John Simkin

Operation 40: Part 3 In his autobiography, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, Ted Shackley defended his relationship with Vang Pao. Shackley claimed that he attempted to “coexist with him without being seared by his breath”. He admitted that some would argue: “Coexist with narcotics traffickers! Just as we always thought! He should have been wiping them out.” Shackley goes on to point out: “only rogue elephants charge at everything in their path, and the CIA was never such an animal…. The mission that had been handed me was to fight a war in northern Laos against the Pathet Lao and the NVA and to interdict, along the Laotian part of the Ho Chi Minh Trial, the flow of military manpower and material from North Vietnam to the battlefields of South Vietnam. My plate was full.” (36) Shackley’s critics argued that he went much further than co-existing with the drug traffickers in Laos. According to Edith Holleman and Andrew Love: “In addition to his opium trafficking operation, Vang Pao carried out an assassination program, on information and belief under the auspices of Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines. Partially funded by Vang Pao’s opium income, the program eliminated civilian functionaries and supporters of the Pathet Lao, as well as Vang Pao’s rival opium warlords.” Holleman and Love go onto argue that Shackley brought “Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero and Rafael Villaverde, along with Felix Rodriguez, to Laos, to train members of Vang Pao’s Hmong tribe to perform assassinations against Pathet Lao leaders and sympathizers.” (37) Once again, members of Operation 40 were being funded from outside the CIA. Money was paid to eliminate people who posed a threat to their profits. David Morales and Carl Jenkins were also involved in this assassination program. Morales had told Ruben Carbajal that he had killed people in “Vietnam, in Venezuela, in Uruguay and other places”. (38) Jenkins was another member of what Gene Wheaton had called the CIA "off-the-reservation gang". (39) As Warren Hinckle and William Turner had pointed out in Deadly Secrets, members of Operation 40 were “assassins-for-hire”. In this case it was Vang Pao. Who else made use of this service? In 1968 two important political leaders were assassinated in the United States? Had they been victims of Operation 40? In December, 1968, Shackley became Chief of Station in Vietnam and took over Phung Hoang (Operation Phoenix). In his autobiography, Shackley denied he was the “godfather of Phung Hoang”. In fact, Shackley claims he did not approve of this program that involved the killing of non-combatant Vietnamese civilians suspected of collaborating with the National Liberation Front. However, according to Shackley, the Director of the CIA, Richard Helms, insisted that “we are not free agents” and that the CIA rather than the United States Army had to run Operation Phoenix. (40) Other members of Operation 40 in Vietnam at this time included Thomas Clines, David Morales, Rip Robertson and Félix Rodríguez. Two other members of the “Secret Team” in Vietnam with Shackley were John Singlaub and Richard Secord. Shackley claims that Phoenix was set up in November 1966. This was over two years before Shackley arrived in Vietnam. This is true. However, it was Shackley who turned it into an “assassination unit”. Tucker Gouglemann and William Buckley supervised the program. (41) Edith Holleman and Andrew Love claimed that it was Shackley and Clines who played the most important role in Operation Phoenix. The purposely targeted “South Vietnamese town mayors, clerks, teachers, business professionals and educated persons” who they considered were contributing to the “actual or potential civilian infrastructure of the NLF.” (42) Fred Branfman quotes a U.S. State Department document in July, 1969, that: “The target for 1969 calls for the elimination of 1800 VCI per month.” K. Barton Osborn, a U.S. Phoenix agent, testified to Congress, that in a year and a half of active service, “I never knew an individual to be detained as a VC suspect who ever lived through the interrogation”. He added: “This was the mentality… It became a sterile depersonalized murder program.” He described of how he inserted a “six-inch dowel into the ear canal of one of my detainee’s ears and the tapping through the brain until he died.” (43) The Saigon Ministry of Information admitted that 40,994 were murdered as part of Operation Phoenix. (44) William Colby disagrees, when he testified before Congress he claimed that Phoenix was only responsible for the death of 20,587 persons. (45) Although he admitted to some “illegal killings”, Colby rejected a suggestion by Senator J. William Fulbright that it was “a program for the assassination of civilian leaders”. (46) As Branfman has pointed out: “This number, proportionate to population, would total over a three-year period, were Phoenix in practice in the United States. (47) Notes 36. Ted Shackley, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, 2005 (pages 198-199) 37. Edith Holleman and Andrew Love, Inside the Shadow Government, 1988 (pages 14-15) 38. Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 1993 (pages 380) 39. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA Crusades, 1994 (page 383) 40. Ted Shackley, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, 2005 (pages 233-234) 41. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA Crusades, 1994 (page 194) 42. Edith Holleman and Andrew Love, Inside the Shadow Government, 1988 (page 13) 43. Fred Branfman, South Vietnam’s Police and Prison System, included in Uncloaking the CIA, edited by Howard Frazier, 1978 (page 113) 44. House Committee on Government Operations, 1971 (page 321) 45. Republic of Vietnam, Ministry of Information, Vietnam 1967-71: Towards Peace and Prosperity, 1971 (page 52) 44. House Committee on Government Operations, 1971 (page 183) 45. Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture, 2006 (page 67) 46. Fred Branfman, South Vietnam’s Police and Prison System, 1978 (page 114)

Who was the well-known JFK author?

I argued on other threads that as a result of the assassination certain aspects of John F. Kennedy’s policies were brought to a halt. This included plans to end the oil depletion allowance, investigations into government corruption (TFX and Bobby Baker scandals), secret negotiations with Fidel Castro, the refusal to start a war in Vietnam and an unwillingness to support anti-democratic military dictators in the America. I have attempted to show that all these decisions benefited the Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Complex (MICIC). http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5799 Although the MICIC had a good motive for killing Kennedy, it is much more difficult to show how this was organized. A considerable amount of evidence has emerged to indicate that anti-Castro Cubans working for the CIA were involved in the assassination. This in itself was linked to CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. Gaeton Fonzi has argued convincingly in The Last Investigation that CIA officers, David Atlee Phillips and David Morales were involved in the assassination of Kennedy. Fonzi discovered that in 1963 Morales was head of operations at JM/WAVE, the CIA Miami station. (1) JM/WAVE chief was Ted Shackley and his top deputy was Tom Clines. As Warren Hinckle and William Turner were to point out in Deadly Secrets, Operation 40 the “ultra secret… assassins-for-hire” program was based at the JM/WAVE station. (2) An account of the formation of Operation 40 can be found in the Senate Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders. On 11th December, 1959, Colonel J. C. King, chief of CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, sent a confidential memorandum to Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. King argued that in Cuba there existed a "far-left dictatorship, which if allowed to remain will encourage similar actions against U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries." (3) As a result of this memorandum Dulles established Operation 40. It obtained this name because originally there were 40 agents involved in the operation. Later this was expanded to 70 agents. The group was presided over by Richard Nixon. Tracy Barnes became operating officer of what was also called the Cuban Task Force. The first meeting chaired by Barnes took place in his office on 18th January, 1960, and was attended by David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Jack Esterline and Frank Bender. According to Fabian Escalante, a senior officer of the Cuban Department of State Security (G-2), in 1960 Richard Nixon recruited an "important group of businessmen headed by George Bush (Snr.) and Jack Crichton, both Texas oilmen, to gather the necessary funds for the operation". This suggests that Operation 40 agents were involved in freelance work. (4) In 1990 Common Cause magazine argued that: "The CIA put millionaire and agent George Bush in charge of recruiting exiled Cubans for the CIA’s invading army; Bush was working with another Texan oil magnate, Jack Crichton, who helped him in terms of the invasion." (5) This story was linked to the release of "a memorandum in that context addressed to FBI chief J. Edward Hoover and signed November 1963, which reads: Mr. George Bush of the CIA" (6) Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo claim that in 1959 George Bush was asked “to cooperate in funding the nascent anti-Castro groups that the CIA decided to create”. The man “assigned to him for his new mission” was Féliz Rodríguez. (7) Daniel Hopsicker also takes the view that Operation 40 involved private funding. In the book, Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America’s Secret History, he claims that Nixon’s had established Operation 40 as a result of pressure from American corporations which had suffered at the hands of Fidel Castro. (8) Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin have argued that Bush was very close to members of Operation 40 in the early 1960s. In September, 1963, Bush launched his Senate campaign. At that time, right-wing Republicans were calling on John Kennedy to take a more aggressive approach towards Fidel Castro. For example, in one speech Barry Goldwater said: “I advocate the recognition of a Cuban government in exile and would encourage this government every way to reclaim its country. This means financial and military assistance.” Bush took a more extreme position than Goldwater and called for a “new government-in-exile invasion of Cuba”. As Tarpley and Chaitkin point out, beneficiaries of this policy would have been “Theodore Shackley, who was by now the station chief of CIA Miami Station, Felix Rodriguez, Chi Chi Quintero, and the rest of the boys” from Operation 40. (9) Paul Kangas is another investigator who has claimed that George Bush was involved with members of Operation 40. In an article published in The Realist in 1990, Kangas claims: "Among other members of the CIA recruited by George Bush for (the attacks on Cuba) were Frank Sturgis, Howard Hunt, Bernard Baker and Rafael Quintero.” In an article published in Granma in January, 2006, the journalists Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo argued that “Another of Bush’s recruits for the Bay of Pigs invasion, Rafael Quintero, who was also part of this underworld of organizations and conspiracies against Cuba, stated: If I was to tell what I know about Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, it would be the greatest scandal that has ever rocked the nation." (10) Fabian Escalante names William Pawley as being one of those who was lobbying for the CIA to assassinate Castro. (11) Escalante points out that Pawley had played a similar role in the CIA overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala. Interestingly, the CIA assembled virtually the same team that was involved in the removal of Arbenz: Tracey Barnes, Richard Bissell, David Morales, David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Rip Robertson and Henry Hecksher. Added to this list was several agents who had been involved in undercover operations in Germany: Ted Shackley, Tom Clines and William Harvey. According to Daniel Hopsicker, Edwin Wilson, Barry Seal, William Seymour, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Hemming were also involved in Operation 40. (12) It has also been pointed out that Operation 40 was not only involved in trying to overthrow Fidel Castro. Frank Sturgis has claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents." Virtually every one of the field agents of Operation 40 were Cubans. This included Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Carlos Bringuier, Eugenio Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Felix Ismael Rodriguez, Antonio Veciana, Juan Manuel Salvat, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Isidro Borjas, Virgilio Paz, Jose Dionisio Suarez, Felipe Rivero, Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Nazario Sargent, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Jose Basulto, and Paulino Sierra. (13) Most of these characters had been associated with the far-right in Cuban politics. Rumours soon became circulating that it was not only Fidel Castro that was being targeted. On 9th June, 1961, Arthur Schlesinger sent a memo to Richard Goodwin: “Sam Halper, who has been the Times correspondent in Havana and more recently in Miami, came to see me last week. He has excellent contracts among the Cuban exiles. One of Miro's comments this morning reminded me that I have been meaning to pass on the following story as told me by Halper. Halper says that CIA set up something called Operation 40 under the direction of a man named (as he recalled) Captain Luis Sanjenis, who was also chief of intelligence. (Could this be the man to whom Miro referred this morning?) It was called Operation 40 because originally only 40 men were involved: later the group was enlarged to 70. The ostensible purpose of Operation 40 was to administer liberated territories in Cuba. But the CIA agent in charge, a man known as Felix, trained the members of the group in methods of third degree interrogation, torture and general terrorism. The liberal Cuban exiles believe that the real purpose of Operation 40 was to "kill Communists" and, after eliminating hard-core Fidelistas, to go on to eliminate first the followers of Ray, then the followers of Varona and finally to set up a right wing dictatorship, presumably under Artime.” (14) In an interview he gave to Jean-Guy Allard in May, 2005, Fabian Escalante pointed out: “Who in 1963 had the resources to assassinate Kennedy? Who had the means and who had the motives to kill the U.S. president? CIA agents from Operation 40 who were rabidly anti-Kennedy. And among them were Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Antonio Veciana and Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia." (15) This is not the first time that Fabian Escalante has pointed the finger at members of Operation 40. In December, 1995, Wayne Smith, chief of the Centre for International Policy in Washington, arranged a meeting on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in Nassau, Bahamas. Others in attendance were Gaeton Fonzi, Dick Russell, Noel Twyman, Anthony Summers, Peter Dale Scott, Jeremy Gunn, John Judge, Andy Kolis, Peter Kornbluh, Mary and Ray LaFontaine, Jim Lesar, John Newman, Alan Rogers, Russ Swickard, Ed Sherry, and Gordon Winslow. During a session on 7th December, Escalante claimed that during captivity, Antonio Cuesta, confessed that he had been involved in the assassination of Kennedy. He also named Eladio Del Valle, Rolando Masferrer and Hermino Diaz Garcia as being involved in this operation. All four men were members of Operation 40. (16) It has been argued that people like Fabian Escalante, Jean Guy Allard, Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo are under the control of the Cuban government. It is definitely true that much of this information has originally been published in Granma, the newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. Is there any other evidence to suggest that members of Operation 40 were involved in the assassination? I believe that there are several pieces of evidence that help to substantiate Escalante’s theory. Shortly before his death in 1975 John Martino confessed to a Miami Newsday reporter, John Cummings, that he had been guilty of spreading false stories implicating Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of Kennedy. He claimed that two of the gunmen were Cuban exiles. It is believed the two men were Herminio Diaz Garcia and Virgilio Gonzalez. Cummings added: "He told me he'd been part of the assassination of Kennedy. He wasn't in Dallas pulling a trigger, but he was involved. He implied that his role was delivering money, facilitating things.... He asked me not to write it while he was alive." (17) Fred Claasen also told the House Select Committee on Assassinations what he knew about his business partner’s involvement in the case. Martino told Classen: “The anti-Castro people put Oswald together. Oswald didn’t know who he was working for – he was just ignorant of who was really putting him together. Oswald was to meet his contact at the Texas Theatre. They were to meet Oswald in the theatre, and get him out of the country, then eliminate him. Oswald made a mistake… There was no way we could get to him. They had Ruby kill him.” (18) Florence Martino at first refused to corroborate the story. However, in 1994 she told Anthony Summers that her husband said to her on the morning of 22nd November, 1963: "Flo, they're going to kill him (Kennedy). They're going to kill him when he gets to Texas." (19) Herminio Diaz Garcia and Virgilio Gonzalez were both members of Operation 40. So also was Rip Robertson who according to Anthony Summers “was a familiar face at his (John Martino) home. Summers also points out that Martino was close to William Pawley and both took part in the “Bayo-Pawley Affair”. (20) This anti-Castro mission, also known as Operation Tilt, also involved other members of Operation 40, including Virgilio Gonzalez and Eugenio Martinez. There is another key CIA figure in Operation 40 who has made a confession concerning the assassination of John Kennedy. David Morales was head of operations at JM/WAVE, the CIA Miami station, at the time of the assassination. Gaeton Fonzi carried out a full investigation of Morales while working for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). Unfortunately, Morales could not testify before the HSCA because he died of a heart attack on 8th May, 1978. Fonzi tracked down Ruben Carbajal, a very close friend of Morales. Carbajal saw Morales the night before he died. He also visited Morales in hospital when he received news of the heart attack. Carbajal is convinced that Morales was killed by the CIA. Morales had told Carbajal the agency would do this if you posed a threat to covert operations. Morales, a heavy drinker, had a reputation for being indiscreet when intoxicated. On 4th August 1973, Morales allowed himself to be photographed by Kevin Scofield of the Arizona Republic at the El Molino restaurant. When the photograph appeared in the newspaper the following day, it identified Morales as Director for Operations Counterinsurgency and Special Activities in Washington. Carbajal put Fonzi in contact with Bob Walton, a business associate of Morales. Walton confirmed Carbajal’s account that Morales feared being killed by the CIA. On one occasion he told him: “I know too much”. Walton also told him about a discussion he had with Morales about John F. Kennedy in the spring of 1973. Walton had done some volunteer work for Kennedy’s Senatorial campaign. When hearing this news, Morales launched an attack on Kennedy, describing him as a wimp who had betrayed the anti-Castro Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. He ended up by saying: “Well, we took care of that son of a bitch, didn’t we?” Carbajal, who was also present at this meeting, confirmed Walton’s account of what Morales said. (21) Another important piece of evidence comes from Gene Wheaton. In 1995 Gene Wheaton approached the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) with information on the death of Kennedy. Anne Buttimer, Chief Investigator of the ARRB, recorded that: " Wheaton told me that from 1984 to 1987 he spent a lot of time in the Washington DC area and that starting in 1985 he was "recruited into Ollie North's network" by the CIA officer he has information about. He got to know this man and his wife, a "'super grade high level CIA officer" and kept a bedroom in their Virginia home. His friend was a Marine Corps liaison in New Orleans and was the CIA contact with Carlos Marcello. He had been responsible for "running people into Cuba before the Bay of Pigs." His friend is now 68 or 69 years of age... Over the course of a year or a year and one-half his friend told him about his activities with training Cuban insurgency groups. Wheaton said he also got to know many of the Cubans who had been his friend's soldiers/operatives when the Cubans visited in Virginia from their homes in Miami. His friend and the Cubans confirmed to Wheaton they assassinated JFK. Wheaton's friend said he trained the Cubans who pulled the triggers. Wheaton said the street level Cubans felt JFK was a traitor after the Bay of Pigs and wanted to kill him. People "above the Cubans" wanted JFK killed for other reasons." (22) It was later revealed that Wheaton's friend was Carl E. Jenkins, A senior CIA officer, Jenkins had been appointed in 1960 as Chief of Base for Cuban Project. In 1963 Jenkins provided paramilitary training for Manuel Artime and Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero and other members of the Movement for the Recovery of the Revolution (MRR). In an interview with William Law and Mark Sobel in the summer of 2005, Gene Wheaton claimed that Jenkins and Quintero were both involved in the assassination of Kennedy. It seems that members of Operation 40, originally recruited to remove Fidel Castro, had been redirected to kill Kennedy. That someone had paid this team of assassins to kill the president of the United States as part of a freelance operation. This is not such a far-fetched idea when you consider that in 1959 Richard Nixon was approaching oilmen like George Walker Bush and Jack Crichton to help fund Operation 40. We also have the claim of Frank Sturgis that "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents." Further support for this theory comes from an unlikely source. David Atlee Phillips died of cancer on 7th July, 1988. He left behind an unpublished manuscript. The novel is about a CIA officer who lived in Mexico City. In the novel the character states: "I was one of those officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald... We gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba... I don't know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the president's assassination, but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt." (23) The issue is whether Operation 40 remained active after 1963. Is it possible that a network of CIA agents, right-wing businessmen linked to the arms and oil industries and Cuban exiles continued to work together in the interests of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Intelligence Complex? I would suggest that the following people were key members of Operation 40 who need to be looked at very carefully: CIA Officers: Ted Shackley, Tom Clines, Tracy Barnes, David Atlee Phillips, David Morales, Rip Robertson, E. Howard Hunt, Jack Esterline, Carl E. Jenkins, Frank Bender (Gerry Droller), William Harvey, Daniel Hopsicker, William C. Bishop and Edwin Wilson. Assassins: Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Eugenio Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Felix Rodriguez, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard L. Barker and Frank Sturgis. In January 1966, Desmond FitzGerald, who was now in control of Cuban operations, sent Ted Shackley to be chief of station in Laos. His orders was to create a secret army against the North Vietnamese. (24) As Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA, pointed out to Shackley, that while in Laos his primary concern was to help the United States win the war in Vietnam. (25) Souvanna Phouma had become head of a coalition government in Laos in 1962. This included the appointment of the left-leaning Quinim Pholsema as Foreign Minister. Kennedy supported Phouma as it reflected his desire for all-party coalition governments in the underdeveloped world. On 1st April, 1963, this policy suffered a tremendous blow when Quinim Pholsema, the left-wing Foreign Minister, was assassinated. As David Kaiser has pointed out: “In light of subsequent revelations about CIA assassination plots, this episode inevitably arouses some suspicion.” (26) This assassination led to a break-up of the coalition government in Laos. The CIA now began funding General Vang Pao and Hmong tribesman in their war with the Pathet Lao. A CIA report explained why the Hmong were willing to fight the communists in Laos: “Primary it is economic and rests on their determination… to protect their homeland and their opium-rich poppy fields from outside incursions.” (27) Vang Pao was in fact a major figure in the opium trade in Southeast Asia. In order to defeat communism in Laos, the CIA was willing to help Vang Pao distribute opium. As Alfred W. McCoy pointed out in The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, the “CIA adopted a complicitous posture toward the traffic, allowing the Hmong commander, General Vang Pao, to use the CIA’s Air America to collect opium from his scattered highland villages.” (28) A few months after becoming chief of station in Laos, Shackley appointed his old friend, Thomas G. Clines, as base chief in Long Tieng, in northern Laos. (29) David Morales was put in charge of Pakse, a black operations base focused on political paramilitary action within Laos. Pakse was used to launch military operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trial. (30) Other former members of Operation 40 who moved to Laos included Carl E. Jenkins, Rafael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez and Edwin Wilson. (31) In 1967 Shackley and Clines helped Vang Pao to obtain financial backing to form his own airline company, Zieng Khouang Air Transport (ZKAT). This was a combined CIA and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) operation. Two C-47s were acquired from Air America and Continental Air Services. These aircraft were used by Vang Pao to transport opium and heroin between Long Tieng and Vientiane. (32) According to a report published in 1988: “Vang Pao’s officers and agents of Shackley and Clines flew to scattered Hmong villages offering guns, rice and money in exchange for recruits.” (33) By 1968, Vang Pao’s Hmong army had grown to “40,000 soldiers, mostly local defence forces, but about 15,000 grouped in Special Guerrilla Units”. (34) The growth in Vang Pao’s army helped him to dominate the trade in opium in Laos. Joel Bainerman claims that “Shackley, Clines and Richard Secord helped Pao control Laos’ opium trade by sabotaging competitors”. In 1968 “Shackley and Clines arranged a meeting in Saigon between Mafia chief Santo Trafficante, Jr., and Vang Pao to establish a heroin-smuggling operation from Southeast Asia to the United States.” (35) Notes 1. Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 1993 (pages 366-371) 2. Warren Hinckle & William Turner, Deadly Secrets, 1992 (page 53) 3. Senate Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 1975 (page 92) 4. Fabian Escalante, CIA Covert Operations 1959-1962: The Cuba Project, 2004 (pages 42 and 43) 5. Common Cause Magazine (4th March, 1990) 6. The Nation magazine (13th August, 1988) 7. Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo, Granma (16th January, 2006) 8. Daniel Hopsicker, Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America’s Secret History, 2001 (page 170) 9. Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, 2004 (page 173) 10. Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo, Granma (16th January, 2006) 11. Fabian Escalante, CIA Covert Operations 1959-1962: The Cuba Project, 2004 (pages 42 and 43) 12. Daniel Hopsicker, Mad Cow Morning News (24th August, 2004) 13. Jean-Guy Allard, Granma (22nd May, 2005) 14. Arthur Schlesinger, memo to Richard Goodwin (9th June, 1961) 15. Jean-Guy Allard, Granma (22nd May, 2005) 16. Fabian Escalante, Centre for International Policy, Nassau, Bahamas (7th December, 1995) 17. Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked, 2003 (page 17) 18. Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy, 2002 (page 328) 19. Anthony and Robbyn Summers, The Ghosts of November, Vanity Fair (December, 1994) 20. Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy, 2002 (page 326) 21. Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 1993 (pages 380-390) 22. Anne Buttimer, Assassination Records Review Board Report (12th July, 1995) 23. Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy, 2002 (page 371) 24. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men, 1995 (page 28) 25. Ted Shackley, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, 2005 (page 103) 26. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 198) 27. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA Crusades, 1994 (page 129) 28. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, 1991 (page 19) 29. Christopher Robbins, The Ravens: The Men Who Flew in America’s Secret War in Laos, 1987 (page 125) 30. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA Crusades, 1994 (page 138) 31. Joel Bainerman, The Crimes of a President, 1992 (page 67) 32. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, 1972 (page 278) 33. Edith Holleman and Andrew Love, Inside the Shadow Government, 1988 (page 13) 34. John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, 1986 (page 282) 35. Joel Bainerman, The Crimes of a President, 1992 (page 68)

Operation 40: Part II In January 1966, Desmond FitzGerald, who was now in control of Cuban operations, sent Ted Shackley to be chief of station in Laos. His orders was to create a secret army against the North Vietnamese. (1) As Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA, pointed out to Shackley, that while in Laos his primary concern was to help the United States win the war in Vietnam. (2) Souvanna Phouma had become head of a coalition government in Laos in 1962. This included the appointment of the left-leaning Quinim Pholsema as Foreign Minister. Kennedy supported Phouma as it reflected his desire for all-party coalition governments in the underdeveloped world. On 1st April, 1963, this policy suffered a tremendous blow when Quinim Pholsema, the left-wing Foreign Minister, was assassinated. As David Kaiser has pointed out: “In light of subsequent revelations about CIA assassination plots, this episode inevitably arouses some suspicion.” (3) This assassination led to a break-up of the coalition government in Laos. The CIA now began funding General Vang Pao and Hmong tribesman in their war with the Pathet Lao. A CIA report explained why the Hmong were willing to fight the communists in Laos: “Primary it is economic and rests on their determination… to protect their homeland and their opium-rich poppy fields from outside incursions.” (4) Vang Pao was in fact a major figure in the opium trade in Southeast Asia. In order to defeat communism in Laos, the CIA was willing to help Vang Pao distribute opium. As Alfred W. McCoy pointed out in The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, the “CIA adopted a complicitous posture toward the traffic, allowing the Hmong commander, General Vang Pao, to use the CIA’s Air America to collect opium from his scattered highland villages.” (5) A few months after becoming chief of station in Laos, Shackley appointed his old friend, Thomas G. Clines, as base chief in Long Tieng, in northern Laos. (6) David Morales was put in charge of Pakse, a black operations base focused on political paramilitary action within Laos. Pakse was used to launch military operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trial. (7) Other former members of Operation 40 who moved to Laos included Carl E. Jenkins, Rafael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez and Edwin Wilson. (8) In 1967 Shackley and Clines helped Vang Pao to obtain financial backing to form his own airline company, Zieng Khouang Air Transport (ZKAT). This was a combined CIA and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) operation. Two C-47s were acquired from Air America and Continental Air Services. These aircraft were used by Vang Pao to transport opium and heroin between Long Tieng and Vientiane. (9) According to a report published in 1988: “Vang Pao’s officers and agents of Shackley and Clines flew to scattered Hmong villages offering guns, rice and money in exchange for recruits.” (10) By 1968, Vang Pao’s Hmong army had grown to “40,000 soldiers, mostly local defence forces, but about 15,000 grouped in Special Guerrilla Units”. (11) The growth in Vang Pao’s army helped him to dominate the trade in opium in Laos. Joel Bainerman claims that “Shackley, Clines and Richard Secord helped Pao control Laos’ opium trade by sabotaging competitors”. In 1968 “Shackley and Clines arranged a meeting in Saigon between Mafia chief Santo Trafficante, Jr., and Vang Pao to establish a heroin-smuggling operation from Southeast Asia to the United States.” (12) Notes 1. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men, 1995 (page 28) 2. Ted Shackley, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, 2005 (page 103) 3. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 198) 4. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA Crusades, 1994 (page 129) 5. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, 1991 (page 19) 6. Christopher Robbins, The Ravens: The Men Who Flew in America’s Secret War in Laos, 1987 (page 125) 7. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA Crusades, 1994 (page 138) 8. Joel Bainerman, The Crimes of a President, 1992 (page 67) 9. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, 1972 (page 278) 10. Edith Holleman and Andrew Love, Inside the Shadow Government, 1988 (page 13) 11. John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, 1986 (page 282) 12. Joel Bainerman, The Crimes of a President, 1992 (page 68)

I have had an email from Patrick Shannon, great-grandson of Lee R. Pennington, Jr. He claims that the picture above is not of Pennington.

Tony Summers is answering questions about his book here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5756

In his autobiography, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, Ted Shackley does not write much about his fellow agents. However, surprisingly he does make several mentions of David Morales. He claims that Morales worked very closely with Tony Sforza in their attempts to remove Fidel Castro. Does anyone have any information on Sforza?

Government minister, Margaret Hodge, has made a speech claiming that the BNP might do well in the local elections being held in May. I suspect that the Labour Party will do extremely badly in the forthcoming elections. This will especially be true of areas with large working class populations. During the Conservative period of government (1979-1997) they reduced the top rate of income tax to 40%. For example, by the late 1980s, the top 1% owned 17% of the wealth. In contrast, the bottom 50% owned only 10%. When the Labour Party gained power in 1997 Blair and Brown obeyed their orders from Rupert Murdoch and left the top rate of tax unchanged. Today the top 1% own 23% of the wealth while the bottom 50% only have 6%. It is hard to believe that a Labour government would ever redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich, but that is what they have done. Although Blair and Brown warned us they did not intend to raise taxes on the rich (Murdoch demanded they made that commitment) they did promise to end the tax loopholes that enabled Murdoch and his fellow billionaires, to avoid paying tax in this country. This they have failed to do. New Labour has now become the party of the rich. The poor now have a choice who else to vote for. Some will vote for left-wing parties, however, a considerable percentage will vote for the BNP. A much larger percentage will not vote at all. The consequence of this policy is to allow the rich to keep more of their wealth. Things like education and health-care still has to be paid for so those earning less than £100,000 have to pay more than they did in the past. This includes university fees, etc. As a result New Labour will find it more difficult to persuade even the middle classes to vote for them.

Melissa Benn and Fiona Millar Wednesday April 19, 2006 The Guardian http://education.guardian.co.uk/policy/sto...1756354,00.html If the government had hoped its problems over the education bill would fade away over the Easter break, it has had a rude awakening. The NUT conference last weekend was dominated by continuing discontent at these "needless reforms"; ballots will now test the waters of possible strike action. The arrest of the hapless head teacher Des Smith, over alleged offers of honours to potential academy sponsors, is a raw reminder of the anxieties many feel about a policy that hands over huge chunks of the public estate to private individuals with no proven experience in education matters, with few safeguards about propriety. It certainly does not augur well for a bill which claims, at its heart, to further the interests of the most disadvantaged children. And as parliament reconvenes, the bill, now at committee stage, will be the focus of a battery of amendments from both right and left. Many Labour MPs remain deeply uneasy about the reforms: they will table a raft of amendments on admissions, the arrangements for trust school governance, monitoring the means by which trust school partners are selected, the local authority's role and whether the secretary of state should have a veto over proposed community schools. Meanwhile, the Tories have cannily indicated that if the bill moves too far from its "original radicalism" they may reconsider their support. The next month will be crucial, then, in deciding the fate of this intensely Conservative bill. As former Tory cabinet minister Ken Clarke reminded the Commons: "If it looks like a dog and barks like a dog, it probably is a dog. Labour members are never more ridiculous than when they go blue in the face trying to convince us that the supposed trust schools are not grant-maintained schools, or that the city academies are not city technology colleges, renamed." For those of us primarily interested in defending, and building on, the comprehensive inheritance, this is the time to hammer home the implications of the proposed changes. It's easy to make jokes about second-hand car salesmen, creationists, and now cash for honours. But how many parents are fully aware of the effects of wealthy individuals taking control of schools, including lands and property, and being able to run them as their own private fiefdoms? Or of what it really means to hand over so much educational influence to religious groups across the faith spectrum? And what of the new government educational orthodoxy - the statement that slipped into last autumn's white paper, that one can divide all children into three types: the gifted and talented, the plain average, and the struggling? Such arcane and unimaginative ideas might be laughable if they were not wedded to a requirement in the bill for pupils to choose either an academic or vocational path post-14. Ten years from now, we may see a new version of the grammar/secondary-modern divide. Those academies and trusts set up to replace failing schools, but working with the same pupil intake, will focus on vocational paths to boost results. Far from being the crack troops of an intellectual revival in our inner cities, these institutions may well be the secondary moderns of the future: old-fashioned uniforms, tough discipline, yes, but a depleted curriculum for the urban poor. Meanwhile, some of the new academies, trusts and community technology colleges will use their admissions freedoms to create a pseudo grammar school. Trust schools with a more academic "ethos" will largely serve the middle class. These will join the existing grammar schools which still operate in a quarter of all education authorities. But where does this leave the much trumpeted concept of parent, or indeed pupil, choice? Will children be asked to decide their own educational "paths" at 10 or 11? Will they always know what they are "choosing"? Now more than ever we need to remind ourselves not just of the comprehensive system's many successes, but also of its rationale: the chance for all pupils, whatever their background, to experience the broadest curriculum, to stretch their talents, proven and latent, well into their teens. There is still much work to be done to raise standards for all, and to help the most disadvantaged: the classic Labour project. But at public meetings over the past six months we have heard parents, teachers, governors, councillors and MPs speak repeatedly of the waste of opportunity that this bill represents. Once again, the chance to make simple changes on the ground - reforming the curriculum, reducing the burden of testing, cutting class sizes and boosting resources for the least advantaged - has been passed over, in favour of needlessly uprooting the entire system. Unamended, this bill deals a potential killer blow to a long held progressive vision of high-quality non-selective schools, serving all children in the community, giving each of them access to the same broad, liberal curriculum. Let's hope parents are waking up to the full meaning of these changes, and that they will back those Labour MPs who remain uneasy at the double blow the bill strikes at the comprehensive ideal and the wider idea of a publicly funded, publicly accountable service.

Interesting article about Class in yesterday's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1756253,00.html As the high tide of New Labour recedes, the rock of class is again revealed as a determining feature of Britain's political landscape. From Marx to Major, politics was defined by the desire to create a classless society. It was a challenge taken up by Tony Blair, who wanted "to take class out of British politics". Your class, though, is still your fate - only we've lost the language and culture to deal with it. New Labour cannot talk about the working class, and so denies the possibility of renewal. Why and how should the left respond? The left saw class as both problem and solution: the root cause of social inequality and, through a growing labour movement, the engine of a classless society. But this historical inevitability was undone by postwar affluence and a burgeoning "middle class". The forward march of labour was halted. New Labour's ideological escape hatch from old class politics was the emphasis on the nation's labour force in a global economy. Echoing the language of Marx, Tony Blair said "people are born with talent and everywhere it is in chains". It was the job of the state to liberate them so they could fully participate in the new economy. New Labour referred not just to a new party but to individualised labourers, no longer to a class of labour. But the escape hatch was a trap door. While New Labour found itself politically free from old labour, it was economically tied to a new master class. Once Blairism inverted the role of social democracy, by forcing people to fit the market, it accepted a politics driven by the demands of a global elite seen as crucial to international competitiveness. This is the transnational class of consultants and bankers who, it is feared, work only where they are paid most and taxed least. They are the new untouchables. Because of them, we cannot not talk about spiralling executive pay, rewards for failure, or wealth beyond imagination that allows some to spray champagne around West End bars for the conspicuous fun of it. While this silence in class is maintained, social mobility declines and the gap between rich and poor remains at the levels bequeathed by Thatcherism, as the Fabian Society has recently reported. Instead of "living on thin air" the reality is an emerging hourglass economy with a Victorian jobs market of gangmasters and domestic servants. Infant mortality rates are double for the lowest social group; the poorest men die seven years before the richest; and 69% of the land is still owned by just 0.6% of the population. Denying that class matters creates a vacuum in which the far right festers. New Labour has said goodbye to the white working class, whose votes they have taken for granted, because of its focus on the swingers of middle England. Margaret Hodge may bemoan the rise of the BNP in her backyard but it is the government's refusal to address issues of affordable housing, flexible labour markets and the effect on them of immigration that leaves the way open for the racist right. Within these growing divisions, consumerism is both the new social glue and the basis for even greater polarisation. We are all consumers now, buying if not identical designer wear then at least cheap high-street copies. But the new excluded are the failed consumers who cannot afford to be part of "normal" shopping society. In many ways they are worse off than the poor of the past. They suffer alone with nowhere to hide from their exclusion and no one to blame but themselves. They don't want to fight the rich, just be like them. No wonder Francis Maude, the Tory chair, was recently moved to say that "one of the great achievements of New Labour is to have taken class out of politics". It is this "achievement" that has made Britain safe for the new global elite. But New Labour promised a meritocracy of fluid social movement. This demanded policies to end private education, to tax land, inheritance, wealth and higher incomes, and end the monarchy and the Lords. Of course none of this is countenanced. The more social democratic elements of New Labour in the Treasury have thankfully been papering over the cracks of class divisions through redistribution by stealth. But they can't go on running to keep inequality still, without discussing class. Class cannot be removed from politics if it is still part and parcel of people's lives. So tensions abound. Stephen Byers, the Blairite outrider, says in one breath "we are now witnessing a silent and secret revolution where, to a greater extent than ever before, those born into disadvantage and poverty will be condemned to it for the rest of their lives" - and in the next, denies the ability to act, by declaring Britain has reached the ceiling of its tax burden. The task of the left is to reduce differences in class and inequality. New Labour sees only a nation of shoppers, dragooned on to the treadmill of consumption and more work. A cold society of economic self-rationalising individuals able only to change themselves through what they purchase. Class to them is something you can buy. The alternative is to recognise class as part of the answer to how we change our world together. Social trends may be heralding a return to the solidarity of class politics. The emerging hourglass economy creates not just a swelling lump of poorly-paid service workers, but also a shrinking and insecure middle class, the effective organisation of which demands the rebirth of a trade unionism that knows when the interests of capital and labour do and do not mix. But we never could rely on economic determinism. Ultimately the challenge is political. Class is socially constructed. People have to want class to matter. Recognising the role of class opens up new possibilities for the left. The cash-rich but time-poor can only find "the good life" through a redistribution of resources with their cash-poor but time-rich alter egos. But forging this alliance requires brave political leadership. New Labour was conceived just at the moment the new right was proclaiming "the end of history". The judgment of both looks premature. As Marx and Engels wrote at the start of the 1848 Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." In its own way that struggle must continue today.

It was announced yesterday that John Lyle has died. As Ron Greenwood died earlier this year, this means that the managers of all our four cup triumphs have been lost within the last few months. I wonder if this is symbolic. Maybe West Ham is destined to be cup winners this year. John Lyle received his education from Ron Greenwood and Cassettari’s, a family-run Italian café near Upton Park. After training the players would go to Cassettaris to discuss football tactics. The Cassettari Academy produced the following outstanding football managers and coaches: Malcolm Allison, Noel Cantwell, Ken Brown, John Bond, Dave Sexton, Andy Nelson, John Cartwright, and Frank O’Farrell. This will not mean much to young members of the Forum as only one student of the Cassettari Academy has not been put out to grass, Harry Redknapp. Greenwood would send out his players to coach in East End schools. He thought the best way to learn was to teach. This became very competitive as the players were permanently assigned to these schools. It also produced a system where local schools provided a stream of talented young footballers. This included Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, Trevor Brooking, John Sissons, etc. Therefore, when they won the Cup Winners Cup in 1965, 10 of the 11 players were products of its youth system. Lyall joined West Ham straight from school. He was sent to train young kids in Stepney. He played for England at youth level but unfortunately he suffered a serious knee ligament injury when he was 18. He spent the next three years in and out of hospital but eventually played for West Ham’s first team at fullback. Two years later, the same knee went again and he was forced to retire at the age of 23. West Ham gave him a part-time job working in the wages department at Upton Park. Every afternoon he coached the youngsters at his assigned Stepney school. Greenwood later appointed Lyle as his assistant and in 1974 replaced him as manager. Alan Pardew was a West Ham fan when he was at school. Since becoming manager he has attempted to create the same spirit that West Ham enjoyed in the 1960s. This has included buying players like Teddy Sheringham and Bobby Zamora who were also West Ham fans when they were children living in London. Great attempts have been made to make West Ham into a club that reflects the local community. It is of course difficult to compete with the financial resources of clubs like Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool. However, if football teams, like schools had “value added” league tables I know where West Ham would be.

I see that Scott McClellan has resigned. I wonder if this will encourage his father, Barr McClellan, to speak out more on his research into LBJ? http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sidney...ouse_plank.html

I only read the Daily Mail when I have my haircut (the alternative is to read those terrible lad’s magazines). It is truly a terrible newspaper and I probably disagree intensely with 95% of what I read in the time before I enter the barber’s chair. However, the other day I read an excellent article on Tony Blair’s corrupt relationship with Paul Drayson (sorry, Lord Drayson). It seems to me that it is an act of extreme prejudice to believe that everything that appears in a certain newspaper is always wrong. I am not aware if the Daily Mail has published articles about the problems of having football managers who appear to be prejudiced against the characters of working class lads, however, if they did, I would make my judgement on the content of the article, rather than on any prejudicial view of the newspaper.

It is good to see that satire is not dead. A very gentle way of showing the absurdity of Scott’s arguments.

Tony Graying used to teach me philosophy. It was a long time ago (in the 1970s) when he was doing his PhD and was making extra money teaching adults at the local Society of Friends Meeting House. He was a great teacher and was a factor in my decision to join the profession. I have watched his progress with great interest. As well as being Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, he is also the author of a great book on one of my heroes, William Hazlitt. His latest book is Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime? He recently wrote an article for the Guardian that takes a look at the morality of bombing civilians. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...1740380,00.html AC Grayling Monday March 27, 2006 The Guardian No one knows how many civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. The most careful assessment, by the website Iraq Body Count, estimates at least 36,000. The true figure could be three times higher. The uncertainty is explained by General Tommy Franks' now-notorious remark, "We don't do body counts." Three interesting facts nevertheless help shape a sense of the possibilities. One is that the US forces insist that they use precision techniques to minimise "collateral damage". The second is that the coalition recently and controversially admitted using phosphorus weapons in its attack on Falluja. The third is that one of the US marine air wings operating in Iraq announced in a press release in November 2005 that since the invasion began it had dropped more than half a million tons of explosives on Iraq. The felt inconsistency between the first fact and the other two reminds one that ever since the deliberate mass bombing of civilians in the second world war, and as a direct response to it, the international community has outlawed the practice. It first tried to do so in the fourth Geneva convention of 1949, but the UK and the US would not agree, since to do so would have been an admission of guilt for their systematic "area bombing" of German and Japanese civilians. But in 1977 a protocol was added to that convention at last outlawing civilian bombing, and the UK signed it. The US still has not done so. Because enough nations are signatories the protocol is now part of customary international law, putting the US out on a limb. Looking at area bombing through the lens of the 1977 protocol explains why it has always been controversial. Even during the second world war there was a vigorous campaign opposing area bombing, most strongly supported in places such as London and Coventry which had themselves been "blitzed". One of the campaign's leaders was Vera Brittain, whose pamphlet Seed of Chaos caused an outcry in the US; not having been bombed, it was enthusiastic about flattening enemy cities and their occupants. The second world war bombing story is clouded by misunderstandings, largely because the victor nations, rightly condemning the far greater crimes committed by nazism, have yet to inquire properly into aspects of their own behaviour. Confessing to a tactic which for decades before 1939 had been universally condemned as immoral, and which from early in the war was recognised as having little military value (and indeed perhaps the opposite), would have invited awkward questions about why it was done, and seemed unfair to the airmen whose extraordinary courage and sacrifice was called upon to carry it out. Defenders of the area-bombing campaigns point out that losing the war against such wicked, dangerous enemies would have been the biggest immorality of all. They are right. But stooping to tactics as barbarous as those of the axis powers could only have been justified if there were no other arguably better ways of using the bombing weapon. It has been hypothesised that if allied bombing had been relentlessly focused on fuel and transport in Nazi-controlled Europe, the war would have been shorter by two years. To their credit, the Americans understood this and in Europe did not join the RAF in indiscriminate area bombing, but concentrated on these crucial assets. As a result they share with the Russian army the largest single credit for victory over nazism. But when the US got within bombing range of Japan it adopted the RAF tactic with a vengeance, and in less than a year killed as many Japanese civilians as were killed in Germany in the entire war. Details are more eloquent than statistics. Night after night, for years, the RAF rained upon Germany's cities a mixture of high-explosive and incendiary bombs, the latter outnumbering the former by four to one. The high explosives blew out windows, doors and roofs, allowing fires to spread. The incendiaries variously contained petroleum jelly, phosphorus and oil-soaked rags. When phosphorus splashed on to a human being, burning ferociously, it could not be dislodged. Victims leapt into canals, but the flames would spontaneously reignite when they clambered out. Among the bombs were time-delay devices, set to explode at intervals in the hours and days after a raid to disrupt ambulance, firefighting and rescue services. Compared to the weight and ferocity of RAF and US bombing, the Nazi "blitz" and its V-rocket attacks of 1944 were small beer. Yet it was not allied civilian bombing that won the second world war, any more than did "shock and awe" in Iraq in 2003. What both show is that bombing civilians is not only immoral, but ineffective. It takes nuclear weapons, delivering absolutely massive civilian extermination, to have the desired effect of reducing a people to submission; but employing such a tactic today would be self-defeating, for all it offers is victory over a radioactive wasteland. The main lesson of second world war area bombing for the international community has been to define it as a war crime. Its main lesson for today's militaries, by contrast, appears to be: "Don't do body counts."

You have now posted hundred of snippets of information about William Pawley. However, I find it very difficult to follow. Is it possible to turn this information into an understandable narrative? I am sure the JFK research community would benefit from this kind of approach.

I believe it is wrong to suggest that this corruption scandal is based on “Blair’s personal admiration, even awe, for men who have made serious money.” It might be reassuring for political commentators to convince themselves that some sort of psychological trait is the cause of this scandal. The real problem is the corrupt nature of the political system that we live in. It is a system that was used by the Tories under Thatcher and Major. For a variety of reasons journalists failed to dig too deep into these corrupt activities and Tories were therefore more likely to be exposed for sexual infidelity rather than taking backhanders from arms manufacturers. Therefore full details came out about David Mellor’s sexual antics but not about Margaret and Mark Thatcher’s involvement in arms deals. See the following article on this scandal: http://www.guardian.co.uk/freedom/Story/0,,1699314,00.html The real scandal is not “cash for honours” but “cash for government policies”. The Labour Party used to be funded by the trade union movement and individual members. It was clear why this money was given to the Labour Party. Once in power, the government was expected to follow policies that would help the less well off in society. Tony Blair knew that wealthy businessmen expected something in return for giving money to the party. That was revealed soon after Blair was elected when it was announced that sport was being exempted from the ban on tobacco advertising. Everyone was surprised by this broken election promise until it was revealed that Bernie Ecclestone had given the Labour Party £1 million a few weeks previously. Investigative journalists should be looking much more closely at the links between donations and loans and government policy. A starting point should be the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Does it not seem strange to journalists that companies bidding for PFI contracts, who used to make large donations to the Conservative Party when in power, have now switched their support to the Labour Party? Even this is not the largest scandal. The granting of corrupt PFI contracts has not resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. (I am aware of course of the deaths caused by the granting of some contracts in the rail industry.) I am talking about the Iraq War. Why was Tony Blair so keen to get involved in this conflict? Has it anything to do with the meeting that took place in March, 1994, when Blair was introduced to Michael Levy at a dinner party at the Israeli embassy in London. After this meeting, Levy acquired a new job, raising money for Tony Blair. According to Robin Ramsay (The Rise of New Labour, page 64), Levy raised over £7 million for Blair). In an article by John Lloyd published in the New Statesman on 27th February, 1998, the main suppliers of this money were Jewish businessmen who were strong supporters of Israel’s foreign policy in the Middle East. It was recently announced that BAE Systems, the British military contractor is in talks with the European Aeronautic, Defence & Space consortium to sell its 20 percent stake in Airbus. This will bring to an end a nearly 30 year partnership that spawned the world’s largest passenger plane. It is estimated that the stake is worth 6 billion. According to the International Herald Tribune (8th April) the decision to sell is linked to Blair’s foreign policy. The newspaper quotes Andy Lynch, a fund manager with Schroder Investment Management, as saying that Blair willingness to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan has made the arms industry a more predicable business than the aircraft industry. Especially as Blair has been very keen to give BAE long-term government contracts (the company specializes in land-based artillery). BAE is also a major supplier to the Pentagon. In fact, in the past two years it has bought six military contracting companies in the United States. It might be worthwhile for journalists to investigate the possible movement of money between BAE and the Labour Party. Honours and government contracts are two of the reasons why rich people are willing to donate money to the Labour Party. However, the main reason concerns tax policy. The Thatcher government openly redistributed wealth to the very rich with her policy of reducing the top rate of income tax to 40%. For example, by the late 1980s, the top 1% owned 17% of the wealth. In contrast, the bottom 50% owned only 10%. When the Labour Party gained power in 1997 Blair and Brown obeyed their orders from Rupert Murdoch and left the top rate of tax unchanged. Today the top 1% own 23% of the wealth while the bottom 50% only have 6%. It is hard to believe that a Labour government would ever redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich, but that is what they have done. Although Blair and Brown warned us they did not intend to raise taxes on the rich (Murdoch demanded they made that commitment) they did promise to end the tax loopholes that enabled Murdoch and his fellow billionaires, to avoid paying tax in this country. This they have failed to do. Take the example of Philip Green, the owner of BHS and Arcadia. According to Stewart Lansley, the author of Rich Britain, The Rise and Rise of the New Super-Wealthy, Green has saved himself “hundreds of millions in personal tax in the past three years because the ownership of his companies is vested in the hands of his wife, Tina, who is resident of Monaco.” Over 5,000 British multimillionaires officially live in Monaco to avoid paying tax in this country. Other supporters of New Labour such as Richard Branson, Lakshmi Mittal and Hans Rausing all use offshore tax havens to reduce their tax liabilities. This is all legal because Brown has refused to tackle this major scandal. As you can see, it pays all rich people to donate the odd million to New Labour in order to ensure that the top rate of income-tax and the various tax loopholes are kept in place. The consequence of this policy is to allow the rich to keep more of their wealth. Things like education and health-care still has to be paid for so those earning less than £100,000 have to pay more than they did in the past. This includes university fees, etc. In your article you write that there is a useful comparison to be made between Blair and Nixon: “Watergate was no accident. It grew organically out of the soil that was Nixonism. If Des Smith does a John Dean, this might well appear to be another Watergate. In fact it might even be known as Iraqgate. However, it has much more in common with a scandal that was never exposed at the time and has had very little publicity over the years. It involves Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Vietnam War. David Kaiser’s brilliant book, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (2000). Kaiser’s book shows how desperate Johnson was to commit the United States to a long drawn out war. What he does not do is explore Johnson’s motivation for this behaviour. Could it have something to do with the people who financed his political career? Is it just a coincidence that the three corporations based in Texas that provided him with so much money before the war: Brown & Root (Halliburton), General Dynamics and the Bell Corporation, made billions from the conflict? Investigative journalists also need to look at Blair’s personal financial gains from his activities. What for example happened to all that money raised by Sir Michael Levy before Blair was elected as leader of the Labour Party. What about Blair’s book contract with HarperCollins (a company owned by Rupert Murdoch). It is said the deal is worth £3.5 million to Blair. This information only came out when Blair used the contract as security when he purchased his house in London. Margaret Thatcher and John Major got similar book deals with HarperCollins. Of course, the royalties near reach the multi-million advances paid for them. However, it is a great way of bribing a prime minister.

I see those racists at Uefa are introducing a new rule next season. Uefa has announced clubs competing in the Champions League and Uefa Cup will have to include four homegrown players in their 25-man squad from 2006. Uefa then wants six homegrown players by 2007 and eight in 2008. Of the eight, at least four must be trained by the club's own academy and the rest in the home country. Of the 32 sides in last season's Champions League, five clubs would have not had enough homegrown players to meet the requirement of eight under the eventual new ruling: Arsenal, Chelsea, Celtic, Rangers and Ajax.

It was originally published in The Nation magazine on 13th August, 1988. See: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/P.../MENA/bush.html You might find this interesting as well.

Yes. On 30th October, 1962, Robert Kennedy terminated "all sabotage operations" against Cuba. As a result of John Kennedy's promise to Nikita Khrushchev that he would not invade Cuba, Operation Mongoose was disbanded. Harvey was now sent to Italy where he became Chief of Station in Rome. Harvey knew that RFK 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 those involved in the plots against Castro. According to Richard D. Mahoney (Sons and Brothers): "On April 8, Rosselli 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."

John, you have your Kangas's mixed up. A Steve Kangas was killed. I believe Paul Kangas is still around. There is a Paul Kangas in San Francisco. His phone # is 415-861-0870. I think it's the same guy. You are right that I meant Steve Kangas. I wonder if Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo, made a mistake when they referred to Paul Kangas in Granma (16th January, 2006). It seems strange that two journalists with the name of Kangas have taken an interest in the subject of the JFK assassination. You can find out more about Steve and Paul Kangas here: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkangas.htm http://home.att.net/~resurgence/Aboutme.htm http://www.psnw.com/~bashford/kang-ev0.html http://www.nndb.com/people/764/000050614/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kangas http://www.namebase.org/main3/Paul-Kangas.html

(1) In the edition of your book published in 2000 you tell the fascinating story of the John Martino confession made to John Cummings (pages 372-373). You also interviewed Martino’s widow in 1994. From your conversations with John Cummings and Florence Martino, did you get the impression that Martino was telling the truth about his involvement in the assassination of JFK? If so, who do you think paid him to take part in this operation? (2) On page 371 you report that when David Atlee Phillips died he left behind an unpublished manuscript. The novel is about a CIA officer who lived in Mexico City. In the novel the character states: "I was one of those officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald... We gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba... I don't know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the president's assassination, but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt." Was this book ever published?

It is a fact that very few historians have written books about the assassination of JFK. Do you know why this is?

I agree with you Jim. See Assassination, Terrorism and the Arms Trade: The Contracting Out of U.S. Foreign Policy: 1940-2006: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5799 Maxwell Taylor was also in conflict with JFK Vietnam policy. I highly recommend David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, for details of this conflict.

I was a left-wing activist in 1963 and did not immediately feel that the assassination was connected to any right-wing conspiracy. However, at the time, no one on the left knew anything about his attempts to bring an end to the Cold War. Nor were they aware of his attempts to remove political corruption in Congress or his plans to pull-out from Vietnam. Nor did many on the left in Europe know anything about his 1963 Tax Bill that attempted to remove tax loopholes, including the oil depletion allowance. I, like most others on the left in Europe, assumed it was the work of a lone gunman and that the cover-up was just an attempt to hide incompetence in the CIA and FBI. However, it has to be remembered that the first two book published claiming that there had been a conspiracy were written by Thomas G. Buchanan (Who Killed Kennedy?) and Joachim Joesten (Oswald, Assassin or Fall Guy?). Both these books were published in 1964. The immediate reaction of the FBI and CIA was to label Buchanan and Joesten as “communists” (both men had indeed been members of the Communist Party, Joesten in Germany in the 1930s and Buchanan in America in the 1940s). Mark Lane (also a left-wing activist) did not publish Rush to Judgment until 1966. Buchanan and Joesten both argued that JFK had been assassinated because of his attempts to bring an end to the Cold War. Both appeared to have been given information about JFK’s secret talks with Fidel Castro (I expect this had come from Jean Daniel who was a friend of Buchanan and probably knew Joesten from his work as a journalist). Other left of centre journalists like Drew Pearson and Clark Mollenhoff (who had been investigating the MICIC at the time) showed little interest in the assassination. However, it is not left-wing journalists as much as left-wing historians who should be condemned for their lack of interest in the JFK assassination. Over the years documents have been released that clearly shows that the FBI and CIA were involved in a cover-up. The fact that thousands of documents are still being held back that relates to the assassination should also have persuaded them to ask some serious questions about the case. Other documents have been released that shows that JFK was not your typical right-wing politician. In 1963 he was clearly trying to both bring an end to the Cold War. Probably even more important than that, JFK was attempting to deal with the corrupt relationship that existed as part of the Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Complex (MICIC). He sacked Fred Korth in October, 1963, and his brother Robert, was leaking details of the corrupt activities of people like Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Baker to John Williams, the “Conscience of the Senate”. There is now enough evidence to suggest that there was a right-wing conspiracy to kill JFK. Yet historians on the left still ignore the subject. When they do write about JFK they do not argue that he was killed by a lone gunman. They just ignore this part of the story. It is as if the person who killed JFK is irrelevant to understanding his political career.