When a door opens, even for a brief moment . . . 

' . . . Other parallels of the Trump campaign and administration, juxtaposed with the rise of authoritarianism throughout history, included the rhetoric at campaign rallies and media events which persisted through the first three years of his administration, giving rise for additional concern. The dynamics in motion were reminiscent of the isolationist, nationalistic, anti-immigration America First Committee, the McCarthy era, the John Birch Society of the 1960s whose platform of limited government was code for segregation and unregulated capitalism, and the Tea Party movement of the 2000s, which in retrospect was a harbinger for Qanon, a phenomenon yet to be fully understood.

But as we considered the possibility that key influencers within the GOP might have been blackmailed to silence genuine opposition to the Trump platform, and as we reviewed the turmoil that was unfolding across the country during 2017 and 2018 and stratagems that could lead to re-election of President Trump, the pervading premise of Yeadon and Hawkins’ Nazi Hydra—that Nazism with all the attendant dark arts, more than any other system of modern governing, would best serve unrestrained and unfettered capitalism and racial superiority—took on alarming significance. 

Extreme Right Advisors and Executors
With decades of Roy Cohn’s business and political tutelage under his belt, NY business entrepreneur and would-be president Donald Trump had been able to attract a seasoned group of political campaign strategists, among them Roger Stone. As a young legislator, future president Richard Nixon had been a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee and  had engaged directly with Roy Cohn who would eventually introduce Nixon’s “dirty trickster” Roger Stone to Donald Trump. Stone, who not only readily adopted the ideology of Cohn, but improved upon his tactics to earn the sobriquet, achieved infamy when he was caricatured in the film “All the President’s Men,” the exposé of the Watergate investigation that led to Nixon’s downfall. Stone has long acknowledged the influence that the 1964 Republican Party candidate Barry Goldwater, who was scheduled to challenge President John Kennedy’s run for a second term, had on his early political development. It is that thin, seemingly innocuous thread within an immense series of spiderwebs spanning almost six decades since the assassination of Kennedy, that captured our fascination.  
Stone’s inspiration, Barry Goldwater—acknowledged as having started the twentieth century conservative revolution—had garnered the endorsement and support of what was referred to as a fringe element of the party. In fact, the John Birch Society had been hugely successful in recruiting followers and securing votes for Goldwater.  JBS spokesmen had included Isaac Levine’s mentor and AFC member Arthur Kohlberg. JBS leaders included McCarthy Hearings investigator Robert Morris, and Generals Charles Willoughby and Edwin Walker, both of whom Pierre Lafitte identifies as having been directly involved in the assassination of John Kennedy.
***
After the fall of Nixon, Stone pursued a Rasputin-esque political career and formed a consultancy firm with Republican lobbyist Paul Manafort whose credentials would later earn him a brief role as campaign chairman for presidential candidate Donald Trump, a stint that implicated him enough to be among the suspects of the Russian collusion allegations that roiled the 2016 US elections. Manafort was indicted in October 2017 on charges of mortgage fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying bank records; he was tried, convicted and sentenced to seven-plus years. Before leaving office, President Trump pardoned Paul Manafort.

 In 1980, Stone and Manafort’s firm had gotten behind the presidential candidacy of California Governor Ronald Reagan. When Stone was provided a Rolodex of New York supporters of the governor, the only name he considered of value was Roy Cohn. A decade later, Stone joined the presidential campaign of Arlen Specter who is known by assassination researchers as having invented the “magic bullet” theory that persuaded the Warren Commission that Lee Oswald was the sole assassin of President Kennedy. Fast forward to 2007, Stone was instrumental in bringing down New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer who was destined for a significant role in national Democratic Party politics. That particular dirty tricks operation which included an strong element of Cohen-style blackmail, coincided with Stone’s association with self-help guru, Keith Raniere, the leader of a cult he dubbed NXIVM whose tactics included amassing the deeply private histories of his female adherents that left them vulnerable to coercion if not blackmail. Raniere, who at one time carried Roger Stone on his payroll, relied on funding for his cult from the heirs of Edgar Bronfman of the Seagram’s liquor empire, primary investors in both Empire Trust and Permindex as discussed in early chapters in this book. Bronfman’s daughters attained Raniere's highest ranks, and in 2006, one of them purchased a multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment in Trump Tower. 
Ten years later, Stone, who for our purposes represents an archetypal element of the far-right ecosystem that spans decades, surfaced at Trump Tower to ignite the presidential campaign of Roy Cohn’s protégé, Donald Trump. He too was later indicted. His crimes were obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements, and witness tampering. Stone was convicted and sentenced to forty months in prison but days before he was scheduled to report to the prison facility, President Trump commuted his sentence.

***   
Resurrecting America First ideology, Donald Trump initially attracted millions of moderate conservatives of the Republican party; but alongside them, not unlike the influence General Wood had over the America First Committee of the late 1930s, Trump galvanized nascent white supremacists, anti-Semites, staunch racist anti-immigrationists, Christian evangelicals harboring homophobic prejudice, and unrepentant crypto fascists and Neo-Nazis, all of whom found themselves welcome under his tent once he descended the escalator of his prize flagship property, Manhattan’s Trump Tower, to announce his candidacy for Republican nominee for president of the United States. 

Many argue that no candidacy or presidency has embodied what historian Hobsbawm described as “the ability to get, and get away with, what lesser citizens cannot” more than that of Donald Trump. Under his watch, the rise of hatred of the other and distrust of democratic government culminated on January 6, 2021 in a violent insurrection meant to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 election. Students of 20th century history, during which the rise of Mussolini’s fascism gave birth to the Nazis and Hitler’s Third Reich, recognized the parallels between the Weimar Republic—the fragile constitutional democracy that governed Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the threat that a weak administration of the President-elect would pose to stability and the critical repair of America’s experiment in democracy.

***
Several weeks before Hank Albarelli suffered a health crisis that would soon take his life in June 2019, he summarized for this coauthor, I think serious consideration should be given now to doing 3-4 end pages that speak generally to Fourth Reich. Rise of—revamped to these times but true Nazism—good way to end the book.' 

24 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

The reason he's asking is because, well, you know... your book claims Nazis were heavily involved in the JFK assassination, and since Nazis infiltrated elements of post-war American society through "Operation Paperclip," surely you have some insight?

"Operation Paperclip" involved transplanting 'de-Nazified' Germans, particularly scientists to the United States.  Neither status applies to those who Lafitte names in his 1963 datebook.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

That's fine. But do you think the Operation Paperclip crowd had a hand in the RFK1A? 

I don't know who has argued that the or an "Operation Paperclip" crowd per sé had a hand in either the assassination of President Kennedy or presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Who are you thinking of?

5 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

LS-

 

Thanks for your collegial commentary. 

First, I do not know who perped the JFKA/RFK1A. For the reasons outlined in my opening post of this thread, I suspect very small plots, in terms of witting pre-event participants 

So for me, your explanation of the JFKA/RFK1A has two problems. 

1. You present a bewildering number of possible pre-event participants. 

2. You have not linked the JFKA to the RFK1A, although (IMHO) they are obviously linked, they are twin assassinations.

Do you have any evidence the Operation Paperclip crowd also targeted RFK1?

If you do, please do a post on it. The RFK1A is now a banned topic on the EF-JFKA, but your post will survive for a few days, usually, and I will see it. 

My response was specific to comments made by David.

1 hour ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Agree, @David McLean, that the Hughes-Maheu-Lafittte (a.k.a. Tabet as likely the alias he used most frequently during that period) is critical history, but as presented in Coup in Dallas, it was Pierre Lafitte's close friendship with James Angleton and his trusted association with the Madrid-based Nazi coalition including Skorzeny, Degrelle, Rudel post-WWII as reflected in his private records, that leads us to conclude they were all directly involved in the plot to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas.  The more we study "who really benefited" the more we're compelled to look beyond LBJ and Tricky Dick (both of whom died in ignominy), but to the domestic/international coalescence of ideologues whose virulent anti-communism was only surpassed by their avid proto-fascism which is threatening our democracy as we speak.  I'm the first to recognize this is a huge umbrella to grapple with but given the current rise in Christian Nationalism in the US, Europe and Latin America, I think it's worth confronting the throughline from the America First of the 1930s to date with Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, the revitalization of AF by Reagan in 1980, and the rise of MAGA/Trump as milestones.  We are in so much trouble.

 

a tentacle of possible interest, @David McLean:

 

On 6/19/2024 at 7:31 PM, David McLean said:

Ben, W.,

Agree re Hughes-Maheu and Nixon.

Maheu and Nixon were  Hoover’s 1940’s protoges; 

Nixon, Maheu and  CIA go back to 1954;

Nixon was Hughes’ Boy all along;

Linking JFKA, JP Lafitte intersects with CIA and Maheu thru Office of Security.

Finally, who really benefited from both assassinations? Not LBJ so much as Tricky Dick.

Agree, @David McLean, that the Hughes-Maheu-Lafittte (a.k.a. Tabet as likely the alias he used most frequently during that period) is critical history, but as presented in Coup in Dallas, it was Pierre Lafitte's close friendship with James Angleton and his trusted association with the Madrid-based Nazi coalition including Skorzeny, Degrelle, Rudel post-WWII as reflected in his private records, that leads us to conclude they were all directly involved in the plot to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas.  The more we study "who really benefited" the more we're compelled to look beyond LBJ and Tricky Dick (both of whom died in ignominy), but to the domestic/international coalescence of ideologues whose virulent anti-communism was only surpassed by their avid proto-fascism which is threatening our democracy as we speak.  I'm the first to recognize this is a huge umbrella to grapple with but given the current rise in Christian Nationalism in the US, Europe and Latin America, I think it's worth confronting the throughline from the America First of the 1930s to date with Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, the revitalization of AF by Reagan in 1980, and the rise of MAGA/Trump as milestones.  We are in so much trouble.

 

Instead of studying the history of the first salvo of what we know now is a slow rolling fascist coup in America launched in 1945, we responded to MAGA-Trump as if created out of whole cloth.

The parallels of the sedition charges against dozens of US officials including Congressnen in 1945 and the indictment of Trump and his cadre of protofascists post-January 6 are astounding if one is truly paying attention.

Listen to ULTRA podcast. "As a new authoritarian movement rises in American politics, stoked by one of the country’s most outrageous demagogues, there is an all-out international manhunt for an American traitor. The U.S. Army’s Nazi war crimes trials in Germany have been infiltrated by a spy -- a mole for the other side. A gruesome foreign influence operation unfolds in Washington. A blackmail plot turns deadly in the U.S. Senate. A Hail Mary scheme to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes rattles democracy’s cage. With the line between the violent ultra-right and mainstream American politics fraying beyond recognition, with the FBI always one step behind their quarry, Americans of all stripes step up to confront a seemingly unstoppable, ascendant, anti-democratic force. Join Rachel Maddow for Episode One, launching June 10, 2024, and follow now. You can also subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access to every episode the Friday before it drops, and ad-free listening to all episodes in Ultra seasons one and two."

Season 2 launched June 10, 2024

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/id1647910854

Why is no one discussing Argentina's agreement, initiated in 1963, to sell yellowcake to Israel?

Israel's Quest for Yellowcake: The Secret Argentina-Israel Connection, 1963-1966
 

During 1963-64, the Israeli government secretly acquired 80-100 tons of Argentine uranium oxide (“yellowcake”) for its nuclear weapons program, according to US and British archival documents published today for the first time jointly by the National Security Archive, the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey institute of International Studies (MIIS). The US government learned about the facts of the sale through Canadian intelligence and found out even more from its Embassy in Argentina. In response to US diplomatic queries about the sale, the government of Israel was evasive in its replies and gave no answers to the US's questions about the transaction. . . .

• The Israelis evaded answering questions about the transaction. When US scientists visited the Dimona facility in March in March 1966 as part of the August 1963 secret agreement between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Eshkol they asked about the yellowcake but their Israeli hosts said that question was for “higher officials.”

. . . For the Dimona project the Israelis initially had gotten uranium from France, but in the early 1960s Paris began to restrict the supply and Israel sought to diversify its sources by securing uranium from Argentina, South Africa and elsewhere.[2] Conversely, because the United States was worried about the Israeli nuclear program and its implications for stability in the region, it made efforts to monitor closely Israeli purchases of nuclear material and investigated the Argentine-Israeli deal. While Washington was then exploring ways to establish a global safeguards system to regulate nuclear supplies through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), nothing yet was available with any teeth, such as the future Nuclear Suppliers Group, to check such sales, much less restrict the Israeli nuclear program.

. . . Washington found that the sale was irreversible and that it could learn nothing about its purpose, although it kept trying. The Argentines said they could only apply strong safeguards to future sales while the Israelis evaded all queries about the yellowcake, although as part of a high-level deal between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Eshkol from 1963 Israel had allowed US government experts to visit their nuclear reactor at Dimona. The US team apparently raised the Argentine yellowcake during a 1966 visit but the Israelis were not helpful in providing explanations. The CIA could not learn anything concrete about the transaction either.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/israels-quest-for-yellowcake-the-secret-argentina-israel-connection-1963-1966 

20 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

 

I'm confused. Maybe somebody could explain this to me.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution imposes a duty of faithful execution on the President, who must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” 

How can a convicted felon, someone who has been charged and convicted of committing 34 felonies take care that the Laws are faithfully executed?

I'm not seeing it.

Steve Thomas

 

And how would he conduct foreign policy if he can't get past customs in dozens of countries?  Does the British PM  refer to him a "Trump"?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/31/travel-trouble-gun-restrictions-and-no-more-mr-trump-the-trials-of-life-as-a-convicted-felon

 

RFK Jr's. exploitation of his family legacy without living up to its ideals is possibly more obnoxious than the other Jr's. simpering gibberish about "the Constitution" – which his father plans on dismantling – and Democracy – with an upper and lower case D – which obviously sticks in Don's craw.


RFK Jr. argued the Democrats are trying to win 2024 through the court system during 'Jesse Watters Primetime'

NO, Bobby, Democrats are committed to the rule of law that no man is above it,  a concept your own father committed himself to and that likely contributed to his demise.  Don't play this divisive card and then campaign on unity of purpose and preservation of our democracy. We remain vigilant even if you can't.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/rfk-jr-warns-trump-conviction-backfire-democrats-bad-our-democracy

Roger Stone's welcome under the JFKA tent – with open arms by far too many gullible researchers  – was the harbinger that the community was being infiltrated by those who have no idea what Kennedy represented to the experiment in democracy. Comparing JFK to DJT is insulting to those of us who came of age in the 1960s.

Following Trump's defeat in 2020, along comes Tucker Carlson to serve as poster-boy to exploit "free the JFK records" when in fact for the previous thirty years of his career he failed to use his bully pit to advance assassination research. Little if any mention – other than the spin on his "inside source" – that Trump failed his responsibility and refused to release the remaining files.  Why is that? Oh, I remember, he was scared.
 

Here, in the first three minutes, Carlson and Don Jr. compare Trump's indictments with the assassination of Pres. Kennedy, even alluding to the boiler plate language on the authorization for the Mar-a-Lago search.  If the end game of Dallas, November 22, 1963, was to erode faith in our government, our institutions, and the judicial system toward eventual installation (under minority rule) of the first in a decades-long succession of authoritarians in the White House, then leading members of this "community" that refuse to call out the Goebbels-style propaganda of Carlson et al,  will go down in history as having been complicit.

It's time to collectively reject this egregiously distorted comparison between JFK and Trump and sound the alarm that, if elected in 2024, Trump will be the culmination of the coup in Dallas.

https://www.wnd.com/2024/05/watch-tucker-carlson-listen-trump-jr/

14 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

The same one I sent you today. 

I wonder why this wasn't this included in the initial link for public consumption?

On 5/30/2024 at 8:41 AM, David Andrews said:

In Black Op Radio #1200, Aaron Good quotes Angleton's Church Committee testimony from a recently released copy with fewer redactions.  Where is that new document available, please?

https://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black1200.mp3

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2023/docid-32423393.pdf
@David Andrews, I'm curious why they didn't provide this link as well.

12 minutes ago, Robert Morrow said:

Dean Robert G. Storey of the SMU Law School was LBJ's pick, along with LBJ/ Ed Clark Lawyer Leon Jaworski to cover up the JFK assassination if Texas were to have had a Texas Court of Inquiry.

. . . The parent company of RNB, Republic National Corporation headed by Fred Florence who as mentioned earlier was the inspiration behind The Howard Corp just after the war, purchased controlling shares of Lakewood State Bank, which was organized in 1941 by banker J. F. Parks, Sr. along with the Storey family of Greenville, Texas. Robert Jr. would be named to the board of RNB in 1949.
    The Howard Corp. which held approximately $15 million in assets, generating millions in profits annually represented a potential for channeling far more substantial funds for the CIA than the Hoblitzelle Foundation, far earlier, perhaps as early as the close of WWII when agency asset Robert Storey returned to Dallas to resume his law practice and join the boards of Republic and Lakewood, a bank that he would soon preside over as president in spite of having no experience in banking. 
    As noted earlier, both Storey and Houston lawyer Leon Jaworski had served under Judge Robert Jackson during the war tribunals which included the trial of SS Otto Skorzeny. The details of that trial have been elaborated on previously in this book. 
    Following the war, Robert Storey’s colleague, Jaworski returned to Houston and resumed the practice of law from his offices located in the Bank of the Southwest. He would soon be elected to the bank board and was retained as Legal Counsel for Schlumberger, Ltd., whose headquarters were also located in the Bank of the Southwest building. The reader will recall details of Schlumberger in the chapter focused on jack of all trades Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. Dallas offices of both Schlumberger, Ltd. and attorney Leon Jaworski were located in the Republic National Bank building. 
    In a 1973 article in the New York Times during that newspaper’s pursuit of the role that Leon Jaworski was to assume in the Watergate investigation, headlined, “Jaworski Reportedly Had Role in Setting Up C.I.A. Aid Conduit,” the newspaper followed up on Richard Harwood’s reporting in The Washington Post story six years earlier, and identified the M. D. Anderson Foundation as the Houston conduit for the CIA providing similar services to the agency as had the Hoblitzelle Foundation of Dallas. At the same time, the Houston Chronicle also revealed Jaworski’s acknowledged role in another alleged CIA conduit, the American Fund for Free Jurists when he told the newspaper that he “possibly helped channel Central Intelligence Agency funds” to the lawyers’ group. 
    Following the assassination in Dallas, Robert Storey and Leon Jaworski found themselves reunited at the formation of the Warren Commission investigation, Jaworski working directly with the federal commission’s legal team on behalf of the interests of the State of Texas, and Storey as direct liaison between the authorities of the City of Dallas and Allen Dulles, recently “retired” Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and de facto head of the commission. 
Robert G. “Bob” Storey, Jr. [emphasis added]
Career highlights of Robert Gerald Storey, Jr., known to close friends as “Bob,” were achieved through the legal profession, but particularly significant to this saga was his role in the development of modern Dallas that included inspiration for an international merchandise mart, not unlike the New Orleans International Trade Mart envisioned by Clay LaVerne Shaw. Bob Storey’s concept came to fruition when developer Trammell Crow built the Dallas Trade Mart, Kennedy’s ultimate destination as the limo turned onto Elm. Crow is notorious as having been involved with Clint Murchison and attorney/ real estate developer Angus Wynne in their Great Southwest Corporation and the Six Flags project where, in another masterful move, Marina and Marguerite Oswald were secreted away and interrogated in the days following the assassination. 
    Storey also established the Southwestern Legal Foundation on the campus of his beloved Southern Methodist University, where he served as the Dean of the Law School for many years. But it’s Storey’s position among the elite of the oil industry, both national and international that confirms Rene Lafitte’s astute observation that “oil soothes the way.” His idea for an International Oil & Gas Education Center under the aegis of his Southwest Legal Foundation housed on the Campus of Southern Methodist University, placed him in the cat bird’s seat of the petroleum industry.    
    Identified by many as a “roving ambassador at large,” promoting freedom and the American way of life, a 1957 Dallas Morning News piece titled “Dean Storey: World Affairs Expert” reported that his recent trip around the world marked his fourth such journey since the war. Storey, a member of Neil Mallon’s Dallas World Affairs Council that most researchers agree functioned under the guidance of Allen Dulles and the CIA, was as anti-communist as any of those previously identified in this book. In a speech before the International Convention of Christian Churches in Kansas City, 1961, Storey spoke of the challenges that Christianity faced during the Cold War because of the power, growth, and dangers of the “Marxist virus.” Noting that “the Communists feel any means to reach their objectives are justified, a Christian is restricted by the teachings of Christ from committing certain acts which the Communist is free to commit”; ironic, considering he is named in records of the plot to murder a man in the harsh light of day in “Christian-centered” Dallas.
    Prior to assuming the mantle of his father who was held in high esteem in Dallas business circles, Storey served in both World War I and II. One official record reads: 
In World War II, the Air Force sent him to London as a combat intelligence officer. He was promoted to colonel for his work with the War Crimes Commission in the Balkans and later awarded the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit. In 1945, Storey planned to return to Dallas and to the practice of law, but US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson had other thoughts. Justice Jackson had been appointed chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, and he wanted Storey by his side as special counsel. Storey was on the prosecution team that prosecuted Herman Goering, Rudolph Hess, and other high-ranking Nazi officials. Storey served as dean of the law school from 1947–1959. From 1952–53, he also served as president of the American Bar Association. During that time, he created the Southwestern Legal Foundation as a means of sponsoring the development of a major legal center and served as its director until 1972. 
However, the November 20th datebook entry. ‘Call Storey’ followed by the name ‘Duvall,’ and the initials ‘DeM’ penned by the project manager of the plot to murder Kennedy, reveals a darker side to the esteemed jurist. There can be little doubt that the Duvall mentioned is Judge Jesse C. Duvall of Fort Worth, TX. Judge Duvall had served as prosecutor during the Dachau trials at the conclusion of WWII. Among the defendants was SS Otto Skorzeny. 
    Duvall, a US Army Major during WWII was serving under Judge Robert H. Jackson at the same time Jackson had seconded Col. Robert G. Storey to search for evidence to support the charges against Nazi war criminals. Judge Jackson had known Storey through the American Bar Association before the war, and when he heard that Storey had uncovered valuable documents related to Russia, he tasked his friend with the search for evidence to be presented in the war crimes trials. That search resulted in the discovery of forty-seven crates of Nazi records.
    Now we see Storey and Duvall named side by side in private records of the manager of a conspiracy, two days before the assassination, followed by reference to DeM which we can safely assume was George de Mohrenschildt. During an interview with the FBI, Judge Duvall revealed that he had met the de Mohrenschildts in January 1963, and several months later had dined with the couple in Dallas. He reported that over dinner, de Mohrenschildt had asked if he might assist his new friend, the recently repatriated defector to Russia, Lee Harvey Oswald with his dishonorable discharge. 
    In one of the more odd twists of fate in this saga, Judge Duvall was also approached in the immediate aftermath of Jack Ruby’s shooting of Oswald. It seems that the man, an acquaintance of Judge Duvall for over two decades had worked as a bookkeeper for Ruby in early 1963, alleged that he had seen Jack Ruby and Oswald together in Ruby’s Carousel Club.
Bob Storey passed away in 1981. Judge Duvall followed him a year later. 

3 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

 

Harwood's role in the "exposes" of the '60s designed to allow the neo-con ascendency in the '70s might, now, be worthy of scrutiny. 

 

https://www.commentary.org/articles/daniel-moynihan/the-presidency-the-press/

“The Presidency and the Press,” Daniel P. Moynihan, Commentary, March 1971

...

"Another possibility is for each newspaper to keep a critical eye on itself. In the article previously cited which he did for the Sunday Times Magazine, A. H. Raskin called for “a Department of Internal Criticism” in every paper “to put all its standards under re-examination and to serve as a public protection in its day-to-day operations.” The Times itself has yet to establish such a department but the Washington Post has recently set a welcome example here by inaugurating a regular editorial-page feature by Richard Harwood entitled “The News Business.” Harwood’s business is to check up on what his paper runs, and he is finding a good deal to check up on. (To all editors: Please understand there is nothing wrong with this. It is a routine experience of even the most advanced sciences. Perhaps especially of such.) Harwood has made a useful distinction between mistakes of detail—the ordinary garbles and slips of a fast-moving enterprise—and mistakes of judgment about the nature of events:

The mistakes that are more difficult to fix are those that arise out of our selection and definition of the news. Often we are unaware of error until much time has passed and much damage has been done.

In retrospect, it seems obvious that the destructive phenomenon called “McCarthyism”—the search in the 1950’s for witches, scapegoats, traitors—was a product of this kind of error. Joseph McCarthy, an obscure and mediocre senator from Wisconsin, was transformed into the Grand Inquisitor by publicity. And there was no way later for the newspapers of America to repair that damage, to say on the morning after: “We regret the error.”

Which will turn out “in retrospect” to seem the obvious errors of the 1960’s? There were many, but they are past. The question now is what might be the errors of the 1970’s, and whether some can be avoided. One Richard Harwood does not a professional upheaval make, but he marks a profoundly important beginning. All major journals should have such a man in a senior post, and very likely he should have a staff of reporters to help him cover “the news business.”

As for government itself, there is not much to be done, but there is something. It is perfectly clear that the press will not be intimidated. Specific efforts like President Kennedy’s to get David Halberstam removed as a Times correspondent in Vietnam almost always fail, as they deserve to do.⁷ Non-specific charges such as those leveled by Vice President Agnew get nowhere either. They come down to an avowal of dislike, which is returned in more than ample measure, with the added charge that in criticizing the press the government may be trying to intimidate it, which is unconstitutional."

 

In this instance, Harwood exposed a veritable bottomless pit of funds derived from West Texas Crude stashed in an off-the-books account at Republic National Dallas for decades. 

In a personal note to James Angleton dated July 23, 1964, special employee and friend Pierre Lafitte makes note that the rest will be worked out w/Howard group. In the early stages of analysis of Lafitte's records, it was easy to assume he means E. Howard Hunt's group; however, as will be presented in Coup Brief, it is  now reasonable to argue this is a reference to the accountholders of  Republic National Bank's client Howard Corp. and/or those on their payroll. 

That RNB's satellite Lakewood State hired Don Wright whose son ends up at American University Cairo where he learned at the feet of some of America's most successful international propagandists serving. witting or not, Frank Wisner's Wurlitzer should prompt at least a modicum of curiosity.  Wisner's son whose first posting as a foreign service officer was Tangier, currently holds a seat on the board of trustees of AUEgypt alongside John J. McCloy II.  I would remind researchers that Robert G. Storey, Jr. (who makes a cameo appearance in Lafitte's 1963 datebook) was a board member of RNB and served as Texas liaison with the Warren Commission.

On 4/24/2024 at 9:17 AM, Robert Morrow said:

One of my favorite stories about John Kennedy is told by famous author Lawrence Wright whose father in 1950 was a local banker in Ponca City, Oklahoma and he was also the head of the local Chamber of Commerce. Lawrence Wright's father was asked to arrange a speech for Congressman Kennedy and when he talked with JFK's advance people he was told that Cong. Kennedy required that services of a prostitute for his trip to Ponca City, OK.

Even though JFK was not married in 1950, this is exactly how he behaved his entire adult life up until the moment of his death. The night before JFK's death, on 11-21-1963, he invited his friend Pam Am stewardess Layte Bowden Dopp (Florida State Univ. Homecoming Queen, 1956) up to his suite at the Hotel Texas and she did not go because she assumed Kennedy would make a sexual advance on her. JFK and Jackie were sleeping in different rooms. You can read this in Layte's memoirs Under the Radar in Camelot.

Read the accounts of Evelyn Lincoln, Hy Raskin and Pierre Salinger and one can figure out how Lyndon Johnson was able to strong arm his way onto the 1960 Democratic presidential ticket: SEXUAL BLACKMAIL, threats to embarrass JFK in an election where JFK was already that his rampant womanizing would become a political issue. JFK wrote on a piece of paper that year "I got into the blondes" and he expected to be "hit with something" as the campaign progressed. LBJ and Sam Rayburn could have used any number of JFK's trysts to embarrass Kennedy, but I think the one they honed in on was the JFK-Pamela Turnure affair which Florence Kater had spread far and wide to the media that was not yet reporting on it.

The wife of CIA William King Harvey, who hated JFK's guts, said that John Kennedy required the services of TWO PROSTITUTES when he traveled to Rome. There is a video of Mrs. William King Harvey saying this.

What does this all add up to? John Kennedy was an 1) unhinged 2) hyper-promiscuous 3) compromised 4) reckless rampaging adulterer and it bit him in the fanny when he was shamefully forced to put Lyndon Johnson on the 1960 Democratic ticket as VP. LBJ forced/strongarmed his way onto the ticket because he knew the Kennedys, if elected, would immediately have him removed as Senate Democratic Majority Leader.

JFK later said no one will ever know how LBJ got onto the ticket and that is a good thing: because the truth about is a humiliation of John Kennedy and it shows his weakness in crumbling to bully LBJ as well as his poor character.

Putting LBJ on the ticket was a fatal mistake by JFK and it directly led to his assassination.

Lawrence Wright:

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1988/november/was-dallas-a-city-of-hate/

QUOTE

Daddy had his own dark thoughts about Kennedy. As a younger man he had had political ambitions of his own. Like Kennedy, he was a war hero; like Kennedy, he hoped to trade his wartime glory for public office. Kennedy was a young congressman from Massachusetts when my father made arrangements for him to speak in Oklahoma, at the Ponca City Chamber of Commerce, which my father chaired. Clearly there were advantages in an alliance between my father and this young political star. My father was expected to supply whatever the congressman needed, and what he needed was an ample and varied supply of Oklahoma women-no, not dinner dates, my father was instructed, just sexual companions. It was the moment my father’s own political aspirations died. He saw then the secret appetites of the public man, and he understood how his own appetite for power might lead him to violate his vows to God. He did not even go to hear Kennedy speak.

UNQUOTE

[“Was Dallas A City of Hate?” Lawrence Wright, D Magazine, 11-01-1988]

Lawrence Wright wrote that in 1988 and in 2013 in Dallas he told the exact same story at a symposium on the JFK assassination in Dallas. You can find it at the 21-minute mark here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB_J0j2RYdg

 

 

speaking of Lawrence Wright . . . 
The Manchurian Journalist: Lawrence Wright, the CIA, and the Corruption of American Journalism
https://www.amazon.com/Manchurian-Journalist-Lawrence-Corruption-Journalism/dp/1634244540

In his forthcoming book, The Manchurian Journalist, seasoned investigator Dan Luzzader tracks the career path of Lawrence Wright who miraculously evaded military induction that likely would have meant a stint in Vietnam and instead landed a slot at the American University in Cairo where he learned his trade[craft?]. It's a fascinating tale – as the title suggests – likely to create a stir.

Lawrence Wright's father Don was a senior executive of Lakewood State Bank, Dallas in the 1960s, a bank operated under the protective umbrella of Republic National Bank of Dallas.  Don Wright should be of particular interest to those familiar with the esteemed jurist Robert G. Story, Jr. who inherited major shares in Lakewood earning him a seat on the board of Republic National which – as many informed researchers will now concur – served as the Southwest satellite of US intelligence and the Military Industrial Complex in 1963.   

300 North Ervay — Republic National Bank and Howard Corp
The following from The Handbook of Texas compiled by the Texas State Historical Association and available online, offers an introduction to a little known fact behind the phenomenal success of Republic National Bank of Dallas from the 1940s thru the early 1970s: “In what some consider his most important management decision, [Fred] Florence [as head of Republic National Bank], organized a wholly owned subsidiary, the Howard Corporation, in 1946 to receive the petroleum properties of Republic National in exchange for its authorized capital stock. The company, which took its name from Howard County, Texas where some of the oil properties were located, acquired numerous shares of Teléfonos de México, invested in twenty Texas banks, Highland Park Village, and six other shopping centers, and undeveloped real estate, and paid huge dividends. By 1948 Republic was the largest bank in Texas. Howard's stock was transferred to a separate trust in 1955, but in 1973 the Federal Reserve Bank required Republic to divest itself of the Howard Corporation's non-banking assets in order to form a holding company known as the Republic of Texas Corporation.”

The veil of secrecy was lifted from ‘The Howard Corp” et al by officers of the Republic National Bank of Dallas  — Al Altwegg, Business Ed., Dallas Morning News, Feb 1964.

In the early ’60s, Business Editor of the Dallas Morning News, Al Altwegg began to delve into the shadowy Howard Corp. Under a March 10, 1963, headline, “The Howard Corp. Unique in Banking,” Altwegg reported that as early as 1959 someone had raised the question of whether or not Republic National Bank was in violation of the National Bank Holding Act. The trustees of Howard Corp., which included the president of Republic, James W. Aston, reporting directly to Chairman Karl Hoblitzelle, managed to convince Texas banking authorities that there was no violation of the state’s laws prohibiting branch banking. Republic’s scheme was to purchase majority shares in various banks around the area under what seem to have been shell corporations within the Howard Corp, trust, thereby skirting scrutiny because each corporation held the controlling shares independent of Republic Bank. Those thirteen “non-branch banks” included Lakewood State Bank, whose president at the time of the assassination, Robert G. Storey, Jr., was an alleged CIA asset after the war and looms large in our story. 

Many authors interested in the machinations of the Central Intelligence Agency have over the years referenced The Washington Post article by staff writer Richard Harwood published February 18, 1967, as evidence that Republic National Bank was a conduit for the CIA: In Dallas, Texas, a charitable foundation intimately associated with the Republic National Bank and other major companies, apparently has served as a conduit for at least $580,700 in CIA funds since 1958 . . . the Hoblitzelle foundation began making major grants to the International Development Funds, about which nothing is known, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom. 

With this, Harwood revealed that the Hoblitzelle Foundation, referenced in the prelude to this chapter, was a conduit for the agency and argued that by association the Republic National Bank was a CIA conduit: “Business Leaders Are Tied to CIA’s Covert Operations.” The report read in part, “There was mounting evidence yesterday that leaders of the American business establishment have been deeply involved in the cover operations of the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States. In Dallas, Texas, a charitable foundation intimately associated with the Republic National Bank and other major companies, apparently has served as a conduit for at least $580,700 in CIA funds since 1958. One of the foundation trustees is Federal Judge Sahar [sic] T. Hughes, who administered the oath of office to President Lyndon Johnson following the assassination of President Kennedy.” 

The roots of the reality that Republic National was a conduit for the CIA may run far deeper than reporter Richard Harwood was able to discover or at least report at the time. The CIA’s “Operation Mockingbird,” the inspiration of Frank Wisner and spearheaded by Cord Meyer, Jr., was part of the agency’s ongoing propaganda machine known as the “Mighty Wurlitzer.”  – Coup in Dallas

I don't read even a hint of the aforementioned in Lawrence Wright's attempt to lay his burden down on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy in his beloved Dallas found here: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/why-do-they-hate-us-so-much/

On 4/26/2024 at 9:30 PM, Robert Morrow said:

Oh, I think Hoover figured out very quickly that the JFK assassination was a high level domestic coup d'etat. Otherwise he would not have gone gambling at the horse track on Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963. Remember Hoover was LBJ's neighbor from 1943 to 1961 and longtime blood brother. I think Hoover figured out a long time before summer of 1964 what had just happened and that LBJ was right in the mix of the JFK assassination.

Hoover speaking to Billy Byars, Jr. at the Del Charro Hotel in the summer of 1964 from Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summers: “If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.”

Anthony Summers:

"I was there for one or two weeks," Byars recalled in 1988. "They would eat together, my father, Murchison, and Hoover, and the others. Hoover seemed to be in a very strange frame of mind. He was having a better relationship with Johnson, evidently, than he had with President Kennedy - by a long shot. His relationship with Bobby Kennedy had apparently almost driven him over the edge. He used to talk about that constantly, and once I had the chance to ask him directly about the assassination. I asked him, 'Do you think Lee Harvey Oswald did it?" And he stopped and he looked at me for quite a long time. Then he said, 'If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.' That's all he said, and I could see he wasn't about to say any more. [The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, Anthony Summers]

Billy Byars, Jr. was born in 1936. In 1964 when he spoke with Hoover he would have been about age 28

https://www.boywiki.org/en/Billy_Byars,_Jr.

QUOTE

Summers shows through numerous details how very well the Byars, father and son, knew Hoover. The afternoon of President Kennedy's death, J. Edgar Hoover phoned three people: the Attorney General, the head of the Secret Service, and Billy Byars, Sr. [Summers, supra, p. 329]

One statement by Billy Byars, Jr., is frequently repeated by conspiracy theorists. Byars related to Summers a conversation at the Del Charro during the summer of 1964 or 1965.

"I asked him, 'Do you think Lee Harvey Oswald did it?' And he stopped and looked at me for quite a long time. Then he said, "If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.' That's all he said, and I could see he wasn't going to say any more." [Summers, supra, p. 330].

Usually when this quote is cited online Byars, Jr. is described as "teenage", but he would have been in his late twenties.

UNQUOTE

 

 

 

 

According to Anthony Summers in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover . . . “By a secret agreement, even before the inaugural, Allen and Billy Byars, another oilman friend of Edgar’s—arranged to finance Eisenhower’s Gettysburg farm. They also funneled money to him ‘for his share of the farming operation.’ Byars subsidized Mamie Eisenhower’s brother-in-law Gordon Moore, by establishing a racing stable on his land.” 

Premier Petro Chemical Company: “President of Premiere and a stockholder will be Sylvester Dayson, who joined [Algur] Meadows [of General American Oil] in the formal announcement. Dayson was president of Premiere Oil Refining Company at Longview prior to its sale several years ago and since has been active as an individual in the petroleum business. There is no financial connection between Premiere Petrochemical and Premiere Oil Refining, which now is owned by Western Natural Gas Co., Houston. Other Premiere Petrochemical stockholders are these Dallas men: Lewis W. MacNaughton, DeGolyer & MacNaughton senior chairman; Roland S. Bond and R. H. Venable, independent oilmen; D. Harold Byrd, president of Byrd Enterprises; and Frederick R. Mayer, president of Exeter Drilling Co. Other stockholders are these Tyler men: Joe Zeppa, Delta Drilling Company president; B. G. Byars and Watson Wise, independents. J. R. Rogerson, formerly Monsanto Chemical Co. vice-president at El Dorado, Arkansas, will be executive vice-president of Premiere Petrochemical. He will headquarter in Houston. Edward Kliewer, Jr., Dallas attorney, will be secretary and general counsel.” Financing the new company was First National Bank in Dallas, which also worked with several other Dallas banks. First National Bank’s incoming president Robert H. Stewart, III who was a board member of the Murchison - Wynne Great Southwest enterprise that built 6 Flags Over Texas, was responsible for keeping LTV somewhat solvent in the mid-1960s as well as instrumental in the myriad of loans that both he and Murchison secured for Bobby Baker prior to the F-111 scandal.

. . . Crime syndicates across the country relied on certain elements within law enforcement to turn a blind eye, and Dallas was no exception, as evidenced by the remarks of Pat Gannaway, the head of the division that was purported to be dedicated to uncovering and impeding organized crime. It is well documented that for decades, a number of noted Dallas business and social elite enjoyed the pastime of gambling and the attendant vices. Of particular interest are the oilmen identified during inquiries of the House Select Committee on Assassinations when they learned from Jack Ruby’s Havana gambling friend Lewis McWillie that Billy Byars, H. L. Hunt and Sid Richardson all gambled at Benny Binion’s legendary Top of the Hill Terrace located west of Dallas when it was managed by McWillie between 1940 and 1958. McWillie was also asked about Murchison and Toddie Wynne Sr. and their friendship with Civello capo Joe Campisi. – Coup in Dallas


 

7 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

Whew!  There's a lot in there and yes all valuable.  Thank you.  

Here's another:

Mrs. H.E. Talbott Dies in Fall; Widow of an Aide to ...

 

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 1962/07/16 › archives › mr...

 

 

Mrs. Margaret Talbott, the widow of Harold E. Talbott, Secretary of the Air Force in the Eisenhower Administration, plunged to her death yesterday morning ...

 

THE U-2 AFFAIR: HIGH-FLYING PLANE WAS BUILT ...

 

CIA (.gov)

https://www.cia.gov › readingroom › docs

 

 

PDF

 

19, 1954, and questioned in great detail by Gardner and the scientists. over lunch with Harold Talbott, the Secretary of the Air Force,. Allen Dulles, and ...

Meanwhile a tongue-in-cheek response until I've combed through more of the above: George Smathers and bawdy young woman was a pairing that continued into this century.  Just don't ask me how I know.  

 

I wonder if Talbott factored in with the final contract for the F-111. Memory serves the bidding began in 1962.

On 5/20/2024 at 2:39 PM, Matt Cloud said:

Thanks for this.  Phil Graham was read-in on VENONA during the late '40s.  See Sacred Secrets by Jerrold & Leona Schecter, pp. 156-57.

 

Graham was also on the board of COMSAT -- the "privatization" of the CORONA satellite program -- and during this period, Kennedy had had Clark Clifford keeping tabs on what Graham might be revealing as to its inner-workings.  See Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, pp. 162-63.

 

COMSAT was being run out of the mansion in Washington, DC called Tregaron, 3100 Macomb Street, NW, where it so happens a young assistant to the secretary of labor named Pat Moynihan was living, in the Dacha, ten feet from the main mansion.  

 

Including your other post on the subject here:

 

 

Thanks Matt.

I had focused on Ben Bradlee more than Graham, given Bradlee's presumed close proximity to Ehrman in Paris – he with Newsweek and she reporting for Hearst prior to returning to the states to cover the UN.  It seemed likely Bradlee put in a good word on her behalf with Phil once the purchase of Newsweek was finalized.  It's also possible that Ehrman's stint in Jackie's Press Corp for her Far East trip impressed even Jackie herself and from there Phil Graham was persuaded to hire her? He prided himself in vetting every hire, but if she joined WaPo in January 1963, it's possible he was by then in no condition to fulfill his commitments.  All speculation at this juncture. Bradlee later marries Sally Quinn, daughter of Gen. Wm. Quinn who was the first deputy of the fledgling DIA. Quinn had served under MacArthur and undoubtedly knew General Charles Willoughby, a prominent character in the 1963 records maintained by Pierre Lafitte, so there are a number of intelligence arteries to choose from when pursuing the death of former WaPo reporter Anita Ehrman. Prompted by your observations, I revisited Katherine Graham's own version of her personal history to be reminded that Phil served as assistant to Gen. Bill Donovan for four months; admittedly he was unhappy on day one and asked for transfer, but it took another three plus months to detach from Donovan who would become a key cog in the concept of the World Commerce Corporation - a quango not dissimilar in structure to COMSAT – government in league with private enterprise for "the good of all," purportedly. Graham was also on the board of RAND. Who is manipulating whom for legitimate cover and profit on the global stage?  Kay then mentions that two or three years later, Donovan's home in Georgetown went on the market and she made a bid; for whatever reason she fails to note the irony let alone repeat that her husband had served directly under Donovan albeit a brief period. Maybe Georgetownians are accustomed to such high strangeness and synchronicity.  Graham's friendship with George Smathers can't be dismissed either, not when factoring in his good friend and business associate Grant Stockdale who appears in the Lafitte datebook just days before Anita's death and a week before Graham suicides.  Lafitte makes a note on July 27 that George Hunter White (FBN heavily involved with Gottlieb and Angleton) would talk to Otto Skorzeny in Madrid / Stockade about Graham's location – Chestnutt Lodge, infamous for mind control experiments that Hunter White had been au fait with since the early 1950s. Anita dies on either the 28th or 29th (Lafitte makes a note of George and D.C. above the name A.L. Ehrman on July 30). Phil Graham suicides on Aug. 3 and Grant Stockade catapults from a window in the Du Port building in Miami ten days after the assassination in Dallas. Do these tragedies share a common denominator?  I also hadn't realized the coincidence that Graham and Robin Webb spent long periods of time in Puerto Rico.  By chance, Paul Aguirre, property developer heavily invested with Smathers' and Stockades' business associate and buddy Bobby Baker, was a native Puerto Rican and reports indicate that the Aguirre / Baker entourage including Carole Tyler and East German Ellen Rometsch traveled to PR simultaneous with a Graham/Webb trip in May/June 1963. 

 

4 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Hi Leslie:

Have A Secret Order and will review the Charles F. Gilroy.

In the event you're familiar with Canadian based Javelin:

Further to this [Lafitte's] alleged swindle of Ralph Loomis, we learn from court documents relating to an SEC case, “On December 23, 1958, we filed a complaint for an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of MA which alleged, among other things, that registrant and one Ralph L. Loomis were offering for sale unregistered stock of Canadian Javelin, Ltd., were circulating articles and communications describing such stock for a consideration received and to be received from the issuer and from underwriters without fully disclosing the receipt of such consideration and the amount thereof and were engaging in transactions, practices and a course of business which operated as a fraud and deceit on purchasers.” 
    In discussing this case, the agent opined, “John Doyle, [the founder of Canadian Javelin, Ltd.] is not a fugitive from justice. He is, however, a genuine financial wizard, a skilled organist and a native of the US who may not return to that country because, as John Diefenbaker once inelegantly put it, ‘he will end up in the coop for three years if he does.’ He is also Chairman of the Executive Committee of Canadian Javelin Limited, a Newfoundland corporation described to me by a US government lawyer who has studied it for years as ‘the most mysterious company known to man.’ Canadian Javelin, through a network of subsidiaries, controls huge quantities of iron ore and timber in Labrador, oil and potash in Saskatchewan, silver in El Salvador, and other minerals from northern Quebec to Arizona.” Lafitte’s indictment for defrauding Ralph Loomis would have been ancillary to the SEC cases against Loomis and Payton.
    “The most mysterious company known to man,” harkens back to the World Commerce Corporation, described similarly by those searching the history of WCC. Wilson-Hudson was known to deal in nickel, to have been involved in at least two transactions with WCC, and to have had deep connections in Canada. It should be noted that John Doyle, founder of “the most mysterious company known to man,” also spent much of his time on Nassau Island in the Bahamas along with a number of our persons of interest that were also involved with the World Commerce Corporation, including Sir Stafford Sands and Otto and Ilse Skorzeny. And it is further noted that Thomas Eli Davis listed as a recent employer, New Netherlands Mining. While it is doubtful he worked for what was a long defunct company by that name, it is worth contemplating that he meant Javelin’s concern, Newfoundland Mining.
    According to accounts, during that year, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought ten civil actions and instituted three criminal actions in which the illegal sale of Canadian securities in the United States was involved. Details concerning these actions include, SEC v. Ralph L. Loomis and F. Payson Todd, SEC v. Canadian Javelin Limited, et al: “On December 23, 1958, we [SEC] filed a complaint for an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of MA which alleged, among other things, that registrant and one Ralph L. Loomis were offering for sale unregistered stock of Canadian Javelin, Ltd., (a crime that a number of soldiers of fortune were accused of in the same timeframe) were circulating articles and communications describing such stock for a consideration received and to be received from the issuer and from underwriters without fully disclosing the receipt of such consideration and the amount thereof and were engaging in transactions, practices and a course of business which operated as a fraud and deceit on purchasers.” 

15 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Leslie:

Albarelli mentions Edward Lawton Smith's military records and his daughter. Do you know who has a copy of his military records and how he was able to interview her?

John, the short answers are 'no.'

If you have a copy of A Secret Order, note that former PB/SUCCESS communications officer Charles F. Gilroy was a primary source of info. on Smith. (I'll screenshot the relevant pages or reproduce the text if you don't have a copy. Let me know.)

Hank's process included a lot of "cold calling," so it's possible he just tracked down Smith's daughter's contact information and gave her a call; or someone like Gilroy pointed him in the direction, or maybe even June Cobb although he indicates he didn't connect with the daughter until 2017. It sounds as if she might have accessed the military records but Hank never mentioned to me he had copies. 

The May 19th entry in Lafitte's 1963 datebook reads, "Smith – Montreal"  along with the name Mondolini [Paul] followed by not good w/Trafficante and the phrase murder will call.  I don't know what aspect of Smith's history you're focused on, but perhaps you recognize the timeframe and/or are aware of Mondolin's history with the Corsican drug cartel?  The other Smith datebook entry is, logically, the same "Edward Lawton Smith", and as Hank initially deduced, the name "White" appearing with Smith and "Harvey" would be George Hunter White; however, we now have reason to consider the possibility that since other references to Pierre's good friend George Hunter White read Geo or George, the "White" may well be another character associating with Bill Harvey and Edward Lawton Smith.  

Mondolini background found in Coup . . . In addition to Battisti in Cuba, Lafitte also dealt with Amedeo Barletta and Paul Damien Mondolini. Barletta, a Calabrian, was Mussolini’s counsel and “administrator of Mussolini’s family in the United States,” and, according to the FBI, had been a wartime double agent planted by the Italians in Latin America. This, of course, put him close to Otto Skorzeny, as the former SS officer’s private papers reflect.
    In 1942, the Bureau ordered Barletta’s arrest in the Dominican Republic, but he fled to Argentina, where he remained until the end of the war. Soon thereafter, he turned up in Havana, as a representative for several large American automobile and pharmaceutical companies, including, according to writer Cirules, General Motors. Before the war, Barletta had been a General Motors sales manager in the Dominican Republic, where he clashed with dictator Rafael Trujillo, who claimed that Barletta was plotting to assassinate him. Cirules also claims that Barletta, alongside Lansky and Battisti, headed a “Mafia family” and was involved in drug trafficking. 
    Paul Mondolini, a.k.a. Paul Marie Bejin, Jacques Desmarais, and Eduardo Dubian, was born in Corsica in 1916. In wartime Marseilles, where he migrated at an early age, he worked, like many morally ambidextrous bandits, both for the Resistance and, at the same time, collaborated with the Germans during the Nazi occupation of France. Remarkably, Mondolini later served as chief of police in Saigon, Vietnam, before he went on to gain worldwide notoriety when he took part in the sensational 1949 robbery of the royal jewelry of the wife of the Ismailian prince Aga Khan, an operation which, according to a disgruntled former deputy of France’s intelligence chief Roger Wybot involved Wybot himself, along with at least four unidentified gunmen, one of which was allegedly Pierre Lafitte. Otto Skorzeny, was very involved with Wybot as was Otto’s wife, Ilse. 
     Mondolini’s association with Pierre Lafitte extended back to their days of drug running in Marseilles and Indochina for Francois Spirito and Paul Carbone. In Cuba, where he did not well establish himself until 1955, Mondolini, in partnership with Corsicans Antoine D’Agostino and Jean Baptiste Croce, who owned two nightclubs in Havana, became a major player in moving heroin via Cuba to Montreal, Canada. Interesting to note here is that Mondolini’s prominent activities in Cuba coincided almost day-by-day with numerous trips to Cuba taken by CIA Inspector General Lyman B. Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick said in 1968 that his Cuban trips were “an effort to help the [Cuban] government establish an effective organization to fight Communism.” Kirkpatrick would also say that at the time the CIA was flush with money. “There basically wasn’t a limit,” he said. “We got what we asked for.” And nearly two-thirds of the money went for covert operations.
    British crime historian Charles Wighton significantly noted in 1960, “The overseas section of the Corsican gang working in the closest collaboration with the American Mafia in Montreal, Havana, and Mexico City [is] run by [Antoine] D’Agostino and the notorious Paul Mondolini.” Indeed, it was Mondolini, along with fellow Corsican Jean Jehan, who masterminded the infamous international heroin caper popularized by the hit film The French Connection. Worth noting here is that Jehan, according to CIA records produced in 1976, was thought to be the off-the-record owner of the Bedford Street building in New York City where George Hunter White, with steady sidekick Pierre Lafitte, operated his CIA-funded safe house, an urban abode of erotic pleasures melded with the horrors brought on by unguided psychedelic journeys. Throughout his drug trafficking career, multilingual Mondolini was considered one of the shrewdest and most intelligent dealers that the FBN confronted. 
    In Cuba, Lafitte was also well acquainted with Santo Trafficante, Jr., whom he initially knew from his days in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. . . .

@John Kowalski

John, have you located documents to confirm Angleton, specifically, utilized CMC / Permindex in counter-intel operations?

4 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Have been reading his datebooks. Am looking for information on Albert Osborne, Camp X in Canada and Edward Lawton Smith.

Albarelli writes, '. . . [Edward Lawton] Smith was reported to look like Lee Harvey Oswald, and he often traveled to Mexico City in the early 1960s. According to FBN and CIA documents, Smith had been in the Canadian army during World War II, serving in Germany, France, and Belgium, as well as serving four years with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, Canadian Army. Records indicate that he “received an honorable discharge despite a court martial which involved the killing of a fellow Canadian soldier during a fist fight. The victim crashed into a plate glass window. Smith was convicted and sentenced to be shot. However, the conviction was reversed by Criminal Court Appeals and Smith was returned to duty.”

    After his military service, Smith “acquired a petty criminal record in Montreal and has spent most of his adult life there. He earned himself a reputation as a muscle man for various Canadian mobs. About two years ago his association with a Canadian Mafia group became known to our New York office. Because of the absence of any adult criminal record, his past service as a muscle man and his reliability to the criminal code, he was used as a courier to smuggle large quantities of illicit drugs from Montreal to the United States, principally New York City.”

    Smith was recruited in New York City around 1957 by Lafitte to be an undercover, paid special employee reporting to George White and Garland Williams. “He succeeded in introducing an undercover US Narcotic Agent to the principal Canadian gangsters from whom large evidential narcotic purchases were made followed by coordinated arrests of both the Canadian suppliers and the New York distributors.” In 1959, Smith had mysterious dealings with June Cobb and Warren Broglie in New York City, perhaps related to a drug trafficking ring based in New Orleans. 

    Because of Smith’s undercover work, “a major international narcotic drug smuggling and distributing conspiracy case was developed. Smith as of this date [1960] is still testifying in Federal Court in New York City against the many criminals involved. His conduct as a witness has been exemplary even under severe cross examination by highly talented criminal defense lawyers. SMITH has no criminal record in the United States and his Canadian criminal record is not available. He is about 5’10’’, very handsome, flashy dresser, lives flamboyantly and is the lady-killer type. We do not have a photograph of him. Although he is presently married to a former stripteaser, divorce proceedings are pending. He has been temporarily living at the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn but will leave there shortly upon termination of Federal Trial in New York. He expects to make his home in New Jersey but can always be reached, even at a later date, through the New York office. The Armstrong Circle Theatre Television Program and Reader’s Digest magazine are interested in dramatizing his accomplishments for law enforcement.”     
    
Smith’s daughter, who declined to be identified in this book due her serious concerns about possible retaliation, says of her father: “He led a strange and secret life. We know he worked for the CIA, but really have no idea what he did.”

Scenes from Lafitte’s New Orleans
In 1961, with significant funding from Californian industrialist Patrick J. Frawley and Dallas oilman Clint Murchison, mentioned previously as a financial benefactor of Ferenc Nagy’s Permindex, and with financial support from his friends at International Trade Mart, Lloyd Cobb and Director Clay Shaw, twenty-seven-year-old Ed Butler founded the Information Council of the Americas (INCA). His publications under that banner were relied on by the CIA in a blitz of propaganda just prior to the invasion at the Bay of Pigs which could explain his association with Deputy Director CIA, Charles Cabell. Some of their money went toward a film titled Hitler in Havana, reviewed as a “tasteless affront to minimum journalistic standards” by the New York Times. . . . '

Chapter notes:
Hanna Yazbeck and Edward Lawton Smith: CIA files, see Mary Ferrell site. 
Author’s [Albarelli] interviews with daughter of Edward Lawton Smith, Canada, March–April 2017.

 

19 minutes ago, John Kowalski said:

Hi Leslie:

Where is Lafitte's datebook?

Hi John.

The datebook is in private hands.  It's possible we'll be able to publish a facsimile for broad distribution hopefully before the end of the year.

I don't remember how familiar you are with Coup in Dallas, but Osborne a.k.a. Bowen appears in a datebook entry as does Clay Shaw.

As indicated, Albarelli accessed the Hunter White archives during his groundbreaking pursuit of the death of Frank Olson, both at Foothill College and later at Stanford.

Hank writes that George and Pierre met earlier, ' . . . In all actuality, White had known Lafitte since at least 1948, after the narcotics agent traveled to Marseilles from Istanbul . . . White and Lafitte hit it off in grand style, spending hours together, drinking and discussing Lafitte's strong interest in returning to New York City to open a restaurant there. The gathering turned out to be the beginning of a long association. . . . ' A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments. H. P. Albarelli Jr., Trine Day, 2009

[Details of the Orsini / Shillitani heroin deals, in Lafitte's own words, can also be found in ATM, pg. 420-425]

[The facts of the Kretske case can be found here: https://www.ifar.org/case_summary.php?docid=1179736851]

Hunter White appears in the 1963 datebook maintained by his good friend Pierre on five dates:
 

Hunter White (George, Geo)     Feb 19        July 28 30     Aug  21  29

Aside from his name appearing in August along with the name "Joannides" (logically presumed to be CIA agent George Joannides), the July entries are sensational by any measure, indicating that Hunter White is in discussion with Otto Skorzeny and/or Grant Stockade regarding  the implications that Washington Post publisher Phil Graham is back in Chestnut Lodge (an infamous mental healthcare facility for those familiar with the MKULTRA and subsequent projects run by Sidney Gottlieb) and two days later he is in Washington D.C. on the day it was reported that a former WaPo reporter, 28 yr old Anita Ehrman had been found dead in her D.C. residence.