Steve Thomas
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"No one will remember in years to come where they were when they heard about the JFK assassination classified document dump of 2017. "
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/27/politics/trump-jfk-documents-analysis/index.html
Steve Thomas
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10 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:
Steve, unless you can get back as far as Egypt and the pyramids I don't think you are making a serious effort at this...grin
Larry,
Lousy scholarship. My bad.
If I see one picture of Bill Harvey dressed like this after his transfer to Rome, I'm going to run screaming into the night.
Steve
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1 minute ago, Steve Thomas said:
Hmmmmm
A part of my posting seems to have been cut off.
Here's what got left out. It should be in that big gap after Operation Gladio by John Fleming. (I think I was supposed to have posted it as plain text).
Steve Thomas
Damnit.
ITALY 1947 Origins of Gladio "As early as 1947, the United States was constructing a clandestine network in Northern Italy to act in the event of a communist insurrection or electoral victory." (Wolfgang Achtner, Sunday Independent, 11/11/90) "The network, run by secret-services of Nato members, was apparently set-up in the 1950's at US instigation to create a guerrilla resistance organisation in the event of a Soviet invasion or communist takeover in NATO countries." (John Palmer, Guardian, 10/11/90) "The Venetian judges [Casson & Mastelloni] came across Gladio when working on a document of 1959 that referred to the militia's "internal subversion"... The duty of Gladio is a double one, says the document. The first is objective" and concerns the "defense of the Italian territory and population". The second is defined cryptically as "subjective" and is "concerned with the legitimate authority of the state, and with the eventuality of any serious offenses against its integrity." Gladio should be ready "to adopt, with timely readiness, preemptive action to assure the state's prestige, capacity for action and for government". (Ed Vulliamy, Guardian, 10/12/90)”
“Preemptive action”... Ah – now enters the “strategy of tension”; and then the allusion to the “gladius” sword made sense.
Centurions:
The second thread in this scenario is the use of the term “Centurions”. I've seen several references to “Centurions” in my various readings.
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Hmmmmm
A part of my posting seems to have been cut off.
Here's what got left out. It should be in that big gap after Operation Gladio by John Fleming. (I think I was supposed to have posted it as plain text).
Steve Thomas
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Here's a conspiracy theory you've probably never heard of.
This is not a solution, but more of an observation.
And; I'm writing this partly tongue-in-cheek, but then again, partly not.
In reading through the literature concerning JFK's assassination, I have, at times, been struck by images that seem to evoke a time and place of an ancient glory. Two threads that seem to weave through this narrative are Gladio and Centurions.
Gladio:
Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO’s Secret Stay-Behind Armies.
by Daniele Ganser
“The existence of these clandestine NATO armies remained a closely guarded secret throughout the Cold War until 1990, when the first branch of the international network was discovered in Italy. It was code-named “Gladio, ” the Latin word for a short double-edged sword.
Italy insisted identical clandestine armies had also existed in all other countries of Western Europe. This allegation proved correct and subsequent research found that in Belgium, the secret NATO army was code-named SDRA8, in Denmark Absalon , in Germany TD BDJ, in Greece LOK, in Luxemburg Stay-Behind, in the Netherlands I&O, in Norway ROC, in Portugal Aginter, in Switzerland P26, in Turkey Counter-Guerrilla, and in Austria OWSGV. However, the code names of the secret armies in France, Finland, Spain, and Sweden remain unknown.”
For an introduction in the American formation of the Gladio network in Scandanavia, see:
William Colby,"ChapterThree: A Scandinavian Spy," in Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 78-107.
I wondered why this informal network of “stay-behinds”would have adopted the generic name of Gladio, and then I ran across a reference in in a work by a researcher/writer named, John Fleming. (date unknown, but I believe it was in the early 1990's)
OPERATION GLADIO
http://www.thejohnfleming.com/gladio.html
http://linformationnationaliste.hautetfort.com/archive/2013/03/20/22-avril-1961-derniere-revolte-des-centurions-avant-qu-ils-n.html
“22 avril 1961 : dernière révolte des centurions avant qu'ils ne deviennent gendarmes.” 20/03/2013
René BLANC. RIVAROL 22 AVRIL 2011
April 22,1961: The last revolt of the centurions before they become gendarmes.
(This article is about the Putsch of the Generals in April, 1961).
“Or si la vocation du gendarme n'a jamais été de sacrifier sa vie, c'est souvent cela le destin du centurion.” If the gendarme's vocation has never been to sacrifice his life, it is often the fate of the centurion.”
They were often referred to as “hommes léopards”. “Leapard men” - because of their camouflage uniforms.
Le Capitaine Souètre refusant sa mutation en métropole, déserta, le 8 février 1961, avec un groupe d'une vingtaine d'officiers, de sous-officiers et de simples soldats ainsi que des civils pour fonder un maquis dans l'arrière-pays de Mostaganem. Baptisé France Résurrection, celui-ci espérait soulever les populations contre le pouvoir. Souètre — un personnage charismatique, avec un mélange assez prononcé de panache et d'immaturité — faisait distribuer à grande échelle des tracts où il affirmait : « Voici venue l'heure des centurions. Il est temps de franchir le Rubicon. »
Following his desertion in December of 1960, or January of 1961, while he was hiding out in the Martel farm in Mostaganem in February, Souetre issued a missive or tract which read, “Now is the hour of the Centurions. It is time to cross the Rubicon.”
In the late 1960's, African mercenary, Bob Denard referred to them as the “praetorian guard of a failed republic”.
Italian General Gerardo Serravalle, who commanded the Italian Gladio stay-behind from 1971 to 1974, said that the document "’Directive of SHAPE’ was the official reference, if not even the proper Allied Stay-Behind doctrine". This document is not yet available to researchers. According to the testimony of General Serravalle, the members of the CPC were the officers responsible for the secret stay-behind structures of the various European countries. "At the stay-behind meetings representatives of the CIA were always present”, Serravalle explained, as well as “members of the US Forces Europe Command”.[7]
Serravalle said the recordings of the CPC, which he had seen but which are not yet publicly available, above all "relate to the training of Gladiators in Europe, how to activate them from the secret headquarters in case of complete occupation of the national territory and other technical questions such as, to quote the most important one, the unification of the different communication systems between the stay-behind bases.”[8][7] Gerardo Serravalle, Gladio (Roma: Edizioni Associate, 1991), p. 79.
[8] Serravalle, Gladio, p. 78.“Centurions” see p. 4 of this April 26, 1963 CIA report on the current status of activist groups. See p. 4.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=64993#relPageId=4&tab=page
A periodical of the C.N.R. Circulated among the military. Les Centurions.
Here's a copy:
Like I said, these are just observations that I've picked up along the way. But some of the people who seem to have been involved in one way or another cloaked themselves in imagery that was designed to evoke a long-ago past.
Steve Thomas
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On 10/21/2017 at 11:33 AM, Steve Thomas said:
Jim,
This may be a case of splitting fine hairs, but the O.A.S. was dissolved by Salan in 1962 and its remnants were folded into the C.N.R. (the Consèil de Resistance National).
You might be interested in this document:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=64993#relPageId=3&tab=page
It's case of; you say tomato and I say tomato, I think.
Steve Thomas
On 10/21/2017 at 11:33 AM, Steve Thomas said:On 10/21/2017 at 8:20 AM, James DiEugenio said:In some form, the OAS lasted at least until 1964, some say 1965.
I think I owe Jim DiEugenio an apology. I pooh-pood his statement that the OAS were around as late as 1964 or 5, but I ran across (again) an article from LeMonde that's dated July 8, 1963 about a communique issued in the name of the C.N.R. and the OAS.
The thrust of the article is that the communique was posted using the National Assembly's own fracking machine!
That's like saying that someone snuck into our own House of Representatives and posted a nationwide press release using the House's postal machine.
Le Monde, Paris July 8, 1963
UN TRACT DE L'O.A.S.-C.N.R. est posté au Palais-Bourbon
Steve Thomas
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I think we are all missing the point.
The JFK files and Stranger Things 2 are being released only a day apart.
So there.
Steve Thomas
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I had a thought.
If the documents' release puts the CIA in a bad light, do you think Trump will use the release as a way of undermining the CIA (an other intelligence agencies)' credibility ala Russia meddling?
Steve Thomas
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16 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:
On 10/20/17 I asked if RA-76710292 was a valid ID number.
According to this web site: Service number (United States Armed Forces)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_number_(United_States_Armed_Forces)
The RA is a prefix " Used by Regular Army enlisted personnel ".
Steve Thomas
I don't know what to make of this because I am not an expert, but 76710292 is an eight digit number.
According to this same website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_number_(United_States_Armed_Forces)
eight digit numbers between 70,000,000 and 90,000,000 were not issued.
Steve Thomas
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On 10/20/2017 at 10:34 AM, Steve Thomas said:
This web page: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=8407#relPageId=2&tab=page
gives Dinkin's military ID number as: Serial number RA-76710292.
Is this even a valid military ID? I didn't serve in the military, so I don't know. Do the armed forces issue military personnel, serial numbers? And/or numbers that start with RA?
On 10/20/17 I asked if RA-76710292 was a valid ID number.
According to this web site: Service number (United States Armed Forces)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_number_(United_States_Armed_Forces)
The RA is a prefix " Used by Regular Army enlisted personnel ".
Steve Thomas
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1 hour ago, Tom Hume said:
Hi Steve,
I don’t find the Nov 7, 1963 cable in the newer edition, but what Dick Russell wrote about Dinkin on pages 349 through 352 in his 2003 edition of TMWKTM is fairly interesting and informative:
In March 1962, a Army private first class Eugene B Dinkin was assigned to the 529th Ordnance Company in Metz, France, “as a crypto operator [who] was awarded the requisite security clearance,” according to Lieutenant Colonel John C. Lippincott of the Pentagon’s Legislative Liaison Office. 32 A crypto clearance is among the highest that the military gives, making Dinkin, in effect, part of the National Security Agency, the CIA’s Top-Secret communications counterpart.
Until 1976, when portions of some documents on Dinkin were finally released, everything supplied to the Warren Commission about him was withheld from the public. But an FBI report of April 3, 1964, recounted Dinkin’s projection
Dinkin’s name first came up in the Garrison investigation, wherein interviews with some of Dinkin’s former Army associates led to the conclusion that he had been hospitalized until he memorized a cover story. And as Garrison’s people pieced the story together, they discovered that one of Dinkin’s duties as a code breaker had been to decipher telegraphic traffic that originated with the French OAS. 34
33: FBI report: WCD 1107.
34: Dinkin as code breaker: transcript, New Orleans researchers' conference (September 21, 1968), pp.73-75.
Tom,
Thank you.
I don't suppose you have foot note number 32 do you?
You can see the FBI report in CD 788 here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11186#relPageId=4&tab=page
It's interesting that these are memorandums of Dinkins' FBI interview, and not the interview itself, which is on a Form 302 isn't it? It says that on April 1st, Dinkin told "agents" of the FBI that...
We don't know who those "agents" were. The reason I bring that up is that according to Lippincott (as told to Russell supposedly,) Dinkin was assigned to the 529th Ordnance Company; but according to the FBI (as told to them by Dinkin supposedly), he was assigned to the 599th Ordnance Group.
Different animals altogether.
I don't suppose you have a copy of the New Orleans research conference transcript as cited in footnote 34 do you? I'd like to know where that OAS business came from.
One minute, Dinkin is intercepting NATO cable traffic (according to Redmon), and the next he's deciphering OAS "telegraph traffic" (according to Nagell).
The inconsistencies abound.
Steve Thomas
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41 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:
Steve - The cable is excerpted on page 555. I'd rather see the cable itself, which is apparently dated Nov 7, 1963. I can't get a good pic of it.
Paul,
Thanks,
Steve
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Request for info:
Could someone please reproduce page 555 of the book The Man Who Knew Too Much?
or, reproduce CIA Cable No. 56631," dated November 7, 1963 from the Geneva Station to Washington?
This is supposed to be the first alert on Dinkin. I tried searching the MFF by that cable number, but that didn't work for me.
Thanks,
Steve Thomas
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17 minutes ago, Ray Mitcham said:
Steve, Ordnance (as distinct from Ordinance) can also mean artillery, which is what 599th was.
Ray,
In researching this topic, it was kind of fascinating to read the descriptions of the ordnance missions of the Civil War and WWI evolving to include the chemical weapons and nuclear weapons of the Cold War. It made me shudder.
Steve Thomas
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1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:
Steve:
Perhaps its just semantics, and the Dinkin writer was loosely referring to the 599th Engineer Group, responsible for maintenance and supply. I'd also speculate that - if Dinkin was in some classified operation or role - he would not be too specific about where/what he did.
Gene
Gene,
I agree. The writer could have meant the 599th Ordnance Company, or the 599th Field Artillery Battalion, or...
Who knows? But were any units you ran across based in Metz, and had a cryptography or communication intercept component?
More than anything else, the Dinkin story makes me think of a certain poster on this Forum who takes peoples' names and turns them into anagrams from which he spins all kinds of conspiracy ideas and goes on and on for pages on end.
Steve Thomas
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1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:
Steve;
A bit off topic, but if you ever get the chance to do a Viking river cruise on the Rheine and Moselle Rivers (wine country), its wonderful.
The cities have beautiful cathedrals and their history is measured in thousands of years (not a few hundred) ... and I live in Philadelphia,
Gene
Gene,
I hate you.
Thank you for the picturesque backdrop of Metz. The rivers' wine country you paint of NE France sounds really beautiful.
PS: I spent my teenage years, and a couple of years after college in Harrisburg.
Steve Thomas
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3 hours ago, Mathias Baumann said:3 hours ago, Mathias Baumann said:
No, I haven't. Where can I find them?
Mathias,
I said, "Just as an aside, have you ever read any of Guerin Serac's writings?
Some scary stuff there."
And you said, "No, I haven't. Where can I find them?"
Mostly what I've read is in references such as L'Orchestre Noir and in researching the "Strategy of Tension", Aginter Presse, and the Portugese P.I.D.E.
You might be interested in this page:
http://gmic.co.uk/topic/47128-yves-guillou-aka-yves-guerin-serac/
Somehow this guy was supposed to have obtained Serac's combat medals.
See also this reference:
http://libcom.org/book/export/html/36251
page 118.
Steve Thomas
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3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
In some form, the OAS lasted at least until 1964, some say 1965.
Jim,
This may be a case of splitting fine hairs, but the O.A.S. was dissolved by Salan in 1962 and its remnants were folded into the C.N.R. (the Consèil de Resistance National).
You might be interested in this document:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=64993#relPageId=3&tab=page
It's case of; you say tomato and I say tomato, I think.
Steve Thomas
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45 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:
Steve:
I dug into the Army information about ordnance groups, and found that they change both names and locations pretty frequently, for many reasons (e.g. to keep up with fast-moving tactical combat troops). For example, the 599th Field Artillery Battalion changed its home station in Germany, moving from Schwäbisch Gmünd to Ferris Barracks, in Erlangen (near Nuremberg). In February 1955, the 599th was re-designated as the 599th Armored Field Artillery Battalion.
Gene
Gene,
I'm not trying to belabor the point, but an Armored Field Artillery Battalion and an Ordnance Group are horses of a different color - different missions, different chains of command.
Again, I can find no record of, not any mention of a 599th Ordnance Group in any place I have looked outside of these references to Dinkin which repeat the same line in his "biography" over and over again.
From what I can gather, during the Cold War, Metz was a gigantic supply depot.
Steve Thomas
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19 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:
Steve:
I just visited Metz, while on a Viking river cruise. So, I think its not unusual for someone to refer to the city alternately as in France or Germany.
Gene
Gene,
Boy do I envy you.
I'll concede the point, although grudgingly. That whole French/German frontier has been fluid for hundreds of years.
I still think it's kind of sloppy to refer to Metz as being German in a scholarly paper though.
Metz had been French for over 300 years before the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
Steve Thomas
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1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:
The 599th was part of the larger 18th artillery group.
Jim,
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
I see where the 599th Field Artillery Battalion was part of the 18th Artillery Group, but not the 599th Ordnance Group.
I'm pretty sure these are different altogether.
Steve Thomas
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30 minutes ago, Mathias Baumann said:
I'll try to sum up the major points of the article:
It's about a Frenchman called Yves Guerin Serac. He'd fought in the Korean War, Indochina and later in Algeria before in 1962 he deserted the army and joined OAS. After Algeria became independent he fled first to Spain and then to Portugal, where he offered his services to the Portuguese Legion,
Mathias,
I was going to mention Portugal in my response to Paul.
Just as an aside, have you ever read any of Guerin Serac's writings?
Some scary stuff there.
Steve Thomas
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21 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:
Of course I am curious about the disappearing OAS angle because it goes to my apparently minority theory that assassins were hired in Europe through Bill Harvey and QJWIN from the Gladio network,... Usually when I bring this theory up threads die. Hope not this time.
Paul,
I tend to agree with your theory in its broad outline, but I think I'd be a little careful with the Dinkin angle for a couple of reasons.
And Jim DiEugenio, I'm sorry, but I don't find Ronald Redmon's article thorough at all for the same reasons.
1) Maybe my research has been sloppy, but I've tried in vain to find some record, or even mention of the "599th Ordnance Group" anywhere.
My mind would be eased if someone could answer me the simple question, Who was the Commanding Officer of the 599th Ordnance Group?
2) Mr. Redmond's article says that "Regular Army Private First Class Dinkin was serving in Metz, Germany..."
There is no Metz, Germany. Metz was occupied by the Germans from 1940-1944 and was liberated at the end of WWII. Metz is in France.
3) Redmond's article says, "Dinkin was transferred to the Army Depot in Metz, France, where his duties did not require a secret clearance."
If Dinkin was already in Metz, how could he be transferred to Metz?
4)
This web page: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=8407#relPageId=2&tab=page
gives Dinkin's military ID number as: Serial number RA-76710292.
Is this even a valid military ID? I didn't serve in the military, so I don't know. Do the armed forces issue military personnel, serial numbers? And/or numbers that start with RA?
Has any armed forces veteran in this, or any other research forum ever tried to run this number through the National Archives or VA, or anywhere else?
Paul I'd be a little careful with the OAS angle on this. For all intents and purposes, the OAS was splintered in 1962 following the Evian Peace Accords in March. They even disavowed any involvement in the Petit Clamart attack against DeGaulle in August of that year. Most of the leadership had been captured or killed by 1963, and the remaining members for the most part were scattered to the winds and became mercenaries in somebody else's wars.
If Dinkin was intercepting OAS communications, I'd like to know whose traffic he was intercepting. I have never seen the product of what that communication was. How was it intercepted? Was somebody's phone tapped? Whose? Was it telegraph? Shortwave radio? What language was it in? English, French? German? Portugese?
Is there any indication that Dinkin knew any of these?
Needless to say, I'm pretty skeptical.
Steve Thomas
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Has Trump Cut a Deal with the CIA and FBI to Keep Concealing Key JFK Assassination Documents?
Plans for full disclosure by October 26 deadline are "in flux," says National Archives.
By Jefferson Morley
https://www.alternet.org/has-trump-cut-deal-cia-and-fbi-secret-jfk-records
What Are They Hiding?
Researchers for the Mary Farrell Foundation, which has the largest online repository of JFK assassination records, scraped the National Archives database of JFK records earlier this year. Our keyword analysis, published in Newsweek, yielded new insight into what the government is still concealing, including:
- Approximately 700 pages of secret material from the files of two high-ranking CIA officers, William K. Harvey and David Phillips, who ran assassination operations in the 1960s. Both men were open in their contempt for JFK's Cuba policy.
- The records of two undercover officers, Howard Hunt and David Morales, both of whom later made statements to family members that seemed to implicate themselves (and CIA personnel) in the murder of the liberal president in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
- A transcript of the closed-door testimony of CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton to Senate investigators in September 1975. As I document in my forthcoming biography of Angleton, his staff monitored the movements of accused assassin Lee Oswald from November 1959 through November 1963.
Steve Thomas
Where were you?
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
From Harlan Brown to SAC, Dallas:
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32113185.pdf
"Informant determined that Joe Landin and Augustin Estrada had lunch together on 11/26/63".
Yawn.
I think I''ll go watch Stranger Things 2.
Steve Thomas