German Connections

[William Kelly]

GERMAN CONNECTIONS TO THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK

- The US Joint Chiefs of Staff and top military generals were at a meeting at the Pentagon with visiting German military staff at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy. The meeting was interrupted by the announcemet about the assassination and then resumed.

- President Kennedy repeatedly questioned, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, what the Russians would do in Berlin if we invaded Cuba.

- William Harvey, Shackley, Morales and other CIA officers in the Cuban program came fresh from cold war operations against the Russians in Berlin.

- Frank Bender, of Bay of Pigs fame, was previously assigned to German operations, and may have been German.

- Some of those who assisted LHO and family when they first arrived from USSR were associated with Project Paperclip or the Gehlen organization, former Nazi operations and networks revived by the CIA.

- The assassination rifle was first, and apparently mistakenly identified as a German Mauser.

- Bradley E. Ayers claims that a CIA officer named "Karl," of German extraction, and assistant to Gordon Campbell, died in a strange helicopter accident in Florida.

- According to Evan Thomas (Washington Monthly – Dec. 95), Castro's DGI were trained by East German intelligence agency.

- Gen. Walker, who was shot at on April 10, 1963, was stationed in Germany when he distributed right-wing propaganda to his troops, which led to his dismissal.

- The co-producers, with Gus Russo, of a German documentary film on the assassination, supports the cover-story that Castro was behind the assassination.

- Marita Lorenz, Castro/Sturgis mistress, daughter of captain of German tourist cruise ship that put into Havana.

- Other 1,2,3

Edited March 5, 2008 by William Kelly

[Greg Parker]

Frank Bender, of Bay of Pigs fame, was previously assigned to German operations, and may have been German.

Yes. Born in Germany. real surname Droller. first name was Jerry? (from memory)

Other 1,2,3

Franz Waehauf - RCN connection in MC

Larrie Schmidt - CUSA

Volkmar Schmidt - party thrower

Lee Harvey Oswald - alleged assassin. Did try and learn some German, and some fake names associated with him have a German ring to them.

The Kloepfer family - NO quakers

William Kloepfer - Clay Shaw associate

Renatus Hartogs - Youth House psych. Testified before WC

George DeM - was of Germanic origin - at one time suspected of being Nazi agent - father lived out WWII in Germany

Werner Von Alvensleben - Hosted Nov '63 safari for Dryhole Byrd and Gen Doolittle. Father was instrumental in elevating Hitler to power and was probably involved in later plots to kill him

Senator Dodd - Dodd committee - WC - Nuremburg trials

John McCloy - WC - Nuremburg trials

Edited February 16, 2008 by Greg Parker

[Antti Hynonen]

William Kelly Posted Feb 16 2008, 02:19 AM

GERMAN CONNECTIONS TO THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK

- The US Joint Chiefs of Staff and top military generals were at a meeting at the Pentagon with visiting German military staff at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy. The meeting was interrupted by the announcemet about the assassination and then resumed.

- President Kennedy repeatedly questioned, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, what the Russians in Berlin would be if we invaded Cuba.

- William Harvey, Shackley, Morales and other CIA officers in the Cuban program came fresh from cold war operations against the Russians in Berlin.

- Frank Bender, of Bay of Pigs fame, was previously assigned to German operations, and may have been German.

- Some of those who assisted LHO and family when they first arrived from USSR were associated with Project Paperclip or the Gehlen organization, former Nazi operations and networks revived by the CIA.

- The assassination rifle was first, and apparently mistakenly identified as a German Mauser.

- Bradley E. Ayers claims that a CIA officer named "Karl," of German extraction, and assistant to Gordon Campbell, died in a strange helicopter accident in Florida.

- According to Evan Thomas (Washington Monthly – Dec. 95), Castro's DGI were trained by East German intelligence agency.

- Gen. Walker, who was shot at on April 10, 1963, was stationed in Germany when he distributed right-wing propaganda to his troops, which led to his dismissal.

- Wim., who bought into the stories of James Files and Judith Baker, is from Germany.

- The co-producers, with Gus Russo, of a German documentary film on the assassination, supports the cover-story that Castro was behind the assassination.

- Marita Lorenz, Castro/Sturgis mistress, daughter of captain of German tourist cruise ship that put into Havana.

- Other 1,2,3

Wim (Willem) Dankbaar is from the Netherlands.

[Thomas Graves]

William Kelly Posted Feb 16 2008, 02:19 AM

GERMAN CONNECTIONS TO THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK

- The US Joint Chiefs of Staff and top military generals were at a meeting at the Pentagon with visiting German military staff at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy. The meeting was interrupted by the announcemet about the assassination and then resumed.

- President Kennedy repeatedly questioned, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, what the Russians in Berlin would be if we invaded Cuba.

- William Harvey, Shackley, Morales and other CIA officers in the Cuban program came fresh from cold war operations against the Russians in Berlin.

- Frank Bender, of Bay of Pigs fame, was previously assigned to German operations, and may have been German.

- Some of those who assisted LHO and family when they first arrived from USSR were associated with Project Paperclip or the Gehlen organization, former Nazi operations and networks revived by the CIA.

- The assassination rifle was first, and apparently mistakenly identified as a German Mauser.

- Bradley E. Ayers claims that a CIA officer named "Karl," of German extraction, and assistant to Gordon Campbell, died in a strange helicopter accident in Florida.

- According to Evan Thomas (Washington Monthly – Dec. 95), Castro's DGI were trained by East German intelligence agency.

- Gen. Walker, who was shot at on April 10, 1963, was stationed in Germany when he distributed right-wing propaganda to his troops, which led to his dismissal.

- Wim., who bought into the stories of James Files and Judith Baker, is from Germany.

- The co-producers, with Gus Russo, of a German documentary film on the assassination, supports the cover-story that Castro was behind the assassination.

- Marita Lorenz, Castro/Sturgis mistress, daughter of captain of German tourist cruise ship that put into Havana.

- Other 1,2,3

Wim (Willem) Dankbaar is from the Netherlands.

_______________________________________

Oh well, close enough. (LOL)

--Thomas

_______________________________________

Edited February 20, 2008 by Thomas Graves

[John Dolva]

GERMAN CONNECTIONS TO THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK

As an assistant secretary in the War Department during the war:

*McCloy blocked the executions of nazi war criminals

*Forged a pact with the Vichy Regime of pro-nazi Admiral Darlan.

*Displaced Japanese-Americans in California to internment camps.*

*Refused to recommend the bombing of nazi concentration camps to spare the inmates on grounds "the cost would be out of proportion to any possible benefits."

*Refused Jewish refugees entry to the U.S.

In 1952 McCloy left Germany...(and.)... became president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, director of a dozen blue chip corporations, and legal counsel to the "Seven Sisters" of American oil. During this period he acquired a client, the Nobel oil firm, whose interests in Czarist Russia had been managed by the father of George de Mohrenschildt, Lee and Marina Oswald's "best friend" in Dallas."

"South River, New Jersey: VorKommando Moskau’s new home

One of the most brutal groups ever to settle in New Jersey since the English killed the Indians was the VorKommando Moskau, originally formed by the SS as they advanced into Eastern Europe and recruited White Russians fleeing their homeland. "VorKommando Moskau was an elite forward unit of SS intelligence on the Soviet front. Its primary mission was anti-Communist intelligence, but it was also responsible for security screening of the occupied populations in the broad sector of the Eastern Front... VorKommando Moskau did not kill the Jews. [Or the Slavs, who were also slaughtered in large numbers.] It hired the collaborators, who recruited the executioners, who killed the Jews. From 1940 to 1942 this one small unit acted as an employment agency for the architects of the Nazi genocide in Eastern Europe." They primarily hired Eastern Europeans. [20]

During his tenure as Nazi hunter in the Justice Department, John Loftus discovered how the White Russians in the VorKommando Moskau were heavily recruited by the US government to fight the Soviets and how all documentation of their Nazi past was well hidden from prying eyes. "Many of the White Russian Nazis had been resettled en masse in the town of South River, New Jersey." [21] Allen Dulles and Bill Casey, who was later Reagan’s CIA director, resettled most of the Vorkommando Moskau’s elite leadership group in the New York - New Jersey area. [22] In April, 1998 it was discovered that Casey sought for and received a dispensation from the Justice Department so that CIA officers would not have to reveal drug trafficking on the part of their contract workers and this 6 months before large scale trafficking began in support of the Nicaraguan Contras. Casey was an old pro at sanitizing the unmentionable."

________________________

26 February, 1963 - President Kennedy visits West Berlin.

28th Premier Khrushchev visits East Berlin.

3 September, 1963 - Vice President Johnson arrives in Stockholm on a visit to the Scandinavian countries.

29 November, 1963: - Kennedy assassinated

29 November, 1963:

"To head off any congressional investigations, President Johnson decided to create a blue-ribbon commission that would be headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren and composed of august leaders like Senator Richard Russell. When Russell said he didn't like Warren and refused the assignment, Johnson told him that he had no choice, that it already had been announced, that he could work with anyone for the good of America, and that Oswald's apparent connection to Castro and Khrushchev had to be prevented "from kicking us into a war that can kill forty million Americans in an hour."

27-28 December, 1963

Germanys Chancellor Erhard Visits the LBJ Ranch,

"PRESIDENT Johnson and Chancellor Erhard have held a series of frank and far-ranging talks at the President's ranch in Texas in the last 2 days. A number of their discussions were private; in other talks they were joined by Secretary Rusk, Foreign Minister Schroder, and other advisers.

The Chancellor told the President of the deep sorrow and sense of personal loss which the German people have felt over the death of President Kennedy. The President expressed deep appreciation for himself and for the American people for this expression of sympathy. He paid a tribute to the late President Heuss, the distinguished first President of the Federal Republic.

The President and the Chancellor both emphasized the importance which they attach to this opportunity to meet early in their Administrations. Their extensive discussions serve to confirm the close understanding and high measure of agreement between the two governments on major international issues. These conversations have made it emphatically clear that there will be continuity"

With Chancellor Erhards staff at Johnsons ranch was Dr Ewald Peters, chief of security (and in charge of security during Kennedy's visit to Germany.)

"He was a top-flight professional and a very decent fellow" recalls a young American security officer who often worked with the trim, gray haired Kriminalrat..."

Ewald Peters

- In mid January, 1964 during Munich trial of a SS Officer, the name Peters is mentioned in testimony...and within a week this Peters is identified as the 49 year old Ewald.

He is arrested on the return to Germany from a trip to Rome with Chancellor Erhard.

SS Obersturmführer Ewald Peters, Kommando C, Squad Six, one of about 1000 murderers in the Einsatzkommando, (extermination squad), responsible for the extermination of perhaps a million Nazi Victims as the Wermacht penetrated into Ukraine and Southern USSR

Feb 4, 1964 - The New York Times, Bonn: Security Aide Hangs Himself in Jail

(image)?

___________________________

"Arrested on charges of participating in the mass murder of Jews in southern Russia was West Germany's top bodyguard, U.S.-trained Ewald Peters, who heads the federal government's criminal security police. Peters' job was to protect both West German and visiting statesmen, and he was rated as excellent on both scores. U.S. Secret Service men found him highly effective during President Kennedy's visit to West Germany last summer, and had seen him in action again last month (December '63) during Erhard's visit to President Johnson's Texas ranch. Just who* fingered Peters, the Interior Ministry was not saying, but there may have been more ghosts in the East German dossier than anyone suspected."

From the Feb. 7, 1964 issue of TIME magazine

______________

*East German Nazi Hunters unearthed Ewald (pal of Us pres detail, head of German Security during Kennedy visits.

- after a few footnotes in a few papers, Ewald fades into history.

- Johnson pratctically 'orders' Erhard to take a more active role in Latin/South America while preparing more direct involvement in Vietnam (US did finance near 100% french forces + 80% weaponry, so the 'escalation' was merely a shift.

Edited March 5, 2008 by John Dolva

[William Kelly]

Thanks to Greg, Peter and John for additions to the list, and as for Wim, I removed him from the list, though I thought he was German living in Netherlands. Maybe he can straighten us out.

Here's more on Gerry Droller/Frank Bender:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;#entry21663

BK

[William Plumlee]

GERMAN CONNECTIONS TO THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK

- The US Joint Chiefs of Staff and top military generals were at a meeting at the Pentagon with visiting German military staff at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy. The meeting was interrupted by the announcemet about the assassination and then resumed.

- President Kennedy repeatedly questioned, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, what the Russians would do in Berlin if we invaded Cuba.

- William Harvey, Shackley, Morales and other CIA officers in the Cuban program came fresh from cold war operations against the Russians in Berlin.

- Frank Bender, of Bay of Pigs fame, was previously assigned to German operations, and may have been German.

- Some of those who assisted LHO and family when they first arrived from USSR were associated with Project Paperclip or the Gehlen organization, former Nazi operations and networks revived by the CIA.

- The assassination rifle was first, and apparently mistakenly identified as a German Mauser.

- Bradley E. Ayers claims that a CIA officer named "Karl," of German extraction, and assistant to Gordon Campbell, died in a strange helicopter accident in Florida.

- According to Evan Thomas (Washington Monthly – Dec. 95), Castro's DGI were trained by East German intelligence agency.

- Gen. Walker, who was shot at on April 10, 1963, was stationed in Germany when he distributed right-wing propaganda to his troops, which led to his dismissal.

- The co-producers, with Gus Russo, of a German documentary film on the assassination, supports the cover-story that Castro was behind the assassination.

- Marita Lorenz, Castro/Sturgis mistress, daughter of captain of German tourist cruise ship that put into Havana.

- Other 1,2,3

Bender was German. he also used other names..... Toney, Frank, and Mac and David. His real name you know was Gerald Drollor (spelling erro) he was also a friend of one named Damon from the "Demon project". also he was previous OSS in Germany) FWIW

P.S. There was a strange helicopter accident but it was not the person mentioned by Brad, or the location. The company was Petroleum Helicopters, Lafayette, LA. and Morgan City LA. The safe house was the hotel, "Dixie...., across from the RR tracks. I gave a wrong name to see where it would go... and .... Perhaps Lemkin would like to chim in on this... Brad, Peter, and I meet at Peter's home in Salona Beach, CA; in 1990 I think it was. It was before Jim Marrs and our trip to Miami and before the hurricane Andrew. (year before I think)

Edited March 5, 2008 by William Plumlee

[Wim Dankbaar]

Walter Dornberger, former Nazi, head of the V1 rocket program in Germany (above Werner von Braun) and boss of Michael Paine at Bell Aerospace.

Wim

[Greg Parker]

Thanks to Greg, Peter and John for additions to the list, and as for Wim, I removed him from the list, though I thought he was German living in Netherlands. Maybe he can straighten us out.

Here's more on Gerry Droller/Frank Bender:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;#entry21663

BK

Bill, here's another - Elsa Silbernagel.

Jerry Rose article about her here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=3

And I seem to recall a flap some time ago about another German female?

[William Kelly]

Thanks to Greg, Peter and John for additions to the list, and as for Wim, I removed him from the list, though I thought he was German living in Netherlands. Maybe he can straighten us out.

Here's more on Gerry Droller/Frank Bender:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;#entry21663

BK

Bill, here's another - Elsa Silbernagel.

Jerry Rose article about her here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=3

And I seem to recall a flap some time ago about another German female?

Gee Greg, Thanks, how did I miss that.

Yea, you made me think of Marita Lorenz - didn't her father Captain a German cruse ship to Havana?

I know that's not who you are thinking about.

So Larry Meyers' had a German girlfriend he dumped?

BK

[Jim Root]

John

Just to clarify a couple of points about John J. McCloy (whom I believe may of had a great deal to do with the assassination of JFK).

You wrote:

As an assistant secretary in the War Department during the war:

*McCloy blocked the executions of nazi war criminals"

McCloy was the American High Commissioner of Germany at the time the sentences of many Germans were reduced. McCloy in fact had nine Germans executed while AHC. He did set up a panel that reviewed and reduced the sentences of 77 Germans most of which had not been sentenced to death. Put into prospective this was a period that war with the Soviet Union seemed not only possible but probable in the near future. The American Joint Chiefs were pushing for the rearmament of Germany to curtail this threat. In response to the American push for the rearmament of West Germany we find this quote from "America's Germany, John j. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany:

"Adenhauer asked for an end to war crimes trials, as well as the communtation of the remaining death sentences. He demanded the "complete restoration of German sovereignty in the administration of justice" as well as an end to the extradition of Germans to foreign countries. In conclusion he told the High Commissioners that the "state of public opinion is not healthy," and that they must act to reverse this situation. "Otherwise it will be very difficult, if not impossible , to win over the minds of the German people to voluntary cooperation in the defense of Europe." (Pg. 149)

Jim Root

[Robert Howard]

If there can be a beginning, to all the intrigues and controversies into what would later result in the assassination of President Kennedy there is one area of special interest, at least one among others.

It first came to my attention after reading the book American Swastika by Charles Higham. Although the book has to be read from start to finish to absorb the full impact of the areas Higham delves into, one could begin with Chapter 7, which is entitled....

The Theft of The Victory Program.

In this chapter Higham explores the dynamics of Hitler's Declaration of War on the United States, and takes exception to, at least one historian who claimed that "no reason could be found for Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States. The historian was Professor Gordon Craig who, according to Higham made the claim in The New York Review of Books dated July 21, 1983.

Be that as it may, that is not the point of this post, but the premise provides a starting point for Higham's intriguing look at the Victory Program, which is according to him a part of the Rainbow Five overall war plan. Higham writes on page 135, "the Victory Program, a part of the overall war plan, was a top-secret proposal under lock and key in the War Department, available only to the supreme chiefs of staff, and arguably the most highly classified document in the possession of the White House."

To address the question of whether this information was leaked to the Government of Germany, Higham goes on to illustrate a series of leaks, in which he documents the actions and activities of several persons.....Two of these individuals were

The architect of the Rainbow Five Program, Brig. General Leonard T. Gerow, and then, Colonel Albert C. Wedemeyer.

Expounding on Wedemeyer, Higham wrote "Colonel Wedewmeyer had an interesting history. His father's parents were born in Germany, and he himself had been educated in part at the German War College, in Berlin. He rented his apartment in the German capital from a member of the Nazi Party, General Rossbach, and during his sojourn became a great friend of General Ludwig Beck,chief of the German General Staff. His introductions to Beck were arranged by Lieutenant General Friedrich von Boetticher, German military attache in Washington. He corresponded regularly with his German contacts until the advent of World War II in Europe."

ibid, page 137

Wedemeyer......was friendly with Charles Lindbergh and acted as his interpreter in German uniform when the Lone Eagle visited various Nazi factories and Army posts and he was a keen supporter of General Robert Wood, the head of America First. Rightly or wrongly, he was regarded by the German Embassy in Washington as part of the pro-German military clique in the War Department. There is no question that he was a convinced isolationist who sincerely believed that the United States was not obliged to commit itself to war on behalf of Great Britain.

Wedemeyer was in his soul opposed to the purpose expressed in the very Victory Program to which he was assigned. Precisely why Roosevelt instructed him to draw up the plan, and then why Wedemeyer chose to execute it, can only be regarded as a joint execution of executive duty which overrode personal considerations.

Wedemeyer worked scrupulously on the Program. Five typewritten draft copies, meticulously numbered and registered, were sent by him to Secretary of War Stimson, Assistant Secretary of War John J McCloy, chief of staff George Marshall, and chief of the War Plans Division Gerow, with one copy retained by Wedemeyer. In the meantime, rumors flew around Washington of the existence of the program.........

ibid, page 138.

In the same time frame as the events above were taking place, there were communications being sent to Berlin by Hans Thomsen and Boetticher to Berlin indicating that a series of contacts had been established at the General Staff, centering upon the War Department itself. Members of this group held meetings at the home of former American military attache in Berlin Colonel Truman Smith.

Higham goes on to reveal that news of the Victory Program eventually reached, Eugene M. Duffeld, Washington staff correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, which was made public in the newspaper on October 20, 1941. Although he was unable to give details of the Victory Program, he described it as “a newly executed munitions schedule which Washington and London expect will defeat Hitler.” And went on to reveal the Program by name, adding that it called for a commitment of more than 65 % of the nations effort by 1943.

Clearly, if this information was true and the source was within the U S Government, knowledge of this information would leave no doubt to Hitler and the German government, that it would be naive to think that the U.S. Government would sit on the sidelines, if what was then a European conflict were to expand to any area outside of Europe, such as Japan.

Highman reveals that since Duffeld’s source was information contained from “random sources, and had not apparently had access to the Victory Program or Rainbow Five itself, the government let the matter pass.”

To be continued......

Edited November 8, 2008 by Robert Howard

[Robert Howard]

If there can be a beginning, to all the intrigues and controversies into what would later result in the assassination of President Kennedy there is one area of special interest, at least one among others.

It first came to my attention after reading the book American Swastika by Charles Higham. Although the book has to be read from start to finish to absorb the full impact of the areas Higham delves into, one could begin with Chapter 7, which is entitled....

The Theft of The Victory Program.

In this chapter Higham explores the dynamics of Hitler's Declaration of War on the United States, and takes exception to, at least one historian who claimed that "no reason could be found for Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States. The historian was Professor Gordon Craig who, according to Higham made the claim in The New York Review of Books dated July 21, 1983.

Be that as it may, that is not the point of this post, but the premise provides a starting point for Higham's intriguing look at the Victory Program, which is according to him a part of the Rainbow Five overall war plan. Higham writes on page 135, "the Victory Program, a part of the overall war plan, was a top-secret proposal under lock and key in the War Department, available only to the supreme chiefs of staff, and arguably the most highly classified document in the possession of the White House."

To address the question of whether this information was leaked to the Government of Germany, Higham goes on to illustrate a series of leaks, in which he documents the actions and activities of several persons.....Two of these individuals were

The architect of the Rainbow Five Program, Brig. General Leonard T. Gerow, and then, Colonel Albert C. Wedemeyer.

Expounding on Wedemeyer, Higham wrote "Colonel Wedewmeyer had an interesting history. His father's parents were born in Germany, and he himself had been educated in part at the German War College, in Berlin. He rented his apartment in the German capital from a member of the Nazi Party, General Rossbach, and during his sojourn became a great friend of General Ludwig Beck,chief of the German General Staff. His introductions to Beck were arranged by Lieutenant General Friedrich von Boetticher, German military attache in Washington. He corresponded regularly with his German contacts until the advent of World War II in Europe."

ibid, page 137

Wedemeyer......was friendly with Charles Lindbergh and acted as his interpreter in German uniform when the Lone Eagle visited various Nazi factories and Army posts and he was a keen supporter of General Robert Wood, the head of America First. Rightly or wrongly, he was regarded by the German Embassy in Washington as part of the pro-German military clique in the War Department. There is no question that he was a convinced isolationist who sincerely believed that the United States was not obliged to commit itself to war on behalf of Great Britain.

Wedemeyer was in his soul opposed to the purpose expressed in the very Victory Program to which he was assigned. Precisely why Roosevelt instructed him to draw up the plan, and then why Wedemeyer chose to execute it, can only be regarded as a joint execution of executive duty which overrode personal considerations.

Wedemeyer worked scrupulously on the Program. Five typewritten draft copies, meticulously numbered and registered, were sent by him to Secretary of War Stimson, Assistant Secretary of War John J McCloy, chief of staff George Marshall, and chief of the War Plans Division Gerow, with one copy retained by Wedemeyer. In the meantime, rumors flew around Washington of the existence of the program.........

ibid, page 138.

In the same time frame as the events above were taking place, there were communications being sent to Berlin by Hans Thomsen and Boetticher to Berlin indicating that a series of contacts had been established at the General Staff, centering upon the War Department itself. Members of this group held meetings at the home of former American military attache in Berlin Colonel Truman Smith.

Higham goes on to reveal that news of the Victory Program eventually reached, Eugene M. Duffeld, Washington staff correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, which was made public in the newspaper on October 20, 1941. Although he was unable to give details of the Victory Program, he described it as “a newly executed munitions schedule which Washington and London expect will defeat Hitler.” And went on to reveal the Program by name, adding that it called for a commitment of more than 65 % of the nations effort by 1943.

Clearly, if this information was true and the source was within the U S Government, knowledge of this information would leave no doubt to Hitler and the German government, that it would be naive to think that the U.S. Government would sit on the sidelines, if what was then a European conflict were to expand to any area outside of Europe, such as Japan.

Highman reveals that since Duffeld’s source was information contained from “random sources, and had not apparently had access to the Victory Program or Rainbow Five itself, the government let the matter pass.”

To be continued......

Higham’s expose of what was happening, behind the scenes before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, continues by revealing that there was not a single member of the War Department called to the White House for an accounting of the leak, contained in Duffeld’s column of October 20, 1941.

“Perhaps, though there is no evidence at Hyde Park, the President thought that if the story went without official comment it would vanish in the night.

If that was the President’s feeling, it was justified, since not even the German embassy seems to have included it in its daily dispatches to Berlin.

On the night of December 3, 1941, an officer attached to the War Plans Division decided on his own account to consult some of the [Rainbow Five] documents at home.”

These documents were several hundred pages long, and kept in a steel cabinet. That this activity was unauthorized, Higham records “is indicated by the fact that he found it necessary to wrap the file in heavy brown paper, to make it look like a parcel.”

Later that evening the [same] officer arrived at the home of then Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, and left the documents.

After Wheeler read the documents, he called Chesley Manly [of the Chicago Tribune] who, Higham states “was delighted.” And, at this point the Washington bureau of the Chicago Tribune advised the Tribune’s managing editor, J. Loy Maloney, that “a hot story was about to come in. But when Maloney received Manly’s version of Wheeler’s leak he felt uneasy.”

But after considering that to “release a state secret bordered on treason, and was perhaps in breach of the existing Espionage Act of 1917,” Maloney took the matter to his boss Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick. McCormick, according to Higham was a supporter of [burton] Wheeler in the Democratic primaries of 1940, and “expressed the hope that when Germany invaded Russia the two powers would destroy each other.........[Wheeler] was the ideal person whom Maloney could address his plea for judgement and McCormick instantly ordered the story to go front page.”

The story appeared in Thursday morning’s Chicago Tribune of December 4, 1941, headed “FDR’S WAR PLANS! GOAL IS TEN MILLION ARMED MEN, HALF TO FIGHT IN AEF. PROPOSES LAND DRIVE TO SMASH NAZIS; PRESIDENT TOLD OF EQUIPMENT SHORTAGE. *

Higham writes, “Both Lloyd Wendt, in Chicago Tribune: The Rise of a Great American Newspaper, and Burton K. Wheeler, in his memoirs, Yankee from the West, say that the article, which contained overleaf for several thousand words, did not contain classified information. These disclaimers are erroneous. The information supplied, was indeed classified top secret, and its release was a matter of the gravest danger to national security.”

What followed next was an attempt by the FBI’s J Edgar Hoover to determine if it was possible for anyone other than Wedemeyer, to have been responsible for the leak to have wound up on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. Hoover’s suspicions, according to Higham, fell upon two other individuals, General Newton Cavalcanti of the Brazilian Embassy, whom the National Archives in Washington maintained a file indicating “pro-Nazi leanings” and Senator David I Walsh, senior Senator from Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee.”

ibid, page 143.

* This information is also corroborated in the book Freedom From Fear - David Kennedy page 487

see

http://books.google.com/books?id=cL85ggyT9oYC&pg

Ultimately, the ramifications of these events, was the transmission of a cable from Hans Thomsen to [Joachim Von] Ribbentrop in Berlin on the very same day as the Chicago Tribune article appeared, December 4, 1941, and consequently found its way to Hitler’s desk.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Robert Howard

[Robert Howard]

If there can be a beginning, to all the intrigues and controversies into what would later result in the assassination of President Kennedy there is one area of special interest, at least one among others.

It first came to my attention after reading the book American Swastika by Charles Higham. Although the book has to be read from start to finish to absorb the full impact of the areas Higham delves into, one could begin with Chapter 7, which is entitled....

The Theft of The Victory Program.

In this chapter Higham explores the dynamics of Hitler's Declaration of War on the United States, and takes exception to, at least one historian who claimed that "no reason could be found for Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States. The historian was Professor Gordon Craig who, according to Higham made the claim in The New York Review of Books dated July 21, 1983.

Be that as it may, that is not the point of this post, but the premise provides a starting point for Higham's intriguing look at the Victory Program, which is according to him a part of the Rainbow Five overall war plan. Higham writes on page 135, "the Victory Program, a part of the overall war plan, was a top-secret proposal under lock and key in the War Department, available only to the supreme chiefs of staff, and arguably the most highly classified document in the possession of the White House."

To address the question of whether this information was leaked to the Government of Germany, Higham goes on to illustrate a series of leaks, in which he documents the actions and activities of several persons.....Two of these individuals were

The architect of the Rainbow Five Program, Brig. General Leonard T. Gerow, and then, Colonel Albert C. Wedemeyer.

Expounding on Wedemeyer, Higham wrote "Colonel Wedewmeyer had an interesting history. His father's parents were born in Germany, and he himself had been educated in part at the German War College, in Berlin. He rented his apartment in the German capital from a member of the Nazi Party, General Rossbach, and during his sojourn became a great friend of General Ludwig Beck,chief of the German General Staff. His introductions to Beck were arranged by Lieutenant General Friedrich von Boetticher, German military attache in Washington. He corresponded regularly with his German contacts until the advent of World War II in Europe."

ibid, page 137

Wedemeyer......was friendly with Charles Lindbergh and acted as his interpreter in German uniform when the Lone Eagle visited various Nazi factories and Army posts and he was a keen supporter of General Robert Wood, the head of America First. Rightly or wrongly, he was regarded by the German Embassy in Washington as part of the pro-German military clique in the War Department. There is no question that he was a convinced isolationist who sincerely believed that the United States was not obliged to commit itself to war on behalf of Great Britain.

Wedemeyer was in his soul opposed to the purpose expressed in the very Victory Program to which he was assigned. Precisely why Roosevelt instructed him to draw up the plan, and then why Wedemeyer chose to execute it, can only be regarded as a joint execution of executive duty which overrode personal considerations.

Wedemeyer worked scrupulously on the Program. Five typewritten draft copies, meticulously numbered and registered, were sent by him to Secretary of War Stimson, Assistant Secretary of War John J McCloy, chief of staff George Marshall, and chief of the War Plans Division Gerow, with one copy retained by Wedemeyer. In the meantime, rumors flew around Washington of the existence of the program.........

ibid, page 138.

In the same time frame as the events above were taking place, there were communications being sent to Berlin by Hans Thomsen and Boetticher to Berlin indicating that a series of contacts had been established at the General Staff, centering upon the War Department itself. Members of this group held meetings at the home of former American military attache in Berlin Colonel Truman Smith.

Higham goes on to reveal that news of the Victory Program eventually reached, Eugene M. Duffeld, Washington staff correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, which was made public in the newspaper on October 20, 1941. Although he was unable to give details of the Victory Program, he described it as “a newly executed munitions schedule which Washington and London expect will defeat Hitler.” And went on to reveal the Program by name, adding that it called for a commitment of more than 65 % of the nations effort by 1943.

Clearly, if this information was true and the source was within the U S Government, knowledge of this information would leave no doubt to Hitler and the German government, that it would be naive to think that the U.S. Government would sit on the sidelines, if what was then a European conflict were to expand to any area outside of Europe, such as Japan.

Highman reveals that since Duffeld’s source was information contained from “random sources, and had not apparently had access to the Victory Program or Rainbow Five itself, the government let the matter pass.”

To be continued......

Higham’s expose of what was happening, behind the scenes before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, continues by revealing that there was not a single member of the War Department called to the White House for an accounting of the leak, contained in Duffeld’s column of October 20, 1941.

“Perhaps, though there is no evidence at Hyde Park, the President thought that if the story went without official comment it would vanish in the night.

If that was the President’s feeling, it was justified, since not even the German embassy seems to have included it in its daily dispatches to Berlin.

On the night of December 3, 1941, an officer attached to the War Plans Division decided on his own account to consult some of the [Rainbow Five] documents at home.”

These documents were several hundred pages long, and kept in a steel cabinet. That this activity was unauthorized, Higham records “is indicated by the fact that he found it necessary to wrap the file in heavy brown paper, to make it look like a parcel.”

Later that evening the [same] officer arrived at the home of then Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, and left the documents.

After Wheeler read the documents, he called Chesley Manly [of the Chicago Tribune] who, Higham states “was delighted.” And, at this point the Washington bureau of the Chicago Tribune advised the Tribune’s managing editor, J. Loy Maloney, that “a hot story was about to come in. But when Maloney received Manly’s version of Wheeler’s leak he felt uneasy.”

But after considering that to “release a state secret bordered on treason, and was perhaps in breach of the existing Espionage Act of 1917,” Maloney took the matter to his boss Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick. McCormick, according to Higham was a supporter of [burton] Wheeler in the Democratic primaries of 1940, and “expressed the hope that when Germany invaded Russia the two powers would destroy each other.........[Wheeler] was the ideal person whom Maloney could address his plea for judgement and McCormick instantly ordered the story to go front page.”

The story appeared in Thursday morning’s Chicago Tribune of December 4, 1941, headed “FDR’S WAR PLANS! GOAL IS TEN MILLION ARMED MEN, HALF TO FIGHT IN AEF. PROPOSES LAND DRIVE TO SMASH NAZIS; PRESIDENT TOLD OF EQUIPMENT SHORTAGE. *

Higham writes, “Both Lloyd Wendt, in Chicago Tribune: The Rise of a Great American Newspaper, and Burton K. Wheeler, in his memoirs, Yankee from the West, say that the article, which contained overleaf for several thousand words, did not contain classified information. These disclaimers are erroneous. The information supplied, was indeed classified top secret, and its release was a matter of the gravest danger to national security.”

What followed next was an attempt by the FBI’s J Edgar Hoover to determine if it was possible for anyone other than Wedemeyer, to have been responsible for the leak to have wound up on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. Hoover’s suspicions, according to Higham, fell upon two other individuals, General Newton Cavalcanti of the Brazilian Embassy, whom the National Archives in Washington maintained a file indicating “pro-Nazi leanings” and Senator David I Walsh, senior Senator from Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee.”

ibid, page 143.

* This information is also corroborated in the book Freedom From Fear - David Kennedy page 487

see

http://books.google.com/books?id=cL85ggyT9oYC&pg

Ultimately, the ramifications of these events, was the transmission of a cable from Hans Thomsen to [Joachim Von] Ribbentrop in Berlin on the very same day as the Chicago Tribune article appeared, December 4, 1941, and consequently found its way to Hitler’s desk.

The cable, from Thomsen to Ribbentrop, read as follows: The publication on December 4 in the Chicago Tribune and the leading isolationist newspaper, the Washington Times-Herald, of the secret report of the American High Command to the President about the preparations and prospects for the defeat of Germany and her allies, is causing a sensation here.

Robert: What follows next is illustrative of, dare I say it, investigations, charges, counter-charges between members of G-2 military intelligence, and politicians as recorded below ostensibly engaged in determining who was responsible for the leak.

An activity, which, more or less, became less significant as a major news story upon news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Burton K Wheeler ironically announced that he personally would conduct an investigation into the leak -- a sure way of concealing its source."

"Congressman George Holden Tinkham obtained immediate permission from the members to reproduce the report

in the Congressional Record."

President "Roosevelt dispatched the reporters to the hard-pressed Henry L. Stimson, who said: 'The story is wanting in loyalty and patriotism. . . . What would you think of a general staff which did not investigate and study every conceivable type of emergency which might confront it? What do you think of the patriotism of a man or newspaper which would take these confidential stories and make them public to the enemies of the country"

"However, Pearl Harbor or no Pearl Harbor, J. Edgar Hoover would not be shaken off.......he kept pressing against Wedemeyer, while failing to grill Wheeler, Walsh or Cavalcanti. Edward Tamm was put in special charge of the case.

He asked again and again, on the Monday after Pearl Harbor, what security methods Wedemeyer had used to protect the Victory Program. Tamm's assistant Joseph Genau also cross-questioned Wedemeyer, chiefly in order to ascertain evidence of "guilt" in his demeanor."

"An anonymous letter, addressed to Stimson, and signed with the initials "OSA" appeared, saying that Wedemeyer 'thinks and says Hitler is a savior and after America is taken over by the people and National Socialism is established here, the present injustices in government will be swept away.'"

"On February 19, 1942 Captains Bradford and Sernau interviewed Assistant Secretary John J. McCloy on the matter. McCloy, while not specifically repeating his charges against Wedemeyer, said he thought he 'might be responsible.'"

"Wedemeyer was subsequently cleared. Stimson reportedly confirmed Wedemeyer's undivided loyalty and dedication to his country. There is no need to differ with that opinion today"

ibid, pages 144-46

Higham, after detailing the plethora of information regarding the leaks of the Victory Program, goes on to mention there was "one possible solution" to the material already printed in this post.

Making reference to William Stevenson's biography of Sir William Stephenson in A Man Called Intrepid, Stevenson notes that Stephenson was the British wartime security chief of security coordination in New York, "whose two senior

right-hand men, Sir William Wiseman.....and Charles Howard Ellis both had Nazi connections.

Higham goes on to reveal that allegedly the "Victory Program was a plant, and that "The Political Warfare Division of [british Security Coordination] concocted the Victory Program out of material already known to have reached the enemy in dribs and drabs and added some misleading information."

Other, more intriguing possibilities regarding a higher political level of intrigue Stephenson's biographer offers the reader, is the implication, or that it is implied, that Sir William Stephenson was authorized to leak the plan. Adding that "what he leaked was not, as he say's, a fake [plan], but the real article."

Higham writes on page 147-48 of American Swastika, of what I consider to be the most intruiging possiblities.

"Another possibility suggests itself, Charles Howard Ellis was Stephenson's right-hand man. It is possible that he deliberately informed Sir William Stephenson that the program was false in order to plant it on behalf of his Soviet controls? Nothing more likely exists than that the Russians would want to distract the Germans with war against the United States, to draw them away from their already invaded territory......It would also explain [since Ellis was a Nazi agent] how information on the leak reached the German embassy before it reached the Tribune and why Senator Wheeler would trust his emissary, since his secretary was now in the Berlin radio receiving office. All this must of course, be speculation at the moment. The only alternative is to believe that Sir William Stephenson willingly abstracted the authentic Victory Program, the most important single document in possession of the United States government, and leaked it to the enemy, on presidential and prime-ministerial orders.

[Kathleen Collins]

Bill, here's another - Elsa Silbernagel.

Jerry Rose article about her here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=3

And I seem to recall a flap some time ago about another German female?

Was Ellen Rometsch German or Russian? Also Pres Kennedy was involved with a German (?) spy, Ingrid Arvard, and he had to break it up.

Kathy C