Russ Baker

>Are any documents specifically being sought out of those that remain classified?<

Yes. All of them.

Len, Why do you find Skolnick and Stitch to be unreliable?

Len, Why do you find Skolnick and Stitch to be unreliable?

Because of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” principle; they have/had a habit of making false/far fetched/unreliable claims. Both made all sorts of claims based on nothing but supposed confidential sources. This is questionable when it comes from a MSM journalist who often has an editor who is aware of the source's true identity and cite other evidence but very questionable when it comes from obscure sources. Skolnick spread all sorts of BS regarding the Dorothy Hunt crash and other incidents.

Stich claimed to have tapes recorded by CIA agents of Rockefeller speaking to Hoover in

which they implicated themselves and others in the JFK assassination. Supposedly he gave the tapes to Larry McDonald just before the congressman was killed in the KAL 007 shootdown, but never explained why he failed to make copies of the supposed tapes or gave them to a far-right outcast from another state. Too make a long story short this was pure BS. And apparently it was him who told Russ Baker that the 'other' “George Bush of the CIA” was a “coast and landing-beach analyst” when he said he was a “junior watch officer”.

Nor do we have a rational explanation at to why more former agents confided in an obscure CT rather than journalists like Woodward or Hersh or even a more well known CT like Ruppert, why go through the risk if virtually no one will hear about what you nave say?

I also don't trust former government agents or officials who milk their past service for much longer than they actually served, they tend to give good credible information at first but as with Shayler and Edmonds they almost inevitably start spouting nonsense after a while. I wouldn't be surprised if Stich's claims when he left the FAA in the 1960's were credible.

The problem of people posting claims that certain things are BS is that they themselves may be guilty of ladling on more BS. For example, I don't know Stich and have never had any communication with him. He absolutely did NOT tell me anything about "the other George Bush" or about any subject, period. Beware of things that "apparently" or "supposedly" happened.

As has been reported previously on this site, my investigative history of the Bush family, Family of Secrets, has four JFK assassination-related chapters -- scores of revelations, backed up by documents and interviews. Clearly, many of those posting comments here are not familiar with that material.

Mr. Caddy,

I think there is a better than even chance that your perception of what happened is hampered by your inability to fully "appreciate" the importance put on the rewriting of the history of the Watergate affairs by republicans of the further right persuasion. Two authors you named;

....Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, and 2008’s The Strong Man, by James Rosen.”

....if they are not right wingers, would you consider them to be neutral, "centrists", politically?

In John's case, I attributed his opinion, here, http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...t=0#entry169520 as resulting from his inability, as a non-American, to completely understand the depths those republicans will go to to alter the history.

I believe it is as important, or even more to them as it was to GHW Bush and Reagan to keep up the pretense that Vietnam was a "noble war."

I recall reading a post or two of yours where you stated that you were once comfortable living a largely politically unaware life where you just happened to be squarely situated among politically active folks who were to the right of center right...or words to that effect.

You experienced an epiphany of sorts, and moved to the left of those circles, but you just posted what I assume to mean is the idea that the writing of Colodny and Rosen has influence on your opinion as to whether or not Nixon was a "victim."

I wrote about Colodny in the post I posted a link to, above. Rosen voluntarily works for the republican propaganda outlet, Fox news. I don't see them as credible authors about Watergate events. They have background and motive to distort, and I think they've done that.

If you've studied the Jack Abramoff network and activities to the extent I have, I think you would get an understanding that these republican "operatives" are extremely committed ideologically and have long and strong bonds. Rove and Abramoff came out of the "College Republicans" organization. Rove hired, just after the Florida coup put GW Bush in office in Jan., 2001, Abramoff's personal assistant, Susan Ralston, and installed her in an office, for the next seven years, just three doors down from Bush's west wing office. Just one example, of many.

I'd be happy to discuss any example that Baker, Colodny, or Rosen writes about, that you want to raise.

I think I am someone who is center left, if being center left amounts to having a strong skepticism towards our "one party with two right wings" political system, and of the fact that the press is compromised by the elite of our political system "owning the owners" of the major news media. Upton Sinclair exposed this fact in 1919 to 1921, and experienced it first hand in California during the summer of 1934.

If the most influential authorities behind the idea that Nixon was a victim are Colodny and Rosen, it seems to me that this idea is not as compelling as one would expect. Colodny's premise tends to make John Dean out to be playing the "left wing" part that Oswald was cast in for the Kennedy assassination.

Too pat, IMO...what you would expect to come from the investigative "journalism" offerings of right wing political extemists.

Sir, I know for a fact that your characterization of Len Colodny as a conservative or Republican is way off base. And, obviously, if you had read my book "Family of Secrets" or my work over the years for such publications as The Nation, you would know that I cannot be characterized that way either. Of the four of us who have brought out parts of the new Watergate narrative, including Jim Hougan of "Secret Agenda", who wrote for the liberal Harper's magazine, only Rosen would be identified as a conservative. More importantly, to try and judge the research results of open-minded, serious researchers by slapping an ideological label on them is to do them a disservice.

On page 16 of your book, Family of Secrets, you point out that Robert Crowley "managed the CIA relations with cooperative multinational corporations like Ford Motor Company and International Telephone and Telegraph". You then point out that Crowley told Joe Trento that he sometimes used businessmen like George Bush to work for the CIA. "It was much easier to simply set someone up in business like Bush and let him take orders."

Crowley was a major source for Joe Trento’s Secret History of the CIA (2001). Crowley was also a source for other journalists working on books on the CIA. In "Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors that shattered the CIA (1992). He argued that Crowley was "a man of great wisdom". One of the problems of using CIA insiders is that it enables the agency to manage what is disclosed. Journalists who have used Crowley as a source never reveal details of his activities in the CIA.

I have recently found several documents that reveal that Crowley played an important role in the attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. This includes his involvement with characters like Frank Sturgis and Operation 40. I don’t suppose you found any evidence that the connection between Crowley and Bush was Cuba? Crowley was also deeply involved in the efforts by the U.S. to overthrow the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile.

I have not had the opportunity to look extensively into the nature of the Crowley-Bush relationship. However, I take everything that former high-ranking Agency people with a grain of salt. Often, what they reveal is a case of what in tradecraft is called a "limited hangout," in which they provide nominally accurate revelations as cover for even more disturbing and important facts. I cannot believe that people like Crowley could talk to journalists as he did without some kind of approval. So, yes, it is certainly possible that he was being essentially truthful in revealing some kind of operational connection with George HW Bush while not revealing the true extent of it. In any case, I would be interested in hearing directly (not via bulletin board) from anyone who has documents or other information pertaining to this relationship. I can be contacted via this site or at www.familyofsecrets.com .

In Chapter 4 you point out that George H. W. Bush phoned the FBI in Houston a few hours after JFK was assassinated to report that James Parrott had "been talking of killing the president". You suggest on page 56 that the reason for this call to the FBI might have been to establish in "government investigative files" that at the time of the assassination he was in Tyler, Texas. If that is the case, why would he link it to the assassination of JFK?

His call establishes two pieces of information in confidential government files: that he was in Tyler, Texas, around the time of the assassination, but also that he was going out of his way to be helpful to assassination investigators (though as we can see, he was not actually being helpful at all, and his call was nothing but a red herring.) One needs to consider all of the peculiar Bush connections to the circle around Oswald, to the CIA at that time, to people in the motorcade, to the fact that Bush himself was in Dallas that day, as documented in multiple chapters in Family of Secrets. Certainly, any thorough investigation could have potentially uncovered those connections, and so it would not be surprising that his peculiar "confidential call" to the FBI would demonstrate, should it be necessary and should the document ever see the light of day, that he was interested only in doing the right thing.

Wait a minute. We have the Big Picture down pretty good. But what about the peculiar details?

Who was James Milton Parrott. What do we know about him besides him leaving the US Air Force for psychological reasons, enrolling at U. Houston, enlisting in the "Young Republicans," who today would be considered a terrorist organization considering all the dirty tricks that have been committed by their adhearants, and threatening the life of the President more than once, on the record, and calling attention to himself by picketing Dean Rusk when he visited the Rice Hotel, and stimulating Bush to call the FBI to warn them about this guy - some say he did this before the assassination - and today is said to be a Republican Leader in Harris County?

I mean, who is James M. Parrott? Was he really a GOP Dirty Trickster who Bush dropped a dime on?

Is he related to Thomas Parrott, the assistant to MacNamara and Gen. Taylor, who sat in on all the Cuban Coordinating Committee meetings that formed government policy on covert operations against Cuba?

But it's not nothing.

And if he is on record as saying, after the assassintion took place, that he was going to Dallas on 11/22/63 and would be staying that night at the Sheritan, then he is not at Dealey Plaza and that is not him in photos standing in front of the TSBD. Is that right?

BK

I researched that, and found no apparent connection between James Parrott and Thomas Parrott. As for Bush's statement that he was going to Dallas, I address the particulars of that in Family of Secrets--suggest you check it out. On the photo at the TSBD, it is impossible to say with certainty.

Thanks Russ,

Will do.

BK

Oh, And Russ,

Did you get a make on the guy who gave a 11/22/63 alibi for Parrott?

Kearnsky? Reynolds - 233 Red Ripple Road?

Said he stopped by to visit Parrott at his house that afternoon.

Thanks,

BK

Bill, I devote an entire chapter of Family of Secrets to this issue, with an exclusive interview with Kearney Reynolds. I must say that I am a little surprised by how many people on this forum like to ask questions of authors but don't want to spring for a copy of the book itself! We cannot do this sort of very difficult and time-consuming research if the very people who are most interested in the topic will not support our work.

In Chapter 4 you point out that George H. W. Bush phoned the FBI in Houston a few hours after JFK was assassinated to report that James Parrott had "been talking of killing the president". You suggest on page 56 that the reason for this call to the FBI might have been to establish in "government investigative files" that at the time of the assassination he was in Tyler, Texas. If that is the case, why would he link it to the assassination of JFK?

His call establishes two pieces of information in confidential government files: that he was in Tyler, Texas, around the time of the assassination, but also that he was going out of his way to be helpful to assassination investigators (though as we can see, he was not actually being helpful at all, and his call was nothing but a red herring.) One needs to consider all of the peculiar Bush connections to the circle around Oswald, to the CIA at that time, to people in the motorcade, to the fact that Bush himself was in Dallas that day, as documented in multiple chapters in Family of Secrets. Certainly, any thorough investigation could have potentially uncovered those connections, and so it would not be surprising that his peculiar "confidential call" to the FBI would demonstrate, should it be necessary and should the document ever see the light of day, that he was interested only in doing the right thing.

Wait a minute. We have the Big Picture down pretty good. But what about the peculiar details?

Who was James Milton Parrott. What do we know about him besides him leaving the US Air Force for psychological reasons, enrolling at U. Houston, enlisting in the "Young Republicans," who today would be considered a terrorist organization considering all the dirty tricks that have been committed by their adhearants, and threatening the life of the President more than once, on the record, and calling attention to himself by picketing Dean Rusk when he visited the Rice Hotel, and stimulating Bush to call the FBI to warn them about this guy - some say he did this before the assassination - and today is said to be a Republican Leader in Harris County?

I mean, who is James M. Parrott? Was he really a GOP Dirty Trickster who Bush dropped a dime on?

Is he related to Thomas Parrott, the assistant to MacNamara and Gen. Taylor, who sat in on all the Cuban Coordinating Committee meetings that formed government policy on covert operations against Cuba?

But it's not nothing.

And if he is on record as saying, after the assassintion took place, that he was going to Dallas on 11/22/63 and would be staying that night at the Sheritan, then he is not at Dealey Plaza and that is not him in photos standing in front of the TSBD. Is that right?

BK

I researched that, and found no apparent connection between James Parrott and Thomas Parrott. As for Bush's statement that he was going to Dallas, I address the particulars of that in Family of Secrets--suggest you check it out. On the photo at the TSBD, it is impossible to say with certainty.

In Chapter 4 you point out that George H. W. Bush phoned the FBI in Houston a few hours after JFK was assassinated to report that James Parrott had “been talking of killing the president”. You suggest on page 56 that the reason for this call to the FBI might have been to establish in “government investigative files” that at the time of the assassination he was in Tyler, Texas. If that is the case, why would he link it to the assassination of JFK?

His call establishes two pieces of information in confidential government files: that he was in Tyler, Texas, around the time of the assassination, but also that he was going out of his way to be helpful to assassination investigators (though as we can see, he was not actually being helpful at all, and his call was nothing but a red herring.) One needs to consider all of the peculiar Bush connections to the circle around Oswald, to the CIA at that time, to people in the motorcade, to the fact that Bush himself was in Dallas that day, as documented in multiple chapters in Family of Secrets. Certainly, any thorough investigation could have potentially uncovered those connections, and so it would not be surprising that his peculiar "confidential call" to the FBI would demonstrate, should it be necessary and should the document ever see the light of day, that he was interested only in doing the right thing.

John, I must respectfully disagree with your statement that Oltmans reflected a consistent left-wing position. I found numerous instances in which he was trying to obtain audiences with prominent American politicians to warn them of various threats from communists and national liberation movements. He was indeed all over the map. I find Oltmans an enormously contradictory character, almost as deep and operationally conflicted as de Mohrenschildt himself. The de Mohrenschildt "confessions" to Oltmans must be considered in the context of Oltmans' own murky identity and motives, and Oltmans' claims to the authorities were often inconsistent and surprisingly vague and inarticulate for someone who claimed to be serious journalist.

I would be interested in receiving more information about Oltmans “trying to obtain audiences with prominent American politicians to warn them of various threats from communists and national liberation movements”. Of course, I did not mean that Oltmans’ left-wing journalist was “pro-communist”. Radicals in the 1960s and 1970s often took a liberation socialist position and were often very critical of communist regimes such as the Soviet Union.

What interests me about Oltmans (De Mohrenschildt) claims against H. L. Hunt and the oil industry was that they mirrored what was said by Joachim Joesten (Oswald, Assassin or Fall Guy? and Thomas G. Buchanan (Who Killed Kennedy?) Both these books were published in 1964.

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

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

As a result of these books being published the intelligence services engaged on a smear campaign against both these authors as being “communist agents”. We now know because of declassified documents that Mark Lane was also targeted in this way. In Plausible Denial (1991):

More than a decade after the assassination, when I won a lawsuit against various police and spy organizations in the United States district court in Washington, D.C., pursuant to the order of the court, I received many long-suppressed documents.

Among them was a top-secret CIA report. It stated that the CIA was deeply troubled by my work in questioning the conclusions of the Warren Report and that polls that had been taken revealed that almost half of the American people believed as I did. The report stated, "Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse, results." This "trend of opinion," the CIA said, "is a matter of concern" to "our organization." To counter developing opinion within the United States, the CIA suggested that steps be taken. It should be emphasized, the CIA said, that "the members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society.

The purpose of the CIA secret document was apparent. In this instance, there was no need for incisive analysis. The CIA report stated "The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments." The commission had been chosen in such a fashion so that it might subsequently be asserted that those who questioned its finding, by comparing the known facts to the false conclusions offered by the commission, might be said to be subversive.

Who were these people who wished to throw suspicion upon the leaders of the land? The CIA report listed them as Mark Lane, Joachim Joesten, as well as a French writer, Leo Sauvage. Most of the criticism was directed at me. The CIA directed that this matter be discussed with "liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)," instructing these persons "that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition." The CIA continued: "Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation." The CIA was quite specific about the means that should be employed to prevent criticism of the report:

"Employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passage to assets. Our play should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii) financially interested, (iv) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Edward Jay Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher Knebel article and Spectator piece for background." According to the CIA, my book, Rush to Judgment, was "much more difficult to answer as a whole." The agency document did not list any errors in the book.

Just in case the book reviewers did not get the point, the CIA offered specific language that they might incorporate into their critiques. "Reviewers" of the books "might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the Report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics."

Among those who criticized Rush to Judgment and other books along lines similar to those suggested by the CIA were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and, especially, Walter Cronkite and CBS. Among those who did not march in lockstep with the intelligence agencies' effort to destroy the First Amendment were the Houston Post; Norman Mailer, who reviewed Rush to Judgment in the United States and Len Deighton, who reviewed it in London.

The question persists, in view of the elaborate and illegal program undertaken by the CIA to malign American citizens and to discourage publishers from printing dissents from the Warren Commission Report, as to the motivation for these efforts. Again, we turn to the CIA dispatch: "Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation." Yes, the CIA was directly involved and it did make its contribution to the investigation. What else the CIA did to constitute its "direct" involvement in the assassination was left unsaid by the authors of its report.

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

Is it possible that Oltmans is a victim of this same CIA smear campaign?

Thanks, John. That material sent a chill down my spine. I've noticed that same approach of discrediting in at least one major media review of my book. In any case, as relates to Oltmans: as I said, I am not convinced of who/what he was. As I note in Family of Secrets, Oltmans was traveling to Dallas to speak to right-wing women's group auxiliaries, and that began BEFORE the assassination. That means he was in circles of interest at a sensitive moment. If he were simply a left-wing journalist, and an obscure foreign one at that, why were these groups eager to have him of all people come to Dallas in the months and years prior to the assassination in that city? At a minimum, such facts must be addressed before concluding that he was "smeared" for trying to tell the truth. There are many other curiosities about him--and people trying to get to the bottom of the JFK matter who dealt directly with him found him secretive, sometimes hostile, often incoherent. I certainly would not lump him in with Mark Lane or any of the others. Also, if you read his testimony to the House investigators, he can't seem to successfully utter a declarative statement that firmly establishes much of anything. If he was simply a journalist trying to get to the bottom of things, he was the Inspector Clouseau of journalists. Having said that, he may simply have been some combination of seemingly incompatible elements, values and loyalties, and a bit eccentric.

John, I must respectfully disagree with your statement that Oltmans reflected a consistent left-wing position. I found numerous instances in which he was trying to obtain audiences with prominent American politicians to warn them of various threats from communists and national liberation movements. He was indeed all over the map. I find Oltmans an enormously contradictory character, almost as deep and operationally conflicted as de Mohrenschildt himself. The de Mohrenschildt "confessions" to Oltmans must be considered in the context of Oltmans' own murky identity and motives, and Oltmans' claims to the authorities were often inconsistent and surprisingly vague and inarticulate for someone who claimed to be serious journalist.

Given the time and resources, I will be glad to publish more on this topic. btw, readers who wish to support ongoing investigative efforts can become sustainers of the Real News Project, at www.whowhatwhy.com , a nonprofit, noncommercial reporting site that will, we expect, generate reporting on many topics that urgently cry out for careful investigative inquiry.

On pages 263-274 you consider the case of Willem Oltmans and the evidence that he supplied to the House Select Committee on Assassinations on 4th January 1977. You make the comment that: “His profile at times appears less that of the typical left-leaning Dutch journalist and more suggestive of a U.S. intelligence agent. Former colleagues of Oltmans, who is deceased, described him to me as a complex and mysterious figure. As will become clear, Oltmans was a cipher to one and all, sometimes seeming to be determined to expose the truth, and sometimes to do the opposite. Perhaps he was something of a free agent, pursuing a particular course yet unhappy about it. But one thing is certain: just as de Mohrenschildt helped steer Oswald, to a lesser extent Oltmans did the same for de Mohrenschildt.”

I have carried out some research into Oltman's career and would argue that his reporting of events in Indonesia, Cuba and North Vietnam suggest he reflected a consistent left-wing position.

In 2000 Oltmans won his legal case against the Dutch government. The jury agreed that the government conspired to keep him out of work, for which it had to pay him 8 million guilders in damages. This dates back to reports that he was writing about Netherlands New Guinea in 1956. This upset Joseph Luns, the Dutch minister of foreign affairs. The court ruled that Oltmans was right when he claimed that Luns did what he could to sabotage his journalistic career. Luns was a close friend of the CIA and eventually was appointed Secretary General of NATO.

We also know that during this period the CIA was working with Luns in an attempt to overthrow President Sukarno of Indonesia. The head of this CIA operation was Al Ulmer, who ran the agency's Far East operations. In fact, Ulmer lost his job after the failure of the CIA backed coup in May 1958. As Thomas Powers, the author of The Man Who Kept The Secrets (1979), a book about Richard Helms, points out: "The result, of course, was a humiliation for the United States, but it was a quiet humiliation. The Indonesians knew who had been behind the rebels, of course, but they elected to treat the matter calmly... and the American press somehow never got wind of the CIA's role."

Oltmans, who enjoyed a good relationship with Sukarno, did know what was going on and reported this in the Dutch press. This does not sound like someone under the control of the CIA. In fact, by 1962, this journalist who was reporting on events in Cuba and North Vietnam in the early 1960s, was seen as a hero by left-wing students. It is during this period that his network was infiltrated by CIA agent Werner Verrips.

Oltmans also claims that he was supplying President Kennedy with information about the situation in New Guinea. Whatever the truth of this statement, Kennedy, against CIA advice, applied pressure on the Dutch government to hand over the territory to a temporary UN administration (UNTEA). On May 1, 1963, Indonesia took control of the country. It was not only over the policy towards Cuba that the CIA was angry with Kennedy.

Without the testimony of Oltmans I don’t think the story about George de Mohrenschildt claims about the assassination would have entered the public domain. Nor would much attention have been paid to his suicide three months after Oltmans’ testimony to the HSCA.

What is significant is that at the time of his death he was taking part in a planned four-day interview at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach with Edward Jay Epstein on behalf of the Reader's Digest magazine. In my view, this was an attempt by the CIA to discover just how much de Mohrenschildt knew about the assassination. We now know that de Mohrenschildt had given an interview to Dick Russell in June 1976. See this thread for Dick’s comments on this:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...13575&st=60

I know I would trust the evidence of Willem Oltmans and Dick Russell over that of Edward Jay Epstein.

What is your view of the de Mohrenschildt’s confession he made to Oltmans?

I have been very busy with several projects that all have deadlines and have only managed to find time to read about 20% of the book. However, it is enough to realize that this is a very important book. Russ covers the careers of several characters based in Texas who have not really been covered in any detail by previous researchers. It therefore raises a lot of important questions and opens up new areas of research. It is also is incredibly well written that manages to be both readable and academic.

I have a lot of specific questions for Russ but will start with a couple general questions:

1. Do you plan to send a copy of your book to Barack Obama?

2. Which classified documents concerning the Bush family and their associates would you urge the new president to release?

John, I hadn't planned to send President Obama a book. I figure he's pretty busy right now. However, Family of Secrets was reviewed on Page 3 of Washington Post Book World, and it is in pretty much every bookstore in DC. I would hope someone might slip him a copy.

On classified documents, I would urge President Obama to seriously question the entire system of classifying documents, and consider declassifying the vast bulk of historical documents of all kinds, including those relating to the Bush family. The most savvy insiders I know consider the classification system to be more about protecting certain people than the longterm interests of the country. I do support classifying documents that contain current or recent information of genuine sensitivity, especially concerning technologies, sources and methods. But that covers a very small percentage of the total paperwork, and with anything that is more than a few years old, I think the burden of proof should be on the person who wants to withhold the information to make their case before a tough judge. Regarding the Bushes, I do wonder if there are not more documents out there that would shed light on Prescott Bush's precise activiites in overseeing sensitive covert operations as a senator, and on George HW Bush's activities in the 1950s and 60s as addressed in Family of Secrets.

Tom, the Conrad Hilton material is of interest to me. Hope we can talk more about this--directly, perhaps--as soon as things slow down a bit on the book front.

Thank you for the opportunity, Russ !

I can understand you wanted to frame your Bush family focus on GHWB and GWB, but I was surprised not to find any mention of Samuel F. Pryor or Sam Pryor Jr, nor of Jupiter Island.

Since Samuel F. Pryor and GH Walker came from St. Louis, as did Samuel Bush, and Pryor and Samuel Bush were Rockefeller family surrogates, and because Jupiter Island became the most concentrated intersection of the wealthiest, Dillon, Mellon, the military industrialist, Walter Carpenter of Dupont, and the defense and intelligence hierarchy (R A. Lovett, asst. sect'y of war for air forces, WWII, Sect'y of War, Patterson's appointee to chair committee creating CIA, and Sect'y of Defense during Korean War), though Carpenter, Du Pont lawyer during Sen. Nye "merchant of death" hearings, "Wild Bill" Donovan, David KE Bruce, brother-in-law of Paul Mellon, Allen Dulles, Harriman Bros. lawyer and OSS chief, NY and Basil, and through Lovett, Trubee Davison, his best friend, early CIA personnel director, fellow Yale bonesman, son of JP Morgan partner, as well as the rest the Jupiter Island cast of characters, did you avoid these GHWB origins, because of Tarpley's earlier book?

You gave Prescott Bush's Pan Am board membership a mention, but wan't it related to Sam Pryor Jr.'s role as executive VP at Pan Am? Sam was Willkie's 1940 eatern states campaign manager. he introduced Willkie to WR Davis, American "oil man" and Nazi abwehr agent C-80. The O. John Rogge Nazi Report, suppressed by Atty. Gen. Tom Clark in 1946, includes verification by Goering and Rippentrop, as told to Rogge in interrogations at Nuremberg, that Davis financed, with Nazi provided funds, union leader John L. Lewis's nationally broadcast, October, 1940 speech endorsing Willkie for president. There are a number of books, published during the last 50 years, confirming that Willkie knew Davis was providing large sums of Nazi money to his campaign.

Sam Pryor Jr. gave Charles Lindbergh, 5 acres of his 100 acre Hawaiin estate, to build Lindbergh's retirement home on. Instead of burial next to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles rests in a small Oahu, HI cemetery next to Sam Pryor Jr. Pryor's father, Samuel F., was an original incorporator, according to National Archive documents in the files of the Alien Property Custodian, of Hamburg America Line, and Union Bank Corp., bot confisacted as Nazi owned corporations in 1942.

You "went there", with your description of William Farish III"s granfather's role at Esso NJ, but you did not include the charge that Farish was a principle in the Farben cartel that provided tetra-ethyl lead to make the "Av-gas" that, if unavailable, would have grounded the Luftwaffe in the battle of Britain. GHWB has referred to Farish III as his "best friend". Is it not significant that, after the 1943 death of Farish III's father in an Army Air Force plane crash, that his male role model was his maternal grandfather, 1940 isolationist movement leader, and extreme right wing organizer, Gen. Robert E. Wood, or that Farish III is married to a Du pont heiress?

My question comes down to whether you deliberately avoided writing about what I am finding, and what is also found in the bio's on John Simkin's Spartacus site.... that GHWB and GWB are "the surface" of an intergenerational movement of right oriented, to the point of fascist, wealthiest, most powerful families who frame (dictate?) the platforms and agendas of both US parties, and US military and foreign policy?

Secondly, I read your great observations and unique facts of Warren Commission senior assistant counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., on page 79 of your book and pages 124 - 128. Were you aware that there is much documentation supporting the idea that Jenner was placed on the WC, and charged with investigating the possibility of a conspiracy, because he was "Mafia financier", Henry Crown's lawyer? Crown's son, John J., joined Jenner's law firm in 1959, and was still there as a partner, in 1969. Jenner seems to have only been Crown's personnel attorney, and by extension, attorney for Material Services Corp., the Crown family corporation, merged into General Dynamics in 1959. There were many reports that Henry Crown, 20 percent owner of General Dynamics and chair of it's executive committee, was exposed financially as LBJ was exposed politically, by the direction the TFX scandal was taking in the months leading up to November 22, 1963. The man who Crown hired in 1960 as president of Material Service and Vice President of General Dynamics, Patrick H. Hoy, was dcoumented by Peter Dale Scott and other sources to be a close friend of Sidney Korshak and of Charles "Babe" Baron. Hoy, manager and then president of the Chicago Hotel Sherman group, also had an at least eleven year, daily relationship with Irv Kupcinet. Irv's daily newspaper column assistant writers, writing under the name, "Ivan Bunny", testified to the WC that they were tell lifelong friends of Jack Ruby, and they owned the Clover bar next to the Hotel Sherman.

You wrote that Earl Warren proposed the appointment of Jenner, but the minutes of that December 16, WC executive session also tell us that Warren had run the name of Jenner by Dean Acheson and Tom Clark, and he explained it was because Acheson and Clark both knew Jenner from serving on panels with him, related to formulation of legal procedure/policy.

McCloy, at the prior WC session, had succeed in removing Earl Warren choice Warren Olney, in favor of J. Lee Rankin as WC Counsel. The history of the Union Pacific railroad reveals that in the same time period, Robert A. Lovett, related to his responsibilities at the Union Pacific, was meeting with "Henry Crown and his lawyer" for the purpose of discussing a merger of Crown's Rock Island RR holdings in a bid to gain control of Rock Island and then a merger.

Do you think it is coincidence, that the presence of three, of "the Six Friends",

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C1A960948260

converge here. around the appointment of Albert Jenner?

Henry Crown's principle business partner was Conrad Hilton, Crown was largest Hilton shareholder. Hilton was "an old friend" of Earl Warren. Warren's daughter, Virginia, was Conrad Hilton's social event escort for at least four years before her 1960 marriage. Henry Crown introduced Virginia to Queen Elizabeth at a 1957 reception that otherwise only included Crown, his wife, and directors of the Empire State Building holding corp. and their wives.

If this additional information about Henry Crown, Earl Warren, and Albert Jenner had been available to you before the final edit of your book, would you have included it? You speculated about Jenner's motivation to avoid digging into George de Mohrenschildt's background and role.

Linda, I did indeed find remarkable information on ties between mineral extraction enterprises, not just in the United States but around the world, and covert operations. I do get into that subject in Family of Secrets, and include a lot of new material, but I have a great deal more that could easily fill a second or third book. The general notion that companies seeking precious metals, fuels, and the like would be concerned about influencing government decisions is hardly shocking or new. Fine books like Thy Will Be Done, by my friends Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, explore certain aspects of that. One of the important discussions we are not having in this country is whether the interests of these companies are one and the same as those of the American people, and whether we want our public and publicly-funded security services functioning in part as a kind of private army on behalf of extractors.

...Secondly, I read your great observations and unique facts of Warren Commission senior assistant counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., on page 79 of your book and pages 124 - 128. Were you aware that there is much documentation supporting the idea that Jenner was placed on the WC, and charged with investigating the possibility of a conspiracy, because he was "Mafia financier", Henry Crown's lawyer? Crown's son, John J., joined Jenner's law firm in 1959, and was still there as a partner, in 1969. Jenner seems to have only been Crown's personnel attorney, and by extension, attorney for Material Services Corp., the Crown family corporation, merged into General Dynamics in 1959. There were many reports that Henry Crown, 20 percent owner of General Dynamics and chair of it's executive committee, was exposed financially as LBJ was exposed politically, by the direction the TFX scandal was taking in the months leading up to November 22, 1963. ...

If this additional information about Henry Crown, Earl Warren, and Albert Jenner had been available to you before the final edit of your book, would you have included it? You speculated about Jenner's motivation to avoid digging into George de Mohrenschildt's background and role.

Tom,

It sounds as if you have lots of important information about this subject, but very little of it relates to the title of Mr. Baker's book about the forces that put the Bush Dynasty in the White House.

Why did you, in framing your question, fail to mention that Henry Crown's company was involved in dredging work in the Philippines and in the Caribbean preparing one of the islands to be a casino resort?

I would submit that everyone has a different take on these facts, but, having written articles myself, know that publishers and editors are always cutting out anything that doesn't relate to the specific topic.

My interest in Henry Crown as head of the Materials Service Corp. in Chicago is whether he may have been involved in mining or recovery of strategic minerals that would have necessitated security clearance. It has been discussed in other circles that he was used in the Philippines to recover Japanese gold that was then laundered through gambling casinos somehow which I don't pretend to understand.

In addition, and I would ask Mr. Baker to comment on this:

• Did you find in your research any common threads to mining operations and covert intelligence operations, and if so, do you think that is significant in understanding the real purpose of, for example, the CIA?
  

A somewhat overlooked point of reference that should be mentioned is Conrad Hilton's book Be My Guest. First published by Prentice Hall Press in 1957, there was an additional printing under Fireside/Simon & Schuster. Of course his son is Barron Hilton.

His book is filled with the names of the rich and famous and other assorted oddities......

Among them

Colonel Henry Crown millionaire head of Material Services Corporation. page 208.

Henry L. Hollis, the dignified elderly trustee for the Palmer estate. page 209

Billy Friedman

George W. Loudermilk

Shearn Moody

R.L. Thornton

Albert Bacon Fall

Ira Casteel

Major Powers

Ruth Bush

C.P. Smith

Will Keleher

L.M. Drown

Elizabeth Keller

"I also began studying Palmer House history." page 214

Lady Nancy Astor

among others.......

Once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor

"Just after Zsa Zsa and I separated I bought the Dayton Biltmore in Dayton, Ohio."

"For all my boasting, at the very crucial moment I found myself a million dollars

short. I called Henry on the phone. "I need a million dolllars quick."........

........"I'll let you have it Connie, just tell Hugo Anderson at the First National

that I said to let you have the million." That was a great moment. page 213

page 233 has a section that reads..."Both the State Department and the

Department of Commerce suggested that the Hilton organization could

make a substantial contribution to the government program of Foreign Aid

by establishing American operated hotels in important world cities."

Ya just 'got 'ta love this free and educational Bush Dart Board!

http://mtblog.vanityfair.com/online/politi...aphic12-30.html

Peter, VF.com has now modified that "dartboard", which is really a kind of schematic, to note that it originated with Family of Secrets. We were of course very pleased that Vanity Fair proposed that we develop some kind of book graphic for their site, and I commissioned it from Linda Eckstein, a very talented information designer who spent years working for Fortune. You can "visit" the graphic, and much of the press coverage on Family of Secrets, by regularly visiting our site, www.familyofsecrets.com

Linda, I did indeed find remarkable information on ties between mineral extraction enterprises, not just in the United States but around the world, and covert operations. I do get into that subject in Family of Secrets, and include a lot of new material, but I have a great deal more that could easily fill a second or third book. The general notion that companies seeking precious metals, fuels, and the like would be concerned about influencing government decisions is hardly shocking or new. Fine books like Thy Will Be Done, by my friends Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, explore certain aspects of that. One of the important discussions we are not having in this country is whether the interests of these companies are one and the same as those of the American people, and whether we want our public and publicly-funded security services functioning in part as a kind of private army on behalf of extractors.

...Secondly, I read your great observations and unique facts of Warren Commission senior assistant counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., on page 79 of your book and pages 124 - 128. Were you aware that there is much documentation supporting the idea that Jenner was placed on the WC, and charged with investigating the possibility of a conspiracy, because he was "Mafia financier", Henry Crown's lawyer? Crown's son, John J., joined Jenner's law firm in 1959, and was still there as a partner, in 1969. Jenner seems to have only been Crown's personnel attorney, and by extension, attorney for Material Services Corp., the Crown family corporation, merged into General Dynamics in 1959. There were many reports that Henry Crown, 20 percent owner of General Dynamics and chair of it's executive committee, was exposed financially as LBJ was exposed politically, by the direction the TFX scandal was taking in the months leading up to November 22, 1963. ...

If this additional information about Henry Crown, Earl Warren, and Albert Jenner had been available to you before the final edit of your book, would you have included it? You speculated about Jenner's motivation to avoid digging into George de Mohrenschildt's background and role.

Tom,

It sounds as if you have lots of important information about this subject, but very little of it relates to the title of Mr. Baker's book about the forces that put the Bush Dynasty in the White House.

Why did you, in framing your question, fail to mention that Henry Crown's company was involved in dredging work in the Philippines and in the Caribbean preparing one of the islands to be a casino resort?

I would submit that everyone has a different take on these facts, but, having written articles myself, know that publishers and editors are always cutting out anything that doesn't relate to the specific topic.

My interest in Henry Crown as head of the Materials Service Corp. in Chicago is whether he may have been involved in mining or recovery of strategic minerals that would have necessitated security clearance. It has been discussed in other circles that he was used in the Philippines to recover Japanese gold that was then laundered through gambling casinos somehow which I don't pretend to understand.

In addition, and I would ask Mr. Baker to comment on this:

• Did you find in your research any common threads to mining operations and covert intelligence operations, and if so, do you think that is significant in understanding the real purpose of, for example, the CIA?
  

Tom, thanks for your comments. As I am doing media interviews all over the country right now, I regret that I simply can't get into this in great detail at the moment. However, in answer to your overall question: most of what is in my book has never been published anywhere before--not in other books, and not online. Many of the things you are referring to have already been published. I thought i could do the greatest service by focusing on what was new. That's why you see you may see at the most a brief reference to some of these issues. Also, keep in mind that Family of Secrets, in plowing new terrain and covering decades, cannot address everything. That, in fact, is what sites like Education Forum are for: so that informed, interested parties can raise a broad range of topics and debate them.

btw, I have loads of additional new material on quite a few of the subjects you touch upon, and, assuming the book does well enough and there is demand for more, I may try to publish these further revelations. Finally, let me say that I see some intriguing analysis in your comments. Let the dialogue continue!

Thank you for the opportunity, Russ !

I can understand you wanted to frame your Bush family focus on GHWB and GWB, but I was surprised not to find any mention of Samuel F. Pryor or Sam Pryor Jr, nor of Jupiter Island.

Since Samuel F. Pryor and GH Walker came from St. Louis, as did Samuel Bush, and Pryor and Samuel Bush were Rockefeller family surrogates, and because Jupiter Island became the most concentrated intersection of the wealthiest, Dillon, Mellon, the military industrialist, Walter Carpenter of Dupont, and the defense and intelligence hierarchy (R A. Lovett, asst. sect'y of war for air forces, WWII, Sect'y of War, Patterson's appointee to chair committee creating CIA, and Sect'y of Defense during Korean War), though Carpenter, Du Pont lawyer during Sen. Nye "merchant of death" hearings, "Wild Bill" Donovan, David KE Bruce, brother-in-law of Paul Mellon, Allen Dulles, Harriman Bros. lawyer and OSS chief, NY and Basil, and through Lovett, Trubee Davison, his best friend, early CIA personnel director, fellow Yale bonesman, son of JP Morgan partner, as well as the rest the Jupiter Island cast of characters, did you avoid these GHWB origins, because of Tarpley's earlier book?

You gave Prescott Bush's Pan Am board membership a mention, but wan't it related to Sam Pryor Jr.'s role as executive VP at Pan Am? Sam was Willkie's 1940 eatern states campaign manager. he introduced Willkie to WR Davis, American "oil man" and Nazi abwehr agent C-80. The O. John Rogge Nazi Report, suppressed by Atty. Gen. Tom Clark in 1946, includes verification by Goering and Rippentrop, as told to Rogge in interrogations at Nuremberg, that Davis financed, with Nazi provided funds, union leader John L. Lewis's nationally broadcast, October, 1940 speech endorsing Willkie for president. There are a number of books, published during the last 50 years, confirming that Willkie knew Davis was providing large sums of Nazi money to his campaign.

Sam Pryor Jr. gave Charles Lindbergh, 5 acres of his 100 acre Hawaiin estate, to build Lindbergh's retirement home on. Instead of burial next to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles rests in a small Oahu, HI cemetery next to Sam Pryor Jr. Pryor's father, Samuel F., was an original incorporator, according to National Archive documents in the files of the Alien Property Custodian, of Hamburg America Line, and Union Bank Corp., bot confisacted as Nazi owned corporations in 1942.

You "went there", with your description of William Farish III"s granfather's role at Esso NJ, but you did not include the charge that Farish was a principle in the Farben cartel that provided tetra-ethyl lead to make the "Av-gas" that, if unavailable, would have grounded the Luftwaffe in the battle of Britain. GHWB has referred to Farish III as his "best friend". Is it not significant that, after the 1943 death of Farish III's father in an Army Air Force plane crash, that his male role model was his maternal grandfather, 1940 isolationist movement leader, and extreme right wing organizer, Gen. Robert E. Wood, or that Farish III is married to a Du pont heiress?

My question comes down to whether you deliberately avoided writing about what I am finding, and what is also found in the bio's on John Simkin's Spartacus site.... that GHWB and GWB are "the surface" of an intergenerational movement of right oriented, to the point of fascist, wealthiest, most powerful families who frame (dictate?) the platforms and agendas of both US parties, and US military and foreign policy?

Secondly, I read your great observations and unique facts of Warren Commission senior assistant counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., on page 79 of your book and pages 124 - 128. Were you aware that there is much documentation supporting the idea that Jenner was placed on the WC, and charged with investigating the possibility of a conspiracy, because he was "Mafia financier", Henry Crown's lawyer? Crown's son, John J., joined Jenner's law firm in 1959, and was still there as a partner, in 1969. Jenner seems to have only been Crown's personnel attorney, and by extension, attorney for Material Services Corp., the Crown family corporation, merged into General Dynamics in 1959. There were many reports that Henry Crown, 20 percent owner of General Dynamics and chair of it's executive committee, was exposed financially as LBJ was exposed politically, by the direction the TFX scandal was taking in the months leading up to November 22, 1963. The man who Crown hired in 1960 as president of Material Service and Vice President of General Dynamics, Patrick H. Hoy, was dcoumented by Peter Dale Scott and other sources to be a close friend of Sidney Korshak and of Charles "Babe" Baron. Hoy, manager and then president of the Chicago Hotel Sherman group, also had an at least eleven year, daily relationship with Irv Kupcinet. Irv's daily newspaper column assistant writers, writing under the name, "Ivan Bunny", testified to the WC that they were tell lifelong friends of Jack Ruby, and they owned the Clover bar next to the Hotel Sherman.

You wrote that Earl Warren proposed the appointment of Jenner, but the minutes of that December 16, WC executive session also tell us that Warren had run the name of Jenner by Dean Acheson and Tom Clark, and he explained it was because Acheson and Clark both knew Jenner from serving on panels with him, related to formulation of legal procedure/policy.

McCloy, at the prior WC session, had succeed in removing Earl Warren choice Warren Olney, in favor of J. Lee Rankin as WC Counsel. The history of the Union Pacific railroad reveals that in the same time period, Robert A. Lovett, related to his responsibilities at the Union Pacific, was meeting with "Henry Crown and his lawyer" for the purpose of discussing a merger of Crown's Rock Island RR holdings in a bid to gain control of Rock Island and then a merger.

Do you think it is coincidence, that the presence of three, of "the Six Friends",

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C1A960948260

converge here. around the appointment of Albert Jenner?

Henry Crown's principle business partner was Conrad Hilton, Crown was largest Hilton shareholder. Hilton was "an old friend" of Earl Warren. Warren's daughter, Virginia, was Conrad Hilton's social event escort for at least four years before her 1960 marriage. Henry Crown introduced Virginia to Queen Elizabeth at a 1957 reception that otherwise only included Crown, his wife, and directors of the Empire State Building holding corp. and their wives.

If this additional information about Henry Crown, Earl Warren, and Albert Jenner had been available to you before the final edit of your book, would you have included it? You speculated about Jenner's motivation to avoid digging into George de Mohrenschildt's background and role.

I just posed a question to Jefferson Morley who, in his book about Win Scott, mentioned a connection between Scott and Fergie Dempster of British Intelligence, who had helped Scott set up a business in Mexico in 1969 following his retirement. At page 274 he says that Dempster had retired at the same time and brought in "another agency man named Al Ulmer" who had known Scott since their Havana days and while serving as chief of the London CIA station. They set up a company called "Diversified Corporate Services, DiCoSe and opened an office near the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City as consultants for people who wanted to do business in Mexico.

Given what Russ Baker said about Ulmer's being with George and Barbara Bush on and before November 22, 1963, I found this all extremely interesting and was wondering if Russ Baker could comment on it.

Jeff Morley's material relating to Al Ulmer is news to me, but it fits in rather well with what I report about Ulmer in Family of Secrets (see www.familyofsecrets.com ). He "left" the agency about the same time as his good friend and boss Allen Dulles, and began working with the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, who had a close relationship with the CIA and appears to have provided cover for operations without "official" sanction. I will be sure to look into this further as soon as I can get through our initial book release period, and invite anyone with additional information to contact me.

Russ Baker is an old-fashioned muckraking journalist and pamphleteer using the newest technologies. In his reporting and writing he brings the best of mainstream methods (balance and rigor) to the alternative media, and the best of the alternative media (passion for the truth and the larger story) to the mainstream. He focuses on getting past the rhetoric to expose the hidden levers and machinations that shape our world. Baker’s investigative reporting, analysis pieces, features, and essays on politics, power, and perceptions have appeared in many of the world’s finest publications.

In 2004, Baker devoted himself largely to researching stories that provided disturbing insights into the pre-presidential behavior of George W. Bush. He also explored the integrity of the voting system and examined instances of alleged election fraud.

In 2005, Baker founded the Real News Project, a news organization dedicated to producing ground-breaking, transformative, independent investigative journalism.

In 2006, Baker is working with the Real News Project team and is writing a book.

Over the past two decades, Baker has produced hundreds of stories, most of them for magazines and newspapers -- but also for television and radio - on a broad range of topics, from political revolutions to revolutionary humor. He has pursued stories in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Baker covered Hutu-Tutsi massacres in Central Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrow of the longtime Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He spent one and a half years as a correspondent and investigative reporter based in the former Yugoslavia. When not wrestling with traditional hard-news and politics, he writes essays and critiques, and profiles colorful and controversial figures, from the notorious murderer-on-the-run Ira Einhorn to the irreverent tv culinary hero, Iron Chef Morimoto. He is currently directing and producing his first documentary film.

Baker has received Society of Professional Journalists, Mencken and Common Cause awards, served as a panelist for the national conference of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and been a member of the adjunct faculty at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He appears frequently in the electronic media to discuss current events. He is the co-founder of the journalism soirees that evolved into the company, MediaBistro.

http://www.russbaker.com/

http://realnews.org/rn/content/index.html