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Guest Mark Valenti
Posted

Was curious to see if the ears lined up -- it's approximate but they seem to.

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Posted

Col. Fletcher Prouty and Gen. Victor Krulak, both whom worked with Lansdale for many years, and knew him extremely well, immediately identified Lansdale in Dealey Plaza. That cinches it for me.

Posted (edited)

Col. Fletcher Prouty and Gen. Victor Krulak, both whom worked with Lansdale for many years, and knew him extremely well, immediately identified Lansdale in Dealey Plaza. That cinches it for me.

What gets me is the lantern shaped head on both those guys.

Stooped right shoulder, check.

If Ed Lansdale were in on JFK's murder what's he doing hanging out in Dealey Plaza a couple of hours later?

Hard to believe.

But if Lansdale were the head of crew whose chief mission was to murder Oswald and manage any and all back-up patsies it makes sense that he'd be around the Plaza bringing his people in.

Edited by Cliff Varnell
Guest Mark Valenti
Posted

Personally, I always thought Proutys ID of Lansdale was far fetched. Such certainty looking at a guy from behind. But who knows?

Posted (edited)

Was curious to see if the ears lined up -- it's approximate but they seem to.

Although I already believe it's Lansdale, the amateurish "photographic study" you posted does not persuade.

Edited by Greg Burnham
Guest Mark Valenti
Posted

Was curious to see if the ears lined up -- it's approximate but they seem to.

Although I already believe it's Lansdale, the amateurish "photographic study" you posted does not persuade.

Who cares what you think?

Posted

I've always wondered if the man walking past the tramps isn't Maxwell Taylor. He also had a stooped shoulder and large ring, and the hair seems to match his more than Lansdale's. Of course this would mean that his meeting with West German officials at the Pentagon at the time of the assassination is a fiction. We know for a fact that General LeMay was at no such meeting. If it indeed was Taylor, then Prouty and Krulak had to have had some reason for saying it was Lansdale instead with no mention of Taylor despite the similarity.

On page 495 of PIctures of the Pain, there is a photo of people on the Elm Street Extension at some point after the assassination. In the far left of the photo, there is a man walking east who looks like he could be the man who earlier was walking west past the tramps. It doesn't look like Lansdale or Taylor. I recall seeing this man closer up for a better view in one of the other books.

Posted

Personally, I always thought Proutys ID of Lansdale was far fetched.

It's interesting that you tell us what you "always thought," yet you tell Greg Burnham "Who cares what you think?" Just an observation.

Guest Mark Valenti
Posted

I don't care what Burnham thinks. Better?

Posted (edited)

What suggests Lansdale rather than Taylor is the elongated head, especially above the ears, Check definitions of the condition acromegaly for Lansdale's appearance and also associations to the deformed hand Prouty mentions. I used to wonder about the haircut, but it resembles a bit Lansdale's 1970s post-military haircut in interview videos available on YouTube. (I've suspected that the longer hair is why the figure suggests Taylor to some. But that's not Taylor's height and more compacted proportions.)

Edited by David Andrews
Posted

There's one thing for sure about the man walking past the tramps. The two horns clearly seen on the top of his head can only mean evil afoot.

Posted (edited)

Mr. Valenti,

Your "photographic study" is antithetical to a scientific approach. You rely on empiricism to some extent in that "you think" that the ears approximately match based on your observations of your own self-admitted imprecise exercise (in futility). Nothing wrong with relying on empiricism to an extent, except when you have no basis upon which to draw an informed conclusion. You have never seen Lansdale in person. You never met him or worked with him for more than a decade. Colonel Prouty did. General Krulak did. Moreover, Krulak made his identification of Lansdale independent of Prouty's. In other words, Prouty did not ask Krulak if he thought the man pictured was Lansdale. Prouty simply provided him with the photograph. Both men, who knew and worked with Lansdale for more than a decade, identified him. Their superior analysis, in terms of the value of their informed opinion, is persuasive. Your uninformed, ignorant supposition regarding the size and/or location of the ears of a man you have never seen in person is not.

Your study is a straw man easily debunked by both the sincere and the disingenuous alike. It tends to create doubt not clarity.

Edited by Greg Burnham
Posted

There's one thing for sure about the man walking past the tramps. The two horns clearly seen on the top of his head can only mean evil afoot.

Maybe he was just feeling really horny that day.

--Tommy :sun

Posted (edited)

LANSDALE edit of larger thread named below

 

CIA plot to kill JFK is based only on political bias, and not on solid evidence. That's my final word on it.

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(Lansdale edit http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=21367&p=289607 start thread)

 

Lansdale visited 3 special forces bases in the summer of 1963. The hierarchy of the CIA would use the best shooters available. Shooters
from the special forces would be about the best. Most would refuse such a task but psychological/political expert Lansdale would be the perfect person to select those who would agree to the dirty deed.

I do believe there was also an Army shooting team (at the Trade Mart) & (Army monitors also in DP) and a team that were tricked into "thinking'" they were part of a real shooting team (were spotters attached to nonexistant shooters off DP) connected to Walker. For completion there may have been a Cancellare truck bomb. These ideas help me explain all the tidbits I know.

(GAAL)

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part 8 (edited)

CIA plot to kill JFK is based only on political bias, and not on solid evidence. That's my final word on it.

 

  • Peter Dale Scott theorized in Deep Politics and the Death of JFK that the stock transactions of the major stockholders of LTV (Harold Byrd (owner TSBD), Troy Post (financier) and James Ling (businessman) engineer) were made with foreknowledge of the JFK assassination.
  • Troy Post was co-owner of Coconut micro island in Hawaii with California oil man Edwin Pauley
  • JFK researcher Bruce Adamson acquired the 6 volume set of personal phone books of George De Mohrenschildt and noted that De Mohrenschildt had listed Edwin Pauleys name an unusual 4 times. ( To note to avoid confusion ,per Adamson ,George de Mohrenschildt also worked for CBS head William S. Paley after call to Paley's private secretary) The phone books also listed GHWB and also GHWB's intimate nickname "POPPY" ,which few knew.
  • In the appendix of the Secret War Against the Jews book George de Mohrenschildt had the post WWII office number of Allen Dulles at RCA. William Paley (CBS) and Allen Dulles were very,very close friends (see letters Paley - Dulles, Adamson). Prescott Bush (father of GHWB, was a CBS trustee for 30 years (from the radio days to the TV days)) also was a friend of Allen Dulles from the 1930s.
  • Edwin Pauley ,as was William Casey, were private post WWII operatives of Allen Dulles per Secret War Against the Jews book. Casey and Pauley were , per the Gold Warriors book , were top operatives (with Edwin Lansdale) in the ultra secret post WWII Asian-Japanese stolen gold project that help fund post WWII anti-communist CIA operations. Edwin Lansdale was considered by Fetcher Prouty to be a Allen Dulles operative inside the Air Force.
  • Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt (brother of George de Mohrenschildt ) wrote a book in the 1950s with the nephew of Allen Dulles.
  • In 63 William Casey worked with Prescott Bush Jr. (brother GHWB) in a think tank advocating a stronger CIA and increased CIA covert operations. Casey ,an operative of Allen Dulles, was connected to one of the head lawyers of the at the Treasury Department.

 

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Lansdale was a Dulles Operative .Allen Dulles had to be involved in getting Lansdale promoted from colonel to general. And a number of other patterns are apparent such as social events with Charles Cabell. Edward Lansdale and Charles Cabell were very close.

Lansdale's star sank over the horizon. Erskine retired and his whole shop was scattered. The Navy men went back to the navy as did the Army folks. Gen Wheeler in the JCS asked to have me assigned to the Joint Staff. This wiped out the whole Erskine (Office of Special Operations) office. It was comical. There was Lansdale up there all by himself with no office and no one else. He boiled and he blamed it on Kennedy for not giving him the "promised" Ambassadorship to let him "save" Vietnam.

One of Lansdale's special "black" intelligence associates in the Pentagon was Dorothy Matlack of U.S. Army Intelligence. How does it happen that when deM. flew from Haiti to testify, he was met at the National Airport by Dorothy?

Newman recalled from Lansdale's travel records that one of these other areas was some sort of a Cuban-exile camp. The record for that trip included a cover note to the person coordinating it telling him to keep quiet. Lansdale apparently wanted to make sure that no one knew that he was going there.84

There was also an honorary graduation certificate from the sniping school that the U.S. had in Panama. He went there, Newman recalled, in May or April 1963. He was made an honorary graduate there. Lansdale was going to various clandestine and special forces places in the spring and summer of 1963.85

In 1963, Lansdale was Fletcher Prouty's boss. Prouty insists that he was sent to the South Pole by Lansdale to get him out of the way so that he would not witness the events of November 22, 1963. Presumably this was done because if Prouty had been there he would have figured out what was going on. Prouty has claimed that in the photograph of the three tramps walking across Dealey Plaza, the man in a suit with what looks like a wire coming out of his ear and going into his suit coat is Edward Lansdale -- that he recognized the back of his head and his gate. Among Lansdale's letters, John Newman and David Lifton found a slip of paper that has "The Texas Hotel" on it and a phone number in Denton. Lansdale's letters also reveal that he was headed in the direction of Dallas in November 1963.91

Lansdale wrote to a number of friends and associates beginning in September 1963, of his intention to go to Texas in November. There are as many as ten letters, according to Newman, where he described this upcoming trip to two people. One was his son. The other one was General "Hangin' Sam" Williams, an old buddy and McGarr's predecessor in Vietnam. He lived in San Antonio.92

The last piece of paper that Newman found placing Lansdale physically in Washington is dated November 14, 1963. It concerns running errands for his wife. After that there is no record of his whereabouts except for a box of incidentals, which had this piece of paper in it. It has on it "Texas Hotel" and "Denton" and a name and phone number. As Newman said, "That might be from 1949 or it might be 1968 and again it might be November 1963. Because the Texas Hotel is where Kennedy stayed the night before he died, and Denton, Texas is just north here of Dallas, it all fits in.

 

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part 4 (edited)

CIA plot to kill JFK is based only on political bias, and not on solid evidence. That's my final word on it.

 

Allen Dulles: Edward Lansdale/ CHARLES A. WILLOUGHBY nexus.
=
Replies to website E-mail from Col. Fletcher Prouty

From: Bill Gaskins
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000

Subject: Lansdale's association with Gen. Charles Willoughby

I am sorry to hear that Col. Prouty is unable to reply to questions.
Perhaps you will find the following letter interesting, and will post it on the web site:

This is a follow-up to a statement I made to Col. Prouty in 1994 on WCBM radio in Baltimore, Md. At that time Col. Prouty said that I was "confused" about my belief that Edward Lansdale and Gen. Charles Willoughby served together in the Philippines during World War II. According to the following two books, there appears to be a conflict concerning Lansdale's whereabouts during the war.

The book "Edward Lansdale" (1988) by Cecil Curry states on page 26 that Ed Lansdale never left the United States during World War II. Lansdale admits that he served in the Philippines, but starting in September 1945, or right after the war. Lansdale joined the OSS in 1941. However, Curry notes that Lansdale's brother Phil said he believes Edward was out of the country during the war. And Curry concludes, "The real story of these events may never be learned." Col. Prouty states in his 1990 letter to Jim Garrison that Curry's book contains some "terrible fabrications," and that Lansdale was a "classic chameleon."

The book "The Marcos Dynasty" (1988) by Sterling Seagrave states on page 143 that during WWII Lansdale served in the Philippines under Gen. Charles Willoughby with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Willoughby was MacArthur's army intelligence chief. Willoughby was a rabid anti-Communist, and was known as the "little fascist." Seagrave cites no reference for Lansdale's service other than "CIA documents."

If Lansdale did serve under Gen. Willoughby, then this association has a possible sinister implication. In his 1992 book "The Man Who Knew Too Much," Dick Russell connects Willoughby with Allen Dulles,.........

Col. Prouty knew Lansdale well. He believes, and I agree, that Lansdale orchestrated the JFK assassination. But who gave Lansdale the "go" signal? Col. Prouty's 1992 book "JFK, The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate JFK" does not address Seagrave's assertion. On page 63 he states that Lansdale "later" left the OSS for Army Intel and that Gen. MacArthur did not allow the OSS in the Pacific Theater. In 1949 Lansdale was under the direct command of Col. Richard Stilwell, an "experienced Far East hand." Although MacArthur was in Japan, Lansdale was still under his command. Therefore, Lansdale served in the Pacific Theater (the Philippines) for Willoughby after the war.

The point that Russell makes, that Lansdale served under Willoughby, seems to be valid. Certainly Willoughby knew of Lansdale's exploits against Quirino in 1950.

Thanks, Bill Gaskins
=
see post # 8 this thread PART 3 for Dulles / Lansdale nexus
http://educationforu...=21367&p=289729

 

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part 3 (edited)

CIA plot to kill JFK is based only on political bias, and not on solid evidence. That's my final word on it.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

http://spartacus-edu...OLDlansdale.htm

=========================

On his return to the United States in 1948 Lansdale became a lecturer at the Strategic Intelligence School in Colorado. However, in 1950, Elpidio Quirino, the president of the Philippines, requested Lansdale's help in his fight against the communist insurrection taking place in his country.

In the early 1950s, Allen Dulles gave Lansdale $5-million to finance CIA operations against the Hukbalahap movement, the rural peasant farmers fighting for land-reform in the Philippines.

According to Sterling Seagrave Lansdale "was in and out of Tokyo on secret missions with a hand-picked team of Filipino assassins, assassinating leftists, liberals and progressives." CIA Director William Colby later commented: "Lansdale helped and perhaps created the best president the Philippines ever had...turned American policy away from support of French colonial rule in Vietnam to support of a non-Communist nationalist leader...he preached for Americans to support those willing to fight for themselves... He was one of the greatest spies in history... the stuff of legends."

=========================

(3) L. Fletcher Prouty, letter to Jim Garrison (6th March, 1990)
It is amazing how things work, I am at home recuperating from a major back operation (to regain my ability to walk); so I was tossing around in bed last night...not too comfortable...and I began to think of Garrison. I thought, "I have got to write Jim a letter detailing how I believe the whole job was done."

By another coincidence I had received a fine set of twenty photos from the Sprague collection in Springfield, Mass. As the odds would have it, he is now living just around the corner here in Alexandria. Why not? Lansdale lived here, Fensterwald lives here, Ford used to live here. Quite a community.

I was studying those photos. One of them is the "Tramps" picture that appears in your book. It is glossy and clear. Lansdale is so clearly identifiable. Why, Lansdale in Dallas? The others don't matter, they are nothing but actors and not gunmen but they are interesting. Others who knew Lansdale as well as I did, have said the same thing, "That's him and what's he doing there?"

As I was reading the paper the Federal Express man came with a book from Jim, that unusual "Lansdale" book. A terrible biography. There could be a great biography about Lansdale. He's no angel; but he is worth a good biography. Currey, a paid hack, did the job. His employers ought to have let him do it right.

I had known Ed since 1952 in the Philippines. I used to fly there regularly with my MATS Heavy Transport Squadron. As a matter of fact, in those days we used to fly wounded men, who were recuperating, from hospitals in Japan to Saigon for R&R on the beaches of Cap St Jacque. That was 1952-1953. Saigon was the Paris of the Orient. And Lansdale was "King Maker" of the Philippines. We always went by way of Manila. I met his team.

He had arrived in Manila in Sept 1945, after the war was over, for a while. He had been sent back there in 1950 by the CIA(OPC) to create a new leader of the Philippines and to get rid of Querino. Sort of like the Marcos deal, or the Noriega operation. Lansdale did it better. I have overthrown a government but I didn't splash it all around like Reagan and Bush have done. Now, who sent him there?

Who sent him there in 1950 (Truman era) to do a job that was not done until 1953 (Ike era)? From 1950 to Feb. 1953 the Director of Central Intelligence was Eisenhower's old Chief of Staff, Gen Walter Bedell Smith. Smith had been Ambassador to Moscow from 1946 to 1949. The lesser guys in the CIA at the time were Allen Dulles, who was Deputy Director Central Intelligence from Aug. 1951 to Feb. 1953. Frank Wisner became the Deputy Director, Plans (Clandestine Activities) when Dulles became DDCI. Lansdale had to have received his orders from among these four men: Truman, Smith, Dulles, and Wisner. Of course the Sec State could have had some input...i.e. Acheson. Who wanted Querino out, that badly? Who wanted HUKS there?

In Jan 1953 Eisenhower arrived. John Foster Dulles was at State and Gen Smith his Deputy. Allen Dulles was the DCI and General Cabel his deputy. None of them changed Lansdale's prior orders to "get" Querino. Lansdale operated with abandon in the Philippines. The Ambassador and the CIA Station Chief, George Aurell, did not know what he was doing. They believed he was some sort of kook Air Force Officer there...a role Lansdale played to the hilt. Magsaysay became President, Dec 30, 1953.

With all of this on the record, and a lot more, this guy Currey comes out of the blue with this purported "Biography". I knew Ed well enough and long enough to know that he was a classic chameleon. He would tell the truth sparingly and he would fabricate a lot. Still, I can not believe that he told Currey the things Currey writes. Why would Lansdale want Currey to perpetuate such out and out bullxxxx about him? Can't be. This is a terribly fabricated book. It's not even true about me. I believe that this book was ordered and delineated by the CIA.

At least I know the truth about myself and about Gen. Krulak. Currey libels us terribly. In fact it may be Krulak who caused the book to be taken off the shelves. Krulak and his Copley Press cohorts have the power to get that done, and I encouraged them to do just that when it first came out. Krulak was mad!

Ed told me many a time how he operated in the Philippines. He said, "All I had was a blank checkbook signed by the U.S. government". He made friends with many influential Filipinos. I have met Johnny Orendain and Col Valeriano, among others, in Manila with Lansdale. He became acquainted with the wealthiest Filipino of them all, Soriano. Currey never even mentions him. Soriano set up Philippine Airlines and owned the big San Miguel beer company, among other things. Key man in Asia.

Lansdale's greatest strategy was to create the "HUKS" as the enemy and to make Magsaysay the "Huk Killer." He would take Magsaysay's battalion out into a "Huk" infested area. He would use movies and "battlefield" sound systems, i.e. fireworks to scare the poor natives. Then one-half of Magsaysay's battalion, dressed as natives, would "attack" the village at night. They'd fire into the air and burn some shacks. In the morning the other half, in uniform, would attack and "capture" the "Huks". They would bind them up in front of the natives who crept back from the forests, and even have a "firing" squad "kill" some of them. Then they would have Magsaysay make a big speech to the people and the whole battalion would roll down the road to have breakfast together somewhere...ready for the next "show".

Ed would always see that someone had arranged to have newsmen and camera men there and Magsaysay soon became a national hero. This was a tough game and Ed bragged that a lot of people were killed; but in the end Magsaysay became the "elected" President and Querino was ousted "legally."

This formula endeared Ed to Allen Dulles. In 1954 Dulles established the Saigon Military Mission in Vietnam...counter to Eisenhower's orders. He had the French accept Lansdale as its chief. This mission was not in Saigon. It was not military, and its job was subversion in Vietnam. Its biggest job was that it got more than 1,100,000 northern Vietnamese to move south. 660,000 by U.S.Navy ships and the rest by CIA airline planes. These 1,100,000 north Vietnamese became the "subversive" element in South Vietnam and the principal cause of the warmaking. Lansdale and his cronies (Bohanon, Arundel, Phillips, Hand, Conein and many others) did all that using the same check book. I was with them many times during 1954. All Malthuseanism.

I have heard him brag about capturing random Vietnamese and putting them in a Helicopter. Then they would work on them to make them "confess" to being Viet Minh. When they would not, they would toss them out of the chopper, one after the other, until the last ones talked. This was Ed's idea of fun...as related to me many times. Then Dulles, Adm. Radford and Cardinal Spellman set up Ngo Dinh Diem. He and his brother, Nhu, became Lansdale proteges.

At about 1957 Lansdale was brought back to Washington and assigned to Air Force Headquarters in a Plans office near mine. He was a fish out of water. He didn't know Air Force people and Air Force ways. After about six months of that, Dulles got the Office of Special Operations under General Erskine to ask for Lansdale to work for the Secretary of Defense. Erskine was man enough to control him.

By 1960 Erskine had me head the Air Force shop there. He had an Army shop and a Navy shop and we were responsible for all CIA relationships as well as for the National Security Agency. Ed was still out of his element because he did not know the services; but the CIA sent work his way.

Then in the Fall of 1960 something happened that fired him up. Kennedy was elected over Nixon. Right away Lansdale figured out what he was going to do with the new President. Overnight he left for Saigon to see Diem and to set up a deal that would make him, Lansdale, Ambassador to Vietnam. He had me buy a "Father of his Country" gift for Diem...$700.00.

I can't repeat all of this but you should get a copy of the Gravel edition, 5 Vol.'s, of the Pentagon Papers and read it. The Lansdale accounts are quite good and reasonably accurate.

Ed came back just before the Inauguration and was brought into the White House for a long presentation to Kennedy about Vietnam. Kennedy was taken by it and promised he would have Lansdale back in Vietnam "in a high office". Ed told us in OSO he had the Ambassadorship sewed up. He lived for that job.

He had not reckoned with some of JFK's inner staff, George Ball, etc. Finally the whole thing turned around and month by month Lansdale's star sank over the horizon. Erskine retired and his whole shop was scattered. The Navy men went back to the navy as did the Army folks. Gen Wheeler in the JCS asked to have me assigned to the Joint Staff. This wiped out the whole Erskine (Office of Special Operations) office. It was comical. There was Lansdale up there all by himself with no office and no one else. He boiled and he blamed it on Kennedy for not giving him the "promised" Ambassadorship to let him "save" Vietnam.

Then with the failure of the Bay of Pigs, caused by that phone call to cancel the air strikes by McGeorge Bundy, the military was given the job of reconstituting some sort of Anti-Castro operation. It was headed by an Army Colonel; but somehow Lansdale (most likely CIA influence) got put into the plans for Operation Mongoose...to get Castro...ostensibly.

The U.S. Army has a think-tank at American University. It was called "Operation Camelot". This is where the "Camelot" concept came from. It was anti-JFK's Vietnam strategy. The men running it were Lansdale types, Special Forces background. "Camelot" was King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table: not JFK...then.

Through 1962 and 1963 Mongoose and "Camelot" became strong and silent organizations dedicated to countering JFK. Mongoose had access to the CIA's best "hit men" in the business and a lot of "strike" capability. Lansdale had many old friends in the media business such as Joe Alsop, Henry Luce among others. With this background and with his poisoned motivation I am positive that he got collateral orders to manage the Dallas event under the guise of "getting" Castro. It is so simple at that level. A nod from the right place, source immaterial, and the job's done.

The "hit" is the easy part. The "escape" must be quick and professional. The cover-up and the scenario are the big jobs. They more than anything else prove the Lansdale mastery.

Lansdale was a master writer and planner. He was a great "scenario" guy. It still have a lot of his personally typed material in my files. I am certain that he was behind the elaborate plan and mostly the intricate and enduring cover-up. Given a little help from friends at PEPSICO he could easily have gotten Nixon into Dallas, for "orientation': and LBJ in the cavalcade at the same time, contrary to Secret Service policy.

He knew the "Protection" units and the "Secret Service", who was needed and who wasn't. Those were routine calls for him, and they would have believed him. Cabell could handle the police.

The "hit men" were from CIA overseas sources, for instance, from the "Camp near Athena, Greece. They are trained, stateless, and ready to go at any time. They ask no questions: speak to no one. They are simply told what to do, when and where. Then they are told how they will be removed and protected. After all, they work for the U.S. Government. The "Tramps" were actors doing the job of cover-up. The hit men are just pros. They do the job for the CIA anywhere. They are impersonal. They get paid. They get protected, and they have enough experience to "blackmail" anyone, if anyone ever turns on them...just like Drug agents. The job was clean, quick and neat. No ripples.

The whole story of the POWER of the Cover-up comes down to a few points. There has never been a Grand Jury and trial in Texas. Without a trial there can be nothing. Without a trial it does no good for researchers to dig up data. It has no place to go and what the researchers reveal just helps make the cover-up tighter, or they eliminate that evidence and the researcher.

The first man LBJ met with on Nov 29th, after he had cleared the foreign dignitaries out of Washington was Waggoner Carr, Atty Gen'l, Texas to tell him, "No trial in Texas...ever."

The next man he met, also on Nov 29th, was J. Edgar Hoover. The first question LBJ asked his old "19 year" neighbor in DC was "Were THEY shooting at me?" LBJ thought that THEY had been shooting at him also as they shot at his friend John Connally. Note that he asked, "Were THEY shooting at me?" LBJ knew there were several hitmen. That's the ultimate clue...THEY.

The Connallys said the same thing...THEY. Not Oswald.

Then came the heavily loaded press releases about Oswald all written before the deal and released actually before LHO had ever been charged with the crime. I bought the first newspaper EXTRA on the streets of Christchurch, New Zealand with the whole LHO story in that first news...photos and columns of it before the police in Dallas had yet to charge him with that crime. All this canned material about LHO was flashed around the world.

Lansdale and his Time-Life and other media friends, with Valenti in Hollywood, have been doing that cover-up since Nov 1963. Even the deMorenschildt story enhances all of this. In deM's personal telephone/address notebook he had the name of an Air Force Colonel friend of mine, Howard Burrus. Burrus was always deep in intelligence. He had been in one of the most sensitive Attache spots in Europe...Switzerland. He was a close friend of another Air Force Colonel and Attache, Godfrey McHugh, who used to date Jackie Bouvier. DeM had Burrus listed under a DC telephone number and on that same telephone number he had "L.B.Johnson, Congressman." Quite a connection. Why...from the Fifties yet.?

Godfrey McHugh was the Air Force Attache in Paris. Another most important job. I knew him well, and I transferred his former Ass't Attache to my office in the Pentagon. This gave me access to a lot of information I wanted in the Fifties. This is how I learned that McHugh's long-time special "date" was the fair Jacqueline...yes, the same Jackie Bouvier. Sen. Kennedy met Jackie in Paris when he was on a trip. At that time JFK was dating a beautiful SAS Airline Stewardess who was the date of that Ass't Attache who came to my office. JFK dumped her and stole Jackie away from McHugh. Leaves McHugh happy????

At the JFK Inaugural Ball who should be there but the SAS stewardess, Jackie--of course, and Col Godfrey McHugh. JFK made McHugh a General and made him his "Military Advisor" in the White House where he was near Jackie while JFK was doing all that official travelling connected with his office AND other special interests. Who recommended McHugh for the job?

General McHugh was in Dallas and was on Air Force One, with Jackie, on the flight back to Washington..as was Jack Valenti. Why was LBJ's old cohort there at that time and why was he on Air Force One? He is now the Movie Czar. Why in Dallas?

See how carefully all of this is interwoven. Burrus is now a very wealthy man in Washington. I have lost track of McHugh. And Jackie is doing well. All in the Lansdale--deM shadows.

One of Lansdale's special "black" intelligence associates in the Pentagon was Dorothy Matlack of U.S. Army Intelligence. How does it happen that when deM. flew from Haiti to testify, he was met at the National Airport by Dorothy?

The Lansdale story is endless. What people do not do is study the entire environment of his strange career. For example: the most important part of my book, "The Secret Team", is not something that I wrote. It is Appendix III under the title, "Training Under The Mutual Security Program". This is a most important bit of material. It tells more about the period 1963 to 1990 than anything. I fought to have it included verbatim in the book. This material was the work of Lansdale and his crony General Dick Stillwell. Anyone interested in the "JFK Coup d'Etat" ought to know it by heart.

I believe this document tells why the Coup took place. It was to reverse the sudden JFK re-orientation of the U.S. Government from Asia to Europe, in keeping with plans made in 1943 at Cairo and Teheran by T.V. Soong and his Asian masterminds. Lansdale and Stillwell were long-time "Asia hands" as were Gen Erskine, Adm Radford, Cardinal Spellman, Henry Luce and so many others.

In October 1963, JFK had just signalled this reversal, to Europe, when he published National Security Action Memorandum #263 saying...among other things...that he was taking 1000 troops home from Vietnam by Christmas 1963 and ALL AMERICANS out of Vietnam by the end of 1965. That cost him his life.

JFK came to that "Pro-Europe" conclusion in the Summer of 1963 and sent Gen Krulak to Vietnam for advance work. Kurlak and I (with others) wrote that long "Taylor-McNamara" Report of their "Visit to Vietnam" (obviously they did not write, illustrate and bind it as they traveled). Krulak got his information daily in the White House. We simply wrote it. That led to NSAM #263. This same Trip Report is Document #142 and appears on page 751 to 766 of Vol. II of the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers. NSAM #263 appears on pages 769-770 (It makes the Report official). This major Report and NSAM indicated an enormous shift in the orientation of U.S. Foreign Policy from Asia back to Europe. JFK was much more Europe- oriented, as was his father, than pro-Asia. This position was anathema to the Asia-born Luces, etc.

There is the story from an insider. I sat in the same office with Lansdale, (OSO of OSD) for years. I listened to him in Manila and read his flurry of notes from 1952 to 1964. I know all this stuff, and much more. I could write ten books. I send this to you because I believe you are one of the most sincere of the "true researchers".

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http://www.acorn.net...e/rambler1.html

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By 1961 Rostow was also working closely with Edward G. Lansdale. Lansdale was an Air Force Major General at the time of his retirement on November 1, 1963. He had an advertising background and extensive counter-insurgency experience in Southeast Asia. Lansdale is credited in many circles with coming up with the idea, single handed, that destroyed the Huk rebellion in the early fifties in the Philippines. The Huk were very superstitious. They believed in vampires. Lansdale got a few dead Huk bodies, put holes in their necks and hung them upside down.69

Like Rostow, Lansdale was a veteran of the OSS. He had served in Vietnam during the Eisenhower administration and had become a close personal friend of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.70

His advertising background blended well with his expertise: psychological warfare; or psy-ops. There are now manuals on psy-ops and Lansdale is considered the father of that type of warfare.

He was the model for the imperialistic "Colonel Hillindale" in the William Lederer/Eugene Burdick novel The Ugly American; the most celebrated American dark spy.71

During January through April of 1961, Lansdale's overriding motive was to be Ambassador to South Vietnam. Lansdale, by that time, was probably the only American advisor Diem trusted. Diem was very isolated by then. After his first White House meeting with Lansdale on Vietnam, Kennedy had decided to fire Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow. Kennedy would change his mind about this in a month or two.72

Following the firing of Durbrow, Kennedy appointed Frederick E. Nolting. So Lansdale sought to capture the apparatus to formulate, approve and implement Vietnam policy and be the key player in all three stages until a U.S. victory was achieved in Vietnam. It almost worked. The reason it did not, as far as military historian John Newman can tell, is because Dean Rusk threatened to resign if Lansdale got his way. Lansdale's letters from 1964 show that he found out from some of his contacts that Rusk had laid his job on the line.73

As the author of the book JFK and Vietnam, John M. Newman, explained: "Lansdale's a loose cannon on deck. Kennedy liked him, at least initially for a while, but he had big problems. No doubt about it. In the Pentagon, the Pentagon brass didn't like him. Secretary of State Rusk did not like him. However he did have a big patron in Kennedy's inner circle....Walt Rostow! Walt Rostow, the Vietnam guy. And I was able to track this fairly successfully I think. If it weren't for Walt Rostow, Lansdale wouldn't have had a prayer with this crazy plan of his to try and capture this emerging Vietnam policy apparatus."74

So in the first four months of the Kennedy Administration Lansdale sought the ambassadorship and then control of the emerging policy apparatus of Vietnam and failed at both. The only evidence of Rusk's motive is a document released in 1991 by the State Department. It is a document in which Rusk wrote about not trusting Lansdale. He was unsure of Lansdale's loyalties.75

Although he cannot document it, Newman is certain that Lansdale worked for the CIA while wearing an Air Force uniform. One indication of this in Lansdale's private letters and memoranda is that General Curtis Le May, the Air Chief of Staff, seemed to be unable to promote him. Allen Dulles had to be involved in getting Lansdale promoted from colonel to general. And a number of other patterns are apparent such as social events with Charles Cabell. Edward Lansdale and Charles Cabell were very close.76

The end result of these first few months, in essence, is that Lansdale was fired from any position on Vietnam policy. For Edward Lansdale that was a traumatic experience. Vietnam was his primary concern. South Vietnam was his creation. In his book, Newman stopped writing about Lansdale at that point although there was a lot more to him. It involved Cuba and Operation Mongoose and other matters that were not the focus of his book.77

Lansdale had lost something that mattered a great deal to him. In his letters he wrote about going through the experience of being relieved of these responsibilities in Vietnam. Newman describes him as a man whose heart was broken "because he could not play any more in his favorite sandbox." By the end of 1961 Kennedy had put him in charge of Operation Mongoose. He was in charge of an enormous apparatus with tremendous resources, weapons and personnel. Newman, having read the NSC meeting minutes where Kennedy announced Lansdale was now going to be in charge of Mongoose, believes that Kennedy did not appreciate the way Lansdale related to being involved in Vietnam policy.78

With such extreme feelings about his predicament in 1961, Lansdale might have gone any number of ways to rectify his situation. What was he thinking? In what direction and how far would he go? Newman summarized the portion of his book in which he dealt with that question:

Lansdale was not a combat troops man, yet the very first piece of paper ever in the history of the Vietnam war where an American officer recommends a U.S. troop commitment to Vietnam, Lansdale was the one who authors it. It's right in that critical time frame right after the failure at the Bay of Pigs; right before the crucial decision Kennedy has to make on going into Laos. His Vietnam Task Force paper is coming in through the door. The night, the very night that the Joint Chiefs figure out that Kennedy is going to say no on Laos, Lansdale, late at night in the Pentagon, slips in this combat troop proposal in the Vietnam Task Force report. It's not like him. The way I interpret that -- and I may be in error -- the way I interpret that is he understands that the star rising on the horizon is U.S. intervention in Vietnam. And he understands that he has lost his position in the Kennedy administration which has a decidedly different approach. So he switches forces and he joins forces with those planning for intervention. And it was a good decision on his part, was it not? He was there when they arrived. He was on the team.79

The Mongoose files of the Senate Church Committee reveal that they wanted to know when and who authorized assassination. The Kennedy Administration had supposedly gotten away from that. It was clear to the committee, however, that they had not. There were plans and resources being devoted to assassinate Castro. So the purpose of the questioning was to find out who, and when it was authorized.80

Lansdale testified that he did it all alone. When asked why, his answer was that during the missile crisis the Russians had changed the terms of reference by putting missiles in Cuba. So Lansdale decided all on his own that he was going to change things and get rid of Castro.

After reading a pre-galley copy of JFK and Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg called Newman one night very excitedly. Ellsberg had worked with Lansdale and knew him extremely well. He said, "This is the first time I've ever thought that Lansdale might have been involved in the assassination." Ellsberg based this on Lansdale being removed from Vietnam planning and moved to Operation Mongoose.81

By February 1963 Lansdale had no position in Cuban policy and was focusing on Latin America. He was traveling to countries like Bolivia and elsewhere. The U.S. had a lot of personnel in South America under Kennedy. And a lot of them ended up going to Vietnam. According to Newman there is a blind spot as to exactly what they were doing and how many people the U.S. had in Latin America.82

"I can tell you," Newman said, "that in the collateral research that I did, names that I came across, I found a correlation between -- I don't say this is definitive but I got a lot of hits -- the same names of the guys that were running around in Latin America, particularly in Cuban policy, end up in the Far East Division. Very strange coincidence. There were three -- it wasn't just one -- there were several. A neat nexus between the Southeast Asian guys and Cuban guys."83

Lansdale was also spending a lot of time at air bases and other areas in the southern United States; in Florida and in Alabama. Newman recalled from Lansdale's travel records that one of these other areas was some sort of a Cuban-exile camp. The record for that trip included a cover note to the person coordinating it telling him to keep quiet. Lansdale apparently wanted to make sure that no one knew that he was going there.84

There was also an honorary graduation certificate from the sniping school that the U.S. had in Panama. He went there, Newman recalled, in May or April 1963. He was made an honorary graduate there. Lansdale was going to various clandestine and special forces places in the spring and summer of 1963.85

One more event that Newman remembered from the spring 1963 period was that Lansdale was due to retire. And he was extended by Le May, arbitrarily, for another six months or so to November 1, 1963; with no job; no real responsibilities. Fletcher Prouty claims Lansdale was just at a desk by himself.86

In the summer of 1963 there were two interesting events concerning Vietnam. The U.S. had a problem with Diem. The regime would not compromise at all. It went in the opposite direction. Buddhists were killed. They began immolating themselves. The regime still would not relent. The political bottom completely fell out in Saigon.87

Newman said he came across an intriguing article in a local, small magazine from this period. It had a picture of Lansdale and a typical title like, "America's Most Celebrated Spy." It was about a Lansdale trip to Saigon. His travel records, however, indicate that he was not supposed to be in Saigon. This was around July-August 1963.88

The article reported an assassination attempt on Lansdale. The assassins missed and somebody killed the alleged assassin. Then he went to a meeting with Ambassador Lodge. According to Newman, "This is clearly impossible from the record because Lansdale has no authority or position to be involved in Vietnam policy. It would make sense in terms of going back and pleading with Diem and getting Lansdale to do it. Maybe Diem would listen to Lansdale. But I did find a record. He might have been in Saigon." Newman found evidence of a six- or seven-day break in Lansdale's normal activities.89

Among Lansdale's contacts in the last three to four months of Kennedy's life, Newman found "a lot of Spanish names. I found names that were reminiscent of CIA type folks."90

In 1963, Lansdale was Fletcher Prouty's boss. Prouty insists that he was sent to the South Pole by Lansdale to get him out of the way so that he would not witness the events of November 22, 1963. Presumably this was done because if Prouty had been there he would have figured out what was going on. Prouty has claimed that in the photograph of the three tramps walking across Dealey Plaza, the man in a suit with what looks like a wire coming out of his ear and going into his suit coat is Edward Lansdale -- that he recognized the back of his head and his gate. Among Lansdale's letters, John Newman and David Lifton found a slip of paper that has "The Texas Hotel" on it and a phone number in Denton. Lansdale's letters also reveal that he was headed in the direction of Dallas in November 1963.91

Lansdale wrote to a number of friends and associates beginning in September 1963, of his intention to go to Texas in November. There are as many as ten letters, according to Newman, where he described this upcoming trip to two people. One was his son. The other one was General "Hangin' Sam" Williams, an old buddy and McGarr's predecessor in Vietnam. He lived in San Antonio.92

The last piece of paper that Newman found placing Lansdale physically in Washington is dated November 14, 1963. It concerns running errands for his wife. After that there is no record of his whereabouts except for a box of incidentals, which had this piece of paper in it. It has on it "Texas Hotel" and "Denton" and a name and phone number. As Newman said, "That might be from 1949 or it might be 1968 and again it might be November 1963. Because the Texas Hotel is where Kennedy stayed the night before he died, and Denton, Texas is just north here of Dallas, it all fits in. But it certainly is not conclusive."93

Lansdale dropped out of sight at this point. He resurfaced back in Washington in the Food for Peace Program and was soon given a job by Johnson back in Vietnam. He had contacts who got him interviews in the White House. In fact he would be on the ground in Vietnam when U.S. combat troops arrived.94

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69. Unpublished Transcript: John M. Newman with Gus Russo, "Unscheduled Workshop on Major General Edward G. Lansdale, Colonel Howard L. Burris and Air Force Intelligence Connections to the Kennedy Assassination," Second Annual Assassination Symposium on John F. Kennedy, Hyatt Regency Hotel at Reunion Square, Dallas, Tx., Oct. 24, 1992, p. 1.

70. John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam, (NY: Warner Books, 1992), p. 3.

71. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 1.

72. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 3.

73. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 3.

74. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 14.

75. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 3.

76. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 3-4.

77. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 4.

78. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 4.

79. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 13-14.

80. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 5.

81. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 4-5.

82. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 5.

83. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 27.

84. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.

85. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.

86. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.

87. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.

88. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 9.

89. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 9-10.

90. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 10.

91. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 2; Stone, JFK: The Book of the Film, pp. 182-183.

92. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 11; Stone, JFK: The Book of the Film, p. 183.

93. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 11-12.

94. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 12.

Edited by Steven Gaal

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