Michael Hogan Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann Subtitled Robert Kennedy, National Security, The Mafia, and the Search for the Hidden Truth, Legacy of Secrecy is due to be released in the spring. http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Secrecy-Long-...=pd_sim_b_img_2 The new book bears the same title as chapter sixty-one of Ultimate Sacrifice. http://books.google.com/books?id=YOWNw_rmT...Yzh8U#PPA770,M1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassinationby Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann Subtitled Robert Kennedy, National Security, The Mafia, and the Search for the Hidden Truth, Legacy of Secrecy is due to be released in the spring. http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Secrecy-Long-...=pd_sim_b_img_2 The new book bears the same title as chapter sixty-one of Ultimate Sacrifice. http://books.google.com/books?id=YOWNw_rmT...Yzh8U#PPA770,M1 MAYBE IF THESE GUYS KEEP WRITING BOOKS THEY'LL EVENTUALLY GET IT RIGHT. - BK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wim Dankbaar Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 (edited) I still would like to have an answer on the issue below. Maybe Lamar Waldron or Thom Hartmann could jump in? Wim Another interview with Chauncey Holt This is only a part of transcript I found on the Internet in february 2005. It is full of transcript spelling errors by the way. A rather strange thing happened. When I found the email address of the interviewer Thom Hartmann, I asked him: Hello Thom, did you do this interview with Chauncey Holt? http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Jfk-conspiracy/HOLT.TXT If so, can you provide me with the first part? Wim Dankbaar I got the following reply: Wim, How do I get in touch with the person who posted this? Thom So I answered that it was probably Ken Rahn or Anthony Marsh, and I gave him their website addresses. The interview appears to be gone from the web now. You can try the link. Wim I never got an answer to the email below: ----- Original Message ----- From: Wim Dankbaar To: thom@thomhartmann.com Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2005 2:18 PM Subject: Re: Hello Thom, did you do this interview with Chauncey Holt? Why were you so concerned about this interview on the web? And why is it gone now? Wim Edited December 20, 2007 by Wim Dankbaar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wim Dankbaar Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 I still would like to have an answer on the issue below. Maybe Lamar Waldron or Thom Hartmann could jump in? Wim Another interview with Chauncey Holt This is only a part of transcript I found on the Internet in february 2005. It is full of transcript spelling errors by the way. A rather strange thing happened. When I found the email address of the interviewer Thom Hartmann, I asked him: Hello Thom, did you do this interview with Chauncey Holt? http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Jfk-conspiracy/HOLT.TXT If so, can you provide me with the first part? Wim Dankbaar I got the following reply: Wim, How do I get in touch with the person who posted this? Thom So I answered that it was probably Ken Rahn or Anthony Marsh, and I gave him their website addresses. The interview appears to be gone from the web now. You can try the link. Wim I never got an answer to the email below: ----- Original Message ----- From: Wim Dankbaar To: thom@thomhartmann.com Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2005 2:18 PM Subject: Re: Hello Thom, did you do this interview with Chauncey Holt? Why were you so concerned about this interview on the web? And why is it gone now? Wim Subject: Holt2 Date: 11-Jun-93 at 08:25 From: Thom Hartmann, 76702,765 TO: Anthony Marsh,72127,2301 1>lking about. A: Harvey was there. Q: OK, William Harvey. A: That is the only one. Q: OK. A: Cause I don't think there was anybody else there. But I have all, I have the initials of everyone on there. On the top as who was there and discussed this. And I scribbled this on a two pages. Q: What name were you going under at that time? A: December 1970. Pardon me? Q: What name were you going under? A: Sigler. Q: Was this the first time? Did you know Harvey before then? Q: That is what I was going to ask. So this was the first time you met with William Harvey? A: That is the first time I met him. Q: Was at this meeting? A: Yeah. It was at this meeting. Q: Who vouched for you? Who established your bonifides to be at that meeting? A: Licavoli. Q: Who many approximately were there? A: There was probably as many as eight people there. I, but I will have to look on the sheet and see who, that was there. Q: Fax that to me tomorrow. A: I will. Q: I have got a fax. A: Oh, yeah. Q: What was the purpose of this meeting? A: Well they were, they were, that is when they were going to discuss, the first time, that I had ever heard of Mongoose. As a matter of fact, they were discussing.. Q: Was it called Mongoose that day? A: No, I don't think so. I think that what, I think they more or lese decided they were going to call him Mongoose cause they were, they were talking about what acronym they were going to use and they said well obviously we can't use anything that we can't use Cuba. We can't use, we won't be able to use that, why don't we use something over in Thailand or something like that. So they, Thailand, that was MO, and they were thinking well, you know, well how about Mongoose? You know. So that is how they came up with that. Q: I am sorry - A: No go ahead. Q: So OK, the purpose of the meeting was just kind of a general planning meeting? A: A general planning meeting as to what was going to take off. We actually, we actually did absolutely practically nothing as far as, you know, as far as Mongoose was ….. Q: When you say we, you mean? A: Licavolie. Q: Licavoli and yourself. A: You know Licavoli at that time was, he was quite up in years, and I doubt that, you know, if they would I mean, they only selected the thing because he knew Giancana and Roselli real well. And, they probably felt they were rather safe because the Grace Ranch was a fortress. Had a tremendously huge gate, all kinds of security, and but, although they were always worried about sweeping it for bugs you know. If we went out, I went out and talked to Licavoli cause it hadn't have been swept very recently, we used to go out, where the cattle were, you know, and get out in the corral, or where the cattle roaming around you know. Q: So Licavoli really didn't, he didn't do much? A: He didn't do anything at all. Q: Was there any role? A: No, except …. Q: Kind of providing a place for meetings? A: Yes and providing the airstrip if anybody needed to be ….. Q: An airstrip? A: To come into there, an airstrip. Or, if they were anybody wanted to come in from out of the country illegally, they chose that route. They came to Frank Milano’s place, in Vera Cruz. He had a ranch in Vera Cruz. Then they would fly into, they would come into Tucson, you can come in there. The, uh, surveillance coming in,you know, when you come across, where you come across in Tucson, I have a mental block, I can't think of the name of that Mexican town. A little Mexican town, they came across there and they had, the terrain was very good, the terrain for flying. That you could fly under any kind of radar. That was the traditional, that was the traditional route for, and when Frank Camarado, who was Q: Drugs? A: Yeah, drugs. And, when Frank Camarado who was Licavoli's brother-in-law, he was deported twice and that he came back over, both times that route, and he was in Havana when he died. He was in Havana getting ready to come back the third time. So they fly out, they fly out from anywhere they wanted to. Central America, or anywhere, they would fly into Frank Milano's place and then on up to … .. Q: Right on out? A: They would fly right on out. Q: Let me ask you, that was the first time you met Harvey, did you have dealings with him later? A: Not much. Q: What would be? A: Not much. Q: Did you see him later or ever talk to him again? A: Well, maybe. Q: You didn't know that he was Central Intelligence that day? A: Oh yeah, yeah. Q: Well did you know Angleton? A: No, I knew of him. I knew who Angleton was. Never met him. Q: So on Harvey, you said you did or didn't talk to him again later? A: Oh yeah, I talked to him from time to time. Over the years, you know, all the way up until they, until they cashiered him out and so forth. Q: Was that like on an official level? Or, like an example. A: You know sort of a quasi official thing, you know, and but, he was meeting with, he was meeting all the time, meeting a lot of times with Roselli and he was meeting with Giancana, and meeting with Maheu. Q: Do you recall any other specific time when you did meet, like in the 60's? Maybe? A: No. Q: Or may have talked to him? A: I can't remember. After that .. Q: After that one meeting, in February A: The Bay of Pigs. No, I can't remember any specific conversations unless I, unless I had time to actually look through all these, I got just, I got boxes and boxes of stuff that has been stored in one place or another and every now and then I come across. I had all this stuff, I mean, I kept all this stuff all these years. And, the stuff back there, I probably never have any kind of a need for it you know, then I would keep it you know. Q: How many hours approximately can you remember how many hours that, December, 1960 meeting lasted? A: It was quite a while. Of course, it was almost like Q: A social Q: December 6, 61. A: 61. Q: This was after the Bay of Pigs? A: Yes. Q: 61, December 61. A: Well, you know it lasted quite a while because it was sort of a social type thing too. And I assume, I am just saying, but I assume that probably Roselli and Giancana and Licavoli were also talking about other things. Now when you came there, the Grace Ranch was set up like a motel. I mean they had a lot of, you know, just little, looked like a motel. You know, except the big ranch house. And, so everybody stayed there and everybody had their own rooms and this that and the other. And ….. Q: Sounds like a nice resort. A: Oh yeah, had two olympic sized swimming pools, and had a riding stable. Q: Had you been going there for a long time? A: Oh yeah. I had been there a long time. Q: I just noticed a couple of other people, we talked a lot about Montoya. Let me ask you one question about this, what about communications did you all establish any way to communicate with each other? Say you get in touch with me,in this way or, were there any codes or any? A: Well when I talked, when I talked to Licavoli, and the same thing if I talked to anyone else, Licavoli, for instance, or if he called me, he had a list of probably half a dozen public telephones. He would call me, say in Beverly Hills, he would call me. And he would, then I, he would ask me to call him back and he would say, #1, #2 or so forth, at such a time, and then I would call him back. And this was the way we operated almost with anybody, unless, if you were to go and talk to someone, or somebody called you and there was something innocent. And of course, that always was sometimes was kind of bad because Licavoli, when they were trying to nail Licavoli, and he had purchased this painting. These two kids had stolen a painting from their -- and was scribbling in my own hand writing, there is a lot of stuff, on there. That a lot of stuff on there, so that was that meeting and I don't remember how long it lasted, except for the meetings, the initials that are on there, I don't …… Q: Do you remember if they were discussing like assinating Castro? A: Oh yeah. They were talking, oh yeah. They were talking about, they were talking about assinating Kenn, then they were talking about weapons and they were talking about assinating him, what they were going to have to do and so forth, that is all on the memo. The full thing, just like, it is almost like the minutes of a corporate board meeting. Just sitting there, you know. Q: What, what, let me ask you too, cause we customs, a lot of people know a lot about Bosch and Veciana and ….. A: Oh yeah. Q: And we talked about Montoya. Let’s, we just want to get as much as you know about this guy named Sierra. What do you know about him? Like when did you meet him? What he knew about? A: Uh, well we met him, oh we probably met him 59 or 60. Maybe. Uh, and knew him up through oh, up until he got killed. Which was in the 70's. And, we were in Puerto Rico three or four days before, that he ….. Q: You mean in 59? A: No, no in, before he got killed. Q: Oh I see, OK. A: We had met him, he was from, he was from Puerto Rico. And, so he was down there and he had been making apparently they, he had been making, he had been making some statements about us. We went down to ask him if that was actually true. And uh, then, a few days later, you now, just, you know he was killed. Q: What was he doing? You said you met him around 59, what kind of things was he doing in 60, 61, 62, 63? A: Well he was a part of the, one of those violent Cuban groups, you know, he was connected with Alfa 66, and he was connected with Mano Blanco with the White Hand, two or three other …….. Q: Where did he mainly operate out of? Do you know? A: What area? Q: Yeah. A: Miami. Q: So he was one of the Miami guys? A: Yeah. He was in the Miami group. He was into terrorism, no matter what. Q: Terrorism in terms of hitting people, blowing stuff up? A: Anybody. Blowing up airplanes, anything else. He was just as violent as Orlando Bosch. Q: Do you know if he ever made any trips into Cuba or anything like that? A: Yeah, he was in Cuba all the time. Q: Where he was ever one of the people who tried to assassinate Castro? Is that anything he ever talked about? A: I don't remember specifically talking about it, but it probably could be. Q: What do you think happened to him after that day in Dallas? A: Oh, I think he went back, probably went back to Miami. Q: Did you …….. A: And, uh, I got a lot of stuff on him Q: On Seraphin? A: I, we Q: Did we get to finish this thing? Q: This is amazing. Q: What actually happened? A: I mean I always felt that hey wait a minute, Q: Description in 1963, how would you describe it to somebody? A: About an average height. About 5'8 or 9. You know typically Latin look. Q: But what did he look like? A: Oh, yeah he looked Latin. Q: Black hair? Dark hair? A: Very dark hair, dark, very dark eyes, uh, Q: Complexion? A: Had the dark Latin complexion, wore a beard a lot of the time. Variations of Q: Like mine? A: Sometimes he would have a little beard. Sometimes he would have a Van Dyke, sometimes he had a mustache, lot of times he was clean shaven. Q: Sort of like Loren Hall? A: He was very, he, actually he was very, very unassuming guy. I mean actually, no more than Bosch. You know Bosch, you look at Bosch and know he looks like a professional man. Which he is. You know, and he looked like it and you would never, ever think that he was what he was. It was the same way with, the same way with Seraphin. Very few of those guys, we had some of them up there that really looked, they really looked what they are. What they were. But, he was very, very, very unassuming. Low key. Very quiet. Q: Did he have a heavy accent? A: No, not really a heavy accent. I mean, he didn't have any trouble, he didn't have any trouble articulating. You know, and his accent, his accent wasn't like the traditional ones that you see, you know, that is Spanish from Puerto Rico. Because he, it was, he was more like a high class you know, more cultured. Q: Castillian? A: Yeah, more cultured type of tone. But, Q: When was probably the next time you ran into him after November 63? Was it a long time? A: Oh no, I didn't see him, I didn't see him until we went down to see him in, in uh, went down to see him in 75. Q: So it was, so it was that long before. A: No, I didn't, I had no contact, I had no contact with him. I forget what he was telling, he was going around and, somebody said that, oh, this information, this information came from, this information came from Serapin. So we went down to ….. Q: Check it out? A: To talk to him and ask him if, hey, you know, you, you know, if you got any of a loose mouth, you know. What we want to find out about it, see, then, of course, a few days later he got killed. And, we, they never Q: They tried to blame you all? A: Yeah. But, well, they found out we was there but that was about all. There wasn't really any way to really connect us up with it you know, we just happened to be there. We just were down there ostensibly on vacation at the Caribel. Q: Another guy kind of like him is this Bayard guy. What can you tell us about him? A: You mean Robert Bayard? Q: Yeah. A: Well, Bayard was a, he was a gun runner like you know, sold all kinds of weapons. Q: Was he American? A: Oh yeah, he was a Texan. Q: Oh, OK. So, A: He was, well he was like Vick Stadder or you know, he knew all those guys. Vick Stadder, Cottondale, probably knew Masen, sold all kinds of weapons. Q: Is that what he was doing say in 63? Was he still doing a lot of guns? A: Oh, yeah. Q: Who would somebody like that be running guns to and from? Around 63? A: Most of them to you know, most of them, that was the, you know, the Cuban groups. They were about the only ones that were in the business of buying guns. I mean, same way as like you know Reynolds, he probably sold guns to Reynolds too. Reynolds had a big, he had a big facility down there. Q: What was Bayard's description? Do you have any photos of him, do you? Q: Yeah. Q: How does he, what does he look like? Do you remember? A: Well, Q: I know it has been a long time. A: Well, yeah, you know he looks like, he was a typical, he looked like a typical American, you know. Uh, he looks like, maybe like a little younger version of McKeown, one of those guys. But, nothing about his appearance you know that makes him stand out. Q: You knew Thomas Masen? A: John. Well I didn't know him, we sent a lot of stuff over to him back and forth. Q: You had never seen him? A: No. So we sent a lot of stuff back and forth to him. We got a lot of ammunition from him. We did a lot of reloading. We did a lot of reloading. Q: Did you ever meet him in person? Mason? A: No. Q: Over what period of time did you sent him and currently do, have dealings with him, during the 61, 62, 63, 64? A: Up until, well we didn't have any dealings with him, we didn't have any dealings with him after probably uh, maybe, 64, 65 something like that. Q: How did you find out he was partners with Harrelson? A: We had heard he was partners with him. Q: So that was just kind of the rumor mill? A: Yeah. Q: That they were in it together? A: He's partners with Harrelson. I would swear to that. Q: In November, November 3rd, where the unregistered license in --, ammunition, John Thomas Masen had went to prison, November of 1963. Q: He was at the county jail, I mean the city jail when Oswald came in. Q: That is right. Q: Oh absolutely. Q: Oh yeah he went to prison. A: How long was he in? Do you know? Q: A couple of three years, wasn't he? A: Federal rap? Q: Probably Federal. A: Was it a ATF deal? Q: Another one of these guys A: Did they have, excuse me, good solid evidence against him? Q: Yeah. Q: For unregistered ammunition, that is what they got him on. Q: I think they got him once for selling an automatic, wasn't it? Q: Yeah. But not, it was November A: I thought he was a Class 3 dealer. Q: Maybe it was who he sold it to. A: Oh, maybe that is right. When he was killed. Q: When Bayard was killed? A: He was killed Q: He was shot July 3rd. Q: It was in 75 also when Seraphin was killed, right? A: He was killed in October. Q: OK. A: Bayard was killed in July. Q: OK. A: Hoffa was killed in July. Q: Where was Bayard killed? Do you know? A: Atlanta. Q: Oh, that is right, that was the A: I was with …… Q: That was on Oak and A: We got covered up, I remember that. Flew him over there. Q: I will look bad in front of the microphone, when I get back. Q: Now on Eschavarria, cause that is who we are particularly interested in. Gary, how would you describe him physically? If you had to give a description of him? A: Well, he didn't look as, he didn't look as Latin as, well Montoya didn't exactly look Latin, I mean Montoya looked like, he looked like he might have been some other extraction. It was hard to say from his accent, course he might have been. But he didn't look, Eschavarria, didn't look as, he didn't look as …….. Q: Can you pronounce that, cause I always mis-pronounce it? A: Eschavarria, Etchabaria, Homer Etchabaria. Uh, he didn't look, he wasn't as Latin as he actually -- What the hell was the name of the lawyer that moved down from, came down from Chicago, Paulino? Q: Sierra? A: Yeah Sierra. He was a, he knew him very well. And he was in part of his program and he had,at one time, had some kind of an obscure job with United Car Company, something like that, and he was trying to, get away, I think from the traditional Cuban image. He was trying to improve his, trying to improve his image, you know, and he spoke quite ….. Q: He was more Anglo? A: Yeah, right. He was a, he would like to appear, cause he sort of looked like a, he looked more like an Anglo. Q: Again, do you remember like height, weight? A: No. Q: Any kind of appearance? A: No, nothing unusual. Except, I would say he was bigger than, I started to say bigger than most Cubans. But some of them were pretty big. Uh, he was probably he is taller than I am. He is probably 5'7", something like that. Q: So he was like taller than Montoya maybe? A: Yeah. No, he wasn't taller than Montoya. Montoya, was uh, Montoya was a little bit taller than I am. Q: So you think maybe about the same height? A: Yeah. About the same height. You know 170 lbs. probably, you know. Q: Dark hair? A: Oh yeah, dark, dark hair. Q: I always have to ask that because I see that picture of Dee Aslantans. A: Yeah. No, dark hair, not Hispanic, not too dark, not too dark a complexion. Like he had a little, sight mixture of Caucasian and Cuban. But nothing that made him stand out except he wore dark glasses, which ….. Q: That is unusual. A: Yeah, he wore glasses. And, I don't think, well Bayard wore glasses too. Q: Like in Dallas that day were either of them wearing glasses that day, do you remember? A: Yeah, they both were wearing glasses. I think they wore glasses all the time. Q: When you are like me you have to. A: I did too. But most of the time. Q: Let me ask you some other things. These are other things that are like mentioned in the manuscript, just want to get a little more detail on them. Did you ever meet E. Howard Hunt, or just know him by reputation? A: Oh yeah, I met him, you know, but I mean I met him back there quite a ways back. When he was involved in the Bay of Pigs before he got, well he got into, he got into a hassle with, with uh, someone else, I forget who it was. Somebody higher, somebody ….. Q: Yeah there was a big flack. A: There was a big flap and they brought in a guy by the name of, I think his name was Engineer, I remember. Cause he talked that xxxx quite a bit. I think his name was Will Carr, I believe it is and he, now this guy came in and he really spoke, he really spoke very, very you know fluent Spanish. I mean, he spoke Spanish like a native. Q: Now was this the guy who kind of replaced Hunt, or not? A: Yeah he replaced Hunt in the Bay of Pigs. Q: When did you first meet Hunt? A: But the, he of course I don't think he was, I don't remember him being down in, I don't remember seeing him in Guatemala in 54. Probably when they were getting ready for the, probably when they were getting ready for the Bay of Pigs. And he was in and out of,he was in and out of Miami all that time before they took those guys and took them down to, you know, right to the, they were staying in Opelika at that time and they had a barracks up down there. And they …….. Q: How would you kind of run into him? Where would you see him? A: He would go, he was very, very close to the, he was very, very close to the Cubans you know. And uh, he was using that, he was using a name uh, Q: Eduardo. A: Eduardo, yeah, they called him, the, he was Eduardo. And they were always talking about him always talking about Edwardo. You know, and so, I didn't know, I didn't realize probably until a few months later that his name was really E. Howard Hunt. You know, Everett Howard Hunt. Q: Some people didn't realize it until 70. A: So I didn't really know that, I didn't really know that that was what his name was. You know, but, I, we found out that, you know, that that was what it was where they had this flack on with Carr and somebody mentioned that you know, they said hey, there is you know, the guy who is, I don't know whether it was, I don't know whether it was Tracy Barnes that couldn't get along with him. Or, maybe it was Bissell himself. Q: Did you run into Hunt after the Bay of Pigs? Do you remember? A: I remember -- to the Bay of Pigs. Uh, I don't know whether he came out, I don't know whether he was, I don't think he went out to California or not when he came out there to, they came out to Dr. Fielding's office. And, Gordon Liddy was out there though and Eugeno Martinez was out there. And somebody else. Somebody came in and said he was a detective and came in and said he was from Technical Services Division and needs photographic work done. And some processing and we had a really good processing film, but I am not sure what or not that, what connections, what kind. I certainly didn't have any close connection. Q: Cause I was going to ask you if you had heard from that Martinez, Sturgis? A: Yeah. Well, yeah Sturgis, I sort of met him. But there again, I really never had anything to do with Sturgis, or Martinez either, because although I mean he was a legend down there and was going back and forth to Havana all the time. You know, and Bernard Barker, oh yeah, he was another one that was out there in California. Q: Yeah. A: I didn't, I never knew him either. Q: How about Perry Williams or Artime? A: No. Q: Manuel Ortega? A: No, you mean the golden boy? Q: Yep. A: Well, you know the problem is, I really think I think I really knew him at one time because uh, he was partners or somebody he knew. He was partners with Bebe Rebozo in a meat processing plant or something there in Miami. And when I saw pictures later of him, you know, and it just seemed like that that was that. But I don't really know one way or the other or not. Q: I know we have talked about some of these people like Christian Dobeed and those people, did you ever know any of those guys? Who were you know involved in that French connection? Kind of? Drug smuggling thing? Some of that went up like through Montreal, like Sarti you know these names better than I would. Belard, any of those guys? A: Except the one we, that we learned through, when we got the official, when the examined, they did the study in Atlanta, why all those guys were dying. Q: Thats, did you reach him there? A: See, what happened is so, the guy came in one day, he came in the office there in at the hospital and said hey I got, I really got something for you here. And, the point is that he has got this, for your eyes only, for the Wardens eyes only, study of, for the FBI, study of why eleven people were killed in five days in Atlanta. See, I still have got the report. You will find that fascinating reading. Q: That would be interesting. A: Because they got diagrams of the thing and how, boy the way they use, this guy was chocked to death. This guy, got him with a hatchet. This guy was burned to death. And they were all, they never used the same method. Well but one I really, that really thought was how they did, how they killed Orceede. Dominick Orcede. Uh, they said that he was part of the, he was in the witness protection program, but, the prison authorities at Atlanta had not been advised, and so they didn't stick him. They put him out in the population. Well they killed him. Vincent Poppa, they killed him the same day. But some of them they found out who they were. I mean, what happened, some of them were out and out contracts, that was left there in the institution and they -- The only thing that he would shrink from. Anything else he didn't. Q: He would do? A: He would do anything at all and liked doing it. I mean he made, he made a fortune in real estate and didn't mean a thing to him. I mean, you could talk to him, he would make a, he would sell some property, make money, -- but you mention a scam to him. I don't care if it was you know, minor or not, and his eyes would light up. He, I think he, I think he really, I think that is what kept him alive. He would complain to me, the press was bothering, the press was harassing me but, I am nothing but a bootlegger. I haven't done nothing in my life, you know, they were running around with a suitcase full of stolen securities, you know, we are trying to sell. Q: Speaking with Lemay too, how did he feel about Robert Kennedy's crack down on organized crime? Was he as much of a target? Did he like, I would assume he would be kind of pissed off. A: Well he was. And, of course, he was, he you know, he thought he was grandstanding and he said that you know he had often commented about the fact that, hell Joe Kennedy made his fortune you know, in doing that and he had all these bootlegging friends and everything, why should they treat me any different than say the Rosenfields or the Bonthans? I mean, we were all in the same business at that time. And, of course, he simply detested Kennedy. Q: Bobby? A: Bobby Q: Bobby more than John? A: Yeah. Either one of them and he said oh they are grandstanding and this and that and the other. Trying to make hay out of us and he would say of course, hey look, they are harassing us. See, he would say that. They were harassing him. Q: What do you think, just personally think, about all the theories that organized crime was basically behind Kennedy's assignation? A: Well, Q: Or did you ever hear any of the talk in those kind of terms? A: Well, they certainly, they were interested in -- In that they wasn't the type of -- I think, my own personal opinion, is they would have done it -- Between all of the intelligence agencies and organized crime. And disorganized crime, criminals of all stripes, they went very, very deep. And they scratched each others backs. But you will find, you will never find a Mafia hit like the Kennedy assignation. They do not hit that way. I mean, they, they they do not. It is just like the example of how they killed Albert Anastasia. OK. They go up behind Albert Anastasis, they shot him eleven times. Or shoot eleven times. Standing right behind him. Five shots miss, and of the other shots, only the final shot, is fatal. The Mafia, none of those Mafia killers, are really, really skilled like snipers and that sort of thing. They can't depend on that. They depend on up close and personal. They depend on bombs and so forth. And, but any other reason I would say hey, the organized crime per se, didn't do it, but, they did, they would say they might, they might utilize someone else you know. Now Harrelson, of course, he shot Wood, he shot him with a rifle. Didn't he? Q: Uh, huh. A: How far away was he? Do you know? Q: Was he close? A: Fairly close. Q: I would, he was, it sticks in my mind he was close enough that it was an easy rifle shot. A: What was he doing? Getting in his car or something? Q: Yeah, getting in his car. Q: Seems to me, like he wasn't over 75 yards. A: Yeah, well, that’s point blank. Q: That is point blank. A: Yeah, with a rifle. So, I would, if I tell you this, if somebody like, I will comment on the person I knew best, that was Licabaldi. Licabaldi was typical of those guys that had, that had, was involved in three of the most sensational murders in the twentieth century. He was a principal, he had planned, he had planned, he had probably been responsible for killing 100 people. Q: Are you stating it? A: I am talking about the murder of Jerry Buckley, in Detroit, the crusading radio commentator, who played both sides of the street, you know, just like Jake Lingle did in Chicago. He was friends, he took money and then decided he would turn on them. The second one was the killing of the beer baron of Toledo, who's name was Jackie Kennedy, he shot him. Killed him and his four body guards, that is what Yonnie Licavoli, his brother, went to prison for. And of course, the third and the most famous was the St. Valentines Day Massacre, you know, because they were the ones that, it was because of them, you know, it was their trucks that Buggs Moran -- Told that there was going to be a incident created and it was going to be in Miami. Then we it was the thing changed, and they -- got to be changed and either got to be in San Antonio or Houston, or Dallas, or some place like that. These people but they never, ever -- Creates some problems for these, for -- And after that, there won't be any more romancing between Kennedy and Castro. I never heard the word. Q: Who is they? A: Well it came, who, the guy was talking about that, was Q: Who was telling you? A: Philip Twombly was telling us. Also, things came from Francis Sherry -- Ex-CIA guy that was down in, was down in Mexico. And, we were hearing from, we heard it from a lot of different sources. We heard from Lee Echols, there was a Q: Who was Lee Echols? A: Lee Echols was an ex-CIA guy that was living in San Diego at that time. I don't think Q: -- (can't hear) we had something very similar right here, it was planned just before the Kennedy visit here, we have got some police department memos, where the, they were planning, where General Walker, wasn't he the -- and his group were planning to create an incident and blame it, make it appear and it was Les Winters doing it. And we have got it right out here, on police memos. Q: Police memos. A: Well that was essentially Q: It was like Echols and Twomley and Sheridan. A: Echols, Twombly, as a matter of fact, I don't think, whoever, Echols was the guy that said hey, that we are getting, we are getting this stuff from, comes right down from Desmond Fitzgerald who is the, who is now the, is chief of the Cuban desk at Langley. Now, Desmond Fitzgerald, had come back from the Far East, he had been the, he had been chief of station, I mean division chief of the far east division, which is a plum, I mean boy, I mean, you want, that is what yo want to be. Coming back to take over the Cuban desk, at Langley, in my opinion, and everybody else I talked to, was like almost like a demotion for him. And they were saying that, I never, I couldn't , I couldn't swear I have said, I have said in the book, and it is my own personal opinion, I have said in the book that Desmond Fitzgerald, Gordon Meyer, were responsible for somebody high up in the CIA, had to know, it wasn't some rogue agents, some rogue agents, they wouldn't really take this on their own, I don't believe that they would. I don't think they could, I don't believe they could at all. Maybe they could, maybe they couldn't. So, there is a hell of a lot in there that is supposition from what people are telling me, what they were telling us and what people who are now most, a lot of people are now dead. Cord Meyer I think is still alive. Course naturally he would swear up and down this is blasphemy. I mean, this is, this is taking a man with an honorable, long career, you know, and black balling him. And if you were wrong about it, you would sure hate, you would sure as hell hate to do it. Q: That is why I wanted to find out from you, cause I wanted to distinguish here what people had told you or what you had tried to figure out for yourself? And just try to get a good feel for that? A: A lot of it is you know, a lot of it is what people say, comes to piecemeal, it is just like, it is just like when Twombly says we will, he says to you, hey look I giving you this money to do this. Now you are going to be contacted by somebody and this guy is Ok, his name is so and so, he is coming to get this. Now, make this guy up, you know, give this guy identification, do this, do that, or now we want you to forge, we want you to forge some money. Not American money. Although we did have the plates. Q: I will turn off the recorder. A: No, no, no. Q: I will bet Cuban money though, right? A: Yeah, Cuban money, Chilean money. Q: I meant to ask you, when you all were in, you know, from like Arizona to Dallas, and back, I think do you have anybody you were supposed to contact if you had a big problem or anything like that? A: Not anybody locally no. Q: I mean nationally? A: Oh, well, we always had, we would, we always had like for instance, Twombly. We would call Twombly. Twombly, of course, you know, he owned a bank. I mean, he could, there was no doubt that if you had any kind of problem that money would solve, you could …….. Q: He could do it. Q: Is he still alive? A: I don't know. He asked me the same thing. Probably is. I will find out as soon as I get back. He had a big ranch in Fullerton and so I have a feeling. I know he, I know he was alive up in the 1980's. And he really wasn't that old, although he had been around a long time, and he had been a vice president, executive vice president of Coca-Cola, he was an executive vice president of Coca-Cola when he was 29 years old. You know in charge of Caribbean operations and so, he probably, chances are, he is probably still alive. But he would only be three years older than I am, you know. So he is probably, a lot of those guys from Bank America area still, those guys from Bank of America who also were alive are still alive, had matter of fact, they, one of their names came up the other day, because they helped form BCCI. Q: Yeah. Q: It all comes around. A: So they had that, so a lot of those guys, I don't know whether they are alive or not, because I never had any reason, I never had any reason to contact them or anything. But, when I go back, I will try to find them. I promised Gary that I would try to get everybody that I can think of, that will be able to tell him something about me. Some of them may say, hey wait a minute. Including, I have to mention, I will get the attorney, the attorneys that you know I had talked to, they represented me at various stages, one of whom is now the commissioner of insurance for the state of California. Uh, the judge who sentenced me, who saw the, who saw and read the CIA file. And as you remember, you, when you talked to Sue, you remember she told you what happened with that, they came down there with two big, thick files, I mean they were thick and let one guy read one sentence out of there, all it said was that Chauncey Holt, Kearney Siegler, John R Moon, William Dean Rutz, right down the line, are not now and never have been employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. That is all they said. And ofcourse, that, so they left them read that in, and they wouldn't let the, wouldn't let my attorney cross examine him, or do anything. He just got up, the agents gots up and read this into the record. What they do -- (End of Tape) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wim Dankbaar Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Maybe Lamar Wadron and Thom Hartmann, in light of the interview above, would be so kind to explain the statement on Dave Perry's site here: http://davesjfk.com/holt.html Shaw and someone named Holt. Remarkably I received the following reply:"We had a meeting with Chauncey Holt over the weekend of September 28, 1991 at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. Gary Shaw, Cara Shaw, Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann were there." I had never heard of Waldron or Hartmann and concluded they either discovered or were representing Holt - maybe both. On November 4, 2005 I received an e-mail from Lamar Waldron concerning my belief expressed above. It reads: "Hartmann and I neither discovered or represented Holt. We were simply invited to question him, which we did. We did not find his claims about being one of the "three tramps" to be credible." What exactly was not credible? Wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wim Dankbaar Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 John Simkin, this should be of interest to you: http://www.jimhougan.com/JimJones2.html A few years earlier, in 1957, Mitrione had spent three months at the FBI's National Academy. [58] The connections he'd made stood him in good stead. Immediately after his interview with the ICA, he was hired by the State Department as a "public safety adviser." Three months later, in September, 1960 he was in Rio de Janeiro, studying Portuguese; by December, he was living with his family in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Whether Mitrione was an undercover CIA officer in South America is disputed. The Soviets say he was. [59] Officially, however, Mitrione was an AID officer attached to the Office of Public Safety (OPS). But OPS was very much a nest of spies: in the Dominican Republic during the mid-1960s, for example, six out of twenty positions were CIA covers. [60] Moreover, Mitrione's partner at the time of his 1970 kidnapping in Uruguay was a public safety officer named Lee Echols---whose previous assignment had been as a CIA officer in the Dominican Republic. [61 -------------------- Q: Who was telling you? A: Philip Twombly was telling us. Also, things came from Francis Sherry -- Ex-CIA guy that was down in, was down in Mexico. And, we were hearing from, we heard it from a lot of different sources. We heard from Lee Echols, there was a Q: Who was Lee Echols? A: Lee Echols was an ex-CIA guy that was living in San Diego at that time. I don't think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 Wim, Lee Echols was an OSS veteran and a very close friend of David Atlee Phillips. He was also a national shooting champion and excelled as a counter-insurgency expert in Latin America. While in the Dominican Republic, Echols handled Robert Emmett Johnson. FWIW. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassinationby Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann Subtitled Robert Kennedy, National Security, The Mafia, and the Search for the Hidden Truth, Legacy of Secrecy is due to be released in the spring. http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Secrecy-Long-...=pd_sim_b_img_2 The new book bears the same title as chapter sixty-one of Ultimate Sacrifice. http://books.google.com/books?id=YOWNw_rmT...Yzh8U#PPA770,M1 Has anybody read this book? BK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Heidenheimer Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 I have not read this book, but I read the first one by Waldron and Hartmann. I notice that this book is endorsed enthusiastically by Joseph Califano. Is he used as a source very much in this book? If so is his material reviewed crtically and carefully, or is it just accepted without any analysis of Califano's motives. This guy has heavy axes to grind and is one of the most connected organinsms in Washington. Any use of his comments on the history of Watergate should be looked at very very very carefully. Of course this does not necessarily mean that Califano's comments are untrue or misleading. Im just wondering how much Waldron informs his readers of Califano's shadeletts. Its hard to imagine more of an insider-- only question is inside what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 I have not read this book, but I read the first one by Waldron and Hartmann. I notice that this book is endorsed enthusiastically by Joseph Califano. Is he used as a source very much in this book? If so is his material reviewed crtically and carefully, or is it just accepted without any analysis of Califano's motives. This guy has heavy axes to grind and is one of the most connected organinsms in Washington. Any use of his comments on the history of Watergate should be looked at very very very carefully.Of course this does not necessarily mean that Califano's comments are untrue or misleading. Im just wondering how much Waldron informs his readers of Califano's shadeletts. Its hard to imagine more of an insider-- only question is inside what? It isn't Califano's role in Watergate but his role in the Cuban Corrdinating Committee that gets him introuble, in the room when they approved the specific covert maritime operations that were later turned and used agatinst Kennedy at Dealey Plaza. And he's one of the few - along with Halpern and Haig who claim that JFK and RFK approved the specific plots to kill Castro that were utilized to kill Kennedy. BK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Heidenheimer Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 I have not read this book, but I read the first one by Waldron and Hartmann. I notice that this book is endorsed enthusiastically by Joseph Califano. Is he used as a source very much in this book? If so is his material reviewed crtically and carefully, or is it just accepted without any analysis of Califano's motives. This guy has heavy axes to grind and is one of the most connected organinsms in Washington. Any use of his comments on the history of Watergate should be looked at very very very carefully.Of course this does not necessarily mean that Califano's comments are untrue or misleading. Im just wondering how much Waldron informs his readers of Califano's shadeletts. Its hard to imagine more of an insider-- only question is inside what? It isn't Califano's role in Watergate but his role in the Cuban Corrdinating Committee that gets him introuble, in the room when they approved the specific covert maritime operations that were later turned and used agatinst Kennedy at Dealey Plaza. And he's one of the few - along with Halpern and Haig who claim that JFK and RFK approved the specific plots to kill Castro that were utilized to kill Kennedy. BK ------- Yes, Bill it is that ""AMWORLD"" role of Califanon that I was mostly was thinking of when I mentioned Califano's questionable contributions. On that topic I thought that you were a major AMWORLD sceptic, although I could be overgeneralizing, and perhaps using the wrong term. Was there one Part of the Califano and Haig role that was described in Ultimate Sac. that you DID agree with and another part that you did not? I would be interested in hearing your breakdown if you have the time. Also am I mistaken in recalling a role of Cy Vance? Was he Army Sec at the time? Do you know if Vance backed up Halpern and Co's. Bobby claim and also the claim that both JFK and RFK DIRECTLY approved SPECIFIC plans to kill Castro? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 I have not read this book, but I read the first one by Waldron and Hartmann. I notice that this book is endorsed enthusiastically by Joseph Califano. Is he used as a source very much in this book? If so is his material reviewed crtically and carefully, or is it just accepted without any analysis of Califano's motives. This guy has heavy axes to grind and is one of the most connected organinsms in Washington. Any use of his comments on the history of Watergate should be looked at very very very carefully.Of course this does not necessarily mean that Califano's comments are untrue or misleading. Im just wondering how much Waldron informs his readers of Califano's shadeletts. Its hard to imagine more of an insider-- only question is inside what? It isn't Califano's role in Watergate but his role in the Cuban Corrdinating Committee that gets him introuble, in the room when they approved the specific covert maritime operations that were later turned and used agatinst Kennedy at Dealey Plaza. And he's one of the few - along with Halpern and Haig who claim that JFK and RFK approved the specific plots to kill Castro that were utilized to kill Kennedy. BK ------- Yes, Bill it is that ""AMWORLD"" role of Califanon that I was mostly was thinking of when I mentioned Califano's questionable contributions. On that topic I thought that you were a major AMWORLD sceptic, although I could be overgeneralizing, and perhaps using the wrong term. Was there one Part of the Califano and Haig role that was described in Ultimate Sac. that you DID agree with and another part that you did not? I would be interested in hearing your breakdown if you have the time. Also am I mistaken in recalling a role of Cy Vance? Was he Army Sec at the time? Do you know if Vance backed up Halpern and Co's. Bobby claim and also the claim that both JFK and RFK DIRECTLY approved SPECIFIC plans to kill Castro? Hey Nate, I'm skeptical of the focus of the interest being on the so-called plan for a coup in Cuba that never happened, when in fact, the real coup took place in the USA. Like Larry Hancock says, Hartman and Waldron have a lot of good information, as does Gus Russo, information that provides additional pieces to the puzzle, but that doesn't mean you have to accept their unreasonable conclusions. The part I don't agree with is their making up a name C-Day for an event that never happened, and the continued attempts to pin the blame for the Castro plots on RFK. Like Russo, they have a bug up their arse about RFK, and play this pin the tail on the donkey game, when in fact, their hypothesis that specific plots - plans to kill Castro redirected their target and killed JFK. Waldron and Harmman say that the Mafia infiltrated this plot and hijacked it, while Russo says that Oswald was a Cuban sympathiser who took money from Cuban G2 and knew Cuban agent Fabian Escalente in Minsk, Mexico City and Dallas. I say that those who were behind specific CIA/DOD maritime raids, approved by JFK and known about by RFK, were the ones who pulled the switcheroo and retarged their aim to JFK. Both Walman/Hartman and Russo/Molton claim the assassination was a conspiracy, but one from outside the government - Mafia or Cuban G2, while I say it was an inside job, coup d'etat. But Vance, as Secretary of the Army, and his assistant Califano, were right at the heart of the JCS/CIA collaboration on support for the Cuban raiders, and they opperated together out of the SACSA, Room 2D 958 at the Pentagon. I thought Califano testified before HSCA but I can't find that transcript, so maybe my memory is wrong. In any case, he's still alive to answer questions. BK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 http://www.nypost.com/seven/01062009/gossi...htm?&page=0 Liz Smith January 6, 2009 Posted: 2:27 am January 6, 2009'YEAH, I HAD the son of a bitch killed. I'm glad I did. I'm sorry I couldn't have done it myself!" These were the words of Carlos Marcello, the Mafia godfather of Louisiana and Texas. And he was talking about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Marcello's startling admission is in uncensored FBI files at the National Archives, detailed for the first time in a new encyclopedic book "Legacy of Secrecy." I have been referring to this work off and on for years while the author, Lamar Waldron, completed his investigation into the murders of John and Robert Kennedy and also into the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. Waldron's 848-page tome was published in November. It caps 20 years of research that began in 1988 when he didn't know that Marcello had confessed to JFK's murder back in 1985. The FBI kept this fact a secret for more than two decades while "conspiracy theorists" ranged all over the place. And . . . the Warren Commission released its fairy-tale version of the death of JFK at the hands of a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. IN 1963, only weeks after JFK was killed, the FBI questioned 14 Marcello mob associates. Yet the godfather's name doesn't even appear in the Warren Report. This secrecy, it seems, was all because of Cuba. (And that info is contained in Waldron's first incredible book, "Ultimate Sacrifice.") In their massive war against the Mafia, President Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy were never able to convict any members of the Marcello crime family. And Marcello didn't make his admission of guilt until he was serving a long prison sentence as a result of an FBI sting called BRILAB. The FBI also carried on a sting against Marcello with the code name CAMTEX. The FBI groomed an informant who became Carlos Marcello's cellmate. These tapes have never been released but they reveal the godfather standing in the prison yard, flying into a rage and cussing the Kennedys. Marcello confessed that he'd also met Lee Harvey Oswald and brought him into the plot via that Louisiana character David Ferrie, a person notably played by actor Joe Pesci in Oliver Stone's conspiracy movie "JFK." Marcello also admitted that it was he who had set up Jack Ruby "in the bar business in Dallas." (As we know, Ruby did his bit for the Marcello plot when he killed Lee Harvey Oswald before he could implicate anyone else.) There is now massive evidence, compiled by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded in 1979 that Marcello "had the motive, means and opportunity to have the president assassinated." YOU MAY WONDER why the FBI and CIA withheld information from the committee. By the time of JFK's murder, dozens of Marcello associates had infiltrated a CIA operation code-named AMWORLD, a project started by JFK himself. Writer Waldron revealed this back in 2005. This was the CIA's top-secret plan to cooperate with Cuba's army commander, Juan Almeida, to stage a coup against Fidel Castro on Dec. 1, 1963. That was 10 days after JFK's trip to Dallas. (The CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff even referred to the World War II plot to kill Hitler as their role model for getting rid of Castro. You can see that story told by Tom Cruise in the new movie "Valkyrie.") AMWORLD files show that these conspirators wanted to shoot Castro while he was riding in an open jeep. Marcello's men used that idea to kill JFK in an open car in Dallas. They then planted phony evidence implicating Castro. After Dallas, powers that be, confused and disoriented, felt that exposing all they really knew about JFK's assassination might well trigger a third world war, as it was only a year after we had escaped nuclear devastation in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Commander Almeida is still high in command in Cuba although he was under house arrest in the early '90s. Today, he is the No. 3 official in Cuba. Yet shortly after JFK's death, Castro had Che Guevara put under house arrest on suspicion of being the coup leader against him. This triggered a series of events that would eventually lead to the iconic revolutionary leader's death in Bolivia. (You can see that story in the Steven Soderbergh movie "Che." The title role is notably played by actor Benicio Del Toro.) NOBODY SEEMS ever to have completely solved the Mafia-type hit murders leveled at Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana and the popular mob lieutenant Johnny Rosselli. But this indicates to me that these mobsters, who were involved in JFK's plot to get rid of Castro, were rubbed out by Marcello associates simply because they seemed to be helping the Kennedys. The 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution was Jan. 1. Commander Almeida again seems to escape Castro's revenge and he is believed able even yet to play a role in resolving the impasse between the US and Cuba. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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