W. Niederhut

We're witnessing an historic atrocity, folks. It's hard to believe that the U.S. isn't intervening more aggressively to stop these war crimes in Gaza. Yesterday, Israel bombed the ancient Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrios in Gaza City, killing (?) 16 civilians, including some relatives of former U.S. Congressman Justin Amash, a Palestinian-American Orthodox Christian. 'Totally Insufficient': Groups Say Trickle of Gaza Aid No Match for Ongoing 'Mass Atrocities' (commondreams.org)

Sandy, If I recall correctly, from his books, Prouty was directly involved in providing transportation and supplies for the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion. He also described personally witnessing the phone call from (?) McGeorge Bundy (or one of JFK's staffers) nixing additional, last minute U.S. air support for the invasion. Some planes were on stand-by, but they didn't get the go-ahead order to fly. Joseph McBride's discovery of the J. Edgar Hoover memo about "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" was publicized in July of 1988, so it would have been public knowledge in informed circles in 1989. (My hunch is that Prouty must have known, previously, that GHWB and Zapata Oil were CIA assets, but I may be mistaken. I don't recall Prouty mentioning GHWB as a CIA asset in The Secret Team or in JFK--The CIA, Vietnam, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.)

So, is it just a coincidence that the guys serving up these Prouty pseudo-scandal nothing burgers are also aggressively denying that GHWB's CIA front company, Zapata Oil, was using it's platform off of the coast of Cuba to assist the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion? Hmmmm...

True, Paul. And, as I pointed out above, Prouty's belief that Operation Zapata was named by Allen Dulles and the CIA for the GHWB/CIA Zapata Offshore Oil Company may have been a result of Prouty not being privy to the secret deliberations of the CIA. Prouty's job was to furnish transportation and equipment to the Dulles/Bush CIA people for their secret ops. It's a nothing burger. Another Prouty non-scandal. As for Zapata Offshore, do Doug Campbell, Greg Kooyman, et.al., sincerely believe that GHWB and his CIA front company, Zapata Oil, were not involved in the CIA's Bay of Pigs op? What bunk.

Doug Campbell's claim (above) that there was no connection between GHWB's Zapata Oil Company and the CIA's Bay of Pigs/Operation Zapata is inconsistent with evidence described by Russ Baker and other researchers. Russ Baker wrote in detail about the history of GHWB's Zapata Oil Company in Family of Secrets. Here are some of Baker's excerpts about Zapata, re-printed at Who What Why in serialized articles. Bush and the JFK Hit, Part 2: Skull and Bones Forever - WhoWhatWhy Excerpts Zapata Offshore . . . [was] launched by Poppy in 1954, just as the U.S. government, under an administration dominated by the Dulles-Bush circles, began auctioning offshore mineral rights In 1958, Zapata Offshore’s drilling rig Scorpion was moved from the Gulf of Mexico to Cay Sal Bank, the most remote group of islands in the Bahamas and just fifty-four miles north of Isabela, Cuba. The [Cay Sal] island had been recently leased to oilman Howard Hughes, who had his own long-standing CIA ties, as well as his own “private CIA.” By most appearances, a number of CIA-connected entities were involved in the operation. Zapata leased the Scorpion to Standard Oil of California and to Gulf Oil. CIA director Dulles had previously served as Gulf’s counsel for Latin America. The same year that Gulf leased Bush’s platform, CIA veteran Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt joined Gulf’s board. This was the same Kermit Roosevelt who had overseen the CIA’s successful 1953 coup against the democratically elected Iranian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, after Mossadegh began nationalizing Anglo-American oil concessions. It looked like the Bush-CIA group was preparing for operations in the Caribbean basin. The offshore platforms had a specific purpose. “George Bush would be given a list of names of Cuban oil workers we would want placed in jobs,” said one official connected to Operation Mongoose, the program to overthrow Castro. “The oil platforms he dealt in were perfect for training the Cubans in raids on their homeland.” Upon coming to power in 1959, Fidel Castro began to expropriate the massive properties of large foreign (chiefly American) companies. The impact fell heavily on American corporations that had massive agricultural and mineral operations on the fertile island, including Brown Brothers Harriman, whose extensive holdings included the two-hundred-thousand-acre Punta Alegre beet sugar plantation. After Castro took power, the Eisenhower administration began a boycott of Cuban sugar, which is a crucial component of the island’s economy. The Cubans in turn became increasingly dependent on the USSR as supplier of goods and protector. Poppy swung into gear the same year that Castro began nationalizing [American] properties. He severed his ties to the Liedtkes by buying out their stake in Zapata Offshore, and then moved its operations to Houston – which, unlike the remote Midland-Odessa area, had access to the Caribbean through the Houston Ship Channel. Meanwhile, back in Washington, after extensive planning, the Bay of Pigs project began with Eisenhower’s approval on March 17, 1960 . . . Beyond providing a staging area for Cuban rebels, Zapata Offshore appears to have served as a paymaster. “We had to pay off politicians in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and elsewhere,” said John Sherwood, chief of CIA anti-Castro operations in the early 1960s. “Bush’s company was used as a conduit for these funds under the guise of oil business contracts . . . The major breakthrough was when we were able, through Bush, to place people in PEMEX – the big Mexican national oil operation.”

Huh? The good fight? Thanks for the laugh, Kooyman. I haven't seen you around here since that Swift Boat Vet style attack on Prouty a year or two ago. As I recall, you posted some allegedly defamatory link at the time that turned out to be another nothing burger.

Not sure what Doug Campbell imagines to be "fluffy" about the involvement of CIA asset George H.W. Bush and his CIA front company, Zapata Oil, in the Bay of Pigs invasion. It happened. GHWB worked for the CIA, and his Zapata Offshore company was involved in the Bay of Pigs op. I think Mr. Campbell is focusing on the issue of Prouty's apparently mistaken belief (in 1989) that CIA Operation Zapata was named for GHWB's CIA front company, Zapata Oil, rather than for Cuba's Zapata Pennisula. This is HUGE, folks! Prouty was assigned to provide supplies for CIA Operation Zapata in 1961, and he thought the CIA named their op after GHWB's Zapata Offshore Oil Company. Geez... How "nutty" can an Air Force Colonel be? 🤥 It's the biggest Prouty scandal since John McAdams accused Prouty years ago of being a Holocaust denier and a Scientologist. Perhaps Mr. Campbell doesn't know that Prouty was never a CIA insider. He didn't formulate CIA plans or name CIA ops. He worked as a USAF liaison to the CIA-- providing transportation and resources for their special ops. And he wrote about his observations of CIA black ops from the outside.

$5,000? That's chump change for Don the Con. Now, will they finally jail the Orange Bloviator when he violates the gag order again?

George H.W. Bush founded Zapata Oil in 1953, and the Zapata name was, allegedly, inspired by the 1952 hit movie, Viva Zapata, starring Marlon Brando. GHWB worked for Allen Dulles and the CIA beginning in (?) 1953 after graduating from Yale. GHWB was originally outed as a CIA agent by an un-shredded FBI memo discovered by Joseph McBride, which described J. Edgar Hoover debriefing, "Mr. George Bush of the CIA," on 11/29/63 about the FBI "investigation" of JFK's recent assassination. I think Joseph McBride originally discovered and publicized this famous Hoover memo about GHWB in 1988-- a few months before the Presidential election between GHWB and Michael Dukakis. 'GEORGE BUSH,' C.I.A. OPERATIVE | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov) So, not only was GHWB a known CIA agent on 11/22/63, he was sufficiently important to have been personally debriefed about the FBI's aborted investigation of JFK's murder by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover! Zapata Oil was a CIA front company that was actively involved in the CIA's disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Zapata Oil's early associates and investors included CIA agents and assets like Phillip Graham and Dresser Industries. So, Prouty's private comments to Weissberg (in 1989) about Zapata Oil and GHWB's involvement in the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion were substantially accurate. Curiously, Zapata Oil's SEC records from 1960-66 have gone missing, somewhat like George W. Bush's Texas National Guard Records during the Vietnam War. It's a "family of secrets," as Russ Baker informed us in detail. HRG Group - Wikipedia As for Barbara Bush, (nee Pierce) as nearly as I can tell, she had no known middle name. Not sure what to make of the "Barbara J." reference, if it's accurate.

Opinion | The Spectacular Failure of Biden's Middle East Policy | Common Dreams October 20, 2023

To date, I have only disagreed strongly with two Biden Presidential decisions. 1) He should have released the JFK records. 2) He should have taken a stronger position on stopping the bombing of civilians in Gaza.

Kirk, C'mon, man. How low can you go? Firstly, stop splitting. You have been pushing your bogus Good Jeff/Bad W. narrative here in our Prouty debates for weeks now. The truth is that Jeff and I are on the same page about Prouty. My opinions are based solely on studying Prouty's books. Jeff has had access to additional, more detailed, Prouty files. But our assessments of Prouty's work concur. As for disinformation, surely, you don't still believe that the mainstream U.S. media and internet bloggers like John McAdams, Fred Litwin, et.al., have promoted false narratives about the JFK assassination evidence because they have been committed to telling the public the truth, do you? That's simply ludicrous. Naive. Most people are understandably reluctant to accuse propagandists of promoting propaganda, but the examples are legion. My tendency is to, at least, mention the elephants in the room. As for PMs, I'm not sure what PMs you're referring to here. There are some forum members who seem to specialize in posting JFKA disinformation. Isn't it rather obvious? The truth is that you have always been skeptical and poorly informed about the history of CIA Operation Mockingbird-- e.g., William Colby's "Mockingbird" testimony to the Church Committee, and Carl Bernstein's subsequent landmark expose of CIA Operation Mockingbird in Rolling Stone. (I have also referenced Udo Ulfkotte's 2014 book on the subject.) Did you read Joseph McBride's book on that subject of the mainstream media cover up of the JFK assassination? To attribute people's awareness of Operation Mockingbird type propaganda to "paranoia" is naive and/or intellectually dishonest. We have 60 years of Mockingbird evidence in the JFKA case. Then there is the related concept of U.S. government "cognitive infiltration" of social media. It's especially noticeable to anyone who has studied the 9/11 research data-- ubiquitous websites (which always surface at the top of Google searches) emphatically claiming to "debunk" as "myth" the definitive scientific evidence that the WTC was demolished by explosives on 9/11. The pervasive dishonesty is nauseating. The term, "cognitive infiltration" originated with Cass Sunstein. I have posted some references on the forum in recent years about Cass Sunstein's "cognitive infiltration" proposals-- i.e., having U.S. government bloggers deployed as "cognitive infiltrators" of internet "conspiracy theory" forums, for the express purpose of undermining acceptance of evidence debunking U.S. government narratives about CIA black ops, including the JFK assassination. Are you suggesting that Sunstein's "cognitive infiltration" proposal never happened? Meanwhile, why not let these various Prouty defamers speak for themselves? I have explained why I believe Robert Reeves' characterization of Prouty as, "tricky," is dead wrong. I have done the same in the case of Michael Griffith's repeated defamatory bunk about Prouty being, "nutty," "anti-Semitic," "white supremacist," etc.

I'm no expert on the subject, but isn't it illegal to out CIA agents? Isn't outing Valerie Plame what landed Scooter Libby in jail? I have read, or listened, to Prouty commentaries where he specifically mentioned his tendency to be very careful about not illegally divulging classified military or intelligence information. As an example, Prouty discussed Saigon Station ops only following the publication of the Pentagon Papers-- and partly to clarify his opinion that the CIA had falsely blamed the Pentagon (with the selective publication of the Pentagon Papers) for some of their Saigon Station black ops. For someone to call Prouty's circumspection about classified material, "tricky"-- or disreputable-- is simply inaccurate. On the contrary, it is evidence of Prouty's integrity. I raised this same issue in the context of talking about Robert Montenegro's Operation Bloodstone material. Was Prouty manipulatively lying about his USAF liaison work for the CIA, or simply obeying the law with respect to classified material?

Yes, you did call that one correctly, Joe. At the time, I was hopeful that Tucker's source (Trump or Pompeo?) would come forward-- wishful thinking.

Prouty's tendency to be circumspect about discussing classified intelligence-- including the identities of CIA agents-- is, apparently, what Robert Reeves defines (above) as "tricky" behavior. It's a slur, implying that Prouty was devious-- less than ethical, insightful, and honest. IMO, this is a false characterization of the man, all too typical of the CIA propaganda on the subject during the past 30 years. Hence, my response. As for Mr. Reeves' delusion that I am some sort of "gate keeper" around here-- it's silly. Forum members are at liberty to post what they believe, and we are all free to comment on their posts, aren't we?

This is nonsense. Anyone who has studied Prouty's work knows that he was a consistent critic of the CIA-- based on his long-term observations as a U.S. military liaison to the CIA for Special Ops. In fact, his criticism of CIA black ops was the very essence of his post-military career witness testimony. And, yes, his book, The Secret Team, rapidly disappeared from circulation after the first printing. Meanwhile, who are these mysterious new members who have been coming out of the woodwork to repeat the same old defamatory CIA propaganda tropes about Prouty being, "tricky," "nutty," etc.? It's an odd phenomenon on this forum.

Iran says 'preemptive action' by resistance front expected in coming hours | Reuters

There, certainly, should be similar Trump gag orders in place in Fulton County, Georgia, and in the Fort Pierce classified records case. I can't picture Judge Aileen Cannon issuing a gag order in Fort Pierce, but, hopefully, the judge in Fulton County will impose one. Sociopaths like Donald Trump need strict limit-setting.

Joe, Prouty and Krulak's identification of their colleague, Ed Lansdale, in Dealey Plaza was huge. It was, in essence, damning evidence that Allen Dulles and his Secret Team killed JFK. Basically, with that identification of Lansdale in Dealey Plaza, the jig was up, because Ed Lansdale was one of Allen Dulles's black ops golden boys, subsequent to Lansdale's stunning black ops/psy ops success with Magsaysay in the Philippines. That success in the Philippines was why Dulles had Ed Lansdale running CIA ops at Saigon Station. IMO, this is why the CIA propagandists-- contract journalists in the M$M and internet bloggers like John McAdams, et.al.-- have been so focused for the past 30+ years on smearing and discrediting Prouty-- desperately trying to convince the public that Prouty was a crackpot and an unreliable witness of CIA history, with which he had been intimately involved as a highly-decorated, respected USAF liaison to Dulles's black ops people. As for Krulak, imagine what he must have thought after seeing the photo of Ed Lansdale in Dealey Plaza! He would have realized that JFK's murder was, in fact, a CIA black op, and that the cover up of JFK's murder-- and framing of Oswald in the M$M-- was a CIA psy op, involving C.D. Jackson, Mockingbird, et.al. Like Prouty, Krulak also would have known that the CIA could readily murder key witnesses in the JFK murder case-- as they did, for years. Under the circumstances, Krulak would have been, understandably, terrified to be identified, publicly, as a witness of a well known CIA black ops man in Dealey Plaza.

I've given up on trying to converse with Kirk Gallaway about Prouty's writings, because Kirk is determined to avoid reading them. Prouty's direct observations about his career work with Lansdale in Vietnam is quite interesting and detailed. His shock at seeing Lansdale in the Dealey Plaza photos is similarly detailed. His longtime colleague, General Victor Krulak, was also privately shocked to see Lansdale in the photos, but Krulak chose to avoid sticking his neck out publicly. This is what Kirk glibly calls a "Voo Doo Doll." Yet, we now know that Lansdale was, in fact, in Texas in November of 1963, after his "retirement" from his CIA career as one of Allen Dulles' favorite black ops experts. Lansdale told Prouty prior to November that he was planning to focus on some "fun and games" after retiring in October of 1963. Much of this history was discussed on the forum's "Lansdale Hypothesis" thread.

Leslie, These Hamas murderers need to be hunted down and executed. That's a given. But the retaliatory bombing of 2.3 million trapped civilians in Gaza is a war crime. It sounds like the Biden administration is privately urging Netanyahu to limit civilian casualties in Gaza, while avoiding any public criticism of the Israeli government. Is there an acceptable solution to the crisis? I don't have the answer.

Yes, of course, let's have a "substantive conversation" with Kirk-- a guy who knows nothing about the "substance" of Prouty's first hand observations, based on his years of USAF liaison contact with Allen Dulles, Ed Lansdale, and the CIA. Makes a lot of sense. Let's substantively ignore the substance of Prouty's testimony as a historical witness, and focus on bogus articles published by CIA contract journalists in the M$M, after the film JFK began to raise public consciousness about CIA black ops, Vietnam, and the JFK assassination.

This is terrific. The progressive academic community is finally grasping, and discussing, the truth about JFK's assassination-- the truth that has long been exposed by marginalized independent researchers-- including Oliver Stone, et.al. Unfortunately, Jeffrey Sachs, himself, has generally been marginalized by our mainstream media.

It looks like the U.S. State Department is quite deliberately prohibiting any comments about the war crimes in Gaza--the bombing of women and children, and the blockade on food, water, electricity, and medical supplies. One million of Gaza's 2.3 million trapped civilians are children. Yesterday, the Washington Post published HRW video evidence of Israel dropping white phosphorous munitions on civilians in Gaza. This is quite shocking, IMO, and will go down in history as a U.S. foreign policy abomination. US State Dept. Officials Told Not to Use Terms 'De-Escalation/Cease-Fire' About Gaza (commondreams.org)