Assassination of Robert Kennedy

[John Geraghty]

In order to get a better understanding of the JFK case perhaps it would be good to take a step back and look at the assassinations of RFK and MLK, there are people who intersect in some of these cases, eugene hale brading and HL Hunt to name but two. I am quite unknowledgable with regard to the assassination of RFK, can anybody suggest any books on the assassiantion or perhaps put me in contact with a researcher of the case ,my email address is wereallgointaheavenlads@hotmail.com (long one) .

thanks in advance

john

[Dawn Meredith]

In order to get a better understanding of the JFK case perhaps it would be good to take a step back and look at the assassinations of  RFK and MLK, there are people who intersect in some of these cases, eugene hale brading and HL Hunt to name but two. I am quite unknowledgable with regard to the assassination of RFK, can anybody suggest any books on the assassiantion or perhaps put me in contact with a researcher of the case ,my email address is  wereallgointaheavenlads@hotmail.com (long one) .

thanks in advance

john

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

______________________________________

John: Dr Phil Melanson has written excellent books on both the RFK and MLK case.

"The Robert F Kennedy Assassination", and "The Martin Luther King Assassination".

Dawn

[ville huoponen]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

I don´t know if this kind of advertising is allowed but I really enjoyed the book. And it covers all bases very well. I recently read the book "shadow play" by Melanson & Klaber and was a tad disappointed. It was okay but not what I perhaps expected.

You are right. In order to understand what really was going on in the sixties it really helps to know what happened to RFK and MLK and who did it. As the military puts it, the two first times can be something else but the third time means a conspiracy. It certainly was.

[Ron Ecker]

James W. Douglass has a webpage called "A Letter to the American People" about the assassinations of the 1960s. I think the section that deals with the RFK assassination is a very good summary of the problems involved in that case. Here's part of that section and the link:

The famous coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi in the most thorough autopsy of his career came up with some troublesome findings in the assassination of Robert Kennedy. He concluded that Kennedy had been shot dead from behind by a gun held one inch from the edge of his right ear, three inches behind the head. All three bullets which struck Kennedy had entered from behind him at a steep upward angle, causing powder burns from shots fired one to three inches away.

Yet every witness of the shooting placed Sirhan Sirhan several feet in front of Kennedy when firing his gun. The witnesses were equally clear that Kennedy never turned his back to Sirhan.

Another question arose from the three bullet holes found in the pantry ceiling, the two bullets dug out of the center divider of the swinging doors, and the total of six people who had been shot --- in Kennedy's case three times. Sirhan's gun held eight bullets, and he had not re-loaded. These numbers didn't add up.

Most disturbing of all was the testimony of Don Schulman, a runner for a TV station, that he had seen a security guard fire three times. The recently hired security guard walking just behind Kennedy, Thane Cesar, admitted pulling his gun but denied firing it.

And so it goes, with the questions piling up in Los Angeles as in Dallas, Harlem, and Memphis. In some respects the cover-up by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) task force, called "Special Unit Senator" (SUS), outdoes them all. In his book The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, Philip Melanson describes the systematic intimidation by SUS interrogators of a series of key witnesses who had been prepared to offer evidence of a conspiracy before they were broken down. The two LAPD officers who ran Special Unit Senator were Manuel Pena and Enrique "Hank" Hernandez. Both had extensive CIA backgrounds in training Latin American security forces. Until shortly before Senator Kennedy's assassination, Manuel Pena had been on loan from the LAPD to the CIA as an instructor for national police and intelligence services in Latin America. Special Unit Senator's second-in-command, Hank Hernandez, stated in his own resume that in l963 he had played a key role in the CIA's "Unified Police Command" training in Latin America. Pena and Hernandez coordinated an investigation which not only threatened and discredited conspiracy witnesses but by the department's own admission destroyed 2,400 photographs, negatives, and X-rays of assassination evidence before Sirhan's trial. Then Assistant Police Chief Daryl Gates defended the further destruction of the door frame wood and ceiling tiles which showed bullet holes on the grounds that they would not fit into a card file.

Robert Kennedy was assassinated within seconds after moving decisively toward the presidency by winning the California Democratic primary. Kennedy was committed to ending the Vietnam War, which after his death would continue for seven more years under Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. He was also dedicated to abolishing poverty by a uniquely reconciling coalition of blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Native Americans. In the Spring of `68, Robert Kennedy was walking and talking a radical transformation of the USA, in harmony with the vision of the already gunned-down Martin Luther King. It is astonishing that such a man almost became president, unsurprising that he was assassinated the moment he became the key candidate. Not incidental is the fact that as president he would have had the power to re-open the national security lid of the can of worms around JFK's murder.

Parallels between the JFK and RFK cover-ups are striking. The Warren Commission's inquiry was steered by Allen Dulles, the CIA head whom John Kennedy had fired after the Bay of Pigs. In the view of international observers, investigator Dulles played an unacknowledged dual role. He was also the chief suspect. Two CIA-affiliated police officers controlled the Los Angeles investigation of Senator Kennedy's murder. As in the Warren Commission, the fox was again in charge of solving the henhouse killing.

http://home.earthlink.net/~jkelin1/letam.html

[John Geraghty]

thanks everyone,

i think that i will spend a bit more time looking into this.

john

[John Geraghty]

one more thing,

anything on john lennon? i heard that the doorman was a cuban exile

john

[James Richards]

one more thing,

anything on john lennon? i heard that the doorman was a cuban exile (John Geraghty)

John,

I have posted on this subject before so my apologies to forum members who must endure this again.

The doorman of the Dakota Building was a character by the name of Jose Perdomo. He was a Brigade 2506 member and graduated through Fort Benning in 1963. Perdomo went under a few aliases and one of them may have been Sam Jenis who Frank Sturgis was reporting to late in 1959. I have not yet confirmed that.

The story goes that before Lennon was gunned down, Perdomo and Mark Chapman were in deep conversation regarding the JFK assassination.

FWIW.

Perdomo below.

James

[Ron Ecker]

I recall reading that the bullets were fired from Lennon's left, but entered his right side, or vice versa. More magic bullets!

[Tim Carroll]

The doorman of the Dakota Building was a character by the name of Jose Perdomo. He was a Brigade 2506 member and graduated through Fort Benning in 1963. Perdomo went under a few aliases and one of them may have been Sam Jenis who Frank Sturgis was reporting to late in 1959. I have not yet confirmed that.

The story goes that before Lennon was gunned down, Perdomo and Mark Chapman were in deep conversation regarding the JFK assassination.

James

At dinner Friday evening with Bob Grodin, we discussed the Dakota building and its strange history. On this anniversary of JFK's death, the additional discussion of John Lennon's death makes me very sad. They are my role models, my heroes. They both embodied a postmodern ethic that true strength involved a certain degree of sensitivity and vulnerability, and of course they both paid the ultimate price. Very very sad.

[Wim Dankbaar]

There is a book by Gaylon Ross, called "The elite serial killers of JFK, MLK and RFK"

He fingers LBJ, Hoover, elements of the mob and the CIA in all three murders.

His website is http://www.4rie.com/

[David Boylan]

one more thing,

anything on john lennon? i heard that the doorman was a cuban exile (John Geraghty)

John,

I have posted on this subject before so my apologies to forum members who must endure this again.

The doorman of the Dakota Building was a character by the name of Jose Perdomo. He was a Brigade 2506 member and graduated through Fort Benning in 1963. Perdomo went under a few aliases and one of them may have been Sam Jenis who Frank Sturgis was reporting to late in 1959. I have not yet confirmed that.

The story goes that before Lennon was gunned down, Perdomo and Mark Chapman were in deep conversation regarding the JFK assassination.

FWIW.

Perdomo below.

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here's some of what Sturgis had to tell the Rockerfeller Commission:

Olsen: What else did you do then after you got back? Did you make contact with any officials of the U.S. Government? Or put it another way, when were you first in contact, after getting back June 20, 1959, when did you first make contact with anybody who you understood to be an official of the U.S. Government?

STURGIS: Sam Jennis.

Olsen: Was Sam Jennis and underground leader in Miami?

STURGIS: Let me say the Sangenes, S-A-N-G-E-N-E-S?

Olsen: Is that all one word, S-A-N-G-E-N-E-S?

STURGIS: Yes sir, one word.

Olsen: It is not two separate words, is it?

STURGIS: No sir. That is the Saneges family, which were Louis Sangenes, and Sergio Saneges, who I have been working closely with in 1957 and 1958. And I made contact with Joaquim Sangenes, code Sam Jennis. I met BARKER, BERNARD L. BARKER, who at that time worked with the CIA, whose boss was EDUARDO. When EDUARDO was relieved of his duty after the Bay of Pigs failure, BARKER'S next Chief of Station was (Deleted).

Olsen: Let's take those one by one. You named several members of the Sangenes family.

STURGIS: Yes, sir.

Olsen: You have given us Louis.

STURGIS: Yes, sir.

Olsen: Sergio and Joaquin?

STURGIS: Yes sir.

Olsen: Now, what were their positions?

STURGIS: CIA.

Olsen: All three of them?

STURGIS: Yes, the CIA, I was led to believe.

Olsen: And were all three of them in Miami?

STURGIS: Yes, sir.

Olsen: And what kind of contact did you have with them? Did they come a recruit you or talk to you?

STURGIS: No sir. You have got to remember that I was in touch with these people from 1957 to 1958.

Olsen: What kind of contact did you have with them in 1957 and 1958?

STURGIS: Working with them in the overthrow of the Batista government.

Olsen: What did you do to work with them in the overthrow of the Batista government?

STURGIS: Smuggled guns, equipment. I was up in the mountains with Fidel, fought in several battles with the rebel forces in the mountains. Again, we brought Clark Wollan into the picture. And so up the line to the embassy.

Olsen: What I am trying to get at here is, did these Sengenes family members have any role in this other than as CIA agents, or were they revolutionaries themselves intent upon overthrowing the Batista government?

STURGIS: Right, sir, yes, sir. Their position at a latter date got to be very important, the fact that they were recruited to be agents for Central Intelligence Agency.

Olsen: When were they recruited to be agents for the CIA?

STURGIS: I would believe the year 1959, if not already 1958, which I am not sure.

Roethe: And what was their position outwardly? They were not card carrying CIA people, I presume, they must have had some position in the Miami community.

STURGIS: Well, these people were top leaders in the revolution. And remember, they did have contact with the past government of Batista, in the government, the top people, and also with the new government to be, which was the 26th of July Fidel Castro outfit. They worked very well into that. You have got to understand their background a little bit. The Sangenes family years back were involved in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain. They were young people at that time. They thought the Communist ideology -- from what I understand from them, they thought that was the thing in those days. So naturally, they broke away from the Communists themselves. And they were very intelligent people. And these are the type of people, with the position that they were in, the intelligence that they have, that the American Government would like to have as agents.

Olsen: But your contact with them in 1957 and 1958 --

STURGIS: Was strictly revolutionary.

Olsen: Was strictly revolutionary?

STURGIS: Yes sir.

Olsen: They were not, as far as you know, at that time, associated with the CIA?

STURGIS: As far as I know.

Olsen: As far as you know?

STURGIS: I did not know if they were or were not.

Olsen: You had no indication, then, that they were?

STURGIS: No indication.

Olsen: So it was not until after you came back from Cuba in 1959 and made contact with them again that you believed that they were agents of the CIA?

STURGIS: Right, yes, sir.

Olsen: What did they say or do at that time to lead you to believe that they were agents of the CIA?

STURGIS: Well, number one, the activity that was going on in the Miami area, not only my activity, (illegible) one in the same position that I had, the comings and goings of people in and out of Cuba. Mrs. Geraldine Shamma, whom I recruited as an agent for the Embassy, was traveling from Havana to Miami. And she had a home on Brickell Avenue, which was a safe house for the CIA. The Cubans who came from Havana would come to the safe house which she maintained herself with her own money, not CIA money, her own money. BERNARD BARKER would call her up, and she would tell him who was there, and he would come over to pick up these Cuban exiles to be sent over to be interrogated or debriefed. This is what BERNARD BARKER would do. And E. HOWARD HUNT, I believe, may have come over there. I don't think he did, but anyway, she met him traveling back and forth from Havana, where she met him, I don't know off hand. You would have to ask her.

STURGIS: I believe Miro Cardona was the President of the Council. Tony Varona. He was the Secretary General of the Council. Well, Manuel Artime, was part of that. He was part of the council. There has been a lot of writing which (illegible) about his position. They call Artime the leader of the invasion brigade. That is not so. Manuel Artime's position was, he was the coordinator between the political group of the Revolutionary Council -- the Revolutionary Council was a political force with the brigade, which was the military force. And because of him being who he was and his contacts, they made him like, I would say, a liaison between both the Brigade and the Revolutionary Council. He was not the leader of the invasion.

Olsen: Who else was at the top of the Revolutionary Council?

STURGIS: San Roman.

Olsen: Is that his last name?

STURGIS: S-A-M R-O-M-A-N.

Olsen: And was he just one of the members of the Revolutionary Council or the leaders?

STURGIS: Yes sir, he was one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Council. And you must remember, the Revolutionary Council was going to be the governing body of a new government in Cuba.

Olsen: Yes, I understand. It is worth at this point naming a few of the other very prominent people who were members of the Revolutionary Council which was going to form the nucleus of the new government if Castro was overthrown?

STURGIS: Let me say this here. There was a lot of dissention that was going on in the Revolutionary Council. There was a power struggle within the Council. You had another member who was outside the Revolutionary Council that they had wanted in. And this is very important. President Kennedy -- I think it was Bobby Kennedy -- either President Kennedy or Bobby Kennedy insisted that this man had to go into this Revolutionary Council. That man did not have an organization in Cuba, this man supposedly had only a nucleus of a handful of revolutionaries -- which caused a big uproar, and changes a lot of things.

Olsen: Who was this that the Kennedys wanted in?

STURGIS: Dr. Manolo Ray, who was considered very much to the left. This created such a turmoil. He was leftist, and his thoughts and thinking were like Fidel Castro's.

Navarro: In Cuba he was a commander for the Castro Army. And he was one of the ministers for the Castro Government.

Olsen: Why did he go to Florida?

STURGIS: Again, Fidel had a power struggle in Cuba where you had the anti-Communists against Fidel himself, and the Fidel Castro government. At that time it was not said that it was a Communist government, but it was a pink type government. You had power struggles within the government. For instance, Commander Camelo Cienfuegos, I believe because of his contact with me, was executed by Fidel Castro. And people like Manolo Ray, who were on the left, were against the Communists.

Olsen: Anyway, you advise us that the insistence of one or both of the Kennedy's created a major uproar in the Revolutionary Council because --

STURGIS: And in the Brigade. Because you must remember, Mr. Olsen, that CIA had direct contact, the political sector of CIA, in which HOWARD HUNT as EDUARDO, was a high ranking political officer with the Revolutionary Council. Then, you had a separate group which was the Brigade. HOWARD HUNT had nothing to do with the Brigade. It was a separate section of the CIA. And then, you had a third separation which was Operation Forty, which was a Top Secret operation. And the head of Operation Forty was Sam Jennis. The second chief --

Olsen: Who headed the Brigade?

STURGIS: The head of the Brigade was Orncido Oliva. He is a colonel in the National Guard.

Olsen: And what was the nature of Operation Forty?

STURGIS: Operation Forty was a CIA Top Secret operation. They were to train, I believe, approximately 200 Cubans who were in the Army. They were officers --

Olsen: That is the American Army?

STURGIS: The American Army, who went and received training in the American Army as officers. Their main job was intelligence. These men were going to be used to infiltrate Cuba to make contact with the underground.

Olsen: Which one of the Sangenes family members headed Operation Forty?

STURGIS: Sam Jennis was the head of the Operation. The second chief of Operation Forty was Felipe Gutierrez.

Olsen: All three of these different operations were essentially being organized by the CIA, weren't they?

STURGIS: Yes sir. If you remember, every one including the President of the U.S. denied that the CIA was behind more funding or training of these people. But they were in fact being what they were supposed to be, U.S. Government operations.

Olsen: It is your testimony, FRANK, that the Revolutionary Council was being financially supported by and organized by the CIA with E. HOWARD HUNT, otherwise know at that time as being EDUARDO, being the chief CIA agent involved in setting up the Revolutionary Council?

STURGIS: Let me correct you a little bit there. He was one of the high political officers of the CIA that was involved in the organization of the Revolutionary Council.

Olsen: And who was it from the CIA who was heading up the training and the organizing and the funding, financing, and what not, of the Brigade?

STURGIS: Well, the funding naturally again was CIA, funding for Operation Forty was CIA. The training for Operation Forty was U.S. Army and CIA. Mr. Frank Bender, which is a code name for Mr. Drecher, is his real name, who was the top CIA official who was in charge of the CIA operation in South Florida for this mess.

Olsen: The whole thing?

STURGIS: Yes.

Olsen: Was Mr. Drecher's real first name FRANK also?

STURGIS: I don't know, sir. He is, I believe, of German extraction, if I am not mistaken. He was a naturalized citizen, he was not born in this country.

Olsen: Do you know whether he is still with the Agency?

STURGIS: I don't know sir.

Olsen: And who was the chief CIA officer having supervisory responsibilities or major responsibility for Operation Forty?

STURGIS: I couldn't go over Sam Jennis myself.

Olsen: But you don't know who it was?

STURGIS: All I knew who was above him was Frank Bender, whom I have never met.

Olsen: Did you meet other people who were, let's say, non-Cubans, who were involved in the planning with respect to the operation that finally ended up with the Bay of Pigs?

STURGIS: Yes, sir.

Olsen: Who else did you meet?

STURGIS: I would have to look through my notes and get you the names.

Olsen: You don't remember any right off hand here now?

STURGIS: Well, there was one man, I can't tell you his name, but he had one arm, and he was a colonel in the French Foreign Legion. He had this home which I had visited several times. I think it was in Coconut Grove. And he was a CIA official. And I believe I do have his name sir, in my notes.

Olsen: Now, what part did you play, FRANK, in this whole operation that led to the Bay of Pigs?

STURGIS: Well, I will have to go back again to Geraldine Shamma at Brickel Avenue. My contact with all the same top military commanders that were in Cuba both in the Army and in the Air Force who were in exile. Geraldine's contact with the head of the underground organization inside of Cuba, with Francisco, whose real name I will give you, but I forget it off hand. Her contact here in Brickel Avenue with BARKER and HUNT. And my association, naturally, with Sam Jennis, who at a later date, when I told him that BARKER wanted me to help him in some of his work, and BARKER, not knowing that I had contact, or was working with Sam Jennis, of course, you have got to understand, a lot of these top people that were in exile who at a later date were involved in the Congo who were friends of mine who were CIA agents. And those were the agents when they came into exile.

I know this is off the track, Mr. Olsen, but it is going to be very important. You have got to understand that you have the same -- not all the Cubans, now, I am talking about -- you have the same nucleus of the Cubans who came over here in the beginning, not every one, but the nucleus of them who were in Cuba with Batista, who were associated with the gambling casinos, the crime syndicate, the American crime syndicate, which in turn controlled the Cuban crime syndicate because all Cubans are not bad, but there was a Cuban crime syndicate. These same people, because of the people they knew with Batista, because of the people that they knew in Cuba, they not only supported Batista, but those same people did support the new Castro government, and got themselves in as a safeguard that if the rebels did succeed, at least they had contact. And they did give money and they did give information and so forth, to these people. And some of them were involved in drugs and crime and what have you.

Olsen: When you say these people, who are the people you are talking about?

STURGIS: I can't put my finger on it, Mr. Olsen. But as we go along -- I am going to jump again -- I have seen this myself, the same people who participated, some of them who participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, were people who were considered Batistanos, some of them. Now, the Batistanos who supported Batista weren't all bad, but these same people who came over here and were recruited by the CIA, and worked here as agents, and some as double agents. Because of their criminal activities, a lot of information was gotten out of Cuba, because of the contacts.

Olsen: Were any of these people among the leaders of the Cuban Revolutionary Council?

STURGIS: No, I would think they were outside of the Revolutionary Council.

Olsen: Were any of these people among the leaders of the Brigade?

STURGIS: Some were suspected of being double-agents in the Brigade. But then again, you must understand that the Brigade itself, or persons in the Brigade was not a CIA agent, even though the Brigade was recruited from the Cuban colony to fight its soldiers. So that doesn't make them CIA agents, that makes them a force being financed and trained, and their families being paid monies while they were training, and away from home, and fighting, and even while they were in Cuba as prisoners their families were still receiving money from the CIA.

Olsen: Were any of the Batista clan, let's call them, who were among the leaders of Operation Forty?

STURGIS: Yes sir.

Olsen: Who among the leadership of Operation Forty?

STURGIS: Felipe Guiterrez, the second chief of Operation Forty, was a G-2 agent under Batista, a high ranking officer.

Olsen: Was he someone who had close connections with the crime syndicate in Cuba?

STURGIS: I don't know that much about it. But there was a hatred between the second chief of Operation Forty and Sam Jennis, who was the chief of Operation Forty. Each one accused the other, from my information, of being a double agent, while being a CIA agent.

Olsen: Can you name for us a few of the top people who you felt or believed at that time to be persons who had close connections with the Cuban and American underground syndicate -- underworld syndicate?

STURGIS: Senator or ex-Senator Rolando Masferrer. I have something in there that I would like to give you so that you will know his whole background. And then another Senator who at one time was involved in drugs -- I can't think of his name. Masferrer was called El Tigre, the tiger. He was a Senator under Batista, an ex-Communist, and an ex-member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain. He owns a newspaper in Miami called Libertad. And he was very much in touch with the crime syndicate, the American crime syndicate in Havana, plus the Cuban crime syndicate. Anyway, Senator Masferrer, because of his loyalty to General Batista, under the protection and auspices of General Batista, formed army of approximately 2,000 men, a private army, which supposedly was like the muscles of Batista. If Batista wanted to get rid of any of his enemies, Masferrer was there to do the muscle work. He kept the heat off the G-2, which was the Cuban Intelligence Service. I would say many of the ex-Senators that came into exile during Batista's time had contact with the U.S. underworld. This one man, this one Senator, I am trying to remember his name, was involved so much with the U.S. underworld and drugs that the American Government at one time threatened Batista to stop the sale of all legal drugs into Cuba because of this man. And this man today is living in Miami Beach.

Olsen: Is he the Senator whose name you are trying to remember?

STURGIS: Yes. And a very wealthy man.

Navarro: He is the closest friend of President Prio.

STURGIS: Very close to ex-President Carlos Prio.

Olsen: Let's move on from that subject here now to a further exploration of what you did during this period leading up to the Bay of Pigs. Did you operate with the Revolutionary Council?

STURGIS: I had contact with the Revolutionary Council.

Olsen: Did you have contact with Operation Forty.

STURGIS: Yes, sir, I did.

Olsen: And did you have contact with the Brigade?

STURGIS: No sir, not with the Brigade in general. What I did do is, many of the Brigade members -- not many, but some of the Brigade members -- did live at my home. I had a home at Southwest 60th Court.

Olsen: What role did you play in that organization?

STURGIS: Intelligence, training, I did train some of the Brigade members in the Everglades. And I have pictures of the training camp. As a matter of fact, one of the persons I did train is the Vice Mayor of Miami, Manolo Rebozo. I trained many of the intelligence teams for the Brigade.

[Wim Dankbaar]

STURGIS: Intelligence, training, I did train some of the Brigade members in the Everglades. And I have pictures of the training camp. As a matter of fact, one of the persons I did train is the Vice Mayor of Miami, Manolo Rebozo. I trained many of the intelligence teams for the Brigade.

Which camp in the Everglades is he talking about?

Wim