The Big Con at Dealey Plaza

[William Kelly]

THE BIG CON at DEALEY PLAZA - Paul Linebarger and David Maurer

"President Kennedy's assassination was the work of magicians," said Hevve Lemarr of French Intelligence. "It was a stage trick complete with actor's accessories and props. And when the curtain fell the actors and even the scenery, disappeared. But the magicians were not illusionists, but professionals, artists in their own way." 1.

Whatever you believe happened at Dealey Plaza, President Kennedy was killed there, and regardless of who was ultimately responsible, it is important, at least to the security of the United States, to determine how the assassination occurred.

It's natural that a well planned and executed covert operation seems like a unnatural miracle or a magic trick. That's why covert operators are often called "spooks," their talents are said to be black arts, and they are participants in what they call "the Great Game" of espionage.

The "spooks" we've come to know sometimes compare the Great Game to chess and rank their power as knights, bishops and rooks. E. Howard Hunt was known as "Knight," and David Atlee Phillips, who was born on Oct. 31 – Halloween, was known to some as Mister "Bishop." 2.

Then there's Ed Lansdale, Frank Wisner and William Harvey, all legends, each with covert aliases and code names to conceal their true identities, or as the Cubans called them, "war names." The use of aliases is only one attribute all covert intelligence operatives have in common. Other similar attributes include the use of post boxes, dead drops, safe houses, microdots, codes and ciphers, as well as the standard trade crafts by all intelligence agencies, as outlined in Allen Dulles' book "The Crafts of Intelligence." 3.

Like most trades, "the crafts of intelligence" are taught and passed on by those who were previously taught the arts through a teacher-student, master-apprentice relationship, as they have for generations and over centuries since the days of Sun Tzu. 4.

Some of those individuals who standout in the history of espionage during he Cold War – E. Howard Hunt, David Atlee Phillips and Ed Lansdale, all had one thing in common - they were trained in the black arts of psychological warfare by a man they considered a legend among legends – Paul Linebarger.

That you wouldn't recognize him is a testament to Linebarger's success, as both a teacher and a player in the Great Game.

PAUL M. A. LINEBARGER

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in July 1913. The grandson of a preacher and the son of an American Judge in the Philippines and advisor to Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat sen, Linebarger's godfather. 5.

Well traveled and a student visitor to Japan, China, France and Germany, Linebarger earned his Ph.D. in political science at John Hopkins University at the age of 21.

Linebarger enlisted in the Army during World War II and served in the Pacific Theater. One report notes, "As a Far East specialist he was involved in the formation of the Office of War Information and of the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board. He also helped organize the Army's first psychological warfare section. Linebarger was sent to China and put in charge of psychological warfare and of coordinating Anglo- American and Chinese military activities. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major."

Based primarily on manuals he produced for the Army during the war, Linebarger's book Psychological Warfare and Propaganda (Combat Forces Press, 1948; 1954) is the classic textbook on the subject, still used today. Taking Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Linebarger updated its principals and applied them to today's international circumstances. 6.

When the CIA produced terrorist and political assassination handbooks for the Contras in Nicaragua and Panamanian dissidents, which were later discovered and published, parts were found to have come from one of Linebarger's psychological warfare manuals. 7. [see: ]

Although Linebarger also taught at Duke, after the war he became professor of Asiatic Studies at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was also a part time professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a CIA think tank. 8.

It wasn't until after his death that Linebarger was exposed as also being science fiction writer Cordwainer Smith [see: Notes below]. It was then also revealed that he was not only the foremost authority on psychological warfare in the Training Division of the CIA, but that he had also worked on operations with E. Howard Hunt in Mexico City. 9.

Those CIA recruits who were invited to take Linebarger's SAIS classes, which he taught at his Washington D.C. home at night, were required to get there by using trade-craft to avoid detection. 10.

Among Linebarger's most famous, if not successful students, were E. Howard Hunt, Edward Lansdale and David Atlee Phillips, three of the most prolific covert operators during the Cold War. Like Linebarger himself, if they had been truly successful we would never have heard of them.

As explained by Linebarger in his book and classes, propaganda is only one of the tools of the psychological warrior, whose primary goal is defeat the enemy before a battle is fought, using psychological principals that have been used for centuries and outlined by Sun Tzu.

In his studies of psychological warfare, Linebarger breaks propaganda into different categories – white, grey and black propaganda, with black propaganda specifically designed to appear to originate with the opposition. Linebarger devised the STASUM formula for the study of propaganda, and ways by which the opposition's propaganda can be analyzed to determine their intentions and predict their actions. 11.

In his classes Linebarger however, didn't just use his own book Psychological Warfare, but for examples of how successful covert operations are planned and executed he had his students read The Big Con, by David Maurer. 12.

In the introduction to his book Intelligence Wars – American Secret History From Hitler to Al Qaeda, Thomas Powers relates an interesting conversation he once had with General William Odom at a party hosted by former CIA intelligence officer Haviland Smith. 13.

While mingling and sipping cocktails at the party, Powers asked General Odom how the CIA could have uncovered and infiltrated Al Qaeda before 9/11.

General Odom, the former Army Chief of Staff and director of the National Security Agency, looked at Powers, smiled and said simply - "Like the Sting."

Like The Sting.

Odom was, of course, referring to the popular, award winning film staring Robert Redford and Paul Newman, but he was also giving away the secrets behind the magic, the secrets of the Big Con confidence games. 15.

DAVID MAURER'S THE BIG CON.

The movie the Sting is based in part on Professor David Maurer's The Big Con, a study of street slang of the American confidence men of the early part of the last century.

Maurer's The Big Con was first published in 1940 and updated and republished later as The American Confidence Man. The book began as a linguistic textbook on the slang of street grifters, but became a manual on how the big time confidence scams are actually played out.

A professor of linguistics at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, Maurer explained that, "My approach is simple. I determine who the good professionals are, secure their assistance, and work with them much the same as an anthropologist might work with an American Indian tribe he is studying."

"I have scrupulously refrained from passing any judgments with a moral bias," Maurer said. "My only aim is to tell for the general reader, the story of American confidence men and confidence games, stripped of the romantic aura which commonly hovers over literature of the modern big-time criminal." 17.

After the book was published Maurer continued teaching English classes for the next few decades, until the movie "The Sting" came out in the early 1970s. When he saw the film Maurer felt like he was stung.

Maurer recognized that the movie "The Sting" was based on his story of The Big Con, and eventually got a court to agree that his book was the basis for the screenplay, and used without credit, authorization or restitution.

However reluctantly the movie studio had to recognized and compensate Maurer because they could produce no other published work that mentions one of the movie's main protagonists Henry Gondorf (Played by Paul Newman). 18.

Gondorf was not a fictional character, but a real life person and subject of Maurer's book. Gondorf, according to Maurer, was a bartender and Big Con artist who operated big con jobs in the 1920s in Chicago, Atlantic City and New York, running the type of Big Con "stings" portrayed in the film. 19.

Unlike small con swindles, which usually take a sucker for whatever he has on him, the Big Con games bilked greedy and ripe victims for much larger sums, and the proper execution of the con depends upon a controlled theater, actors performing complicated schemes and the cooperation (pay off) of the local law enforcement.

The controlled theater is called the Big Store, which developed from the Dollar Stores, where back rooms promoted small time short cons (ala Three Card Monte). Maurer defines a Big Store as "An establishment against which big-con men play their victims. For the wire and the pay-off, it is set up like a poolroom which takes race bets. For the rag, it is set up to resemble a broker's office. Stores are set up with a careful attention to detail because they must seem bona fide. After each play, the store is taken down and all equipment stored away in charge of the manager."

The "Sting" is the point where the Mark is separated from his money.

Maurer, who interviewed many of Gondorf's friends and fellow con-artists, explained that the purpose of the Big Con is to convince the Mark to deliver cash in a scheme that goes astray, with the Mark separated from his money but none the wiser to the real scheme. Big Con artists didn't consider themselves thieves because their greedy targets really give them the money.

Everyone in the con, except the Mark, is an actor, each having a name and a role to play. There is the Manager who sets up the store, the Roper, who is also known as the Outside Man, who identifies the Mark, brings him to the store, and assists in fleecing him. The Mark is a victim, or intended victim, someone with money from out of town. The local Dicks (Cops) are on the Take when the Fix is in, and paid off under the stipulation that local citizens wouldn't be taken as Marks.

The Roper identifies and brings the Mark to the Inside Man, who Maurer identifies as "The member of a con mob who stays near the Big Store and receives the Mark whom the Roper brings. Inside men are highly specialized workers; they must have a superb knowledge of psychology to keep the mark under perfect control during the days or weeks while he is being fleeced."

As Maurer puts it, "Big-time confidence games are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast except the mark knows his part perfectly. The inside man is the star of the cast; while the minor participants are competent actors and can learn their lines perfectly, they must look to the inside man for their cues; he must be not only a fine actor, but a playwright extempore as well…"

[Please note that David Atlee Phillips, one of Linebarger's star students, was also an amateur thespian who was a member of an acting troup in Havana that also included Wayne Smith, who spoke at COPA conferences and organized the meetings between COPA members and Cuban intelligence in Rio and the Bahamas.] 20.

When the deal goes down, everyone in the Store is part of the Sting except the Mark, who is given the convincer, then separated from his money in the sting, and then given the shut out, made to feel like its good that he got out without getting arrested or killed. After the best Stings, the Mark doesn't even realize what really happened.

When General Odom told Powers that counter-intelligence agents operate "like the Sting," he meant that the best covert operations are conducted very much like the Big Con confidence schemes, as Paul Linebarger taught them.

In looking at what happened at Dealey Plaza as a Big Con job, it seems that both Kennedy and Oswald, the accused assassin, were set up as Marks. The Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), owned by D.H. Byrd, an avid Cold Warrior, was set up like a Big Store, totally under control of the confidence men who ran the operation. 21.

JFK was the Mark who was hooked and brought to the Big Store by the Outside Man. Whoever the Inside Man was, he was very good, and like Gondorf and Linebarger, has remained behind the scenes, so far. We can be sure however, that whoever was behind the Dealey Plaza operation, he was a student of Linebarger.

When Paul Linebarger gave his lectures to young CIA officers, he warned them that these techniques should never be used domestically, or it would totally destroy our form of democracy.

"On the other side of the coin, it is very hopeful to note that the many and dangerous techniques developed by the OSS (Precursor to the CIA) for covert propaganda, some of which were applied with considerable success in Europe, have not been introduced into domestic U.S. politics, commercial competition or other forms of private life." 23. [see: ]

Well those techniques were used domestically in the assassination of President Kennedy, and are still being used today to conceal the truth and postpone justice, and democracy has never been the same.

Among those who have studied the assassination of President Kennedy, Noel Twyman wrote the book Bloody Treason and a pamphlet "Illusion and Denial in the John F. Kennedy Assassination," (October 16, 2000). [Laurel Publishing, P.O.Box 67-5128, Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067, laurelpubl@home.com (858)- 756-3504]. 24.

In "Illusion and Denial" Twyman writes, "My studies of this subject have led me to believe that the master planners of the JFK assassination were experts in the use of illusion and denial to control entire populations. Evidence of this is found in documents revealing CIA psychological operations (psy-ops) utilized to overthrow foreign governments. A notable example is the successful 1954 overthrow of Guatemala, using population control techniques, in which President Jacobo was deposed by the CIA and replaced with a government that had the blessings of the United Fruit Company. This coup involved David Atlee Phillips, psy-ops specialist in the CIA. Phillips is linked to the JFK assassination in that he was seen meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in late August, 1963, only three months before the assassination." 25.

Indeed, the 1954 overthrow of the government of Guatemala, achieved without a major battle and little violence, was the prime example of the proper application of Linebarger's psychological warfare techniques to contemporary political situations. What became the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was originally planned to be based on "the Guatemala operation," and is an example of the failure to apply the same principals. 26.

There are many connections to the Guatemalan "Operation Success" and what happened at Dealey Plaza, including the facts that accused assassin's principal sponsor Michael Paine was a beneficiary of his family who served on the Board of Directors of the United Fruit Company, the shells discovered at the sniper's nest came from a batch delivered to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) in 1954 when the USMC had no weapons that could use such ammunition, and most of the primary suspects in the Dealey Plaza operation had been a part of Operation Success – including David Atlee Phillips, David Morales, Jacob Easterline, E. Howard Hunt and most of those involved in the Bay of Pigs. 27.

As for the chief beneficiary of the Dealey Plaza Con Job, as Twyman points out, "Lyndon Johnson himself was renown for his mastery of the art of deception. An anecdotal example was reported in the Dallas Times Herald in 1989, quoting Harry Blackstone, Jr. (son of the illusionist "The Great Blackstone") who worked for Johnson. Blackstone, Jr. said: 'I worked quite some time for Lyndon Johnson as broadcast personnel, and I think I learned more about the art of deception from him than I did from my father. I don't mean that in a negative way, but he was a man who understood the art of misdirection – of making the eye watch 'A' when the dirty work was going on at 'B'…'"

"Johnson brought the magician's skills to full bear in his direction of the JFK assassination cover-up," writes Twyman. "The devices used almost suspend belief: massive alterations of autopsy evidence; removal of incriminating frames from the famous Zapruder film; whole suppression of a plethora of other evidence. Perhaps most significant is that he master plan of the JFK assassination was based on psy-ops methods revealed in CIA documents showing handwritten notes of CIA's master assassination planner William Harvey. The JFK assassination plan for covert operations in New Orleans, Dallas and Mexico City was carefully designed to create the illusion that Oswald was a communist hired by Fidel Castro to kill JFK. A large body of CIA documents support this conclusion to the point of historical fact." 28.

In 1977, Jeff Cohn and Donald Freed wrote "Fidel on the Grassy Knoll" in Liberation Magazine that at the time of the assassination in Dallas, "…back in Miami, a high powered propaganda machine was cranking out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent. It was largely the work of two Miami-based reporters, brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, who were at the same time propaganda officers for the CIA-supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB). The brigade had mob support, too, as explained by IAB attorney: "(The Brigade) was financed by disposed hotel and gambling room operators who operated under Batista." 29.

So the murder of the President at Dealey Plaza was entwined with a black-propaganda operation designed to blame the assassination on Castro, a scenario also outlined by others, including Mathew Smith, who wrote a book about it, The Second Plot. 30.

That the accused assassin worked at the scene of murder should not be surprising, especially if the Big Con techniques were used, and other accomplices probably worked there too. That the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) was owned by D.H. Byrd, the founder of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), defense contractor and a close associate of many of those associated with the Dealey Plaza Sting – General Curtis LeMay, Gen. Charles Cabel and Art Collins, founder of Collins Radio.

Besides the Big Con that was pulled off at Dealey Plaza and the "Big Store" that was the TSBD, there were other "Big Store" theater environments established at the Fort Worth Hotel on the night before the assassination and Zenith Technical Enterprises, the false front for JM/WAVE in Florida.

The Presidential Suite at the Fort Worth hotel, where Kennedy stayed the night before the assassination, was decorated with exquisite, original works of original art supplied by a friend of Ruth Paine from Philadelphia, the accused assassin's benefactor. This coincidental fact would never have become known had the President's not called to thank her, his last phone call on this earth. 31. [see: Mrs. Paine's Garage]

Decorating the walls of the Presidential Suite with paintings also provided an exceptional acoustics listening post to those who wanted to hear the President's personal conversations, and an example of the type of control exercised by those about to kill him.

JM/WAVE was an even more dynamic Big Store operation. As described by former Army officer Bradley E. Ayers [see: The Zenith Secret], assigned there to train the Cuban commandos, JM/WAVE was set up exactly like a con-artists' Big Store. "…The Miami headquarters was covered under a civilian corporation known as Zenith Technical Enterprises. The station, or 'company,' was located on the University of Miami's South Campus, adjacent to the abandoned Richmond Naval Air Station, which had been developed by the Navy during World War II as a dirigible base….They had missed no detail in setting up the false front of Zenith Technical Enterprises…a firm doing classified government research....There were phony sales and production charts on the walls and business licenses from the state and federal governments. A notice to salesmen, pinned near the door, advised them of the calling hours for various departments. The crowning touch was a certificate of award from the United Givers' Fund to Zenith for outstanding participation in its annual fund drive." 32.

Zenith Technical Services was set up like a fake Hollywood Wild West town, complete with a front office, secretaries, photos and awards on the wall and a CEO, though in reality it was nothing more than a façade.

"I was totally amazed that the cover branch was able to create new people, to change identities, appearances, credentials, passports, or whatever might be necessary for a specific mission," says Ayers. "Some agents had as many as three or four identities, each used for a different task. Characters and personalities materialized and disappeared as if by magic. I came away from the cover branch with a disconcerting awareness. I had always assumed that people were who and what they said they were. Suddenly it seemed apparent that, at least in the CIA, any person could simply be playing a cover role. I resolved that I'd never again accept anyone at face value. I did not know then that my resolve would return to haunt me."

Nor is it a coincidence that Gordon Campbell, identified as the head of JM/WAVE's maritime operations, introduced Ayers to "Karl" as his "Outside Man," using the same slang and terminology as the con-men described by Maurer in his book.

Gordon Campbell was the "Inside Man" at JM/WAVE, the master of psychology and the one everyone else looked to for their cue.

And Gordon Campbell is the JM/WAVE operator whose death certificate says he died in 1962, two years before Ayers remembers having dinner with him at the Black Forge restaurant in Miami when Campbell explained the deactivation of JM/WAVE, the disassembling of Zenith Technical Service so no trace of it would be left, and disbursement of the Cuban players in the drama. And "Karl," Campbell's Outside Man, supposedly died mysteriously in a helicopter accident witnessed by Ayers.

The JM/WAVE Big Store totally disappeared before the end of 1964, while the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) is now a museum dedicated to the murder of the president, where you can learn anything about the assassination except the tricks behind the magic of the Big Con.

One thing is for certain however. Those who take up a study of the assassination of President Kennedy, the Bay of Pigs, the Guatemalan Coup of 1954 or any covert operation of the Cold War must have an understanding of psychological warfare and the Big Con in order to understand how those operations were planned and executed.

As for the continued domestic use of such covert operations and assassinations in domestic politics, David Maurer warns in his book The American Confidence Man, that the Big Con schemes can only succeed when graft is accepted and those responsible for the enforcement of the law are bought off and "on the take."

"As long as the political boss (whether he be local, state, national, foreign or of the home-grown variety) fosters a machine wherein graft and bribery are looked upon as a normal phase of government, and as long as juries, judges, and key enforcement officers can be had for a price, the confidence man will continue to live and thrive." 35.

And so will political assassination.

[The Big Con at Dealey Plaza, as updated, was originally the second part of my report to the Fund for Constitutional Government – Investigative Project, (circa 1994), updated 2007.

William Kelly – October, 2007 Bkjfk3@yahoo.com ] 36.

MORE ON PAUL LINEBARGER:

The Open Mind – The Application of Paul Linebarger's psychological warfare to current day U.S. policy [ ]

And a daughter remembers:

A Daughter's Memories Cordwainer Smith was born Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, on July 11, 1913, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His parents were living overseas during his mother's pregnancy, and his father insisted that the baby be born in the United States, so he would be eligible to become president of the United States.

I never met this grandfather—he died before I was born—but I heard a lot of family tales about him. A lawyer, he became a judge in the Philippines when they were still United States territory, and while there he decided that Dr. Sun Yat Sen needed a western advisor. So off he went to China and became that advisor.

Another story that I heard my father tell was of his father's deathbed. "Paul," said the old man, "I don't think I have any illegitimate children, but if any turn up, please be generous with them." None ever did.

So my father grew up in a variety of places: Washington, D.C., the German resort of Baden Baden, China... He was the older of two boys. When he was six, he lost the sight of one eye in an accident. This added to his sense of being different, and must have been the beginning of the theme of pain and suffering that ran through his life.

The loss of his eye also resulted in this story that I remember him telling: when he was in his teens, he was living in a large house in China with his parents and younger brother. His father was away on one of his many trips, and the family was experiencing petty theft in the house.

So Paul assembled the servants and said to them, "We have been having problems with things disappearing. Of course, none of you would ever take anything, but I want you to know that I am putting the evil eye on whoever takes anything.." He had been holding a spare glass eye in his mouth, in one cheek, and he moved it around so it was protruding from his lips. He then walked solemnly from room to room, servants following. Nothing was ever stolen from the house after that.

Skipping ahead... he and my mother, Margaret Snow, were married in 1939. They had intended to have children, but it wasn't until the start of World War II that they decided it was time. I was born in 1942, conceived a few weeks after Pearl Harbor. (When I was about 12, my father told me that he had felt something beyond the ordinary at the moment of my conception. At that age, I was very uncomfortable hearing this, but later I was glad to know this.)

He was in the army, in China and India. Here's a story from that era that impressed me as a child: One warm night in China, he was sitting in an outhouse. It was a two-seater, and as he idly glanced at the other open seat, he noticed little luminescent lights under the seat. He assumed they were fireflies. Then he heard the roar of trucks from not far away... turned out the outhouse was perched on a cliff, and the lights he saw were from military conveys on the main highway far below, more or less directly below his seat!

My first memory of him is of his return to Washington, D.C. after World War II. I would have been three, and I remember a very tall man amidst the crowds of people at Washington's Union Station. I remember the background noise of the trains, and that he gave me a stuffed animal.

Luckily, I don't remember another early event. My mother told me that when the war ended, he wanted to give me a tremendous spanking so that I would always remember the end of the war. Mom didn't agree with that approach to child-rearing, and the spanking didn't happen.

Overall I recall him as a loving, attentive, and distinctly unusual father. My sister was born in 1947, and my parents divorced two years later. When I was nine, my sister and I started spending a couple of months every summer with my father and our new stepmother, Genevieve.

The first year, we went to Mexico. My father's tales overwhelmed me when he talked about the young maidens sacrificed in the well at Chichen Itza, or when he showed us the murals of Diego Rivera in Mexico City, huge walls full of agony and suffering. From that summer onward, the themes of suffering and human cruelty became central issues in my own life — inevitably separating me from my "normal" suburban friends.

My father was very much a cold warrior. During that Mexican summer of 1952, he wasn't just on a family jaunt. I didn't know until Genevieve told me after he died that he had also been working for the CIA on the side, that summer and through many of the years that he was a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

So in 1952, he was working in Mexico City with Howard Hunt, later of Watergate fame. The Russian embassy was having a party, and Daddy (I suppose Hunt too) got ahold of an invitation. They had many extra copies made and distributed, so that far too many people arrived at the party, and the Russians were embarrassed. A little-known facet of the cold war.

I have quite a few memories of his writing science fiction. It was fun for him, something he did on the side. He would tell me with some glee what some obscure reference meant... too bad I don't remember most of those. I do remember his saying that his story title Drunkboat was from the French poem, Bateau Ivre, by Rimbaud.

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Another Biography

Arlington National Cemetery website, and I have seen it on a variety of other sites around the web. I don't know who wrote it originally... evidently not someone who knew him. Comments in red are mine.

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, Jr. [He never used the Jr as an adult. I believe my grandfather was Paul Myron Wentworth Linebarger.]

Major, United States Army

Colonel, United States Army Reserve

Science Fiction Writer: Cordwainer Smith

Cordwainer Smith (Pseudonym for Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger) (b.1913-d.1966)

Ph.D. professor of Asiatic studies at John Hopkins University, School of advanced International Studies. Closely linked with the U.S. Intelligence Community with special interest in propaganda techniques and psychological warfare.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in July 1913, died in Baltimore, Maryland. Grew up and was educated in China and Japan, his father was a legal advisor to the Chinese Republic (Dr. Paul Myron Anthony L. but see above) attended school in Germany, visited Russia in his teens, married Margaret Snow in 1936, divorced in 1949, remarried 1950 to Genevieve Collins.

In 1966 most of his science-fiction work was published for the first time. [They must mean in book form.] University teacher in 1947 [and for the rest of his life]. Recalled for Korean War. Travelled a lot in the 50's and 60's with his wife in spite of his being very ill. [He had various health problems but I almost never saw him sick in bed. I wish I'd inherited his stamina.] He was very impressed with Australia and hoped to retire there but died of a heart attack [by then he *had been* very sick for a while] at age 53.

All but 5 stories are of the Instrumentality of mankind. First of these was "War #81-Q"(1928) Apparently he did not bother a lot with making the different facts and dates match. [Geez, I can't let that go by. I'd say he did bother quite a lot, but the worlds he created were so complex that he didn't hold it all in precise memory.] Also wrote as Felix C. Forrest, a pun in reference to his Chinese name Lin Bah Loh (Forest of Incandescent Bliss).

From 1950 to 1966, stories appeared in mainstream science fiction magazines by an author named "Cordwainer Smith". From the first to the last, these stories were acclaimed as among the most inventive and striking ever written, and that in a field specializing in the inventive and the striking. Their author was a very private man who did not want his real name to be known because he did not want to be pursued by SF fans. [That's true; I remember him saying so.] It was only after his death in 1966 that more than a handful of people knew that "Cordwainer Smith" was in real life Paul M. L. Linebarger. [Paul M. A. Linebarger]

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Paul Linebarger was born in 1913, the grandson of a clergyman. His father, an eccentric man, had served as a Federal District Judge in the Philippines, but had left this post to work full time for the cause of the Chinese republican reformer Sun Yat Sen, who became Paul's godfather. Paul Linebarger grew up in the retinue of Sun Yat Sen, for his father stayed with Sen during his exile in Japan and throughout his career in China. John J. Pierce has written,

Linebarger spent his formative years in Japan, China, France, and Germany. By the time he grew up, he knew six languages and had become intimate with several cultures, both Oriental and Occidental.

[My father was NOT partly raised and educated in Japan. He spent a week or two at a time there, maybe as long as a month on some research project, but during the period when his father was basically hiding out in Japan to keep from being killed by his Chinese enemies, my father and his brother Wentworth and mother Lillian were living either in Europe or the US.]

He was only twenty- three when he earned his Ph.D. in political science at Johns Hopkins University, where he was later Professor of Asiatic politics for many years. Shortly thereafter, he graduated from editing his father's books to publishing his own highly regarded works on Far Eastern affairs. [1]

After graduating from Johns Hopkins, Linebarger taught at Duke University from 1937 to 1946, but he also served actively in the Army during World War II as a second lieutenant. Pierce writes that "As a Far East specialist he was involved in the formation of the Office of War Information and of the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board. He also helped organize the Army's first psychological warfare section." [2] He was sent to China and put in charge of psychological warfare and of coordinating Anglo- American and Chinese military activities. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major.

In 1947, he became professor of Asiatic Politics at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Pierce writes,

Dr. Linebarger turned his wartime experiences into Psychological Warfare, still regarded as the most authoritative text in the field. As a colonel, he was advisor to the British forces in Malaya, and to the U. S. Eighth Army in Korea. But this self- styled "visitor to small wars" passed up Vietnam, feeling American involvement there was a mistake. [interesting. I was in my early 20s and became involved with the pacifist activities of the Quakers, and I remember a lunch with my father in which he said a small war like that didn't really matter much. I thought he was horribly world-weary.]

Travels around the world took him to Australia, Greece, Egypt, and many other countries; [he had a globe thickly covered with many different colors of tape, representing his major trips] and his expertise was sufficiently valued that he became a leading member of the Foreign Policy Association and an advisor to President Kennedy. [3]

Linebarger was reared in a High Church Episcopalian family. [No, that came later when he married Genevieve, a Catholic who couldn't stay a Catholic while being married to a divorced man, so they told me. His father was from a Methodist family, and whatever Grandma was raised, it didn't take.]Alan C. Elms's sketch of the older Linebargers does not lead one to believe either was particularly devout. [to put it mildly... I never met that grandfather but Grandma didn't give a hoot for religion.] Paul's father was evidently rather overbearing and placed many demands on his son. His mother was apparently rather self-centered and controlling.[yep] At the age of six, young Paul was blinded in his left eye as a result of an accident while playing, and the resulting infection damaged his right eye as well, causing him distress throughout his entire life. A sensitive, introspective, and apparently rather lonely and sickly youth, Paul Linebarger was to develop into a remarkable scholar, thinker, and writer. [4]

At some point in his life, Paul Linebarger became a strongly committed Christian. "He and [wife] Genevieve went to Sung Mass on Sundays, and he said grace at all meals at home. The faith extended and shaped his powerful imagination' But he simply ignored contemporary religious movements, especially the secularizing ones directed to social problems. The God he had faith in had to do with the soul of man and with the unfolding of history and of the destiny of all living creatures." [5]

The first science fiction story published by Linebarger, under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith, was "Scanners Live in Vain", in 1949. It had been written, however, in 1945. This story is a full-blown allegory of the coming of the New Covenant, and reveals a very sophisticated understanding both of the Biblical narrative and typology (e.g., the smell of roast lamb reminds the central character of the smell of burning people), and of the theological and philosophical tenets of the Christian religion. Linebarger must have become a serious Christian well before 1945. [i doubt it, but I don't really know when he did. It's important to remember that he could certainly have had a 'sophisticated understanding' without being 'committed.' I rather think that his 1950 marriage to Genevieve was a key turning point. She was Catholic in an era when Catholics couldn't marry divorced people, or so they told me, and they both became High Church Episcopal.]

Linebarger's own psychological problems, as well as his keen interest in psychological warfare, caused him to explore modern psychiatry and psychoanalysis. These themes, as well as Christian philosophy and allegory, and also psychological warfare, run all through the science fiction he published as Cordwainer Smith.

Cuban Missile Crisis During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, I was a junior at Stanford. One of my friends was totally convinced that nuclear war was coming any day. I phoned home—something of a big deal in those days—and Genevieve reassured me that Daddy thought the crisis would be resolved.

But then I got a letter from him with the disquieting advice that if any nuclear bombs were dropped anywhere, I should make my way to Mexico with the American Express card he had supplied me with. From there, he added, I would be in a better position to help him and the rest of the family. He had already told me from time to time that being his daughter meant that I was at some risk from the KGB.

I was not reassured! But now we know that the world did come very, very close to nuclear war that month.

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Major, United States Army

Colonel, United States Army Reserve

Science Fiction Writer: Cordwainer Smith

Cordwainer Smith (Pseudonym for Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger)

(b.1913-d.1966)

Ph.D. professor of asiatic studies at John Hopkins University, School of advanced International Studies. Closely linked with the U.S. Intelligence Community with special interest in propaganda techniques and psychological warfare.

Born in Milwakee, Wisconsin in July 1913, died in Baltimore, Maryland. Grew up and was educated in China and Japan, his father was a legal advisor to the Chinese Republic (Dr. Paul Myron Anthony L.) attended school in germany, visited Russia in his teens, married in 1936, divorced in 1949, remarried 1950 to Genevieve Collins.

In 1966 most of his science-fiction work was published for the first time. University teacher in 1947. Recalled for Korean War. Travelled alot in the 50's and 60's with his wife in spite of his being very ill. He was very impressed with Australia and hoped to retire there but died of a heart attack at age 53.

All but 5 stories are of the Instrumentality of mankind. First of these was "War #81-Q" (1928) Apparently he did not bother alot with making the different facts and dates match. Also wrote as Felix C. Forrest, a pun in reference to his chinese name Lin Bah Loh (Forest of Incandescent Bliss).

From 1950 to 1966, stories appeared in mainstream science fiction magazines by an author named "Cordwainer Smith". From the first to the last, these stories were acclaimed as among the most inventive and striking ever written, and that in a field specializing in the inventive and the striking. Their author was a very private man who did not want his real name to be known because he did not want to be pursued by SF fans. It was only after his death in 1966 that more than a handful of people knew that "Cordwainer Smith" was in real life Paul M. A. Linebarger.

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Paul Linebarger was born in 1913, the grandson of a clergyman. His father, an eccentric man, had served as a Federal District Judge in the Philippines, but had left this post to work full time for the cause of the Chinese republican reformer Sun Yat Sen, who became Paul's godfather. Paul Linebarger grew up in the retinue of Sun Yat Sen, for his father stayed with Sen during his exile in Japan and throughout his career in China. John J. Pierce has written, Linebarger spent his formative years in Japan, China, France, and Germany. By the time he grew up, he knew six languages and had become intimate with several cultures, both Oriental and Occidental.

He was only twenty- three when he earned his Ph.D. in political science at Johns Hopkins University, where he was later Professor of Asiatic politics for many years. Shortly thereafter, he graduated from editing his father's books to publishing his own highly regarded works on Far Eastern affairs.

After graduating from Johns Hopkins, Linebarger taught at Duke University from 1937 to 1946, but he also served actively in the Army during World War II as a second lieutenant. Pierce writes that

In 1947, he became professor of Asiatic Politics at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Pierce writes, Dr. Linebarger turned his wartime experiences into Psychological Warfare, still regarded as the most authoritative text in the field. As a colonel, he was advisor to the British forces in Malaya, and to the U. S. Eighth Army in Korea. But this self- styled "visitor to small wars" passed up Vietnam, feeling American involvement there was a mistake.

Travels around the world took him to Australia, Greece, Egypt, and many other countries; and his expertise was sufficiently valued that he became a leading member of the Foreign Policy Association and an advisor to President Kennedy.

Linebarger was reared in a High Church Episcopalian family. Alan C. Elms's sketch of the older Linebargers does not lead one to believe either was particularly devout. Paul's father was evidently rather overbearing and placed many demands on his son. His mother was apparently rather self-centered and controlling. At the age of six, young Paul was blinded in his left eye as a result of an accident while playing, and the resulting infection damaged his right eye as well, causing him distress throughout his entire life. A sensitive, introspective, and apparently rather lonely and sickly youth, Paul Linebarger was to develop into a remarkable scholar, thinker, and writer.

At some point in his life, Paul Linebarger became a strongly committed Christian. "He and [wife] Genevieve went to Sung Mass on Sundays, and he said grace at all meals at home. The faith extended and shaped his powerful imagination' But he simply ignored contemporary religious movements, especially the secularizing ones directed to social problems. The God he had faith in had to do with the soul of man and with the unfolding of history and of the destiny of all living creatures."

The first science fiction story published by Linebarger, under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith, was "Scanners Live in Vain", in 1949. It had been written, however, in 1945. This story is a full-blown allegory of the coming of the New Covenant, and reveals a very sophisticated understanding both of the Biblical narrative and typology (e.g., the smell of roast lamb reminds the central character of the smell of burning people), and of the theological and philosophical tenets of the Christian religion. Linebarger must have become a serious Christian well before 1945.

Linebarger's own psychological problems, as well as his keen interest in psychological warfare, caused him to explore modern psychiatry and psychoanalysis. These themes, as well as Christian philosophy and allegory, and also psychological warfare, run all through the science fiction he published as Cordwainer Smith.

Born 11 July 1913. Died 06 August 1966. Buried in Section 35, Grave Number 4712, Arlington National Cemetery. Bronze Star. His widow, Genevieve Collins Linebarger, was interred with him on 16 November 1981.

Novels

Smith, Cordwainer, --The Planet Buyer, Pyramid, 1964. --The Underpeople, Pyramid, 1968.

Short Magazine Fiction

Smith, Cordwainer, --Amazing --F&SF --Galaxy --If

Collections of Short Fiction

Smith, Cordwainer, --Space Lords, Pyramid, 1965. --Norstrilia, Ballantine, 1975. --The Best of Cordwainer Smith, Nelson Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1975. --The Instrumentality of Mankind, Ballantine, 1979.

Sources of Biographical and Bibliographical Information

Pierce, J. J., Cordwainer Smith: The Shaper of Myths, in The Best of Cordwainer Smith, Nelson Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1975.

Pierce, John J., The Instrumentality Series, in The Great Science Fiction Series, edited by Frederik Pohl, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph Olander, Harper & Row, New York, 1980, 420 pp. ISBN: 0-06-013382-1

LINEBARGER, PAUL MYRON ANTHONY

COL RES MAJ US ARMY

VETERAN SERVICE DATES: Unknown

DATE OF BIRTH: 07/11/1913

DATE OF DEATH: 08/06/1966

DATE OF INTERMENT: 04/09/1966

BURIED AT: SECTION 35 SITE 4712

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

Edited September 23, 2010 by William Kelly

[James Richards]

Thanks for that, Bill. Very interesting.

Linebarger also spent some time in Cuba during the early 1950's.

Here is a photo of Linebarger below. This one doesn't appear on the Cordwainer Smith website.

James

[Tim Gratz]

I do not agree with all points in the essay but it is remarkably well written and most informative.

[Lee Forman]

Thanks for that, Bill. Very interesting.

Linebarger also spent some time in Cuba during the early 1950's.

Here is a photo of Linebarger below. This one doesn't appear on the Cordwainer Smith website.

James

Peculiar. 'Cordwainer Bird' was the pseudonym selected by Harlan Ellison when he chose to distance himself from the mess that they made of his original concept for his science fiction 'The Starlost.'

Wiki

In the late 1950s, Ellison wrote a number of erotica stories, such as "God Bless the Ugly Virgin" and "Tramp", which were later reprinted in Los Angeles-based magazines. That was the beginning of his use of the name Cordwainer Bird as a pseudonym. The name was later used in July and August of 1957, in two journals, each of which had accepted two of his stories. In each journal, one story was published under the name Harlan Ellison, and the other under Cordwainer Bird. Later, as discussed in the Controversy section below, he used the pseudonym for material when he disagreed with its use or editing.

Seems to throwback to the concept of Robert Redford in Three Days...

Great thread.

- lee

[Lee Forman]

Thanks for that, Bill. Very interesting.

Linebarger also spent some time in Cuba during the early 1950's.

Here is a photo of Linebarger below. This one doesn't appear on the Cordwainer Smith website.

James

Peculiar. 'Cordwainer Bird' was the pseudonym selected by Harlan Ellison when he chose to distance himself from the mess that they made of his original concept for his science fiction 'The Starlost.'

Wiki

In the late 1950s, Ellison wrote a number of erotica stories, such as "God Bless the Ugly Virgin" and "Tramp", which were later reprinted in Los Angeles-based magazines. That was the beginning of his use of the name Cordwainer Bird as a pseudonym. The name was later used in July and August of 1957, in two journals, each of which had accepted two of his stories. In each journal, one story was published under the name Harlan Ellison, and the other under Cordwainer Bird. Later, as discussed in the Controversy section below, he used the pseudonym for material when he disagreed with its use or editing.

Ellison has on occasion used the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird to alert members of the public to situations in which he feels his creative contribution to a project has been mangled beyond repair by others, typically Hollywood producers or studios. (See, e.g., Alan Smithee.) The first such work to which he signed the name was "The Price of Doom," an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (though it was misspelled as Cordwainer Bid in the credits). The "Cordwainer Bird" moniker is a tribute to fellow SF writer Paul M. A. Linebarger, better known by his pen name, Cordwainer Smith. The origin of the word "cordwainer" is shoemaker (from working with cordovan leather for shoes). The term used by Linebarger was meant to imply the industriousness of the pulp author. Ellison has said, in interviews and in his writing, that his version of the pseudonym was meant to mean "a shoemaker for birds". Since he has used the pseudonym mainly for works he wants to distance himself from, it may be understood to mean that "this work is for the birds". Stephen King once said he thought that it meant that Ellison was giving people who mangled his work a literary version of "the bird" (given credence by Ellison himself in his own essay titled "Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto", describing his experience with the Starlost television series).

Seems to throwback to the concept of Robert Redford in Three Days...

Great thread.

- lee

http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/burkes.htm

Burke's Law - never heard of it.

Who Killed Alex Debbs? 10/25/63 Alex Debbs, wealthy night club owner and publisher of Debonaire Magazine, is found dead in his new club on opening night. Among the suspects is Sidney Wilde, cartoonist for Debonaire. Wilde readily admits disliking Debbs but denies his murder. Later, Wilde phones Amos to tell him he knows who killed Debbs and that the murderer is with him. Before Wilde can identify the murderer, the phone goes dead.

[Lee Forman]

Thanks for that, Bill. Very interesting.

Linebarger also spent some time in Cuba during the early 1950's.

Here is a photo of Linebarger below. This one doesn't appear on the Cordwainer Smith website.

James

Peculiar. 'Cordwainer Bird' was the pseudonym selected by Harlan Ellison when he chose to distance himself from the mess that they made of his original concept for his science fiction 'The Starlost.'

Wiki

In the late 1950s, Ellison wrote a number of erotica stories, such as "God Bless the Ugly Virgin" and "Tramp", which were later reprinted in Los Angeles-based magazines. That was the beginning of his use of the name Cordwainer Bird as a pseudonym. The name was later used in July and August of 1957, in two journals, each of which had accepted two of his stories. In each journal, one story was published under the name Harlan Ellison, and the other under Cordwainer Bird. Later, as discussed in the Controversy section below, he used the pseudonym for material when he disagreed with its use or editing.

Ellison has on occasion used the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird to alert members of the public to situations in which he feels his creative contribution to a project has been mangled beyond repair by others, typically Hollywood producers or studios. (See, e.g., Alan Smithee.) The first such work to which he signed the name was "The Price of Doom," an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (though it was misspelled as Cordwainer Bid in the credits). The "Cordwainer Bird" moniker is a tribute to fellow SF writer Paul M. A. Linebarger, better known by his pen name, Cordwainer Smith. The origin of the word "cordwainer" is shoemaker (from working with cordovan leather for shoes). The term used by Linebarger was meant to imply the industriousness of the pulp author. Ellison has said, in interviews and in his writing, that his version of the pseudonym was meant to mean "a shoemaker for birds". Since he has used the pseudonym mainly for works he wants to distance himself from, it may be understood to mean that "this work is for the birds". Stephen King once said he thought that it meant that Ellison was giving people who mangled his work a literary version of "the bird" (given credence by Ellison himself in his own essay titled "Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto", describing his experience with the Starlost television series).

Seems to throwback to the concept of Robert Redford in Three Days...

Great thread.

- lee

http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/burkes.htm

Burke's Law - never heard of it.

Who Killed Alex Debbs? 10/25/63 Alex Debbs, wealthy night club owner and publisher of Debonaire Magazine, is found dead in his new club on opening night. Among the suspects is Sidney Wilde, cartoonist for Debonaire. Wilde readily admits disliking Debbs but denies his murder. Later, Wilde phones Amos to tell him he knows who killed Debbs and that the murderer is with him. Before Wilde can identify the murderer, the phone goes dead.

Go to the head of the class please...

[Tim Gratz]

So in 1952, he was working in Mexico City with Howard Hunt, later of Watergate fame. The Russian embassy was having a party, and Daddy (I suppose Hunt too) got ahold of an invitation. They had many extra copies made and distributed, so that far too many people arrived at the party, and the Russians were embarrassed. A little-known facet of the cold war.

I find it of some interest that this is very similar to one of the "dirty tricks" that Segretti proposed to me: embarass Democrats by overfilling their fund-raising dinners by printing bogus tickets to be distributed to the poor and homeless.

[Tim Gratz]

The JFK assassination plan for covert operations in New Orleans, Dallas and Mexico City was carefully designed to create the illusion that Oswald was a communist hired by Fidel Castro to kill JFK. A large body of CIA documents support this conclusion to the point of historical fact." 28.

Of course there is no evidentiary basis whatsoever for this categorical statement. In fact, to the contrary, the CIA helped to throw water on some of the allegations coming out of Mexico City. There certainly is NOT a "large body of CIA documents" to support the conclusion that Oswald was hired by Castro to kill JFK. I mean, if there were, don't you think I would have posted them.

I have to call you on this, Bill. I would certainly assume a "large body of CIA documents support this conclusion" would be at least twenty or thirty. So why don't you simply post ten?

If these documents exist, why were they not shown to LBJ or the WC?

We are in fantasy land here, folks.

[William Kelly]

The JFK assassination plan for covert operations in New Orleans, Dallas and Mexico City was carefully designed to create the illusion that Oswald was a communist hired by Fidel Castro to kill JFK. A large body of CIA documents support this conclusion to the point of historical fact." 28.

Of course there is no evidentiary basis whatsoever for this categorical statement. In fact, to the contrary, the CIA helped to throw water on some of the allegations coming out of Mexico City. There certainly is NOT a "large body of CIA documents" to support the conclusion that Oswald was hired by Castro to kill JFK. I mean, if there were, don't you think I would have posted them.

I have to call you on this, Bill. I would certainly assume a "large body of CIA documents support this conclusion" would be at least twenty or thirty. So why don't you simply post ten?

If these documents exist, why were they not shown to LBJ or the WC?

We are in fantasy land here, folks.

Tim, What's the fantasy again? That there was a pre-planned psych-war op designed to blame the assassination on Castro/Cuba?

First off, that's Noel Twyman's quote, and I think it is 100% accurate.

Have you read Twyman's book "Bloody Treason" or the phamplet "Illusion and Denial," or Mathew Smith's "The Second Plot," or Cohen and Freed's "Fidel on the Grassy Knoll"?

If not, they all detail the black propaganda and disinformation campaign to blame the assassintion on Cuba.

Twyman, Smith, Cohen and Freed blame this campaign on the CIA, but whoever did it, they also killed JFK.

Those who continue to promote this false policy - Max Holland, Gus Russo, David Atlee Phillips, Frank Sturgis, et al., all have direct ties to the CIA, and thus it qualifies as bonifide dissinformation.

It is those who attempt to promote the Castro-did-it line who want us to live in the fantasy world.

BK

[Charles Drago]

Bill,

Your opening post on this thread dovetails neatly and brilliantly with Evica's "assassination conspiracy-as-dramatic construct" hypothesis -- one which, for my money, comes closest to describing the operation's grand design.

Is not a well-conceived con game nothing other than a drama, replete with all elements and structures of the form?

Another point: Giordano Bruno would have understood the use of the word "magic" in this context.

The only remaining puzzle: Where did Linebarger find Blofeld's cat?

Superb work!

Charles

Edited October 4, 2007 by Charles Drago

[William Kelly]

Those who continue to promote this false policy - Max Holland, Gus Russo, David Atlee Phillips, Frank Sturgis, et al., all have direct ties to the CIA, and thus it qualifies as bonifide dissinformation.

BK

Bill, I don't want to divert a very good and important thread but while in my 'bones' I sense Russo, is like Pozner, a creature of the CIA Borg is there any evidence you have? I heard he got a tour or claimed to have had a tour of CIA Headquarters...not available to the public! He penetrated my research long ago and caused many 'o problem!.......reason I'd love to know.

Well, Good old Gus was one of many independent researchers in DC in the late 80s early 90s, and was there when the JFK Act was passed. From Baltimore, he invited me to his book publishing party around Holloween one year, and I almost went dressed as Fidel.

We got on well together, but John Judge was always suspicious of him, especially so after Gus had lunch with some of the top CIA officials, and later bragged, "They call me Gus."

While his book "Live By The Sword" has a lot of good info and facts, it also doesn't include exculpatory evidence re: LHO and Castro, and is a cleaverly crafted piece of disinfo, that continues the original cover story for the Dealey Plaza operation - that Castro was behind it.

When I tried to get the Kefhaver committee mob records, 50 years after they were locked away and were supposed to be released, the NARA told me they had to be sanatized for privacy reasons - yet "They Call Me Gus" had no trouble getting access to them for his book on the Chicago "outfit," crediting John McCain for cutting the red tape.

Russo's writing and production credits for the German documentary on the JFK Assassination, which also wrongfully implicates Castro, confirms "They call me Gus" is still having lunch with the Castro Did It Crowd.

Of course not everybody in the CIA is part of this crowd, but they do carry significant dissinfo weight in the media, and government.

BK

[Tim Gratz]

Bill, first let me thank you for the courtesy of your reply.

I will comment at greater length tonight but first an obvious observation (hey, I like that term! henceforth I may use the abbreviation OO for an "obvious observation").

OO: Re your "arge body of CIA documents": what a bunch of bumbling baffons those CIA guys must have been! Not only could they not use their "large body of CIA documents" to prompt an invasion of Cuba, they could not even use them to convince the WC to conclude that Castro did it, for heaven's sake!

I do not you cite not a single document, merely the CONCLUSIONS of authors who accept this rubric.

[Tim Gratz]

Peter wrote:

Those who continue to promote this false policy - Max Holland, Gus Russo, David Atlee Phillips, Frank Sturgis, et al., all have direct ties to the CIA, and thus it qualifies as bonifide dissinformation.

Peter, since Sturgis is long deceased, I am curious to learn how you believe he in particular continues to "promote this false policy".

Reminds me of the story of the CT buff who upon arriving in heaven immediately seeks out God Himself and asks the deity, "Now at least I can find out who really killed JFK"; God replies, "You were a good man on earth. I hate to disappoint you but I must inform you that Oswald acted alone." Stunned, the new arrival leaves, muttering to himself, "I had no idea the conspiracy reached THAT high!"

Peter, assuming Sturgis' spirit survives,either in heaven or hades, I strongly suspect he is no longer working on any CIA plots.

[Dawn Meredith]

Terrific piece BK. Much insight and truth.

Dawn

[William Kelly]

Peter wrote:

Those who continue to promote this false policy - Max Holland, Gus Russo, David Atlee Phillips, Frank Sturgis, et al., all have direct ties to the CIA, and thus it qualifies as bonifide dissinformation.

Peter, since Sturgis is long deceased, I am curious to learn how you believe he in particular continues to "promote this false policy".

Reminds me of the story of the CT buff who upon arriving in heaven immediately seeks out God Himself and asks the deity, "Now at least I can find out who really killed JFK"; God replies, "You were a good man on earth. I hate to disappoint you but I must inform you that Oswald acted alone." Stunned, the new arrival leaves, muttering to himself, "I had no idea the conspiracy reached THAT high!"

Peter, assuming Sturgis' spirit survives,either in heaven or hades, I strongly suspect he is no longer working on any CIA plots.

Tim,

Before you rip into Peter, that is my quote, not his, and even though Frank is dead, his mission to blame the assassination on Castro continues, with Russo, Holland and the NSA, and I look forward to your more in depth analysis, as I am not done yet either.

And many thanks to JR for the unique photo of Linebarger with Blofield's cat, and to Lee, Peter, Charles, Dawn, and others for reading my stuff and finding it worthwhile.

BK

Edited October 5, 2007 by William Kelly