The Houma Arms Cache Raid Revisited

[John Dolva]

Tom, could you fill in a couple of details, please?

I assume one charge has a particular yield thats pretty uniform? What is the yield of one? How many were stolen?

I assume just tying a number together doesn't necessarily directly multiply the yield? What would be the total yield of a properly prepared combo of all theses charges?

[William Kelly]

I think it might say ''CLEAN towel & linen service inc''

attachment cleanvan.jpg

Hey John,

What a neat photo.

Clean Towel & Linen Inc. indeed.

There are none in New Orleans today, but one in Houston, who are older than 25 years.

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_fn9l2r

Business Information

This company profile is for the private company Clean Towel Service, Inc , located in Houston, TX. Houston Linen Service's line of business is linen supply services.

Company Name: Clean Towel Service, IncIs This Your Company?

Address: 5743 Wigton Dr, Houston, TX 77096-4822 (Map)

Alt Business Name: Houston Linen Service. Location Type: Single Location. Est. Annual Sales: $2300000. Est. # of Employees: 62. Est. Empl. at Loc.: 62. Year Started: 1990. State of Incorp: TX. SIC #Code: 7213. Contact's Name: Joel Chess ... Other Manta.com users are then invited to view and answer your question. ...

www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_fn9l2r - 42k - Cached - Similar pages -

While other descriptions of the Houma Bunker raid laundry panel truck include a "flat front" and no windows, it appears it is a local truck.

It would still be nice to id and talk with the driver, who was in a good position to see a lot.

Robert Howard located a Clean Towel & Linen company in Fort Worth, 1963 phone book.

Thanks, Robert,

BK

[John Dolva]

I think it might say ''CLEAN towel & linen service inc''

attachment cleanvan.jpg

Hey John,

What a neat photo.

Clean Towel & Linen Inc. indeed.

There are none in New Orleans today, but one in Houston, who are older than 25 years.

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_fn9l2r

Business Information

This company profile is for the private company Clean Towel Service, Inc , located in Houston, TX. Houston Linen Service's line of business is linen supply services.

Company Name: Clean Towel Service, IncIs This Your Company?

Address: 5743 Wigton Dr, Houston, TX 77096-4822 (Map)

Alt Business Name: Houston Linen Service. Location Type: Single Location. Est. Annual Sales: $2300000. Est. # of Employees: 62. Est. Empl. at Loc.: 62. Year Started: 1990. State of Incorp: TX. SIC #Code: 7213. Contact's Name: Joel Chess ... Other Manta.com users are then invited to view and answer your question. ...

www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_fn9l2r - 42k - Cached - Similar pages -

While other descriptions of the Houma Bunker raid laundry panel truck include a "flat front" and no windows, it appears it is a local truck.

It would still be nice to id and talk with the driver, who was in a good position to see a lot.

Robert Howard located a Clean Towel & Linen company in Fort Worth, 1963 phone book.

Thanks, Robert,

BK

OK, Fantastic.

Obvously my interest would be Bulle and James Branum

[William Kelly]

I think it might say ''CLEAN towel & linen service inc''

attachment cleanvan.jpg

Hey John,

What a neat photo.

Clean Towel & Linen Inc. indeed.

There are none in New Orleans today, but one in Houston, who are older than 25 years.

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_fn9l2r

Business Information

This company profile is for the private company Clean Towel Service, Inc , located in Houston, TX. Houston Linen Service's line of business is linen supply services.

Company Name: Clean Towel Service, IncIs This Your Company?

Address: 5743 Wigton Dr, Houston, TX 77096-4822 (Map)

Alt Business Name: Houston Linen Service. Location Type: Single Location. Est. Annual Sales: $2300000. Est. # of Employees: 62. Est. Empl. at Loc.: 62. Year Started: 1990. State of Incorp: TX. SIC #Code: 7213. Contact's Name: Joel Chess ... Other Manta.com users are then invited to view and answer your question. ...

www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_fn9l2r - 42k - Cached - Similar pages -

While other descriptions of the Houma Bunker raid laundry panel truck include a "flat front" and no windows, it appears it is a local truck.

It would still be nice to id and talk with the driver, who was in a good position to see a lot.

Robert Howard located a Clean Towel & Linen company in Fort Worth, 1963 phone book.

Thanks, Robert,

BK

OK, Fantastic.

Obvously my interest would be Bulle and James Branum

Clean Towel & Linen Service

2431 Weinberger

Fort Worth, Tx

AN2-7134

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Tom, could you fill in a couple of details, please?

I assume one charge has a particular yield thats pretty uniform? What is the yield of one? How many were stolen?

I assume just tying a number together doesn't necessarily directly multiply the yield? What would be the total yield of a properly prepared combo of all theses charges?

The technology behind seismographic charges was complicated to many , whereas it is in reality quite simple for anyone who has a basic understanding of shock waves generated by an explosive charge.

(In today's world they mostly utilize a "thumper" which hydraulically rams the ground) (for land based seismograpic work)

There were several items which affected the actual "charge" to be utilized, and, not unlike Artillery, the charges were designed to compliment and increase or decrease the shock wave generated to compensate for a variety of conditions.

The single biggest factor which affected the "charge" to be packed into the hole was the actual depth to which one was attempting to achieve sounding/shock wave recordings/reflections.

Other aspects included known geological formations (such as clay zones; sand/water bearing zones; etc; which had generally been determined well prior by actual test drilling.

There were a variety of "charge" sizes in which the actual charge could be sufficiently increased or decreased in incremental amounts in order to achieve the most accurate readings.

In event that one had to send shock waves through, say a sandstone layer, then of course they would require a slightly larger charge than merely sending similar shock waves through sand and clay formations.

To a large degree, in the early 1960"s, explosive charges still consisted mainly of dynamite, although TNT was also utilized by some companies.

Dynamite was however considerably cheaper and when dealing with 40% to 60% it is generally relatively stable. Thus, it was to a large degree, the explosive of choice.

Note: 80% can be quite unstable and is generally utilized only for blasting pure rock.

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/2...76.17906_1.html

Since dynamite could be ordered in a variety of "percentages" of true nitroglycerin, one can not specify a given explosive force yield unless they first know the "percent" nitro, and then of course have the manufactures data sheet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite

As is noted in the above court case, the powder crew was utilizing a "booster", this is indicative of utilization of 40% as there are frequently times when a blasting cap alone will fail to detonate the charge.

Whereas, 60% will generally detonate with no problem (assuming it has been stored properly and all of the nitro has not settled)

And 80%, which is of course the most unstable, can actually be detonated through accidental impact.

Now!

On the return trip back to Ferrie’s apartment, some of the participants fell asleep, but were awaken by the explosion of some dynamite that was apparently thrown from the truck by Jerome Andrew Blackmon, the ex-Marine who liked to play with guns.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...inger_0009b.htm

Had there actually been a "dynamite" explosion set off, it is most unlikely that anyone would have slept through it.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...rtens_0009a.htm

"The explosion---it seemed to be the magnitude of several large firecrackers"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasting_cap

Me thinks that one of the "Yahoo's" in this little episode, chunked a blasting cap or a blasting cap with an inherent "booster" out the window after having primed it with time fuze and lighted the fuze.

One can rest assured that what was exploded was not even a 1/4 stick charge of 40% as there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that a true EXPLOSIVE CHARGE had been detonated. To include anyone for a mile or so around.

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Tom, could you fill in a couple of details, please?

I assume one charge has a particular yield thats pretty uniform? What is the yield of one? How many were stolen?

I assume just tying a number together doesn't necessarily directly multiply the yield? What would be the total yield of a properly prepared combo of all theses charges?

The technology behind seismographic charges was complicated to many , whereas it is in reality quite simple for anyone who has a basic understanding of shock waves generated by an explosive charge.

(In today's world they mostly utilize a "thumper" which hydraulically rams the ground) (for land based seismograpic work)

There were several items which affected the actual "charge" to be utilized, and, not unlike Artillery, the charges were designed to compliment and increase or decrease the shock wave generated to compensate for a variety of conditions.

The single biggest factor which affected the "charge" to be packed into the hole was the actual depth to which one was attempting to achieve sounding/shock wave recordings/reflections.

Other aspects included known geological formations (such as clay zones; sand/water bearing zones; etc; which had generally been determined well prior by actual test drilling.

There were a variety of "charge" sizes in which the actual charge could be sufficiently increased or decreased in incremental amounts in order to achieve the most accurate readings.

In event that one had to send shock waves through, say a sandstone layer, then of course they would require a slightly larger charge than merely sending similar shock waves through sand and clay formations.

To a large degree, in the early 1960"s, explosive charges still consisted mainly of dynamite, although TNT was also utilized by some companies.

Dynamite was however considerably cheaper and when dealing with 40% to 60% it is generally relatively stable. Thus, it was to a large degree, the explosive of choice.

Note: 80% can be quite unstable and is generally utilized only for blasting pure rock.

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/2...76.17906_1.html

Since dynamite could be ordered in a variety of "percentages" of true nitroglycerin, one can not specify a given explosive force yield unless they first know the "percent" nitro, and then of course have the manufactures data sheet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite

As is noted in the above court case, the powder crew was utilizing a "booster", this is indicative of utilization of 40% as there are frequently times when a blasting cap alone will fail to detonate the charge.

Whereas, 60% will generally detonate with no problem (assuming it has been stored properly and all of the nitro has not settled)

And 80%, which is of course the most unstable, can actually be detonated through accidental impact.

Now!

On the return trip back to Ferrie’s apartment, some of the participants fell asleep, but were awaken by the explosion of some dynamite that was apparently thrown from the truck by Jerome Andrew Blackmon, the ex-Marine who liked to play with guns.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...inger_0009b.htm

Had there actually been a "dynamite" explosion set off, it is most unlikely that anyone would have slept through it.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...rtens_0009a.htm

"The explosion---it seemed to be the magnitude of several large firecrackers"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasting_cap

Me thinks that one of the "Yahoo's" in this little episode, chunked a blasting cap or a blasting cap with an inherent "booster" out the window after having primed it with time fuze and lighted the fuze.

One can rest assured that what was exploded was not even a 1/4 stick charge of 40% as there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that a true EXPLOSIVE CHARGE had been detonated. To include anyone for a mile or so around.

As indicated by the below attachment, the "Great Houma Arms Cache" (which, in all reality appears to have been merely the theft of some blasting caps; time fuze; and possibly* booster charges) has taken on an entire life of it's own.

Sort of makes one recall the old saying as to where someone stated that he had told a lie so many times that even he had begun to believe it.

If one repeats a lie sufficiently, it may become accepted as the truth. However, it will never be the actual and factual truth.

*Note: As a standard procedure, the explosives and the detonating train (ie; blasting caps; time fuze; etc;) are never transported nor stored within the same vehicle; container; building; and/or bunker. This is to prevent the accidental detonation of the most sensitive (blasting caps and booster charges) which could result in the detonation of the actual explosive.

http://hum.uchicago.edu/~jagoldsm/Papers/J..._NewOrleans.pdf

Edited June 7, 2009 by Thomas H. Purvis

[William Kelly]

The significance of the case should not be lost in the firecracker Yahoos.

Following standard investigative procedures in the investigation of a conspiracy and homicide, DA Garrison used the Houma caper as a wedge, lever and related crime in order to 1) Convene a grand jury; 2) subpoena witnesses; 3) obtain information about Oswald and the assassination from those who could be convicted and jailed if they didn't cooperate.

BK

[Thomas H. Purvis]

The significance of the case should not be lost in the firecracker Yahoos.

Following standard investigative procedures in the investigation of a conspiracy and homicide, DA Garrison used the Houma caper as a wedge, lever and related crime in order to 1) Convene a grand jury; 2) subpoena witnesses; 3) obtain information about Oswald and the assassination from those who could be convicted and jailed if they didn't cooperate.

BK

Actually, (and for a more correct history) Garrison ustilized the "Great Houma Arms Cache" COS (Crock of Sh**) as a smokescreen in attempt to tie Ferrie into some great giant conspiracy which involved Clay Shaw.

Thereby sending multitudes diving off into the deep, dark, damp, "lair of the hair"/aka rabbithole chasing smoke and Alice.

Therin making it virtually impossible for anyone of sensible intelligence to thereafter believe much of anything as regards New Orleans, it's ties to the assassination of JFK, and LHO's connections and purposes there.

Yep! Jimbo pretty well insured that the door to any true criminal investigation in New Orleans would never again be undertaken.

But then again, that is most probably what Leander Perez and a few others wanted him to do!

[Thomas H. Purvis]

The significance of the case should not be lost in the firecracker Yahoos.

Following standard investigative procedures in the investigation of a conspiracy and homicide, DA Garrison used the Houma caper as a wedge, lever and related crime in order to 1) Convene a grand jury; 2) subpoena witnesses; 3) obtain information about Oswald and the assassination from those who could be convicted and jailed if they didn't cooperate.

BK

Actually, (and for a more correct history) Garrison ustilized the "Great Houma Arms Cache" COS (Crock of Sh**) as a smokescreen in attempt to tie Ferrie into some great giant conspiracy which involved Clay Shaw.

Thereby sending multitudes diving off into the deep, dark, damp, "lair of the hair"/aka rabbithole chasing smoke and Alice.

Therin making it virtually impossible for anyone of sensible intelligence to thereafter believe much of anything as regards New Orleans, it's ties to the assassination of JFK, and LHO's connections and purposes there.

Yep! Jimbo pretty well insured that the door to any true criminal investigation in New Orleans would never again be undertaken.

But then again, that is most probably what Leander Perez and a few others wanted him to do!

http://www.wf.net/~biles/jfk/

"My feeling now is that much of Jim Garrison's case against Clay Shaw was smoke and mirrors."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yes Virginia! There does exist intelligent life on earth afterall.

[William Kelly]

The significance of the case should not be lost in the firecracker Yahoos.

Following standard investigative procedures in the investigation of a conspiracy and homicide, DA Garrison used the Houma caper as a wedge, lever and related crime in order to 1) Convene a grand jury; 2) subpoena witnesses; 3) obtain information about Oswald and the assassination from those who could be convicted and jailed if they didn't cooperate.

BK

Actually, (and for a more correct history) Garrison ustilized the "Great Houma Arms Cache" COS (Crock of Sh**) as a smokescreen in attempt to tie Ferrie into some great giant conspiracy which involved Clay Shaw.

Thereby sending multitudes diving off into the deep, dark, damp, "lair of the hair"/aka rabbithole chasing smoke and Alice.

Therin making it virtually impossible for anyone of sensible intelligence to thereafter believe much of anything as regards New Orleans, it's ties to the assassination of JFK, and LHO's connections and purposes there.

Yep! Jimbo pretty well insured that the door to any true criminal investigation in New Orleans would never again be undertaken.

But then again, that is most probably what Leander Perez and a few others wanted him to do!

http://www.wf.net/~biles/jfk/

"My feeling now is that much of Jim Garrison's case against Clay Shaw was smoke and mirrors."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yes Virginia! There does exist intelligent life on earth afterall.

Thanks for that link Tom,

Joe Biles is a good researcher and writer, a conservative Young Republican who doesn't fit the mold of your typical JFK assassination researcher. I met him at this COPA conference, when he gave his talk after me and was the first to endorse my call for a JFK grand jury.

http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/index.html

"By far the youngest light in the JFK research community, Joe has sparked hope that there are indeed a new generation of investigators to carry the torch. Joe is a student in Lubbock and has garnered much attention for his contribution to the research community: In History's Shadow - Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley and the Garrison Investigation. Youngest researcher Joe Biles presents his research into the late Jim Garrison."

http://books.google.com/books?id=wqFYuGkO7...esnum=1#PPP1,M1

In the Foreward to Joe's book, a New Orleans cop wrote:

"The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is now, more than ever before, a historical event that will continue to fade from the living memory of the population,....It must be settled, for better or worse, to restore a confidence in "Our" government and its official agencies as true representatives of "We The People", one nation united in the a firm belief that "someone" is standing watch against the evil of individuals and deceit or lies in the tightest, official closets, of our "secret" agencies."

"L. J. Delsa and I were born and raised in New Orleans and we worked for over twenty years in and around the French Quarter as police detectives. The Quarter is loved by all who fall under its influence but in its one hundred and twenty square blocks were and are some of the most interesting mixes of people that can be found from around the world. Organized crime, bohemians, artists, hustlers, musicians, homosexual and lesbian cultures, writers, thriving neighborhoods of ordinary people captured by the charm."

"It has stories of pirates, duels, slave owners, sellers and haunted houses. It has stories of Lee Harvey Oswald who lived there for many of his formative years, with his mother. Any detective working this area will tell you of the strange way the simplest of cases can get caught up and mixed into this 'Gumbo."

"...Oswald mixed with these friends and the French Quarter and the New Orleans detectives started to follow some crazy sounding leads. They were stopped cold and put into the overall plan that seemed to be organized crime oriented rather than going where the leads were pointing. Organized Crime leads were present but strongly aligned with rogue and possible active intelligence assets. Which was right? Maybe the de-classified documents will reveal the answers. This book tries to give insight into that area and attempts to show parts of how this could be in the land of the free and the home of the brave...."

Forward to In History's Shadow

Robert C. Buras, Jr. Lt., NOPD (Ret),

Staff Investigator HSCA.

[William Kelly]

Sam Cummings - Interarmco

Some of the boxes of arms, ammo and explosives removed from the Houma bunker bore the stamps INTERARMCO and SCHLUMBERGER.

Schlumberger reportedly owned the bunker and its contents, while Interarmco was a company owned by Sam Cummings, another Philadelphian who was recruited by the CIA for his knowledge of firearms and who became the broker of arms to revolutionaries and governments, including those in Guatemala and Cuba.

Most published reports reflect that the arms were intended to be used during the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but weren't used and transferred to the New Orleans office of Guy Bannister, David Ferrie's apartment and on to Florida.

It's possible however, as other reports indicate, the arms were to be used by the OAS in their assassination and coup attempt against Charles DeGaul. DeMenil and his wife (nee Schlumberger), were French, and their company was headquarterd in Paris until the Nazi invasion, when they moved to Cuba and then Houston, because of their oil industry contacts.

While David Ferrie and his cohorts are subjects of interest because of their associations with the accused assassin, Jean DeMenil - the alleged victim of the Houma burglary, (for which he is said to have reported as a theft for insurance purposes), also knew the accused assassin and testified before the Warren Commission.

I had hoped that Linda Miner would give us a deep background rundown on the DeMenils and Cummings and their connections to the assassination, as I'm sure it would put things in better perspective.

Before getting to DeMenil however, here's an obit for Sam Cummings, whose company name Interarmco was stamped on some of the crates moved from the Houma bunker.

The DeMenils are even more interesting.

BK

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/05/world/sa...rand-scale.html

Samuel Cummings, the world's biggest small-arms dealer, died on April 29 in Monaco after a series of strokes. He was 71 and had long reigned as the undisputed philosopher-king of the arms trade.

In a world marked by secrecy, deception, swindles and scams, Mr. Cummings stood out. He was open, had a reputation for honesty, and was a genial connoisseur of the profit found in political violence.

''The arms business,'' he told an interviewer in 1989, ''is based on human folly, and folly has yet to be measured nor its debths plumbed.'' His biographers limned him as a pleasant and law-abiding merchant of death.

His company, Interarms, did $100 million worth of business in a good year, and over the course of four decades it had many. It dealt guns and ammunition to dictators, despots, revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries -- and, in one notable case, to both sides in a Central American guerrilla war.

Any government or guerrilla movement needing 30,000 automatic rifles in a hurry could dial Interarms' telephone numbers in Alexandria, Va., or Manchester, England, and take delivery in days subject to cash and certain licensing niceties.

Born of well-to-do British parents in Philadelphia in 1927, Mr. Cummings collected his first gun when he was 5 years old. He recalled finding a rusting German machine gun in the trash outside an American Legion post, tossing it in his little red wagon and dragging it home. It was, he remembered, love at first sight.

After a stint in the Army at the close of World War II, Mr. Cummings graduated from George Washington University and studied briefly at Oxford. In 1950 he began his true post-graduate education: he joined the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency, which provided him with more guns than he ever dreamed of.

For four years, with the cold war at its peak, Mr. Cummings was the agency's most cunning arms dealer. Masquerading as a Hollywood producer buying guns for the movies, he snapped up $100 million worth of surplus German arms on the cheap in Europe and shipped them to Chinese Nationalist forces in Taiwan.

Seeing the fantastic profit that could be made in such deals, he left the C.I.A. in 1953 and, at the age of 26, founded Interarms. The next year the agency mounted a coup in Guatemala and installed a right-wing colonel loyal to the United States. Mr. Cummings got the contract to arm the new Government.

Mr. Cummings did not discourage speculation that he maintained ties to the C.I.A.; for example, he named one of his subsidiaries Cummings Investment Associates, and let people draw their own conclusions.

Mr. Cummings dealt with almost anybody, drawing the line only at Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Idi Amin of Uganda. He sold Communist Chinese rifles to flag-waving American sportsmen. He sold weapons to the right-wing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and his left-wing successor, Fidel Castro.

He made millions from the apartheid regime in South Africa; from the United States, Britain, Austria, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Israel, and many other nations across the Middle East and Latin America. He owned the United States franchise for Walther pistols, the handgun favored by Ian Fleming's fictional secret agent, James Bond.

He made a fortune by foreseeing passage of the 1968 Gun Control Act, which banned imports of military weapons into the United States. Months before it became law, he went on a global shopping spree, stockpiling 700,000 weapons in his huge warehouse on the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia, a few miles from the Pentagon.

''At that moment,'' he told an interviewer, ''we could have instantly overwhelmed the American armed forces.''

Mr. Cummings moved to Europe at that time, becoming a British subject and establishing residences at a chateau in the Swiss Alps and in the tax haven of Monte Carlo.

He maintained his headquarters in Virginia, which he visited less frequently in recent years. He also bought a lavish estate in the hunt country west of Washington, Ashland Farms, which was used primarily by his daughters, Diana and Susan Cummings. They survive him, as does his wife, Irma.

In September, Susan Cummings, 35, was charged with murder in the shooting death of her lover, Roberto Villegas, an Argentine polo player, who died of multiple gunshot wounds at Ashland Farms.

Edited June 15, 2009 by William Kelly

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Sam Cummings - Interarmco

Some of the boxes of arms, ammo and explosives removed from the Houma bunker bore the stamps INTERARMCO and SCHLUMBERGER.

Schlumberger reportedly owned the bunker and its contents, while Interarmco was a company owned by Sam Cummings, another Philadelphian who was recruited by the CIA for his knowledge of firearms and who became the broker of arms to revolutionaries and governments, including those in Guatemala and Cuba.

Most published reports reflect that the arms were intended to be used during the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but weren't used and transferred to the New Orleans office of Guy Bannister, David Ferrie's apartment and on to Florida.

It's possible however, as other reports indicate, the arms were to be used by the OAS in their assassination and coup attempt against Charles DeGaul. DeMenil and his wife (nee Schlumberger), were French, and their company was headquarterd in Paris until the Nazi invasion, when they moved to Cuba and then Houston, because of their oil industry contacts.

While David Ferrie and his cohorts are subjects of interest because of their associations with the accused assassin, Jean DeMenil - the alleged victim of the Houma burglary, (for which he is said to have reported as a theft for insurance purposes), also knew the accused assassin and testified before the Warren Commission.

I had hoped that Linda Miner would give us a deep background rundown on the DeMenils and Cummings and their connections to the assassination, as I'm sure it would put things in better perspective.

Before getting to DeMenil however, here's an obit for Sam Cummings, whose company name Interarmco was stamped on some of the crates moved from the Houma bunker.

The DeMenils are even more interesting.

BK

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/05/world/sa...rand-scale.html

Samuel Cummings, the world's biggest small-arms dealer, died on April 29 in Monaco after a series of strokes. He was 71 and had long reigned as the undisputed philosopher-king of the arms trade.

In a world marked by secrecy, deception, swindles and scams, Mr. Cummings stood out. He was open, had a reputation for honesty, and was a genial connoisseur of the profit found in political violence.

''The arms business,'' he told an interviewer in 1989, ''is based on human folly, and folly has yet to be measured nor its debths plumbed.'' His biographers limned him as a pleasant and law-abiding merchant of death.

His company, Interarms, did $100 million worth of business in a good year, and over the course of four decades it had many. It dealt guns and ammunition to dictators, despots, revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries -- and, in one notable case, to both sides in a Central American guerrilla war.

Any government or guerrilla movement needing 30,000 automatic rifles in a hurry could dial Interarms' telephone numbers in Alexandria, Va., or Manchester, England, and take delivery in days subject to cash and certain licensing niceties.

Born of well-to-do British parents in Philadelphia in 1927, Mr. Cummings collected his first gun when he was 5 years old. He recalled finding a rusting German machine gun in the trash outside an American Legion post, tossing it in his little red wagon and dragging it home. It was, he remembered, love at first sight.

After a stint in the Army at the close of World War II, Mr. Cummings graduated from George Washington University and studied briefly at Oxford. In 1950 he began his true post-graduate education: he joined the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency, which provided him with more guns than he ever dreamed of.

For four years, with the cold war at its peak, Mr. Cummings was the agency's most cunning arms dealer. Masquerading as a Hollywood producer buying guns for the movies, he snapped up $100 million worth of surplus German arms on the cheap in Europe and shipped them to Chinese Nationalist forces in Taiwan.

Seeing the fantastic profit that could be made in such deals, he left the C.I.A. in 1953 and, at the age of 26, founded Interarms. The next year the agency mounted a coup in Guatemala and installed a right-wing colonel loyal to the United States. Mr. Cummings got the contract to arm the new Government.

Mr. Cummings did not discourage speculation that he maintained ties to the C.I.A.; for example, he named one of his subsidiaries Cummings Investment Associates, and let people draw their own conclusions.

Mr. Cummings dealt with almost anybody, drawing the line only at Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Idi Amin of Uganda. He sold Communist Chinese rifles to flag-waving American sportsmen. He sold weapons to the right-wing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and his left-wing successor, Fidel Castro.

He made millions from the apartheid regime in South Africa; from the United States, Britain, Austria, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Israel, and many other nations across the Middle East and Latin America. He owned the United States franchise for Walther pistols, the handgun favored by Ian Fleming's fictional secret agent, James Bond.

He made a fortune by foreseeing passage of the 1968 Gun Control Act, which banned imports of military weapons into the United States. Months before it became law, he went on a global shopping spree, stockpiling 700,000 weapons in his huge warehouse on the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia, a few miles from the Pentagon.

''At that moment,'' he told an interviewer, ''we could have instantly overwhelmed the American armed forces.''

Mr. Cummings moved to Europe at that time, becoming a British subject and establishing residences at a chateau in the Swiss Alps and in the tax haven of Monte Carlo.

He maintained his headquarters in Virginia, which he visited less frequently in recent years. He also bought a lavish estate in the hunt country west of Washington, Ashland Farms, which was used primarily by his daughters, Diana and Susan Cummings. They survive him, as does his wife, Irma.

In September, Susan Cummings, 35, was charged with murder in the shooting death of her lover, Roberto Villegas, an Argentine polo player, who died of multiple gunshot wounds at Ashland Farms.

Still attempting to feed this garbage to someone Bill?

Some of the boxes of arms, ammo and explosives removed from the Houma bunker bore the stamps INTERARMCO and SCHLUMBERGER.

Post #1

The cases the arms were stored in were said to be labeled either “SCHULMBERGER” or “INTERARMCO,” the company owned by Sam Cummings, the Philadelphia arms merchant who supplied the guns for many a revolution in South and Central America.

Someone needs to make up their mind as to exactly what lie that they are attempting to sell.

Factually! It is most doubtful that the boxes would have been marked either way. Rather, they would most probably have been labeled with the name of the explsoive manufacturing company who made the (what was in all probability) booster charges.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ripples.htm

The Banister-as-gunrunner theory was first prominently advanced in "The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy," a January 1968 Ramparts article written by unofficial Garrison investigator William W. Turner.(178) Turner references an article in the New Orleans States-Item of April 25, 1967, reporting "that a reliable source close to Banister said he had seen 50 to 100 boxes marked 'Schlumberger' in Banister's office-storeroom early in 1961 before the Bay of Pigs.(179) The boxes contained rifle grenades, land mines and unique 'little missiles.' Banister explained that 'the stuff would just be there overnight . . . a bunch of fellows connected with the Cuban deal asked to leave it there overnight.'"(180)

Of course, this refers to the arms stolen from the Schlumberger Well corporation by Banister associates David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and others, but not Banister himself.

What is the La Fontaines' source for the claim that the "gun-happy"(181) Guy Banister was a member of "the gunrunning New Orleans right wing"(182) -- one of the "gunrunning . . . right-wing subversives"(183) that Oswald "was likely sent to the Crescent City to inform on"?(184)

They cite no source whatsoever. The closest they seem to come would be in their allusions to the "arms camp"(185) by Lake Pontchartrain, for which Banister "had probably himself been one of the major facilitators."(186) They cite no source for this claim, either.(187)

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P.S.

Jean DeMenil - the alleged victim of the Houma burglary, (for which he is said to have reported as a theft for insurance purposes), also knew the accused assassin and testified before the Warren Commission.

1. By law, anyone in possession of a license to purchase explosives is required to report the theft of any of the explosives.

2. Can you post the exact location at which Jean DeMenil's testimony before the WC is located?

P.P.S. Personally, I do not consider the unsupported statements of a former "Christmas Tree Salesman" as being indicative of some fantastic "Secret Agent".

But then again, I am not lost down in some rabbit hole either.

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Name: HOLIDAY TREES CORPORATION

Type Entity: Business Corporation

Status: Not Active (Action by Secretary of State)

2008 Annual Report/Reinstatement form is required in order to reinstate Print Annual Report/Reinstatement Form For Filing

Mailing Address: BOX 1900, NEW ORLEANS, LA 70150

Domicile Address: BOX 1900, NEW ORLEANS, LA 70150

File Date: 11/08/1961

Registered Agent (Appointed 11/08/1961): GORDON NOVEL, 124 LAKE AVE

Registered Agent (Appointed 11/08/1961): MRS. ALBERT LOUIS RIVIERE, 124 LAKE AVE

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Gordon Novel, great "Spook"/CIA Contract Agent!

Selling Christmas trees with his mother for a living in November 1961.

[Stephen Roy]

Bill:

I have a source, of course, on the "Schlumberger" markings. But what source are you referencing on the "Interarmco" markings?

Steve

[William Kelly]

Bill:

I have a source, of course, on the "Schlumberger" markings. But what source are you referencing on the "Interarmco" markings?

Steve

"Gordon Novel said the crates of arms were stamped with the word INTERARMCO. [Police Record Jefferson Parish 1953; Memo Ivan/Garrison re: Novel rec. check; Flammonde Kennedy Conspiracy p76; Wardlaw Plot or Politics p113; New Orleans States-Item4.25.67; HUNT Day p182 CIA 1332-502, 1045] Gordon Novel reported that Andrew Jerome Blackman, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and Luis Rabel were involved in the burglary….."

[William Kelly]

Bill:

I have a source, of course, on the "Schlumberger" markings. But what source are you referencing on the "Interarmco" markings?

Steve

"Gordon Novel said the crates of arms were stamped with the word INTERARMCO. [Police Record Jefferson Parish 1953; Memo Ivan/Garrison re: Novel rec. check; Flammonde Kennedy Conspiracy p76; Wardlaw Plot or Politics p113; New Orleans States-Item4.25.67; HUNT Day p182 CIA 1332-502, 1045] Gordon Novel reported that Andrew Jerome Blackman, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and Luis Rabel were involved in the burglary….."

While INTERARMCO and Sam Cummings most certainly had CIA connections, Schlumberger is also wired, as can be seen in this doc:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=2

SCHLUMBERGER WELL

CIA

104-10522-10107

Enclosure 24

SUBJECT: The SCHLUMBERGER Well Surveying Corporation

1. There are extensive CIA traces on this company and on various persons connected with it, but none of this information is pertinent to the GARRISON investigation.

2. A report of 20 April 1967 from the New Orleans office of the FBI states that a confidential source who is a representative of a well-known news media said on 20 April that Gordon NOVEL had reportedly stated that he was employed by CIA and that the Houma burglary was not an actual burglary. He contended that CIA had an arrangement with the SCHLUMBERGER Co., (see below) to keep ammunition, bomb casings, and other material in the bunker, leased by SCHLUMBERGER. He said that he and Sergio ARGACHA Smith were still employed by CIA. “The source advised that according to information developed to date Schulmberger became upset over the Bay of Pigs invasion and wanted to get out of their contract with the CIA.” Arrangements were made about three months after the …invasion for the…material…to be taken by Novel and his group.”

3. The Domestic Contact Service (DCS) informed CI/R&A on 27 April 1967 that the New Orleans office of the SCHLUMBERGER Well Surveying Corporation is a branch of the main office in Houston, Texas. The company, however, is French-owned. The DCS office in New Orleans was in touch with Charles A. DOH, district manager of the New Orleans SCHLUMBER office, in order to interview him about a business trip to Rome in June 1955. There has been no subsequent contact. However, the DCS has been and still is in touch with SCHLUMBERGER and Co. in Houston and subsidiary offices elsewhere. The most recent of such contacts occurred on 22 March 1967 in Minneapolis. All contact must be approved by the main SCHLUMBERGER office. Because of French control, DCS dealings with this firm have been circumspect.

4. The Office of Security also advised on 27 April 1967 that questioning of four employees of the Office of Logistics has shown that the only arms bunker in the New Orleans area used by CIA was the Bella Chase Ammunition Depot, a deactivated Navy Installation eight miles from New Orleans. There is no present reason to believe that the Agency has been associated in any way with the Houma Air Base bunker.

Edited June 17, 2009 by William Kelly