Who was QJ/WIN

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, not sure about your CYA list but there are a number of CIA documents and officers statements that very specifically talk about efforts to assassinate Lumumba.  There are similar documents that very clearly specify that ZRRIFLE was being used as a cover for a Castro assassination effort.  And of course since it was a cover, you will find a number of documents relating to Staff D and Harvey's recruiting which focus on burglars, safe crackers etc.  With all the information we have and have had for some time now these CIA activities are historically clear (they are discussed in a number of history books outside the JFK literature) - certainly they were known as far back as the Church committee. David's recently posted documents illustrate that.

Having said that, I'm not sure that the Church committee actually got everything exactly right or even that the information given them was always chronologically accurate...for example I can't figure out how Arnold Silver fits into ZRRIFLE since it was not set up as a project or crypt until well after the Lumumba activities were done and there is certainly no sign of Arnold in the Castro assassination projects.

 

[Michael Clark]

12 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

David,

 

I also asked about Silverthorne in this thread:

A Very Long Road

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/12018-a-very-long-road/?tab=comments#comment-134111

 

Steve Thomas

 

On 1/15/2008 at 4:44 PM, William Plumlee said:

I think I know where you are going with this:

--------------------

 

I knew of a Col Silverthorn but he was WW11 and worked with my step-dad "Clearnce Morgan", in the South Pacific. I thought he was OSS but not sure. He was associated with "Bull" Simpson in 1943-44 then came to the Pentagon.

----------------------

Steve, I doubt that you missed this, but I figured I would point it out anyway.

[David Boylan]

On page 3 of this doc it mentions Silverthorne. Looks like a FOIA for Robert Borsage (and Lesar) mentions Silverthorne pseudo or true name on page 7 of the Borsage release.

1. The writer of the memorandum (see reference states in paragraph 2 that Lesar called the former's attention to a document listed in three places in the enclosure to reference A as nos. 38, 39, and 55. Lesar claimed that much more of this document had been released previously to [Robert L.] Boros age. (U) 2. The document in question, handwritten, 1.mdated, and with the title "Project ZRRIFLE" had been released previously in sanitized form as. JFK Exhibit F-522 in Volwne IV (pages 197- 203) of the HSCA Final Report (1979). The sanitization of the copies of documents nos. 00038-02592, 00039-02638, and 00055- 03471, conformed to the previous sanitization. At the time when this sanitization was made (in late 1978 or early 1979) it was not known that the ZRRIFLE document was one of several documents (81 to be exact) that were the subject of a litigation involving Robert L. Borosage and the Agency. (U) 3. To confirm the validity of Lesar's claim, the undersigned reviewed the Robert L. Borosage Case No. F75-0676. The Agency's file did indeed contain a copy of the 9-page ZRRIFLE document (number 42) .. The undersigned then reviewed the computer run describing the contents of the Borosage case file. The entry for document no. 42 gives no date and no subject. It describes the document only ~s a manuscript. Inasmuch as the document had been inadequately identi~ied in the computer system, it did not turn up in response to a querry to the computer for any previous releases of the ZRRIFLE document. (U)

The undersigned compared the "Borosage release" with the document sanitized for the HSCA. There is a great deal of difference, not all of it to the Agency's advantage. The sanitization of the ·"Borosage release" was done in a slipshod manner, e.g., on page 6 of the document as released to Borosage the cryptonyms . KUBARK and KUBARKER appear in paragraph 3); on page 7 the cryptonym KUTUBE appears, also the true name or pseudonym SILVERTHORNE appears; on page 8 the cryptonyms KUBARK and LAURICLE appear; on page 9 see KUBARK and SILVERTHORNE, and on page 10 see true names: Sid [Gottlieb] and [Hortonl Telford. To be fair, it should be noted that Jim A's name on page 10 and COS, Luxembourg on page 4 were left in the release to the HSCA. COS, Luxembourg appears on page 198 of volume IV of the HSCA Final Report. Jim A's name appears on page 202 of the same volume. (OUO) 5. The undersigned has. sanitized a copy of the ZRRIFLE document as it was released to Robert.L. Borosage and has include any information released to the HSCA that was deleted in the Borosage release. The attached ZRRIFLE document may be passed to Lesar.

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/2018/104-10425-10004.pdf

 

Edited May 30, 2018 by David Boylan

[David Boylan]

Some of the ZRRifle cash was given to a John Wallston aka John ROSELLI. 

4. In a large manila envelope filed immediately after a dispatch to Luxembourg from the Chief, KUTUBE, dated September 30, 1963, is a large manila envelope marked "Documents in Receipt Supporting ZRRIFLE Activities." Within this envelope are several smaller manila envelopes, one of which is entitled "ZRRIFLE, Receipts for Accounting Submitted by WK Harvey, Receipt for Operational Phone Calls May 15, 1963." Within this envelope are two sheets of yellow legal size paper which contain lists of operational expenses submitted by 'rl.K. Harvey covering the period April 13-21, 1963, all of v1hich are to be charged as operational expenses to QJI'IIN/ZRRIFLE. These expenses cover hotel expenses in Miami and Perine, Florida, long distance hotel calls for these locations, plus $75 for a boat chartered for operational purposes at Islamorada, Florida. A hotel receipt indicates Harvey paid the bill of a Mr. John A.· Walls ton of 56510 Wilshire Buboulevard, Los Angeles, California, for the nights of April 17, 18, and 19, and a Miami hotel, probably the Eden Roc. These documents are the first indication of any activities within the U.S. with respect to ZRRIFLE. Apparently they did not involve QJWIN but rather other activity, perhaps directed at Cuba because of his location in Miami. Perhaps Harvey should be confronted with this listing and asked to explain it.

These first two pages portray the objective of ZRRIFLE to be that of procurement of code and cipher materials by burglary and safecracking. However, subsequent pages·, particularly the last four legal size pages in this file, contain what appears to be the outline of something which could be the .establishment of an "executive action capability," although these words are not mentioned nor is the word ''assassination." A copy of these pages should definitely be obtained. Paragraph 1 of these pages reads as follows, "Legal, ethical, moral, operational problems; political nonattributability." Paragraph 2 reads in part: "Our own experience (Bangkok) (and affect on DDP) and experiences with KGB ... require most professional, proven operationally competent ruthless stable CE experience ops officers ... "

 

KUTUBE/D    -    CIA "Staff D" responsible for SIGINT (Signals Intelligence - electronic intercepts), where the ZR/RIFLE "executive action" (assassination) program was housed.

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/2018/157-10003-10490.pdf

[Michael Clark]

This document does not mention QJWIN but it seems like you could just swap out some cover names, like Mertz, WIROGUE, Soietre and QJWIN and your reading a familiar story.

Mentions of Corsicans, Dakar, 12-10 (a Location code that seems to be really important, ) etc.

The inference that Mankel's cover of being a vending machine distributor seems to suit his entrepreneurial interests in Germany, after his dismissal.

It would be interesting to know if we stop hearing about Mankel at the same time that we start hearing about QJWIN.

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19084#relPageId=1&tab=page

 

[Paul Brancato]

3 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

This document does not mention QJWIN but it seems like you could just swap out some cover names, like Mertz, WIROGUE, Soietre and QJWIN and your reading a familiar story.

Mentions of Corsicans, Dakar, 12-10 (a Location code that seems to be really important, ) etc.

The inference that Mankel's cover of being a vending machine distributor seems to suit his entrepreneurial interests in Germany, after his dismissal.

It would be interesting to know if we stop hearing about Mankel at the same time that we start hearing about QJWIN.

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19084#relPageId=1&tab=page

 

I thought the insertion of Mankel’s name suggested that Mankel was not actually QJWIN. It would be nice to know if that document and  name drop precedes the ones naming Mankel as QJWIN. 

[James DiEugenio]

The CIA was in no way involved in the murder of Lumumba?

What a bunch of crapola.  Did the Church Committee really buy this?

In Volume 2 of John Newman's series, he devotes four chapters to this subject, the overthrow of Lumumba done before JFK is inaugurated.

It is very clear that Lumumba's murder was requested by Eisenhower and that Dulles sent an order to Devlin with a budget of a hundred grand, about a million today, to assassinate Lumumba.  Devlin was allowed to arrange it himself, but Bissell was giving him support.  At one time, the CIA had up to five operations going on in order to eliminate Lumumba. This included QJ WIN using toxins to poison him arranged by Gottlieb.  But Dayal managed to keep Lumumba alive under house arrest at Hammarskjold's request.

So the strategy was changed.  The idea was now to support the Belgians, and let the Katangese do the job.  So when Lumumba escaped, Devlin used every asset he had to track him down and to close off certain avenues.  This succeeded, and Lumumba was, as planned, transported out of Congo by Timberlake, and turned over to his enemies in the breakaway state of Katanga.  He was beaten up badly on the air trip there and then killed by a Belgian firing squad. His body was then dug up and soaked in sulphuric acid so it would disintegrate. 

In my view, agreeing with Jonathan Kwitny, this was an epic tragedy.  Lumumba won a democratic election under a constitutional government.  Congo was the first sub Saharan decolonized state to try the democratic experiment. That it utterly failed was in large part due to America. There are no two ways about that, it is a fact.

There is more than one writer who thinks that the reason Dulles and Bissell had that many operations going on against Lumumba was that they wanted him gone before Kennedy was inaugurated.

They were right.  Because JFK changed policy in Congo almost immediately, not knowing Lumumba had been killed.

 

Edited May 30, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Paul Brancato]

8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The CIA was in no way involved in the murder of Lumumba?

What a bunch of crapola.  Did the Church Committee really buy this?

In Volume 2 of John Newman's series, he devotes four chapters to this subject, the overthrow of Lumumba done before JFK is inaugurated.

It is very clear that Lumumba's murder was requested by Eisenhower and that Dulles sent an order to Devlin with a budget of a hundred grand, about a million today, to assassinate Lumumba.  Devlin was allowed to arrange it himself, but Bissell was giving him support.  At one time, the CIA had up to five operations going on in order to eliminate Lumumba. This included QJ WIN using toxins to poison him arranged by Gottlieb.  But Dayal managed to keep Lumumba alive under house arrest at Hammarskjold's request.

So the strategy was changed.  The idea was now to support the Belgians, and let the Katangese do the job.  So when Lumumba escaped, Devlin used every asset he had to track him down and to close off certain avenues.  This succeeded, and Lumumba was, as planned, transported out of Congo by Timberlake, and turned over to his enemies in the breakaway state of Katanga.  He was beaten up badly on the air trip there and then killed by a Belgian firing squad. His body was then dug up and soaked in sulphuric acid so it would disintegrate. 

In my view, agreeing with Jonathan Kwitny, this was an epic tragedy.  Lumumba won a democratic election under a constitutional government.  Congo was the first sub Saharan decolonized state to try the democratic experiment. That it utterly failed was in large part due to America. There are no two ways about that, it is a fact.

There is more than one writer who thinks that the reason Dulles and Bissell had that many operations going on against Lumumba was that they wanted him gone before Kennedy was inaugurated.

They were right.  Because JFK changed policy in Congo almost immediately, not knowing Lumumba had been killed.

 

If the CIA lied about Lumumba, might they have also lied about other things in their record, such as Mankel being QJWIN?

[Larry Hancock]

From the CIA's web site:     https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-59-no-4/death-in-congo-murdering-patrice-lumumba.html

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks for that Larry.

The CIA must realize that there is no point in concealing what has come out in recent years.  And I think the author of that review actually has written some good stuff, or edited a book on the murder of Lumumba.

BTW, one should add, the reason the order from Eisenhower to Dulles was known about was because the secretary at the meeting testified to the Church Committee about it.  

In fairness, that must have been an interim report that was posted because after Robert Johnson testified about the order, the Church Committee changed its mind for the final report.  

But, take a look at what is going on with this stuff at the archives.  This if from Michael LeFLem's article at Kennedy and King, Desperate Measures in the Congo

But as Newman has discovered, the Church Committee interview notes of a participant who conveyed Eisenhower’s interest in following up his assassination request with covert action have now disappeared. Luckily, however, Newman copied the notes back in 1994 before they were removed, so we know that after one week to think about it, Eisenhower had not changed his mind on the issue. (Newman, p. 232)

 

[David Boylan]

On 5/29/2018 at 3:47 PM, Larry Hancock said:

Paul, not sure about your CYA list but there are a number of CIA documents and officers statements that very specifically talk about efforts to assassinate Lumumba.  There are similar documents that very clearly specify that ZRRIFLE was being used as a cover for a Castro assassination effort.  And of course since it was a cover, you will find a number of documents relating to Staff D and Harvey's recruiting which focus on burglars, safe crackers etc.  With all the information we have and have had for some time now these CIA activities are historically clear (they are discussed in a number of history books outside the JFK literature) - certainly they were known as far back as the Church committee. David's recently posted documents illustrate that.

Having said that, I'm not sure that the Church committee actually got everything exactly right or even that the information given them was always chronologically accurate...for example I can't figure out how Arnold Silver fits into ZRRIFLE since it was not set up as a project or crypt until well after the Lumumba activities were done and there is certainly no sign of Arnold in the Castro assassination projects.

 

Larry,

Silver's name was blacked out in the previous releases. This doc states that he worked for Harvey when Harvey was head of Staff D.

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/2018/157-10004-10138.pdf

"ZRRIFLE

To summarize at the outset, the following is the thrust of what Harvey would testify to regarding QJWIN/ZRRIFLE. Harvey regarded ZRRIFLE as the overall project crypt under which QJWIN as an asset operation was going forward. He had discussed with Silver the general assignment of exploring executive action capability, and the possibility that either QJWIN or that other criminals whom WIN helped to spot might be assets. He never did more than review some of them as possibilities in the course of his taking an inventory."

...Arnold Silver's relationship to the entire project was really threefold: (1) he was actively running QJWIN the asset, (2) QJWIN was spotting people whom Harvey assumes Silver was considering both for normal Division D type and executive action capability, and (3) explore the general concept involved for setting up such capability with Harvey.

Also that ZRRIFLE was an existing crypt that Harvey borrowed. 

 

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks DAvid,  that would have been my speculation on Silver - strictly connected to the early days of Harvey's prospecting for candidates in Europe and having noting to do with the executive action that got hidden under ZR/RIFLE or with its application to the new phases of the Castro assassination effort.  I very much doubt that Silver was told that at some point the Staff D project had morphed into executive action but then again he must have known about the Lumumba effort so I don't suppose it would have shocked him.  That certainly did shock the station chief in the Congo who thought it was political action only until the poison showed up... 

 

 

 

[Michael Clark]

20 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

72 pages of communications log entries, dated from 11-23-63 (LBJ) looks like a lot of focus on the Congo

 

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/docid-32283057.pdf

 

another doc. Rich re The Congo

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/docid-32626852.pdf

 

 

 

seems like a lot of info on The Congo on this page of Archive docs.

https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release?page=424&ftag=MSF0951a18&sort=asc&order=Title

 

 

 

 

[David Josephs]

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/157-10005-10297.pdf

148 of 648 pages House Senate SCA report

Edited June 21, 2018 by David Josephs

[Michael Clark]

43 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/157-10005-10297.pdf

148 of 648 pages House Senate SCA report

That's great David, WIROGUE and QJWIN living in the same hotel.