HARRY J. DEAN

[Michael Hogan]

Maybe Ernie has something going here, and Harry Dean really wasn't working undercover for the FBI, as he thought, but maybe he was False Flagged by another agency? Since the CIA isn't allowed to operate in the USA, though they certainly did with MKULTRA, Domestic Contacts Division, CIAir, the International Operations Division, and with defense contractors, it is more likely that any penetration of such radical groups by an infiltrator would be run by military intelligence - US Army Intelligence and Reserves.

According to Tim Weiner (Legacy of Ashes), President Kennedy began using McCone and the CIA to conduct domestic surveillance in order

to find the sources of national security leaks to Hanson Baldwin, military analyst for The New York Times since 1937, and other reporters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/weekinreview/01word.html?ref=john_fitzgerald_kennedy

“We went all over the world and we did what we wanted. God we had fun." (Al Ulmer, head of CIA's Far East Division 1955-1958)

[Ernie Lazar]

Greg:

My replies are underneath yours in blue font

Greg: You make some good points but you continue to ignore the fundamental question which I have repeatedly stated is the one which must FIRST be answered in order to respond to your questions.

With respect to this question by you:

"The one thing you have avoided addressing is this: at the time that the document in the Goldwater file was written (mid 1963) was it or was it not the policy that the FBI did not actively investigate the WCC? Again - just to be clear, the Seaboard investigation doesn't count, as it was an open investigation at the time and would not be halted as the result of a policy change."

I have NOT "avoided addressing" this question. I have explicitly and repeatedly addressed it. As Belmont's memo made very clear, there were exceptions made to what you call "the policy that the FBI did not actively investigate the WCC".

Okay. Presumably this is what you are referring to:

Belmont then summarizes the policy of the FBI:

“Current Bureau policy is that we do not investigate groups that advocate or employ legal means to achieve their objectives; however, where advisable the field is authorized to investigate organizations established for purpose of combating or advocating affirmative action against racial minorities. Such groups activities may result in civil rights violations and in cases such as these organizations it is believed desirable that determination of those involved be made and any activities of the organization be followed. This investigative background will be most useful in the event civil rights violations should occur in the future in connection with their activities. By letter dated 3-22-55, twelve southern offices were informed of the rapid spread of these groups and were instructed to be alert for the formation of such organizations in their territory. These offices were instructed that upon receipt of such information to advise the Bureau immediately by letter setting forth pertinent data concerning the organization and officers thereof. No investigation was to be conducted without prior Bureau authority.”

Let’s analyze that in view of what you state in one of your multiple responses.

In post #68 you make the observation that:

It is quite possible that the memo [to which I was referring – my insersion] was intended for distribution outside the Bureau (including to Hoover's superiors within the Justice Dept) so, obviously, the author would re-state the official policy which the Department handed down without acknowledging the actual state of affairs --- see below for more details.

(3) The Bureau often established general guidelines which allowed for exceptions. Sometimes memos were written in language which could be forwarded outside the Bureau to make it appear that the Bureau was adhering to instructions they received from the Department (i.e. nominally Hoover's superiors) but the ACTUAL policy was different.

It appears from the subject matter and language that the Belmont memo was written for the Justice Dept. Is that correct?

No – it was an internal memo intended for senior FBI officials.

Now let’s look at the Bureau’s efforts in the matters under investigation in the Goldwater file, and see how well they do against Belmont’s policy summation:

The Mobile office advised the Chicago office that they did not have a membership list of the local WCC because of Bureau regs prohibiting active investigation of that organization. Was the Mobile Office not one of the 12 “Southern Offices” instructed per Belmont’s memo to maintain pertinent data on the WCC? Or was Belmont’s memo just so much BS for dept consumption?

Having not seen the full text and the context of what the Mobile office said – and, especially, not knowing how Chicago field comes into this matter – it is difficult to answer your question appropriately except to note that one characteristic of an official investigation is that efforts are made to obtain membership lists (and mailing lists) of groups under official investigation.

When an organization is not subject to a full official investigation, field offices often limited themselves to news media reports, informants, and what they called “established sources” in order to discover the identity of the major officials of an organization. For example: many of the WCC files I have in my possession contain very detailed field office memos to HQ which quote verbatim from articles of incorporation as well as from news media reports so that the Bureau knew the identity of all the senior officers of each WCC unit along with the more prominent members in their community. Then, the field office would build upon that basic information by reporting on WCC meetings, speakers at those meetings, political activities of WCC units, and connections to other organizations and individuals. Some field offices even report financial information regarding their local WCC or internal disputes among leadership etc.

Again, I ask you to stop playing games.

What games would they be, Ernie? All I’ve asked you to do is answer “yes” or “no” as to whether the Mobile Office was being truthful.

The “game” is your continual refusal to answer first-principles questions so we all understand the same terms of reference

Truthful that their specific field office did not have a complete WCC membership list for the one WCC unit mentioned? Probably yes.

Truthful about Bureau policy at that moment in time? – depends upon what, exactly, they were addressing, and whom in the Mobile office wrote the memo and their familiarity with what data was actually being developed in all the FBI’s field offices and how they chose to characterize practices in all field offices.

(1) Tell us, specifically, WHAT constitutes an FBI "active investigation" in your judgment.

(2) What information exists in an "investigative file" that DOES NOT exist in a non-investigative file?

If you will answer those questions, then I can respond appropriately to you. Otherwise, I cannot do so.

It does not matter what I think. I’m asking you to respond to what the Mobile Office of the FBI said. That you continue to try and switch the spotlight from the FBI to me, is flattering, but in the end, just part of your game to avoid answering a simple question.

It does not matter what an “investigation” is when you declare emphatically that the WCC was never investigated? Then what are we arguing about?

With respect to this comment by you:

That really brings us to the hub of the matter. Most here would believe that the FBI showed favoritism to right wing groups – or at very least, was far more aggressive in its efforts against “the Left”. You have helped underline that point here. The FBI would not have undertaken investigations of the WCC if had not been ordered to.

It is not a question of "favoritism" Greg. And, incidentally, how could you arrive at such a conclusion if you haven't reviewed a significant portion of the FBI files on right-wing groups and right-wing individuals?

There you go again with assumptions pulled from thin air.

It was not an assumption Greg….It was a question (notice the question mark).

The reason why the Bureau opened more actual formal investigations of left-wing groups is because (1) the Bureau had more specific information concerning known or suspected Communist Party members who were attempting to infiltrate and use such groups--especially legitimate mass organizations (such as civil rights groups or labor unions) and (2) there was not much factual evidence that right-wing groups (despite their often crazy ideas) advocated, or encouraged, or condoned or promoted illegal activities---particularly violence. The major exception being, of course, KKK-groups.

The JBS, and similar groups, were the public face of the Far Right, and for the main part, kept at arms length from the more militant groups.

Not sure what you mean by “public face”. Are you suggesting that the JBS and similar groups secretly created and operated “more militant groups” (which I presume means groups which you think engaged in illegal activities?).

How would one go about falsifying that premise? What factual evidence would you consider compelling?

Obviously, many organizations attempted to become “boarding parties” into the JBS because the JBS had, arguably, the most energetic and most committed membership of any right-wing organization during the 1960’s. Because of that, everyone else (from George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party to Robert DePugh’s Minutemen, to Willis Carto’s various entities, to NSRP, to KKK) sought to recruit from JBS ranks.

A large number of Birchers left the JBS because they considered it nothing more than an impotent “study group” OR because they believed the JBS was deliberately concealing the “real enemy” (Jews) OR because they believed that the JBS was “controlled opposition”. [Eustace Mullins, for example, claimed that the Rockefeller family actually financed the creation of the JBS to neutralize sincere anti-communists. Revilo Oliver claimed that “Jews” controlled the JBS and Robert Welch was just a figurehead who “took orders” from his Jewish masters. Fiction writers are free to fabricate anything.

Sometimes the militant groups were breakaway groups, split from groups such as the JBS only to have that militancy as one method of advancing the cause, while being able to maintain plausible deniability. In other cases, you had individuals dropping out of such organizations (or simply not joining to start with) so that they could work “underground”. This happened in the Left as well – with even Oswald offering to go “underground” for the Far Left.

Here was yet another method employed to recruit from the JBS into the Minutemen.

“One of the most dramatic cases of a shift in ideology is evident in Cindy Decker’s story. Cindy first got involved in politics through a family friend who was active in the John Birch Society. This woman helped sponsor Cindy to attend the Freedom School in Colorado Springs. Cindy says the two weeks she spent there “changed my life.” She was exposed to ideas she had never heard about before. She says, “It hadn’t occurred to me that not having a government was a viable alternative… [or] that not having a God was a viable alternative… I got my mind blown all at once and no drugs!” As a result of these experiences Cindy changed from being a Bircher to a Libertarian. Cindy also met her future husband at the Freedom School. Together they became involved with the Minutemen…” A generation divided: the new left, the new right, and the 1960s By Rebecca E. Klatch

I submit on these grounds that the reasoning for not investigating such groups was spurious. I would further submit that your support for such spurious reasoning makes you look rather like an FBI apologist (willing when cornered to offer up limited hangouts).

I have no clue what you are driving at here. The Bureau DID “investigate” these groups within the parameters of what they could do without being accused of harassment or illegal activities. Ultimately, the purpose of FBI investigations is to develop factual evidence which can be used in court. But absent some sort of violation of federal law – no amount of “investigation” would be productive.

On favoritism… let’s again look at what we find in the Goldwater file: It shows that most of the victims of the threats just happened to be on the Security Index.

What “threats” are you referring to? What “victims” are you referring to?

The FBI dragged it’s feet in investigating the threats, but through the persistence of a couple of those people, were forced to seek advice from the AG’s office, The advice received was that the threats were too non’s specific to take any action. The FBI break the land speed record in conveying this to the victims. However, further persistence forced them to obtain another opinion. This time, the advice was that the offenses were indeed prosecutable. So how did the FBI react to this? THEY ARGUED AGAINT THAT ADVICE!

This was not a “one off” deal. The same type of favorable treatment is seen again and again in the FBI investigation into the assassination.

With respect to your comment about being "ordered to" investigate WCC:

(1) Well, at least you now admit that your original statement was false. The Bureau DID "investigate" WCC (and many of its leaders!)

I have never denied it. Again – when I said the FBI did not investigate the WCC, I was referring to a specific time period which I thought was understood, but which I now know was not. I could not comment about the 1950s even if I had wanted to, because I had not seen the information you have since provided.

(2) Your comment ignores the fact that the Bureau opened many investigations of white supremacy organizations (aside from WCC) and white supremacy officials WITHOUT being "ordered to".

I’m sure they did when they knew avoiding doing it would cause them harm (e.g. criticism). Absent such a fear, and as the Goldwater file shows, they avoided it like the plague.

Sorry, Greg, you are wrong about this.

With respect to the Goldwater file document, you ask:

Why would I NOT rely upon it? Regardless of it being a single document; it was an FBI document, and it's wording was explicit and unambiguous. In how many documents would it have to be stated before it becomes a fact, according to you?

I am very surprised that you do not already know the answer to this question Greg. But I will try to answer you.

(1) Whenever one does historical research, it is always tempting to elevate ONE document to ultimate cosmic truth proportions. But any dynamic situation where circumstances rapidly change will always produce revisions or exceptions to "standing" instructions.

Yet you quote a mid ‘50s Belmont memo as evidence I am wrong about what happened almost a decade later? Were there no “rapid changes” in those 8 to 10 years? Was this period an exception to your rule?

You still are missing my point. A single memo does not constitute a case. You are falling into the trap which Karl Popper mentioned, i.e. you have found one “confirmation” for a theory you already believe but you are ignoring all of the contradictory evidence because it is fatal to your argument.

(2) We have not even established yet WHO wrote the memo you are referencing (if it is actually a memo??) and if they actually knew the Bureau policy.

I noted in my review it was captioned as “Administrative Data”.

Yes—so what?

OR even if they did know the actual Bureau policy, whom were the intended recipients of their memo?

It was at least in part, a summary of advice received by the Chicago office from the “Mobile Division”.

Yes---but Bureau memos contain notations regarding whom is receiving copies. Sometimes memos are distributed exclusively inside the Bureau; other times copies of memos are sent to military intelligence, or the Secret Service, or to Justice Department officials, or to the White House, or to other outside entities.

It is quite possible that the memo was intended for distribution outside the Bureau (including to Hoover's superiors within the Justice Dept) so, obviously, the author would re-state the official policy which the Department handed down without acknowledging the actual state of affairs --- see below for more details.

Whilst this may be true of the document I quoted, it would not have been true of the memo IT quoted which was sent from Mobile to Chicago office advising that they did not have a list of WCC of members and WHY they didn’t (i.e. due to FBI policy…). THAT memo was for internal use only – i.e. advice from one office to another.

Greg, that is your assumption. Unless and until you and I can see the full text of both memos, we have no idea if it was intended for “internal use only”. But even if it was, there are other factors that need to be considered.

(3) The Bureau often established general guidelines which allowed for exceptions. Sometimes memos were written in language which could be forwarded outside the Bureau to make it appear that the Bureau was adhering to instructions they received from the Department (i.e. nominally Hoover's superiors) but the ACTUAL policy was different.

Answered above.

I previously mentioned, for example, that Hoover was instructed to terminate certain activities and he did so on paper -- but then he instructed subordinates to re-create the same program under a different name. But if you rely upon ONE memo [which does not even originate in the main file of the subject under scrutiny!!!] -- you could easily conclude that the original program WAS terminated.

Belmont's memo which I have previously brought to your attention, identified exceptions to the general prohibition against across-the-board official investigation of WCC. But the Bureau was (and is) an intelligence-gathering organization. It cannot function if it does not have factual data about matters relating to its responsibilities.

Answered above.

Not really. The intelligence-gathering function (particularly after 1958) became much more pervasive in Bureau thinking because of numerous events which made them re-think their policies – particularly with respect to coverage of white hate groups and extremist organizations.

The civil rights laws enacted during Eisenhower's tenure greatly expanded the Bureau's responsibilities and the 1958 Atlanta Temple bombing incident dramatically changed the Bureau's attitude about groups who were considered white supremacy activists. [The original suspects in that bombing were National States Rights Party members--some of whom had connections to the WCC.] But the political sensitivity of formally "investigating" organizations which consisted of very prominent individuals in southern communities (including Governors, state legislators, judges, newspaper publishers, etc.) made it necessary to conduct investigations (in order to acquire intelligence) in a very discreet manner.

Then this change of attitude is noticeably absent in the Goldwater file pertaining to the early ‘60s.

Why would you expect to find the most relevant data about Bureau interest in white supremacy groups and individuals in the Goldwater file? You seem obsessed with Goldwater as if his file is the ONLY significant file in the entire FBI.

How come you find the one Goldwater document so compelling (written by somebody whose identity we do not even know!) but you are not interested in the material appearing in the actual main file on the WCC movement?

I obviously knew the identity at the time I wrote the review. I did not plan on having a computer crash, nor did my crystal ball tell me I would one day be having this debate.

What connection did Goldwater have to the WCC? Why are the thoughts of the Assistant Director of the FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division so unimportant to you?

The suspect groups were “allegedly” supporters of Goldwater. One of the victims even wrote to Goldwater asking him to publically denounce the actions of his supporters.

I have the FBI HQ main file on Goldwater. I will attempt to find the document you reference -- which is currently packed in boxes in my apartment. If I can find it, I will respond further.

Very good. I look forward to seeing what you make of it.

[Ernie Lazar]

FYI: Frank Capell was not (as claimed below) a "US Army Intelligence Officer"

Maybe Ernie has something going here, and Harry Dean really wasn't working undercover for the FBI, as he thought, but maybe he was False Flagged by another agency? Since the CIA isn't allowed to operate in the USA, though they certainly did with MKULTRA, Domestic Contacts Division, CIAir, the International Operations Division, and with defense contractors, it is more likely that any penetration of such radical groups by an infiltrator would be run by military intelligence - US Army Intelligence and Reserves.

One of the stated purposes of the JBS, according to Robert Welch, was to oppose a world government, and by extension, the United Nations, precisely the promotional aim of the World Federalists, co-founded by WWII hero Cord Meyer, and a national organization that also included other such players like Ruth Forbes Paine Young (Michael's mom), Priscilla Johnson McMillan and Walter Cronkite.

It is my contention that they didn't have to infiltrate the JBS or the World Federalists with informers because they controlled it from the top - through Cord Meyer (CIA) and Robert Welch (ONI).

But Harry Dean was certainly reporting to someone, and if not the FBI or the CIA then who was running him? I would suggest it was US Army CI, who had liason with every local police department in the USA, including Dallas, via Capt. Gannaway. But that's just a hunch.

And besides Harry calling attention to such interesting characters as Hall, Seymore, Rousellouet, the Medal of Honor hero Guy Gab, and the Austin Barbeque JBSer who employed Tippitt, he may have been just as confused as Oswald as to who he was really working for.

Which brings me to Norman Lee Elkins, who was the only person officially identified by the FBI as potential threat to the president and reported to Secret Service on October 30, 1963 (with photo) [see: CE 836/CE 2583]

Elkins apparently made a remark against Kennedy and was investigated by the Dallas PD intelligence division (Gannaway, Revell) and an undercover informant, who reported they checked with Elkins and he said he wasn't going to be in Dallas when the president was there, apparently taking his word for it. But it appears that Elkins, despite the lack of anything among the JFK records, was a student who was himself recruited into one of the radical right wing groups like JBS, and may have been involved in the anti-Stevenson/UN riot. I also find it significant that they went out of their way to review the news film and photos of these demonstrators to try to determine who they were, and Elkin's photo, though mentioned in the documents released, is not included among the released records. So there is more.

And then there's Revilo P. Oliver, an early JBS instigator whose name has the unique attribute of being spelled the same foreward and backwards, and whose lenghly testimony before the Warren Commission established the fact that his published rantings condemning Oswald as a Castro-Communist agent was based on information obtained from one Frank A. Capell, a US Army Intelligence officer.

On a Final Note I leave you with this little ditty:

Dylan wrote this about the John Birch Society, an ultraconservative political organization formed in 1958 to fight Communist threats in the US. This is a parody of the organization, which Dylan thought was a threat to free speech because they accused anyone they didn't like of being a communist.

In the '50s and '60s, many famous musicians, including Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Doors and The Rolling Stones, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Dylan never did, and this is the song that kept him off. On May 12, 1963, he was scheduled to appear on the show, but refused to go on when they would not let him perform this.

Advance copies of the album Freewheelin' Bob Dylan included this song, but it was removed prior to the official release. It did not officially appear on an album until Bootleg Series in 1991. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL)

http://www.songfacts...tail.php?id=686

Series in 1991. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL)

Send "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" Ringtone to your Cell

- /songs/talkin-john-birch-paranoid-blues

Talkin' Joh n Birch Paranoid Blues

Well, I was feelin' sad and feelin' blue

I didn't know what in the world I wus gonna do

Them Communists they wus comin' around

They wus in the air

They wus on the ground

They wouldn't gimme no peace . . .

So I run down most hurriedly

And joined up with the John Birch Society

I got me a secret membership card

And started off a-walkin' down the road

Yee-hoo, I'm a real John Bircher now!

Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitler's views

Although he killed six million Jews

It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist

At least you can't say he was a Communist!

That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria

Well, I wus lookin' everywhere for them gol-darned Reds

I got up in the mornin' 'n' looked under my bed

Looked in the sink, behind the door

Looked in the glove compartment of my car

Couldn't find 'em . . .

I wus lookin' high an' low for them Reds everywhere

I wus lookin' in the sink an' underneath the chair

I looked way up my chimney hole

I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl

They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin' home alone an' started to sweat

Figured they wus in my T.V. set

Peeked behind the picture frame

Got a shock from my feet, hittin' right up in the brain

Them Reds caused it!

I know they did . . . them hard-core ones

Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone

Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes

Followed some clues from my detective bag

And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!

That ol' Betsy Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library

Ninety percent of 'em gotta be burned away

I investigated all the people that I knowed

Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go

The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me

Now Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy

Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy

To my knowledge there's just one man

That's really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell

I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus

Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight

When I run outa things to investigate

Couldn't imagine doin' anything else

So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!

Hope I don't find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

Copyright © 1970 by Special Rider Music; renewed 1998 by Special Rider Music

[Ernie Lazar]

For anyone following my debate with Greg Parker, you might find the following data to be interesting.

I am presenting this because it illustrates, from a perspective different from the one proposed by Greg Parker, how "evidence" can be used to create an entirely different conclusion regarding Robert Welch/the JBS.

It also illustrates how someone could select this particular data (to the exclusion of all other data) in an effort to "prove" their theory about the JBS.

Highly ideological people often present their "theories" which cannot be falsified unless the reader is intimately familiar with vast amounts of factual data.

That is why such "theories" seem so compelling -- because very very few individuals have the ability to refute them. Nevertheless, these theories are fabrications or gross exaggerations which depend upon artful selection of "evidence" -- such as Greg's use of ONE memo as if it constitutes EVERYTHING one needs to know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Albert F. Canwell was the first Chairman of the Washington State Un-American Activities Committee. He was an ardent supporter of Senator Joe McCarthy. In later years, the editor of the Birch Society magazine, American Opinion, asked Canwell to write several articles for American Opinion---which Canwell did.

Canwell was also a paid speaker under the auspices of the JBS Speakers Bureau and he made speeches around the country for them. The JBS publicity release on Canwell described him as follows:

"Mr. Canwell is one of America's principal authorities on the internal threat from Communism. During his tenure as Chairman of the Washington State Committee on Un-American Activities, he was the first person to expose the machinations of Alger Hiss. An author, Mr. Canwell has published articles in American Opinion magazine...He has also served as Chief of the Identification Branch in the Spokane Sheriff's Department, worked on foreign investigations for the late Scott McLeod of the Department of State, and helped the FBI uncover Soviet espionage operations during the 1940's. A keen researcher, crack investigator, and excellent speaker, Mr. Canwell is now Director of the American Intelligence Service and Freedom Library, Inc. of Washington."

In 1963, Canwell was one of several defendants in a libel lawsuit initiated by a Washington State legislator. Several JBS members and supporters were co-defendants with Canwell because they had published material claiming that the state legislator and his wife were Communist or "under Communist discipline".

A JBS chapter leader in Bellingham WA formed a Citizens Defense Fund to assist all of the defendants in that lawsuit--including Canwell. The judge in the case ruled that Canwell should be considered an "expert witness" about communist matters.

Here, then, is an excerpt from Canwell's lengthy 1997 Oral History interview about his long anti-Communist career. Timothy Frederick was the interviewer. Enjoy!!

Canwell's comments about Robert Welch may be found starting on page 283 of the transcript:

Albert F. Canwell: An Oral History, Washington State Oral History Program, Office of the Secretary of State, 1997 http://www.secstate.wa.gov/legacyproject/collection/pdf/canwell.pdf

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Canwell:

"The issues were that Robert Welch was not an anti-Communist. He was an opportunist, a world socialist actually, and he was doing a very dishonest job. He would gather some very fine people about him. He was a member of the National Manufacturers Association. So he sold them the idea that he was anti-Communist and that he had this program going and then he got quite a number of them to join his group. But what he was actually doing was getting people who were well identified as anti-Communist and able Americans, he’d get them to go along in his society and then he would smear them, destroy them. And that was what his object was."

Mr. Frederick:

Why was he doing that?

Mr. Canwell:

"Because he was an international socialist. I went to work in looking into his background when I began to have trouble with him. And I found that he had attended the London School of Economics, the top socialist school in the world. It became very obvious to me that he was able to acquire this leadership position by moving into the anti-Communist movement and pretending to be something that he was not. And then some of his own kind of people helped him do that: Drew Pearson, and others, who all of a sudden were attacking Robert Welch and giving him reams of free publicity. And the so-called Americans or anti-Communists thought, 'Well, if Drew Pearson is against him, he must be all right.' Actually Pearson and Welch were hand-in-glove."

"Another phase of this that I turned up was that Robert Welch was a long-time member of the American Civil Liberties Union, which would and did surprise a lot of people when I released that information. They denied it and he eventually made the statement that he belonged merely to get their publications, but that wasn’t the case. There was friction on that level.". ....

"Then they also put great effort into getting me to join their National Speakers Bureau. Again it became obvious to me what they wanted. They wanted my reputation plus they could put my picture in their brochure or their catalogue that they put out. But they would never find any worthwhile speaking engagements for me. I knew how that worked. They got Westbrook Pegler to write for them for awhile and then they started the damnedest smear on him that you could imagine. I could see the pattern and I became acquainted with some of the national members of his board, Dan Draskovich and others, and Welch did the same thing to all of them. He’d get them to identify with the Birch Society either on the speakers bureau or on their board or on the writing level and then he’d circulate information about them, derogatory information that was damaging to them. You talk about a sophisticated espionage operation, that was it. I would say that ninety percent, ninety-five percent of the Birch Society members were just downright good Americans, nothing wrong with them at all."

Mr. Frederick: Was he a head case?

Mr. Canwell:

"A head case? I don’t know. I suspected that he was on drugs, and I say that from having observed him in two or three meetings where he was talking and he’d leave the meeting and take some pills. I don’t know what kind or what for but I suspected that might be the case. Are these international socialists psychopathic or what? You know they just aren’t pro-Americans. They aren’t supportive of our system. This is all news to you, I imagine. You may think I’m psychotic, but on this I’m not. I have correspondence. I told him that because of his activity he couldn’t get his name in the paper any more and that I was going to put him back on the front page. But I just didn’t have time to work on him properly."

----------

Edited June 20, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[Ernie Lazar]

GREG:

Re: The Goldwater memo:

Upon checking my stored documents, I received 1364 pages of Goldwater's HQ main file [62-98961] in April 2000 but I kept only about 100 pages because most of the file pertained to death threats against Goldwater or other matters that had no bearing upon what interested me.

Unfortunately, I did not keep any memo which refers to a 1963 Mobile field office reply to a Chicago field inquiry. In fact, the only 1963 serial I kept was a memo concerning a forthcoming book authored by Ovid Demaris about the FBI which included "derogatory" information re: Goldwater's association with "a Tucson AZ hoodlum". I may actually have a copy of this memo in another file since so many serials in WCC files are cross-referenced to other related files (such as example below).

Interestingly, however, as I was searching through the box containing the Goldwater documents, I discovered documents pertaining to Walter C. Givhans -- which includes numerous Mobile office serials about the White Citizens Councils.

I am going to take a little time to summarize some of the information in this file because it addresses the larger point which Greg raised concerning whether or not the Mobile office was being "truthful" when it claimed in its reply to Chicago field that it had no membership data re WCC in its territory in 1963.

Mobile field file 105-121 = White Citizens Council

(1) The documents I received on Givhans opens with a Mobile field memo from its WCC file referring to a contact they had with Capt J. Wilson Baker of Selma AL Police Dept. The Captain reported that a WCC group was being formed in Dallas County AL and it was being patterned after similar groups already formed in MS. The memo then summarizes "A semi-secret or unpublicized meeting" which was held at the local Court House and 200 persons attended. The Chairman of the group was identified as M. Alston Keith (a Selma attorney).

Then the memo discusses a subsequent meeting held at the local Junior High School, where approx 1200 people were in attendance. Capt. Baker reported to the FBI that a total of 1300 members had signed up at the two meetings, each member paying dues of $3. "He added that leaders of the Group had assured members that the membership rolls would be kept secret, the purpose of this being to prevent Negroes from exerting economic pressure themselves against the white people."

Then the memo identifies all the leaders of the group:

M. Alston Keith, Chris Heinz (the Mayor of Selma AL), Bernard Reynolds (Probate Judge, Dallas County), Walter Givhans (AL State Senator). "In addition, the group has the active support of Ed Mullen, Chief of Police..."

Then the memo types verbatim copies of articles appearing in the Birmingham AL News concerning the WCC movement.

(2) The next memo opens with the following comment on the cover page:

"During the course of the investigation of this matter, contact was had with [names deleted] both of whom are active in the Dallas County AL Citizens Council and both of whom have expressed a desire to cooperate with the Bureau by making the information in their files available for review...It is contemplated, unless advised to the contrary by the Bureau, [names deleted] will be contacted from time to time as the circumstances and developments of this case might dictate."

Attached is a Special Agent report which has the following subject captions:

(-a-) Origin and Purpose of Organization

(-b-) Organizational Structure (Constitution of Dallas County Citizens Council; Officers of Dallas County Citizens Council)

(-c-) Opposition to Councils

(-d-) Incidents Reflecting Possible Racial Tension

(-e-) Action Taken By Councils to Implement Their Programs

Copies of this Mobile field report were sent to:

FBI HQ (6 copies)

OSI, 8th District (Air Force Intelligence)

3 field offices (New Orleans, Memphis, Birmingham; At this time, the New Orleans territory included MS)

(3) The next memo is an even more detailed profile re: "Citizens Councils of Alabama". References are made to speakers at WCC events, contacts by local law enforcement (city police and county sheriffs) reporting details on CCA, new meetings held to organize additional WCC groups in Mobile's territory and the number of persons who attended and the persons who were featured speakers.

(4) The next memo, a year later, reported "no changes in organization or aims of Council" since the last report. Once again, details are provided regarding meetings held, persons in attendance, officers and speakers. The "Administrative Page" which concludes the memo ends with this comment regarding Mobile Division: "Will continue to report on the organization and activities of Citizens Councils in Alabama."

(5) The next memo reports on more local WCC meetings plus the formation of a national WCC organization in New Orleans "known as Federation For Constitutional Government led by John U. Barr".

This memo then identifies the "Executive Committee of the Dallas County Citizens Council" and it reports on an "open mass meeting of Citizens Councils (that) took place as planned at Selma" where "approximately 5000 persons were present from AL, MS, and GA and the program that was followed is outlined below." -- It then listed all the speakers, the guests of honor, and the specific persons who were responsible for: publicity, program, reception, entertainment, membership, treasurer, grounds.

Copies of this report were sent to:

FBI HQ (5 copies)

OSI (Air Force Intelligence)

G-2, 3rd Army (Army Intelligence)

ONI, 6th Naval District (Navy Intelligence)

4 FBI field offices (Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis and New Orleans)

(6) A year later, yet another Mobile field report sent to HQ (HQ file 105-33955 re Citizens Councils of Alabama) listed all of the new officers of the Dallas County Citizens Council, "the speakers and statements made at the meeting" held at the local Junior High School where 1100 members attended.

(7) The next memo from SAC Mobile to Director, opens with this comment: "Reference is made to Bulet to Mobile and Birmingham concerning the opening of separate files on the various citizens' councils in Alabama in the absence of a state-wide organization. For the information of the Bureau and Birmingham, news articles reflected that a state-wide organization was formed at Montgomery AL...to be known as Association of Citizens Councils of Alabama."

The memo then identifies the officers (Dr. John Whitley = Chairman and Sam Engelhardt = Executive Secretary) and it reports that Robert Patterson, Executive Secretary of the MS White Citizens Council helped AL with the organization of its state-wide group. About a dozen other people present at the formative meeting are then identified.

What is particularly striking about this data is that it covers a period of about 3 1/2 years and yet NOTHING WHATSOEVER was discovered by the Bureau during that time to justify any continual reporting about the WCC -- EXCEPT for general intelligence---which, as seen above, was shared with Army, Navy and Air Force intelligence.

My point is this:

Unless Greg and I can review the ACTUAL RELEVANT FILE(s) (which, obviously, is NOT the Goldwater file -- it is the specific relevant White Citizens Council files) -- we cannot know what the Bureau was actually doing with respect to the WCC in 1963 -- particularly with respect to what the Mobile field office did or did not know.

As the information summarized above reveals (from AL State Sen. Walter Givhan's file) -- the Bureau had very detailed information about the WCC, its local chapters, its statewide organizations, its officers, its activities, its speakers, etc. It captured this information (for long periods of time) NOT because there was any evidence of criminal, subversive, or illegal activities to justify an ongoing "investigation" -- but because it wanted intelligence about the persons and activities connected to the white supremacy (pro-segregation) movement.

Edited June 20, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[William Kelly]

FYI: Frank Capell was not (as claimed below) a "US Army Intelligence Officer"

I stand corrected. Frank Aloysius Capell was not US Army Intelligence, though Oliver identified him as his source for Oswald's communist background and said that he thought Capell's source was Army Intel., and as Peter Dale Scott notes, Capell and Col. Corso were the two most prominent personalities pushing the idea that the assassin was a Cuban Commie.

Mr. Oliver…. The girl now known as Marina Oswald, as I understand it, lost her father when she was about 2 years old. Her mother remarried and died when Marina was in her teens, and at the time that Oswald met her Marina was living, evidently, in the capacity of a daughter, in other words, an adopted daughter for practical purposes, with the colonel of the Soviet military intelligence.

Mr. Jenner.

What is your source for that supposition?

Mr. Oliver.

That I base on a report from a.man whose research I use a great deal in my work, Mr. Frank Capell. Mr. Capell, is a private expert on Communism and Communistic infiltration, who, I understand, has the cooperation of many former intelligence officers of the Army and former members of the FBI.

Mr. Jenner.

When you say army you mean the United States Army?

Mr. Oliver.

United States Army; yes. And other very good sources. He has very elaborate files and among the research workers whose work I use Mr. Capell's work has been particularly important to me in connection with these articles.

Mr. Jenner.

I take it then that the sources of the statement which I have quoted from your article, all portions of it, were, may I use the term, secondary sources, that is, the broadcast you have mentioned, newspaper items, research reports of Mr. Capell or either that you saw published or which he transmitted to you as the case my be, which came to your attention?

Mr. Oliver.

That is right.

Among the Americans identified by Goleniewski as Soviet agents was none other than Henry Kissinger, whom Goleniewski claimed to have recruited shortly after WW2 while working in the Army's counterintelligence corps in Germany. This claim - supported by former Army intelligence agent Frank A. Capell - naturally undermined Goleniewski's credibility in some circles.

…it was first voiced in a very strong way very soon after the assassination by people who are a little hard to describe in terms of this difference between insiders and outsiders, center and margin. Philip Corso, for example, a former intelligence agent, working on the hill for Senator Thurmond. Would you call him an outsider or an insider? He was up there on the hill but he passionately hated people that he called insiders and he particularly hated the CIA. His theory was, and he said this, that Kennedy was killed by a Communist clique inside the CIA. Something very like this was published in "The American Opinion", the journal of the John Birch Society in February and March 1964 by Revilo Oliver, a man who again talked about insiders but before we define him as an outsider we have to remember that he was a former senior researcher in the Army Security Agency. So he too came from in a sense inside.

…In Q & A Peter was asked if he looked at the right-wing theory of the assassination, especially Revilo P. Oliver's testimony. Peter said yes it was one of the first things he looked at long ago and it is almost time for somebody else to do so as we have more information now. The testimony of Revilo P. Oliver is interseting in that Oliver was criticizing the Warren Commission saying that it was an unconstitutional misdirection away from where it should be investigated, namely the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. The SISS agreed with Oliver and now that we have the release of Johnson's telephone calls in the first week we know that Johnson's motive for setting up the Warren commission was precisely to keep it away from the SISS who had already started their own investigation, who had already heard from Edward Butler. Peter said that we would have disliked the SISS version of the Kennedy assassination even less than the Warren Commission. And it is interesting that Oliver was quizzed on what were his sources. And he said military intelligence people and named one, Frank Capell, who was associated with this thing called the "Foreign Intelligence Digest" that was financed by the Hunt family in Dallas and it united a lot of senior veterans of Army intelligence with veterans foreign intelligence. The content of the full page ad, the wanted for treason thing according to Peter those were not issues just pulled out of the air they accurately depicted the divisions between these people and the Kennedy administration.

Maybe Ernie has something going here, and Harry Dean really wasn't working undercover for the FBI, as he thought, but maybe he was False Flagged by another agency? Since the CIA isn't allowed to operate in the USA, though they certainly did with MKULTRA, Domestic Contacts Division, CIAir, the International Operations Division, and with defense contractors, it is more likely that any penetration of such radical groups by an infiltrator would be run by military intelligence - US Army Intelligence and Reserves.

One of the stated purposes of the JBS, according to Robert Welch, was to oppose a world government, and by extension, the United Nations, precisely the promotional aim of the World Federalists, co-founded by WWII hero Cord Meyer, and a national organization that also included other such players like Ruth Forbes Paine Young (Michael's mom), Priscilla Johnson McMillan and Walter Cronkite.

It is my contention that they didn't have to infiltrate the JBS or the World Federalists with informers because they controlled it from the top - through Cord Meyer (CIA) and Robert Welch (ONI).

But Harry Dean was certainly reporting to someone, and if not the FBI or the CIA then who was running him? I would suggest it was US Army CI, who had liason with every local police department in the USA, including Dallas, via Capt. Gannaway. But that's just a hunch.

And besides Harry calling attention to such interesting characters as Hall, Seymore, Rousellouet, the Medal of Honor hero Guy Gab, and the Austin Barbeque JBSer who employed Tippitt, he may have been just as confused as Oswald as to who he was really working for.

Which brings me to Norman Lee Elkins, who was the only person officially identified by the FBI as potential threat to the president and reported to Secret Service on October 30, 1963 (with photo) [see: CE 836/CE 2583]

Elkins apparently made a remark against Kennedy and was investigated by the Dallas PD intelligence division (Gannaway, Revell) and an undercover informant, who reported they checked with Elkins and he said he wasn't going to be in Dallas when the president was there, apparently taking his word for it. But it appears that Elkins, despite the lack of anything among the JFK records, was a student who was himself recruited into one of the radical right wing groups like JBS, and may have been involved in the anti-Stevenson/UN riot. I also find it significant that they went out of their way to review the news film and photos of these demonstrators to try to determine who they were, and Elkin's photo, though mentioned in the documents released, is not included among the released records. So there is more.

And then there's Revilo P. Oliver, an early JBS instigator whose name has the unique attribute of being spelled the same foreward and backwards, and whose lenghly testimony before the Warren Commission established the fact that his published rantings condemning Oswald as a Castro-Communist agent was based on information obtained from one Frank A. Capell, a US Army Intelligence officer.

On a Final Note I leave you with this little ditty:

Dylan wrote this about the John Birch Society, an ultraconservative political organization formed in 1958 to fight Communist threats in the US. This is a parody of the organization, which Dylan thought was a threat to free speech because they accused anyone they didn't like of being a communist.

In the '50s and '60s, many famous musicians, including Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Doors and The Rolling Stones, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Dylan never did, and this is the song that kept him off. On May 12, 1963, he was scheduled to appear on the show, but refused to go on when they would not let him perform this.

Advance copies of the album Freewheelin' Bob Dylan included this song, but it was removed prior to the official release. It did not officially appear on an album until Bootleg Series in 1991. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL)

http://www.songfacts...tail.php?id=686

Series in 1991. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL)

Send "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" Ringtone to your Cell

- /songs/talkin-john-birch-paranoid-blues

Talkin' Joh n Birch Paranoid Blues

Well, I was feelin' sad and feelin' blue

I didn't know what in the world I wus gonna do

Them Communists they wus comin' around

They wus in the air

They wus on the ground

They wouldn't gimme no peace . . .

So I run down most hurriedly

And joined up with the John Birch Society

I got me a secret membership card

And started off a-walkin' down the road

Yee-hoo, I'm a real John Bircher now!

Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitler's views

Although he killed six million Jews

It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist

At least you can't say he was a Communist!

That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria

Well, I wus lookin' everywhere for them gol-darned Reds

I got up in the mornin' 'n' looked under my bed

Looked in the sink, behind the door

Looked in the glove compartment of my car

Couldn't find 'em . . .

I wus lookin' high an' low for them Reds everywhere

I wus lookin' in the sink an' underneath the chair

I looked way up my chimney hole

I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl

They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin' home alone an' started to sweat

Figured they wus in my T.V. set

Peeked behind the picture frame

Got a shock from my feet, hittin' right up in the brain

Them Reds caused it!

I know they did . . . them hard-core ones

Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone

Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes

Followed some clues from my detective bag

And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!

That ol' Betsy Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library

Ninety percent of 'em gotta be burned away

I investigated all the people that I knowed

Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go

The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me

Now Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy

Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy

To my knowledge there's just one man

That's really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell

I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus

Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight

When I run outa things to investigate

Couldn't imagine doin' anything else

So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!

Hope I don't find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

Copyright © 1970 by Special Rider Music; renewed 1998 by Special Rider Music

Edited June 20, 2010 by William Kelly

[Ernie Lazar]

BILL:

With respect to this portion of your message:

"Frank Capell, who was associated with this thing called the "Foreign Intelligence Digest" that was financed by the Hunt family in Dallas and it united a lot of senior veterans of Army intelligence with veterans foreign intelligence."

I think you are conflating two entirely different sources. The Foreign Intelligence Digest was a column authored by Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby. It was published in various right-wing newsletters/magazines including, for example, Billy James Hargis's Christian Crusade magazine.

Frank Capell wrote a column for the Birch Society weekly news magazine, Review of the News, which was entitled "An Intelligence Report”.

Many statements by Capell were outright fabrications -- and in fact he was indicted in February 1965 on charges of conspiring to criminally libel Sen. Thomas H. Kuchel of California. He ultimately was convicted and fined $500 by a Los Angeles Superior Court for circulating a libelous affidavit falsely accusing Sen. Kuchel of having been arrested for homosexual activity.

In May 1945, Capell pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to ask, accept and receive bribes in connection with his employment an an "investigator" for the War Production Board Compliance Division. His prison term of one year and one day on each of two counts was suspended with 2 years probation.

See the February 11, 1966 issue of Capell's newspaper, The Herald of Freedom, for an article entitled “The Strange Case of ‘Col. Goleniewski" which makes the statements appearing below. Capell repeated this information in the Birch Society magazine.

(1) “Evidence exists to prove that the individual known as Michal Goleniewski is Aleksei Nicholaevich Romanoff, born at Peterhof, Russia August 12, 1904, the son of Czar Nicholas II. Confidential records of the CIA would confirm this is if made public.”

(2) “In 1924, for security reasons, the Czar changed his name to Michal Goleniewski…In 1930 Aleksei was taken into the Imperial All Russians Anti-Bolshevik Underground which had been established by his father and from then on he worked continuously as a secret underground member of this anti-communist force…”

(3) “Aleksei entered the Polish Army in 1945 as part of his anti-communist work and in 1948 was assigned to Polish Army Counterintelligence. He held posts in the technical and scientific branches and also in the analysis and inspection sections of Polish Counterintelligence. From 1953 to 1956 he held positions as Deputy Chief and Vice Director of these counterintelligence branches and by February 8, 1957 he headed a branch of military intelligence…”

(4) “He had access to a tremendous amount of intelligence information which included data on the operations of Soviet and satellite intelligence networks and agents, as well as their programs, methods of operation and traitors in the Western World who worked with them.”

(5) “Having reached a high position and having accumulated much intelligence data, Aleksei made contact with the West. From April 1958 until December 1960 he voluntarily served the United States at great personal danger. He personally prepared 160 pages of typewritten secret reports and sent them through to the West. He also sent over 5000 pages of top secret documents on microfilm having to do with Soviet satellite espionage, Polish and East German intelligence services and agents in Western Europe and the U.S. Army---military, economic, political, intelligence and counterintelligence matters regarding the Soviet bloc. He also sent over 800 pages of Soviet and Polish intelligence reports which showed the results of their intelligence operations in the Free World, 80% of which were found to have come from secret Free World sources.”

(6) “As a result of a particular discovery by the KGB, Aleksei and his wife were forced to flee to the West in January 1961. On January 12, 1961 they arrived in the U.S…accompanied by Homer E. Roman of the CIA. From this date untilDecember 14, 1963…Aleksei was briefing U.S. authorities on the reports and microfilms already sent through. He also brought with him complete data on 240 persons, their names, identifications, assignments, locations, and operations.”

(7) “Aleksei also worked with U.S. intelligence authorities here on over 2000 cases of new matters involving agents of Polish Military Intelligence, East German Secret Service, the KGB-GRU, etc.”

(8) “As to how accurate Aleksei’s information was, there are the actual cases cited, plus statements made by U.S. officials in the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee Hearing ‘State Department Security 1963-1965’. We find on page 624 where Chief Counsel Mr. Sourwine is questioning John R. Norpel who had been in the FBI and State Department Security section:

‘Mr. Sourwine: Do you know of any information ever furnished to the U.S. Government [by Goleniewski] which turned out to be untrue or inaccurate? Mr. Norpel: I do not, no sir.”

(9) “The Washington Daily News of January 19, 1965 published a UPI dispatch which stated…Herman Kimsey who was chief of analysis and research for CIA and more recently was Assistant Chief of Security for the Republican National Committee, said the agency has made exhaustive tests to establish the true identity of Col. Michael Goleniewski. He said he is convinced the tests proved the mysterious Pole is Grand Duke Alexei, only son of Czar Nicholas II…”

Interestingly, the Birch Society promoted Capell as a reliable source of information. However, they also recommended the writings of Soviet defector Anatoli Golitsyn.

BUT -- Goleniewski's 1985 article entitled “Selected Analysis of Dissemination of Soviet Disinformation Through Western Publications in Result of Arrangements, Participation and/or Nonfeasance on the Part of the United States Government” makes the following observations about GOLITSYN:

On page 1, Goleniewski states that after Golitsyn’s arrival into the U.S. in 1962, he (Goleniewski) was “consulted by CIA representative ‘Herman’ [Kimsey] with regard to this person and his activities. Consequently, I was debriefed about Golitsyn’s past and (his) status in the structure of KGB…”

Goleniewski then expressed puzzlement about the “strong support and promotion” of Golitsyn within the U.S. government “and especially in British SIS” and, particularly, their “continuous tolerance of Golitsyn’s disinformation” which, Goleniewski concluded, “is indicating that in his case are involved Soviet penetration in the United States and British Governments. His recent book [New Lies For Old] presenting a classic example of Soviet disinformation about the Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation, being written by a KGB officer who was Security Officer in the third grade Embassy in Helsinki, is elevating Golitsyn to a prominence and authority on matters he never understood and is not understanding.”

Goleniewski then observed:

“It is a matter of great entertainment in various KGB and GRU schools in the Soviet Union and among some of the knowledgeable Chiefs of Western Security and Counter-Intelligence Agencies…that the U.S. government approved as true, publication of Golitsyn’s disinformation concerning his past activities, in Soviet Union, where he claims at the age of 26-27 years, i.e. as maximum Lt. of the KGB ranks, that he was involved in drawing up a proposal to the Central Committee on the reorganization of Soviet intelligence.”

“Golitsyn is misinforming, stating that in connection with this proposal, he attended meetings of the Central Committee Secretariat chaired by Stalin, and a meeting of the Presidium chaired by Malenkov and attended by Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Bulganin. All these and many of other informations…are not based on facts…Generally, experts on Soviet disinformation in Western Europe are seeing in Golitsyn’s book an evidence that the U.S. Intelligence and Security Agencies are run by ignorants engulfed by Soviet disinformation and idiocies of its individual promoters a la Golitsyn.”

“In this light, it is important to study the attached report by (the) late real expert on Intelligence and Security matters, Edward Hunter, Publisher of Tactics magazine which was republished in The Eagle, Yakima WA on June 6, 1968 and titled ‘We Harrass Our Friends’ “

Goleniewski reports that Hunter “in his article republished in The Eagle…after careful investigations based upon his own independent sources stated (that): ‘…Golitsyn has been converted into a sort of grab bag agent. The work of a number of different persons including that of Goleniewski-Romanoff is being listed under the cover name Martel (Golitsyn). This is part of the operation being undertaken against the invaluable contributor to our security from his high post at Warsaw, Romanoff.' "

Now, for the Goleniewski bombshell!

He observes that prior to publication of his first book, Golitsyn had a “low profile” but for 2 or 3 years after publication of Golitsyn’s first book, “…some of Soviet agents and dupes, often masqueraded as ‘reporters’, ‘authors’ etc. began to elevate Golitsyn again to levels properly exposed by Edward Hunter in 1968. Said disinforming publicity had been given Golitsyn during the last few years especially on the part of Communist-infiltrated publications such as American Opinion, Parade magazine, etc.” [bold type is my emphasis. American Opinion was the official magazine of the John Birch Society (!) until 1985 when it was replaced by The New American.]

Goleniewski then observed that Golitsyn “could not produce any valid information” of counterintelligence “because the only ‘proof’ of his reliability had been fake-defectors who attacked Golitsyn in accordance with KGB instruction, in this way making his defection legend stronger…” and Goleniewski then cites a London Sunday Times Review article of March 18, 1985 as an example of something “printed by inspiration of Soviet agents in England.”]

I shall close with a Goleniewski comment on page 13 of the September 1984 issue of his newsletter, Double Eagle, which accompanies a sketch of Golitsyn:

“Despite established facts of Golitsyn’s disinformation (fragments) in the past, he is supported in the U.S.A. by some governmental officials, and also by misleading reports in British and American press (as in a report of the American Opinion magazine of March 1984.”)

So, in summary, here we have an example of right-wing conspiracy proponents asking us to believe two mutually exclusive propositions, namely, that both Golitsyn and Goleniewski are reliable and authoritative experts on Soviet disinformation and intelligence operations even though Goleniewski states emphatically that Golitsyn was not a reliable source of data and, in fact, Goleniewski claimed that Golitsyn was a phony Soviet defector and disinformation agent! [incidentally, J. Edgar Hoover also thought Golitsyn was a phony defector!]

Furthermore, Goleniewski describes the Birch Society magazine, American Opinion, as "Communist infiltrated" and he stated that it facilitated the circulation of Golitsyn's disinformation!

And to make all this even more absurd, prominent Birch Society officials, endorsers, and admirers (including such prominent JBS columnists such as former FBI Special Agent Dan Smoot and Frank Capell) are on record stating unequivocally that Goleniewski was a knowledgeable, reliable, and authoritative source of information!

FYI: Frank Capell was not (as claimed below) a "US Army Intelligence Officer"

I stand corrected. Frank Aloysius Capell was not US Army Intelligence, though Oliver identified him as his source for Oswald's communist background and said that he thought Capell's source was Army Intel., and as Peter Dale Scott notes, Capell and Col. Corso were the two most prominent personalities pushing the idea that the assassin was a Cuban Commie.

Mr. Oliver…. The girl now known as Marina Oswald, as I understand it, lost her father when she was about 2 years old. Her mother remarried and died when Marina was in her teens, and at the time that Oswald met her Marina was living, evidently, in the capacity of a daughter, in other words, an adopted daughter for practical purposes, with the colonel of the Soviet military intelligence.

Mr. Jenner.

What is your source for that supposition?

Mr. Oliver.

That I base on a report from a.man whose research I use a great deal in my work, Mr. Frank Capell. Mr. Capell, is a private expert on Communism and Communistic infiltration, who, I understand, has the cooperation of many former intelligence officers of the Army and former members of the FBI.

Mr. Jenner.

When you say army you mean the United States Army?

Mr. Oliver.

United States Army; yes. And other very good sources. He has very elaborate files and among the research workers whose work I use Mr. Capell's work has been particularly important to me in connection with these articles.

Mr. Jenner.

I take it then that the sources of the statement which I have quoted from your article, all portions of it, were, may I use the term, secondary sources, that is, the broadcast you have mentioned, newspaper items, research reports of Mr. Capell or either that you saw published or which he transmitted to you as the case my be, which came to your attention?

Mr. Oliver.

That is right.

Among the Americans identified by Goleniewski as Soviet agents was none other than Henry Kissinger, whom Goleniewski claimed to have recruited shortly after WW2 while working in the Army's counterintelligence corps in Germany. This claim - supported by former Army intelligence agent Frank A. Capell - naturally undermined Goleniewski's credibility in some circles.

…it was first voiced in a very strong way very soon after the assassination by people who are a little hard to describe in terms of this difference between insiders and outsiders, center and margin. Philip Corso, for example, a former intelligence agent, working on the hill for Senator Thurmond. Would you call him an outsider or an insider? He was up there on the hill but he passionately hated people that he called insiders and he particularly hated the CIA. His theory was, and he said this, that Kennedy was killed by a Communist clique inside the CIA. Something very like this was published in "The American Opinion", the journal of the John Birch Society in February and March 1964 by Revilo Oliver, a man who again talked about insiders but before we define him as an outsider we have to remember that he was a former senior researcher in the Army Security Agency. So he too came from in a sense inside.

…In Q & A Peter was asked if he looked at the right-wing theory of the assassination, especially Revilo P. Oliver's testimony. Peter said yes it was one of the first things he looked at long ago and it is almost time for somebody else to do so as we have more information now. The testimony of Revilo P. Oliver is interseting in that Oliver was criticizing the Warren Commission saying that it was an unconstitutional misdirection away from where it should be investigated, namely the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. The SISS agreed with Oliver and now that we have the release of Johnson's telephone calls in the first week we know that Johnson's motive for setting up the Warren commission was precisely to keep it away from the SISS who had already started their own investigation, who had already heard from Edward Butler. Peter said that we would have disliked the SISS version of the Kennedy assassination even less than the Warren Commission. And it is interesting that Oliver was quizzed on what were his sources. And he said military intelligence people and named one, Frank Capell, who was associated with this thing called the "Foreign Intelligence Digest" that was financed by the Hunt family in Dallas and it united a lot of senior veterans of Army intelligence with veterans foreign intelligence. The content of the full page ad, the wanted for treason thing according to Peter those were not issues just pulled out of the air they accurately depicted the divisions between these people and the Kennedy administration.

Maybe Ernie has something going here, and Harry Dean really wasn't working undercover for the FBI, as he thought, but maybe he was False Flagged by another agency? Since the CIA isn't allowed to operate in the USA, though they certainly did with MKULTRA, Domestic Contacts Division, CIAir, the International Operations Division, and with defense contractors, it is more likely that any penetration of such radical groups by an infiltrator would be run by military intelligence - US Army Intelligence and Reserves.

One of the stated purposes of the JBS, according to Robert Welch, was to oppose a world government, and by extension, the United Nations, precisely the promotional aim of the World Federalists, co-founded by WWII hero Cord Meyer, and a national organization that also included other such players like Ruth Forbes Paine Young (Michael's mom), Priscilla Johnson McMillan and Walter Cronkite.

It is my contention that they didn't have to infiltrate the JBS or the World Federalists with informers because they controlled it from the top - through Cord Meyer (CIA) and Robert Welch (ONI).

But Harry Dean was certainly reporting to someone, and if not the FBI or the CIA then who was running him? I would suggest it was US Army CI, who had liason with every local police department in the USA, including Dallas, via Capt. Gannaway. But that's just a hunch.

And besides Harry calling attention to such interesting characters as Hall, Seymore, Rousellouet, the Medal of Honor hero Guy Gab, and the Austin Barbeque JBSer who employed Tippitt, he may have been just as confused as Oswald as to who he was really working for.

Which brings me to Norman Lee Elkins, who was the only person officially identified by the FBI as potential threat to the president and reported to Secret Service on October 30, 1963 (with photo) [see: CE 836/CE 2583]

Elkins apparently made a remark against Kennedy and was investigated by the Dallas PD intelligence division (Gannaway, Revell) and an undercover informant, who reported they checked with Elkins and he said he wasn't going to be in Dallas when the president was there, apparently taking his word for it. But it appears that Elkins, despite the lack of anything among the JFK records, was a student who was himself recruited into one of the radical right wing groups like JBS, and may have been involved in the anti-Stevenson/UN riot. I also find it significant that they went out of their way to review the news film and photos of these demonstrators to try to determine who they were, and Elkin's photo, though mentioned in the documents released, is not included among the released records. So there is more.

And then there's Revilo P. Oliver, an early JBS instigator whose name has the unique attribute of being spelled the same foreward and backwards, and whose lenghly testimony before the Warren Commission established the fact that his published rantings condemning Oswald as a Castro-Communist agent was based on information obtained from one Frank A. Capell, a US Army Intelligence officer.

On a Final Note I leave you with this little ditty:

Dylan wrote this about the John Birch Society, an ultraconservative political organization formed in 1958 to fight Communist threats in the US. This is a parody of the organization, which Dylan thought was a threat to free speech because they accused anyone they didn't like of being a communist.

In the '50s and '60s, many famous musicians, including Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Doors and The Rolling Stones, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Dylan never did, and this is the song that kept him off. On May 12, 1963, he was scheduled to appear on the show, but refused to go on when they would not let him perform this.

Advance copies of the album Freewheelin' Bob Dylan included this song, but it was removed prior to the official release. It did not officially appear on an album until Bootleg Series in 1991. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL)

http://www.songfacts...tail.php?id=686

Series in 1991. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL)

Send "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" Ringtone to your Cell

- /songs/talkin-john-birch-paranoid-blues

Talkin' Joh n Birch Paranoid Blues

Well, I was feelin' sad and feelin' blue

I didn't know what in the world I wus gonna do

Them Communists they wus comin' around

They wus in the air

They wus on the ground

They wouldn't gimme no peace . . .

So I run down most hurriedly

And joined up with the John Birch Society

I got me a secret membership card

And started off a-walkin' down the road

Yee-hoo, I'm a real John Bircher now!

Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitler's views

Although he killed six million Jews

It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist

At least you can't say he was a Communist!

That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria

Well, I wus lookin' everywhere for them gol-darned Reds

I got up in the mornin' 'n' looked under my bed

Looked in the sink, behind the door

Looked in the glove compartment of my car

Couldn't find 'em . . .

I wus lookin' high an' low for them Reds everywhere

I wus lookin' in the sink an' underneath the chair

I looked way up my chimney hole

I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl

They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin' home alone an' started to sweat

Figured they wus in my T.V. set

Peeked behind the picture frame

Got a shock from my feet, hittin' right up in the brain

Them Reds caused it!

I know they did . . . them hard-core ones

Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone

Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes

Followed some clues from my detective bag

And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!

That ol' Betsy Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library

Ninety percent of 'em gotta be burned away

I investigated all the people that I knowed

Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go

The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me

Now Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy

Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy

To my knowledge there's just one man

That's really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell

I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus

Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight

When I run outa things to investigate

Couldn't imagine doin' anything else

So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!

Hope I don't find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

Copyright © 1970 by Special Rider Music; renewed 1998 by Special Rider Music

[Ernie Lazar]

Greg:

I need to address something mistaken that you previously wrote but which I let pass without comment. In a previous message you stated that the FBI was "ordered" to investigate the WCC movement.

However, that is not entirely accurate.

The Bureau was instructed to investigate only two specific groups by the Dept of Justice, i.e. (1) the Association of Citizens Councils of Mississippi (the statewide organization) and (2) the American States Rights Association (Alabama).

Subsequently, the Bureau also investigated a complaint sent by the NAACP to the White House and to the Justice Department concerning one WCC chapter after the NAACP submitted numerous sworn affidavits alleging violations of the civil rights of African Americans in a specific community.

The Bureau issued a SAC Letter dated October 25, 1955 (#55-66) which superceded all previous instructions. That SAC Letter informed field offices about the specific "purpose" behind its interest in the WCC movement, as follows:

"(1) to ascertain the influence of Ku Klux Klan members and other advocates of illegal repressive tactics against minorities;

(2) to determine whether their programs and activities bring groups within the purview of Executive Order 10450 and

(3) to develop data indicating groups' potential for violence."

As I am sure you know, EO 10450 establishes security requirements for government employees and provides that the Department of Justice shall furnish to the heads of Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government a list of subversive organizations.

The original two investigations quickly established that neither group fell under the purview of Executive Order 10450. Those two investigations were completed before January 1956. Nevertheless, the Bureau not only continued to investigate white supremacy groups and individuals, it vastly expanded the scope from the original 2 organizations to HUNDREDS of white supremacy groups, individuals and publications -- and not just WCC.

However, as I have previously mentioned, the Bureau utilized other phrases to distinguish their ongoing interest from an "official" or "full" investigation.

Some memos, for example, refer to "preliminary inquiry"; other memos discuss the need for "intelligence"; yet other memos make the following statement:

"However, the Bureau pointed out that where adviseable the field is authorized to investigate organizations established for the purpose of combatting or advocating affirmative action against racial minorities or seeking to deprive individuals of their rights under the Constitution...At such time as integration is made mandatory under the Supreme Court decision of May 21, 1955, [sic] or prior thereto, these organizations or individual members may take extra-legal action possibly resulting in civil rights violations. The Bureau wants complete data relative to these organizations and their members prior to any incidents which may take place. The Bureau should be kept advised of the formation of these groups and all pertinent developments concerning them. However, in view of the nature of these groups all inquiries should be handled most discreetly in order to avoid embarrassing the Bureau. Established sources should be contacted when possible."

Sometimes, memos reference potential violations of provisions of Title 18, USC 241.

There is a particularly interesting memo dated February 7, 1956 by F.J. Baumgardner to A.H. Belmont. Baumgardner was the Chief of the Internal Security Section of the Bureau's Domestic Intelligence Division [DID] and Belmont was the Assistant Director who headed the DID.

This memo concerned whether or not the Bureau should "index" the "names in reports received concerning prosegregation organizations which have been formed in fifteen southern states...At this time membership alone in one of these organizations carries no subversive stigma; however, future significance of such membership cannot be determined." The decision was made to index all such names.

So, here again, you get a glimpse into the mentality driving Bureau interest in white supremacy organizations and individuals. Even though they already knew that there was no criminal or subversive activity apparent in the groups they had investigated -- they still wanted to index the names of anyone connected to these groups!

Lastly, I quote from the 1971 edition of the FBI Manual of Instructions, Section 122, pp 1-10 pertaining to “Investigation of White Extremist Organizations and Individuals”

A1 = “FBI is charged with gathering and disseminating intelligence information regarding extremist groups and individuals. To carry out our responsibilities it is necessary for us to have accurate knowledge of activities of these groups and their members, as well as of individual extremists unaffiliated with organizations.”

A2 = Investigative criteria: Investigation is confined to organizations or individuals that:

a. have actually or allegedly committed or conspired to commit acts of violence to deny others their rights under the Constitution, or

b. have adopted or have allegedly adopted a policy of advocating, condoning, or inciting use of force or violence to deny others their rights under Constitution, or

c. have been designated pursuant to Executive Order 10450 or

d. have actual or alleged affiliation with a designated organization

The significance of this is that certain circumstances would permit an "official" or "full" investigation. Absent those circumstances, the Bureau obtained almost exactly the same type of data -- but it did so using different methodology so it could plausibly claim it was "not investigating" the targeted person(s) or group(s).

I also note, for the record, that you also previously claimed that I had confirmed that the Bureau "never investigated the Birch Society" -- but what I actually said (if you check again) is that the Bureau never conducted an "official investigation" of the JBS.

The Bureau most certainly DID investigate the JBS by any normal understanding of the meaning of that word ---which is why the HQ main file is 12,000 pages and JBS-related files (HQ and field offices) total tens of thousands more pages! [incidentally, if you are among the persons who believes Harry Dean's claim that he was instructed by the FBI to infiltrate the JBS and inform on its members and activities -- then, obviously, that would be evidence that the Bureau was "investigating" the JBS!]

For understandable reasons, you do not want to define what, exactly, constitutes an FBI "investigation" nor do you want to specify what type of data exists ONLY in an investigative file but does not exist in other types of files -- because doing so would totally undermine your entire predicate in this thread.

Nevertheless, accurate understanding of FBI history, terminology, and practices makes such understandings critical to intelligent discussions of this matter.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[Ernie Lazar]

Getting back, for a moment, to the actual topic of this thread, i.e. the claim by Harry Dean that he was an FBI informant.

Today I have created a new webpage where I have posted scanned copies of the first 2 serials appearing in the Jackson MS FBI field office file on Rev. Delmar Dennis -- here:

DELMAR DENNIS DOCS

Rev. Dennis actually was an FBI informant for several years within the most violent Klan in our nation -- the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. After Dennis surfaced, his testimony was instrumental in convicting several Klan members for civil rights violations connected with the murders of 3 civil rights workers in 1964. Incidentally - Dennis was also a JBS member.

I am posting the first two serials from the Jackson field file on Dennis so that Education Forum readers may see the STANDARD memo format used by field offices when they wanted permission from HQ to begin using an informant.

1. Notice the categories of information which the field office provided to HQ on every proposed new informant and the biographical information and other details provided.

2. Notice also that if anything was being paid to an informant (for services and/or expenses) there was a separate memo prepared requesting authority from HQ to make such payments.

3. HQ responded to both types of requests (authorization to commence using someone as a probationary informant and authorization to make any payments) and periodic renewals of authority to continue using/paying an informant were also required.

As I have previously pointed out, there is NOTHING WHATSOEVER in any FBI file pertaining to the JBS (HQ or field office) to indicate that at ANY TIME -- they either attempted to recruit, or they approved use of informants within the JBS.

Furthermore, typically informants were used when the Bureau opened a "full" or "official" investigation because the Bureau sought copies of mailing lists, membership lists, financial data, etc. --- which was NOT the case with respect to the JBS. In addition, the Bureau never relied just upon ONE informant in an organization.

Typically, Bureau files summarize data provided by multiple informants particularly when an organization had numerous individual chapters in a city or specific geographical area. And, of course, the informants did not know each other's identities. Significantly, there are no references by OTHER "informants" to Harry -- because there were NO other informants!

And as I previously mentioned, informant reports (whether verbal or written) appear in the main files of the subject they informed on -- as well as being cross-referenced in other files.

For example: I have copies of numerous "informant reports" pertaining to closed Communist Party meetings around the country -- including many where senior CPUSA leaders spoke. [sometimes the Bureau referred to an "informant" when it actually was using recording devices which resulted in a transcript of everything said at the meeting.]

In those instances where Party leaders discussed an organization or person or event at their closed meetings (such as for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS, or persons connected to those groups) -- a copy of that memo was then also placed in the respective files of whatever subjects were discussed, for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS etc.

So, in order to believe Harry Dean's claims we necessarily also have to believe the following:

1. Unlike every other actual informant in FBI history -- there are no documents whatsoever confirming his informant status -- i.e. no background memos (see Delmar Dennis example), no summaries or evaluations of information Harry supposedly provided, no expense claims, no field office request for renewal of Harry as an informant -- or taking him off "probationary" status; no information pertaining to Harry's activities, etc.

2. Although Harry claims he infiltrated and informed upon the JBS at the request of the FBI for several YEARS -- there is NOT EVEN ONE informant report in any JBS file (HQ or field office) by anyone identified as an FBI informant. Review the Delmar Dennis memos again --> notice that actual FBI informants were given "code names" AND "symbol numbers". There is no reference in any JBS file to any code name or symbol number!

3. Furthermore, there is no document in ANY JBS file which evaluates data which Harry supposedly provided at the instruction of his FBI handlers -- which would make Harry the first "FBI informant" in history who has no paper trail of any kind in the pertinent primary subject file.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[William Kelly]

Getting back, for a moment, to the actual topic of this thread, i.e. the claim by Harry Dean that he was an FBI informant.

Today I have created a new webpage where I have posted scanned copies of the first 2 serials appearing in the Jackson MS FBI field office file on Rev. Delmar Dennis -- here:

DELMAR DENNIS DOCS

Rev. Dennis actually was an FBI informant for several years within the most violent Klan in our nation -- the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. After Dennis surfaced, his testimony was instrumental in convicting several Klan members for civil rights violations connected with the murders of 3 civil rights workers in 1964. Incidentally - Dennis was also a JBS member.

I am posting the first two serials from the Jackson field file on Dennis so that Education Forum readers may see the STANDARD memo format used by field offices when they wanted permission from HQ to begin using an informant.

1. Notice the categories of information which the field office provided to HQ on every proposed new informant and the biographical information and other details provided.

2. Notice also that if anything was being paid to an informant (for services and/or expenses) there was a separate memo prepared requesting authority from HQ to make such payments.

3. HQ responded to both types of requests (authorization to commence using someone as a probationary informant and authorization to make any payments) and periodic renewals of authority to continue using/paying an informant were also required.

As I have previously pointed out, there is NOTHING WHATSOEVER in any FBI file pertaining to the JBS (HQ or field office) to indicate that at ANY TIME -- they either attempted to recruit, or they approved use of informants within the JBS.

Furthermore, typically informants were used when the Bureau opened a "full" or "official" investigation because the Bureau sought copies of mailing lists, membership lists, financial data, etc. --- which was NOT the case with respect to the JBS. In addition, the Bureau never relied just upon ONE informant in an organization.

Typically, Bureau files summarize data provided by multiple informants particularly when an organization had numerous individual chapters in a city or specific geographical area. And, of course, the informants did not know each other's identities. Significantly, there are no references by OTHER "informants" to Harry -- because there were NO other informants!

And as I previously mentioned, informant reports (whether verbal or written) appear in the main files of the subject they informed on -- as well as being cross-referenced in other files.

For example: I have copies of numerous "informant reports" pertaining to closed Communist Party meetings around the country -- including many where senior CPUSA leaders spoke. [sometimes the Bureau referred to an "informant" when it actually was using recording devices which resulted in a transcript of everything said at the meeting.]

In those instances where Party leaders discussed an organization or person or event at their closed meetings (such as for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS, or persons connected to those groups) -- a copy of that memo was then also placed in the respective files of whatever subjects were discussed, for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS etc.

So, in order to believe Harry Dean's claims we necessarily also have to believe the following:

1. Unlike every other actual informant in FBI history -- there are no documents whatsoever confirming his informant status -- i.e. no background memos (see Delmar Dennis example), no summaries or evaluations of information Harry supposedly provided, no expense claims, no field office request for renewal of Harry as an informant -- or taking him off "probationary" status; no information pertaining to Harry's activities, etc.

2. Although Harry claims he infiltrated and informed upon the JBS at the request of the FBI for several YEARS -- there is NOT EVEN ONE informant report in any JBS file (HQ or field office) by anyone identified as an FBI informant. Review the Delmar Dennis memos again --> notice that actual FBI informants were given "code names" AND "symbol numbers". There is no reference in any JBS file to any code name or symbol number!

3. Furthermore, there is no document in ANY JBS file which evaluates data which Harry supposedly provided at the instruction of his FBI handlers -- which would make Harry the first "FBI informant" in history who has no paper trail of any kind in the pertinent primary subject file.

So I no longer believe that Harry Dean worked as an undercover informant within the JBS, but instead was false flagged by another agency or department, which I believe was Army Intelligence, a point which confirms that facts that the JBS and World Federalists didn't have to be infiltrated because they were controlled from the top by such assets as Robert Welch and Cord Meyer.

And if we gave up on every lead that ended at a blank paper trail we wouldn't know anything.

That's my take on the situation.

What's your beef?

BK

[Ernie Lazar]

BILL: I have copies of all the Army Intelligence (G-2), Naval Intelligence (ONI), and Air Force Intelligence (OSI) reports concerning the JBS -- which they forwarded to the FBI -- and the Bureau memos which refer to such reports.

(1) Approximately how many "reports" do you think Harry made to G-2?

(2) What information about the JBS do you think that Harry provided to Army Intelligence?

(3) During which specific year(s) do you think Harry provided such info to G-2?

(4) When you refer to Robert Welch as an "asset" -- do you mean he was a G-2 "asset"? If yes, then please advise regarding what evidence you are using for that conclusion? Do you have copies of G-2 reports which describe him as their "asset" or perhaps reports whose textual context refers to someone who appears to be Robert Welch?

Getting back, for a moment, to the actual topic of this thread, i.e. the claim by Harry Dean that he was an FBI informant.

Today I have created a new webpage where I have posted scanned copies of the first 2 serials appearing in the Jackson MS FBI field office file on Rev. Delmar Dennis -- here:

DELMAR DENNIS DOCS

Rev. Dennis actually was an FBI informant for several years within the most violent Klan in our nation -- the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. After Dennis surfaced, his testimony was instrumental in convicting several Klan members for civil rights violations connected with the murders of 3 civil rights workers in 1964. Incidentally - Dennis was also a JBS member.

I am posting the first two serials from the Jackson field file on Dennis so that Education Forum readers may see the STANDARD memo format used by field offices when they wanted permission from HQ to begin using an informant.

1. Notice the categories of information which the field office provided to HQ on every proposed new informant and the biographical information and other details provided.

2. Notice also that if anything was being paid to an informant (for services and/or expenses) there was a separate memo prepared requesting authority from HQ to make such payments.

3. HQ responded to both types of requests (authorization to commence using someone as a probationary informant and authorization to make any payments) and periodic renewals of authority to continue using/paying an informant were also required.

As I have previously pointed out, there is NOTHING WHATSOEVER in any FBI file pertaining to the JBS (HQ or field office) to indicate that at ANY TIME -- they either attempted to recruit, or they approved use of informants within the JBS.

Furthermore, typically informants were used when the Bureau opened a "full" or "official" investigation because the Bureau sought copies of mailing lists, membership lists, financial data, etc. --- which was NOT the case with respect to the JBS. In addition, the Bureau never relied just upon ONE informant in an organization.

Typically, Bureau files summarize data provided by multiple informants particularly when an organization had numerous individual chapters in a city or specific geographical area. And, of course, the informants did not know each other's identities. Significantly, there are no references by OTHER "informants" to Harry -- because there were NO other informants!

And as I previously mentioned, informant reports (whether verbal or written) appear in the main files of the subject they informed on -- as well as being cross-referenced in other files.

For example: I have copies of numerous "informant reports" pertaining to closed Communist Party meetings around the country -- including many where senior CPUSA leaders spoke. [sometimes the Bureau referred to an "informant" when it actually was using recording devices which resulted in a transcript of everything said at the meeting.]

In those instances where Party leaders discussed an organization or person or event at their closed meetings (such as for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS, or persons connected to those groups) -- a copy of that memo was then also placed in the respective files of whatever subjects were discussed, for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS etc.

So, in order to believe Harry Dean's claims we necessarily also have to believe the following:

1. Unlike every other actual informant in FBI history -- there are no documents whatsoever confirming his informant status -- i.e. no background memos (see Delmar Dennis example), no summaries or evaluations of information Harry supposedly provided, no expense claims, no field office request for renewal of Harry as an informant -- or taking him off "probationary" status; no information pertaining to Harry's activities, etc.

2. Although Harry claims he infiltrated and informed upon the JBS at the request of the FBI for several YEARS -- there is NOT EVEN ONE informant report in any JBS file (HQ or field office) by anyone identified as an FBI informant. Review the Delmar Dennis memos again --> notice that actual FBI informants were given "code names" AND "symbol numbers". There is no reference in any JBS file to any code name or symbol number!

3. Furthermore, there is no document in ANY JBS file which evaluates data which Harry supposedly provided at the instruction of his FBI handlers -- which would make Harry the first "FBI informant" in history who has no paper trail of any kind in the pertinent primary subject file.

So I no longer believe that Harry Dean worked as an undercover informant within the JBS, but instead was false flagged by another agency or department, which I believe was Army Intelligence, a point which confirms that facts that the JBS and World Federalists didn't have to be infiltrated because they were controlled from the top by such assets as Robert Welch and Cord Meyer.

And if we gave up on every lead that ended at a blank paper trail we wouldn't know anything.

That's my take on the situation.

What's your beef?

BK

Edited June 22, 2010 by Ernie Lazar

[William Kelly]

BILL: I have copies of all the Army Intelligence (G-2), Naval Intelligence (ONI), and Air Force Intelligence (OSI) reports concerning the JBS -- which they forwarded to the FBI -- and the Bureau memos which refer to such reports.

(1) Approximately how many "reports" do you think Harry made to G-2?

(2) What information about the JBS do you think that Harry provided to Army Intelligence?

(3) During which specific year(s) do you think Harry provided such info to G-2?

(4) When you refer to Robert Welch as an "asset" -- do you mean he was a G-2 "asset"? If yes, then please advise regarding what evidence you are using for that conclusion? Do you have copies of G-2 reports which describe him as their "asset" or perhaps reports whose textual context refers to someone who appears to be Robert Welch?

I was in the court room ten years ago when the DOD vs. COPA case oral arguments were made over whether to release the US Army After Action Reports on their survillance of MLK in Mempis at the time of the assassination, and they fought tooth and nail to keep that off the public record. And I know for a fact that the FBI didn't consider the American Mafia or the Syndicate that controlled gambling in the USA and Caribbean a threat or even acknowledge their existence because Frank Costello had photos of J. E. Hover and his boyfriends in drag. So why should I believe anything thats in their files?

My purpose isn't to prove that Harry Dean was an undercover agent for the FBI when he inflitrated the JBS, my purpose is to uncover the covert intelligence operation that killed President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza.

In the course of trying to understand the Dealey Plaza operation, I have developed an approach that tries to define what happened there by understanding the various intelligence agencies and neworks that were involved, which include the FBI and JBS, only two of the dozens involved, but the two that you have a unique obession. So I would like to use your unique knowledge of these two organizations to better understnad what happened at DP.

One way is to try to figure out who Harry Dean was really working for, as his operations were very simlilar to those we know were conducted by the accused assassin and designated Patsy Lee Harvey Oswald, whose official records are not as clear as Harry Dean's records are. To me, Harry's records reflect that he was an undercover operative of an US government intelligence agency, many believed to be FBI, but also CIA, and my speculation US Army Reserves.

And shortly before you were given posting priviliges to this forum, Harry posted a thread that asked a number of questions in regards to the JBS and what happened at Dealey Plaza, questions that have not yet been properly addressed.

I'm willing to address them whenever and however anyone is willing to look into them, as well as trying to answer my own questions. You have your own questions, and I hope you get answers to them, as I hope to answer mine.

BK

Getting back, for a moment, to the actual topic of this thread, i.e. the claim by Harry Dean that he was an FBI informant.

Today I have created a new webpage where I have posted scanned copies of the first 2 serials appearing in the Jackson MS FBI field office file on Rev. Delmar Dennis -- here:

DELMAR DENNIS DOCS

Rev. Dennis actually was an FBI informant for several years within the most violent Klan in our nation -- the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. After Dennis surfaced, his testimony was instrumental in convicting several Klan members for civil rights violations connected with the murders of 3 civil rights workers in 1964. Incidentally - Dennis was also a JBS member.

I am posting the first two serials from the Jackson field file on Dennis so that Education Forum readers may see the STANDARD memo format used by field offices when they wanted permission from HQ to begin using an informant.

1. Notice the categories of information which the field office provided to HQ on every proposed new informant and the biographical information and other details provided.

2. Notice also that if anything was being paid to an informant (for services and/or expenses) there was a separate memo prepared requesting authority from HQ to make such payments.

3. HQ responded to both types of requests (authorization to commence using someone as a probationary informant and authorization to make any payments) and periodic renewals of authority to continue using/paying an informant were also required.

As I have previously pointed out, there is NOTHING WHATSOEVER in any FBI file pertaining to the JBS (HQ or field office) to indicate that at ANY TIME -- they either attempted to recruit, or they approved use of informants within the JBS.

Furthermore, typically informants were used when the Bureau opened a "full" or "official" investigation because the Bureau sought copies of mailing lists, membership lists, financial data, etc. --- which was NOT the case with respect to the JBS. In addition, the Bureau never relied just upon ONE informant in an organization.

Typically, Bureau files summarize data provided by multiple informants particularly when an organization had numerous individual chapters in a city or specific geographical area. And, of course, the informants did not know each other's identities. Significantly, there are no references by OTHER "informants" to Harry -- because there were NO other informants!

And as I previously mentioned, informant reports (whether verbal or written) appear in the main files of the subject they informed on -- as well as being cross-referenced in other files.

For example: I have copies of numerous "informant reports" pertaining to closed Communist Party meetings around the country -- including many where senior CPUSA leaders spoke. [sometimes the Bureau referred to an "informant" when it actually was using recording devices which resulted in a transcript of everything said at the meeting.]

In those instances where Party leaders discussed an organization or person or event at their closed meetings (such as for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS, or persons connected to those groups) -- a copy of that memo was then also placed in the respective files of whatever subjects were discussed, for example: ACLU, NAACP, JBS etc.

So, in order to believe Harry Dean's claims we necessarily also have to believe the following:

1. Unlike every other actual informant in FBI history -- there are no documents whatsoever confirming his informant status -- i.e. no background memos (see Delmar Dennis example), no summaries or evaluations of information Harry supposedly provided, no expense claims, no field office request for renewal of Harry as an informant -- or taking him off "probationary" status; no information pertaining to Harry's activities, etc.

2. Although Harry claims he infiltrated and informed upon the JBS at the request of the FBI for several YEARS -- there is NOT EVEN ONE informant report in any JBS file (HQ or field office) by anyone identified as an FBI informant. Review the Delmar Dennis memos again --> notice that actual FBI informants were given "code names" AND "symbol numbers". There is no reference in any JBS file to any code name or symbol number!

3. Furthermore, there is no document in ANY JBS file which evaluates data which Harry supposedly provided at the instruction of his FBI handlers -- which would make Harry the first "FBI informant" in history who has no paper trail of any kind in the pertinent primary subject file.

So I no longer believe that Harry Dean worked as an undercover informant within the JBS, but instead was false flagged by another agency or department, which I believe was Army Intelligence, a point which confirms that facts that the JBS and World Federalists didn't have to be infiltrated because they were controlled from the top by such assets as Robert Welch and Cord Meyer.

And if we gave up on every lead that ended at a blank paper trail we wouldn't know anything.

That's my take on the situation.

What's your beef?

BK

[William Kelly]

I was in the court room ten years ago when the DOD vs. COPA case oral arguments were made over whether to release the US Army After Action Reports on their survillance of MLK in Mempis at the time of the assassination, and they fought tooth and nail to keep that off the public record. And I know for a fact that the FBI didn't consider the American Mafia or the Syndicate that controlled gambling in the USA and Caribbean a threat or even acknowledge their existence because Frank Costello had photos of J. E. Hover and his boyfriends in drag. So why should I believe anything thats in their files?

And why should we think that they didn't investigate JBS for any other reason than they already had the organization covered from the top?

My purpose isn't to prove that Harry Dean was an undercover agent for the FBI when he inflitrated the JBS, my purpose is to uncover the covert intelligence operation that killed President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza.

In the course of trying to understand the Dealey Plaza operation, I have developed an approach that tries to define what happened there by understanding the various intelligence agencies and neworks that were involved, which include the FBI and JBS, only two of the dozens involved, but the two that you have a unique obession. So I would like to use your unique knowledge of these two organizations to better understnad what happened at DP.

One way is to try to figure out who Harry Dean was really working for, as his operations were very simlilar to those we know were conducted by the accused assassin and designated Patsy Lee Harvey Oswald, whose official records are not as clear as Harry Dean's records are. To me, Harry's records reflect that he was an undercover operative of an US government intelligence agency, many believed to be FBI, but also CIA, and my speculation US Army Reserves.

And shortly before you were given posting priviliges to this forum, Harry posted a thread that asked a number of questions in regards to the JBS and what happened at Dealey Plaza, questions that have not yet been properly addressed.

I'm willing to address them whenever and however anyone is willing to look into them, as well as trying to answer my own questions. You have your own questions, and I hope you get answers to them, as I hope to answer mine.

BK

[Ernie Lazar]

Bill: What you consider "fact" has been discredited as false by almost every scholar/historian who has carefully studied Hoover and the FBI and, significantly, those scholars are uniformly hostile toward Hoover. There are no "photos" of Hoover "in drag". That rumor originated with the wife of a Mafia-connected figure whom, incidentally, had been convicted of perjury.

And for the life of me I can't figure out how you arrived at the absurd idea that the Bureau never even acknowledged the existence of the Mafia. If you give me your email address, I will send you a copy of the FBI's 72-page monograph on the Mafia from 1958. There is so much mythology about this matter that it would take hours to address all of it. What is true, however, is that Hoover initially thought there was no single Mafia Boss in control of organized crime in the U.S. He also thought that local police departments should have the primary responsibility for dealing with organized crime.

---------

I was in the court room ten years ago when the DOD vs. COPA case oral arguments were made over whether to release the US Army After Action Reports on their survillance of MLK in Mempis at the time of the assassination, and they fought tooth and nail to keep that off the public record. And I know for a fact that the FBI didn't consider the American Mafia or the Syndicate that controlled gambling in the USA and Caribbean a threat or even acknowledge their existence because Frank Costello had photos of J. E. Hover and his boyfriends in drag. So why should I believe anything thats in their files?

And why should we think that they didn't investigate JBS for any other reason than they already had the organization covered from the top?

My purpose isn't to prove that Harry Dean was an undercover agent for the FBI when he inflitrated the JBS, my purpose is to uncover the covert intelligence operation that killed President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza.

In the course of trying to understand the Dealey Plaza operation, I have developed an approach that tries to define what happened there by understanding the various intelligence agencies and neworks that were involved, which include the FBI and JBS, only two of the dozens involved, but the two that you have a unique obession. So I would like to use your unique knowledge of these two organizations to better understnad what happened at DP.

One way is to try to figure out who Harry Dean was really working for, as his operations were very simlilar to those we know were conducted by the accused assassin and designated Patsy Lee Harvey Oswald, whose official records are not as clear as Harry Dean's records are. To me, Harry's records reflect that he was an undercover operative of an US government intelligence agency, many believed to be FBI, but also CIA, and my speculation US Army Reserves.

And shortly before you were given posting priviliges to this forum, Harry posted a thread that asked a number of questions in regards to the JBS and what happened at Dealey Plaza, questions that have not yet been properly addressed.

I'm willing to address them whenever and however anyone is willing to look into them, as well as trying to answer my own questions. You have your own questions, and I hope you get answers to them, as I hope to answer mine.

BK

[Ernie Lazar]

BILL: In further reply to your assertions re: Hoover's sexuality and the "Mafia" photos of Hoover "in drag", I copy below excerpts from an article by Mel Ayton which is one of the better summaries concerning this matter:

Mel Ayton: The Truth About J. Edgar Hoover 7/19/05

Anthony Summers, in his book Official and Confidential, claimed Hoover deliberately refused to crack down on organized crime because he was being blackmailed by the Mafia for living a secret life as a homosexual. Summers believes that Hoover was blackmailed after powerful Mafia boss Meyer Lansky, an associate of Frank Costello, obtained photographs of the FBI boss in a compromising position with his friend and top aide, Clyde Tolson.

Summers's "proof" about Hoover's homosexuality comes from a number of witnesses who told him that they had seen such photographs. Former members of the Mafia or Mafia associates told of how Lansky pressured the FBI director into leaving the criminal organization alone. ...

Summers's strongest source for Hoover's alleged homosexuality is Susan Rosenstiel, the fourth wife of Lewis Solon Rosenstiel, a mobster and distilling mogul. She claims to have witnessed Hoover in drag at two orgies at New York's Plaza Hotel in 1958 and 1959. Sen. Joseph McCarthy's former aide, Roy Cohn, a known homosexual, was (allegedly) also present. Rosenstiel's story could not be corroborated as all the participants present at the parties are now deceased.

Hoover biographer Richard Hack has quoted an interview given by Roy Cohn shortly before his death from AIDS. Cohn said, "(Hoover) wouldn't do anything, certainly not in public, not in private either. Hoover was always afraid that someone who he saw, where he went, what he said, it would impact that all-important image of his. He would never do anything that would compromise his position as head of the FBI – ever. There was supposed to be some scandalous pictures of Hoover and Tolson – there were no pictures. Believe me, I looked. There were no pictures because there was no sexual relationship. Whatever they did, they did separately, in different rooms, and even then, I'm sure Hoover was fully dressed."

Anthony Summers's "evidence" of Hoover's homosexuality lacks veracity according to two of Hoover's most acclaimed and authoritative biographers. Richard Gid Powers and Athan Theoharis both believe Summers's sources are not credible. Athan Theoharis said that the popularization of Hoover's homosexuality was the result of "shoddy journalism."

Powers also questioned the reliability of many of Summers's witnesses quoted in the book. Powers said that Hoover was such a hated figure that many people were prepared to believe the worst about him and to "badmouth" him.

Powers cites John Weitz, a former wartime secret service officer, who, according to Summers, was at a dinner party in the 1950s when the host showed him a picture and identified Hoover having sex with another man. Weitz did not himself recognize Hoover and he refused to identify the party host. Nor did Summers ever see the photograph. Another "witness" to the existence of the photograph was JFK conspiracy fantasist, Gordon Novel, who Summers admitted was a "controversial" figure.

Athan Theoharis successfully demonstrated, in his book J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime, that Summers's claims were not credible. Theoharis stated that no evidence exists that would prove Hoover and Tolson were sexually involved. Theoharis also believes Tolson was heterosexual, citing reports by a number of Tolson's associates. Theoharis believes that the likelihood is that Hoover never knew sexual desire at all. Richard Hack, on the other hand, presented evidence in his 2004 book Puppetmaster – The Secret Life Of J. Edgar Hoover to prove Hoover had a sexual relationship with Hollywood actress Dorothy Lamour and a possible intimate relationship with Lela Rogers, mother of actress Ginger Rogers.

When asked about rumors of a Hoover/Tolson homosexual relationship Hack answered, "Oh, I know it wasn't. I know he wasn't." Hack's view is that the mere fact that Tolson and Hoover allowed themselves to constantly be seen in public, meant they could not have been more than close colleagues. Hack said, "It became clear to me as I went deeper into the man's psyche that if they were indeed lovers, they never would have been seen together."

Of Rosenstiel's claim that Hoover was homosexual, Theoharis wrote, "Susan Rosenstiel…was not a disinterested party. Although the target of her allegations was J. Edgar Hoover, she managed as well to defame her second husband with whom she had been involved in a bitterly contested divorce that lasted 10 years in the courts. Her hatred of Lewis Rosenstiel had led her in 1970 to offer damaging testimony about his alleged connections with organized crime leaders before a New York State legislative committee on crime." Furthermore, she was a convicted perjurer and received a prison sentence.

Theoharis's research is supported by FBI Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach who said Rosenstiel blamed Hoover for supplying her husband with damaging information used in her divorce trial. Furthermore, according to Deloach, she had been peddling the Hoover "drag" story to Hoover's critics for years without success -- until Anthony Summers came along.

DeLoach and Theoharis are also supported by writer Peter Maas who discovered a fatal flaw in Summers's rendition of events with regard to the cross-dressing story at the Plaza Hotel. Maas said that in the period following the alleged incident at the Plaza Hotel Hoover assigned FBI agents to investigate Lansky who supposedly had the photos of Hoover in a compromising position. When the FBI office in Miami complained that an investigation would be hampered by lack of manpower Hoover wrote back, "Lansky has been designated for 'crash' investigation. The importance of this case cannot be overemphasized. The Bureau expects this investigation to be vigorous and detailed." Maas also wrote that when he asked Lansky's closest associate about the photo, the old man replied, "Are you nuts?"

Therefore, according to Maas, this memo severely undermines Summers's thesis that Hoover could not act against mobsters because they "had the goods" on him.

And Susan Rosenstiel's credibility is also undermined by her interview to a BBC documentary team. When questioned by Anthony Summers about her observations at the Plaza Hotel she said the person in drag "LOOKED LIKE J. EDGAR HOOVER." (Emphasis added) After a prompt by Summers she agreed that it was definitely Hoover. It is clear that Rosenstiel's story is less than convincing especially when her claims are considered; Hoover was allowing himself to be observed by someone who could have destroyed his career and compromised him for the rest of his life.

Hoover was adept at blackmail. He used incriminating information his agency collected about prominent people to maintain his hold on office. The question must be asked: Would a man with so many enemies put himself in a position to be blackmailed by parading himself around a hotel dressed as a woman? Furthermore, Hoover's life revolved around the Bureau – would he put his career at risk by such actions?

Despite the clear implication in the book that Rosenstiel's story was true, Summers eventually stated that he merely reported what Rosenstiel said, along with what others claimed. He said he held, "no firm view one way or the other" as to whether she told the truth.

Oliver "Buck" Revell, a former associate director of the FBI, has observed that if the Mafia had had anything on Hoover, it would have been picked up in wiretaps mounted against organized crime after Appalachin. There was never a hint of such a claim, Revell said. Furthermore, Hoover was himself under secret surveillance for his own protection and such behavior would have been reported.

The flimsy "evidence" against Hoover's sexuality was described by former FBI Intelligence Division Assistant Director W. Raymond Wannall, as, "(emanating from) dead witnesses, a perjurer, a Watergate burglar, and principally a British author, Anthony Summers, whose allegations against a previous American public servant, repeated in a London newspaper, resulted in an open-court retraction, apology and payment of a substantial sum in damages."

(Author's note: Summers alleged CIA official David Atlee Phillips had been involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The British newspaper The Observer published excerpts from the book, Phillips sued, and The Observer admitted in open court that "there was never any evidence" to support Summers's allegations. The paper apologized to Phillips and paid £22,500 in damages.)

Wannall questioned why, if "there were such a photograph with which to blackmail Hoover," was it not used "from 1961 to 1972 when 10 Cosa Nostra 'family bosses' were arrested and convicted, when organized crime convictions based on his investigations totalled 131 in 1965, 281 in 1968, and escalated to 813 the last year of his life?"

There are more compelling reasons to explain Hoover's pre-1961 poor record on dealing with organized crime. Until 1961, there was no federal law authorizing or enabling the FBI to investigate organized criminal activities or groups such as the Mafia. It was not until 1961 that Congress passed a law granting such authority. It is also true that, after local authorities raided the 1957 meeting of Mafia chieftains from across the U.S. in Appalachia, N.Y., Hoover instituted a "Top Hoodlum" program. Several organized crime figures were arrested long before Congress passed the 1961 law, under individual laws already in effect. Notwithstanding these facts, it is true Hoover's war on organized crime did not really take off until the ascendancy of Robert Kennedy as head of the Justice Department.

To those who knew both men, including Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, George Allen, and Charles Spencer, Hoover's relationship with his friend was chaste. Allen said, "Tolson was sort of Hoover's alter ego. He almost ran the FBI. He's not only a brain, but the most unselfish man that ever lived. He let Hoover take all the bows all the credits...They were very, very close because he needed Clyde so much. He couldn't have done the things he did without Clyde."

Spencer said, "Oh, Christ I heard rumors about them a thousand times. All around, every place, and I think it's just the result of people unable to believe that two men could be as dedicated to their country as those two were. It wasn't just speculation and it was worse than rumors. It had to be developed by jealous and enviable people that were out to do somebody in. Their demeanor was always flawless. Very businesslike. The best way I can put it is that Clyde Tolson was the associate director of the FBI. He lived 24 hours of every day, seven days a week for the full year as associate director of the FBI. It was a director and associate director relationship."

Cartha Deloach worked closely with Hoover for over 20 years and became the third ranking FBI agent. DeLoach dismissed stories about Hoover's alleged homosexuality stating, "I think it's significant to note that no one who knew Hoover and Tolson well in the FBI has ever even hinted at such a charge. You can't work side by side with two men for the better part of 20 years and fail to recognize signs of such affections."

The real reason why Hoover did not investigate the Mafia throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s is that he had a genuine fear that his agents would be corrupted by the criminal organization. The FBI was the only love of Hoover's life and he protected and defended it as a father does with a son. On more than one occasion he made reference to the fact that state and local law officers had been corrupted by the mob.

There was also a self-serving reason. Throughout his leadership of the FBI, Hoover had been unwilling to tackle any major initiative unless he had been assured of success. Fighting organized crime, to Hoover, did not provide that guaranteed success. As Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote, "Former FBI agents laid great stress on Hoover's infatuation with statistics. He liked to regale Congress with box scores of crimes committed, subjects apprehended, and crimes solved. Organized crime did not lend itself to statistical display. It required a heavy investment of agents in long tedious investigations that might or might not produce convictions at the end. The statistical preoccupation steered Hoover toward the easy cases: bank robbers, car thieves, kidnappers and other one-shot offenses."

Most importantly, it was Hoover's obsession with 'Communist subversion' that drew his complete attention and he was aided and abetted in this by successive post-war administrations and Congresses. He believed communism to be the main threat to the "American way of life." According to Richard Hack, "It didn't matter if there were Mafia out there. They weren't going to bring the government down, they were just making money illegally and there were lots of cops to deal with that."

It was this desire to keep the fight against communism at the top of the political agenda that led to his clash with the first attorney general who saw the Mafia as public enemy No. 1.