Citizens Committee to Free Cuba

[John Simkin]

Has anyone done any research into the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba?

[William Kelly]

Has anyone done any research into the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba?

Jerry Shinley wrote:

Citizens for a Free Cuba Committee

Author: jpshinley

Email: jpshinley@my-dejanews.com

Date: 1998/07/16

http://www.jfk-onlin...jpscitffcc.html

On September 24, 1964, the formation of the Citizens for a Free Cuba Committee was announced. Ross Buckley was identified as chairman. (Earlier, an E. Ross Buckley had run as a Republican candidate for Mayor.) Cuthbert Brady was vice-chairman for public relations, Mrs. Sidney Scoenburger vice-chairman for women, Arnesto J.Rodriguez secretary, and Paul Lapeyre coordinator of student groups. (NOTP;September 25, 1962; s 3, p 19)

-

In October, Cuthbert Brady proclaimed that "Alpha 66 is the only group actually doing something about getting rid of Castro." He said that agents of Alpha 66 were in N. O. A petition circulated by Brady called for the "recognition of the existence of a state of hostilities between Red Cuba and the U. S."and the "use of volunteers from this nations and others to liberate Cuba." (NOTP; October 18, 1962; s 4, p 10) This, of course, was during the Cubanmissile crisis.

-

Jack Frazier, owner of the Ryder Coffee House, in a February 26, 1968 interview with Garrison investigator Gary Sanders, said he had attended meetings of a discussion group whose members were the following: "KERRY THORNLEY, WILLIAM [CUTHBERT] BRADY, HELEN GLADSTONE (a close friend of Brady's), JACK BURNSIDES and ROSS BUCKLEY. (Memorandum dated March 6, 1968; p 134) Frazier said Brady was ahomosexual who was arrested on a morals charge and deported to the Phillipines "around the same time as OSWALD's leaflet distribution." Frazier reportedly said, "I think that Brady was deported because the CIA wanted him out of town." (p 135)

-

David Graydon, who lived with William C. Brady from July to August of 1962 and June to August of 1963, was interviewed by Sciambra on May 27, 1968. (Memorandum of May 27, 1968; p 776) Graydon said that Helen Gladstone had some of Brady's papers, but she was also a personal friend of Clay Shaw (and thus unlikely to be helpful to Garrison's investigation). Brady was also said by Graydon to have known Clay Shaw. Two other Shaw-Brady acquaintances were said to be "LEKLA FREA and VERNON KELLOGG." Graydon also claimed to have been told that Lee Harvey Oswald had attended two parties in Brady's apartment. (pp 776-7)

- Jerry Shinley

It has an interesting lineup of members.

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

Who Oswald wrote to from USSR

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

Who owned the North American Newspaper Alliance and employed Ian Fleming and Priscilla Johnson

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

Who Seth Kantor called from Dallas, a record censored by the CIA

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE.

Who financed anti-Castro Cuban maritime raiders out of JMWAVE

PREWETT, VIRGINIA.

who worked for Cuneo at NANA and knew David A. Phillips and "Maurice Bishop"

They also produced Wm Gaudet's Latin American Report out of New Orleans Trade Mart,

jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/L Disk/Latin American Report/Item 05.pdf

Records are at Hoover Institute (where Dimitri DeMohrenschildt worked)

Preliminary Inventory to the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba Records, 1962-1974.

CITIZENS COMMITTEE for a FREE CUBA (1964)

CITIZENS COMMITTEE

for a FREE CUBA (1964)

REFERENCE: Pamphlet:

TERROR AND RESISTANCE IN COMMUNIST CUBA

by Paul Bethel.

Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba. 1964. (frontpiece)

1426 G Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

ARENSBERG, MARIADA. MEMBER

BARLOW, WILLIAM. CHAIRMAN EXEC COMMITTEE

BARON, MURRAY. EXEC COMMITTEE

BETHEL, PAUL. EXECSECRETARY [bETHEL, PAUL D. Residence: Miami Shores FL. Wife Clara.

Exec Sec Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba.

Ref: 1965 Miami CityDirectory]

BIDDLE, NICHOLAS DUKE. MEMBER

BIERNE, JOSEPH. MEMBER

BROWN, IRVING. MEMBER

BURKE, ARLEIGH A., ADMIRAL. VICE CHAIRMAN OF EXEC COMMITTEE

CHAPELLE, DICKEY. MEMBER

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

EMMET, CHRISTOPHER. MEMBER

FITZGIBBON, RUSSELL H. DR. MEMBER

FIWHER, JOHN. MEMBER

GIDEONSE, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

HOFFMAN, SAL B. MEMBER

HOOK, SIDNEY, DR. MEMBER

HOWLEY, FRANK L. BRIG GEN. MEMBER

KANTOR, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE. EXEC COMMITTEE

LYONS, EUGENE. MEMBER

MARSHALL, S. L. A., BRIG GEN. CHAIRMAN

MAYERS, HENRY. MEMBER

McDOWELL, ARTHUR G. MEMBER

McLAURIN, BENJAMIN F. EXEC COMMITTEE

MORGENTHAU, HANS J., DR. MEMBER

MOWRER, EDGAR ANSEL. EXEC COMMITTEE

O'ROURKE, JOHN. MEMBER

OVERSTREET, BONARO. MEMBER

PIKE, JAMES A., BISHOP. MEMBER

PREWETT, VIRGINIA. MEMBER

RIESEL, VICTOR. MEMBER

ROCHE, JOHN P. MEMBER

STRAUSZ- HUPE, ROBERT, DR. MEMBER

TANNENBAUM, FRANK, DR. VICE CHAIRMAN & EXEC COMMITTEE

TELLER, EDWARD. MEMBER

WELLBORN, CHARLES. VICE ADM, JR. MEMBER

WHITAKER, ARTHUR P. DR. MEMBER

Edited November 14, 2011 by William Kelly

[Harry J.Dean]

Has anyone done any research into the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba?

John

It is likely the name is/was "Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba"

located at Suite 622, Albee Building, 1426 G Street, N.W.,

Washington 5, D.C.

Info. from an old document in my even older dusty briefcase.

Harry

[John Simkin]

Has anyone done any research into the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba?

Jerry Shinley wrote:

Citizens for a Free Cuba Committee

Author: jpshinley

Email: jpshinley@my-dejanews.com

Date: 1998/07/16

http://www.jfk-onlin...jpscitffcc.html

On September 24, 1964, the formation of the Citizens for a Free Cuba Committee was announced. Ross Buckley was identified as chairman. (Earlier, an E. Ross Buckley had run as a Republican candidate for Mayor.) Cuthbert Brady was vice-chairman for public relations, Mrs. Sidney Scoenburger vice-chairman for women, Arnesto J.Rodriguez secretary, and Paul Lapeyre coordinator of student groups. (NOTP;September 25, 1962; s 3, p 19)

-

In October, Cuthbert Brady proclaimed that "Alpha 66 is the only group actually doing something about getting rid of Castro." He said that agents of Alpha 66 were in N. O. A petition circulated by Brady called for the "recognition of the existence of a state of hostilities between Red Cuba and the U. S."and the "use of volunteers from this nations and others to liberate Cuba." (NOTP; October 18, 1962; s 4, p 10) This, of course, was during the Cubanmissile crisis.

-

Jack Frazier, owner of the Ryder Coffee House, in a February 26, 1968 interview with Garrison investigator Gary Sanders, said he had attended meetings of a discussion group whose members were the following: "KERRY THORNLEY, WILLIAM [CUTHBERT] BRADY, HELEN GLADSTONE (a close friend of Brady's), JACK BURNSIDES and ROSS BUCKLEY. (Memorandum dated March 6, 1968; p 134) Frazier said Brady was ahomosexual who was arrested on a morals charge and deported to the Phillipines "around the same time as OSWALD's leaflet distribution." Frazier reportedly said, "I think that Brady was deported because the CIA wanted him out of town." (p 135)

-

David Graydon, who lived with William C. Brady from July to August of 1962 and June to August of 1963, was interviewed by Sciambra on May 27, 1968. (Memorandum of May 27, 1968; p 776) Graydon said that Helen Gladstone had some of Brady's papers, but she was also a personal friend of Clay Shaw (and thus unlikely to be helpful to Garrison's investigation). Brady was also said by Graydon to have known Clay Shaw. Two other Shaw-Brady acquaintances were said to be "LEKLA FREA and VERNON KELLOGG." Graydon also claimed to have been told that Lee Harvey Oswald had attended two parties in Brady's apartment. (pp 776-7)

- Jerry Shinley

It has an interesting lineup of members.

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

Who Oswald wrote to from USSR

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

Who owned the North American Newspaper Alliance and employed Ian Fleming and Priscilla Johnson

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

Who Seth Kantor called from Dallas, a record censored by the CIA

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE.

Who financed anti-Castro Cuban maritime raiders out of JMWAVE

PREWETT, VIRGINIA.

who worked for Cuneo at NANA and knew David A. Phillips and "Maurice Bishop"

They also produced Wm Gaudet's Latin American Report out of New Orleans Trade Mart,

jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/L Disk/Latin American Report/Item 05.pdf

Records are at Hoover Institute (where Dimitri DeMohrenschildt worked)

Preliminary Inventory to the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba Records, 1962-1974.

CITIZENS COMMITTEE for a FREE CUBA (1964)

CITIZENS COMMITTEE

for a FREE CUBA (1964)

REFERENCE: Pamphlet:

TERROR AND RESISTANCE IN COMMUNIST CUBA

by Paul Bethel.

Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba. 1964. (frontpiece)

1426 G Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

ARENSBERG, MARIADA. MEMBER

BARLOW, WILLIAM. CHAIRMAN EXEC COMMITTEE

BARON, MURRAY. EXEC COMMITTEE

BETHEL, PAUL. EXECSECRETARY [bETHEL, PAUL D. Residence: Miami Shores FL. Wife Clara.

Exec Sec Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba.

Ref: 1965 Miami CityDirectory]

BIDDLE, NICHOLAS DUKE. MEMBER

BIERNE, JOSEPH. MEMBER

BROWN, IRVING. MEMBER

BURKE, ARLEIGH A., ADMIRAL. VICE CHAIRMAN OF EXEC COMMITTEE

CHAPELLE, DICKEY. MEMBER

CHERNE, LEO. EXEC COMMITTEE

CUNEO, ERNEST. MEMBER

EMMET, CHRISTOPHER. MEMBER

FITZGIBBON, RUSSELL H. DR. MEMBER

FIWHER, JOHN. MEMBER

GIDEONSE, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

HENDRIX, HAL. MEMBER

HOFFMAN, SAL B. MEMBER

HOOK, SIDNEY, DR. MEMBER

HOWLEY, FRANK L. BRIG GEN. MEMBER

KANTOR, HARRY, DR. MEMBER

LUCE, CLAIRE BOOTHE. EXEC COMMITTEE

LYONS, EUGENE. MEMBER

MARSHALL, S. L. A., BRIG GEN. CHAIRMAN

MAYERS, HENRY. MEMBER

McDOWELL, ARTHUR G. MEMBER

McLAURIN, BENJAMIN F. EXEC COMMITTEE

MORGENTHAU, HANS J., DR. MEMBER

MOWRER, EDGAR ANSEL. EXEC COMMITTEE

O'ROURKE, JOHN. MEMBER

OVERSTREET, BONARO. MEMBER

PIKE, JAMES A., BISHOP. MEMBER

PREWETT, VIRGINIA. MEMBER

RIESEL, VICTOR. MEMBER

ROCHE, JOHN P. MEMBER

STRAUSZ- HUPE, ROBERT, DR. MEMBER

TANNENBAUM, FRANK, DR. VICE CHAIRMAN & EXEC COMMITTEE

TELLER, EDWARD. MEMBER

WELLBORN, CHARLES. VICE ADM, JR. MEMBER

WHITAKER, ARTHUR P. DR. MEMBER

Thank you for that. I was updating my pages on Henry and Clare Boothe Luce and I discovered that they were both involved in the establishment of the Citizens Committee to Free Cuba. It seems that Luce arranged for Hal Hendrix and Virginia Prewitt to publish articles in his various magazines attacking the government for its policy towards Cuba. Luce was clearly a very important figure in Operation Mockingbird.

Henry and Clare Boothe Luce are dealt with in Jonathan P. Herzog's new book, "The Spiritual Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle Against Communism in the Early Cold War".

[David Boylan]

Here's what I had from their first newsletter:

CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA

617 Albee Building, 1426 “G” Street NW, Washington 5, D.C.

Tel. 783-7507

DECLARATION OF PURPOSE

The Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba has been formed in response to a statement issued by the Freedom House, on March 25, 1963 calling upon Americans to unite in a movement for a free Cuba.

The Committee is nonpartisan. It believes that Cuba is an issue that transcends party differences, and that its solution requires the kind of national unity we have always manifested at moments of great crisis. This belief is reflected in the broad and representative membership of the Committee.

The Committee holds, with Freedom House, that a “Communist Cuba is intolerable,” not only for reasons which bear upon our security but also because “it has betrayed six million people who won their freedom from the Batista Dictatorship.”

[stuff deleted]

The first Executive Secretary was Daniel James. He was also the editor or their newsletter called “Free Cuba News”. Paul Bethel took over during the fall of ’63.

[John Simkin]

Here's what I had from their first newsletter:

CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA

617 Albee Building, 1426 “G” Street NW, Washington 5, D.C.

Tel. 783-7507

DECLARATION OF PURPOSE

The Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba has been formed in response to a statement issued by the Freedom House, on March 25, 1963 calling upon Americans to unite in a movement for a free Cuba.

The Committee is nonpartisan. It believes that Cuba is an issue that transcends party differences, and that its solution requires the kind of national unity we have always manifested at moments of great crisis. This belief is reflected in the broad and representative membership of the Committee.

The Committee holds, with Freedom House, that a “Communist Cuba is intolerable,” not only for reasons which bear upon our security but also because “it has betrayed six million people who won their freedom from the Batista Dictatorship.”

[stuff deleted]

The first Executive Secretary was Daniel James. He was also the editor or their newsletter called “Free Cuba News”. Paul Bethel took over during the fall of ’63.

Paul Bethel is an interesting character. In 1976 Antonio Veciana was interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The founder of the anti-Castro organization, Alpha 66, he told the committee about his relationship with his Central Intelligence Agency contact, Maurice Bishop. He claimed that in August, 1963, he saw Bishop and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Veciana admitted that Bishop had organized and funded the Alpha 66 attacks on the Soviet ships docked in Cuba in 1963.

Veciana explained the policy: "It was my case officer, Maurice Bishop, who had the idea to attack the Soviet ships. The intention was to cause trouble between Kennedy and Russia. Bishop believed that Kennedy and Khrushchev had made a secret agreement that the USA would do nothing more to help in the fight against Castro. Bishop felt - he told me many times - that President Kennedy was a man without experience surrounded by a group of young men who were also inexperienced with mistaken ideas on how to manage this country. He said you had to put Kennedy against the wall in order to force him to make decisions that would remove Castro's regime."

At first Gaeton Fonzi believed that Maurice Bishop was really Paul Bethel. This was denied by Antonio Veciana who said he knew Bethel. According to Veciana, Bishop sent him to meet Bethel in Miami. Later Fonzi became convinced that Bishop was Bethel's friend, David Atlee Phillips.

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

[William Kelly]

6-11: Cuba: Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

Title:6-11: Cuba: Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba

Date(s) of Materials:1963: 11 April-23 August, undated

Extent:88 digital pages

Series Name:

• Attorney General's Confidential File
  

Series Number:09.Collection:

• Papers of Robert F. Kennedy. Attorney General Papers
  

Contributor:

• Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba (U.S.)
  

Place(s):

• Cuba
  
• Soviet Union
  

Subject(s):

• Cold War
  
• Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
  
• International relations
  

Digital Identifier:RFKAG-219-004

6-11: Cuba: Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

Edited October 12, 2012 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Here’s a more in depth report on RFK docs regarding the Free Cuba Committee released by the JFK Library. At first glance, I didn’t review the bulk of the Oct. 62 missile crisis docs, that I’m not familiar with, but instead focused on a few that I thought might be connected to JFK assassination.

The Cuban Counter-revolutionary Handbook looks useful.

Title:6-11: Cuba: Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba

Date(s) of Materials:1963: 11 April-23 August, undated

Extent:88 digital pages

Series Name:

Attorney General's Confidential File

Series Number:09.

Collection:

Papers of Robert F. Kennedy. Attorney General Papers

Contributor:

Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba (U.S.)

Place(s):

Cuba

Soviet Union

Subject(s):

Cold War

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

International relations

Digital Identifier:RFKAG-219-004

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/RFKAG-219-004.aspx

JFKCountercoup2: FREE CUBA COMMITTEE = RFK DOCS

FREE CUBA COMMITTEE – RFK DOCS

[bK Notes – I put these docs in chronological order.]

RFIAG-219-004-p0010

STATIONARY LETTERHEAD

CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA

Suite 617 Albee Building, 1426 G Street, NW

Washington 5, DC

Phone 783-7505

SECRETARY

Daniel James

Members

Mariada Arensberg, Murray Baron, Joesph Beirne, Nicholas Duke Biddle, Irving Brown, Adm. Arleigh A. Burke (Ret.), Dickey Chapelle, Leo Cherne, Ernest Cuneo, Christopher Emmet, John Fisher, Dr. Russell H. Fitzgibbon, Dr. Harry Gideonse, Francis R. Grant, Paul Hall, Hal Hendrix, Sal B. Hoffmann, Dr. Sidney Hook, Brig. Gen. Frank L. Howley (Ret.), Dr. Harry Kantor, Rev. John LaFarge, S.J., Clare Booth Luce, Eugene Lyons, Brig. Gen. S.L.A. Marshall (Ret.), Henry Mayers, Arthur G. McDowell, Benjamin F. McLaurin, Dr. Hans J. Morgenthau, Edgar Ansel Mowrer, John O’Rourke, Bonaro Overstreet, Bishop James A. Pike, Virginia Prewett, Victor Riesel, Dr. John P. Roche, Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupe, Dr. Frank Tannenbaum, Edward Teller, William Vanden Heuvel, Vice Adm. Charles Wellborn, Jr. (Ret.), Dr. Arthur P. Whitaker (incomplete)

[bK Notes: A copy of this same letterhead, with the names down the left side of the paper, is also in Harry Dean’s manuscript]

RFKAG-219-004-p.0011

THE NEW YORK TIMES – MAY 10, 1963

44 In U.S. Establish Committee to Fight Communism in Cuba

By Peter Kihss

PORTLAND MAINE PRESS-HERALD –

Group Dedicated To A Free Cuba Embarks On Long, Difficult Road

By a coincidence, in the very week in which Life magazine publishes its exciting k25-page account of the April 1961 invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, 44 prominent Americans assembled to form a new group dedicated to overthrow of the Castro regime….

OTHER CLIPS – RFKAG-219-004-p.0012-0013-

RFKAG-219-004-p.0023

p.10 of THE WASHINGTON DAILY-NEWS, FRIDAY JUNE 7

COLUMN BY VIRGINIA PREWETT

Action Now Is Urged To Oust Castro

[bK Notes: Virginia Prewett was one of David A. Phillips’ media assets who acknowledged knowing both Phillips and “Maurice Bishop.”]

A capsule referendum of the U.S. non-governmental leadership has urged President Kennedy to publicize the full facts of the U.S.-Cuba position and to remove both Fidel Castro and the Soviet presence from Cuba “without delays.”

New York’s Freedom House and other specialists recently disclosed that 25 seasoned U.S. military, Inter-American agreed that: Washington’s withholding of information on Cuba “hinders the formation of American public opinion rather than obstructing the enemy.” The meeting demanded publication of “the correspondence between Nikita Khrushchev and the President during the October confrontation.” … Did Bay of Pigs prisoner exchange serve as a cover for a Tito-style reconciliation with Castro?....

ALSO – JERSEY CITY, NJ, JERSEY JOURNAL – MAY 29, ’63

THE FREEDOM HOUSE has another committee “Free Cuba” in their headquarters in the Freedom House, 20 W. 40^th St. New York 18, and among them are Harry D. Giddeon, Leo Cherne, George B. Ford and others. A list will show you that the members are Americans, not Cubans….

[bK Notes – From USSR Oswald wrote three letters to Leo Cherne at the International Rescue Committee, seeking financial help to return home.]

ALSO – KEY WEST, FLA. CITIZEN – MAY 24, ’63

IN WASHINGTON – By Ralph De Toledano

Six days before President Kennedy admitted to the American people that the Soviets had implanted medium and intermediate range missiles in Cuba, White House aide McGeorge Bundy….told a TV audience that “There is no present likelihood” that the Castro Communists and the Kremlin would “attempt to install a major offensive capacity on the island”….

RFKAG-219-004-p.0074

FREE CUBA NEWS – PUBLISHED BY CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA – Vol. 1, No. 2, May 11, 1963. Editor Daniel James (cover)

Also – Vol. 1, No. 10, July 20, 1963 (cover)

p. 7 – ARMS SHIPPED FROM MARIEL TO CARIBBEAN POINTS

Cuba’s leading naval base and chief Russian port of entry, Mariel, on the north coast, is now reportedly fulfilling the role of a center for smuggling arms into a number of Caribbean countries. In mid-July, 84 truckloads of arms, spotted in Santa Lucia, were loaded onto PT boats in Mariel for shipment to various Caribbean points. Such shipments are frequent, according to Pinar del Rio fisherman, Angel Fundora, who is now in this country.

RFKAG-219-004-p0007

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

Proceedings and debates of the 88^th Congress, First Session

What Can We Do About Cuba?

Report of a Freedom House Conference

Speech of Hon. Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut in the Senate of US

Monday, June 10, 1963

RFKAG-219-004-p.0003.JPG

June 28, 1963

From: John P. Rocha

Subject: Committee for a Free Cuba

On June 20, 1963, I attended a meeting of the Citizens Committeee for a Free Cuba in New York. I joined the committee originally because I supported the statement of goals that it published, because several of my commnderos? in what might be called the “Betancourt-Bosch” tendency in Latin American policy were involved…The luncheon speaker, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.S., gave an address which was right down the ADA line…Clare Booth Luce, Leo Cheren proposed that a special committee be set up to redraft the proposalk. I was made a member…This leaves the future of the committee thoroughly obscure. It exists now because Dan James got $40,000 and a promise of another $40,000 from a Puerto Rican businessman named Bosh (no relation to the Dominican…) The key question is, What is James up to?...

RFKAG-219-004-p0002

Handwritten note: Call to Ralph Dungan 8/15k to call back

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

BUREAU OF INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS

COORDINATOR OF CUBAN AFFAIRS

DATE – August 8, 1963klj

TO: Justice – Mr. Nolan

I am enclosing material on the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba which we discussed on the phone the other day.

Signed

John Hugh Crimmins

Rm. 6263 klARA

Code 182, x4588 or x4795

RFKG-219-004-P0001K.JPG

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

LOGO

6-11

Handwritten

August 23, 1963

File Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba

Last action – call to Sam Baron, wk of 8/19 to say that Administration was mildly disapproving but not really against this outfit. Suggested that he contack John Crimmins office and appointment made for him there with Bill Bowdler – agreed with Walter Sheridan that it might be helpful to have Sam Shoup.? We should not be in postion of supporting or even strongly encouraging this, however.

Signed – RFK?

[David Boylan]

Thanks for this Bill. Great info.

[John Simkin]

Here’s a more in depth report on RFK docs regarding the Free Cuba Committee released by the JFK Library. At first glance, I didn’t review the bulk of the Oct. 62 missile crisis docs, that I’m not familiar with, but instead focused on a few that I thought might be connected to JFK assassination.

STATIONARY LETTERHEAD

CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA

Suite 617 Albee Building, 1426 G Street, NW

Washington 5, DC

Phone 783-7505

SECRETARY

Daniel James

Members

Mariada Arensberg, Murray Baron, Joesph Beirne, Nicholas Duke Biddle, Irving Brown, Adm. Arleigh A. Burke (Ret.), Dickey Chapelle, Leo Cherne, Ernest Cuneo, Christopher Emmet, John Fisher, Dr. Russell H. Fitzgibbon, Dr. Harry Gideonse, Francis R. Grant, Paul Hall, Hal Hendrix, Sal B. Hoffmann, Dr. Sidney Hook, Brig. Gen. Frank L. Howley (Ret.), Dr. Harry Kantor, Rev. John LaFarge, S.J., Clare Booth Luce, Eugene Lyons, Brig. Gen. S.L.A. Marshall (Ret.), Henry Mayers, Arthur G. McDowell, Benjamin F. McLaurin, Dr. Hans J. Morgenthau, Edgar Ansel Mowrer, John O’Rourke, Bonaro Overstreet, Bishop James A. Pike, Virginia Prewett, Victor Riesel, Dr. John P. Roche, Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupe, Dr. Frank Tannenbaum, Edward Teller, William Vanden Heuvel, Vice Adm. Charles Wellborn, Jr. (Ret.), Dr. Arthur P. Whitaker (incomplete)

Edgar Ansel Mowrer is an interesting character who I do not believe has been mentioned before. He worked for British Intelligence in the Second World War. He was an agent of British Security Coordination and was a member of several BSC fronts (so also were Ernest Cuneo, Henry Luce, Allen Dulles, Eugene Lyons).

before moving to Donovan's OSS. After the war he was a member of Americans for Democratic Action (a left-wing pressure group). He was also an important figure in Operation Mockingbird and learnt the tricks of the trade from his work with BSC and the OSS.

http://www.spartacus...k/SPYmowrer.htm

[Robert Howard]

Tannenbaum, Frank

Frank Tannenbaum was a labor leader, a social and political activist, an economist and criminologist, a specialist in race relations and prison reform, and a professor of Latin American history. He was born in Austria in 1893, immigrated to the United States in 1905, and died in New York in 1969. As a young man Tannenbaum became involved in one of the radical political groups that operated on the fringes of the bohemian movement centered in Greenwich Village. He associated with Emma Goldman and became active in the International Workers of the World (IWW). In early 1914 he assumed leadership of a mob of unemployed workers who began marching on lower Manhattan churches demanding food and shelter. After about ten days of relatively peaceful confrontations, his demonstrators clashed violently with the police and Tannenbaum was arrested and sentenced to a one year in prison.

After prison, with the help of warden Thomas Mott Osborne, Tannenbaum entered Columbia University, where he distinguished himself as an honor student and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation in 1921 he worked for a time as a correspondent for Survey magazine in Mexico, then served a tour in the U.S. Army during which he was stationed in the south. During his military service he became interested in race and its impact on the south and began a study that would result in two books on the African-American experience. After leaving the army he earned his Ph.D. in economics at the Brookings Institution with a dissertation on land reform in Mexico. He then spent several years in Mexico, conducting research on rural education and serving as an adviser to President Lázaro Cárdenas. In 1932 he returned to the United States to teach criminology at Cornell. He also helped devise the legislation that established Farm Security Administration, and in 1935 he joined the faculty at Columbia, ultimately becoming professor of Latin American history.

Tannenbaum's connection to the Harlem Renaissance centered on his groundbreaking study of race and racial violence in the south. This study, begun during his military service, resulted in his first book, Darker Phases of the South, published in 1924. Tannenbaum examined several aspects of southern life in his effort to uncover the explanation for the region's economic plight and its racial violence. He especially focused on the horrors and brutality endured by blacks in the southern penal system—the prisons, and especially the prison camps and the chain gangs—and the racial violence of the Ku Klux Klan. Avoiding emotionalism, he presented a starkly detailed description of the dehumanizing system of violence, which, he argued, dehumanized both the victim and the perpetrator. Tannenbaum did more than expose the worst abuses of racism. He also described the oppressed condition of white workers ensnared in the legalized peonage of the mill towns, company-owned towns in which all aspects of the workers' lives were controlled by their employers. It is this lack of hope and joy, shared by farm tenant and mill-town worker, that led to lynchings and provided members for the Klan. Racial violence, he suggested, was a temporary escape from the dull monotony of daily life for these oppressed whites; it also addressed the "underlying current of apprehension that the South will be outstripped in population by the colored as against the white. It is fear of losing grip upon the world, of losing caste, of losing control" (Tannenbaum 1924). Tannenbaum believed that the migration of blacks out of the south, and their replacement by European immigrants and labor conflict, might ultimately resolve racial conflict in the region and in the nation.

Tannenberg's image of the south was compatible with that presented by Walter White in his study of racial violence, and the work of other black novelists and poets. Tannenbaum's descriptions helped define the racial views of white liberals during the 1920s and 1930s. His work supported that of W. E. B. Du Bois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in their antilynching crusade of the 1920s. Two decades later Tannenbaum's views on racial issues, especially on the oppressive role of monotony in southern life, as well as his suggestion that the racial problem in the south might be solved if white southerners became distracted by labor problems and overrun with foreign immigrants, were cited by Gunnar Myrdal in his pathbreaking study, An American Dilemma.

Tannenbaum returned to the study of race in 1947 with Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas. This was a pioneering study of comparative slavery by a white American scholar. He argued that greater intermarriage and the protective role of the Catholic church lessened the impact of race in Latin America. While more recent scholarship has challenged Tannenbaum's argument, his comparative approach inspired other historical studies of race and slavery such as those by Stanley Elkins, Eugene Genovese, and Herbert Klein.

Tannenbaum retired from Columbia in 1965, best-known for his work in Latin American history and the theory of criminology. His writings on race and slavery, surpassed by later scholarship, are much less known.

Biography

Frank Tannenbaum was born in Austria in 1893 and immigrated to the United States in 1905. He became active in International Workers of the World and spent a year in prison c. 1914 after a clash with the police during a labor demonstration. After his release he attended Columbia University, graduating in 1921; later he earned a Ph.D. in economics at the Brookings Institution. He served in the U.S. Army and was stationed in the south. He published Darker Phases of the South in 1924. He taught criminology at Cornell (1932) and Latin American history at Columbia (1935). He published Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas in 1947. Tannenbaum retired from Columbia in 1965 and died in New York in 1969.

Cary D. Wintz

See also: Antilynching Crusade; White, Walter

Further Reading

Goldman, Emma. Living My Life, Vol. 2. New York: Knopf, 1931.

Horsley, Carter B. "Dr. Frank Tannenbaum, 76, Dies; Organized Columbia Seminars." New York Times, 2 June 1969, p. 45.

Stansell, Christine. American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century. New York: Holt, 2000.

Tannenbaum, Frank. Darker Phases of the South. New York: Putnam, 1924.

---------. Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas. New York: Knopf, 1947.

END

In my view, there are some individuals who are more noteworthy than others in the whole Citizens Committee for A Free Cuba hierarchy....the names highlighted in Bill Kelly's post are of more than a passing interest.

Another facet of the CCFC concerns the Biddle Family, much in the same light as the Paine family, ie prominent American families...Angier Biddle Duke......is not on the list but is related to Nicholas Duke Biddle.

Another commonality Quakers......which just seem to pop up in the most unexpected places ie Mexico City 1963. ie VON PEACOCK

http://www.lib.udel....aids/biddle.htm

On another note

Anyone remember the Vanishing Pool of Blood...

interesting factoid.

Commission Document 194 - FBI Callender Report of 19 Dec 1963 NEW ORLEANS 43 pages re: Oswald

Page 1 Oswald contacted a reporter and requested he do a story on his arrest on August 9, 1963”

FPCC WDSU Canal Street summation: James Frederick Murphy, Jimmy Earl Burt

page 3 Mrs Freida Herard* was given a handbill re FPCC apparently by Lee Oswald, she mentions that “one of the other persons” in the photo bears a resemblance to a man who may have been employed at a restaurant known as “The Greeks,” located in the 100 block of Camp Street [Robert: The restaurant had closed, owner named Manual allegedly died]

* http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/Louisiana/Freida-Herard_49c5f1

[lists an in-law named Oppenheimer]

page 5 Elwood Huettman

pages 8-9 Ray James Leahart busdriver individual made allegation that Leahart may have spoken and or been familiar with LHO, dead end, said he was not familiar with him

interviews of David Chandler of NOSI, apparently someone referred to Chandler as David Crawford, Chandler said he was not familiar with a journalist named David Crawford and was sure it was him, limited contact w/Oswald contact fit basically same pattern as LHO/Rotman....Rothman? intentional misspelling......and Bern Rotman Senior News Editor of WDSU, he had met and spoken with Oswald when Oswald appeared for the debated with Bringuer ie INCA, Oswald had called him and said he was going to picket again and asked Rotman

page 16 interview of crew members of SS Marion Lykes

Victor Franklin

William Hill

page 19 James Frederick Murphy

Jean Murphy of New Orleans sister of Gerald Murphy see WCD 244

Robert: There is a bit of info re Murphy after the assassination that may be significant on December 8, 1963 he was treated in the emergency room of the Alacha General Hospital in Gainesville, Florida for a “knife injury,” the Doctor who treated him was allegedly Dr. Delaney..., seems to be an item of interest with investigators that Murphy’s had group insurance through the Sheraton-Hilton Hotel in Dallas, a sister Barbara Murphy had cashed a check which came to her from Jean Murphy from September 1963 at Barbara Murphy’s High Street address at the Cyclone Oil Company Station Number 301, Highway 70 East, West Memphis, Arkansas.....According to Jean Murphy, Ollie Gerald Murphy if not located at Jackson, Tennessee may be employed by the Police Department at Memphis, Tennessee.

She [Jean Murphy] could furnish no information regarding Clyde Murphy Poplar Bluff, Missouri or Jack Murphy. Insofar as she knew her brother Richard Larry Murphy had not lived in New Orleans since 1959

page 23 “Mr Wagner said he does not know James Frederick Murphy, alleged brother of Mrs. Lloyd Wagner. He stated he has not seen nor heard from Jack Murphy in approximately 15 years and “he does not know Jack Murphy’s correct name”

page 26 Miss Murphy stated that Joe Veroschoski was killed in a mining accident

END OF MURPHY MATERIAL

Edited October 13, 2012 by Robert Howard

[John Simkin]

Tannenbaum, Frank

Frank Tannenbaum was a labor leader, a social and political activist, an economist and criminologist, a specialist in race relations and prison reform, and a professor of Latin American history. He was born in Austria in 1893, immigrated to the United States in 1905, and died in New York in 1969. As a young man Tannenbaum became involved in one of the radical political groups that operated on the fringes of the bohemian movement centered in Greenwich Village. He associated with Emma Goldman and became active in the International Workers of the World (IWW). In early 1914 he assumed leadership of a mob of unemployed workers who began marching on lower Manhattan churches demanding food and shelter. After about ten days of relatively peaceful confrontations, his demonstrators clashed violently with the police and Tannenbaum was arrested and sentenced to a one year in prison.

Frank Tannenbaum was another BSC recruit. The BSC targeted anti-fascists who were often Jewish or left-wing. Most of them were turned in the late 40s and early 50s. If they refused, they were blacklisted like William Shirer. John Gunther was another who refused to be turned but although the FBI kept a large file on him, because he never attacked McCarthyism, he was left alone. Also, his own influence declined during this period (his "Inside" books made him one of the country's most important political influences in the 1930s and early 1940s).

[Robert Howard]

One of the defining moments before the assassination of JFK, [and which anyone who does not swallow the assertions of Schiller, Mailer, Aynesworth, Fuhrman, Bugliosi and now 'spoiler alert' Bill O'Reilly], and which is the center, or part of the center of the persons instrumental in bringing the death of President Kennedy about took place in the spring of 1963 during a White House dinner, in which Henry and Claire Luce attended. David Talbot and Warren Hinkle both chronicle the details of this event which even today you cannot really find much of a record of unless you really look for it, at least generally speaking.

The Spartacus page on Henry Luce is, of course an exception.

Of course Joseph Kennedy knew the Luce's well, as Talbot notes in Brothers. p 188-89. The best account of the incident is on those pages of Talbot's Brothers.......

It also, more or less, brought the media aspect of turning on the JFK Administration into sharp focus with the Bayo-Pawley affair, Operation Tilt, of which the Luce/Pawley interests were not mutually exclusive with the goal of getting JFK out of the White House 'one way or another.'

Where everything gets a little muddled is putting together seemingly diverse factions into a cohesive framework, of who is at the center, and what some might call the extemporaneous factor.

Example How does L. M. Bloomfield fit in to the Luce/Pawley dynamic. I would hypothesize that Bloomfield might fit in as a financial backer in one way or another. Army Intelligence, is another significant example, and which leads me back to one of my own personal beliefs about Dealey Plaza that I do not take my beliefs from something previously written. Which is that there were several plots floating around, and what some theorize to be a massive conspiracy, is, in reality hoping to look at the assassination, "as it happened," most of the generalizations about the death of JFK have a "can't see the forest for the trees," illusionary quality, when what is required is at the very least a Raumschach lens. Deception is at the very heart of the center; aspects that in hindsight were fatalistic decisions, example JFK deciding on Richard Nixon's 1960 running mate Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., as a pivotal player in the Diem affair was 'not a good move.' Simultaneously you have Lucien Conein as what is certainly the bagman for the South Vietnamese generals, going to Vietnam with around $250, 000, which is alluded to in The Family Jewels. My take on Conein's activities as far as whether he was part of the mechanism involved in JFK's assassination, is that within the government, at the time 'no-one in Washington wanted to know what went on in that area' as far as a party in the government that would, or could have thoroughly investigated the affair, and done what should have been done. Other areas that are gist for the windmill in 2012, regard Israeli involvement as a direct result of Angleton/Dimona and the Mossad. I don't take a position that "everything that is pertinent to the JFK assassination is already known," and I certainly feel in the minority in that aspect of it, but I am definitely not ashamed to hold that view. By the way, if anyone is interested in where Yitzhak Rabin was around the time of the assassination "Yitzhak Rabin- who would himself fall to an assassin's bullet in Tel-Aviv in another grim November 32 years later-seems to have been astonishingly close to Dallas on the day of Kennedy's murder. 30 Having wrapped up his mid-November talks with U.S. officials in Washington over Nasser's military capabilities, the red-headed young IDF deputy-chief of staff embarked upon a round of meetings with various U.S. military officials. It was his wife Leah's first trip to America. 31 A Pentagon schedule has Rabin visiting the U.S. Army Field Artillery and Missile School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on November 21, 1963. 32 Fort Sill lies about 210 miles northwest of Dallas, just across the Texas-Oklahoma state line- about a four-hour drive from the Texas School Book Depository.

see pps. 244-45 Support Any Friend Kennedy's Middle-East & The Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance - Warren Bass - Oxford - 2003.

Devotees of Michael Collins Piper might want to peruse this book before they decide that JFK couldn't have been killed without the Mossad's help. Naming every Jewish surname that figures into the chronology of the JFK assassination and affixing blame to the nation of Israel, is a sucker's paradise, and I know the implications that fit into LBJ's 'more accommodating' policy towards Israel having the bomb, In this area the Forum has a real problem, in that if the research community has a Achilles Heel, it is "the sexy story." The Forum also has a history of "characters" popping in baiting members on proving something didn't happen;

The JFK assassination is not a John Le Carre novel, it is a significant event that ruptured the direction America was headed toward in 1963, the John Birch Society, which definitely had a qui-bono outcome ideologically, at least has been theorized by at least one researcher as being one final nail in the coffin from evisceration, ironically the nail would have more than sufficed as being personified in JFK's speech that was to be delivered at the Trade-Mart on November 22, 1963.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Robert Howard