Paul Rigby

LEFT temple, Jim, left.

An interesting piece on the left temple entrance:

Harold Weisberg. Selections from Whitewash (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), pp.331-332:

And another, this time, one perhaps less familiar to US readers:

Dr. ROBERT R.SHAW: "The third bullet struck the President on the left side of the head in the region of the left temporal region and made a large wound of exit on the right side of the head" [Letter from Dr. Shaw to Larry Ross, "Did Two Gunmen Cut Down Kennedy?", Today (British magazine), 15 February 1964, p.4]

LEFT temple, Jim, left.

An interesting piece on the left temple entrance:

Harold Weisberg. Selections from Whitewash (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), pp.331-332:

"One of the doctors Specter did not call…Dr. David Stewart. Dr. Stewart would have sworn to exactly what Dr. McClellan [sic] said. At 8:15 a.m. April 10, 1967, he appeared on the Joe Dolan Show, then on KNEW, Oakland, California. Stewart "was in attendance at the time of the treatment rendered" all three assassination patients, but "primarily my time was spent with Governor Connally and later with Lee Oswald." Another group of physicians was taking care of the President on his entry to the emergency room, "But of course I am aware of their findings as such."

Dolan said he was particularly concerned with the "statement about the shot" that killed the President "coming from the front." Stewart said: "Yes, sir. This was the finding of all the physicians who were in attendance. There was a small wound in the left front of the President's head and there was a quite massive wound of exit at the right back side of the head, and it was felt by all of the physicians at the time to be a wound of entry which went in the front. And this was later corroborated, I think, by the films which showed the President with a rather violent lurch backward."

He noted that "blood and brain tissue were found on the one of the policemen riding behind on a motorcycle." This was Patrolman Billy Hargis, who was behind and to the left.

Dr. Stewart interpreted this phenomenon as one that "completely substantiated the finding that this was a left frontal entry wound" and said the other doctors also did .He also declared the obvious that it would be "impossible for a marksman in the sixth floor" window "to have created that kind of a wound, shooting from behind."

Sid, the thing is about us Brits not demanding an independent inquiry into 7/7, is that not only are we an irresolute citzenry that has been thoroughly potty trained over the centuries, but after God alone knows how many independent inquiries into every subject known to man, we know it is pointless. Everything is always fixed. And seeing as we very largely have a compliant media... who else is to champion our corner for us?

Yours in head banging frustartion

David

David's right, Sid, we have nowhere to go with our protests. Our politicians are terrified, and our media firmly under the spook heel. There are no mainstream outlets for serious questions, reasoned objections etc.

In Britain, and I suspect the same is true in Oz and the United States of Torture, knowledge, even if one can acquire it, is impotence.

And especially am not surprised to see this story crisped up in the Daily Bellylaugh. Right down their proverbial passage, methinks -- they get more inspired leaks from the military inteligence community than Priivate Eye (if the ever so wicked rumours are true?)

More than Private Eye? What a clash of the titans!

PS But surely both get more from SIS than MI? Just look at Paul Foot's work....and all of that space devoted to Christopher Gordievsky??

But I can't help observing that as a rule of thumb, grassy knollers direct far more hostility towards in-car shootists than lone nutters. An odd state of affairs, and one not without significance.

Particularly odd given the number of important eyewitnesses to either the execution itself, or the President's lifeless body, who have gone on record expressing views on the subject of a handgun:

Dr. Charles R. Baxter, in Bill Sloan. JFK: Breaking the Silence (Dallas, Texas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1993), p.92: "Although Dr. Baxter…declined to be interviewed for this book, Baxter did issue a brief comment in October 1992 through the school's public information office in which he described the throat wound as being "very small" and looking as though "it might have come from a handgun."

Dr. Charles Wilbur: “Interpretation of the fatal head wound by several attending surgeons suggested a high velocity handgun bullet fired at close range,” [Robert J. Groden & Harrison Edward Livingstone. High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy & the New Evidence of Conspiracy (New York: Berkley Books, November 1990), p.215, citing Wilbur’s Medicolegal Investigation of the President John F. Kennedy Murder (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1974), p.249.

Iona Antonov, “On the Trail of the President’s Killers: part 2,” New Times, 1977, pp.26-30: New York Daily News quoted friends of John Rosselli to the effect that Oswald a decoy “while others ambushed” Kennedy from closer range.

For Dr. Akin, “…if the President had been shot with a low-velocity missile, such as fired from a pistol, it was more likely to have been an entrance wound…” Furthermore, he continued, low velocity missiles of small caliber, i.e., .22 to .32, “…are slow moving, and they enter the body and don’t leave it. They usually stay in it…” [6WCH65]McClelland's testimony as reproduced in Hearings volume 6, p.38: "Dr. McClelland judged that the wound in the President's skull could be expected '…from a very high velocity missile…with a heavy calibre bullet, such as a .45 pistol fired at close range…' This would particularly apply to the skull '…where there was a sudden change in density from the brain to the skull cavity, as it entered. As it left the body, it would still have a great deal of force behind it and would blow up a large segment of tissue as it exited.'"

A.J. Millican: “It sounded like a .45 automatic, or a high-powered rifle.” [19WCH486; Crossfire, p.28]

S.M. Holland: “It would be like you’re firing a .38 pistol right beside a shotgun, or a .45 right beside a shotgun.” [Josiah Thompson. Six Seconds in Dallas, p.84]

“Garrison says assassin killed Kennedy from sewer manhole,” New York Times, 11 December 1967, p.28: Report of Garrison claim on WFAA-TV in Dallas – “The man who killed President Kennedy fired a .45 caliber pistol” and that the bullet entered the “right temple.” Gunman located within manhole on north side of Elm Street. Garrison had just taken possession of a set of photos showing cartridge case being retrieved by unidentified man, under noses of two Dallas police officers, on south curb of Elm.

Photo referred to by Garrison contained within Garrison Tapes documentary, timed at 01:22:04:15.

Joachim Joesten. The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson (London: Peter Dawnay, 1968), pp.248-249: Garrison set to release previously unknown set of photos “which saw a federal agent picking up a large caliber bullet from the lawn on the south side of Elm St, at the spot where Kennedy received his mortal wound. The bullet, which was previously identified as .45, was found amidst splotches of dark grey matter which came from Kennedy’s head…” p.249: “clock above TSBD, clearly visible in one of the pictures, reads 12:40.”

LEFT temple, Jim, left.

I'm no fan of Shayler, but this is very good:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...11133&hl=en

The tendentiousness and sheer intellectual dishonesty of this BBC programme should have brought an end to the organisation in its current anti-democratic form. Let's hope Shayler's doc gets the ball rolling.

And who better to unravel the spooky ways of the BBC than an "ex-"MI5 man!

BBC Allowed Security Service To Spy On Employees

IT IS a tale of secret agents and surveillance that could have come straight out of the BBC's classic John le Carre spy drama, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

By Chris Hastings in London

07/04/06 "SMH" -- -- Confidential papers show that the BBC allowed Britain's domestic security agency, MI5, to investigate the backgrounds and political affiliations of thousands of its employees, including newsreaders, reporters and continuity announcers.

The files, which shed light on the BBC's hitherto secret links with MI5, show that at one stage it was responsible for vetting 6300 BBC posts - almost a third of the total workforce.

They also confirm that the corporation held a list of "subversive organisations" and that evidence of certain kinds of political activity could be a bar to appointment or promotion.

The BBC's reliance on MI5 reached a peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The papers show that senior BBC figures covered up these links in the face of awkward questions from trade unions and the press. The documents refer to a "defensive strategy" based on "categorical denial". One file note, dated March 1, 1985, states: "Keep head down and stonewall all questions."

It is only now, after a request by London's The Sunday Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act, that it has finally been willing to release details of the vetting operation.

Another internal BBC document, dated 1983, confirms: "We supply personal details to the Security Service.

If there is any adverse information known, we receive this information and also, where necessary, an assessment based upon the involvement of the individual. This is presented to us as advice; line management then make the decision as to action."

The documents do not name any of those subjected to vetting.

Senior officials were checked because they had access to confidential government information in relation to their jobs. Thousands of employees were vetted because they were involved in live broadcasts and the BBC was worried about the possibility of on-air bias.

The vetting system, which was phased out in the late 1980s, also applied to television producers, directors, sound engineers, secretaries and researchers and even the spouses of applicants.

The BBC tried on several occasions to be more open about the system, but was blocked by MI5. A memo, dated March 7, 1985, states: "Secrecy of the complete vetting operation is imposed upon us by the Security Service - it is not of our making."

For their part, the security services were increasingly concerned about the number of people being referred to them by the BBC. During the first four months of 1983, they were asked to investigate 619 people.

The BBC declined to comment on the documents.

Telegraph, London

The dutiful servants of a foreign, and frequently hostile, power thus sit in judgement of the political reliability of those who don't serve their masters.

The British establishment in a nutshell: grovel to the strong, bully the weak.

My belief remains, however, that Israeli/organized Jewish interests are top of the food chain in the aggregation of western spookdom that has taken place since World War Two. The most crucial decisions taken by this beast are made outside the Pentagon - or Langley. The US military-industrial-spook complex is like a very large pair of biceps, complete with bone, sinews and claws. The brain is elsewhere.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this, Sid, as there's not much either of us could offer to change minds. But I take your point regarding the thuggy Pentagon and Langley - the exterminatory tactics might be theirs, but the strategy?

I'm no fan of Shayler, but this is very good:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...11133&hl=en

The tendentiousness and sheer intellectual dishonesty of this BBC programme should have brought an end to the organisation in its current anti-democratic form. Let's hope Shayler's doc gets the ball rolling.

Why's that, Paul?

Sid,

By way of reply - and a plug for a fellow "bluenose" - try this link for very important reasons to view Shayler with extreme scepticism: http://www.borderland.co.uk/notes_from_the...derland_002.htm

But the fact remains that the above-linked doc is still very well done.

Paul

I was told by Fred Holroyd that British Army Intelligence officers were openly recruited by the CIA. No thought appeared to be given about working for a foreign power. I suppose that with a number of chairs inside the MoD that are designated for American bums, and the still very secret UKUSA agreement of 1947, it is not viewed as a foreign power anymore...

David

David Bruce, ex-OSS in London, later US Ambassador to the Court of King James, mentions in his dairies just how easy it was to buy up Brits: Angleton appears to have acquired whole swathes of MI5 and MI6.

Makes you wonder why the British taxpayer is obliged to stump up all that cash for organisations that have no meaningfully independent policies or existence. We could save a very considerable sum by simply closing them, leaving the CIA et al to get on with it. They do what they want here anyway.

Is there an organisation we could form or join? "Irate rate-payers against Quislings," perhaps?

I'm no fan of Shayler, but this is very good:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...11133&hl=en

The tendentiousness and sheer intellectual dishonesty of this BBC programme should have brought an end to the organisation in its current anti-democratic form. Let's hope Shayler's doc gets the ball rolling.

But when we strip away the towel, let's make certain that the revealed microphallus is mercilessly mocked.

Charles,

All these aspersions about the precise nature of F's membership - I'm shocked and disappointed. Is there a Freudian analyst in the house?

Paul

I can only think that self importance and self promotion were his motives. That is if, as he said, it wasn't really his idea in the first place -- "we chose a scenario - with their assistance" -- which in my cynical way I read as porker-speak for they chose a scenario with his assistance.

There's nothing like a former policeman to appreciate the Gypsy virtues of having ready folding money cross his palm before he will consent to tell you his fortune.

Sid, is this late night or early morning for you?

Best

David

Self-promotion? Perhaps. But there must be fairly strict rules governing that. Otherwise we'd have spooks and 'private contractors' dropping tidbits of insider knowledge all over the show.

I surmised that Power hadn't been in the loop at the time of his interviews - and simply didn't realize the import of his remarks.

Anyhow, given that the fearless and incorruptible British mass media have - as far as I'm aware - studiously exercised their power to overlook this astonishing story ever since 7/7, no harm done.

Which leads to another possible theory about what these guys are up to when they open gigantic cans of worms, deliberately, in full view - then close them up again and waft off into the ether of unaccountability.

In common parlance, it's called 'taking the piss'.

You asked about the time, David.

It's nearly 10pm and the moon is just about full. A blue moon for this time zone (I gather you had yours last month).

You can always spot a thorough-going conspiracy, Sid, it's full of the most amazing coincidences.

Paul

I can only think that self importance and self promotion were his motives. That is if, as he said, it wasn't really his idea in the first place -- "we chose a scenario - with their assistance" -- which in my cynical way I read as porker-speak for they chose a scenario with his assistance.

There's nothing like a former policeman to appreciate the Gypsy virtues of having ready folding money cross his palm before he will consent to tell you his fortune.

Sid, is this late night or early morning for you?

Best

David

Self-promotion? Perhaps. But there must be fairly strict rules governing that. Otherwise we'd have spooks and 'private contractors' dropping tidbits of insider knowledge all over the show.

I surmised that Power hadn't been in the loop at the time of his interviews - and simply didn't realize the import of his remarks.

Anyhow, given that the fearless and incorruptible British mass media have - as far as I'm aware - studiously exercised their power to overlook this astonishing story ever since 7/7, no harm done.

Which leads to another possible theory about what these guys are up to when they open gigantic cans of worms, deliberately, in full view - then close them up again and waft off into the ether of unaccountability.

In common parlance, it's called 'taking the piss'.

You asked about the time, David.

It's nearly 10pm and the moon is just about full. A blue moon for this time zone (I gather you had yours last month).

You can always spot a thorough-going conspiracy, Sid, it's full of the most amazing coincidences.

Paul

It is perhaps the most terrible indictment of the US media’s domination by the military-spook-industrial complex, and an enduring mystery to the locals – the frequency with which educated Americans turn to the BBC and the Guardian (website) for remotely accurate news. For the aforementioned aboriginals, both are blatantly spook-dominated, and as threatening to the status quo as a loaf of bread. As a service to misguided Americans, I hereby offer this succinct, recent example of how the spook-ridden Grauniad does the business for its infinitely wise masters.

Veteran spook Anthony Brooks died in late April this year. In its edition of Tuesday, 26 June, Dan van der Vat paid tribute to his career. Like all British spooks in Grauniad obits, Brooks was “brilliant at war-time espionage,” and set Europe ablaze - to the profound detriment of the German military, and without regard to the post-war interests of US and UK multinationals - with an elan and an insouciance that was as thrilling as it was efficacious. Vat’s obit was dominated by this ennobling story, leaving little time for anything other than a brisk canter through Brooks’ post-war career. That was confined to a penultimate paragraph that went thus:

“After the war he continued in his clandestine career, mainly with MI6. In 1952 he proved he had moral, as well as physical, courage when he declined a posting to Hanoi. Challenged by the head of the service to go or resign, he wrote out his resignation on the spot and went back to the family business in France. He returned to MI6, however, in time for the Suez crisis of 1956. In the years before his retirement, he was seconded to MI5 to help with cold war espionage.”

Funny, but among the great unwashed, Brooks is chiefly famous for being one of a group of senior MI5 officers, all in thrall to CIA’s James Angleton, named as active plotters against Labour PM Harold Wilson in two Commons motions tabled by MP Dale Campbell-Savours. In David Leigh’s piece on Savours actions, “MP names MI5 six in Wilson affair” (The Observer, 3 May 1987, p.1), Brooks was offered the ultimate accolade: “CIA sources recall him as an impressive officer.” On the same day, the Sunday Telegraph’s Donald Macintyre, aided by Roberts Porter and Payne, quoted an anonymous MI5 source who angrily dismissed the charges against the 5 clique: “You are not talking of Right-wing zealots, but of people who genuinely felt that they had uncovered a threat to the nation” (“MI5 leaps to defend Wilson plot agents,” 3 May 1987, p.1). This characterisation was not, alas, entirely shared by Brooks’ friends, one of whom was quoted, earlier in the same piece, to the effect that the same Brooks held impeccably “Right-wing views.”

Nor was plotting against Harold Wilson a brief side-bar to Brooks’ time in MI5. According to Smear! Wilson and the Secret State (London: Fourth Estate, 1991, p.295), he spent no less than four years investigating pro-Wilson businessman Joseph Kagan.

Redactions and all, and there are many, the CIA family jewels documents are now available in the MFF document archive:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/....do?docId=60409

We added a hotlinked table of contents to make browsing and navigation a little easier.

Enjoy, if that is the right word here....

Rex

Rex,

Do you know if there's a decent index to them yet? And, if so, how to gain access to it?

Paul

Marquis Childs, "Bobby, Bombing and the New Left," Washington Post, 3 March 1967, p.A18:

"The issue of Ramparts that blew the role of the CIA with various left-of-center groups, such as the National Student Association...led off with a savage attack on Kennedy. Written by Ramparts managing editor, Robert Scheer, the article...said...'Bobby is believable and for that reason much more serious.' From the viewpoint of the New Left, dangerous could be substituted for serious. The obvious objective is to destroy any middle ground between the demand for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam and the cry of the hawks for the end of all restraint and total bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong.

In the column by Drew Pearson & Jack Anderson, “CIA Funds Aided Negro Registration,” Washington Post, 7 April 1967, p.D17, cited earlier in this thread, CIA funding for such significant elements of the Civil Rights coalition – channelled through fronts such as the New World Foundation, Aaron E. Norman Fund, the Southern Regional Council and the Georgia Council on Human Relations – was noted. In the same piece, the authors proceeded to identify beneficiaries of the Norman Fund, among them, “CORE’s scholarship program and educational fund.” Here, yet another CIA tributary would appear to run into Langley’s anti-RFK river.

In a May 1966 report on the Cohelan-Scheer contest for California Democratic primary votes due in June, the Washington Post’s Julius Duscha reported that Scheer enjoyed the backing of, among others, CORE.(1) It would also be interesting to know how much CIA money found its way into the Scheer campaign, centered as it was on the “the University of California community that makes up most of Berkeley” (2), via the National Student Association.

The Ramparts revelations concerning CIA funding of the NSA thus look timed to hide a major anti-RFK push through precisely this channel – only one now newly purified by pseudo-disclosure.

(1) Julius Duscha, “Colehan Shuns Humphrey’s Aid, Accepts RFK’s,” Washington Post, 30 May 1966, p.A4.

(2) Ibid.

...people come from miles around just to hear me talk about making transparency overlays.

Marvellous.

Paul, I was surprised to come across 'Program Pale Horse' as well during searching for OP Phoenix info and Ho Chih Minh some weeks ago. A search using Yahoo yielded that from a few sources, primarily Answers.com.

The trigger that reminded me of it was the post by Shanet: "I wasn't afraid of the vietnamese, I was afraid of the guys in the black suits that arrived at the base in a helicopter...when they landed I knew one of us was gonna die! " and your post that followed.

Further research on it is needed. Pick appropriate keywords and names. I posted that initial stuff to see whether others can elaborate.

Many thanks for that, I'll try what you recommend. By way of reciprocating, here's one early glimpse of CIA pseudo-gangs, under Special Forces direction, in mainstream US media:

PETER WORTHINGTON, “Vietnam: School for U.S. Guerillas,” The Nation, 2 March 1963, pp.179-180: p.180:

“U.S. Special Force commandos – the hush-hush branch of the Army – are in isolated villages and deep in rebel-dominated territory. They are taking a page from Communist tactics and organizing resistance movements and spreading propaganda and terrorism. These young specialists are linguists, politically indoctrinated, and are armed with funds for bribing support. They are prepared to kill and terrorize on their own to defeat the enemy.”

Paul

British intelligence?

Not an oxymoron, I think. Just an accolade stolen by a bunch of charlatans and criminals.

I prefer to call that bunch British Stupidity on Dexedrine. BSOD for short.

If I was Gordon Brown, I'd smash them into a thousand pieces, to coin a phrase.

Unfortunately, occupants of No 10 seem to go through a grooming process prior to occupancy, to make sure nothing so inconvenient is ever really on the cards.

Tony Benn, I suspect, was considered ungroomable - hence the panic in the early 1980s when it appeared he might succeed in becoming even deputy leader of a major party.

Gordon Brown reviewed Austen Morgan's undistinguished biography of Harold Wilson for the Independent on Sunday in the paper's edition of 14 June 1992. "Nye, Clem, Jim, Michael and the other one" contains the following: "But he does not, despite his promise to do so, explain the sudden resignation in 1976. Nor does he get to the bottom of Wilson's obsession with the security services." Somehow I don't think Brown will be pursuing that line of enquiry now he's in No.10.

I think Benn's wife, an American, boasted the genuine distinction of joining the "Who Killed Kennedy?" committee in '64. Another reason for the CIA's gimps in British intel not to trust him.

So Ramparts was part of the Empire too?

Marquis Childs, "Bobby, Bombing and the New Left," Washington Post, 3 March 1967, p.A18:

"The issue of Ramparts that blew the role of the CIA with various left-of-center groups, such as the National Student Association...led off with a savage attack on Kennedy. Written by Ramparts managing editor, Robert Scheer, the article...said...'Bobby is believable and for that reason much more serious.' From the viewpoint of the New Left, dangerous could be substituted for serious. The obvious objective is to destroy any middle ground between the demand for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam and the cry of the hawks for the end of all restraint and total bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong.

The Ramparts article charges that Kennedy's involvement with the Vietnam war goes back to the earliest days of the Kennedy Adminsitration, beginning in 1961 when 'he did as much as any man to get us deeply involved there.' Bobby Kennedy's vision of foreign affairs, Scheer writes, 'is standard cold war mythology.'"

RFK more responsible for the US assault on Vietnam than, say, Allen Dulles?

The strategy is as old as politics; and may yet be used in 2008.

More from the same fine Childs column. First up, Ramparts and its political campaigning:

“Back of the [scheer – PR]attack is an interesting venture in the politics of the emerging left. In the California primary last year Scheer ran against Rep. Jeffery Colehan who represents the Berkeley district. On Vietnam, Colehan said he was more dove than hawk and distinctly unhappy about the bombing. Scheer made a deeply emotional appeal for ending the war with American withdrawal.

Kennedy endorsed Colehan. In spite of this, the Colehan people say, a Scheer emissary made a futile trip to Washington in the hope of getting at least a pat on the head from Robert Kennedy for the Scheer candidacy. Colehan won the primary by just under 55 per cent of the vote and was re-elected in November.

Another Ramparts figure, Edward M. Keating, publisher and principal angel, ran unsuccessfully as an anti-war candidate.The political drive and the financing of the magazine seem to have been inextricably tied together. There were allegations at the time that the publicity agent handling the Ramparts account put out much of the flood of campaign literature for Scheer, Keating and one other Ramparts candidate in California. Having lost as much as $1,500,000 in its sensational career, Keating has nevertheless been able to attract lesser angels.

The Ramparts political drive id presently concentrated on the Berkeley city elections. The goal is to make Berkeley a model city of peace which will come as a surprise to the television viewers across the Nation who seen repeated demonstrations and sit-downs in and around the university campus.”

Childs concluded the column with a prophetic meditation on the likely effect of Ramparts’ political endeavours:

“The middle ground under the two-party system is the traditional source of political strength. The effective compromises making it a workable system have been achieved here. Today there are ominous signs that the bitter, prolonged, dirty war in Vietnam is eroding this middle ground.

The New Left, typified by Ramparts although the magazine’s management disclaims any connection with that designation, hopes to gain from that erosion. It is anti-establishment – down with practically everything. But judging by American attitudes, as shown by national sampling, this is a frail hope. The latest Gallup Poll had 67 per cent supporting the bombing in North Vietnam and only 24 per cent opposed.

As a symptom the Ramparts splinter in California is currently significant. As the war goes on, however, it is more likely to appear as just a splinter. Say that there are more than a half million Americans in arms next year. Then a larger question looms.

It is whether any middle ground survives sufficiently to give not only Bobby Kennedy a place to stand but the President himself. Between the hard-nosed, bomb-everything right wing and a Republican campaign pointed as it was in 1952 toward peace the standing room will be all but obliterated.

Few today recall that Nixon’s campaign speeches in ’68 were littered with the word “peace” and variants.

Assorted sources (key words: program pale horse)

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat

on him was death, and hell followed with him". Revelation 6:7

Operation Phoenix was modeled on Project Pale Horse--a CIA-funded "black op"... that used Navy SEALs and Green Berets in Vietnam to lead indigenous teams of killers in detaining, torturing and murdering grassroots political leaders, and anybody else that the U.S. high command disliked. According to congressional investigations of Phoenix in the early 1970s, Vietnamese mercenaries and U.S. special operations forces selectively terminated more than 21,000 South Vietnamese civilians--so-called terrorist suspects--during the war. (Vietnamese sources state the number is more than 40,000. Basically it was shoot fist and then label victin as VC.)

Most of the counterinsurgency Pathet Lao and VC infrastructure experts were in the "snuff and snatch" (assassination and kidnap) teams operating under the command (1962-1963) of John L. Lee, a CIA clandestine service field advisor, TDY (on loan) from the US Army.

A HALO-qualified Airborne Ranger and an "insurgent terrorist neutralization specialist," Lee had successfully trained, advised, and operationally commanded 3-5 man Black op "snuff and snatch" CIA counter-terror teams operating under the name of Project Pale Horse in the northeastern provinces of Laos between January 1962 and April 1963, when his "neutral civilian foreign aid worker" cover was compromised.

Project Pale Horse sidestepped the official U. S. Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation Program (ICEX), Lao, and GVN military chain of command, and had been running six years prior to the establishment of the "official" GVN Phoenix (Kế Hoạch Phụng Hoàng) program in Vietnam.

Lee's CIA Pale Horse counter-terror ops were so effective against advisors of the Soviet KGB First Chief Directorate, the Pathet Lao, and Red Chinese military advisors that the KGB director at the time, Vladimir Semichastniy, placed a $50,000 bounty in gold bullion for Lee's capture or confirmed assassination (allegedly referring to him as a "Pale Horse's Ass"). The bounty was rescinded after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Lee reported to William E. Colby from 1962 to 1963, and to John Richardson in 1963, respective CIA Chiefs of Station, Saigon Vietnam, CIA Director of Central Intelligence John McCone, Lt. Gen. Wm P. Yarborough, Cmdr. Special Warfare Center, Ft. Bragg, N.C.

Vietnam, in '82 Ex-Phoenix operative reveals that sometimes orders were given to kill U.S. military personnel* who were considered security risks. He suspects the orders came not from "division", but from a higher authority such as the CIA or the ONI. Covert Action Information Bulletin (now Covert Action Quarterly) summer 82 52.

Vietnam, 67-73 The Phoenix Program used the CIA's assassination squads, the former counter terror teams later called the provincial reconnaissance units (PRU). Technically they did not mark cadres for assassinations but in practice the pru's anticipated resistance in disputed areas and shot first. People taken prisoner were denounced in Saigon-held areas, picked up at checkpoints or captured in combat and later identified as VC. Sheehan, N. (1988), A Bright Shining Lie, 732.

Vietnam. Phung Hoang aka Phoenix Program quotas for units set by komer for all 242 districts. One result indiscriminate killing with every body labeled VCI. Powers, T. (1979), The Man Who Kept the Secrets, 181-2.

*Fragging by any other name smells just as foul...

Excellent post, John, with the material on Lee entirely new to me, and of precisely the kind I've been looking for. (Will become evident why in future post.) Would be obliged if you could furnish the source(s) of this.

Paul

........the article by R STARNES is a strong

primary document

of the period.

Thanks, Shanet, too true. And here's the editorial that went with it:

The Washington Daily News, 2 October 1963, p.32

What’s Wrong in South Viet Nam?

It is a brutally messed up state of affairs that our man, Richard Starnes, reports from South Viet Nam in his article on Page 3 today.

And the mess he has found isn’t Viet Namese. It is American, involving bitter strife among U.S. agencies – which may help explain the vast cost and lack of satisfactory progress in this operation to contain communist aggression.

The whole situation, as described by Mr. Starnes, must be shocking to Americans who believe we are engaged in a selfless crusade to protect democracy in this far-off land.

He has been told that:

• The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, frustrating a plan of action he took from Washington.

• Secret agents, or “spooks,” from CIA “have penetrated every branch of the American community in Saigon.” Who are we fighting there anyhow? The communists, or our own people?

• The CIA agents represent a tremendous power and are totally unaccountable to anyone. They dabble and interfere in military operations, to the frustration of our military officials.

The bitterness of other American agencies in Saigon toward the CIA, Starnes found, is “almost unbelievable.”

On the basis of this last statement alone, there is something terribly wrong with our system out there.

Defense Secretary McNamara, just back from an inspection trip to Viet Nam, gave the President a preliminary report on his findings at the White House this morning. Mr. McNamara is a tough man of decisive action. It may be assumed he now is in a position to assess the blame for this quarreling and back-biting inside the American family – whether it falls on the CIA or other agencies which accuse the CIA.

One way or the other, some official heads should roll.

Who knows, perhaps a professional American historian will pluck up the courage to ask Dick about what he saw and heard in Saigon. There must be one vertebrate among them!

Whenever the finger is pointed at the SS we are routinely invited to consider the organisation as somehow inured to or exempt from the usual, well-attested, overwhelmingly right-wing bias of US intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies. Why? The SS worked hand-in-glove with both the CIA and the local police forces. (Not so, as I understand it, with Hoover's FBI.) It recruited from the FBI etc. None of these are now, or will ever be, bastions of liberalism, or, indeed, democratic sentiment. Thus the SS was staffed with men of precisely the kind of views and prejudices to be found in these other manifestly right-wing outfits: Ideological/political animus against Kennedy was thus every bit as likely to be found in the SS as in Langley and its myriad offshots.

Then there is the small matter of institutional motivation for wanting JFK dead, recently held elsewhere on this forum to be noticeable only by its absence in the case of the Secret Service. Here again, the truth is quite contrary, as David Talbot makes clear in Brothers, p.22:

“Even before Dallas, Bobby Kennedy seemed to be losing confidence in the ability [more accurately, the will – PR] of the Secret Service to protect his brother…At the time of the assassination, Kennedy was backing a bill, H.R. 4158, which would have given the attorney general the authority to appoint the agents who protected the president, instead of the Secret Service. Rowley, the agency’s chief, acknowledged in his testimony before the Warren Commission that he was adamantly opposed to the bill, asserting that the transfer of authority to RFK’s office would ‘confuse and be a conflict in jurisdiction.’”

Stripped of the task of protecting the president, the Secret Service would have lost budget, and, every bit as importantly, face and clout, not, you understand, with the mere politicians they guarded, or the public they purported to serve also, but with real power: and real power would have lost what was arguably its most important institutional cloak, under which cover Nixon was assisted to destruction, Reagan nearly eliminated, and the anti-Clinton campaign furthered.

On the eve of Dallas, the Secret Service, like the CIA, was fighting to preserve its real raison d’etre. If there was a more powerful motivation for participating in the summary public execution of America's thirty-fifth President, it has yet to be disclosed.

Both Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X were killed by the most reliable method of all, according to Stiff’s typology, the direct positive.

As, of course, were Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and, very nearly, Reagan, and both Roosevelts. Direct positive is thus the commonest means of killing, or attempting to kill, a US President/ex-President. Not a bad pedigree when trying to understand what happened to JFK.

Paul,

American assassins are only lone-nuts. The USSS doesn't recognize covert operatives as assassination threats.

See: USSS Exceptional Case Study Project.

BK

http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ntac_jfs.pdf

Bill,

Great link, for which thanks. Please reassure me that this is just for public consumption - they really can't believe this claptrap, can they?

Paul