John Simkin

Part 1

Thought it might be worth discussing the role of Henry Luce and Operation Mockingbird. When he was at Yale he was a member of the Skull and Bones. After graduating in 1920 Luce spent a year at Oxford University. During this period he contributed to the Chicago Daily News. In December 1921, Luce joined his friend, Briton Hadden at The Baltimore News.

The two friends discussed the possibility of starting up their own magazine. After raising $86,000 the first edition of Time Magazine was published on 3rd March, 1923. Luce later recalled: "Somehow, despite the greatest differences in temperaments and even in interests, we had to work together. We were an organization. At the center of our lives - our job, our function - at that point everything we had belonged to each other."

It was the first weekly news magazine in the United States. The magazine, with its short articles summarizing important events and issues, was a great success and by 1927 was selling over 175,000 copies a week. Hadden's idea was to tell the news through people. Some critics claimed that it was too light for serious news and spent too much time on celebrities and the entertainment industry. Luce served as business manager while Hadden was editor-in-chief.

Briton Hadden became seriously ill and died of heart failure on 27th February, 1929. According to Alexandra Robbins, the author of Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power (2002), Hadden left all of his stock in Time Inc. to his mother and forbade his family from selling those shares for 49 years. Within a year of Hadden's death, Luce formed a syndicate, which succeeded in gaining hold of Hadden's stock.

Here's what I had from their first newsletter:

CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA

617 Albee Building, 1426 “G” Street NW, Washington 5, D.C.

Tel. 783-7507

DECLARATION OF PURPOSE

The Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba has been formed in response to a statement issued by the Freedom House, on March 25, 1963 calling upon Americans to unite in a movement for a free Cuba.

The Committee is nonpartisan. It believes that Cuba is an issue that transcends party differences, and that its solution requires the kind of national unity we have always manifested at moments of great crisis. This belief is reflected in the broad and representative membership of the Committee.

The Committee holds, with Freedom House, that a “Communist Cuba is intolerable,” not only for reasons which bear upon our security but also because “it has betrayed six million people who won their freedom from the Batista Dictatorship.”

[stuff deleted]

The first Executive Secretary was Daniel James. He was also the editor or their newsletter called “Free Cuba News”. Paul Bethel took over during the fall of ’63.

Paul Bethel is an interesting character. In 1976 Antonio Veciana was interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The founder of the anti-Castro organization, Alpha 66, he told the committee about his relationship with his Central Intelligence Agency contact, Maurice Bishop. He claimed that in August, 1963, he saw Bishop and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Veciana admitted that Bishop had organized and funded the Alpha 66 attacks on the Soviet ships docked in Cuba in 1963.

Veciana explained the policy: "It was my case officer, Maurice Bishop, who had the idea to attack the Soviet ships. The intention was to cause trouble between Kennedy and Russia. Bishop believed that Kennedy and Khrushchev had made a secret agreement that the USA would do nothing more to help in the fight against Castro. Bishop felt - he told me many times - that President Kennedy was a man without experience surrounded by a group of young men who were also inexperienced with mistaken ideas on how to manage this country. He said you had to put Kennedy against the wall in order to force him to make decisions that would remove Castro's regime."

At first Gaeton Fonzi believed that Maurice Bishop was really Paul Bethel. This was denied by Antonio Veciana who said he knew Bethel. According to Veciana, Bishop sent him to meet Bethel in Miami. Later Fonzi became convinced that Bishop was Bethel's friend, David Atlee Phillips.

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

It has an interesting lineup of members.

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

Who Oswald wrote to from USSR

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

Who owned the North American Newspaper Alliance and employed Ian Fleming and Priscilla Johnson

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

Who Seth Kantor called from Dallas, a record censored by the CIA

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE.

Who financed anti-Castro Cuban maritime raiders out of JMWAVE

PREWETT, VIRGINIA.

who worked for Cuneo at NANA and knew David A. Phillips and "Maurice Bishop"

They also produced Wm Gaudet's Latin American Report out of New Orleans Trade Mart,

jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/L Disk/Latin American Report/Item 05.pdf

Records are at Hoover Institute (where Dimitri DeMohrenschildt worked)

Preliminary Inventory to the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba Records, 1962-1974.

CITIZENS COMMITTEE for a FREE CUBA (1964)

CITIZENS COMMITTEE

for a FREE CUBA (1964)

REFERENCE: Pamphlet:

TERROR AND RESISTANCE IN COMMUNIST CUBA

by Paul Bethel.

Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba. 1964. (frontpiece)

1426 G Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

ARENSBERG, MARIADA. MEMBER

BARLOW, WILLIAM. CHAIRMAN EXEC COMMITTEE

BARON, MURRAY. EXEC COMMITTEE

BETHEL, PAUL. EXECSECRETARY [bETHEL, PAUL D. Residence: Miami Shores FL. Wife Clara.

Exec Sec Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba.

Ref: 1965 Miami CityDirectory]

BIDDLE, NICHOLAS DUKE. MEMBER

BIERNE, JOSEPH. MEMBER

BROWN, IRVING. MEMBER

BURKE, ARLEIGH A., ADMIRAL. VICE CHAIRMAN OF EXEC COMMITTEE

CHAPELLE, DICKEY. MEMBER

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

EMMET, CHRISTOPHER. MEMBER

FITZGIBBON, RUSSELL H. DR. MEMBER

FIWHER, JOHN. MEMBER

GIDEONSE, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

HOFFMAN, SAL B. MEMBER

HOOK, SIDNEY, DR. MEMBER

HOWLEY, FRANK L. BRIG GEN. MEMBER

KANTOR, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE. EXEC COMMITTEE

LYONS, EUGENE. MEMBER

MARSHALL, S. L. A., BRIG GEN. CHAIRMAN

MAYERS, HENRY. MEMBER

McDOWELL, ARTHUR G. MEMBER

McLAURIN, BENJAMIN F. EXEC COMMITTEE

MORGENTHAU, HANS J., DR. MEMBER

MOWRER, EDGAR ANSEL. EXEC COMMITTEE

O'ROURKE, JOHN. MEMBER

OVERSTREET, BONARO. MEMBER

PIKE, JAMES A., BISHOP. MEMBER

PREWETT, VIRGINIA. MEMBER

RIESEL, VICTOR. MEMBER

ROCHE, JOHN P. MEMBER

STRAUSZ- HUPE, ROBERT, DR. MEMBER

TANNENBAUM, FRANK, DR. VICE CHAIRMAN & EXEC COMMITTEE

TELLER, EDWARD. MEMBER

WELLBORN, CHARLES. VICE ADM, JR. MEMBER

WHITAKER, ARTHUR P. DR. MEMBER

Obituary from the Daily Telegraph:

She was not the first — or indeed the last — to fall for the charms of a man notorious for his sketchy grasp of the obligations of matrimony. What was notable about Kennedy’s relationship with Miss von Post, however, was that it began a few weeks before his marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier and continued when his wedding vows were still fresh upon his lips.

In her memoir, written in the breathless style of a Mills and Boon romance, Gunilla von Post recalled that Kennedy met her by chance while visiting the French Riviera in August 1953. He was a charming, boyish-looking 36-year-old senator from Massachusetts. She was 21, the beautiful blonde daughter of a Swedish aristocrat, who had been sent to the Cote d’Azur for a month to improve her French language skills.

They spent an evening together — dinner, dancing and a moonlit walk to the shore of the Mediterranean: “He turned and kissed me tenderly and my breath was taken away. The brightness of the moon and stars made his eyes appear bluer than the ocean beneath us. He broke the silence by saying softly: 'I fell in love with you tonight.’” But, Kennedy admitted, there was a problem: he was about to get married. “If I had met you one week before,” he told her, “I would have cancelled the whole thing.”

Kennedy returned to America where, three weeks later, on September 1 1953, he married Jacqueline Bouvier. But Gunilla remained smitten and, by her own account, was thrilled when she received the first of a series of love letters (with trans-Atlantic phone calls in between), in which Kennedy spoke of his hopes of organising a clandestine reunion.

Their relationship was finally consummated when he contrived to visit Sweden with a friend in August 1955: “I was relatively inexperienced, and Jack’s tenderness was a revelation,” she wrote. “He said, 'Gunilla, we’ve waited two years for this. It seems almost too good to be true, and I want to make you happy.’” He made love, she recalled “with a surprising innocence” — swooning, sighing, weeping. At one point he lifted his eyes to the heavens and proclaimed, “The stars, Gunilla. The stars!”

The pair spent a week together during which Gunilla introduced her beau to family and friends. Despite his infamous claim that “If I don’t have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches”, Gunilla felt that Kennedy was not a man who “simply needed a woman to satisfy his cravings and would then go on to something else”.

The week ended with painful farewells at the airport. The night before, Kennedy told her repeatedly: “I love you, Gunilla. I adore you. I’m crazy about you and I’ll do everything I can to be with you.”

Subsequently, by her account, he called his father Joe to tell him he wanted to divorce Jackie and marry Gunilla. But the Kennedy patriarch was having none of it: divorce was out of the question because it would ruin Jack’s hopes of making it to the White House.

Kennedy’s subsequent attempts to persuade Gunilla to move to New York and work as a model foundered on her refusal to accept anything short of marriage. A few months later the affair was over, with Kennedy sending a last, handwritten, note saying: “I just got word today — that my wife and sister are coming here” and describing his emotions as “complicated”.

But Gunilla’s memories remained sweet: “I borrowed him for a week, a beautiful week that no one can take away from me” she wrote.

Karin Adele Gunilla von Post was born on July 10 1932 in Stockholm. She trained in hotel management and cookery and attended a finishing school in Lausanne.

Shortly after her affair with Kennedy ended, she married Anders Ekman, a wealthy Swedish landowner, and Kennedy sent his best wishes. Three years later, she and her husband were guests at a charity ball at the Waldorf Astoria, New York, where Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, were on the dais. From her table, Gunilla scribbled a note on her napkin and asked a waiter to give it to the senator. Shortly afterwards Kennedy signalled to her to meet him in a corridor: “He just gave me a huge hug. And then he said 'It’s wonderful to see you. I love you’,” she recalled. “ It was lovely.” It was the last time they would meet.

Despite the former president’s reputation as a world-class womaniser, some found Gunilla von Post’s account too overwrought to be entirely convincing. Its veracity, however, was borne out last year when she decided to sell 11 of Kennedy’s handwritten letters and three telegrams on a Chicago online auction site.

In the letters, all written after his marriage, Kennedy expressed his urgent longing to see his “Swedish Gorilla” (a reference, no doubt, to her first name rather than her physique): “Do you remember our dinner and evening together this summer at Antibes and Cagnes,” he asked in the first missive, sent in March 1954, five months after his marriage. “How are you? — and what are you now doing in Paris, you said you were going to work for an airline. Do you — and do you fly to the United States. I expect to return to France in September. Will you be there?”

A few weeks later he returned to the charge: “I thought I might get a boat and sail around the Mediterranean for two weeks with you as crew. What do you think?” But before the assignation could take place Kennedy sent a telegram cancelling it after suffering a back injury that required extensive surgery.

As the auction website explained: “He pursued [Gunilla] despite the daily demands of public service and newly-wed nesting, and even despite a near-death experience on the operating table. No obstacle was too great to bar the soon-to-be King Arthur from courting his beguiling Lady of the Lake.”

The sale of the letters raised $115,537.50, well over the original estimate of $40,000 to $50,000.

Anders Ekman died in an accident, and Gunilla later married Weisner Miller, an American IBM executive, and moved to the United States. The marriage ended in divorce, but Gunilla continued to enjoy life on the international social circuit, supporting animal and children’s charities and flitting between homes in Palm Beach, Switzerland, Sweden and the south of France. “I feel as if home is mid-Atlantic,” she once said.

Gunilla von Post is survived by two daughters of her first marriage and a son of her second. Another son died in infancy.

Gunilla von Post, born July 10 1932, died October 14 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8870897/Gunilla-von-Post.html

Make lesson planning much easier with "A lifetime's log of lesson activities". 100 generic activities including flash PowerPoints that can be used by any teacher.

Download FULL history lessons in one file. Large PowerPoint files contain the images, slides, lesson plan and audio. Ready to teach instantly.

http://www.teacherofhistory.co.uk./www.teacherofhistory.co.uk/Home.html

Has anyone done any research into the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba?

Jerry Shinley wrote:

Citizens for a Free Cuba Committee

Author: jpshinley

Email: jpshinley@my-dejanews.com

Date: 1998/07/16

http://www.jfk-onlin...jpscitffcc.html

On September 24, 1964, the formation of the Citizens for a Free Cuba Committee was announced. Ross Buckley was identified as chairman. (Earlier, an E. Ross Buckley had run as a Republican candidate for Mayor.) Cuthbert Brady was vice-chairman for public relations, Mrs. Sidney Scoenburger vice-chairman for women, Arnesto J.Rodriguez secretary, and Paul Lapeyre coordinator of student groups. (NOTP;September 25, 1962; s 3, p 19)

-

In October, Cuthbert Brady proclaimed that "Alpha 66 is the only group actually doing something about getting rid of Castro." He said that agents of Alpha 66 were in N. O. A petition circulated by Brady called for the "recognition of the existence of a state of hostilities between Red Cuba and the U. S."and the "use of volunteers from this nations and others to liberate Cuba." (NOTP; October 18, 1962; s 4, p 10) This, of course, was during the Cubanmissile crisis.

-

Jack Frazier, owner of the Ryder Coffee House, in a February 26, 1968 interview with Garrison investigator Gary Sanders, said he had attended meetings of a discussion group whose members were the following: "KERRY THORNLEY, WILLIAM [CUTHBERT] BRADY, HELEN GLADSTONE (a close friend of Brady's), JACK BURNSIDES and ROSS BUCKLEY. (Memorandum dated March 6, 1968; p 134) Frazier said Brady was ahomosexual who was arrested on a morals charge and deported to the Phillipines "around the same time as OSWALD's leaflet distribution." Frazier reportedly said, "I think that Brady was deported because the CIA wanted him out of town." (p 135)

-

David Graydon, who lived with William C. Brady from July to August of 1962 and June to August of 1963, was interviewed by Sciambra on May 27, 1968. (Memorandum of May 27, 1968; p 776) Graydon said that Helen Gladstone had some of Brady's papers, but she was also a personal friend of Clay Shaw (and thus unlikely to be helpful to Garrison's investigation). Brady was also said by Graydon to have known Clay Shaw. Two other Shaw-Brady acquaintances were said to be "LEKLA FREA and VERNON KELLOGG." Graydon also claimed to have been told that Lee Harvey Oswald had attended two parties in Brady's apartment. (pp 776-7)

- Jerry Shinley

It has an interesting lineup of members.

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

Who Oswald wrote to from USSR

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

Who owned the North American Newspaper Alliance and employed Ian Fleming and Priscilla Johnson

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

Who Seth Kantor called from Dallas, a record censored by the CIA

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE.

Who financed anti-Castro Cuban maritime raiders out of JMWAVE

PREWETT, VIRGINIA.

who worked for Cuneo at NANA and knew David A. Phillips and "Maurice Bishop"

They also produced Wm Gaudet's Latin American Report out of New Orleans Trade Mart,

jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/L Disk/Latin American Report/Item 05.pdf

Records are at Hoover Institute (where Dimitri DeMohrenschildt worked)

Preliminary Inventory to the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba Records, 1962-1974.

CITIZENS COMMITTEE for a FREE CUBA (1964)

CITIZENS COMMITTEE

for a FREE CUBA (1964)

REFERENCE: Pamphlet:

TERROR AND RESISTANCE IN COMMUNIST CUBA

by Paul Bethel.

Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba. 1964. (frontpiece)

1426 G Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

ARENSBERG, MARIADA. MEMBER

BARLOW, WILLIAM. CHAIRMAN EXEC COMMITTEE

BARON, MURRAY. EXEC COMMITTEE

BETHEL, PAUL. EXECSECRETARY [bETHEL, PAUL D. Residence: Miami Shores FL. Wife Clara.

Exec Sec Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba.

Ref: 1965 Miami CityDirectory]

BIDDLE, NICHOLAS DUKE. MEMBER

BIERNE, JOSEPH. MEMBER

BROWN, IRVING. MEMBER

BURKE, ARLEIGH A., ADMIRAL. VICE CHAIRMAN OF EXEC COMMITTEE

CHAPELLE, DICKEY. MEMBER

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

EMMET, CHRISTOPHER. MEMBER

FITZGIBBON, RUSSELL H. DR. MEMBER

FIWHER, JOHN. MEMBER

GIDEONSE, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

HOFFMAN, SAL B. MEMBER

HOOK, SIDNEY, DR. MEMBER

HOWLEY, FRANK L. BRIG GEN. MEMBER

KANTOR, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE. EXEC COMMITTEE

LYONS, EUGENE. MEMBER

MARSHALL, S. L. A., BRIG GEN. CHAIRMAN

MAYERS, HENRY. MEMBER

McDOWELL, ARTHUR G. MEMBER

McLAURIN, BENJAMIN F. EXEC COMMITTEE

MORGENTHAU, HANS J., DR. MEMBER

MOWRER, EDGAR ANSEL. EXEC COMMITTEE

O'ROURKE, JOHN. MEMBER

OVERSTREET, BONARO. MEMBER

PIKE, JAMES A., BISHOP. MEMBER

PREWETT, VIRGINIA. MEMBER

RIESEL, VICTOR. MEMBER

ROCHE, JOHN P. MEMBER

STRAUSZ- HUPE, ROBERT, DR. MEMBER

TANNENBAUM, FRANK, DR. VICE CHAIRMAN & EXEC COMMITTEE

TELLER, EDWARD. MEMBER

WELLBORN, CHARLES. VICE ADM, JR. MEMBER

WHITAKER, ARTHUR P. DR. MEMBER

Thank you for that. I was updating my pages on Henry and Clare Boothe Luce and I discovered that they were both involved in the establishment of the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba. It seems that Luce arranged for Hal Hendrix and Virginia Prewitt to publish articles in his various magazines attacking the government for its policy towards Cuba. Luce was clearly a very important figure in Operation Mockingbird.

Henry and Clare Boothe Luce are dealt with in Jonathan P. Herzog's new book, "The Spiritual Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle Against Communism in the Early Cold War".

Has anyone done any research into the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba?

Sorry, I forgot to put in the URL:

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

We get up to 7 million page impressions with over 2 million unique visitors. As you can see, it is an impressive communication device.

I am currently involved in a redesign of the Spartacus Educational website. One of the advantages of the new format is that I will be able to change all 11,000 pages of the site at one time. This means I will be able to promote events, books, conferences, petitions, etc. on every page.

Please post comments about the design on my Facebook pages:

John Simkin

http://www.facebook.com/john.simkin/posts/265127100206152

Spartacus Educational

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spartacus-Educational/293300014028132?sk=wall

If you are not a member of Facebook you can post comments on this thread. Please feel free to comment on how the website and this forum can be used to promote the investigation into the JFK assassination.

One of the consequences of the internet is that it is not possible for the mainstream media to dominate our thinking about past events. If you type in "J. Edgar Hoover" into Google, you get the following results:

(1) Wikipedia

(2) Google Images of J. Edgar Hoover.

(3) J. Edgar Hoover (Character)Internet Movie Data Base

(4) J. Edgar Hoover (Spartacus Educational)

I would have thought that a large percentage of people who see the movie will use the internet to discover more about J. Edgar Hoover. If they do they will probably arrive on my page. Some of these will follow the link to this debate and others we have had on the forum about Hoover.

For example, this morning I had this email from Leigh Shirley:

I went to see the movie today "J. Edgar" which was relatively hard to follow due to all the information about events which took place when he was director of the FBI. The bio in this article as well as the interviews are extremely helpful in recalling events and remembering events in the order which they are revealed in the movie. The bio in this article explains much and is very helpful in trying to follow the movie. I will certainly comprehend the movie better now that I have refreshed my memory using the well explained events in this bio. Thank you for making it available.

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

Or maybe you and John do not know just how bad Bradlee is. In addition to the disifno on MM and JFK, at the time of the HSCA concluding, Tony Summers called him up. Summers told him that he should look into the whole Phillips/Veciana/Bishop angle. Bradlee called in an intern named David Leigh and told him to look into it. But he then added that he wanted him to try and discredit the story! (With friends like DIck Helms, of course.)

Well Leigh said that he came back a couple of weeks later and told Ben something he did not want to hear: He could not discredit it. It looked like it was true to him. Bradlee was pissed. So he killed the story.

So please, do not tell me about any wondrous interviews decades later between Janney and Mr. Cover Up. Recall, it was Bradlee who was editor when the Post printed the editorial about the two assassins in Dealey Plaza who did not know each other.

If you had read my page on Ben Bradlee you will see how I have argued that he has been a CIA disinformation agent since the early days of the organisation. In 1952 Bradlee joined the staff of the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE), the embassy's propaganda unit. USIE produced films, magazines, research, speeches, and news items for use by the the CIA throughout Europe. USIE (later known as USIA) also controlled the Voice of America, a means of disseminating pro-American "cultural information" worldwide. While at the USIE Bradlee worked with E. Howard Hunt and Alfred Friendly.

According to a Justice Department memo from a assistant U.S. attorney in the Rosenberg Trial Bradlee was helping the CIA to manage European propaganda regarding the spying conviction and the execution of Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg on on 19th June, 1953.

Janney, like others who have researched this case, have pointed out that Bradlee lied in court during the trial of Raymond Crump about the way he found out about the death of Mary Pinchot Meyer. This is important because Bradlee knew about her death before she had been identified by the police. So did Cord Meyer. Both men were told about Meyer's death by the same senior CIA official.

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

I have been informed that Jean Daniel is still alive and living in Paris. My contact is in fact having a meeting with him today.

Journalist and author Zalin Grant re-investigated the murder of Mary Meyer beginning in November of 1993.

You can find his fresh take on the case in his article MARY MEYER: A HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS DEATH - Did Camelot Get Away With Murder? at his always informative site, Zalin Grant's War Tales.

As he did with his investigation of former DCI William E. Colby's suspicious death in 1996, Grant visited the scene, scoured police files, and interviewed witnesses (including acquitted suspect Raymond Crump Jr's attorney, Dovey Roundtree).

Most disturbing is what Grant found when he sought out the original physical evidence in the Mary Meyer homicide file in D.C.

Article link: http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/Meyer.html

Zalin Grant's website: http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/colby.htm

-- Steve

Interesting article. Zalin Grant says:

Raymond Crump, Jr, age 25, an African American, was taken by police when he was found in the canal towpath area a few minutes after Mary Meyer was killed. A witness said he saw a black man near the body of Ms. Meyer shortly after he heard the two shots. He identified the man he saw as being five-eight and 185 pounds. Crump was five foot five and a half inches tall and weighed 145 pounds.

The D.C. police took Ray Crump into custody and he was charged with the first degree murder of Mary Meyer. As the trial revealed, there was no physical evidence—no blood, no hairs, no fibers—nothing that linked Crump to her murder. No eyewitness claimed to have seen the killing. The gun was never found.

Alfred Hantman, the assistant U.S. Attorney charged with prosecuting the case, told the judge and jury on the first morning of the trial in July 1965:

“This case in all its aspects is a classic textbook case in circumstantial evidence.”

Actually it was a classic textbook case on how to frame a black man for a murder he didn’t commit—something that had already taken place more than a few times in American history.

And the frame-up would have succeeded had it not been for the presence of an African American lawyer by the name of Dovey Roundtree.

Despite this, Nina Burleigh, the author of "A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer", says that Crump was probably guilty of the crime. Of course, she used to work for Ben Bradlee, who played an important role with Angleton in the cover-up.

Journalist and author Zalin Grant re-investigated the murder of Mary Meyer beginning in November of 1993.

You can find his fresh take on the case in his article MARY MEYER: A HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS DEATH - Did Camelot Get Away With Murder? at his always informative site, Zalin Grant's War Tales.

As he did with his investigation of former DCI William E. Colby's suspicious death in 1996, Grant visited the scene, scoured police files, and interviewed witnesses (including acquitted suspect Raymond Crump Jr's attorney, Dovey Roundtree).

Most disturbing is what Grant found when he sought out the original physical evidence in the Mary Meyer homicide file in D.C.

Article link: http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/Meyer.html

Zalin Grant's website: http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/colby.htm

-- Steve

Interesting article. Zalin Grant says:

Raymond Crump, Jr, age 25, an African American, was taken by police when he was found in the canal towpath area a few minutes after Mary Meyer was killed. A witness said he saw a black man near the body of Ms. Meyer shortly after he heard the two shots. He identified the man he saw as being five-eight and 185 pounds. Crump was five foot five and a half inches tall and weighed 145 pounds.

The D.C. police took Ray Crump into custody and he was charged with the first degree murder of Mary Meyer. As the trial revealed, there was no physical evidence—no blood, no hairs, no fibers—nothing that linked Crump to her murder. No eyewitness claimed to have seen the killing. The gun was never found.

Alfred Hantman, the assistant U.S. Attorney charged with prosecuting the case, told the judge and jury on the first morning of the trial in July 1965:

“This case in all its aspects is a classic textbook case in circumstantial evidence.”

Actually it was a classic textbook case on how to frame a black man for a murder he didn’t commit—something that had already taken place more than a few times in American history.

And the frame-up would have succeeded had it not been for the presence of an African American lawyer by the name of Dovey Roundtree.

Despite this, Nina Burleigh, the author of "A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer", says that Crump was probably guilty of the crime. Of course, she used to work for Ben Bradlee, who played an important role with Angleton in the cover-up.

Hopefully, this time the book will be published.

The book will be published in March 2012.

http://www.nationale...s-murder-solved

Peter Janney is a good researcher, the son of a CIA official, who has used his father's contacts to acquire information unavailable to others.

Mary Pinchot Meyer was the wife of CIA officer Cord Meyer, and the daughter of the powerful Pennsylvania Republican Pinchot family, who JFK visited on Sept.24, 1963, the first stop on his Conservation Tour.

JFK had met Mary Pinchot while a student at Choate, introduced by his room mate William Atwood, who JFK would later appoint as an ambassador, and who was responsible for the back-channel UN negotiations with Castro that ended with the assassination.

One of the important aspects of this book is that it will show that Nina Burleigh's book on the subject, "A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer" (1998) was a CIA limited hangout.

NATIONAL ENQUIRER (4th November, 2011)

The Kennedy clan is terrified over an upcoming book that promises to name the killer of JFKʼs White House mistress Mary Pinchot Meyer. Massachusetts author Peter Janney claims to have solved the mystery behind the murder of the 43-year-old socialite, who carried on a two year affair with President John F. Kennedy while he was in office.

While the Kennedy family is not implicated in the crime, they do not want to revisit sordid details of the past that

will be revealed in the book, noted the source. “Itʼs sure to open old wounds,” the source said about “Maryʼs Mosaic: Mary Pinchot Meyer & their Vision for World Peace.”

“The book will describe how JFK cheated on first lady Jackie – and then all the murky details of how gorgeous blonde Mary was killed almost a year after his assassination.”

Incredibly, The ENQUIRER was the FIRST to break the news of the steamy relationship in our March 2, 1976, issue, and our scoop inspired author Janney.

“I have been researching her story since The ENQUIRER story first broke in 1976,” Janney admitted.

The affair included almost 30 “trysts,” and itʼs been reported that Mary brought marijuana or the mind-altering drug LSD for the sexual encounters.

On Oct. 12, 1964, 11 months after the Kennedy assassination, and two weeks after the Warren Commission report on his death was made public, Mary was shot to death while out for a walk in Washington.

A man named Raymond Crump was arrested, but the gun used in the shooting was never located and Crump was acquitted of all charges. The murder has remained unsolved ever since.

“Janneyʼs book will finally uncover the CIAʼs suspected role in Maryʼs death and will drop other bombshells,” said the source. “The Kennedys are bracing for the disclosures.”

The Newseum in Arlington, Va., asked journalists and scholars to select the 20th Century's top 100 stories. The Kennedy assassination was in 6th place.

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=6327

Best American Journalism of the 20th Century

The following works were chosen as the 20th century's best American journalism by a panel of experts assembled by New York University's journalism department. Understandably, no reporting on the JFK assassination made the top 100.

1. John Hersey: “Hiroshima,” The New Yorker, 1946

2. Rachel Carson: Silent Spring, book, 1962

3. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: Investigation of the Watergate break-in, The Washington Post, 1972

4. Edward R. Murrow: Battle of Britain, CBS radio, 1940

5. Ida Tarbell: “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” McClure's, 1902–1904

6. Lincoln Steffens: “The Shame of the Cities,” McClure's, 1902–1904

7. John Reed: Ten Days That Shook the World, book, 1919

8. H. L. Mencken: Scopes “Monkey” trial, The Sun of Baltimore, 1925

9. Ernie Pyle: Reports from Europe and the Pacific during World War II, Scripps-Howard newspapers, 1940–1945

10. Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly: Investigation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, CBS, 1954

11. Edward R. Murrow, David Lowe, and Fred Friendly: “Harvest of Shame,”documentary, CBS television, 1960

12. Seymour Hersh: Investigation of massacre by American soldiers at My Lai in Vietnam, Dispatch News Service, 1969

13. The New York Times: Publication of the Pentagon Papers, 1971

14. James Agee and Walker Evans: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, book, 1941

15. W.E.B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk, collected articles, 1903

16. I. F. Stone: I. F. Stone's Weekly, 1953–1967

17. Henry Hampton: “Eyes on the Prize,” documentary, 1987

18. Tom Wolfe: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, book, 1968

19. Norman Mailer: The Armies of the Night, book, 1968

20. Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,collected articles, 1963

21. William Shirer: Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1939–1941, collected articles, 1941

22. Truman Capote: In Cold Blood, book, 1965

23. Joan Didion: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, collected articles, 1968

24. Tom Wolfe: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, collected articles, 1965

25. Michael Herr: Dispatches, book, 1977

26. Theodore White: The Making of the President: 1960, book, 1961

27. Robert Capa: Ten photographs from D-Day, 1944

28. J. Anthony Lukas: Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, book, 1985

29. Richard Harding Davis: Coverage of German march into Belgium, Wheeler Syndicate and magazines, 1914

30. Dorothy Thompson: Reports on the rise of Hitler, Cosmopolitan and Saturday Evening Post, 1931–1934

31. John Steinbeck: Reports on Okie migrant camp life, The San Francisco News,1936

32. A. J. Liebling: The Road Back to Paris, collected articles, 1944

33. Ernest Hemingway: Reports on the Spanish Civil War, The New Republic, 1937–1938

34. Martha Gellhorn: The Face of War, collected articles, 1959

35. James Baldwin: The Fire Next Time, book, 1963

36. Joseph Mitchell: Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories, collection of much older articles, 1992

37. Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique, book, 1963

38. Ralph Nader: Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, book, 1965

39. Herblock (Herbert Block): Cartoons on McCarthyism, The Washington Post, 1950

40. James Baldwin: “Letter from the South: Nobody Knows My Name,” The Partisan Review, 1959

41. Nick Ut: Photograph of a burning girl running from a napalm attack, The Associated Press, 1972

42. Pauline Kael: “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” Harper's, 1969

43. Gay Talese: Fame and Obscurity: Portraits by Gay Talese, collected articles, 1970

44. Randy Shilts: Reports on AIDS, The San Francisco Chronicle, 1981–1985

45. Janet Flanner (Genet): Paris Journals chronicling Paris's emergence from the Occupation, The New Yorker, 1944–45

46. Neil Sheehan: A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, book, 1988

47. A. J. Liebling: The Wayward Pressman, collected articles, 1947

48. Tom Wolfe: The Right Stuff, book, 1979

49. Murray Kempton: America Comes of Middle Age: Columns 1950–1962, collected articles, 1963

50. Murray Kempton: Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties, book, 1955

51. Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele: “America: What Went Wrong?,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1991

52. Taylor Branch: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963, 1988

53. Harrison Salisbury: Reporting from the Soviet Union, The New York Times, 1949–1954

54. John McPhee: The John McPhee Reader, collected articles, 1976

55. ABC: Live television broadcast of Army-McCarthy hearings, 1954

56. Frederick Wiseman: Titicut Follies, documentary, 1967

57. David Remnick: Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, book, 1993

58. Richard Ben Cramer: What It Takes: The Way to the White House, book, 1992

59. Jonathan Schell: The Fate of the Earth, book, 1982

60. Russell Baker: “Francs and Beans,” The New York Times, 1975

61. Homer Bigart: Account of being over Japan in a bomber, The New York Herald-Tribune, 1945

62. Ben Hecht: 1,001 Afternoons in Chicago, collected articles, 1922

63. Walter Cronkite: Documentary on Vietnam, CBS television, 1968

64. Walter Lippmann: Early essays, The New Republic, 1914

65. Margaret Bourke-White: Photographs following the defeat of Germany, Life magazine, 1945

66. Lillian Ross: Reporting, collected articles, 1964

67. Nicholas Lemann: The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, book, 1991

68. Joe Rosenthal: Photograph of Marines raising an American flag on Mount Suribachi, The Associated Press, 1945

69. Hodding Carter Jr.: “Go for Broke,” editorial, Carter's Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), 1945

70. The New Yorker: The New Yorker Book of War Pieces, collected articles, 1947

71. Meyer Berger: Report on the murderer Howard Unruh, The New York Times, 1949

72. Norman Mailer: The Executioner's Song, book, 1979

73. Robert Capa: Spanish Civil War photos, Life magazine, 1936

74. Susan Sontag: “Notes on ‘Camp,’” The Partisan Review, 1964

75. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: All the President's Men, book, 1974

76. John Hersey: Here to Stay, collected articles, 1963

77. A. J. Liebling: The Earl of Louisiana, book, 1961

78. Mike Davis: City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, book, 1990

79. Melissa Fay Greene: Praying for Sheetrock, book, 1991

80. J. Anthony Lukas: “The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick,” The New York Times, 1967

81. Herbert Bayard Swope: “Klan Exposed,” The New York World, 1921

82. William Allen White: “To an Anxious Friend,” The Emporia (Kan.) Gazette,1922

83. Edward R. Murrow: Report of the liberation of Buchenwald, CBS radio, 1945

84. Joseph Mitchell: McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, collected articles, 1943

85. Lillian Ross: Picture, book, 1952

86. Earl Brown: Series of articles on race, Harper's and Life magazines, 1942–1944

87. Greil Marcus: Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music, book,1975

88. Morley Safer: Atrocities committed by American soldiers in Vietnam, CBS television, 1965

89. Ted Poston: Coverage of the “Little Scottsboro” trial, The New York Post, 1949

90. Leon Dash: “Rosa Lee's Story,” The Washington Post, 1994

91. Jane Kramer: Europeans, collected articles, 1988

92. Eddie Adams and Vo Suu: Associated Press photograph and NBC television footage of a Saigon execution, 1968

93. Grantland Rice: “Notre Dame's ‘Four Horsemen,’” The New York Herald-Tribune, 1924

94. Jane Kramer: The Politics of Memory: Looking for Germany in the New Germany, collected articles, 1996

95. Frank McCourt: Angela's Ashes, book, 1996

96. Vincent Sheean: Personal History, book, 1935

97. W.E.B. Du Bois: Columns on race during his tenure as editor of The Crisis,1910–1934

98. Damon Runyon: Crime reporting, The New York American, 1926

99. Joe McGinniss: The Selling of the President 1968, book, 1969

100. Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, book, 1973

Best American Journalism of the 20th Century

The following works were chosen as the 20th century's best American journalism by a panel of experts assembled by New York University's journalism department.

1. John Hersey: “Hiroshima,” The New Yorker, 1946

2. Rachel Carson: Silent Spring, book, 1962

3. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: Investigation of the Watergate break-in, The Washington Post, 1972

4. Edward R. Murrow: Battle of Britain, CBS radio, 1940

5. Ida Tarbell: “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” McClure's, 1902–1904

6. Lincoln Steffens: “The Shame of the Cities,” McClure's, 1902–1904

7. John Reed: Ten Days That Shook the World, book, 1919

8. H. L. Mencken: Scopes “Monkey” trial, The Sun of Baltimore, 1925

9. Ernie Pyle: Reports from Europe and the Pacific during World War II, Scripps-Howard newspapers, 1940–1945

10. Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly: Investigation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, CBS, 1954

11. Edward R. Murrow, David Lowe, and Fred Friendly: “Harvest of Shame,”documentary, CBS television, 1960

12. Seymour Hersh: Investigation of massacre by American soldiers at My Lai in Vietnam, Dispatch News Service, 1969

13. The New York Times: Publication of the Pentagon Papers, 1971

14. James Agee and Walker Evans: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, book, 1941

15. W.E.B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk, collected articles, 1903

16. I. F. Stone: I. F. Stone's Weekly, 1953–1967

17. Henry Hampton: “Eyes on the Prize,” documentary, 1987

18. Tom Wolfe: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, book, 1968

19. Norman Mailer: The Armies of the Night, book, 1968

20. Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,collected articles, 1963

21. William Shirer: Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1939–1941, collected articles, 1941

22. Truman Capote: In Cold Blood, book, 1965

23. Joan Didion: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, collected articles, 1968

24. Tom Wolfe: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, collected articles, 1965

25. Michael Herr: Dispatches, book, 1977

26. Theodore White: The Making of the President: 1960, book, 1961

27. Robert Capa: Ten photographs from D-Day, 1944

28. J. Anthony Lukas: Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, book, 1985

29. Richard Harding Davis: Coverage of German march into Belgium, Wheeler Syndicate and magazines, 1914

30. Dorothy Thompson: Reports on the rise of Hitler, Cosmopolitan and Saturday Evening Post, 1931–1934

31. John Steinbeck: Reports on Okie migrant camp life, The San Francisco News,1936

32. A. J. Liebling: The Road Back to Paris, collected articles, 1944

33. Ernest Hemingway: Reports on the Spanish Civil War, The New Republic, 1937–1938

34. Martha Gellhorn: The Face of War, collected articles, 1959

35. James Baldwin: The Fire Next Time, book, 1963

36. Joseph Mitchell: Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories, collection of much older articles, 1992

37. Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique, book, 1963

38. Ralph Nader: Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, book, 1965

39. Herblock (Herbert Block): Cartoons on McCarthyism, The Washington Post, 1950

40. James Baldwin: “Letter from the South: Nobody Knows My Name,” The Partisan Review, 1959

41. Nick Ut: Photograph of a burning girl running from a napalm attack, The Associated Press, 1972

42. Pauline Kael: “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” Harper's, 1969

43. Gay Talese: Fame and Obscurity: Portraits by Gay Talese, collected articles, 1970

44. Randy Shilts: Reports on AIDS, The San Francisco Chronicle, 1981–1985

45. Janet Flanner (Genet): Paris Journals chronicling Paris's emergence from the Occupation, The New Yorker, 1944–45

46. Neil Sheehan: A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, book, 1988

47. A. J. Liebling: The Wayward Pressman, collected articles, 1947

48. Tom Wolfe: The Right Stuff, book, 1979

49. Murray Kempton: America Comes of Middle Age: Columns 1950–1962, collected articles, 1963

50. Murray Kempton: Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties, book, 1955

51. Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele: “America: What Went Wrong?,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1991

52. Taylor Branch: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963, 1988

53. Harrison Salisbury: Reporting from the Soviet Union, The New York Times, 1949–1954

54. John McPhee: The John McPhee Reader, collected articles, 1976

55. ABC: Live television broadcast of Army-McCarthy hearings, 1954

56. Frederick Wiseman: Titicut Follies, documentary, 1967

57. David Remnick: Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, book, 1993

58. Richard Ben Cramer: What It Takes: The Way to the White House, book, 1992

59. Jonathan Schell: The Fate of the Earth, book, 1982

60. Russell Baker: “Francs and Beans,” The New York Times, 1975

61. Homer Bigart: Account of being over Japan in a bomber, The New York Herald-Tribune, 1945

62. Ben Hecht: 1,001 Afternoons in Chicago, collected articles, 1922

63. Walter Cronkite: Documentary on Vietnam, CBS television, 1968

64. Walter Lippmann: Early essays, The New Republic, 1914

65. Margaret Bourke-White: Photographs following the defeat of Germany, Life magazine, 1945

66. Lillian Ross: Reporting, collected articles, 1964

67. Nicholas Lemann: The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, book, 1991

68. Joe Rosenthal: Photograph of Marines raising an American flag on Mount Suribachi, The Associated Press, 1945

69. Hodding Carter Jr.: “Go for Broke,” editorial, Carter's Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), 1945

70. The New Yorker: The New Yorker Book of War Pieces, collected articles, 1947

71. Meyer Berger: Report on the murderer Howard Unruh, The New York Times, 1949

72. Norman Mailer: The Executioner's Song, book, 1979

73. Robert Capa: Spanish Civil War photos, Life magazine, 1936

74. Susan Sontag: “Notes on ‘Camp,’” The Partisan Review, 1964

75. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: All the President's Men, book, 1974

76. John Hersey: Here to Stay, collected articles, 1963

77. A. J. Liebling: The Earl of Louisiana, book, 1961

78. Mike Davis: City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, book, 1990

79. Melissa Fay Greene: Praying for Sheetrock, book, 1991

80. J. Anthony Lukas: “The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick,” The New York Times, 1967

81. Herbert Bayard Swope: “Klan Exposed,” The New York World, 1921

82. William Allen White: “To an Anxious Friend,” The Emporia (Kan.) Gazette,1922

83. Edward R. Murrow: Report of the liberation of Buchenwald, CBS radio, 1945

84. Joseph Mitchell: McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, collected articles, 1943

85. Lillian Ross: Picture, book, 1952

86. Earl Brown: Series of articles on race, Harper's and Life magazines, 1942–1944

87. Greil Marcus: Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music, book,1975

88. Morley Safer: Atrocities committed by American soldiers in Vietnam, CBS television, 1965

89. Ted Poston: Coverage of the “Little Scottsboro” trial, The New York Post, 1949

90. Leon Dash: “Rosa Lee's Story,” The Washington Post, 1994

91. Jane Kramer: Europeans, collected articles, 1988

92. Eddie Adams and Vo Suu: Associated Press photograph and NBC television footage of a Saigon execution, 1968

93. Grantland Rice: “Notre Dame's ‘Four Horsemen,’” The New York Herald-Tribune, 1924

94. Jane Kramer: The Politics of Memory: Looking for Germany in the New Germany, collected articles, 1996

95. Frank McCourt: Angela's Ashes, book, 1996

96. Vincent Sheean: Personal History, book, 1935

97. W.E.B. Du Bois: Columns on race during his tenure as editor of The Crisis,1910–1934

98. Damon Runyon: Crime reporting, The New York American, 1926

99. Joe McGinniss: The Selling of the President 1968, book, 1969

100. Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, book, 1973

Letter that has apparently been sent to the British prime minister:

Dear Mr. Cameron,

Please find below our suggestion for fixing the UK 's economy.

Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.

You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force.

Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Ten million job openings - unemployment fixed

2) They MUST buy a new British car. Ten million cars ordered - Car Industry fixed

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed

4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university - Crime rate fixed

5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week ..... And there's your money back in duty/tax etc

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances

Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga - The Lady Is A Tramp

NOVEMBER 1, 2011, 11:58 A.M. ET.APNewsBreak: Caro's fourth LBJ book coming in May

Associated Press

NEW YORK — The fourth of Robert A. Caro's Lyndon Johnson books, continuing one of the most acclaimed and debated biographical series in memory, is coming in May.

And a fifth volume is now planned for what Caro had intended to be a three-, then four-part story.

"The Passage of Power" will focus on the years 1958-'64, from the time he began seeking the presidency, through his years as vice president under John F. Kennedy, and to Johnson's becoming president after JFK's assassination. Caro expects the book to run about 700 pages, modest by his standards. His previous book, "Master of the Senate," topped 1,100 pages.

"Why did three volumes become four? Because I realized I didn't know how the Senate worked and instead of making it rather minor, I wanted to show how power worked in the Senate," Caro said Tuesday during a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Manhattan office.

"What do I want to show in this volume? I wanted to show how a master of politics can pick up the reins of power in a time of great crisis and what he can do with that power and the extraordinary results Lyndon Johnson did with it."

Caro said he has already done an outline and most of the research for the presumed final volume, which would cover the rest of Johnson's presidency, and even knows the final sentence. He expects the fifth book to take two to three years.

Over the past three decades, Caro's Johnson books have received two National Book Critics Circle awards, a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, for "Master of the Senate." The three books have sold 1.5 million copies combined and Knopf receives hundreds of emails each month asking about the last volume, according to publicity director Paul Bogaards.

Knopf plans a first printing of 300,000 copies and Bogaards said Caro will tour to promote the new book, giving fans a long-awaited chance to see him. Knopf Chairman and CEO Sonny Mehta said in a statement that "Passage of Power" was a "riveting look at a pivotal period in our nation's history."

"You do not give a great biographer a timetable," Mehta said. "You let them do their work, and in due course, publish it. This has been our approach with Caro from the outset. The result has been three signature works, and now this fourth, which I immediately recognized as a stand-alone book and insisted that we had to publish next year. There will be a fifth volume, though again, we have no timetable for it, only the expectation that it will be as good as the first four."

Publishing has changed dramatically since "Master of the Senate" was released in 2002, and the historian's new book will be his first to be published simultaneously in hardcover and electronic format. On Nov. 23, volumes I and II — "The Path to Power" and "Means of Ascent" — will finally be available as e-books. ("Master of the Senate" already can be downloaded.)

"You want the books to go on," said Caro, who personally favors paper. "And I realize that this generation, a lot of it, and the generation after that is going to be reading in digital form."

Caro's appeal reaches to Washington itself, where Johnson's omnipotence now seems unthinkable. According to Ron Suskind's best-selling "Confidence Men," Democratic senators read Caro's books as they attempted to pass health care legislation in 2009 and Rep. Barney Frank consulted "Master of the Senate" as he urged fellow Democrats to support new financial regulation.

Meanwhile, Caro has risen from pariah among Johnson supporters to the former president's definitive chronicler. "Means of Ascent," published in 1990, was an account so harsh of Johnson's 1948 election to the U.S. Senate that former LBJ aide Jack Valenti accused Caro of despising his subject. Lady Bird Johnson, LBJ's widow, stopped granting him interviews. For years, Caro was treated coldly at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. The library limited his access to materials and didn't invite him as a guest speaker. His books were unavailable at the museum store.

But while "Means of Ascent" presented Johnson as boorish and unscrupulous, "Master of the Senate" showed Johnson as a singularly forceful and ingenious majority leader, with stirrings of idealism, as he miraculously pushed through the first major civil rights bill since Reconstruction. Valenti and other Johnson insiders warmed to Caro and agreed to talk. Caro has since spoken at the Johnson center, where his books are now sold and the historian's requests are duly granted.

Maybe he was waiting for Lady Bird to die before claiming that LBJ was involved in the assassination.

Silverleaf named Greg Miskiw, a former news editor at the paper, and Ross Hindley, a reporter, as apparently "intimately involved". A third name given by Silverleaf is redacted.

I wonder why?

Billy King has sent me the following quote by Frank Zapra: "The Government is the entertainment division of the Military Industrial Complex."