Jump to content
The Education Forum

Paul Hoven

Members
  • Posts

    13
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

3,558 profile views

Paul Hoven's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

  1. Yes to John and Peter, Carl linked Bush to the bad guys, and it was when he was Director. I thought that I would go back to the start of this thread and comment on things that I have first hand knowledge. [so I got with a couple of Washington D.C. journalists that I knew. And one of them was a two-time Pulitzer prize winning journalist by the name of Newt Royce. And Newt Royce and Mike Icoca, who was a free-lancer who was writing with him – Newt at that time was with the Hearst newspaper chain in Washington D. C., with their bureau.} Gene Wheaton knew no Journalists when this thing started. Knut had been a personal friend of mine since 1981. I knew Mike through Knut and he was not as a friend at that time but an acquaintance. Wheaton and Royce where never friends, he was a their source. By the way Knut still lives in Northern Virginia and was one of the reporters who covered Ted Kennedy’s killing of Mary Jo. [The guys that I had known for several years, uh, primarily Carl Jenkins, who was a long-time career CIA paramilitary mercenary operator, uh, probably the most highly respected of those people in that division of the agency ... he was the commander of the biggest CIA base in Laos while Shackley was over there, and while Bill Sullivan was over as ambassador. Carl and I became very close friends in the early 80s, to the point where I would keep a bedroom in his home in Washington with clothes and papers and things so I didn’t have to carry them from California. I was commuting regularly back and forth when I was going overseas, and Carl and his wife, who was an active super-grader in the agency -- he was her case officer and she had been his interpreter, and then he got her a master’s degree and then she got her Ph.D. She went on to head one of the branches of the agency -- we became like brothers and sisters, between me and them.] I am pretty sure that he was not staying in their (Jenkin’s) townhouse but in Carl’s safe house. Elizabeth wasn’t crazy about having people in her home because then she did not met them and did not have to report to her case officer. No reporter to my knowledge was ever in the safe house only people that where going some place and friends and associates of Carl. It was ½ of a duplex and I can have a friend get the exact address. I believe it was a rental. I do agree with his opinion of Carl’s reputation. [israel sent an initial shipment of 18 missiles to Iran in late November, 1985, but the Iranians didn't approve of the missiles, and further shipments were halted. Negotiations continued with the Israelis and Iranians over the next few months.] The reason this went south was because the Israelis pulled a fast one. The Israelis were giving the Iranians early model Hawk missiles and then they where to be reimbursed by USA with the latest model. The Iranians however where not that stupid. [former Senator John Tower] I was part of a group of journalists and hill staffers that derailed his bid for Secretary of Defense. He was a major pervert and drunk and from information had caused major problems in Europe with KGB females. All of the hill people involved where conservative Republicans. [According to Wheaton, it had begun with an assassination training program for Cuban exiles and the original target had been Fidel Castro.] As I mentioned before Carl told me that he was involved in training the Cuban’s that where to be involved in the Bay of Pigs. And that their training base was in south east section of Mexico. He did not mention training guys to knock of Castro but that would make sense. That he would be a trainer for the Bay of Pigs makes sense because it was an amphibious operation and Carl was a US Marine as a young man, and the Marines are the masters of that form of attack. He did mention that the Cuban CI guy was really good and had rolled up over a 100 Cuban infiltrators. Most of the ones they sent in. My name thing comes up again but if I remember RED had something to do with his name. What Kennedy did by calling off the Naval Air at the last minute when people on our side are dying might not rise to assassination but had it been an Admiral instead of the President I would have had a Court Martial for him and then shot him with a firing squad. [but the 1982 Boland Amendment blocked further military aid when it was discovered that the CIA had supervised acts of sabotage in Nicaragua without notifying Congress. Colonel Oliver North, aide to National Security Advisor John Poindexter.] Forgive me while I go into opinion. Never thought the Reagan Administration handled the Boland Amendment correctly. I believe if they had fought it straight up to the Supreme Court it would not have stood up given Executive Branch role in our Constitution. CIA takes it the shorts and who was in charge a Navy Admiral and a loon. I always felt that North was a straw man set up to take the fall and not to smart.
  2. As I mentioned earlier [i remember one night at Otoole’s Bar ( Agency hang out in Langley) Carl showing me a picture on the wall where George Bush and Agency people had held the first meeting for his Presidential Bid. Sometime later the picture disappeared before the bar closed down ( Jenkins was not in the picture).]. Yes I am sure there where elements at Langley that backed Bush. But I was lead to believe by Carl that Bush was part of the bad guys. People who have not lived and worked in DC seem to miss a fact of life. That every agency or military branch is not a monolithic organization. They are made up of factions that have a difference on policy and goals. They will draw their wagons in a circle when their traditional enemies attack, but fight internally for power and policy. Remember Carl also told me that NO Director of the CIA should be allowed to run for President. Now I am assuming he was telling me the truth. I have no doubt that Carl Jenkins knew the structure behind North. But as I have said before the operation in the White House was by charter not a generator of intelligence nor where they an operational intelligence unit. Carl was a very smart guy with no observable faults (drunk etc). He loved the agency, he did not like the Kennedys bringing the Mafia into the operations against Castro. In my dealings with him he never recanted those beliefs or did anything that I observed that went against them. He was a trained case officer so I suppose it could have all been an act. But I am not exactly stupid and I still feel that he was not acting. My personal experience in the Military Reform should serve as an example of what I mean. I was and I am a very conservative person, pro-military, anti communist, and I had voted for Reagan. I believed in the military build up that helped in destroying the Soviet Union. At the same time I was attacking the Pentagon for not adequately test weapons, overpricing defense contracts and my best allies where very conservative Republican Congressmen. We were against the B-1 Bomber which was the center piece of the Reagan Build Up. It was way to expensive and it did not do all the things it was advertised to do. Some of our enemies in this fight were John McCain and Barry Goldwater. Because we thought that they where wrong in their approach. At the same time did I dislike some one like the left wing anti-war kiss the Soviet’s ass type like Edward Kennedy, you bet I did. I wanted a non corrupt system where Generals that bought weapons that where overpriced and not mature so that when they retired they would get a fat job with the Defense contractors would end. And I thought that I was loyal to my President and doing what should be done. During the Reagan and Bush years we had many Liberal Democratic Congressional supporters. The minute Clinton was President they all disappeared from the Reform Movement. They where only in the movement because we where attacking Republican Administrations. When ever one agency or military branch wins something ( budget or mission) another agency loses. When CIA was formed, the Navy was the premier intelligence agency. They lost when the Central Intelligence Agency was formed. As Stansfield Turner was Navy it was a major blow to any Langley loyalist and that all he would do is try and remove its primacy. It would be similar to the Church of England realizing that the new King of England was a practicing Muslim. Or better yet how the Archbishop of Canterbury was upset with PM Tony Blair attending Catholic Church with his wife and children. A current example of the win lose aspects of agencies is what happened under the fool that Bill Clinton put in charge of the CIA. Not only did Tenet oversea the greatest intelligence failings in modern American history but mission after mission left the agency and went to State Dept., the military or the FBI. The old guys left and the CIA today is made up with about half the staff being in the business for five years or less.
  3. John, I served with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta. Jenkins was in the Republic of South Viet Nam much earlier than me and in the time frame that I was in country he was in Laos. I have no idea where Clines and Shackley where. I have never met Clines and the only times I met Shackley was the time at my apartment and once in his office. Simple answer is no. I had always felt that I was in the middle of a war. And frankly the arms supplied to the Contras were small potatoes. Just light infantry stuff and most of it not American (AK-47s etc.) The big money was in Iran (Ibex Killing) and supplying the Afghans fighting the Russians ( USA over 1 billion a year and the Saudi Arabia $600,000,000 a year. Jenkins to me clearly wanted the Ollie North operation taken out. They where casting them selves as players and they only supposed to be passers of Intel. I had heard many times that North had flipped out while in the Philippines. And had spent three weeks in a mental facility. If that is true his career would have been over. The military back in the day did not take kindly to mental problems. He should have been out of the Marine Corp. Who put him in the White House? Remember that North’s funders where Homosexuals. The name alludes me but one was the only one convicted in Iran Contra and was hit by a car in downtown DC and died in George Washington Hospital. Using gays as a stop works very well with American newspapers. Once they come up with gay involvement the investigation ends. How was Wheaton supporting him self. I know that he was using an office on N Street that belonged to an Arab arms Merchant. Very expensive digs. Why was he there? DC is an expensive town. Did he do twenty years in military? He would have had a pension then.
  4. My heart attack seems to be an area of interest so let me continue in the aftermath of it. At the time of the heart attack I was just scared. I spent ten days in the hospital and had an angioplasty to open the artery. After release from the hospital I spent a couple of months in Michigan at my sisters to recoup (my sister is a Medical Doctor). I then went back to Minnesota to my parents home. I returned to DC immediately after watching a News story about an incident in Northern Virginia ( this is a separate story that I will tell later. At this point I still believe that the heart attack was an act of God. However after the discussion with the Doctor heading to Afghanistan I asked my primary car Doctor ( a 34 year old African American who was a little over weight) if he knew of a drug that could induce a heart attack in a manner that the Special Forces Doctor had suggested. My Doctor responded that he had never heard of such a drug especially if it was not detectable post mortem. He said that he was going to a Medical Convention that weekend and would ask around. A couple of weeks later I had a follow up appointment with my Doctor. When I arrived at the clinic I was told I was seeing a different doctor than my regular one. I asked why I could not see my regular doctor, and I was informed that he had died of a heart attack while attending a Medical convention a few weeks before. It was more than likely a coincidence, but it scared me and I did not talk to anyone about the possibility of an induced heart attack for many years after that. After being away from DC for many months when I returned I found that a recently retired Army Helicopter Pilot who I had meet briefly after returning from Viet Nam had taken over my life. I had met him once for lunch about two weeks before my heart attack. An older friend of mine (Chuck Meyer, ex WWII bomber pilot, Korean War fighter Pilot, Jet test Pilot, And DOD Director of Air Warfare (started Project Harvey that lead to the Stealth Fighter)) had know his father at some point in his career and was helping the son find a job in DC. Jay Donahue had flown in Viet Nam and then had made a career of the Army. He had spent much of his later career on the black side of the Army. After my leaving for Michigan he convinced my roommate and my reform associates that we where close friends from Viet Nam and he moved into my room and took my place at work. He even took over some of my speaking engagements. The interesting thing is that he did not agree with me on virtually any of my beliefs about the use of helicopters in war. And yet when he ghosted my speeches he parroted my heretical views relative to the Army’s doctrine at the time. After the incident that prompted my quick return to DC he quietly disappeared. About a year later we think we located him in Latin America flying for the State Department’s anti-drug air force.
  5. John, yes I believe that his name was Vernon Gillespie. (for historians I will present a problem in that names of people have never been easy for me. I can usually give a good physical description and a great biography based on what I have heard but the name thing almost rises to a learning disability. I was in my forties before I could remember AM from PM. I say this in to let you know I am not being cute when I can not remember a name with authority.) It was the only time in 24 years in DC that someone showed up at my apartment like that. Shackley wanted to come in but I refused. Was I scared, you bet. I am a pretty big guy myself but the look in this guy’s eye’s was scary. He then invited me to a meeting at his office. I went to the office and he wanted to know my involvement in the case. Yes he offered me a job with a Belgian company that built among other things armored personnel carriers. The money sounded really good. I had spent a lot of time on armored personnel carriers so the job made a logical buy off. One of my cases at the time was the M-2 Bradley and its lack of protection for the soldiers in it. And if you look at its results in Iraq we were right about its short comings. However as we talked more he realized that I did not have first hand knowledge of the things Sheehan was basing his suit on. The offer for the job in Belgium became less firm but I was never interested anyway. This goes back to my being upset with Sheehan for putting me in the suit and not even telling me he was doing it. The basic problem I had with Sheehan is that in my opinion he like most ideologues had his mind made up on what happened and was just looking for things that made his argument. Danny was a remarkably gifted bright and charming person. And he was someone who was hard not to like. But I felt no reasonable lawyer would have put me in that suit, I had no first hand information. I felt that much of the suit was based on hearsay and theory which makes for good books but not law suits. One of the other questions that keeps coming up in the Forum keeps going back to what Wheaton told Danny. To this I can only say I have no idea. Wheaton was a hustler and a user. Wheaton was not interested in bring me along after I had introduced him to someone. After the first couple of meetings the only time I saw or heard from Gene was when he needed something.(usually a press or hill contact). My only importance to Wheaton is that I had a very large Rolodex with hundreds of people in it. Plus remember in a previous post after being warned off Gene by my friend’s father I didn’t seek him out. I see in some earlier posts that Wheaton said he was an anti-terrorist expert. In America at the time he served I don’t believe that the US Military was in that business. About a year (1990) after the American invasion of Panama Mike Wallace wanted to do a piece on an American NCO that had been charged with the murder of 4 Panamanians. We had 2 other stories that we were also looking at when we were down in Panama. The first one fit close to the main story in that we were trying to determine if the reports of very large civilian deaths where true. And the second story was to check on reports that in the Military Zone the Bio Warfare guys had a large troop of African Green monkeys used to develop the AIDS virus. Upon returning and before our original story was done we all got sick. Wallace had a pacemaker installed. Thompson developed a disease of the liver and last I heard was on a transplant list. I was in heart failure and ultimately had a quadruple heart bypass. And Mike was found dead in his apartment of a heart attack. Could have been bad luck, because our two man film crew had no medical problems.
  6. 15 Sept. 2007 Stuart, last year I was visiting with an old friend who had been partnered with IW during the Cuban adventure. He said that IW was bankrupt and living with one of his children in Hawaii. Back in the Danny Sheehan days IW owned a bait and tackle shop located on Hwy. 50 in Northern Virginia. He got involved with a Pawn Broker from Maryland and in a couple of years he had lost his share of the business. And shortly after that his wife and he moved to Hawaii to be near his adult children. If you tracked him down I doubt that he would talk to you. He was not much of a talker even with his friends, and all of his friends where in the agency. I met him on a number of times but could not say I knew him. Much of what I know of him was from people that worked with him. He was a legendary shot with a pistol but barely accurate with a rifle. In the technical service he was a great bomb maker, a real natural with explosives. The kind of natural skills from a sort of back woods boy from Louisiana. I told he was the bag man when we purchased the new Soviet man portable ground to air missile in the middle of the war from a North Vietnamese General. And during the fall of Saigon he taped a Mac 10 submachine gun to his hand so he would not drop it if he was shot as he tried to rescue his Vietnamese people so they could be evacuated. IW was the kind of guy you wanted with you when you entered a dark alley or where going to war.
  7. As I mentioned earlier Carl Jenkins was not happy with what was going on at the White House with Ollie North. I find it hard to believe that Wheaton would list Carl as part of Ollie North Network. I am sure that the bureaucracy at Langley was not crazy about it either. You most remember that the US Army had gotten big time in the spy intelligence game back then also. Again I can imagine the real intelligence agencies where not pleased with this new comer. And then “ Yellow Fruit” was destroyed piece by piece on the front pages of the Washington Post. I believe this totally destroyed the Armies ploy and reduced them back to battlefield intelligence. Part of the pay back may have been the charges brought against Seal Team 6 leadership and the ultimate prison sentence of its founder and leader. Part of the problem with reporters and especially the lefts true believers is that they forget that CIA is not the only intelligence Agency in town. And like our military services their biggest enemies are not foreign organizations but each other as they fight for the most important goal “budget share“. Remember that when CIA was formed that they displaced Naval Intelligence as the most important intelligence agency and since then when ever an admiral is in charge the CIA it is on the downside.
  8. John I will try to answer you first. The Non-profit project that I worked for was formed under the Stewart Motts foundation. Danny Sheehan was on the board of that organization. I knew Danny from January 1981. Went to Christic Institute book parties there. I knew the Jesuit priest Father Bill Davis at the institute. He was the priest sent down to investigate the death of the American filmmaker during the military coup in Chile. The wife of the dead filmmaker was a girl from my home town that I had dated a couple of times in High School. (some coincidences are real)The long and the short of it is that I knew Danny Sheehan for years before Gene or Carl ever heard of him. Danny was on my board of directors and was very supportive of what we were doing at the project. I thought what he and the Christic Institute did in the Karen Silkwood case was commendable. Like wise I had met Carl and Elisabeth some time before I was introduced to Gene. One of the reasons that I listened to Gene was because I had a friendship with Carl. The night of the party where Gene was introduced to me, Carl Jenkins along with (IW) John Harper introduced me to Gene there was no talk about illegal arms or federal contracts. Carl was the sole speaker with IW and Gene nodding in agreement. What he said was that we had to stop George Bush from becoming President and that the wrong people in Afghanistan where getting our aid. I knew the people that where the principles in Congress that allocating the money for our support of the Afghans that where fighting the Soviets. Carl said that Gene knew that area of the world and that he could help these people. I don’t recall that the Contra’s where brought at all that evening. I supported aid to the contras so it would never haven discussed as a problem. The Lt.Col. Carl Bernard that I mentioned earlier had a civilian brother in the Pentagon who was running the program that developed weapons for the Afghan fighters. Afghanistan was the only shooting war at the time and so it was the topic of conversation with just about everyone I knew including Carl Jenkins. There were two Congressmen who where the main funders of the Afghans in Congress. Cong. McCullam R Florida and Cong. Wilson D Texas. Von Forest was the main staffer for the Florida congressman and I knew him well. They were also big Israel supporters and had an Israeli citizen on staff ( Steffe Bodansky) as a military expert. I set up a meeting with a senate staffer that I knew to start to introduce Gene to the network of staffers in congress who where the players in support of the Afghans. It is at this meeting that Gene dropped the bomb shell and after a very short time talking about Afghanistan started taking about the assignation of Americans by Americans. There where 10 examples of assassinations but the one that he spent the more than 50% of time talking about was the Ibex killing in Iran. This proved to be an interesting emphasis because of the ten so called assassinations the Ibex killings was the only where I had access to someone who was there at the time it took place. Remember that up to this point my background and job was dealing with military hardware testing and procurement and the waste in the Defense Budget. My interest in the wars in Afghanistan was in the weapons that where being supplied to the Afghans that would be effective but not giving away technology to the Soviets. The covert nature and the spying component held little interest to me then. A very close friend of mine’s father was in State Department Counter Intelligence in Tehran when the Ibex Killing took place. And was investigating the case. I talked to him about what I had heard and he confirmed that it was a strange case. The man killed was coming back from the USA after a going home to report massive diversion of funds (stolen) to American Generals that where overseeing the program that had been sold to the Iranian Government. It was a program that the Pentagon had passed on but was then successfully sold to the Iranians. The man was killed immediately after arriving in Tehran. This was not the pattern of either the Moslem or Communist groups trying to topple the Shah’s government. They would stalk for at least two weeks before pulling off an assassination. The actual assassination used a VW bug as a blocking car against the victims Mercedes Benz sedan with a driver and if memory is right the driver was not killed. The big sedan could have easily driven through the VW bug blocking car. The telling information supplied by my friends father was that the Shah’s secret police who where fearless where afraid of this case and kept saying white man in Parse. At this stage I was convinced that Wheaton was telling me the truth. I assumed that the 9 other cases Gene had talked about involved American assassins as well. The senate staffer was scared to death as this was way out of his league and wanted nothing to do with Wheaton after that. This was not my area either but I could not let it go. Knut Royce was a personal friend of mine. He was one of five of us who used to meet once a week at a bar in downtown DC. He then brought in his friend Mike Accoca to help on the story. [i was working on a story about the invasion of Panama as consultant to 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace when Wallace the producer Charlie Thompson and Myself all got violently sick and almost died and Mike Accoca did die.] Knut took the story to Senator John Kerry D Massachusetts. The names that Wheaton mentioned had nothing to do with the Contras based on what Wheaton told me . They where the people that where involved in the assassinations. When Iran Contra became public that October I was shocked because the people mentioned where the same people that Wheaton told me where involved in the ten assassinations of Americans. When I introduced Wheaton to Danny Sheehan the reason was assassinations for my part it had nothing to do with illegal arms shipments to anyone. At that time Danny was looking in to assassinations relative to the Contras and that is why I had the meeting and introduced Wheaton to Sheehan. As I said before I was not opposed to aid to the Contras and would not have had the meeting between the two of them if that was the subject. At some point in those first few months after meeting Wheaton I had a meeting set up with the man who I had originally talked to about Wheaton and the Ibex assassination. After the meeting with the State Department Counter Intelligence Officer (he also held a Lt. Col. Rank in the Army) he advised his son ( a Republican Senate staffer) and myself to not deal with Wheaton anymore. He said that he did not believe Wheaton was on the level. Jenkins never once mentioned contracts with me and he never indicated that he was involved in the JFK assassination. Remember his wife was on active duty at CIA. Both he and his wife were very bright people and Carl was a professional case officer with decades of service. And Carl was smarter than Wheaton in my estimation. In a million years I can not see him admitting to any part in the assassination of JFK to an outsider if he had played a role. Especially to an outsider like Wheaton. Gene like myself was an outsider. He had non agency bon fides for his work in the Army and I believe that he may have played a role in IW Harpers escape from Libya after IW attempted to assassinate Kaddafi. ( blew up a plane Kaddafi was to board but Kaddafi changed his mind at the last minute. A bunch of his East German bodyguards where killed however.) I was accepted because I had served in Viet Nam as an Army Helicopter Pilot. And I had been recruited to fly for Air America, I turned them down because I thought I had used up all my luck. But in certain areas you where still considered an outsider. If Jenkins wanted it known to the world that he planned, trained, etc. the people that killed JFK why not tell me rather than Wheaton. I was dealing on a day to day basis with over 300 plus journalists and in the beginning Wheaton with none. More important I had credibility with them all where Wheaton was a total unknown to them. I was not happy with Sheehan’s final document. I had no first hand information about the actions that where in the document. And I was never told that I would be listed as a source. Plus his description of me did nothing to protect me. I was listed as a Army Helicopter Pilot in Viet Nam and a Military Reformer, that described a universe of exactly one person in DC at that time. Two days after it was out I was having lunch with a reporter that I had never dealt with before and after introductions she said, “oh you must be the number 48 (I believe that was the number) source in Sheehan’s suit“. The pay off came a week later when Ted Shakley showed up on my doorstep with a shaved headed gorilla about six foot four that looked like someone out of a terminator movies and wanted to talk about Sheehan’s suit.
  9. What I failed to mention is that the Doctor at the bar indicated that the poison metabolized into two compounds that where normally found in the body. With my job at the Project on Military Procurement I was dealing with over 300 newspapers, magazines and TV programs (20/20, 60 Minutes etc.) We supplied documents and assisted reporters with information about things military. You might say that we where like Google, if we didn’t have the information we had a phone number of someone who did. Our Offices on Capital hill where broken into a number of times. My apartment was broken into a number of times and nothing was ever taken but the items on my desk would be rearranged and the front door dead bolt would be unlocked and the door would be opened a quarter of an inch. Much of our information was supplied by the infamous Pentagon Underground. The underground was made up of a loose confederation of Military Officers and Pentagon civilians, who believed two basic points that weapon systems where not tested fully before purchase and that the Pentagon was not responsible with it’s money. Most of the people involving like myself were quite to the right of center politically. The overall Military Reform Movement was referred to in the media as the “Cheap Hawks”. The DIVAD was one of my projects and the Project had done over 200 articles on how it did not work. The Congressional office of Congressman Denny Smith R Oregon who I worked with had all six of the tests on the DIVAD (supplied by the Underground) showing how it could not hit it’s targets. ( one test the guns where aimed at a car but instead with a gallery of Generals in attendance the DIVAD attacked an outhouse’s ventilation fan on its roof. Remember this is during the 1980’s big military build up and was the first time that a weapon system in production was canceled because it did not work. I forgot the exact cost of the program but it was in the billions of dollars. One of Congressman Smith’s main financial backers where the principles in Evergreen Airlines. In Congress today the only real member left who was serious reform player is Senator Charles Grassley R Iowa. I was not well known to most only the real insiders because most of the stories printed or broadcast that we were involved in did not have our names mentioned.
  10. The last I heard was that Carl Jenkins was in Panama. That he had remarried a school teacher there. I guess that he and Elisabeth got a divorce after the Sheehan document. When Sheehan submitted his document, I understand that Elisabeth Jenkins resigned from the company and went to work for the State Dept. checking on the Embassy guards in Africa and Central Asia. I believe after it all blew over she returned to Langley and resumed her old position checking out potential new employees. She was a fascinating woman. Brilliant and beautiful. Almost out of a spy novel. As a teenage girl had read spy novels and decided that’s what she would do as an adult. Had a well earned hatred of Bobby Kennedy. During the Bay of Pigs she was 8 months pregnant and at the National Reconnaissance Office as a translator. One morning at about 2:00am she was walking done the hall when Kennedy came around the corner in a hurry and knocked her on her back. At which point the started to curse her out and called her a fat cow for getting in his way. I doubt that she mourned when he was killed. She was in Laos when Carl was there and that is where they got together. I believe at that time she interviewed our guys when they returned from trips over the fence into North Vietnam. Knowing some people that where there said she was the prettiest round eye in Laos. From what Carl told me he was in Mexico training the Cubans for the Bay of Pigs. And has he hated the Kennedy’s also. The operation was designed for 5,000 Cubans to go ashore. But the White House cut it of at 1,500. Carl was especially hot when the Kennedys started sending down Mafia types in place of Cubans. Old man Kennedy’s mob friends where interested in their old holdings when Castro feel. The real hatred of the John Kennedy came from what he did during the actual invasion. Besides the rag tag Air Force of the Cuban invasion force the US Navy was to supply air cover. I am told that as the rebels were being slaughtered on the beach Kennedy personally called off the Navy. There is supposed to be a tape of that and I have friends that say they have heard it. I have never been able to get a copy of it our to here it.
  11. 12 Sept. 2007 Seems like you are interested in heart attacks. At the time of my heart attack two events were taking place that I was involved in. The meeting at Marine Headquarters with Carl and the Commandant ( to get Oliver North transferred out of White House) and the DIVAD program was cancelled. I was the point person at the Project on Military Procurement on the DIVAD [ Division Air Defense(gun) 40mm Bofors Cannon on an old M-48 tank body]. This was the first time that an active Pentagon weapons system was cancelled. When I started having chest pains after having some orange juice, I assumed it was a muscle cramp. Finally my roommate Joe Burniece called 911. I lived in Arlington Virginia and Arlington county ran the only ambulance service in the county arrived. I was given some nitroglycerin and removed from the apartment and the stretcher was placed on the ground in front of the ambulance. A second ambulance arrived and the two crews started to argue over who was to take me to the hospital. The second crew mentioned that I was the person involved in the cancelling of the DIVAD. They were both informed that I was to go to George Washington in DC. The second arriving ambulance crew won the argument and proceeded to take me to Northern Virginia Hospital instead. We pulled into the building and 16 Doctors, Nurses and techs were there to great me. They saved my life. After 3 days I was transferred to my HMO hospital in DC. (Heart function is measured in ejection function. 55 to 60 is normal, after the heart attack mine was 32. At 20 you become eligible for a heart transplant and around 10 you die.) You tend to idolize the Nurses that tend you during these times and I had 2 during those 3 days. They worked 12 hour shifts and later I was informed by Knut Royce ( a friend and reporter that I worked with at the Project. Knut as a young man was an interpreter for the Emperor of Ethiopia ) that one of my Nurses was the daughter of the CIA liaison in the White House. Months later Carl Jenkins and I were at Otoole’s Bar in Langley and met an ex-special forces turned Doctor who Carl knew that was on his way to Afghanistan to doctor the rebels fighting the Soviets. My heart attack came up in conversation. He then asked if I had drank something cold before the attack. I mentioned that I had some orange juice. He said that there was a substance that caused heart attack and was delivered in a cold beverage (milk orange etc.). Danny Sheehan told me that there 9 or ten of us that had heart attacks and I was the only one that did not die. The only name that I remember was Tom Clines.
  12. Sorry that I have not returned to add my 2 cents to the Forum since I discovered it this past spring. Health problems have consumed me in the past few years. To start with I had met Carl Jenkins at a party thrown by a magazine editor. I met both Carl and his wife. I knew him as a retired Military ops. Guy and his wife as a current psychologist at the company. Being from Minnesota I got along with her because of her Wisconsin birth and upbringing. I was surprised at Carl’s acceptance of my working at the Project of Military Procurement and working with the Military Reform Movement. While most conservatives were not crazy about anyone attacking the Pentagon, not only did it not bother Carl he was very encouraging. After meeting Jenkins I found out that he knew a friend of mine retired Lt. Col. Carl Bernard from service in Laos and possibly further back in Indonesia. As it turned out I lived close to Carl and spent time visiting at night at a safe house he ran close to his town house. Like many of us conservatives he was not crazy about George Bush for President. I remember one night at Otoole’s Bar ( Agency hang out in Langley) Carl showing me a picture on the wall where George Bush and Agency people had held the first meeting for his Presidential Bid. Sometime later the picture disappeared before the bar closed (Jenkins was not in the picture). Along with his dislike of Bush for President he was upset that the White House NSC was being used as an active intelligence operation rather than a clearing house from other intelligence agencies for the President. In particular Lt. Col. Oliver North’s activities bothered him. To such a point that in June of 1986 I set up a meeting for him with the then Commandant of the Marine Corp. I had met the S2 of the Headquarters Marine Corp socially and he arranged the meeting in which Carl (being an ex-Marine) had tried to get Lt. Col. North transferred out of the White House. His argument was that if he stayed in his current position he would be an embarrassment to the Corp. Having been a Marine for a short time myself I understood the pride Marines had for the honor of the Corp. I believe that the Marine Corp did try to transfer North but it was thwarted. As I recall the meeting took place on a Thursday and 2 days later I suffered a major heart attack. Two ambulances from the same county showed up and had a fight over me and the second one to arrive won and took me to a hospital that was not mine and there they saved my life. Unfortunately I lost half of my heart function. I am alive today because of a heart transplant in 2005. Of the number of people involved in Iran Contra that had heart attacks I believe that I was the only one that lived. I will try and add to the story as I have time and would address any questions that Forum members might have. A couple of heart surgeries screw up your memory a little bit. It seems that I am affected most when it comes to remembering names.
  13. Paul A Hoven, CW2 US Army, Helicopter Pilot, Call Sign Jayhawk 21, Ex Senior Staff member Project on Military Procurement.
×
×
  • Create New...