John Simkin

Namebase entry for Sam Giancana: http://www.namebase.org/main4/Sam-Giancana.html Anderson,J. Peace, War, and Politics. 1999 (108, 114, 120) Anson,R. They've Killed the President! 1975 (296) Ashman,C. The CIA-Mafia Link. 1975 (11, 28, 62-89, 98-101) Assn. National Security Alumni. Unclassified 1996-F (16) Bledowska,C. Bloch,J. KGB/CIA. 1987 (64) Burnham,D. Above the Law. 1996 (16) CIA. Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro 1967-04-25 (16-9, 24-5, 35, 48, 55-7, 60, 66-9, 129, 131) Christic Institute. Sheehan Affidavit. 1987-01-31 (33) Christic Institute. Sheehan Affidavit. 1988-03-25 (11, 16-7) Colby,G. Dennett,C. Thy Will Be Done. 1995 (739) Davis,J. Mafia Dynasty. 1993 (78-9, 88) Davis,J. Mafia Kingfish. 1989 (98, 264, 405-7, 416) Denton,S. Morris,R. The Money and the Power. 2001 (185, 193, 213-4, 221, 236, 248, 291-2, 308-9) Drosnin,M. Citizen Hughes. 1985 (68-9, 259) Duffy,J. Ricci,V. The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. 1992 (196-8) Escalante,F. The Secret War. 1995 (55, 165) Fensterwald,B. Coincidence or Conspiracy? 1977 (338-42) Furiati,C. ZR Rifle. 1994 (20-1, 23, 112) Garwood,D. Under Cover. 1985 (68-9, 168) Giancana,S.& C. Double Cross. 1992 Groden,R. Livingstone,H. High Treason. 1990 (129-30, 141, 326, 380, 413) Halperin,M... The Lawless State. 1976 (44) Hepburn,J. Farewell America. 1968 (93) Hersh,S. The Dark Side of Camelot. 1997 (4, 8-9, 131, 134-43, 165-8, 203-5, 212-3, 288-9, 303-14, 322-3, 450-1) Hinckle,W. Turner,W. The Fish is Red. 1981 (36-8, 78, 125-6, 189, 215-7, 223, 287, 336) Hougan,J. Spooks. 1979 (102-4, 337, 344-6) Intelligence (Paris) 2000-10-23 (12) Johnston,D. Temples of Chance. 1992 (36, 124) Kantor,S. The Ruby Cover-up. 1992 (63-4, 66) Kessler,R. The Sins of the Father. 1997 (349) Kruger,H. The Great Heroin Coup. 1980 (178) Lasky,V. It Didn't Start With Watergate. 1978 (57-8, 96-7, 116) Lernoux,P. In Banks We Trust. 1984 (107) Lobster Magazine (Britain) 1986-#12 (13) Maheu,R. Next to Hughes. 1993 (43-4, 141, 144-6, 151, 158-60, 197) Marrs,J. Crossfire. 1990 (166, 175-8, 384-5, 408, 563) Messick,H. Lansky. 1973 (74) Mills,J. Underground Empire. 1986 (550-1) Moldea,D. Dark Victory. 1987 (xvi, 154, 231) Moldea,D. The Hoffa Wars. 1978 (5, 12, 50, 86, 90, 98, 132-6, 386-7) Morrow,R. First Hand Knowledge. 1992 (25-6, 35, 131-2) Parenti,M. Dirty Truths. 1996 (170) Penthouse 1981-10 (180-2) Pepper,W. Orders to Kill. 1995 (146-7) Piper,M.C. Final Judgment. 1993 (31-2, 35, 138, 140-1, 149, 152) Powers,T. The Man Who Kept the Secrets. 1981 (187) Ragano,F. Raab,S. Mob Lawyer. 1994 (209-10, 218, 323-5, 358) Reid,E. Demaris,O. The Green Felt Jungle. 1964 (67-8, 194-7) Riebling,M. Wedge. 1994 (163-4) Rolling Stone 1976-05-20 (47) Russell,D. The Man Who Knew Too Much. 1992 (185, 580-1) Sale,K. Power Shift. 1976 (127) San Antonio Express-News 1998-12-09 (1A, 5) Scheim,D. Contract on America. 1988 (60, 63, 103, 170, 193, 239) Schorr,D. Clearing the Air. 1978 (157, 164) Scott,P.D. Crime and Coverup. 1977 (19, 21-2, 27-8, 40-5) Scott,P.D. Deep Politics. 1993 (116-7, 160, 170-2, 186, 194, 227-8) Scott,P.D... The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond. 1976 (493) Sterling,C. Octopus. 1991 (91, 300) Stich,R. Defrauding America. 1994 (438) Stich,R. Drugging America: A Trojan Horse. 1999 (221-2) Summers,A. Conspiracy. 1981 (268, 271, 278-9, 502) Summers,A. Conspiracy. 1989 (494-5, 527) Summers,A. Official and Confidential. 1993 (239, 259, 269, 284-5, 289-91, 296, 299, 326) Summers,A. The Arrogance of Power. 2000 (129, 193, 213, 217) Tarasov,K. Zubenko,V. The CIA in Latin America. 1984 (219-25) Thomas,E. The Man to See. 1991 (195-200) Thomas,E. The Very Best Men. 1996 (226-8, 233-4) Trento,J. The Secret History of the CIA. 2001 (200-1) Turner,W. Hoover's FBI. 1993 (160, 170) Turner,W. Rearview Mirror. 2001 (10, 194, 201-2, 219) Vankin,J. Conspiracies, Cover-ups, and Crimes. 1991 (135, 137) Vankin,J. Whalen,J. The 60 Greatest Conspiracies. 1998 (16, 18, 99, 103-4) Volkman,E. Baggett,B. Secret Intelligence. 1989 (125, 133-5) Washington Times 1991-10-06 (A1, 10) Washington Times 1991-10-07 (A1, 10) Washington Times 1991-10-08 (A1, 5) Washington Times 1997-01-17 (A6) West,N. Games of Intelligence. 1990 (39) Wise,D. The American Police State. 1978 (215-9) Wyden,P. Bay of Pigs. 1979 (44, 109-10) Yakovlev,N. Washington Silhouettes. 1985 (218)

Interesting information. Could it be that Schmidt was working as a FBI agent at the University of Miami? It is also strange that he should leave the job as editor of the Culver City Citizen to rejoin the army. He of course served under General Walker in Germany. After leaving the army in October, 1962, he moves to Dallas. Schmidt's brother then becomes Walker's chauffeur and general aide. Schmidt invited Bernard Weissman to Dallas. Weissman later told the Warren Commission that Schmidt argued: "If we are going to take advantage of the situation, or if you are," meaning me, "you better hurry down here and take advantage of the publicity, and at least become known among these various right-wingers, because this is the chance we have been looking for to infiltrate some of these organizations and become known," in other words, go along with the philosophy we had developed in Munich." Weissman arrived in Dallas on 4th November, 1963. Soon afterwards Schmidt got Weissman to join the Young Americans for Freedom. Schmidt also introduced Weissman to Joe Grinnan of the John Birch Society. Grinnan was involved in organizing protests against the visit of JFK. Grinnan seemed to know about the visit before it was officially announced to the public. Grinnan suggested that they should place a black-bordered advert in the Dallas Morning News on 22nd November, 1963. The advert cost $1,465. Grinnan supplied the money. He claimed that some of this came from Nelson Bunker Hunt, the son of Haroldson L. Hunt. Weissman was given the task of signing the advert and taking it to the newspaper office. Do you know what job Schmidt did in Dallas? If his brother was Walker's general aide, what did Larrie do? Have you got the date of this interview with the FBI? I thought the Warren Report said the FBI could not find Schmidt after the assassination (along with Weissman he fled from Dallas).

Quotation on BBC website: Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez believed luck played a part in his side's victory. "I'm delighted with the final result and the performance of the players," said the Spaniard. "Sometimes you cannot score goals after 30 attempts - as against Charlton - but here every time we shot it was a goal. "We have quality. The strikers are really good, and in this case we had a lot of luck." http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...ity/4831306.stm Liverpool's real luck was to be drawn against Birmingham City.

Another related article by Fred Kaplan for Slate Magazine worth reading: Spies Like Us: Listening to leakers could land you in jail. By Fred Kaplan If a recent ruling by a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., is accepted as the word of law, every national-security journalist and researcher in America stands in danger of going to prison. This is not an exaggeration. The ruling—made by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis on Jan. 20 and reprinted in today's edition of Steven Aftergood's invaluable Secrecy News—states that federal espionage laws apply not only to officials who leak classified information but also to private citizens who receive it. Speaking from the bench, the judge said: "All persons who have authorized possession of classified information and persons who have unauthorized possession, who came into possession in an unauthorized way … must abide by the law. … So, that applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever." Judge Ellis made these remarks at the sentencing hearing of Lawrence Anthony Franklin, a former Pentagon official who had earlier pleaded guilty to leaking top-secret information to two analysts at the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Franklin's crime, while not uncommon in Washington circles, was at least straightforward; those who leak state secrets know that if they're caught, they may face penalties. The novelty of this case, however, is that the Justice Department went after—and a grand jury indicted—not only Franklin, the leaker, but also the two AIPAC leakees. (Franklin was tried first; Judge Ellis sentenced him to 151 months in prison, with the mutual understanding that his term will be substantially reduced after he testifies against his AIPAC "co-conspirators," Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, at their trial.) Rosen and Weissman, who were not government officials and have not signed the legal pledge associated with security clearances, were indicted not for being spies or for passing secrets to foreign governments (if they had, that would have made their case something else entirely) but rather for giving classified information merely "to persons not entitled to receive it." In a column dealing with the case last month, I wrote that this is what investigative reporters do all the time—they receive information from insiders, write stories about it, and give them to their editors and readers, who are "not entitled to receive it"—and that if Rosen and Weissman are prosecuted, the Washington Post's Walter Pincus and The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh could be next. Conceivably, anyone who even reads their stories—and who therefore improperly possesses classified information—could be indicted. (Franklin, after all, told the two AIPAC analysts about the secrets; he didn't give them documents.) Now we know that the federal judge presiding over the trial made precisely this point: The law under which Franklin was prosecuted and the AIPAC Two have been indicted applies, as he put it, "to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever." Nobody has ever been prosecuted for receiving classified information, even though the law in question—Title 18 of the U.S. criminal code, Chapter 37 ("Espionage and Censorship), Section 793 ("Gathering, Transmitting, or Losing Defense Information")—clearly allows such prosecutions. It states that persons who improperly transmit or receive classified information have committed a crime if they have "intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation." (This is a fairly easy hurdle for a prosecutor to clear. Notice: Defendants don't need to have "intent" to do harm, but rather "intent or reason to believe"—and they don't need to have "reason to believe" that the information would hurt the United States but rather that it could be used "to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.") This law was passed in 1917. There's a reason it's rarely been invoked in any federal case and never in a case like this one: It's extremely vague and absurdly all-encompassing. If the law is read literally, anyone who takes a photo of a defense factory or a military base could be prosecuted on espionage charges. (For a hair-raising itemization of all the activities Section 793 prohibits, click here.) What's new is that, for the first time, the U.S. Justice Department has decided to read this law literally. At Franklin's sentencing hearing, Judge Ellis made this point explicitly: The law says what it says. … If it's not sensible, it ought to be changed. But [Congress is] the body that changes it, not the judge. The judge simply interprets and applies the law. If Rosen and Weissman go down, will prosecutors really go after the media next? The point is, a federal judge has explicitly given them the green light to do so. Given this Justice Department's penchant for compelling journalists to turn over sources and notes, the scenario is not remotely far-fetched. At the very least, the ruling, if it stands, will have a chilling effect. The legal departments of every American newspaper and magazine may feel obligated to advise their publishers that stories containing classified information could trigger costly litigation. America, it turns out, has had an Official Secrets Act on the books for nearly a century. And now it also has an administration eager to enforce it.

Interesting article in the Chicagoist: A favorite theory of many JFK assassination buffs is that the mob, led by Chicago boss Sam Giancana (pictured right), ordered a hit on the president as payback for double-crossing them after they helped him win the 1960 presidential election. When Kennedy won Illinois, many Richard Nixon supporters claimed that then-Mayor Richard J. Daley's political machine in Chicago had fixed the city election, thus helping Kennedy carry the state. But others, most notably investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in his 1997 book, The Dark Side of Camelot, have claimed that instead of mere dirty politics, JFK, or more likely his father Joseph, a former bootlegger, made a deal with Giancana to swing crucial wards in the city. Giancana's son and grandson make a similar claim in their book, Double Cross, and of course, Oliver Stone could never make enough connections between the mob and the assassination in his film, JFK. After he was elected, JFK's brother and attorney general Bobby started a campaign against organized crime, enraging mob leaders like Giancana who thus wanted to see him dead. Why the history lesson? Well, Chicagoist loves a good JFK assassination theory, so we perked up when we saw the Sun-Times reporting that UIC finance professor John Binder recently analyzed vote totals from in the 1960 general election in city wards where Giancana supposedly had clout to see if the mob really did swing the election. And he found that the mob-controlled areas in the city, as well as Cicero and Chicago Heights, voted no differently than others. In fact, Democratic vote totals remained about the same in those wards for Kennedy in 1960 as they were for Adlai Stevenson in 1956. Binder also disputes the notion that Giancana helped Kennedy win the state of West Virginia, and that the mob influenced citywide votes via union support. So if JFK didn't owe Giancana any favors for helping him win Illinois, would Bobby's crusade against the mob still have angered them enough to order a hit on the President? Maybe. But if not, conspiracy nuts always have a host of other favorite suspects, including anti-Castro Cubans, some guy named Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviets, Texas oilmen, and Lyndon Johnson himself. The parlor game never ends no matter how bizarre the idea. But if Professor Binder is right, you can take some of the major Chicago ties out of the equation. http://www.chicagoist.com/archives/2006/03..._jfk_theory.php

I thought it might be worth taking a look at Robert Strange McNamara. He complained that he lost a lot of money when he left the Ford Motor Company in 1961 to become JFK's Secretary of Defense. Is it possible he thought it was morally right to get kickbacks from military contracts? McNamara is not only implicated in the TFX scandal but also the desire to send troops to Vietnam. In the last few months of Eisenhower’s administration the Air Force began to argue that it needed a successor to its F-105 tactical fighter. This became known as the TFX/ F-111 project. In January, 1961, Robert McNamara, changed the TFX from an Air Force program to a joint Air Force-Navy under-taking. On 1st October, the two services sent the aircraft industry the request for proposals on the TFX and the accompanying work statement, with instructions to submit the bids by 1st December, 1961. Three of the bids were submitted by individual companies: the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, the North American Aviation Corporation and the Boeing Company. The other three bids represented team efforts: Republic Aviation & Chance Vought; General Dynamics Corporation & Grumman Aircraft; and McDonnell Aircraft & Douglas Aircraft. (1) It soon became clear that Boeing was expected to get the contract. Its main competitor was the General Dynamics/Grumman bid. General Dynamics had been America’s leading military contractors during the early stages of the Cold War. For example, in 1958 it obtained $2,239,000,000 worth of government business. This was a higher figure than those obtained by its competitors, such as Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell and North American. (2) More than 80 percent of the firm’s business came from the government. (3) However, the company lost $27 million in 1960 and $143 million in 1961. According to an article by Richard Austin Smith in Fortune Magazine, General Dynamics was close to bankruptcy. Smith claimed that “unless it gets the contract for the joint Navy-Air Force fighter (TFX)… the company was down the road to receivership”. (4) General Dynamics had several factors in its favour. The president of the company was Frank Pace, the Secretary of the Army (April, 1950-January, 1953). The Deputy Secretary of Defense in 1962 was Roswell Gilpatric, who before he took up the post, was chief counsel for General Dynamics. The Secretary of the Navy was John Connally, a politician from Texas, the state where General Dynamics had its main plant. When he left the job in 1962 he was replaced by another Texan, Fred Korth. According to author Seth Kantor, Korth, the former president of the Continental National Bank of Fort Worth, Texas, only got the job as Secretary of the Navy after strong lobbying from Johnson. (5) A few weeks after taking the post, Korth overruled top Navy officers who had proposed that the X-22 contract be given to Douglas Aircraft Corporation. Instead he insisted the contract be granted to the more expensive bid of the Bell Aerosystem Development Company. This was a subsidiary of Bell Aerospace Corporation of Forth Worth, Texas. (6) For many years Korth had been a director of Bell (7). The chairman of the company, Lawrence Bell, was a fellow member of the Suite 8F Group. Korth also became very involved in discussions about the TFX contract. Korth, was the former president of the Continental Bank, which had loaned General Dynamics considerable sums of money during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Korth later told the McClellan committee that investigated the granting of the TFX contract to General Dynamics “that because of his peculiar position he had deliberately refrained from taking a directing hand in this decision (within the Navy) until the last possible moment.” (8). As I. F. Stone pointed out, it was “the last possible moment” which counted. “Three times the Pentagon’s Source Selection Board found that Boeing’s bid was better and cheaper than that of General Dynamics and three times the bids were sent back for fresh submissions by the two bidders and fresh reviews. On the fourth round, the military still held that Boeing was better but found at last that the General Dynamics bid was also acceptable.” (9) Stone goes on to argue: “The only document the McClellan committee investigators were able to find in the Pentagon in favour of that award, according to their testimony, was a five-page memorandum signed by McNamara, Korth, and Eugene Zuckert, then Secretary of the Air Force.” Zuckert was a close friend of Tommy Corcoran who helped to get him a post with the legal staff of the fledgling Securities and Exchange Commission in 1937. He was also closely associated with John McCone. Zuckert worked with McCone as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission in the early 1950s. McNamara justified his support for General Dynamics because “Boeing had from the very beginning consistently chosen more technically risky tradeoffs in an effort to achieve operational features which exceeded the required performance characteristics.” (10) The TFX program involved the building of 1,700 planes for the Navy and the Air Force. The contract was estimated to be worth over $6.5 billion, making it the largest contract for military planes in the nation’s history. (11) On 24th October, 1962, Seth Kantor reported in the Fort Worth Press that: “General Dynamics of Fort Worth will get the multibillion-dollar defense contract to build the supersonic TFX Air Force and Navy fighter plane, the Fort Worth Press learned today from top Government sources.” (12) This was confirmed the following month when the Pentagon announced that the TFX contract would be awarded to General Dynamics. Henry M. Jackson was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Government Operations Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He learned that: “Boeing’s bid was substantially lower than its competitor’s. Reports indicated Boeing’s bid was $100 million lower on an initial development contract and that the cost difference might run as high as $400 million on the total $6.5 billion procurement.” (13) On 12th December, Lyndon Johnson visited Forth Worth to join in the festivities at the General Dynamics plant. Congressman James Wright, the Texas Democrat representing the Fort Worth district introduced Johnson as the “greatest Texan of them all”. He pointed out that Johnson had played an important role in obtaining the TFX contract. Wright added “you have to have friends and they have to stick with you through thick and thin even if you do have merit on your side.” (14) During the McClellan's Permanent Investigations Committee hearings into the contract, Senator Sam Ervin asked Robert McNamara “whether or not there was any connection whatever between your selection of General Dynamics, and the fact that the Vice President of the United States happens to be a resident of the state in which that company has one of its principal, if not its principal office.” At this point McNamara was close to tears and commented that: “Last night when I got home at midnight, after preparing for today’s hearing, my wife told me that my own 12-year-old son had asked how long it would take for his father to prove his honesty.” (15) McNamara rejected the idea that Johnson was involved in the decision but evidence was to emerge that he did play an important role in the awarding of the TFX project to General Dynamics. For example, William Proxmire, while investigating the role played by Richard Russell in the granting of the C-5A contract to Lockheed. The C-5A was built in Marietta, Georgia, the state that Russell represented. The Air Force Contract Selection Board originally selected Boeing that was located in the states of Washington and Kansas. However, Proxmire claimed that Russell was able to persuade the board to change its mind and give the C-5A contract to Lockhead. Proxmire quotes Howard Atherton, the mayor of Marietta, as saying that “Russell was key to landing the contract”. Atherton added that Russell believed that Robert McNamara was going ahead with the C-5A in order to “give the plane to Boeing because Boeing got left out on the TFX fighter.” According to Atherton, Russell got the contract after talking to Lyndon Johnson. Atherton added, “without Russell, we wouldn’t have gotten the contract”. (16) On 26th June, 1963, Clark R. Mollenhoff managed to interview Robert McNamara about his role in awarding the TFX contract to General Dynamics. McNamara claimed that Johnson had applied to political pressure on him concerning the contract. He admitted that he knew all about Fred Korth’s business relationship with General Dynamics and Bell Aerospace. He also revealed he was aware of Roswell Gilpatric’s role “as a lawyer for General Dynamics just prior to coming into government, the role of Gilpatric’s law firm in continuing to represent General Dynamics, and the amount of money Gilpatric had received from the law firm since becoming Deputy Defense Secretary”. However, he was convinced that this did not influence the decision made by Korth and Gilpatric. (17) Several journalists speculated that Johnson and his friends in Texas had played a key role in obtaining the TFX contract for General Dynamics. (18) When "reporters discovered that the Continental National Bank of Fort Worth, was the principal money source for the General Dynamics plant" in October, 1963, Fred Korth was forced to resign as Secretary of the Navy. (19) Hanson W. Baldwin believed that the main villain was Robert McNamara. In an article in the Saturday Evening Post, Baldwin wrote: “Mr. McNamara has pressured the Joint Chiefs of Staff to sign written statements testifying to Congress that the Administration’s defense budget is adequate. He has censored, deleted and altered statements to Congress by the chiefs of the services and their secretaries. He has downgraded, ignored, bypassed or overruled the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff… It places more and more power over the military-industrial complex in the hands of a few men in the executive branch of the government. The dollar volumes of military contracts amount to more than $20 billion annually, with billions more in backlog orders outstanding. The individual services no longer have the final power to contract… The awarding or cancellation of contracts… is now ultimately controlled by a very few men in the top echelons of the Defense Department.” (20) Johnson’s role in these events was confirmed when Don B. Reynolds testified in a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee. As Victor Lasky pointed out, Reynolds “spoke of the time Bobby Baker opened a satchel full of paper money which he said was a $100,000 payoff for Johnson for pushing through a $7billion TFX plane contract.” (21) David Kaiser admits that he the Kennedy administration did increase the number of American military personnel in South Vietnam from 600 in 1960 to 17,500 in 1963. However, although he sincerely wanted to help the South Vietnamese government cope with the Viet Cong he rejected war as a way to do so. Kennedy’s view of America’s involvement in Southeast Asia was expressed clearly at his first ever press conference. When asked about Laos he expressed his intentions to help create “a peaceful country – an independent country not dominated by either side but concerned with the life of the people within the country.” (22) This was a marked departure from Eisenhower’s policy of supporting anti-communist military dictatorships in Southeast Asia and the Americas. This analysis of Kennedy’s foreign policy is supported by two of his most important aides, Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers. In their book, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, they describe how on 19th January, 1960, Eisenhower briefed Kennedy on “various important items of unfinished business”. This included news about “the rebel force that was being trained by the CIA in Guatemala to invade Cuba.” O’Donnell and Powers claimed that: “Eisenhower urged him to keep on supporting this plan to overthrow Castro. But Eisenhower talked mostly about Laos, which he then regarded as the most dangerous trouble spot in Southeast Asia. He mentioned South Vietnam only as one of the nations that would fall into the hands of the Communists if the United States failed to maintain the anti-Communist regime in Laos.” Kennedy was shocked by what Eisenhower told him. He later told his two aides: “There he sat, telling me to get ready to put ground forces into Asia, the thing he himself had been carefully avoiding for the last eight years.” (23) According to David Kaiser, it was not only the CIA and the Pentagon who wanted him to send troops to Laos and Vietnam. Members of his own administration, including Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, Alexis Johnson, McGeorge Bundy, Walt Rostow and Roswell Gilpatric, were also strongly in favour of Eisenhower’s policy of “intervention in remote areas backed by nuclear weapons”. (24) Kaiser suggests the reason for this was that “these civilians were all from the GI generation, and to varying degrees they saw themselves as continuing the struggle against aggression and tyranny that had dominated their youth.” However, it has to be remembered that Johnson, McNamara and Gilpatric had all played an important role in the ensuring that General Dynamics got the TFX contract. (25) Is it possible that they had other motives for involving the United States in a long-drawn out war? Kennedy continued with his policy of trying to develop “independent” Third World countries. In September, 1962, Souvanna Phouma became head of a new coalition government in Laos. This included the appointment of a left-leaning Quinim Pholsema as Foreign Minister. However, Kennedy found it impossible to persuade Ngo Dinh Diem to broaden his government in South Vietnam. Kennedy continued to resist all attempts to persuade him to send troops to Vietnam. His policy was reinforced by the Bay of Pigs operation. Kennedy told his assistant secretary of state, Roger Hilsman: “The Bay of Pigs has taught me a number of things. One is not to trust generals or the CIA, and the second is that if the American people do not want to use American troops to remove a Communist regime 90 miles away from our coast, how can I ask them to use troops to remove a Communist regime 9,000 miles away? (26) In April, 1962, Kennedy told McGeorge Bundy to “seize upon any favourable moment to reduce our involvement” in Vietnam. (27) In September, 1963, Robert Kennedy expressed similar views at a meeting of the National Security Council: “The first question was whether a Communist takeover could be successfully resisted with any government. If it could not, now was the time to get out of Vietnam entirely, rather than waiting.” (28) The decision by Kennedy to withdraw from Vietnam was confirmed by John McCone, the director of the CIA: “When Kennedy took office you will recall that he won the election because he claimed that the Eisenhower administration had been weak on communism and weak in the treatment of Castro and so forth. So the first thing Kennedy did was to send a couple of men to Vietnam to survey the situation. They came back with the recommendation that the military assistance group be increased from 800 to 25,000. That was the start of our involvement. Kennedy, I believe, realized he'd made a mistake because 25,000 US military in a country such as South Vietnam means that the responsibility for the war flows to (the US military) and out of the hands of the South Vietnamese. So Kennedy, in the weeks prior to his death, realized that we had gone overboard and actually was in the process of withdrawing when he was killed and Johnson took over.” (29) On 1st April, 1963, the attempt by Kennedy to create a all-party coalition government in Laos suffered a terrible 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.” (30) It would seem that Laos was not the only country where Kennedy was trying to develop a coalition government. According to Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman, in the early months of 1963, a plan was put into action that would result in a palace coup led by “one of Castro’s inner circle, himself a well-known revolutionary hero.” Waldron and Hartman argue that the “coup leader would be part of the new Provisional Government in Cuba, along with a select group of Cuban exiles – approved by the Kennedys – who ranged from conservative to progressive.” (31) Kennedy told Mike Mansfield in the spring of 1963 that he now agreed with his thinking “on the need for a complete military withdrawal from Vietnam”. After the meeting with Mansfield, Kennedy told Kenneth O’Donnell that when he pulled out of Vietnam in 1965: “I’ll become one of the most unpopular Presidents in history. I’ll be damned everywhere as a communist appeaser. But I don’t care. If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m re-elected. So we had better make damned sure that I am reelected.” (32) In his book, Sons & Brothers, Richard D. Mahoney remarked: “Truman had lost his presidency over the “loss of China,” which in turn had touched off the anticommunist witch hunts by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Troubled as Kennedy was about slipping into the Asian land war, he temporized on the method of disengagement.” (33) On 10th June, 1963, Kennedy made a commencement address at the American University. “In a speech written in the White House without Pentagon or State Department clearance, Kennedy called specifically, and for the first time, for a whole new attitude towards the Soviet Union and a greater effort for true peace.” (34) Nine days later Kennedy discussed a new proposal by the State Department to take overt military action against North Vietnam. Kennedy was told that the Pentagon wanted to start bombing North Vietnam and the mining of North Vietnamese ports. (35) As David Kaiser points out in American Tragedy, Kennedy refused to approve this plan: “Ever since assuming the Presidency, Kennedy had received a long series of proposals for war in Southeast Asia from the State and Defence Departments. Rejecting them all, he had established the goals of a neutral regime in Laos and an effort to assist the South Vietnamese against the Viet Cong.” (36) Kennedy continued to have problems from the leaders of the military. On 9th July, 1963, General Maxwell Taylor explained to the National Security Council that individual Joint Chiefs did not believe that an atmospheric test ban would serve the nation well. Sixteen days later, Averell Harriman, Andrei Gromyko and Lord Hailsham signed the atmospheric test ban in Moscow. On 14th August, Diem was informed that the U.S. government would be unable to continue their present relationship if Diem did not issue a statement reaffirming a conciliatory policy towards the Buddhists and other critics of his regime. Ten days later, Ted Szulc of the New York Times reported that “policy planners in Washington” had reached the stage where they would prefer a military junta in South Vietnam to a government ruled by Diem. (37) Kennedy also gave the order for the withdrawal of 1,000 American personnel by the end of 1963. The plan involved taking the men out in four increments, in order to achieve maximum press coverage. General Maxwell Taylor spoke out against this policy and argued that the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed no withdrawal of troops should take place “until the political and religious tensions now confronting the government of South Vietnam have eased.” (38) In an interview with Walter Cronkite on 2nd September, Kennedy clearly stated his policy on Vietnam: “I don’t think that unless a greater effort is made by the government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it.” Kennedy then went on to criticize Diem’s “repressions against the Buddhists”. (39) On 9th September, Henry Cabot Lodge met with Diem and threatened him that aid would be cut-off unless Ngo Dinh Nhu left his government. Yet according to a New York Times story, the CIA continued to back Nhu. This included John Richardson, the Saigon CIA station chief disbursing a regular monthly payment of $250,000 to Nhu and his men. (40) Four days later, Lodge suggested that Richardson should be ordered back to Washington as “he symbolized long-standing American support for Nhu.” John McCone defended Richardson and objected to the idea that he should be replaced by someone like Edward Lansdale. Kennedy met with Robert McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor on 2nd October, 1963. Kennedy told McNamara to announce to the press the immediate withdrawal of one thousand soldiers from Vietnam. Kennedy added that he would “probably withdraw all American forces from Vietnam by the end of 1965”. When McNamara was leaving the meeting to talk to the white house reporters, Kennedy called to him: “And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots too.” In his statement to the press McNamara softened the President’s views by stating that in his judgment “the major part of the U.S. military task” in Vietnam could be “completed by the end of 1965.” (41) According to Stanley Karnow, Johnson told the joint chiefs at a White House reception on Christmas Eve 1963, "Just let me get elected, and then you can have your war." (42) In February, 1964, Johnson removed Roger Hilsman as Assistant Secretary for the Far East. Hilsman, who had been in charge of Kennedy’s Vietnam policy, had been a loyal supporter of his neutralization policy. Hilsman was replaced by William Bundy, who shared Johnson’s views on military involvement in Vietnam. In an interview for the 1999 CNN Cold War documentary on the Vietnam War, Hilsman explained Kennedy’s policy during 1963: “First of all, from the beginning, he was determined that it not be an American war, that he would not bomb the North, he would not send troops. But then after …you remember the Buddhist crisis in the spring of '63, this convinced Kennedy that Ngu Dinh Diem had no chance of winning and that we best we get out. So, he used that as an excuse, beat on McNamara to beat on the JCS to develop a withdrawal plan. The plan was made, he approved the plan and the first one thousand of the sixteen thousand five hundred were withdrawn before Kennedy was killed. If he had lived, the other sixteen thousand would have been out of there within three or four months.” Hilsman went onto explain how Johnson changed policy towards Vietnam: “Well, what Johnson did was, he did one thing before he expanded the war and that is he got rid of one way or another all the people who had opposed making it an American war. Averill Harriman, he was Under Secretary of State, he made him roving ambassador for Africa so he'd have nothing to do with Vietnam. Bobby Kennedy, he you know, he told Bobby Kennedy that he ought to run for governor of Massachusetts, you see. Bobby confounded him by running for the Senate… He wanted to get rid of me, Lyndon Johnson did. Well, Johnson's a very clever man. When he wanted to get rid of Grenowski, who was the Postmaster General, he offered him the chance of being the first American ambassador to Poland. he offered me... he found out that I'd spent part of my childhood in the Philippines, and he tried to persuade me to become ambassador to the Philippines, but that was just to keep me quiet, you see and so instead I went to Columbia University, where I could criticize the war from outside. Johnson was a very clever man, so the first thing he did was he nullified or got rid of all the people - and he knew as well, he knew who were the hawks and who were the doves… Johnson literally transferred, fired, drove out of government all the people that were really knew something about Vietnam and were opposed to the war. (43) Robert Komer sent a memo to McGeorge Bundy showing concern about Johnson’s decision to reverse Kennedy’s foreign policy. He complained that this new “hard line” would “increase the chances that in addition to the Vietnam, Cuba, Cyprus, Panama and other current trials – will be added come summer Indonesia/Malaysia, Arab/Israeli, India/Pakistan crises which may be even more unmanageable.” (44) On 2nd March, 1964, Johnson telephoned Robert McNamara, to prepare a statement on Vietnam. Two days later, McNamara issued a statement rejecting withdrawal, neutralization, or American ground troops. This was discussed with the five Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Maxwell Taylor argued for “the progressive and selective attack against targets in North Vietnam”. General Curtis LeMay advocated an immediate “hard blow”. Johnson replied he did “not want to start a war before November”. (45) Later that month, a group of generals, with the approval of Johnson, overthrew Joao Goulart, the left-wing president of Brazil. This action ended democracy in Brazil for more than twenty years. Once again, Johnson showed that his policy was to support non-democratic but anti-communist, military dictatorships, and that he had fully abandoned Kennedy’s neutralization policy. In June, 1964, Henry Cabot Lodge, resigned as ambassador of Saigon. McGeorge Bundy gave Johnson six recommendations for his successor: Robert Kennedy, Sargent Shriver, Robert McNamara, Roswell Gilpatric, William Gaud and himself. Johnson rejected all the names on the list and instead selected General Maxwell Taylor. Bundy complained bitterly that Johnson had appointed a military man. However, Johnson, who was determined to have a war in Vietnam, replied that the ambassador of Saigon would soon be a “military job” and that Taylor was “our top military man”. (46) Johnson always intended to wait until after the election in November, 1964, before beginning the war against Vietnam. Public opinion polls showed that the American people were overwhelmingly against sending combat troops to South Vietnam. Most leading figures in the Democratic Party shared this view and had told Johnson this was a war he could not win as China was likely to send troops into Vietnam if the country was bombed or invaded. Johnson’s strategy changed when the right-wing Barry Goldwater won the Republican Party nomination in July. Goldwater had been arguing that Johnson had not been aggressive enough over Vietnam. When interviewed by Howard K. Smith on television, Goldwater argued that the United States should start bombing North Vietnam. Smith suggested that this “risked a fight with China”. “You might have to do that” Goldwater responded.” On other occasions, Goldwater had insisted that atomic weapons should be used in Vietnam. (47) Johnson was now free to trigger a war with North Vietnam. He therefore gave permission for OPLAN 34A to be executed. This was a new operations plan for sabotage operations against North Vietnam. This included hit-and-run attacks along the North Vietnamese coast. On 30th July, the American destroyer, the Maddox, left Taiwan for the North Vietnamese coast. On 2nd August, the Maddox opened fire on three North Vietnamese boats, seriously damaging one boat but not sinking it. (48) Later that day the incident was discussed by Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk, George Ball, General Earle Wheeler and Robert McNamara’s new deputy, Cyrus Vance. As a result of the meeting, Vance approved new attacks on North Vietnam beginning on the night of 3rd August. Soon after entering North Vietnamese waters on 4th August, Captain Herrick of the Maddox reported that he was under attack. However, later he sent a message that raised doubts about this: "Review of action makes reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather reports and over-eager sonar men may have accounted for many reports. No actual sightings by "Maddox". Suggest complete evaluation before further action." David Kaiser argues that “exhaustive analysis of the evidence makes it impossible to believe that any attack occurred that night.” (49) Despite this, President Johnson immediately ordered “a firm, swift retaliatory strike” against North Vietnamese naval bases. (50) He ordered the bombing of four North Vietnamese torpedo-boat bases and an oil-storage depot that had been planned three months previously. President Johnson then went on television and told the American people that a total of nine torpedoes had been fired at American ships and as a result he had ordered a retaliatory strike. Warned by Johnson’s announcement, the North Vietnamese managed to bring down two American planes, killing one pilot and capturing the other. (51) Congress approved Johnson's decision to bomb North Vietnam and passed what has become known as the Gulf of Tonkin resolution by the Senate by 88 votes to 2 and in the House of Representatives by 416 to 0. This resolution authorized the President to take all necessary measures against Vietnam and the National Liberation Front (NLF). As James Reston pointed out in the New York Times: “The Congress was free in theory only. In practice, despite the private reservations of many members, it had to go along… it had the choice of helping him or helping the enemy, which is no choice at all.” He then added, as a result of this resolution, who could be trusted with this enormous new power – Johnson or Goldwater?” (52) As David Kaiser has argued convincingly in his book, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War: “By initiating 34A attacks and simultaneously authorizing DeSoto patrols, the administration had brought about one brief military confrontation between North Vietnamese and American forces. The second spurious attack had then become the pretext for retaliation, a congressional resolution authorizing war, and the movement of additional U.S. air assets into South Vietnam.” (53) Why then was Lyndon Johnson so keen to start a war with North Vietnam? One view is that he was convinced by people such as General Maxwell Taylor and Robert McNamara that it would be fairly easy to defeat communism in Vietnam. However, this is not supported by the evidence. On 27th May, 1964, Johnson had a long telephone conversation with his close friend and adviser, Richard Russell. Johnson asked Russell: “What do you think of this Vietnam thing?” Russell replied that Johnson should get completely out of Vietnam: “If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem to get rid of these people and get some fellow in there that said he wished to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out” This is of course a strategy that Kennedy had been considering the previous summer. Russell added that if Johnson did send combat troops into Vietnam the United States would end up fighting a “major war with the Chinese” and the situation would end up worse than Korea. Johnson agreed with Russell on this and also admitted that he had doubts about the value of saving South Vietnam and Laos from communism. Despite agreeing with Russell he rejected the idea of withdrawal as it would have a detrimental impact on his image. Russell replied: “You’d look pretty good, I guess, going in there with troops and sending them all in there, but I tell you it’ll be the most expensive venture this country ever went into.” (54) Notes 1. Robert J. Art, The TFX Decision: McNamara and the Military, 1968 (pages 62-63) 2. William Proxmire, speech in the Senate, 24th March, 1969 3. I. F. Stone, The New York Review of Books, 1st January, 1969 4. Richard Austin Smith, Fortune Magazine, February, 1962 5. Seth Kantor, Who Was Jack Ruby?, 1978 (page 19) 6. Clark R. Mollenhoff, Despoilers of Democracy, 1965 (pages 133-137) 7. Award of the X-22 (VTOL) Research and Development Contract, 1964 (page 9) 8. Robert J. Art, The TFX Decision, 1968 (page 5) 9. I. F. Stone, The New York Review of Books, 1st January, 1969 10. Quoted by Frederic M. Scherer, The Weapons Acquisition Process: Economic Incentives, 1964 (page 37) 11. TFX Contract Investigations Hearing Report, March 1963 (pages 3-4) 12. Seth Kantor, Fort Worth Press (24th October, 1962) 13. Clark R. Mollenhoff, Pentagon, 1967 (pages 299-300) 14. Fort Worth Telegram (13th December, 1962) 15. Clark R. Mollenhoff, Despoilers of Democracy, 1965 (page 171) 16. William Proxmire, Report from Wasteland: America’s Military-Industrial Complex, 1970 (pages 100-102) 17. Clark R. Mollenhoff, Despoilers of Democracy, 1965 (pages 188-193) 18. See “Missiles and Rockets” (11th February, 1963) and Aviation Week & Space Technology (25th February, 1963) 19. Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 1993 (page 220) 20. Hanson W. Baldwin, Saturday Evening Post (9th March, 1963) 21. Victor Lasky, It Didn’t Start With Watergate, 1977 (page 144) 22. Howard W. Chase and Allen H. Lerman, Kennedy and the Press: The News Conferences, 1965 (page 25) 23. Kenneth P. O’Donnell & David F. Powers, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1972 (page 281-282) 24. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 50) 25. I. F. Stone, The New York Review of Books, 1st January, 1969 26. Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, 1989 (pages 306-307) 27. Memorandum written by McGeorge Bundy’s aide, Michael Y. Forrestal, dated 26th April, 1962. It was first published in The New York Times, 5th December, 1998. 28. Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation, 1967 (page 501) 29. John McCone was interviewed by Harry Kreisler on 21st April, 1988. 30. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 198) 31. Lamar Waldron & Thom Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice, 2005 (page 4) 32. Kenneth P. O’Donnell & David F. Powers, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1972 (page 16) 33. Richard D. Mahoney, Sons & Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, 1999 (page 279) 34. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 198) 35. William J. Rust, Kennedy and Vietnam, 1985 (page 119) 36. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 212) 37. Ted Szulc, The New York Times (24th August, 1963) 38. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 226) 39. Walter Cronkite, CBS News, 2nd September, 1963 40. The New York Times, 9th September, 1963 41. Kenneth P. O’Donnell & David F. Powers, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1972 (page 17) 42. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 1991 (page 342) 43. Roger Hilsman, The Vietnam War, CNN (broadcast on 6th December, 1998) 44. Robert Komer, memo to McGeorge Bundy (25th February, 1964) 45. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 304) 46. Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1997 (pages 407-411) 47. Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm, 2001 (pages 346-347) 48. Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, 1996 (pages 73-74) 49. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 334) 50. Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1997 (pages 503-504) 51. Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, 1996 (pages 214-231) 52. James Reston, New York Times (9th August, 1964) 53. David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 2000 (page 338) 54. Telephone conversation between Richard Russell and Lyndon B. Johnson (10.55 a.m. 27th May, 1964)

I have added a page on Jack Pfeiffer: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKpfeiffer.htm

I thought this posting on the web was funny: MERGERS AND AQUISITIONS FEVER HITS WESTMINSTER (from City correspondent Peter Pigeon) The M&A fever that took the FTSE-100 index above 6000 last week is about to spread to Westminster. Rumours are circulating that private equity groups have built up significant stakes in both the Conservative and Labour Parties. Now insiders suggest that these groups will seek to realise their investments (provided in the form of secret loans) and take control of the boards of each Party. They then propose to push through a merger. City Analyst Vince Cable has told the BBC that Labour is suffering from negative equity - with assets of just nine million, and debts of more than eleven million. The private equity groups are being advised by prominent City bankers Levy and Marland. Sources here told the SunGod "A deal like this makes good commercial sense. The two businesses have substantially the same objectives and there is massive overlap in their business operations. The merged company could realise significant synergies. Essentially we are looking at scrapping one London Headquarters and up to 600 high street branches." http://sun-god.blogspot.com/2006/03/merger...fever-hits.html

I have to admit that Etherington is not the strongest of players. In fact, he often comes in for a battering from the full-back. It is generally believed that he is not brave and can hide from conflict. It used to be true but he is getting tougher. To quote the Guardian, West Ham "outclassed" Manchester City and their victory was "thoroughly deserved". Dominic Fifield went on to say: "This was a thoroughly intelligent display, their youthful midfield defying its inexperience and a bustling forward line, supplied intelligently from the flanks, prising the hosts apart."

I actually worked for Conrad Black in the late 1990s. I was advising the Telegraph newspaper group on their internet strategy. I proposed a scheme where they would provide free educational materials for English speaking students all over the world. I even gave him a good promotion slogan: “A millennium gift to the world.” I calculated that we could organize it for 2.6 million a year. I thought this was cheap considering the good will it would create. The Telegraph Board actually agreed the plan but Conrad Black overruled them. His thinking is quite interesting. His newspapers had spent many years criticizing the teaching profession. Black argued that teachers felt so hostile to the Telegraph they would never recommend their students to use the service. The real reason was probably that he was already having financial problems. No, the Telegraph newspapers have never supported New Labour. However, Blair’s policies are very close to those of Conrad Black. It would have probably damaged Blair if the Telegraph began supporting him during elections. It would then be clear to everyone just how right-wing Blair had become. All political parties are allowed to nominate people for honours. That is why the Conservatives are unwilling to name those who have been giving them loans.

I don't know. I have not heard from them.

A new edition of "Mary, Ferrie & the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory" has just been published. You can find Edward T. Haslam's website here: http://www.themonkeyvirus.com/ Read the first three chapters for free. Ch 1 – Waking Up http://www.themonkeyvirus.com/PDFs/CH%2001...Waking%20Up.pdf Ch 2 – The Pirate http://www.themonkeyvirus.com/PDFs/CH%2002...he%20Pirate.pdf Ch 3 – The Classroom http://www.themonkeyvirus.com/PDFs/CH%2003...20Classroom.pdf Haslam has also provided Ch 14 - The Machine: http://www.themonkeyvirus.com/PDFs/CH%2014...e%20Machine.pdf

There is an interesting passage in Robert N. Winter-Berger's book, The Washington Pay-Off: An Insider’s View of Corruption in Government, 1972 (pages 65-67) on the Bobby Baker case. Winter-Berger claims he was with John McCormack on 4th February, 1964, when Johnson entered the Speaker’s office. Apparently oblivious to Winter-Berger’s presence, Johnson said to McCormack: “John, that son of a bitch is going to ruin me. If that cocksucker talks, I’m gonna land in jail…. We’re all gonna rot in jail.” Johnson claimed that Robert Kennedy and John Williams were the ones involved in exposing the Bobby Baker scandal. “You’ve got to get to Bobby (Baker), John. Tell him I expect him to take the rap for this on his own. Tell him I’ll make it worth his while. Remind him that I always have.” I think it is interesting that Johnson tells McCormack that "We’re all gonna rot in jail.” The telephone transcripts also show that the Bobby Baker scandal involved a very large number of senior politicians in Congress.

Some extra information on the secret list. Richard Aldridge, the chairman of Capita, has so far made over £1bn from government contracts. Sir Christopher Evans, the head of a bioscience firm, is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Derek Tullett, is a director of an online betting exchange with an interest in government plans for super-casinos.

Most of the named businessmen are involved in property development. If I was an investigative journalist I would take a close look at recent planning applications involving these people: Richard Carling, Gordon Crawford, David Gerrard and Andrew Rosenfield. Lord Sainsbury is another who is very interested in planning permission when it involves his great rival Tesco. Several of these characters are also involved in bidding for government contracts: Ron Aldridge, Gordon Crawford and Chai Patel. Sir Christopher Evans (biotechnology entrepreneur) has been having some legal problems and probably has been in need of some government help. Barry Townsley has been very useful as a financial sponsor of Blair’s city academy scheme. I need to do more research into Nigel Morris (credit cards), Sir Gulam Noon (Indian food products) and Derek Tullett (stockbroker). Not that I believe this is an accurate list. Lord Sainsbury denied he was on the list of secret donors when this story was first published in the newspapers. Was he lying then or now? Why would he give a commercial loan to the Labour Party? He has already given £6.5m since becoming science minister in 2001 (an expensive job to buy). I suspect he was telling the truth the first time and is now being used as a cover for someone who is linked to the arms industry. Nor does the idea of commercial loans make any sense. Where is the Labour Party going to get the money to pay off these loans? The money has already been spent on the last election. The real scandal is not about the Labour Party selling honours or government contracts. It is about individual members of this government taking money from these businessmen. I have recently been studying the corrupt activities of Lyndon Baines Johnson. He used several methods of laundering corrupt money. His main strategy was to get his businessmen to pay money into his wife’s television station. This took the form of overcharged advertising payments. Mrs Blair does not own a television station. However, she does make ridiculous sums of money from the “lecture circuit”. Is this how the Blair’s do it?

The game turned on a great goal scored by Dean Ashton. Both teams scored one goal each after the sending off. Howard Webb got it right. The rules state that a player should be sent off if he raises his hands against another player. All teams that win cup competition need a certain amount of luck (look at Liverpool last season). However, teams make their own luck. As the golfer, Gary Player, once said: “The more I practice, the luckier I get".

Both. However, I consider corruption is the most important factor in this story. I believe if we had a truly democratic system we would now be living in a harmonious egalitarian society. The main reason that we do not have such a society is that the system has always allowed the rich to corrupt our politicians. The same thing has happened all over the world. The only way it is going to stop is if this corruption is fully exposed. The media is part of this corrupt system and is therefore reluctant to expose it (see my postings on Murdoch). The most dangerous aspect of this corrupt political system concerns the large profits made by the arms manufacturers. Not only does this corruption cause the deaths of millions of people, it poses a threat to the survival of the planet. See: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6116

Excellent information Greg. I will try and get the same information on the providers of military services in the UK.

Rod Aldridge is Chief Executive of Capita. He has been called the 'privatisation tycoon'. Capita has a 10-year, £400 million contract to run the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB). This was the agency that failed to provide adequate security checks for staff working with children and the elderly. Capita also runs seven contracts out of the Darlington office that used to be the Teachers' Pension Bureau. Another contract given to Capita was the London Congestion Charging scheme. Aldridge has a £44m stake in the Capita Group. Other assets add £8m to his wealth. Aldridge's wealth is based on obtaining PFI contracts. However, he probably gives money to Blair because he supports Labour's war on poverty.

Tony Blair has just released the list of the businessmen who provided the loans. Rod Aldridge - £1m Richard Caring - £2m Gordon Crawford - £500,000 Prof Sir Christopher Evans - £1m Nigel Morris - £1m Sir Gulam Noon - £250,000 Dr Chai Patel - £1.5m Andrew Rosenfeld - £1m Lord David Sainsbury - £2m Barry Townsley - £1m Derek Tullett - £400,000 Total: £13,950,000 The list includes some interesting names. Andrew Rosenfeld established the Minerva property group with Sir David Garrard in 1996. Rosenfeld stake is worth £49m. He has £30m in other assets. Garrard is also a major supplier of cash to Tony Blair. There is no evidence that they are socialists. However, they do depend on the government to give planning permission for their various property ventures. For example, in January the government gave permission for them to build Minerva Building, a 217-metre office tower in London. Just a coincidence of course, I am sure the reason they supported the government because they wanted Blair to increase the minimum wage.

Tony Blair has just released the list of the businessmen who provided the loans. Rod Aldridge - £1m Richard Caring - £2m Gordon Crawford - £500,000 Prof Sir Christopher Evans - £1m Nigel Morris - £1m Sir Gulam Noon - £250,000 Dr Chai Patel - £1.5m Andrew Rosenfeld - £1m Lord David Sainsbury - £2m Barry Townsley - £1m Derek Tullett - £400,000 Total: £13,950,000 The list includes some interesting names. Andrew Rosenfeld established the Minerva property group with Sir David Garrard in 1996. Rosenfeld stake is worth £49m. He has £30m in other assets. Garrard is also a major supplier of cash to Tony Blair. There is no evidence that they are socialists. However, they do depend on the government to give planning permission for their various property ventures. For example, in January the government gave permission for them to build Minerva Building, a 217-metre office tower in London. Just a coincidence of course, I am sure the reason they supported the government because they wanted Blair to increase the minimum wage.

Jack Pfeiffer, Bay of Pigs, Volume III (1979) "There was considerable concern over the necessary formalities of diplomacy in order that the United States not be involved in investigations by either the UN or the OAS for its anti-Castro program. Because it has been widely publicized that ex-Vice President Richard Nixon was one of the principals in planning the Bay of Pigs Operation, this volume has attempted to put the role that Nixon played into the proper context. It was the role of an interested senior officer in the Executive Branch, and by no stretch of the imagination could Nixon's role be constructed to have had a major impact on the development of operational planning by the Central Intelligence Agency in its anti-Castro effort."

Sherry Guitierrez provided an excellent presentation on Trajectory Analysis applied to the Assassination of JFK. Sherry has testified as an expert in crime scene reconstruction and bloodstain pattern analysis in over 30 judicial districts in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Sherry is currently employed as a consultant to attorneys and law enforcement officials. She is also a member of the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts and Association for Crime Scene Reconstruction. I found Sherry's views on the position of the gunman who fired the shot that hit JFK in the head very stimulating. I would be interested in what some of our gun experts think of this theory. Sherry is a member of the Forum and hopefully she will answer your questions. You will find the presentation here: http://www.jfklancerforum.com/sherryg/ The presentation ends with the following statement. The blood examined in photographs and films, and described in the statements of witnesses in the homicide of John Kennedy, seem to describe back spatter to the immediate front of the President. There is no conflict to this supposition within any witness statements or in any blood evidence documented in video and photographs. Additionally, the Zapruder film reveals a violent movement of JFK's head to the rear, corresponding to the targets in the experiments. Therefore, it is my opinion the bloodstain evidence is consistent with the injury to John F. Kennedy's head being the result of a single gunshot from the right front. On Saturday Sherry added that one possible location was the Post Office building. Any thoughts on this?

Report just published on the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4818516.stm The national curriculum in England is to be revised so children are taught to read primarily using the method known as synthetic phonics. The approach is a key recommendation of a review headed by former Ofsted inspections director Jim Rose. He says phonics - letter sounds - must happen alongisde paying attention to speaking and listening. The government and the Tories back the findings. The Lib Dems say it should be for teachers to decide what is best. The current approved strategy involves a mixture of approaches. Phonics focuses on sounds - rather than, for example, having children try to recognise whole words. In the widely-used analytic phonics, words are deconstructed into their beginning and end parts, such as "str-" and "-eet". In pure synthetic phonics, children start by learning the sounds of letters and of letter combinations: "ss-t-rrr-ee-t". Only once they have learnt all these do they progress to reading books. The final Rose report, published on Monday morning, recommends that for most children, systematic phonics teaching should start by the age of five. There should be extra help for children who fall behind. Head teachers should make phonics the priority - and set ambitious targets for what children should achieve by the time they finish primary school six years later. In the most famous experiment, in Clackmannanshire, children taught using synthetic phonics were years ahead of their contemporaries by the time they moved on to secondary school. The method is already endorsed by the Scottish Executive. Critics say it might teach children to read - but not necessarily to understand what they are reading. And research commissioned by England's education department said the evidence base for using synthetic phonics was weak. The Westminster government is proud that its national literacy strategy, introduced in 1998, has seen the proportion of 11-year-olds reading at the expected level for their age rise from 67% to 84%. But it acknowledges that one in five children still does not reach the necessary standard in English overall and, as a result, their teenage learning is hampered. Ms Kelly said she accepted all the recommendations in the report and had launched a programme of training for teachers. She said: "I am clear that synthetic phonics should be the first strategy in teaching all children to read." Her department will work with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority on how best to embed this in the national curriculum. Mr Rose said the best schools already use systematic phonics teaching within "a language-rich curriculum". He said he had reached his conclusions because synthetic phonics combines both word recognition - cracking the alphabetic code - and comprehension. "This is a programme for beginner readers," he said. "This is for children starting out on the way to reading and undoubtedly the evidence shows that this is the most successful route." However, he stressed that phonic work was only "part of the story". "It's not the whole story but it's an extremely important step because unless you can actually decode the words on the page you will not be able, obviously, to comprehend them." The Conservatives campaigned for such an approach during last year's general election. Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb said synthetic phonics should be happening in every primary school. "The alternative 'look and say' approach has, over two generations, led to poor literacy levels in this country and the associated problems at secondary schools of low levels of attainment and disruptive behaviour," he said. Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Sarah Teather said being overly prescriptive approach would not leave any flexibility for teachers to decide what was best for the children in their class. "Schools should get guidance based on the latest research but the precise mix of methods used in classrooms is a matter for teachers working with individual pupils," she said. "Phonics is only one tool to help children learn the English language. The national curriculum neglects communication skills and more needs to be done to address speaking and listening in the early years."

It was a very enjoyable meeting. I was especially impressed with Sherry Gutierrez’s presentation. Barry Keane’s is to be congratulated for organizing the event. I also enjoyed my discussions with other members including Tony Basing, Tony McCulloch, Allan Johnson, Francesca Akhtar, Tony Austin, Mike Dworetsky, Mark Bridger, John Geraghty, Aleric Rosman, Mark De Valk, Ian Griggs, etc. Some are already members but I hope to persuade others to join over the next couple of weeks.