Leslie Sharp

@Michael Griffith I too find it compelling that Mary Haverstick did not set out in pursuit of a woman she thought might be implicated in events surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas. Coincidentally, nor did Hank Albarelli set out in pursuit of who killed JFK when he launched his investigation into the murder of Frank Olson. He tells the story that when he first realized Lafitte might be the through line and shared his suspicion with one of the asst. DAs, the DA said (paraphrasing), I was just waitin’ for the Kennedy assassination to rear its head.

You pounced sooner than I expected. “Doth protest too much, methinks”

Do you have a copy of “A Secret Order”? Surely no one is suggesting Hank didn’t know who he was talking to all that time or was oblivious to the true identity of his grandson’s godmother? If you haven’t, I urge you to review a couple of videos featuring pilot Geraldine Cobb (available on YouTube). It’s unfortunate Mary Haverstick didn’t have a chance to interview Hank to at least ask if his dear friend June had that unusual speech pattern and the heavy Oklahoma country accent. I think I know the answer. Before delving into the serious issues raised by the hypotheses presented in Ms. Haverstick’s book, Gregg, I assume you read her excellent research into the strange and convoluted nickel deals post-Castro’s nationalization of Freeport / Nicaro? You might recall that in his 1963 datebook, Pierre Lafitte indicates he was privy to a shipment of nickel in 1963 involving none other than Ilse Skorzeny (in concert with John Wilson-Hudson who is mentioned again in another entry with Ruby). Haverstick’s assumptions regarding Ilse’s beloved Otto Skorzeny are perplexing as well and will be addressed in a future post. For now, it’s nonetheless noteworthy that her research uncovered the manipulation of nickel — which for obvious reasons draws us not only to the Soviets (I refer you to associate of Wilson-Hudson, Canadian and alleged Soviet spy Burt Sukarov), but to the assassination of Lumumba, the Friends of Katanga Freedom Fighters and Jack Alston Crichton, another name in the records maintained by Pierre Lafitte. The possibility that Jerrie Cobb may have also taken cover under the identity of Florida arms dealer Catherine Taaffe (spelled with two Fs) is equally intriguing. Records confirm Taaffe’s association with gun runner Jesse Vickers — another name identified in the Lafitte datebook. Vickers crossed paths with among others, John Wilson-Hudson. As an aside, Jerrie Cobb’s professed faith and subsequent work in the Amazon beg review of SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) covered in-depth in Colby & Dennet’s “Thy Will Be Done.” She has only a cameo appearance, but knowing that Lafitte mentions J.C. King at a critical moment in August 1963, and that H. L. Hunt provided significant funding to Wycliffe Bible Translators, those dots also warrant further consideration.

When Tucker Carlson met Javier Milei: Why the US right-wing pundit interviewed the eccentric frontrunner of Argentina’s election https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/when-tucker-carlson-met-javier-milei-why-us-right-wing-pundit-interviewed-eccentric#:~:text=He's been described as a,interview Milei for his show.

The late H. P. Albarelli Jr. had planned to tell the June Cobb story according to June. I'm anxious to compare what I know of his project with what is presented in A Woman I Know.

@Benjamin Cole 02:53 - Source: CNN Far-right outsider Javier Milei wins Argentina’s presidency ' . . . Javier Milei, a social conservative with ties to the American right, opposes abortion rights and has called climate change a “lie of socialism.” He has promised to slash government spending by closing Argentina’s ministries of culture, education, and diversity, and by eliminating public subsidies. “Make Argentina great again!” Trump posted on his platform Truth Social Sunday, in reaction to Milei’s win. “I am very proud of you,” he wrote. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/19/world/argentina-vote-milei-massa-nov-19/index.html

Note to Ben: I wonder if teenage Trump also loved Karl May? ' . . . The correspondence between Dulles and Willoughby continued. Among Willoughby’s myriad of associations, OSS officer Ulius Amoss—architect of leaderless resistance—is reflected in memos that crossed Dulles’s desk. In October 1955, Willoughby offered the director aid in setting up “promising. . . social contacts” between young American servicemen stationed in Germany and their counterparts, perhaps implementing Amoss’s theories. “The new generation has less to remember—and to resent,” Willoughby wrote to Dulles, suggesting that “In American garrison towns, in Germany, this approach can become the first step in developing [sic] a literary youth-movement, by utilizing existing Karl May clubs.” (Adolf Hitler, from his teenage years onward, was a devotee of the Wild West novels of Karl May, the German imitator of James Fennimore Cooper.) “From the viewpoint of social relations and youth indoctrination,” Willoughby continued, “it fits neatly, as you know, into one of the many facets of ‘psychological warfare.’ It could become the medium by which we can gain young adherents and partisans. Anyway, I am going to try it. . . . However, I do not want to stand alone (though the Germans will take it up) and I suggest that you examine it, from the viewpoint of a ‘discrete’ penetration and the ‘making of friends.’” . . . Robert Emmett Johnson In the early ’60s, Robert Emmett Johnson, would-be journalist and skilled assassin, attested that he had been employed by Information Services International to support the agenda of dictator Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. ISI, founded and presided over by former OSS officer Ulius Amoss—dealt with extensively in the previous chapter, boasted as a trusted advisor, General Charles Willoughby. The day following the critical note, “O says done-- Oswald in place,” Pierre leaves a clue that the W. team included E. Johnson. W team E. Johnson’s (Itkin) Said to be fiercely independent and opinionated, Johnson advised Special Agents of the FBI in Miami on September 19, 1961 that he had been employed as Foreign Affairs Analyst for Dominican Republic leader Generalissimo Trujillo, who had been assassinated in May of that spring. Johnson held the “analyst” position from 1956–1960. At the time of his visit from the FBI (9/61), Johnson stated he was then employed by ISI, which he described as “an independent intelligence-gathering organization” founded by Amoss, a former Chief of Staff in the US Air Force. On the ISI board of Trustees was Charles Willoughby. As mentioned in a previous chapter, inside Trafficante’s world at Trescornia in 1959, among those he said he recognized—all of whom had a shared history—was mercenary sharpshooter Emmet Johnson. Factoring in Johnson’s employment by the master of leaderless resistance, Ulius Amoss and ISI trustee Charles Willoughby, there is sufficient reason to suspect that Johnson was on, or involved with, “W’s” team. According to the meticulous research presented by historian John Simkin, a declassified document says that in 1962, Emmett Johnson was a member of “Interpen” (International Penetration Force) established in 1961 by former US Marine Sgt. Gerry P. Hemming. With funding from Santo Trafficante and several wealthy, and organized, among other things, to train members of anti-Castro groups Interpen set up a training camp in New Orleans in 1962. Before he died, Emmett Johnson managed to publish several books under the imprint Paladin Books (publisher of Col. Charles Askins’ books) under the name “Paul Balor.” The cover of the second edition of his book, Manual of the Mercenary Soldier, published in 1993 features a clear image of Mitchell Livingston WerBell*, notorious arms equipment manufacturer and dealer who had served in Donovan’s OSS during the war. *WerBell, referenced in the Lafitte datebook on 7 dates, was a known associate of Chester Zochowski, a.k.a. Chester Gray. Once again, Alan Kent: Norman Rothman is a thread that leads us down a more certain path. Among the multiple FBI reports involving Rothman with the Dominican Republic (referenced earlier in the Thomas report), a particularly informative one deals with Rothman’s associates involved in a large jewelry theft ring in the late 1950s, and also with a Rothman interest in playing some sort of role for the Trujillo government in the late 1950s. Rothman’s partners in the moving of stolen jewelry include figures we have already come across, such as Allen Wright’s companion Chester Zochowski (the fellow who later partnered with Mitch WerBell), and Joseph Merola, Wright’s friend, who played both sides, informing on Wright. Given Rothman’s affiliation with Pugibet, I think we may be a bit closer to understanding the path by which Wright came to know of Pugibet’s timely visit to Dallas in 1963.

It is fact that 'phrases and statements used by Trump recently, like "vermin," "poisoning the blood," and "threat from within," bear a remarkable similarity to quotations and writings attributed to Hitler.' —Newsweek Fact Check Navel gazing amateur historians are incapable of contributing to concerted efforts toward solving a cold case murder investigation, so understandably @Benjamin Cole this thread is not your bailiwick. "My best guest" and "If I had to guess" gave you away. The thread, which you have repeatedly tried to hijack, is focused on the publication of a new book claiming that known assassin Enrique Ernesto Pugibet made a deathbed confession of his direct involvement in the assassination of Kennedy. Nowhere have I endorsed the book, nor have I defended the alleged deathbed confession. That said, as Alan Kent presents in his essay published in Coup in Dallas: (you might visualize a white board, Benjamin) 1) FBI informant Allen Wright reported specific details of Pugibet checking into the Stoneleigh Hotel on November 19, 1963. 2) We know from the Lafitte datebook that Jean Filliol, co-founding member of the notorious La Cagoule (the hooded ones), arrived at the hotel on November 20 along with his partner in crime Alice Lamy. 3) We know that Pierre Lafitte was also at the hotel and possibly his wife Rene. 4) We also know that OAS Capt. Jean Rene Souetre — who the previous May had met with CIA representatives in Lisbon Portugal along with Otto Skorzeny (Allen Dulles spent the month in France as was his annual ritual) — had arrived in Dallas several days earlier and that on November 20, his name appears in the datebook with both Filliol and Lamy at “the hotel.” 5) We then confirmed with a Lafitte family member that the Stoneleigh Hotel in the Oak Lawn neighborhood of Dallas was the Lafitte family’s preferred hotel when traveling to the city. 6) Leading us to draw the reasonable conclusion that the Stoneleigh Hotel represents circumstantial evidence of Pugibet’s propinquity to plans to assassinate President Kennedy in Dallas. We know that Pugibet was a founding member of the Youth of France and Overseas ideologically aligned very early on with our suspects. An interesting find just recently echos similar sentiments of Jean Filliol and Jean Souetre at similar ages: On 7 December 1940, the sportsman Henri Pugibet complained to the Secretary of Youth about young French men. When he looked across the Rhine, he envied how young German boys, ‘with such joy and enthusiasm, accomplish their work, whatever it is, because they know that they work for their country’.¹ By contrast, ‘the dirty spirit of the middle class French’, he moaned, made people into ‘children … who think of nothing’.² Boys watched too many movies. They ate cake three times a week. He hoped France’s shocking 1940 defeat would act as a catalyst for a rejuvenation of physical culture... But I digress — and I realize the significance of the following history will likely fly completely over your head, but for the benefit of those who will appreciate the names long-recognized in credible assassination research indices: Kent writes, One of Pugibet’s Dallas-based friends who bridged the gap between “high and low” was Norman (Roughhouse) Rothman, a well-known operative of Santo Trafficante Jr. [Trafficante, who appears in the Lafitte datebook, had befriended Pierre Lafitte to the extent that when the Pierre required a lengthy safe haven in Miami, without hesitation Santo invited him in.] Pugibet is connected to Rothman in several FBI documents. Significantly, Thomas writes: “It is to be noted that information concerning the subject has been set forth in various reports in the case entitled: ‘Norman Rothman; IS-DR; RA-DR, Bureau file 97-3487. Pertinent information from this investigation…” And that is where the sentence, and any further reference to Pugibet and Rothman, stops. What appear to be pages later—not formally redacted, just missing, lead to a non-sequitur finish. It is relevant to the inquiry into Pugibet to note that both of the specific FBI Rothman files cited by Thomas have to do with Rothman’s dealings with the Trujillo government in the Dominican Republic. One more story emerges from the truncated Thomas report, this one both stunning and relevant to our inquiry. Pugibet was apparently involved directly in a political assassination. FBI informant NY T-1, a prized and protected FBI source “advised one Pugibet killed Jose Almoina Mateos, former secretary to Trujillo, in Mexico, in May 1960. To be continued . . .

Well argued, Roger. At the risk of a center of the universe mindset, I would venture Benjamin's contribution to this particular thread is more designed to attack Hank Albarelli's investigation which uncovered the Lafitte material than to actually discuss the assassination in the specifics. Ergo my engaging him through his own writings which seem intended to exonerate Nixon of any association with the very cadre behind the suspects identified by Lafitte. He seems unable or unwilling to consider the likelihood the Cubans served as perfect collective patsies all these decades.

I understand now why you never pursued a career as a detective let alone DA. It requires a certain wiring that circumvents rigid compartmentalization of fact. You must soar with the eagles occasionally. And with all due respect, unfortunately Jeff seems to still be chasing Cubans six decades later despite being privy to new material that both converges and alters the course. CIA's Garland Williams, likely more knowledgable than Jeff and numerous reporters on the topic, told Hank they would never use Cubans in an op like Dallas.

@Benjamin Cole' . . . The reader also met Jean Paul Robert Filiol early in this investigation. Like Lee Harvey Oswald, Filiol failed to complete high school. He gravitated toward fierce patriotism, rejected his parents’ Protestantism and became an ardent Roman Catholic, attending Mass regularly. Like Oswald, he joined the military, serving in the French army on active duty for about two years. After similar lackluster attempts at earning a living, Filiol embarked on his radical, fascist activities. Along the way, he met a violence prone French girl, Alice Renee Lamy, and together they proceeded down the trail of murder and mayhem, ending up in the Stoneleigh Hotel in Oak Lawn, Dallas, on the eve of the assassination of John Kennedy. Whether they were “along for the ride,” or active participants is yet to be determined, but with certainty, Otto, Ilse and the project manager were aware of the presence of the maniacal couple.' — Alan Kent

Right, I especially appreciate your citations of Nixon "in his own words." Considering what is now known, that Bay of Pigs thing can be interpreted to confirm one's bias, as you obviously know. Might it have been a ruse to draw attention from intense scrutiny of what is presented in The Marseille Connection? I see that you rely on soundbite Kirkus reviews of McCallion's book instead of waiting to read it in its entirety before drawing conclusions. Who do you think you're fooling? And thank you for the lecture on propinquity, a phenomena that holds up in lower court RICO cases in particular. The lunch at Le Cote Basque is hardly evidence of nothing other than a photo op. By then, Weiller had Air France and Aerospatiale under his belt so, unless you think he and Nixon limited their lunch to discussion of political ideologies, I suspect $$$$$ was the impetus and I suspect Weiller picked up the check. Beyond that silliness, had you read the book, and had you the courage to venture into Nixon's other controversial benefactors including Romanian industrialist Nicolai Malaxa (who favored and helped fund the Iron Guard), you would better appreciate TMC. And obviously you missed the connections between the Corsican Brotherhood and "the hooded ones" La Cagoule founded by Eugenie Deloncle who is carefully studied in TMC. Unfortunately McCallion failed to include Deloncle's longstanding association with Jean Paul Robert Filliol, which brings us full circle to the Stoneleigh Hotel and Enrique Ernesto Pugibet, November 1963. "That Whole Bay of Pigs Thing" indeed. |

@Benjamin Cole Speaking in/of French, I'm going to hijack my own thread and ask what you know about Paul-Louis Weiller's financial contribution to Richard Nixon's presidential campaign? Weiller, a leading French industrialist both before and after WWII was also the principal financier and a leader of the Union Corse. https://www.kennedysandking.com/articles/biden-trump-the-cia-reflections-in-a-dark-mirror-nixon-vs-helms-1971

Southwest Regional Commission of the Border Patrol's parent agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, then and now is the most powerful office in the naturalization service outside of Washington. — John M. Crewdson, The New York Times, May 1981. The following from Crewdson offers additional circumstantial evidence that Harlon B. Carter serves as a through line from the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, to the election of Donald Trump — heavily funded by the National Rifle Association — with all of the attendant chaos and attempted coup on Jan 6. In his capacity as SW Regional Commissioner in November 1963, Carter was in a position to not only withhold, but to destroy records of deportations. Carter was also a decades long pal of one of the Border Patrol's highest award-winning sharpshooters, Col. Charles Askins who appears in the records of Pierre Lafitte. Keep in mind that NY AG Letitia James filed suit in August 2020 to dismantle the non-profit NRA and its lobbying arm ILA founded by Harlon B. Carter in the late 1970s. Her lawsuit set in motion plans for NRA to relocate to Texas, specifically the Dallas-Ft. Worth area — the late Harlon Carter's stomping ground. A harbinger of what is in play as the 2024 election heats up. . . . in 1936, Mr. [Harlon B.] Carter joined the Border Patrol and rose quickly through the ranks, becoming its chief in 1950 at the age of 37. In 1961 he was named Southwest Regional Commissioner of the Border Patrol's parent agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, then and now the most powerful officer in the naturalization service outside of Washington. Before joining the rifle association full-time in 1975, he was a senior Federal law enforcement official, and his biography, written in the first person, states that in his career, ''several million illegal aliens and hundreds of thousands of criminals have been arrested by officers under my supervision, among them murderers, robbers, narcotics smugglers, etc.'' A member of the rifle association since he was 16, Mr. Carter was elected to the board of directors in 1951. In 1965 he became its president, a largely honorary position, while still a senior official of the immigration service. He retired from the Government in 1970 and in 1975 was named director of the rifle association's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action. He Won Top Office in 1977 Two years later, he was elevated to the association's top administrative job when, at its convention in Cincinnati, the more conservative of two principal factions, known as the Federation, gained control of the association's leadership. His re-election was approved Saturday in a unanimous action, despite opposition by the other main internal faction, the Patriots, the more moderate ''old guard.'' In addition, the term of office was extended to five years from one. Mr. Carter's was the only name placed in nomination by the 2,000 members gathered at the Currigan Convention Center in Denver. In a brief address before the vote, Mr. Carter said the association had never been stronger, and its membership of 1.9 million was now more than double what it was three years ago. He also vowed to never give in to proponents of gun control. ''We'll give them nothing,'' Mr. Carter vowed. to be continued. . .

a vignette of possible interest, Bill: Reunion Tower was Ray Hunt's prize development, Ray being the son of H. L. by another mother. In 1983, during his campaign for sheriff, Don A. Byrd left a boozy reception at Reunion one evening, drove up Preston Rd. and wrapped his car around a tree. Dallas was still a prudish city so the unseemly behavior cost him the election. Byrd was a DPD motorcycle patrolman then detective in November 1963, serving under Capt. Pat Ganaway who headed a narcotics unit. Ganaway is infamous for having claimed there was no serious organized crime in Dallas — straight from Dir. Hoover's playbook. (This, while Robert F. Kennedy was in hot pursuit of the mob in Dallas. The trial was moved to Wichita Falls for some reason.) Ganaway was also among the first to go public that Oswald had lived in Soviet Russia and brought his bride back to Texas e.g., a commie lone nut who shot Kennedy. Byrd miraculously advanced his career from that motorcycle to Police Chief in just a few years. I believe he was also the first in charge of organizing and decimating the department's assassination records. I know all of this from research related to an Oak Lawn address, 3407 Rawlins. Among the tenants in May of 1963 of the newly opened Oak Lawn Plaza was Wesley Rogers Oil Co. out of Oklahoma. A few years later, Rogers' daughter married Don Byrd. 3407 was a location critical to teasing out how Ilse Skorzeny might have justification to be in and out of Dallas in the spring, summer and autumn in the lead up to the assassination of John Kennedy. Rogers Oil company was neighbors in the building with international real estate company, Previews Inc. which had provided lucrative employment in addition to cover for Mrs. Otto Skorzeny as she pursued their personal and ideological interests on a global scale. Was Byrd dating Rogers' daughter in November 1963? Was Byrd related to Mattie Caruth and D. H. "Dryhole" Byrd? Did any of these characters know Ilse Skorzeny? Yet to be determined. A circuitous way of saying that I too hated the ethos of the Dallas I experienced 1970-1987.

Femme Fatales got a pass. 😞 We had planned a supplement focused solely on the women involved in the Dallas plot.

How It All Began On Monday, December 18, 1950, David Martin, Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and his special assistant, Dr. Richard Salzman, spoke before a large group of prominent Dallas, Texas businessmen at a special luncheon at the eighteen-story Baker Hotel, a popular venue for leading conservatives of Dallas. The event was underwritten by the just-forming Dallas Council on World Affairs, a group that would soon form a tight bond with CIA director Allen Dulles. Martin and Salzman, who had traveled to Dallas from their home office at 62 West Forty-Fifth Street in New York City, told the assembled businessmen of their plans for bringing over “2,000 top men of science and letters from Europe to the United States and settling them into jobs where their know-how is needed.” In his capacity as director of the original International Rescue Organization (IRO) in late January 1949, Martin had met secretly with Col. Boris Pash and Otto and Ilse Skorzeny, bringing them into the intelligence network assembled by the CIA which included the IRO and World Commerce Corporation. By the time of the Martin-Salzman Dallas visit in 1950, the board of the IRC had included several leading Soviet social democrats, a fact that drew criticism from their rival for CIA funding, the Tolstoy Foundation made up of many Monarchists and right-wing Russian exiles who refused to cooperate with even moderate socialists. Vying for contributions in Dallas, Martin told the audience, “These 2,000 plus displaced scholars and scientists are the cream of a crop of 25,000 exiled professionals abroad who have fled from Communist countries. These scholars and professionals include engineers, medical doctors, journalists, veterinarians, artists, dentists, geologists, chemists, political scholars, legal experts, architects, and professors of the technical sciences, the humanities and the arts.” Added Dr. Salzman, “They are people Russia would pay heavily to import. They are men who would not only enrich our American culture but could be of infinite value to our war and defense efforts.” Explained Martin, “IRC’s goal is to resettle these 2,000 gifted refugees before the revised displaced persons act expires in June 1951, but so far there has been a barrier against brains in the resettling of displaced persons because Americans and Canadians are much more willing to sponsor a farm hand sight unseen than to assure a job to an unknown scientist or engineer.” Martin paused and said, “This is where we need the vision and intellect of businessmen like all of you.” Martin continued, “Each displaced person must have a sponsor in his new homeland to guarantee his housing and a job before he can be admitted. The IRC has already processed 750 of the 2,000 professionals, and some are already arriving in the country. Each one is thoroughly screened politically before he is invited to this country.” According to Martin, “Each person is screened by the United States Army Counter Intelligence Corps. We work very closely with the government and the military. Each person is also screened by the Displaced Person Commission. And perhaps the most important screening is that given by his fellow refugees.” Said Dr. Salzman, “It is in our national self-interest to get all 2,000 professionals screened and processed. Never has this country prepared for a war in which so little was known about the enemy. These 2,000 are the men who know the chemistry, the geology, the geography, the politics, the roads and bridges behind the Iron curtain.” Explained Martin, “To finance this very worthy and crucial project the IRC last month launched a $1,600,000 fund campaign entitled the Resettlement Campaign for Exiled Professionals. Much of this fund will be spent in this country to prepare the newcomers to fit the requirements of American industries, universities, hospitals, and other employers.” Added Dr. Salzman, “The IRC not only needs more money but also is carefully hunting for job opportunities for the skilled refugees.” At a question-and-answer session following their presentation, Martin and Dr. Salzman referred several times to an earlier column by Victor Riesel that had appeared in the Saturday, March 25, 1950 edition of the Dallas Morning News. Riesel’s column, extremely supportive of the IRC’s efforts and its Iron Curtain Refugee Campaign, acted to pave the way for the Martin and Dr. Salzman visit and presentation. Wrote Riesel: “that’s why the IRC is frankly the savior of political and intellectual leaders. That’s why it tries to keep alive a handful of creative minds such as Ivan Duvynec.” Duvynec had been “a top-ranking Soviet graphite geologist, who prepared master geological and hydrogeological maps for the Soviet government before he “slipped from behind the Iron Curtain and wandered into this end of the Cold War,” but not before “his sister had been shot by the Soviet secret police” and his “three brothers, scientists all,” were placed in “prison camps somewhere beyond the Arctic Circle” and his parents had died.” Out of Ivan Duvynec’s pain, and the thousands like him, Riesel wrote, “can come power for freedom across the globe.” Even before the 1950 IRC visit to Dallas and Riesel’s column, other concerted efforts had been made to gain the support of the Dallas business community in refugee activities including that of Faye Green, a former Dallas schoolteacher who went to Europe in 1944 and became section chief of the Department of Care and Maintenance for displaced persons (DPs) for the IRC in Geneva, Switzerland, returned to Dallas several times, including late 1949, to speak on issues involving DPs. Earlier that year, Eugene M. Solow, head of the Dallas Jewish Welfare Federation who had been a member of a Dallas delegation to Rome, Italy assisting in surveying the needs of displaced persons in Europe and Israel, began pushing hard for enhanced displaced persons support. And at another meeting, February 1949, held at the Baker Hotel, representatives from seven Catholic Church discussed the issues of dealing with bureaucratic “red tape” that they felt slowed the flow of displaced persons from Europe to the United States. Church officials complained that only 5,000 of over 60,000 displaced persons had arrived in the United States since January 1948. Thus, one of America’s most politically conservative cities, oil-rich Dallas opened its arms to White Russian immigrants who had fled communism and began to make their mark on the community, foreshadowing the arrival of Kennedy’s assassins in 1963.

At the risk of being accused of shameless promotion, a full chapter of Albareli's last investigation is dedicated to the "lay of the land" that was Dallas. I trust those following this thread know the difference between hawking a book and contributing to an understanding of why Dallas was the perfect scene of the crime. DALLAS . . . LAY OF THE LAND Dallas… Dallas, ah goodness, I’m not sure what to say… I wasn’t there anywhere near as often as Pierre… not at all. But Pierre would say it was… Dallas was like the arms and legs of the American secret service, your CIA…. —Rene Lafitte Rene says oil smooths the way to silent, and sometimes deadly, change. —Lafitte notes The lay of the land… lay of the land, Dallas —Lafitte datebook, November 19, 1963 The 1963 records of Pierre Lafitte provide indisputable evidence that Dallas was always the designated scene of the crime to overthrow the US government as President Kennedy prepared to run for reelection. The rationale for selecting Dallas may seem complex and even controversial, in particular to those that believe the Chicago, Miami or Tampa plots were meant to succeed. Lafitte’s entry on November 1, “Trial runs . . . mistakes aplenty – Not Good” sets that record straight. This chapter will explain that of all American cities, including Miami, Tampa, or Chicago, Dallas had “everything going for it”: a right-wing Republican climate that considered Kennedy an anathema to its political goals; a social and religious community that embraced segregation and recoiled at the suggestion that a Roman Catholic could navigate the delicate balance between church and state; a law enforcement apparatus with allegiance to the city’s ultraconservative political agenda; a crime syndicate that manipulated both sides of that law; and a thriving corporate and financial cabal operating in symbiosis with the oil industry and military contractors all of whom aligned far more with the ideologies of fascist regimes than with democracies. Adding to the assertion is a Lafitte note, “Rene says oil smooths the way to silent, and sometimes deadly, change.” Above all, as Renee told the author, Dallas was the “arms and legs of the CIA,” a truth borne out.

tu as laissé tomber ta tétine? How is Mr. Koch, btw? I haven't seen him around.

I'm interested in his other titles, particularly Diaboliques Their names are Andrée Cotillon, Alice Mackert, Juliette Goublet, Rudolphina Kahan, Waltraute Jacobson, Hélène de Tranzé or Maud Champetier de Ribes. Concubine, muse, spy, slum whore, belle of the day, intellectual or broke aristocrat: they mixed with the underworld, lent a hand to the Gestapo, soaked in all the bad things of the Collaboration. These women took part in roundups of children, served as touts for the sinister Doctor Petiot or tracked down resistance fighters in the Vercors alongside the occupier. Cédric Meletta followed in the footsteps of these adventurers, predators or criminals unearthing their destiny from the secrets of the archives, as in a Modiano novel. Most were prosecuted and condemned after the Liberation, some shot during summary executions. The author does not retry their trial. He immerses himself in the history of each one, probes their dark soul, like one reopens buried files, and gives us a fascinating picture of this period whose atmosphere and intrigues he restores with great psychological finesse and a keen sense of detail and anecdote. His story is as much of a historian as of a novelist, who knows how to decipher the ambiguities, the pretenses, the play of shadows and manipulations behind the truth of the facts.

. . Jean Pierre Lafitte, author of the documents central to our story, enters the following in his loosely constructed day by day account of what was going on in his world in November 1963: Lamy coming —hotel —Souetre Wednesday, November 13, 1963 Lamy -Filiol at hotel Call Storey. Du valle DeM —rifle into bulding yes/ok/DPD (Duum) Wednesday, November 20, 1963 One of La Cagoule’s most notorious assassins who often dealt with [French monarchist Henri] d'Astier was Jean Paul Robert Filliol, spelled consistently with a single “l” by Lafitte. With the Vichy government formed in France, Filliol became the Cagoule’s chief and most trusted assassin, an infamous killer known throughout Europe. Filliol, a tall, athletic man with classic features and intense dark eyes — who, during the 1940s, sported a Hitler-like mustache and always wore a black glove on his near-useless right hand — was born into a working-class family in Bergerac, France. Filliol served briefly during World War I, and then worked as a salesman for the newspaper and publishing company, Hachette. Around 1935, he opened a bookstore and had the time to cofound the Cagoule alongside Eugene Deloncle. Like Deloncle, Jean Paul was a virulent racist and anti-Semite, who could spout noxious rants on demand. Filliol was also a man of sharp contradictions, who faithfully attended Roman Catholic Mass weekly and claimed to love his brothers and sisters as God intended, provided they weren’t non-white or Jewish. He was said to enjoy good food and wine and had a foul mouth and violent nature that often teetered into blood lust. Shortly after the Cagoule was founded, Filliol began moving about Paris with “his own assassination team, which included twenty-seven-year-old Fernand Jakubiez and twenty-eight-year-old Andre Tenaille, both of whom shared Filliol’s penchant for action but lacked his intelligence. Weapons and violence obsessed Filliol, who was a risk-taker by nature and always inclined toward overkill. He seems to have been a true terrorist in outlook, who sought to use violence to make a terrifying statement to those who witnessed the crime scenes he left behind.” Within months of La Cagoule’s formation, Filliol became head of the group’s Section Terroriste, and many of his fledgling assassins were in their late teens or early twenties. Beyond debate, Filliol was a pathological, homicidal assassin who appeared perfectly suited to the job of murder and was dissatisfied if he wasn’t either killing someone or planning a lethal attack on targeted victims, regardless of their age or sex. Filliol was notorious for kneeling over his dead victims and asking: “Lord, must we cut all their throats?” In his vicious escapades, he was often accompanied by his beautiful, mysterious mistress, and eventual wife, Alice Lamy, who, by all accounts, shared his maniacal ways. . . . . . . With his letter to Dir. J. Edgar Hoover, [self-acknowledged amateur detective Paul] Gluc then living outside Paris, has provided us independent corroboration that Filiol, Lamy and Litt were known associates and that they were in Dallas, and as noted, he did so as early as March 1964. We also see, perhaps for the first time outside of cryptic reports that revealed a smattering of facts, that the FBI was made aware of the possibility that known assassin Jean Souetre had been in Dallas. Yes, Gluc could have simply picked up on the obscure rumors about Souetre being expelled from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but there was no known trail in the public domain of the presence of Filiol, Lamy and/or Litt in Dallas that would tie the three to Jean Souetre, nor was it known that the Stoneleigh Hotel housed them in the lead up to November 22. 11:30 meet Warsaw (+hotel) with T. Hjalmar / Ilse - Get $ —Thursday, November 7, 1963 In 1963, the Stoneleigh Hotel was within walking distance of one of Dallas’ most respected old-world European style restaurants, the Old Warsaw. The reader is reminded that not only did Leo Corrigan Properties own the buildings that housed Jack Ruby’s clubs, it owned the Stoneleigh Hotel described by Lafitte’s daughter as the family’s preferred accommodation in Dallas. Corrigan’s father had also purchased The Adolphus and maintained family ownership of the famed hotel under the banner of the Dallas Hotel Co. His board (and no doubt investors) included Robert G. Storey, Jr. and R. L. Thornton, Jr., of Lakewood State Bank and Mercantile National Bank respectively. . . . and full circle to Alan Kent's essay on Enrique Ernesto Pugibet, the subject of this EF thread: . . . Before departing the Stoneleigh — and although the project manager for the Dallas operation makes no mention of him by name — there is reason to conclude that Enrique Ernesto Pugibet, a former member of the French resistance and gunman for hire posing as a cattle rancher, checked into the same hotel at the same time, not by chance but by design. According to attorney Bernard Fensterwald, whose investigations unearthed facts few had ever pursued in earnest, he had the opportunity to talk with then FBI informant Allen Wright and to document the essence of what Wright had tried to tell New Orleans DA Jim Garrison. Fensterwald’s notes were summarized by researcher Mary Ferrell whose collection served as the “mother ship” of assassination files for decades. According to Wright, Ernesto Puijet [sic] checked into the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas on November 19, 1963. Wright further alleged that the hired gunman was still in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The individual in question was Enrique Ernesto Pugibet, who according to FBI informant NY T-1, was a prized and protected FBI source at the time and involved directly in a political assassination. Wright says that Pugibet had killed Jose Almoina Mateos, former secretary to Trujillo, in Mexico, in May 1960, and upon his return to the Dominican Republic, Pugibet was given a new automobile with a driver, allowed to carry a pistol, provided a home in Ciudad Trujillo, and assumed a very high position in “Radio Caribe.”

This is a bit like putting a toddler down for his nap and just when you think he's drifted off ...

I assumed you had his email. Will send on via gmail.

@Paul Brancato Alan Kent invites you to pm him re. Lifton.

(moving this to the Pugibet thread, Paul)