Everyone Here Hates Him

[Tim Gratz]

Charles wrote:

Your "claim" that was and remains unsupported is that I ever wrote -- or said, or implied, anywhere, at any time -- that Norman Mailer "LIED when he stated he thought Oswald acted alone."

Is he now denying he said that? This is bizarre.

P.S. Even though this is Key West, I do NOT wear slips, Freudian or otherwise.

[Charles Drago]

Adios, Segretti Light.

[Tim Gratz]

He concedes the point, ladies and gentlemen.

Way back early on he accused me of being ignorant or an idiot because (he says now) I accused him of calling Mailer a xxxx, but as seen above he in fact did so.

I still think he was challenging my claim that Mailer was favorable to Castro and was an early member of the FPCC (Both points now demonstrated).

The long and short of it is whichever he was referring to he was wrong to call me either ignorant or a xxxx because I was correct in every single word I posted.

And when I call him on it his response is to call me names and dance around the subject.

He simply lacks the intestinal fortitude to admit he was wrong. I have done so twice in the last month--one to Robert for misremembering who posted what in a lengthy thread and once to BK for posting something incorrect after only breezing through his post on Tom Dooley and see how it connected to the JFK case. In neither case did it hurt me to apologize and I betcha most of the rational members of this Forum recognized that "to err is human".

IMO Charles' refusal to simply say he is wrong is symtomatic of his arrogance, an arrogance demonstrated by his bizarre proposition that anyone who disagrees with his position is "cognitively impaired".

Well, so be it.

[William Kelly]

MAILER AS CHARTER SUPPORTER OF FAIR PLAY FOR CUBA COMMITTE

Ah, Yes, Mailer's corpse leads us to Robert Taber, the CBS journalist who was hanging out with the COPLEY (See: CIA) reporter and a Lt. Harvey Oswald at Sloppy Joe's in Havana, having survived fighting with the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs..... an incident that John Armstrong calls our attention to:

http://home.wi.rr.com/harveyandlee/Comrade/Luaces.htm

From Time Magazine

Monday, Apr. 18, 1960

Winning Friends

.......The nominal head of the committee was Author Waldo (America Hispana) Frank, but the real organizer was Robert Taber, a Columbia Broadcasting System newsman, and one of a group of U.S. journalists who won gold medals from Castro for getting through to interview him in his Sierra Maestra days. Frank has been a guest of Castro, and Taber of a Cuban publisher. Taber drew up the ad, and Frank mailed it out to his many friends among the intellectual set. They got enough names and money to pay the bill, but a more impressive list could be made from those who ignored the plea or pointedly turned it down. This group ranged from Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandburg and Jacques Maritain to Eleanor Roosevelt and Luis Munoz Marin.

I've been reading more about Mailer's FPCC Cohort Robert Taber and he is indeed, as JR would say, an interesting person.

Both Taber and another CBS employee (Gibson) established the FPCC in NYC while working for CBS.

The full page ad in the NYT that announced the founding of the organization, which I believe was signed by Mailer and Taber among others, was paid for by the Cuban mission to the UN, although Taber apparently knew this and purjured himself during testimony before the House Unamerican Activities Committee.

Taber wasn't just a journalist covering Cuba but he went into combat on the Cuban side and may have even been wounded at the Bay of Pigs - which the report from Sloppy Joe's seems to indicate.

Taber limps into the bar on crutchs with another man in uniform, identified to our informant as "Lieutenant Harvey Oswald," an arms expert, though at this time (April/May, 1961) Lee Harvey Oswald is in Minsk, and among other things, sitting around singing and playing guitar with a group of Cubans.

While John Armstrong is the source of this report, and I haven't seen any followups that mention it, or Taber, this could be a cog in the machine to blame the assassination on Cuba/Castro, or it could be mistaken identity. The latter is hard to believe since the reported intro was so specific and intentional.

In any case, Mailer's FPCC pal Robert Taber is an interesting guy.

BK

[Tim Gratz]

Bill, that report of a supposed LHO sighting in Sloppy Joe's in Havana is certainly interesting. We may never know the story behind it, although research on the person reporting it might be fruitful.

Do you know what ultimately happened to Taber?

[William Kelly]

Bill, that report of a supposed LHO sighting in Sloppy Joe's in Havana is certainly interesting. We may never know the story behind it, although research on the person reporting it might be fruitful.

Do you know what ultimately happened to Taber?

Did I forget to mention that he sought refuge from another Congressional subpoena in Cuba, and tried to renounce his American citizenship?

BK

[Greg Parker]

Bill, that report of a supposed LHO sighting in Sloppy Joe's in Havana is certainly interesting. We may never know the story behind it, although research on the person reporting it might be fruitful.

Do you know what ultimately happened to Taber?

Did I forget to mention that he sought refuge from another Congressional subpoena in Cuba, and tried to renounce his American citizenship?

BK

Excerpt from Facile Est Imperium In Bonis

One recipient of a Whitney Fellowship was Richard Gibson. Gibson, though African-American, could hardly claim to have been culturally deprived, having come from a "distinguished" Philadelphian family which included renowned artist, Henry Tanner.[56] Gibson skipped out on a debt to Kenyon College when he was granted a years funding in 1951 to attend the American Academy in Rome.[57] The purpose had been to write a book, ultimately titled "A Mirror for Magistrates", but not published until 1958. In the interim, The Whitney Foundation came good with further largess, allowing him to live the life of the ex-pat in Paris.[58]

Here was the first inkling that Gibson was somehow working for the CIA in what became known as "the Gibson Affair". One of the conditions under which the ex-pat African-American colony lived was not to criticize French Foreign policy . However, in 1957, a letter was published in LIFE Magazine under the name of cartoonist, Ollie Harrington which condemned, in no uncertain terms, French policy in Algeria. The problem was that Harrington, an African-American ex-pat with communist sympathies, had not written the letter. Similar letters went to London publications. Facing deportation because of these letters, Harrington initiated an investigation headed by criminal lawyer, Jacques Mercier. This in turn, led to police finding conclusive evidence showing Gibson had written the letters. Faced with the evidence, Gibson confessed.

The net result of the affair was the disintegration of trust and morale among the ex-pats (some of whom had been critical of US foreign policy), and a job for Gibson at CBS in London.[59]

By 1960 Gibson, still with CBS, was back in the US working on the late night shift alongside fellow newsmen Robert Taber and Ed Haddad. These three, together with Alan Sagner, Charles Santos-Buch, Waldo Frank and Carleton Beal became the convocation to form the Fair Play Cuba Committee. (FPCC)[60]

The official version of how the FPCC was formed runs like this: Robert Taber wrote a defense of the Cuban revolution for The Nation in January, 1960. After reading the piece, Sagner decided something needed to be done to counter US propaganda, and contacted the author at CBS. They met, together with Charles Santos-Buch to discuss Sagner's idea to form a "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" with the support of "prominent names" to launch a counter-propaganda campaign and perhaps send a delegation to Cuba. Sagner further suggested that the announcement proclaiming the formation of the committee should be via an ad in the New York Times. The ad duly appeared in the April 6 edition.[61]

If the "ad hoc" appearance of the formation of the FPCC seems to negate any suggestion that the FPCC was a CIA operation from the very outset, consider the following:

* Alan Sagner was a New Jersey Real Estate developer with close ties to the Democratic Party. From 1977 to 1985, he was Chairman of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority and from 1996 to 1998, he was a Clinton appointee to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors.[62]

* In 1997 Sagner was general chairman of the New Jersey Campaign for a Nuclear Freeze, and saw no inconsistency when, that same year as Port Authority chairman, he lobbied hard to get the nuclear fleet "home-ported" in New York.[63]

* He was a long time financial supporter of The Nation.[64]

* Robert Taber worked for the Mockingbird connected CBS and wrote the article which "inspired" Sagner for The Nation, long-suspected of "Left-gate-keeping" for the CIA.

* Taber and Gibson were considered the real forces behind the FPCC. Gibson had been suspected of being a CIA asset while in France, and had received funding while in Europe through the Whitney Foundation. This Foundation was revealed in 1967 to be a conduit for CIA money - in this case targeted to individuals from minority groups who may prove valuable assets in future.

* Whitney owned a string of radio and TV stations through his company, Corinthian Broadcasting Corp. These were all CBS affiliates.[65]

Having at least some control over both sides of the propaganda war on Cuba would have had its advantages. And who know what else that control may be turned to in other operations?

[Greg Parker]

Inexplicable double post obliterated

Edited November 17, 2007 by Greg Parker

[William Kelly]

Bill, that report of a supposed LHO sighting in Sloppy Joe's in Havana is certainly interesting. We may never know the story behind it, although research on the person reporting it might be fruitful.

Do you know what ultimately happened to Taber?

Did I forget to mention that he sought refuge from another Congressional subpoena in Cuba, and tried to renounce his American citizenship?

BK

'

Excerpt from Facile Est Imperium In Bonis

Thanks for that Greg,

BK

One recipient of a Whitney Fellowship was Richard Gibson. Gibson, though African-American, could hardly claim to have been culturally deprived, having come from a "distinguished" Philadelphian family which included renowned artist, Henry Tanner.[56] Gibson skipped out on a debt to Kenyon College when he was granted a years funding in 1951 to attend the American Academy in Rome.[57] The purpose had been to write a book, ultimately titled "A Mirror for Magistrates", but not published until 1958. In the interim, The Whitney Foundation came good with further largess, allowing him to live the life of the ex-pat in Paris.[58]

Here was the first inkling that Gibson was somehow working for the CIA in what became known as "the Gibson Affair". One of the conditions under which the ex-pat African-American colony lived was not to criticize French Foreign policy . However, in 1957, a letter was published in LIFE Magazine under the name of cartoonist, Ollie Harrington which condemned, in no uncertain terms, French policy in Algeria. The problem was that Harrington, an African-American ex-pat with communist sympathies, had not written the letter. Similar letters went to London publications. Facing deportation because of these letters, Harrington initiated an investigation headed by criminal lawyer, Jacques Mercier. This in turn, led to police finding conclusive evidence showing Gibson had written the letters. Faced with the evidence, Gibson confessed.

The net result of the affair was the disintegration of trust and morale among the ex-pats (some of whom had been critical of US foreign policy), and a job for Gibson at CBS in London.[59]

By 1960 Gibson, still with CBS, was back in the US working on the late night shift alongside fellow newsmen Robert Taber and Ed Haddad. These three, together with Alan Sagner, Charles Santos-Buch, Waldo Frank and Carleton Beal became the convocation to form the Fair Play Cuba Committee. (FPCC)[60]

The official version of how the FPCC was formed runs like this: Robert Taber wrote a defense of the Cuban revolution for The Nation in January, 1960. After reading the piece, Sagner decided something needed to be done to counter US propaganda, and contacted the author at CBS. They met, together with Charles Santos-Buch to discuss Sagner's idea to form a "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" with the support of "prominent names" to launch a counter-propaganda campaign and perhaps send a delegation to Cuba. Sagner further suggested that the announcement proclaiming the formation of the committee should be via an ad in the New York Times. The ad duly appeared in the April 6 edition.[61]

If the "ad hoc" appearance of the formation of the FPCC seems to negate any suggestion that the FPCC was a CIA operation from the very outset, consider the following:

* Alan Sagner was a New Jersey Real Estate developer with close ties to the Democratic Party. From 1977 to 1985, he was Chairman of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority and from 1996 to 1998, he was a Clinton appointee to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors.[62]

* In 1997 Sagner was general chairman of the New Jersey Campaign for a Nuclear Freeze, and saw no inconsistency when, that same year as Port Authority chairman, he lobbied hard to get the nuclear fleet "home-ported" in New York.[63]

* He was a long time financial supporter of The Nation.[64]

* Robert Taber worked for the Mockingbird connected CBS and wrote the article which "inspired" Sagner for The Nation, long-suspected of "Left-gate-keeping" for the CIA.

* Taber and Gibson were considered the real forces behind the FPCC. Gibson had been suspected of being a CIA asset while in France, and had received funding while in Europe through the Whitney Foundation. This Foundation was revealed in 1967 to be a conduit for CIA money - in this case targeted to individuals from minority groups who may prove valuable assets in future.

* Whitney owned a string of radio and TV stations through his company, Corinthian Broadcasting Corp. These were all CBS affiliates.[65]

Having at least some control over both sides of the propaganda war on Cuba would have had its advantages. And who know what else that control may be turned to in other operations?

[William Kelly]

Bill, that report of a supposed LHO sighting in Sloppy Joe's in Havana is certainly interesting. We may never know the story behind it, although research on the person reporting it might be fruitful.

Do you know what ultimately happened to Taber?

Did I forget to mention that he sought refuge from another Congressional subpoena in Cuba, and tried to renounce his American citizenship?

BK

Oh, I forgot to mention that Taber also wrote a book, The War of the Flea, now considered a "classic" text on insurgency warfare.

http://books.google.com/books?id=w4v2Jf2au...M8aYc42P29pDBHc

http://www.usma.edu/dmi/IWmsgs/MeasuringSuccess.pdf

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/cassidy2.pdf

But I can't answer, yet, TG's question of whatever became of Taber.

BK

[Tim Gratz]

Greg, are you stating that while the CIA was on a mission to rid the Caribbean of Castro, it also spearheaded the formation (and operations, presumably) of the FPCC?