Leslie Sharp

8 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

OK I speed-watched the little punk Tate, and his entirely offensive business model, about three minutes wasted.   Pornography is big business and Tate is part of it. 

Tate was and is not a powerful anti-democratic force, and was squashed rather easily. No tears from me, although I have concerns about freedom of expression. 

If I believe the use of cluster bombs is a war crime, should I ban from social media those who support the use of cluster bombs? Some might say killing and maiming people, including inevitable civilians long after the war at hand is over, is more offensive than Tate's porno biz. 

I stand by my sentiment, that the US military-intel complex, which sucks down $1.6 trillion a year---nearly $5,000 for every man woman and child in the US---and has force of arms and runs a panopticon surveillance state, is of larger concern than the little punk Andrew Tate. 

Something about modern Donks---they are trained to bark at bonsai trees in a redwood forest of anti-democratic forces. 

Tate is a bonsai tree. 

 

 

Try telling that to women.

Your analogy is obnoxious. 

Carlson spent tens of thousands to film a sadistic misogynist AND remains the darling of the Records Act.

You're the master at attempted deflection. Why have so few called you out. 
 

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

LS--

Here is the general problem, with the devolution of the US left into culture war and trivial cul-de-sacs, such as this little punk Andrew Tate. 

You have been trained to obsess on the Tates or the world, or the right of trans-women to play on the US women's soccer team, or whether certain country-music songs are secretly racist. 

Modern-day Donks actually like the CIA and FBI, and the surveillance state, and censorship---they believe those instruments are being used on their side in culture wars. Indeed, you are calling for Tate to be censored.  

Suppose I believe abortion is murder? Or that the use of cluster bombs is a war crime? Should I censor those who have other points of view?

Now, let's consider something actually important: 

"On March 9, 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration submitted to Congress a proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Budget request of $842 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD), an increase of $26 billion over FY 2023 levels and $100 billion more than FY 2022."

In addition, the VA bill: 

"The FY24 bill prioritizes our nation's heroes by providing $319.763 billion for the VA, which matches the President's Budget Request and is $16.481 billion above the enacted level. Other VA programs like the electronic health record modernization initiative are FULLY funded.

---

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that interest payments will total $663 billion in fiscal year 2023 (lets assign half of that to war spending).  

Add on $100 billion black budget

Oh, roughly $1.6 trillion for the intel-military.

Or, $4,800 for every man woman and child in the US. 

$19,200 from every family of four to finance the military-intel  state. Every year.

Every year and rising. 

Who cares about the little punk Tate, or Carlson's interview of the little punk Tate? 

Another important topic: Why did President Biden do a snuff job on the JFK Records Act?

These are real topics. 

Not the little punk Tate. 

 

If Tate was just a punk, why did Carlson and crew fly to Romania to interview him? Why did Carlson give him 2 hours air time? He's either a frightened former Fox host, or something else.

Watch Tate's clip. Watch the Carlson interview.  Come back when you have.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

LS-

Obviously, none of us in the EF-JFKA have, or can, lay eyes (and other instruments) upon the datebook. 

That is why I asked what impartial methods can be devised, and impartial observers asked, to authenticate the datebook. 

For you Job One is to create a pathway to authentication. 

 

Oh the hubris.  

Please don't lecture me on what my "job" is.  You know nothing of what has transpired. 

One more time, please take your concerns to a related thread. This thread is focused on the nuts and bolts of what happened in Dallas, using as the foundation the 1963 datebook maintained by Pierre Lafitte. 

I won't respond further.

 

 

2 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

I'll throw in a few more stream of consciousness ramblings in here and see if anything sticks!

The Skorzeny/Nasser connection is a curious one, and I'm wondering if we have the full story of what that relationship entailed. It's my understanding that Skorzeny's original introduction to Egypt (with Nasser's predecessor, with Nasser 'inheriting' Skorzeny) was made by the CIA. It's an area of history that I need a better grasp on: why did the CIA have this sort of interest in Egypt, given that the direction that things went was in the name of third world revolution and the non-aligned movement? At any rate, Skorzny's involvement in Nasser took place in that critical run-up to the Suez crisis, and it was the way that Suez shook out that led the Brits down to Aden, the protectorate bordering the Yemen territories, and made that into such a critical geopolitical hotspot (exacerbated, of course, by the US's strategic priorities with the Saudis and their oil fields—a fabled Soviet beachhead in Yemen would be them on the doorstep of those oil fields, which was a doomsday proposition for the US). 

So in terms of a rough timeline, we have:

1953: Skorzeny in Egypt.

1956: Suez crisis.

1956: Crichton in Yemen (changing geopolitical headwinds in relation to Suez?)

1958: The Imam of North Yemen, the ruling figure in the tribal territories there, joins the United Arab Republic, then led by Nasser.

1960: Egypt begins to support Eritreans.

January 20 1961: John F. Kennedy takes office. 

March, 1961: John W. Mecom gains oil concessions in Yemen. 

September 1961: The Imam of North Yemen breaks with the United Arab Republic/Nasser.

September 1, 1961: The Eritrean War of Independence against Ethiopia begins. In the conflict, the monarchy leading Ethiopia leaned closer to the US, while the Eritreans forged alliances with wider revolutionary currents at the time. 

September 19 - 26 1962: The Imam passes away, and pro-Nasser elements in the military—the Republicans—launch a coup

October 1962: MI-6, in tandem with the Saudis and a smathering of Mossad assets, begin to plan an off-the-books support operation to bolster the Royalists against the Republicans. 

Late October 1962: Kennedy begins to put pressure on the British government to recognize the Republican government in Yemen

November 1962: Saudi money and arms begin to flow to the Royalists

Late November 1962: Jim Critchfield of the CIA meets with MI-6 in London and says that the Republican government must be stopped. At this date the CIA is acting in opposition to Kennedy administration policy. 

December 19 1962: The Kennedy administration formally recognizes the Republican government as the leadership of Yemen. 

January - March 1963: The Kennedy administration begins pressuring the Saudis to not support the Royalists, citing the potential for a protracted conflict that would destabilize the whole region. The Saudis go the other route and begin increasing support.

February 5 1963: Proctor and Werbell in Eritrea.

April 1963: MI-6 arranges for an SAS veteran, David Stirling, to set up a 'mercenary' operation, where SAS veterans under his command could train and manage Royalist forces in Yemen against the Republicans

June 1963 - onwards: Stirling's band of mercenaries begin to conduct the off-the-books war first hypothesized in October 1962.

Late summer/early fall 1963: The CIA's Jim Critchfield visits MI-6 to offer a closer cooperation between the CIA and MI-6 in a way that bypasses the Kennedy administration and the State Department. Sometime soon after this, a CIA officer named Jim Fees (who will later turn up in the Iran-Contra affair), leaks critical information on the Republicans to MI-6.

November 21, 1963: Kennedy requests that the British end their mercenary operation with David Stirling. 

November 22, 1963: Kennedy is assassinated.

Now, there are several things that are interesting here, besides the obvious alignment of the CIA and MI-6 against Kennedy policies. There is the fact that the CIA's role increases the closer we get to the fatal date of November 22nd, with a burst of activity by people like Jim Critchfield and Jim Fees working to block out the State Department and conduct their own foreign policy. There is also the story, recounted in Ralph Ganis' book, that in 1959 Skorzeny traveled to an airport in London to meet with David Stirling, and that William Harvey may have been present for this meeting. To then see this same Stirling put in charge of the mercenary operation in Yemen in spring of 1963 is remarkable. 

But does this have anything to do with the assassination, much less Proctor + WerBell in Eritrea in Feb 1963? On the Yemen side, I can't shake the succession of events here following Crichton, then Dalzell, then Mecom (with Mecom being there the year that the Imam breaks with Nasser?). On the other side, it would be interesting to know *who* the guns referenced in that datebook entry were going to. In a September 1962 meeting concerning the situation between Ethiopia and Somalia (a situation that ran parallel to, and overlapped directly with, the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict), Kennedy showed that he was reluctant to provide arms to Ethiopia, and opted instead to continue with non-military foreign aid. The discussions over the following months show a close of trying to dampen the crisis, instead of exacerbating a regional conflict. By fall, however, it appears that the US was more willing to provide military aid to Ethiopia, and there are references to authorizing a MAAG to operate there in December. Part of the cited rationale is Kagnew, thus foregrounding the Eritrean connection. 

It would be interesting to know what role, if any, the Yemeni population within Ethiopia played in the situations around Eritrea. Eritrean independence aligned both historically and intellectually with the Republican forces in Yemen, but beyond that I'm frankly not sure. But it is rather tantalizing that Proctor and WerBell arrive in Eritrea as all these things in the region are coming to a head. 

 

Another question I'm wondering is if the Hunt oil interests had any contact with the Empire Trust Oil & Gas division, since this was Crichton's baby and was located in Dallas—and was Empire's main interface with Dorchester and with the Yemen Development Corporation.

Before we move too far along, remember that Skorzeny allegedly accepted a Mossad contract during the time period to take out a scientist contracted by Nasser; and from there, biased researchers have concluded the Israelis collaborated with the Nazis. I'm not suggesting I'm an authority, but I think the interpretation is agenda driven.  We recently identified Angleton with IDF then Chief Mossad Meir Amit in a photo taken in Tucson in 1966; from there I read up on Amit's interaction with Otto which he says occurred in 1963 when he asked Otto to open a back door with Egyptian officials to discuss a peace initiative. The offer went no where, according to Amit.

Another question I'm wondering is if the Hunt oil interests had any contact with the Empire Trust Oil & Gas division, since this was Crichton's baby and was located in Dallas—and was Empire's main interface with Dorchester and with the Yemen Development Corporation.

My own study of H. L. Hunt, and subsequent first hand observations of his family influence my response:  1) H. L. Hunt was a lone wolf.  (I know that Robert Montgomery has a working theory based a string of documents that suggest (and I'm paraphrasing here) Hunt was at one time OSS or CIA and/or directly associated with World Commerce. I remain skeptical.). 2) Hunt despised government, ergo he wouldn't work with any of the three letter agencies unless he was in charge.  3) Hunt was a racist, anti-Semite at his core so the possibility he was in league with Bronfman's Empire is slim  4) that said, it's not implausible that he would do business with anyone who made him a $.  

I'll dig out my Empire Trust file and review the board. I know McCloy's brother in law, Lewis Douglas was a longstanding member. Forgive if I repeat myself, but Crichton's Dorchester was headquartered in Amarillo TX; my father's best friend in the oil-bidness was the treasurer then president of Diamond Shamrock outside Amarillo; Sam Ballen purchased a division of Schlumberger Ltd. based in Canadian; D. H. Byrd was on Crichton's Dorchester board along with a partner of the Raine Harrell law firm which morphed into Locke Purnell Raine Harrell; by way of saying that I've long suspected that some serious plotting and planning and maybe even target practice took place in and near the Amarillo Petroleum Club and the Palo Duro Canyon.  Pan-Tex and Bell plants were top secret sites that ensured safety and secrecy in the sleepy Panhandle and Amarillo was a bastion of the John Birch Society, Fred Koch Sr. having made his fortune just east of town.  

That film script aside, I'm glad you referenced Ganis's "The Skorzeny Papers."  Hank said many times that regardless of their differences, he believed that the book would prove invaluable to serious historians.  Obviously, he was right.

I'll get to Skorzeny/Nasser, Stirling, and to your timeline tomorrow.  In the meantime, you may be be interested in Carlton Coon and William Eddy (I maybe have already mentioned them.) And Hanna Yazbek, a bizarre character operating casinos in Cairo; and Warren Broglie of Hotel Luma was raised in Cairo. 

Do you see a role for Han-Ulrich Rudel in the guns/Eritrea vignette?  He's mentioned in September and again on December 9 with reference to guns again? Otto and Hans set up Kamerandenwerke, and along with Gerhard Mertins established Merex AG in Mexico right under Win Scott's nose.



 

3 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

My question is :  Why is nobody doing it?

Period.

Bill Kelly is trying to organize some reaction and I think he has suggested going to the committees.  And at K and K, we gave out the info to get to the House intel committee.

But I have not seen one  MSM story on the subject.  I hope I am wrong about that.  And I will stand corrected if I am.  But please show it to me.

 

Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC apparently invited RFK Jr. to join him on his broadcast. Would this be an opportunity for Robert Jr. to accept the invitation and speak to the Records Act specifically? 

Why am I surprised you weighed in.

I challenge anyone on this forum, other than you, to equate Connery with Andrew Tate with a straight face.

The 6 minute clip of Tate shows him whipping a woman with his belt along with graphic descriptions of his sadistic attitudes toward women in general. Considering he appeals primarily to young, disenfranchised males around the globe — apparently 75 million tiktok hits to date — in a "sane" society he would be considered a danger writ large.

Yet, Carlson manages to normalize him in the 2 hour interview.  How do the optics alone, not to mention the content, impact any progress that might have been made by Carlson acting as spokesperson for the JFKA Records Act, a law that Trump failed to comply with fully?

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

I haven't paid a lot of attention to Curry. Some of the things he said, including in his book when he retired, lend credence to the idea that Oswald may not have been a lone assassin, rather where he was at the time. As I recall, early on amid the chaos of the first few days, wasn't he the guy who blurted out to the press that they didn't have anyone who could place Oswald on the 6th floor?

I believe you're right.  I asked because we now have confirmed that Pierre Lafitte's entry CM966 is reference to contact information for the Dallas City Manager, Elgin Crull, who had ultimate responsibility for the police dept., and hired Jesse Curry himself.

Crull left town before the assassination and returned after Ruby shot Oswald.

5 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

Leslie, this is very interesting to me because in the exact time frame we're discussing, the territories of Yemen and Eritrea were intimately bound together. It all falls out of the waning British Empire's efforts to continue the Great Game: following the Suez Crisis, the British made Aden—then a protectorate bordering the Yemen territories—its primary foothold in the region. The British Petroleum refinery was there, and large portions of their military fleet were located in the nearby waters. It was also made into the British intelligence HQ for Middle Eastern operations. 

Eritrea was a key node in this geopolitical arrangement, both as a flourishing merchant zone ballooned by the commercial implications of this arrangement, and as the locale for important lighthouses that helped guide ships. With this flow, there was a massive influx of Yemeni merchants and the like into Eritrea, which eventually got to the point where Yemeni expats were among the largest foreign populations in Eritrea. So when the Yemen conflict breaks out between the Republicans (backed by Nasser) and the Royalists (backed by the CIA and MI-6), Eritrea would have been a focal point for the support operations. But in turn, this would have been immensely complicated by the outbreak of war between the Eritrean Liberation Front and Ethiopia at the exact same time.

Great insight. And, we can't ignore the Italians.

What time frame are you considering in context of Nasser? Otto Skorzeny enjoyed a lengthy association with him.

I'm attempting to extrapolate from this research what might correspond with the direct investigation into Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.  Pres. Kennedy's last WH foreign head of state visit before leaving for Texas was Emperor Haile Selassie. 

We've yet to determine definitively whether the Feb 5 datebook entry which reads: 
WerBell guns — [next line is illigible although I contend it reads Vosjoli mission] dessert with Proctor - Eritrea 
 is a government or private enterprise.

WerBell is of course recognized as the arms mfg. and gunrunner he was.

Proctor is Thomas Proctor, Indiana attorney whose partner was Paul McNutt, once head of the War Munitions Dept., involved in an investment scheme with producer/director Sam Bronston in Madrid. Other investors included C.D. Jackson, one of THE Rockefeller Bros., and a du Pont, and Otto Skorzeny's friend global arms dealer Viktor Oswald (who served in the OSS and later tapped as Madrid rep for Chase Bank). We speculate the film, John Paul Jones, may have been a cover for transactions distinct from making movies. (Note: Proctor was the father of Phillip Proctor of Firesign Theatre. Phil was generous enough to share a photo of his father, in full Heil Hitler salute. He thought it was a family joke until I shared what we had uncovered. He also confirmed that Tom in Eritrea made total sense to him.)

Vosjoli is Philippe de Vosjoli, DC based agent of the SDECE, recruited by Angleton and close friend of Frank Brandy Brandstetter. (all three men appear in Lafitte's records.)

Lafitte also references kill teams, a term H. L. Hunt employed, but his presence in Yemen was much later.  That doesn't mean Crichton wasn't his proxy long before Hunt signed a contract with North Yemen.

Those are a few of my random, stream of consciousness thoughts for now.

7 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Then why do you keep pushing back every time someone on this forum accurately repeats the fact that the veracity of the datebook is in question?

The purpose of this thread is to focus solely on the evidence (albeit circumstantial for now) we've garnered thus far.

You can find several EF threads that include discussion of the datebook and document examination. You might name search @Greg Doudna. He analyzed the datebook without ever having laid eyes it.

Please take your questions and comments there?

11 minutes ago, Ed Berger said:

I am familiar with Kagnew Station but my knowledge of it is pretty limited. Francis Raven is a new one to me!

"Raven" appears in Lafitte's notes along side the code word "Holdout."

Raven was the star of cryptology in '63.  He apparently had a fairly close working relationship with Hoover (our primary candidate for "Holdout").  Raven once said that if Hoover told him to go surveil the Quakers, he surveilled the Quakers.

Kagnew is of interest primarily because of Eritrea, and potential implications related to the Eugene Dinkin story which Albarelli believed to be based in fact.  

8 minutes ago, Ed Berger said:

Finally found the document inserted in the William Dalzell FBI file that mentions Jack Crichton, George Allen and the Yemen Development Company. Attached a pic below—as you can see the document is a summary of a meeting with Dalzell, with Dalzell relaying the information about Crichton and Allen's (and the Empire Trust + CIA's) Yemen oil venture and it's failure. This shows that, at the very least, that Dalzell knew of Crichton and friends, and his own efforts to open up concessions for Yemeni oil can be contextualized in its breakdown (getting closer on the 'in the desert' @Leslie Sharp?)

Laid out in a timeline, we basically have the following series of events: 

• Edward Stettinius of the World Commerce Corp and Liberia Company begins plans for parallel development companies in Ethiopia and Yemen,  but these plans fail to materialize. This would have been summer of 1948.
• Jack Crichton, George Allen, Empire Trust etc organize the Yemen Development Corporation around 1955 or 1956. These plans fall apart, with little interest in large Western oil companies to pour their resources into Yemen.
• The American Overseas Investment Corporation follows on the heels of the Yemen Development Corporation's failure. Dalzell, citing the experience of the Yemen Development Corporation, begins hunting for oil concessions. 
• John W. Mecom, in 1961, arrives in Yemen, having potentially had some manner of undetermined contact with Dalzell. He plants roots there and eventually obtains oil.

I think it should be kept in mind that the CIA was very active in Yemen not only where oil was concerned, but along with British intelligence helped facilitate a bloody civil that saw support for the Royalists against the Nasser-aligned Republicans in contradiction to the foreign policy agenda and mandates of the Kennedy administration. The above connections make this from Stephen Dorrill's book on MI-6 all the more chilling:

 

I was waiting for Critchfield! 

Are you familiar with Kagnew Station, later designated Stonehouse? or Francis Raven, NSA cryptologist 

Back soon.

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I like Dick Russell, and have exchanged e-mails with him, and closely read Russell's two part series on CIA fronts in modern media today (all "liberal" fronts, btw, such as Rolling Stone and Daily Beast).  

That said, Russell says "assuming the datebook is authentic." 

That is...unsettling to say the least.

I wonder what methods could be employed to determine authenticity.  

 

 Dick was professionally prudent to add the caveat, and we respect him for doing so.

 

It was Dick's The Man Who Knew Too Much that launched my personal quest in 1993/4; Albarelli and I together had seven copies, five of which were cannibalized over the years!

You have nothing to say about the meat of Dick's limited analysis, or speculate why he might contribute to Coup?  Maybe you're not familiar enough with the subject to recognize the significance of those eight names, in which case, uh ...remind me, why are we having this conversation? 🙂

You don't need to wonder. I've previously posted ad nasuam on the topic of document examination and authentication. 

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Maybe. The topic of the media, and media actors, censoring and polluting the news, from Tucker Carson, to the media blackout on the JFKA and the JFK Records Act (the full spectrum from legacy media NYT, WaPO, CNN, MSNBC etc.) perhaps belongs in this thread. 

However, I have had my say. 

 

Perhaps, but I'm still curious to hear your perspective, specifically, on Tucker Carlson's role as high profile mainstream media spokesperson for the Records Act long after Trump passed on his opportunity and his obligation to release ALL files? Where was the concern and outrage on Fox News when Trump failed the test in 2017 and again in 2019?

Meanwhile, Carlson and mainstream Fox News ( review News Corp board of directors) knowingly advanced Trump's Big Lie that 1) will soon land Trump & Co. a string of indictments, 2) cost Fox News $787m and counting, 3) fomented an existential Civil War in America? And if that isn't enough, the voice of reason in support of the Records Act sat down for two hours to interview a sadistic misogynist who by last count attracted 75 million hits on his tin-tok, at least one of which describes how he made his financial fortune webcamming porn for kids.

 

29 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

No. I just read what Jeff Morley said.  A FOIA document?  Maybe you know better than I. Joannides had residences in both Miami where he was based at JMWAVE and in New Orleans in the summer of 1963?  I've wondered before if the latter might have been a safehouse.

I know Jeff M. has been in search of that address for quite some time, as was Hank btw.

A researcher based in New Orleans has never found it either.
 

@Ed Berger

141436 Information on organization of two companies: Marti S.A., Tangier, organized to acquire real estate in Tangier; and Societe Marocaine de Procedes Industriels et Brevets d'Invention, incorporated by Rene Mars, in Tangier. This is the third company Mars has incorporated from June 10 to July 2, 1945. 1 p. July 1945

Ed, take note of the closing paragraphs of my latest response, related to John Tysen, Previews, and Ilse Skorzeny.  I would bet a small amount of money Rene Mars is somewhere not far behind (or ahead as it were).

2 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

@Leslie Sharp This is great info, thank you for sharing your personal experiences! These sorts of anecdotes and first-hand experiences definitely help contextualize what can often be abstracted by the passage of time into history, and make it immediate in new ways. I was just about to ask, when I saw the name Don Byrd, if he was related to the infamous D.H. Byrd. Out of curiosity, do you recall the name of the monied Oklahoma family that Don Byrd married into? 

I am very familiar with the Amerasia case. There is an episode contained in that case that I've had something of a minor obsession with, and maybe can help track us back through the denizens of the Third Reich, the WCC and the elusive Yemen connection. It took place when Van Beuren visited Donovan to alert him about the classified documents. In response, Donovan called upon Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and Julius Holmes, then serving as assistant sec. of state. Donovan, Van Beuren, an OSS legal counsel, and Holmes all met at Stettinius' home to discuss the issue and how to navigate it. 

Edward Stettinius subsequently winds up as one of the founding figures in the World Commerce Corporation. He also sets up what I consider to be an 'adjunct' to WCC, the Liberia Company, which operates shipping, air freight, and natural resource extraction in the African country (besides Stettinius, other WCC principles in the Liberia Company included Frank Ryan). Before he was cut short by an untimely death, Stettinius had plans for something akin to the Liberia Company—i.e., another WCC adjunct corporation—in, where else?, Yemen. 

Julius Holmes, meanwhile, joined up as a director of the Liberia Company. So of the group that was assembled around the Amerasia case, we have Van Beuren going to Previews, Donovan to the WCC, Stettinius to the WCC and Liberia Company, and Holmes to the Liberia Company. 

A little bit of a historical puzzle that maybe people can help crack: there was an insurance man-turned-conman of the highest degree, Stewart Hopps, who worked in the OSS's secret insurance unit during the war. And, yet, Hopps and associate named Cecil Stewart

Years later, Hopps would be implicated in a byzantine insurance fraud with a character out of Tangiers named Rene Mars. According to one newspaper article from the time, 

I've had a terrible time locating anything on Rene Mars in either Paris or Tangiers, or on his banks and banking partners. Because Hopps sometimes used fake personas in his frauds, I started to suspect that Rene Mars might not have even existed. But National Archives listing, bundled in a pile of items concerning OSS and military records on German assets and funds in foreign countries at the end of the war, has the following:

Anything like this ring any bells, @Robert Montenegro?

The FBI would later list as an associate of one Virgil Dardi, a former Transamerica executive (a company, it must be said, that helped capitalize the WCC)-turned-Pepsi executive-turned fraudster. Dardi, in turn, has a multitude of connections, but two that stand out: 1) he was implicated in a major corporate fraud, the convoluted tendrils of which snake through the Murchisons; and 2) he was a repeat business partner of William Zeckendorf, one of the key forces alongside the Wynne family (historically tied to the Murchisons) in the Dallas-Forth Worth Great Southwest Corporation. 

The Yemen connection is of course intriguing. Do you have the specific dates?

We mention Stettinius only briefly.  

 Brown explains that among those legal advisers [Donovan and Leisure’s firm] was Lt. Col. Otto C. Doering, Donovan’s second in command at the OSS. Donovan only became an official director of WCC in October 1947. At the same time, Edward R. Stettinius, Secretary of State from November 1944 to July 1945, who had substantial holdings in WCC joined the board. According to Brown, in due course a number of other people prominent in intelligence and special operations joined the firm, as directors, officer, or shareholders. They included J. Russell Forgan of the Glore Forgan group of merchant bankers (and future career ambassador David Bruce’s successor as chief of OSS Europe; Lester Armour (former deputy chief mission to Moscow who would inherit the chairmanship of the Swift Armour packing company of Chicago); W.K. Eliscu (a member of Donovan’s OSS staff); Lieutenant Colonel Rex L. Benson (staff member of the British Secret Intelligence Service and chairman of merchant bankers Robert Benson and Company of London. Here it should be noted that Benson was the lead SOE interrogator of Otto Skorzeny after his surrender. Brown adds that the WCC board also included several persons who had been prominent in the Canadian intelligence services.

Re. Tangier
Tangier was a hotbed in the early 1960s as you know.  Frank Wisner Jr. joined the foreign service in late 1962 and his first State Department post was Tangier.  We've yet to determine whether the Wisner mentioned by Lafitte is Sr. or Jr. My candidate is Jr. given this posting and that he is possibly conferring with his father in mid-1963 from Morocco.  

And, not to diverge too far from Permindex, but you'll recall that African-American Richard Gibson moved the HQ for the FPCC from NYC to Tangiers.  Hank had reason to believe the alleged sightings of Oswald by a milieu of ex-pats including Winthrop Buckingham who knew both Warren Broglie and June Cobb were far more credible than researchers have accepted. 

Re. Previews to Amerasia

Founded in the early 1930s, the name “Previews, Inc.” was adopted in 1933 when Talbot Henderson, a real estate agent for the Douglas Elliman Co. in New York, got the idea of showing films of properties to potential buyers from the city before embarking on the time-consuming process of arranging on-sight viewings. Henderson convinced two Rhodes scholars from his college years, two brothers with strong business and finance experience in NYC, a family relative—Oliver Keep who was the publisher of Cue Magazine along with Keep’s brother, and a man who would not only replace Keep as publisher of Cue but twenty-five years later take over the helm as chairman of the board for the magazine. 

            Founded in 1932, Cue (the precursor to New York magazine) cemented itself almost overnight as the go-to theatre, arts and entertainment magazine for New York society, from “Bohemia” to Park Ave. Reading between the lines, Talbot of Previews, Inc., along with Oliver Keep and Archbold van Beuren, both of whom were on the ground floor of Cue AND of Previews, saw the potential for a quid pro quo arrangement . . . use the slick magazine, Cue to promote exclusive real estate to the target markets of Previews, and in turn, Cue would benefit from the advertising revenue and the panache of being associated with those who could afford the unique national and international properties that Previews represented.

            A portion of the van Beuren family fortune had been derived from land that was developed into Union Square in Manhattan in the 19th century. Archbold’s biography, including his role in the founding of Previews and Cue before WWII, may not seem relevant to our story, that is until one considers that at the close of WWII and before the OSS was circumvented by the Central Intelligence Agency, Archbold van Beuren had served as Chief of Security for William “Wild Bill” Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services. 

            As has been reported extensively, it was only after months of wrestling for funding and jockeying for positioning that Donovan failed and his OSS was shut down, at least officially; however, as we learned in earlier chapters, this was not before he had set in place a vast intelligence apparatus deeply embedded in industry around the world via the World Commerce Corporation.

            While there is no solid proof that van Beuren’s Previews, Inc. was a component of that apparatus, we do know of several individuals involved with the international real estate organization that fit the profile of non-official intelligence agents trained to exploit their private, professional roles. Among them, US Army/Air Force Col. Herschel V. Williams. 

Amerasia 

Before Donovan’s concept of how an effective American intelligence should be run was thwarted, he and his security chief, Previews cofounder van Beuren featured in a sensational episode in the annals of domestic espionage. . . .

Re. Don A. Byrd
Don A. Byrd: According to official records obtained by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Lt. Byrd was involved in the 1962 investigation into bookmaking and related crimes of John Eli Stone—an associate of Mafia boss Joe Civello—who the reader will recall was eventually indicted in Wichita Falls, TX, by a federal prosecutor on behalf of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Don Byrd’s boss, Pat Gannaway would a year later declare in an interview with the Dallas Morning News that organized crime had not taken hold on his watch. Following a somewhat meteoric rise thru the ranks, including filling the role that Gannaway vacated when he retired as head of Special Operations Division, Don Byrd became the Chief of the Dallas Police in 1973 where he served until retirement in ’79. He then ran for and was elected Sheriff of Dallas County, a post he filed from’81–’84. Byrd planned on reelection but one evening, following a party at Reunion Square hosted by oilman Ray Hunt (another son of H. L. Hunt) Byrd was driving down Preston Road not far from the Rawlins St. address when he careened off course causing a serious accident. He was charged, and although he was acquitted at trial, his law enforcement career was over.

Re. Wesley G. Rogers

Oklahoma oilman Wesley G. Rogers was the other primary tenant at 3707 Rawlins when the professional office building opened its doors. Rogers listed six oil and gas related businesses on the building marquis compared with Barron Kidd’s seven. Although Rogers maintained a large spread near Holdenville, OK, the family spent most of its time in an exclusive residential enclave in North Dallas. Their close neighbors included: Buck Wynne Jr., of the Wynne family dynasty, whose real estate investments involved Clint Murchison, Trammel Crow, and Leo Corrigan among others; Jack Ruby’s banker, Michaux Nash, who did business with one of the principals in the Algur Meadows 1963 petrochemical scheme in Longview, TX, that caught Otto Skorzeny’s keen interest; and Jake Hamon, the notorious independent oilman involved with the Skorzeny-Meadows scheme since 1952, president of the American Petroleum Institute and a close friend of—among others in the industry both national and international—Paul Raigorodsky and Clint Murchison.

            In the spring of 1963, Wesley Rogers leased office space for six separate oil and gas entities in the Oak Plaza professional building at 3707 Rawlins. As noted, Rogers joined an exclusive roster of new tenants that included Barron Kidd Oil (under seven separate business names), Delhi Properties managed by J. Sowell—a former tenant of the Adolphus Tower, who stood as groomsman for Barron Kidd, Jr., in the du Pont/Kidd wedding in Delaware—All World Travel agency, Tom Stanley’s architectural firm, and John Tysen’s* Previews, Inc. Within the decade, Rogers would become the father-in-law of Donald A. Byrd, former Dallas Police officer who served in the narcotics division under Pat Gannaway at the time of the assassination of Kennedy. Byrd would eventually advance to the position of Dallas Police Chief, a powerful post he held until crashing his car into a tree in the Highland Park neighborhood on his way home from a party hosted by one of H. L. Hunt’s sons. During his tenure, Byrd was in charge of approving release of department documents pertaining to events in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.

Re. John Tysen of Previews

Advancing the in-depth review of the presence of Previews, Inc. in Dallas in November 1963, John Colquhoun Tysen who joined Previews, Inc. in 1936 was no doubt hired directly by a young board which included Archbold van Beuren. By 1950, van Beuren and the Previews board elected Tysen as president of the real estate firm in 1950. 

            Born to American citizens living in Paris where Tysen senior represented Morgan banking interests in France, John C. was educated at Downside School and later Trinity Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Downside’s alumni included noted spy novelist Nigel West (the pen name for British MP Rupert Allason) and Tom Bethell, who many Kennedy assassination researchers recognize as having infiltrated the Garrison investigation. (Bethell befriended “the godmother” of Kennedy research, Mary Ferrell, with whom he shared a keen interest in New Orleans jazz). 

            As president of Previews, Tysen successfully positioned the domestic and foreign inventory as “glamorous, exotic, without precedent,” from Tangier to the Tyrol Mountains. By the early ’60s, Tysen, who was elected chairman a year later, had been in and out of Dallas pursuing potential clientele among the city’s social and business elite including bankers, wealthy oilmen and ranchers, their wives and their lovers for years. During the same period, Tysen was also in and out of the Bahamas, having recently joined the board of Sir Stafford Sands’ Bahama Development Co. along with Dallas developer Leo F. Corrigan, Jr.**  

            Tysen’s employee, Mrs. Otto (Ilse) Skorzeny is known to have used the Bahamas as one of several key international locations from which to conduct the business projects of “the Skorzenys.” 

            Hitler’s banker, Hjalmar Schacht—advisor to the Skorzenys—is known to have financed Sir Stafford Sands’ various projects stemming from his connections in the Bahamas. It is logical to conclude that these introductions alone might prompt John Tysen to lease space for the Previews Dallas office in Oak Plaza professional building occupied by Corrigan’s architect of choice, T. E. Stanley, who had recently designed the Emerald Beach Hotel in the Bahamas for Leo and his partner in the project, Algur Meadows, “a dear friend of Otto and Ilse Skorzeny since 1952.”

11:30 meet Warsaw (+hotel)with T.   

Hjalmar / Ilse - Get $

—Lafitte datebook, November 7, 1963


 

(Let's see if we can bring in @Greg Doudna for the remainder of this post, considering his interest in H. L. Hunt's atty. John Curington and chief security Paul Rothermel. Note: Rothermel appears in the ledger of Pierre Lafitte.  You'll note by the end of this excerpt, we've come full circle to H. L. Hunt and Yemen and to World Commerce Corp and Permindex.)

Re. Ed Jordan, Leo Corrigan's son in law

**An equally intriguing milieu housed in Thornton’s Mercantile building provides an expanded look behind the curtain. In a well-documented episode, Jack Ruby had recently met Connie Trammell, a young University of Texas student who was on the brink of graduation and looking for opportunities. She told Ruby that she had contact information for Lamar Hunt and that he might be interested in her as an employee. Ruby jumped at the opportunity, explaining that he needed to take care of some business in the Mercantile, and that it was a simple enough act of kindness to drop her off to meet Lamar, the son of H. L. Hunt. 

            Ruby’s business was most likely related to the leases on his establishments, the Carousel Club in downtown Dallas and the Vegas Club in Oaklawn [two blocks from Previews Inc offices]. According to Ed Jordan, an officer at Mercantile National who would later join Lamar Hunt on the board of the city’s prized Cowboy’s football team, also managed Corrigan Properties for his father-in-law which owned the buildings that housed Ruby’s clubs. Jordan later reported that on the day in question, Ruby insisted that he wanted to “see to the boss,” which Jordan knew to be his father-in-law, Leo Corrigan, Jr.

            Jordan’s colleague at Mercantile National was Jacques Pierre Viliere, a dapper Frenchman from New Orleans who joined the Dallas bank in 1946 advancing to vice president of Mercantile’s international department by 1968. When Jacques moved from New Orleans to Dallas, he left behind his brother Pierre Blaise Villere to continue in a public relations enterprise the brothers had launched together. Their clients in the Crescent City included Clay Shaw’s International Trade Mart, and Permindex, the international front closely aligned with the World Commerce Corporation which, as covered earlier, benefited from the business acumen of Jack Crichton. Jacques Villere became honorary consul of Belgium and is seen photographed with Dresser’s Neil Mallon on the occasion of bestowing him with the Cross of the Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Couronne. According to Major Ganis in The Skorzeny Papers, the Villere brothers appear in the private papers of Otto Skorzeny.

 

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I know nothing about Andrew Tate. He was on some TikToks is have seen, and he looked offensive and juvenile at best. 

I am concerned not the Tates of the world, who are essentially unimportant and can be squashed overnight. As he was. 

Tate commands no vast federal military and surveillance bureaucracies, or politicized prosecutorial agencies, or allied media outlets. 

Tate is the not the NYT (and other legacy news agencies) censoring images of swastikas on Ukrainian uniforms. 

I happen to oppose Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and consider Putin a war criminal. 

But reporters are supposed to tell the truth, not toe official party lines and censor reality. 

What little I know, Carlson was wasting his time talking to a runt like Tate. 

Tate was not an earnest and sincere defender of human rights, like many now in jail in Hong Kong. 

I advise Carlson to try to interview Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong publisher in prison for being a publisher. 

 

 

In other words, you're on the wrong thread?

@Ed Berger
 

 

. . . At first [Wild Bill] 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. 

            In a convenient web of other addresses, Donovan’s law partner, George Stanley Leisure lived at 640-660 Park, sharing a prestigious address with J. Russell Forgan, another founding board member of World Commerce. Leisure was on the board of financial investment giant Empire Trust whose web extends over time to those active on the ground in Dallas that managed the immediate aftermath of the assassination. Forgan’s company, Glore Forgan was heavily invested in J. Peter Grace’s W. R. Grace & Co., a global maritime shipping concern. Grace, the first Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a.k.a. the Knights of Malta, in America, sat on Forgan’s board for decades. 

            Of note, at the height of the war, the man at the official helm of the SOE, Roundell Palmer, the 3^rd Earl of Selborne, was also in charge of economic warfare, placing him in close proximity to decisions involving the services Ladenburg Thalmann provided. Reporting directly to Lord Selborne was Viscount Frederick Leathers, a former Minister of Transport who was placed in charge of war support. For those more familiar with the esotericism that pre-occupied the shadows of power at the time, both in the US and Britain, both men were alleged members of the Prieuré de Sion, a neo-chivalric fraternal order with alleged roots in the Crusades, established legally in 1956 in France. In an instance of continuity, Viscount Leathers later appears in the roster of board members of the World Commerce Corporation. 

            Brown explains that among those legal advisers [Donovan and Leisure’s firm] was Lt. Col. Otto C. Doering, Donovan’s second in command at the OSS. Donovan only became an official director of WCC in October 1947. At the same time, Edward R. Stettinius, Secretary of State from November 1944 to July 1945, who had substantial holdings in WCC joined the board. According to Brown, in due course a number of other people prominent in intelligence and special operations joined the firm, as directors, officer, or shareholders. They included J. Russell Forgan of the Glore Forgan group of merchant bankers (and future career ambassador David Bruce’s successor as chief of OSS Europe; Lester Armour (former deputy chief mission to Moscow who would inherit the chairmanship of the Swift Armour packing company of Chicago); W.K. Eliscu (a member of Donovan’s OSS staff); Lieutenant Colonel Rex L. Benson (staff member of the British Secret Intelligence Service and chairman of merchant bankers Robert Benson and Company of London. Here it should be noted that Benson was the lead SOE interrogator of Otto Skorzeny after his surrender. Brown adds that the WCC board also included several persons who had been prominent in the Canadian intelligence services.

            In addition, Brown tells us that people with intelligence connections, but not formally members of any intelligence service, took an interest in the corporation. They included Nelson Rockefeller (son of John D., and former coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, an organization with intelligence responsibilities and associations in South America); John Jay McCloy (former undersecretary of the War Department and high commissioner in Germany) Richard Mellon (of Gulf Oil corporation); and Sir Victor Sassoon. The list of WCC board members and “interested parties'' reflects America and Britain’s future power brokers that would influence matters on a global scale as the Cold War escalated. 

            With so many powerful corporate titans interested in the WCC, in hindsight the holding company emerges as a quango, an acronym for ‘quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organization, a term coined in the 1970s inspired by remarks of the president of Carnegie Corporation in 1967 describing “a genus of organization which represents a noteworthy experiment in the art of government.” Were the founders of the WCC following European models established under fascist regimes for the control of and profit from global supply chains and markets, and did that agenda require the services of the sophisticated intelligence apparatus established by Donovan and Stephenson being shuttered by democratically elected government officials after the war? A former employee of WCC recounts, “The idea was to take advantage of the organization and international contacts that were set up during the war… The goal was to set up various companies, mostly in Central and South America.” And as British writer and wartime intelligence officer Roald Dahl argued in support of the creation of WCC, “we all needed jobs in civilian life.” 

            It is believed that BACC/WCC was initially funded in part with about $10 million that was in the accounts of the OSS London office at the time of Germany’s surrender. Eustice Mullins writes: “This money could not be ‘returned’ to the U.S. Government without stating where it had come from. As proceeds from dealings in gold and jewels, an inquiry could provoke a Congressional investigation.”

Follow the Money and the Arms

About the same time that Donovan and Stephenson began seriously organizing BACC, word began to leak out in certain Washington, D.C. quarters about nefarious activities of certain OSS officials and agents who had been involved in the wartime looting of enormous amounts of gold, gems, diamonds, antiquities and art. Some credible reports centered on what appeared to be a large number of OSS officials who had stolen millions in gold from captured Nazi stockpiles and hidden warehouses. Some prestigious banks in Europe and North Africa were said to have amassed millions of dollars in gold and diamonds. Eventually these reports linked up to post-war accounts concerning former SS officer Otto Skorzeny, and a few of his fellow officers, who had been given substantial amounts of gold, some of which had come from OSS-looted coffers. Substantial amounts of gold also flowed from other sources. There can be little doubt that these rumors either influenced, or made their way into Col. Richard Park’s report.

            When Frank T. Ryan who had been stationed in Spain as the Chief of SI (Secret Intelligence) became president of World Commerce in place of Pepper, who remained as executive vice-president, Intrepid arranged for him to see in London a group of men prominent in government, intelligence, and finance. Ryan, who later managed the activities of the Countess of Romanones, and came to know Otto Skorzeny quite well, is elaborated upon later in the chapter as the story of the Countess continues. For now, the men Ryan would be introduced to by Intrepid comprised a virtual who’s-who of high finance in the United Kingdom. They were connected to virtually every large financial institution in the U.K. and the United States. A result of the inspired symbiosis, within a five-year period following the founding of the BACC, its successor, the WCC had organized at least 275 additional corporations worldwide under its umbrella. Many of these enterprises appear to have been aligned with the Swiss based holding company Permanent Industrial Exposition or “Permindex,” alleged to be a trade organization that many researchers argue served as a CIA front. Permindex is studied in more depth as we close this chapter. 

@Ed Berger Separate from my forthcoming reply to your contribution above, I decided it might be less confusing if I started a  thread, "World Commerce Corporation and the assassination of Kennedy in Dallas".   I think we published some interesting material that hasn't been covered to date. 

31 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

One could argue that President Biden, and the NYT have chosen to overlook, or even edit and censor out, the wearing of swastikas on various Ukrainian armed forces. 

The Russians, in contrast, lost about 10% of their total population in evicting the Nazis from their soil. That was called WWII. 

The Russians have deep reasons to loath, detest and revile Nazis. 

This does not make Stalin a nice guy, in fact he too was guilty of mass slaughter.  

Linking present-day US public leaders to Nazis....easily done, and this sort of slander can go in any direction. 

Why is the neo-liberal NYT covering up Nazi swastikas on Ukrainian uniforms? 

 

@Benjamin ColeYour failure to address the topic of this thread is worrisome.

Diverting it to your obvious obsession with Joe Biden is transparently deliberate.


Have you watched the Tate clip which includes footage of him whipping a woman with his belt?

Then, have you viewed the entire Carlson-Tate interview?  

And, what  are your thoughts on the wisdom of Carlson providing a sadistic misogynist air time?  

And finally, what do you think about the blowback that Carlson's name is on the Records Act AND Andrew Tate?  

22 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

LS--

But what about the actual datebook itself? 

What is the proven date of the physical datebook?

Keep in mind, period notebook and pens can be purchased. 

If the the datebook is from a later date (say 2012), then retroactively creating a believable fraud is just a matter of combing through and organizing available public records, and making somewhat believable and cryptic comments in the datebook. 

The onus in not on the JFKA community to prove the datebook a fraud, but on you to prove its authenticity beyond reasonable doubt. 

 

 

Have you seen the physical datebook?

Jeff Morley has.

Following are the salient points made by Dick Russell related to specific entries in the datebook:

Let me here offer my insights into some of the names and dates in the datebook, and their potential significance in revealing the identities of the perpetrators behind what’s been called “the crime of the century.” I should add that the datebook also contains references to individuals whose names have not appeared before in assassination-related documents. From the datebook, it can only be concluded that Lafitte was directly involved with a number of people covertly connected to the assassination. 

SOUETRE. This clearly is Jean Rene Souetre, whose name appears in a number of entries between April 25 and December 4. It appears that Souetre was part of a “kill squad” who showed up for meetings in New Orleans, Madrid, and Mexico City prior to the assassination. Souetre’s name first appeared in the “assassination literature” following a 1977 release of CIA documents, which stated that “he had been expelled from the U.S. at Fort Worth or Dallas 48 hours after the assassination . . . to either Mexico or Canada.” According to what the FBI told a Souetre acquaintance whom I interviewed, he’d been “flown out that afternoon by a private pilot . . . in a government plane.” Souetre was a known hitman for the OAS, a terrorist group in France that had targeted President de Gaulle. 

WILLOUGHBY: Until my first book came out in 1992, assembling circumstantial evidence linking retired General Charles Willoughby as a possible “mastermind” of the assassination, no one had raised such a possibility before. The datebook cites the far-right General Willoughby numerous times, specifying: “Nov 22 – Willoughby backup – team [with a strikethrough of the word team] squad – tech building – phone booth/bridge.” Prior to that, an April 12 entry states: “Willoughby soldier kill squads.” 

SILVERTHORNE: That same datebook entry says: “Silverthorne – Ft. Worth – Airport – Mexico.” The name of Silverthorne did not appear publicly until the late 1970s, when CIA officer William Harvey’s handwritten notes about the agency’s QJ/WIN assassination program were released. Silverthorne was a pilot who traveled “for a certain federal agency” to “countless countries” for “reasons best left unsaid,” according to author Albarelli’s 1996 interview with him.

ANGLETON: Listed in the datebook by his last name as well as initials (JA and JJA), the then-head of Counterintelligence for the CIA appears to have been involved in “high-level gathering in DC'' during which “Lancelot planning” was discussed. The Lancelot reference is to a plot to kill JFK. The datebook’s final mention of James Angleton,(December 5, 1963) states: “JA – CLOSE OUT LANCELOT.” Angleton’s name was not generally known until the mid-1970s, when he was forced out of the CIA following revelations that he’d organized an illegal domestic spying program. 

GEORGE W.: The several references in the datebook, including one (August 29) regarding “shipment of LSD for New Orleans & Dallas – Texas laws?” are clearly referencing George White. He was a key operative in the CIA’s top-secret MKULTRA program to control human behavior using drugs, hypnosis, and other means. He worked undercover for the same narcotics agency as Lafitte. White’s name never came to light until 1977 during a congressional investigation. 

TOM D.: Also referred to in several entries, this was Thomas Eli Davis, Jr., first mentioned in 1978 in the assassination literature as having trained anti-Castro Cubans and had been acquainted with Jack Ruby. The September 27 entry about Mexico City says: “Oswald – Comercio Hotel – meet with Tom D. at Luma.” It was stated by the Warren Commission that Oswald had been to the Comercio; the Hotel Luma was first mentioned in my 1992 book as a meeting point. The September 29 datebook implies (“Tom at embassy – done”) that Davis, who resembled Oswald, had impersonated him in visiting either the Cuban or Russian embassies in Mexico City. 

CRICHTON: The name of Jack Crichton, who was connected to Military Intelligence and arranged the first translators for Marina Oswald after the assassination, appears several times in datebook entries in advance of the assassination. 

A. L. EHRMAN: This July 30 entry clearly refers to Anita L. Ehrman, a foreign correspondent whose body was found that day in her Washington apartment. The only other reference to this appears in my 1992 book, citing a notebook seized from Richard Case Nagell by the FBI on September 20, 1963 but not released until 1975. That entry says: “ANITA L. EHRMAN. 7-30-63 WASHINGTON, D.C.” Nagell was involved with Oswald in an assassination plot. 

(Dick was careful to close with, 'assuming the datebook is authentic, the aforementioned stands.')

@Roger Odisio Can you summarize your interpretation of Jesse Curry's contribution — or not — to the Prayer Man argument?

I remember deliberating with PMer's on Morley's site but I'm not entirely clear on whether Curry adds to the supposition Oswald is standing outside the depository building or not.  thanks.  

41 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Those who continue to question the authenticity of the datebook, I hope your skepticism can be expressed elsewhere.  --LS

How can people put aside skepticism aside about a datebook that may not be authentic?

Shouldn't Job One be determining the authenticity of the datebook, and only then on to Job Two, making carefully supported claims based upon the datebook and corroborating evidence---especially evidence that was not in the public sphere at the time the datebook may have been authored?

John Newman did a careful study of Antonio Veciana's claims, and found the claims evolved as new information became public. And this is of Veciana, a  guy obviously and truly involved with violent anti-Castro people and organizations (Alpha 66, for one), well documented. 

Veciana made the claim that he had met "Bishop," aka David Atlee Phillips, in Dallas shortly before the JFKA, in the company of LHO. 

Has a serious effort been made to see if the datebook has flaws revealed by later-released materials, and thus is fraudulent? 

 

Has a serious effort been made to see if the datebook has flaws revealed by later-released materials, and thus is fraudulent? 

I'm waiting for someone, anyone to produce evidence that what Lafitte reveals is fraudulent. Perhaps you might concentrate on the effort instead of opining subjectively?

I've previously provided excerpts from Dick Russell's limited analysis of the datebook entries.  If you haven't seen that post, I would be happy to reproduce it here.

@Ed Berger I knew that the Hunt - Crichton relationship had gone south. I also knew that Rosewood Hotels, under the Rosewood Development Corp. had been established around the same time as the Hunt brothers' silver debacle; Rosewood (most suspected) was their sister's effort to protect her portion of the inheritance.  The brothers were permanent fixtures at The Mansion on Turtle Creek in the early '80s, and no doubt some of these deals we are considering were negotiated over fine wine and cigars in the private dining rooms. Rosewood's first foreign properties included exquisite hotels in the Middle East, no doubt meant to keep Hunt petroleum executives happy. 

On a side note, and bear with these personal anecdotes.  They serve to reinforce what is being posited on this and other threads directly related to Albarelli's (and others before him) investigation into the assassination.  The general manager pool of Rosewood hotels was limited almost exclusively to European trained hoteliers coming out of the Cold War: names like Richter, Eisle, Zuest, de Toth, etc.  Individually they were pleasant enough; collectively they were a formidable authoritarian force with employee practices that might not have been illegal, but were certainly in contradiction to best union practices.  On one occasion, the group gathered in the bar at The Mansion, a rare (and frowned upon by corporate) occasion. I passed through with a client and noticed they were wearing shirts that "weren't crisp white", again-  against corporate protocol.  Then I noticed they were brown shirts. I whispered to the bartender, "what's up?" and he pointed to a calendar.  It was April 20.

Another bit of trivia that might be relevant: the Chief of Police Don Byrd on whose watch fell the responsibility for ensuring the files related to November 22, 1963 were made available in a timely and efficient manner, wrapped his car around a tree en route home from a party hosted by Ray Hunt.  We found Byrd intriguing because he rose from patrolman to Chief within a few short years following the assassination. Byrd married into wealth — an Oklahoma oil family who owned a posh condo on Turtle Creek. They were among the first tenants of 3707 Rawlins, (Oak Plaza in Oak Lawn, just two blocks from Lucas B&B and Ruby's former Vegas Club) — along with a New York based international real estate concern, Previews Inc.  Otto Skorzeny's wife, Ilse - identified by Lafitte as the Nazi commando's "arms and legs" — had used Previews Inc. as cover since the mid-1950s.  I'll explain where this is going* ... but first:  

Don A. Byrd served under Capt. Pat Gannaway (narcotics) who was among the first to state publicly that Oswald had been in the USSR.  In less than a decade, patrolman Don was Chief Don.  So far, I've never been able to establish a direct genealogical connection between Don A. Byrd and D.H. Byrd, board member of Crichton's Dorchester Gas, based in Amarillo Texas — Pan-Tex and Bell Helicopter (and 40 minutes north of my hometown.)

*Previews Inc. was cofounded by Archbold van Beuren who created CUE magazine, New York's entertainment/real estate/style magazine pre-War.  Archbold served under Wild Bill Donovan — who along with Stephenson and Dulles served as the face of WCC — as his chief of security. If you're familiar with the Amerasia case, it was van Beuren who was assigned to investigate.  Some say that the incident launched what would become the Cold War propaganda machine.  Again, Previews Inc. — with brand new digs in Oak Lawn Dallas in the spring 1963 (shared with Byrd's future in-laws) — places Otto Skorzeny's wife, Ilse, one degree from van Beuren, and she and Otto's benefactor Donovan, and moving right up the food chain to DCI Allen Dulles (future board member of Nation-Wide Securities).

1 hour ago, Ed Berger said:

"You're one of the few in recent years to take an interest in Allen, Odlum, and Atlas Corporation, so thanks for reigniting this research."—Very happy to do that! The relationship between Odlum/Atlas, his expanded business network, the World Commerce Corp and the various WCC 'adjunct' corporations (Argus Corp, Liberia Company, etc) have been a massive rabbit whole for me for the past several years. And as I'm sure you can sympathize, the more info that is amassed, the murkier the picture gets... 

I'm in total agreement that there was some sort of structural relationship or continuity between the WCC and Permindex. In the Nagy archives in New York City I had found correspondence with William Donovan, which alluded to Donovan's promotion of Permindex in the project's nascent phases. On the flip side, there was Bloomfield correspondence found in his archives with Richard Coit, a veteran of the British Security Coordination in New York City. The letter was addressed in the care of Coit's former boss, William Stephenson—so we have here indicators of some relationship between figures circulating around Permindex and the leading figures in the WCC. 

Throw in the fact that the family of the WCC's Frank Ryan controlled Bache & Co., with the Bache family being intermarried with the Bronfmans and the Loebs and holding the dominant stock in Empire Trust with them...

These interlocks between Mecom, Continental Oil, and General Dynamics (leading us, inevitably, back to Odlum and beyond) seem critically important to me, both in terms of understanding the overarching structure of the military-industrial complex but also how these sinews fundamentally shaped the historical development of Dallas and the state of Texas itself. I am unfamiliar with Nationwide Securities—do you have a link or a recommendation where I can read more about this?

You mention the Popich - Dalzell - Yemen connection. This is key, I think, and suggests the continuity between Dalzell's Yemen efforts and the eventual oil concessions for the Mecom company (despite Mecom's efforts to hide the trail when the FBI came knocking). The ties between Popich and Marcello (and seemingly with Lafitte!) are demonstrable, and the same came be said for Mecom and Marcello. In fact, there relationship was close enough that it was continued by Mecom's son well into the 1970s. 

Great point regarding the arrival of the Hunts in Yemen. Have you seen the lawsuit between Crichton's company and the Hunts over those concessions? 

Much more to say, but want to check with @Robert Montenegroto see if we should take this discussion elsewhere. 

@Ed Berger I'll start here (and the gods must be watching over us because this doc. is buried deep in my old files — pre-Coup in Dallas.)
 

Nation-Wide Securities

(Division of Calvin Bullock Funds)

One Wall Street

New York City, NY

 

Board of Directors

1960

Frank Pace, Jr.

Former Secretary of the Army under President Truman

Board of Directors, Time, Inc.

Board of Directors, Continental Oil Corporation

Board of Directors Colgate Palmolive

Board of Directors/ CEO General Dynamics

 

Maxwell D. Taylor*

Former Army Chief of Staff under President Eisenhower

 

Robert B. Carney

Former Chief of Naval Operations under President Eisenhower

CEO, Bath Iron Works

Board of Directors, Bell Helicopter  with Pearson Beverly Garrett, President Texas Bank and Trust (located at the corner of Poydras and xxxxx) with Robert Wiley Baxter, president of Rio Grande National Life Insurance, Dallas, employer of Louis Steven Witt; shared 

 

Arthur Burns

Director of Bureau of Economic Research

Dean of Law School, Columbia University

Board of Directors, Twentieth Century Fund with Adolf A. Berle, Latin American statesman; Board of Directors of Nationawide  Insurance; Board of Human Ecology Fund, Cornell University

 

Grayson Kirk

President of Columbia University

Board of Directors, Socony Mobil Oil Corp.

Board of Directors, IMB – International Business Machines

 

Harris J. Nelson

Financial Columnist, Barron’s Weekly

 

Nathaniel P. Hill

Financier

 

Hugh Bullock

President Calvin Bullock, Ltd.

 

 

1961

As above with exceptions:

 

Maxwell D. Taylor leaves the board

 

 

Allen W. Dulles joins the board

Former Director of Central Intelligence Agency

Representing Sullivan & Cromwell law firm

 

 

1962-1964

as above with exception

 

Robert E. Clark, joins the board

Vice President, Calvin Bullock, Ltd.

Former OSS

 

1965 -1967

as above with exception:

 

Maxwell D. Taylor rejoins the board

Former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff

Former Ambassador to Vietnam

*Note: Max Taylor replaced WH Draper Sr. in Mexico City as chair of Mexico Light and Power when Draper assumed the head of US nuclear for-profit company Combustion Engineering.  this placed Taylor in Mexico City at a critical juncture in the early 1960s and likely brought him into close contact with COS Win Scott.  Draper was on a bank board with the future DCI John McCone, former head of Bechtel. Draper also formed one of the first venture capital firms with Gaither and Anderson.  All were original representatives to NATO.