The Big Con at Dealey Plaza

[William Kelly]

As in University of PA Wharton school?

Yes, Gene,

As in University of PA Wharton School,

where Donald Trump matriculated.

I was there not long ago at film fest for the premier of the documentary The Camden 28, which is now getting good response in NYC.

I wonder what the E. stands for in E. Wharton Shober?

Bill,

According to US patent records, it's Edward.

Have you checked outline of his novel, yet? Might be worth reading before talking to him since it's supposed to be based on personal experience.

http://www.lulu.com/content/628161

Thanks for that Greg,

I'll be sure to read up on EWS before giving him a call.

His character Zacharaias looks interesting. Isn't that a biblical name?

Maybe in his next book he'll get tangled up with Cubans and Somozas.

BK

[William Kelly]

The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man

David W. Maurer (1940; rpt. 1999)

(If you've seen The Sting, you'll recognize that The Big Con was a major source for that film's screenwriter(s).)

He turned the idea over in his mind for some time and finally opened, in a shack of a building, what he called the Dollar Store. In the windows he exhibited all kinds of colorful, useful, and even valuable merchandise—with all items priced at one dollar—and he soon had customers a-plenty. Inside there were several monte games going, replete with shills and "sticks" to keep the play going at a lively pace. Once a gullible customer was lured in by the bargains he saw displayed, Ben "switched" his interest from the sale to the three-card monte, which was being expertly played on barrelheads. The merchandise never changed hands. It remained always the same. But the customers were different, and each one left some cash in Ben Marks' money belt. Like most pioneers Ben did not realize the importance of his innovation. (7)

Other forms of the short-con, largely some form of gambling games, copied the idea, and little Dollar Stores sprang up all over the United States—one of them, incidentally, in Chicago, growing into a great modern department store owing to the fact that the founder, who originally leased the building for a monte store, found that he could unload cheap and flashy merchandise at a dollar and make more money than he could at monte. (8-9)

The roper told the victim that he had been selected for a part in this scheme because he could be depended upon. The roper's problem was this: he has been abused and neglected by his employer, who, he says, is really an old skinflint. He has decided to quit his service—but not without making some money for himself. The next fight, for which he is now making arrangements, will be held in Council Bluffs. He has contracted with his employer's fighter to "take a dive"—pretend to be knocked out—in the tenth round. His employer will bet heavily on his own fighter. He, the secretary, cannot personally bet against his employer; hence he needs someone with money who will bet heavily on the other fighter, then divide the proceeds. It is a sure thing. (12)

The fight was held before a very limited audience, for in those days prize fighting was illegal in most states and prize fights were held clandestinely, like cock fights today, However, for the mark's benefit, the fighters put on quite a show. In the sixth round, something happened which no one had counted on. The millionaire's fighter delivered a terrific right over his opponent's heart and he fell to the ground, spurting blood from his mouth. All was confusion. The millionaire's "doctor" came forward with his stethoscope and pronounced the fighter dead. The mark was dazed; the millionaire collected the bet (which was already in his possession, since he had taken the satchel with the stakes in it) and everyone was in a hurry to get out of town before the local authorities got wind of the fight and arrested them for being accessories to manslaughter. Thus the mark blew himself off and the con men split the amount of his bet. (13)

The wire, the first of the big-con games, was invented just prior to 1900. It was a racing swindle in which the con men convinced the victim that with the connivance of a corrupt Western Union official they could delay the race results long enough for him to place a bet after the race had been run, but before the bookmakers received the results. For this game two fake set-ups were used. The first was a Western Union office, complete with operators, telegraph instruments, clerks and a "manager"; some mobs economized by sneaking in and using real Western Union offices until the company put a stop to it. (16)

The big store, the boost, and all the necessary stage settings are again called into play. When the time comes to make the big bet, the sting is put in a little differently. (49)

Big-time confidence games are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast except the mark knows his part perfectly. The insideman is the star of the cast; while the minor participants are competent actors and can learn their lines perfectly, they must look to the inside man for their cues; he must be not only a fine actor, but a playwright extempore as well. And he must be able to retain the confidence of an intelligent man even after that man has been swindled at his hands.

The reader may be able to get a better view of the situation if he will imagine for a moment what would happen if, say, fifteen of his friends decided to play a prank on him. They get together without his knowledge and write the script for a play which will last for an entire week. There are parts for all of them. The victim of the prank is isolated from everyone except the friends who have parts. His every probable reaction has been calculated in advance and the script prepared to meet these reactions. Furthermore, this drama is motivated by some fundamental weakness of the victim-liquor, money, women, or even some harmless personal crotchet. The victim is forced to go along with the play, speaking approximately the lines which are demanded of him; they spring unconsciously to his lips. He has no choice but to go along, because most of the probable objections that he can raise have been charted and logical reactions to them have been provided in the script. Very shortly the victim's feet are quite off the ground. He is living in a play-world which he cannot distinguish from the real world. His natural but latent motives are called forth in perfectly contrived situations; actions which, under other circumstances, he would never perform seem natural and logical. He is living in a fantastic, grotesque world which resembles the real one so closely that he cannot distinguish the difference. He is the victim of a confidence game.

Every reader probably feels sure that he is proof against con games; that his native horse-sense would prevent him from being made a victim, that these tricks which seem so patent in print would never ensnare him. Perhaps so. But let him remember that competent con men find a good deal of diversion in "playing the con" for one another, and that many a professional has suddenly realized that he is the butt of a practical joke in which all the forces of the big con have been brought to bear upon him. (101-2)

People who read of con touches in the newspaper are often wont to remark: "That bird must be stupid to fall for a game like that. Why, anybody should know better than to do what he did. . . ." In other words, there is a widespread feeling among legitimate folk that anyone who is he victim of a confidence game is a numskull.

But it should not be assumed that the victims of confidence games are all blockheads. Very much to the contrary, the higher a mark's intelligence, the quicker he sees through the deal directly to his own advantage. To expect a mark to enter into a con game, take the bait, and then, by sheer reason, analyze the situation and see it as a swindle, is simply asking too much. The mark is thrown into an unreal world which very closely resembles real life; like the spectator regarding the life groups in a museum of natural history, he cannot tell where the real scene merges into the background. Hence, it should be no reflection upon a man's intelligence to be swindled. In fact, highly intelligent marks, even though they may tax the ingenuity of the con men, respond best to the proper type of play. They see through the deal which is presented, analyze it, and strike the lure like a flash; most con men feel that it is sport of a high order to play them successfully to the gaff. It is not intelligence but integrity which determines whether or not a man is a good mark.

Stupid or "lop-eared" marks are often played; they are too dull to see their own advantage, and must be worked up to the point again and again before a ray of light filters through their thick heads. Sometimes they are difficult or impossible to beat. Always they merit the scorn and contempt of the con men. Elderly men are easy to play because age has slowed down their reactions.

Most marks come from the upper strata of society, which, in America, means that they have made, married, or inherited money. Because of this, they acquire status which in time they come to attribute to some inherent superiority, especially as regards matters of sound judgment in finance and investment. Friends and associates, themselves social climbers and sycophants, help to maintain this illusion of superiority. Eventually, the mark comes to regard himself as a person of vision and even of genius. Thus a Babbitt who has cleared half a million in a real-estate development easily forgets the part which luck and chicanery have played in his financial rise; he accepts this mantle of respectability without question; he naively attributes his success to sound business judgment. And any confidence man will testify that a real-estate man is he fattest and juiciest of suckers. (103-4)

And Joe Furey—whose statements must be discounted because of his reputation for tall talk—adds, "At that time [1925-1929] marks were so thick in Florida that you had to kick them out of your way." (116)

The sagacity of Buck Boatwright's philosophy that any man with money is worth playing for would not be questioned by any experienced con man. The first thing a mark needs is money.

But he must also have what grifters term "larceny in his veins"—in other words, he must want something for nothing, or be willing to participate in an unscrupulous deal. If a man with money has this trait, he is all that any con man could wish. He is a mark. "Larceny," or thieves' blood, runs not only in the veins of professional thieves; it would appear that humanity at large has just a dash of it—and sometimes more. And the con man has learned that he can exploit this human trait to his own ends; if he builds it up carefully and expertly, it flares from simple latent dishonesty to an all-consuming lust which drives the victim to secure funds for speculation by any means at his command.

If the mark were completely aware of this character weakness, he would not be so easy to trim. But, like almost everyone else, the mark thinks of himself as an "honest man." He may be hardly aware, or even totally unaware, of this trait which leads to his financial ruin. "My boy," said old John Henry Strosnider sagely, "look carefully at an honest man when he tells the tale himself about his honesty. He makes the best kind of mark. . . ." (116-17)

The mark's honesty is always a standing joke among grifters. (118)

Some con men have observed that marks respond to con games differently according to nationality, with well-to-do American businessmen being the easiest. "Give me an American businessman every time," declared one of the most successful of the present generation of ropers, "preferably an elderly executive. He has been telling other people what to do for so long that he knows he can't be wrong." Perhaps it naturally follows that, if a mark has made money in a speculative business, his acquisitive instincts will lead him naturally into a confidence game; in the light of his past experience and his own philosophy of profit, it is a natural and normal way of increasing his wealth; to him, money is of value primarily for the purpose of making more. (124-5)

But it is difficult for the legitimate citizen (and sometimes for the mark himself) to understand why a man, once trimmed on a con game, will go back for another dose of the same medicine. Yet it happens all the time. Grifters have an endless fund of stories which illustrate this fact.

"I roped a mark for the last turn at faro-bank in Chicago," said a fine short-con man named Scotty. "Old Hugh Brady played for him. The mark went for about ten grand—all he had at the time. About two years later Old Hughey was strolling down Clark Street and he met Mr. Mark, who was tickled to see him again. He said, 'I've been looking for you for a long time. I've raised some more money and I'd like to play that faro game again. Brady told the mark that he had moved to another hotel. He rented another room and framed the gaff and took the mark all over again." (126-7)

If business is good, he keeps an appointment book after the fashion of a doctor or dentist and plays the marks according to a rigid schedule. (135)

The roper and the insideman are the principals of any mob. Upon them depends the success of the big store, for, however elaborate a set-up is provided, and however secure the fix, all is useless without the services of a man who can bring in marks, and one who can give them a convincing play. Each must perform a specialized piece of work and needs certain personal qualifications and experience which fit him for the task. Some men, and rare they are, can handle either end with great success, as, for instance, the Yellow Kid, Frank MacSherry or the Jew Kid. Others, like Limehouse Chappie and Charley Gondorff, have consistently specialized in inside work, at which their talent falls little short of genius, but could not steer a hungry man into a restaurant. (137)

Never ask a mark embarrassing questions. You know how you feel when someone lets the cat out of the bag. Take it easy with any fool, and always lead your ace.

Never boast about your rags, but brag about your long cush. That will lead him along to brag about his long jack, amd then you're getting somewhere, brother. If he is hard-shelled Babbitt, why you're one too. (140-1)

"Never be untidy or drink with a savage. There is nothing worse than drinking when you are trying to tie up a mark. You've got to have your nut about you all the time. You need what little sense you've got to trim him—and if you had any sense at all, you wouldn't be a grifter."

In all seriousness, however, the most important qualification for a roper—so important, in fact, that he would starve without it—is what is known in the underworld as "grift sense." No one, it seems—not even the grifters themselves—can say just what grift sense is. It appears to be a faculty which the grifter is acutely aware of when he needs it; a something that "clicks" within him, telling him when he meets a mark that he can beat, enabling him to sense at once whether or not the man is good for a play and to chart the mark's probable reactions to the game. (141)

In addition to grift sense, a con man must have a good deal of genuine acting ability, He must be able to make anyone like him, confide in him, trust him. He must sense immediately what aspect of his personality will be most appealing to his victim, then assume that pose and hold it consistently. If the mark is a wealthy farmer, he must assume those characteristics which he knows willl rouse the farmer's confidence and friendship, He must be able to talk over the farmer's problems with sympathy and understanding. (143)

After the mark has taken the bait, and while he is making the easy money which prepares him or the final plunge, the roper has complete charge of him; that is, he has him tied up, although the mark firmly believes that he is keeping the roper under control at the confidential suggestion of the insideman. "Put a thief to watch a thief," laughed one con man. "I'll bet some old-timer thought of that." (144-5)

If the insideman handles the blow-off properly, the mark hardly knows that he has been fleeced. No good insideman wants any trouble with a mark. He wants him to lose his money the "easy way" rather than the "hard way" and the secret to long immunity from arrest is a properly staged blow-off, with the mark blaming the roper and feeling that the insideman is the finest man he ever knew. It is the mark who is not cooled out properly or is mishandled by a clumsy or incompetent insideman who immediately beefs; furthermore, if he is sure that he has been swindled and if the local police do not act, he may go higher up, with revenge rather than recovery of his money as his object. Marks of this type can upset the whole corrupt political machine and even land not only the con men but perhaps some of the police and the fixer as well behind bars.

Good insidemen are rare; they do not seem to occur so frequently as good ropers. And there can be only as many first-rate stores as there are first-rate insidemen. Since good ropers like to work only with expert insidemen, the natural result is that the best ropers cluster about the best insidemen, forming a kind of closed corporation, or monopoly, with the control resting in the hands of the insidemen and their fixers. (154)

Willie Loftus always took great pride in his boodle. When the play reached its height, he would have money all over everything, the counter, the shelves, and the floor. Finally, he would call to a clerk, "Hey, George, get this stuff out of my way."

"What shall I do with it?" asks the clerk

"I don't give a damn what you do with it," Loftus would say, "sweep it out if you have to, but get it out from under my feet." Loftus liked a boodle with quantities of new crisp bills in it. "I like to hear them squeech under foot," he said. This boodle, properly handled, is what really rouses the larceny in the mark and makes him want to get some for himself. When the manager goes to pay the mark off, and stacks pile after pile of bills before him, it makes an impression which no mark ever forgets. (158-9)

Confidence men are not unaware of their social pre-eminence. The underworld is shot through with numerous class lines. It is stratified very much like the upperworld, each social level being bounded by rather rigid lines determined largely by three factors: professional standing, income, and personal integrity. While, as in the upperworld, income has much to do with social position, professional excellence and personal "rightness" appear to play an even greater part among con men than they don the upperworld.

There are rigidly observed class distinctions in the underworld. In a society where one's reputation depends solely upon his individual exploits, and where one is judged by his peers or his superiors, social status is not easily attained. There is no public as a court of last appeal. If, for instance, a country physician is unknown to his confreres, he may find solace in the fact that he is regarded as an important person by the patients he serves. If a writer is panned by the critics and his colleagues, he may still be a hero to his public. But a con man—with the exception of that rare individual who seeks newspaper notoriety—has no public. He is judged by his colleagues alone. And the underworld has a very keen sense of professional values. (169)

When we think of cheese, it's Wisconsin; when we speak of oil, it's Pennsylvania; but with grifters, it's Indiana. Many a first-rate con man has hailed from that state, and many, many more second- and third-raters. . .

Con men look puzzled and scratch their heads when you ask them why this should be so. A former insideman for the Wonder says, "I don't know why, but the state of Indiana is out in front in turning out grifters of all kinds. At one time you could go to almost any county fair and some farmer would take you aside and show you some new kind of flat-joint [crooked gambling device] that he had invented." Another con man who got his start on the grift playing the short con with circuses adds: "It's an old saying among grifters that any Hoosier farmer would come up to you and ask you where the squeeze [controlling device] was on your joint, and then show you that he had figured out a better one. So I guess the farmer boys thought flat-jointing was better than looking at a horse's tail all day for about a buck." (173)

Representative con men who got their start on the short con include: Post and Allen (the spud and the gold brick), Pretty Duffy (roper for mitt stores), Curley Carter (the lemon), Jimmy the Rooter (flat-jointer), Kid Barnett (three card monte), Swinging Sammy (the hype), the Leatherhead Kid (8 dice player), Sheeny Mike (three-card monte), John Singleton, the Painter Kid, Wildfire John (the tip), Honey Grove Kid (foot-race store), Johnny Taylor (the hype). (175n.)

In addition to those men already mentioned who worked for the mitt stores, the following are representative of those who left the ranks of professional gamblers to join the confidence men: Big Bill Keely (card cheater), Plunk Drucker (the Punk Kid) and n Mike (deep-sea gambler), Queer-pusher Nick (deep-sea gambler and smack player) and Slobbering Bob (mitt player). (176n.1)

Other con men with legitimate backgrounds range from N____ Q____ (engineer and contractor) to the Square Faced Kid (mule-skinner) and from Charley Gondorff (bar-tending) to the Hashhouse Kid (waiter). The Yellow Kid, at the top of the list, was born a con man and never in his life had time for any other occupation. (178)

Thus is begun a cycle which is likely to continue, with minor variations, throughout a lifetime, for most con men gamble heavily with the money for which they work so hard and take such chances to secure. In a word, most of them are suckers for some other branch of the grift. (180)

It is indeed strange that men who know so much about the percentage which operates in favor of the professional gambler will risk their freedom for the highly synthetic thrill of bucking the tiger. Yet a big score is hardly cut up until all the mob are plunging heavily at their favorite game; within a few weeks, or even a few days, a $100,000 touch has gone glimmering and the conmen are living on borrowed money, or are out on the tip or the smack to make expenses. (180)

There is at least one ill-mannered exception to this generalization who deserves a bit of space because he is widely known among con men as the prime example of everything a con man shouldn't do or be. He is the prosperous Red Lager. Ignorant and repulsive-looking, freckled to the point of blotchiness, with the nasty shade of blue eyes which often accompanies a certain cast of red hair, awkward and slew-footed, Red Lager is certainly the acme of unattractiveness among con men. He is everything and does everything which, theoretically, a good con man shouldn't. He has never heard of Dale Carnegie and is unaware of the barest rudiments of the science of "influencing" people; yet he has made a fortune on the pay-off. And he has a son, the exact replica of his father down to the duck-like walk, who, despite his addiction to drugs—one vice which the old man shunned—is today a successful confidence man. (185)

Some of the old-timers took up opium around 1900 when it was considered no more dangerous than smoking cigarettes—when many citizens on the West Coast placidly puffed the pipe on their own front porches. . . . (188)

"My boy," old John Henry Strosnider once said, "the best way to avoid the big house is not to tell your twist how clever you are. Broads have been known to put the finger on smart young apples. So cop my advice, and last longer on the outside than on the inside. . . " (194)

A good grifter never misses a chance to get something for nothing, which is one of the reasons why a good grifter is often also a good mark. Indiana Harry, the Hashhouse Kid, Scotty, and Hoosier Harry were returning to America on the Titanic when it sank. They were all saved. After the rescue, they all not only put in maximum claims for lost baggage, but collected the names of dead passengers for their friends, so that they too could put in claims.

This tendency to want something for nothing extends to all branches of the grift. A tale is told of Johnny Tolbert and a team of pickpockets, one of whom, Kansas City Boze, was killed in a fight in El Paso. Johnny Tolbert, fixer for the city, went with the surviving partner to an undertaker's establishment to arrange for laying Boze away. While Johnny stalled the undertaker, Boze's partner changed the tag from a $500 casket to a $1,000 one, and placed the $1,000 tag on a cheaper casket. Johnny then bought the $1,000 job for $500 and paid for it in cash. As they left the funeral home, Boze's partner turned to Tolbert and said, "You know, Boze would like that." (200-1)

Nothing pleases him more than to tish a lady—that is, to place a fifty-dollar bill in her stocking with the solemn assurance that if she takes it out before morning, it will turn into tissue paper. Being a woman, she removes it at the earliest opportunity, only to find that it has turned to tissue paper, often with a bit of ribald verse inscribed upon it. (203)

When con men go to prison, they naturally exploit their position as fully as they can. They are model prisoners but before they have been there a day they are "shooting the curves" (conniving for privileges). They live off the fat of the land, enjoy a diet of their own choosing, and sometimes manage a business of some sort which makes them a very good profit. One con man of my acquaintance, at the end of a year in a northern prison, had managed to gain control of the commissary and was actually selling and reselling foodstuffs to the state which had imprisoned him. (207)

"What becomes of con men?" l once asked an old-timer.

"They just dry up and blow away," he answered laconically.

But they don't. Whatever happens to them during the course of their lives, it is a notable fact that, as their years increase, they remain young in spirit. They do not become "dated" as many men do who are marked indelibly with the characteristics of a particular generation. In attitudes, in dress and manners, in tastes and language, they live always, like theatrical folk, in the present. Their interests do not lag. They do not live in the past; perhaps they prefer not to do so. (208)

Old John Henry Strosnider said, "I think the reason that a con man never dies is that, like the Wandering Jew, he is always on the go. He is always traveling somewhere and seeing and doing new things. If he is in California, he looks forward to going to Florida, from there to Cuba, and so on. Then, too, he is always with young people., He dresses and acts like a young man, even when he is seventy. His talk and manners are up to date. I never saw an old pappy con man. Besides, con men never loaf around much. They are always active rooting out a mark. Much of their time is spent in the open air. Nowadays you will find the old-timers on any golf links where they can get by." (209)

The public is not only apathetic but naive toward the relationship between confidence men and the law. The man in the street sees crime something like this: if a confidence man trims someone, he should be indicted and punished; first he must be caught; then he must be tried; then, if convicted, he should be sent to prison to serve his full term. The average citizen—if we ignore his tendency to wax sentimental about all criminals—can be generally counted upon to adopt the following assumptions: that the victim of the swindle is both honest and unfortunate; that the officers of the law want to catch the con men; that the court wishes to convict the criminals; that if the court frees the con men, they are ipso facto innocent; that if they are convicted, they will be put in the penitentiary where they belong to serve out their time at hard labor. If these assumptions even approximated fact, confidence men would have long ago found it impossible to operate. (214-15)

Con men are very careful to pay off the fixer and to protect him from publicity on all occasions; in return, the fixer serves the con men faithfully and well. It is significant that American criminals do not, as a rule, fear the law; they fear the fixer, whose displeasure can follow them anywhere and whose word can put them behind bars more effectively than any local enforcement agency. (217-18)

If a city provides complete and exclusive protection for one or more favored con mobs, it is known as "airtight." This means that the fix is very strong, that the con men are quite secure, and that all competition will be discouraged by vigorous non-fixable prosecution. (224)

On a police force there are two kinds of officers "right" and "wrong." A right copper is susceptible to the fix, whether it comes from above, or directly from a criminal. A right copper really has larceny in his blood and, in many respects, is an underworld character, a kind of racketeer who takes profits from crime because he has the authority of the law to back up his demands. He differs from the professional criminal only in that he aligns himself with legitimate society, then uses his position to protect the thief and to betray the legitimate citizen. A con man is what he is; he is at least sincere and straightforward in his dishonesty. However, the con men do not hate or despise a right copper; they simply regard him as wise enough to take his share of the profits, knowing full well that if he doesn't, some other copper will. So, in a sense, the con man looks upon the right copper as a businessman who is smart enough to sell his wares at a price which the criminal can afford. (224-5)

Con men universally agree that the bum raps always come from right coppers and not from wrong ones. In other words, the maxim of the big con works both ways—if you can't cheat an honest man, neither will an honest man cheat you. (225)

In the city where the store is located, the police officers and detectives have little to do to collect their "end." If the mark can be cooled out properly by the insideman, they may never be called upon. If the mark beefs and goes to the police, he is treated very well, asked to tell his story, gives a description of the con men, and may even be asked to look through a rogues' gallery (from which the local boys' portraits have been carefully removed) in the hope that he can identify his malefactors. In other words, the police and detectives make a rather elaborate show of going through the same process they would use if they were really trying to catch someone. (225-6)

Let us look a little further into the relationship between the con man and the minions of the law.

The assistance rendered the con men by the fixer is just what the con men pay for, no more, no less. They pay for the protection of the police, and they are entitled to it. But what about the con men who are not paying protection locally? The right coppers habitually look upon all grifters as a source of revenue; a con man who is not paying, even though he is not working in that city, represents undeveloped opportunity. And so the right coppers proceed to develop it. Once a con man is recognized, he is picked up on the street and shaken down. He pays to remain free, even though there may be no immediate order for his apprehension. This is known as "stem-court," the implication being that the con man is arrested, tried, convicted and fined, all on the "stem" or street. "All big cities have coppers on the grift out looking for con men," said one professional. "The con men know whether they are right or wrong." This fact is emphasized by every con man who comments on the fix.

The reaction of con men toward this type of shakedown is philosophical. They believe that, if one doesn't have sense enough to avoid right coppers, he gets only what he deserves. Furthermore, he may need the services of that officer sometime, so he usually decides that it is better to pay. (227-8)

Gone, alas, are those hurly-burly days before the teletype and the squad car, when the boys played cops and robbers for all they were worth. (230)

However, it must not be assumed, on the whole, that there is anything like the traditional enmity portrayed in fiIm and fiction as existing between grifters and detectives. The wrong coppers are usually too fair-minded to hate con men; they know only too well that con-game victims are fleeced while trying to profit by a dishonest deal; furthermore, they see arresting a con man and giving honest testimony against him only as a part of their sworn duty, But the wrong copper is a very rare bird. The right coppers who have been on duty for many years know all the important con men in the country and con men know all the detectives. They do not hate each other any more than a merchant hates his customers; they co-operate for their mutual well-being; it is a part of the system. . . . The wise detective causes a con man as little trouble as possible, never asks him embarrassing questions, and takes his end quietly and unostentatiously. He knows which side his bread is buttered on; he may go out of his way to do favors for those con men who pay regularly and generously, but there is nothing very personal about this action. (230-1)

International con men working in Europe, Mexico and South America report that the fix abroad works much the same as it does in the United States, and, because of the highly centralized police systems, is reputed to be even more secure than it is here. (233)

If the local police, working under the fixer's instructions, find it impossible to cool out the mark successfully, they may, as a last resort, refund part or all of his money. However, con men report that the police do not favor this node of settlement—if there is any other way out—because they must "kick back" the money which the fixer has already distributed. Often they compromise on a settlement whereby the mark is given back a part of his loss and convinced that he is very fortunate to have regained even that much. Thus the mark is satisfied, the con men and the coppers make something from the deal, and the police get the credit for obtaining and returning part of the stolen money. (234)

A judge naturally cannot guarantee an out-and-out acquittal. The evidence which gets to court in a con case is always very strong and the prosecution thoroughly embattled. But, if things look too bad for the con man, the judge can always follow the standard procedure of a St. Louis judge ("the rightest judge in the U.S.A.") who, when the con man pleaded guilty and threw himself on the mercy of the court, gave him a sentence of one year, then probated it. (238)

The short-con games are, theoretically, any confidence games in which the mark is trimmed for only the amount he has with him at the time—in short, those games which do not employ the send. (248)

Just as this is being written (November 21, 1939) the newspapers carry headlines telling of several Texas bankers who were swindled for $300,000 on the old gold brick game, a chestnut, if ever there was one. The games grow old but the marks are always new. (249)

The problem of the fix is also becoming more difficult in the age of increasing military control over civilian life. This situation will probably force many confidence men to seek other hunting grounds for the duration of the War. (311)

War profits are already finding their way into the pockets of certain European citizens who may be depended upon to make excellent marks. It is probably only a matter of time until something very similar occurs here. Thus the second World War may produce another crop of "war babies" with corresponding profits for the confidence man. (312)

There is at present a determined movement on the part of the Federal Government to cut off the wire service from race-tracks to legitimate bookmakers. Should this move succeed, confidence men, specifically those operating the pay-off, might be somewhat inconvenienced for a time. They could rest assured, however, that very shortly illicit or "bootleg" service would be common enough that the mark would not be suspicious of a big store set up with what appeared to be illegal service. It is even possible that the outlawing of legitimate track-service might work in favor of the pay-off men. (313; see Drugs, War on)

So long as there are marks with money, the law will find great difficulty in suppressing confidence games, even assuming that local enforcement officers are sincerely interested. . . . .As long as the political boss, whether he be local, state or national, fosters a machine wherein graft and bribery are looked upon as a normal phase of government, as long as juries, judges and law enforcement officers can be had for a price, the confidence man will live and thrive in our society. (314)

Edited September 23, 2010 by William Kelly

[Robert Howard]

I promise this post will be interesting.

The following websites will provide a little more on Major Linebarger

http://cordwainer-smith.com/blog/

http://www.arlington...et/linebarg.htm

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Major, United States Army

Colonel, United States Army Reserve

Science Fiction Writer: Cordwainer Smith Wisconsin State Flag

Cordwainer Smith (Pseudonym for Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger)

(b.1913-d.1966)

Ph.D. professor of asiatic studies at John Hopkins University, School of advanced International Studies. Closely linked with the U.S. Intelligence Community with special interest in propaganda techniques and psychological warfare.

Born in Milwakee, Wisconsin in July 1913, died in Baltimore, Maryland. Grew up and was educated in China and Japan, his father was a legal advisor to the Chinese Republic (Dr. Paul Myron Anthony L.) attended school in germany, visited Russia in his teens, married in 1936, divorced in 1949, remarried 1950 to Genevieve Collins.

In 1966 most of his science-fiction work was published for the first time. University teacher in 1947. Recalled for Korean War. Travelled alot in the 50's and 60's with his wife in spite of his being very ill. He was very impressed with Australia and hoped to retire there but died of a heart attack at age 53.

All but 5 stories are of the Instrumentality of mankind. First of these was "War #81-Q" (1928) Apparently he did not bother alot with making the different facts and dates match. Also wrote as Felix C. Forrest, a pun in reference to his chinese name Lin Bah Loh (Forest of Incandescent Bliss).

From 1950 to 1966, stories appeared in mainstream science fiction magazines by an author named "Cordwainer Smith". From the first to the last, these stories were acclaimed as among the most inventive and striking ever written, and that in a field specializing in the inventive and the striking. Their author was a very private man who did not want his real name to be known because he did not want to be pursued by SF fans. It was only after his death in 1966 that more than a handful of people knew that "Cordwainer Smith" was in real life Paul M. A. Linebarger. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Paul Linebarger was born in 1913, the grandson of a clergyman. His father, an eccentric man, had served as a Federal District Judge in the Philippines, but had left this post to work full time for the cause of the Chinese republican reformer Sun Yat Sen, who became Paul's godfather. Paul Linebarger grew up in the retinue of Sun Yat Sen, for his father stayed with Sen during his exile in Japan and throughout his career in China. John J. Pierce has written, Linebarger spent his formative years in Japan, China, France, and Germany. By the time he grew up, he knew six languages and had become intimate with several cultures, both Oriental and Occidental.

He was only twenty- three when he earned his Ph.D. in political science at Johns Hopkins University, where he was later Professor of Asiatic politics for many years. Shortly thereafter, he graduated from editing his father's books to publishing his own highly regarded works on Far Eastern affairs.

After graduating from Johns Hopkins, Linebarger taught at Duke University from 1937 to 1946, but he also served actively in the Army during World War II as a second lieutenant. Pierce writes that "As a Far East specialist he was involved in the formation of the Office of War Information and of the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board. He also helped organize the Army's first psychological warfare section." [2] He was sent to China and put in charge of psychological warfare and of coordinating Anglo- American and Chinese military activities. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major.

In 1947, he became professor of Asiatic Politics at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Pierce writes, Dr. Linebarger turned his wartime experiences into Psychological Warfare, still regarded as the most authoritative text in the field. As a colonel, he was advisor to the British forces in Malaya, and to the U. S. Eighth Army in Korea. But this self- styled "visitor to small wars" passed up Vietnam, feeling American involvement there was a mistake.

Travels around the world took him to Australia, Greece, Egypt, and many other countries; and his expertise was sufficiently valued that he became a leading member of the Foreign Policy Association and an advisor to President Kennedy.

Linebarger was reared in a High Church Episcopalian family. Alan C. Elms's sketch of the older Linebargers does not lead one to believe either was particularly devout. Paul's father was evidently rather overbearing and placed many demands on his son. His mother was apparently rather self-centered and controlling. At the age of six, young Paul was blinded in his left eye as a result of an accident while playing, and the resulting infection damaged his right eye as well, causing him distress throughout his entire life. A sensitive, introspective, and apparently rather lonely and sickly youth, Paul Linebarger was to develop into a remarkable scholar, thinker, and writer.

At some point in his life, Paul Linebarger became a strongly committed Christian. "He and [wife] Genevieve went to Sung Mass on Sundays, and he said grace at all meals at home. The faith extended and shaped his powerful imagination' But he simply ignored contemporary religious movements, especially the secularizing ones directed to social problems. The God he had faith in had to do with the soul of man and with the unfolding of history and of the destiny of all living creatures."

The first science fiction story published by Linebarger, under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith, was "Scanners Live in Vain", in 1949. It had been written, however, in 1945. This story is a full-blown allegory of the coming of the New Covenant, and reveals a very sophisticated understanding both of the Biblical narrative and typology (e.g., the smell of roast lamb reminds the central character of the smell of burning people), and of the theological and philosophical tenets of the Christian religion. Linebarger must have become a serious Christian well before 1945.

Linebarger's own psychological problems, as well as his keen interest in psychological warfare, caused him to explore modern psychiatry and psychoanalysis. These themes, as well as Christian philosophy and allegory, and also psychological warfare, run all through the science fiction he published as Cordwainer Smith.

Born 11 July 1913. Died 06 August 1966. Buried in Section 35, Grave Number 4712, Arlington National Cemetery. Bronze Star. His widow, Genevieve Collins Linebarger, was interred with him on 16 November 1981. Novels

Smith, Cordwainer, --The Planet Buyer, Pyramid, 1964. --The Underpeople, Pyramid, 1968.

Short Magazine Fiction

Smith, Cordwainer, --Amazing --F&SF --Galaxy --If

Collections of Short Fiction

Smith, Cordwainer, --Space Lords, Pyramid, 1965. --Norstrilia, Ballantine, 1975. --The Best of Cordwainer Smith, Nelson Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1975. --The Instrumentality of Mankind, Ballantine, 1979. Sources of Biographical and Bibliographical Information

Pierce, J. J., Cordwainer Smith: The Shaper of Myths, in The Best of Cordwainer Smith, Nelson Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1975.

Pierce, John J., The Instrumentality Series, in The Great Science Fiction Series, edited by Frederik Pohl, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph Olander, Harper & Row, New York, 1980, 420 pp. ISBN: 0-06-013382-1

LINEBARGER, PAUL MYRON ANTHONY

COL RES MAJ US ARMY

VETERAN SERVICE DATES: Unknown

DATE OF BIRTH: 07/11/1913

DATE OF DEATH: 08/06/1966

DATE OF INTERMENT: 04/09/1966

BURIED AT: SECTION 35 SITE 4712

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

Book References The Mind of a Cold Warrior

My reaction to this thread is that Linebarger's Big-Con at Dealey Plaza is extremely interesting, but I am more

interested in what was in Linebarger's background that

fostered his belief in the assassination, being a black-ops kind of guy, and all.

In The Man Who Kept the Secrets, [relevant pages 100, 323-24, 413;] Helms attributes the quote about E Howard Hunt being one of two people who had the greatest black-minds to Linebarger, the other was General Edward Lansdale.

Helms mentions that Linebarger is featured considerably in the book Portrait of a Cold Warrior.

And Paul Linebarger is recorded as having contact in Japan

with Joseph Kiyonaga, whose wife Bina Cady's wrote a memoir

of his career; see below

Memoir of A Spy-Wife by Bina Kady Kiyonaga, [her maiden name was Cady, father John Clayton Cady from Montrose, Pa.]

Her husband, was Joseph Yoshio Kiyonaga,

But what is more interesting is what is written about him on page 116

chapter entitled One Hand Clapping.....

she writes.....

"In Tokyo, Joe headed up political action and propaganda

for the station— fitting for Joe, as his mentor at SAIS had been

Paul Linebarger, the guru of psychological warfare. His book

Psychological Warfare, published in 1948, is still considered

the bible on the subject. He and Joe stayed in touch

after Joe's graduation, and Paul Linebarger and his wife

were our houseguests in Tokyo. (In fact, I believe Paul played a role

in recruiting Joe to the Agency.)"

New York Times Friday March 11, 1977

Joseph Y. Kiyonaga, 59 soldier, ex CIA-agent

Joseph Yoshio Kiyonaga who had served

with the Central Intelligence Agency as

chief of station in El Salvador, Panama, and Brazil

died Tuesday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer-Center.

He was 59 years old.

Mr. Kiyonaga who joined the CIA in 1949, resided in

Chevy Chase, Md., he was a direct descendant of

the 19th century woodcut artist of the same name.

Mr. Kiyonaga was born on the island of Maui, Hawaii.

During World War II he served in Italy and France

with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team

which was made up of Japanese-American volunteers

from Hawaii and from internment-camps on the West

Coast who had petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt

for permission to form their own detachment.

The unit became one of the most-decorated in the Army,

and Mr. Kiyonaga was cited for valor and received a field

commission.

He graduated from the University of Hawaii and

received a masters degree from the John Hopkins School of

Advanced International Studies. During his professional career

he also served a number of years in Japan.

Mr. Kiyonaga is survived by his wife, the former Bina Cady;

three sons, David, a lawyer in the Canal Zone, John, a student at

Columbia Law School, and Paul a student at the Hill School,

two daughters, Ann, a student at the University of California at Berkeley,

and Mrs Michael DiGiacomo of Bronxville and his mother

Mrs. Joseph Swerts of Molokai, Hawaii.

[i guess I may have answered my own question.]

Interesting Factoid, I do not know how much Lee Harvey Oswald is mentioned in her book; all I found was a

cursory mention that he was stationed at Atsugi, as they were.

She did mention that the famed television political comedian Mark Russell was a Marine guard stationed at the gate

at Atsugi, while they were there.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Robert Howard

[Guest Tom Scully]

http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/remember.htm

...My father was very much a cold warrior. During that Mexican summer of 1952, he wasn't just on a family jaunt. I didn't know until Genevieve told me after he died that he had also been working for the CIA on the side, that summer and through many of the years that he was a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

So in 1952, he was working in Mexico City with Howard Hunt, later of Watergate fame. The Russian embassy was having a party, and Daddy (I think Hunt too) got ahold of an invitation. They had many extra copies made and distributed, so that far too many people arrived at the party, and the Russians were embarrassed. A little-known fact of the cold war.

[Ian Kingsbury]

In my research of the CIA Catherwood Fund in Philadelphia, I found a CIA officer - E. Wharton Shober - who was head of ATEC - a Chicago based printing company that sold printing presses in Latin America - and then he became head of Hannamen Hospital in Philadelphia, which had US Army research contracts. Shober was also co-director of the Cuban Aid Relief -CAR - a Philadelphia based CIA cuban operation that assisted anti-Batista professionals who fled Cuba.

Shober was very tight with the Somozas - visited them often - and brought them to USA.

While Shober was head of the hospital - he arranged for Anastasio Somoza to receive an honorary degree - over the protesting objections of the medical school faculity and students.

When he finally left Philadelphia Shober was last known to be running a hospital in Saudi Arabia, but then I lost track of him.

I think he may have been Somoza's CIA case officer.

Any info on E. Wharton Shober would be appreciated.

BK

Bill, prior to Hahnemann, every single business venture he was involved in failed - yet he simultaneously amassed a fortune and decided to turn his attention to "philanthropy". He actually took the job at Hahnamann without pay.

The research contract I think you're alluding to (there were a few) dealt with an experimental program for addicts. It was an unmitigated catastrophe... but had the outward appearance of success via carefully orchestrated deceptions.

In the late 70s, he was indicted for bribery, and banking and mail fraud -- eventually beating all charges. This involved Federal grants obtained with assistance from Reps Flood and Eilberg. Flood was forced out of office as a result. Eilberg got 5 years after pleading guilty to conflict of interest charges and Shober got off clean.

He moved to England after Saudi Arabia and he and his wife started a computer training business in which he promotes himself as the President of a medical college - something I have not been able to confirm as true - and hard to believe given his history at Hahnamann. The couple also has as a company called Allergy Technology Ltd (they have one or two patents concerning such things as eliminating dust mites).

In recent years, he has written a novel loosely based on his experiences in Saudi Arabia. This is available through Lulu online.

Greg, according to the Web site JR linked us to, it is curious how short "Wharton Shober" what happened to the "E." - Wharton is not a first name - his ancstor's last name, -

and how he avoids mentioning Philadelphia - his hometown - that his wife mentions in her bio.

"Emeritus Honorman Medical College" doesn't exist - that is a purposely misspelling of Hahnamann - a very well known and respected school/hosptial that survived his presidency.

It seems by dropping his first name/initial and fudging his background he is trying to avoid his past, or at least keeping those who are uninformed from being able to discover it.

Now look who's backing him financially : The Drapers Company, Peter de Hann Trust, Colyer-Ferguson Charitable Trusts, Garfield Weston Fund, W.P. Carey Fund, Allan Willet Fund, Loyds TBS, the HBOS and Tudor Trust.

Their fellow Trustee William Curran does work for a real school - IUSS London, and has a background in Nuke Security.

Lets see, should my first question to E. Wharton Shober be "Are you still working for the CIA?" or "Were you Anastasio Somoza's CIA case officer in '63, and if so do you know about the Alvarado incident?"

BK

Bill

Lloyds TSB is an old English bank who recently bought out HBOS

A bit of background

Lloyds TSB History

Lloyds Bank was founded as the private bank of Taylors & Lloyds in Birmingham in June 1765. For nearly 100 years it prospered from a single Birmingham office.

Changes in legislation and a need for increased capital led the firm to convert to joint-stock status in 1865. This resulted in an explosion of growth and the first of many take-overs.

In the 1880s Lloyds, turned its attention to London. In 1884 it absorbed the Lombard Street bank of Barnetts, Hoares, Hanbury & Lloyd. This marked the beginning of the bank’s association with the famous black horse; Barnetts, Hoares & Co. had inherited the symbol, which had originally been used by a Lombard Street goldsmith as early as 1677.

The first half of the 20th century saw the bank's expansion overseas, including continental Europe, South America and India. Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society joined the group in 1995

The savings bank movement started in 1810, when the Reverend Henry Duncan opened the first self supporting savings bank in Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire. The movement aimed to persuading the poor to save. The savings banks were independent of each other, until they united in the 1970s and amalgamated into regional institutions. This was followed, in 1986, by flotation on the stock exchange and the creation of TSB Group plc.

Lloyds Bank and TSB Group plc merged in 1995 to form Lloyds TSB. The new group took over Scottish Widows in 2000.

Further information

Our Group Archives department has an extensive archive of Lloyds TSB material.

For more information, please contact: group.archives@lloydstsb.co.uk

Lloyds Banking Group Archives

2nd Floor, 48 Chiswell Street

London

EC1Y 4XX

Executive Directors

Sir Winfried Bischoff: Chairman J Eric Daniels: Group Chief Executive

Lord Leitch: Deputy Chairman Archie G Kane: Group Executive Director, Insurance

Sir Julian Horn-Smith G Truett Tate: Group Executive Director, Wholesale

Glen R Moreno Tim J W Tookey: Group Finance Director

David L Roberts Helen A Weir CBE: Group Executive Director, Retail

T Timothy Ryan, Jr

Martin A Scicluna

Anthony Watson CBE

Ian

Edited September 24, 2010 by Ian Kingsbury

[William Kelly]

In my research of the CIA Catherwood Fund in Philadelphia, I found a CIA officer - E. Wharton Shober - who was head of ATEC - a Chicago based printing company that sold printing presses in Latin America - and then he became head of Hannamen Hospital in Philadelphia, which had US Army research contracts. Shober was also co-director of the Cuban Aid Relief -CAR - a Philadelphia based CIA cuban operation that assisted anti-Batista professionals who fled Cuba.

Shober was very tight with the Somozas - visited them often - and brought them to USA.

While Shober was head of the hospital - he arranged for Anastasio Somoza to receive an honorary degree - over the protesting objections of the medical school faculity and students.

When he finally left Philadelphia Shober was last known to be running a hospital in Saudi Arabia, but then I lost track of him.

I think he may have been Somoza's CIA case officer.

Any info on E. Wharton Shober would be appreciated.

BK

Bill, prior to Hahnemann, every single business venture he was involved in failed - yet he simultaneously amassed a fortune and decided to turn his attention to "philanthropy". He actually took the job at Hahnamann without pay.

The research contract I think you're alluding to (there were a few) dealt with an experimental program for addicts. It was an unmitigated catastrophe... but had the outward appearance of success via carefully orchestrated deceptions.

In the late 70s, he was indicted for bribery, and banking and mail fraud -- eventually beating all charges. This involved Federal grants obtained with assistance from Reps Flood and Eilberg. Flood was forced out of office as a result. Eilberg got 5 years after pleading guilty to conflict of interest charges and Shober got off clean.

He moved to England after Saudi Arabia and he and his wife started a computer training business in which he promotes himself as the President of a medical college - something I have not been able to confirm as true - and hard to believe given his history at Hahnamann. The couple also has as a company called Allergy Technology Ltd (they have one or two patents concerning such things as eliminating dust mites).

In recent years, he has written a novel loosely based on his experiences in Saudi Arabia. This is available through Lulu online.

Greg, according to the Web site JR linked us to, it is curious how short "Wharton Shober" what happened to the "E." - Wharton is not a first name - his ancstor's last name, -

and how he avoids mentioning Philadelphia - his hometown - that his wife mentions in her bio.

"Emeritus Honorman Medical College" doesn't exist - that is a purposely misspelling of Hahnamann - a very well known and respected school/hosptial that survived his presidency.

It seems by dropping his first name/initial and fudging his background he is trying to avoid his past, or at least keeping those who are uninformed from being able to discover it.

Now look who's backing him financially : The Drapers Company, Peter de Hann Trust, Colyer-Ferguson Charitable Trusts, Garfield Weston Fund, W.P. Carey Fund, Allan Willet Fund, Loyds TBS, the HBOS and Tudor Trust.

Their fellow Trustee William Curran does work for a real school - IUSS London, and has a background in Nuke Security.

Lets see, should my first question to E. Wharton Shober be "Are you still working for the CIA?" or "Were you Anastasio Somoza's CIA case officer in '63, and if so do you know about the Alvarado incident?"

BK

Bill

Lloyds TSB is an old English bank who recently bought out HBOS

A bit of background

Lloyds TSB History

Lloyds Bank was founded as the private bank of Taylors & Lloyds in Birmingham in June 1765. For nearly 100 years it prospered from a single Birmingham office.

Changes in legislation and a need for increased capital led the firm to convert to joint-stock status in 1865. This resulted in an explosion of growth and the first of many take-overs.

In the 1880s Lloyds, turned its attention to London. In 1884 it absorbed the Lombard Street bank of Barnetts, Hoares, Hanbury & Lloyd. This marked the beginning of the bank’s association with the famous black horse; Barnetts, Hoares & Co. had inherited the symbol, which had originally been used by a Lombard Street goldsmith as early as 1677.

The first half of the 20th century saw the bank's expansion overseas, including continental Europe, South America and India. Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society joined the group in 1995

The savings bank movement started in 1810, when the Reverend Henry Duncan opened the first self supporting savings bank in Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire. The movement aimed to persuading the poor to save. The savings banks were independent of each other, until they united in the 1970s and amalgamated into regional institutions. This was followed, in 1986, by flotation on the stock exchange and the creation of TSB Group plc.

Lloyds Bank and TSB Group plc merged in 1995 to form Lloyds TSB. The new group took over Scottish Widows in 2000.

Further information

Our Group Archives department has an extensive archive of Lloyds TSB material.

For more information, please contact: group.archives@lloydstsb.co.uk

Lloyds Banking Group Archives

2nd Floor, 48 Chiswell Street

London

EC1Y 4XX

Executive Directors

Sir Winfried Bischoff: Chairman J Eric Daniels: Group Chief Executive

Lord Leitch: Deputy Chairman Archie G Kane: Group Executive Director, Insurance

Sir Julian Horn-Smith G Truett Tate: Group Executive Director, Wholesale

Glen R Moreno Tim J W Tookey: Group Finance Director

David L Roberts Helen A Weir CBE: Group Executive Director, Retail

T Timothy Ryan, Jr

Martin A Scicluna

Anthony Watson CBE

Thanks Ian,

SInce we last left Shober, his wife died and he returned to USA.

BK

Ian

[William Kelly]

I promise this post will be interesting.

The following websites will provide a little more on Major Linebarger

http://cordwainer-smith.com/blog/

http://www.arlington...et/linebarg.htm

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Major, United States Army

Colonel, United States Army Reserve

Science Fiction Writer: Cordwainer Smith Wisconsin State Flag

Cordwainer Smith (Pseudonym for Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger)

(b.1913-d.1966)

Ph.D. professor of asiatic studies at John Hopkins University, School of advanced International Studies. Closely linked with the U.S. Intelligence Community with special interest in propaganda techniques and psychological warfare.

Born in Milwakee, Wisconsin in July 1913, died in Baltimore, Maryland. Grew up and was educated in China and Japan, his father was a legal advisor to the Chinese Republic (Dr. Paul Myron Anthony L.) attended school in germany, visited Russia in his teens, married in 1936, divorced in 1949, remarried 1950 to Genevieve Collins.

In 1966 most of his science-fiction work was published for the first time. University teacher in 1947. Recalled for Korean War. Travelled alot in the 50's and 60's with his wife in spite of his being very ill. He was very impressed with Australia and hoped to retire there but died of a heart attack at age 53.

All but 5 stories are of the Instrumentality of mankind. First of these was "War #81-Q" (1928) Apparently he did not bother alot with making the different facts and dates match. Also wrote as Felix C. Forrest, a pun in reference to his chinese name Lin Bah Loh (Forest of Incandescent Bliss).

From 1950 to 1966, stories appeared in mainstream science fiction magazines by an author named "Cordwainer Smith". From the first to the last, these stories were acclaimed as among the most inventive and striking ever written, and that in a field specializing in the inventive and the striking. Their author was a very private man who did not want his real name to be known because he did not want to be pursued by SF fans. It was only after his death in 1966 that more than a handful of people knew that "Cordwainer Smith" was in real life Paul M. A. Linebarger. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Paul Linebarger was born in 1913, the grandson of a clergyman. His father, an eccentric man, had served as a Federal District Judge in the Philippines, but had left this post to work full time for the cause of the Chinese republican reformer Sun Yat Sen, who became Paul's godfather. Paul Linebarger grew up in the retinue of Sun Yat Sen, for his father stayed with Sen during his exile in Japan and throughout his career in China. John J. Pierce has written, Linebarger spent his formative years in Japan, China, France, and Germany. By the time he grew up, he knew six languages and had become intimate with several cultures, both Oriental and Occidental.

He was only twenty- three when he earned his Ph.D. in political science at Johns Hopkins University, where he was later Professor of Asiatic politics for many years. Shortly thereafter, he graduated from editing his father's books to publishing his own highly regarded works on Far Eastern affairs.

After graduating from Johns Hopkins, Linebarger taught at Duke University from 1937 to 1946, but he also served actively in the Army during World War II as a second lieutenant. Pierce writes that "As a Far East specialist he was involved in the formation of the Office of War Information and of the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board. He also helped organize the Army's first psychological warfare section." [2] He was sent to China and put in charge of psychological warfare and of coordinating Anglo- American and Chinese military activities. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major.

In 1947, he became professor of Asiatic Politics at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Pierce writes, Dr. Linebarger turned his wartime experiences into Psychological Warfare, still regarded as the most authoritative text in the field. As a colonel, he was advisor to the British forces in Malaya, and to the U. S. Eighth Army in Korea. But this self- styled "visitor to small wars" passed up Vietnam, feeling American involvement there was a mistake.

Travels around the world took him to Australia, Greece, Egypt, and many other countries; and his expertise was sufficiently valued that he became a leading member of the Foreign Policy Association and an advisor to President Kennedy.

Linebarger was reared in a High Church Episcopalian family. Alan C. Elms's sketch of the older Linebargers does not lead one to believe either was particularly devout. Paul's father was evidently rather overbearing and placed many demands on his son. His mother was apparently rather self-centered and controlling. At the age of six, young Paul was blinded in his left eye as a result of an accident while playing, and the resulting infection damaged his right eye as well, causing him distress throughout his entire life. A sensitive, introspective, and apparently rather lonely and sickly youth, Paul Linebarger was to develop into a remarkable scholar, thinker, and writer.

At some point in his life, Paul Linebarger became a strongly committed Christian. "He and [wife] Genevieve went to Sung Mass on Sundays, and he said grace at all meals at home. The faith extended and shaped his powerful imagination' But he simply ignored contemporary religious movements, especially the secularizing ones directed to social problems. The God he had faith in had to do with the soul of man and with the unfolding of history and of the destiny of all living creatures."

The first science fiction story published by Linebarger, under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith, was "Scanners Live in Vain", in 1949. It had been written, however, in 1945. This story is a full-blown allegory of the coming of the New Covenant, and reveals a very sophisticated understanding both of the Biblical narrative and typology (e.g., the smell of roast lamb reminds the central character of the smell of burning people), and of the theological and philosophical tenets of the Christian religion. Linebarger must have become a serious Christian well before 1945.

Linebarger's own psychological problems, as well as his keen interest in psychological warfare, caused him to explore modern psychiatry and psychoanalysis. These themes, as well as Christian philosophy and allegory, and also psychological warfare, run all through the science fiction he published as Cordwainer Smith.

Born 11 July 1913. Died 06 August 1966. Buried in Section 35, Grave Number 4712, Arlington National Cemetery. Bronze Star. His widow, Genevieve Collins Linebarger, was interred with him on 16 November 1981. Novels

Smith, Cordwainer, --The Planet Buyer, Pyramid, 1964. --The Underpeople, Pyramid, 1968.

Short Magazine Fiction

Smith, Cordwainer, --Amazing --F&SF --Galaxy --If

Collections of Short Fiction

Smith, Cordwainer, --Space Lords, Pyramid, 1965. --Norstrilia, Ballantine, 1975. --The Best of Cordwainer Smith, Nelson Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1975. --The Instrumentality of Mankind, Ballantine, 1979. Sources of Biographical and Bibliographical Information

Pierce, J. J., Cordwainer Smith: The Shaper of Myths, in The Best of Cordwainer Smith, Nelson Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1975.

Pierce, John J., The Instrumentality Series, in The Great Science Fiction Series, edited by Frederik Pohl, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph Olander, Harper & Row, New York, 1980, 420 pp. ISBN: 0-06-013382-1

LINEBARGER, PAUL MYRON ANTHONY

COL RES MAJ US ARMY

VETERAN SERVICE DATES: Unknown

DATE OF BIRTH: 07/11/1913

DATE OF DEATH: 08/06/1966

DATE OF INTERMENT: 04/09/1966

BURIED AT: SECTION 35 SITE 4712

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

Book References The Mind of a Cold Warrior

My reaction to this thread is that Linebarger's Big-Con at Dealey Plaza is extremely interesting, but I am more

interested in what was in Linebarger's background that

fostered his belief in the assassination, being a black-ops kind of guy, and all.

In The Man Who Kept the Secrets, [relevant pages 100, 323-24, 413;] Helms attributes the quote about E Howard Hunt being one of two people who had the greatest black-minds to Linebarger, the other was General Edward Lansdale.

Helms mentions that Linebarger is featured considerably in the book Portrait of a Cold Warrior.

And Paul Linebarger is recorded as having contact in Japan

with Joseph Kiyonaga, whose wife Bina Cady's wrote a memoir

of his career; see below

Memoir of A Spy-Wife by Bina Kady Kiyonaga, [her maiden name was Cady, father John Clayton Cady from Montrose, Pa.]

Her husband, was Joseph Yoshio Kiyonaga,

But what is more interesting is what is written about him on page 116

chapter entitled One Hand Clapping.....

she writes.....

"In Tokyo, Joe headed up political action and propaganda

for the station— fitting for Joe, as his mentor at SAIS had been

Paul Linebarger, the guru of psychological warfare. His book

Psychological Warfare, published in 1948, is still considered

the bible on the subject. He and Joe stayed in touch

after Joe's graduation, and Paul Linebarger and his wife

were our houseguests in Tokyo. (In fact, I believe Paul played a role

in recruiting Joe to the Agency.)"

New York Times Friday March 11, 1977

Joseph Y. Kiyonaga, 59 soldier, ex CIA-agent

Joseph Yoshio Kiyonaga who had served

with the Central Intelligence Agency as

chief of station in El Salvador, Panama, and Brazil

died Tuesday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer-Center.

He was 59 years old.

Mr. Kiyonaga who joined the CIA in 1949, resided in

Chevy Chase, Md., he was a direct descendant of

the 19th century woodcut artist of the same name.

Mr. Kiyonaga was born on the island of Maui, Hawaii.

During World War II he served in Italy and France

with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team

which was made up of Japanese-American volunteers

from Hawaii and from internment-camps on the West

Coast who had petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt

for permission to form their own detachment.

The unit became one of the most-decorated in the Army,

and Mr. Kiyonaga was cited for valor and received a field

commission.

He graduated from the University of Hawaii and

received a masters degree from the John Hopkins School of

Advanced International Studies. During his professional career

he also served a number of years in Japan.

Mr. Kiyonaga is survived by his wife, the former Bina Cady;

three sons, David, a lawyer in the Canal Zone, John, a student at

Columbia Law School, and Paul a student at the Hill School,

two daughters, Ann, a student at the University of California at Berkeley,

and Mrs Michael DiGiacomo of Bronxville and his mother

Mrs. Joseph Swerts of Molokai, Hawaii.

[i guess I may have answered my own question.]

Interesting Factoid, I do not know how much Lee Harvey Oswald is mentioned in her book; all I found was a

cursory mention that he was stationed at Atsugi, as they were.

She did mention that the famed television political comedian Mark Russell was a Marine guard stationed at the gate

at Atsugi, while they were there.

Thanks for that Robert,

So Linebarger's career crossed paths with Oswald at Atsugi and Mexico City.

And thanks for that link Tom.

BK

[William Kelly]

Robert wrote: My reaction to this thread is that Linebarger's Big-Con at Dealey Plaza is extremely interesting, but I am more interested in what was in Linebarger's background that fostered his belief in the assassination, being a black-ops kind of guy, and all.

In The Man Who Kept the Secrets, [relevant pages 100, 323-24, 413;] Helms attributes the quote about E Howard Hunt being one of two people who had the greatest black-minds to Linebarger, the other was General Edward Lansdale. Helms mentions that Linebarger is featured considerably in the book Portrait of a Cold Warrior.

BKelly: I don't believe that Linebarger was personally behind the Dealey Plaza operation, though I'm pretty sure that one of his students was behind the black propaganda aspect of framing Oswald and blaming the assassination on Castro.

Here's some of what Joe Smith has to say about Linebarger and David Maurer, the author of The Big Con:

http://jfkcountercou...linebarger.html

Joseph B. Smith Portrait of a Cold Warrior – Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976) P. 59.

When he was first hired by the CIA, Joe Smith was told:

"As far as psychological warfare is concerned, it's a brand new field. We are all learning. You remember it was one of Hitler's strongest weapons. The Communists depend on it a lot to. We figure that if we analyze what they're doing and study the countries in our area closely, we can beat them at their own game."

"Oh yes, another thing," she added, "We won't be able to spare you for any clandestine tradecraft training. That would take another three months. We need you now. You'll have to learn the business on the job. I'm afraid."

"Well," she added as an afterthought, "we will be able to help you with psychwar. Paul Linebarger, our consultant, is one of the few real experts and he gives evening seminars for us. We'll try to get you into one of them after you've settled in....."

P. 75 .....One important contingency to consider in case a situation worsened rapidly and a take over by the Communist guerrilla armies appeared imminent was the operational effectiveness of assassination of the leaders of these groups.

For example, in Indochina, would the Viet Minh fall apart if Ho Chi Minh were assassinated? He appeared to be the soul of the movement. The evidence indicated that he was the one man nearly all Vietnamese respected and his efforts had provided the decisive cohesion that held the Communist cause together. If he were removed, wouldn't this one death perhaps save the lives of many?

This was the key point on which discussions of assassination turned, the same kind of reasoning that led to the dropping of the first atomic bomb. An assassination meant the death of one person. If the situation is one of armed combat, killing is an accepted activity. Maximum accomplishment via minimum violence became a primary consideration.

Thus assassination was always a contingency action to be included in the plans, though approval would have to come from the National Security Council before any assassination was attempted. Another practical problem was where to find the assassins. The reading of case studies of the successful assassinations by Soviet secret service counterparts, such as the killing of Trotsky, wasn't much help because the Soviets service exercised a control over its agents we could not impose, certainly not on Asians. That left only criminals and cranks to be considered for recruitment to perform this service.....

.....All this was far in the future and far less important to me in the early winter of 1952 than the fact that I got the chance to attend Paul Linebarger's seminar in psychological warfare. Linebarger had served as an Army psychological warfare officer in Chungking during the war. He had written a textbook on the subject in 1948. In 1951 he was serving as the Far East Division's chief consultant. He also served as the Defense Department in the same capacity, giving advice on U.S. psychwar operations in Korea, and he was professor of Asian politics at the School for Advanced International Studies of the John Hopkins University. His book by this time had gone through three American editions, two Argentine editions and a Japanese edition.

He was far from a textbook warrior, however. He best described himself when he wrote the introduction to his book, "Psychological warfare involves exciting wit sharpening work. It tends to attract quick-minded people – men full of ideas." His wits scarcely needed sharpening, and he was never at a loss for an idea.

The seminars were held in eight weeks, every Friday night at his home. Going to Paul Linebarger's house on Friday evenings was not only an educational experience for those who attended the seminar, it was also an exercise in clandestinity. Learning covert operational conduct was considered part of the course. Each seminar was limited to no more than eight students. They were told to pose as students from the School of Advanced International Studies, to go to Paul's via different routes, and to say they were attending a seminar on Asian politics. Senator McCarthy had alerted everyone to the possibility that Communist operators might be expected to turn up at almost any place in Washington. The School of Advanced International Studies had its campus in Washington, but over in Baltimore at the main campus of John Hopkins University, Owen Lattimore, the expert on Asian geography, held sway. McCarthy had called Lattimore the principal agent of Communist China in the United States.

Although no one called Paul Linebarger the principle agent of Chiang Kai-shek, his father had been Sun Yat Sen's legal advisor and Paul never hid his full devotion to the Chinat cause. The feeling of the clash of mysterious powers was abroad in the cold winter nights around Paul's house. It could just be possible that some Communist surveillant might follow one of the students up Rock Creek Park to 29^th Street. They might even be operating from the Shoreham hotel, a few blocks away. We had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the fear of Communist subversion….It would be difficult to say whether it was the political atmosphere in general, the office routine of the day just closed, or the drawn drapes in Linebarger's living room, but students at the seminar met in an appropriately conspiratorial mood tht raised the level of their appreciation of their subject.

The mood was fitting if not essential to an understanding of the material. The first point that Linebarger made was that the purpose of all psychological warfare is the manipulation of people so that they are not able to detect they are being manipulated. Wartime psychwar had been a matter of undermining the enemy civilian and military will to continue the fight. The audience, in brief, was very clearly defined. Determining just who it was they wanted to manipulate and for what ends was also pretty clear to the OPC personnel. Their targets were the Communists and their allies. Having this firmly in mind, any methods of manipulation could be used, especially "black propaganda."

Black propaganda operations, by definition, are operations in which the source of the propaganda is disguised or misrepresented in one way or another so as not be attributable to the people who really put it out. This distinguishes black from white propaganda, such as news bulletins and similar statements issued by one side in a conflict extolling its successes, of course, or other material just as clearly designed to serve the purposes of its identifiable authors.

During World War II black propaganda operators had a field day. German black operations against the French consisted of such enterprises as sending French soldiers letters from their hometowns telling them their wives were committing adultery, or were infected with venereal diseases, giving away mourning dresses to women who would wear them on the streets of Paris, or intercepting telephone communications in the field and giving confusing or contradictory orders.

Paul Linebarger's was a seminar in black propaganda only. One reason for this was that the United States already had an overt propaganda agency as part of the cold war apparatus. In those days this was run directly by the State Department, but in 1953 it would become formalized into the United States Information Agency and become an independent government agency responsible for worldwide United States propaganda operations. Furthermore, the view of the state of affairs in the world was that was the fundamental assumption of all OPC activities was that the United States was faced everywhere with an enemy that was using an untold array of black psychwar operations to undermine the nations of the world in order to present us with a fait accompli one fine morning when we would wake up to find all these countries under Communist control. Hence, it was vital to understand all about such operations from a defensive standpoint if nothing else. There was, however, something else. This was an attitude produced by the mixture of ancient wisdom that a good offense is the best defense, and the spirit of the times that made the existence of conspiracy seem so real. It was good to feel that we were learning how to beat the Communists at their own game.

Paul Linebarger loved black propaganda operations probably because they involved the wit-sharpening he liked to talk about. Also, he was so god at them that his was one of the inventive minds that refined the entire black operations field into shades of blackness. Linebarger and his disciples decided that propaganda that was merely not attributed to the United States was not really black, only gray. To be called black it had to be something more. Furthermore, they divided gray propaganda into shades of gray. So-called light gray was defined as propaganda that was not attributed to the United States government, but instead, for example, to a group that was known to be a friendly source. Medium gray or "gray gray" was the term LInebarger used for propaganda that was attributed to a neutral source or, in any case, to one that was not suspected to be about to say anything friendly concerning the United States or its national or international policies. Dark gray was the term for propaganda attributed to a source usually hostile to the United States. This left the term black propaganda for a very special kind of propaganda activity. Black propaganda operations were operations done to look like, and carefully labeled to be, acts of the (Communist) enemy.

Not only was the attribution given the source of the propaganda activity used as a criterion for defining what kind of propaganda it was, but equally important was the kind of message used. Gray activity involved statements or actions that supported U.S. policies. Black propaganda operations, being attributed to the enemy, naturally did not. In fact, black propaganda, to be believable, supported the enemy's positions and openly opposed those of the United States.

Gray propaganda was considered to be useful because it added strength to our side by putting praise of the United States or, at least a reasonably stated understanding of U.S. positions, in the mouths of those whom the world at large would not identify as U.S. spokesmen giving out the official line. In one sense, gray propaganda is a close cousin of the endorsement in a commercial advertising campaign. Where the Clandestine Services came in was in the role of sponsor – but a sponsor that was not supposed to be known to anyone who heard or read the endorsement of the U.S. government's policy product…

Mostly however, we followed our mentor through a series of actions that were to be attributed to various of our Communist enemies……Saying that the Communists were evil was merely talk. Doing something evil, disguised as Communists, would have real credibility.

Linebarger was always careful to point out that to have a chance of success, these black operations must be based on good solid information about how the Communists Party we proposed to imitate actually conducted its business..... [Communists Huks in the Phillipines used as an example].

It may seem curious, but it did not bother anyone at the seminar to be blithely engaged in planning a forgery, although no one there had ever been arrested for any serious crime. Otherwise they would not have been there. They would not have been granted the necessary security clearance to have gained employment by the Clandestine Services. The finer points about forgery, however, were actually the most fascinating to this group: how to obtain authentic paper, how to be sure to use the same kind of typewriter that Huk orders were usually written on, and of course, how to be certain to use the proper language that would make our work indistinguishable from the real thing. These were the topics examined with the most minute care.

Linebarger undertook a kind of group therapy approach to try to show us that tricking someone into believing that black is white comes naturally to everybody and is something that is practiced from childhood.

"Look," he began, "can't you remember how you fooled your brothers and sisters and your father and mother? Try to remember how old you were when you first tricked them."

This got the class confessional under way. Soon people began recalling how they had stolen their brother's and sister's favorite toys…..As the stories progressed from grade school to high school and college capers, the tales of manipulation of parents and peers grew darker, if not black to the point of Linebarger's definition of black operations. Everyone had either forged the time of return from when coming back to a dormitory after hours or forged parents' signatures to bad report cards, or used false credentials to buy a drink when under age.

We found these exchanges so interesting that we decided to open each evening's session with twenty minutes of confessions. They undoubtedly helped us to study the art of falsifying Communist documents with the high enthusiasm we all developed.

After listening to these recitals for a couple of weeks, Linebarger asked, "Haven't any of you done anything more exciting than figure out ways to have your drinking and sexual adventures? I know none of you as in a psychwar outfit during the war, but has anyone done anything more nearly operational?

To everyone's surprise Boston Blackie, our group anti-hero and skeptic was the one who replied..... "...there was a referendum in Massachusetts on the question of birth control information…Then one of the priests got an idea. He suggested that we explain to the parishioners that if the voters approved the change in the law and permitted birth control information to be legally disseminated, this would mean that they would have to get a written permit from the government if they wanted to have a baby…..

Linebarger thought this was an excellent story. He beamed. "I wish we had access to Church records for the past thousand years, we'd have so many case histories that we would be sure to find something to fit all our needs in Asia right now. The Catholic Church didn't last this long as an unalternable institution without giving God's will some assistance.

"I want you all to go out and get a copy of David Maurer's classic on the confidence man. It's called The Big Con, and it's available now in a paperback edition," Paul continued. "That little book will teach you more about the art of covert operations than anything else I know."

"Your job and the confidence man's are almost identical. The point of our little confessionals has been to show you what I mean by that statement. I'm happy to say I think you've been getting it."

"Of course, your motives and those of the confidence men are different. He wants to fleece his mark out of his money. You want to convince a Chinese, a Filipino, and Indonesian, a Malay, a Burmese, a Thai, that what you want him to believe or do for the good of the U.S. government is what he thinks he himself really believes and wants to do."

"Maurer's book will give you a lot of ideas on how to recruit agents, how to handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they're no use to you any longer. Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all."

We were all soon avidly reading The Big Con. The tales it told did, indeed, contain a lot of hints on how to do our jobs. For me one sentence seemed to sum it all up beautifully, "The big-time confidence games," wrote Maurer, "are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast except the mark knows his part perfectly." * [ David W. Maurer, The Big Con (New York: Pocket Books, 1949), p. 102.]

Besides this course reading, exchanges of experiences, development of model situations, study of Communist propaganda, especially its style and content with an eye to copying them, Paul taught by the oldest method, precept. His injunction was to follow the example of proven successful practitioners.

He had two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for lessons he wanted us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow. One was Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale, the OPC station chief in Manila, and the other was E. Howard Hunt, the OPC station chief in Mexico City. Both of them had what he called "black minds," and the daring to defy bureaucratic restraints in thinking up and executing operations. He had a number of stories to tell about the exploits of both. He was particularly fond of Lansdale, whom he claimed had "invented" the Philippine Secretary of Defense, Ramon Magsaysay, around whom he built a plan of action that was slowly but surely bringing the Huk uprising to an end. His esteem for Hunt lay in his admiration for what he considered Hunt's great ability to invent a clever way to thwart the Communists in their efforts to achieve success in the everyday affairs of life. He had a favorite Lansdale story and a favorite Hunt story to illustrate what he admired in each, and to demonstrate two widely different kinds of black operations. Lansdale's was somewhat complex and required the support of a number of people and pieces of equipment. Hunt's was disarmingly simple.

Lansdale ordered a careful study of the superstitions of the Filipino peasants, their lore their witch doctors, their taboos and myths. He then got hold of a small aircraft and some air-to-ground communications gear. He would fly the aircraft over areas where Huks were known to be hiding and broadcast in the Tugalog language mysterious curses on any villagers who designed to give the Huks food and shelter….

Linebarger's Howard Hunt story was much less heavy. It also fitted better Linebarger's definition of a black operation. No one had quite the heart to ask him whether the Filipino spirits to whom the curses were attributed were Communists, as his definition of black propaganda would require, and, if so, were they cursing their own team, the Huks.

Linebarger liked to stress that his Hunt story was a good example of how to cause the Communists a lot of grief on a low budget. Hunt learned that a Communist front in Mexico was planning a reception to honor some Soviet visitors. Drinks, refreshments, and a lunch were planned for the event. Hunt got hold of an invitation. He then went to work with a friendly printer and printed up three thousand extra invitations, which he had widely distributed.

On the day of the reception, Hunt got the desired results. Before the reception was a quarter underway, the Communists had run out of food and drink…..The cause of the Soviet-Mexican friendship was definitely damaged, at least for a while.

A note of caution that Linebarger added to these discussions of black operations sounds like a bell down the years. He would explain, after someone had come up with an especially clever plan for getting the Communists completely incriminated in an exceedingly offensive act, that there should be limits to black activities.

"I hate to think what would ever happen," he once said with a prophet's voice, "if any of you ever got out of this business and got involved in U.S. politics. These kinds of dirty tricks must never be used in internal U.S. politics. The whole system would come apart."

I remember there was a nodding of heads when Linebarger delivered this admonition. I do not recall that anyone agreed in a loud, firm voice. Perhaps his remark was thought to be really rather irrelevant. We had more serious business to attend to.

We would say goodnight to Paul in the vestibule of his house, and slip, one by one, out into the night to our cars parked a discreetly different distances from his home. We had just completed another session in the act of confounding our enemies. We were inspired to go back to work the following week and look for fresh opportunities to devise new operations against the Communists….. (P. 86)

On P. 88 of Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Joe B. Smith wrote: Paul Linebarger and I became good friends as well as professional associates. He could think of more useful ways to aply behaviorial science findings to our work than anyone I ever met. He introduced me to the ideas of Harry Stack Sullivan about interpersonal relationships. He also tried to give the same sound advice about a Clandestine Service Career..... Paul even found the project for me. John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, where he taught, was almost to a man a Clandetine Services adjunct. Dean Philip thayer and all the top staff, such as Paul, were consultants, and they regularly fed their best students into CIA operational jobs......

Edited September 26, 2010 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Robert wrote: My reaction to this thread is that Linebarger's Big-Con at Dealey Plaza is extremely interesting, but I am more interested in what was in Linebarger's background that fostered his belief in the assassination, being a black-ops kind of guy, and all.

In The Man Who Kept the Secrets, [relevant pages 100, 323-24, 413;] Helms attributes the quote about E Howard Hunt being one of two people who had the greatest black-minds to Linebarger, the other was General Edward Lansdale. Helms mentions that Linebarger is featured considerably in the book Portrait of a Cold Warrior.

BKelly: I don't believe that Linebarger was personally behind the Dealey Plaza operation, though I'm pretty sure that one of his students was behind the black propaganda aspect of framing Oswald and blaming the assassination on Castro.

Here's some of what Joe Smith has to say about Linebarger and David Maurer, the author of The Big Con:

http://jfkcountercou...linebarger.html

Joseph B. Smith Portrait of a Cold Warrior – Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976) P. 59.

When he was first hired by the CIA, Joe Smith was told:

"As far as psychological warfare is concerned, it's a brand new field. We are all learning. You remember it was one of Hitler's strongest weapons. The Communists depend on it a lot to. We figure that if we analyze what they're doing and study the countries in our area closely, we can beat them at their own game."

"Oh yes, another thing," she added, "We won't be able to spare you for any clandestine tradecraft training. That would take another three months. We need you now. You'll have to learn the business on the job. I'm afraid."

"Well," she added as an afterthought, "we will be able to help you with psychwar. Paul Linebarger, our consultant, is one of the few real experts and he gives evening seminars for us. We'll try to get you into one of them after you've settled in....."

P. 75 .....One important contingency to consider in case a situation worsened rapidly and a take over by the Communist guerrilla armies appeared imminent was the operational effectiveness of assassination of the leaders of these groups.

For example, in Indochina, would the Viet Minh fall apart if Ho Chi Minh were assassinated? He appeared to be the soul of the movement. The evidence indicated that he was the one man nearly all Vietnamese respected and his efforts had provided the decisive cohesion that held the Communist cause together. If he were removed, wouldn't this one death perhaps save the lives of many?

This was the key point on which discussions of assassination turned, the same kind of reasoning that led to the dropping of the first atomic bomb. An assassination meant the death of one person. If the situation is one of armed combat, killing is an accepted activity. Maximum accomplishment via minimum violence became a primary consideration.

Thus assassination was always a contingency action to be included in the plans, though approval would have to come from the National Security Council before any assassination was attempted. Another practical problem was where to find the assassins. The reading of case studies of the successful assassinations by Soviet secret service counterparts, such as the killing of Trotsky, wasn't much help because the Soviets service exercised a control over its agents we could not impose, certainly not on Asians. That left only criminals and cranks to be considered for recruitment to perform this service.....

.....All this was far in the future and far less important to me in the early winter of 1952 than the fact that I got the chance to attend Paul Linebarger's seminar in psychological warfare. Linebarger had served as an Army psychological warfare officer in Chungking during the war. He had written a textbook on the subject in 1948. In 1951 he was serving as the Far East Division's chief consultant. He also served as the Defense Department in the same capacity, giving advice on U.S. psychwar operations in Korea, and he was professor of Asian politics at the School for Advanced International Studies of the John Hopkins University. His book by this time had gone through three American editions, two Argentine editions and a Japanese edition.

He was far from a textbook warrior, however. He best described himself when he wrote the introduction to his book, "Psychological warfare involves exciting wit sharpening work. It tends to attract quick-minded people – men full of ideas." His wits scarcely needed sharpening, and he was never at a loss for an idea.

The seminars were held in eight weeks, every Friday night at his home. Going to Paul Linebarger's house on Friday evenings was not only an educational experience for those who attended the seminar, it was also an exercise in clandestinity. Learning covert operational conduct was considered part of the course. Each seminar was limited to no more than eight students. They were told to pose as students from the School of Advanced International Studies, to go to Paul's via different routes, and to say they were attending a seminar on Asian politics. Senator McCarthy had alerted everyone to the possibility that Communist operators might be expected to turn up at almost any place in Washington. The School of Advanced International Studies had its campus in Washington, but over in Baltimore at the main campus of John Hopkins University, Owen Lattimore, the expert on Asian geography, held sway. McCarthy had called Lattimore the principal agent of Communist China in the United States.

Although no one called Paul Linebarger the principle agent of Chiang Kai-shek, his father had been Sun Yat Sen's legal advisor and Paul never hid his full devotion to the Chinat cause. The feeling of the clash of mysterious powers was abroad in the cold winter nights around Paul's house. It could just be possible that some Communist surveillant might follow one of the students up Rock Creek Park to 29^th Street. They might even be operating from the Shoreham hotel, a few blocks away. We had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the fear of Communist subversion….It would be difficult to say whether it was the political atmosphere in general, the office routine of the day just closed, or the drawn drapes in Linebarger's living room, but students at the seminar met in an appropriately conspiratorial mood tht raised the level of their appreciation of their subject.

The mood was fitting if not essential to an understanding of the material. The first point that Linebarger made was that the purpose of all psychological warfare is the manipulation of people so that they are not able to detect they are being manipulated. Wartime psychwar had been a matter of undermining the enemy civilian and military will to continue the fight. The audience, in brief, was very clearly defined. Determining just who it was they wanted to manipulate and for what ends was also pretty clear to the OPC personnel. Their targets were the Communists and their allies. Having this firmly in mind, any methods of manipulation could be used, especially "black propaganda."

Black propaganda operations, by definition, are operations in which the source of the propaganda is disguised or misrepresented in one way or another so as not be attributable to the people who really put it out. This distinguishes black from white propaganda, such as news bulletins and similar statements issued by one side in a conflict extolling its successes, of course, or other material just as clearly designed to serve the purposes of its identifiable authors.

During World War II black propaganda operators had a field day. German black operations against the French consisted of such enterprises as sending French soldiers letters from their hometowns telling them their wives were committing adultery, or were infected with venereal diseases, giving away mourning dresses to women who would wear them on the streets of Paris, or intercepting telephone communications in the field and giving confusing or contradictory orders.

Paul Linebarger's was a seminar in black propaganda only. One reason for this was that the United States already had an overt propaganda agency as part of the cold war apparatus. In those days this was run directly by the State Department, but in 1953 it would become formalized into the United States Information Agency and become an independent government agency responsible for worldwide United States propaganda operations. Furthermore, the view of the state of affairs in the world was that was the fundamental assumption of all OPC activities was that the United States was faced everywhere with an enemy that was using an untold array of black psychwar operations to undermine the nations of the world in order to present us with a fait accompli one fine morning when we would wake up to find all these countries under Communist control. Hence, it was vital to understand all about such operations from a defensive standpoint if nothing else. There was, however, something else. This was an attitude produced by the mixture of ancient wisdom that a good offense is the best defense, and the spirit of the times that made the existence of conspiracy seem so real. It was good to feel that we were learning how to beat the Communists at their own game.

Paul Linebarger loved black propaganda operations probably because they involved the wit-sharpening he liked to talk about. Also, he was so god at them that his was one of the inventive minds that refined the entire black operations field into shades of blackness. Linebarger and his disciples decided that propaganda that was merely not attributed to the United States was not really black, only gray. To be called black it had to be something more. Furthermore, they divided gray propaganda into shades of gray. So-called light gray was defined as propaganda that was not attributed to the United States government, but instead, for example, to a group that was known to be a friendly source. Medium gray or "gray gray" was the term LInebarger used for propaganda that was attributed to a neutral source or, in any case, to one that was not suspected to be about to say anything friendly concerning the United States or its national or international policies. Dark gray was the term for propaganda attributed to a source usually hostile to the United States. This left the term black propaganda for a very special kind of propaganda activity. Black propaganda operations were operations done to look like, and carefully labeled to be, acts of the (Communist) enemy.

Not only was the attribution given the source of the propaganda activity used as a criterion for defining what kind of propaganda it was, but equally important was the kind of message used. Gray activity involved statements or actions that supported U.S. policies. Black propaganda operations, being attributed to the enemy, naturally did not. In fact, black propaganda, to be believable, supported the enemy's positions and openly opposed those of the United States.

Gray propaganda was considered to be useful because it added strength to our side by putting praise of the United States or, at least a reasonably stated understanding of U.S. positions, in the mouths of those whom the world at large would not identify as U.S. spokesmen giving out the official line. In one sense, gray propaganda is a close cousin of the endorsement in a commercial advertising campaign. Where the Clandestine Services came in was in the role of sponsor – but a sponsor that was not supposed to be known to anyone who heard or read the endorsement of the U.S. government's policy product…

Mostly however, we followed our mentor through a series of actions that were to be attributed to various of our Communist enemies……Saying that the Communists were evil was merely talk. Doing something evil, disguised as Communists, would have real credibility.

Linebarger was always careful to point out that to have a chance of success, these black operations must be based on good solid information about how the Communists Party we proposed to imitate actually conducted its business..... [Communists Huks in the Phillipines used as an example].

It may seem curious, but it did not bother anyone at the seminar to be blithely engaged in planning a forgery, although no one there had ever been arrested for any serious crime. Otherwise they would not have been there. They would not have been granted the necessary security clearance to have gained employment by the Clandestine Services. The finer points about forgery, however, were actually the most fascinating to this group: how to obtain authentic paper, how to be sure to use the same kind of typewriter that Huk orders were usually written on, and of course, how to be certain to use the proper language that would make our work indistinguishable from the real thing. These were the topics examined with the most minute care.

Linebarger undertook a kind of group therapy approach to try to show us that tricking someone into believing that black is white comes naturally to everybody and is something that is practiced from childhood.

"Look," he began, "can't you remember how you fooled your brothers and sisters and your father and mother? Try to remember how old you were when you first tricked them."

This got the class confessional under way. Soon people began recalling how they had stolen their brother's and sister's favorite toys…..As the stories progressed from grade school to high school and college capers, the tales of manipulation of parents and peers grew darker, if not black to the point of Linebarger's definition of black operations. Everyone had either forged the time of return from when coming back to a dormitory after hours or forged parents' signatures to bad report cards, or used false credentials to buy a drink when under age.

We found these exchanges so interesting that we decided to open each evening's session with twenty minutes of confessions. They undoubtedly helped us to study the art of falsifying Communist documents with the high enthusiasm we all developed.

After listening to these recitals for a couple of weeks, Linebarger asked, "Haven't any of you done anything more exciting than figure out ways to have your drinking and sexual adventures? I know none of you as in a psychwar outfit during the war, but has anyone done anything more nearly operational?

To everyone's surprise Boston Blackie, our group anti-hero and skeptic was the one who replied..... "...there was a referendum in Massachusetts on the question of birth control information…Then one of the priests got an idea. He suggested that we explain to the parishioners that if the voters approved the change in the law and permitted birth control information to be legally disseminated, this would mean that they would have to get a written permit from the government if they wanted to have a baby…..

Linebarger thought this was an excellent story. He beamed. "I wish we had access to Church records for the past thousand years, we'd have so many case histories that we would be sure to find something to fit all our needs in Asia right now. The Catholic Church didn't last this long as an unalternable institution without giving God's will some assistance.

"I want you all to go out and get a copy of David Maurer's classic on the confidence man. It's called The Big Con, and it's available now in a paperback edition," Paul continued. "That little book will teach you more about the art of covert operations than anything else I know."

"Your job and the confidence man's are almost identical. The point of our little confessionals has been to show you what I mean by that statement. I'm happy to say I think you've been getting it."

"Of course, your motives and those of the confidence men are different. He wants to fleece his mark out of his money. You want to convince a Chinese, a Filipino, and Indonesian, a Malay, a Burmese, a Thai, that what you want him to believe or do for the good of the U.S. government is what he thinks he himself really believes and wants to do."

"Maurer's book will give you a lot of ideas on how to recruit agents, how to handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they're no use to you any longer. Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all."

We were all soon avidly reading The Big Con. The tales it told did, indeed, contain a lot of hints on how to do our jobs. For me one sentence seemed to sum it all up beautifully, "The big-time confidence games," wrote Maurer, "are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast except the mark knows his part perfectly." * [ David W. Maurer, The Big Con (New York: Pocket Books, 1949), p. 102.]

Besides this course reading, exchanges of experiences, development of model situations, study of Communist propaganda, especially its style and content with an eye to copying them, Paul taught by the oldest method, precept. His injunction was to follow the example of proven successful practitioners.

He had two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for lessons he wanted us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow. One was Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale, the OPC station chief in Manila, and the other was E. Howard Hunt, the OPC station chief in Mexico City. Both of them had what he called "black minds," and the daring to defy bureaucratic restraints in thinking up and executing operations. He had a number of stories to tell about the exploits of both. He was particularly fond of Lansdale, whom he claimed had "invented" the Philippine Secretary of Defense, Ramon Magsaysay, around whom he built a plan of action that was slowly but surely bringing the Huk uprising to an end. His esteem for Hunt lay in his admiration for what he considered Hunt's great ability to invent a clever way to thwart the Communists in their efforts to achieve success in the everyday affairs of life. He had a favorite Lansdale story and a favorite Hunt story to illustrate what he admired in each, and to demonstrate two widely different kinds of black operations. Lansdale's was somewhat complex and required the support of a number of people and pieces of equipment. Hunt's was disarmingly simple.

Lansdale ordered a careful study of the superstitions of the Filipino peasants, their lore their witch doctors, their taboos and myths. He then got hold of a small aircraft and some air-to-ground communications gear. He would fly the aircraft over areas where Huks were known to be hiding and broadcast in the Tugalog language mysterious curses on any villagers who designed to give the Huks food and shelter….

Linebarger's Howard Hunt story was much less heavy. It also fitted better Linebarger's definition of a black operation. No one had quite the heart to ask him whether the Filipino spirits to whom the curses were attributed were Communists, as his definition of black propaganda would require, and, if so, were they cursing their own team, the Huks.

Linebarger liked to stress that his Hunt story was a good example of how to cause the Communists a lot of grief on a low budget. Hunt learned that a Communist front in Mexico was planning a reception to honor some Soviet visitors. Drinks, refreshments, and a lunch were planned for the event. Hunt got hold of an invitation. He then went to work with a friendly printer and printed up three thousand extra invitations, which he had widely distributed.

On the day of the reception, Hunt got the desired results. Before the reception was a quarter underway, the Communists had run out of food and drink…..The cause of the Soviet-Mexican friendship was definitely damaged, at least for a while.

A note of caution that Linebarger added to these discussions of black operations sounds like a bell down the years. He would explain, after someone had come up with an especially clever plan for getting the Communists completely incriminated in an exceedingly offensive act, that there should be limits to black activities.

"I hate to think what would ever happen," he once said with a prophet's voice, "if any of you ever got out of this business and got involved in U.S. politics. These kinds of dirty tricks must never be used in internal U.S. politics. The whole system would come apart."

I remember there was a nodding of heads when Linebarger delivered this admonition. I do not recall that anyone agreed in a loud, firm voice. Perhaps his remark was thought to be really rather irrelevant. We had more serious business to attend to.

We would say goodnight to Paul in the vestibule of his house, and slip, one by one, out into the night to our cars parked a discreetly different distances from his home. We had just completed another session in the act of confounding our enemies. We were inspired to go back to work the following week and look for fresh opportunities to devise new operations against the Communists….. (P. 86)

On P. 88 of Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Joe B. Smith wrote: Paul Linebarger and I became good friends as well as professional associates. He could think of more useful ways to aply behaviorial science findings to our work than anyone I ever met. He introduced me to the ideas of Harry Stack Sullivan about interpersonal relationships. He also tried to give the same sound advice about a Clandestine Service Career..... Paul even found the project for me. John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, where he taught, was almost to a man a Clandetine Services adjunct. Dean Philip thayer and all the top staff, such as Paul, were consultants, and they regularly fed their best students into CIA operational jobs......

[William Kelly]

Robert wrote: My reaction to this thread is that Linebarger's Big-Con at Dealey Plaza is extremely interesting, but I am more interested in what was in Linebarger's background that fostered his belief in the assassination, being a black-ops kind of guy, and all.

In The Man Who Kept the Secrets, [relevant pages 100, 323-24, 413;] Helms attributes the quote about E Howard Hunt being one of two people who had the greatest black-minds to Linebarger, the other was General Edward Lansdale. Helms mentions that Linebarger is featured considerably in the book Portrait of a Cold Warrior.

BKelly: I don't believe that Linebarger was personally behind the Dealey Plaza operation, though I'm pretty sure that one of his students was behind the black propaganda aspect of framing Oswald and blaming the assassination on Castro.

Here's some of what Joe Smith has to say about Linebarger and David Maurer, the author of The Big Con:

http://jfkcountercou...linebarger.html

Joseph B. Smith Portrait of a Cold Warrior – Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976) P. 59.

When he was first hired by the CIA, Joe Smith was told:

"As far as psychological warfare is concerned, it's a brand new field. We are all learning. You remember it was one of Hitler's strongest weapons. The Communists depend on it a lot to. We figure that if we analyze what they're doing and study the countries in our area closely, we can beat them at their own game."

"Oh yes, another thing," she added, "We won't be able to spare you for any clandestine tradecraft training. That would take another three months. We need you now. You'll have to learn the business on the job. I'm afraid."

"Well," she added as an afterthought, "we will be able to help you with psychwar. Paul Linebarger, our consultant, is one of the few real experts and he gives evening seminars for us. We'll try to get you into one of them after you've settled in....."

P. 75 .....One important contingency to consider in case a situation worsened rapidly and a take over by the Communist guerrilla armies appeared imminent was the operational effectiveness of assassination of the leaders of these groups.

For example, in Indochina, would the Viet Minh fall apart if Ho Chi Minh were assassinated? He appeared to be the soul of the movement. The evidence indicated that he was the one man nearly all Vietnamese respected and his efforts had provided the decisive cohesion that held the Communist cause together. If he were removed, wouldn't this one death perhaps save the lives of many?

This was the key point on which discussions of assassination turned, the same kind of reasoning that led to the dropping of the first atomic bomb. An assassination meant the death of one person. If the situation is one of armed combat, killing is an accepted activity. Maximum accomplishment via minimum violence became a primary consideration.

Thus assassination was always a contingency action to be included in the plans, though approval would have to come from the National Security Council before any assassination was attempted. Another practical problem was where to find the assassins. The reading of case studies of the successful assassinations by Soviet secret service counterparts, such as the killing of Trotsky, wasn't much help because the Soviets service exercised a control over its agents we could not impose, certainly not on Asians. That left only criminals and cranks to be considered for recruitment to perform this service.....

.....All this was far in the future and far less important to me in the early winter of 1952 than the fact that I got the chance to attend Paul Linebarger's seminar in psychological warfare. Linebarger had served as an Army psychological warfare officer in Chungking during the war. He had written a textbook on the subject in 1948. In 1951 he was serving as the Far East Division's chief consultant. He also served as the Defense Department in the same capacity, giving advice on U.S. psychwar operations in Korea, and he was professor of Asian politics at the School for Advanced International Studies of the John Hopkins University. His book by this time had gone through three American editions, two Argentine editions and a Japanese edition.

He was far from a textbook warrior, however. He best described himself when he wrote the introduction to his book, "Psychological warfare involves exciting wit sharpening work. It tends to attract quick-minded people – men full of ideas." His wits scarcely needed sharpening, and he was never at a loss for an idea.

The seminars were held in eight weeks, every Friday night at his home. Going to Paul Linebarger's house on Friday evenings was not only an educational experience for those who attended the seminar, it was also an exercise in clandestinity. Learning covert operational conduct was considered part of the course. Each seminar was limited to no more than eight students. They were told to pose as students from the School of Advanced International Studies, to go to Paul's via different routes, and to say they were attending a seminar on Asian politics. Senator McCarthy had alerted everyone to the possibility that Communist operators might be expected to turn up at almost any place in Washington. The School of Advanced International Studies had its campus in Washington, but over in Baltimore at the main campus of John Hopkins University, Owen Lattimore, the expert on Asian geography, held sway. McCarthy had called Lattimore the principal agent of Communist China in the United States.

Although no one called Paul Linebarger the principle agent of Chiang Kai-shek, his father had been Sun Yat Sen's legal advisor and Paul never hid his full devotion to the Chinat cause. The feeling of the clash of mysterious powers was abroad in the cold winter nights around Paul's house. It could just be possible that some Communist surveillant might follow one of the students up Rock Creek Park to 29^th Street. They might even be operating from the Shoreham hotel, a few blocks away. We had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the fear of Communist subversion….It would be difficult to say whether it was the political atmosphere in general, the office routine of the day just closed, or the drawn drapes in Linebarger's living room, but students at the seminar met in an appropriately conspiratorial mood tht raised the level of their appreciation of their subject.

The mood was fitting if not essential to an understanding of the material. The first point that Linebarger made was that the purpose of all psychological warfare is the manipulation of people so that they are not able to detect they are being manipulated. Wartime psychwar had been a matter of undermining the enemy civilian and military will to continue the fight. The audience, in brief, was very clearly defined. Determining just who it was they wanted to manipulate and for what ends was also pretty clear to the OPC personnel. Their targets were the Communists and their allies. Having this firmly in mind, any methods of manipulation could be used, especially "black propaganda."

Black propaganda operations, by definition, are operations in which the source of the propaganda is disguised or misrepresented in one way or another so as not be attributable to the people who really put it out. This distinguishes black from white propaganda, such as news bulletins and similar statements issued by one side in a conflict extolling its successes, of course, or other material just as clearly designed to serve the purposes of its identifiable authors.

During World War II black propaganda operators had a field day. German black operations against the French consisted of such enterprises as sending French soldiers letters from their hometowns telling them their wives were committing adultery, or were infected with venereal diseases, giving away mourning dresses to women who would wear them on the streets of Paris, or intercepting telephone communications in the field and giving confusing or contradictory orders.

Paul Linebarger's was a seminar in black propaganda only. One reason for this was that the United States already had an overt propaganda agency as part of the cold war apparatus. In those days this was run directly by the State Department, but in 1953 it would become formalized into the United States Information Agency and become an independent government agency responsible for worldwide United States propaganda operations. Furthermore, the view of the state of affairs in the world was that was the fundamental assumption of all OPC activities was that the United States was faced everywhere with an enemy that was using an untold array of black psychwar operations to undermine the nations of the world in order to present us with a fait accompli one fine morning when we would wake up to find all these countries under Communist control. Hence, it was vital to understand all about such operations from a defensive standpoint if nothing else. There was, however, something else. This was an attitude produced by the mixture of ancient wisdom that a good offense is the best defense, and the spirit of the times that made the existence of conspiracy seem so real. It was good to feel that we were learning how to beat the Communists at their own game.

Paul Linebarger loved black propaganda operations probably because they involved the wit-sharpening he liked to talk about. Also, he was so god at them that his was one of the inventive minds that refined the entire black operations field into shades of blackness. Linebarger and his disciples decided that propaganda that was merely not attributed to the United States was not really black, only gray. To be called black it had to be something more. Furthermore, they divided gray propaganda into shades of gray. So-called light gray was defined as propaganda that was not attributed to the United States government, but instead, for example, to a group that was known to be a friendly source. Medium gray or "gray gray" was the term LInebarger used for propaganda that was attributed to a neutral source or, in any case, to one that was not suspected to be about to say anything friendly concerning the United States or its national or international policies. Dark gray was the term for propaganda attributed to a source usually hostile to the United States. This left the term black propaganda for a very special kind of propaganda activity. Black propaganda operations were operations done to look like, and carefully labeled to be, acts of the (Communist) enemy.

Not only was the attribution given the source of the propaganda activity used as a criterion for defining what kind of propaganda it was, but equally important was the kind of message used. Gray activity involved statements or actions that supported U.S. policies. Black propaganda operations, being attributed to the enemy, naturally did not. In fact, black propaganda, to be believable, supported the enemy's positions and openly opposed those of the United States.

Gray propaganda was considered to be useful because it added strength to our side by putting praise of the United States or, at least a reasonably stated understanding of U.S. positions, in the mouths of those whom the world at large would not identify as U.S. spokesmen giving out the official line. In one sense, gray propaganda is a close cousin of the endorsement in a commercial advertising campaign. Where the Clandestine Services came in was in the role of sponsor – but a sponsor that was not supposed to be known to anyone who heard or read the endorsement of the U.S. government's policy product…

Mostly however, we followed our mentor through a series of actions that were to be attributed to various of our Communist enemies……Saying that the Communists were evil was merely talk. Doing something evil, disguised as Communists, would have real credibility.

Linebarger was always careful to point out that to have a chance of success, these black operations must be based on good solid information about how the Communists Party we proposed to imitate actually conducted its business..... [Communists Huks in the Phillipines used as an example].

It may seem curious, but it did not bother anyone at the seminar to be blithely engaged in planning a forgery, although no one there had ever been arrested for any serious crime. Otherwise they would not have been there. They would not have been granted the necessary security clearance to have gained employment by the Clandestine Services. The finer points about forgery, however, were actually the most fascinating to this group: how to obtain authentic paper, how to be sure to use the same kind of typewriter that Huk orders were usually written on, and of course, how to be certain to use the proper language that would make our work indistinguishable from the real thing. These were the topics examined with the most minute care.

Linebarger undertook a kind of group therapy approach to try to show us that tricking someone into believing that black is white comes naturally to everybody and is something that is practiced from childhood.

"Look," he began, "can't you remember how you fooled your brothers and sisters and your father and mother? Try to remember how old you were when you first tricked them."

This got the class confessional under way. Soon people began recalling how they had stolen their brother's and sister's favorite toys…..As the stories progressed from grade school to high school and college capers, the tales of manipulation of parents and peers grew darker, if not black to the point of Linebarger's definition of black operations. Everyone had either forged the time of return from when coming back to a dormitory after hours or forged parents' signatures to bad report cards, or used false credentials to buy a drink when under age.

We found these exchanges so interesting that we decided to open each evening's session with twenty minutes of confessions. They undoubtedly helped us to study the art of falsifying Communist documents with the high enthusiasm we all developed.

After listening to these recitals for a couple of weeks, Linebarger asked, "Haven't any of you done anything more exciting than figure out ways to have your drinking and sexual adventures? I know none of you as in a psychwar outfit during the war, but has anyone done anything more nearly operational?

To everyone's surprise Boston Blackie, our group anti-hero and skeptic was the one who replied..... "...there was a referendum in Massachusetts on the question of birth control information…Then one of the priests got an idea. He suggested that we explain to the parishioners that if the voters approved the change in the law and permitted birth control information to be legally disseminated, this would mean that they would have to get a written permit from the government if they wanted to have a baby…..

Linebarger thought this was an excellent story. He beamed. "I wish we had access to Church records for the past thousand years, we'd have so many case histories that we would be sure to find something to fit all our needs in Asia right now. The Catholic Church didn't last this long as an unalternable institution without giving God's will some assistance.

"I want you all to go out and get a copy of David Maurer's classic on the confidence man. It's called The Big Con, and it's available now in a paperback edition," Paul continued. "That little book will teach you more about the art of covert operations than anything else I know."

"Your job and the confidence man's are almost identical. The point of our little confessionals has been to show you what I mean by that statement. I'm happy to say I think you've been getting it."

"Of course, your motives and those of the confidence men are different. He wants to fleece his mark out of his money. You want to convince a Chinese, a Filipino, and Indonesian, a Malay, a Burmese, a Thai, that what you want him to believe or do for the good of the U.S. government is what he thinks he himself really believes and wants to do."

"Maurer's book will give you a lot of ideas on how to recruit agents, how to handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they're no use to you any longer. Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all."

We were all soon avidly reading The Big Con. The tales it told did, indeed, contain a lot of hints on how to do our jobs. For me one sentence seemed to sum it all up beautifully, "The big-time confidence games," wrote Maurer, "are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast except the mark knows his part perfectly." * [ David W. Maurer, The Big Con (New York: Pocket Books, 1949), p. 102.]

Besides this course reading, exchanges of experiences, development of model situations, study of Communist propaganda, especially its style and content with an eye to copying them, Paul taught by the oldest method, precept. His injunction was to follow the example of proven successful practitioners.

He had two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for lessons he wanted us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow. One was Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale, the OPC station chief in Manila, and the other was E. Howard Hunt, the OPC station chief in Mexico City. Both of them had what he called "black minds," and the daring to defy bureaucratic restraints in thinking up and executing operations. He had a number of stories to tell about the exploits of both. He was particularly fond of Lansdale, whom he claimed had "invented" the Philippine Secretary of Defense, Ramon Magsaysay, around whom he built a plan of action that was slowly but surely bringing the Huk uprising to an end. His esteem for Hunt lay in his admiration for what he considered Hunt's great ability to invent a clever way to thwart the Communists in their efforts to achieve success in the everyday affairs of life. He had a favorite Lansdale story and a favorite Hunt story to illustrate what he admired in each, and to demonstrate two widely different kinds of black operations. Lansdale's was somewhat complex and required the support of a number of people and pieces of equipment. Hunt's was disarmingly simple.

Lansdale ordered a careful study of the superstitions of the Filipino peasants, their lore their witch doctors, their taboos and myths. He then got hold of a small aircraft and some air-to-ground communications gear. He would fly the aircraft over areas where Huks were known to be hiding and broadcast in the Tugalog language mysterious curses on any villagers who designed to give the Huks food and shelter….

Linebarger's Howard Hunt story was much less heavy. It also fitted better Linebarger's definition of a black operation. No one had quite the heart to ask him whether the Filipino spirits to whom the curses were attributed were Communists, as his definition of black propaganda would require, and, if so, were they cursing their own team, the Huks.

Linebarger liked to stress that his Hunt story was a good example of how to cause the Communists a lot of grief on a low budget. Hunt learned that a Communist front in Mexico was planning a reception to honor some Soviet visitors. Drinks, refreshments, and a lunch were planned for the event. Hunt got hold of an invitation. He then went to work with a friendly printer and printed up three thousand extra invitations, which he had widely distributed.

On the day of the reception, Hunt got the desired results. Before the reception was a quarter underway, the Communists had run out of food and drink…..The cause of the Soviet-Mexican friendship was definitely damaged, at least for a while.

A note of caution that Linebarger added to these discussions of black operations sounds like a bell down the years. He would explain, after someone had come up with an especially clever plan for getting the Communists completely incriminated in an exceedingly offensive act, that there should be limits to black activities.

"I hate to think what would ever happen," he once said with a prophet's voice, "if any of you ever got out of this business and got involved in U.S. politics. These kinds of dirty tricks must never be used in internal U.S. politics. The whole system would come apart."

I remember there was a nodding of heads when Linebarger delivered this admonition. I do not recall that anyone agreed in a loud, firm voice. Perhaps his remark was thought to be really rather irrelevant. We had more serious business to attend to.

We would say goodnight to Paul in the vestibule of his house, and slip, one by one, out into the night to our cars parked a discreetly different distances from his home. We had just completed another session in the act of confounding our enemies. We were inspired to go back to work the following week and look for fresh opportunities to devise new operations against the Communists….. (P. 86)

On P. 88 of Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Joe B. Smith wrote: Paul Linebarger and I became good friends as well as professional associates. He could think of more useful ways to aply behaviorial science findings to our work than anyone I ever met. He introduced me to the ideas of Harry Stack Sullivan about interpersonal relationships. He also tried to give the same sound advice about a Clandestine Service Career..... Paul even found the project for me. John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, where he taught, was almost to a man a Clandetine Services adjunct. Dean Philip thayer and all the top staff, such as Paul, were consultants, and they regularly fed their best students into CIA operational jobs......

And I had almost forgot our old friend Napoleon Valeriano, who Linebarger personally gave lessons to and who in turn helped train the Bay of Pigs brigade.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13800

Joe Smith: Valeriano and I arrived at Linebarger's at five o'clock one afternoon and stayed four hours. Paul concentrated on his con-man line concerning how to use a subject's own hopes and longingsto achieve results desired in a psychological operation.....

[Greg Parker]

"Of course, your motives and those of the confidence men are different. He wants to fleece his mark out of his money. You want to convince a Chinese, a Filipino, and Indonesian, a Malay, a Burmese, a Thai, that what you want him to believe or do for the good of the U.S. government is what he thinks he himself really believes and wants to do."

Joe Smith: Valeriano and I arrived at Linebarger's at five o'clock one afternoon and stayed four hours. Paul concentrated on his con-man line concerning how to use a subject's own hopes and longings to achieve results desired in a psychological operation.....

These statements sum up the state of play.

Fox News for example is the very thing forewarned against ("These kinds of dirty tricks must never be used in internal U.S. politics. The whole system would come apart." ). What Fox does is simply bombard its audience with propaganda aimed at getting people to act and think against self-interest.

But what the statements also reveal are the methods used in the cases of Juan Roa Sierra and Sirhan Sirhan. Possibly Ruby, as well. These men were fooled into believing and acting in ways that they were needed to, and further enticed with the things that would satisfy deepest psychological needs.

I have a great deal more circumstantial evidence now (than I did when I wrote "Bogata Ripples") that links together to form a complete overview of the how, why and who of the Jorge Gaitan assassination. It is the perfect template of the Sirhan case.

To spell it out - none of them were programmed assassins or programmed patsies. The programming was in belief systems coupled with leading them to pathways toward fullfilling psychological needs - all to a backdrop of parapsychology and the occult. At a certain stage, they would use methods taught or learned to "willingly" program themselves. They didn't have to, and were not relied upon to accomplish the deeds attributed to them.

FWIW, the psychologists involved in a study of Mexican peasants over a number of years encompassing '63 link in with the same crowd as Linebarger, Sullivan and Murray.

http://reopenkennedy...crutiny-t60.htm

The study was helped by Friends supplied by the President of the Casa de los Amigos, Ed Duckles. Duckles was still the President at the times of the assassination, but was on leave for unknown reasons when the FBI came knocking, looking for "Steve Kennan". Von Peacock was interviewed instead as Acting President. Duckles name appears nowhere in the volumes.

There are more layers to this hidden history than one would find at a Rooty Hill RSL hen's night.

Anyone looking for a programmer of assassins is wasting their time. It was more subtle than that.

Your work in these areas is of great significance.

Edited September 27, 2010 by Greg Parker

[Steve Duffy]

Great post, and I'm happy I get the Rooty Hill reference. Greg were can i find your Bogota ripples essay? is it at Reopen?

[Greg Parker]

Great post, and I'm happy I get the Rooty Hill reference. Greg were can i find your Bogota ripples essay? is it at Reopen?

Here it is, Steve http://reopenkennedycase.weebly.com/parker-2.html

There is also an earlier version here at the EF.

Glad you caught the reference. Here's to Rooty Hill, and all who inhabit her...