John Simkin

A lot of energy is used by researchers to persuade the authorities to release classified documents concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Is it possible that the CIA and the FBI hold documents that will provide evidence that will reveal the real killers of Kennedy? If they had existed, which I think is unlikely, would they not have been destroyed? I have recently been investigating a case where the British, French and American intelligence agencies joined together in a conspiracy to assassinate Lenin in August 1918. It is nearly 100 years ago that this event took place and although we know virtually the whole story now, it is not because of the release of official documents. In 1993 Gordon Brook-Shepherd decided that he would investigate the case. The former intelligence officer worked as a journalist for the Daily Telegraph and was in a good position to discover what had happened as he was trusted by the British establishment. After all, all the people concerned were long dead and the basic outline of the conspiracy had been revealed in 1931 when the wife of one of the agents involved in the conspiracy published an account based on the diaries of her husband, George Reilly, who had been executed in 1925 by the Russian Secret Police (Cheka) for his part in the assassination attempt. In the next couple of years, two other British agents involved in the plot, Robert Bruce Lockhart and George Alexander Hill, published their accounts of the conspiracy. However, the British government refused to release MI6 files that would have confirmed the story. Brook-Shepherd had a meeting with an unnamed government minister, who had been a close friend for many years. He later recalled that "over several lengthy sessions, I was briefed on everything that had survived in our closed archives on the subject I was dealing with". Eventually he was allowed to see the official documents held by the British intelligence services. He became suspicious when he could not find one reference to Ernest Boyce, the MI6 station chief in Moscow in the summer of 1918 when the conspiracy took place. Brook-Shepherd writes about finding a file headed "Anti-Bolshevik Activities in Russia" but when opened he found it to be completely empty. He eventually reached the conclusion that every document relating to the assassination plot had been destroyed. Brook-Shepherd had no more luck examining the French archives. All the Deuxieme Bureau archives, along with other special security and diplomatic files, were carted off to Berlin by the Germans after the fall of France in 1940. These archives were taken by the Red Army after they seized the German capital in May 1945 and transported to Moscow. After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union high-level negotiations took place about these archives. An accord was duly signed between the French and Russian governments on 12th November 1992. The first delivery took place on December 1993 and over the next five months an estimated 140 tons of paper arrived in Paris. However, Brook-Shepherd could find no documents relating to the 1918 conspiracy to kill Lenin. According to the French authorities, the Russian government is still holding about 5% of their classified documents. The situation is even more difficult concerning the American involvement in the assassination plot. It is claimed that the Americans did not have an intelligence service in 1918. According to President Woodrow Wilson, the government was opposed to the whole idea of spies and intelligence agents. In a speech he made to Congress on 2nd April 1917, he claimed that in the past it had been used by monarchies and aristocracies to guard their privileged existence and had no place in the new democratic order where the people were entitled to know everything: "Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies." Maybe he was unaware that the State Department had dispatched a series of spies and saboteurs into neighbouring Mexico on missions which included an attempt to assassinate the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. President Wilson was also officially opposed to intervention against the Bolshevik government at the time of the plot. This was partly because he did not want to do anything that increased the power of the British and French empires. Secondly, as a democrat, he had no desire to help the return of the Russian monarchy. In March 1918 he sent a telegram to the Bolshevik government, via the American consulate in Moscow: "The whole heart of the people of the United States is with the people of Russia in the attempt to free themselves for ever from an autocratic government and to become the masters of their own fate." In reality, the Americans had a team of agents in Russia in 1918. The spymaster was Dewitt Clinton Poole, the Consul General in Moscow. America's main agent was Xenophon Kalamatiano, who was condemned to death by the Russian courts for his part in the conspiracy (if you do a Google search for these two men you will see what a great job the American authorities had done in trying to remove details of their involvement in this conspiracy). Despite the efforts of these intelligence services to keep the conspiracy secret we now have the full story. However, it was not until 2001 that all the details were published. The information came from Alexander Orlov, a senior figure in the Russian Secret Police. He was a figure close to Joseph Stalin and was responsible for obtaining the false confessions from Lev Kamenev and Gregory Zinoviev in 1936. During the Spanish Civil War Orlov had the task of eliminating the supporters of Leon Trotsky fighting for the Republican Army and the International Brigades. In July 1938 Orlov was ordered back to the Soviet Union by Stalin. Aware of the Great Purge that was going on and that several of his friends had been executed, Orlov fled to France with his wife and daughter before making his way to the United States. Orlov sent a letter to Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the NKVD, that he would reveal the organizations secrets if any action was taken against him or his family. Orlov was interviewed by the FBI when he arrived in America. He was of course was an excellent source of information on the Show Trials that had been taking place in the Soviet Union (you have to remember at the time the media was reporting that there was indeed a Trotsky inspired plot to overthrow Stalin). However, it was not only events in Russia in the 1930s that he knew about. In 1918 he had been a junior officer in Cheka and actually took part into the investigation of Xenophon Kalamatiano. Orlov was allowed to stay in America but he was told that he could not publish any information about his work in the Soviet Union without permission. After the death of Joseph Stalin he published The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes (1953). This did not include details of the plot to kill Lenin. He had written about it but was refused permission to publish it. Orlov died in Cleveland, Ohio, on 25th March 1973. One of the FBI agents who interviewed Orlov was a man named Edward P. Gazur. He befriended Orlov and he inherited his unpublished memoirs. He allowed this material to be seen by Gordon Brook-Shepherd, who used it to help him write Iron Maze: The Western Secret Services and the Bolsheviks (1998). The book reveals that the plot had been instigated by Colonel Eduard Berzin, a senior commander of the Lettish (Latvian) regiments that had been protecting the Bolshevik Government ever since the revolution. That was true but he was also an agent of Cheka. Berzin had his first meeting with Robert Bruce Lockhart, the Head of Special Mission to the Soviet Government with the rank of acting British Consul-General in Russia on 14th August, 1918. Lockhart, who described Berzin as "a tall powerfully-built man with clear-cut features and hard steely eyes" was impressed by Berzin. He told Lockhart that he was a senior commander of the Lettish (Latvian) regiments that had been protecting the Bolshevik Government ever since the revolution. Berzin insisted that these regiments had proved indispensable to Lenin, saving his regime from several attempted coups d'état. On 25th August 1918, Consul-General Dewitt Clinton Poole attended a meeting with French Consul-General Joseph Fernand Grenard where the plot was discussed. Poole arranged for 200,000 rubles to be contributed to the operation. Colonel Henri de Vertemont, the leading French intelligence agent in Russia also contributed money for the venture. Over the next week, Sidney Reilly, Ernest Boyce and George Alexander Hill had regular meetings with Colonel Belzin, where they planned the overthrow of the Bolshevik government. During this period they handed over 1,200,000 rubles. Unknown to MI6 this money was immediately handed over to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of Cheka. So also were the details of the conspiracy. Berzin told the conspirators that his troops had been to assigned to guard the theatre where the Soviet Central Executive Committee was to met. A plan was devised to arrest Lenin and Leon Trotsky at the meeting was to take place on 28th August, 1918. Robin Bruce Lockhart, the author of Reilly: Ace of Spies (1992) has argued: "Reilly's grand plan was to arrest all the Red leaders in one swoop on August 28th when a meeting of the Soviet Central Executive Committee was due to be held. Rather than execute them, Reilly intended to de-bag the Bolshevik hierarchy and with Lenin and Trotsky in front, to march them through the streets of Moscow bereft of trousers and underpants, shirt-tails flying in the breeze. They would then be imprisoned. Reilly maintained that it was better to destroy their power by ridicule than to make martyrs of the Bolshevik leaders by shooting them." Reilly's plan was eventually rejected and it was decided to execute the entire leadership of the Bolshevik Party. The British government selected the man who they wanted to be the head of the new Russian government. His name was Boris Savinkov. It was a controversial decision as Savinkov had a very dubious past. He was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and had been involved in several acts of terrorism and had been involved in the assassination of Vyacheslav Plehve, the Minister of the Interior, in 1904. Savinkov had been a member of the Provisional Government in 1917 and had a deep hatred of the Bolsheviks. Winston Churchill, the Minister of War, was a passionate supporter of intervention, and on the advice of Sidney Reilly, had selected Savinkov was the best man to lead the government. Prime Minister David Lloyd George had doubts about trying to overthrow the Bolsheviks: "Savinkov is no doubt a man of the future but I need Russia at the present moment, even if it must be the Bolsheviks. Savinkov can do nothing at the moment, but I am sure he will be called on in time to come. There are not many Russians like him." The Foreign Office was unimpressed with Savinkov describing him as "most unreliable and crooked". Churchill replied that he thought that he "was a great man and a great Russian patriot, in spite of the terrible methods with which he has been associated". Churchill rejected the advice of his advisors on the grounds that "it is very difficult to judge the politics in any other country". At the last moment, the Soviet Central Executive Committee meeting on 28th August, 1918, was cancelled. Three days later Dora Kaplan attempted to assassinate Lenin. It was claimed that this was part of the British conspiracy to overthrow the Bolshevik government and orders were issued by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of Cheka, to round up the agents based in British Embassy in Petrograd. The naval attaché, Francis Cromie was killed resisting arrest. According to Robin Bruce Lockhart: "The gallant Cromie had resisted to the last; with a Browning in each hand he had killed a commissar and wounded several Cheka thugs, before falling himself riddled with Red bullets. Kicked and trampled on, his body was thrown out of the second floor window." Ernest Boyce and Robert Bruce Lockhart were both arrested but Sidney Reilly had a lucky escape. He arranged to meet Cromie that morning. He arrived at the British Embassy soon after Cromie had been killed: "The Embassy door had been battered off its hinges. The Embassy flag had been torn down. The Embassy had been carried by storm." Reilly now went into hiding and after paying 60,000 rubles to be smuggled out of Russia on board a Dutch freighter. George Alexander Hill also managed to escape. Consul-General Dewitt Clinton Poole, who was on a visit to Siberia at the time, managed to get to Finland when he heard of the other arrests. His main agent in Russia, Xenophon Kalamatiano, was not so lucky and was arrested. Alexander Orlov was there when Kalamatiano was interviewed. He refused to answer questions but one of the officers noticed that he never parted with the cane he held in his hands. The officer asked to see the cane and began to examine it closely. Orlov told the FBI: "Kalamatiano turned pale and lost his composure. The investigation soon discovered that the cane contained an inner tube and he extracted it. In it were hidden a secret cipher, spy reports, a coded list of thirty-two spies and money receipts from some of them." On 2nd October, 1918, the British government arranged for Robert Bruce Lockhart and Ernest Boyce to be exchanged for captive Soviet officials such as Maxim Litvinov. After his release the remaining plotters were put on trial. They were all found guilty and Xenophon Kalamatiano and Colonel Alexander V. Friede were condemned to death. The court also passed death sentences on Lockhart, Sidney Reilly , Joseph Fernand Grenard and Colonel Henri de Vertemont, noting that "they had all fled". They would all be shot if ever found on Soviet soil. Friede was executed on 14th December but Kalamatiano was sent to Lubyanka Prison. In the early weeks of his incarceration he was taken out several times into the courtyard for a mock execution. However, Felix Dzerzhinsky had decided that Kalamatiano was more use alive than dead. Negotiations for Kalamatiano release began straight away. The Bolshevik government told American officials that "Kalamatiano had committed the highest crime against the Soviet state, was properly tried according to Russian revolutionary law and is still considered dangerous to Soviet Russia." It was made clear that Kalamatiano would remain in custody as long as the American government gave support to the White Army in the ongoing Russian Civil War. On 19th November 1920 Kalamatiano managed to send out a message to the man who recruited him as an intelligence agent, Professor Samuel N. Harper: "Just a few words to tell you, and whichever of my friends you run across, that I am still very much alive - although skinny... Yesterday celebrated my 30th month of imprisonment in various institutions... However, as whatever happens outside finally is concentrated here I consider I have been given a box seat to watch the revolution and am not complaining of such an unusual opportunity. Several of your acquaintances have been here at various times. I trust sometime to tell you more about them all. At the present, names on paper are odious things... If I pull out alive, and I have every hope of doing so now - although at one time chances seemed to be rather on the undertaker's side - I hope we will have a chance of talking things over." In the summer of 1921 famine was raging in the country and over 25 million Russians were facing starvation. On 27th July, the American Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, warned the Soviet Foreign Minister, Maxim Gorky, in writing: "It is manifestly impossible for the American authorities to countenance measures of relief for the distress in Russia while our citizens are detailed." Three days later, the Bolsheviks agreed to release their American prisoners in return for American Relief Administration emergency help. Kalamatiano and five other Americans were released on 10th August 1921. Kalamatiano was warned by Dewitt Clinton Poole that he must not tell anyone about his activities in Russia. He was dismissed from the State Department in December 1921 and given a job as a foreign language instructor at the Calver Military Academy. Despite official dissuasion, he did write his memoirs but no publisher was willing to accept his manuscript. Xenophon Kalamatiano was a keen hunter and after one expedition in the winter of 1922 he suffered a frozen foot. It turned poisonous and toes had to be amputated. "I am departing the world in particles" he wrote from hospital to his old mentor, Professor Samuel N. Harper. The poison continued to attack his body and eventually damaged his heart. He died on 9th November 1923 of a condition certified by the doctors as "sub-acute septic endocarditis". He was forty-one years old. The final part of the story was revealed in Alexander Orlov: The FBI's KGB General, a book published in 2001. FBI agent Edward P. Gazur, who interviewed Alexander Orlov, claims that Ernest Boyce the MI6 section head in Russia in 1918 was actually a double agent and in the pay of the Soviets. Nigel West has argued that "the reason why this hasn't come out until now is that Orlov, who was not debriefed by British intelligence, never told anybody but Edward Gazur." Orlov's The March of Time, Reminiscences, was not published until 2004. Gordon Brook-Shepherd, the author of Iron Maze: The Western Secret Services and the Bolsheviks (1998) has pointed out: "Entitled The March of Time, Reminiscences by Alexander Orlov, it is 655 pages long and deals in twenty-nine chapters with episodes in his career as a soldier and Soviet secret service man, from those first years of Bolshevik rule down to his own break with Stalin in 1939 and his adventurous flight from his final post in Spain to North America. Much of that Spanish story and his escape from Stalin's clutches had already appeared in print. This account of the earlier period had never been published or even circulated. It covered half the book, much of it on that first decade of Bolshevik power with which I was concerned. (The whole of Chapter Five, for example, gives the real story, over seventy-six pages, of the entrapment of Boris Savinkov, the 'great conspirator', and the most dangerous of all the Bolsheviks' Russian foes.) I have quoted extensively from both of these sections, not only because of the fascinating human detail they provide, but because I came to regard them, after frequent counter-checks, as totally reliable." John Scarlett, the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, announced in the run up to its centenary that MI6 would "commission an independent and authoritative volume on the history of the Service's first forty years". Keith Jeffery, the Professor of British History at Queen's University, Belfast, was chosen to carry out the task and MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service: 1909-1949 was published in 2010. The book includes some details of the activities of MI6 agents in Russia in 1918 but there is no mention of what is now known as the "Lockhart Plot". The book does have one reference to Ernest Boyce. It accuses Boyce of sending Sidney Reilly back into Russia in September 1925 to have secret meetings with the leaders of Monarchist Union of Central Russia. "Boyce had to take some of the blame for the tragedy. Back in London, as recalled by Harry Carr, his assistant in Helsinki" he was "carpeted by the Chief for the role he had played in this unfortunate affair." He does not add that the group had been set up by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Soviet Secret Police, in order to gain revenge for the plots against Lenin. Only a few months earlier, Boris Savinkov, the man who the British government wanted to become the new leader of the Russian government, after the assassination of the Bolshevik leaders, had been trapped in the same way. Savinkov died in police custody on 7th May, 1925, Reilly was executed on 5th November. The reasons why the intelligence services of Britain, France and United States covered up the Lockhart Plot was not so much because they were carrying out illegal acts such as the assassination of foreign leaders. The main concern was to hide the fact that they were so easily duped by Cheka and that one of their key officers was a double agent. Could this also true of the non-release of CIA and FBI files on the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Maybe they are just covering up their own incompetence. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Dewitt_Clinton_Poole.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Xenophon_Kalamatiano.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPorlov.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlockhart.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSreilly.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Ernest_Boyce.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/George_Alexander_Hill.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Francis_Cromie.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Eduard_Berzin.htm

Huber Matos, a long-time associate of Manuel Artime and one of the first anti-Castro plotters has died. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/03/huber-matos

A very useful website. I see you are making good use of Google+ as it came high-up in my Google search for "assassination of JFK".

Pete Seeger received some very complimentary obituaries in the American press this week. They only briefly mentioned his blacklisting and definitely did not say anything about their role in the destruction of his career in the early 1950s. Seeger's parents encouraged him to question authority at an early age. His father, Charles Louis Seeger, was a musicologist who taught at Berkeley University, lost his job when he opposed United States involvement in the First World War. Seeger told his dean that Germany and England were both imperialist powers, and as far as he was concerned, they could fight each other to a stalemate. Seeger's first concert performance was on 3rd March 1940. It was a benefit for California migrant workers. Other singers on the show included Josh White, Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Molly Jackson and Huddie Leadbelly. Six moths later joined together with Guthrie, Lee Hayes, Pete Hawes and Millard Lampell to form the Almanac Singers. They specialized in songs advocating an anti-war, anti-racism and pro-union philosophy. Not the sort of material that was liked by the mainstream press. On 7th December, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States entered the war. The Almanacs now concentrated on writing anti-Nazi songs. The most successful of these was The Sinking of Reuben James, the story of the ninety-five people drowned in the first American ship torpedoed in the Second World War. They were now hired by the United States Office of War Information to perform for troops as the government understood the value of songs in building morale. As David King Dunaway pointed out: "When the Almanacs had sung peace songs, critics had called it propaganda; now they sang war songs, the government styled it patriotic art." On 14th February, 1942, the Almanacs played for nearly thirty million radio listeners at the opening of a new series, This Is War. After the war Seeger went back to singing anti-establishment songs. He established People's Songs Incorporated (PSI). The organization published a weekly newsletter, People's Song Bulletin, with songs, articles, and announcements of future performances. After two months the PSI had over a thousand paid members in twenty states. However, he really upset the media when he supported Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party candidate in the presidential election of 1948. Wallace was dismissed as a dangerous radical for advocating civil rights and an end to Jim Crow laws in the South. The American public were not ready for Wallace and he got only 2.38 per cent of the total vote. After the election Seeger joined Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman to form The Weavers. They signing a recording deal with Decca and on 4th May, 1950, the group recorded Goodnight Irene, a song written by Seeger's old friend, Huddie Leadbelly. For censorship reasons the chorus was changed from "I'll get you in my dreams" to "I'll see you in my dreams". The record was a massive hit. Seeger later commented: "I remember laughing when I walked down the street and heard my own voice coming out of a record store." They were offered a weekly national TV spot on NBC and were paid $2,250 a week to appear at the Beacon Theater on Broadway. The Weavers went on to have a number of hit songs including Wimoweh, The Roving Kind, On Top of Old Smoky, The Midnight Special, Pay Me My Money Down and Darling Corey. In their shows they sung left-wing songs such If I Had a Hammer, that their record company felt that the general public would not accept. On 6th June, 1950, Harvey Matusow sent a message to the FBI that they should keep a close watch on Seeger, as he was a member of the American Communist Party. This was untrue as Seeger had left the party soon after the war. In fact, the agency had been monitoring Seeger since 1940. J. Edgar Hoover now leaked this FBI file to Frederick Woltman, of the New York World Telegram. He published an article revealing that the Weavers were the first musicians in American history to be investigated for sedition. Roy Brewer, a member of the Motion Picture Industry Council, commissioned a booklet entitled Red Channels. Published on 22nd June, 1950, and written by Ted C. Kirkpatrick, a former FBI agent and Vincent Hartnett, a right-wing television producer, it listed the names of 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive organisations before the Second World War but had not so far been blacklisted. People listed included Pete Seeger, Larry Adler, Stella Adler, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Joseph Bromberg, Lee J. Cobb, Aaron Copland, John Garfield, Howard Da Silva, Dashiell Hammett, E. Y. Harburg, Lillian Hellman, Burl Ives, Zero Mostel, Arthur Miller, Betsy Blair, Dorothy Parker, Philip Loeb, Joseph Losey, Anne Revere, Gale Sondergaard, Howard K. Smith, Louis Untermeyer and Josh White. Three days after the booklet was published the Korean War erupted. The list of entertainers were now seen as America's mortal enemies. NBC immediately cancelled its contract with the Weavers. Although the Weavers had sold over four million records, radio stations now stopped playing their music. They were also banned from appearing on national television. However, despite this attempt to take them out of circulation, in 1951 they still had hits with Kisses Sweeter than Wine and So Long It's Been Good to Know You. On 6th February, 1952, Harvey Matusow testified in front of the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that Seeger was a member of the American Communist Party. Matusow admitted in his autobiography, False Witness (1955) that this was untrue but Seeger said this ended the career of The Weavers: "Matusow's appearance burst like a bombshell... We had started off singing in some very flossy night-clubs... Then we went lower and lower as the blacklist crowded us in. Finally, we were down to places like Daffy's Bar and Grill on the outskirts of Cleveland." Those newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post that had such nice things to say about Seeger on his death did not come to his defence. In fact they did the opposite and in editorials praised Senator Joseph McCarthy, the leader of what became known as McCarthyism, for his patriotism. McCarthy only lost the support of the mainstream media when he began accusing America's newspapers of employing communists. In July 1954 one of McCarthy's henchmen made headlines with the claim that: "The Sunday section of the New York Times alone has 126 dues-paying Communists. On the editorial and research staffs of Time and Life magazines are 76 hard-core Reds. The New York Bureau of the Associated Press has 25." Pete Seeger was not called before the HUAC until 1955. Despite the downfall of McCarthy the persecution of left-wing figures such as Seeger continued with little complaint from the mainstream press. Frank Donner, a lawyer who defended several people who were called before the HUCA, wrote in The Un-Americans (1961): "He knows that the Committee demands his physical presence in the hearing room for no reason other than to make him a target of its hostility, to have him photographed, exhibited and branded... He knows that the vandalism, ostracism, insults, crank calls and hate letters that he and his family have already suffered are but the opening stages of a continuing ordeal... he is tormented by the awareness that he is being punished without valid cause, and deprived, by manipulated prejudice, of his fundamental rights as an American." Seeger's lawyer, Paul Ross, advised him to use the Fifth Amendment defence (the right against self-incrimination). In the year of Seeger's subpoena, the HUAC called 529 witnesses and 464 (88 per cent) remained silent. Seeger later recalled: "The expected move would have been to take the Fifth. That was the easiest thing, and the case would have been dismissed. On the other hand, everywhere I went, I would have to face 'Oh, you're one of those Fifth Amendment Communists...' I didn't want to run down my friends who did use the Fifth Amendment but I didn't choose to use it." Seeger had been struck by something that I.F. Stone had written in 1953: "Great faiths can only be preserved by men willing to live by them (HUAC's violation of the First Amendment) cannot be tested until someone dares invite prosecution for contempt." Seeger decided that he would accept Stone's challenge, and use the First Amendment defence (freedom of speech) even though he knew it would probably result in him being sent to prison. Seeger told Paul Ross : "I want to get up there and attack these guys for what they are, the worst of America". Ross warned him that each time the HUCA found him in contempt, he was liable to a year in jail. The first day of the new HUAC hearings took place on 15th August 1955. Most of the witnesses were excused after taking the Fifth Amendment. Seeger's friend, Lee Hays, also evoked the Fifth Amendment on the second day of the hearings and he was allowed to go unheeded. Seeger was expected to follow his example but instead he answered their questions. When asked for details of his occupation, Seeger replied: "I make my living as a banjo picker - sort of damning in some people's opinion." However, when Gordon Scherer, a sponsor of the John Birch Society, asked him if he had performed at concerts organized by the American Communist Party he refused to answer. Francis Walter, the chairman of the House of Un-American Activities Committee, told Seeger: "I direct you to answer". Seeger replied: "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this." Seeger later recalled: "I realized that I was fitting into a necessary role... This particular time, there was a job that had to be done, I was there to do it. A soldier goes into training. You find yourself in battle and you know the role you're supposed to fulfill." The HUAC continued to ask questions of this nature. Pete Seeger pointed out: "I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, that I am any less of an American than anyone else. I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches. I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American." As a result of Seeger's testimony, on 26th July, 1956, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Seeger, Arthur Miller, and six others for contempt. However, Seeger did not come to trial until March, 1961. Seeger defended himself with the words: "Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties. I believe that my choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may come after me." He was found guilty and sentenced to 12 months in prison. After worldwide protests, the Court of Appeals ruled that Seeger's indictment was faulty and dismissed the case. Seeger told Ruth Schultz in 1989: "Historically, I believe I was correct in refusing to answer their questions. Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent. One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties. Many Americans knew their lives and their souls were being struggled for, and they fought for it. And I felt I should carry on. Through the sixties I still had to occasionally free picket lines and bomb threats. But I simply went ahead, doing my thing, throughout the whole period. I fought for peace in the fifties. And in the sixties, during the Vietnam war, when anarchists and pacifists and socialists, Democrats and Republicans, decent-hearted Americans, all recoiled with horror at the bloodbath, we came together." His friend, Don McLean, explained how this case severely damaged his career: "Pete went underground. He started doing fifty dollar bookings, then twenty-five dollar dates in schoolhouses, auditoriums, and eventually college campuses. He definitely pioneered what we know today as the college circuit. He persevered and went out like Kilroy, sowing seeds at a grass-roots level for many, many years. The blacklist was the best thing that happened to him; it forced him into a situation of struggle, which he thrived on." Seeger's concerts were often picketed by the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups. He later recalled: “All those protests did was sell tickets and get me free publicity. The more they protested, the bigger the audiences became.” Although freed from prison, the blacklisting of Seeger continued. Seeger's songs written and performed during this period often reflected his left-wing views and included We Shall Overcome, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, If I Had a Hammer, Guantanamera, The Bells of Rhymney and Turn, Turn, Turn. Seeger's biographer, David King Dunaway, has argued: "Pete's best political songs evoked not the bitterness of repression but the glory of its solution, the potential beauty of a world remade. His music couldn't overthrow a government, he had come to realize, but the children he sang for might begin the process." Seeger remained active in the protest movement. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee adopted his song, We Shall Overcome, during the 1960 student sit-ins a restaurants which had a policy of not serving black people. The students were often physically assaulted, but following the teachings of Martin Luther King they did not hit back. This non-violent strategy was adopted by black students all over the Deep South. Within six months these sit-ins had ended restaurant and lunch-counter segregation in twenty-six southern cities. Student sit-ins were also successful against segregation in public parks, swimming pools, theaters, churches, libraries, museums and beaches. The SNCC also sung the song during the 1961 Freedom Rides. As well as the Civil Rights Movement Seeger was also involved in protests against the Vietnam War. As a result television stations refused to end the blacklisting of Seeger. Artists that had been inspired by the work of Seeger such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, and Harry Belafonte, protested against this decision. It was not until 1967 that the Smothers Brothers managed to negotiate a guest appearance for Seeger on their TV program, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The Smothers Brothers themselves got the sack from CBS in 1969 because of their activism against the war. It seems in America that freedom of speech is only available to those who support the status quo.

David King Dunaway on Pete Seeger: "Pete's best political songs evoked not the bitterness of repression but the glory of its solution, the potential beauty of a world remade. His music couldn't overthrow a government, he had come to realize, but the children he sang for might begin the process." http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAseeger.htm

Pete Seeger once said: "I made up songs to try and persuade people to do something, not just say something."

On 31st December, 1945, Pete Seeger decided to establish People's Songs Incorporated (PSI). Some of his friends, including Alan Lomax, Lee Hayes, Woody Guthrie, Millard Lampell, Burl Ives, Josh White, Sis Cunningham, Bess Lomax Hawes, Cisco Houston, Moe Asch, Tom Glazer, Sonny Terry, Zilphia Horton and Irwin Silber agreed to support the venture. Seeger was asked in January 1946 what was the purpose of the company: "Make a singing labor movement. I hope to have hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of union choruses. Just as every church has a choir, why not every union?" The organization published out a weekly newsletter, People's Song Bulletin, with songs, articles, and announcements of future performances. After two months the PSI had over a thousand paid members in twenty states. In the New Masses Seeger pointed out: "When a bunch of people are seen walking down the street singing, it should go almost without saying that they are a bunch of union people on their way home from a meeting... Music, too, is a weapon." Within a few months the organization had two thousand members. Membership continued to increase and Seeger took an office in Times Square. This success was noted by J. Edgar Hoover and he instructed FBI officers to open a file on the PSI. Maurice Duplessis, the Governor of Quebec, ordered that PSI publications to be seized, and declared the song Joe Hill was subversive. When he heard the news Seeger issued a statement that included: "Do you think, Mr. Duplessis, you can escape the judgment of history? Long after the warmakers are relegated to the history books... people's music will be sung by the free peoples of earth." As you can see, Joe Hill, was a subversive song. It is about a socialist who was framed for a murder he did not commit (a bit like Lee Harvey Oswald). It is sung by another socialist, Paul Robeson, who had his career ruined by McCarthyism. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhillJ.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes

Pete Seeger and John F. Kennedy were both at Harvard University together. It has been said that whereas Kennedy was Harvard's most famous graduates, Seeger was probably its best-known dropouts. He left university in 1938 and attempted to make a living as a journalist. "College was fine for those who want it, but I was just not interested; I wanted to be a journalist." Pete Seeger died today. As he said, "We Will Overcome". http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAseeger.htm By the way, Pete Seeger, was the first musician in American history to be investigated for sedition. (By J. Edgar Hoover in 1940).

This evidence is going to be difficult for Andy Coulson to answer.

The idea of Forums are in decline. They are expensive to run and they seem to attract disturbed individuals. Unless others step forward to pay for this Forum, it will close when it comes up for renewal.

Do you know if there are any plans to reopen the JFK Lancer Forum. When I was searching for the forum via Google I came across this. https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?10139-The-Perfidy-of-Debra-Conway-BOYCOTT-JFK-LANCER#.UuOWl_tFAsY Over the last few years my experience of studying the JFK assassination I have come to the conclusion that the so-called JFK research community contains some of the most unpleasant individuals that I have had the misfortune to have come into contact with. It also contains some extremely kind and considerate people, but unfortunately, they are in a small minority.

Very good point. I have unpined several of these topics.

Do you know what the most visited web page on my site during November, 2013? It was not my pages on John F. Kennedy or Lee Harvey Oswald but the one on George Hickey. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhickey.htm The reason for this is that the media either gave publicity to the "lone-gunman" theory or ridiculous ideas that George Hickey was the killer. The media and Google create the framework of the debate. Until this is changed we have little chance of explaining the truth to a mass audience.

To gain maxim exposure for your views you need to be near the top for key searches such as the "assassination of JFK". You have to be aware of the words that people type into Google about the assassination.

Google gives different results depending on the country from where you are doing the search.

I have now Google+ my John F. Kennedy page. Type in "John F. Kennedy" into Google.

It has been pointed out that there has been a decline in Forum activity recently. One obvious reason for this is that we have passed the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination and there will now be fewer books, videos, conferences to promote. However, what we are seeing is a trend that will increase. The main reason for this concerns Google. At one time Forum’s were good places to post links that would improve the search-ranking of your website, etc. This is no longer the case. In fact, posting on Forums can have a negative impact on your search-ranking. The same is also true of Blogs. Officially, the reason for this is that Google has identified Forums and Blogs as being ways that websites have manipulated search-ranking. This is clearly true. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies used to email me on a daily basis offering links from thousands of Blogs and Forums. In the past this did change search-rankings but has not been true for nearly two years. Google did not know how to differentiate between genuine Forums and Blogs and those established by SEO companies so they decided not to count the links from these sources. If they The unofficial reason for this is that Google is involved in a commercial fight with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. At one time links from these sites were beneficial. That is no longer the case. What does help you if you use Google+ or Google Communities. For example, I used Google+ yesterday to promote a couple of pages on my website. Type in “Michael Gove” and “Adolf Hitler” at Google and see what you get. By using Google+ you can actually compete with major international media corporations. Google have established Google Communities to compete with Forums. In time these will replace Forums like this one. To see an example of a Google JFK assassination community see the following that has been established by the Dallas Morning News. https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117695051214010077934?cfem=1 If you are interested in communicating with a mass audience you have to play by Google rules.

The 50th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination has come and gone, but the major questions remain. On January 31 at UNLV’s Greenspun Auditorium, a panel including some of the world’s best known and most credible assassination researchers will participate in a live, world-wide webcast about JFK, in particular, the investigation launched by former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison. Longtime TV host and producer John Barbour will screen his groundbreaking film about Garrison, and the panelists will take questions from the audience. The onstage guests will include author Jim Marrs, whose book about the JFK plot was one of the inspirations for the Oliver Stone film, longtime assassination researcher and author Dick Russell, and historian-author Joan Mellen. Barbour says the panelists will tell what they know about Garrison’s investigation which constitutes “the greatest true story never told”. The 7 p.m. event free and open to the public. Among those helping to get the word out about the UNLV event is comedian and JFK researcher Richard Belzer.

Dan was actually interviewed on this Forum in 2006. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6747

The reason Hitler committed suicide was that he feared the Red Army would carry out their threat of parading him around the streets of Berlin naked in a cage.

This is complete nonsense. Stalin also feared that Hitler had escaped. He gave orders for the NKVD to capture all the people who were with Hitler when he died. Otto Günsche, Erich Kempka, Heinz Linge, Rochus Misch, Traudl Junge and Johanna Wolf were arrested. The four men were sent back to Moscow and tortured. Here for example is the story of one of these men, Heinz Linge." According to Roger Moorhouse: "He (Linge) was captured by the Soviets, who on learning of his former position - swiftly shipped him to Moscow, to the notorious Lubyanka prison and to the tender mercies of Stalin's NKVD secret police. There, he was subjected to repeated interrogation and frequent torture, with his inquisitors demanding - over and over again - to know every detail of Hitler's life, and painstakingly piecing together the precise circumstances of his death." Linge later explained: "One day two Russian officers appeared and escorted me by train to Moscow where I was thrown into the notorious Lubyanka Prison. There in a filthy bug-infested cell I waited, expecting the worst. It came in the form of a large GPU Lieutenant-Colonel who spoke good, cultivated German. He interrogated me with a monotonous patience which brought me to a state of sheer despair. Over and over he asked the same questions, trying to extract from me an admission that Hitler had survived. My unemotional assertion that I had carried Hitler's corpse from his room, had poured petrol over it and set it alight in front of the bunker was considered a cover story.... Since I would not confirm what the commissar wanted to hear I had to strip naked and bend over a trestle after being warned that I would be thrashed if - I did not finally 'cough up'. Naked and humiliated I persisted with my account." Linge constantly told his interrogators: "Adolf Hitler shot himself on 30 April 1945. I burned his body!" Unhappy with this answer the GPU Lieutenant-Colonel ordered a powerfully built guard who held a whip with several thongs: "Give it to him." When he cried out in pain he observed cynically: "You ought to know about this treatment better than us. We learned it from your SS and Gestapo." Linge later recalled: "I kept to the facts. He changed the procedure only inasmuch as he had me brought to a sound-proofed room - dressed again - where seven or eight commissars were waiting. The ceremony began once more." The same went on to the other men. They all told the same story. Eventually the GPU reported to Stalin that they believed the testimony of the four men and the two women. The NKVD sent the report of their investigations to Joseph Stalin on 30th December 1949. It was later published in book form, The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared For Stalin From The Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Otto_Gunsche.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Erich_Kempka.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Heinz_Linge.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Traudl_Junge.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Johanna_Wolf.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Rochus_Misch.htm

I was sorry to hear that for health reasons Debra Conway is "seriously cutting back on my JFK work". I hope that JFK Lancer will continue to publish books on the subject. Especially the great work that Larry Hancock has being doing over the last few years.

In 1956 Drew Pearson began investigating the relationship between Lyndon B. Johnson and two businessmen, George R. Brown and Herman Brown. Pearson believed that Johnson had arranged for the Texas-based Brown and Root Construction Company to avoid large tax bills. Pearson's assistant, Jack Anderson, argued against this investigation and encouraged him to meet LBJ. As a result of the meeting LBJ offered Pearson a deal. If Pearson dropped his Brown-Root crusade, Johnson would support the presidential ambitions of Estes Kefauver. Pearson accepted and wrote in his diary (16th April, 1956): "This is the first time I've ever made a deal like this, and I feel a little unhappy about it. With the Presidency of the United States at stake, maybe it's justified, maybe not - I don't know." Pearson was a supporter of LBJ in the race for the Democratic Party nomination in 1960. This is strange as up until this point Pearson had always supported the most liberal of the Democratic candidates. Pearson and Anderson showed no interest in investigating the assassination of JFK in 1963 (Anderson only later became involved in the Mafia did it disinformation campaign). What is more, Pearson helped to smear Don Reynolds in 1964 when it was revealed that he was accusing LBJ of corruption. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USApearsonD.htm

You can read about the story here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6250 From my page on Drew Pearson. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USApearsonD.htm In 1963 Senator John Williams of Delaware began investigating the activities of Bobby Baker. As a result of his work, Baker resigned as the secretary to Lyndon B. Johnson on 9th October, 1963. During his investigations Williams met Don B. Reynolds and persuaded him to appear before a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee. Reynolds told B. Everett Jordan and his committee on 22nd November, 1963, that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for him agreeing to this life insurance policy. This included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds was also told by Walter Jenkins that he had to pay for $1,200 worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin. Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson. Don B. Reynolds also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Bobby Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract". Reynolds also provided evidence againstMatthew H. McCloskey. He suggested that he given $25,000 to Baker in order to get the contract to build the District of Columbia Stadium. His testimony came to an end when news arrived that President John F. Kennedyhad been assassinated. As soon as Johnson became president he contacted B. Everett Jordan to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynold's testimony to be released to the public. On 6th December, 1963, Jordan spoke to Johnson on the telephone and said he was doing what he could to suppress the story because " it might spread (to) a place where we don't want it spread." Abe Fortas, a lawyer who represented both Lyndon B. Johnson and Bobby Baker, worked behind the scenes in an effort to keep this information from the public. Johnson also arranged for a smear campaign to be organized against Reynolds. To help him do this J. Edgar Hoover passed to Johnson the FBI file on Reynolds. On 17th January, 1964, the Committee on Rules and Administration voted to release to the public Reynolds' secret testimony. Johnson responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. On 5th February, 1964, the Washington Post reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West Point. The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members of the American Communist Party. It was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks while in Berlin in 1953. A few weeks later the New York Times reported that Lyndon B. Johnson had used information from secret government documents to smear Don B. Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee. In 1963 Senator John Williams of Delaware began investigating the activities of Bobby Baker. As a result of his work, Baker resigned as the secretary to Lyndon B. Johnson on 9th October, 1963. During his investigations Williams met Don B. Reynolds and persuaded him to appear before a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee. Reynolds told B. Everett Jordan and his committee on 22nd November, 1963, that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for him agreeing to this life insurance policy. This included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds was also told by Walter Jenkins that he had to pay for $1,200 worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin. Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson. Don B. Reynolds also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Bobby Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract". Reynolds also provided evidence againstMatthew H. McCloskey. He suggested that he given $25,000 to Baker in order to get the contract to build the District of Columbia Stadium. His testimony came to an end when news arrived that President John F. Kennedyhad been assassinated. As soon as Johnson became president he contacted B. Everett Jordan to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynold's testimony to be released to the public. On 6th December, 1963, Jordan spoke to Johnson on the telephone and said he was doing what he could to suppress the story because " it might spread (to) a place where we don't want it spread." Abe Fortas, a lawyer who represented both Lyndon B. Johnson and Bobby Baker, worked behind the scenes in an effort to keep this information from the public. Johnson also arranged for a smear campaign to be organized against Reynolds. To help him do this J. Edgar Hoover passed to Johnson the FBI file on Reynolds. On 17th January, 1964, the Committee on Rules and Administration voted to release to the public Reynolds' secret testimony. Johnson responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. On 5th February, 1964, the Washington Post reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West Point. The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members of the American Communist Party. It was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks while in Berlin in 1953. A few weeks later the New York Times reported that Lyndon B. Johnson had used information from secret government documents to smear Don B. Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee.

I find it interesting that in the UK we can talk about the murder of Stephen Ward without attracting the spokesman of the intelligence services. This is very different when you write about the involvement of the CIA and FBI in the death of JFK.