HARRY J. DEAN

[William Kelly]

Ernie,

BK: I had some comments and questions for you too.

In another thread it was mentioned that: "I saw an interview with him (Gordon Novel) on the History Channel not so long ago where he claimed Carlos Marcello showed him the photographs of Hoover and Tolson in somewhat of a compromising situation."

- entry196601

BK: So there is other evidence and possible living witnesses to the purported photos and who had them. Since I heard it was Frank Costello of NYC who had them, and it has been reported that Costello had a slot machine deal with Marcello, perhaps they are the same photos and do exist.

Do you discount both the Costello story and Novel having seen them?

Ernie wrote: post='196474']

BILL: Just a brief comment.

Ernie: There is no connection whatsoever between the time I posted my original message here and the message you reference by Harry because I never even saw his message!

Everything I saw was originally posted 5 years ago -- and particularly I refer to Harry's answers to questions posed to him by John Simkin in this thread

Okay Ernie, gottcha, and I believe you. You did not join the forum after Harry posted his JFK assassination links to the JBS. But now I hope you will help us answer some of the questions about some of the links that Harry calls attention to. Nobody paid much attention to that post and no one responded to it until you joined the fray, but now I find that the links are interesting and worthwhile pursing, and I hope you will help answer some of the questions they present.

Such as, among your records is there any mention of Austin Cook, the JBS member who owned Austin's Barbeque where JD Tippit moonlighted as a bouncer? Or Castallanos, the Cuban who told the JBS meeting that they were going to surprise JFK when he came to Dallas? Or Norman Lee Elkins the Denton, Texas student and JBSer who the FBI told the Secret Service had threatened the President, based on an informant's tip?

Ernie: I did not call Harry Dean "a xxxx". I reported (factually and accurately) that there is no confirming evidence of any kind whatsoever in any pertinent FBI file on the JBS that supports Harry's claims about himself.

BK: "Harry's claims about himself." You know Ernie, I think that might be our/your problem. You keep saying your FBI JBS files don't support "Harry's claims about himself," but you don't ever quote Harry directly, instead telling us what your annonymous sources told you he said. And you're the one who complains about others misrepresenting what you say? I don't think it's what Harry claimes at all, but rather what you'r annonymous informants told you he said – that he was an undercover informant for the FBI who infiltrated the JBS.

As you suggested, I went over that Ed Forum thread in which Harry quotes from his manuscript and answers questions, and I've gone over some other threads he's posted on and his manuscript and I'm wadding through his FBI and CIA files released under the JFK Act that are on line, and for the life of me I can't find where Harry says that he infiltrated the JBS as an FBI informant. Yes, he says he was an informant for the FBI on FPCC and Cuban matters and he joined the JBS, but can you quote Harry where he says he infiltrated the JBS as an FBI informant?

Here's what I read him saying:

Harry Dean: More, from the 1990 manuscript/book, YROJ Connection to The JFK Assassination.

In 1962 I became a sincere member the new conservative movement as did a great number of other Republicans. The John Birch Society {JBS} was an invention and political extention of the Church {Latter-Day Saints {LDS}, Mormon}. The {JBS} infrastructure was an exact miniture of the Church designed to serve as it's political arm in reaching where the Church was forbidden to go by U.S. laws of Church-State separation.

We were also instructed to infiltrate the Democratic Party apparatus at every level. The Democratic was taken over from the bottom and the top and it's liberalism was forever neutralized!.....

BK: There you go. "In 1962 I became a member of the new conservative movement as did a great number of other Republicans. The John Birch Society (JBS) was an invention and political extention of the Church (Latter-Day Saints (LDS), Mormon.We were also instructed to infiltrate the Democratic Party apparatus at ever level."

To me that sounds like he joined the JBS and discovered LDS links to them and they - the JBS and LDS instructed him to infiltrate the Democratic Party. And there are those who questioned Harry's statement that the JBS had roots with the LDS and was a "front" for them, but others say the LDS did have the JBS hold meetings at their joints and financially supported them. And I consider the LDS an intelligence network that keeps really good records on everybody.

Ernie: I also received inquiries last year from people who had read Harry's claims concerning his alleged FBI connection. Those folks had read my on-line reports pertaining to the JBS and they asked me whether or not I could confirm that Harry "infiltrated" the JBS at the request of the FBI.

BK: So there you have it. Your annonymous people "read Harry's claims concerning his alleged FBI connection" and "asked me whether or not I could confirm that Harry "infiltrated the JBS at the request of the FBI." So the very idea that Harry infiltrated the JBS for the FBI is hearsay from your annonymous people and not from Harry himself.

So now I'm asking where Harry makes this claim he "infiltrated the JBS at the request of the FBI," as I think your informants read into it what they wanted to read. Does Harry actually make this claim and if so where does he claim it where I can read it?

Ernie: There is no evidence that Harry was "operating" for the FBI in a "covert" manner. Normally, the absence of confirming evidence invalidates speculations. You may recall that in my reply to Harry's message in this thread, I asked him to provide such data as the name(s) of his "FBI" handlers, his FBI code name, the name of his JBS chapter leader, etc. But he chose not to answer.

BK: Well Ernie is a good friend of members of this forum and he has and will answer questions and try to assist in answering yours. FYI, I don't believe Harry himself has read many of his own government files, so anything we find will be news to him.

Ernie: Furthermore, I quoted accurately and truthfully what the Assistant Director of the FBI's Los Angeles field office stated about Harry Dean. A while back I was asked for information concerning Harry Dean who claims that he infiltrated the John Birch Society from 1962-1964 and that he was an informant for the FBI. During my research into FBI HQ and field office files pertaining to the John Birch Society I received an FBI document which pertains to an inquiry about a column by James Horwitz on page 2 of the 3/16/77 issue of the Las Virgenes (CA) Independent Valley News.

The Horwitz column reported upon an "exclusive interview" with Harry Dean during which Dean repeated his claims about his alleged association with the FBI as an undercover operative or informant from 1960-1965 (notice that in this interview, Dean changed the years to include 1965).

BK: Ernie, do you have a copy of this Horwitz column and if so can you please post it for all of us to read? Thanks.

Ernie: The Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office (Robert E. Gebhardt) saw a copy of the Horwitz column because of an inquiry which he received about it. Gebhardt responded to the inquiry about Dean's assertions and he forwarded a copy of his 4/1/77 reply to James K. Coffin, the Publisher of the Las Virgenes Independent Valley News. You may obtain a copy of the column, the inquiry, and the reply by requesting Los Angeles FBI field office file #100-59001, serial #1258.

Here is the pertinent excerpt: "In the interest of accuracy, I must advise you that Harry Dean has never been an undercover operative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has never been an informant of this Bureau, and has never been instructed to perform any act on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Furthermore, I can tell you that the FBI has never investigated the John Birch Society. I am bringing the above information your attention. You might consider furnishing this information to the readers of your column."

BK: Ernie, I had asked you earlier and you ignored it or missed it, but don't you find these statements and your rundown of standard FBI procedures regarding informants very simliar to the sworn affidavit JEH sent to the Warren Commission in response to Dallas DA Henry Wade's allegation that Oswald was an FBI informant and he (Wade) had run similar informants of which there were no record when he was an FBI agent?

In Warren Commission Volume XVII Current Section: CE 835 - Letter from the FBI to the Commission enclosing affidavit of J . Edgar Hoover, dated February 6, 1964. Read three or four pages.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1134&relPageId=840

To me, your spiel and JEH's affidavit sound pretty much the same. Is that where you got that?

Ernie: Since I have acquired numerous FBI files on actual informants it authorized to infiltrate both legitimate and subversive organizations -- and I am, therefore, intimately familiar with the type of data contained in such files -- it is 100% certain that Harry Dean is misrepresenting his "FBI" association in order to inflate his credentials.

Furthermore, Harry Dean is on record stating that former FBI Special Agents Dan Smoot and W. Cleon Skousen were "members" of the Birch Society. But that is a total falsehood. Neither Smoot or Skousen joined the JBS. They did, however, support the JBS and both spoke at JBS functions or wrote for JBS publications.

Research is a process of acquiring verifiable factual information --- not hearsay, gossip, rumor, exaggerations, half-truths, innuendos, insinuations, speculations, or outright falsehoods.

BK: So even though we can't actually quote Harry Dean himself saying he infiltrated the JBS as an undercover informant for the FBI (but are relying on your annonymous sources and a newspaper column we only have the FBI's response to), I will admit that it can be reliably concluded that Harry didn't infiltrate the JBS as an FBI informant.

But Harry Dean does have an FBI file with over a hundred documents in it and he did actually join and was a card carrying member of the JBS, unlike Smoot and Skousen, Special Agents of the FBI who spoke at JFS functions and wrote for JBS publications but never actually joined the JBS. And that's one of the things that Harry is wrong about?

Ernie: However, I have presented evidence that Harry's claims about himself are not factually true.

BK: You have presented evidence that the claims other annonymous informants have claimed about Harry are not factually true.

Ernie: I based my conclusion upon several different types of primary source evidence i.e. contemporaneous FBI documents which reveal no reference whatsoever to Harry.

BK: You're basing your assumptions on what someone else read and told you about and you admit you haven't actually read Harry's manuscript, other than what he's posted on this forum, nor have you read the 100 plus government (FBI and CIA) documents on Harry released under the JFK Act, so you don't know what they say, or actually what Harry himself says.

Ernie: In addition, I approached this matter from another perspective. I pointed out the type of information which exists in genuine FBI informant files and, in fact, I even scanned and posted two documents pertaining to a genuine FBI informant (Delmar Dennis) around the time Harry claims he also was an FBI informant -- to illustrate the standard format utilized by FBI field offices and FBI HQ when they utilized an informant.

BK: Yes, I've checked out Delmar Dennis and the black chick Jones the FBI paid to be a Commie and all those people are really scary, and nothing at all like Harry Dean. I believe those examples you give and other similar informants are criminals who were paid by the FBI not only to be informants, but like Philbrick (and Bob Hardy, and Dennis and Jones, and Oswald) ordered to instigate and aggitate, to take action and to try to get others to do so too, for political reasons. And when things got out of hand, its just a matter of plausible denial, as Henry Wade explained that he knew how the FBI informant program worked because he ran informants for the FBI himself, and kept no records.

Ernie: One person in this thread has written that I have "convinced" him that Harry was never (as Harry claims) an FBI informant.

BK: Well if that's your purpose, you convinced me he didn't infiltrate the JBS for the FBI too, but if he wasn't an informant, the FBI and the CIA were certainly interested in his FPCC activities and his trip to Cuba to create a 100 plus document dossier on him, that neither you or him has read.

Ernie: So we have a choice: we can rely upon Harry Dean's memoir or we can rely upon primary source documentation which falsifies what Harry claims not only about his purported relationship with the FBI but also about the type of information which the FBI sought concerning the JBS--particularly during the time period which Harry claims he was "informing" on the JBS.

BK: We can rely on your annonymous sources who make claims as to what Harry has said, or we can read what Harry himself says. We have a choice to discard everything Harry has to say (and until you came along, nobody bothered to respond to his JBS post anyway), or we can listen to him, and try to develop the leads he provides, especially those concerning Oswald and the FPCC, the roles of Guy Gab, Howard and Seymore, the half dozen connections between the JBS and what happened at Dealey Plaza, and learn more about what Harry was actually doing and who he was doing it for if it wasn't the FBI.

You say sit down, I stand up. You say what Harry is telling us is wrong, I say he's not far off the mark and we should pay more attention to what he is really saying.

Edited July 6, 2010 by William Kelly

[Bernice Moore]

BILL; THANK YOU FOR A VERY SENSIBLE, REASONED POST, THINKIES LEAD TO THE DISTORTION OF INFORMATION...VERY WELL SAID, TA .PS HAS THERE EVER BEEN ANY TIME OR DATE GIVEN OF WHEN HARRY'S DOCUMENTS MAY FINALLY BE RELEASED...TA B..

[Ernie Lazar]

SEE MY REPLIES IN GREEN FONT

In another thread it was mentioned that: "I saw an interview with him (Gordon Novel) on the History Channel not so long ago where he claimed Carlos Marcello showed him the photographs of Hoover and Tolson in somewhat of a compromising situation."

BK: So there is other evidence and possible living witnesses to the purported photos and who had them. Since I heard it was Frank Costello of NYC who had them, and it has been reported that Costello had a slot machine deal with Marcello, perhaps they are the same photos and do exist.

Do you discount both the Costello story and Novel having seen them?

YES

Ernie wrote: post='196474']

BILL: Just a brief comment.

Ernie: There is no connection whatsoever between the time I posted my original message here and the message you reference by Harry because I never even saw his message!

Everything I saw was originally posted 5 years ago -- and particularly I refer to Harry's answers to questions posed to him by John Simkin in this thread

Okay Ernie, gottcha, and I believe you. You did not join the forum after Harry posted his JFK assassination links to the JBS. But now I hope you will help us answer some of the questions about some of the links that Harry calls attention to. Nobody paid much attention to that post and no one responded to it until you joined the fray, but now I find that the links are interesting and worthwhile pursing, and I hope you will help answer some of the questions they present.

Such as, among your records is there any mention of Austin Cook, the JBS member who owned Austin's Barbeque where JD Tippit moonlighted as a bouncer? Or Castallanos, the Cuban who told the JBS meeting that they were going to surprise JFK when he came to Dallas? Or Norman Lee Elkins the Denton, Texas student and JBSer who the FBI told the Secret Service had threatened the President, based on an informant's tip?

I'd have to go back and review everything I have. I'm pretty sure I have something about Castellanos but I don't recall anything I have regarding Elkins or Cook.

Ernie: I did not call Harry Dean "a xxxx". I reported (factually and accurately) that there is no confirming evidence of any kind whatsoever in any pertinent FBI file on the JBS that supports Harry's claims about himself.

BK: "Harry's claims about himself." You know Ernie, I think that might be our/your problem. You keep saying your FBI JBS files don't support "Harry's claims about himself," but you don't ever quote Harry directly, instead telling us what your annonymous sources told you he said.

I have no clue what you mean by my use of "anonymous sources". I am using what Harry posted in Education Forum in answer to John Simkin's questions. I previously provided a link to that thread. I also am using the summary about Harry which is posted here. I also identified by name the FBI Asst Director in Charge of the Los Angeles field office who explictly stated that Harry was not an FBI informant. I copy that section again below. I am not using "anonymous sources"

The Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office (Robert E. Gebhardt) saw a copy of the Horwitz column because of an inquiry which he received about it. Gebhardt responded to the inquiry about Dean’s assertions and he forwarded a copy of his 4/1/77 reply to James K. Coffin, the Publisher of the Las Virgenes Independent Valley News.

You may obtain a copy of the column, the inquiry, and the reply by requesting Los Angeles FBI field office file #100-59001, serial #1258.

Here is the pertinent excerpt:

“In the interest of accuracy, I must advise you that Harry Dean has never been an undercover operative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has never been an informant of this Bureau, and has never been instructed to perform any act on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Furthermore, I can tell you that the FBI has never investigated the John Birch Society. I am bringing the above information your attention. You might consider furnishing this information to the readers of your column.”

And you're the one who complains about others misrepresenting what you say? I don't think it's what Harry claimes at all, but rather what you'r annonymous informants told you he said – that he was an undercover informant for the FBI who infiltrated the JBS.

Everything I have posted here is based upon what is in Education Forum--including an "affidavit" which YOU posted in June 2009. I post the links below. If you have problems with that information, contact Harry or John Simkin and stop falsely accusing me.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdeanH.htm

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4269

[See especially Simkin questions to Harry #60 and #62 and Harry's replies #61 and #64 regarding Harry's informant reports to the FBI on the JBS -- starting at bottom of page 4 of this thread ]

THE AFFIDAVIT WHICH YOU POSTED!

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4269&st=105&p=168261&hl=+dean%20+and%20+birch%20+society&fromsearch=1entry168261

[/b]

As you suggested, I went over that Ed Forum thread in which Harry quotes from his manuscript and answers questions, and I've gone over some other threads he's posted on and his manuscript and I'm wadding through his FBI and CIA files released under the JFK Act that are on line, and for the life of me I can't find where Harry says that he infiltrated the JBS as an FBI informant. Yes, he says he was an informant for the FBI on FPCC and Cuban matters and he joined the JBS, but can you quote Harry where he says he infiltrated the JBS as an FBI informant?

Answered above

Here's what I read him saying:

Harry Dean: More, from the 1990 manuscript/book, YROJ Connection to The JFK Assassination.

In 1962 I became a sincere member the new conservative movement as did a great number of other Republicans. The John Birch Society {JBS} was an invention and political extention of the Church {Latter-Day Saints {LDS}, Mormon}. The {JBS} infrastructure was an exact miniture of the Church designed to serve as it's political arm in reaching where the Church was forbidden to go by U.S. laws of Church-State separation.

We were also instructed to infiltrate the Democratic Party apparatus at every level. The Democratic was taken over from the bottom and the top and it's liberalism was forever neutralized!.....

BK: There you go. "In 1962 I became a member of the new conservative movement as did a great number of other Republicans. The John Birch Society (JBS) was an invention and political extention of the Church (Latter-Day Saints (LDS), Mormon.We were also instructed to infiltrate the Democratic Party apparatus at ever level."

To me that sounds like he joined the JBS and discovered LDS links to them and they - the JBS and LDS instructed him to infiltrate the Democratic Party. And there are those who questioned Harry's statement that the JBS had roots with the LDS and was a "front" for them, but others say the LDS did have the JBS hold meetings at their joints and financially supported them. And I consider the LDS an intelligence network that keeps really good records on everybody.

Ernie: I also received inquiries last year from people who had read Harry's claims concerning his alleged FBI connection. Those folks had read my on-line reports pertaining to the JBS and they asked me whether or not I could confirm that Harry "infiltrated" the JBS at the request of the FBI.

BK: So there you have it. Your annonymous people "read Harry's claims concerning his alleged FBI connection" and "asked me whether or not I could confirm that Harry "infiltrated the JBS at the request of the FBI." So the very idea that Harry infiltrated the JBS for the FBI is hearsay from your annonymous people and not from Harry himself.

Total falsehood which discredits you.

So now I'm asking where Harry makes this claim he "infiltrated the JBS at the request of the FBI," as I think your informants read into it what they wanted to read. Does Harry actually make this claim and if so where does he claim it where I can read it?

Ernie: There is no evidence that Harry was "operating" for the FBI in a "covert" manner. Normally, the absence of confirming evidence invalidates speculations. You may recall that in my reply to Harry's message in this thread, I asked him to provide such data as the name(s) of his "FBI" handlers, his FBI code name, the name of his JBS chapter leader, etc. But he chose not to answer.

BK: Well Ernie is a good friend of members of this forum and he has and will answer questions and try to assist in answering yours. FYI, I don't believe Harry himself has read many of his own government files, so anything we find will be news to him.

Ernie: Furthermore, I quoted accurately and truthfully what the Assistant Director of the FBI's Los Angeles field office stated about Harry Dean. A while back I was asked for information concerning Harry Dean who claims that he infiltrated the John Birch Society from 1962-1964 and that he was an informant for the FBI. During my research into FBI HQ and field office files pertaining to the John Birch Society I received an FBI document which pertains to an inquiry about a column by James Horwitz on page 2 of the 3/16/77 issue of the Las Virgenes (CA) Independent Valley News.

The Horwitz column reported upon an "exclusive interview" with Harry Dean during which Dean repeated his claims about his alleged association with the FBI as an undercover operative or informant from 1960-1965 (notice that in this interview, Dean changed the years to include 1965).

BK: Ernie, do you have a copy of this Horwitz column and if so can you please post it for all of us to read? Thanks.

Yes I have it but I have no way to post it here. If you give me your email, I will send you a copy.

Ernie: The Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office (Robert E. Gebhardt) saw a copy of the Horwitz column because of an inquiry which he received about it. Gebhardt responded to the inquiry about Dean's assertions and he forwarded a copy of his 4/1/77 reply to James K. Coffin, the Publisher of the Las Virgenes Independent Valley News. You may obtain a copy of the column, the inquiry, and the reply by requesting Los Angeles FBI field office file #100-59001, serial #1258.

Here is the pertinent excerpt: "In the interest of accuracy, I must advise you that Harry Dean has never been an undercover operative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has never been an informant of this Bureau, and has never been instructed to perform any act on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Furthermore, I can tell you that the FBI has never investigated the John Birch Society. I am bringing the above information your attention. You might consider furnishing this information to the readers of your column."

BK: Ernie, I had asked you earlier and you ignored it or missed it, but don't you find these statements and your rundown of standard FBI procedures regarding informants very simliar to the sworn affidavit JEH sent to the Warren Commission in response to Dallas DA Henry Wade's allegation that Oswald was an FBI informant and he (Wade) had run similar informants of which there were no record when he was an FBI agent?

The internal evidence which exists in the JBS HQ file and the JBS Los Angeles field office file (which includes military intelligence reports as well) does not support the claim that any "informant" had infiltrated the Covina CA chapter of the JBS OR provided info about it. However, there IS a Naval Intelligence report in the FBI's Chicago field file on the JBS concerning an ONI informant who provided information about the formation of a Chicago chapter of the JBS in 1959.

In Warren Commission Volume XVII Current Section: CE 835 - Letter from the FBI to the Commission enclosing affidavit of J . Edgar Hoover, dated February 6, 1964. Read three or four pages.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1134&relPageId=840

To me, your spiel and JEH's affidavit sound pretty much the same. Is that where you got that?

Ernie: Since I have acquired numerous FBI files on actual informants it authorized to infiltrate both legitimate and subversive organizations -- and I am, therefore, intimately familiar with the type of data contained in such files -- it is 100% certain that Harry Dean is misrepresenting his "FBI" association in order to inflate his credentials.

Furthermore, Harry Dean is on record stating that former FBI Special Agents Dan Smoot and W. Cleon Skousen were "members" of the Birch Society. But that is a total falsehood. Neither Smoot or Skousen joined the JBS. They did, however, support the JBS and both spoke at JBS functions or wrote for JBS publications.

Research is a process of acquiring verifiable factual information --- not hearsay, gossip, rumor, exaggerations, half-truths, innuendos, insinuations, speculations, or outright falsehoods.

BK: So even though we can't actually quote Harry Dean himself saying he infiltrated the JBS as an undercover informant for the FBI (but are relying on your annonymous sources and a newspaper column we only have the FBI's response to), I will admit that it can be reliably concluded that Harry didn't infiltrate the JBS as an FBI informant.

But Harry Dean does have an FBI file with over a hundred documents in it and he did actually join and was a card carrying member of the JBS, unlike Smoot and Skousen, Special Agents of the FBI who spoke at JFS functions and wrote for JBS publications but never actually joined the JBS. And that's one of the things that Harry is wrong about?

Ernie: However, I have presented evidence that Harry's claims about himself are not factually true.

BK: You have presented evidence that the claims other annonymous informants have claimed about Harry are not factually true.

BILL: How could you be so massively wrong about this? There are NO OTHER INFORMANTS who made "claims" about Harry.

Ernie: I based my conclusion upon several different types of primary source evidence i.e. contemporaneous FBI documents which reveal no reference whatsoever to Harry.

BK: You're basing your assumptions on what someone else read and told you about and you admit you haven't actually read Harry's manuscript, other than what he's posted on this forum, nor have you read the 100 plus government (FBI and CIA) documents on Harry released under the JFK Act, so you don't know what they say, or actually what Harry himself says.

Ernie: In addition, I approached this matter from another perspective. I pointed out the type of information which exists in genuine FBI informant files and, in fact, I even scanned and posted two documents pertaining to a genuine FBI informant (Delmar Dennis) around the time Harry claims he also was an FBI informant -- to illustrate the standard format utilized by FBI field offices and FBI HQ when they utilized an informant.

BK: Yes, I've checked out Delmar Dennis and the black chick Jones the FBI paid to be a Commie and all those people are really scary, and nothing at all like Harry Dean. I believe those examples you give and other similar informants are criminals who were paid by the FBI not only to be informants, but like Philbrick (and Bob Hardy, and Dennis and Jones, and Oswald) ordered to instigate and aggitate, to take action and to try to get others to do so too, for political reasons. And when things got out of hand, its just a matter of plausible denial, as Henry Wade explained that he knew how the FBI informant program worked because he ran informants for the FBI himself, and kept no records.

I don't know whom you are referring to as "black chick Jones" nor do I know what you mean by "ordered to instigate and agitate". They provided information about what transpired at meetings they attended.

Ernie: One person in this thread has written that I have "convinced" him that Harry was never (as Harry claims) an FBI informant.

BK: Well if that's your purpose, you convinced me he didn't infiltrate the JBS for the FBI too, but if he wasn't an informant, the FBI and the CIA were certainly interested in his FPCC activities and his trip to Cuba to create a 100 plus document dossier on him, that neither you or him has read.

Ernie: [/b]So we have a choice: we can rely upon Harry Dean's memoir or we can rely upon primary source documentation which falsifies what Harry claims not only about his purported relationship with the FBI but also about the type of information which the FBI sought concerning the JBS--particularly during the time period which Harry claims he was "informing" on the JBS.

BK: We can rely on your annonymous sources who make claims as to what Harry has said, or we can read what Harry himself says.

Again, I have no idea what you mean by my "anonymous sources". There are none! This is a figment of your imagination. My "sources" are Harry Dean's answers to questions posed to him by John Simkin and others in this website.

We have a choice to discard everything Harry has to say (and until you came along, nobody bothered to respond to his JBS post anyway), or we can listen to him, and try to develop the leads he provides, especially those concerning Oswald and the FPCC, the roles of Guy Gab, Howard and Seymore, the half dozen connections between the JBS and what happened at Dealey Plaza, and learn more about what Harry was actually doing and who he was doing it for if it wasn't the FBI.

You say sit down, I stand up. You say what Harry is telling us is wrong, I say he's not far off the mark and we should pay more attention to what he is really saying.

[Ernie Lazar]

Bill:

As a brief additional comment concerning your quotation by Harry where he claims that the JBS was a creation of the LDS. This is so absurd that I cannot even understand the basis for Harry's comment.

Robert Welch founded the JBS. He was not a Mormon. The persons he invited to attend the meeting in Indianapolis in December 1958 at which Welch proposed creation of the JBS with himself as the leader, were not Mormons. The original membership and HQ office staff of the JBS was approximately 60% Catholic and 40% Protestant. Of the original 28 JBS National Council members, I cannot recall even one being a Mormon. Most of them, in fact, were Catholics -- including a Catholic priest, Rev. Richard Ginder.

The only large survey of JBS membership conducted by an impartial scholar (Fred Grupp) reported the following with respect to religious background of the JBS:

"The conservative ideology of the Birch Society is consistently associated with western and southern residence, lower social-class position, and preference for Roman Catholicism and theologically orthodox forms of Protestantism." [Political Ideology and Religious Preference: The John Birch Society and the Americans for Democratic Action; Author(s): Fred W. Grupp, Jr. and William M. Newman; Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 401-413.]

This has been validated by other scholars who conducted much smaller surveys. For example: John Broyles in his doctoral dissertation (and subsequent book) about the JBS.

It is certainly accurate to state that prominent conservative Mormons [such as Ezra Taft Benson and W. Cleon Skousen] were attracted to and supported the JBS -- but they certainly were not predominant in the JBS nor were they the senior leaders of the JBS in its formative period.

I might also add that there was a major internal dispute within the LDS regarding use of church facilities to promote the JBS.

For example, see 1/4/63 Salt Lake City Deseret News article, page B1, entitled "Church Sets Policy In Birch Society", for the following First Presidency quote:

"We deplore the presumption of some politicians, especially officers, co-ordinators and members of the John Birch Society, who undertake to align the Church or its leadership with their partisan views.

"We encourage our members to exercise the right of citizenship, to vote according to their own convictions, but no one should seek or pretend to have our approval of their adherence to any extremist ideologies

"We denounce communism as being anti-Christian, anti-American, and the enemy of freedom, but we think they who pretend to fight it by casting aspersions on our elected officers or other fellow citizens do the anti-Communist cause a great disservice."

Also see October 1992 Stake Presidents document entitled "Profile of the Splinter Group Members Or Others With Troublesome Ideologies" which lists 20 warning signs of apostasy. Third on their list was "John Birch membership or leanings."

In October 1961, church Elder, Ezra Taft Benson, stated that "the internal threat to the American way of life is in the secret alliance which exists between the more advanced Social Democrats and the hard-core Communist conspiracy" and he described the "insidious infiltration of communist agents and sympathizers into almost every segment of American life."

First Presidency counsellor Hugh Brown interpreted these remarks as endorsing JBS doctrine and he subsequently answered an inquiry about the JBS by writing that "we [the First Presidency] are definitely against their methods" and he observed that "we do not think dividing our own people, casting reflections on our government officials, or calling everybody a Communist who does not agree with the political views of certain individuals is the proper way to fight Communism." [brown 12/18/61 letter to Mrs. Alicia Bingham].

In April 1962 Brown wrote, in an obvious reference to the Birch Society: "Let us not undermine our government or accuse those who hold office of being soft on communism...{or} by destroying faith in our elected officials under the guise of fighting communism." [Improvement Era, June 1962, "Honor The Priesthood", page 450]

After Ezra Taft Benson explicitly endorsed the JBS, Brown described himself as "disgusted" with Benson's pro-JBS activities and if they did not cease, he suggested "some disciplinary action should be taken." [Hugh Brown to Gustive O. Larson, 11/11/62].

In October 1962, Ezra T. Benson's son, Reed, became JBS Coordinator in Utah. Reed used chapels to speak to stake meetings about the JBS. Hugh Brown wrote in November 1962 that "It is certainly regrettable [benson] is permitted to continue to peddle his bunk in our Church houses."

Edited July 7, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[Ernie Lazar]

BILL: I scanned the column which you asked to see and posted it here:

http://sites.google.com/site/ernie124102/dean

[William Kelly]

BILL: I scanned the column which you asked to see and posted it here:

http://sites.google....rnie124102/dean

Thanks Ernie

And as for your annonymous sources, you have mentioned them a half dozen times, - the people who came to you and asked you to confirm that Harry was an FBI informant who infiltrated the JBS. You have repeatedly claimed that other people came to you and asked you about Harry and made clames that Harry was an FBI informant who infiltrated the JBS.

Do I have to go back and quote you each time?

BK

Edited July 7, 2010 by William Kelly

[Ernie Lazar]

Bill: These were not "sources"...They were people who read my on-line reports and then contacted me to ask what I knew about Harry Dean. They did not provide me with any information other than to quote what Harry Dean said ABOUT HIMSELF--as Harry has done repeatedly in Education Forum.

Why do you falsely characterize them as "anonymous sources"?? What possible relevance to your argument against me (or my statements here) do these people have in your scheme of things?

In this thread you have asked me many questions---right? Therefore, are YOU now one of my "sources" just because you asked me questions??

There is something VERY peculiar about your reasoning ability.

You falsely accuse me of relying upon "anonymous sources" when I never relied upon any. You accuse me of misrepresenting what Harry Dean said about himself being an FBI informant --so I provided you with the links to the messages in Education Forum where he did exactly that -- including an affidavit YOU posted in June 2009. What the hell is wrong with you?

BILL: I scanned the column which you asked to see and posted it here:

http://sites.google....rnie124102/dean

Thanks Ernie

And as for your annonymous sources, you have mentioned them a half dozen times, - the people who came to you and asked you to confirm that Harry was an FBI informant who infiltrated the JBS. You have repeatedly claimed that other people came to you and asked you about Harry and made clames that Harry was an FBI informant who infiltrated the JBS.

Do I have to go back and quote you each time?

BK

Edited July 7, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[Ernie Lazar]

A footnote for Greg Parker.

This is in respect to your malicious attempt to trivialize, de-value, and disparage my years of research as amounting to nothing more than being an "archivist".

Many years ago the FBI attempted to impose $4800 in "search fees" on my requests because they were so voluminous. I naturally appealed their fee request because, if it was allowed to stand, it would have ended my FOIA research.

My appeal was based upon my claim that I should be considered a freelance journalist.

One of the requirements of the FOIA for freelance journalist status is to use one's editorial skills on whatever data is obtained from the FBI to turn that material "into a distinct and unique work" which then is distributed in a manner which educates the American public about some matter of historical importance and significance.

A mere "archivist" cannot prevail in a fee exemption appeal because an archivist is not using editorial and analytical skills to produce "a distinct and unique work" which "educates the American public".

In support of my contention, I provided the Bureau with letters from the following organizations, newspapers, and authors who either...

(1) published my articles in their own publications OR

(2) used data (or documents) which I provided to them in their articles/books/conference papers or other publications OR

(3) recommended and affirmed the value my research for its contribution to understanding of American history -- and in particular the FBI's role in monitoring political and educational organizations and extremist groups:

* American Library Association

* Task Force For Democracy

* Interchange (a consortium of numerous groups who specialized in research and publications on political extremism in the U.S.)

* Group Research Inc. (Washington DC -- whose archives are now at Columbia University -- including material I sent to them over 15-20 years)

* National Association of Biology Teachers (because of my published book-length annotated bibliography on the scientific creationism movement)

* Franchise Tax Board (because of my book-length report on the tax protest movement in the U.S.)

* Midwest Research, Inc (now known as Political Research Associates)

* American Jewish Committee

* People For The American Way

* Wall Street Journal

* Appleton WI Post-Crescent

* Indianapolis IN News

* Seattle WA Times

* San Francisco CA Chronicle

Books citing my research:

Gary E. McKuen: The Religious Right

Chip Berlet & Matthew Lyons: Right-Wing Populism in America

John George and Laird Wilcox: Nazis, Communists, Klansmen and Others on the Fringe: Political Extremism in America

David Bollier: Liberty and Justice For Some

Henry M. Morris: History of Modern Creationism

The FBI accepted my fee waiver appeal -- and they accepted my contention that I qualified as a freelance journalist.

Since 1997, here are a few other places where you can see my research used in published articles and books and academic papers:

* Orange County Weekly (Costa Mesa CA) on Birch Society-Joel Dvorman controversy in 1960's

* Dr. Veronica A. Wilson (history professor at Univ of Pittsburgh); academic conference paper entitled "Race, Representation, and John Birch Society Activist, Julia Brown"

* Dr. John Drabble: "The FBI, COINTELPRO-White Hate and the Decline of Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama 1964-1971" published in January 2008 academic journal Alabama Review -- also see more details below

* Dr. John Earl Haynes: Bibliography on Communism and Anti-Communism

* Alexander Zaitchik: Meet The Man Who Changed Glenn Beck's Life (Salon.com article and Alex's new book published last month)

* Alex Heard: Department of Forgetting (Slate.com article re FBI practices)

Dr. John Drabble (whose academic journal article is mentioned above) visited me twice for a total of 8 days and he poured over dozens of my FBI files and he copied many thousands of pages of documents in my collection. I also gave him entire files which I no longer needed and, in subsequent years (including last month) I copied and sent him many major FBI files on CDROM. After John's first visit, he sent me the following letter:

"Dear Mr. Lazar,

Thank you once again for allowing me to use your private collection of FBI documents last summer. With your help, I was able to acquire important information for my recently published article, "The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE and the Decline Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama, 1964-1971," Alabama Review, 61, (January 2008): 3-47, my forthcoming article, “From Reactionary White Supremacy to Revolutionary White Power: The FBI’s COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE Operation and the “Nazification” of the Ku Klux Klan,” American Studies, (forthcoming), and my working manuscript, entitled “FBI Covert Operations and Suppression of Ku Klux Klan Violence, 1964-1971,” which I plan to submit to Terrorism and Political Violence next fall.

The documents on the United Klans, The Minutemen, and other racist-right groups, which I plan to look at this summer, will help greatly in researching for my book-length manuscript on COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE, as well as additional journal articles.

I have been researching this topic for ten years now, and I have found your collection to be of immense help, as the majority of your documents are not available through any other source. I also want to commend your blog. You publish most original, interesting and important research, raising important issues and making them available to the general public. If not for your publishing efforts, I would never have known of your collection. I look forward to your next blog, and to many more research hours in your collection."

Dr. John Drabble

Assistant Professor of American Culture and Literature, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey

Visiting Professor, International Area Studies Teaching Program, University of California at Berkeley

And in July of last year I received the following self-explanatory email:

"Ernie, I just wanted to let you know that I received the copy of the letter from Welch to Schwartz that you mailed to me. It was very helpful for my research. I don't know if you'd be interested, but I've attached my finished draft of the chapter in my dissertation that deals with the John Birch Society and the Committee Against Summit Entanglements. You were a big help to me in writing it.

Thanks again, Aaron Berkowitz. Assistant Professor, Lincoln Land Community College, Springfield, IL"

I might also mention that, until recently, I had site meter statistics on all of my on-line reports. Unfortunately, when Googlepages changed to Googlesites -- they eliminated my existing site meters. However, at last count, the two different versions of my JBS report which were posted on-line had more than 7000 hits from all over the world. What is even more interesting is the identity of the readers. My weekly site meter reports revealed that "hits" were originating from such divergent sources as state legislatures, governors' offices, West Point, the Naval Academy, numerous colleges and universities and other educational institutions, public interest lobbying organizations, and numerous media sources.

All of that for a mere "archivist"?

I won't even go into the hundreds of emails I have received -- including from relatives of people who I discussed in my reports -- and from scores of authors, researchers, and scholars who ask me what I have on subject "x", "y" or "z".

Edited July 7, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[Greg Parker]

A footnote for Greg Parker.

This is in respect to your malicious attempt to trivialize, de-value, and disparage my years of research as amounting to nothing more than being an "archivist".

Many years ago the FBI attempted to impose $4800 in "search fees" on my requests because they were so voluminous. I naturally appealed their fee request because, if it was allowed to stand, it would have ended my FOIA research.

My appeal was based upon my claim that I should be considered a freelance journalist.

It's getting a bit monotonous having to show you constantly what you've said on this thread, Ernie, but here goes one more time:

You might like to review the following information:

(1) A recent doctoral dissertation by Samuel Brenner about the development of the extreme right in our country...Notice the acknowledgements page (page v) where Sam refers to his use of material he got from me http://www.samuelbre...issertation.htm

(2) Dr. John Drabble is one of our nation's foremost scholars on the Bureau's COINTELPRO program involving White Hate Groups. He is also a friend of mine. He has written numerous articles

(and he is working on a book) which reveals FBI illegal and improper activities. He, too, has cited me as his source for data in several of his articles. http://cointelprowhi...e.blogspot.com/

(3) Numerous other authors, researchers, and representatives of the news media have cited documents or information which they obtained from me in their own writings or reports about the extreme right in our country: the most recent examples being Alex Zaitchik's salon.com articles (and book) about Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow's reports on MSNBC with respect to the JBS.

So I have TWO WORDS for you: The first begins with F and the second with Y.

What is an archivist? Well, Ernie, as I've pointed out from Wiki, it is someone who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to information determined to have long-term value. I think that is a very reasonable description of what you stated you did (i.e. pass on documents to authors, researchers and journalists)

Of course your appeal was based on a claim that you yourself are a journalist. You had a financial incentive to do that. But that was emphatically not the claim you made here and to which I responded.

ps

Did you also have two words for the FBI when you were explaining the grounds of your appeal?

One of the requirements of the FOIA for freelance journalist status is to use one's editorial skills on whatever data is obtained from the FBI to turn that material "into a distinct and unique work" which then is distributed in a manner which educates the American public about some matter of historical importance and significance.

A mere "archivist" cannot prevail in a fee exemption appeal because an archivist is not using editorial and analytical skills to produce "a distinct and unique work" which "educates the American public".

In support of my contention, I provided the Bureau with letters from the following organizations, newspapers, and authors who either...

(1) published my articles in their own publications OR

(2) used data (or documents) which I provided to them in their articles/books/conference papers or other publications OR

(3) recommended and affirmed the value my research for its contribution to understanding of American history -- and in particular the FBI's role in monitoring political and educational organizations and extremist groups:

* American Library Association

* Task Force For Democracy

* Interchange (a consortium of numerous groups who specialized in research and publications on political extremism in the U.S.)

* Group Research Inc. (Washington DC -- whose archives are now at Columbia University -- including material I sent to them over 15-20 years)

* National Association of Biology Teachers (because of my published book-length annotated bibliography on the scientific creationism movement)

* Franchise Tax Board (because of my book-length report on the tax protest movement in the U.S.)

* Midwest Research, Inc (now known as Political Research Associates)

* American Jewish Committee

* People For The American Way

* Wall Street Journal

* Appleton WI Post-Crescent

* Indianapolis IN News

* Seattle WA Times

* San Francisco CA Chronicle

Books citing my research:

Gary E. McKuen: The Religious Right

Chip Berlet & Matthew Lyons: Right-Wing Populism in America

John George and Laird Wilcox: Nazis, Communists, Klansmen and Others on the Fringe: Political Extremism in America

David Bollier: Liberty and Justice For Some

Henry M. Morris: History of Modern Creationism

The FBI accepted my fee waiver appeal -- and they accepted my contention that I qualified as a freelance journalist.

Since 1997, here are a few other places where you can see my research used in published articles and books and academic papers:

* Orange County Weekly (Costa Mesa CA) on Birch Society-Joel Dvorman controversy in 1960's

* Dr. Veronica A. Wilson (history professor at Univ of Pittsburgh); academic conference paper entitled "Race, Representation, and John Birch Society Activist, Julia Brown"

* Dr. John Drabble: "The FBI, COINTELPRO-White Hate and the Decline of Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama 1964-1971" published in January 2008 academic journal Alabama Review -- also see more details below

* Dr. John Earl Haynes: Bibliography on Communism and Anti-Communism

* Alexander Zaitchik: Meet The Man Who Changed Glenn Beck's Life (Salon.com article and Alex's new book published last month)

* Alex Heard: Department of Forgetting (Slate.com article re FBI practices)

Dr. John Drabble (whose academic journal article is mentioned above) visited me twice for a total of 8 days and he poured over dozens of my FBI files and he copied many thousands of pages of documents in my collection. I also gave him entire files which I no longer needed and, in subsequent years (including last month) I copied and sent him many major FBI files on CDROM. After John's first visit, he sent me the following letter:

"Dear Mr. Lazar,

Thank you once again for allowing me to use your private collection of FBI documents last summer. With your help, I was able to acquire important information for my recently published article, "The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE and the Decline Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama, 1964-1971," Alabama Review, 61, (January 2008): 3-47, my forthcoming article, “From Reactionary White Supremacy to Revolutionary White Power: The FBI’s COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE Operation and the “Nazification” of the Ku Klux Klan,” American Studies, (forthcoming), and my working manuscript, entitled “FBI Covert Operations and Suppression of Ku Klux Klan Violence, 1964-1971,” which I plan to submit to Terrorism and Political Violence next fall.

The documents on the United Klans, The Minutemen, and other racist-right groups, which I plan to look at this summer, will help greatly in researching for my book-length manuscript on COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE, as well as additional journal articles.

I have been researching this topic for ten years now, and I have found your collection to be of immense help, as the majority of your documents are not available through any other source. I also want to commend your blog. You publish most original, interesting and important research, raising important issues and making them available to the general public. If not for your publishing efforts, I would never have known of your collection. I look forward to your next blog, and to many more research hours in your collection."

Dr. John Drabble

Assistant Professor of American Culture and Literature, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey

Visiting Professor, International Area Studies Teaching Program, University of California at Berkeley

And in July of last year I received the following self-explanatory email:

"Ernie, I just wanted to let you know that I received the copy of the letter from Welch to Schwartz that you mailed to me. It was very helpful for my research. I don't know if you'd be interested, but I've attached my finished draft of the chapter in my dissertation that deals with the John Birch Society and the Committee Against Summit Entanglements. You were a big help to me in writing it.

Thanks again, Aaron Berkowitz. Assistant Professor, Lincoln Land Community College, Springfield, IL"

I might also mention that, until recently, I had site meter statistics on all of my on-line reports. Unfortunately, when Googlepages changed to Googlesites -- they eliminated my existing site meters. However, at last count, the two different versions of my JBS report which were posted on-line had more than 7000 hits from all over the world. What is even more interesting is the identity of the readers. My weekly site meter reports revealed that "hits" were originating from such divergent sources as state legislatures, governors' offices, West Point, the Naval Academy, numerous colleges and universities and other educational institutions, public interest lobbying organizations, and numerous media sources.

All of that for a mere "archivist"?

I won't even go into the hundreds of emails I have received -- including from relatives of people who I discussed in my reports -- and from scores of authors, researchers, and scholars who ask me what I have on subject "x", "y" or "z".

[William Kelly]

BILL: I scanned the column which you asked to see and posted it here:

http://sites.google....rnie124102/dean

When Oswald was asked (I think by Michael Paine) about reading the Militant and other radical publications he saidm, "You have to read between the lines." Indeed.

Here we have a lengthly "Between the Lines" column by James Horitz that quotes Harry Dean extensively without once actually quoting him with quotations enclosing his own words. Instead, we have James Horitz column on Harry Dean and the odd assortment of characters that populate this particular plot.

Did you really say all that Harry?

Between The Lines

James Horitz

Wednesday, March 16, 1977

Las Virgenes Independent Valley (California)

In an exclusive interview granted to Valley Publications, former undercover operative for the FBI, Harry Dean, has stated that the John Birch Society had a heavily armed network of citizen soldiers ready to take to the streets in late 1963 and early 1964, if President Johnson and Chief Justice Warren did not quickly find Lee Harvey Oswald (a supposed communist sympathizer) guilty of the murder of President Kennedy. The threat was delivered to Johnson and Warren, within a few days after the assassination, by intelligence sources and by agents of the power structure that eliminated the President. LBJ had the choice of nation-wide internal strife or knuckling under the threat and thereby giving this minority force a position of recognition. Johnson opted for the second choice.

Dean, an undercover operative for the FBI from 1960 to 1965, had been assigned by the FBI to infiltrate the Birch Society. In that role, he was active in the Covina, (Calif.) chapter of the JBS from 1962 through 1964. During Dean's tour with the Society he stats they planned three major activities against John Kennedy: a planned assassination in Mexico City in 1962 that was called off; the assassination in Dallas; and the threat against a thorough investigation. In each case, according to Harry Dean, Congresssman John Rousselot (R. San Marino) was involved in the planning. Rousselot was Western Director of the John Birch Society during the first half of the '60's.

During the years when Harry Dean had been acting as an active member of the Covbina Birch Society, the main meeting place for all the anti-Kennedy activities was at a residence on San Pierre Street in El Monte. The Birchers were connected with anti-Castro Cubans, often mentioned as assassination suspects, through the Drive Against Communist Aggression (DACA). The DACA was an anti-Communist organization directed by members of the JBS, which had attracted certain Cubans who were in the Los Angeles area during 1962-63, trying to enlist support in another invasion of Castro controlled Cuba. The DACA operated in Mexico as well as the U.S. According to Dean, World War II hero Guy (Gabby) Gabaldon was the Mexican Director, while Ray Flieshman of Whittier was the U.S. Director. Another active member of DACA and the Covina JBS, who had a close relationship with Gabaldon, was Dave Robbins, who at the time ('62-'63) was a high ranking employee of the Fluor Corportation. (J. Roberrt Fluor and John Rousselot had been known to be close political allies).

In a number of different circumstances Dean was able to determine that Gabaldob, Robbins, Flieshman, and Rousselot had been involved in planning the aborted assassination attempt of JFK in Mexico City, June 1962.

Harry Dean had many occasions to observe and relate with much publicized Cuba-American Loran Eugene Hallaka Lorenzo Pacilloaka Skip Hall and Laurence Howard-aka Alonzo Escuirdo. Hall and Howard had a close association with former General Edwin Walker, of Texas, whenever Walker visited the Covina JBS.

Dean recalls specific meetings where Walker, Rousselot, Hall, Howard, Gabaldon and himself (Dean) laid the plans to frame Lee Harvey Oswald, who they thought was a communist, as the assassin. Per Dean, Hall and Howard left the San Pierre Street house in October 1963, with arms and medicines, and the plans to implicate Oswald.

The subject of eliminating President Kennedy was never discussed as a subject of the Society's meetings, but Harry Dean claims the plans for the assassination were conceived in small group meetings. At one time or another Harry Dean was witness to the plans of the assassination of JFK by different combinations of John Roussselot, Loren Hall, Laurence Howard, Guy Gabaldon, Edwin Walker, Dave Robbins, Ray Flieshman, and not previously mentioned Covina JBS member Ed Peters.

According to Dean, the directions taken by John Kennedy were directly in opposition to the John Birch Society's ultimate goals and they, in conjunctions wit the DACA, took matters into their own hands. To protect exposure through an investigation, the Society sent threats of nation-wide street warfare, to the administration via secret agents, who they were sure had infiltrated the various radical and reactionary organizations throughout the U.S., if a speedy and simple verdict was not the action.

Edited July 8, 2010 by William Kelly

[Ernie Lazar]

Greg -- a very lame reply by you. Once again it shows that you arrive at conclusions hastily based upon your desire to immediately trash someone who disagrees with you or challenges what you believe.

We can reasonably assume that you apply the same "analytical" skill to FBI documents. Instead of being curious about everything pertinent which you need to see or know about in order to make well-informed judgments, you instead select bits and pieces of data, elevate them to supreme importance, and then ignore everything else. Then, when somebody brings your attention to data you are unaware of, you immediately want to trivialize it, de-value it, and dismiss it -- because your actual purpose is propaganda. Anything or anyone that interferes with or diminishes your propaganda requires (in your scheme of things) demolition.

Incidentally, one of John Drabble's articles about the FBI could easily be interpreted to support many of your statements to me in this thread regarding FBI practices and procedures -- and, in fact, he too quotes from the Swearingen memoir in his article. No doubt it will surprise you to learn that he obtained FBI documents from me which greatly informed his article. As I previously mentioned, John Drabble and I were friends. It saddens me to report that my friend died of thyroid cancer earlier this month -- which means our country has lost one of its best scholars.

A footnote for Greg Parker.

This is in respect to your malicious attempt to trivialize, de-value, and disparage my years of research as amounting to nothing more than being an "archivist".

Many years ago the FBI attempted to impose $4800 in "search fees" on my requests because they were so voluminous. I naturally appealed their fee request because, if it was allowed to stand, it would have ended my FOIA research.

My appeal was based upon my claim that I should be considered a freelance journalist.

It's getting a bit monotonous having to show you constantly what you've said on this thread, Ernie, but here goes one more time:

You might like to review the following information:

(1) A recent doctoral dissertation by Samuel Brenner about the development of the extreme right in our country...Notice the acknowledgements page (page v) where Sam refers to his use of material he got from me http://www.samuelbre...issertation.htm

(2) Dr. John Drabble is one of our nation's foremost scholars on the Bureau's COINTELPRO program involving White Hate Groups. He is also a friend of mine. He has written numerous articles

(and he is working on a book) which reveals FBI illegal and improper activities. He, too, has cited me as his source for data in several of his articles. http://cointelprowhi...e.blogspot.com/

(3) Numerous other authors, researchers, and representatives of the news media have cited documents or information which they obtained from me in their own writings or reports about the extreme right in our country: the most recent examples being Alex Zaitchik's salon.com articles (and book) about Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow's reports on MSNBC with respect to the JBS.

So I have TWO WORDS for you: The first begins with F and the second with Y.

What is an archivist? Well, Ernie, as I've pointed out from Wiki, it is someone who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to information determined to have long-term value. I think that is a very reasonable description of what you stated you did (i.e. pass on documents to authors, researchers and journalists)

Of course your appeal was based on a claim that you yourself are a journalist. You had a financial incentive to do that. But that was emphatically not the claim you made here and to which I responded.

ps

Did you also have two words for the FBI when you were explaining the grounds of your appeal?

One of the requirements of the FOIA for freelance journalist status is to use one's editorial skills on whatever data is obtained from the FBI to turn that material "into a distinct and unique work" which then is distributed in a manner which educates the American public about some matter of historical importance and significance.

A mere "archivist" cannot prevail in a fee exemption appeal because an archivist is not using editorial and analytical skills to produce "a distinct and unique work" which "educates the American public".

In support of my contention, I provided the Bureau with letters from the following organizations, newspapers, and authors who either...

(1) published my articles in their own publications OR

(2) used data (or documents) which I provided to them in their articles/books/conference papers or other publications OR

(3) recommended and affirmed the value my research for its contribution to understanding of American history -- and in particular the FBI's role in monitoring political and educational organizations and extremist groups:

* American Library Association

* Task Force For Democracy

* Interchange (a consortium of numerous groups who specialized in research and publications on political extremism in the U.S.)

* Group Research Inc. (Washington DC -- whose archives are now at Columbia University -- including material I sent to them over 15-20 years)

* National Association of Biology Teachers (because of my published book-length annotated bibliography on the scientific creationism movement)

* Franchise Tax Board (because of my book-length report on the tax protest movement in the U.S.)

* Midwest Research, Inc (now known as Political Research Associates)

* American Jewish Committee

* People For The American Way

* Wall Street Journal

* Appleton WI Post-Crescent

* Indianapolis IN News

* Seattle WA Times

* San Francisco CA Chronicle

Books citing my research:

Gary E. McKuen: The Religious Right

Chip Berlet & Matthew Lyons: Right-Wing Populism in America

John George and Laird Wilcox: Nazis, Communists, Klansmen and Others on the Fringe: Political Extremism in America

David Bollier: Liberty and Justice For Some

Henry M. Morris: History of Modern Creationism

The FBI accepted my fee waiver appeal -- and they accepted my contention that I qualified as a freelance journalist.

Since 1997, here are a few other places where you can see my research used in published articles and books and academic papers:

* Orange County Weekly (Costa Mesa CA) on Birch Society-Joel Dvorman controversy in 1960's

* Dr. Veronica A. Wilson (history professor at Univ of Pittsburgh); academic conference paper entitled "Race, Representation, and John Birch Society Activist, Julia Brown"

* Dr. John Drabble: "The FBI, COINTELPRO-White Hate and the Decline of Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama 1964-1971" published in January 2008 academic journal Alabama Review -- also see more details below

* Dr. John Earl Haynes: Bibliography on Communism and Anti-Communism

* Alexander Zaitchik: Meet The Man Who Changed Glenn Beck's Life (Salon.com article and Alex's new book published last month)

* Alex Heard: Department of Forgetting (Slate.com article re FBI practices)

Dr. John Drabble (whose academic journal article is mentioned above) visited me twice for a total of 8 days and he poured over dozens of my FBI files and he copied many thousands of pages of documents in my collection. I also gave him entire files which I no longer needed and, in subsequent years (including last month) I copied and sent him many major FBI files on CDROM. After John's first visit, he sent me the following letter:

"Dear Mr. Lazar,

Thank you once again for allowing me to use your private collection of FBI documents last summer. With your help, I was able to acquire important information for my recently published article, "The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE and the Decline Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama, 1964-1971," Alabama Review, 61, (January 2008): 3-47, my forthcoming article, “From Reactionary White Supremacy to Revolutionary White Power: The FBI’s COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE Operation and the “Nazification” of the Ku Klux Klan,” American Studies, (forthcoming), and my working manuscript, entitled “FBI Covert Operations and Suppression of Ku Klux Klan Violence, 1964-1971,” which I plan to submit to Terrorism and Political Violence next fall.

The documents on the United Klans, The Minutemen, and other racist-right groups, which I plan to look at this summer, will help greatly in researching for my book-length manuscript on COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE, as well as additional journal articles.

I have been researching this topic for ten years now, and I have found your collection to be of immense help, as the majority of your documents are not available through any other source. I also want to commend your blog. You publish most original, interesting and important research, raising important issues and making them available to the general public. If not for your publishing efforts, I would never have known of your collection. I look forward to your next blog, and to many more research hours in your collection."

Dr. John Drabble

Assistant Professor of American Culture and Literature, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey

Visiting Professor, International Area Studies Teaching Program, University of California at Berkeley

And in July of last year I received the following self-explanatory email:

"Ernie, I just wanted to let you know that I received the copy of the letter from Welch to Schwartz that you mailed to me. It was very helpful for my research. I don't know if you'd be interested, but I've attached my finished draft of the chapter in my dissertation that deals with the John Birch Society and the Committee Against Summit Entanglements. You were a big help to me in writing it.

Thanks again, Aaron Berkowitz. Assistant Professor, Lincoln Land Community College, Springfield, IL"

I might also mention that, until recently, I had site meter statistics on all of my on-line reports. Unfortunately, when Googlepages changed to Googlesites -- they eliminated my existing site meters. However, at last count, the two different versions of my JBS report which were posted on-line had more than 7000 hits from all over the world. What is even more interesting is the identity of the readers. My weekly site meter reports revealed that "hits" were originating from such divergent sources as state legislatures, governors' offices, West Point, the Naval Academy, numerous colleges and universities and other educational institutions, public interest lobbying organizations, and numerous media sources.

All of that for a mere "archivist"?

I won't even go into the hundreds of emails I have received -- including from relatives of people who I discussed in my reports -- and from scores of authors, researchers, and scholars who ask me what I have on subject "x", "y" or "z".

Edited July 8, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[Ernie Lazar]

Bill -- I don't understand your point. If you review the comments which Harry has posted in Education Forum they are almost identical to what is contained in the California newspaper article by Horwitz which I scanned.

More importantly, the details concerning himself are identical. Dean claimed (here in EF) that he provided information to the FBI about the JBS at the request of the FBI starting in September 1963. So nothing substantive about our dispute has changed. I note for the record that you have not retracted your previous unkind and false allegations about me.

When John Simkin asked Harry the following questions:

"How did the FBI react when you told them about the John Birch Society plots to kill JFK? Do you know if they checked it out?"

Harry replied as shown below (I underline one portion for emphasis). Since I have numerous boxes filled with FBI Minutemen files, I will have to check them at some point to see what informant reports they received that might correspond to what Harry claimed.

I note for the record that Harry declares emphatically (contrary to claims made by Greg Parker in other contexts in this thread) that the FBI: "Certainly the Bureau checked any and all such details, as remote, or impossible as some reports might seem..... Bureau agents reactions were always no-nonsence, matter-of-fact, in personal meetings, or by phone."

John, It should be remembered, that before and after, reporting to the Bureau re: conversations about Kennedy by those JBS persons involved, I was at the same time advising the Bureau, as requested, re; certain other individuals and groups,{eg} of my section {as a member} Southern California, Minuteman activities, Fair Play For Cuba Committee person{s}, Alpha 66 Los Angeles leader{s} etc;. Certainly the Bureau checked any and all such details, as remote, or impossible as some reports might seem..... Bureau agents reactions were always no-nonsence, matter-of-fact, in personal meetings, or by phone.

It is important that further questions on these subjects be refered to the CD

as the agency {FBI} no doubt continues "upset" as shown by it's past denials

of my association with them. Which is nearly always the case, especially where we who expose this association are concerned. Harry

This post has been edited by Harry J.Dean: 18 July 2005 - 12:19 AM"

(1) First Harry confirms the Bureau's "past denials" of his association.

(2) I don't understand what Harry means by his reference to "which is nearly always the case". Let's assume that Harry means that the Bureau would publicly deny associations with any persons who were used as informants if those people might embarrass the Bureau by revealing their connection to the Bureau.

There are two problems with that (if, indeed, that is what Harry meant by his cryptic comment).

(-a-) Leaving aside public denials -- why would there be no records in FBI-JBS files confirming Harry's "informant" status nor any documents summarizing the information he supposedly provided to the Bureau re: the JBS nor any documents concerning expenses paid to Harry during his alleged 2-3 years acting as an informant within the JBS?

(-b-) The Bureau routinely confirmed informant status of persons who made statements which embarrassed the Bureau.

I have copies of many informant files where the Bureau released factual summaries regarding the period during which an informant provided information to the FBI -- even when the informant's post-FBI statements contradicted Bureau conclusions about important matters or even when the person made what the Bureau considered false allegations about Bureau practices or behavior or even when their prior informant later became associated with persons/organizations which the Bureau characterized as "extremist". Examples include: Lola Belle Holmes, Julia Brown, Karl Prussion, Matt Cvetic.

With respect to Lola Belle Holmes, for example, in 1963 after she surfaced and testified and then associated herself with right-wing extremist groups, Bureau documents reveal that she was considered to have become "emotionally unstable" plus documents specifically state that she had to be "admonished to cease making false statements which were embarrassing to the Bureau". Nevertheless, when public inquiries were received, the Bureau factually acknowledged her informant status and the years she provided information.

With respect to Karl Prussion: Bureau documents reveal that after he was dropped by the Bureau as an informant, he attempted suicide and doctors diagnosed him as suffering from acute paranoia. Meanwhile, he made utterly false statements regarding the number of communists and communist sympathizers in California (the number he claimed for California alone was equivalent to the number the Bureau estimated for our entire country!) and he also claimed, falsely, that the then-Governor of California was a communist. Nevertheless, the Bureau routinely responded to public inquiries by giving a factual summary of his informant status.

With respect to Matt Cvetic: He was a chronic alcoholic who demanded more and more money from the FBI; he was regarded as emotionally unstable and unreliable and he was dropped as an informant. Afterward, he associated himself with the JBS and he made what the Bureau considered false statements -- but they always factually responded to inquiries about his informant status.

So what was allegedly so unique about Harry Dean?

BILL: I scanned the column which you asked to see and posted it here:

http://sites.google....rnie124102/dean

When Oswald was asked (I think by Michael Paine) about reading the Militant and other radical publications he saidm, "You have to read between the lines." Indeed.

Here we have a lengthly "Between the Lines" column by James Horitz that quotes Harry Dean extensively without once actually quoting him with quotations enclosing his own words. Instead, we have James Horitz column on Harry Dean and the odd assortment of characters that populate this particular plot.

Did you really say all that Harry?

Between The Lines

James Horitz

Wednesday, March 16, 1977

Las Virgenes Independent Valley (California)

In an exclusive interview granted to Valley Publications, former undercover operative for the FBI, Harry Dean, has stated that the John Birch Society had a heavily armed network of citizen soldiers ready to take to the streets in late 1963 and early 1964, if President Johnson and Chief Justice Warren did not quickly find Lee Harvey Oswald (a supposed communist sympathizer) guilty of the murder of President Kennedy. The threat was delivered to Johnson and Warren, within a few days after the assassination, by intelligence sources and by agents of the power structure that eliminated the President. LBJ had the choice of nation-wide internal strife or knuckling under the threat and thereby giving this minority force a position of recognition. Johnson opted for the second choice.

Dean, an undercover operative for the FBI from 1960 to 1965, had been assigned by the FBI to infiltrate the Birch Society. In that role, he was active in the Covina, (Calif.) chapter of the JBS from 1962 through 1964. During Dean's tour with the Society he stats they planned three major activities against John Kennedy: a planned assassination in Mexico City in 1962 that was called off; the assassination in Dallas; and the threat against a thorough investigation. In each case, according to Harry Dean, Congresssman John Rousselot (R. San Marino) was involved in the planning. Rousselot was Western Director of the John Birch Society during the first half of the '60's.

During the years when Harry Dean had been acting as an active member of the Covbina Birch Society, the main meeting place for all the anti-Kennedy activities was at a residence on San Pierre Street in El Monte. The Birchers were connected with anti-Castro Cubans, often mentioned as assassination suspects, through the Drive Against Communist Aggression (DACA). The DACA was an anti-Communist organization directed by members of the JBS, which had attracted certain Cubans who were in the Los Angeles area during 1962-63, trying to enlist support in another invasion of Castro controlled Cuba. The DACA operated in Mexico as well as the U.S. According to Dean, World War II hero Guy (Gabby) Gabaldon was the Mexican Director, while Ray Flieshman of Whittier was the U.S. Director. Another active member of DACA and the Covina JBS, who had a close relationship with Gabaldon, was Dave Robbins, who at the time ('62-'63) was a high ranking employee of the Fluor Corportation. (J. Roberrt Fluor and John Rousselot had been known to be close political allies).

In a number of different circumstances Dean was able to determine that Gabaldob, Robbins, Flieshman, and Rousselot had been involved in planning the aborted assassination attempt of JFK in Mexico City, June 1962.

Harry Dean had many occasions to observe and relate with much publicized Cuba-American Loran Eugene Hall–aka Lorenzo Pacillo–aka Skip Hall and Laurence Howard-aka Alonzo Escuirdo. Hall and Howard had a close association with former General Edwin Walker, of Texas, whenever Walker visited the Covina JBS.

Dean recalls specific meetings where Walker, Rousselot, Hall, Howard, Gabaldon and himself (Dean) laid the plans to frame Lee Harvey Oswald, who they thought was a communist, as the assassin. Per Dean, Hall and Howard left the San Pierre Street house in October 1963, with arms and medicines, and the plans to implicate Oswald.

The subject of eliminating President Kennedy was never discussed as a subject of the Society's meetings, but Harry Dean claims the plans for the assassination were conceived in small group meetings. At one time or another Harry Dean was witness to the plans of the assassination of JFK by different combinations of John Roussselot, Loren Hall, Laurence Howard, Guy Gabaldon, Edwin Walker, Dave Robbins, Ray Flieshman, and not previously mentioned Covina JBS member Ed Peters.

According to Dean, the directions taken by John Kennedy were directly in opposition to the John Birch Society's ultimate goals and they, in conjunctions wit the DACA, took matters into their own hands. To protect exposure through an investigation, the Society sent threats of nation-wide street warfare, to the administration via secret agents, who they were sure had infiltrated the various radical and reactionary organizations throughout the U.S., if a speedy and simple verdict was not the action.

Edited July 8, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[William Kelly]

Bill -- I don't understand your point. If you review the comments which Harry has posted in Education Forum they are almost identical to what is contained in the California newspaper article by Horwitz which I scanned.

More importantly, the details concerning himself are identical. Dean claimed (here in EF) that he provided information to the FBI about the JBS at the request of the FBI starting in September 1963. So nothing substantive about our dispute has changed.

Ernie,

I checked with Harry and he said that the author of the column was not a journalist but a political hack who wrote what he wanted for his own agenda, and even though Harry is not quoted directly but only paraphrased, the jist of what is said is correct.

As for the following, what previous unkind and false allegations about you have I made that you want me to retract?

BK

I note for the record that you have not retracted your previous unkind and false allegations about me.

When John Simkin asked Harry the following questions:

"How did the FBI react when you told them about the John Birch Society plots to kill JFK? Do you know if they checked it out?"

Harry replied as shown below (I underline one portion for emphasis). Since I have numerous boxes filled with FBI Minutemen files, I will have to check them at some point to see what informant reports they received that might correspond to what Harry claimed.

I note for the record that Harry declares emphatically (contrary to claims made by Greg Parker in other contexts in this thread) that the FBI: "Certainly the Bureau checked any and all such details, as remote, or impossible as some reports might seem..... Bureau agents reactions were always no-nonsence, matter-of-fact, in personal meetings, or by phone."

John, It should be remembered, that before and after, reporting to the Bureau re: conversations about Kennedy by those JBS persons involved, I was at the same time advising the Bureau, as requested, re; certain other individuals and groups,{eg} of my section {as a member} Southern California, Minuteman activities, Fair Play For Cuba Committee person{s}, Alpha 66 Los Angeles leader{s} etc;. Certainly the Bureau checked any and all such details, as remote, or impossible as some reports might seem..... Bureau agents reactions were always no-nonsence, matter-of-fact, in personal meetings, or by phone.

It is important that further questions on these subjects be refered to the CD

as the agency {FBI} no doubt continues "upset" as shown by it's past denials

of my association with them. Which is nearly always the case, especially where we who expose this association are concerned. Harry

This post has been edited by Harry J.Dean: 18 July 2005 - 12:19 AM"

(1) First Harry confirms the Bureau's "past denials" of his association.

(2) I don't understand what Harry means by his reference to "which is nearly always the case". Let's assume that Harry means that the Bureau would publicly deny associations with any persons who were used as informants if those people might embarrass the Bureau by revealing their connection to the Bureau.

There are two problems with that (if, indeed, that is what Harry meant by his cryptic comment).

(-a-) Leaving aside public denials -- why would there be no records in FBI-JBS files confirming Harry's "informant" status nor any documents summarizing the information he supposedly provided to the Bureau re: the JBS nor any documents concerning expenses paid to Harry during his alleged 2-3 years acting as an informant within the JBS?

(-b-) The Bureau routinely confirmed informant status of persons who made statements which embarrassed the Bureau.

I have copies of many informant files where the Bureau released factual summaries regarding the period during which an informant provided information to the FBI -- even when the informant's post-FBI statements contradicted Bureau conclusions about important matters or even when the person made what the Bureau considered false allegations about Bureau practices or behavior or even when their prior informant later became associated with persons/organizations which the Bureau characterized as "extremist". Examples include: Lola Belle Holmes, Julia Brown, Karl Prussion, Matt Cvetic.

With respect to Lola Belle Holmes, for example, in 1963 after she surfaced and testified and then associated herself with right-wing extremist groups, Bureau documents reveal that she was considered to have become "emotionally unstable" plus documents specifically state that she had to be "admonished to cease making false statements which were embarrassing to the Bureau". Nevertheless, when public inquiries were received, the Bureau factually acknowledged her informant status and the years she provided information.

With respect to Karl Prussion: Bureau documents reveal that after he was dropped by the Bureau as an informant, he attempted suicide and doctors diagnosed him as suffering from acute paranoia. Meanwhile, he made utterly false statements regarding the number of communists and communist sympathizers in California (the number he claimed for California alone was equivalent to the number the Bureau estimated for our entire country!) and he also claimed, falsely, that the then-Governor of California was a communist. Nevertheless, the Bureau routinely responded to public inquiries by giving a factual summary of his informant status.

With respect to Matt Cvetic: He was a chronic alcoholic who demanded more and more money from the FBI; he was regarded as emotionally unstable and unreliable and he was dropped as an informant. Afterward, he associated himself with the JBS and he made what the Bureau considered false statements -- but they always factually responded to inquiries about his informant status.

So what was allegedly so unique about Harry Dean?

BILL: I scanned the column which you asked to see and posted it here:

http://sites.google....rnie124102/dean

When Oswald was asked (I think by Michael Paine) about reading the Militant and other radical publications he saidm, "You have to read between the lines." Indeed.

Here we have a lengthly "Between the Lines" column by James Horitz that quotes Harry Dean extensively without once actually quoting him with quotations enclosing his own words. Instead, we have James Horitz column on Harry Dean and the odd assortment of characters that populate this particular plot.

Did you really say all that Harry?

Between The Lines

James Horitz

Wednesday, March 16, 1977

Las Virgenes Independent Valley (California)

In an exclusive interview granted to Valley Publications, former undercover operative for the FBI, Harry Dean, has stated that the John Birch Society had a heavily armed network of citizen soldiers ready to take to the streets in late 1963 and early 1964, if President Johnson and Chief Justice Warren did not quickly find Lee Harvey Oswald (a supposed communist sympathizer) guilty of the murder of President Kennedy. The threat was delivered to Johnson and Warren, within a few days after the assassination, by intelligence sources and by agents of the power structure that eliminated the President. LBJ had the choice of nation-wide internal strife or knuckling under the threat and thereby giving this minority force a position of recognition. Johnson opted for the second choice.

Dean, an undercover operative for the FBI from 1960 to 1965, had been assigned by the FBI to infiltrate the Birch Society. In that role, he was active in the Covina, (Calif.) chapter of the JBS from 1962 through 1964. During Dean's tour with the Society he stats they planned three major activities against John Kennedy: a planned assassination in Mexico City in 1962 that was called off; the assassination in Dallas; and the threat against a thorough investigation. In each case, according to Harry Dean, Congresssman John Rousselot (R. San Marino) was involved in the planning. Rousselot was Western Director of the John Birch Society during the first half of the '60's.

During the years when Harry Dean had been acting as an active member of the Covbina Birch Society, the main meeting place for all the anti-Kennedy activities was at a residence on San Pierre Street in El Monte. The Birchers were connected with anti-Castro Cubans, often mentioned as assassination suspects, through the Drive Against Communist Aggression (DACA). The DACA was an anti-Communist organization directed by members of the JBS, which had attracted certain Cubans who were in the Los Angeles area during 1962-63, trying to enlist support in another invasion of Castro controlled Cuba. The DACA operated in Mexico as well as the U.S. According to Dean, World War II hero Guy (Gabby) Gabaldon was the Mexican Director, while Ray Flieshman of Whittier was the U.S. Director. Another active member of DACA and the Covina JBS, who had a close relationship with Gabaldon, was Dave Robbins, who at the time ('62-'63) was a high ranking employee of the Fluor Corportation. (J. Roberrt Fluor and John Rousselot had been known to be close political allies).

In a number of different circumstances Dean was able to determine that Gabaldob, Robbins, Flieshman, and Rousselot had been involved in planning the aborted assassination attempt of JFK in Mexico City, June 1962.

Harry Dean had many occasions to observe and relate with much publicized Cuba-American Loran Eugene Hall–aka Lorenzo Pacillo–aka Skip Hall and Laurence Howard-aka Alonzo Escuirdo. Hall and Howard had a close association with former General Edwin Walker, of Texas, whenever Walker visited the Covina JBS.

Dean recalls specific meetings where Walker, Rousselot, Hall, Howard, Gabaldon and himself (Dean) laid the plans to frame Lee Harvey Oswald, who they thought was a communist, as the assassin. Per Dean, Hall and Howard left the San Pierre Street house in October 1963, with arms and medicines, and the plans to implicate Oswald.

The subject of eliminating President Kennedy was never discussed as a subject of the Society's meetings, but Harry Dean claims the plans for the assassination were conceived in small group meetings. At one time or another Harry Dean was witness to the plans of the assassination of JFK by different combinations of John Roussselot, Loren Hall, Laurence Howard, Guy Gabaldon, Edwin Walker, Dave Robbins, Ray Flieshman, and not previously mentioned Covina JBS member Ed Peters.

According to Dean, the directions taken by John Kennedy were directly in opposition to the John Birch Society's ultimate goals and they, in conjunctions wit the DACA, took matters into their own hands. To protect exposure through an investigation, the Society sent threats of nation-wide street warfare, to the administration via secret agents, who they were sure had infiltrated the various radical and reactionary organizations throughout the U.S., if a speedy and simple verdict was not the action.

[Greg Parker]

Greg -- a very lame reply by you. Once again it shows that you arrive at conclusions hastily based upon your desire to immediately trash someone who disagrees with you or challenges what you believe.

Ernie, at the time I made that comment, you had only ever mentioned giving others access to documents that were not elsewhere available.

But let's analyze your latest attempt to recast yourself in the light in which you wish you stood:

You started your defense by stating Many years ago the FBI attempted to impose $4800 in "search fees" on my requests because they were so voluminous. I naturally appealed their fee request because, if it was allowed to stand, it would have ended my FOIA research.

Naturally you appealed. But why did you appeal? Not because the decision was incorrect, but because the search fee would put an end to your "research".

You then went about basing your appeal on the grounds that you should be regarded as a "freelance journalist".

It is within the guidelines under FOIA for deciding if someone is a freelance journalist that we discover why your apeal was successful - despite the actual evidence.

These are the guidelines, according to you: use one's editorial skills on whatever data is obtained from the FBI to turn that material "into a distinct and unique work" which then is distributed in a manner which educates the American public about some matter of historical importance and significance.

The term "distinct and unique work" could be interpreted as anything you write which is not plagiarism, so on that basis, you presumably get a pass. It is in the second part however, that you really score high. You have the gall to call me a propagandist (just what it is I'm supposed to be selling, I have no idea), yet here we see a government agency stating you can get a fee waiver if your work helps "educate" the masses. Surely you understand that whenever a government agency talks about "educating" the public is is a euphamism for a propaganda campaign.

The fee waiver then is no more than a payment in-kind for serving as a propagandist.

Let's move on to what you have used more recently to support your claim of being a journalist.

The list concerns itself in the main witn your supplying of documents. The second biggest item is your "research". Your articles barely rate a mention. If sharing documents and research, and writing an occasional article makes one a "freelance journalist" then there are a lot of "freelance journalists" on this board. However, I do not believe many here would get the exmption you got.

You finish your little hissy fit with a letter of thanks from Dr Drabble.

Here are the quotes from the letter stating what he was thanking you for:

"With your help, I was able to acquire important information for my recently published article"

"I have been researching this topic for ten years now, and I have found your collection to be of immense help, as the majority of your documents are not available through any other source"

His only tip to your writing was a mention of your blog -- but newsflash Ernie... every man and his dog has a blog these days. That no more makes you a journalist than me cooking toast makes me a chef.

We can reasonably assume that you apply the same "analytical" skill to FBI documents.

Exactly! And as an added bonus, I'd never compromise my principles by accepting a debt waiver in return for "eductating" the public about the FBI.

Instead of being curious about everything pertinent which you need to see or know about in order to make well-informed judgments, you instead select bits and pieces of data,

I've taken everything you have said on the matter here into account. You seem to be totally confused about the role of a journalist as opposed to the role of an archivist. You seem to think that having a huge collection of files and making them available to certain people is evidence that you're a journalist. When I point out it is actually evidence you are an archivist, you claim to be insulted. Not my fault, Ernie. That's the way it is. It's called reality. Try it some time.

elevate them to supreme importance, and then ignore everything else. Then, when somebody brings your attention to data you are unaware of, you immediately want to trivialize it, de-value it, and dismiss it -- because your actual purpose is propaganda. Anything or anyone that interferes with or diminishes your propaganda requires (in your scheme of things) demolition.

Yada yada yada. If you had done what you (falsely) claim I neglect to do - sought out the readily available evidence - you would have seen that I have consistently acknowledged new information which goes to a contrary conclusion to that which I had made. You would also come across evidence that I found myself which negates a previous conclusion I had made. Not only have I not withheld that contrary evidence, I have apologised for missing it in the first instance.

Incidentally, one of John Drabble's articles about the FBI could easily be interpreted to support many of your statements to me in this thread regarding FBI practices and procedures

Good for him. So has Theoharis.

-- and, in fact, he too quotes from the Swearingen memoir in his article. No doubt it will surprise you to learn that he obtained FBI documents from me which greatly informed his article.

Why should that surprise me? you mention it in every other post...

As I previously mentioned, John Drabble and I were friends. It saddens me to report that my friend died of thyroid cancer earlier this month -- which means our country has lost one of its best scholars.

That is indeed, sad news.

[Ernie Lazar]

Greg -- the problem is not that I haven't provided you with adequate information. The problem is your malicious pre-disposition to trashing anyone who challenges you.

Just for the record, I challenged the FBI fee not just because it would have ended my (or just about anyone's) research -- but because the fee WAS inappropriate.

I suggest you research FOIA statutes with respect to when agencies may legitimately charge search fees. Again this illustrates how you approach debate -- you ALWAYS search for (or invent) the most malicious interpretation possible. Search fees are permissible for very complex requests particularly (for example) if unusual time is required to determine responsive documents because the requester has not provided adequate identifying information (such as asking for documents about someone with a very common name so numerous files have to be reviewed) OR if the specific information desired has to be culled from numerous large files.

My requests frequently identified the specific FBI file number I wanted -- and in many cases I identified specific serial numbers as well -- so there was no research required--other than to verify the existence of the file and its location (probably 30 seconds or less). And since I requested entire files (or specific years of entire files) -- there was no need for the Bureau to perform long labor-intensive research to find only specific documents.

When I requested material about deceased persons, I almost always provided their social security number and birth and death dates (and short summaries of their affiliations with organizations) which made it easy for the Bureau to quickly ascertain they had the right files or documents. In fact, one FBI Supervisor that I spoke to frequently about my requests stated that mine were easy to process because I provided everything they needed to quickly identify responsive material.

Also, I challenged the Bureau's search fee formula because there was a math error in how they computed the total fee. They made a distinction between what they called "clerical" search time and other search time and I pointed out that even by their own formula, the fee could not possibly be anything remotely near $4800.

Furthermore, your attempt to re-define "freelance journalist" is also an example of how you maliciously approach debate. Instead of inventing your own false idiosyncratic and self-serving definition, why don't you research the actual definition in the applicable statute? I might add, FYI, that I prepared my appeal with the assistance of an award-winning investigative reporter employed by the San Francisco Chronicle who had successfully sued the FBI over both the adequacy of the Bureau's search for documents and what they ultimately released. In fact, he proofread my appeal twice and offered his assistance because he believed that I qualified as a freelance journalist under the provisions of the FOIA statute.

The Bureau is notoriously reluctant to grant fee exemptions (both search fees and fees for reproduction costs) -- and it rarely does so. I only wish a "pass" was as easy and commonplace as you make it appear.

Lastly, the "educate the public" component of the statute refers to demonstrating an ability to distribute whatever is written to a wide audience -- not your malicious attempt (yet again) to create a new definition to serve your debate tactics here.

Aside from my on-line reports (not just what you falsely refer to as an "occasional article") which were getting thousands of hits, I also pointed out that my research was being shared with numerous scholars and authors and newspaper reporters who used material they got from me; and it was being made available to organizations (such as Group Research Inc.) that specialized in monitoring and collecting data about political extremist groups--so my material would be permanently available to other researchers; I also mentioned that I had created a Yahoo group devoted to discussing the material I acquired. I also provided the Bureau with statistics regarding on-line debates I was having in AOL, Yahoo, Google forums, and especially on various websites which captured data regarding the number of "views" that each topic received.

I could go on to discuss your stupid remarks -- but to what purpose?

You arrive at conclusions in the complete absence of fact. Instead, you fabricate your own malicious definitions and then expect people to argue incessantly against your straw men.

I do have one question however: can you point me to ANYTHING which YOU have written that has been published anywhere?

Greg -- a very lame reply by you. Once again it shows that you arrive at conclusions hastily based upon your desire to immediately trash someone who disagrees with you or challenges what you believe.

Ernie, at the time I made that comment, you had only ever mentioned giving others access to documents that were not elsewhere available.

But let's analyze your latest attempt to recast yourself in the light in which you wish you stood:

You started your defense by stating Many years ago the FBI attempted to impose $4800 in "search fees" on my requests because they were so voluminous. I naturally appealed their fee request because, if it was allowed to stand, it would have ended my FOIA research.

Naturally you appealed. But why did you appeal? Not because the decision was incorrect, but because the search fee would put an end to your "research".

You then went about basing your appeal on the grounds that you should be regarded as a "freelance journalist".

It is within the guidelines under FOIA for deciding if someone is a freelance journalist that we discover why your apeal was successful - despite the actual evidence.

These are the guidelines, according to you: use one's editorial skills on whatever data is obtained from the FBI to turn that material "into a distinct and unique work" which then is distributed in a manner which educates the American public about some matter of historical importance and significance.

The term "distinct and unique work" could be interpreted as anything you write which is not plagiarism, so on that basis, you presumably get a pass. It is in the second part however, that you really score high. You have the gall to call me a propagandist (just what it is I'm supposed to be selling, I have no idea), yet here we see a government agency stating you can get a fee waiver if your work helps "educate" the masses. Surely you understand that whenever a government agency talks about "educating" the public is is a euphamism for a propaganda campaign.

The fee waiver then is no more than a payment in-kind for serving as a propagandist.

Let's move on to what you have used more recently to support your claim of being a journalist.

The list concerns itself in the main witn your supplying of documents. The second biggest item is your "research". Your articles barely rate a mention. If sharing documents and research, and writing an occasional article makes one a "freelance journalist" then there are a lot of "freelance journalists" on this board. However, I do not believe many here would get the exmption you got.

You finish your little hissy fit with a letter of thanks from Dr Drabble.

Here are the quotes from the letter stating what he was thanking you for:

"With your help, I was able to acquire important information for my recently published article"

"I have been researching this topic for ten years now, and I have found your collection to be of immense help, as the majority of your documents are not available through any other source"

His only tip to your writing was a mention of your blog -- but newsflash Ernie... every man and his dog has a blog these days. That no more makes you a journalist than me cooking toast makes me a chef.

We can reasonably assume that you apply the same "analytical" skill to FBI documents.

Exactly! And as an added bonus, I'd never compromise my principles by accepting a debt waiver in return for "eductating" the public about the FBI.

Instead of being curious about everything pertinent which you need to see or know about in order to make well-informed judgments, you instead select bits and pieces of data,

I've taken everything you have said on the matter here into account. You seem to be totally confused about the role of a journalist as opposed to the role of an archivist. You seem to think that having a huge collection of files and making them available to certain people is evidence that you're a journalist. When I point out it is actually evidence you are an archivist, you claim to be insulted. Not my fault, Ernie. That's the way it is. It's called reality. Try it some time.

elevate them to supreme importance, and then ignore everything else. Then, when somebody brings your attention to data you are unaware of, you immediately want to trivialize it, de-value it, and dismiss it -- because your actual purpose is propaganda. Anything or anyone that interferes with or diminishes your propaganda requires (in your scheme of things) demolition.

Yada yada yada. If you had done what you (falsely) claim I neglect to do - sought out the readily available evidence - you would have seen that I have consistently acknowledged new information which goes to a contrary conclusion to that which I had made. You would also come across evidence that I found myself which negates a previous conclusion I had made. Not only have I not withheld that contrary evidence, I have apologised for missing it in the first instance.

Incidentally, one of John Drabble's articles about the FBI could easily be interpreted to support many of your statements to me in this thread regarding FBI practices and procedures

Good for him. So has Theoharis.

-- and, in fact, he too quotes from the Swearingen memoir in his article. No doubt it will surprise you to learn that he obtained FBI documents from me which greatly informed his article.

Why should that surprise me? you mention it in every other post...

As I previously mentioned, John Drabble and I were friends. It saddens me to report that my friend died of thyroid cancer earlier this month -- which means our country has lost one of its best scholars.

That is indeed, sad news.

Edited July 9, 2010 by Ernie Lazar