Leslie Sharp

"Nobody", @Jonathan Cohen? Or do you mean the echo chamber you've create for yourself?

Do you accept that Trump revived and normalized proto-fascism in America? How has the Biden / Harris administration perpetuated in real time the fascist ideology that was behind the coup in Dallas in 1963?

@Benjamin Cole Out of curiosity, Ben, do you think that Watergate was related to events in Dallas in November 1963? Do you think Lucien Conein's role with Nixon's DEA — having been a 'person of interest' in 1963 — is coincidental? Do you think shadows of the assassination in Dallas can be detected in Iran-Contra vis a vis Carl Jenkins? Will you share your subjective historical cut-off date when considering the impact the assassination of President Kennedy had on democracy?

Fascism = Authoritarianism, Nationalism, Totalitarianism — regardless of the scapegoat du jour. I would posit that those who researched the assassination of Kennedy in Dallas without factoring in the politics of the day — whether the '80s, '90s, etc., — did our democracy a huge disservice, and we are now paying the price big time.

TRUMP LAWYER CLETA MITCHELL ESCAPED GEORGIA INDICTMENT — AND STILL LEADS ELECTION DENIAL MOVEMENT Unencumbered by a fierce legal battle, Mitchell remains one of the most influential people in the movement that’s undermining American democracy. https://theintercept.com/2023/09/13/trump-indictment-cleta-mitchell-election/ Heritage Foundation — funded by known Nazi sympathizer Joseph Coors of Colorado-based Coors Brewing — was cofounded in 1973 by a young GOP operative Paul Weyrich who transferred to the Latin Church in opposition to the Second Vatican Council. The following year, he persuaded Coors to also finance the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress which became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Weyrich's right-hand man in the effort was Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party in Hungary which collaborated with Hitler's Third Reich. Weyrich once lamented: "Christ was crucified by the Jews ... He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death." Turn the Heritage Foundation kaleidoscope "just so" to understand the election of MAGA Mike Johnson (Trump's appellation, not mine) as Speaker of the House from which Project 2025 — brainchild of conservative business interests served by the think tank Heritage — may well replace our federal democratic republic form of government established by the Constitution. Johnson — who acted under the radar in efforts to overturn the 2020 election — has announced that Dan Zeigler, former MD for Gov't. Relation for Heritage Action of Heritage Foundation, will lead his policy department; Spencer Chretien, once the membership manager of ALEC — the Koch funded American Legislative Exchange Council — is Heritage Foundation's associate director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Chretien served as Trump's 'special assistant and assoc. director of presidential personnel.' Heritage board includes Cleta Mitchell who somehow skirted indictment for her role in attempts to overthrow American democracy in 2020. Cleta is a close friend and political ally of Ginni Thomas, wife of SCJ Clarence Thomas who failed to report significant gifts from US corporatists whose business interests have been served by his decisions over decades, including Harlan Crow whose father's Trammell Crow Development Co. looms large in the history of events leading to the coup in Dallas November 22, 1963.

@Benjamin Cole Continuity of the coup in Dallas . . . Heritage Foundation — funded by known Nazi sympathizer Joseph Coors of Colorado-based Coors Brewing — was cofounded in 1973 by a young GOP operative Paul Weyrich who transferred to the Latin Church in opposition to the Second Vatican Council. The following year, he persuaded Coors to also finance the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress which became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Weyrich's right-hand man in the effort was Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party in Hungary which collaborated with Hitler's Third Reich. Weyrich once lamented: "Christ was crucified by the Jews ... He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death." Turn the Heritage Foundation kaleidoscope "just so" to understand the election of MAGA Mike Johnson (Trump's appellation, not mine) as Speaker of the House from which Project 2025 — brainchild of conservative business interests served by the think tank Heritage — may well replace our federal democratic republic form of government established by the Constitution. Johnson — acting under the radar in efforts to overturn the 2020 election — has announced that Dan Zeigler, former MD for Gov't. Relation for Heritage Action of Heritage Foundation, will lead his policy department; Spencer Chretien, once the membership manager of ALEC — the Koch funded American Legislative Exchange Council — is Heritage Foundation's associate director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Chretien served as Trump's 'special assistant and assoc. director of presidential personnel.' Heritage board includes Cleta Mitchell who somehow skirted indictment for her role in attempts to overthrow American democracy in 2020. Cleta is a close friend and political ally of Ginni Thomas, wife of SCJ Clarence Thomas who failed to report significant gifts from US corporatists whose business interests have been served by his decisions over decades, including Harlan Crow whose father's Trammell Crow Development Co. looms large in the history of events leading to the coup in Dallas November 22, 1963. TRUMP LAWYER CLETA MITCHELL ESCAPED GEORGIA INDICTMENT — AND STILL LEADS ELECTION DENIAL MOVEMENT Unencumbered by a fierce legal battle, Mitchell remains one of the most influential people in the movement that’s undermining American democracy. https://theintercept.com/2023/09/13/trump-indictment-cleta-mitchell-election/

@Karl Kinaski Had you actually read Coup, you would know that the controversy introduced by Lt. Col. Berberich back in 1987 was addressed. (I would note that apparently Encyclopedia Britannica among numerous other "revered" sources has yet to catch up with Major Mors' version of events.) The Skorzenys Ilse 8:00 PM —Lafitte datebook, June 19, 1963 Cable to Madrid – all – ok – tell Tom D. O says come to Madrid —Lafitte datebook, October 1, 1963 A Couple of Charming Nazis Otto Skorzeny has come to be regarded, in some quarters, as the premier designer and executor of German special operations during the Second World War based on numerous factors, some borne of substance, and some a reflection of Skorzeny’s deft hand at delegating planning authority combined with an equally deft sense of public relations. In the course of accomplishing his most high-profile mission, the September 1943 glider-borne mountain top rescue of Benito Mussolini, Skorzeny displayed great daring, but his subsequent claims to have planned the operation were a substantial stretch. Skorzeny biographer Stuart Smith, Otto Skorzeny: The Devil’s Disciple, plausibly suggests that Major Harold Mors, who headed an elite airborne battalion near Rome at the time, and had a tremendous amount of experience in conducting airborne assaults, was the actual author of the operation at Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain which liberated Mussolini. Military historian Lt. Col. Florian Berberich would comment that “Actually, Skorzeny pretty much went along for the ride—as a passenger…” Still, Skorzeny had been responsible for a great deal of the intelligence collection that pointed the German paratroopers to Mussolini’s location, and decisions he made on the ground played a large part in the success of the operation, which had been formally handed to Skorzeny by Adolf Hitler. Admiral William McRaven, arguably the world’s foremost authority on military special operations, concluded: “Whether Skorzeny was a straphanger or the mastermind of the operation is inconsequential. Ultimately, success resulted from Skorzeny’s action at Gran Sasso, and not from Mors’”

Pursuant to MAGA Mike Johnson's election as Speaker of the House, some soundbite ideological dot-connecting to argue that the Continuity of the Coup in Dallas is in full bloom: June 24, 2020, Louisiana GOP Representative [now newly elected House Speaker] Mike Johnson tweeted support of Trump's pardon of Gen. Mike Flynn: Justice has been served for Gen. Flynn. Now it must come for the rogue bureaucrats who targeted him, threatened his freedom, and trampled on the Constitution, all because he is a conservative.@Jim_Jordan & I will not rest until they are held accountable. — Mike Johnson, (R) Louisiana Six months earlier, Gen. John K. "Jack" Singlaub — once chair of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), advisor to Western Goals Foundation which was heavily funded by the sons of Dallas oilman H. L. Hunt, and key player in the illegal Iran-Contra operation in the mid-1980's — had pled with Trump's AG Bill Barr to "free [Gen.] Mike Flynn, drop the charges." Singlaub had served a long stint as the chair of America's Future, Inc, an extreme right non-profit org. founded in the 1940s under the rubric of "combatting communism". Gen. Mike Flynn — recipient of enthusiastic support from now Speaker Mike Johnson — recently assumed chairmanship of America's Future. A leading figure in America's Future in the 1970s and '80s was Phyllis Schlafly, infamous as an outspoken opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment and referred to as the 'First Lady of a Political March to the Right.' On the tenth anniversary of the assassination in Dallas, Schlafly advanced the lie to her extreme-right following that Lee Oswald was responsible for Kennedy's murder having been "brainwashed by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to hate Pres. Kennedy" — a variation on the theme that continues to preoccupy an influential wing of the assassination research community in lieu of pursing who killed JFK. Schlafly wrote: ' . . . Only three weeks later, Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John Kennedy. Oswald had lived in the Soviet Union, was permitted to travel freely there, to marry a Russian and take her out of the country. After he returned to the United States, he was brainwashed by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to hate President Kennedy because Kennedy had forced Khrushchev to remove the Soviet missiles from their Cuban launching pads.' https://www.phyllisschlafly.com/.../commu.../john-f-kennedy/ Full circle to America's Future and the Schlafly - Singlaub - Flynn messianic ideology: Begin Min. 44:45 of Frontline's Michael Flynn's Holy War to appreciate the microcosm of Gen. Flynn's dangerous tactics that mirror prevailing antics in the early '60s of staunch members of the WACL including Generals Edwin Walker, Charles Willoughby, Pedro del Valle — in league with Nazis SS Otto Skorzeny, Hans Ulrich Rudel, Leon Degrelle — in the lead up to the coup in Dallas. https://www.pbs.org/.../documentary/michael-flynns-holy-war/

“The Lumumba Plot,” the Foreign Affairs editor Stuart A. Reid asks whether the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in the death of one of Africa's most famous post-colonial politicians. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/616779/the-lumumba-plot-by-stuart-a-reid/ In the context of Stuart Reid's new book on the murder of Patrice Lumumba, and considering QJ/WIN documents related to that assassination, I checked to determine who the agency station chief in the Congo was at the time of the crisis. Turns out it was Charles Cogan, a name found in the Davis chapter of Coup in Dallas which leads to the subject of a Marc David Schleiffer, described as a leading Marxist activist and journalist in the early 1960s. (caveat: I've not yet read Reid's book so it's possible, although unlikely imo, he delves into some of the following.) Coincidentally, a researcher based in NOLA who is concentrated on the current Ukraine-Russia war and the trajectory from the Kennedy assassination investigation — LaCagoule/Malice and Aginter Press — called to discuss Gladio/Stay-Behind and the roots of NATO. Charles Cogan wanted us to believe stay-behind was much ado about nothing. ‘Stay-Behind’ in France: Much ado about nothing? Charles Cogan Pages 937-954 | Published online: 16 Nov 2007 Abstract Stay-behind networks in France were set up starting in 1948 and were aimed at responding to the possibility of a Soviet armed attack into Western Europe. Participants were identified, and arms and explosives cached, to be activated in case of hostilities. This activity became folded into a multilateral effort under the Allied Coordination Committee (ACC) of NATO. In France, the network was run as a highly compartmented activity under the French external intelligence service (DGSE). As the Soviet threat receded, the stay-behind activity became more and more dormant, and in 1990 it was quietly disbanded, immediately after the P-2 scandal broke in Italy. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402390701676493 According to his obituary, Cogan was posted in the Congo during the crisis which culminated with the murder of Lumumba. Is it possible he was oblivious to the QJ/WIN programme? An enthusiastic Francophile, from the Congo Cogan took up his last posting in Africa, Rabat, Morocco. (note: Cogan's obituary indicates he advanced to Chief of Near-East South Asia Div. in the Directorate of Operations which brought him to the fore of the Iran hostage crisis. He was friendly with Prince Bandar who was friends with Allen Dulle's liaison with the Gehlen Org, James Critchfield who was former COS Near East. He was then involved in the agency program to arm and finance the Mujahedeen to oust the USSR from Afghanistan. Cogan ended his agency career in Paris 1984-1989.) As noted in Coup, Rabat station chief Charles Cogan had dismissed out of hand the the sightings in Morocco of Lee Harvey Oswald with Marc David Schleifer — close associate of Richard Gibson of the FPCC — who Hank speculates was likely the third leg of the three amigos barstool seen at the dance party in Mexico City along with Lee Harvey Oswald and Thomas Eli Davis. Contributing to Hank's speculation were the alleged sightings of Oswald with Schleiffer in Morocco. Govt. documents confirm that Gibson had relocated the FPCC from NYC to Tangier. (see excerpt below *) As we know, Tom Davis was bailed out of a Moroccan jail by QJ/WIN in early December 1963. We also know from Pierre Lafitte that on Oct. 1, some six weeks earlier and following the entry of Sept. 27 that confirms Oswald and Davis were to meet at the Hotel Luma in MC (owned and managed by Warren Broglie - close friend of hotelier Winthrop Buckingham who was living in Morocco), he had been directed by Otto Skorzeny to tell Tom D. "come to Madrid'." From Coup: As revealed, in his pursuit of Thomas Eli Davis, newsman Seth Kantor exposed that the Texas native was released from his Tangier jail cell in early December 1963, through the intervention and assistance from “the mysterious CIA contract assassin known only by his CIA cryptonym QJ/WIN.” Readers of this book can now be assured that a leading figure of the QJ/WIN program was former Nazi SS officer Otto Skorzeny. An official intercession on behalf of Davis with Tangier officials, considered in light of an analysis of Lafitte datebook entries for late October and early November 1963, indicates the seriousness of the role played by Tom Davis. *Excerpt: In June 1964, alarm bells went off at the CIA after detailed reports came in from Tangier reporting that a subject identified only as “IDEN D” had been seen in Tangier in 1962 and 1963 in the company of Marc David Schleifer and several of his associates. “IDEN D,” according to declassified CIA documents, was Lee Harvey Oswald. Marc David Schleifer was an activist deeply involved in the Fair Play for Cuba (FPCC) organization and is described in CIA documents as “an American Marxist and journalist” who had traveled in support of FPCC and other causes to Cuba, Mexico, France, Algiers, Algeria, and Tangier, Morocco. In February and March 1963, a US State Department memorandum to the CIA and FBI noted that Schleifer was the editor of a new radical Algerian-based magazine, Revolutionary Africa. Earlier in August 1961, and then later in September 1963, Schleifer, according to CIA officials, traveled to both Cuba and Mexico, causing considerable alarm and attention from both the Agency and the FBI for his associations with the then-notorious American black militants and countercultural figures. In 1965, prior to moving to the Middle East where he eventually went to work for NBC News, Schleifer converted to Islam from Judaism, changing his name to Sulayman Abdallah Schleifer. Suffice it to say, as some readers may already be thinking, Schleifer is suspected to have been with Lee Harvey Oswald and Thomas Eli Davis in Mexico City in 1963. . . . Davis, according to the CIA, often used the alias “Oswald.” This claim is supported by the interview notes of George Carter, “that he [Davis] used the name Oswald in his anti-Castro activities in the period 1959–1962 while the real Lee Harvey Oswald was in the USSR. . . . Carter’s lead to Davis came from Jack Ruby’s attorney, Tom Howard.” Lastly, the Rabat report mentions another American, Rev. Carl Ray Jackson, in relationship to Oswald as having allegedly attended a social gathering in Tangier with Schleifer. Additionally, Rev. Jackson’s daughter, described as being a little “flitty,” allegedly had seen Oswald several times in a Tangier “beatnik hangout.” The astute reader, however, might ask why the thirteen-year-old daughter of a minister would feel compelled to make up such a story? The CIA Station Chief in Rabat, Charles Cogan, was skeptical about these reports of Oswald sightings, stating somewhat humorously: “[It] would appear that the whole affair is a product of highly vivid imaginations brought to a simmer in a pot of kif, booze, beatnik poetry and stirred by the Tangier sea breeze.”

Marilyn's expression is serious, perhaps perturbed. She is obviously speaking directly to Jack as Robert looks on. Neither of the men appear to be particularly at ease. Jack has ducked his head — either to hear Marilyn's whisper or to avoid her gaze completely. Schlesinger stands several feet away so It's unlikely he can hear what's being discussed. Considering their demeanor, there's something especially incongruous about his wide grin. Regardless, his presence doesn't alter the tension in the body language, particularly of Marilyn and Jack. Do you know if this is the first time either of the brothers met her 'in the flesh?'

[Note: J. Walton Moore was considered a serious candidate for the mysterious "T" referred to frequently by Pierre Lafitte in the datebook he maintained throughout 1963. Both Albarelli and Sharp considered the possibility that "T" was a composite of characters under the control and management of CIA COS J. Walton Moore.] ' . . . Lafitte’s “Orlov” noted in the October 27 entry, along with both [Herbert] Itkin and [William King] Harvey, is a clear reference to Fort Worth oilman, Col. Lawrence Orlov. According to Prof. Peter Dale Scott in “Oswald and the Hunt for Popov’s Mole,” published in the Fourth Decade, Volume 3, Number 3, March 1996, “Col. Orlov, like Max Clark, was a veteran of the Air Force as well as a good friend of J. Walton Moore.” In fact, they were handball partners. It should also be noted that the Colonel had been drilling for oil in Texas prior to the war, and in 1963 was still engaged in the industry. Orlov’s Dallas office was located in a relatively unassuming building only a one-minute walk from the more imposing Reserve Loan and Life Insurance Building—across the street from the First Baptist Church of Dallas—where both George de Mohrenschildt who was a client of Herbert Itkin, and their mutual friend, CIA station chief J. Walton Moore leased office space. . . .' Researcher Alan Kent, in his essay published in Coup in Dallas, built a strong case that Tracy Barnes was "T", but also makes note of a significant Lafitte datebook entry on September 16 suggesting J. Walton Moore was at the very least "in the loop." If Tracy Barnes was T, I think that we can see—from a distance—the outlines of a nexus of men who Barnes—as head of DOD—would have had “legitimate” operational interest in meeting in Dallas and New Orleans in 1963. People who centered around the Domestic Contact Service, including assets of J. Walton Moore, who seems to have been on the ground floor of CIA’s active outreach to Lee Oswald in 1961, 1962, and 1963. While these people—de Mohrenschildt (who Lafitte makes a note to “call” as late as November 20, 1963), and Col. Orlov, as well as Dallas resident and high-level intelligence agent Sam Kail—were no doubt involved in numerous schemes that Barnes could have had interest in, we know from the evidence of the Lafitte datebook that these people also had roles to play in the forthcoming murder of JFK, as the planning for that event rolled on through 1963. It is possible that Moore himself is being referred to in a key entry. On September 16, 1963, Lafitte wrote: “T says Oswald is idiot, but will be used regardless.” Above that is a note to “see J. in Dallas.” The following footnote from Coup in Dallas: J. Walton Moore: A few days before his death, George de Mohrenschildt told author Edward Epstein that he had been contacted by the head of DCS in Dallas, J. Walton Moore, in 1961, several months prior to Lee Oswald’s return from the Soviet Union, and briefed about Oswald. de Mohrenschildt was a frequently used source of Moore’s, dating back into the late 1950s. Moore would later dissemble when testifying about his contacts with de Mohrenschildt, stating that he had seen George infrequently in the 1960s, but de Mohrenschildt’s wife Jeanne called Moore up on this, claiming that she and George quite frequently dined with Moore and his wife. While it is often stated in the literature that Barnes was “Moore’s boss” from his perch as head of DOD, this assertion cannot be proven. Still, the overlap between DOD and the DCS seems strong enough to suggest that as a likelihood. Moore occupies a unique and very interesting position in the story of the Kennedy assassination. de Mohrenschildt told Epstein that he “would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it.” When de Mohrenschildt first made contact with Oswald, he arrived in the company of a CIA informant, Col. Laurence Orlov. Orlov, a long-time oilman and acquaintance of de Mohrenschildt’s, was also an informant for Moore at DCS in Dallas, as well as being a social companion of Moore’s. Joan Mellen writes: “It seems apparent that J. Walton Moore…had set up the meeting between de Mohrenschildt and Oswald.” And, it could well be added, if what de Mohrenschildt told Epstein about a 1961 contact from Moore regarding Oswald is accurate, Moore would seem to be on a short list of people who were involved very early on in maneuvering Lee Oswald. Moore, an ex-FBI man, as well as an OSS agent during his service in the Second World War, had joined CIA in 1948, being assigned to Domestic Contacts at that time. By the 1960s, Moore was exceptionally well-known and respected within CIA. A friendly and personal letter from then Deputy Director of CIA Gen. Charles Cabell is in the record. Cabell, addressing Moore as “Walt,” thanked him for his hospitality during a recent (1960) Cabell visit to Dallas. Late in Moore’s career, a note in his personnel file shows that the Houston-based DCS office was upgraded in status, the New Orleans DCS office was placed under the Houston office in Agency command structure, and both offices were subordinate to the Dallas office, still headed by Moore. After the assassination of Kennedy, Moore would pop up periodically during times of intense interest in the assassination. In 1976, with the HSCA investigation into Kennedy’s death about to begin, Moore—still in the position in Dallas with DCS that he had occupied since 1948—wrote to the head of that division, asking for help in handling “the exposure of [Clay] Shaw’s connections with CIA.” When de Mohrenschildt died from gunshot wounding in 1977, Moore clipped the news stories reporting the death and sent them to the chief of CIA’s Domestic Contact Division. On a cover sheet over a Dallas Times-Herald article which stated that the HSCA had uncovered “new, unproven evidence on Oswald’s ties with CIA, FBI,” Moore wrote “Nothing new, is there?” Moore’s Agency files also feature a detailed account of the story of Gilberto Policarpo Lopez (December 1963), a young man whose late 1963 travels parallel those of Lee Oswald. Lopez moved suspiciously before and after the assassination of President Kennedy—attempting to get a visa to Cuba in Mexico City in the fall of 1963, and boarding a plane from Texas headed for Mexico City in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. A note from CIA DD/P Richard Helms to Win Scott at the Mexico City CIA station is also in Moore’s files. The note is suggestive of Lopez being involved in a highly compartmentalized intelligence operation. Beyond the particulars of the Lopez story, the significance for our interest is that Moore is being entrusted with highly sensitive information pertaining to an investigation of the murder of President Kennedy, information which was not widely shared within CIA. J. Walton Moore was not “regular folks” in CIA by the 1960s; he was something out of the ordinary—particularly for an employee whose record reflects no obvious advancement for nearly 30 years. — Alan Kent

Clay Shaw’s close associate, David Ferrie ironically lived in the quiet neighborhood of Broadmoor, [a stone's throw] from Silvia’s uncle, Augustin Guitart, a physics professor at Xavier University who resided at 3694 Louisiana Avenue Parkway. In hindsight, had FBI agents Odum and Hosty done their homework and tapped into their resources in New Orleans, including SA Bartlett and SA Rice who might have been slightly curious of the coincidence (the former having been a pivotal figure in the provenance of the magic bullet), they might have uncovered a connection. Instead, Silvia’s testimony before the Warren Commission served only to compartmentalize and confuse, deflecting attention from any legitimate pursuit of anyone other than the patsy. Despite Odum’s follow through with Silvia Odio’s claims, including at least one interview with her, Odum was never called to testify before the Warren Commission on at least this aspect of the investigation. However, as revealed in the following snippet of her testimony before the commission, in a scene worthy of the film, The Godfather, Odum hovered: Mr. LIEBELER. Did you say that you also started working at a new job that same day? Mrs. ODIO. No, sir. Mr. LIEBELER. But you had been working on the day that you did move? Mrs. ODIO. I started working initially the 15th of September, because it was too far away where I lived in Irving. I started the 15th of September, I am almost sure of the 15th or the 9th. Let me see what day was the 9th. It was a Monday. It was the 9th, sir, that I started working at National Chemsearch. (Special Agent Bardwell O. Odum of the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered the hearing room.) Mr. LIEBELER. This is Mr. Odum from the FBI. As a matter of fact, Mr. Odum was the man that interviewed you. Mrs. ODIO. I remember. He looked very familiar. Mr. [LIEBELER]. What is the name? Mr. [sic] ODIO. I interview so many people, it slips my mind at the moment. (Agent Odum left the hearing room…) Special Agent Bardwell Dewitt Odum was never called to testify before the Warren Commission. Caretaker Analysis ' . . . From that perspective, more serious consideration was given to the possibility that there was someone else in play, someone acting as Ruth’s handler, someone who was the ultimate caretaker of the role to be filled by the patsy. And with that realization, interest in FBI Special Agent Bardwell Dewitt Odum—known personally to the Paines prior to November 22 by their own admission—was revived. “The Ubiquitous Bard” was elevated to prime candidate for caretaker. *** In a July 1998 volume of the The Fourth Decade, a highly regarded publication focused on the assassination, researcher Raymond F. Gallagher presented a brilliant exposé of Special Agent Odum titled “The Ubiquitous Bard.” According to Gallagher, from the moment Odum ascended the stairway to the 6th floor of the TSBD to witness the recovery of the alleged murder rifle, he was an ever-present fixture in advancing Oswald as the lone gunman. Less than an hour after the rifle discovery, Bard Odum, along with Lt. Day of the Dallas Police Department, was photographed leaving the depository building with the alleged rifle used by an alleged assassin from the sniper’s nest. Lt. Day later stated that en route to headquarters, SA Odum had used his car radio to contact the Dallas FBI office and described the rifle. As Gallagher pointed out in 1998, there didn’t seem to be a record of this communication, but there is no doubt that early descriptions of the rifle set in motion rampant confusion as to the official identification of the alleged weapon. Odum, an agent of the federal government, was at the DPD headquarters only briefly before dashing to the Texas Theater where a suspect in the shooting of a Dallas police officer was about to be apprehended. It has yet to be explained what prompted Odum to attend that particular arrest in the middle of what should have been the most aggressive manhunt in the nation’s history. Why would his boss, SAC Gordon Shanklin pull one of his prize protégés from the search for Kennedy’s assassin to pursue a local shooting, unless of course, Shanklin had already been advised that Lee Oswald would not only be charged with gunning down Officer J.D. Tippit, but that he would soon be charged with the assassination of Kennedy. Once Oswald was in custody at the Texas Theatre, Odum, instead of tracking federal arrests being made in critical hours of the assassination, inexplicably spent another hour and a half in pursuit of the Tippit shooting along with nearly a dozen DPD staff. Federal detentions in the Dallas area during that twenty-four hour period—persons of interest to the Feds since the spring of 1963—stand out: Jean Rene Souetre and Michel Mertz and possibly Michel Roux. Rather than being ordered to question Souetre and or Mertz or Roux, Odum seems focused on Tippit’s murder, even taking time to interview Helen Markham who had witnessed a young male fleeing the scene. In another rarely heralded essay published in the Fourth Decade in 1997, researcher Tom Wallace Lyons summed up Odum’s early influence over the Tippit investigation, asserting that Odum sewed the confusion that contributed to Markham being labeled as an inconsistent, unreliable witness for decades to come. In another noteworthy timeline, while Odum is biding time in Oak Cliff, pursuing a case that was technically outside his jurisdiction, Lee Oswald’s various addresses were being nailed down at the school book depository. Meanwhile, Oswald was being driven to police headquarters in Car Number 2 under the custody of Jerry Hill and his colleagues. According to Bill Simpich, another researcher who has long recognized that the elusive Bard demands close scrutiny, Jerry Hill had been on the sixth floor of the depository building when Mannlicher-Carcano shells were found and reported as a match to the rifle that Bard Odum escorted to police headquarters. Either the police department and the FBI were stretched thin that afternoon, or this was one of numerous serendipitous coincidences that would unfold in the next few days. Once Lee Oswald was identified as AWOL during an alleged formal roll call of depository employees, and once his addresses were known, including that of the Paines, Odum seems to have finally returned his keen eye to the assassination, and with every subsequent step he took, the profile of the lone nut commie suspect was advanced. By December 2, he was responsible for the transfer of a fragment of a bullet retrieved from the wall of General Edwin Walker’s study to Washington D.C. for comparison against fragments from Dealey Plaza. In light of the September 4 Lafitte datebook entry, which reads Hotshot – Walker (Caretaker), we’re forced to consider the possibility that Odum knew more about the Walker incident than has ever been contemplated. *** [Odum and the Mex City photo) Returning to Raymond Gallagher’s exceptional research and subsequent astute insight into Bard Odum’s role, combined with that of author Bill Simpich, the following is a truncated version of just how enmeshed the FBI agent was in guaranteeing that Oswald alone would be charged with Kennedy’s death: there was no conspiracy, there was no “coup” other than a blow to the president’s head. After transferring the rifle from the “scene of the crime” to DPD headquarters, after witnessing the arrest of Oswald at the Texas Theatre, and following a stop off to interview a witness in the Tippit shooting, Odum either cooled his heels the rest of the afternoon, or pursued leads that were not documented or have not been released. We do know from records that he ended up with shells and slugs from the Tippit scene in his pocket. We also know with certainty that within twenty-four hours of the assassination, Odum played a role in yet another attempt to cement Oswald’s guilt. Again, author Bill Simpich: “[Wallace] Heitman had a close colleague—Bardwell Odum . . . while Heitman specialized in working with the Russians and the Cubans as a valued CIA liaison for the Dallas office, Odum was a senior criminal specialist and a favorite of Dallas FBI chief Gordon Shanklin. Heitman was the man who met Eldon Rudd on the tarmac the night of the assassination. Rudd was delivering documents provided to him by CIA Mexico City chief Win Scott—a photo of the Mystery Man that Scott allegedly believed was Oswald. . . .” Simpich reminds us that J. Walton Moore, agent in charge of the CIA’s Dallas office, was a college roommate of Wallace Heitman. It was Moore that introduced George de Mohrenschildt to the returned “defector,” Oswald, and Moore and de Mohrenschildt shared a friendship with Texas oilman and former WWI Col. Lawrence Orlov who is named in the Lafitte datebook. CIA agent Heitman’s buddy, SA Odum was teamed up that evening with James Hosty, the agent assigned to Oswald since his return from the Soviet Union and infamous for having destroyed an alleged note from Oswald in the weeks prior to the assassination. Odum was the only agent to later claim that Hosty’s story about the Oswald note was erroneous. Ruth Paine soon changed her assessment of the note to align with Bard’s by insisting that the note was yet “another lie” told by Lee. When the photos arrived from Mexico City, after cropping any vestiges of the embassy building behind the image of a man in the photo that they intended to present to Marina for identification, the Hosty/Odum team proceeded to the motel in Garland, north of downtown, to confront her. Enter Marguerite Oswald who ran interference that night, and refused to allow Odum to interrogate either of the two women. Despite those seeming early unpleasantries, a photo of the Bard facing Marina who is cradling her newborn attests to the FBI agent’s persistence.

She has a sense of humor. As described by Politico's Josh Gerstein, Lauro tried to argue that no new restrictions on Trump's ability to publicly discuss the criminal charges being leveled against him were needed on the grounds that the ones already put in place are "working." According to Gerstein, Chutkin "literally [laughed] in his face" in response and said, "I have to take issue with you, Mr. Lauro." |https://www.rawstory.com/trump-gag-order-2665979403/

"Ethno-tribalism oblivious to the very genuine human suffering on either side . . . I fear is accelerating the collapse of our international order as we've known it since 1945 . . . this moment is an inflection point where from here we all go to something much darker " — Yezid Sayigh

As always, thanks for generously sharing your critical research, @David Josephs Before tackling the fact SA Bard Odum was never called to testify before the WC, is it reasonable to speculate that the 10.18 communication between Odum's buddy SA Hosty and INS Supervisory Clerk Jeff Woosley in Dallas made its way up Woosley's own chain of command within immigration and naturalization, perhaps even to the SW Reg. Commissioner Harlon B. Carter? This is of particular interest considering the recent realization that Carter was a longtime friend and fellow TX border control comrade of Texas native Col. Jack Conon, Gen. Charles Willoughby's Z-org commander. For additional historical context, respected and 40-year veteran researcher Alan Kent draws attention to this spiderweb of characters including Canon, most of whom are no doubt recognized by seasoned assassination historians: . . . CIC (China), a subsidiary of Donovan’s World Commerce Corporation, was the firm that employed mob figure Sonny Fassoulis, at the urging of army colonel (and FBN agent) Garland Williams, to procure arms for Taiwan in the period of private procurement before the Korean War. From 1946 on, Major-General Charles Willoughby . . . used Japan’s dope-dealing yakuza gangs to break up left-wing strikes and demonstrations, just as CIA backed the Corsican Guerinis in Marseille . . . Like Operation Underworld before it, “Operation X,” with FBN agents at its center, operated both within and outside the CIA, and particularly with the military. This arrangement continued. In the late 1950s, US Army Colonel Jack Y. Canon, a veteran of the Willoughby-yakuza operations in Japan, penetrated Castro’s guerrilla operation against Batista in Cuba. . . . Associated with Canon in Cuba was a US Marine reservist, Gerry Patrick Hemming. . . . With Hemming was another Marine reservist, future Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis…Castro appears to have accepted the services of Canon, Hemming, and also Sturgis, because of their ability to procure surplus or allegedly stolen US military supplies for his troops. Hoffa and mob casino operator Norman Rothman both were part of this arms flow, for which in exchange Castro initially selected Sturgis, a Rothman associate, to be his liaison in 1959 with the Havana casinos. . . . Kent continues, . . . Without dot-connecting ourselves into oblivion, I think that it is reasonable to see a long stretch of military, intelligence, and organized crime figures whose names we recognize: Willoughby, Canon, McWillie, Trafficante, Ruby, et al. Pierre Lafitte moved comfortably in this world, associating with Lansky associates Amleto Battisti y Lora and Paul Mondolini in Cuba, and Santo Trafficante in Florida and Cuba. And advancing the research to reveal Willoughby and Canon's roles in November 22: ' . . . As intimated earlier, was the assassination of President Kennedy, set for late November, wrapped up in an ongoing, broad-reaching—possibly international in scope—active operation? We leave that question with the next generation of committed researchers. Hired Guns Askins? —Lafitte datebook, September 12, 1963 Askins - Willoughby OK —Lafitte datebook, October 2, 1963 Canon-- S + V? —Lafitte datebook, September 14 1963 Willoughby team – Canon (Z org) D. —Lafitte datebook, November 21, 1963 [SW Reg. INS Commissioner Harlon Carter's comrade] “Cactus Jack” Canon The November 21 entry in the 1963 records of Pierre Lafitte constitutes an “endgame” in his running chronicle of plans to assassinate the president. These authors are convinced that Z Org is the unit long controlled by Col. Joseph (Jack) Young Canon. Described as a taciturn, gun-loving Texan, Canon served under Gen. Charles Willoughby during the US Army occupation of Japan, running a Gestapo-like institution called the “Z Unit.” Canon and his subordinates engaged in some of the same kinds of torturous practices that would later be seen during the United States’ occupation of Iraq. He and Willoughby were busily fighting the Cold War in Southeast Asia at an early stage, and doing so with very little supervision because their commanding officer, General Douglas MacArthur was also slavishly devoted to the anti-communist cause. Although Unit Z was formally dissolved in 1952, with Canon moving on to assignments in the Middle East, including Cairo, “many of its operations continued thereafter, and Canon continued to visit Japan at least until the mid-1950s,” writes historian Teresa Morris-Suzuki. In fact, according to Canon’s deputy, Yeon Jeong, moves were underway to create a centralized national intelligence agency. Jeong stated that sometime shortly before Canon’s departure from Japan in 1952, he and Canon were taken by Charles Willoughby to a meeting with Prime Minister Yoshida. The Prime Minister asked them to make a call on a government official already planning the creation of a new Japanese intelligence agency. Canon, head of the Z Unit met with the official and briefed him about the workings of the US intelligence establishment. Of note, this is within the timeframe that MacArthur’s career ending contact with the Japanese through their embassy in Spain took place. Soon after, Canon’s military superior, Gen. Willoughby was making inroads with Spain’s fascist dictator, Francisco Franco. Willoughby team— Canon (Z org) D. That men of the egocentric character and intemperance of Gen. Willoughby and Jack Canon would be involved in an operation as spectacular as November 22, 1963 should probably not shock us. Among researchers into the assassination, in addition to chipping away at Charles Willoughby, Dick Russell was the first to glance Canon. In reference to the 1951 kidnapping and subsequent torture of a suspected Soviet spy, Japanese writer Kaji Wataru, Russell wrote: “A mysterious intelligence outfit, based in Okinawa and run by Colonel Jack Y. Canon, was accused of involvement, but hard evidence was lacking.”

October 5, 2013 World can thank Nazis for Invention of Sarin One of creators later worked for U.S. Army chemical warfare corps Published October 5, 2013 at 7:21pm By H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Ran Daniel ' . . . Later, after the war, it was revealed during the Nuremberg trials that, early during the war, the Nazis, dissatisfied with sarin experiments on small animals, began to use apes imported at a high cost from other countries. Because so many apes died in transit to Germany, the Nazis then decided to only experiment on Jews in the concentration camps. A post-war British intelligence report states that Ambros and Farben officials "justified the experiments not only on the grounds that the inmates of concentration camps would have been killed anyway by the Nazis, but also on the grounds that the experiments had a humanitarian aspect in that the lives of countless German workers were saved thereby."' https://www.wnd.com/2013/10/world-can-thank-nazis-for-invention-of-sarin/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=PostTopSharingButtons&utm_campaign=websitesharingbuttons&fbclid=IwAR00rLuAm5f5eZzbD20Rw_WSmWX0LKMnLW4LuIC_mtmvUuJstJqJZCvtfNc

I agree. You might appreciate this perspective, although it's penned by someone not directly experiencing the horror in real time. How to think morally about the Israel-Hamas war Massacring civilians is neither decolonization nor self-defense. https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23911550/israel-hamas-war-gaza-palestine-leftist-democrats

what drives a human to participate in this? https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/10/14/hamas-nova-festival-attack-site-visit-cooper-dnt-ac360-vpx.cnn

Great book as well!

I believe Hersh acknowledged that he had been duped. Are you arguing that the fraudulent documents are evidence Kennedy did not have sexual encounter(s) with Marilyn Monroe?

One of Shrake's finest: Strange Peaches is set in Dallas just before and after the Kennedy assassination. The novel's lead character is a TV Western star who quits his show and returns to Dallas to make a documentary.[9] The book is based in part on Shrake's own life story: in November 1963, he was dating Jada, the star dancer at Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club.[5] Strange Peachesincludes Ruby as a supporting character, and borrows the real-life moment when Shrake, standing with his camera at Main and Houston, locked eyes with Kennedy.[6] @Ron Bulman

Thanks but that's not the book I'm thinking of. I think it was Bud Shrake??

thanks Paul, and as I shared with Michael, It's a bit outlandish that he would take the risk, but if one factors in the potential seriousness, perhaps he decided it was worth it. "Nick" couldn't pull up in front of the Governor's Mansion with a suitcase full of cash unnoticed; but if $$$ was the sole purpose of the meet, why not simply send a bag man? Other candidates for Nick don't hold up as well, in my view. Those put forward previously in Greg's thread fall short in either physical description or propinquity with Connally. As an aside, I recently came across a link that included reference to an accountant of Ruby's by the name of John Connally. I did a double take, but decided it was likely an error — a conflation of Estes's story and Ruby's accountant. Unfortunately, I failed to tag the site and can't reproduce my search, (yet). It would be an extraordinary coincidence.

Thanks for that, Michael. I'll make the correction. I think it still stands that he was in the loop. It's a bit outlandish that he would take the risk, but if one factors in the potential seriousness, perhaps he decided it was worth it. "Nick" couldn't pull up in front of the Governor's Mansion with a suitcase full of cash unnoticed; but if $$$ was the sole purpose of the meet, why not simply send a bag man?

What was the great book about these guys??