CIA Foundations

[William Kelly]

Bill Simpich recently sent me a link to the Mary Ferrell's files on the CIA's report on the Ramparts Mag blowing the cover of CIA front foundations:

HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 8

Among those organizations funded by the CIA, the first one they mention is the International Rescue Committee (IRC) founded by Leo Cherene, who later served on President Ford's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and who Lee Harvey Oswald wrote to three times from the Soviet Union, seeking advice, support and funds for his repatriation home.

This report, while heavily redacted, also confirms the CIA connections to the Catherwood Fund, based in Philadelphia, which financed the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which had two parishes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, one of which included DeMohrenschildt and his friends, as well as Marina Oswald, although she may have kept the baptism of their children in this church from Oswald.

When I first read about the Catherwood Foundation's ties to the CIA in a footnote of The Invisible Government by David Wise and Thomas Ross, I looked up his name in the clipping file at the morgue of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin newpaper. There were many news and feature articles about Catherwood, who inherited his millions from his family's munitions company.

You could easily see what news items were related to his CIA foundation front as it supported anti-Castro Cubans JFKcountercoup: Cuban Aid Relief and paid for Catherwood's travels to the USSR, but the one that stood out for me was the yacht he had built for "educational" purposes, in order to qualify under the provisions of the non-profit philantropic foundation laws. The "Vigilant," a sailboat built to his specifications, was used on a trip to the Caribbean out islands and included a number of scientists, including one James Bond, "whose main interest is birds." This is the same James Bond who wrote the book "Birds of the West Indies" and who provided the name for Ian Fleming's 007 hero.

Then, after re-reading Fleming's novels, I came across "Milton Krest," a millionaire 007 villan whose private foundation paid for his yacht and travels, who was clearly based on Catherwood.

While the CIA's use of such private foundations for funding their covert operations was first exposed by the Ramparts magazine articles in 1968, as well as books like The Invisible Government, LBJ apparently ordered the CIA to stop using the foundation system for cover purposes, though it is apparent they continued to do so.

Even more bizarre is the fact that Kim Philby, the KBG's man in DC, was briefed on the whole system by Frank Wisner when the system was first developed, so the secrecy surrounding the CIA's use of such foundations was not a secret to the KGB, and was only kept secret from the American public.

As I noted in my still unpublished article:

The British MI6 liaison with the CIA and FBI in Washington after the war was Harold Adrian "Kim" Philby, the notorious KGB double-agent who wrote his memoirs from Russia, "My Silent War" (Grove Press), in which he describes the meetings he attended with Frank Wisner, the head of the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination, responsible for Covert Operations and DirtyTricks.

According to Philby, "Wisner expiated on one of his favorite themes – the need to camouflage the source of secret funds supplied toapparently respectable bodies in which we were interested…"

Philby quoted Wisner as saying, "…It is essential to secure the overt cooperation of people with conspicuous access to wealth in their own right."

Cummins Catherwood was one of those people, and his Catherwood Foundation was one of those respectable bodies.

JFKcountercoup: Catherwood Fund

While I only do one report on one of these foundations, each of the CIA foundations should be examined in the same way - newspaper and magazine articles about their activities should be reviewed to see if their CIA activities can be ascertained and how they are connected to other, known operations, like the assassination of President Kennedy.

bk

JFKcountercoup

Edited January 18, 2012 by William Kelly

[Robert Howard]

Bill Simpich recently sent me a link to the Mary Ferrell's files on the CIA's report on the Ramparts Mag blowing the cover of CIA front foundations:

HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 8

Among those organizations funded by the CIA, the first one they mention is the International Rescue Committee (IRC) founded by Leo Cherene, who later served on President Ford's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and who Lee Harvey Oswald wrote to three times from the Soviet Union, seeking advice, support and funds for his repatriation home.

This report, while heavily redacted, also confirms the CIA connections to the Catherwood Fund, based in Philadelphia, which financed the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which had two parishes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, one of which included DeMohrenschildt and his friends, as well as Marina Oswald, although she may have kept the baptism of their children in this church from Oswald.

When I first read about the Catherwood Foundation's ties to the CIA in a footnote of The Invisible Government by David Wise and Thomas Ross, I looked up his name in the clipping file at the morgue of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin newpaper. There were many news and feature articles about Catherwood, who inherited his millions from his family's munitions company.

You could easily see what news items were related to his CIA foundation front as it supported anti-Castro Cubans JFKcountercoup: Cuban Aid Relief and paid for Catherwood's travels to the USSR, but the one that stood out for me was the yacht he had built for "educational" purposes, in order to qualify under the provisions of the non-profit philantropic foundation laws. The "Vigilant," a sailboat built to his specifications, was used on a trip to the Caribbean out islands and included a number of scientists, including one James Bond, "whose main interest is birds." This is the same James Bond who wrote the book "Birds of the West Indies" and who provided the name for Ian Fleming's 007 hero.

Then, after re-reading Fleming's novels, I came across "Milton Krest," a millionaire 007 villan whose private foundation paid for his yacht and travels, who was clearly based on Catherwood.

While the CIA's use of such private foundations for funding their covert operations was first exposed by the Ramparts magazine articles in 1968, as well as books like The Invisible Government, LBJ apparently ordered the CIA to stop using the foundation system for cover purposes, though it is apparent they continued to do so.

Even more bizarre is the fact that Kim Philby, the KBG's man in DC, was briefed on the whole system by Frank Wisner when the system was first developed, so the secrecy surrounding the CIA's use of such foundations was not a secret to the KGB, and was only kept secret from the American public.

As I noted in my still unpublished article:

The British MI6 liaison with the CIAand FBI in Washington after the war was Harold Adrian "Kim" Philby,the notorious KGB double-agent who wrote his memoirs from Russia, "MySilent War" (Grove Press), in which he describes the meetings he attendedwith Frank Wisner, the head of the CIA’sOffice of Policy Coordination, responsible for Covert Operations and DirtyTricks.

According to Philby, "Wisner expiated on one of hisfavorite themes – the need to camouflage the source of secret funds supplied toapparently respectable bodies in which we were interested…"

Philby quoted Wisner as saying, "…It is essential tosecure the overt cooperation of people with conspicuous access to wealth intheir own right."

Cummins Catherwood was one of those people, and his CatherwoodFoundation was one of those respectable bodies.

JFKcountercoup: Catherwood Fund

While I only do one report on one of these foundations, each of the CIA foundations should be examined in the same way - newspaper and magazine articles about their activities should be reviewed to see if their CIA activities can be ascertained and how they are connected to other, known operations, like the assassination of President Kennedy.

bk

JFKcountercoup

Anyone interested in the world of foundations, would be really missing the boat if they did not intimately

familiarize themselves with Chapter 4 of Ovid Demaris, book Dirty Business - The Corporate-Political Money-Power Game; the Chapter is entitled The Charity Game. For someone like Bill, who rightly has a keen appreciation for this oft overlooked aspect of intelligence related money trails, I promise when you read it the pages will practically leap off the paper. Demaris isn't someone I really place a great deal of stock in JFK assassination matters per se, [just my opinion], but he really did his homework on that one.....

Robert

Edited January 18, 2012 by Robert Howard

[Guest Tom Scully]

Gentlemen, as I've often posted about recently, the February, 1967 Ramparts article exposed the sources of funding of the student organizations. Mr. Houghton, chairman of the Met. Museum of Art, was the head of the only CIA backed student supporting foundation having an actual staff and a physical office. George Plimpton's father, Francis was on the board of both the foundation and the Met. He had to be a witting participant. Plimpton's brother was McCloy's choice in 1960 as president of Amherst College.

Paul Hellmuth, attorney and enabler of CIA operative, Dr. Tom Dooley, was partnered in a minor, as well as a top contributing foundation of CIA supplied funds to student groups, with David B. Stone. Hellmuth was known to have coordinated the creation of at least two CIA propietary corps., Anderson Security Consultants and Zenith Technical Enterprises, as well.

Bush connections are.:

Tom Devine through his CIA affiliation, his meeting(s) with DeMohrenschildt and his Paris Review links via Francis Plimpton's son, George, and Devine's long association with Plimpton's Paris Review partner, John Train who is connected to the IRC and the WWF. Prince Sandrudden was Paris Review "publisher," IRC principal, and close friend of GHW Bush. WWF was led by Train's cousin, Russell, and his appointed manager, Curtis EU "Chip" Bohlen, covert CIA man and an usher, along with Devine, in the 1955 wedding of CIA's Albert Bradley Carter, Jr.

Twins John and David Lindsay were usher's in Nancy Bush's wedding. Their brother, George was hired by Francis Plimpton at his Plimpton Debevoise law firm in 1947, and became managing partner. Partner Eli Whitney Debevoise, a bonesman, was counsel to HICOG McCloy, and then deputy HICOG under McCloy. Both Leon Panetta and Ed Hooker's daughter, Susan's second husband (after she was divorced from Rionda Braga's son) Michael Ainslie, were employed in John Lindsay's NYC mayor's office.

Houghton, Henry Crown, and Paul Nitze and his sister and her husband were the largest benefactors to the Aspen Institute.

David B. Stone's brother, Robert G. Stone, Jr., used his position of oversight of the Harvard U. endowment to provide unprecedented funding for Allen Quasha's obscure Harken Energy, which poured money into GW Bush's worthless oil exploration entities and resulted in Bush's ascendancy to the audit committee of Harken. Tom Devine is still listed as a director of the Stone, Jr. company, Stonetex, founded by Robert G. Stone, Jr. in 1950. Russ Baker wrote that Stone, Jr. claimed he had no personal relationship with GHW Bush, and was soon after the Harvard investment in Harken, appointed to the board of RS Reynolds executive search co. in Greenwich, where Jonathan Bush was and is a fellow director.

I found that Frank Vanderlip, Jr. was described in the NY Times in 1966 as the godfather of Allen Quasha's sister, Jill, and that Vanderlip, Jr. threw a large engagement party at the home of his parents in 1928 for RS Reynold's father and mother. Vanderlip's father was president of National City Bank and an attendee at the famous Jekyll Island meeting resulting in the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Both Quasha's father, William, and Stone, Jr. were reported to be on MacArthur's staff in the Phillipines during WWII.

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CIA%20Foundations/Item%20041.pdf

Foundations, Private Organizations Linked to the CIA

(Link to page of other relevant Weisberg Archive links.)

One the top left of page two of the Weisberg Archive document linked above, is a description of the Winfield Baird Foundation.

GM Evica wrote about this conflict, among others, of the WC's appointment of Crown's lawyer, Jenner, in his 1978 book.:

Toledo Blade - Oct 19, 1963

IRS Failure to Regulate Charged

The Blade .Toledo, Ohio. Foundations Called Tax-free Securities ...

Another on the list is Henry Crown, reputedly one of the nation's richest men. ... Mr. Baird's foundations are the David, Josephine and Winfield Baird Foundation, ...

Edited January 18, 2012 by Tom Scully

[Robert Howard]

Gentlemen, as I've often posted about recently, the February, 1967 Ramparts article exposed the sources of funding of the student organizations. Mr. Houghton, chairman of the Met. Museum of Art, was the head of the only CIA backed student supporting foundation having an actual staff and a physical office. George Plimpton's father, Francis was on the board of both the foundation and the Met. He had to be a witting participant. Plimpton's brother was McCloy's choice in 1960 as president of Amherst College.

Paul Hellmuth, attorney and enabler of CIA operative, Dr. Tom Dooley, was partnered in a minor, as well as a top contributing foundation of CIA supplied funds to student groups, with David B. Stone. Hellmuth was known to have coordinated the creation of at least two CIA propietary corps., Anderson Security Consultants and Zenith Technical Enterprises, as well.

Bush connections are.:

Tom Devine through his CIA affiliation, his meeting(s) with DeMohrenschildt and his Paris Review links via Francis Plimpton's son, George, and Devine's long association with Plimpton's Paris Review partner, John Train who is connected to the IRC and the WWF. Prince Sandrudden was Paris Review "publisher," IRC principal, and close friend of GHW Bush. WWF was led by Train's cousin, Russell, and his appointed manager, Curtis EU "Chip" Bohlen, covert CIA man and an usher, along with Devine, in the 1955 wedding of CIA's Albert Bradley Carter, Jr.

Twins John and David Lindsay were usher's in Nancy Bush's wedding. Their brother, George was hired by Francis Plimpton at his Plimpton Debevoise law firm in 1947, and became managing partner. Partner Eli Whitney Debevoise, a bonesman, was counsel to HICOG McCloy, and then deputy HICOG under McCloy. Both Leon Panetta and Ed Hooker's daughter, Susan's second husband (after she was divorced from Rionda Braga's son) Michael Ainslie, were employed in John Lindsay's NYC mayor's office.

Houghton, Henry Crown, and Paul Nitze and his sister and her husband were the largest benefactors to the Aspen Institute.

David B. Stone's brother, Robert G. Stone, Jr., used his position of oversight of the Harvard U. endowment to provide unprecedented funding for Allen Quasha's obscure Harken Energy, which poured money into GW Bush's worthless oil exploration entities and resulted in Bush's ascendancy to the audit committee of Harken. Tom Devine is still listed as a director of the Stone, Jr. company, Stonetex, founded by Robert G. Stone, Jr. in 1950. Russ Baker wrote that Stone, Jr. claimed he had no personal relationship with GHW Bush, and was soon after the Harvard investment in Harken, appointed to the board of RS Reynolds executive search co. in Greenwich, where Jonathan Bush was and is a fellow director.

I found that Frank Vanderlip, Jr. was described in the NY Times in 1966 as the godfather of Allen Quasha's sister, Jill, and that Vanderlip, Jr. threw a large engagement party at the home of his parents in 1928 for RS Reynold's father and mother. Vanderlip's father was president of National City Bank and an attendee at the famous Jekyll Island meeting resulting in the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Both Quasha's father, William, and Stone, Jr. were reported to be on MacArthur's staff in the Phillipines during WWII.

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CIA%20Foundations/Item%20041.pdf

Foundations, Private Organizations Linked to the CIA

(Link to page of other relevant Weisberg Archive links.)

One the top left of page two of the Weisberg Archive document linked above, is a description of the Winfield Baird Foundation.

GM Evica wrote about this conflict, among others, of the WC's appointment of Crown's lawyer, Jenner, in his 1978 book.:

Toledo Blade - Oct 19, 1963

IRS Failure to Regulate Charged

The Blade .Toledo, Ohio. Foundations Called Tax-free Securities ...

Another on the list is Henry Crown, reputedly one of the nation's richest men. ... Mr. Baird's foundations are the David, Josephine and Winfield Baird Foundation, ...

I have listed what I consider some of the more compelling Foundations....when William Dalzell testified before the New

Orleans Grand Jury he was asked about the Cordell Hull Foundation, Alton Oschner was the President and is listed on the letterhead of the Information Council of the America's, which was instrumental in the orchestration of the infamous Oswald interview in New Orleans before the assassination.

More

http://www.cordellhull.org/english/About_Us/Biography.asp

FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 160 page 67

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=58991

From Dirty Business

page 300...Wright Patman steered clear of the Texas Foundations....and failed to identify the Moody Foundation as the maverick trust......He also mentions the Bright Star Foundation of Dallas Texas, [unsure, but doubt this foundation is related to the Bright Star Foundation founded by George H. W. Bush after death of Robin from leukemia, the latter sounds pretty innocuous to me]

page 303,....Hobby Foundation Brown Foundation....among the recipients of their oblations were the American Friends of the Middle East, an anti-Zionist, pro-Arab foundation and the Cuban Freedom Committee, sponsor of Free Cuba Radio and, according to Robert G. Sherill, writing in the Nation, "the most belligerent anti-Castro radio series broadcast out of this country, whose advisory board includes several galloping right-wingers."

page 306,.....J Howard Pew of Sun Oil, who controls the Pew Memorial Trust, the nation's fifth-largest foundation was an avid supporter of the far-out Far Right. Among his favorite charities were the intercollegiate Studies Institute of Philadelphia, the Christian Freedoms Foundation, Dr. [Fred] Schwartz's Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, the Foundation for Economic Education and the American Economic Foundation.

When Robert Kennedy was assassinated McGeorge Bundy, according to Demaris, Bundy gave eight aides to Robert Kennedy Ford Foundation Study Grants....

other key pages 309, 312 Albert Parvin Foundation, Meyer Lansky....murder of Gus Greenbaum....and Dominican Republic January 1963 Abe Fortas

I haven't even come close to getting through the good stuff, from Demaris......

Edited January 18, 2012 by Robert Howard

[William Kelly]

Thanks Robert and Tom,

I knew you guys were also interested in this subject.

I'm also going to try to get a few others who have already been down this alley to see if they'd like to join us in a group research effort to study the CIA connected foundations and see how we can use the open source public info on them to decipher what their CIA tasks were.

BK

JFKcountercoup: Dear Mr. Chairman Darrell Issa (R. Calf.)

[William Kelly]

CIA Front Foundations

https://www.maryferr...368&relPageId=1

CIA 104-10059-10026

JFK 80T01357A WITHHELD

DDP INDICATIONS OF THE SCOPE ANDPOSSIBLE DAMAGE OF NEW ALLEGATIONS RAMPARTSMAGAZINE

11/25/68 48 PAGES

SECRET

1A, 1B restrictions RELEASED WITH DELEATIONS 07/08/93LAST REVIEW

p. 2 signed by Paul Hefner

ATTENTION Mr. Richard Ober

MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Plans

THROUGH: Assistant Deputy Director for Plans

SUBJECT: Indications of the Scope and Possible Damage of NewAllegations by Ramparts Magazine

• This memorandum is furnished for information only.

• Early in April 1968 the Office of General Counsel made available to Central Cover Staff (CCS) a copy of a letter and an attached list of organizations sent to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by Mr. Jon Frappier of Ramparts Magazine. The letter, dated 5 April 1968, had been furnished OGC through IRS liaison channels. The letter appended a list of 145 tax-exempt organizations and indicated that all were suspected of having been funded by or having cooperated with CIA.

• The letter indicated that the listed organizations were only part of the organizations being scrutinized by Ramparts and that other available sources of information on these and other suspect organizations had already been examined. The other sources of information were stated as including the literature of the organizations and interviews with their staff members; records available in the Attorney General's offices in Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York; data available at the National Information Bureau in New York , Group Research, Inc., in Washington, D.C., and the Foundation Library Centers in New York and Washington; and the 990-A returns available at the district offices of the IRS. The letter requested 990-A returns for specified years and in most cases the Form 1023 Application for Tax Exempt Status. Ramparts asked the IRS to make these materials available for inspection at a mutually convenient time.

• A review of available CIA data on the listed organizations has shown that 89 of them were at one time or another somehow associated with the CIA. Only two of these [REDACTED] are of current operational interest. These two activities and 45 organizations formerly of interest to the CIA were mentioned in the American press during [ 01] Forty-two other listed organizations which were in fact associated with CIA and were not exposed during [ 01]. We have found no evidence that 55 organizations on the list were ever directly or indirectly associated with CIA. (Because two of the names on the list are successive names for the same organization, the actual total number of organizations listed is 144 rather than 145.) Three additional project organizations, not included in the Ramparts lists, may be vulnerable because they were covertly funded by hitherto unexposed foundations funding instruments included in the list. Only one of thse, [REDACTED] is of current operational interest.

• The CA Staff was furnished a copy of the Ramparts letter and list and has checked out the organizations of possible previous CA Staff interest. All organizations not readily identifiable with known project organizations or as CCS funding instruments have been traced with RID, with CS area divisions that might logically have had an interest in them and against CCS Registry files. Through arrangements with the IRS, representatives of CCS and OGC also examined available IRS data (990-A's and Forms 1023) on the liste organizations. This was done before the IRS documents were made available to Remparts, in order to be sure that restricted 590-A, Part I data would not be furnished to Ramparts and to try to establish the reasons for Ramparts' interest in the organizations. Our current findings are the result of these various file reviews.

• Attached hereto are annexes listing and discussing the several categories of organizations on the Ramparts list Annex A deals with the two organizations on the list which are still of active operational interest. Both received press mention during [01]. Annex B listes and discusses under several sub-categories the 42 organizations with which the Agency has had some direct or indirect operational ties in the past which were not cited in the press during [01].

[REDACTED] Annex C lists the 45 organizations included inthe April 1968 list which had former Agency operational ties which were subjectto press allegations during [01 ]. Annex D lists and briefly discusses the 55organizations included in the Ramparts list that had no known operationalconnection with CIA. Annex E lists anddiscusses three hitherto unexposed operational activities that are not includedin the April 1988 Ramparts list but which are vulnerable because they werecovertly funded by hitherto unexposed funding instruments included in theRamparts list. Annex F shows a copy of the full April 1968 Ramparts list.

• The 42 former project organizations listed and described at Annex B which have not previously been charged with CIA association in American press comment fall into five general categories:

• Foundations and other organizations used as witting funding conduits for covert subsides to project organizations an other operational activities. Sixteen organizations fall into this category. Eleven of them are multipurpose legitimate foundations which were recruited by CCS. Four were created or recruited for exclusive use in funding one project each and one was used for a one-time travel grant.
• Witting legitimate foundations and organizations used exclusively to provide funding and status cover for singleton agents. Six organizations were used in this way and provided cover for seven agents in various parts of the world. Some of these organizations also provided one-time support for unwitting individuals of operational interest.
• Proprietary or subsidy project organizations. There are six of these: Projects [REDACTED]
• Three organizations with which there were witting operational contacts to obtain information and leads but which were not actively involved operationally.
• Eleven unwitting organizations which received grants from project organizations for operational or cover reasons or which cooperated with project organizations.

• We cannot say with complete assurance that all 55 of the apparently innocent organizations on the Ramparts list in fact never had any Agency ties. Our researchers have shown that RID indices are often incomplete. We have found operational use data in CCS files on organizations with no record in RID. The same is true of other cases where information was available in CA Staff or area division files on organizations which drew a blank in RID. It seems likely, however, that any undetected operational interest in the organizations was in the period of the early 1950's and of marginal nature.
• In reviewing available information on the listed organizations we attempted to determine whether there was a logical external basis for Rampart's interest in the organizations or whether some form of internal Agency leak might be involved. Our reviews and analysis show fairly conclusively that Ramparts has been proceeding on the basis of overtly available information, supplemented by interviews with project personnel:

• All but three of the 42 terminated but hitherto unexposed project organizations and 24 of the 55 organizations which actually had no Agency ties are somehow related to project organizations or funding instruments previously exposed. Some of the organizations made legitimate or covert grants to previously exposed organizations, others received covert or legitimate grants from previously exposed funding instruments or from innocent foundations that had made legitimate grants to exposed organizations, and still others had officers who were associated with exposed CIA organizations
• Thirty-one innocent organizations on the Ramparts list and three of the hitherto unexposed organizations of former interest to the Agency have no such known times to exposed Agency organizations. In most of these cases, however, the names of the organizations are similar to those of exposed organizations or are of a nature that makes them suspect.

• It seems likely that Rampats' interest in a number of the 42 unexposed project organizations is based on factors unrelated to the actual CIA dealings with them.
• The Headquarters elements that are or were responsible for the projects and activities that could be implicated by new Ramparts allegations have been notified of the foregoing findings. No further action is required at this time.

[03] REDACTED

Chief, Central Cover Staff

Attachements (Annexes)

cc: C/CA C/CI C/CIOP/D C/CI/OPS

Three Organizations with which There Have Been SomeWitting Contacts

1- 29.?

30. International Rescue Committee, Inc. (IRC) – Manhattan, New York (93)

Under Project QKGAUNT, $2,500 was furnished IRC in 1950 –1951 to obtain biographic data on defectors. In December 1962, IRC Chairman LeoCherne offered cover and FI use of IRCto Emmons Brown, DC/CA.C/EE declined the offer, indicating there already were useful contacts.

IRC received legitimate grants from J. Frederick Brown Foundation (34) and J.M. Kaplain Fund (101).

NOTE: The numbers in parentheses following listed or named organizations in Annexes A through E are the item numbers ororganizations included in the 5 April 1968 Ramparts list (Annex F)

ANNEX A

ORGANIZATIONS ON 5 APRIL 1968 RAMPARTS LIST THAT AREOF CURRENT OPERATIONAL INTEREST

1. [REDACTED] Manhattan, New York [REDACTED]continues as X Executive Director and uses this relationship as status cover for operational travels in X Although covert funding of X has been suspended X and by him to operational contacts may implicity attributed to X X received press publicity during X X was named as a CIA agent in the Braden Saturday Evening Post article.

2. [REDACTED] Manhattan,New York X Under Katzenback guidelines

and DDP decisions X was to be re-established abroad as a condition for continuing of the project. Various possibilities in Europe have been explored and vetoed. Steps are currently being taken to relocate the activity in X X received limited press mention during X and only in the context of its XX, orgins and its former fuding by the X terminated WH Project X (88) X is vulnerable because of its former funding by the X as well as by the X not on the 5 April 1968 list but of known interest to Ramparts and by the X Foundations (exposed during X)

ANNEX B

FORTY TWO PREVIOUSLY UNEXPOSED ORGANIZATIONS WITH FOMER CIA OPERATIONAL TIES

Sixteen Witting Conduits Used for Attributed Subsidy Funding

• [REDACTED], New York X CC8-recrutied legitimate foundation X Used in 1964 for a covert grant to the unexposed X and in 1965 for a covert grant to exposed X is the family foundation of X X was president of the exposed X CA/B3 Project

X Foundation, Inc. – Manhattan, New York (41)

CCS-recruited legitimate foundation X[29]Used 1960-1966 for covert grants to the following exposed projectorganizations: X 2 ( OXOPERA) X – 18 [29] was also used for 1962-1965 covertgrants to hitherto unexposed project organization SEIX 3

CCS-recruitedlegitimate foundation X Used 1961-1964 for covert grants to exposed [29] X X

14. X General W. Bodell Smith

{End Page 18 of MF}

Mentions of "supplement by black bag"

{Pge 20}

Executive Director of APSA

Six Projects Organizations {PAGE22}

Three Organizations with Which There Have Been SomeWitting Contacts

30. International Rescue Committee, Inc. (IRC) – Manhattan, New York (930

Under ProjectQKGAUNT, $2, 500 was furnished IRC in 1950-1951 to obtain biographic data ondefectors. In December 1962, IRC Chairman Leon Cherne offered cover and FI useof IRC to Emmons Brown, DC/CA.C/EE declined the offer, indicating there already useful contacts.

IRC received a legitimate grants from J. Frederick BrownFoundation (34) and J.M. Kaplan Fund (101

Eleven Unwitting Organizations Which were Funded by orCollaborated with Project Organizations

ANNEX C

FORTY-FIVETERMINATED COVERT FUNDING CONDUITS ANDPROJECT ORGANIZAITONS ON 5 April 1968RAMPARTS LIST THAT WERE NAMED IN PRESS DURING X

A. Five Organizations Which Made Legitimate Grants to CIAProject Organizations and Suspect Organizations

• Avalon Foundation – Manhattan, New York [08]
• Church Foundation, Frederic C. – Boston, Massachusetts. X Made legitimate grants to X Mr. Church was cleared but never used operationally.
• Harnischfeger Foundation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Hochschild Fund, Inc. Manhattan, New York
• Lindsley Fund, John – Manhattan, New York

B.

Eight Organizations Which Received Legitimate Grants FromFoundations X Used by CIA

[REDACTED]

10. X – Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaX Received legitimate grants from Catherwod Foundation X and W. Alton JonesFoundation (99)

11. X – Manhattan, New York X Received legitimate grants from Catherwood[08] and Hobby Foundation [08]. Also from Harnischfeger Foundation (70) whichhad no CIA ties....

Edited January 18, 2012 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Richard Ober : Biography

Richard Ober was born in about 1921. He studied at Harvard University with Ben Bradlee. After graduating in 1943 Ober joined the Office of Strategic Services(OSS) he became a liaison with the anti-Fascist underground in Nazi-occupied Europe.

After the Second World War Ober joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). For over 20 years he served under James Angleton as his chief counter-intelligence deputy. According to Angus Mackenzie, Ober was a senior figure in the special operations branch, that "carried out wiretaps, break-ins, and burglaries as authorized by their superiors". The liaison between the special operations unit and Richard Helms, director of the CIA, was Ober. Mackenzie quotes one senior CIA source as saying: "Ober had unique and very confidential access to Helms. I always assumed he was mucking about with Americans who were abroad and then would come back, people like the Black Panthers."

In June 1970, Richard Nixon held a meeting with J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Helms and the heads of army and navy intelligence. Nixon wanted better intelligence on "revolutionary activism". The result was Operation Chaos. Ober was put in charge of the operation. He was given an office in the White House and worked closely with Nixon, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.

Nixon was unaware that Ober was placed in the White House to spy on his administration. In her book,Katharine the Great, Deborah Davis argued that it was during this period that Ober gathered information on Nixon's illegal activities. Ober discovered that Richard Nixon was trying to undermine the power of the CIA. It was therefore decided to bring him down. Ober therefore became Deep Throat and provided information to CIA assets, Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward.

In February, 1973, Richard Nixon sacked Richard Helms as director of the CIA. His deputy, Thomas H. Karamessines, resigned in protest. Nixon now appointed James Schlesinger as the new director of theCIA. Schlesinger was heard to say: "The clandestine service was Helms's Praetorian Guard. It had too much influence in the Agency and was too powerful within the government. I am going to cut it down to size." This he did and over the next three months over 7 per cent of CIA officers lost their jobs.

On 9th May, 1973, James Schlesinger issued a directive to all CIA employees: "I have ordered all senior operating officials of this Agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or might have gone on in the past, which might be considered to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency. I hereby direct every person presently employed by CIA to report to me on any such activities of which he has knowledge. I invite all ex-employees to do the same. Anyone who has such information should call my secretary and say that he wishes to talk to me about "activities outside the CIA's charter". As a result of this information Ober was transferred to the National Security Council. One source claims that Ober wasn't fired because, he was "too embarrassing, too hot."

CHAPTER ONE

Secrets

The CIA's War at Home

http://www.nytimes.c...ie-secrets.html

By ANGUS MACKENZIE

University of CaliforniaPress

Conservatives Worry and the Cover-up Begins

Late at night at the watering holes of American intelligence agents, the mention of Stanley K. Sheinbaum's name can still arouse a muttering of anger. Sheinbaum was the first person to go public with his experience of CIA activity in the United States--a story about the Agency's infiltration of a legitimate civilian institution. Sheinbaum so embarrassed senior officials of the CIA that they set in motion an elaborate internal operation intended to prevent anyone else from ever doing what he had done.

Sheinbaum's connection with the CIA began in the 1950s, a period when security officers at the rapidly expanding Agency were sometimes overworked. On occasion they neglected to ask someone to sign a secrecy contract, which was normally a prerequisite of employment. Once signed, it committed a CIA agent to complete secrecy, beginning with the first day on the job and continuing until death. But Sheinbaum's association with the CIA was indirect, through a university that turned out to be working under contractwith the Agency. He was never a CIA employeeand, as far as he can remember, was never asked to sign a secrecy agreement.During his days as a doctoral student at Stanford University and as a Fulbright fellow in Paris, Sheinbaumdeveloped a strong interest in helping the economies of underdeveloped nationsexpand. When his Fulbright ran out in the summer of 1995, he landed a positionat Michigan State University, working on a $25million government project to advise South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.By 1957, Sheinbaum was coordinator of the project.

His new responsibilities included inspecting work in Vietnam. Before he went on a trip there in 1957, university officials told him about the general CIA connection; once there, Vietnamese officials informed him that his project staff included CIAofficers. The revelation bothered him. He thought it inappropriate that he andother legitimate academic advisers were being used as cover for U.S.government manipulation. Sheinbaum left Vietnam feeling that his work and his program had been compromised.

Upon his return to the United States, he was further entangled when he was called upon to meet with four top South Vietnamese officials in San Francisco. "Within an hour of their arrival," Sheinbaum later recalled, "the youngest, a nephew of Ngo Dinh Diem, conspiratorially drew me aside and informed me that one of the others was going to kill the eldest of the group." While taking steps tothwart the plot, Sheinbaum realized that his original goal, the economicimprovement of impoverished nations, was getting lost in his administrativework as coordinator. His growing dismay--at what he later called the"unhealthy" CIA component and thegeneral U.S.policy ... in Vietnam"--ledhim to resign from the project in 1959.

By this stage, however, Sheinbaum had information that wasconfidential. Following the buildup of U.S.troops in Vietnamand the assassination of Diem, Sheinbaum decided it was his patriotic duty topublicize information that he hoped might put the brakes on U.S.involvement. Writing about the connections between Michigan State University,the CIA, and the Saigonpolice (with the help of Robert Scheer, a young investigative reporter), theSheinbaum story was to appear in the June 1966 issue of Ramparts magazine. Thearticle disposed that Michigan State University had been secretly usedby the CIA to train Saigonpolice and to keep an inventory of ammunition for grenade launchers, Browningautomatic rifles, and .50 caliber machine guns, as well as to write the SouthVietnamese constitution. The problem, in Sheinbaum's view, was that such secretfunding of academics to execute government programs undercut scholarlyintegrity. When scholars are forced into a conflict of interest, he wrote,"where is the source of serious intellectual criticism that would help usavoid future Vietnams?"

Word of Sheinbaum's forthcoming article caused consternationon the seventh floor of CIA headquarters. OnApril 18, 1966, Director ofCentral Intelligence William F. Raborn Jr. notified his director of securitythat he wanted a "run down" on Ramparts magazine on a "highpriority basis." This strongly worded order would prove to be a turningpoint for the Agency. To "run down" a domestic news publicationbecause it had exposed questionable practices of the CIAwas clearly in violation of the 1947 National Security Act's prohibition ondomestic operations and meant the CIAeventually would have to engage in a cover-up. The CIAdirector of security, Howard J. Osborn, was also told: "The Director[Raborn] is particularly interested in the authors of the article, namely,Stanley Sheinbaum and Robert Scheer. He is also interested in any otherindividuals who worked for the magazine."

Osborn's deputies had just two days to prepare a specialbriefing on Ramparts for the director. By searching existing CIAfiles they were able to assemble dossiers on approximately twenty-two of thefifty-five Ramparts writers and editors, which itself indicates the Agency'spenchant for collecting information on American critics of government policies.Osborn was able to tell Raborn that Ramparts had grown from a Catholic layjournal into a publication with a staff of more than fifty people in New York, Paris,and Munich, including two activemembers of the U.S. Communist Party. The most outspoken of the CIAcritics at the magazine was not a Communist but a former Green Beret veteran,Donald Duncan. Duncan had written,according to then CIA Deputy DirectorRichard Helms, "We will continue to be in danger as long as the CIAis deciding policy and manipulating nations." Of immediate concern toRaborn, however, was Osborn's finding that Sheinbaum was in the process ofexposing more CIA domestic organizations.The investigation of Ramparts was to be intensified, Raborn told Osborn.

At the same time, Helms passed information to PresidentLyndon Johnson's aide, William D. Moyers, about the plans of two Rampartseditors to run for Congress on an antiwar platform. Within days, the CIAhad progressed from investigating a news publication to sending domesticpolitical intelligence to the White House, just as a few members of Congresshad feared nineteen years earlier.

Upon publication, Sheinbaum's article triggered a storm ofprotests from academicians and legislators across the country who saw the CIA'sinfiltration of a college campus as a threat to academic freedom. The outcrygrew so loud that President Johnson felt he had to make a reassuring publicstatement and establish a task force to review any government activities thatmight endanger the integrity of the educational community. The task force was acollection of political statesmen--such as Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbachand Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare John Gardner--but also includedRichard Helms, the CIA official who himselfhad been dealing in political espionage. The purpose of the task force, it soonbecame clear, was to forestall further embarrassment and preclude anycongressional investigation of CIAoperations. Helms, furthermore, organized an internal task force of directoratechiefs to examine all CIA relationships withacademic institutions but that review, from all appearances, was designed onlyto ensure that these operations remained secret.

Meanwhile, CIA officersspent April and May of 1966 identifying the source of Ramparts's money. Theirtarget was executive editor Warren Hinckle, the magazine's chief fund-raiserand a man easy to track. He wore a black patch over one eye and made no secretof the difficult state of the magazine's finances as he continually begged anetwork of rich donors for operating funds. The agents also reported thatHinckle had launched a $2.5 million lawsuit against Alabama Governor GeorgeWallace for calling the magazine pro-Communist (information that Osborndutifully passed on to Raborn).

The real point of the CIAinvestigation, however, was to place Ramparts reporters under such dosesurveillance that any CIA officials involvedin domestic operations would have time to rehearse cover stories before thereporters arrived to question them.

Next, Raborn broadened the scope of his investigation ofRamparts's staff by recruiting help from other agencies. On June 16, 1966, he ordered Osborn to"urge" the FBI to "investigate these people as a subversiveunit." Osborn forwarded this request to the FBI, expressing the CIA'sinterest in anything the FBI might develop "of a derogatory nature."One CIA officer, who later inspected the CIAfile of the Ramparts investigation, said that the Agency was trying to find away of shutting down the magazine that would stand up in court, notwithstandingthe constraints of the First Amendment.

In January 1967, in the dining room of the Algonquin Hotelin New York City, Hinckle metMichael Wood, a former employee of a CIAcontractor like Sheinbaum. Wood, twenty-four years old, was nervous. A PomonaCollege dropout, he had been a fund-raiser for the National StudentAssociation, whose representatives attended a variety of international meetingson behalf of three million American college students. In the course of hiswork, Wood learned that money for the student association was coming from the CIACovert Action Division No. Five. The CIA wasfunding the association in order to counter the Moscow-dominated student groupsaround the world and to assist with recruiting foreign students. Havingfinanced a large segment of the association's budget, the CIAhad effectively made agents out of many of the association's senior officers.

Wood told Hinckle that the CIAhad required most officers of the student association to sign secrecy oaths,leading the students to believe they would be imprisoned if they violated theoath. Wood was one of the very few students who both knew about the CIAconnection and had not signed a secrecy contract. He had in his possessioncopies of the association's financial records, which he turned over to Hinckle.

Hinckle was wary. "Wood's story was not one calculatedto instill faith in the skeptic," he wrote later. Hinckle told hisreporters to check Wood's story. They found that several years earlier, TexasCongressman Wright Patman had openly identified eight philanthropic foundationsserving as undercover financial conduits for the CIA.

Obtaining publicly available IRSrecords on the tax-exempt foundations, Hinckle's reporters cross-referencedthem with the financial records that Wood had provided. To their astonishment,they discovered that the foundations named by Congressman Patman had funded theNational Student Association. Wood was telling the truth. Hinckle couldscarcely believe the CIA's poor spycraft:even after the CIA conduits had beenexposed, the Agency had continued to use them. The Ramparts reporters soon raninto obstacles, however. "The CIA knewwe were onto their game before we had time to discover what it really was.Doors slammed in the faces of our inquiring reporters.... The blank walls wereimpressive," Hinckle recalled.

Meanwhile, President Johnson had replaced Raborn as CIAdirector with Helms, who immediately made a crucial decision. He transferredresponsibility for the Ramparts operation away from Osborn to a key CIAoperative whose identity would not be known for years. Richard Ober's name iscuriously absent from indexes of books about political spying of his era. Obermanaged to keep in the shadows--a force behind the scenes, a man careful to saynothing that would reveal his true role. Few of his associates would even admitto knowing him. It was a breach of the code when one associate gave me a roughdescription of Ober as a big man with reddish skin and hair.

Ober was a counterintelligence specialist in the Directorateof Plans, sometimes known as the dirty tricks department. He had joined theAgency in 1948 and had a background that CIAdirectors trusted--Harvard class of 1943, army experience, graduate study ininternational affairs at Columbia University.At the CIA, Ober had completed two tours of dutyabroad, returning to run clandestine operations from a desk and to study at theNational War College before becoming the eliteof the elite: a counterintelligence officer. Ober and his fellowcounterintelligence agents worked in isolation from the rest of the Agency, inthe most secret of the Agency's secret compartments. Counterintelligenceinvolves destroying the effectiveness of foreign intelligence services andprotecting one's own spies from exposure and subversion. During the 1950s andearly 1960s counterintelligence had been widely expanded to all manner ofinternal police jobs, which now included stopping American publications fromprinting articles about questionable CIAoperations.

As Ober studied the legal options for getting the courts toprevent Ramparts from printing a story about the National Student Association,he found that none existed. There simply was no legal precedent for stoppingpublication. Instead a decision was reached to try to achieve "damagecontrol." A press conference was planned before Ramparts was due to breakthe story. Leaders of the National Student Association were to admit to their CIArelationship and were to say it had been ended at their insistence. The planwas to steal the thunder from the Ramparts story, limiting its impact by makingit old news.

However, Hinckle discovered the plan before the pressconference could be held. "I was damned if I was going to let the CIAscoop me," recalled Hinckle. "I bought full-page advertisements inThe New York Times and Washington Post to scoop myself, which seemed thepreferable alternative." Hinckle's ad read, "In its March issue,Ramparts magazine will document how the CIAhas infiltrated and subverted the world of American student leaders over thepast fifteen years." On February 13, 1967, the day before Hinckle's advertisements appeared, thenews that they were forthcoming panicked the CIA,the State Department, and the White House. The acting secretary of statedrafted a secret memorandum for President Johnson suggesting a Plan B forhandling this fiasco. The State Department, making a "bare bones"admission, would claim that the student operation was "tapering off"and would soon come to a complete halt.

Even as the fallback plan was being developed, a newsurprise was in the works. Although CIAofficers had already told the students not to talk, one of the student leadersconfirmed to reporters the accuracy of the Ramparts allegations. Hinckle wasastounded yet again: "It is a rare thing in this business when you say bangand somebody says I'm dead."

In short order, eight influential congressmen--CaliforniaDemocrats George E. Brown Jr., Phillip Burton, and Don Edwards, plus DemocratsJohn G. Dow, Benjamin S. Rosenthal, and William F. Ryan of New York, Robert W. Kastenmeier of Wisconsin,and John Conyers Jr. of Michigan--signeda letter of protest to President Johnson. It arrived at the White House thesame evening the Ramparts advertisements were printed. "We were appalledto learn today that the Central Intelligence Agency has been subsidizing theNational Student Association for more than a decade," the letter said."It represents an unconscionable extension of power by an agency ofgovernment over institutions outside its jurisdiction. This disclosure leads usand many others here and abroad to believe that the CIAcan be as much a threat to American as to foreign democraticinstitutions."

The day after the ads appeared, the IRSacted on a request from the CIA by providingcopies of Ramparts's tax returns to Ober. It turned out that the IRShad audited the magazine's corporate returns, as well as the personal returnsof publisher Edward Keating, for the tax years 1960-64. Keating, aphilanthropist in the 70 percent tax bracket, had been deducting the magazine'sannual deficit from his personal taxes. A CIAofficer analyzed the tax data and noticed an apparent discrepancy overlooked bythe IRS. While Keating was claiming all ofthe losses, which were in the range of $450,000 a year, five others, includingHinckle, also owned stock in the magazine. The IRSadvised the CIA it intended to check outthis discrepancy. Ober by now had a fairly clear picture of the financialsituation at Ramparts. One of Ober's men had filed the following report:"Keating's wife, the former Helen English, had a substantial personalestate (derived from family interests in U.S. Gypsum) from which came thecapital funds which provided the wherewithal for the operations of Ramparts.They have been liquidating this estate steadily over the years and by 1965, itwas completely gone. Examination of bank statements and capital transactionsconfirmed this source of funds."

The bad news for Ober was that none of his men could turn upany foreign funding of Ramparts. Without any evidence of foreign influence overthe magazine, Ober was legally barred by the 1947 National Security Act fromfurther pursuit of the Ramparts staff. Instead of halting the operation againstRamparts, however, Ober went on the offensive. On the same day he got the IRStax data on Ramparts, Ober circulated a memo discussing "certainoperational recommendations." While the CIAcontinues to withhold the full story of what Ober had in mind, this much hasbeen discovered: news stories meant to discredit Ramparts were to be planted. CIAofficer Louis Dube would later admit, somewhat cryptically, that Ober'soperational recommendations involved "articles that would appear in othermedia." In fact, Ober planned a propaganda campaign against Ramparts.

Ten days later, the campaign began. A story presumablyplanted by the CIA was widely syndicated innewspapers such as the Washington Star. The story was written by Carl Rowan,former director of the United States Information Agency. Now a nationalcolumnist, Rowan implied that Ramparts's exposes were Communist-inspired:

A few days ago a brief, cryptic report out of Prague, Czechoslovakia, waspassed among a handful of top officials in Washington.It said that an editor of Ramparts magazine had come to Pragueand held a long, secret session with officers of the Communist-controlledInternational Union of Students.

Ramparts is the magazine that exposed the fact that theCentral Intelligence Agency has been financing the National StudentAssociation, which in turn has worked for several years to prevent theInternational Union of Students from dominating the youth of the world.

The Praguereport aroused deep suspicions here among officials who are privately shockedand dismayed at the damage to the CIA and toU.S. foreignpolicy interests caused by the needless series of busted intelligence"covers" that has resulted from the Ramparts expose.

What, if any, relationship does Ramparts have to the IUS?

At Langley, a CIAofficer summarized Rowan's article in a memo. That memo is still secret. Torelease it, the CIA contends, would reveal aCIA "method." Rowan refused todiscuss the matter at the time.

On March 4, 1967,Richard Ober got a report from a person who attended a Ramparts staff meetingat which magazine reporters had discussed their interviews of high executivebranch government officials and their attempts to meet with White House staffmembers. Now Ober knew who was saying what to whom. Three days later, Ober'stask force found out that a Ramparts reporter was going to interview a CIA"asset": that is, someone under CIAcontrol. In preparation, CIA officers toldthe asset how to handle the reporter, and after the interview the assetreported back to the CIA.

On March 16, two of Ober's men drove from CIAheadquarters to a nearby airport to pick up a CIAagent who was a good friend of a Ramparts reporter. They went to a hotel, wherethe CIA agent was debriefed. Then the agentand his case officers reviewed his cover story, which he went on to tell hisRamparts contact as a means of obtaining more information. During the sameperiod Ober was trying to recruit five former Ramparts employees as informants."Maybe they were unhappy," a CIAagent would later explain. On April 4, Ober completed a status report on hisRamparts task force. His men had identified and investigated 127 Rampartswriters and researchers, as well as nearly 200 other American civilians withsome link to the magazine.

Three more CIA officersjoined Ober's team, bringing to twelve the number of full-time or part-timeofficers coordinating intelligence and operations on Ramparts at theheadquarters level. On April 5, 1967,the task force completed its tentative assessment and recommendations, settingforth future actions--which, the CIA wasstill insisting in 1994, cannot be released under the Freedom of InformationAct. CIA officer Louis Dube described therecommendations as "heady xxxx" but refused to be more specific.

It is known that Ober became fascinated with Rampartsadvertisers. "One of our officers was in contact with a source whoprovided us with information about Ramparts's advertising," Dube admitted.On April 28, a CIA analyst working for Obertried to learn if the CIA had any friendswho might have influence with Ramparts advertisers, apparently with theintention of getting them to drop their accounts.

Richard Ober, acutely aware that the scandals exposed byRamparts were symptoms of a leaky secrecy system, took pains to protect his ownoperation from similar leaks. Indeed, Ober knew that any publicity about hiswork would generate a much bigger scandal. The twelve men working with him onthe operation were his primary concern. Even though he expected them tomaintain their silence, he reinforced this expectation by relying heavily onsecrecy contracts. In secret testimony Ober would later explain, "Those[secrecy] agreements were signed by everybody exposed to my project atheadquarters."

Eventually, the failure to have Michael Wood sign a secrecyagreement meant the CIA had to sever itsties to the National Student Association. The instrument of this divorce was asettlement drafted by the CIA chief counsel.On August 11, 1967, the CIAsigned over to the student association the title to a building at 2115 and 2117S Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.,which the CIA had owned. However, thebuilding was heavily mortgaged, and after the CIAstopped paying the debt, the payments bled the student treasury for many years.The National Student Association changed its name to the United States StudentAssociation but never fully recovered its reputation. American students, unliketheir European counterparts, are for the most part still without an effectiveorganization to lobby their national legislature, the Congress.

Edited January 19, 2012 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

W. Alton Jones

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

W. Alton Jones

Born 1891

Missouri

Died 1962 (aged 70–71)

New York City

Cause of death airplane crash, American Airlines Flight 1

Employer Cities Service Company

Political party Republican

Children Patricia Jones Edgerton

W. Alton Jones (1891 – March 1,1962), who served as president of the oil and gas conglomerate Cities Service Company (now CITGO), was an influential industrialist, philanthropist,and close personal friend of United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower.[1]

W. Alton "Pete" Jones was born into apoor Missouri farm family of seven in 1891. In 1920 he became an executive with the energy company Cities Service Company, serving as president from 1940 to 1953. He rose to become one of the highest paid CEOs in the UnitedStates.[1] During World WarII, he was a hero of war production by building a secret dynamite production plant in Arkansas,an aviation fuel refinery in Louisiana,and over 3,000 miles of oil pipelines fromTexas to the East Coast that were vital to the war effort.

As an important supporter of the Republican Party, he met and became a very close personal friend of President Eisenhower. Jones was killed in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1 in NewYork City on March 1, 1962, while on his way to join Eisenhower on a fishing trip.[1][2]

In 1944 he founded the W. Alton Jones Foundation "to promote the well-being and general good of mankind through out [sic] the world". The foundation supported various causes, such as the arts, education, and environmental activism, but split into three separate funds in 2001.

Immediately after his death, Jones' heirs donated his private hunting and fishing retreat (which had hosted President Eisenhower and the King of Nepal) to the University of Rhode Island, creating the W. Alton Jones Campus.[3][4]

MORE: W. Alton Jones Foundation

Edited January 19, 2012 by William Kelly