John Simkin

One of the best threads in the Forum's history. As Blair pinted out, it is great when people work together. I have added "Shooter, Radioman, Spotter" to the JFK Index. Lee, what do you make of Sherry Guitierrez's theory concerning the position of the front shooter? http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6386

It appears on page 49 of Daniel Hopsicker's Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America's Secret History (2001). I am afraid Hopsicker does not include notes so I cannot give a date for the quotation.

Jefferson Morley writes for the Washington Post and is currently working on a book on the CIA. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/ (1) Could you explain the reasons why you decided to become an investigative journalist and historian? (2) Is there any real difference between the role of an investigative journalist and a historian? (3) How do you decide about what to write about? (4) Do you ever consider the possibility that your research will get you into trouble with those who have power and influence? (5) You tend to write about controversial subjects. Do you think this has harmed your career in any way? Have you ever come under pressure to leave these subjects alone? (6) The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that the “committee believes, on the basis of the available evidence, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”. However, very few historians have been willing to explore this area of American history. Lawrence E. Walsh’s Iran-Contra Report suggests that senior politicians were involved in and covered-up serious crimes. Yet very few historians have written about this case in any detail? Why do you think that historians and journalists appear to be so unwilling to investigate political conspiracies? (7) What is your basic approach to writing about what I would call “secret history”? How do you decide what sources to believe? How do you manage to get hold of documents that prove that illegal behaviour has taken place? 8) Why is it that most books written about political conspiracies; assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc. are written by journalists rather than historians? Is it because of fear or is it something to do with the nature of being a historian?

I will post more information on John Odom later. I am currently updating my page on Barry Seal. It should be up and running by the weekend.

This is a very interesting point Daniel. How is it taught in French schools today? Does it take the 1960s or the 1970s view? Or is it a more balanced view?

What unusual trait did Barry Seal share with Dave Ferrie and Ted Shackley? A clue - it is a trait that is very useful for spies.

John Kennedy Jr. was asked at the press conference where he announced his media venture George Magazine, if he would be using the magazine to investigate the assassination of his father. "No" he answered, "too much time has elapsed". He added "time is the great enemy of the truth."

The HSCA interviewed Jerry Paradis in 1979. He told the investigators that Oswald had been a member of his CAP unit when Ferrie was leader. He said: "I'm not saying that they may have been together, I'm saying it is a certainty."

There is a fascinating interview with Jakob Nielsen in todays Technology Guardian: http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/st...1781893,00.html Here are a couple of answers that I think teachers should consider: TG: Sites like MySpace are hugely populated by savvy younger people still developing a sense of design. Do you feel that sites directed towards young users are failing to teach them best practice? JN: If a teenager is just making a page for their three best friends, then these guidelines aren't relevant. You can put a pulsating heart on the page, make it play your favourite song - these atrocities would be the kiss of death for a mainstream website, but here it's a case of personal expression. It is OK for somebody's MySpace pages to contradict everything we know about usability because they're purely self-expression. We have to get through to them that the way you communicate among yourselves is different from the way you communicate with other people. This goes back to the school system, which needs to explain the different ways of communicating in different media. If you wrote a job application like your MySpace pages, you'd be out of work. TG: So is there room for talking about these issues in the classroom? JN: There was a study done at the Open University found that in elementary schools, for every £100 spent on books, students grades improved by 1.5% - and for every £100 spent on computers, grades improved by 0.7%. So books are twice as good as computers for this ... So it's not necessarily that I should study history by clicking on some web pages, but that we should teach about these electronic media forms and how to use them. The value of that education would be immense. TG: Have you seen any significant changes in the way people use the web? JN: General behaviour is very search-dominated. You go to your favourite search engine, type in two words and click on the first few results. Users spend one or two minutes and then decide where to do their business. That has been a big change. Search has changed from being something that's somewhat useful to being something that works surprisingly well. People do tend to only type in two words, and two words is a very minute and impoverished description of a human need. But search engines can - most of the time - pick four or five sites that you actually want. Because people have experienced that it works, this has become their number one behaviour.

Don Bohning joined the Miami Herald staff in 1959 as a reporter. Five years later he became a foreign correspondent for the newspaper. Over the next 36 years he reported from every independent country in the Western Hemisphere. This included the overthrow of Salvador Allende by Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the 1978 Jonestown Massacre in Guyana and the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983. Bohning has also written extensively about the Bay of Pigs and the attempts to remove Fidel Castro from power in Cuba. This had included carrying out interviews with CIA officials, Jake Esterline and Jack Hawkins. Don Bohning, who retired from the Miami Herald is the author of the book, The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-1965 (2005). (1) Could you explain the reasons why you decided to become an investigative journalist? (2) Is there any real difference between the role of an investigative journalist and a historian? (3) How do you decide about what to write about? (4) Do you ever consider the possibility that your research into subjects like the CIA would get you into trouble with those who have power and influence? (5) You tend to write about controversial subjects. Do you think this has harmed your career in any way? Have you ever come under pressure to leave these subjects alone? (6) The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that the “committee believes, on the basis of the available evidence, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”. However, very few historians have been willing to explore this area of American history. Lawrence E. Walsh’s Iran-Contra Report suggests that senior politicians were involved in, and covered-up, serious crimes. Yet very few historians have written about this case in any detail? Why do you think that historians and journalists appear to be so unwilling to investigate political conspiracies? (7) What is your basic approach to writing about what I would call “secret history”? How do you decide what sources to believe? How do you manage to get hold of documents that prove that illegal behaviour has taken place? (8) Why is it that most books written about political conspiracies; assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc. are written by journalists rather than historians? Is it because of fear or is it something to do with the nature of being a historian?

(1) Could you explain the reasons why you decided to become an investigative journalist? (2) Is there any real difference between the role of an investigative journalist and a historian? (3) How do you decide about what to write about? (4) Do you ever consider the possibility that your research into subjects like the CIA would get you into trouble with those who have power and influence? (5) You tend to write about controversial subjects. Do you think this has harmed your career in any way? Have you ever come under pressure to leave these subjects alone? (6) The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that the “committee believes, on the basis of the available evidence, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”. However, very few historians have been willing to explore this area of American history. Lawrence E. Walsh’s Iran-Contra Report suggests that senior politicians were involved in, and covered-up, serious crimes. Yet very few historians have written about this case in any detail? Why do you think that historians and journalists appear to be so unwilling to investigate political conspiracies? (7) What is your basic approach to writing about what I would call “secret history”? How do you decide what sources to believe? How do you manage to get hold of documents that prove that illegal behaviour has taken place? (8) Why is it that most books written about political conspiracies; assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc. are written by journalists rather than historians? Is it because of fear or is it something to do with the nature of being a historian?

Barry Seal, the son of a candy wholesaler, was born in Baton Rouge on 16th July, 1939. Seal's father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Seal became obsessed with aircraft and took his first solo flight at the age of fifteen and was soon making a living towing advertising banners. On 27th July, 1955 Seal joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) in Baton Rouge. Soon afterwards Seal took part in a CAP joint training mission with the New Orleans unit that was run by David Ferrie. According to John Odom, a fellow CAP member, Seal met Lee Harvey Oswald during this training session. When the House Select Committee on Assassinations tried to find Oswald and Ferrie's records in Civil Air Patrol files they discovered that "most of the records of the squadron had been stolen in late 1960". Edward Voebel, a fellow member, also confirmed that Oswald had met Ferrie at CAP. Later he denied it but it did not stop him dying of an aneurysm in 1971 at the age of 31. To be continued...

I use it but not in the classroom. I am not sure how it could be used it history. Any ideas?

My first computer was a Mac and I loved it. Eventually I was persuaded to buy a PC. I think it will be a very difficult task to persuade schools and teachers to by Macs.

Namebase entry for Barry Seal: http://www.namebase.org/main1/Barry-Seal.html Assn. National Security Alumni. Unclassified 1992-03 (6) Assn. National Security Alumni. Unclassified 1994-05 (17) Bainerman,J. The Crimes of a President. 1992 (266, 269-71) Brewton,P. The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush. 1992 (76, 154-60, 301) Castillo,C. Harmon,D. Powderburns. 1994 (140-1) Christic Institute. Sheehan Affidavit. 1988-03-25 (161-2) Cockburn,L. Out of Control. 1987 (180-2, 222) Covert Action Information Bulletin 1987-#27 (72) Covert Action Information Bulletin 1987-#28 (16, 18) Davis,S. Unbridled Power. 1998 (129-30) Duzan,M.J. Death Beat. 1994 (46) Ehrenfeld,R. Narco-terrorism. 1990 (46) Evans-Pritchard,A. The Secret Life of Bill Clinton. 1997 (246, 294, 315-30, 335-7, 339-43, 346-8) Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Extra! 1987-11 (11) Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Extra! 1988-08 (14) Hopsicker,D. Welcome to TerrorLand. 2004 (124, 243, 252-4, 314) Houston Post 1990-02-08 (A5) In These Times 1992-02-18 (8-9, 11) Intelligence Newsletter (Paris) 1995-10-12 (7) Intelligence/Parapolitics (Paris) 1986-04 (6) Kwitny,J. The Crimes of Patriots. 1987 (379-80) Levine,M. Deep Cover. 1990 (14) Marshall,J... The Iran-Contra Connection. 1987 (138) Millegan,K. Fleshing Out Skull & Bones. 2003 (160-72) Morris,R. Partners in Power. 1996 (389-403, 405, 407-9, 427, 454) Mother Jones 1987-04 (49-50) National Security Archive. The Chronology. 1987 (288) Naylor,R.T. Hot Money and the Politics of Debt. 1994 (400-1) New Federalist 1994-04-25 (10-1) New Federalist 1994-05-23 (12) Parry,R. Fooling America. 1992 (199) Parry,R. Lost History. 1997 (17) Penthouse 1987-12 (168) Penthouse 1989-07 (39-40, 64-5, 70-1, 74, 115, 132, 134) Penthouse 1995-07 (35-6, 40, 46, 60, 67, 95, 158) Reed,T. Cummings,J. Compromised. 1994 Scott,P.D. Deep Politics. 1993 (79) Scott,P.D. Marshall,J. Cocaine Politics. 1991 (58, 81-2, 93-4, 98-102, 262) Sklar,H. Washington's War on Nicaragua. 1988 (291-2, 295) Spotlight Newspaper 1993-08-16 (12) Stich,R. Defrauding America. 1994 (341) Stich,R. Drugging America: A Trojan Horse. 1999 (6-7, 42-4, 63-6, 68-9, 73, 89, 92-3, 294) Terrell,J. Disposable Patriot. 1992 (179, 187, 372) Thomas,K. Popular Alienation: A Steamshovel Press Reader. 1995 (264-5) Wall Street Journal. Whitewater: A Journal Briefing. 1994 (361, 363-4, 422-6) Washington Post Book World 1989-05-21 (11) Washington Post 1989-02-28 (D10) Washington Post 1991-09-18 (A3) Washington Times 1988-07-29 (A5) Washington Times 1994-06-09 (A11) Washington Times 1995-02-03 (A21) Washington Times 1995-08-25 (A15) Washington Times 1996-01-18 (A1, 11) Washington Times 1996-11-09 (A2) Webb,G. Dark Alliance. 1998 (xx, 115-8, 254-6, 454)

Howard K. Davis was an Airbourne Ranger who fought in the Korean War. He also fought the Pinar Del Rio in Cuba (1957-58). Davis was a member of Interpen (Intercontinental Penetration Force) that was established in 1961 by Gerry P. Hemming. Other members included Loran Hall, Roy Hargraves, Lawrence Howard, William Seymour, Steve Wilson, Ed Collins, Bill Dempsey, Dick Whatley, Ramigo Arce, Ronald Augustinovich, Joe Garman, Edmund Kolby, James Arthur Lewis, Dennis Harber, Ralph Schlafter, Manuel Aguilar and Oscar Del Pinto. Does anyone else know anything about Howard K. Davis. I know he is still alive and is still close to Gerry Hemming. Maybe he can be persuaded to join the Forum. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdavisH.htm

Christopher Barger, memorandum to Jeremy Gunn (18th May, 1995) I interviewed former US Army captain and CIA employee Bradley Ayers on May 12, 1995, at Ayers' home in Woodbury, Minnesota. The interview lasted from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. The following is a summary and report of the interview... Q. Did Morales ever try and pass himself off as Cuban? A. Not to Ayers' knowledge, but "he could easily pass for Cuban." Morales was allegedly a very good actor, and "could pull off lots of roles." Here the conversation drifted into a discussion of David Morales and his emotional makeup. Ayers charged that Morales was a "mean" man who "paraded around the station like a tyrant." Everyone was apparently afraid of him. Morales hung with what Ayers called the "circle" - Morales, Roselli, Tony Sforza, Manuel Artime and Rip Robertson. The four were drinking buddies and of like mind on politics. Ayers said they were vicious, too. "If anyone put together a sniper team to hit the President, Morales, Rip, Rosselli and Sforza would have done it." Ayers noted that Artime, Robertson, Rosselli and Sforza all died just as the HSCA began investigating. He suggests checking for Morales' whereabouts during the late seventies, especially on the times these men were killed. Ayers is right that these men all died in the 1970s: Rip Robertson (1970), John Roselli (July 1976), Manuel Artime (November, 1977) and Tony Sforza (December, 1978). However, David Morales could not have killed all these men as he himself died six months before Tony Sforza (May, 1978).

Christopher Barger, memorandum to Jeremy Gunn (18th May, 1995) I interviewed former US Army captain and CIA employee Bradley Ayers on May 12, 1995, at Ayers' home in Woodbury, Minnesota. The interview lasted from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. The following is a summary and report of the interview... Q. Did Morales ever try and pass himself off as Cuban? A. Not to Ayers' knowledge, but "he could easily pass for Cuban." Morales was allegedly a very good actor, and "could pull off lots of roles." Here the conversation drifted into a discussion of David Morales and his emotional makeup. Ayers charged that Morales was a "mean" man who "paraded around the station like a tyrant." Everyone was apparently afraid of him. Morales hung with what Ayers called the "circle" - Morales, Roselli, Tony Sforza, Manuel Artime and Rip Robertson. The four were drinking buddies and of like mind on politics. Ayers said they were vicious, too. "If anyone put together a sniper team to hit the President, Morales, Rip, Rosselli and Sforza would have done it." Ayers noted that Artime, Robertson, Rosselli and Sforza all died just as the HSCA began investigating. He suggests checking for Morales' whereabouts during the late seventies, especially on the times these men were killed. Ayers is right that these men all died in the 1970s: Rip Robertson (1970), John Roselli (July 1976), Manuel Artime (November, 1977) and Tony Sforza (December, 1978). However, David Morales could not have killed all these men as he himself died six months before Tony Sforza (May, 1978).

Thank you for posting this collection of stimulating articles. I will be writing about this topic in the next section of Assassination, Terrorism and the Arms Trade: The Contracting Out of U.S. Foreign Policy: 1940-2006. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5799 I have been appalled by the way the media accepted that Mark Felt was Deep Throat. It is true that Felt was one of Woodward’s informants, but if you read All the President’s Men and make a list of all the information that Deep Throat gave Woodward, there is no way that Felt could have been Deep Throat. What Gary North does not say in his article is that it was Deep Throat who first told Woodward about the tapes. How could Felt know about these tapes? On 19th June, Woodward telephoned a man who he called "an old friend" for information about the burglars. This man, who Woodward claims was a high-ranking federal employee, was willing to help Woodward as long as he was never named as a source. Later, Howard Simons, the managing editor of the newspaper, gave him the nickname "Deep Throat". During their first telephone conversation with Bob Woodward Deep Throat insisted on certain conditions. According to All the President's Men: "His identity was unknown to anyone else. He could be contacted only on very important occasions. Woodward had promised he would never identify him or his position to anyone. Further, he, had agreed never to quote the man, even as an anonymous source. Their discussions would be only to confirm information that had been obtained elsewhere and to add some perspective." The first information that Deep Throat gave Woodward on 19th June was that the Federal Bureau of Investigation considered that E. Howard Hunt, a former member of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a major suspect in the case. At first Woodward and Deep Throat communicated via telephone. However, by October, 1973, Deep Throat had become very worried that he would be identified as Woodward's main source and insisted that they had their meetings at about 2:00 am. in a pre-designated underground parking garage. Deep Throat even refused to use the phone to set up the meetings. It was agreed that if Woodward wanted a meeting he would place a flower pot with the red flag on the balcony of his apartment. On one occasion (25th February, 1973) the men met in a Washington bar. As Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein explained in All the President's Men: "If Deep Throat wanted a meeting-which was rare-there was a different procedure. Each morning, Woodward would check page 20 of his New York Times, delivered to his apartment house before 7:00 am. If a meeting was requested, the page number would be circled and the hands of a clock indicating the time of the rendezvous would appear in a lower corner of the page." According to Woodward's book, All the President's Men, he had at least fifteen conversations with Deep Throat while investigating the Watergate scandal. This included communications on 19th June (2 phone calls); 16th September, 1972 (phone call); 8th October, 1972 (phone call); 9th October, 1972 (garage meeting); 21st October, 1972 (garage meeting), 27th October, 1972 (garage meeting), late December, 1972 (undisclosed), 25th January, 1973 (garage meeting); 25th February, 1973 (meeting in bar); 16th April, 1973 (phone call); 16th May, 1973 (garage meeting) and a meeting during the first week of November, 1973. In his book, Lost Honor, John Dean made a list of 30 possible candidates: White House Staff (Stephen Bull, Alexander P. Butterfield, Kenneth Clawson, Charles Colson, Leonard Garment, David Gergen, Alexander Haig, Richard Moore and Jonathan Rose); FBI (Thomas E. Bishop, Charles Bowles, Mark Felt, L. Patrick Gray and David Kinley), Justice Department (Carl Belcher, Richard Burke, John Keeney, Laurrence McWhorter, Henry Peterson and Harold Shapiro); Secret Service (Lilburn Boggs, Charles Bretz, Roger Schwalm, Alfred Wong and Raymond Zumwalt). In his memoirs, The Ends of Power, H. R. Haldeman, came to the conclusion that Deep Throat was John Dean's assistant, Fred F. Fielding. This view is supported by William Gaines, head of the Department of Journalism at the University of Illinois. As he points out "my students over 12 semesters poured over FBI reports, congressional testimony, White House documents in the National Archives and autobiographies of Watergate figures". Eventually, like Haldeman, they became convinced that Fielding was Deep Throat. In an article published in 1976, J. Anthony Lukas, of the New York Times, claimed that Bennett was Deep Throat. In his book, In Search of Deep Throat, Leonard Garment argues that Bennett was probably trying to "distance the CIA, his sponsor and source of income, from the events of Watergate". The authors of Silent Coup: The Removal of a President, claimed that the culprit was Alexander Haig, the man who replaced Haldeman as chief of staff in the Nixon administration. Jim Hougan (Secret Agenda) and John Dean (Lost Honor) also argued that Haig was probably Deep Throat. However, Haig was not in Washington during Woodward's meeting with Deep Throat on 9th October, 1972. The other problem with Haig concerns motivation. Was it really in his interests to bring down Richard Nixon? According to Leon Jaworski Haig did everything he could, including lying about what was on the tapes, in order to protect Nixon from impeachment. Mark Riebling, the author of Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11 points out that Bob Woodward described Deep Throat as "having an aggregate of information flowing in and out of many stations" and "perhaps the only person in the government in a position to possibly understand the whole scheme, and not be a potential conspirator himself". Riebling goes on to argue that this indicates that Deep Throat was a senior official in the Central Intelligence Agency. He points out that Woodward virtually confirmed that his source was from the CIA: "As you know, I'm not going to discuss the identify of Deep Throat or any other of my confidential sources who are still alive. But let me just say that the suggestion that we were being used by the intelligence community was of concern to us at the time and afterward." Riebling suggests three possible CIA suspects: William Colby, Cord Meyer and Richard Helms. He finally opts for Meyer arguing that like Deep Throat he was a chain-smoker and heavy drinker. Riebling also suggests that Meyer met Woodward while working as a Washington briefer in naval intelligence. The problem with this theory is that Meyer was transferred to London during the summer of 1973 and could not have made the meeting with Woodward in November of that year. Deborah Davis, the author of Katharine the Great, also believes that Deep Throat was a senior official of the CIA. Her candidate is Richard Ober, the head of Operation Chaos. Ober was given an office in the White House and worked closely with Richard Nixon, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman during this period. Leonard Garment, Nixon's special counsel, later wrote the book, In Search of Deep Throat (2002). Garment came to the conclusion that Deep Throat was fellow presidential lawyer John Sears. James Mann, a former colleague of Woodward's at the Washington Post, argued in an article in the Atlantic Monthly that was published in 1992 that Mark Felt was Deep Throat. This view was supported by Ronald Kessler (The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI). Nora Ephron, the former wife of Carl Bernstein, has been claiming for several years that Felt was Deep Throat. Bob Woodward promised Deep Throat that he would never reveal the man's position with the government, nor would he ever quote him, even anonymously, in his articles. Woodward also promised not to tell anyone else the identity of his source. Woodward did not keep these promises. He gave the name of Deep Throat to both Ben Bradlee and Carl Bernstein. He also quoted him in his book, All the President's Men. The best way to identify Deep Throat is to take a close look at what he told Bob Woodward. The initial information suggested that his source was someone involved in the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in. However, Jim Hougan (Secret Agenda) argues that Deep Throat was unlikely to have been a member of the agency. He points out that Deep Throat did not tell Woodward about the role played by Alfred Baldwin in the Watergate break-in. This was first revealed by a press conference held by the Democratic Party in September. Hougan suggests that the only reason Deep Throat did not pass this important information to Woodward was that he did not know about it. If that is the case Deep Throat was not from the FBI (L. Patrick Gray or Mark Felt). Nor could he have been one of Nixon's aides who all knew about Baldwin's key role in the break-in (John Dean, H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, John N. Mitchell, Jeb Magruder, Egil Krogh and Frederick LaRue). Another clue to the identity of Deep Throat comes from Barry Sussman, Woodward's editor at Washington Post. In his book, The Great Cover-Up, Sussman claims that Woodward first made use of Deep Throat when writing about how Arthur Bremer attempted to kill George Wallace on 15th May, 1972. This suggests that his informant was working in a senior position in the FBI. In April, 1982, John Dean met Bob Woodward at a conference being held at the University of Massachusetts. Although Woodward refused to identify Deep Throat it was possible for Dean to work out that he was someone working in the White House. According to Woodward it was Deep Throat who first suggested that Alexander P. Butterfield could be an important figure in the investigation. In May, 1973, Woodward told a member of the Senate Watergate Committee (undoubtedly his friend, Scott Armstrong) that Butterfield should be interviewed. On 25th June, 1973, John Dean testified that at a meeting with Richard Nixon on 15th April, the president had remarked that he had probably been foolish to have discussed his attempts to get clemency for E. Howard Hunt with Charles Colson. Dean concluded from this that Nixon's office might be bugged. On Friday, 13th July, Butterfield appeared before the committee and was asked about if he knew whether Nixon was recording meetings he was having in the White House. Butterfield reluctantly admitted details of the tape system which monitored Nixon's conversations. In Lost Honor John Dean concludes that it was Deep Throat who had told Woodward about Nixon's taping system that had been installed by Alexander P. Butterfield. This was the best-kept secret in the White House with only a few people knowing about its existence. In the first week of November, 1973, Deep Throat told Woodward that their were "gaps" in Nixon's tapes. He hinted that these gaps were the result of deliberate erasures. On 8th November, Woodward and Bernstein published an article in the Washington Post that said that according to their source the "conservation on some of the tapes appears to have been erased". It was later claimed by Jim Hougan (Secret Agenda) and John Dean (Lost Honor) that only a very small group of people could have known about these these gaps at this time. According to Fred Emery (Watergate: The Corruption and Fall of Richard Nixon) only Richard Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, Alexander Haig and Stephen Bull knew about this erased tape before it was made public on 20th November. In his book Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (1993) Adrian Havill argues that Deep Throat was a dramatic devise used by Woodward. Havill visited the place where Woodward lived during the Watergate investigation. He discovered that the balcony where he placed the flower pot with a red flag faced an interior courtyard. Havill argues in his book that the only way Deep Throat could see the flag was "to walk into the center of the complex, with eighty units viewing you, crane your neck and look up to the sixth floor". Havill argues that Deep Throat would have been highly unlikely to have exposed himself if this way. Nor was Havill impressed with the way Deep Throat communicated to Woodward when he wanted a meeting with the journalist. According to All the President's Men Deep Throat drew a clock on page 20 of his New York Times. Havill discovered that the papers were not delivered to each door, but left stacked and unmarked in a common reception area. Havill argues that there is no way Deep Throat could have known which paper Woodward would end up with each morning. In May, 2005, John O'Connor, a lawyer working for Mark Felt, told Vanity Fair magazine that his client was Deep Throat. Shortly afterwards Bob Woodward confirmed that Felt had provided him with important information during the Watergate investigation. However, Carl Bernstein was quick to add that Felt was only one of several important sources. However, there are serious problems with the idea that Mark Felt was Deep Throat. In his autobiography, The FBI Pyramid: Inside the FBI, Felt denied being Deep Throat and said he met with Woodward only once. Felt's last word on the subject came in 1999, on the 25th anniversary of Nixon's resignation, when he told a reporter that it would be "terrible" if someone in his position had been Deep Throat. "This would completely undermine the reputation that you might have as a loyal employee of the FBI," he said. "It just wouldn't fit at all." Felt had not made the confession himself. In 2001 Felt suffered a stroke that robbed him of his memory. Before this happened Felt had told his daughter Joan that he was Deep Throat. She admits that the family have gone public in an attempt to obtain money. Joan Felt told journalists: "My son Nick is in law school and he'll owe $100,000 by the time he graduates. I am still a single mom, still supporting them (her children) to one degree or another." Vanity Fair only paid the Felt family $10,000 (£5,500) but the whole project is linked to a $1m book deal. It is rumoured the book will be written by Bob Woodward. However, on 4th June, 2005, the publisher Judith Regan (HarperCollins) revealed that negotiations over a possible book deal had collapsed because of serious concerns that Felt was no longer of sound mind. There are several major problems with Mark Felt being Deep Throat. Felt resigned from the FBI. in June, 1973 and no longer had to worry about his career. Why did he not come forward with his information at this stage of the Watergate investigation? He would have been seen as a national hero and would no doubt have made a fortune from his memoirs. In November, 1980, Felt was convicted of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of Americans by authorising illegal break-ins and wire taps of people connected to suspected domestic bombers. Why did Felt not attempt to rebuild his public image by disclosing that he was Deep Throat? If Felt had been Deep Throat why did he not tell Woodward about the role played by Alfred Baldwin in the Watergate break-in. The FBI knew about this within days of the break-in. Yet Woodward did not mention it in his articles until the story was revealed by a press conference held by the Democratic Party in September, 1972. According to Woodward it was Deep Throat who first suggested that Alexander P. Butterfield could be an important figure in the investigation. In May, 1973, Woodward told a member of the Senate Watergate Committee that Butterfield should be interviewed. On Friday, 13th July, Butterfield appeared before the committee and was asked about if he knew whether Richard Nixon was recording meetings he was having in the White House. This was the best-kept secret in the White House with only a few people knowing about its existence. How could Felt have known about this system? Felt left the FBI in June 1973. Yet according to All The President's Men Woodward he continued to meet Deep Throat after this date. The most important of these meetings took place in the first week of November, 1973. At this meeting Deep Throat told Woodward that their were "gaps" in Nixon's tapes. He hinted that these gaps were the result of deliberate erasures. On 8th November, Woodward and Bernstein published an article in the Washington Post that said that according to their source the "conversation on some of the tapes appears to have been erased". It has been claimed by several writers that only a very small group of people could have known about these gaps at this time. How could Felt had known about this? Maybe he did have meetings with Woodward in underground garages. However, if Felt was Deep Throat, he was getting information from someone working in the White House. He also had to get information from someone senior in the CIA. The most sensible explanation is that Deep Throat was more than one man. That is he represented several of Woodward's sources. If that is the case, I think Deep Throat was Mark Felt, William Sullivan, Richard Ober and Stephen Bull.

John Roselli (Filippo Sacco) first became involved in crime when he worked for Al Capone in the 1920s. By the end of the Second World War Roselli had emerged as a senior crime boss in Las Vegas with close links to Meyer Lansky. In 1947 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified him as a leading figure in the Mafia and a close associate of Santos Trafficante. In March I960, President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States approved a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to overthrow Fidel Castro. The plan involved a budget of $13 million to train "a paramilitary force outside Cuba for guerrilla action." The strategy was organised by Richard Bissell and Richard Helms. Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA Technical Services Division was asked to come up with proposals that would undermine Castro's popularity with the Cuban people. Plans included a scheme to spray a television studio in which he was about to appear with an hallucinogenic drug and contaminating his shoes with thallium which they believed would cause the hair in his beard to fall out. These schemes were rejected and instead Bissell decided to arrange the assassination of Fidel Castro. In September 1960, Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), initiated talks with two leading figures of the Mafia, Roselli (using the name John Rawlston) and Sam Giancana. On 12th March, 1961, William Harvey arranged for CIA operative, Jim O'Connell, to meet Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante, Johnny Roselli and Robert Maheu at the Fontainebleau Hotel. During the meeting O'Connell gave poison pills and $10,000 to Rosselli to be used against Fidel Castro. As Richard D. Mahoney points out in his book: Sons and Brothers: "Late one evening, probably March 13, Rosselli passed the poison pills and the money to a small, reddish-haired Afro-Cuban by the name of Rafael "Macho" Gener in the Boom Boom Room, a location Giancana thought "stupid." Rosselli's purpose, however, was not just to assassinate Castro but to set up the Mafia's partner in crime, the United States government. Accordingly, he was laying a long, bright trail of evidence that unmistakably implicated the CIA in the Castro plot. This evidence, whose purpose was blackmail, would prove critical in the CIA's cover-up of the Kennedy assassination." In 1961 Roselli persuaded Meyer Lansky, to join the conspiracy and was reportedly offering a million-dollar reward for the Cuban leader's murder. Richard Cain, a specialist in electronics and wire taps, was also recruited by Roselli. Cain took part in a failed attempt in March 1961 to poison Castro. The nearest Rosselli came to killing Fidel Castro was in September 1961. Several Cubans were arrested at the intersection of Rancho Boyeros Avenue and Santa Catalina Avenue in Havana. The men were in two Jeeps armed with bazookas, grenade launchers, and machine guns. Two of those arrested, Guillermo Caula Ferrer and Higinio Menendez, made a full confession during their interrogation and admitted they had been working with CIA agents in Miami and had been trained on Guantanamo, the American naval base in Cuba. All the men involved in the plot were executed. In April 1962, William Harvey took control of the ZR/RIFLE project. He told Johnny Roselli that Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana had to cease involvement in the project to kill Castro. Ted Shackley, the new head of JM WAVE, also began to play a more important role in planning the assassination. Eventually Rosselli and his friends became convinced that the Cuban revolution could not be reversed by simply removing its leader. However, they continued to play along with this CIA plot in order to prevent them being prosecuted for criminal offences committed in the United States. In February, 1963, William Harvey was removed as head of the ZR/RIFLE project. Harvey was now sent to Italy where he became Chief of Station in Rome. Harvey was convinced that Robert Kennedy had been responsible for his demotion. A friend of Harvey's said that he "hated Bobby Kennedy's guts with a purple passion". Harvey continued to keep in contact with Johnny Roselli. According to Richard D. Mahoney: "On April 8, Rossrlli flew to New York to meet with Bill Harvey. A week later, the two men met again in Miami to discuss the plot in greater detail... On April 21 he (Harvey) flew from Washington to deliver four poison pills directly to Rosselli, who got them to Tony Varona and hence to Havana. That same evening, Harvey and Ted Shackley, the chief of the CIA's south Florida base, drove a U-Haul truck filled with the requested arms through the rain to a deserted parking lot in Miami. They got out and handed the keys to Rosselli." In November, 1963, Roselli travelled to Arizona with a male friend and two women. He was being followed by the FBI but on the way to Los Vegas they lost contact with him. According to Tosh Plumlee, a pilot working for the CIA, he picked up Roselli from Tampa, Florida, early on the 22nd November. Plumlee then took Roselli to New Orleans. After picking up three more men, Plumlee took Roselli and his friends to Redbird Airport in Dallas. In an interview in April, 1992, Plumlee claimed that he was told that the objective was "to abort the assassination" of John F. Kennedy. Roselli discovered in 1966 that the FBI had been collecting information on his activities. Attempts were made to deport him as an illegal alien. Roselli moved to Los Angeles where he went into early retirement. It was at this time he told attorney, Edward Morgan: "The last of the sniper teams dispatched by Robert Kennedy in 1963 to assassinate Fidel Castro were captured in Havana. Under torture they broke and confessed to being sponsored by the CIA and the US government. At that point, Castro remarked that, 'If that was the way President Kennedy wanted it, Cuba could engage in the same tactics'. The result was that Castro infiltrated teams of snipers into the US to kill Kennedy". Morgan took the story to Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson. The story was then passed on to Earl Warren. He did not want anything to do with it and so the information was then passed to the FBI. When they failed to investigate the story Anderson wrote an article entitled "President Johnson is sitting on a political H-bomb" about Roselli's story. It has been suggested that Roselli started this story at the request of his friends in the Central Intelligence Agency in order to divert attention from the investigation being carried out by Jim Garrison. Roselli was eventually charged with being involved in illegal gambling in Las Vegas. In an attempt to obtain a lenient sentence, Roselli provided information in court about his role in helping the CIA with Operation Mongoose and ZR/RIFLE. The judge was not impressed and he was sent to McNeal Island prison. His good friend Fred Black intervened and used his powerful political connections to get transferred to a less harsh prison. Roselli was eventually released in 1973. In 1975 Frank Church and his Select Committee on Intelligence Activities interviewed Roselli about his relationship with the secret services. It emerged from this interview that Roselli and fellow crime boss, Sam Giancana had taken part in talks with the CIA about the possibility of murdering Fidel Castro. Roselli also claimed that a CIA hit team that had been dispatched to Cuba had been "turned" and used to kill Kennedy. The following year the Select Committee on Intelligence Activities decided to recall Roselli. Soon afterwards Fred Black called him and warned him that Santos Trafficante had taken out a contract on his life and that the "Cubans were after him". In July 1976, Roselli left home in Florida to play golf. He never arrived at the golf course and ten days later his body was found floating in an oil drum in Miami's Dumfoundling Bay. He had been garroted. Roselli's legs had been sawed off and squashed into the drum with the rest of his body. Jack Anderson, of the Washington Post, interviewed Roselli just before he was murdered. On 7th September, 1976, the newspaper reported Roselli as saying : "When Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive US crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald." The House Select Committee on Assassinations managed to obtain the records of an FBI wire tap on Santos Trafficante. On the tape Trafficante was heard to say "now only two people know who killed Kennedy and they aren't talking." In an interview in April, 1992, Tosh Plumlee claimed that Roselli had been killed because he knew too much about JM WAVE, Operation Mongoose, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Namebase entry for William Robertson http://www.namebase.org/main4/William-_28r...-Robertson.html Guatemala 1954 Cuba 1961-1962 Zaire 1964 Anson,R. They've Killed the President! 1975 (286-7) Corn,D. Blond Ghost. 1994 (75, 90, 101) DiEugenio,J. Pease,L. The Assassinations. 2003 (437) Dinges,J. Landau,S. Assassination on Embassy Row. 1981 (286) Escalante,F. The Secret War. 1995 (64-5, 137, 146, 174) Hersh,B. The Old Boys. 1992 (341, 346) Hinckle,W. Turner,W. The Fish is Red. 1981 (65-6, 89, 99, 168) Hunt,H. Give Us This Day. 1973 (202) Kelly,S. America's Tyrant. 1993 (141-2) Livingstone,N. The Cult of Counterterrorism. 1990 (362) Parapolitics/USA 1983-03-01 (25) Powers,T. The Man Who Kept the Secrets. 1981 (419) Prados,J. Presidents' Secret Wars. 1988 (101, 103, 105-6, 185, 204, 213) Schlesinger,S. Kinzer,S. Bitter Fruit. 1983 (109, 113, 151, 193-4) Scott,P.D. Deep Politics. 1993 (108, 112, 114-5) Thomas,E. The Very Best Men. 1996 (115-6, 122, 242, 261, 293) Turner,W. Rearview Mirror. 2001 (193-4, 203) Volkman,E. Warriors of the Night. 1985 (80) Wyden,P. Bay of Pigs. 1979 (84-6, 300-1)

Christopher Barger, memorandum to Jeremy Gunn (18th May, 1995) I interviewed former US Army captain and CIA employee Bradley Ayers on May 12, 1995, at Ayers' home in Woodbury, Minnesota. The interview lasted from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. The following is a summary and report of the interview... Q. Did Morales ever try and pass himself off as Cuban? A. Not to Ayers' knowledge, but "he could easily pass for Cuban." Morales was allegedly a very good actor, and "could pull off lots of roles." Here the conversation drifted into a discussion of David Morales and his emotional makeup. Ayers charged that Morales was a "mean" man who "paraded around the station like a tyrant." Everyone was apparently afraid of him. Morales hung with what Ayers called the "circle" - Morales, Roselli, Tony Sforza, Manuel Artime and Rip Robertson. The four were drinking buddies and of like mind on politics. Ayers said they were vicious, too. "If anyone put together a sniper team to hit the President, Morales, Rip, Rosselli and Sforza would have done it." Ayers noted that Artime, Robertson, Rosselli and Sforza all died just as the HSCA began investigating. He suggests checking for Morales' whereabouts during the late seventies, especially on the times these men were killed. Ayers is right that these men all died in the 1970s: Rip Robertson (1970), John Roselli (July 1976), Manuel Artime (November, 1977) and Tony Sforza (December, 1978). However, David Morales could not have killed all these men as he himself died six months before Tony Sforza (May, 1978).

Christopher Barger, memorandum to Jeremy Gunn (18th May, 1995) I interviewed former US Army captain and CIA employee Bradley Ayers on May 12, 1995, at Ayers' home in Woodbury, Minnesota. The interview lasted from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. The following is a summary and report of the interview... Q. Did Morales ever try and pass himself off as Cuban? A. Not to Ayers' knowledge, but "he could easily pass for Cuban." Morales was allegedly a very good actor, and "could pull off lots of roles." Here the conversation drifted into a discussion of David Morales and his emotional makeup. Ayers charged that Morales was a "mean" man who "paraded around the station like a tyrant." Everyone was apparently afraid of him. Morales hung with what Ayers called the "circle" - Morales, Roselli, Tony Sforza, Manuel Artime and Rip Robertson. The four were drinking buddies and of like mind on politics. Ayers said they were vicious, too. "If anyone put together a sniper team to hit the President, Morales, Rip, Rosselli and Sforza would have done it." Ayers noted that Artime, Robertson, Rosselli and Sforza all died just as the HSCA began investigating. He suggests checking for Morales' whereabouts during the late seventies, especially on the times these men were killed. Ayers is right that these men all died in the 1970s: Rip Robertson (1970), John Roselli (July 1976), Manuel Artime (November, 1977) and Tony Sforza (December, 1978). However, David Morales could not have killed all these men as he himself died six months before Tony Sforza (May, 1978).

Christopher Barger, memorandum to Jeremy Gunn (18th May, 1995) I interviewed former US Army captain and CIA employee Bradley Ayers on May 12, 1995, at Ayers' home in Woodbury, Minnesota. The interview lasted from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. The following is a summary and report of the interview... Q. Did Morales ever try and pass himself off as Cuban? A. Not to Ayers' knowledge, but "he could easily pass for Cuban." Morales was allegedly a very good actor, and "could pull off lots of roles." Here the conversation drifted into a discussion of David Morales and his emotional makeup. Ayers charged that Morales was a "mean" man who "paraded around the station like a tyrant." Everyone was apparently afraid of him. Morales hung with what Ayers called the "circle" - Morales, Roselli, Tony Sforza, Manuel Artime and Rip Robertson. The four were drinking buddies and of like mind on politics. Ayers said they were vicious, too. "If anyone put together a sniper team to hit the President, Morales, Rip, Rosselli and Sforza would have done it." Ayers noted that Artime, Robertson, Rosselli and Sforza all died just as the HSCA began investigating. He suggests checking for Morales' whereabouts during the late seventies, especially on the times these men were killed. Ayers is right that these men all died in the 1970s: Rip Robertson (1970), John Roselli (July 1976), Manuel Artime (November, 1977) and Tony Sforza (December, 1978). However, David Morales could not have killed all these men as he himself died six months before Tony Sforza (May, 1978).

I expect all of them to go out of business. By going subscription they lost the good will of the teaching profession. They also lost their ranking in search-engines. Personally I have little sympathy for any of these companies, including my former employers who rejected my advice when they decided to become a subscription-only website.