@Ed Berger Did the Schley family surface in your Canadian research?

 

6 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Tue, Dec 5, 1967:

Reserve Honors, Retires Col. Crichton

DALLAS (API) Col. Jack Crichton. commanding officer of the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, was awarded the Legion of Merit Monday night on his retirement from the Army Reserve after 30 years of service.

The medal was presented in a ceremony by Col. Robert D. Offer, commander of the VIII U.S. Army Corps at Austin.

An oil man and petroleum consultant, Crichton organized his Reserve unit in 1956 and has been its only commander. The award cited him for "exceptionally outstanding service" as commander and for the preparation of a series of military intelligence studies.

The above definitely leads credence to the reality of the 488th and Crichton's role in it: the reference to military intelligence studies conforms to what is known about the 488th's own activities, and it seems unlikely to me that false information cooked up by Crichton himself would be filtered out through a Legion of Merit award ceremony and announcement. 

Picture of Crichton and Col. Robert Offer here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Army_Reserve_Magazine/cW3UxFbBfScC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA13&printsec=frontcover

@Ed Berger
Jack Crichton

In 1963, the president of Republic National Bank—parent company of Bob Storey’s Lakewood Bank & Trust—and reporting directly to chairman Karl Hoblitzelle was James W. Aston who was also engaged in a number of private pursuits including oil ventures with one John Alston “Jack” Crichton, the ultraconservative oilman who has long been suspected of involvement in the assassination. This book lays to rest any doubt of Crichton’s role in the COUP of November 22, 1963. 

            According to esteemed assassination researcher and author Prof. Peter D. Scott, Crichton signed on as director of the newly formed H. L. Hunt Foundation as evidenced in a document dated July 22, 1963, one day after Crichton’s 488th Military Intelligence concluded annual training. In 1956, while engaged in machinations in Batista’s Cuba, Crichton had time and inclination to organize the 488^th which he headquartered in Dallas, with himself ultimately responsible. The stated focus of the unit was covert petrochemical intelligence studies at home and abroad, including in the Soviet Union. In direct control of the unit was Lt. Col. George Whitmeyer, commander of all Army Reserve units in oil-rich East Texas, home of Delta Drilling. Delta had been integral to the 1952 Meadows-Skorzeny venture in Spain. It has been repeatedly estimated that at least fifty percent of the Dallas Police Department’s officers and detectives were members of the 488^th Intelligence Detachment. During an interview about the 488^th, Crichton claimed there were “about a hundred men in the unit and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department.”

            The 488th annual training in ’63 took place at The Pentagon, one of only two attachments from Texas to be in DC that summer. 

            Contributing to Crichton’s joining the board of the Hunt Foundation that summer was his shared political views with H. L. Hunt, the eccentric oilman who, but for his wealth might never have been taken seriously. Their rigid position on segregation was best exemplified during Crichton’s 1964 run for Texas governor when he argued against “the unjust, unconstitutional federally forced desegregation in the state of Texas.” In light of datebook entries referring to meetings with Jack Crichton through the year, it is possible that he also served as conduit for funding from H. L. Hunt. 

            Crichton received a BS degree in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University and a MS degree from MIT. By age twenty-six, he was a Major in the Army, serving in Bill Donovan’s OSS, precursor to the CIA. With his language and technological and engineering skills, Crichton was “more than a natural for the intelligence agency.” The nature of his secretive work for Wild Bill’s agency remains difficult to obtain but we know from a diary he kept through 1965 that his assignments eventually covered five theatres some of which clearly ignited his interests in oil production, and prepared him for one of his first major breakthroughs—a project on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. As a soldier and officer, Crichton was awarded the Air Medal, five Battle Stars, and the Bronze Star. He returned as a Colonel in the US Army Reserve, a civilian to pursue a profession in energy, a Republican with undefined aspirations. His life would soon become a grab-bag of intelligence and political activities.

“They honed my experience at finding oil and gas, and understanding intricate oil negotiations.” 

Crichton was referring to the firm of DeGolyer & MacNaughton, one of the country’s most sought after oil and gas exploration and engineering firms. 

            In 1946, Everette Lee DeGolyer, while working for the wartime OSS, recruited the young and energetic trained intelligence officer to operate a network of key petroleum companies that within about fourteen months folded into the larger network of Donovan’s World Commerce Corporation (WCC). As noted in Chapter 2, many of these WCC enterprises also served as fronts for covert activities, including commercial sabotage and assassination. 

            DeGolyer had first encountered Crichton while serving the war effort as director of the Petroleum Reserves Corporation mission to the Middle East. Prior to that, DeGolyer had served as director of conservation with the Office of the Coordinator for National Defense and then as assistant deputy director of the Petroleum Administration for War. The reader may recognize that DeGolyer would have worked in close proximity with Thomas Proctor’s mentor, Paul McNutt—both identified in Chapter 5—in managing manpower and logistics for the war.

            Following the merger of the Crichton-run network of companies on behalf of DeGolyer into WCC, Jack remained on as vice president of DeGolyer & McNaughton and its subsidiary, Core Laboratories, Inc. Before taking his own life in 1956, DeGolyer, who was born into a dirt-poor family in Kansas and suffered for years from aplastic anemia, organized a company called Isotopes, Inc. to provide radioactive isotopes for oilfield purposes. He had also enjoyed the friendship and priceless professional endorsement of Lord Cowdray, British engineer and heir to the Pearson family fortune including Mexican Eagle Petroleum Co. whose favored hotel in Dallas was The Stoneleigh.

            By the mid ’50s, Crichton was ensconced in a penthouse office suite of the Vaughn Tower, twelve stories above busy Commerce Street in downtown Dallas. Crichton felt very much at home in the office building named for Dallas businessman and ardent Republican Jack Vaughn, who also preferred T. E. Stanley’s architectural designs. In fact, he commissioned Stanley to design a number of buildings in oil-rich areas of the state, including Midland and Amarillo, Texas, headquarters of Dorchester Gas, one of Crichton’s most commercially successful domestic oil ventures.

            Fellow students in his Texas A&M class included the future mayor of Dallas, Earl Cabell, also an alleged CIA asset. At the time, sources identified Crichton as being the president of a successful oil and gas company founded by a New York bank, The Pinnacle Trust Company, established in New York with Dean Matthey as chairman of the board and Dean’s colleague, Harry Brurdydi. They set up under the direction of C. Leslie Roos. It was said that “Roos was connected.” Jack was hired to serve as president. Prior to that, he had been Vice President of Operations of San Juan Oil Company. His tenacity was key in his hiring.’ 

            The numerous deals Jack made during this period included purchase of East Texas Oil, followed by Old Ocean Field in South Texas. This in turn was followed by Karot properties in Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas, and the huge properties of Hagy, Harrington, and Marsh in the Panhandle and Hugoton Fields of Texas and Oklahoma. “Pinnacle holdings were huge and successful,” wrote Crichton. 

            When Pinnacle needed to make a deal with the King of Yemen to look for oil in the desert, they first consulted with the US State Department whose primary goal was to beat the Russians. Crichton suggested to his bosses that he go to Yemen to prepare a full report. His bosses then conferred with State and came back to Jack to order his group to Yemen within the week. 

            “And tell nobody,” execs at Pinnacle told him. 

            “Where have I heard that before?” said Jack.

            Before leaving, Crichton gave the second in charge at Pinnacle a cover story and met with a rep from the Navy Academy and Wharton School of Finance to get briefed. “Jack carefully tucked his .38 revolver into a bag.” and packed the papers for a Yemen Development Corporation. He had negotiated a $100,000 salary and fifty percent of the net profit to the Yemen Development Corporation. @Ed Berger

            Soon after, the CIA sent Jack a secret cable that read: “We believe the King of Yemen is under the influence of an Italian doctor and is being given morphine shots repeatedly. Find out what you can regarding this and report back to us upon your return.” 

            The CIA wrote upon the cable at the bottom of the message: “OS or IS may know the King.” We safely assume this refers to Otto or his wife, Ilse Skorzeny.

            During the trip, Jack had learned that the Russians were speeding up efforts to get a concession asap in Yemen. Later the same week, Pinnacle execs, including Dean Mathey, who would eventually head Empire Trust, reported the oil concession term was for thirty years from the date of signing with an option to renew at the end of the period. Jack carefully read the English version and said all was fine. “We can live with this,” he said. And with that success, Crichton advanced his value to a myriad of government and private interests.

There’s So Much More to Jack Crichton

Jesus, let me tell you, let me… in so many ways Jack Crichton is critical… is the critical linchpin to solving any mystery in the JFK assassination, but any real investigator must have all the pieces to the Crichton puzzle. I mean it.

—Col. Albert Haney, Florida, 1996 

Crichton has been scrutinized by assassination researchers for decades, prompted primarily by his role with the 488th Intel Unit, yet oddly, most have failed to closely examine his early activities in Spain after the war. Had they done so they most likely would have encountered details of his relationship with Otto Skorzeny. In Spain, in 1952, Crichton first met Skorzeny while he was working with Tyler TX based Delta Drilling on the Meadows-Skorzeny venture, led by Algur Meadows of Dallas. Crichton had heard the stories about the former Nazi’s daring exploits, the saga of his Mussolini rescue was everywhere, unavoidable, as were dark rumors about Skorzeny that traipsed the truth spectrum. When Crichton shook Skorzeny’s hand for the first time, his hand was gripped tightly, and he felt genuine friendship coming from the gregarious former SS officer. 

            Jack Crichton also felt friendship towards the man who would later befriend Lee Harvey Oswald and wife Marina. In late 1952, George de Mohrenschildt worked closely with Crichton on the Meadows-Skorzeny venture. Without doubt, George also consulted often with Skorzeny, advising on the need to finesse certain matters with the Spanish Government, providing him detailed explanations about problems the scheme would encounter. Crichton later said of him, “I liked George. He was a nice guy.” 

            In August 1953, on the heels of the Spanish oil deal, Crichton was hired by NY based investment firm, Empire Trust Company, the investment bank identified in a previous chapter in context of the Canadian-based Bronfman fortune and Permindex. Crichton was quickly named a vice president of the banking operation which could trace its roots to London. His boss at Pinnacle, Dean Mathey would soon become Chairman of the Board of Empire and honorary Chairman of the Bank of New York following the merger of the two financial empires. Decades later, BoNY would be purchased by Frankfurt based multinational investment bank and financial services company, Deutsche Bank, most recently infamous for lending massive funds to the future president of the US, Donald J. Trump. It should be noted that before the merger, Bank of New York had exchanged a major financial contribution for a seat on the board of the JFK Library at Columbia Point, MA. 

            Prior to the US declaring war on Germany in 1917, Empire Trust is reported to have been of keen interest to the German Secret Service developing a highly sophisticated wireless system to transmit critical information. The cipher code for the system employed innocuous personal names. Empire Trust was identified as “Albert Hardwood,” a name impossible to locate in contemporary records, phone books, business directories, etc., of the period. According to revelations in The German Secret Service in American by John P. Jones and Merrick Hollister, published in 1918, the diplomatic code was a dictionary, its pages designated by serial letters, its words by serial numbers. Thus the message “12-B-15-C-7” signified the twelfth and fifteenth words on the second page, and the seventh word on the third page. This particular dictionary was one of a rare edition. It is interesting to note that Lafitte, who cabled Otto Skorzeny on numerous occasions, frequently reverted to code in his entries. Two examples, back-to-back, August 10 and 11: 

A   Z+16-2 

(Ella R. check on)

 and

A   Z+18-2 (e)

-cables sent to O

Madrid (Souetre)

The authors’ further research finds that by 1951, Empire Trust served as a proprietary for the CIA as well as part of a well-concealed network of small to large banks, many located in the Dallas, Texas area. Among them was the Lakewood Trust, cofounded by the R. G. Storey family. — Albarelli / Sharp

5 hours ago, David Josephs said:

False "story" - As I read this again in a new light, the "story" of him on MX is all bogus...  as opposed to a true story of his being taken in and out to meet "contacts" at the Luna - but I think we need to dig deeper than June Cobb and Mrs. Davis. as sources for this meeting.

As for Bowen...  We see no better example of the WCR deciding what was and wasn't evidence, and who was or was not to be believed.

 

David, have you encountered John Wilson-Hudson, a.k.a. Carlos Juan Wilson-Hudston/John Carlos Wilson-Hudson in context of either Oswald, Ruby, or Bowen?
 

The CIA’s message reads:

 On 26 November 1963, a British journalist named John Wilson, and also known as John Wilson-Hudson, gave information to the American Embassy in London which indicated that an “American gangster-type named Ruby visited Cuba around 1959. Wilson himself was working in Cuba at the time and was jailed by Castro before he was deported.

Assassination researcher Mike Sylvester, in a thorough analysis focused on mob connections and the assassination, published in JFK Lancer in 1993, asserts that at the end of June 1959, Wilson and three Americans were arrested in a suburb of Havana as they planned to carry out a sneak bomb raid on Nicaragua, using three airplanes and a small volunteer attack force. Fidel Castro had nothing to do with the attack plans and ordered Wilson and the other ringleaders arrested; thus, John Wilson was in jail at the time of the Ruby visit.

The message continues...

In prison in Cuba, Wilson says he met an American gangster gambler named Santos who could not return to the USA because there were several indictments outstanding against him. [This is false. There were no indictments.] Instead, he preferred to live in relative luxury in a Cuban prison. While Santos was in prison, Wilson says, Santos was visited frequently by an American gangster type named Ruby. His story is being followed up. Wilson says he had once testified before the Eastland committee of the U.S. Senate sometime in 1959 or 1960.

Writes Kantor on this message: “The next day, according to a heavily doctored memorandum in CIA files, the FBI came up with a preliminary report that the Englishman John Wilson ‘likely be psychopath [sic] We gather he gave this impression when testifying before Eastland Committee in 1959. Both the message on Wilson and the following day’s memorandum were kept secret until mid-1976, when Washington attorney Bernard Fensterwald Jr. flushed it out through the Freedom of Information Act, along with hundreds of other CIA documents relating to the Kennedy assassination dating as far back as 1963. A check of the files of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Internal Security, headed by Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, shows that while the Eastland panel explored a long list of hot political areas of Latin America in 1959 and 1960, Wilson does not appear on the witness list under any of the names he used…” 

-see J. Dallas

T. says L.O. is ‘idiot‘

But w be used regardless

Set-up complete 

JW-H

—Lafitte datebook, September 19, 1963

Considering this entry, it is provocative to underscore that the heavily “doctored” section of the memorandum that Kantor points out (now declassified) deals with Lee Harvey Oswald and his trip through London, England. The once-classified message reads: “No traces on OSWALD in Criminal Records Office. However, traffic index shows that OSWALD arrived in Southampton 9 October 1959 claiming in his landing card he had no fixed address but planned to remain in the U.K. for one week for vacation before going on to ‘some school in Suisse’. However, he left London the next day 10 October by air for Helsinki. There are no records on return from USSR to US He passed through U.K. However, if moving thru in transit only it not necessary fill out landing card and therefore traffic index would not have record.” The remainder of the message deals only with John [Wilson] Hudson. Was there some sort of link being pursued concerning Oswald and Hudson? Or was this simply a routine message dealing with U.K.-related information?] 

it is provocative to underscore that the heavily “doctored” section of the memorandum that Kantor points out (now declassified) deals with Lee Harvey Oswald and his trip through London, England. The once-classified message reads: “No traces on OSWALD in Criminal Records Office. However, traffic index shows that OSWALD arrived in Southampton 9 October 1959 claiming in his landing card he had no fixed address but planned to remain in the U.K. for one week for vacation before going on to ‘some school in Suisse’. However, he left London the next day 10 October by air for Helsinki. There are no records on return from USSR to US He passed through U.K. However, if moving thru in transit only it not necessary fill out landing card and therefore traffic index would not have record.” The remainder of the message deals only with John [Wilson] Hudson. Was there some sort of link being pursued concerning Oswald and Hudson? Or was this simply a routine message dealing with U.K.-related information?] 

            Kantor goes on: “U.S. embassy records in London referred to Wilson only as a self-described ‘free-lance journalist,’ residing in Chile during most of the 1940s and 1950s. Wilson told American embassy officials that he actually had been working for Cuban dictator Batista in the late 1950s and was deported by Castro after a term of imprisonment in 1959… “But a confidential November 28, 1963, memorandum from the office of Richard M. Helms, at that time CIA deputy director for plans, reveals much more about Wilson. The CIA file on him went back to 1951.”

            The confidential November 28, 1963 memorandum by Helms was sent to Sam Papich at the FBI. The file, wrote Kantor, “shows that Wilson [was] well educated at Oxford University [England], had been born in Liverpool, December 29, 1916, had reached Chile on January 28, 1939, from Buenos Aires, and ‘was a contact of one Bert Sucharov, a suspected Soviet agent in Santiago, Chile.’” 
 

of note,
Ruby and John Wilson-Hudson:

October 30, 1963

-QRTS-

Day 1- Ruby - Wilson-H -

Bond . . .

Call Ilse NYC

The significance of the October 30^th entry, made just one day after Lafitte tells us about the “Lancelot Planning” is volatile because there is an inexplicable similarity between it and an entry in one of Jack Ruby's notebooks which Dallas police located on the day Oswald was shot. It reads: "October 29, 1963 -- John Wilson -- bond." The FBI checked Dallas police and sheriff's records to determine if a “John Wilson” had made bond. They also consulted two different private attorneys whose names were John Wilson, both of whom indicated they had not dealt with Ruby. The FBI concluded there was no reason for the notebook entry. 

5 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Most of the crowd people closest to the shooting scene were confronted by local police and other security agency people and even photographers and press people. Asking them questions, taking their cameras, etc.

The Newmans, Jean Hill and Mary Moorman, James Tague, Zapruder and others.

So, here you have two eyewitness guys Witt and the DCM ( odd looking to boot ) who were within feet of JFK when he is first hit...and who then stick around sitting right down hand holding close where they were standing for several minutes...and neither of them are approached by anyone for questions?

Didn't the authorities look at all the film and photos of the crowd who were closest to the limo when JFK was hit and try to identify everyone in those photo's?

I would think those eyewitnesses just feet from the limo during the shooting would be of highest priority in that regards.

Great points, Joe.  And why wasn't that film confiscated?  Or was it, and doctored?

Why did they sit down on the curb when they could have easily sauntered off into the sunset? Then again, why didn't they track down authorities in the vicinity and tell them exactly what they saw and heard? 

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I’m sure they don’t. RFK Jr doesn’t live in the current Democratic bubble. Did JFK go to an Orange County and talk about the dangers of conspiracy thinking to the local Birchers? Do we only talk to those with whom we agree?  Was that your point Andrew? 

Did JFK force Gen. Walker out of the military? Did he recognize the insanity of Curtis LeMay and call it out? Did he know when he was entering nut country?

Would RFK Jr. welcome Generals Flynn (both) into his fold or has he rebuked them for their role in attempting to impede and overthrow an election?  Does he challenge the inflammatory rhetoric of  Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Tucker Carlson?  Has he shamed Trump for his attempts to overthrow our government?

 I think we Dems must be very circumspect in drawing comparisons between Jack and his nephew.

2 hours ago, David Boylan said:

Some previous essays on the topic:

https://www.jfk-assassination.eu/articles/umbrella.php

Forum member Ron Ecker:

http://www.ronaldecker.com/umbrella.html

Russ Baker:

https://whowhatwhy.org/video/jfk-umbrella-man-more-doubts/

Fourth Decade:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48682#relPageId=19

Russ didn't know at the time that former head of Texas Border Patrol Harlon B. Carter was the SW Region Commissioner of INS in 1963 and would have been in and out of the Field St. Rio Grande Building; nor did he know that Carter had been a close buddy for years of fellow border patrol and renowned sharpshooter Charles Askins.

Russ was very familiar with Al Ulmer but he hadn't focused on Ulmer's post in Madrid at the same time Col. Askins was serving as Army Attaché in the US embassy. In that role, Askins was tasked with keeping his superiors informed about the activities of Nazi commando Otto Skorzeny. Ulmer would have at the very least known of Otto and Ilse Skorzeny, and defintely would have interacted with his good friend Win Scott who at the time was Western European Office of Special Operations; government records confirm that Scott signed off on reports related to Otto Skorzeny yet that fact seems to have evaded those who purport to be experts on Winston Scott.  Where are his personal records for his postings in Europe?

Some ten years later, only months after his official retirement from the agency, Al Ulmer (who had planned to go into business with Win Scott in a private intel concern DiCoSe) was with George and Barbara Bush in Tyler visiting his brother Dan; Russ and I almost simultaneously uncovered that the "Zeppo" in Barbara's recollection of the day was Joe Zeppa, cofounder of Delta Drilling in Tyler, and that Zeppa flew the Bush couple to Love Field to catch a flight home to Houston.  Their flight was delayed waiting on AF Two to depart.

Madrid is rapidly being recognized as pivotal locale for international intrigue as the plot to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas in November began to take shape; Joe Zeppa, along with Jack Crichton of Empire Trust and the 488th in Dallas — with the mandate of intelligence gathering for the petroleum industry — had been integral to the Algur H. Meadows —Otto Skorzeny oil scheme on behalf of Franco's reconstruction plans for fascist Spain in the early 1950s.  The man on the ground for the deGolyer-MacNaughton engineering firm's contribution to the Spanish scheme was none other than Declan Ford.

While in Spain, Col. Askins — fellow border patrolman with the future INS commissioner Harlon Carter — had been responsible for informing his superiors on the activities of Madrid-based SS Commando Skorzeny who inexplicably avoided serious conviction as a Nazi officer. Skorzeny was then recruited for contract work on behalf of the Dulles/Donovan/Stephenson World Commerce Corporation.  Prior to his attaining the freedom for such pursuits, Skorzeny met with Col. Robert G. Storey, future Dallas luminary in international law focused on the petroleum industry. 

Fast forward to Louis Steven Witt, Rio Grande National Life Ins. and RW Baxter's tenant, the INS, and one is compelled to consider the  implications beyond mere propinquity.

Albarelli was an investigative journalist in pursuit of a cold case murder investigation.

3 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

If I remember correctly it was Jack White who surfaced Witt - who did not himself "come forward" per se or even voluntarily.  Jack was teaching a course on the assassination at a local college and one of his students mentioned that a fellow he worked with would tell stories, among other things talking about being on Elm street with an umbrella during the assassination.  Jack, being Jack, got a couple of folks together and confronted Witt at work on the story.  Witt was reticent at first but Jack essentially backed him into a corner and Witt began to repeat the story he had been telling and Jack began to repeat it and things went from there.  Gary Shaw was likely involved with this ...surely some of the real "old timers" her recall this better than I do although most are not longer posting on the Ed Forum.  In any event I don't think it was a matter of Witt suddenly coming out on his own and offering information...

Thank you for that background, Larry.  I'll confirm with Gary.

Unless there's more to the story, doesn't this indicate Witt was Umbrella Man?



 

1 hour ago, Evan Marshall said:

I would recommend John Newman's latest interview currently posted on the EF. He talks of all the various "bad guys" including Ex-Nazi's who were there to complicate issues not playing a role in the assassination.

Professor Newman did not have the benefit of Albarelli's sources or their records until 2021; perhaps he has since chosen to ignore Coup in Dallas for reasons only he can explain.

On 8/12/2023 at 11:38 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Was Witt a plant?  Chosen, trained for the part?  Let's remember the CIA brought back out of retirement George Joannides from JMWAVE 1963 New Orleans for the HSCA.  Gave him a medal for his work.  

Think about the others related who died, Roselli, 6-7 top 1963 FBI agents, several others.  Is it beyond the pale to think Witt might have fibbed?

Was Witt a plant?  Chosen, trained for the part? 

Great questions, Ron.  Why did Witt — hardly a barrel of Texas laughs  — come out of the woodwork? 
 

16 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Hot Damn!  Nailing his hide to the Wall!

Live updates: Trump, 18 others indicted in Georgia election probe (msn.com)

🙏 In a word, Massive.

If this is the best clarification Team Kennedy could muster so far, I think it's safe to suspect there are "issues" inside the RFK Jr. camp. 

Kennedy Clarifies Position on Abortion

10 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

No one in their right mind thinks that the Weigman and Darnell films held by NBC are somehow not the original films. All that would be needed is a high definition digital scan that shows Oswald on the steps and bam, the JFK case gets actually reopened. 

The PM theory is based on documentary evidence that the second floor lunchroom encounter didn’t happen and that Oswald was encountered on the first floor by the front entrance, not just the films. There is evidence contradicting the theory just like any other theory in this case, but the supporting evidence offered by Murphy, Kamp et al. is quite strong and the core arguments will survive even if PM turns out to be some random dude.

The films offer a non-zero chance of immediately reopening the case, and there is no other currently withheld evidence with that kind of potential. Therefore, regardless of what you think of PM, everyone should support the pursuit of the films because the expected value of obtaining them is higher than all the remaining documents combined. In other words, even if there’s a 0.01% chance that PM is Oswald, that’s a 0.01% chance of a full-scale reinvestigation of the JFK assassination, and a 99.99% chance of solving a major unsolved mystery in the case. It’s the ultimate win-win. 

The question of photo manipulation is obviously lost on those who consider PM a sacred cow.

To the moderators of Education Forum: @Sandy Larsen @Mark Knight et al:

The organizational maps produced by graphic artist @Pete Sattler and recently posted on Education Forum were developed at the behest of Hank Albarelli for publication in Coup in Dallas under joint-work copyright Txu-2-168-197, H. P. Albarelli Jr. and Linda O'Hara (writing under pen name Leslie Sharp). The US Copyright applies to the exclusive data presented in Sattler's artwork.

Reproduction of said maps without the express permission of the living copyright holder O'Hara is prohibited by law.

Ed Forum member @Doug Campbell recently posted one of the organization maps he had stolen from the EF thread to his public FB page, Dallas Action Podcast; following a Cease and Desist notice, Mr. Campbell removed the map he had stolen from an EF member; failure to continue to respect the copyright and the Cease and Desist notice will result in further legal action.
 

Sandy, Mark, 

We chose to share the organization maps as education tools for those unfamiliar with the material presented in a lengthy narrative; if EF isn't a safe place for copyrighted material, how or why would members feel comfortable advancing new information on this platform?

9 hours ago, Doug Campbell said:

@Leslie Sharp THIS is the meme that violated your copyright? Right?

On one of the podcasts I produce, "Quick Hits", we have (2) segments that would be fantastic vehicles with which to relate this whole, ridiculous tale to listeners: "Facebook Shenanigans" and "That's Dumb Sxxx". I am having an exeedingly difficult time deciding which segment to utilize. But this whole thing is just to ridiculous not to share, this... Cinque-esque onslaught of spam.

Tell us again how Joannides felt safe to abandon the 1st Rule Of Spycraft only when conspiring to murder the President, but took extraordinary measures to adhere to that rule and protect his true identity on every other covert operation he ever had a part in for his entire career , BAR NONE. 

Please explain why he decided to use his real name ONLY when engaged in High Treason, ONLY while helping to plot the murder of John Kennedy. 

Miss Sharp would have us believe that career CIA officers who consistently went above and beyond with the use of operational aliases and Pseudonyms throughout their entire careers while engaged in covert operations would suddenly  have absolutely no compunction whatsover with revealing their real names, their Real-World Identities to a known-conman, a KNOWN-PROLIFIC FBI INFORMANT, whilst engaging in an ilicit operation to murder their own President with this known-FBI Informant. In this instance and this instance alone, they deemed the use of their real-world identities...Perfectly Safe. 

Again, I know better.

You stole copyrighted material posted on Ed Forum which you re-posted publicly on Facebook without permission. I put you on notice. You removed it.  That's the limit of my engagement with you, now and always.
 

>>>

14 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

 

I appreciate the optics, certainly.  

But, in this digital / AI age, putting too many eggs in one basket - an image of Oswald on the steps would destroy the Warren Report — is silly.

A word of caution: authentication is a b-itch.

With all due respect @Roger Odisio, the Warren Report was destroyed long before the Prayer Man theorem entered the investigation. What might happen if the Prayer Man turns out not to be Oswald: the Warren Report got it right after all?  

18 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Leslie Sharp writes:

That was in response to my demonstration, for the third time, that duum is not the Latin word for deux. I'll try again, and see if it gets through at the fourth attempt:

Duum is an archaic genitive form of duorum. It means 'of the two', not simply 'two'. The French for duum is des deux, not simply deux. It makes no sense to interpret the handwritten scrawl as duum in the context in which it appears in the datebook: "rifle into building / [illegible] DPD / of the two". The scrawl cannot be the Latin word duum.

Having to repeat some basic information several times does not indicate obsession. It indicates that Leslie seems unable to absorb information that contradicts her beliefs.

My Latin and French are very far from being perfect, and I'm happy to be corrected if I've made a mistake. But you don't need to be an expert to know that duum does not mean deux. As Alex Wilson points out at https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2761-duum-for-duumies:

Anyone who has studied Latin at school will identify with poor Brian in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

Leslie continues:

There is more than a suspicion that the datebook is a fake. Greg Doudna raised several plausible objections, so far unanswered by Leslie, earlier in this thread:

• on page 5: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29044-pierre-lafitte-datebook-1963/?do=findComment&comment=509153
• on page 13: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29044-pierre-lafitte-datebook-1963/?do=findComment&comment=509466

And, on this very page, Doug Campbell has pretty much ended the debate by pointing out that the supposed author of the datebook would never have known the real names of some of the characters he refers to.

Perhaps Leslie could address the objections made by Greg and Doug. While we're on the subject of real names, perhaps Leslie could also address a claim that has been made at the ROKC forum, that she is not using her real name:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2714p100-reality-checks#42621

The Super Sleuths at ROKC have out done themselves this time; I'm so intent on concealing my legal identity that I filed a joint work copyright using it.

Why don't you review Doudna's initial attack on Coup in Dallas on this very forum. After much bluster cloaked in allusions to scientific and academic standards, Doudna summed things up with, "if it's too good to be true, then it probably is a hoax."  

He has since rolled out an additional, highly intellectual theorem that goes something like this:  if A is a hoax, and C is a hoax, then surely B must be a hoax.  

All this, having never read Hank Albarelli's introduction which spells out in detail how he landed on the doorstep of a small New England home only to later realize he was sitting on the scoop of a lifetime; nor did Doudna actually read Coup in Dallas before posting his purely subjective and dare I say ignorant analysis on EF just ten days after the 700+page book hit the stands; instead, he opted to attempt — with all the professionalism he could muster apparently — to erode any potential interest in Albarelli's breakthrough investigation  by assailing his coauthor's 5-6 page account of provenance and authenticity. One surely must ask: Why?

Doug Campbell on the other hand  — who recently stole intellectual property that is posted on Ed Forum and only removed it from his public FB page after my public Cease and Desist notice — is fairly transparent; as a staunch defender of the Prayer Man Movement, a theorem I continue to question publicly, we can safely surmise "why" after all this time he weighed in on the Lafitte datebook.  Enough said about Doug. 

So you'll forgive me, Jeremy, if I ignore your misguided remonstration that I somehow owe it to either of these two gentlemen, or you for that matter, to defend Albarelli's primary source material. It is what it is; accept it or not.

PS The scrawl cannot be the Latin word duum.
 it is laughable that you continue to tell the world that Lafitte couldn't possibly have noted "duum" ' the Latin term for the French word "deux," because . . .  wait for it, YOU say so?  

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

As part of my diplomatic outreach to YouTube scholar Mathew Koch and the Trump cult, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a recording of Donald Trump's "perfect phone call" to Brad Raffensperger.

Fulton County indictments are expected this week, Mathew...  🤥

 

@W. Niederhut I too come in good faith . . . 

 

. . . And this brings us to the question of how many people have to die at the hands of American Nazis for Michael Tracey to give a damn. The answer is that he will never, in fact, give a damn. Tens of thousands of people can die in terrorist attacks and Tracey will continue to blame Democrats and neoliberals and centrists and anyone and everyone but Republicans and Nazis because while he claims to be a progressive, Tracey's goal, like so many of the fringe "left," is to destroy the Democratic Party.

The only way to do that is to make sure Republicans win at any cost. It's not like Tracey and Sirota and Greenwald and the rest will pay the price. They won't be losing their reproductive rights. They won't be getting murdered by the cops for being the wrong color. They won't go hungry when food stamps get cut or go bankrupt when their health insurance is revoked.

As always, they won't be the ones sacrificing for their revolution and that's just fine with them. As long as someone else is paying the price, spare no expense!

Siding With Monsters

This is why I despise the fringe "left" (and libertarians) more than anyone else in politics. They don't care about anyone but themselves and their precious cause. They're worse than white Republican voters because of their pretense to progressive moral superiority even as they eagerly throw millions of marginalized people under the bus.

 

And on top of it all, they're, at their core, nihilists willing to tear down everything except their own comfortable corner of the world. They just don't have the balls to say it. Michael Tracey and those like him are dangerous because they inject poison into left's discourse. They, and people like them, gave us Nixon in 1968, Bush in 2000, and Trump in 2016. At each step, they made things massively worse in every conceivable way while reveling in "punishing" the Democrats. These are not people who have the country's best interest in mind. They are small and petty and bitter and only care about satisfying their egos at the expensive of everything they pretend to care about.

If your words and actions enable fascism and defend white nationalism, it doesn't matter how often you scream you're more progressive than everyone else, you're on the side of monsters.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/michael-tracey-is-a-perfect-example

@Ed Berger
I think this bears repeating:
 

According to Ralph Ganis, author of “The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK,” Otto Skorzeny was aware of all operational aspects of [Johannes] Bernhardt’s SOFINDUS and its agent network. The seizure of Nazi assets in Spain by the Allies made public in news reports on September 25, 1945, included those held by Bernhardt’s SOFINDUS which Ganis says also provided cover for a vast Nazi network that extended into South America, and that the timing of the seizure of assets in Spain coincides with the foundation of the BACC soon to be named WCC which took advantage of Skorzeny’s particular skills. 

Before pursuing WCC in depth, in 1953, Bernhardt of SOFINDUS whose expertise included export-import of agricultural products and attendant commodities futures, established a major operation in Buenos Aires, Argentina, prompting our interest in what came to be called “the great salad oil swindle,” the financial scandal that had been brewing since 1962 but culminated the morning of November 22, 1963, just two hours and fifteen minutes before Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas. The alleged swindle, reported in depth by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Norman C. Miller of The Wall Street Journal implicated the Buenos Aires-based agri-business conglomerate, Bunge Corporation, the largest customer of New Jersey based Allied Crude Vegetable Oil. Allied’s president Toni DeAngelis, guilty of a bizarre scheme to mislead inspectors responsible for measuring the amount of oil stored in massive tanks with American Express Field Warehousing Corp, claimed that Bunge had started short selling his stock around November 15. Bunge executives denied the claim. As reported in “Mind Control, Oswald & JFK: Were We Controlled” by Kenn Thomas and Lawrence Lincoln, the under analyzed financial crisis on the morning of November 22 that had been triggered by the salad oil scandal, and the assassination of Kennedy cannot be coincidental. Their research provides us a distinct thread to warrant reasonable suspicion that Skorzeny’s fellow Nazi and close business associate, Johannes Bernhardt was likely involved in the near collapse of the US commodity market as part of a greater agenda—an agenda summed up in a cautionary State Department memo of the period—to destroy or invalidate democratic capitalism and establish planned economy on a global scale through the agency of strong totalitarian governments.

. . . As evidenced in his private papers, by the early 1950s, Skorzeny was very much involved financially and operationally with WCC. Over the years the WCC had acquired the majority stock in worldwide trading group Biddle Sawyer Corp. headquartered in NYC which dealt in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, botanical drugs, waxes, gums, and essential oils. The transaction secured Anthony J. Drexel Biddle a membership on the board of WCC. In 1961, Biddle became US Ambassador to Spain, placing him in close proximity to Otto and Ilse Skorzeny, arms merchant Victor Oswald, and Johannes Bernhardt among various other “former” Nazis ensconced in Madrid. 

            Biddle returned to the US in April ’62, and World Commerce folded, allegedly for tax reasons, on August 31st of that year with reported gross income from trading—commodities included—to commissions and interest to just under $1 million with a total net income of $514,000, a far cry from its first year of operation, 1947 when it posted a $50,000 loss. This history of conglomerates tied directly to global commodities markets while at the same time serving as fronts for political and intelligence operations, contributes to the argument that the stock scandal with the valued food commodity vegetable oil—mostly soybean—at its center, brewing since 1962 and climaxing hours before the assassination deserves greater coverage whether tied directly to this investigation or not. 

Chapter Notes:

The Great Salad Oil Swindle, Norman Miller. Tino De Angelis, a New York-based commodities trader who bought and sold vegetable oil futures contracts around the world. In 1962, De Angelis started a huge scam, attempting to corner the market for soybean oil, used in salad dressing. In the aftermath of the salad oil scandal, investors in 51 banks learned that he had bilked them out of about $175 million in total ($1.2 billion in year 2000 dollars). Miller won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his reporting on the De Angelis story. 

The World Commerce Corporation: Anthony Cave Brown, examining a letter written by WCC President Frank Ryan to General Lucius Clay*, contends that the primary function of WCC was to aid in building up the post-WW2 productive capacity of Germany as a bulwark against a potentially encroaching Soviet Union, and that may well be the case.

Prof. Peter Dale Scott who has studied the assassination of President Kennedy for decades, offers a potent hint of a deeper clandestine reality, which bespeaks important connections with the narrative of this book: “…George White’s closest CIA contact, James Angleton, was still working for the US Army at this time (1947), reporting to future Army G-2 and DIA chief William Quinn. And when White turned up in Italy to meet with his former OSS boss William Donovan, Donovan was not working for CIA, but for the elusive World Commerce Corporation, a private intelligence service representing wealthy Americans like Nelson Rockefeller…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.” 

 *General Clay — who was replaced in Berlin by civilian high commissioner John Jay McCloy, the brother in law of Lewis Douglas (both of whom were related by marriage to Germany's first post-war chancellor Konrad Adenauer) — was on the board of American Express along with Lewis Douglas. AE was the parent company of the AE Warehouse division involved in the Bunge - de Angelis "Vegetable Oil Swindle."  Douglas was also on the board of Empire Trust as well as Phelps Dodge in Arizona which purchased majority shares of a small mining concern near Tucson founded by the family of Cicely d'Autremont who married James Jesus Angleton.  General Clay was also on a small company board which provided cover for the infamous John "Frenchy" Grombach (native of New Orleans where his father served as French consul), the founder of The Pond, an unconventional intelligence operation that attracted less than savory characters throughout Eastern Europe; The Pond — too long ignored in this investigation — vied for funding as the OSS transitioned to the CIA. For instance, one of Grombach's more credible agents was James MacCargar who years later was identified as having rescued former Hungarian PM Ferenc Nagy who would assume the face of Permanent Industrial Expositions (Permindex). 
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/MCCARGAR%2C JAMES_0158.pdf

@Ed Berger Have you looked into J. Dilworth Richardson?

13 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

@Leslie Sharp—an important connection with Ladenburg, Thalmann

"U.S. Investors Buy Large Share in African Development Concern" 

New York Times, November 3, 1950

A group headed by Ladenburg, Thalmann Co. and Lazard Freres, both of New York, has purchased 600,000 of the 1,667,961 shares outstanding of Tanganyika Concessions, it was officially reported here yesterday. The stock involved was sold by the British Treasury last April to an Anglo-Belgian-South African group.

Associated in the purchase of the shares were the International Basic Economy Corporation, an international development corporation of the Rockefeller family, and David Rockefeller. It was asserted that none of the shares would be reoffered for public sale in this country. 

 At a meeting in London yesterday Harry B. Lake, a partner in Ladenburg, Thalmann, and Alexander L. Hood, formerly ith that concern, were elected directors of Tanganyika Concessions. George Murnane, a partner in Lazard Freres, also was named a director. 

The transaction was carried out at official exchange rates. The understanding between the American group and the British Exchange Control Authorities provides that the sterling invested for the acquisition of the Tanganyika shares may be withdrawn at the official rate of exchange at any time. 

[...]

Tanganyika Concessions owns a 90 per cent interest in the Benguela Railroad, which serves the copper and uranium mines in the Belgian Congo. It also owns a 14 per cent interest in the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, the large Belgian mining company which owns and operates these mines.

Up until a year prior to this deal, the managing director of Union Miniere de Haut Katanga—a holding of Société générale de Belgique—was a Belgian mining engineer named Edgar Sengier (Sengier actually remained affiliate with both Union Miniere and Société générale at the time of the deal, having stepped back from his leadership role while maintaining a spot on an administrative board). It may be important, given the relationship between Ladenburg Thalmann and the WCC, and the status of the IBEC as a suspected WCC 'adjunct', that Sengier himself had crossed paths with other WCC principles prior to the formation of the company in 1945. 

Consider the case of Sengier and Congo's Shinkolobwe mine during World War 2:

After being warned by British scientists regarding the potential danger were the uranium ore to fall into the wrong hands, Sengier decided to transport half the uranium stockpile from the Congo to the United States in 1940. The ore was stored in warehouses on Manhattan Island, while Sengier himself came to New York to conduct his company’s operations.

At the time, the US Army had been actively searching for uranium. When Col. Kenneth Nichols came to Edgar Sengier, he was surprised to learn that Sengier already had 1,200 tons of it on American soil. Another 3,000 tons from the Shinkolobwe mine was also sold to the US Army and transported to the United States.

Sengier’s efforts were instrumental in helping the Americans develop the atom bomb. Before uranium ore had been brought over from Africa, the Americans relied on Canadian uranium ore, which contained only .02% uranium. By contrast,  the Shinkolobwe ore contained 65% uranium.

And the circumstances surrounding the access to the mine:

On September 26, 1944, the United States and the United Kingdom finally reached agreement with the Belgian Government that African Metals (acting for Union Miniere) would contract with the Combined Development Trust for the 1,720 tons of uranium oxide... The Combined Development Trust began to function in July, 1944, when General [Leslie] Groves and Sir Charles Hambro, the principal American and British members, undertook to negotiate the Shinkolobwe contract with Sengier. The Trust assumed control of the uranium and thorium supplies liberated by the advancing allied armies. Most important, it surveyed for the Combined Policy Committee the present and potential sources of raw material throughout the world. At the end of November, Groves, who served as chairman of the CDT, sent Stimson a report that depended heavily on the work done for the Manhattan District. It found the uranium situation encouraging. If Britain and the United States could augment their own resources with the ore of the Congo, they would have over 90 per cent of the world's likely supply. Thorium was so scattered throughout the world that such complete control was virtually impossible, but the two governments could obtain a dominant position by controlling sources in India and Brazil. If they could supplement these with the thorium of the Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, and Madagascar, so much the better. In short, the Anglo-American raw-material position was strong. But the United States and Britain should not fall into a false sense of security. Groves told Stimson that until the Combined Policy Committee instructed otherwise, the Trust would assume it should purchase major uranium deposits and remove them to safe storage. Its stockpile of uranium should be as large as possible. It probably was not yet wise to purchase thorium, but the Trust should seek options and political agreements to assure control should the mineral become as important as it seemed it might. Thus the Combined Development Trust arrived at a program of aggressive action.

So here we have General Leslie Groves, British spymaster/banker/future WCC figure Charles Hambro, and Sengier working in tandem to deliver over uranium supplies from the Congo to the Anglo-American Combined Development TRUST. Less than a decade later, two other WCC-linked entities—Ladenburg, Thalmann and the Rockefeller's IBEC—arrive in Africa the buy into the very neocolonial enterprise that Sengier was running. 

Obligatory IBEC - Baird Foundation interlinkages, via stock movement (of Chemway Corp, a chemical company controlled by Serge Semenenko) on behalf of IBEC's Robert Purcell: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tax_exempt_Foundations_and_Charitable_Tr/DltzAolBXbQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA28&printsec=frontcover 

 

Tanganyika Concessions owns a 90 per cent interest in the Benguela Railroad, which serves the copper and uranium mines in the Belgian Congo. It also owns a 14 per cent interest in the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, the large Belgian mining company which owns and operates these mines.

@Ed Berger
' . . . It is first important to understand the stall in the Skorzenys’ purchase of property [in Ireland] 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 [Bronfman's] 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. 

*keeping in mind the apparent friendship between Moishe Tshombe and Jaroslav Stetzko as evidenced in the latter's approach to his friend General Edwin Walker in 1964 to ask that he extend the Katangan leader-in-exile in Spain an invitation to the US. 

. . . 

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. — Coup in Dallas

Associated in the purchase of the shares were the International Basic Economy Corporation, an international development corporation of the Rockefeller family, and David Rockefeller. It was asserted that none of the shares would be reoffered for public sale in this country. 

 At a meeting in London yesterday Harry B. Lake, a partner in Ladenburg, Thalmann, and Alexander L. Hood, formerly ith that concern, were elected directors of Tanganyika Concessions. George Murnane, a partner in Lazard Freres, also was named a director. 

. . . Historian Anthony Cave Brown writes: “The BACC officers contemplated at formation were Pepper (president), Ogilvy and Merten (vice-presidents), and Thomas William Hill (secretary). Hill gave his address Room 3606, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City—the same address as that of Intrepid’s British Security Coordination organization, although other reliable records indicate that while indeed located in Rockefeller Plaza, the BSC offices were at 600 Fifth Ave., the International Building (located in the complex with architectural twins La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building) where Allen Dulles leased a private office when he was ousted from the CIA. 

            At first Donovan appears to have played no formal part in the establishment of either BACC or WCC, although his law firm, at that time known as Donovan Leisure Newton Lombard & Irvine acted as legal advisers.” (A few amateur historians have written that Allen Dulles’s law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, served as advisers to BACC and WCC, but we found no hard evidence of that. Additionally, it has been written that Dulles encouraged Donovan to participate in BACC and WCC, but again no hard evidence of that was found.) This leads us to speculate that Donovan may have initially been the “face” of WCC rather than the inspiration as those listed in early documents for WCC include Harry Beaston Lake and W. W. Cumberland, both investment bankers at the firm Ladenburg Thalmann, 25 Broad St. NYC. 

            In 1879, American banker Ernst Thalmann, teamed up with Adolph Ladenburg, the scion of a German banking family. As confirmed in “History of Ladenburg Thalmann,” by World War II the firm was providing banking services for British Security Coordination (BSC), including acquisition of foreign currency which was required in small denominations by a plethora of British covert wartime agencies as well as escape packs for Allied aircrew. The SOE turned to the BSC, and the close links between the BSC and Donovan's OSS meant that there was continual collaboration between all three entities in support of this task. Harry Lake and Bill Donovan shared an address at the exclusive One Sutton Place for a number of years. It should be noted that Lake was on the board of the American Moroccan Corporation, which will have greater relevance as we pursue the role of Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. in Chapter 5.  — Coup in Dallas