Leslie Sharp

Let me know if anything contradicts your understanding of the period. We were cognizant of possible campaigns to misrepresent what was already a hugely complex history.

From Dick Russell's "The Lafitte Datebook: A Limited Analysis" presented in the Front Matter of Coup in Dallas, Hank Albarelli's last investigation: A. L. EHRMAN: This July 30 entry clearly refers to Anita L. Ehrman, a foreign correspondent whose body was found that day in her Washington apartment. The only other reference to this appears in my 1992 book, citing a notebook seized from Richard Case Nagell by the FBI on September 20, 1963 but not released until 1975. That entry says: “ANITA L. EHRMAN. 7-30-63 WASHINGTON, D.C.” Nagell was involved with Oswald in an assassination plot. Subsequent investigation into Ms. Ehrman reveals: Anita Louise Ehrman — who was planning to contribute to coverage of the civil rights progress in America and who had just recently interviewed Evers’ friend James Meredith — had been based in Paris in the late ‘50s during which time she covered the Algerian war of independence from both on the ground, in Tunisia, and the French capitol. On return to the states in 1960, she was assigned by Hearst newspaper NY Journal American to cover the United Nations beat in NYC including the newly elected Sec. Gen. U Thant. Paul Guihard, a leading reporter for France’s major newspaper was posted in Paris in the late ‘50s. He too was transferred to NYC in June, 1960. Guilhard was murdered September 30, 1962 during the riots at Ole Miss. Unfortunately, we've yet to nail down a version of the article referenced here in the papers of Investigative Journalist Bob Considine, but evidenced here is Ehrman's focus on U Thant following Hammarskjold's death. Those familiar with the Lafitte story know that it was Considine who first recognized the enigmatic Lafitte might hold a myriad of secrets; from Considine's lead, Albarelli ended up on the Lafitte doorstep and the rest is history. I'm told that Considine considers Pierre as the one who got away. (paraphrasing.) Box 45 Ehrman, Anita, [untitled piece on U Thant] https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/c/considine_b.htm

Yes, we speak to the Arms Crisis (and I thought I included ref. to Lyckx; it's possible it was left on the cutting room floor in final edit. Looking back, the Irish chapter of Coup should have been the bones of a separate book but we were anxious to lay the foundation of the geo-political, geographical importance of Ireland.) ' . . . Among those representing the Irish government at the reception for the Skorzenys was Mayo “Mafia” and backbench Teachta Dála (TD) Paddy "The Bishop" Burke, known as such for his diligent attendance at constituents' funerals. Decades later, his son Ray would be identified in the press as among the most corrupt politicians the country had ever known. Bishop Burke was joined at the Skorzeny reception by up-and-coming member of Dáil Éireann, TD Charles J. Haughey, anxious to welcome the glamorous couple just in from Madrid. In a little over a dozen years from that first public outing with Otto and Ilse, Charlie Haughey would play a central role in the “Arms crisis of 1970.” The scandal, and the preceding border campaign of 1956–1962, dubbed “Operation Harvest”—a guerilla warfare action carried out by the IRA aimed at overthrowing British rule in The North—are backdrop to the prime years spent in Ireland by guerilla warfare expert and alleged arms dealer, Otto Skorzeny and wife Ilse. . . . . . . In 1956, just months before Skorzeny began his quest for Irish visas, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched “Operation Harvest,” an overtly ambitious guerrilla effort that was meant to secure the political unity of Ireland by force of arms. It was waged against the backdrop of a “thaw” in international relations and drew inspiration from successful anti-colonial guerrilla struggles in Algeria and Cyprus. We know with certainty how deeply involved were Otto Skorzeny and those identified by Pierre Lafitte in the Algerian uprisings, so any assessment of the Irish campaign that began in December 1956 should be considered in context and timing. The start of Operation Harvest also coincided with the 1956 insurgency in Hungary against Russian domination. Irish Republicans, legitimately, were quick to point out the hypocrisy of those who praised the armed revolt of the Hungarians but condemned the Irish resistance fighters. During the ’50s the British had been ruthlessly suppressing anti-colonial revolts in Kenya, Malaya, and Cyprus, and while their colonial empire was crumbling, their conceit that they were still a supreme military power remained. Suez burst that bubble, and we know that Skorzeny was heavily involved there as well. It was in the wake of that British humiliation in Egypt that Operation Harvest was launched in Ireland. By the end of 1957 there were several hundred IRA members interred in Dublin, Belfast, and other British prisons, and there were 125 internees in the Curragh Camp in County Kildare, only miles from where Otto and Ilse would set up camp in 1959… In a world of struggles for national self-determination it was clear that the Irish struggle remained unfinished business. The lull which followed the end of the campaign in 1962 proved illusory and six years later the nationalists and republicans of the Six Counties rose up, never to retreat again.

His association with the former SS Commander most admired by the Fuhrer is surely of interest at this point? Neutral Ireland harboring a known Nazi and wife? More air brushing in the Irish media. It's not a comfortable history; however it remains relevant today as witnessed in pro-Hamas activism on the island.

All while existential racel issues were playing out in America, when in fact the real power grab under way was of course natural resources. And Kennedy isn't innocent in that particular respect. W.A.M. Burden in Belgium under Eisenhower warrants far more attention; his Cerro offices at 600 Fifth might have attracted Dulles on retirement, as might have a number of other MIC headquarters.

And from, . . . and yes mercenaries were hired to back Tschombe, reportedly one was Skorzeny in the employ of the CIA . . . did anyone working on JFK Revisited consider the potential import, particularly as there was a relatively significant file available on Otto by then, not to mention a plethora of books and articles? Turning the stone seems logical to me, but then I'm writing from hindsight.

Airbrushing the significance of Gen. Robert E. Wood's infiltration of AFC doesn't make him go away. Wood was also a co-founder of the American Security Council –– a symbiosis between corporate and military/government. According to its organizing statement in 1954, ‘the American Security Council is a not-for-profit corporation which was organized by industry as a national central research and information center on subversive activities. It gathers, correlates and indexes facsimile information about communist and other statist movements.’ The council was unique in that it was operated solely by representatives from American industries. Many were retired military who had assumed lucrative positions in the private sector. ASC was the inspiration of General Robert E. Wood who upon retirement was elected chairman of Sears Roebuck Co. whose international operations were persistently valuable to the intelligence apparatus, corporate and government. The board of Wood’s private security council included a number of military brass, former government officials, and rabid anti-communist propagandists. If one were searching for the archetype of the Military-Industrial Complex, the ASC would be a reasonable candidate. On the payroll of ASC was Senator Dodd of Connecticut when he generated a Senate subcommittee report on Bohdan Stashynsky’s supposed murder training school. From there, we move on to Dallas and the implications relative to the assassination of President John Kennedy in Dealey: While Robert Storey was Chairman of Lakewood, his law offices were in the Republication National Bank building. That board included Corrigan's Bahamas business partner Algur Meadows, L.W. MacNaughton (long time partner of Everett DeGoyler and employer of Jack Crichton in the '50's), Karl Hoblitzelle (known for his willingness to front for CIA projects), and a Vice President of Sears Roebuck, R. L. 'Dick' Tayloe, Tayloe on the board of Chance Vought when James Ling orchestrated a purchase of the military contractor to create Ling Temco Vought, LTV. D. H. Byrd was on that board which was chaired by Robert L. Stewart of First National Bank, the primary lender to Ling. Other Dallas luminaries on the board of Storey's Republic were its Chairman and CEO JW Aston who would become president of American Airlines when their entire operation was moved to DFW, and Stanley Marcus, owner of the internationally renowned Neiman Marcus department store host to Madam Nu on the eve of the assassination of the Diem brothers in Vietnam.

I thought that the earlier exchanges on this thread related to Otto and QJ/WIN and the Congo justified my contributing to this discussion; yet what I've posted elicits only a "I'll watch later"? If there is skepticism about our research presented in Coup, based solely on references made to the Lafitte datebook, one can just redact those passages or read past them . . . because the facts withstand scrutiny without the messy complication of Pierre Lafitte. @Matthew Koch

Algeria . . . "The Cuba of Africa" –– Time magazine https://time.com/archive/6811406/algeria-the-cuba-of-africa/ From Coup, ' ...Readers learn more about figures familiar to Lafitte since the war, including Jean Souetre who was one of Otto Skorzeny’s prized marksman and postwar trainer in the arts of sabotage, explosives, and assassinations. By the early 1960s, the former French Air Force Captain Souetre had joined the OAS in bitter opposition to President de Gaulle’s position on Algeria, a North African country defined by Time magazine in its October 18, 1963 issue as, “The Cuba of Africa.” And we learn that October 18 happened also to be a date critical to the assassination plot. An example of the significance of timing, a prominent feature in the analysis of the exclusive material secured by Albarelli, it was only ten days later that former CIA director Allen Dulles was in Dallas, Texas alerting his audience to the geopolitical threat posed by the fall of Algeria to the Algerians. Dulles continued to communicate regularly with close associate William A. M. Burden during 1962 and early 1963. Burden, the great-great grandson of the founder of the Vanderbilt wealth, railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, who maintained a business office at a New York City address (630 Fifth Avenue) in which Dulles was also ensconced, ran the gamut of US national policy and prime corporate positions. Burden served on the boards of the Hanover Bank, Lockheed Aircraft Co., and CBS during his lengthy career. He had been a director of the Council on Foreign Relations, and founded a family investment firm that bears his name today. During the Second World War he had been a Special Assistant for Research and Development to the Secretary of the Army Air Force. Following a heavy campaign contribution to the 1956 Presidential campaign of Dwight Eisenhower, Burden was granted an ambassadorship to Belgium, a position he held from 1959–1961, during the period of time that the former imperialist power was struggling to hold on to the remnants of past wealth and national glory. After the ascension to power in the Congo of charismatic leader Patrice Lumumba, Burden strongly felt the threat that Lumumba’s independence posed to Belgium’s long-time pre-eminence in the mineral-rich Congo, and was lobbying his long-time friend Dulles for action against Lumumba in 1959. Dulles, Burden, and the State Department’s C. Douglas Dillon led the charge to persuade President Eisenhower to take serious action against Lumumba, culminating in an August 1960 “direct approval” by Eisenhower of Dulles’s backing of a plot to assassinate Lumumba. While the US-Belgian war to eliminate the Congolese leader moved forward in 1960–61, journalist James Phelan would report receiving a postcard from the Congo, mailed by his friend and clandestine source Pierre Lafitte, who was engaged in…something in that embattled country at the time. 1963 In 1963, Dulles maintained some of the same contacts, but there were noticeable differences. Part of this was his interest in preparing the book that would be published under his name in the fall of the year, to be titled The Craft of Intelligence. Dulles spent time going over galleys for the book and in communication with his publisher, a long-time friend, Cass Canfield, of Harper and Row. Dulles also spent a great deal of time with the men who effectively “ghosted” the book: Howard Roman, whose wife Jane Roman was part of Jim Angleton’s shop at CIA Counterintelligence, Fortune magazine reporter Charles Murphy, and E. Howard Hunt, then working for Tracy Barnes at DOD. Dulles tapped renowned CIA analyst Sherman Kent for research, and used Frank Wisner as a sounding board. There was less communication with Angleton on the record than there had been in 1962, and far less communication with Tracy Barnes. In light of the notes made by Pierre Lafitte, the timing of some of the contacts Dulles had with these men will be examined shortly. . . . On October 17th—one day before James Angleton told Pierre Lafitte that there had been a high-level gathering in DC, the Dallas Morning News published a brief announcement, “Former CIA Boss Sets Dallas Talk.” The story read: “Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency will address a meeting of the Dallas Council on World Affairs at noon on Monday, October 28, in the Baker Hotel . . .” Neil Mallon, a member of the board of Republic National Bank had been a friend and confidant of Allen Dulles throughout Dulles’s tenure as director of Central Intelligence. It was through Dulles’s prompting that Mallon founded the Dallas chapter of the Council on World Affairs, an invaluable instrument for the agency since 1951 and the perfect venue on October 28, 1963, for Dulles to promote his book and speak on national security issues including reference to specific activity in hot spots around the world, suggesting he was being briefed in spite of his having left the agency in 1961. The Dallas chapter of the Independent Petroleum Association of America also held their monthly meeting on October 28th. On October 27th, the Dallas Morning News followed up and announced that oil expert Jack Crichton, having recently returned from an oil tour of Romania, would present his report to the Petroleum Engineers on the following Friday, November 1st. On October 29th, Kent Biffle of the Dallas Morning News published a summation of Allen Dulles’s speech the night before under the headline, “Allen Dulles Looks Behind Red Moves”: “Khrushchev announced he ‘isn’t going to the moon next week’ to foil the Kennedy plan for a joint moon effort.” Dulles said, ‘Russians are arming Algerian troops in hopes of finally gaining a solid foothold in Africa . . . The Soviets have been trying for ten to fifteen years to find the foothold they want in Africa. They tried in Egypt, the Congo, Guinea and Ghana.’” Biffle continued, “Dulles said that in arming the Algerians against the Moroccans, the Reds are again trying to find a satisfactory foothold in Africa.” We should underscore here that as DCI Allen Dulles had been a frequent visitor to the hotels and homes of numerous close friends in Dallas, Texas, including of course Mallon. Indeed, some people close to the CIA director would quietly remark that Dallas had become an important base of operations for the CIA, second only to headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Dulles’s October 28th talk before Mallon’s Dallas Council on World Affairs further tilled the soil when he included reference to the Algerians’ fight for independence—a subject close to the heart of this book. The speech was a companion piece to other recent impassioned anti-communist pleadings at various venues around the city including those of the woeful, anti-Red princess from Romania. Jack Crichton’s report to Dallas petroleum executives—scheduled within days of Dulles’s speech at the DCWA—recapped his Romanian oil tour which most assuredly described the plight of that country under The Reds, planting propaganda and stoking the anti-communist fires in Dallas. Crichton’s talk was just four days prior to Lafitte making a note, Meet with Crichton at Tech building.

@Paul Brancato @Matthew Koch and finally, A February 26, 1962 exposé “Neo-Nazis Linked to Algeria French” by correspondent Waverley Root, then living in Paris, published in The Washington Post, reveals that European extremists—known as Ultras—in Algeria were “now tied in with the worldwide clandestine neo-Nazi organization which has existed ever since the end of the war, built around a core of Hitlerites who escaped post war justice. The head of this international Nazi underground has always been believed to be Madrid’s man of mystery, Otto Skorzeny, the SS trooper who rescued Mussolini from his captors.” More chilling, Root continues, “Skorzeny is reported to maintain contacts with former Nazis scattered throughout the world, especially in Latin America and the Middle East. They have not given up hope that Nazism may yet triumph throughout the world, and they seem prepared to lend their aid in any desperate venture of like political ideology which might achieve a Rightest authoritarian government anywhere.” (emphasis added.) Root’s informed sources said that “two of four defendants in the trial escaped and made their way to Spain.” The trial he refers to was the result of the arrest of those involved in the 1957 bazooka attack on General Raoul Salan. The far-right extremists were convinced that the general wasn’t fully on their side to halt the movement toward independence from France in Algeria. All charged with the attack had been found guilty. Among them was Doctor René Kovacs, who was sentenced to death in absentia following his escape. A physician by training, Kovacs was born in Algeria of [notably for our purposes] Hungarian parents. Along with his aide, Joseph Ortiz, a restaurateur and fellow far-right extremist, the two fled to Spain. Root contends that Algerian Europeans devoted to far-right politics had long been alleged to have international connections. “Thus gave birth to any imperfectly known organization called the Red Hand,” writes Root, referring to a mysterious terror group organized to counter the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria. According to freelance journalist Joachim Joesten, among the earliest sleuths to arrive in Dallas in pursuit of the facts of the assassination of Kennedy, the creator of the Red Hand was none other than the head of France’s DST—a man readers are now familiar with—Roger Wybot. Author Ralph Ganis, who pursued Joesten’s findings in depth, tells us that the Red Hand operated in the manner of paramilitary groups that sprang up after WWI of which Otto Skorzeny participated. Writes Ganis, “It was also very similar to the old Cagoule, the ‘hooded ones.’ Waverley Root also concluded that Kovacs and Ortiz, both of whom fled to Spain, were involved in the Skorzeny ring. Rounding out the triad with Kovacs and Ortiz, Root tells us that Belgian citizen Pierre Joly, “turns up regularly in French extreme-right activities of a conspiratorial nature. Joly [whose duties appear to have included propagation of extremist ideology on the printed page] was among those who appeared in Madrid when the refugees from the revolt trial arrived there.” Root then summarizes the significance of these figures ending up in Spain: The existence in Madrid, on territory where extreme Rightists of all countries can reasonably expect to find political refuge of the headquarters of an international neo-Nazi organization, helps to encourage a funneling of all revolutionary Rightists groups into the same conspiracy. But political kinship tends in any case to throw the like-minded of all countries together, so that even without formal organization there has been built up an intricate maze of cross-relationships among Right extremists of all countries. From there, the correspondent highlights the current crisis in Katanga, a break-away province from the Republic of Congo, which had contributed to the January 17, 1961 assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The success of the operation has been attributed to, among others, Otto Skorzeny. Root draws attention to the likely role played by Algerian Ultras operating outside Toulouse—long a hotbed of French Algerian activity—in delivering three French jet planes from a factory outside Toulouse to Katanga. . . . As we learned, the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters included Jack Crichton, the Dallas oilman who had been in business with Otto Skorzeny since 1952 and served as his point man on the 22nd of November. –– Coup in Dallas, Albarelli, Sharp, Kent

@Paul Brancatocont. ' . . . Having established that the social, political, business, and ideological climate in Ireland could well have been attractive to the Skorzenys, steps are necessary before drawing an educated conclusion as to what motivated the couple to invest in a significant property in the Curragh, ship furniture and a Mercedes Benz, and leave the sunny climes of Spain where they lived and did business in virtual solidarity with those surrounding them, to spend as much time as their visas allowed in cold, damp, conflicted Ireland. It is first important to understand the stall in the Skorzenys’ purchase of property between June 1957 and 1959. The delay is best explained by Stuart Smith who writes in the aforementioned biography of Skorzeny, “In fact, in 1958, the remaining war crimes charge hanging over Skorzeny—concerning atrocities in Czechoslovakia—had been rescinded by Austria. As a token of its good faith, his home country at last issued him a passport… That left the Irish government grappling with the nebulous rumors including Skorzeny’s alleged involvement in arms-trafficking with the National Liberation Front (FLN).” Smith suggests there were rumors that had to be discarded, one linking Skorzeny to the flight of Adolf Eichmann to Egypt, but other rumors that Ireland’s intelligence service (Peter Berry included) missed. “One was a proposed 1958 mission to kill Fidel Castro on behalf of Fulgencio Batista… and the other was allegations that Skorzeny assisted in Moise Tshombe’s• 1961 secession from the newly independent Democratic Republic of Congo by training some thirty Katangan rebels in Spain.” This effort was endorsed by Americans, perhaps only nominally but in some instances, we have reason to believe they provided more than passive support. For instance, we know that Dallas oilman and executive for Empire Trust, John A. “Jack” Crichton who was Lafitte’s man on the ground in Dallas on November 22, 1963, was a signatory of the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters. It is also clear that Smith was determined to expose the justification of the Skorzenys’ right of purchase property in Ireland. He observes, “Denying Skorzeny residency, absent any evidence against him, would go against the grain of Ireland’s neutrality in international affairs,” and he continues by calling attention to Éamon de Valera’s perhaps ill-conceived note of commiseration on the death of Adolf Hitler as well as a failure to hand over suspected Nazi war criminals to the Allies. This begs the question whether or not the Irish public writ large was fully aware of the extent to which Nazi criminals lived in their midst, and might that naivete been appealing in light of the apparent heat being applied to Skorzeny as a high-profile resident of Madrid, Spain. By 1959, matters had evolved and Otto made his way toward Ireland. Despite having been asked specifically by Michael Andrew Lysaght Rynne to take an alternate route, Skorzeny was refused permission to enter Britain on landing in London. Rynne was then Irish ambassador in Madrid, appointed by John A. Costello who once claimed that “the fascist Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State.” During his tenure, Rynne’s role as ambassador had required keeping fellow ambassadors informed of the Irish government’s line on such matters as the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, a topic no doubt Otto Skorzeny was most familiar. Ambassador Rynne’s admonitions may well have been informed by sympathies shared between outgoing Prime Minister Costello, Éamon de Valera who retained Rynne when he regained the post of Prime Minister, and any Nazi officer living in Ireland. However, and to underscore the complexities of this period in Irish history, Rynne was reporting to Frank Aiken, then Minster of External Affairs, who in spite of purportedly supporting the right of countries such as Algeria to self-determination and spoke against South Africa’s system of apartheid, had a history of Nazi sympathies himself, but was among the very few who openly opposed Skorzeny’s entry and right of property ownership. Perhaps his opposition was an indication of infighting among the contemporary fascists. Regardless, Aiken did not prevail because Mae Mooney, a civil servant within his own department, managed to secure the first visas for the Skorzenys. As feared by Ambassador Rynne, Otto was detained in London and cross-examined but he was soon escorted to his connecting flight. –– Coup in Dallas, Albarelli, Sharp, Kent *Tschombe sought refuge in Franco's Madrid where he might have been in the company of Skorzey, Degrelle, Rudel (off and on), Peron, Salan, Bernhardt on any given occasion.

Paul, I highly recommend The Siege of Jadotville . . . An Irish-South African production, the film is based on Declan Power's book, The Siege at Jadotville: The Irish Army's Forgotten Battle(2005), about an Irish Army unit's role in the titular Siege of Jadotville during the United Nations Operation in the Congo in September 1961,[3] part of the Congo Crisisthat stretched from 1960 to 1965. First screened at the 2016 Galway Film Festival,[4] the film received a limited cinema distribution in Ireland in September 2016.[5] It had simultaneous worldwide distribution on Netflix and in a number of US iPic Theaters during October 2016.[6][7] It won three Irish Film & Television Awards, including Best Director. You might not be aware that UN Representative Conor Cruise O'Brien from Ireland who was tapped by Hammerskjöld for this operation, played a significant role in securing resident visas for Otto and Ilse Skorzeny to purchase Martinstown House in the Curragh, County Kildare. Although the allegation that Skorzeny played a role in Lumumba's murder is not mentioned in the film, the backstory and the timing of Dag's "crash" toward the end of the film are infinitely intriguing. Neither is there mention of the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters in the film whose signatories included not only Allen Dulles but Jack Crichton of Texas, a prime suspect named in the Lafitte records as having been responsible for facilitating action on the ground in Dealey in the lead up to the assassination of John Kennedy. (Quinlan, the hero of the story, is a homeboy of Co. Kerry, my husband's home county.)

@Matthew Koch@Paul Brancato Major Ralph Ganis writes, In the end, Skorzeny emerges as a clear asset of Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff, shared with the equally secretive offices of Frank Wisner and William K. Harvey. These men had close personal relationships,(sic) and contact with Skorzeny seems to have been restricted to this very tight inner circle of CIA executive officers and selected staff. Use of Skorzeny appears to have been entirely unknown to the rank and file of the CIA. Under normal lines of authority, Angleton would have reported to the Deputy Director for Plans, then to the Director, but it has been reported that Angleton "was unhindered by the normal chain of command." His authority was such that he developed an "unshakable power base within the CIA." With Angleton at the helm, the CIS would become undeniably the most powerful office within the CIA. –– The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK