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Biography: Harvey Kaltas


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I was born and raised in Massachusetts and took it especially hard when JFK was killed in 1963. As an undergraduate at Amherst College I became active in the anti-war movement, and upon graduation in 1969, I started making a documentary with a radical film group called Newsreel about the CIA's involvement in the overthrow of the elected Greek government in 1967. Ironically, my father was close friends with a number of members of the junta, and my uncle even arranged for me to marry the daughter of the Vice-President of Greece, General Patakos, #2 man in the junta, and engagement upon which I did not follow through.

My partner in this filmmaking adventure was Michael McClintock whose father John and uncle Robert (twin brother to John) were among the founding members of the CIA. John had earned his stripes by assassinating the head of the Communist Party of Brazil; Robert by being Ambassador to Cambodia (Eugene Burdick's book the Ugly American was purportedly modeled after R. McClintock's time as ambassador there), Venezuela, and Lebanon during the 1950's invasion.

Mike and I journeyed to Greece, shots numerous rolls of film, and were arrested in Heraklion, Crete in August, 1969 for espionage when we were caught filming a military base - but playing upon my father's connections, we talked our way out of jail. Upon returning to the North America, we interviewed deposed Prime Minister to be Andreas Papandreou at his home in exile in Ontario, who briefed us in depth on his understanding of the inner workings of the American military-industrial-intelligence complex. Papandreou enthusiastically welcomed our plan to improve his PR in Washington, D.C. , since Mike's mother was head of the Democratic Women's Campaign Committee, and Mike himself had chaired the Young Americans for Johnson during the 1964 Presidential campaign.

We also decided to expand the film to include a study of fascism in America, focusing upon the Kennedy assassination. Next we drove to Dealey Plaza, filmed on location there, and headed out to Montecito, California to raise funds for the film from Andreas' friend Stanley Sheinbaum, who had wed Jack Warner's daughter, and later became President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners following the Rodney King beating. Unfortunately we arrived the day following Sheinbaum's introduction of William Kunstler to a crowd of students, who immediately thereafter marched upon and proceeded to burn down the Bank of America in Santa Barbara. When we got to Sheinbaum's home, the FBI were already there, dressed as telephone repairmen, installing wiretaps.

On the return trip back to DC. we had been scheduled to interview Jim Garrison but a car wreck in Houston which left me concussed and Mike in jail for DUI aborted that plan. Instead we flew to Mike's home in Alexandria, whereupon his mom said, "I didn't know you were interested in the Kennedy assassination. You should go see Bud Fensterwald."

We did, and he let us rummage through his copious files of 500 photos taken 15 minutes before and after the JFK murder. He also gave us copies of the Computers and Automation magazine issues which made sense of the JFK and RFK assassinations, and he told us his interpretations of those events.

A month later Papandreou came to Washington for a Greek Easter, lamb roast on a spit celebration at Drew Pearson's farm in Maryland. Not one to believe in the tactical value of surpise, Andreas announced to the assembled US media and every agent the FBI and CIA could spare for the occaision that we were launching a guerrilla movement to overthrow the Greek Junta, whereupon he would expect prompt US government recognition. He was kind enough to point me out as a leader of this guerrilla band. That I was talking with Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas at the time did not lower my visibility any. Bob Schieffer had his CBS camera's rolling throughout the event, and every cigarette lighter camera in America seemed to be snapping pictures as well.

My actual conversation with William O. went like this:

HK: "What do you think really happened with the Kennedy assassinations?"

WOD: "I'd rather be backpacking in the Sierras than talk abouit that!"

By June I had organized a force of ex-Green Berets, Army Rangers, and Greek ex-tank battalion commanders to slip into Greece, but when Papandreou told me that his own desire was to blow up the US submarine base at Souda Bay, I seriously began to question his sanity.

By July, the Greek KYP (their version of the CIA) had sent out a team to assassinate Papandreou. I was in British Columbia at the time, training with my band of brothers, when unbeknownst to me, Mike called his mom at 3 a.m. from Papandreou's place in King City, Ontario.

Mike: "Mom, I'm at Papandreou's in Toronto and I overheard that a hit team is on its way up here through Vermont to kill Papandreou. His people say that if he's murdered they have a team of Greek assassins of their own who've sworn to take out their revenge by assassinating Vice President Spiro Agnew, CIA Director Richard Helms, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, and Joe Cisco, Head of the Mid-East desk at the State Department. Mom, I would hate for anything bad to happen to our country. Would you please call Uncle Bob [his mom's brother who was Deputy Director of the CIA at the time] to see what he can do to prevent this tragedy?"

Mike's Mom: "Ok dear. Are you sure you're ok?"

All this Mike related to me by phone long distance the next week. Since there was little question who headed up Papandreou's merry band, I had few options available. I contacted Mike's mom and dad, the Papandreou's, and everyone else in my known universe to inform them that I had become a non-violent born again Christian, had renounced any form of political activism, and was dedicating my life to a study of acupuncture and Oriental medicine.

The Secret Service interviewed Mike about the whole affair, the FBI interviewed me (it only took them two years to do so), Papandreou lived and wrote Mike a thank you note when he became Prime Minister of Greece ten years later, but I was in his dog house forever after.

I did renounce all violence and politics and went on to study Oriental medicine. It's been my entire professional life since August 1970. I've started three colleges of traditional Chinese medicine and served as Chair of the Florida Board of Acupuncture and President of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. In 1992 I wrote a book about those events of 1969-70: Two Innocents in the Devil's Playground, Handsome Lake and Leonidas Take on the Sixties, but I was unable to get it published, and not for lack of trying.

Those experiences revealed to me how power works in the most private places, and from that I gained the insights needed to write my next book: Want to Live? Avoid X-Rays!, which chronicles how medical radiation kills half a million Americans every year, the conspiracy to desensitize Americans to the dangers of all types of radiation, and effective alternative treatments for cancer, especially brain cancers such as now afflicts Ted Kennedy. Thus, awareness of the Kennedy assassinations did serve some higher purpose in my own life, and I hope for others who eventually get to read my latest book - for which I'm just now in the process of finding a publisher.

Other information has surfaced in the ensuing years about Watergate and the MLK assassination, which I'll also be glad to share with readers on your website.

Dr. Harvey Kaltsas, Acupuncture Physician, Dipl. Ac. (NCCAOM)

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