Douglas Caddy

I find it interesting that Mr. Caddy is involved in this aspect of the Crime/Investigation in light of his apparent involvement representing the "Burglars" at the onset of the Watergate investigation.

See PG 10 of this PDF from the Nat'l Archives describing the FBI's early efforts:

Memorandum, L. M. Walters to Mr. Felt, "Subject: Watergate," May 23, 1973 - File # 139-4089-2261x

Is this simply a coincidence that several of these men are suspected conspirators in the assassination as well?

Chris

PS I think the Wallace's print that was identified in the TSBD is one of the most important leads to surface in the last 43 years. What was he doing there if he wasn't a "shooter"?

In regard to the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 prepared by L. M. Walters for Mark Felt that mentions my name in several places, I would merely point out that my role in Watergate is explained in prior posts in the Forum that draw upon my manuscript published in The Advocate magazine of August 16, 2005.

In brief, I was retained as an attorney in the early morning hours of June 17, 1972 by Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy to represent them in the case and to represent the five persons arrested within the Democratic Party's national headquarters.

My manuscript and the article that accompanied it in The Advocate can be read in their entirety using links provided in the Forum or provided by Google after typing in Douglas Caddy.

However, it may appropriate for me at this time to provide some additional information, especially since Mr. Newton ties my representation of these individuals to the JFK assassination.

(1) At the time the assassination occurred, I was enrolled in New York University Law School. I also was employed in the New York City office of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, located at 22 West 55th St, on the staff of Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. I received a phone call within minutes of the shooting of President Kennedy from a friend on Wall Street, who had read about it on the AP wires, and immediately informed Lt.-Gov. Wilson and Gov. Rockefeller's staff, none of whom had heard what had happened.

(2) The Walters' memorandum to Mark Felt of 5/23/1973, prepared in response to a directive of the prior day from Felt, is interesting in what is left out of the FBI document. This is the fact that it was Mark Felt who was Deep Throat and who was supplying Woodward and Bernstein with the inside information of the FBI's investigation. Felt's role is described in Woodward's book published last year, The Secret Man.

Not only is Mark Felt's role as Deep Throat left out of the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 but also omitted is the evidence that Felt was the primary cause of the Watergate coverup.

The evidence is as follows: I was retained by Hunt and Liddy on June 17, the day of the burglary. On June 28, 11 days later, while I was in the U.S. Court House working on my clients' case, I was served with a subpoena to appear Forthwith before the federal grand jury. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell physically pulled me by my arm into the grand jury room. Over the next three weeks I was to testify five times before the grand jury. I refused to answer a number of questions that I believed violated the attorney-client privilege but did so ultimately after being held in contempt of court by Judge Sirica and the contempt citation being affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

All of these events so early in the case were reported by Woodward and Bernstein in the Washington Post. These events had the effect of convincing my clients that they could not receive a fair trial if I as their attorney were being so badly treated. So they embarked on the coverup.

Operating behind the scenes and as an instigator of my being served with a subpoena on June 28, 1972, was Mark Felt. The role of the FBI towards me, under Felt's direction, is described in a two-part article in The Advocate of Feb. 23 and March 9, 1977 titled, Revelations of a Gay Informant: I Spied for the FBI. The article is part-interview with and part-reporting concerning the gay informant, Carl Robert 'Butch' Merritt. Merritt had been employed by the FBI, under Felt's direction, and by the Washington, D.C. police, to infiltrate and spy on the New Left, which was then engaged in vocal dissent against the Vietnam war. (Felt was subsequently indicted and convicted for some of his activities against the New Left. More on this later.)

The following is excerpted from the 1977 Advocate article:

Two days after the Watergate burglary, Carl Shoffler (one of Merritt's former police contacts) turned up with Sgt. Paul Leeper (these officers had been two of the three to have arrested the burglars) with what Merritt recalls as an offer of ˜the biggest, most important assignment" he'd ever had.

The officers, Merritt said, asked if he knew one of the Watergate attorneys. ˜They said he was gay." Merritt did not. They asked if I could get to know him. I asked them why. We'd like you to get as close as possible, they said, to find out all you can about his private life, even what he eats. Merritt says he explained that even if the attorney was gay, it wouldn't be likely that he could arrange to meet him. They said I would be paid quite well, that they weren't talking about dimes and quarters, that they were talking about ˜really big money".

Merritt says that he refused the offer, but that police kept returning to him with the same request, as late as December 1972, months after the city's police claimed to have ended their Watergate investigation.

Police, Merritt says, also tried to recruit him to inform on the gay community. He says he refused these offers as well.

The police and the FBI, Merritt charges, began to harass him soon after he was dropped by the bureau. ˜They threatened my life, broke into my apartment at least three times, they tried to plant drugs on me, they tapped my phone," Merritt charges.

Jim Hougan, in his 1984 book Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA, wrote about Merritt's allegations:

"If we are to believe the disaffected informant, [police officer] Shoffler told him to establish a homosexual relationship with Douglas Caddy, stating falsely that Caddy was gay and a supporter of Communist causes."

As I have written in a prior post in the Forum, it was Edward Miller, a former Assistant FBI Director, who arranged for me in 1984 to visit with Assistant Attorney General Stephen Trott in the U.S. Department of Justice about Billie Sol Estes' desire to come clean with what he knew about LBJ and the Kennedy assassination.

At the time Miller was employed under a 1984 Moody Foundation grant to formulate strategy to combat Terrorism, being so engaged many years before it became the worldwide threat.

Previously, Miller had been convicted along with Mark Felt for "black bag" activities that they had carried out against the New Left in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Their trial and convictions were protested at the time by rank-and-file FBI agents across the country. Not long after his first election as President, Ronald Reagan set aside the convictions of Miller and Felt and granted them Presidential pardons. Reagan, who personally was sympathetic to the plight of Miller and Felt, did so upon the recommendation of Assistant Attorney General Trott.

In 1984, Miller told me that Mark Felt desired to meet me. At the time I only knew of Felt's role with Miller in the "black bag" case and subsequent Presidential pardons. I was unaware of Felt's role in Watergate. When Miller did introduce me to Felt at a meeting that took place in Washington, I found the occasion disconcerting because it became obvious from Felt's attitude towards me that he knew something that I did not. This was cleared up with the revelation last year that Felt was Deep Throat all during the time that he had directed the FBI's investigation into Watergate.

This is why I maintain Mark Felt, in addition to being Deep Throat, also engaged in outrageous official FBI activities that spurred Hunt and Liddy to embark upon the Watergate coverup, the subsequent exposure of which brought lasting fame and fortune to Felt and to Woodward and Bernstein.

I find it interesting that Mr. Caddy is involved in this aspect of the Crime/Investigation in light of his apparent involvement representing the "Burglars" at the onset of the Watergate investigation.

See PG 10 of this PDF from the Nat'l Archives describing the FBI's early efforts:

Memorandum, L. M. Walters to Mr. Felt, "Subject: Watergate," May 23, 1973 - File # 139-4089-2261x

Is this simply a coincidence that several of these men are suspected conspirators in the assassination as well?

Chris

PS I think the Wallace's print that was identified in the TSBD is one of the most important leads to surface in the last 43 years. What was he doing there if he wasn't a "shooter"?

In regard to the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 prepared by L. M. Walters for Mark Felt that mentions my name in several places, I would merely point out that my role in Watergate is explained in prior posts in the Forum that draw upon my manuscript published in The Advocate magazine of August 16, 2005.

In brief, I was retained as an attorney in the early morning hours of June 17, 1972 by Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy to represent them in the case and to represent the five persons arrested within the Democratic Party's national headquarters.

My manuscript and the article that accompanied it in The Advocate can be read in their entirety using links provided in the Forum or provided by Google after typing in Douglas Caddy.

However, it may appropriate for me at this time to provide some additional information, especially since Mr. Newton ties my representation of these individuals to the JFK assassination.

(1) At the time the assassination occurred, I was enrolled in New York University Law School. I also was employed in the New York City office of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, located at 22 West 55th St, on the staff of Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. I received a phone call within minutes of the shooting of President Kennedy from a friend on Wall Street, who had read about it on the AP wires, and immediately informed Lt.-Gov. Wilson and Gov. Rockefeller's staff, none of whom had heard what had happened.

(2) The Walters' memorandum to Mark Felt of 5/23/1973, prepared in response to a directive of the prior day from Felt, is interesting in what is left out of the FBI document. This is the fact that it was Mark Felt who was Deep Throat and who was supplying Woodward and Bernstein with the inside information of the FBI's investigation. Felt's role is described in Woodward's book published last year, The Secret Man.

Not only is Mark Felt's role as Deep Throat left out of the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 but also omitted is the evidence that Felt was the primary cause of the Watergate coverup.

The evidence is as follows: I was retained by Hunt and Liddy on June 17, the day of the burglary. On June 28, 11 days later, while I was in the U.S. Court House working on my clients' case, I was served with a subpoena to appear Forthwith before the federal grand jury. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell physically pulled me by my arm into the grand jury room. Over the next three weeks I was to testify five times before the grand jury. I refused to answer a number of questions that I believed violated the attorney-client privilege but did so ultimately after being held in contempt of court by Judge Sirica and the contempt citation being affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

All of these events so early in the case were reported by Woodward and Bernstein in the Washington Post. These events had the effect of convincing my clients that they could not receive a fair trial if I as their attorney were being so badly treated. So they embarked on the coverup.

Operating behind the scenes and as an instigator of my being served with a subpoena on June 28, 1972, was Mark Felt. The role of the FBI towards me, under Felt's direction, is described in a two-part article in The Advocate of Feb. 23 and March 9, 1977 titled, Revelations of a Gay Informant: I Spied for the FBI. The article is part-interview with and part-reporting concerning the gay informant, Carl Robert 'Butch' Merritt. Merritt had been employed by the FBI, under Felt's direction, and by the Washington, D.C. police, to infiltrate and spy on the New Left, which was then engaged in vocal dissent against the Vietnam war. (Felt was subsequently indicted and convicted for some of his activities against the New Left. More on this later.)

The following is excerpted from the 1977 Advocate article:

Two days after the Watergate burglary, Carl Shoffler (one of Merritt's former police contacts) turned up with Sgt. Paul Leeper (these officers had been two of the three to have arrested the burglars) with what Merritt recalls as an offer of ˜the biggest, most important assignment" he'd ever had.

The officers, Merritt said, asked if he knew one of the Watergate attorneys. ˜They said he was gay." Merritt did not. They asked if I could get to know him. I asked them why. We'd like you to get as close as possible, they said, to find out all you can about his private life, even what he eats. Merritt says he explained that even if the attorney was gay, it wouldn't be likely that he could arrange to meet him. They said I would be paid quite well, that they weren't talking about dimes and quarters, that they were talking about ˜really big money".

Merritt says that he refused the offer, but that police kept returning to him with the same request, as late as December 1972, months after the city's police claimed to have ended their Watergate investigation.

Police, Merritt says, also tried to recruit him to inform on the gay community. He says he refused these offers as well.

The police and the FBI, Merritt charges, began to harass him soon after he was dropped by the bureau. ˜They threatened my life, broke into my apartment at least three times, they tried to plant drugs on me, they tapped my phone," Merritt charges.

Jim Hougan, in his 1984 book Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA, wrote about Merritt's allegations:

"If we are to believe the disaffected informant, [police officer] Shoffler told him to establish a homosexual relationship with Douglas Caddy, stating falsely that Caddy was gay and a supporter of Communist causes."

As I have written in a prior post in the Forum, it was Edward Miller, a former Assistant FBI Director, who arranged for me in 1984 to visit with Assistant Attorney General Stephen Trott in the U.S. Department of Justice about Billie Sol Estes' desire to come clean with what he knew about LBJ and the Kennedy assassination.

At the time Miller was employed under a 1984 Moody Foundation grant to formulate strategy to combat Terrorism, being so engaged many years before it became the worldwide threat.

Previously, Miller had been convicted along with Mark Felt for "black bag" activities that they had carried out against the New Left in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Their trial and convictions were protested at the time by rank-and-file FBI agents across the country. Not long after his first election as President, Ronald Reagan set aside the convictions of Miller and Felt and granted them Presidential pardons. Reagan, who personally was sympathetic to the plight of Miller and Felt, did so upon the recommendation of Assistant Attorney General Trott.

In 1984, Miller told me that Mark Felt desired to meet me. At the time I only knew of Felt's role with Miller in the "black bag" case and subsequent Presidential pardons. I was unaware of Felt's role in Watergate. When Miller did introduce me to Felt at a meeting that took place in Washington, I found the occasion disconcerting because it became obvious from Felt's attitude towards me that he knew something that I did not. This was cleared up with the revelation last year that Felt was Deep Throat all during the time that he had directed the FBI's investigation into Watergate.

This is why I maintain Mark Felt, in addition to being Deep Throat, also engaged in outrageous official FBI activities that spurred Hunt and Liddy to embark upon the Watergate coverup, the subsequent exposure of which brought lasting fame and fortune to Felt and to Woodward and Bernstein.

The article below, from Saturday's The Standard in Hong Kong, links Ed Fuelner and the Heritage Foundation to the Abramoff Scandal.

As you may remember from one of my prior posts, I stated that the sociopaths took over the conservative movement in 1974, when Joseph Coors of Coors Beer Company funded the founding of the Heritage Foundation by Ed Fuelner and the Committee for A Free Congress by Paul Weyrich.

So it appears now that the sociopaths and the opportunists have merged into what is becoming one of America's biggest scandals.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

The Standard in Hong Kong

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_print.a...902&sid=6399044

The wave of corruption allegations sweeping through Washington's highest echelons has washed into Hong Kong business. Zach Coleman and Chaim Estulin investigate

The sign on the door of Suite 401 of the Baskerville House office building in Central has changed. The same folks are believed to be in the office, but a political drama on the other side of the world is disrupting their work.

Washington loves a scandal and almost daily revelations about lobbyist Jack Abramoff's influence machine have gripped political mavens worldwide.

The troubles of Abramoff, now under indictment, and his close friend, United States Congressman Tom DeLay, who has also been indicted on an unrelated matter and has stepped down as Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives, threaten to swamp the Republican machine in corruption investigations.

Less well known is that a substantial tributary of Abramoff's river of influence ran through Hong Kong. Joining the casualty list from the scandal next week will be lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group, whose only office outside Washington was in Hong Kong. Following Abramoff's guilty plea on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion, Alexander Strategy's activities are now a focus of scrutiny by US government investigators, according to the New York Times.

With business as usual impossible, the firm will officially close its doors at the end of the month.

Alexander Strategy lies at the center of the web between Abramoff and DeLay.

It was founded by former DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham and employed DeLay's wife and other former aides. The firm worked closely and shared clients with Abramoff.

A significant avenue of cooperation ran through Hong Kong, where Abramoff's original firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, established its first overseas presence soon after he joined.

At the center of the Hong Kong operation was Belle Haven Consultants, which shared space with Alexander in Central. The ties allowed Alexander to reach beyond Capitol Hill to enmesh Asian clients. In the same office was the Heritage Foundation, the US conservative think-tank best known here for naming Hong Kong the freest economy in the world in its annual Index of Economic Freedom.

Through the efforts of Alexander Strategy, Abramoff and Heritage, millions of dollars flowed from Asia to Washington. Clients in turn gained access to official Washington, including President George W Bush.

Since The Standard first wrote about the subject two years ago, other investigations into the Asian ventures of Alexander Strategy and Heritage Foundation have raised more questions about whether Heritage overstepped the bounds of its nonprofit status in the US and how congressional junkets to the region were accounted for and financed.

Today, the Alexander Strategy and Heritage Foundation names are gone from the door of Suite 401. Belle Haven Consultant's name remains in the building and floor lobbies.

This little-known firm was formed as a for-profit entity by Edwin Feulner, Heritage's co-founder and president, in 1997 together with Kenneth Sheffer, his chief personal adviser on Asia policy, according to The Washington Post.

Feulner's wife, Linda, later took his place as a partner then withdrew in 2001 to serve as a paid senior adviser, the Post reported. She also served as a paid adviser to Alexander Strategy.

Alexander Strategy partner Edward Stewart told the Standard in 2004 that Linda Feulner introduced his firm to Belle Haven, which subsequently acted as a subcontractor to Alexander Strategy. Belle Haven, now co-owned by Sheffer and long-time associate Beth Allison Cave, has also been a client of Alexander Strategy's lobbying business.

According to US Senate records, Belle Haven has paid Alexander Strategy at least US$620,000 (HK$4.84 million) since September 2001.

A review of US Justice Department records by the Washington Post found that the two companies signed a new contract in late 2004 calling for Belle Haven to pay US$840,000 over the subsequent 10 months.

For three weeks that year, while Alexander Strategy represented Belle Haven, Standard Chartered Bank financed and directed part of the lobbying activity, according to Senate filings. StanChart has its own long- standing lobbyist in Washington and spokeswoman Gabriel Kwan declined to comment on the episode.

It's not clear what Alexander Strategy's shutdown will mean for the Hong Kong base. According to a source, although the firm boasted of dual Washington-Hong Kong offices in a 2002 press release, it largely operated here through Belle Haven, which remains open.

Sheffer and Cave operate a second company, Summit International Consultants, from the same premises. Neither Sheffer nor Cave could be reached for comment.

Aside from Belle Haven, Alexander Strategy also worked with at least a half a dozen other Asia-related clients but some of the liaisons were brief.

Shanghai River Resources, a Hong Kong consulting company run by Apple Daily executive and former Republicans Abroad chairman Mark Simon, hired Alexander Strategy in June 2002 to help promote a US- Taiwan free trade agreement on behalf of Taiwanese business interests but dropped the firm three months later.

Simon declined to publicly discuss the fall-out, but the Taiwanese moved their business to a rival lobbying firm two months afterwards.

The American Bondholders Foundation, which represents holders of bonds issued by pre-communist China, dropped Alexander Strategy in May 2002 but the filings do not indicate when the relationship started.

Another client was never mentioned in Senate filings. In December 1999, Ed Buckham traveled to the Pacific island of Saipan with Michael Scanlon, another former DeLay aide, to lobby members of the local legislature there to support Benigno Fitial, a former executive of an affiliate of Hong Kong- listed Luen Thai Holdings, to be House speaker.

The cash-strapped local government had suspended its pricey lobbying contract with Abramoff and Fitial supported its reinstatement.

Though he came from the minority party, Fitial won the speaker's post after two legislators switched their votes. The US Congress subsequently approved funding for special projects in the two legislators' districts and the local government reinstated Abramoff's contract.

Though Saipan yielded no official client for Alexander Strategy, the owners of Luen Thai and other island garment makers donated about US$500,000 to an organization called the US Family Network, which in turn paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Alexander Strategy, according to a Post investigation of the group.

A similar dynamic may have been at work in Malaysia. In October 2000, Abramoff drew up a proposal on behalf of Preston Gates to assist the Malaysian government to repair an image damaged by political repression, anti- Western and anti-Semitic remarks by then-prime minister Mahathir Mohammed and the jailing of former deputy Anwar Ibrahim.

The plans included a public relations campaign, the organization of pro- government interest groups in the US and exchange trips by Malaysian and American officials.

Abramoff left Preston Gates soon after writing the memo, which is posted on The New Republic's Web site. By the end of 2001, Belle Haven had hired Alexander Strategy for help "promoting and advocating Malaysia's positive investment climate and business opportunities" in connection with a company called PK Baru Energy. A new group called the US-Malaysia Exchange Association also hired Alexander Strategy for support "enhancing the bilateral relationship between Malaysia and the US."

Virtually all of the money Alexander Strategy reported receiving from Belle Haven related to the Malaysian advocacy. Malaysia Exchange directly paid Alexander Strategy less than US$20,000 a year, according to Senate records.

Belle Haven also hired three other Washington lobbying firms, including one run by Heritage senior fellow and former US Senator Malcolm Wallop, around the same time to support its Malaysian campaign, paying them a total of US$780,000.

The Standard's earlier investigation reported that two of the firms indicated that Belle Haven retained their services on behalf of Malaysia Exchange. The US Lobbying Disclosure Act requires consultants hiring lobbyists to provide the identity of their real client, according to Jan Witold Baran, a Washington lawyer specializing in lobbying law.

A report by private investigators found PK Baru to be an inactive company run in part by Megat Junid bin Megat Ayob, a ruling party official and close ally of Mahathir who is also the chairman of Malaysia Exchange.

Megat Junid said in a 2004 interview with the Standard that he organized Malaysia Exchange after talks with Ed Feulner, whose deputy, Sheffer, served as a director. Wallop was deputy chair.

"We felt strongly when Bush won the presidency it was time to establish closer economic and social connections between the two countries," Megat Junid said. Sheffer told the Post, "These guys wanted to hire some people to figure out how can we start to improve our relationship with the US."

The new group generated fast results. In 2001, DeLay and three other congressmen traveled to Malaysia with their spouses on a trip officially sponsored by Heritage. Wallop, who went on the trip, told Time magazine that Belle Haven's financial involvement was more important to the trip than Heritage's.

In the following months, more congressmen made their way to Kuala Lumpur and senior Malaysian officials began beating a path to Washington, an interchange that climaxed with Mahathir visiting the White House in May 2002, his first state visit in eight years.

"We did a good job to create a good atmosphere between the two leaders," said Megat Junid, who was part of the delegation.

During Mahathir's visit, two House members who had recently traveled to his country launched an official Malaysia Trade, Security and Economic Cooperation Caucus. Though in past years Heritage had been publicly critical of Mahathir, Feulner hosted a dinner reception to honor the prime minister.

The Post, citing a former Heritage official, said Feulner that year pushed his staff to boost Malaysia's ranking in the Index of Economic Freedom, but the group denied such intervention.

Abramoff may have earned a return from coming up with the Malaysia action plan. A US Senate committee last year released an invoice for US$300,000 sent to the Malaysian Embassy in Washington by the American International Center in 2001. Two former Abramoff associates told the Post that the center was "a front created in part to hide Abramoff's representation of Malaysia."

The National Journal reported recently that the Malaysian government sent nearly US$1 million to the center in 2001 and 2002 and that the center in turn paid Greenberg Traurig, the firm Abramoff joined in January 2001 after leaving Preston Gates, US$1.5 million.

Intriguingly, a firm set up by close Abramoff ally Grover Norquist was retained to lobby on behalf of Anwar, the then-imprisoned former Mahathir aide whose cause celebre was cited in Abramoff's 2000 memo as a key justification for the government to commence its Washington drive.

Alexander Strategy's other big Asian client was the Korea-US Exchange Council, augmented by Universal Bearings, a company owned by the Hanwha Group of council chairman Kim Seung-youn.

Kim formed the council and hired Alexander Strategy to establish himself "as the leading Korean business statesman in US-Korean relations," according to a strategy document obtained by Time.

Feulner was on the council's board and Sheffer served as an adviser.

The Exchange Council and Universal Bearings have together paid Alexander Strategy close to US$1 million since 2001. Kim made key headway on his goal, hosting or traveling to Washington to meet DeLay, Vice-President Dick Cheney, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and then- Attorney General John Ashcroft, among others.

The junkets have come under scrutiny in part because House rules forbid members from accepting trips paid by the registered agents of foreign interests. The council registered as a foreign agent in 2001.

I double-checked it and found that it was indeed the Moodys who bailed out Hilton. Hilton has nothing nice to say about Shearn. Do you know if the Moodys ever had any dealings with the Maceo Brothers, or if they ever had a stake in the legendary Balinese Casino in Galveston?

There were two persons named Shearn Moody, father and son. The son, with whom I worked, was less than 10 years old during the depression. So if Conrad Hilton had anything bad to say about Shearn Moody, it was probably his father. From what I understand, his father and the founder of the dynasty, W. F. Moody, [father of Shearn (sr.)], were both mean in their dealings with others, especially their employees.

The Maceo family, mob connected, operated out of Galveston, a small island 70 miles from Houston, for many years until the Texas Attorney General shut down their gambling operation in the 1950's. From what Shearn Moody told me, the two families each had their own financial empire and there was no cross-fertilization.

I was wondering if the Moodys of Galveston relate to the Moody who, according to Gerry Hemming, arranged for Oswald to be flown back into the U.S. from Merida.

Shearn Moody (sr,) died when his son was two years old. So he could not have had any connection with Oswald.

His son, Shearn (jr.), with whom I worked, was basically non-political and also had no connection with Oswald. He was pre-occupied with getting out from under a $12 million judgment that had been handed down in federal court due to the manner in which he had operated his own insurance company in Alabama. This judgment occurred before I met him but based on what I learned, he had been mistreated by corrupt Alabama insurance officials who essentially devised a scheme to steal his company. His lawyer was Roy Cohn. He ignored Cohn's legal advice about settling his case and then got hit with a huge judgment.

Shearn Moody was interested in history and the story of Billie Sol intrigued him, especially so after he met Billie Sol for the first time at the Hotel Washington. However, he viewed the Billie Sol saga essentially as a means to interest the FBI in his own case in which his Alabama insurance company had been stolen. Later, the FBI did assist him in this and I was asked by the FBI to help it in this operation, which had an unsuccessful ending.

Billie Sol told me that the only person that LBJ physically feared was John Connolly, former Texas governor. The two political giants collaborated in politics and essentially were a team. According to Billie Sol, John Connolly would not hesitate to terminate someone who stood in his way. When I told Shearn Moody about what Billie Sol had said about Connolly , he recounted to me a story about an event that had recently occurred that basically supported Billie Sol's statement.

The bottom line is that the Moody family in Galveston was in no way connected to Oswald or to the JFK assassination.

It's interesting, Mr. Caddy, that you make note that the hotel business and the intelligence business overlap. When you mentioned the Moodys of Galveston as the ones who contacted you re Billie Sol Estes, I tried to remember where I'd heard of them. If I'm not mistaken, it was in Conrad Hilton's book Be My Guest. I believed they loaned him the money to keep Hilton Hotels afloat during the depression. Not sure if there's a connection...

I am unaware of the relationship between the Moody family of Galveston, Texas and a loan to Conrad Hilton during the depression to keep the Hilton hotel chain afloat.

The Moody Foundation probably has wealth estimated at more than 1.5 billion dollars, were a full appraisal made of its assets. It controls the American National Insurance Company of Galveston (ANICO), the founding of which was the basis of the Moody family financial empire.

It used to own and may still do so, through an affiliated operation, two hotels, one in Washington, D.C. and the other in San Antonio, Texas.

The hotel in Washington, D.C. was the Hotel Washington. I stayed there and met and conferred with Shearn Moody, since deceased and one of the then three Foundation trustees, at times during the 1980's. It is located one block from the White House, with only the Treasury Department Building in-between. The view of the Washington skyline from its rooftop terrace is superb.

At one time in 1984 Billie Sol and his daughter stayed at the Washington Hotel, guests of Shearn Moody, when the National Booksellers Assn. was having a convention in Washington. Pam Estes attended the convention as her book about Billie Sol had recently been published and was on display there.

Billie Sol told me that LBJ adamantly refused to enter the doors of the Washington Hotel all during the period LBJ was in Washington for reasons that one can speculate on.

Funds from the Moody Foundation at one time were used to build casinos in Las Vegas operated by the mob. Shearn Moody led the successful fight to regain family control of the foundation and end the funding of these particular questionable activities.

On the subject of the hotel business and intelligence, it should be recalled that Bobby Baker at LBJ's direction, in the early 1960's, opened his Carousel hotel/club on the eastern shore of Maryland that was used to entrap members of Congress. Few recall that at the very time JFK was assassinated a major investigation was underway in Washington on the relationship of Bobby Baker and LBJ that was said would lead to LBJ's downfall. The investigation, which had dominated the media, was terminated within a few days after JFK was killed.

Supplemental information to my prior responses regarding my being linked to the CIA:

(1) One relevant incident occurred while I was working out of the Mullen Company office in my capacity as an employee of General Foods Corporation, which was a client of Mullen.

One day Robert Mullen's secretary told me that he was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. When I talked to him he told me that he was in Chile. (I knew that he had been out of the office for a few days but not where he was). He said that he was in Chile doing public relations and media work in fomenting opposition to President Allende. Of course, we all know now that Allende was later killed. Apparently, America likes to see Democracy flourish in a foreign country only so long as it controls who is in charge of that country's destiny.

I do not know why Mullen chose to tell me this other than to impress me. It certainly piqued my interest at the time but not enough for me to make the mental leap that the Mullen Company was actually a CIA front.

(2) While it is true that I have never worked for the CIA or any intelligence agency, I need to add that I was approached at one time to work for the CIA. This event occurred about three months before Watergate broke open in June 1972. Howard Hunt asked me to join him and a Mr. Huston (I think the name was Larry Huston), who was general counsel for the CIA. Hunt drove me to a restaurant/bar not far from the CIA headquarters where we met Huston.

The purpose of the meeting was to ascertain whether I would be interested in working for the CIA. If I were interested, the CIA wanted me to oversee the building of a luxurious hotel on the coast of Nicaragua. After it was constructed, I would be in charge of the building, which apparently would be used to lure the country's socialist politicians there to get to know more about them.

I told Hunt and Huston that I would think about it but never pursued it any further. Of course, when the Watergate scandal evolved, it became obvious that my role as an attorney in that criminal case precluded me from ever being an asset to the CIA in its operations.

The hotel business must play a key role in the intelligence business. Around 1997 an Oriental friend in Houston, Texas, where I live, told me that she had been approached by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to move to Bangkok, Thailand. There she would be in charge of the hospitality desk in the lobby of one of the most prominent luxury hotels. Her duties would be to follow and report on the movements of drug lords who stayed at the hotel or conducted business there. She turned down the DEA's offer.

Thank your for your responses Mr. Caddy.

Do you think that the car accident sustained by former Tx. Ranger Clint Peoples was murder?

Do you have an opinion as to who killed JFK?

Was Justice Dept attorney Steven Trott truly interested in finding out, in your opinion?

I find the automobile accident that killed Clint Peoples to be highly suspicious. It is my understanding that he had been scheduled two days after the date of the accident to interview Billie Sol on video in great detail about all the murders. Peoples, from his days as a Texas Ranger, had a unmatched grasp of the facts in all the murders.

Stephen Poguese (spelling?) whose illuminating interview with Billie Sol appears on the video produced by Lyle and Theresa Sardie died suddenly of a heart attack soon after the interview. He was in his '40s.

Mac Wallace also died in an automobile accident of suspicious nature. Several of the murder victims listed by Billie Sol in my letter to Assistant Attorney General Stephen Trott were killed from carbon monoxide poisoning. Henry Marshal was killed beside his vehicle and also had carbon monoxide in his blood.

I think Mac Wallace played a key role in the killing of John Kennedy and that he had a relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Stephen Trott was intensely interested to doing what was necessary to facilitate in getting Billie Sol to reveal what he knew. The onus is on Billie Sol for letting that unique opportunity pass by at the time.

What is your opinion of William F. Buckley?

William F. Buckley is, of course, the person most responsible for legitimizing the modern conservative movement. I think he must be in some pain these days as it has not turned out as he had planned. In that sense he is a captive of his significant role in history, as it would almost be impossible for him to denounce the movement that he brought into existence even though it has taken on the trappings of a police state mentality with worldwide ambitions.

Mr. Caddy, in the letters you submitted to Justice it appears that Estes was willing to offer Kyle Brown as a first hand witness to Cliff Carter's remarks about Johnson.

William Remond has a video of Brown confirming this. Unfortunately Brown does not seem to be talking to other researchers.

In his most recent book Estes goes back on this and says the witness was not Brown but someone he will not name. This seems to seriously hurt his original stand.

I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that point?

I have not seen Billie Sol's recent book. I shall order one promptly. I do not know why he is now stating that Kyle Brown was not a first hand witness to Cliff Carter's remarks about LBJ. I have not seen or talked to Billie Sol since the latter part of 1984.

1) Was the Mullen Company a front for the CIA so 'cover' could be given to agents ????

2) If so... did you continue to have any contact with the agency after leaving Mullen, were you any kind of an asset for the purposes of domestic or foreign intelligence????

3) Did your association with the Mullen company, Howard Hunt and other Watergate individuals lead you to any contacts that brought on your representation of Billie Sol Estes????

4) Was General Foods your cover employer at Mullen Company ???

5) Are you the same Douglas Caddy who as an attorney based in Houston, TX has written extensively on laws and regulations in the insurance industry???? ( I 'googled' your name and found some articles by one, Douglas Caddy)

I'll have some more questions soon...... that was a great article in The Advocate , by the way.

(1) The Mullen Company was a front cover for the CIA and, in fact, had been organized as an entity by the CIA. Its CIA background was disclosed in Senator Howard Baker's supplemental statement to the Senate Watergate Committee's final report.

I have never been employed by the CIA or any other intelligence organization. I did at one time join the Association of Former Intelligence Officers as an Associate Member by paying a one year's dues of $10 but did so because I was interested in receiving materials published by the organization. I never attended any of its meetings or met anyone associated with the organization.

When I was graduated from New York University School of Law I became an employee of General Foods Corporation at its White Plains, N.Y. headquarters. One of the reasons the company employed me was that while attending law school, I worked as an employee in the New York City private offices of then Governor Nelson Rockefeller, on the staff of Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. I was conversant with the New York political scene as well as national politics.

At no time while working for General Foods was I informed that the Mullen Company, which it retained to represent its Washington interests, was a CIA front. In 1969 General Foods assigned me from its headquarters to work in Washington as a prelude to opening its own office there with my being its chief spokesman in Washington. The company told me that for the first year I would be working out of the Mullen Company offices in the Kiplinger Newsletter Building. During that first year there several things occurred that raised questions in my mind about the Mullen Company but I never reached the ultimate conclusion that it was actually a CIA front. Howard Hunt came on board the Mullen Company some months after I began working out of its office, which was how I came to make his acquaintance. At no time was I ever on the payroll of the Mullen Company. I was exclusively employed by General Foods.

I should add that there has always been a question in my mind whether I was used by General Foods and the CIA unwittingly to provide "cover" for the Mullen Company. For example, I served on the Washington Representatives Committee of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, representing General Foods, which lent the air of legitimacy to the role of the Mullen Company being retained by General Foods. By the way, besides General Foods, the Mullen Company's second major client was the Mormon Church. Robert Mullen, a Christian Scientist by religion, was the author of a book on the history of the Mormon Church.

(2) I never had any contact with the Mullen Company after I left employment by General Foods other than my legal representation of Howard Hunt, who was a Mullen employee. Robert Bennett, now Senator Robert Bennett of Utah, apparently was misquoted by Woodward-Bernstein in the Washington Post after Watergate broke about my time at Mullen. He subsequently wrote me a letter of explanation. Bennett, a Mormon, had purchased the Mullen Company from Robert Mullen, apparently at the CIA's direction, about the time I left General Foods to join a law firm in Washington.

Bennett's letter is included in my professional files on the founding of the modern conservative movement, Watergate, Billie Sol, and other matters that I donated some years ago to the University Library Archives of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon.

(3) No person that I was associated with at General Foods, Mullen Company, or in Watergate led me to representing Billie Sol. As I have previously explained, this came about through my acquaintance with Shearn Moody, a trustee of the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas.

(4) General Foods was my sole employer when I worked out of the Mullen Company offices at the behest of General Foods. I have concluded that General Foods knew the Mullen Company was a CIA front and that General Foods cooperated with the cover operation and undoubtedly benefitted from it by receiving "inside? government information that was beneficial to its corporate interests, much akin to the United Fruit Company.

(5) I am the author of two books on insurance, both published by the Texas A&M University Press.

Douglas, I'm puzzled by: "At one time in the 1950s and '60s the eagle was tilted somewhat too much to its left wing. "

I've never thought so myself. This was a time of extreme right and extreme left. I think they feed off and react to each other. Tit for tat.

Could you elaborate please? Can you pinpoint 'a time', or was it more of a perception based on from where one looks?

My general political philosophy based on the concept that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly straight, a left wing and a right wing, is strictly my personal viewpoint. It should be noted that William F. Buckley?s magazine, National Review, did not begin publishing until 1955 (50 years ago) and up to that time there was a complete void of conservative intellectual thought. A few years after National Review appeared, Goldwater assumed the political mantle of Robert Taft, who had died in 1953. Young Americans for Freedom was born in 1960, which led to the modern conservative movement, since hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists.

Welcome to the forum.

Do you recall being asked to be present for a press conference in May of 1998 representing Barr McClellan, regarding the fingerprint match by print expert Nathan Darby, of the known prints of Mac Wallace and the latent print found at the School Text Book Depository?

You did not attend this press conference, do you remember why?

Do you have an opinion of the fingerprint evidence?

Did/do you believe the allegations Billie Sol made of Mac Wallace?

Do you still represent Billie Sol?

I was not asked to attend the press conference in May of 1998 regarding the fingerprint match by print expert Nathan Darby. Barr McClellan had informed me of Mr. Darby's conclusion about the fingerprint but I did not learn about the press conference until some time afterwards.

Based on Mr. Darby's superb professional credentials, I have every reason to believe his conclusion about the fingerprint is accurate.

I do believe that the allegations about Malcolm (Mac) Wallace made by Billie Sol are well-founded, based on documents that I have read. I should add that my strongest reason for so believing is that U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples told me that he had learned of Wallace's involvement from his own investigation long before Billie Sol retained my legal services.

I have not represented Billie Sol since late 1984, after he had a last-minute change of mind and refused to meet with the FBI agents sent to Abilene to interrogate him by Assistant Attorney General Trott and FBI Director Webster. I put a great deal of time into arranging just such a meeting at the request of Billie Sol and was sorely disappointed, as was his daughter Pam, when he abruptly backed out.

(1) I believe in the past you represented Billie Sol Estes. On 9th August, 1984, you wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter you claimed that Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. You added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."

Did Billie Sol Estes provide you with any evidence that suggested his story was true?

My relationship with Billie Sol Estes began in 1983 when Shearn Moody, a trustee of the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas, asked me to visit Billie Sol who was incarcerated in the federal prison at Big Spring, Texas. Billie Sol had telephoned Mr. Moody at the suggestion of a fellow inmate who knew Moody from past days when that inmate had been a lobbyist in the state capital. Billie Sol told Moody that he wanted to tell the story publicly about his long and close relationship with Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) as LBJ?s bagman and requested Moody's assistance in getting this done. Moody was happy to oblige.

I met with Billie Sol in prison, who related his desire to tell all. I suggested that he do so in book form and that I would be helpful in any way that I could since I already had two books published.

Moody and I heard nothing more from Billie Sol until soon after his release from prison in early January 1984. At that time he called Moody and Moody again asked me to visit Billie Sol at the latter's home in Abilene, Texas.

There Billie Sol presented me with a copy of the recently released book that his daughter, Pam Estes, had written based on my suggestion to him when he was in prison. Its title was "Billie Sol: King of the Wheeler-Dealers" and it had caused a minor sensation. Based on its limited success, Billie Sol said that he wanted to have his own story published. His daughter's book only told her personal story of the tribulations of the Estes' family in the preceding 20 years.

However, Billie Sol said that before he could tell his full story in book form that he had to get immunity from prosecution by the Texas law authorities and by the U.S. Department of Justice as there is no statute of limitations for murder. A friend of mine, Edward Miller, a former Assistant Director of the FBI, arranged for Miller and myself to meet with Stephen Trott, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, to discuss the question of granting immunity to Billie Sol.

Miller and I met with Trott several times. The Forum has already in its discussions among its members remarked upon the letters exchanged between Trott and myself. In the end the immunity effort came to an abrupt halt when Billie Sol got cold feet at the last moment and backed out of a meeting with three FBI agents sent by Trott to meet with him and myself in Abilene in September 1984.

The contents of the letters between Trott and myself speak for themselves. Billie Sol did not provide me with any evidence that his story, as detailed in the letters, was true. I never heard nor saw the clandestine tape recordings that he claimed that he had in his possession that had been made years earlier, which allegedly supported his contentions.

However, there is quite a bit of supporting evidence from other sources. This is as follows:

(1) In 1964, J. Evetts Haley, a distinguished Texas historian, wrote "A Texan Looks at Lyndon."

Millions of copies of this paperback were widely distributed. Haley's book provided concrete evidence concerning most of the murders outlined in my correspondence with Trott.

(2) In attempting to get Billie Sol immunity in 1984, I worked closely with Clint Peoples, U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Texas. Peoples had followed the Estes' story for many years, having been assigned to the Estes' pending criminal case in the 1960's when he was a Texas Ranger. Peoples had several large file drawers containing materials about Estes and the murders that he showed me when I visited him in the U.S. Courthouse in Dallas. He was on good terms with Estes and constantly encouraged me to do my best to get Estes' story out. When he retired he became head of the Texas Rangers Museum in Waco, Texas, and in 1992 was killed in an automobile accident. Where Peoples' extensive files on Estes and the murders are today is unknown.

(3) I arranged for Lucianne Goldberg, then a literary agent and now sponsor of http://www.lucianne.com/, to visit Billie Sol in Abilene in 1984 in an effort to get his story published. Lucianne there disclosed to us that she had once met Malcolm (Mac) Wallace, who was the stone-cold killer retained by LBJ, when she had worked in the White House in LBJ's administration.

(4) The Texas Observer, a highly respected journal of opinion, published a thoroughly researched article by Bill Adler in its November 7, 1986 issue titled, "The Killing of Henry Marshall." The article is required reading for anyone interested in the murders.

(5) In 1998, a video titled "LBJ: A Closer Look" was released, having been produced by two Californians, Lyle and Theresa Sardie. The video contains interviews with key persons who knew of the murders and of the LBJ-Billie Sol connection.

(6) In 2003, the book "Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ murdered JFK" was published. Its author is Barr McClellan, father of Bush's current press secretary in the White House, Scott McClellan. Barr McClellan was a lawyer with the law firm in Austin that handled LBJ's secret financial empire before and after he became President.

(7) Also in 2003, the History Channel showed "The Men Who Killed Kennedy: The Final Chapter." Much of this show drew on McClellan's book and my letters to Trott. After it was telecast several times, immense pressure was brought upon the History Channel to withdraw the video from being offered for sale to the public. For the first time in its own history the History Channel succumbed to this outside pressure that was orchestrated by Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Pictures Association of America and former LBJ aide, and reluctantly withdrew the video from public circulation.

(8) Both Barr McClellan and I, among others, have in our possession documents and papers, too numerous and lengthy to detail here, that help to round out the full LBJ-Billie Sol story, including letters from LBJ to Billie Sol.

Could you explain in more detail what you mean by the phrase that the conservative movement in "had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists"?

I became active politically while still in high school in New Orleans in the early 1950's. Later, as a student at Georgetown University, I helped organize the National Student Committee for the Loyalty Oath in 1959. This led to the creation of Youth for Goldwater for Vice President in early 1960 and later that year to Young Americans for Freedom. This was the genesis of the modern conservative movement in the United States.

In 1961 the first mass conservative rally, sponsored by YAF, was held in Manhattan Center in New York City. The next year an even larger rally was held in Madison Square Garden.

If I were to pinpoint when the conservative movement was first hijacked by sociopaths, I would say it took place in 1974, just after President Nixon was forced to resign. His resignation opened the way for the sociopaths to take over.

In late 1974, the board of directors of the Schuchman Foundation met. Robert Schuchman was the first national chairman of YAF. In attendance at the meeting, in addition to the foundation?s directors, were Edwin Feulner, Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors. Coors, president of Coors Beer Company, told the foundation directors that unless they did exactly what he and Feulner and Weyrich directed them to do, he would destroy them and their organization.

The Schuchman Foundation directors brushed aside Coors? threat. Shortly thereafter, Coors, Feulner and Weyrich organized the Heritage Foundation and the Committee for a Free Congress. The latter two organizations, extremely well funded in the last 30 years, have crafted the national legislation and federal regulations that have enriched the wealthy and crucified the poor and disabled in America.

Since 1974 the conservative movement and the Republican Party, dominated by sociopaths with no social conscience whatsoever, have successfully engaged in what I call "The Politics of Death."

In addition to the sociopaths, a large group of opportunists moved into the conservative movement and the GOP and gained power. The emerging Abramoff lobbying scandal, which leads directly to members of Congress and to the White House, is an example of this opportunism.

Before this scandal has run its course, other opportunists such as the hypocritical Christian leader Ralph Reed and his cohorts will be exposed for sacrificing the public good for their personal gain.

I have been portrayed as a super right-winger when in fact today I am a progressive-liberal who supported Al Gore for President in 2000 and Howard Dean for President in 2004 and belong to People for the American Way, ACLU, and other organizations of similar character. It is true that one time I was pretty conservative, being involved in launching the modern conservative movement in the 1950s and '60s, but I later came to realize that the movement had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists. I have not voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 1984.

My political philosophy has always been that the American eagle needs two strong wings to fly. At one time in the 1950s and '60s the eagle was tilted somewhat too much to its left wing. However, at the present time the eagle is dangerously weighted in favor of its right wing, so much so that its very survival as a symbol of liberty and democracy is at risk.

(1) In September, 1960, you joined forces with Marvin Liebman and William F. Buckley to establish the right-wing Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Do you still hold right-wing views?

I have been portrayed as a super right-winger when in fact today I am a progressive-liberal who supported Al Gore for President in 2000 and Howard Dean for President in 2004 and belong to People for the American Way, ACLU, and other organizations of similar character. It is true that one time I was pretty conservative, being involved in launching the modern conservative movement in the 1950s and '60s, but I later came to realize that the movement had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists. I have not voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 1984.

My political philosophy has always been that the American eagle needs two strong wings to fly. At one time in the 1950s and '60s the eagle was tilted somewhat too much to its left wing. However, at the present time the eagle is dangerously weighted in favor of its right wing, so much so that its very survival as a symbol of liberty and democracy is at risk.

Attorney-at-Law in Houston, Texas. Member of the Texas and District of Columbia Bars. Graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (B.S. degree) and New York University School of Law (J.D. degree). Author of five books, the last three of which being published by Texas A&M University Press. My biography appears in Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World.

My desire to join the Forum is prompted by a desire to elaborate upon and, in same instances, correct previous observations made about me in the Forum in regard to my being linked to Watergate and to Billie Sol Estes, among other matters.