Leslie Sharp

 ' . . . Sometime in mid-1963, SDECE official posted in D.C. Philippe de Vosjoli even allowed Angleton inside the French embassy to perform a personal after hours “black bag job”—purloining French cipher traffic and other data.” 

Is it possible that the withheld batches of assassination related files reveal a history that could damage "national security" e.g., relations with one of our strongest European allies for decades to come?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

LS--

For us amateurs in this topic...what is SDECE?

Very intriguing...

Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage, French external intelligence agency equivalent to CIA in the US.

Author Dick Russell in 1992 prophetically wrote about CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Jesus Angleton’s deep concerns about Jean Souetre’s June 1963 alleged offer to the CIA of a “list of the Communist penetrations of the French government.” Russell reveals that Angleton was especially concerned after his “only trusted [Soviet] defector, Anatoly Golitsin, had informed [him] in 1963 that the SDECE had been penetrated by a KGB spy ring of some twelve agents.” 

            Continued Russell: “More KGB spies were said to be concealed within the top echelons of several French ministries, and Golitsin claimed that even de Gaulle’s entourage had been penetrated by a senior KGB official. The result of Golistin’s charges was Angleton’s recruitment of the SDECE’s intelligence boss in Washington, Philippe de Vosjoli, to spy on his own embassy and pass along classified information. Sometime in mid-1963, de Vosjoli even allowed Angleton inside the French embassy to perform a personal after hours “black bag job”—purloining French cipher traffic and other data.” 

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

Leslie,

I didn't  say all of the OAS. I said, some of the same men.

For instance, over the years, I have seen some people suggest that Laszlo Varga was there.

However, Laszlo Varga was tried for the attack at Petit Clamart in January of 1963, was imprisoned in Saint Martin de Re, and would not be released until November of 1967.

http://deltas-collines.org/galerie/QQQQQQQQQQQQQQ

Steve Thomas

I'm aware of the contradiction, and I think we discussed Varga and Marton on a separate thread.

Are you familiar with the following? And/or do you have proof that the SAC member lied, or that the referenced document is bogus?
 

About mid-1963, according to a former member of SAC [de Gaulle’s special anti-OAS police], who knew Souetre very well, Souetre did the following in April-May, 1963: 

(a) met [the CIA’s] Howard Hunt and Jean Claude Perez (Chief of ORO) in Madrid (b) went to the Caribbean with Laszlo Varga, Lajos Marton, and [a person with the last name] Buscia; (c) went to New Orleans and met with Carlos Bringuier [datebook entry, April 30: ‘Walker – Souetre in New Orleans’]; (d) went to Dallas and met with General Edwin Walker [confirmed in the datebook]; (e) went to Lake Pontchartrain and helped train anti-Castro Cubans It is known, in any event, that during this period he had many contacts with anti-Castro Cubans. It is also known that he visited Spain in July 1963. . . .

NOTE. Lafitte May 9 entry —

Souetre and Davis in April here [New Orelans].

. . . 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. 

***

NOTE. Lafitte October 9 entry — 

OSARN--OSARN--OSARN--

OSARN- get Willoughby-Litt- 

plus Souetre, others (Hungarians) [emphasis added]

Lancelot pro.- kill squads Dallas,

 New York –Tampa-(Labadie) -T says 

called Oswald to purpose [propose] - weapons- 

Walker. Davis in N.O. with 

swamp groups Florida (Decker,

Bender, Vickers, K of M)---

On 3/22/2023 at 6:21 PM, Benjamin Cole said:

Keep in mind, RFK said we must not only tolerate, but encourage dissent. 

Appropriate in all forums. 

 

Did RFK mean dissent for dissent's sake?

Or was he galvanizing the oppressed and assuring them he would fight for their equal right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness in America.  

I hardly think Trump supports are "oppressed" unless being drug into the 21st Century race, gender, religious enlightenment is "oppressive".  

What exactly are you dissenting, Ben? The "deep state"? You will have to stare down Trump's history to assure me that you're serious about that endeavor. 

@Steve Thomas @Jonathan CohenOn November 21, 1963, the day before the assassination, [Brandy] Brandstetter was in Dallas, Texas, reportedly conducting a seminar for Army intelligence personnel despite that nearly every military intelligence officer in the area was tied up with preparations and activities related to JFK’s visit. Weeks later, Brandy would be involved directly in the world of his friend Philippe de Vosjoli, the former top agent at the SDECE and prized recruit of James Jesus Angleton named in three entries of the Lafitte’s 1963 records. The official storyline is that de Vosjoli suddenly realized that attempts on the life of Charles de Gaulle were somehow related to the assassination in Dallas. His alleged awakening begs the question why Pierre Lafitte might have included his name in the same context as Thomas Davis, his wife Caroline, and the attorney for a film being made in Franco’s Spain, Thomas Proctor, months before the assassination of Kennedy.

10 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

This has nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination - it's a scene from a movie. Please move this discussion to another forum.

Only if one is uninformed, or at the very least ill-informed, can he or she come to the conclusion that attempts on de Gaulle are unrelated to the assassination in Dallas  There is strong evidence, including the behavior of SDECE agent in DC, Philippe de Vosjoli, that the investigations share significant elements both historical and in real time.

Hank Albarelli writes in Coup in Dallas ...

Indeed, the well-connected Ilse Luthje played a large part in facilitating Otto’s [Skorzeny] late 1940s affiliation with the French Service d’ Ordre, an organization that was open to the recruitment of former N-azi SS officers as assets, and was also involved in setting up French “stay-behind” teams as part of the storied “Operation Gladio.” A postwar CIA report scrutinizing Ilse noted that “…the Countess maintains operational connections with the Surete^’ [French security forces]. Her headquarters in Paris is at the Cabaret de Lido on the Champs Elysees. She has regular contacts with Pierre Bertaux, the former chief of the Surete^’ in Paris, and Colonel Remy, General de Gaulle’s former G-2.” In fact, Bertaux had allowed Otto and Ilse to live at his residence for a time in 1949. The address was a stone’s throw from French Fascist agents operating under “Group Robert” who were embroiled in Project Jeanne.

            According to author Ralph Ganis, the Skorzenys had been involved with Roger Wybot’s SEMIC, the “Society for the study of Industrial and Commercial Markets” which was essentially a detective agency within his counterintelligence apparatus. By the mid-1950s, Otto had taken great pains to distance Ilse from exposure of her role as an agent for the network. If indeed her expertise was in business, and this organization was an intel operation in service to corporate intrigue around the globe, Otto would have been intent on protecting the long-term value of her position. 

            Both Wybot and Bertaux would become close personally and professionally with the CIA’s James J. Angleton, whose recruitment of a leading member of the French intelligence service, Phillipe de Vosjoli (named in the Lafitte datebook, twice) as a double agent is “one for the records” in the history of US counterintelligence. Referenced in an earlier chapter, it was a disgruntled agent within SEMIC that named Wybot as involved in the jewel heist of the Aga Khan and his Begum outside their villa, Yakymour, located in Le Cannet, Côte d'Azur. Pierre Lafitte is said to be one of the other thieves in that operation, along with notorious Corsican drug runner, Paul Mondoloni, a name that was on his mind well into 1963. 

            That Ilse greased the wheels for Otto here, and that she brazenly recommended murder as a tactic in a top-secret meeting foreshadows her role in years to come.

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

There are some people who believe that some of the same people were involved in both plots.

I, myself, do not believe that to be the case, but there are some who do.

Steve Thomas

Steve, can you spell out the specifics of why you doubt that the OAS was an element of the Dallas plot?

13 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Depicted in this scene from the movie, "The Day Of The Jackal" ( 1973 ).

In August 1962, members of the right-wing OAS attempted to assassinate French President Charles deGaulle with machine guns during an ambush of his motorcade. The attack lasted seven seconds and was unsuccessful. Later, authorities found 147 shell casings at the scene of the ambush, only seven shots hit the car and none of the four occupants were hit.

147 shots were fired at deGaulle and not one shot hit any of the occupants of the car. In comparison, the Warren Commission concluded that a single shooter killed President Kennedy with only three shots from a bolt-action rifle.

 

 

 

Great thread, Gil

52 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You stole my thunder. Great post.

Fascinating parallels. 

BTW, worth pondering is...after the 1960s, did the globalist-military-intel factions within France and the US reason, "You know, why can't keep assassinating our own leaders. People will get suspicious. We have to obtain domestic regime-change by other means." 

I conjecture we have seen four presidential regime-change ops in the US in the postwar era---JFK, Nixon, Carter and Trump. 

In the US (I do not know France) the intel state (aka shadow government, or Deep State, national security state) has become so enlarged, well-funded and entrenched it can effectively work through government, media and party mechanisms to torpedo the unwanted Oval Office occupant. 

The characters of the four presidents is not the topic...it is whether the shadow government wanted them to be President. 

 

 

Trump failed to win the popular vote, attempted to corrupt the electoral college vote, and when that didn't work, he incited his quasi-paramilitary adherents — Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters — to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power. On the way, he advocated that his VP be hanged if he didn't obey his orders.
 

By definition that is an attempted coup — not my view or a simple difference of opinion — but an attempted coup pre and post Jan 6.

 Categorizingg Trump as a victim of presidential regime change is factually incorrect. Comparing his failure to win an election with the violence in Dallas, with Watergate, and with the October Surprise is an inversion of the truth and should be called out on this forum. 

45 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Leslie - could you say more about Willoughby’s team? What do we know about them?

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. — Coup in Dallas

5 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

I'll begin with Dick Russell's observation about Cactus Jack Cannon who served under Willoughby in Korea and after.  Dick writes,

 Albarelli’s book also adds corroboration to my own work as an investigative journalist, including knowledge imparted to me by double agent Richard Case Nagell. While Nagell is not named in the datebook, it provides substantiation for his stressing Mexico City’s Hotel Luma as a planning site and offers up the name of a Willoughby associate (Jack Canon) who Nagell had hinted was among several shooters in Dealey Plaza.

With kudos to and deep respect for Robert Montenegro, who in my opinion should be reinstate on the JFK Ed Forum, the following research is invaluable to grasping the symbiosis Willoughby and Walker brought to the Dallas plot.

The Joint Advisory Commission, Korea  included US military intelligence officers Brig. Gen. Edwin Anderson Walker, Hans V. Tofte, Lt. Col. Philip James Corso, Maj. Gen. Charles Andrew Willoughby, George E. Aurell, COL. Albert Richard Haney, Charles Tracy Barnes, Col. Joseph "Jack" Young Canon, William Alexander "Rip" Robertson, Nestor D. Sanchez, COL. Benjamin Hayes "Vandy" Vandervoort, all later suspecting of President Kennedy's murder.

Walker, Willoughby, Barnes, and Canon appear in Lafitte's records.

Regarding Robert Emmett Johnson — prime candidate for the sniper referred to by Lafitte and providing  an opportunity to speak to "leaderless resistance" which enforces our conclusion that the Dallas plot was conceived and executed outside structural protocol ... 

As we read in the next chapter, among the suspects that fell under command of Charles Willoughby in plans for Dallas was Robert Emmett Johnson. A skilled sniper, Johnson was also a fairly decent writer, and Ulius Amoss had brought him on board under the cover of “journalist.” 

Johnson’s Bosses Hiding in the Shadows

Ulius L. “Pete” Amoss had served as a division chief in Bill Donovan’s OSS, assigned to Greece and then Cairo, before he fell from Donovan’s graces for alleged “administrative improprieties.” According to a declassified document, during this period he “recruited, trained and launched numerous teams of assassins that carried out hits in North Africa, So. Europe, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.” His skillset also included setting up gambling operations as fronts for spying. As noted, while in North Africa, he served with Col. Carleton Coon and William Eddy, both of whom feature in Chapters 1 and 2 of this book. . . .

Robert Emmett Johnson 

In the early ’60s, Robert Emmett Johnson, would-be journalist and skilled assassin, attested that he had been employed by Information Services International to support the agenda of dictator Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. ISI, founded and presided over by former OSS officer Ulius Amoss—dealt with extensively in the previous chapter, boasted as a trusted advisor, General Charles Willoughby. The day following the critical note, “O says done-- Oswald in place,” Pierre leaves a clue that the W. team included E. Johnson. 

W team  E. Johnson’s

(Itkin)

Said to be fiercely independent and opinionated, Johnson advised Special Agents of the FBI in Miami on September 19, 1961 that he had been employed as Foreign Affairs Analyst for Dominican Republic leader Generalissimo Trujillo, who had been assassinated in May of that spring. Johnson held the “analyst” position from 1956–1960. At the time of his visit from the FBI (9/61), Johnson stated he was then employed by ISI, which he described as “an independent intelligence-gathering organization” founded by Amoss, a former Chief of Staff in the US Air Force. On the ISI board of Trustees was Charles Willoughby.

2 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Leslie - could you say more about Willoughby’s team? What do we know about them?

I'll begin with Dick Russell's observation about Cactus Jack Cannon who served under Willoughby in Korea and after.  Dick writes,

 Albarelli’s book also adds corroboration to my own work as an investigative journalist, including knowledge imparted to me by double agent Richard Case Nagell. While Nagell is not named in the datebook, it provides substantiation for his stressing Mexico City’s Hotel Luma as a planning site and offers up the name of a Willoughby associate (Jack Canon) who Nagell had hinted was among several shooters in Dealey Plaza.

8 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I can understand why Skorzeny’s participation is a stretch, and also whether Pierre Lafitte’s notes are proof. But what is not in doubt is the collusion of our post war National security apparatus with the German and Eastern European remnants of the third Reich. We know much more now than Mae Brussell did then, and it only gets worse the more you look. The standard line defending this is of course the necessity of fighting Communism. If it was just German rocket scientists that were enlisted by the US I might buy this explanation, but it’s way deeper than that. A friend who has dug down into available documents told me that some 50,000 of these war criminals thugs were brought here, using various rat lines. Skorzeny was certainly active in this effort, and he was released by the Army CIC and protected in Madrid, where he operated with impunity. Arnold Silver, one of his interrogators who later joined the CIA and became station chief in Luxembourg, recommended Skorzeny’s release, saying he judged him a patriot, not a Natzi. Silver worked closely with William Harvey in many areas including the QJWIN project. JFK made clear his intention to weaken the hold that our military had on the ship of state when he lobbied for joint US-Russia space exploration. Can you imagine the response of NASA rocket scientists? Of the Joint Chiefs? 

You're probably aware that D.C. attorney Dan Alcorn has been in pursuit of QJ/WIN files for years.  He has granted permission to add his efforts to our list.  Interestingly, he has also battled for Byrd and von Alvenselben documents, arguing that von A was a trained assassin or sniper, I forget his precise designation at the moment.  Because we can track von Alvenselben to Victor Oswald, global arms dealer in Madrid and close friend and business associate of Skorzeny, it's possible we will eventually arrive at a convergence.  A relevant area of inquiry at the moment is Richard Thomas Gibson in Tangier.

3 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

There is also the memo on the ZRRifle project from Helms, I think, posted here a while back, in which the CIA expresses a preference for foreign assassins "for operational security reasons".  Fly them in, do the job, and send them back to their safe haven.  Beats having to kill them later, like that messy Oswald deal. 

If I could interject, there is also the power of loyalty to consider and the hold it had over fellow paramilitary operatives.  Skorzeny depended on those he knew he could trust, and in exchange, they knew he would "leave no man behind" in Dallas. He was a "military soldier" to his core and extraction was a particular skill he had obviously honed. It's clear from the Lafitte datebook that escaping Dallas was part and parcel of the Skorzeny plan.  Likewise, those who Lafitte reveals as belonging to the Willoughby team — Canon, Askins, likely Johnson — had served under him in Korea, or knew him during the early '60s and developed symbiotic trust.

6 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I can understand why Skorzeny’s participation is a stretch, and also whether Pierre Lafitte’s notes are proof. But what is not in doubt is the collusion of our post war National security apparatus with the German and Eastern European remnants of the third Reich. We know much more now than Mae Brussell did then, and it only gets worse the more you look. The standard line defending this is of course the necessity of fighting Communism. If it was just German rocket scientists that were enlisted by the US I might buy this explanation, but it’s way deeper than that. A friend who has dug down into available documents told me that some 50,000 of these war criminals thugs were brought here, using various rat lines. Skorzeny was certainly active in this effort, and he was released by the Army CIC and protected in Madrid, where he operated with impunity. Arnold Silver, one of his interrogators who later joined the CIA and became station chief in Luxembourg, recommended Skorzeny’s release, saying he judged him a patriot, not a Natzi. Silver worked closely with William Harvey in many areas including the QJWIN project. JFK made clear his intention to weaken the hold that our military had on the ship of state when he lobbied for joint US-Russia space exploration. Can you imagine the response of NASA rocket scientists? Of the Joint Chiefs? 

I can understand why Skorzeny’s participation is a stretch, and also whether Pierre Lafitte’s notes are proof. 

The most frequent challenge to Coup and Hank's "scoop" is whether Lafitte's records are authentic, followed by and if they're authentic, where's the proof they were recorded in real time, and from there, why should we believe he  (or Hank?!) didn't contrive a hoax out of mischief or as part of a disinformation operation designed for the eventual discovery of the the datebook(s) sometime around the 50th or 60th anniversary?  And permutations thereof. 

Providing the datebook passes the aforementioned litmus test — there's no doubt Pierre's datebook entries that reference Otto and Ilse Skorzeny are proof of their direct, active, and essential roles in the Dallas plot. When one studies the datebook very very carefully, factoring in the Skorzeny papers detailed in Major Ganis's book, Skorzeny's history with World Commerce under Donovan, Dulles, and "Intrepid", his familiarity with Al Ulmer in Madrid leading to obvious conclusions that he met Angleton and Win Scott during those years, Willoughby's time in Madrid, Ilse's role using Previews Inc. (founded by Donovan's director of security during the war) as cover, Otto's history of running paramilitary training camps for snipers and assassins including Jean Souetre, the appearance of Hans Rudel Ulrich in the datebook, the quote from a Lafitte family member that Leon Degrelle was anxious to contribute to the expense of the Dallas plot, we posit that it's not a stretch by any measure that known N-azi SS officer Skorzeny was the central tactician for the hit in Dealey.

10 hours ago, David McLean said:

In my humble estimation, much of the credibility due to Coup derives from H P Albarelli’s monumental work on the murder of Dr Frank Olsen. His research method seems to rely on close cooperation and trust-building with participants, initially non judgmental and truth-seeking. A far cry from the bilateral or adversarial approach of many here.

That said,I am having trouble fitting in Skorzeny to an already over-determined conundrum that is the JFKA and it’s coverup. Meantime, I am collecting books info etc on doors opened by Hank Albarelli and endorsed by Dick Russell. And trying to open my mind and verify these new insights.

 

David, at the risk of seeming presumptuous, on behalf of Hank's professionalism, thank you.

As you allude, among his strengths was the ability to "listen" non-judgmentally to his sources. We had frequent conversations related to the skill.  I wrestled with, for instance, the apparent depth of awareness Pierre Lafitte's wife had of what was underway. I asked if that didn't suggest she was an accomplice, and if so, "how dare she"? Hank would quietly and firmly admonish me that not everyone saw the assassination of Kennedy through my lens or his for that matter. Rene was European, her family experienced two World Wars up close and personal, her perspectives were shaped by events.  He repeated that our job was to lay out facts and let the chips fall. That said, during the last several months of his life, he began to draw conclusions about the case, and by early 2019, he told me how he wanted us to wrap up the first edition of Coup, "I think serious consideration should be given now to doing 3-4 end pages that speak generally to Fourth Reich. Rise of—revamped to these times but true National Socialism—good way to end the book."

The Irish saying, "my prayers are valuable because they're so rare"?  comes to mind because similarly, Hank rarely penned such declarative statements.

You note Hank’s investigation into Olson led him to the assassination in Dallas — a fact that should not be lost on anyone.  Asst. DA Sarocco opined, How’d I know this (Olson) case would eventually lead to Jack Kennedy!” (paraphrasing).  

Hank owned three copies of Russell’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, all falling apart due to constant consultation. We laughed that I owned two in similar shape.  Dick’s breakthrough investigation served as the Bible for our project.  And, as no doubt you’re aware, Dick provides a detailed albeit limited analysis of the 1963 Lafitte datebook, predicated on the assumption the datebook is authentic. 

Thanks for your interest. 

47 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Wow, this sounds like extremist rhetoric. We don't need this kind of poison in our politics and discourse. Yes, the prosecution of Trump over the Stormy Daniels payoff seems very selective and smacks of partisan prosecution, but this does not excuse Santilli's poisonous rhetoric. 

I disagree with any who attempt to characterize prosecution of Trump's payoff to Stormy Daniels as a partisan prosecution. I do agree that the crime was, as a matter of fact, partisan.

Trump wanted to be president running on the GOP ticket, she posed a threat, he paid her off.  As a collective, evangelicals and conservative Catholics — his base — do not look kindly on headlines of sex with a porn star or unseemly locker talk so he knew his campaign would take a severe blow, as indeed it did when the Access Hollywood grab 'em tape surfaced.  Let's not brush that tape under the rug here. It reveals an attitude reflective of a behavior, for instance sex with Stormy Daniels. No doubt prosecutors consider patterns.

If it is established that based on the timing of the payoff, Trump did use money that must be categorized as campaign funds because he was running on the GOP ticket at the time, and he committed a felony — not a misdemeanor, then I suppose one could argue this is indeed a prosecution of a "partisan" crime tied directly to the Republican apparatus.

7 hours ago, Evan Marshall said:

Most hitman are not snipers-met some while assigned to Detroit Homicide. Why try and smuggle some notorious rascal into the states when the US had large numbers of equally if not more qualified than some well-known foreigner?

We asked ourselves the question, Evan.  The answer resides in the fact that no one has been arrested for firing in Dealey other than the patsy.

It was a sophisticated, well thought out scheme designed by skilled tactician Otto Skorzeny who (literally) wrote the book on just such an operation, utilizing assassins he knew personally for the primary team.

4 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Leslie,

Ganis identified General Clement as the Camp Commandant of the St. Maurice L'Ardoise prison camp.

In reality, General Claude Clement Was the Witness (or as we call it, the best man) at Souetre's wedding. He was the Deputy Commander of the Ninth Military District.

In an interview with Claude Clement in 1971, entitled, "The Greening of a Nato General",

http://books.google.com/books?id=fM7a-OBysYcC&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=%22General+Claude+Clement%22&source=bl&ots=-yJRztgOJQ&sig=CWLOp3037ENeOuPdg-EY7_xRM_k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_fUJU8qkOOHOyQHRl4FI&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22General%20Claude%20Clement%22&f=false

pp. 301-304.

author Sandro Ottolenghi identifies General Clement this way:

Ganis doesn't know what he is talking about.

As far as Bud Fensterwald goes, as I've said before,  I  believe he was led down the garden path by Gilbert Levavalier, a sworn enemy of the OAS.

 

PS: And as far as contacting Ganis directly, may I respectfully suggest you do that. You're the one using him as a source.

Steve Thomas

PS. In defense of Ralph Ganis, Fred Litwin posted a scathing review of Coup on Amazon having read nine pages. Similarly, Greg Doudna posted an unflattering assessment of our book on this very forum. He did so within days of the book hitting the streets so to speak. He focused on a subjective analysis of the provenance of the datebook, and the explanation of why the authentication process was incomplete at the time of publication.  He didn't speak to Hank's introduction at all in spite of it being a thorough statement of both provenance and authentication, but rather honed in on my recounting of what Hank shared with me during the two years we worked together on the project.  What struck me, and I don't remember Greg actually explaining, was how he managed to read and assess a 700+ page book in a week or ten days sufficient to make a studied analysis? 

I hope you will reconsider Ganis' book on Skorzeny and drop him a recommendation to correct the errors. Would that be the professional thing to do instead of complaining about his shortcomings on a forum that he doesn't follow?

8 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

As a courtesy I will reply, but only to say I will not be posting on this thread anymore. 

I agree that FBI'er Hoover, and many others in the early postwar era, were racists, and I reject all forms of racism, sexism, or sectarianism, etc. 

I trust that most on the JFK forum agree and reject as well.  What is lesser understood is how this relates to Trump's attempt to overturn the election and his active interference with the peaceful transfer of presidential power in January 2020.

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

Leslie,

Ganis identified General Clement as the Camp Commandant of the St. Maurice L'Ardoise prison camp.

In reality, General Claude Clement Was the Witness (or as we call it, the best man) at Souetre's wedding. He was the Deputy Commander of the Ninth Military District.

In an interview with Claude Clement in 1971, entitled, "The Greening of a Nato General",

http://books.google.com/books?id=fM7a-OBysYcC&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=%22General+Claude+Clement%22&source=bl&ots=-yJRztgOJQ&sig=CWLOp3037ENeOuPdg-EY7_xRM_k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_fUJU8qkOOHOyQHRl4FI&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22General%20Claude%20Clement%22&f=false

pp. 301-304.

author Sandro Ottolenghi identifies General Clement this way:

Ganis doesn't know what he is talking about.

As far as Bud Fensterwald goes, as I've said before,  I  believe he was led down the garden path by Gilbert Levavalier, a sworn enemy of the OAS.

 

PS: And as far as contacting Ganis directly, may I respectfully suggest you do that. You're the one using him as a source.

Steve Thomas

Thanks Steve, and fyi, Ganis has refused to communicate with me beyond my initial request to talk.

I won't press you any further to remark on Dick Russell, or Gary Shaw's efforts. In my view, your issues regarding misidentification of the camp commander, the misspelling of Jean's wife's name, and other technical errors come across as a tempest in a teapot relative to the lost Souetre files and the INS report.  It's unfortunate that those relatively inconsequential errors have interfered with logical and far more pressing concerns. Also, you ignore Lafitte altogether which seems fairly close-minded to me, considering your reputation as a fine researcher. I would think you might at least be curious.

7 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

A sea lion, and condescending to boot.

At the risk of taking your bait—I've hesitated to force you to "look" at this because it only serves to advance Matthew Koch's provocations, but in light of your defense of his obnoxious and disruptive behavior, your own misogynistic responses – however veiled - in lieu of a fact-based discussion with a woman, your arrogant presumption that you know the slightest thing about my psyche or the psyche of others on this forum — I'm going to metaphorically shove this in your face in a similar vein of Matthew’s behavior.

Mathew writes, 

I will say that his [Alex Wilson] line about Leslie's date book being a turd and can't be polished into gold was funny, 

@Chris Barnard The hilarious thing is how this reflects Koch’s “journalism skills.” Alex Wilson did not use the phrase,nor does Koch designate it as a paraphrase but leaves the reader believing it is a direct quote from Wilson.  How very professional. Only a potty brain would dare misquote a somewhat serious researcher. 

The offensive thing about Koch’s insipid remark — and venturing into psychobabble territory because it seems to be the discipline with which you seem to be most au fait  — is his word picture.  You know as well as I do that word pictures/images are powerful, and instead of considering the efficacy of the Lafitte datebook, some impressionable minds will only see excrement. Consider carefully Trump's use of word pictures? Ironic.

To be clear,  as was his prerogative, Wilson criticized my posts because, apparently, they are somewhat similar to Tom Scully’s approach.  He meant to insult us professionally, but he didn’t tar us in the fashion Koch chose to.  Crude and crass is just that, yet you seem entirely comfortable with "a turd." (you might check out the recent Jesse Waters episode on Fox News.  I wondered who inspired whom.)

If you view my taking issue, professionally, with Mathew Koch’s insults of our book, and interpret it as being “woke”, then I’m wide awake. Note to file – ask my cousin-the-lawyer if we should send Koch a demand letter to retract. 

For the record, if Mr. Wilson is reading, I stand on the shoulders of Tom Scully and our colleague Linda Minor whose selfless contributions to the body of research into the assassination in Dallas are incalculable.  Mocking corporate, social, collegial, professional, governmental genealogy is Wilson’s choice, but he does so at his own expense.   In time, we will identify an affordable 3-D ap and leave Wilson and others in the shade.  It is my hope that our first project will be to convert Robert Montenegro’s refined and remarkably inspired assassination database to 3-D.

It's possible, Chris, that you will fail to appreciate or utilize Monty’s database and our related works in progress. They are fact-based and void of psychoanalysis. You do know that practicing your trade on a public forum is verboten? 

6 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

@Leslie Sharp 

By my calculations you mentioning misogyny (I think thats what you meant), you’re probably only two steps away from calling everyone Hitler who doesn’t agree with you. it’s the unsophisticated trope of the irrational. 

I genuinely don’t have any solutions for what is going on in your psyche at present, aside from the thoughts previously offered. I only hope that you heal. 

Have a lovely evening. 
 

  

A sea lion, and condescending to boot.

42 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Leslie,

You can say "alleged:. or "suspected of" all day long, and I would not have a problem with that.

Heck, at one time, he was one of the most wanted men in France.  As I pointed out in an earlier post, France supplied the names of OAS members to both the West German and Italian authorities in 1962 in advance of DeGaulle's visits to both those countries. As Joachim Joesten points out in his book, DeGaulle and His Murders,

 

"Suspected to have played a leading part in planning the attack" is not the same thing as saying he was one of the shooters.

As for Ganis, someone sent me what Ganis wrote, and I threw it down in disgust after the first three pages or so. Ganis had Souetre's birthplace wrong, he misspelled his wife's name. he got Soutre's military service career wrong, and the prison Souetre was sent to wrong.

Ganis doesn't, or didn't know the first thing about Souetre.

Steve Thomas

I think it would be better for you address the editing issues with Ralph directly. Unfortunately, it's a contemporary phenomenon among independent publishers struggling to remain independent and solvent.  I also think it's unreasonable to throw a book down after three pages when it's clear the author's primary source material has been vetted by highly regarded auctioneers.  

However (and I respect if you deliberately chose to ignore what I presented), you're not addressing the fact that Souetre appears on critical dates in the Lafitte datebook directly related to the plot and execution of the president in Dallas.

And, you haven't shared your opinion of Gary and Bud's pursuit, perhaps again by choice?

I would ask, where do you think Dick Russell, a journalist not known for making unfounded assertions, came up with "known assassin"?

From his Limited Analysis of the Pierre Lafitte datebook as published in Coup ...

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. 

And from Dick's Foreword to Coup ...

In implicating Willoughby (whose possible role was first raised in my book The Man Who Knew Too Much), French hitman Jean Rene Souetre, soldier-of-fortune Thomas Eli Davis, Jr., and oil industrialist Jack Crichton, Coup in Dallas opens wider doors to which researchers have been seeking keys for years.

13 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

RePost:

 

“I have two points for you to comprehend:

1) This thread was written regarding a very specific situation relating to equality and double standards here on the forum. I have made a case which you apparently can’t refute. Anything else will be off topic / irrelevant. 

2) Why would you assume that anyone would desire to interact with you? You gloated about representing the HR Hunt family in a PR capacity, and we all know the ills of that family. You have exhibited a lack of morality, civilised etiquette and objective reasoning skills IMO. There is no upside for anyone else to interact with you. IMO people like you socially isolate themselves.”

——————————————————————

The only thing that you are doing is proving a drain on people’s time, at present. I value mine. There are those who crave the inane, unfortunately I am not one of them. You are socially isolating yourself, and proving my point. 

I did try to reach out with an olive branch a while back, at this juncture I am at peace with you staying scorned. 

And I have rebutted, with fact, your purely subjective observations.

1. I didn't, nor do I have reason to, gloat. 
2. I was fully transparent. 
    
3. We expose H. L. Hunt as a likely contributor to the violent removal of our democratically elected president.
4. I co-authored Coup in Dallas with Hank. 

Do you think your thinly veiled condescending misogny is lost on me? 'You should be concerned that you won't be elected Ms Commenter of March 2023 if you challenge me.'  

Do you use this tactic on men on the forum or reserve it for women?

Your "olive branch" arrived on that sticky beak, Chris.