On 4/18/2023 at 10:13 PM, Ron Bulman said:

So, Harlan Carter, head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Texas in 1963, killed a Mexican at 16, served 2 of a 3 year sentence.  Then developed the NRA into what it is today.  While in 1963 he oversaw the records of visits and expulsions any foreign visitors.  From France, Spain, Canada or elsewhere.  

I'm trying to confirm that he covered all US borders. Something suggests to me he didn't.  Plus, under what conditions would the BP be privy to or control private flights in and out?  

11 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Obviously JFK was holding off many major foreign policy actions until he was re-elected.

 

And does that not beg the question that the 1,000 was perhaps as much a campaign strategy as it was evidence he intended to withdraw significant numbers immediately after he was elected? No doubt there have been volumes written on the subject that I've not studied to date.

2 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

JFK authorized all of those troop increases. Dr. Mark Moyar covers this in some detail in chapters 5 and 6 in his book Triumph Forsaken (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Thank you. I gather Moyar located documents?

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

How ironic that Prouty critic Chip Berlet finally agrees-- after all these years-- with Col. L. Fletcher Prouty's original claims about Deep State motives for JFK's murder.

So much for the oft-repeated disinformation about Prouty being a right wing fascist, anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, etc., etc.

Leslie, have you and Michael Griffith studied Prouty's original commentary about NSAM 263 and NSAM 273 in his book about JFK, the CIA, and Vietnam?

He was way ahead of the curve on this subject, based on his direct involvement in the writing of the McNamara/Taylor Report in 1963.

I don't know about you, W., but I've been experiencing cognitive dissonance whiplash following this debate!  Michael is invoking anti-fascist Berlet and you're in a position of either ignoring or defending Liberty Lobby and Carto?

 It wouldn't be entirely accurate to say I'm agnostic relating to Prouty, but in all candor, I've never relied heavily on his work. No doubt the issues under scrutiny here are partly the reason.  I've read other commentary on 263 and 273 and studied Max Taylor's role in depth, so it's possible my sources relied on Prouty's initial exposé.

[as an aside, Taylor had assumed control of Mexican Light and Power in MC when W. H. Draper returned to the states to head up America's first commercial nuclear company which suggests he rubbed shoulders with Win Scott just prior to being "recalled" to DC by President Kennedy. Draper, an original representative of NATO, shared financial connections with John McCone. All by way of saying, I think Max Taylor has danced between the raindrops in spite of his alleged friendship with JFK. He wouldn't be the first friend to betray him.]

I know Hank refers briefly to Prouty in A Terrible Mistake and A Secret Order; at one point he asks why Prouty waited until the early '90s to identify Lansdale — giving him the benefit of the doubt that it was only then he came across the photo. But I recognize Hank is primarily intrigued that Prouty makes quite clear the international scope of his caution, a fact that was ignored far too long in this investigation, in our opinion.

And . . .  at the risk of opening up another 'can of worms', I spent months trying to track down records to explain just how US presence in Vietnam went from some 700-800 when Eisenhower left office to 15,000 when Kennedy determined 'this far and no further'.  Who signed off on those 14,000+ deployments? As Commander in Chief wouldn't those orders have at least crossed K's desk, even if perfunctory or ceremonial?  I've searched high and low for signatures, dates, military bases, etc., including several requests of the JFK Library to no avail.  If you have any insight, or can refer me to source material, I would appreciate it.

On 4/17/2023 at 3:53 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Huh, Griffith?  What additional bunk are you spewing now?

It's a shame that Leslie Sharp, or anyone on this forum, still takes your disinformation seriously.

"Deranged claims by 9/11 Truthers?"  Are you referring to the scientific data of the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth?

Do tell us what is "deranged" about their scientific data. 

Have you ever studied the academic credentials of the many scholars, scientists, and engineers involved in the 9/11 Truth movement?

What is it about the free fall collapses of WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7 that you still don't understand?

What abruptly demolished the steel sub-structures of the Twin Towers and WTC7 on 9/11, allowing the steel towers to rapidly crumble to the ground at a rate approximating the acceleration of gravity?

 

 

 

W. I'm not sure what disinformation you're referring to?
 
The question is whether Col. Prouty was ideologically aligned with Willis Carto or did he simply avail of the venue the Liberty Lobby provided? Was Spotlight the only publisher willing to advance his revelations? Did the ends justify the means?

Our interest was in Carto's direct association with General Edwin Walker.

22 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Chip Berlet is not an ultra liberal.

His specialty, as Jeff noted above, was to go after people who were and who backed controversial causes, like the JFK case.

 

Chip Berlet's cover blurb for Coup in Dallas: The Decisive Investigation into Who Killed JFK by H. P. Albarelli Jr. with Leslie Sharp and Alan Kent reads, 

“When respected investigative journalists raise questions about political and social forces that gained substantial power advantages following the assassination of JFK, their work should not be dismissed lightly. Using an academic perspective, this compelling study examines the forces that likely influenced the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. If you believed that Kennedy was a traitor, then his assassination becomes an act of patriotism. Earlier forms of reactionary information systems, substantially (but not exclusively) on the political right, identified him as such, and as a threat to democracy. Decades later, the same forces motivated the insurgents that stormed the US Capitol in defense of the 45th president demanding a second term. As presented in Coup in Dallas, a similar network of conspiracist rightist mindset provided the script of liberal treason and betrayal that prompted the assassination of President Kennedy.”
—Chip Berlet, editor of The Assassination Please Almanac, author of Eyes Right!, coauthor of Right-Wing Populism in America
 @Michael Griffin

Valentine on recent leak of Pentagon documents and suspect Jack Teixieira:

 

"I have no doubt the documents are genuine, but I believe the leak was a function of the culture war that is tearing America apart. That a general loyal to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement leaked the documents in an attempt to undermine the Biden administration and promote the Trump policy of rapprochement with Russia. The Biden administration is attempting to spin the leak, but the political/cultural rift within the military and CIA, as well within federal law enforcement, is the real story. America is in the midst of a psychological civil war, as I say in my forthcoming book Pisces Moon: The Dark Arts of Empire." — Doug Valentine

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XhSJZOrZCuyoUWHU0jUNeMERtxy7dAui/view?ts=643ec28b

 

 

 

 

One attachment • Scanned by Gmail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, Evan Marshall said:

surviving gunfights. His son seemed much more balanced. Mas, of course, can like whoever he wants to. Knew and liked Bill Jordan, Mason Williams, and Rex Applegate. 

Did you cover the Canadian border in your career?

Draft preview of Continuity of the Coup in Dallas (@copyright — softcover edition in progress)

And speaking of Col. Jack Canon, clearly identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963, who served under General Charles Willoughby, clearly identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963: 

The Maltese Cross also lists the associate editors for [Gen. Willoughby's] Foreign Intelligence Digest. they included Prince Michael Sturdy (Costa Rica), Dr. Emilo Nunez-Portuondo (Cuba), Marques de Prat de Nantoulliet (Spain), M. Saint Paulien (France), Dr. Walter Becher (Germany) Hilaire du Berrier (France) [named in the Lafitte datebook, 1963, and guest in the home of Gen. Edwin Walker — named in the Lafitte datebook, 1963 — on November 22), Dr. Gerald Shelly (Italy), Dr. E. Gehlen (Germany), Freiherr von Braun (Germany), George Bard (Czechoslovakia), Leo M. Petit (Belgium), Admiral E. Heifferich (Holland), Dr. Lazarus Choumanides (Greece), Dr. Sten Forshufvud (Sweden), Vicomte Amaury d'Harcourt (France), Com. Div. Jean Népote (France), Abbe Pierre Delecambre (France) and many others . . .

Various 'associated national and international publications' also appear on the Maltese Cross list. They include A.B.N. Correspondence (Munich, editor Jaroslav Stetzko), . . . The Christian Crusade (Tulsa, editor E. L. White), . . . The Weekly Crusader (Tulsa, Rev. Billy James Hargis whose 1963 cross-country crusade featured Gen. Edwin Walker, clearly identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963), . . . Interpol Review (Paris, editor Jean Népote). . . — from, "The Spy Who Would Be Tsar: The Mystery of Michal Goleniewski and the Far-Right Underground" by Kevin Coogan.

For our purposes, of special interest is Jean Népote — named here as contributor to Gen. Charles Willoughby's Foreign Intelligence Digest — who has been identified as a N-azi collaborator with the Vichy regime. Népote rose through the ranks of INTERPOL which had been infiltrated by the leading N-azis and assumed the post of Secretary General in August 1963.  

At the risk of referring to historian Gerald Posner with this audience, he reports accurately,

“In 1939 Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Gestapo, was voted president of Interpol. In December 1941, Interpol moved its headquarters to the fashionable Berlin suburb of Wannsee, where it shared a villa with the Gestapo.”

It was in this villa where the infamous Wansee Conference was held and where the Final Solution was organized.

. . . Heydrich even made Interpol a division within the SD, the Security Police. When Heydrich was assassinated in Prague in June 1942, Himmler chose Heydrich’s successor at the Gestapo, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, to repace him as Interpol’s president. After Kaltenbrunner was hanged at Nuremberg in October 1946, a Belgian member of Interpol’s executive committee, Florent E. Louwage, became president. He was succeeded in 1956 by Jean Nepote, who had collaborated with the wartime Vichy government in France.

With high praise for researcher extraordinaire Robert Montenegro for opening this channel of research, in the following document, item 9, we see Jean Népote as the source for a training film described as providing "excellent detail on planning and execution of safecracking". The significance of the document is that it relates to other characters identified as having been in the spotter program / the QJ/WIN operation. Considering his history, his access, and the power of his role at INTERPOL, we argue that this single record strongly suggests Jean Népote was in fact among the QJ/WIN spotters.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10185-10010.pdf

As head of INTERPOL since August of 1963, responsible for cross-border policing on a global scale (including international drug trafficking), Népote was also in a position to lift travel restrictions at any given time. It is also plausible he exercised significant control over the status of (useful and perhaps familiar)convicted criminals who fell under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Justice in France where INTERPOL was headquartered. We also know that Népote's fellow N-azi collaborator during the Vichy regime, Maurice Papon had led the police in major French prefectures for decades and had also dealt closely with Corsicans.  (As secretary general for police in Bordeaux during the war, he participated in the deportation of more than 1,600 Jews, a crime against humanity he was charged with eventually). Papon's activity during the Algerian War from 1954-1962 included torture of insurgent prisoners. As prefect of the Paris police, he was responsbile for the deadly repression of the FLN, overseeing the "Paris massacres" of both 1961 and 1962 in response to anti-OAS demonstrations.  . . . 

Although there is no evidence that either Jean Népote or Maurice Papon knew OAS Captain Jean Rene Souetre — or experienced assassins Alice Lamy, Gerard Litt or Jean Filliol [all identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963], or Hungarians [loosely referred to in the Lafitte datebook, 1963], or Lajos Marton or Laszlo Varga who were members of Souetre's deadly 'Will Kill' — it can be reasonably argued that both Népote and Papon — not unlike counterparts in Mexico and the US including INS Harlon B. Carter [who had served with Charles "Boots" Askins, named in the Lafitte datebook, 1963] — were in prime positions to order, conceal, and/or confuse details of the movement of known assassins.

Draft preview of Continuity of the Coup in Dallas (@copyright — softcover edition in progress)

And speaking of Col. Jack Canon, clearly identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963, who served under General Charles Willoughby, clearly identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963: 

The Maltese Cross also lists the associate editors for [Gen. Willoughby's] Foreign Intelligence Digest. they included Prince Michael Sturdy (Costa Rica), Dr. Emilo Nunez-Portuondo (Cuba), Marques de Prat de Nantoulliet (Spain), M. Saint Paulien (France), Dr. Walter Becher (Germany) Hilaire du Berrier (France) [named in the Lafitte datebook, 1963, and guest in the home of Gen. Edwin Walker — named in the Lafitte datebook, 1963 — on November 22), Dr. Gerald Shelly (Italy), Dr. E. Gehlen (Germany), Freiherr von Braun (Germany), George Bard (Czechoslovakia), Leo M. Petit (Belgium), Admiral E. Heifferich (Holland), Dr. Lazarus Choumanides (Greece), Dr. Sten Forshufvud (Sweden), Vicomte Amaury d'Harcourt (France), Com. Div. Jean Népote (France), Abbe Pierre Delecambre (France) and many others . . .

Various 'associated national and international publications' also appear on the Maltese Cross list. They include A.B.N. Correspondence (Munich, editor Jaroslav Stetzko), . . . The Christian Crusade (Tulsa, editor E. L. White), . . . The Weekly Crusader (Tulsa, Rev. Billy James Hargis whose 1963 cross-country crusade featured Gen. Edwin Walker, clearly identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963), . . . Interpol Review (Paris, editor Jean Népote). . . — from, "The Spy Who Would Be Tsar: The Mystery of Michal Goleniewski and the Far-Right Underground" by Kevin Coogan.

For our purposes, of special interest is Jean Népote — named here as contributor to Gen. Charles Willoughby's Foreign Intelligence Digest — who has been identified as a N-azi collaborator with the Vichy regime. Népote rose through the ranks of INTERPOL which had been infiltrated by the leading N-azis, and assumed the post of Secretary General in August 1963.  

At the risk of referring to historian Gerald Posner with this audience, he reports accurately,

“In 1939 Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Gestapo, was voted president of Interpol. In December 1941, Interpol moved its headquarters to the fashionable Berlin suburb of Wannsee, where it shared a villa with the Gestapo.”

It was in this villa where the infamous Wansee Conference was held and where the Final Solution was organized.

. . . Heydrich even made Interpol a division within the SD, the Security Police. When Heydrich was assassinated in Prague in June 1942, Himmler chose Heydrich’s successor at the Gestapo, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, to repace him as Interpol’s president. After Kaltenbrunner was hanged at Nuremberg in October 1946, a Belgian member of Interpol’s executive committee, Florent E. Louwage, became president. He was succeeded in 1956 by Jean Nepote, who had collaborated with the wartime Vichy government in France.

With high praise for researcher extraordinaire Robert Montenegro for opening this channel of research, in the following document, item 9, we see Jean Népote as the source for a training film described as providing "excellent detail on planning and execution of safecracking". The significance of the document is that it relates to other characters identified as having been in the spotter program / the QJ/WIN operation. Considering his history, his access, and the power of his role at INTERPOL, we argue that this single record strongly suggests Jean Népote was in fact among the QJ/WIN spotters.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10185-10010.pdf

. As head of INTERPOL since August of 1963, responsible for cross-border policing on a global scale (including international drug trafficking), Népote was also in a position to lift travel restrictions at any given time. It is also plausible he exercised significant control over the status of (useful and perhaps familiar)convicted criminals who fell under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Justice in France where INTERPOL was headquartered. We also know that Népote's fellow N-azi collaborator during the Vichy regime, Maurice Papon had led the police in major French prefectures for decades and had also dealt closely with Corsicans.  (As secretary general for police in Bordeaux during the war, he participated in the deportation of more than 1,600 Jews, a crime against humanity he was charged with eventually). Papon's activity during the Algerian War from 1954-1962 included torture of insurgent prisoners. As prefect of the Paris police, he was responsbile for the deadly repression of the FLN, overseeing the "Paris massacres" of both 1961 and 1962 in response to anti-OAS demonstrations.  . . . 

Although there is no evidence that either Jean Népote or Maurice Papon knew OAS Captain Jean Rene Souetre — or experienced assassins Alice Lamy, Gerard Litt or Jean Filliol [all identified in the Lafitte datebook, 1963], or Hungarians [loosely referred to in the Lafitte datebook, 1963], or Lajos Marton or Laszlo Varga who were members of Souetre's deadly 'Will Kill' — it can be reasonably argued that both Népote and Papon — not unlike counterparts in Mexico and the US including INS Harlon B. Carter [who had served with Charles "Boots" Askins, named in the Lafitte datebook, 1963] — were in prime positions to order, conceal, and/or confuse details of the movement of known assassins.

8 minutes ago, Evan Marshall said:

No, over the last decade or so I've focused on books. Currently working on the 4th one which will be on gunfight survival. I've known Mas for 40 years or more. Carter I never met. Charley. I knew him too well.

Reminds me, I wish I had been aware of Carter when I emailed Ayoub's representative to quote him at length in Coup. If you're so inclined, might you ask him?

I've yet to come across anyone who admired Charley, other than perhaps Mas with the obvious caveats. I think his son still lives around Las Cruces NM.
 

Surviving a gunfight, or surviving during a gunfight?

PS. Have you seen the photo of the guy on the steps just to the west of the Pergola where Zapruder is perched?

You write under a pen name? I guess you know Ayoub?

Carter shot a young unarmed Hispanic guy when he was 16. Served two years of a three-year sentence, joined the border patrol where I guess he first met Charley. and the rest is history.  Did you say you never ran into him?

                           Souetre—Mexico City-

                     —Lafitte datebook, November 12, 1963

 On November 12, 1963, former French army commando and paratrooper Jean Rene Marie Souetre—and two associates, both Hungarians, Laslo Vango [Laszlo Varga] and Lajos LNU [Marton], who had fled their homeland’s failed revolution and come to Spain where they were trained in specialized sabotage and assassination techniques by Souetre at two of Otto Skorzeny’s three training compounds outside of Madrid—landed on a commercial flight from Spain in Mexico City, Mexico. Each man carried several passports issued under various aliases, as well as their actual identities. Along with their passports each man also carried about $1,000 in US currency. . . . 

As this investigation draws to a close, the implications of the arrival in Mexico City on the 12th of November of two Hungarians and the former OAS paratrooper and marksman Jean Rene Souetre, when considered in context of the datebook entry of the same date, cement that Pierre Lafitte was kept apprised of the progress of Otto Skorzeny’s logistics for the assassination, down to the cast of characters destined for Dealey Plaza. By October 9^th, Lafitte already knew that Souetre and the Hungarians were on that list as evidenced: OSARN-OSARN-OSARN-OSARN-get Willoughby-Litt- plus Souetre, others (Hungarians). . . — Coup in Dallas

And Major Ralph Ganis writes in The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK,

During this period, Souetre was said to have used the alias, "Commander Constant," and, in addition to his business dealings in Palma de Mallorca, he also controlled a Madrid "extermination and fumigation company," with the on-the-nose name "Will Kill." The company "hired veteran survivors of Delta commando," and included a man named Lajos Marton . . . 

Although Bastien-Thiry did not name the members of the Study Group, the French Police identified the following OAS personnel: Captains Pierre Sargent, Jean Curutchet, and Jean Rene Souetre. the police believed Souetre "played a leading part in planning the attack at Petit-Clamart." Evident that this is true is revealed by the arrest afterward of [Lajos] Marton, Sari, and [Lazlo] Varga — all of Souetre's "Will Kill" exterminators, out of Madrid.  

                           Souetre—Mexico City-

                     —Lafitte datebook, November 12, 1963

 On November 12, 1963, former French army commando and paratrooper Jean Rene Marie Souetre—and two associates, both Hungarians, Laslo Vango [Laszlo Varga] and Lajos LNU [Marton], who had fled their homeland’s failed revolution and come to Spain where they were trained in specialized sabotage and assassination techniques by Souetre at two of Otto Skorzeny’s three training compounds outside of Madrid—landed on a commercial flight from Spain in Mexico City, Mexico. Each man carried several passports issued under various aliases, as well as their actual identities. Along with their passports each man also carried about $1,000 in US currency. . . . 

As this investigation draws to a close, the implications of the arrival in Mexico City on the 12th of November of two Hungarians and the former OAS paratrooper and marksman Jean Rene Souetre, when considered in context of the datebook entry of the same date, cement that Pierre Lafitte was kept apprised of the progress of Otto Skorzeny’s logistics for the assassination, down to the cast of characters destined for Dealey Plaza. By October 9^th, Lafitte already knew that Souetre and the Hungarians were on that list as evidenced: OSARN-OSARN-OSARN-OSARN-get Willoughby-Litt- plus Souetre, others (Hungarians). . . — Coup in Dallas

And Major Ralph Ganis writes in The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK,

During this period, Souetre was said to have used the alias, "Commander Constant," and, in addition to his business dealings in Palma de Mallorca, he also controlled a Madrid "extermination and fumigation company," with the on-the-nose name "Will Kill." The company "hired veteran survivors of Delta commando," and included a man named Lajos Marton . . . 

Although Bastien-Thiry did not name the members of the Study Group, the French Police identified the following OAS personnel: Captains Pierre Sargent, Jean Curutchet, and Jean Rene Souetre. the police believed Souetre "played a leading part in planning the attack at Petit-Clamart." Evident that this is true is revealed by the arrest afterward of [Lajos] Marton, Sari, and [Lazlo] Varga — all of Souetre's "Will Kill" exterminators, out of Madrid.  

 

2 hours ago, Evan Marshall said:

I knew Charley Askins and hated him. He was a ruthless murder.

Intriguing is an understatement, Evan.

Are you a sharpshooter?

Did you ever run into Carter?

49 minutes ago, Stuart Green said:

Hello,

It is a pleasure to be part of the forum.

Keen interest in the JFKA since my teens but for the past two years since my return from Europe (UK now) had more time to consume reading material & the pages here & elsewhere.

Looking to Research a particular part of the case, but still looking for my muse within it.

Although a novice compared to many, I hope occasionally I will have sharpened my knowledge sufficiently to occasionally "chip in".

Keep safe.

 

 

 

 

Welcome. I for one look forward to new voices on EF, and am anxious to learn which particular part of the case has grabbed your attention.

Trump pledges to be NRA’s ‘loyal friend’ ahead of 2024

BY JARED GANS - 04/14/23 7:37 PM ET

https://www.vox.com/2015/11/11/9714842/operation-wetback

Askins 

—Lafitte datebook, September 12, 1963

Canon-- S + V?

—Lafitte datebook, September 14 1963

Askins - Willoughby OK

—Lafitte datebook, October 2, 1963

Willoughby team – Canon (Z org) D.

—Lafitte datebook, November 21, 1963
 

Col. Charles “Boots” Askins, Jr.

Boots Askins was a storied gunman in Texas since the early 1930s, and had moved within far-right circles all his life. Author Jeffrey Caufield, in his study of the assassination of JFK, features a letter from Joseph Milteer (himself a racist and far right associate of Willoughby and Walker) to Charles Askins pertaining to a forthcoming meeting of one of the myriad clandestine organizations that the radical right was running during the ’60s, indicating very “hush-hush” stuff. 

            Born in October 1907, the son of a prominent hunter and writer, Askins Jr. followed in his father’s footprints and, according to legend, "left some marks deeper than his dad." Prior to enlisting in the US Army, Askins had served in the US Forest Service and Border Patrol in the American Southwest. 

            During WWII, he served as a battlefield recovery officer, making landings in North Africa, Italy, and D-day. Following the war, he was posted in Spain as an attaché to the American embassy, assisting Franco’s administration in rebuilding the arms and ammunition factories after the war. This is but one clue that Askins was well known to General Willoughby and through that connection, he knew fellow Texan “Cactus Jack” Canon. In his role at the embassy in Madrid, Askins undoubtedly encountered Johannes Bernhardt of SOFINDUS, Otto Skorzeny, and Victor Oswald, all of whom need no further introduction to our reader. As attaché, Askins would also have been familiar with US Embassy officials including CIA agent Al Ulmer, and fellow attaché Jere Wittington, Otto and Ilse’s close friend and minder. 

            After several years in Madrid, enjoying the company of his family and bird hunting in the Spanish countryside, Askins was sent to Vietnam to join the select number of Eisenhower “advisors” training South Vietnamese soldiers in shooting and paratrooping. During those years, the colonel managed to earn his airborne qualification with both countries, amassing 132 jumps before calling it quits. While posted on the Vietnamese front, Askins would have encountered Jack Canon and Lucien Conein, among a number of other legends in that ill-fated endeavor. 

            Throughout his military career, Askins also indulged in big game hunting at every chance, and continued to do so the remainder of his life. He retired to San Antonio, Texas having been stationed at Fort Sam Houston when he returned stateside. He died there in March 1999. In a carefully worded statement, repeated by all who write about the legendary “Boots” Askins, “He retired from government service in 1963.”

Askins 

—Lafitte datebook, September 12, 1963

Canon-- S + V?

—Lafitte datebook, September 14 1963

Askins - Willoughby OK

—Lafitte datebook, October 2, 1963

Willoughby team – Canon (Z org) D.

—Lafitte datebook, November 21, 1963
 

Col. Charles “Boots” Askins, Jr.

Boots Askins was a storied gunman in Texas since the early 1930s, and had moved within far-right circles all his life. Author Jeffrey Caufield, in his study of the assassination of JFK, features a letter from Joseph Milteer (himself a racist and far right associate of Willoughby and Walker) to Charles Askins pertaining to a forthcoming meeting of one of the myriad clandestine organizations that the radical right was running during the ’60s, indicating very “hush-hush” stuff. 

            Born in October 1907, the son of a prominent hunter and writer, Askins Jr. followed in his father’s footprints and, according to legend, "left some marks deeper than his dad." Prior to enlisting in the US Army, Askins had served in the US Forest Service and Border Patrol in the American Southwest. 

            During WWII, he served as a battlefield recovery officer, making landings in North Africa, Italy, and D-day. Following the war, he was posted in Spain as an attaché to the American embassy, assisting Franco’s administration in rebuilding the arms and ammunition factories after the war. This is but one clue that Askins was well known to General Willoughby and through that connection, he knew fellow Texan “Cactus Jack” Canon. In his role at the embassy in Madrid, Askins undoubtedly encountered Johannes Bernhardt of SOFINDUS, Otto Skorzeny, and Victor Oswald, all of whom need no further introduction to our reader. As attaché, Askins would also have been familiar with US Embassy officials including CIA agent Al Ulmer, and fellow attaché Jere Wittington, Otto and Ilse’s close friend and minder. 

            After several years in Madrid, enjoying the company of his family and bird hunting in the Spanish countryside, Askins was sent to Vietnam to join the select number of Eisenhower “advisors” training South Vietnamese soldiers in shooting and paratrooping. During those years, the colonel managed to earn his airborne qualification with both countries, amassing 132 jumps before calling it quits. While posted on the Vietnamese front, Askins would have encountered Jack Canon and Lucien Conein, among a number of other legends in that ill-fated endeavor. 

            Throughout his military career, Askins also indulged in big game hunting at every chance, and continued to do so the remainder of his life. He retired to San Antonio, Texas having been stationed at Fort Sam Houston when he returned stateside. He died there in March 1999. In a carefully worded statement, repeated by all who write about the legendary “Boots” Askins, “He retired from government service in 1963.”

56 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Leslie, very interesting stuff. I don't agree with your conclusions about some of the conservative figures you mention, but I definitely agree with you about The Spotlight. Prouty's close and prolonged association with Carto, Liberty Lobby, and the IHR discredit him as a source and should cause us to repudiate him. 

And, just so you know, I'm not a huge Trump supporter. I think he did many good things for the country, but I believe he should have been prosecuted for purposely waiting to tell the 1/6 rioters to stand down. I have never thought highly of him as a person. I regard him as emotionally and morally unfit for high office. He was my fourth pick among the GOP candidates in the 2016 Republican primary (my picks were Carson, Rubio, Kasich, and then Trump--come to think of it, I would have voted for J. Bush over Trump if it had been a contest between the two). 

I think it is quite a reach to impugn tens of millions of Republicans because of a very small handful of unsavory people among them. There are equal numbers of unsavory characters among the Democrats too. 

To me, it makes no sense to drag modern politics into discussions on the JFK case. Plenty of conservatives believe JFK was killed by a conspiracy (and not a Soviet one). As I've said, when we drag politics into the JFK case, we risk alienating and driving away a large part of our reading audience. 

Thanks, Michael.  I consider Trump a symptom, not the cause of what I believe is a crisis, a crossroads for our democracy. In some strange way, perhaps we should be grateful that he lanced what many consider a festering wound inflicted in 1963. For that reason, I disagree with you. The elected president of the US in 1963 was violently removed in Dallas for political reasons.  Suggesting we, the community, shouldn't address the prevailing politics of 1963 and how they manifest in 2023 is naive at best.  We debate the coup in context of the Cold War. Why wouldn't we also debate the coup in context of current events? Had we done so in 1970 — during Watergate — just think how further along we would be in the Kennedy investigation? Or 1980, the Reagan/Bush years, Iran-Contra and the Walker/Bush dynasties? What might we have learned about Kennedy's assassination had we considered it in context then? 1990, 2000, 2010? etc. etc. Are you not, unconsciously, attempting to interfere with solving this cold case murder investigation by insisting we leave politics aside?  It was a political hit.

With that, would you speak to the issues raised in my response, i.e., how Carto's American Free Press infiltrated the "JFK research community"? Did those who contributed to the early issues meet L. Fletcher Prouty?

Why has General Edwin Walker's history with Willis Carto been buried for decades?

How does resurrection of the "America First" movement fit in?

And specifically, Sebastian Gorka, Hungarian, who picked up the "America First" gauntlet, seems entirely comfortable with neo-fascists ruling his homeland? Do we know whether Gorka came in contact with Lajos Marton over the years?

Or, we can debate Col. Fletcher Prouty out of context of these additional questions?

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Thank goodness for the Internet Archive website. Thanks to the website, I was able to find "friendly" proof that Fletcher Prouty had his book The Secret Team republished by the IHR's Noontide Press.

I found this proof in a book that ardently defends Holocaust denial, white supremacy, the IHR, and Liberty Lobby and its newspaper The Spotlight. The book was written by radical right-winger and Holocaust denier Michael Collin Piper and is titled Coup d’Etat: The Bizarre Inside Story of How an Intelligence Operative Tied to the CIA and Israel’s Mossad Orchestrated the Take-Over of the Institute for Historical Review And Set in Motion the Ultimate Destruction of Liberty Lobby. I might add that the IHR, via its Noontide Press, also published The Spotlight.

The book's appendix lists books and publications that were published or republished by the IHR's Noontide Press. The list includes Prouty's book The Secret Team (LINK). Here are some other splendid titles published or republished by Noontide Press:

White America, by Earnest Sevier Cox. In case you didn't already guess, Cox was an ardent white supremacist.

Lincoln's Negro Policy, by Earnest Sevier Cox 

The Myth of the Six Million, by David Hoggan. This is a standard Holocaust denial text. Willis Carto was a contributor.

Debunking the Genocide Myth: A Study of the National Socialist Concentration Camps and the Alleged Extermination of European Jewry, by Paul Rassinier. This is another popular book among Holocaust deniers. 

Our Nordic Race, by Richard Kelly Hoskins

The Hoax of the 20th Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, by Dr. Arthur Butz

Liberty Lobby Membership Cookbook

Report From Iron Mountain, by Leonard Lewin 

Anne Frank's Diary: A Hoax, by Dietlieb Felderer 

Eugenics & Race, by Dr. Roger Pearson. Pearson was a purveyor of extreme racist and anti-Semitic views. In 1958, he founded the Northern League for North European Friendship, a group that promoted Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitic, and neo-N-azi racial ideology.

Anti-Zion, by William Grimstad 

The Liberty Lobby Congressional Handbook 

Is the Diary of Anne Frank Genuine?, by Robert Faurisson. (Yes, it is, but these nutjobs argued that it was faked.)

The Zionist Factor, by Ivor Benson 

The Life of An American Jew in Racist, Marxist Israel, by Jack Bernstein 

Epic: The Story of the Waffen SS, by Leon Degrelle. Don't you know that Hitler was actually a swell guy, and that the SS were noble warriors? 

Behind Jonestown, by Ed Dieckmann. If you think Prouty's nutty theory about Jonestown is bad, Dieckmann makes Prouty's theory look respectable by comparison. While spinning a wild tale about Jonestown, Diechmann takes time to deny the Holocaust. 

Germany Reborn, by Herman Goering. For those who don't know, Goering was one of Hitler's henchmen and a leading figure in the Third Reich.

The Auschwitz Myth, by Wilhelm Staglich.

The How - Liberty Lobby's Record of Its Political Aims 

Spotlight on the Bilderbergers 

Inside the Bilderberg Group 

Coup D'Etat: The ADL Scheme to Seize Control of Latin America. ADL is the Anti-Defamation League
 
The Six Million Reconsidered, by William Grimstad 

100 Best of The SPOTLIGHT - two volumes 1986 and 1987 

108 Astounding Stories by The SPOTLIGHT. (LINK)
 

Michael, we had reason to pursue Spotlight because it eventually morphed into America Free Press, Willis Carto's final act as it were, which is alive on the internet today. 

General Willoughby closes one particularly lengthy diatribe he shared with his good friend, DCI Allen Dulles with a quote of fascist philosopher, Oswald Spengler, with, “Untergand de Abendlandes” in reference to Spengler’s “Decline of the West.” Without notes, (Francis Parker] Yockey wrote his first book, Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, in Brittas Bay, Ireland over the winter and early spring of 1948. Clearly, he shared Willoughby’s admiration of Spengler in Imperium, a Spenglerian critique of 19th century materialism and rationalism dedicated to “the hero of the twentieth century.” It is believed that he meant Adolf Hitler. Holocaust Denier Carto of the Liberty Lobby, and later owner of the American Mercury, as well as the American Free Press, took on the task of publishing Yockey’s Imperium when Britain’s infamous fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley failed to do so because of personality clashes with Yockey. The reader is reminded that ad man, propagandist H. Keith Thompson, long-time protégé of Yockey, handled public relations for Lee Oswald’s mother, Marguerite Claverie Oswald in 1964. It has been reported that Willis Carto was Yockey’s last visitor in jail before he bit down on the cyanide pill he had tucked away rather than be interrogated by American authorities. . . .

Maguire’s magazine was eventually sold off to a shadow company of Willis Carto with General Edwin Walker remaining on as military advisor and partial owner. It was Carto who single handedly brought Holocaust Denial to the US around the same time that McCarthy and his team, including Roy Cohn, launched their red-baiting. It cannot be ignored that Carto’s final propaganda sheet, American Free Press provided a venue for a number of reporters and journalists who in the mid 2000s would infiltrate the Kennedy assassination research efforts under the guise of truth seeking that they sold as being in alignment with John F. Kennedy’s philosophy and policies had he lived to serve out his term. In fact, history insists that contributors to AFP are closely aligned with Carto’s legacy, not that of John F. Kennedy. . . .

When Donald Trump was elected president, a number of leaders from the alt-right movement assumed important advisory positions, including those responsible for creating a platform for the “alt-right,” the online publication Breitbart News. In a piece titled, “An Establishment Conservatives’ Guide to the Alt-Right” published in 2016, the Italian philosopher and occultist Julius Evola is touted as “one of the thinkers in whose writings the origins of the alternative right can be found.” Evola, identified earlier in this book, was the intellectual and spiritual inspiration of leading Italian fascists, including “The Black Prince” Julius Borghese [admired greatly by James Angleton]and Stefano delle Chiaie who were inclined toward murder and blackmail as political solutions. As noted, Evola was also an early admirer of American fascist Francis Parker Yockey whose fervent adherent, H. Keith Thompson, would serve a similar role as that of Isaac Don Levine when he became a publicist for Marguerite Oswald. Yockey’s writings were advanced almost exclusively by American propagandist Willis Carto, philosophically aligned in 1963 with Rev. Gerald L K. Smith, a cofounder of the America First Committee. Carto would leave as his final legacy, the American Free Press where Patrick Buchanan found a well-primed audience. . . .

Journalist and historian of extreme right-wing movements in the United States, Chip Berlet noted that Trump’s vision of America has been narrowed to focus on and to reflect the ideas of [Steve] Bannon and [Bill] Regnery. Bill Regnery’s uncle Henry had also published Human Events, a journal alleged by historian James Ziegler in Red Scare Racism and Cold War Black Radicalism to have been used by the CIA for smear campaigns. Human Events rapidly evolved as one of the standard-bearers for American conservatism, and continues to provide space to far-right provocateurs including Buchanan, and Ann Coulter who once dismissed child immigrants filmed crying under the stress of desperate conditions imposed during the Trump administration as whining actors, admonishing the president to “not fall for it.” Steve Bannon, referred to by Berlet, who for eight months served as Chief Strategist and Senior Counsel to President Trump, was executive chairman of the alt-right platform, Breitbart News until 2018.

After the campaign, and the 2016 presidential election, it became clear that the vision of the original America First and “the destruction of the administrative state," a phrase Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent suggests was shorthand for “national regulations and international commitments created by allegedly unaccountable bureaucrats who are supposedly disenfranchising U. S. workers and weakening American sovereignty,” had once again seeped into the political psyche.' @Coup in Dallas


Further evidence of the continuity, the rolling coup of 1963: Podcast "America First with Sebastian Gorka", former Hungarian policy adviser and politician, alleged member of the neo-fascist Vitenzi Rend of Hungary, and President Trump's Deputy Assistant and senior counter-terrorism advisor.  He was once described as [Victor} Orban's Man in the Trump White House.* A well-sourced analysis by Human Rights First — whose board includes Kerry Kennedy, daughter of RFK and president of his Center for Human Rights —  provides further understanding of the close ties Mr. Gorka maintains with his motherland, Hungary. This also provides insight into the mindset that might possibly influence those defenders of convicted Hungarian assassin Lajos Marton — the centerpiece of recent debate and threat. @Michael Griffith 
 

7 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

My arguments in this thread have been based on the assumption that Louis' article about the Dallas expulsion was true.  French authorities had looked into it, interviewed Louis, and found his story credible enough to inquire about it to the FBI.  They decided it was Souetre using Roux as an alias.  They didn't ask *whether* Souetre had been expelled; they asked the FBI for an explanation as to *why*, and where he was sent.  Of course, we don't know all the French knew, or thought they did, when they made the inquiry.

 

But suppose the story was a work of fiction, as Greg Parker has suggested on ROKC.

 

It wouldn't have taken any great imagination to create.  If the CIA had hired a foreign assassin, as the ZRRifle project suggested they preferred, they likely would have expelled him precisely as Louis described, and covered up any vestiges of his visit to Dallas.  They had the planes, pilots, and resources to do that.  Expulsion of foreign assassins, if hired, had to have been part of the plan as originally conceived.  Louis was probably smart enough to realize that and build his story from there. 

 

Louis didn't name the assassin in the article.  But when questioned by the police, he said his source was Michel Roux.  The French contacted Roux and he acknowledged being in Montreal at the time of the alleged interview and talking to Louis, but only over the phone, not in person. They had talked about the JFKA, he said, but he denied telling Louis any such story as had appeared in the article.  I have no reason to doubt Roux or his story of his travels thru the Dallas area beginning on Dec 19, to Canada, and back to France in late January,'64.  He was not expelled. There is nothing to connect him to the JFKA.

 

But the two stories, Louis' and Roux's, do not fit together. It's unlikely both could be true.  If both things had happened--an in-person meeting with Souetre saying he was Roux, followed by a bunch of calls from Souetre wanting another meeting, and one previous phone call from the real Roux, it's likely Louis would have known these were two different people.  Not naming his source in the article allowed Louis to obfuscate that problem for a while, but not after he named Roux as his source. This is one clue something was amiss.

There is still much we don't know.  Perhaps the MFF lawsuit can retrieve the French file on the Souetre expulsion that led to their inquiry.  The JFK Act provides for the release of records held by foreign governments.  Bud Fensterwald tried to get it 40 years ago.  The French denied him, citing privacy concerns as I recall.  Souetre died in 2001.  Maybe they will be more cooperative now.

 

To be clear, nothing in the foregoing, whether or not Louis made up the story, tells us anything about Souetre's whereabouts. If Louis concocted his expulsion story, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.  A logical part of any conspiracy using foreign components must include a plan to get rid of them before they are detected.  It's still worth pursuing whether Souetre was in Dallas and expelled after the murder. Or some other assassin.

A logical part of any conspiracy using foreign components must include a plan to get rid of them before they are detected. 

Wouldn't it be equally logical that if the foreign assassins were selected by their superiors — also foreign. a.k.a. Otto Skorzeny  — they would willingly participate knowing he would see to it they were extracted safely? Souetre's group was highly trained, carefully selected, and long considered valuable assets, as was the Willoughby team including Jack Canon and "Boots" Askins.