Douglas Caddy

CIA’s involvement in efforts to discredit Daniel Ellsberg https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/jul/31/cia-ellsburg/ [This is posted here because of the mention in it of Howard Hunt who also was involved in the assassination of JFK]

David Talbot posted this on Facebook on 8/2/2018: Trump, Dark Capitalism, and the Deep State (cont.) After news broke during the 2016 campaign about Trump’s notorious boast -- that he could do whatever he wanted to women and get away with it, even “grab ‘em by the pussy” – I recalled a similar cocky claim by the late Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana (pictured here in dark glasses). The gangster liked to brag that while dining at the Fontainebleau Hotel, a Miami resort favored by the Mob, he could freely grab attractive women’s buttocks (he used a different word) as they passed by his table. When they wheeled around in outrage, the women – and their angry husbands – instantly realized they could do nothing because they recognized who Giancana was, and the violent power that he possessed. His crude treatment of women is yet one more way that Trump has established himself as our first “gangster-in-chief.” As Maureen Dowd observed in her Sunday NY Times column, Trump (whom she calls “The Don”) has admired and sought to emulate the Mafia’s tough made men ever since he was a boy and saw the wise guys in action on his father’s mobbed-up construction sites. Trump is no culture vulture, but among the movies he has bothered to see, his top favorites are “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas.” When he was elbowing his way up in New York real estate, Trump’s mentor was Roy Cohn (pictured here with Trump), the slithering lawyer who fed off clients in the city’s darkest sewers, including notorious mobsters. And when Trump’s real estate empire hit the skids in the ‘90s, it was another fixer lawyer, Roy Cohn wanna-be Michael Cohen, who connected Trump to shady money from the Russian Mafia and criminal networks in former Soviet republics. Cohen’s collaborator in opening up this dark financial pipeline from Russia and Ukraine was Russian-born New York hustler Felix Sater, who as a thug and con artist was just Trump’s type, despite -- or because of -- his criminal record. (He's pictured here, celebrating the opening of a Trump condo complex in SoHo on which the two men collaborated.) (More about Trump’s connections to Russian oligarchs, criminal networks, and other citadels of dark capitalism can be found on Russ Baker’s excellent web site, Who What Why. Baker is the hard-digging investigative reporter who has shed light on the Bush dynasty (“Family of Secrets”) and many other corners of American power that need spotlighting. https://whowhatwhy.org/…/trumps-ex-attorney-michael-cohen-…/) I’m continuing to explore the criminal roots of the Trump presidency here because I think it’s vital to understand where his power comes from. It certainly doesn’t come from traditional sources of Republican power, like the Koch brothers’ dark money. The Trump-Koch split exploded on the front page of the New York Times earlier this week, with Trump tweeting his contempt for the energy titans' kingmaking power. No, Trump’s power flows from money that’s even darker than the Kochs’ –an international criminal syndicate built on real estate, gambling, drugs and prostitution. This hoodlum power gives Trump the cockiness to stand up to the Kochs, the CIA, the FBI, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN – to any powerful opponent in his way. More than six decades ago, Robert F. Kennedy launched his career in public life by going after organized crime, first as the chief counsel of the Senate Rackets Committee and then as his brother’s attorney general. One of his main targets, in fact, was Sam Gianacana, whose web of corruption stained the labor movement and the political system. As Ed Guthman, one of Bobby’s top Justice Department aides, told me when I was researching my book about the Kennedys (“Brothers”), RFK’s crusade against organized crime was motivated by a deep fear that its rising power could someday put a president in the White House. We’ve now reached that day. And we’ve reached it because for decades now, the deep state (and corporate capitalism) have been steadily subverting American democracy, and assassinating leaders like the Kennedy brothers. So, as engaged Americans, we must struggle to restore our democracy – not simply by relying on Washington security agencies – but by building a powerful, multiracial people’s movement. Martin Luther King Jr. was in the process of doing that when he too was assassinated in 1968 – organizing a remarkably broad coalition around his goal of occupying Washington with a Poor People’s army. This is another reason I was thrilled to hear Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tell a San Francisco audience yesterday that we all must now pick up King’s fallen banner and resume his bold mission. She has a strong sense of progressive history. As she says, no person in America should be too poor to live with dignity. And our future as a nation should no longer be determined by the deep state – or by dark capitalism.

Seymour Hersh on novichok, Russian links to Donald Trump and 9/11 From the article: Critics have also argued that Hersh is a conspiracy theorist, though notably in his John F Kennedy biography The Dark Side of Camelot, he writes that Oswald was the probable lone assassin. Several years ago, I grilled Hersh on this and he responded that he simply could not find anything more on Oswald whilst researching the book. It seems that this position is adopted by others on the left too such as Noam Chomsky, who views JFK as a liberal war hawk rather than a threat to the establishment. I have to say I’m perplexed to say the least that a man who has spent his entire career dealing with covert action and spies buys the official version report hook, line and sinker. In Reporter, he warmly relates his dealings with Hollywood director Oliver Stone in the late Eighties. However, when Stone begins to expand on his thesis that Kennedy was assassinated by a CIA conspiracy in what would eventually become his tour de force magnum opus JFK, Hersh is completely dismissive, telling Stone that the idea is preposterous – to which Stone replies that he always knew Hersh was a CIA agent and walks off. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-interview-novichok-russian-hacking-9-11-nerve-agent-attack-a8459596.html

Joe: Let us not forget about D.H. Byrd. The rich and powerful also use commercial railroad trains to get around without being publicly noticed. Many decades ago an acquaintance in Houston was interviewed by Barbara Bush, who was having her hair done at home while conducting the interview, to be the chef on a private rail car that George and Barbara owned for travel within the continental United States. She stipulated that if he were chosen for the position he be required to sign an air -tight non-disclosure confidential agreement that contained severe penalties if he breached it. If time were not of the essence, this would also be a great way to transport a trusted person to carry out a secret mission.

Billie Sol told me that LBJ arranged for a U.S. military aircraft to carry Mac Wallace from Washington to destinations where certain victims were murdered. Of course, the pilot(s) of the plane only knew that they were transporting some VIP to and from a destination. LBJ had several close associates in Texas who owned planes that could have transported him to attend the Murchison affair; after all it is alleged that he did arrive late.

Scientific Police Work Traced Bullets to Rifle Oswald Owned https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/28/archives/scientific-police-work-traced-bullets-to-rifle-oswald-owned.html

After Howard Hunt made blackmail threats in this telephone conversation with Charles Colson on November 15, 1072, Dorothy Hunt's fate as the hush money courier was sealed. She died in the plane crash the next month. Howard Hunt then gathered his four children together and told them that he was going to plead guilty at the (first) Watergate trial scheduled the next month, January 1973, because he feared they would be killed to keep him quiet if he did not do so. He did plead guilty but in March, two months later, James McCord wrote a letter to Judge Sirica that exposed the hush-money cover-up that eventually led to the Nixon's resignation as president.

FBI dismisses conspiracy surrounding Watergate-connected plane crash https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/jul/19/watergate-ua553-crash/

CIA transcripts of FBI and DC police calls regarding Watergate https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/jul/23/watergate-transcripts/ See also:

Thanks, Joe, for your emotionally moving reaction to what took place on that airplane as LBJ was sworn in as president. It sort of staggers the mind that there are scholars of the history of the assassination who are adamant to this day that LBJ had nothing to do with JFK's assassination.

Billie sol in his autobiography "Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend," wrote that he believed that the deaths of Mac Wallace, Cliff Carter (LBJ's White House aide) and John Cofer (LBJ's and Estes' longtime attorney) were not natural. Apparently each of them knew too much about LBJ's criminal activities and LBJ's secret financial empire. Wallace died when his car suddenly veered of the road and hit an abutment, the same way that legendary U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples died. Both "accidents" occurred in Texas.

In her book, “Faustian Bargains: Lyndon Johnson and Mac Wallace in the Robber Baron Culture of Texas,” Professor Joan Mellen goes to extraordinary shameful lengths to attack and darken the character of U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples, a truly great American whom I feel privileged to have known. Mellen’s book, nevertheless, is definitely worth reading to get an overall picture of what Texas was like when LBJ and his crooked cronies ruled the state unchallenged. Mellen focuses in her book on Malcolm (Mac) Wallace, whom Billie Sol asserted was a stone cold killer that LBJ used when necessary. In her book, Mellen writes, “Mac Wallace is a case in point, his history with Lyndon Johnson is a window into Johnson’s methods. Wallace’s story is so intriguing because, unlike other of Johnson’s acolytes, it is difficult to prove what he did for Lyndon Johnson and what Lyndon Johnson did, in turn, for him. More than any other of Johnson’s protégés and acolytes, Wallace’s connection to him remains cloaked in secrecy. “In the major events of Mac Wallace’s life, Lyndon Johnson remains invisible. Yet one truth is irrefutable. Everything that was positive and promising in Wallace’s life came to him before he made the acquaintance of Lyndon Baines Johnson and joined Johnson’s circle.”

Joe, thank you for posting this incredible tape and for your incisive and perceptive commentary that precedes it. I am posting your Forum topic on my Facebook page so that it will reach a wider audience and also be permanently enshrined in my Facebook archive.

FBI file reveals some of the secrets of Howard Hunt’s White House safe https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/jul/17/hunt-white-house-safe/ [This is posted here because Howard Hunt has been linked to the JFK assassination.]

FBI and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad FOIA Redaction https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/jul/12/fbi-bad-redactions/ I am posting this here because of the references to Howard Hunt, a key figure in the JFK assassination

Pew Research: Which President has done the best job in your lifetime? From the report: About one-in-ten adults (12%) say John F. Kennedy did the best job in office during their lifetimes. But Kennedy is named as the best or second best president by about a quarter of those who were alive during his presidency: 24% of Baby Boomers and 25% of those in the Silent Generation. http://www.people-press.org/2018/07/11/obama-tops-publics-list-of-best-president-in-their-lifetime-followed-by-clinton-reagan/

From the article: The 2-to1 decision authored by Judge Brett Kavanaugh (a George W. Bush appointee and co-author of the Kenneth Starr report that published extensive details of the Monica Lewinsky affair), agreed with Justice Department and CIA lawyers that because the history volume was a "pre-decisional and deliberative" draft, its release would "expose an agency's decision making process in such a way as to discourage candid discussion within the agency and thereby undermine the agency's ability to perform its functions." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20140521/

When I represented Billie Sol Estes in 1984 his era of being the King of the Wheeler Dealers was over after having served two prison terms. He told me that he merely wanted to set the public record straight of what had transpired between him and LBJ over decades. That I why I view the startling information that he gave in 1984 to the Justice Department in his quest for immunity and to the Robertson County (TX) grand jury in the Henry Marshall case a high degree credibility.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2018/07/06/marquette-professor-john-mcadams-prevails-academic-freedom-case/759800002/

Joe: Yes, Merritt is still alive. I have no first hand information but my guess is that the grand jury's investigation may deal with national security matters and the authorities believe the witnesses who have been summoned, including Robert Merritt, may have knowledge pertinent to the grand jury's inquiry. Hence a gag order by the judge is entirely appropriate.

Joe: In response to your question posed at the end of your comment above, Robert Merritt (the fellow who had the three meetings with President Nixon in 1972 at which Nixon disclosed the Message to the American People that he had hidden in the White House library) appeared before a grand jury recently in Washington but because of a gag order imposed by the judge nothing is known about the subject or any aspect of the grand jury investigation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/fashion/jackie-kennedy-texas-packing-list.html

Here is the coasttocoastam summary of the program: Clarification of the summary needs to be made that while I filed a formal complaint with Special Prosecutor Mueller about a year ago concerning the possible role of Roger Stone in the Trump/Russia collusion criminal case, the special prosecutor has never contacted me in any fashion in response to my filing the complaint. If indeed Roger Stone is indicted, only then will it be known whether my complaint was a factor in the decision to prosecute. https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2018/07/03

Remarkable article. Should JFK be added to this list although of a later date? http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-jfk-assassination-part-ii-who-did-it/

From the article Among those who grow skeptical of establishment media verdicts, there is a natural tendency to become overly suspicious, and see conspiracies and cover-ups where none exist. The sudden death of a prominent political figure may be blamed on foul-play even when the causes were entirely natural or accidental. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” But when a sufficient number of such persons die within a sufficiently short period of years, and overwhelming evidence suggests that at least some of those deaths were not for the reasons long believed, the burden of proof begins to shift. Excluding the much larger number of less notable fatalities, here is a short list of six prominent Americans whose untimely passing during 1944-1949 surely evoked considerable relief within various organizations known for their ruthless tactics: Wendell Wilkie, lifelong Democrat nominated for President by the Republicans in 1940, Died October 8, 1944, Age 52, Heart attack. Gen. George Patton, highest-ranking American military officer in Europe, Died December 21, 1945, Age 60, Car accident. Harry Hopkins, FDR’s “Deputy President,” Died January 29, 1946, Age 55, Various possible causes. Harry Dexter White, Soviet agent who ran the Treasury under FDR, Died August 16, 1948, Age 55, Heart attack. Laurence Duggan, Soviet agent, Prospective Secretary of State under Henry Wallace, Died December 20, 1948, Age 43, Fall from 16th story window. James Forrestal, former Secretary of Defense, Died May 22, 1949, Age 57, Fall from 18th story window. I do not think that any similar sort of list of comparable individuals during that same time period could be produced for Britain, France, the USSR, or China. In one of the James Bond films, Agent 007 states his opinion that “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” And I think these six examples over just a few years should be enough to raise the eyebrows of even the most cautious and skeptical. http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-our-deadly-world-of-post-war-politics/