Howard Hunt's Deathbed Video on JFK Assassination

[Douglas Caddy]

Howard Hunt’s Deathbed Video

The following is reprinted from www.unknowncountry.com of this date:

E. Howard Hunt's audio interview saying that the CIA was responsible for the JFK assassination was covered by the Associated Press, Rolling Stone and many others. In this video, released exclusively by PrisonPlanet.com, Hunt goes much further, naming CIA Agents Cord Meyer, who had been cuckolded by JFK, and William K. Harvey, who had been sidelined by Robert Kennedy after he tried to mount an unauthorized action against Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the people who managed the assassination for LBJ. To watch the video, click on the link below:

http://www.radiodujour.com/people/hunt_saint_john/

[John Simkin]

Howard Hunt’s Deathbed Video

The following is reprinted from www.unknowncountry.com of this date:

E. Howard Hunt's audio interview saying that the CIA was responsible for the JFK assassination was covered by the Associated Press, Rolling Stone and many others. In this video, released exclusively by PrisonPlanet.com, Hunt goes much further, naming CIA Agents Cord Meyer, who had been cuckolded by JFK, and William K. Harvey, who had been sidelined by Robert Kennedy after he tried to mount an unauthorized action against Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the people who managed the assassination for LBJ. To watch the video, click on the link below:

http://www.radiodujour.com/people/hunt_saint_john/

Thank you for posting this. It is a shame the film does not cover David Morales in any detail. There was some interesting photographs of Bill Harvey that I had not seen before. I assume they came from Hunt. The disappointing thing about the video is that Hunt's comments are speculative and do not appear to be based on any hard evidence. I am not convinced that Cord Meyer's motive concerned the fact that JFK had "cuckolded" him. Mary Pinchot Meyer had actually divorced Cord Meyer in 1958, five years before the assassination.

I am sure that Hunt knew who was behind the assassination but I am not convinced that he tells us everything he knows on the video. I suspect it was just another "limited hangout".

[Douglas Caddy]

Howard Hunt’s Deathbed Video

The following is reprinted from www.unknowncountry.com of this date:

E. Howard Hunt's audio interview saying that the CIA was responsible for the JFK assassination was covered by the Associated Press, Rolling Stone and many others. In this video, released exclusively by PrisonPlanet.com, Hunt goes much further, naming CIA Agents Cord Meyer, who had been cuckolded by JFK, and William K. Harvey, who had been sidelined by Robert Kennedy after he tried to mount an unauthorized action against Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the people who managed the assassination for LBJ. To watch the video, click on the link below:

http://www.radiodujour.com/people/hunt_saint_john/

Thank you for posting this. It is a shame the film does not cover David Morales in any detail. There was some interesting photographs of Bill Harvey that I had not seen before. I assume they came from Hunt. The disappointing thing about the video is that Hunt's comments are speculative and do not appear to be based on any hard evidence. I am not convinced that Cord Meyer's motive concerned the fact that JFK had "cuckolded" him. Mary Pinchot Meyer had actually divorced Cord Meyer in 1958, five years before the assassination.

I am sure that Hunt knew who was behind the assassination but I am not convinced that he tells us everything he knows on the video. I suspect it was just another "limited hangout".

My recollection of listening to the full audio tape is that Hunt asserts that he was asked to join in participating in The Big Event but passed on it. The full audio tape is somewhat more definitive in some respects than the video. The release of the video at this time may indicate that his son, St. John, might still have information given to him by his father that may become public sometime in the future.

[John Simkin]

My recollection of listening to the full audio tape is that Hunt asserts that he was asked to join in participating in The Big Event but passed on it. The full audio tape is somewhat more definitive in some respects than the video. The release of the video at this time may indicate that his son, St. John, might still have information given to him by his father that may become public sometime in the future.

My view is that if asked, he would join in. Did he tell his son anything important about Watergate?

[Christopher Hall]

The video is much more impactful than the audio tape of the interview.

I also encourage everyone to take the time to listen to the interview with George Butler (Radio du Jour) linked in the site which contains the video. It is quite revealing.

I have just purchased Saint John's book, Bond of Secrecy, online and I am starting to read it.

I think that the EHH interview/confession is the most significant JFK assassination-related development in many years.

[Douglas Caddy]

My recollection of listening to the full audio tape is that Hunt asserts that he was asked to join in participating in The Big Event but passed on it. The full audio tape is somewhat more definitive in some respects than the video. The release of the video at this time may indicate that his son, St. John, might still have information given to him by his father that may become public sometime in the future.

My view is that if asked, he would join in. Did he tell his son anything important about Watergate?

I do not know about any information on Watergate that Howard might have passed to Saint John. I have in the past been in email correspondence with Saint John and will send him an email at this time and pose your question to him.

I am in possession of new material about Watergate that hopefully will be published in book form early next year. I wish Howard were still alive so that I could run this material by him for his opinion as it is explosive in its content. It appears that certain personnel in military intelligence and the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police were aware of the Liddy-Hunt break-in plan two weeks before the plan was executed, which resulted in the arrests of the five persons inside the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972.

[John Simkin]

I am in possession of new material about Watergate that hopefully will be published in book form early next year. I wish Howard were still alive so that I could run this material by him for his opinion as it is explosive in its content. It appears that certain personnel in military intelligence and the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police were aware of the Liddy-Hunt break-in plan two weeks before the plan was executed, which resulted in the arrests of the five persons inside the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972.

I look forward to reading the book. Have you read "The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate" by James Rosen?

Who do you think gave the order to re-enter the DNC? According to Rosen, it was not Mitchell? One of my sources believes it was John Dean.

[Blair Dobson]

while i find EHH's "story" to be of interest, i wouldn't trust a thing that came out of his mouth for two reasons;

1) I don't need to go on about his career in misinformation and propaganda.

2) Did EHH not write terrible fiction novels as a sideline?

i support the "limited hangout" theory.

also, the lives cost in south america and abroad alone that this man and his "work" contributed to extinguishing makes me kinda think of him as another CIA loser.

like the Gerry Hemming stuff. How many people did G Hemming kill? or the guns he ran or what have you kill?

these people are murderers by trade, either by direct action or by proxy, ergo, i think taking anything these people have to say as anything other than a limited hangout is dangerous.

i think of EHH everytime i eat a banana that costs nothing because the people who grow them make nothing. think about that. Hunt can be thanked for that partially.

[Christopher Hall]

I bought (for $5.95) and read the e-book.

I enjoyed it a lot, and I think that Saint John Hunt makes a compelling case for how (and by whom) the JFK assassination was undertaken.

I would be interested in hearing some of your input about the e-book.

Hunt places a lot of the blame on Bill Harvey, whom I think gets forgotten a good bit since he was stationed in Rome at the time of the assassination.

Harvey had been unceremoniously dumped by RFK as the leader of the CIA Castro assassination team and deposed to the Rome station.

Edited October 30, 2008 by Christopher Hall

[Guest Tom Scully]

To gain a better perspective on what I am trying to communicate in this post, I reccommend reading this linked page, and the three or so pages before it:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lBVDOQxEg...meyer#PPA203,M1

Brothers By David Talbot

Hunt linked "Cord Meyer and LBJ" to JFK's death. In the pages linked above, there is a description of Phil Graham taking a microphone, in front of a group of reporters in Jan., 1963, telling them that JFK's most significant mistress was Cord Meyer's ex-wife, Mary Pinchot Meyer. No one who heard Graham's disclosure reported it in the press.

Below, Nina Burleigh wrote a description of Mary Pinchot's 1964 funeral, and in the linked pages above, there is specualtion that CIA's James Angleton may have, against all possible assumptions, been having an affair with Mary, too.

Nina describes JFK's close friends, William Walton and Charles L. Bartlett, and their associations with Mary and Cord Meyer.

Walton first came to my attention as I researched Henry Crown's "mobbed up", 1960 General Dynamics executive hire, Patrick Hoy. Hoy had come from a background of working for more than a decade for the Byfields, owners of the Chicago, Sherman Hotel group, where Hoy rose to the group presidency. Walton was a "good friend" of Ernest Byfield's ex-wife, Mrs. Raymond (Gladys Rosenthal Byfield) Tartiere, who was "persuaded" by Walton, after he suggested her Glen Ora Virginia estate to JFK and Jackie, to lease the estate in late 1960. to the president elect and family, as the weekend white house for 2-1/2 years.

Charles L. Bartlett came to my attention as I researched GHW Bush school roommate and close friend, the business partner of George de Mohrnshcildt and his brother Dmitiri's step-son, Edward Gordon Hooker. A link below shows that Hooker attended a dance attended by Jackie's first cousin, Bouvier Beale, another link shows that at Hooker's 1946 wedding, Cord Meyer's first cousin, S. Willetts Meyer, was best man, and GHW Bush was an usher.

Looking further into the family of S. Willets and Cord Meyer, I found that at Cord's brother William B's wedding, Cord was an usher, along with David F. Bartlett.

When David F. Bartlett was married, in 1949, his brother Charles was best man and he attempted unsuccessfully to introduce two of the wedding guests to each other, his friends JFK and Jacqueline Bouvier.

Charles and his wife did introduce the two at a 1950 dinner party, and both were included in JFK and Jackie's 1953 wedding party, and Charles wife was John Jr.'s godmother, while Charles stood in at the christening for the absent godfather, Jackie's brother-in-law.

In 1953, it appears David and Charles Bartlett's father shot himself at one of the family's two Jupiter Island, FL homes, which were then sold, the following month, to C. Douglas Dillon.

Charles Bartlett is very close friends with JFK, Jackie, and with Cord Meyer. Charles describes below a 1959 conversation of JFK with Cord Meyer about the politics of birth control.

JFK, Jackie, William Walton, Charles L. Bartlett, Cord Meyer, and Mary Meyer, along with Phil Graham, all had journalism backgrounds.

Probably due to his wealth, although Charles Bartlett is probably in the best position of anyone alive today to write a book about JFK and to offer a reaction to the E. Howard Hunt video claims, as well as to comment about Prescott Bush and his son and grandson, George HW and George W, who he had to know, living as he did on Jupiter Island, Charles has remained silent on these subjects for many years.

I see nothing in any of what I posted below, contradicting Hunt's videotaped claims, or of the involvement of Henry Crown and Patrick Hoy in the Oswald and or Ruby conspiracies.

I have to wonder why JFK would immerse himself so deeply in connections with former neighbors, Cord Meyer, and his ex-wife Mary, related to Ben Bradlee, to Cord's friends Charles L. Bartlett and Phil Graham. The associations between the Meyers, Bouviers, Mohrnschildts, Hookers, and Bushes, via Hooker/Morhnschildt and Bartlett/Jupiter Island are there, too. William Walton's link to the family that groomed Patrick Hoy as an executive is also present, almost all described in Nina Burleigh's few paragraphs:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/burleigh-private.html

CHAPTER ONE

A Very Private Woman

The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer

By NINA BURLEIGH

...Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, recently widowed and still new in her powerful role, came to pay last respects. Rowland Evans, the newspaper columnist, and his wife, Kay, a close chum of Mary Meyer's, were in the chapel. Like Mary, Kay Evans had been a favorite guest at White House parties, and the two women had, on at least one occasion, shared a table with the president. Columnist Joseph Alsop Jr., an influential figure, attended the funeral with his wife, Susan Mary. His letters of foreign policy advice to Kennedy were taken as seriously by the White House as Alsop himself took his wines and eighteenth-century French furniture. White House correspondent Charles Bartlett, who worked for the Chattanooga Times, was extremely well connected in Washington and also came to the funeral. He and his wife, Martha, had introduced John F. Kennedy to Jacqueline Bouvier. Kennedy aides Arthur Schlesinger and McGeorge Bundy were also in the pews. ....

.... Angleton served as an usher at Mary's funeral, leading the mourners to their seats in the chapel, but he felt Bradlee had devised the funeral more to impress social Washington than to honor the dead woman. He smiled when he saw one of Mary's close friends, Otakar "Kary" Fischer, a Czech immigrant who edited a scholarly journal of Soviet studies called Problems of Communism. As he walked Fischer to his seat, Angleton surveyed the gathered members of Georgetown society and whispered in disdain, "We were her true friends, you know." ....

..William Walton, a former war correspondent and artist who had been a close friend of Ernest Hemingway's in Europe, was in the pews. He had been rewarded for running Kennedy's New York campaign with entree to the White House, where he advised Jackie about the mansion's decor. He had served as Mary Meyer's "walker," in the parlance of the times, the man who escorted her to intimate evenings in the White House on the pretext that she was his date....

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ost&p=19443

In order to find out more about Philip Graham and Operation Mockingbird I have purchased a copy of Katharine Graham’s Personal History. Of course she does not acknowledge that her husband worked for the CIA. However, it includes some fascinating information for anyone who knows anything about the CIA and the JFK assassination.

Philip Graham joined the armed forces during the Second World War. His first job was as William Donovan’s communications officer. Donovan was of course head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the organization that evolved into the CIA in September, 1947.

In 1944 Graham was recruited into the “Special Branch, a super-secret part of Intelligence, run by Colonel Al McCormick”. The work was so secret that Graham never divulged what he was up to during the war. However, it did involve working with General George Kennedy, commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific.

Graham left the OSS at the end of the war to run the Washington Post. However, according to his wife, he kept up a close relationship with several members of the CIA. The two key figures in this were Tracy Barnes and Frank Wisner. KG admits that the CIA did influence what went in the Washington Post. This was especially true about the reporting on Cuba. This upset several reporters who had their stories removed from the newspaper.

According to his wife, Graham became close to LBJ as early as 1953. Graham got the idea that LBJ would make a good president. KG disliked LBJ (she was a supporter of Adlai Stevenson) but PG would not be swayed.

KG claims that PG influenced LBJ’s actions. This included getting places “for liberal Northerners” onto “key committees”. However, KG did not trust LBJ. She tells the story that her husband was privately campaigning to bring an end to the corruption in Congress. LBJ agreed to help in this campaign. The Grahams used to spend time on LBJ’s ranch. She was unimpressed when LBJ got drunk one night and began talking about how he was using the money of his friends to bribe politicians and journalists. These were hardly the words of someone who was claiming to want to clean up Congress.

PG told LBJ that his main problem was that he was perceived in Washington as someone under the control of the Texas oil and gas industry. PG added that his attitude towards civil rights was also hurting him with liberals in the North. PG told him he had go a “bit beyond (Richard) Russell and yet far short of (Hubert) Humphrey”.

PG attempted to influence LBJ’s views on foreign policy. For example, he sent him a copy of Germaine Trillion’s Algeria. In fact he sent the book to several politicians, including JFK, who he did not know at the time.

PG apparently “believed devoutly in school desegregation”. KG believes that it was the events of Little Rock in 1957 that triggered his first mental breakdown.

Despite suffering from deep depression, PG continued to take action to expand his media empire. (I wonder if he was getting any help with this).

His breakdown took some strange forms. He made a speech to the American Electric Power Company in Ohio where he claimed about the “shaking loneliness that a man experiences… when he faces up to the meaning of what he is engaged in”. He added: “We say that we print the objective news in our news columns and confine our opinions to the editorial page. Yet we know that while this has some merit as an over-simplified slogan of good intentions, it also has a strong smell of pure baloney.” PG concluded by saying that “by paying attention to the broader meaning of what we are engaged in, we may be able to join our passion to our intelligence.”

Is it possible that his breakdown been caused by being forced to behave in a way that he found morally indefensible? This is what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. To remain sane we usually change our opinions to fit in with our behaviour. Did Philip Graham find this impossible to do? Does this also explain his suicide just before JFK was assassinated?

In 1960 PG did what he could to get LBJ to become the Democratic candidate for the presidency. This included trying to persuade JFK not to stand in 1960. JFK of course decided to go for the nomination and easily beat LBJ. PG used Joe Alsop to get close to JFK. Alsop is another of those figures that constantly reappears in this story. For example, it has been claimed that Alsop was a key figure in Operation Mockingbird.

PG persuaded JFK to make LBJ his running-mate. Katherine Graham tells a couple of interesting stories about this. According to Clark Clifford, who was asked by JFK to offer Stuart Symington, the job, his reaction was strange. Symington accepted the post but said: “I bet you a hundred dollars that no matter what he says, Jack will not make me his running mate. He will have to pick Lyndon”.

The second story involves Robert Kennedy. He was was furious with PG’s role in this and relations were bad between him and the Grahams. After the assassination of JFK, KG met RFK at a dinner. They both began having a go at LBJ. RFK then turned to her and said: “Phil made him president?” KG asked him what he meant. RFK told her he could not tell her but maybe he would be able to tell the full story someday in the future.

In Personal History KG explains that the Washington Post did what they could to get JFK/LBJ elected. However, Philip Graham did not want to do this openly and the Washington Post refused to advocate their election. Although KG slanted stories to help him. As well as money they attempted to persuade other newspaper editors to come out for JFK.

PG expected something in return. This included the appointment of Douglas Dillon as Secretary of the Treasury. This he agreed to do, though the appointment of a Republican caused some concern amongst his close advisers. PG also takes credit for getting Arthur Schlesinger inside the JFK camp. The third figure pushed by PG was David Bruce, who became ambassador to London. It was Bruce of course who sent a daily report to JFK about the Profumo scandal. This was a subject that JFK was very interested in because it involved two of the girls that had been part of Bobby Baker’s set-up. Girls who had been sleeping with both JFK and KGB officers.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmeyerC.htm

Cord Meyer, the son of a senior diplomat, was born on 10th November, 1920. The Meyer family was extremely wealthy and had made its money from sugar in Cuba and from property on Long Island....

...Allen W. Dulles made contact with Cord Meyer in 1951. He accepted the invitation to join the CIA. Dulles told Meyer he wanted him to work on a project that was so secret that he could not be told about it until he officially joined the organization. Meyer was to work under Frank Wisner, director of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the CIA. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."

Meyer became part of what became known as Operation Mockingbird, a CIA program to influence the American media. According to Deborah Davis (Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and the Washington Post): Meyer was Mockingbird's "principal operative".

One of the most important journalists under the control of Operation Mockingbird was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Other journalists willing to promote the views of the Central Intelligence Agency included Stewart Alsop (New York Herald Tribune), Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), Charles Douglas Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), William C. Baggs (Miami News), Herb Gold (Miami News) and Charles Bartlett (Chattanooga Times). These journalists sometimes wrote articles that were unofficially commissioned by Meyer was based on leaked classified information from the CIA....

....However, in 1958, Mary filed for divorce. In her divorce petition she alleged "extreme cruelty, mental in nature, which seriously injured her health, destroyed her happiness, rendered further cohabitation unendurable and compelled the parties to separate."

Meyer's career continued to prosper and was now high enough in the CIA hierarchy to be involved in covert operations. This included working with people like Richard Bissell, Frank Wisner, Tracy Barnes, Jake Esterline, David Atlee Phillips, William (Rip) Robertson and E. Howard Hunt. Bissell, who was now head of the OPC, described Meyer as the "creative genius behind covert operations".

As chief of the CIA's International Organizations Division, Meyer met with President John F. Kennedy and his staff. On 18th October, 1961, Kennedy consulted Meyer about the possibility of replacing Allen W. Dulles with John McCone. In his journal he reported that Kennedy was "much more serious and less arrogant than I'd known him before." He added that Kennedy "still yearns for a respect that eludes him from such as myself."

It is assumed that Cord was involved in the plot to assassinate Fidel Castro but so far no documents have been released to confirm this. Cord also met Robert Kennedy several times after the failed Bay of Pigs operation.

In 1961 James Jesus Angleton asked Ben Bradlee to suggest to John F. Kennedy that Meyer should become ambassador to Guatemala. Bradlee, who disliked Meyer, refused. Bradlee later claimed that he did not respond to this request because he knew that Kennedy would reject the idea. Meyer also asked Charles L. Bartlett, another journalist friend of Kennedy to suggest he should be given a political appointment. Bartlett did as requested but reported back that "due to some incident that occured at the U.N. conference in San Francisco in 1945 there was no possibility"....

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=Cor...=1&ie=UTF-8

From a one-world crusade to the 'department of dirty tricks';...

- New York Times - Jan 7, 1973

On the other hand, Charles Bartlett, who knows Meyer perhaps better than any other man, says, "Cord is a very frank guy. When he doesn't agree with somebody ...

"Cord Meyer",(1920 - 1981) was Cord Meyer III, since his grandfather was "Cord Meyer", and his father was described in 1910, in Cord Meyer's will, as "Cord Meyer Jr.":

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...9669D946196D6CF

CORD MEYER'S WILL.; Bulk of Property to be Sold and Divided Between Wife and Children.

Special to The New York Times.

October 20, 1910, Thursday

...The sons are Charles G. Meyer, Edward, George C., Robert B., and Cord, Jr. Mrs. Meyer is named as the testamentrix and guardian of the infant children. Mr. Meyer appoints his wife and sons Charles, George, Edward, and upon their arrival at majority, Robert and Cord Meyer, as trustees of his estate, to act without bond. The will was made Nov. 9, 1909.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=cha...;hl=en&um=1

CHARLES G. MEYER, CIVIC LEADER, DIES; President Since 1910 of Cord...

$3.95 - New York Times - Apr 10, 1950

Besides his daughter he leaves sons, Charles G.; Jr., G. Howland--and S. Willets Meyer, and tree brothers, J: Edward, Robert B. and Cord Mey et.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22...=1&ie=UTF-8

… T. BUTLER BECOMES A BRIDE; She Is Wed to Edward Gordon...

$3.95 - New York Times - May 24, 1946

Willets Meyer of New York was best man. The ushers were George Herbert Walker Bush of Greenwich, ... Mrs. Edward Gordon Hooker David Berns. David Berns. All 2 related -

DEBUTANTES FETED AT DIAMOND BALL; 60 Young Women Who Bow This Season...

$3.95 - New York Times - Oct 25, 1941

... Miss Anita Irwin Lyon, George H. Owen and James H. M. Partington; Miss Joan MacDonald, Bouvier Beale and Edward Gordon Hooker; Miss Faith Griswold Hall, ...

above jackie's first cousin: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=son...range=1920,1929

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=cor...;hl=en&um=1

ANDRA H. PAYON MANBASSBT-BRE; Has 9 Attendants at Marriage to William...

$3.95 - New York Times - Dec 19, 1948

The usher were Cord Meyer Jr., another brother; Willetts Meyer. cousin of the bridegroom; David F. Bartlett of Hobo Sound, Fla.; Robert Watts of Mount Kisco ...

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

Charles L(effingwell) Bartlett, 1921- - John F. Kennedy ...Charles Bartlett Oral History Interview - JFK#1, 1/6/1965 Charles Bartlett Oral History Interview - JFK#2, 2/20/1965. Multimedia. ...

www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Summaries/col_bartlett.htm

...HOLBORN: I think as we move in on this interview, Charlie, I think probably the

easiest is to start in the most general way. Perhaps you can recollect

first when was it, what moment that you first were conscious of Jack

Kennedy [John F. Kennedy]. Was it through a personal meeting or had you known about him

before you ever met?

BARTLETT: Well, I hadn’t really known him at all or known much about him. The

Kennedy clan was rather famous down in Florida. My family lived in

this little place called Hobe Sound, thirty miles north of Palm Beach. It

was a rather rowdy fame that the clan

[-1-]

enjoyed at this point. But the children were known generally. But I really didn’t meet any of

them until after the War, and then I did meet John Kennedy in Palm Beach.

HOLBORN: This was before he was a congressman or after?

BARTLETT: He just had committed himself to run for Congress, and he was about

to go up to Boston and begin the campaign. It was the winter of 1956.

HOLBORN: No, ‘46.

BARTLETT: Excuse me, ‘46.

HOLBORN: Just before he began the primary against….

BARTLETT: The night I met him we were sitting in a night club called The Patio.

And some of the Palm Beach figures would come up and pat him on

the back and say, “Jack, I’m so glad you’re running for Congress.” I

remember him saying, “In only a year or so they’ll be saying I’m the worst son of a bitch that

ever lived.” But he was very clear about his decision to go into Congress. He said that he was

giving up the newspaper business; that he felt that

[-2-]

it was slightly frustrating; that you didn’t really get much done in the newspaper business;

that if you really wanted to accomplish anything you had to become a politician; and that

while he had enjoyed his days in the Hearst stable, why he thought that perhaps this wasn’t

the answer for him. It was a very interesting discussion because I was just at that point going

into the newspaper business myself.

HOLBORN: So you think it was not an accidental decision? I mean that, if that

opportunity hadn’t arisen in 1946 that he still probably would have

ended up in politics?

BARTLETT: Well, it seemed to me that if he.... Sometimes you read that he was a

reluctant figure being dragooned into politics by his father [Joseph P.

Kennedy]. I really didn’t get that impression at all. I gathered that it

was a wholesome, full-blown wish on his own part.

HOLBORN: At that time did he feel a sense of organization,

[-3-]

of absorption in this? Did he expect to win…

BARTLETT: He wasn’t really--he hadn’t faced up to it yet. I don’t think he...

HOLBORN: Or did he look at it as sort of a gamble that was worth trying?

BARTLETT: At this point--this was very early winter--he was just gathering his

resources, and he was getting ready, talking about it. Then I went to

Chattanooga, so I really didn’t see him again until I came to

Washington in January of 1948, which was the beginning of his second term....

...HOLBORN: Well, now, it was the first year also that of course he got married.

Whether historical fact or myth, you were credited very often with

having been the architect

BARTLETT: That may not be the word, but I think the fact is....

HOLBORN: What is the real story here?

[-18-]

BARTLETT: The fact is that back in..... I first knew Jackie Bouvier [Jacqueline

Bouvier Kennedy]--I used to see her up in Southampton, Easthampton,

actually. She used to go up and visit with her father in the summer, and

then I knew her down here. She always had these sort of English beaus and I must say they

were not up to her. She was an enormously attractive girl. And I don’t know why--I guess

he’d never met her. She was much younger than I was, but I did conceive the idea of

introducing them really very early. It’s rather amazing. My brother got married in 1948, and I

can really remember at that wedding in Long Island trying to get Jackie Bouvier across this

great crowd over to meet John Kennedy. Actually, it was rather funny because I got her about

half way across and she got involved in--I introduced her to Gene Tunney who was a friend

of my father [Valentine C. Bartlett] who was there--she got involved in a conversation with

him. And by the time I got her across, why, he’d left. So

[-19-]

it didn’t work then and it really wasn’t until after I was married, it was two years later, in

1950, before we introduced them. But it was always in my mind and I think it was a very

good concept.

HOLBORN: You mean you introduced them here in Washington?

BARTLETT: Well, then finally, yes. We introduced them at a dinner in the spring.

We had a tiny little house in Georgetown and they both came, and a

couple of other people. I remember Jeff and Pat Roche from New

York, about six people. Jackie was, I guess, leaving for Europe very shortly, and after the

dinner, why, I walked her out to the car, and Jack Kennedy came sort of tailing after, and he

was muttering shyly about, “Shall we go someplace and have a drink?” And Jackie at that

stage noticed in the back seat that some man had--a young friend, had been walking along the

street and he’d gotten in her car, and crawled into the back seat and was

[-20-]

waiting there. So she was forced to tell the Senator that she couldn’t join him for a drink.

HOLBORN: So at what point do you think they really decided to get married?

BARTLETT: Well, this was an awkward time actually because, as I said, she was

going to Europe and he was just getting involved in the campaign. He

really wasn’t a Senator then, that’s right, he was just getting involved

in his campaign. And he was really absent from Washington for most of the next year and

she was absent for part of it, so there really wasn’t much hope. The credit for the next phase

really belongs to Martha [Josephine Martha Buck Bartlett] because Jackie was engaged to a

fellow whom we didn’t think much of. He was a nice fellow, but he didn’t seem to be worthy

of her hand. So Martha urged Jackie to invite--she needed an extra man for some party she

was having I guess her fiancé couldn’t come down for this party, she needed an extra man--

so Martha urged

[-21-]

her to invite the Senator-elect, which she did. So I think it was fortunate that Martha applied

that pressure. This was the beginning of really the serious courtship which went on to the

priest. This was in December when finally they, yes, in December he came down and I guess

from that point on, the next thing her engagement was broken some time during the winter.

And by the spring we were happy to feel that this thing was pretty well moving along. And of

course they got married in September.

HOLBORN: And then you were an usher in the wedding?

BARTLETT: Yes, a very famous wedding, front page of the New York Times.

HOLBORN: It is interesting that among the ushers only one of them was really a

political friendship.

BARTLETT: Yes, which was...

HOLBORN: George Smathers.

BARTLETT: George Smathers, yes. It was a curious group. I must say that I think

the President’s circle....

....HOLBORN: No, I think the religious problem always worried people around him

more than it worried himself.

[-43-]

BARTLETT: Yes. It didn’t seem to be a real obsession with him.

HOLBORN: The only time I saw him really excited about that was when the birth

control issue first came up with Reston [James B. Reston], who had a

big column and sort of challenged him.

BARTLETT: Yes. The birth control thing sort of threw him off a little bit because

the common sense of it appealed to him so much. That’s right. I was

here one night when Cord Meyer [Cord Meyer, Jr.] brought it up as a

problem that he would have to face as a candidate. This was I guess sometime in 1959. And

he acknowledged it…. But it was obviously something that he didn’t have an answer to....

http://books.google.com/books?id=q44DF0Rju...jackie#PPA84,M1

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

By Donald Spoto (page 83)

....Early in the summer of 1948 and just before she departed for her first journey to Europe, Jackie was one of several Bouviers invited to a Long Island wedding.

There, she had met the groom's brother, Charles Bartlett, Washington correspondent for the Chattanooga Times, then twenty-seven and single, thought Jacke was pretty and personable, and he wanted her to meet his friend, a thirty-one-year-old congressman from Massachusetts who appreciated pretty, personable young women...

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=dav...;hl=en&um=1

Gladys Pulitzer and David F. Bartlett Wed at Oyster Bay

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Jun 28, 1949

David Frost Bartlett and his bride, formerly Gladys Munn Pulitzer, granddaughter of late publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, married yesterday in garden of Pulitzer ...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AsQKA...ouvier+bartlett

Newport Socialite To Wed Sen. John F. Kennedy Today .

St. Petersburg Times - Google News Archive - Sep 12, 1953

Miss Bouvier attended Vassar College, the Sorbonne. and was graduated from George ...

...Wedding Party

Miss Bouvier, formerly the inquiring photographer for a Washington newspaper, will be attended by....Mrs. Charles L. Bartlett, Washington, D.C....

Sen. Kennedy is the son of....he will be attended by....Ushers include Charles L. Bartlett....

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=val...;hl=en&um=1

BARTLETT FUNERAL SET; Chicago Business Leader Found Shot in Florida...

$3.95 - New York Times - Feb 12, 1953

11 -Private family funeral services for Valentine Crouse Bartlett, 59 years old, who was found shot in his Jupiter Island home Tuesday morning, ...

Palm Beach Host to List of Notables

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Mar 22, 1953

Announced here is the sale of the Valentine C. Bartlett prop- erty on Jupiter island to C. Doug- las Dillon, newly appointed United States ambassador to ...

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=bar...419583304138821

CHRISTENING FOR KENNEDYS' SON TOMORROW

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Dec 7, 1960

He will not be present, however, an d Bartlett will act as his proxy. The christening will be per. formed by the Rev. Martin Casey, pastor of Holy Trinity ...

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?hl=en...+Mrs.+Charles+L

YOUNG AIDES FILL GAP TILL JAN. 20; With Only Six Weeks Left, GOP...

$3.95 - New York Times - Dec 9, 1960

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., held by Mrs. Charles L. Bartlett, his godmother, as he was baptized by the Rev. Martin J. Casey at the chapel of Georgetown ...

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=bar...;hl=en&um=1

Christening of Kennedy Infant Is Set for Tomorrow Afternoon

$3.95 - New York Times - Dec 7, 1960

Mr. and - Mrs. Bartlett introduced Senator Kennedy to hj$ future wife, ... The 600-acre Tartiere estate {includes stables and pastures that could ... All 4 related - Related web pages

Louise Parsons to Become Bride on January 4

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Dec 13, 1935

... and H-lugh Byfield and Jacques Tartiere are arriving next week. ... Miss Florence Bartlett, Mrs. Ralph T. Winston, Mrs. Charles H. Chadwick, ...

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=hug...;hl=en&um=1

War Clouds Fail to Keep Visitors Out of Europe

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Sep 15, 1935

Hugh Byfield, son of Ernest Bylleld, left on the same ship to spend a year at Park Lodge in Paii, France. Mr. and Mrs. 'John E. Leish left on the Aquitania ...

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=hug...;hl=en&um=1

HOTEL SHERMAN MANAGEMENT SLATE ELECTED

Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver - Apr 18, 1957

The seven management di- rectors elected were Frank W. Bering, Edward Byfield Jr., Hugh W. Byfield, James A. Hart, Patrick H. Hoy, David Levinson, ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=q44DF0Rju...1&ct=result

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

By Donald Spoto page 169

...Walton went out to see hid old friend Gladys Tartiere, who owned Glen Ora, a four-hundred-acre estate near Middleburg, Virginia... Eventually after considerable coaxing from Walton and Clark Clifford, one of Kennedy's attorneys and adviser, Mrs. Tartiere agreed....

Quid pro quo, for Jenners "work" on behalf of Henry Crown and LBJ, as WC assistant counsel?

Abe Fortas: A Biography - http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=s...nG=Search+Books

Page 328

by Laura Kalman - Self-Help - 1990 - 499 pages

Clifford offered the name of Albert Jenner, a prominent Chicago corporate ... 57

Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina wondered aloud whether vacancies on the .

Edited February 2, 2009 by Tom Scully

[A.J. Weberman]

Hunt fills in some important puzzle pieces here. St. John does his best but never asks about HEMMING or CHRIST or the tramps even tho he believes his father was the HUNT tramp. BTY the Rockefeller COmmision reported 8 tramps were picked up that day.

[Christopher Hall]

I believe that John Bevilaqua has a good bit of personal knowledge of some aspects of the matters that EHH refers to in his interview.

[William Kelly]

I believe that John Bevilaqua has a good bit of personal knowledge of some aspects of the matters that EHH refers to in his interview.

Yea, it's a shame he can't rationally recount them without falling into a cesspool of idiotic ramblings.

BK

[William Kelly]

I bought (for $5.95) and read the e-book.

I enjoyed it a lot, and I think that Saint John Hunt makes a compelling case for how (and by whom) the JFK assassination was undertaken.

I would be interested in hearing some of your input about the e-book.

Hunt places a lot of the blame on Bill Harvey, whom I think gets forgotten a good bit since he was stationed in Rome at the time of the assassination.

Harvey had been unceremoniously dumped by RFK as the leader of the CIA Castro assassination team and deposed to the Rome station.

While Stockton's flawed bio of Harvey, Flawed Patriot was dissapointing, and Howard Hunt's last book only glossed around the edges, I think we can expect a lot more from Peter Janney's upcoming book about JFK and Mary Pinchot Meyer.

Hunt's recollections of being stationed in Mexico City are important, as are his descriptions of the two types of agents he ran -intelligence agents who acquired sensitive information, and action oriented operatives who went out and did things.

Harvey's post in Italy was not just to get him out of the way, as those with OSS background in Italy include Angleton, Thompson (Secret Life of Plants) and the guy handling the hot line in DC when Ruby shot Oswald.

In addition, Harvey continued to hang out with Rosselli long after they had cut Rosselli off from the Cuban operations, and it was Rosselli who tried to spill the beans on RFK and the Castro plots through Jack Anderson.

There's much anticipation building for PJ's book on MM.

BK