393.pdf @David Andrews, I'm curious why they didn't provide this link as well.

. . . The parent company of RNB, Republic National Corporation headed by Fred Florence who as mentioned earlier was the inspiration behind The Howard Corp just after the war, purchased controlling shares of Lakewood State Bank, which was organized in 1941 by banker J. F. Parks, Sr. along with the Storey family of Greenville, Texas. Robert Jr. would be named to the board of RNB in 1949. The Howard Corp. which held approximately $15 million in assets, generating millions in profits annually represented a potential for channeling far more substantial funds for the CIA than the Hoblitzelle Foundation, far earlier, perhaps as early as the close of WWII when agency asset Robert Storey returned to Dallas to resume his law practice and join the boards of Republic and Lakewood, a bank that he would soon preside over as president in spite of having no experience in banking. As noted earlier, both Storey and Houston lawyer Leon Jaworski had served under Judge Robert Jackson during the war tribunals which included the trial of SS Otto Skorzeny. The details of that trial have been elaborated on previously in this book. Following the war, Robert Storey’s colleague, Jaworski returned to Houston and resumed the practice of law from his offices located in the Bank of the Southwest. He would soon be elected to the bank board and was retained as Legal Counsel for Schlumberger, Ltd., whose headquarters were also located in the Bank of the Southwest building. The reader will recall details of Schlumberger in the chapter focused on jack of all trades Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. Dallas offices of both Schlumberger, Ltd. and attorney Leon Jaworski were located in the Republic National Bank building. In a 1973 article in the New York Times during that newspaper’s pursuit of the role that Leon Jaworski was to assume in the Watergate investigation, headlined, “Jaworski Reportedly Had Role in Setting Up C.I.A. Aid Conduit,” the newspaper followed up on Richard Harwood’s reporting in The Washington Post story six years earlier, and identified the M. D. Anderson Foundation as the Houston conduit for the CIA providing similar services to the agency as had the Hoblitzelle Foundation of Dallas. At the same time, the Houston Chronicle also revealed Jaworski’s acknowledged role in another alleged CIA conduit, the American Fund for Free Jurists when he told the newspaper that he “possibly helped channel Central Intelligence Agency funds” to the lawyers’ group. Following the assassination in Dallas, Robert Storey and Leon Jaworski found themselves reunited at the formation of the Warren Commission investigation, Jaworski working directly with the federal commission’s legal team on behalf of the interests of the State of Texas, and Storey as direct liaison between the authorities of the City of Dallas and Allen Dulles, recently “retired” Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and de facto head of the commission. Robert G. “Bob” Storey, Jr. [emphasis added] Career highlights of Robert Gerald Storey, Jr., known to close friends as “Bob,” were achieved through the legal profession, but particularly significant to this saga was his role in the development of modern Dallas that included inspiration for an international merchandise mart, not unlike the New Orleans International Trade Mart envisioned by Clay LaVerne Shaw. Bob Storey’s concept came to fruition when developer Trammell Crow built the Dallas Trade Mart, Kennedy’s ultimate destination as the limo turned onto Elm. Crow is notorious as having been involved with Clint Murchison and attorney/ real estate developer Angus Wynne in their Great Southwest Corporation and the Six Flags project where, in another masterful move, Marina and Marguerite Oswald were secreted away and interrogated in the days following the assassination. Storey also established the Southwestern Legal Foundation on the campus of his beloved Southern Methodist University, where he served as the Dean of the Law School for many years. But it’s Storey’s position among the elite of the oil industry, both national and international that confirms Rene Lafitte’s astute observation that “oil soothes the way.” His idea for an International Oil & Gas Education Center under the aegis of his Southwest Legal Foundation housed on the Campus of Southern Methodist University, placed him in the cat bird’s seat of the petroleum industry. Identified by many as a “roving ambassador at large,” promoting freedom and the American way of life, a 1957 Dallas Morning News piece titled “Dean Storey: World Affairs Expert” reported that his recent trip around the world marked his fourth such journey since the war. Storey, a member of Neil Mallon’s Dallas World Affairs Council that most researchers agree functioned under the guidance of Allen Dulles and the CIA, was as anti-communist as any of those previously identified in this book. In a speech before the International Convention of Christian Churches in Kansas City, 1961, Storey spoke of the challenges that Christianity faced during the Cold War because of the power, growth, and dangers of the “Marxist virus.” Noting that “the Communists feel any means to reach their objectives are justified, a Christian is restricted by the teachings of Christ from committing certain acts which the Communist is free to commit”; ironic, considering he is named in records of the plot to murder a man in the harsh light of day in “Christian-centered” Dallas. Prior to assuming the mantle of his father who was held in high esteem in Dallas business circles, Storey served in both World War I and II. One official record reads: In World War II, the Air Force sent him to London as a combat intelligence officer. He was promoted to colonel for his work with the War Crimes Commission in the Balkans and later awarded the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit. In 1945, Storey planned to return to Dallas and to the practice of law, but US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson had other thoughts. Justice Jackson had been appointed chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, and he wanted Storey by his side as special counsel. Storey was on the prosecution team that prosecuted Herman Goering, Rudolph Hess, and other high-ranking Nazi officials. Storey served as dean of the law school from 1947–1959. From 1952–53, he also served as president of the American Bar Association. During that time, he created the Southwestern Legal Foundation as a means of sponsoring the development of a major legal center and served as its director until 1972. However, the November 20th datebook entry. ‘Call Storey’ followed by the name ‘Duvall,’ and the initials ‘DeM’ penned by the project manager of the plot to murder Kennedy, reveals a darker side to the esteemed jurist. There can be little doubt that the Duvall mentioned is Judge Jesse C. Duvall of Fort Worth, TX. Judge Duvall had served as prosecutor during the Dachau trials at the conclusion of WWII. Among the defendants was SS Otto Skorzeny. Duvall, a US Army Major during WWII was serving under Judge Robert H. Jackson at the same time Jackson had seconded Col. Robert G. Storey to search for evidence to support the charges against Nazi war criminals. Judge Jackson had known Storey through the American Bar Association before the war, and when he heard that Storey had uncovered valuable documents related to Russia, he tasked his friend with the search for evidence to be presented in the war crimes trials. That search resulted in the discovery of forty-seven crates of Nazi records. Now we see Storey and Duvall named side by side in private records of the manager of a conspiracy, two days before the assassination, followed by reference to DeM which we can safely assume was George de Mohrenschildt. During an interview with the FBI, Judge Duvall revealed that he had met the de Mohrenschildts in January 1963, and several months later had dined with the couple in Dallas. He reported that over dinner, de Mohrenschildt had asked if he might assist his new friend, the recently repatriated defector to Russia, Lee Harvey Oswald with his dishonorable discharge. In one of the more odd twists of fate in this saga, Judge Duvall was also approached in the immediate aftermath of Jack Ruby’s shooting of Oswald. It seems that the man, an acquaintance of Judge Duvall for over two decades had worked as a bookkeeper for Ruby in early 1963, alleged that he had seen Jack Ruby and Oswald together in Ruby’s Carousel Club. Bob Storey passed away in 1981. Judge Duvall followed him a year later.

Which will turn out “in retrospect” to seem the obvious errors of the 1960’s? There were many, but they are past. The question now is what might be the errors of the 1970’s, and whether some can be avoided. One Richard Harwood does not a professional upheaval make, but he marks a profoundly important beginning. All major journals should have such a man in a senior post, and very likely he should have a staff of reporters to help him cover “the news business.” As for government itself, there is not much to be done, but there is something. It is perfectly clear that the press will not be intimidated. Specific efforts like President Kennedy’s to get David Halberstam removed as a Times correspondent in Vietnam almost always fail, as they deserve to do.7 Non-specific charges such as those leveled by Vice President Agnew get nowhere either. They come down to an avowal of dislike, which is returned in more than ample measure, with the added charge that in criticizing the press the government may be trying to intimidate it, which is unconstitutional." In this instance, Harwood exposed a veritable bottomless pit of funds derived from West Texas Crude stashed in an off-the-books account at Republic National Dallas for decades. In a personal note to James Angleton dated July 23, 1964, special employee and friend Pierre Lafitte makes note that the rest will be worked out w/Howard group. In the early stages of analysis of Lafitte's records, it was easy to assume he means E. Howard Hunt's group; however, as will be presented in Coup Brief, it is now reasonable to argue this is a reference to the accountholders of Republic National Bank's client Howard Corp. and/or those on their payroll. That RNB's satellite Lakewood State hired Don Wright whose son ends up at American University Cairo where he learned at the feet of some of America's most successful international propagandists serving. witting or not, Frank Wisner's Wurlitzer should prompt at least a modicum of curiosity. Wisner's son whose first posting as a foreign service officer was Tangier, currently holds a seat on the board of trustees of AUEgypt alongside John J. McCloy II. I would remind researchers that Robert G. Storey, Jr. (who makes a cameo appearance in Lafitte's 1963 datebook) was a board member of RNB and served as Texas liaison with the Warren Commission.

speaking of Lawrence Wright . . . The Manchurian Journalist: Lawrence Wright, the CIA, and the Corruption of American Journalism https://www.amazon.com/Manchurian-Journalist-Lawrence-Corruption-Journalism/dp/1634244540 In his forthcoming book, The Manchurian Journalist, seasoned investigator Dan Luzzader tracks the career path of Lawrence Wright who miraculously evaded military induction that likely would have meant a stint in Vietnam and instead landed a slot at the American University in Cairo where he learned his trade[craft?]. It's a fascinating tale – as the title suggests – likely to create a stir. Lawrence Wright's father Don was a senior executive of Lakewood State Bank, Dallas in the 1960s, a bank operated under the protective umbrella of Republic National Bank of Dallas. Don Wright should be of particular interest to those familiar with the esteemed jurist Robert G. Story, Jr. who inherited major shares in Lakewood earning him a seat on the board of Republic National which – as many informed researchers will now concur – served as the Southwest satellite of US intelligence and the Military Industrial Complex in 1963. 300 North Ervay — Republic National Bank and Howard Corp The following from The Handbook of Texas compiled by the Texas State Historical Association and available online, offers an introduction to a little known fact behind the phenomenal success of Republic National Bank of Dallas from the 1940s thru the early 1970s: “In what some consider his most important management decision, [Fred] Florence [as head of Republic National Bank], organized a wholly owned subsidiary, the Howard Corporation, in 1946 to receive the petroleum properties of Republic National in exchange for its authorized capital stock. The company, which took its name from Howard County, Texas where some of the oil properties were located, acquired numerous shares of Teléfonos de México, invested in twenty Texas banks, Highland Park Village, and six other shopping centers, and undeveloped real estate, and paid huge dividends. By 1948 Republic was the largest bank in Texas. Howard's stock was transferred to a separate trust in 1955, but in 1973 the Federal Reserve Bank required Republic to divest itself of the Howard Corporation's non-banking assets in order to form a holding company known as the Republic of Texas Corporation.” The veil of secrecy was lifted from ‘The Howard Corp” et al by officers of the Republic National Bank of Dallas — Al Altwegg, Business Ed., Dallas Morning News, Feb 1964. In the early ’60s, Business Editor of the Dallas Morning News, Al Altwegg began to delve into the shadowy Howard Corp. Under a March 10, 1963, headline, “The Howard Corp. Unique in Banking,” Altwegg reported that as early as 1959 someone had raised the question of whether or not Republic National Bank was in violation of the National Bank Holding Act. The trustees of Howard Corp., which included the president of Republic, James W. Aston, reporting directly to Chairman Karl Hoblitzelle, managed to convince Texas banking authorities that there was no violation of the state’s laws prohibiting branch banking. Republic’s scheme was to purchase majority shares in various banks around the area under what seem to have been shell corporations within the Howard Corp, trust, thereby skirting scrutiny because each corporation held the controlling shares independent of Republic Bank. Those thirteen “non-branch banks” included Lakewood State Bank, whose president at the time of the assassination, Robert G. Storey, Jr., was an alleged CIA asset after the war and looms large in our story. Many authors interested in the machinations of the Central Intelligence Agency have over the years referenced The Washington Post article by staff writer Richard Harwood published February 18, 1967, as evidence that Republic National Bank was a conduit for the CIA: In Dallas, Texas, a charitable foundation intimately associated with the Republic National Bank and other major companies, apparently has served as a conduit for at least $580,700 in CIA funds since 1958 . . . the Hoblitzelle foundation began making major grants to the International Development Funds, about which nothing is known, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom. With this, Harwood revealed that the Hoblitzelle Foundation, referenced in the prelude to this chapter, was a conduit for the agency and argued that by association the Republic National Bank was a CIA conduit: “Business Leaders Are Tied to CIA’s Covert Operations.” The report read in part, “There was mounting evidence yesterday that leaders of the American business establishment have been deeply involved in the cover operations of the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States. In Dallas, Texas, a charitable foundation intimately associated with the Republic National Bank and other major companies, apparently has served as a conduit for at least $580,700 in CIA funds since 1958. One of the foundation trustees is Federal Judge Sahar [sic] T. Hughes, who administered the oath of office to President Lyndon Johnson following the assassination of President Kennedy.” The roots of the reality that Republic National was a conduit for the CIA may run far deeper than reporter Richard Harwood was able to discover or at least report at the time. The CIA’s “Operation Mockingbird,” the inspiration of Frank Wisner and spearheaded by Cord Meyer, Jr., was part of the agency’s ongoing propaganda machine known as the “Mighty Wurlitzer.” – Coup in Dallas I don't read even a hint of the aforementioned in Lawrence Wright's attempt to lay his burden down on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy in his beloved Dallas found here: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/why-do-they-hate-us-so-much/

According to Anthony Summers in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover . . . “By a secret agreement, even before the inaugural, Allen and Billy Byars, another oilman friend of Edgar’s—arranged to finance Eisenhower’s Gettysburg farm. They also funneled money to him ‘for his share of the farming operation.’ Byars subsidized Mamie Eisenhower’s brother-in-law Gordon Moore, by establishing a racing stable on his land.” Premier Petro Chemical Company: “President of Premiere and a stockholder will be Sylvester Dayson, who joined [Algur] Meadows [of General American Oil] in the formal announcement. Dayson was president of Premiere Oil Refining Company at Longview prior to its sale several years ago and since has been active as an individual in the petroleum business. There is no financial connection between Premiere Petrochemical and Premiere Oil Refining, which now is owned by Western Natural Gas Co., Houston. Other Premiere Petrochemical stockholders are these Dallas men: Lewis W. MacNaughton, DeGolyer & MacNaughton senior chairman; Roland S. Bond and R. H. Venable, independent oilmen; D. Harold Byrd, president of Byrd Enterprises; and Frederick R. Mayer, president of Exeter Drilling Co. Other stockholders are these Tyler men: Joe Zeppa, Delta Drilling Company president; B. G. Byars and Watson Wise, independents. J. R. Rogerson, formerly Monsanto Chemical Co. vice-president at El Dorado, Arkansas, will be executive vice-president of Premiere Petrochemical. He will headquarter in Houston. Edward Kliewer, Jr., Dallas attorney, will be secretary and general counsel.” Financing the new company was First National Bank in Dallas, which also worked with several other Dallas banks. First National Bank’s incoming president Robert H. Stewart, III who was a board member of the Murchison - Wynne Great Southwest enterprise that built 6 Flags Over Texas, was responsible for keeping LTV somewhat solvent in the mid-1960s as well as instrumental in the myriad of loans that both he and Murchison secured for Bobby Baker prior to the F-111 scandal. . . . Crime syndicates across the country relied on certain elements within law enforcement to turn a blind eye, and Dallas was no exception, as evidenced by the remarks of Pat Gannaway, the head of the division that was purported to be dedicated to uncovering and impeding organized crime. It is well documented that for decades, a number of noted Dallas business and social elite enjoyed the pastime of gambling and the attendant vices. Of particular interest are the oilmen identified during inquiries of the House Select Committee on Assassinations when they learned from Jack Ruby’s Havana gambling friend Lewis McWillie that Billy Byars, H. L. Hunt and Sid Richardson all gambled at Benny Binion’s legendary Top of the Hill Terrace located west of Dallas when it was managed by McWillie between 1940 and 1958. McWillie was also asked about Murchison and Toddie Wynne Sr. and their friendship with Civello capo Joe Campisi. – Coup in Dallas

I wonder if Talbott factored in with the final contract for the F-111. Memory serves the bidding began in 1962.

Thanks Matt. I had focused on Ben Bradlee more than Graham, given Bradlee's presumed close proximity to Ehrman in Paris – he with Newsweek and she reporting for Hearst prior to returning to the states to cover the UN. It seemed likely Bradlee put in a good word on her behalf with Phil once the purchase of Newsweek was finalized. It's also possible that Ehrman's stint in Jackie's Press Corp for her Far East trip impressed even Jackie herself and from there Phil Graham was persuaded to hire her? He prided himself in vetting every hire, but if she joined WaPo in January 1963, it's possible he was by then in no condition to fulfill his commitments. All speculation at this juncture. Bradlee later marries Sally Quinn, daughter of Gen. Wm. Quinn who was the first deputy of the fledgling DIA. Quinn had served under MacArthur and undoubtedly knew General Charles Willoughby, a prominent character in the 1963 records maintained by Pierre Lafitte, so there are a number of intelligence arteries to choose from when pursuing the death of former WaPo reporter Anita Ehrman. Prompted by your observations, I revisited Katherine Graham's own version of her personal history to be reminded that Phil served as assistant to Gen. Bill Donovan for four months; admittedly he was unhappy on day one and asked for transfer, but it took another three plus months to detach from Donovan who would become a key cog in the concept of the World Commerce Corporation - a quango not dissimilar in structure to COMSAT – government in league with private enterprise for "the good of all," purportedly. Graham was also on the board of RAND. Who is manipulating whom for legitimate cover and profit on the global stage? Kay then mentions that two or three years later, Donovan's home in Georgetown went on the market and she made a bid; for whatever reason she fails to note the irony let alone repeat that her husband had served directly under Donovan albeit a brief period. Maybe Georgetownians are accustomed to such high strangeness and synchronicity. Graham's friendship with George Smathers can't be dismissed either, not when factoring in his good friend and business associate Grant Stockdale who appears in the Lafitte datebook just days before Anita's death and a week before Graham suicides. Lafitte makes a note on July 27 that George Hunter White (FBN heavily involved with Gottlieb and Angleton) would talk to Otto Skorzeny in Madrid / Stockade about Graham's location – Chestnutt Lodge, infamous for mind control experiments that Hunter White had been au fait with since the early 1950s. Anita dies on either the 28th or 29th (Lafitte makes a note of George and D.C. above the name A.L. Ehrman on July 30). Phil Graham suicides on Aug. 3 and Grant Stockade catapults from a window in the Du Port building in Miami ten days after the assassination in Dallas. Do these tragedies share a common denominator? I also hadn't realized the coincidence that Graham and Robin Webb spent long periods of time in Puerto Rico. By chance, Paul Aguirre, property developer heavily invested with Smathers' and Stockades' business associate and buddy Bobby Baker, was a native Puerto Rican and reports indicate that the Aguirre / Baker entourage including Carole Tyler and East German Ellen Rometsch traveled to PR simultaneous with a Graham/Webb trip in May/June 1963.

In the event you're familiar with Canadian based Javelin: Further to this [Lafitte's] alleged swindle of Ralph Loomis, we learn from court documents relating to an SEC case, “On December 23, 1958, we filed a complaint for an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of MA which alleged, among other things, that registrant and one Ralph L. Loomis were offering for sale unregistered stock of Canadian Javelin, Ltd., were circulating articles and communications describing such stock for a consideration received and to be received from the issuer and from underwriters without fully disclosing the receipt of such consideration and the amount thereof and were engaging in transactions, practices and a course of business which operated as a fraud and deceit on purchasers.” In discussing this case, the agent opined, “John Doyle, [the founder of Canadian Javelin, Ltd.] is not a fugitive from justice. He is, however, a genuine financial wizard, a skilled organist and a native of the US who may not return to that country because, as John Diefenbaker once inelegantly put it, ‘he will end up in the coop for three years if he does.’ He is also Chairman of the Executive Committee of Canadian Javelin Limited, a Newfoundland corporation described to me by a US government lawyer who has studied it for years as ‘the most mysterious company known to man.’ Canadian Javelin, through a network of subsidiaries, controls huge quantities of iron ore and timber in Labrador, oil and potash in Saskatchewan, silver in El Salvador, and other minerals from northern Quebec to Arizona.” Lafitte’s indictment for defrauding Ralph Loomis would have been ancillary to the SEC cases against Loomis and Payton. “The most mysterious company known to man,” harkens back to the World Commerce Corporation, described similarly by those searching the history of WCC. Wilson-Hudson was known to deal in nickel, to have been involved in at least two transactions with WCC, and to have had deep connections in Canada. It should be noted that John Doyle, founder of “the most mysterious company known to man,” also spent much of his time on Nassau Island in the Bahamas along with a number of our persons of interest that were also involved with the World Commerce Corporation, including Sir Stafford Sands and Otto and Ilse Skorzeny. And it is further noted that Thomas Eli Davis listed as a recent employer, New Netherlands Mining. While it is doubtful he worked for what was a long defunct company by that name, it is worth contemplating that he meant Javelin’s concern, Newfoundland Mining. According to accounts, during that year, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought ten civil actions and instituted three criminal actions in which the illegal sale of Canadian securities in the United States was involved. Details concerning these actions include, SEC v. Ralph L. Loomis and F. Payson Todd, SEC v. Canadian Javelin Limited, et al: “On December 23, 1958, we [SEC] filed a complaint for an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of MA which alleged, among other things, that registrant and one Ralph L. Loomis were offering for sale unregistered stock of Canadian Javelin, Ltd., (a crime that a number of soldiers of fortune were accused of in the same timeframe) were circulating articles and communications describing such stock for a consideration received and to be received from the issuer and from underwriters without fully disclosing the receipt of such consideration and the amount thereof and were engaging in transactions, practices and a course of business which operated as a fraud and deceit on purchasers.”

John, the short answers are 'no.' If you have a copy of A Secret Order, note that former PB/SUCCESS communications officer Charles F. Gilroy was a primary source of info. on Smith. (I'll screenshot the relevant pages or reproduce the text if you don't have a copy. Let me know.) Hank's process included a lot of "cold calling," so it's possible he just tracked down Smith's daughter's contact information and gave her a call; or someone like Gilroy pointed him in the direction, or maybe even June Cobb although he indicates he didn't connect with the daughter until 2017. It sounds as if she might have accessed the military records but Hank never mentioned to me he had copies. The May 19th entry in Lafitte's 1963 datebook reads, "Smith – Montreal" along with the name Mondolini [Paul] followed by not good w/Trafficante and the phrase murder will call. I don't know what aspect of Smith's history you're focused on, but perhaps you recognize the timeframe and/or are aware of Mondolin's history with the Corsican drug cartel? The other Smith datebook entry is, logically, the same "Edward Lawton Smith", and as Hank initially deduced, the name "White" appearing with Smith and "Harvey" would be George Hunter White; however, we now have reason to consider the possibility that since other references to Pierre's good friend George Hunter White read Geo or George, the "White" may well be another character associating with Bill Harvey and Edward Lawton Smith. Mondolini background found in Coup . . . In addition to Battisti in Cuba, Lafitte also dealt with Amedeo Barletta and Paul Damien Mondolini. Barletta, a Calabrian, was Mussolini’s counsel and “administrator of Mussolini’s family in the United States,” and, according to the FBI, had been a wartime double agent planted by the Italians in Latin America. This, of course, put him close to Otto Skorzeny, as the former SS officer’s private papers reflect. In 1942, the Bureau ordered Barletta’s arrest in the Dominican Republic, but he fled to Argentina, where he remained until the end of the war. Soon thereafter, he turned up in Havana, as a representative for several large American automobile and pharmaceutical companies, including, according to writer Cirules, General Motors. Before the war, Barletta had been a General Motors sales manager in the Dominican Republic, where he clashed with dictator Rafael Trujillo, who claimed that Barletta was plotting to assassinate him. Cirules also claims that Barletta, alongside Lansky and Battisti, headed a “Mafia family” and was involved in drug trafficking. Paul Mondolini, a.k.a. Paul Marie Bejin, Jacques Desmarais, and Eduardo Dubian, was born in Corsica in 1916. In wartime Marseilles, where he migrated at an early age, he worked, like many morally ambidextrous bandits, both for the Resistance and, at the same time, collaborated with the Germans during the Nazi occupation of France. Remarkably, Mondolini later served as chief of police in Saigon, Vietnam, before he went on to gain worldwide notoriety when he took part in the sensational 1949 robbery of the royal jewelry of the wife of the Ismailian prince Aga Khan, an operation which, according to a disgruntled former deputy of France’s intelligence chief Roger Wybot involved Wybot himself, along with at least four unidentified gunmen, one of which was allegedly Pierre Lafitte. Otto Skorzeny, was very involved with Wybot as was Otto’s wife, Ilse. Mondolini’s association with Pierre Lafitte extended back to their days of drug running in Marseilles and Indochina for Francois Spirito and Paul Carbone. In Cuba, where he did not well establish himself until 1955, Mondolini, in partnership with Corsicans Antoine D’Agostino and Jean Baptiste Croce, who owned two nightclubs in Havana, became a major player in moving heroin via Cuba to Montreal, Canada. Interesting to note here is that Mondolini’s prominent activities in Cuba coincided almost day-by-day with numerous trips to Cuba taken by CIA Inspector General Lyman B. Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick said in 1968 that his Cuban trips were “an effort to help the [Cuban] government establish an effective organization to fight Communism.” Kirkpatrick would also say that at the time the CIA was flush with money. “There basically wasn’t a limit,” he said. “We got what we asked for.” And nearly two-thirds of the money went for covert operations. British crime historian Charles Wighton significantly noted in 1960, “The overseas section of the Corsican gang working in the closest collaboration with the American Mafia in Montreal, Havana, and Mexico City [is] run by [Antoine] D’Agostino and the notorious Paul Mondolini.” Indeed, it was Mondolini, along with fellow Corsican Jean Jehan, who masterminded the infamous international heroin caper popularized by the hit film The French Connection. Worth noting here is that Jehan, according to CIA records produced in 1976, was thought to be the off-the-record owner of the Bedford Street building in New York City where George Hunter White, with steady sidekick Pierre Lafitte, operated his CIA-funded safe house, an urban abode of erotic pleasures melded with the horrors brought on by unguided psychedelic journeys. Throughout his drug trafficking career, multilingual Mondolini was considered one of the shrewdest and most intelligent dealers that the FBN confronted. In Cuba, Lafitte was also well acquainted with Santo Trafficante, Jr., whom he initially knew from his days in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. . . .