W. Niederhut

Jim, Do you know whether Clay Shaw had known or worked with William Harvey circa 1963? Wasn't Harvey transferred to Rome around the time that JFK fired Allen Dulles?

Thanks for posting this review. As a newbie on this scholarly forum, I will ask what is, most likely, a "sophomoric" question. Does Metta describe any details about the alleged* connections between CMC, Permindex, and the Banco Commerciale Internationale (BCI) of Basle, Switzerland? * Michael Collins Piper alleged in his book, Final Judgment, that the Israeli Mossad financier Tibor Rosenbaum and BCI were somehow involved with Permindex-- but the documentation for this allegation is unclear to me. From your review, it sounds like Metta has not unearthed anything about the alleged Mossad involvement in Permindex. (As I recall, Collins also alleged that Meyer Lansky was also involved, through BCI, with Permindex.)

I have read those chapters by Lisa Pease in The Assassinations anthology. I have not yet read her recently published book. Does her book include substantial new information? If Sirhan was, in fact, a Manchurian candidate -- which seems to be the case -- it would have made perfect sense for him to fire blanks, in order to avoid killing or injuring Cesar and any other assassins in the pantry. In the process, he created a major distraction in the room while setting himself up as the obvious culprit for the murder -- provided that the detectives and forensic experts overlooked the obvious evidence that RFK was NOT killed by a frontal shot, and that too many shots had been fired.

Yes, I read that book review at Kennedys and King. The timing of C.D. Jackson's death in relation to the publication of the Warren Commission Report was somewhat peculiar. I wonder if he had expressed any concerns about Life magazine's collusion in the obvious cover up of the Crime of the Century.

Jim, Is anything known about the circumstances of Life magazine editor C.D. Jackson's death on September 18, 1964-- exactly two weeks prior to the date of these three October 2, 1964 editions of Life magazine? Reportedly, Jackson died of "natural causes."

Jim, No such conscious allusion on my part. (And, in any case, it looks like the forum administrators have judiciously deleted Mr. Mileto's unflattering description of Mr. Litwin.) Thanks for the reference on Permindex. I'm still mystified by the history of that organization. I thought I had read somewhere that Permindex had something to do with Israel-- but the only possible connection mentioned by Maurice Phillips (and the Bloomfield archives) is the reference to Rothschild. David Pipes, as I recall, has been actively involved in the Neocon's "Green Menace"/Islamophobia movement-- so essential to the Bush-Cheney "War on Terror." Why Pipes' associate, Fred Litwin, would find it necessary to defame Garrison and the Warren Commission Report critics remains a mystery to me.

What motivated Fred Litwin to write and market this obvious disinformation about Jim Garrison and the JFK assassination? This question came up on the original thread on this forum when he published his book. Does it have something to do with Clay Shaw and the CIA's alleged involvement with Permindex and the Mossad? As I recall, Litwin had previously described himself as a "Zionist."

The more I learn about Harry Connick, Sr.'s role in undermining the truly heroic work of Jim Garrison, the less interest I have in listening to my old Harry Connick, Jr. jazz CDs. How could a jerk like Harry Connick, Sr. have sired such a gifted young jazz artist? It's like finding out that Wynton Marsalis's father used to be a CIA/mafia gun-running colleague of Davide Ferrie.

Thanks for clarifying that one, Jim. I think I did read about Tracy Barnes leadership role in the Domestic Op Division in a Church Committee transcript. But I have been confused by a Seymout Hersch NYT article from 1974 that describes Hunt becoming Chief of DOD in 1961. Hunt Tells of Early Work For a C.I.A. Domestic Unit By SEYMOUR M. HERSHDEC. 31, 1974 About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems. Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com. View page in TimesMachine December 31, 1974, Page 1 The New York Times Archives WASHINGTON, Dec. 30—E. Howard Hunt Jr., a Watergate burglar who pleaded guilty, told the Senate Watergate committee last year in still unpublished testimony that he served as the first chief of covert action for the Central Intelligence Agency's Domestic Operations Division. Mr. Hunt, testifying before the Senate investigators in closed session on Dec. 18, 1973, revealed that his domestic activities included the secret financing of a Washington news agency as well as the underwriting of the popular Fodor's travel guides. A copy of Mr. Hunt's testimony before the Watergate committee, marked “confidential,” was made available today to The New York Times. [In a report to President Ford, William E. Colby, Director of Central Intelligence, has confirmed allegations that the C.I.A. spied on thousands of United States citizens under previous Administrations, according to The Los Angeles Times.] In a telephone interview today, Mr. Hunt said that he spent about four years working for the Domestic Operation Division, beginning shortly after the unit was set up by the C.I.A. in 1962. Mr. Hunt, who is now free and living in Miami pending the appeal of his Watergate conviction, denied any involvement or knowledge of domestic spying on radicals and other dissidents by the Domestic Operations Division. But he said that some of his projects from 1962 to 1966—which dealt largely with the subsidizing and manipulation of the news and publishing organizations—did seem “to violate the intent of the agency's charter.” The New York Times, quoting a former undercover agent for the Domestic Operations Division, said in Sunday editions that the agent was directly involved in the monitoring of antiwar dissidents and radical groups in New York City beginning with the student uprisings at Columbia University in 1968. Mr. Hunt's testimony suggests that questionable domestic activities by the C.I.A. had apparently begun under the Kennedy Administration, continued during the Johnson Administration and, as well‐informed sources have told The Times, reached a peek during the antiwar outbursts in opposition to President Nixon's Vietnam policy. The Times also Sunday that the new domestic unit was formed in 1964, but Mr. Hunt recalled that it was assembled shortly after the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation in late 1961. Many agency men connected with that failure were shunted into the new domestic unit, Mr. Hunt said.

As a fellow Brown University alum, I have always been curious about the strange, multi-faceted career of E. Howard Hunt. After JFK canned Allen Dulles in 1961, Hunt was, apparently, appointed Director of the CIA's special Domestic Ops Division-- a position that he held until 1965. Many of the Operation Mongoose team were, allegedly, shunted to Hunt's DOD, after JFK and his brother shut down Mongoose. Under the circumstances, it's hard to imagine that Hunt would NOT have been involved with Harvey, Morales, Sturgis, et.al., on 11/22/63. As for Hunt's role in Watergate, any thoughts about WHY Helms and the CIA might have wanted Nixon over a barrel?

Question for the experts here. For some reason, I had the impression that Hunt and McCord had deliberately botched the Watergate burglary in order to help Helms and the Company put Nixon over a barrel. Is this not what happened? As I recall, someone had scared Nixon BEFORE the 1972 election, (and the Watergate burglary) by hinting that Larry O'Brien and the DNC had possession of some damning information about Nixon (?) and the "Bay of Pigs thing." I may have read that story in a dubious source-- Roger Stone's book, Nixon's Secrets. And, BTW, hasn't Bob Woodward-- who played such a crucial role in bringing Nixon down-- always been a CIA-affiliated journalist? The guy graduated from Yale, and worked in Naval Intelligence prior to being hired by Ben Bradlee at WaPo.

The Swiss historian Daniele Ganser published a history of Operation Gladio in 2005, called "NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe."

Didn't Hunt conveniently leave himself (and Angleton, Lansdale, et.al.) out of the JFK assassination plot, in his death bed confession to his son? As I recall, he pointed a finger at LBJ and Harvey.

Jim, In the cases of Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Jim Lehrer, do you have a sense that these news anchors actually believe the Warren Commission narrative, as opposed to being told by their corporate bosses (e.g., Don Hewitt, et.al.) that they have to promote the WCR? For many years, I tended to trust Dan Rather, as a conscientious "liberal." In fact, I stopped watching corporate television news altogether, in disgust, after Dan Rather was fired over the forged Dubya Bush National Guard letter. I have also trusted Jim Lehrer, for the most part.

So, we can add Tom Brokaw (and NBC) to the list of U.S. mainstream media anchors, along with Dan Rather at CBS and Jim Lehrer at PBS, who have perpetuated the prevailing mythology about JFK and Vietnam. Terrific.

This is the unmentionable "Pandora's Box" of the history of Zionism in the 20th century. The French historian, Laurent Guyenot, has written at length about the subject in his recent monograph, From Yahweh to Zion-- a truly fascinating read. (Guyenot is also the author of the book, From JFK to 9/11-- 50 Years of Deep State.) I noticed that Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times recently published an op-ed on the subject of Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Zionism. Can one criticize militant Zionism (Haganah, Mossad, Likud, etc.) without being "anti-Semitic?" My own feeling about it is that it is more appropriate for Jewish intellectuals (rather than non-Jews) to criticize Zionism, given the disastrous history of Anti-Semitism in the 20th century. Ron Unz and Israel Shamir (and Alan Sabrosky) are examples of Jewish intellectuals who have published detailed critiques of modern Zionism.

Steve, Allen Dulles and James Angleton didn't want Americans to know what was really happening in the Arctic Circle during the Cold War. It was an issue of national security (and corporate retail profitability.)

I just read through this thread on the subject of CIA Operation Gladio, and wanted to mention the case of Sibel Edmonds. As most of you probably know, Edmonds worked at the FBI in 2001 as a translator of Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani documents related to the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. She reported to her supervisors on suspicious activities by some of her FBI colleagues, and was fired by the FBI. She was then placed under a gag order that was upheld through Federal Court rulings. She wrote a very interesting book, Classified Woman, about her tenure at the FBI after 9/11, and then wrote a fictional narrative about Operation Gladio B -- a joint CIA/NATO covert op to implement a strategy of tension in Western Europe and the U.S. to mobilize military interventions to control Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

I don't know if this forum has specifically discussed the history of propaganda in the twentieth century, beginning with Edward Bernays book, Propaganda-- which was, allegedly, Joseph Goebbels favorite book. Certainly, the Soviets were experts on the subject, as were the American WWII OSS/CIA veterans who seem to have been intimately involved in managing the decades-long disinformazia about JFK's assassination here in the United States. I had never read much about the subject-- including Bernays foundational writings -- until after I began to study the JFK assassination research literature a few years ago. I noticed that Laurent Guyenot also studied the work of Bernays in the process of writing his book, 50 Years of Deep State-- From JFK to 9/11. Understanding the modern "technology" of propaganda and disinformation-- including CIA Operation Mockingbird and its permutations -- seems like a kind of Rosetta Stone for the interpretation of modern U.S. history, as in Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick's, Untold History of the United States.

Speaking of helicopters, as most people here probably know, Bell Helicopter made a fortune on U.S. military contracts after 11/22/63-- under the management of Michael Paine's stepfather, as I recall. Col. L. Fletcher Prouty went into great detail about the ill-fated, costly use of Bell helicopters in Vietnam in his book, JFK, the CIA, and Vietnam.

I'm not familiar with Sheehan's work. As I recall, Prouty described it, (from direct observation in the 50s and early 60s) as a process whereby government personnel from a wide array of departments-- including State, Treasury, and Defense-- were secretly reporting to (and working for) Allen Dulles and the Company. From his perspective as an Air Force Colonel it sounded sort of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I wonder how much McNamara knew, or suspected, about the plot to murder JFK. I also wonder if he was being blackmailed or threatened to keep his mouth shut about NSAM 263 and its reversal after 11/22/63.

Jim, Any thoughts about why Robert McNamara didn't set the historical record straight years ago? Was McNamara being threatened or blackmailed by LBJ & Co.?

Lansdale became a Brigadier General in April of 1960. The increasingly blurred boundary lines between the military and CIA that you describe remind me of Prouty's writings about the "Secret Team."

Cliff, I'm a newbie here, but I'm inclined to agree with you on this one. I have nothing against freedom of expression and intellectually honest debates -- far from it-- but the "honesty" part is absent in the posts I have read by the cadre of Lone Nutter "trolls" around here. What useful purpose does it serve to engage in a debate with people who are not intellectually honest? I have also wondered whether some of the active Lone Nutters here are participants in what Cass Sunstein has promoted as government-sponsored "cognitive infiltration" of social media sites to influence public perceptions.