Bill Kelly's Review of David Talbot's new book "The Devil's Chessboard"

[James DiEugenio]

Chris,

The Eugene Dinkin episode has been pretty much ignored by everyone except Russell. I think its really interesting. Garrison thought so also. I mean anyone who predicted the JFK murder in advance should have been interviewed at length.

The whole OAS thing is also ignored, but it should not be. Since JFK was pushing for France to get out of Algeria way back in 1957. This is why in Destiny Betrayed second edition, right after I discuss that great speech, I bring up the fact that Jean Souetre was in Fort Worth the morning of the assassination, and then went to Dallas that afternoon. (p. 27)

He was picked up within 48 hours and jetted out of the country.

Edited November 1, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Chris Newton]

They've basically been doing the same thing, today, to Bradley Manning that they did to PFC Dinkin but in Dinkin's case they were able to put a lid on it.

I have always wondered about Souetre, I'm not sure it was him or someone using his alias. If we want to go out on a limb and trust Hunt (EH), then it seems likely Souetre was hired by Harvey and was one of the perps behind the picket fence. I know most of the stories surrounding Souetre like his famous escape in Paris, leaping out a second story window and hopping on a waiting motorbike. He was the real deal.

[Richard Gilbride]

What convinced me that Souetre's alias had been used by ex-French Resistance commander & international heroin smuggler Michel Victor Mertz was this 1999 interview of Souetre by journalist Monique Lajournade, which took place at the same Riviera casino Souetre had been working PR at when the National Enquirer found him in 1983:

"This was the Resistance led by Commandant Gandoin, a pro-Communist resistance in the area of Tulle in the Creuse... they killed all the right-wing people who in the future could have been hostile to the rise of communism in that area... he took part in those rudimentary murders. One cannot say that Mertz was a war hero; he was really just a murderer and it was as a murderer he was used."

Souetre said that American investigators questioned him after the assassination, which impelled him to do some detective work on Mertz. "I can tell you that I got immediately interested in Mertz when I saw the direction events were taking. I told myself you'd better find out as many things as possible on this guy. Someone like that had the perfect profile of a gangster... The US authorities- who were able to find me so easily- never pursued Mertz for proper questioning. When they approached me, I proved to them that I wasn't the one in Dallas, that I had never been to the United States."

"What shocks me most is to see that Mertz was never interrogated. First, he was on the crime's location, then he got expelled by the FBI, exfiltrated to Canada. One doesn't get rid of a suspect like that so quickly. One tries to get proper information from him. Consequently, Mertz was able to continue with his illegal activities...

And to be able to move around the way he did and especially with his police records, he must have had very important support from a very high level... They had plenty of time to go to the French police with a rogatory commission. I had a rogatory commission who came to interrogate me. They could have done the same with Mertz. I told them what I'm telling you now...

At any rate, the French services could have known about the preparation of the assassination but wouldn't have given the information to the US authorities. Or maybe they did transmit the information, and then it was hidden."

[Paul Brancato]

Very convincing interview which I had not seen before, even though I was aware of the story that Mertz used Souetre's alias.

[Chris Newton]

In the context of what Dulles was doing in Switzerland during WW2, it's interesting that Mertz was a highly effective French Underground operator south of Paris at the same time and working presumably with OSS support. What are the odds that there is a relationship?

[Gene Kelly]

Chris:

It certainly begins to tie some loose ends closer together. Couple this to the attempt on DeGaulle and CIA's alleged involvement, and it connects more dots. William Harvey had been 'banished' to COS Rome at this point, but Mertz is clearly an asset in his executive action arsenal. The interview with Souetre is 36 years after the assassination, and he relates Mertz as a 'gangster' profile involved in pro-Communist resistance (i.e. killing right wing folks who would otherwise oppose a communist regime). It's odd that Mertz' associations are diametrically opposite of what the suspect CIA rank and file are idealistically aligned towards. But then, he is in reality a stone cold murderer. More misdirection (like the Walker head-fake), perhaps?

That Mertz is whisked out of the country quickly, through Canada no less (Winnipeg Airport?) and back to France rings alarm bells as well. Smacks of the hand of one Lucien Conein, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and covert intelligence (OSS/CIA) agent whose career ranged from landing by aircraft in Nazi-occupied France during World War II to participation in the coup d'etat that brought down Diem in 1963. Conein's career ranged from landing by aircraft in Nazi-occupied France during World War II to participation in the coup d’état that brought down Diem in 1963. His biography states that he orchestrated the infiltration of spies and saboteurs into Eastern Europe after World War II. Born in Paris, raised in Missouri, he retained his French citizenship, and initially joined the French Army. After the fall of France to Germany in 1940, he made his way back to the United States, joined the U.S. Army and, because of his fluency in French, was assigned to the OSS. Henry Cabot Lodge, Kennedy's ambassador to South Vietnam, called him "the indispensable man" and a vital liaison between the U.S. Embassy and the South Vietnamese generals who killed Diem in 1963. During his OSS service in wartime France, he lived and worked with the Corsican Brotherhood, which also was part of the Resistance. In the late 1950's Vietnam, Conein served in a special action group under General Edward Lansdale. He also had cover in DEA (under Nixon) and was rumored to be considered for Watergate by Hunt. He was highly decorated by CIA, died in 1998, and was buried at Arlington. His background and friends were all poison as far as JFK's health was concerned. And his OSS and french/Corsican ties would be ideal to handle Mertz. Talk about the right (or wrong) connections... he was surely one of Dulles' loyal acolytes.

The connections almost seem too obvious... retrospectively almost too logical to be true.

Gene

[Cliff Varnell]

Chris:

It certainly begins to tie some loose ends closer together. Couple this to the attempt on DeGaulle and CIA's alleged involvement, and it connects more dots. William Harvey had been 'banished' to COS Rome at this point, but Mertz is clearly an asset in his executive action arsenal. The interview with Souetre is 36 years after the assassination, and he relates Mertz as a 'gangster' profile involved in pro-Communist resistance (i.e. killing right wing folks who would otherwise oppose a communist regime). It's odd that Mertz' associations are diametrically opposite of what the suspect CIA rank and file are idealistically aligned towards. But then, he is in reality a stone cold murderer. More misdirection (like the Walker head-fake), perhaps?

That Mertz is whisked out of the country quickly, through Canada no less (Winnipeg Airport?) and back to France rings alarm bells as well. Smacks of the hand of one Lucien Conein, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and covert intelligence (OSS/CIA) agent whose career ranged from landing by aircraft in Nazi-occupied France during World War II to participation in the coup d'etat that brought down Diem in 1963. Conein's career ranged from landing by aircraft in Nazi-occupied France during World War II to participation in the coup d’état that brought down Diem in 1963. His biography states that he orchestrated the infiltration of spies and saboteurs into Eastern Europe after World War II. Born in Paris, raised in Missouri, he retained his French citizenship, and initially joined the French Army. After the fall of France to Germany in 1940, he made his way back to the United States, joined the U.S. Army and, because of his fluency in French, was assigned to the OSS. Henry Cabot Lodge, Kennedy's ambassador to South Vietnam, called him "the indispensable man" and a vital liaison between the U.S. Embassy and the South Vietnamese generals who killed Diem in 1963. During his OSS service in wartime France, he lived and worked with the Corsican Brotherhood, which also was part of the Resistance. In the late 1950's Vietnam, Conein served in a special action group under General Edward Lansdale. He also had cover in DEA (under Nixon) and was rumored to be considered for Watergate by Hunt. He was highly decorated by CIA, died in 1998, and was buried at Arlington. His background and friends were all poison as far as JFK's health was concerned. And his OSS and french/Corsican ties would be ideal to handle Mertz. Talk about the right (or wrong) connections... he was surely one of Dulles' loyal acolytes.

The connections almost seem too obvious... retrospectively almost too logical to be true.

Gene

I like to apply Peter Dale Scott's "Negative Template" -- look for who and what have been left out of official accounts.

From Peter Dale Scott's "Deep Events and the CIA's Global Drug Connection"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/deep-events-and-the-cia-s-global-drug-connection/10095

<quote on>

One significant organizer of the post-war global drug connection — between CIA, organized crime, and their mutual interest in drug-trafficking — was former OSS officer Paul L.E. Helliwell. Helliwell, who was head of the Special Intelligence branch of OSS in Kunming, and later an officer of OPC and the CIA, was simultaneously the owner of the Bank of Perrine in Key West, Florida, “a two-time laundromat for the Lansky mob and the CIA,” and its sister Bank of Cutler Ridge. Here we shall see a number of interrelated mob-CIA money-laundering banks in the global drug connection, of which the greatest was undoubtedly the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

Most people have never heard of Paul Helliwell. Mainstream books about CIA wrongdoings, like Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes, make no mention of him, of his important CIA-related bank, Castle Bank in the Bahamas, or for that matter of an even more important successor bank to Castle, BCCI. In the flood of CIA documents released since 1992, one does not find the name of Helliwell in the archival indices of the National Archive, the National Security Archive, or the Federation of American Scientists. In the million declassified pages stored and indexed on the website of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, Helliwell’s name appears exactly once – and that is on a list of documents that were withheld from review during the CIA’s search in 1974 for records concerning, of all things, Watergate! This silence, even in internal CIA files, about the principal architect of the post-war CIA-drug connection, is eloquent.

<quote off>

Conein was tight with Dulles, no doubt.

But as a top operator in the international narcotics trade Conein was even tighter with Paul Helliwell.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[Paul Trejo]

In all of the two thousand and some books that have been written about the assassination few call attention to certain key facts about the assassination ...General Curtis LeMay was a close personal friend of D. H. Byrd, owner of the Texas School Book Depository....and Dulles’ mistress and agent Mary Bancroft was a close friend and overseas traveling companion of Michael Paine’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young.

While Talbot doesn’t mention her name, he refers to her as “Ruth Paine’s mother-in-law,” reporting that: “...Ruth Paine was aware of her mother-in-law’s connection to Bancroft and Dulles...But with typical obstinacy, Ruth refused to see any particular significance to this Dulles link to her family.”

...As Talbot points out, Ruth and Michael Paine were more than Marina Oswald’s “landlady,” who charged no rent, they were Oswald’s benefactors and sponsors, giving him rides, providing food and clothing for his family and obtaining him the job at the Byrd’s Texas School Book Depository, from where shots were certainly fired at the president.

“In their immaculate innocence, the Paines played right into the hands of those who were manipulating Oswald,” Talbot concludes.

That the mother of the accused assassin’s chief sponsor was a close personal friend and European traveling companion of Allen Dulles’ mistress and agent is not six degrees of separation but two...

There was a lot of movement of the chessboard that day as the CIA briefed the Joint Chiefs, temporarily chaired by Gen. Lemay...when the details of the November visit to Texas was officially announced, and Lee Harvey Oswald slipped out of New Orleans for Mexico City.

The day before, the Oswald’s main benefactor Ruth Paine, had picked up the pregnant Marina and baby and their belongings, including the rifle said to have been used to kill JFK, and drove them to Texas after staying at the Forbes family’s Naushon island off Massachusetts and visiting her husband’s mother – Mary Bancrofts’s good friend in Philadelphia.

As Talbot notes, “Bancroft reminded Dulles that she had known Michael’s mother ‘extremely well’ for over forty years and had spent summers with her on Naushon Island,” so Bancroft recognized the significance of their relationship and conveyed it to Dulles.

Unlke John Wilkes Booth’s landlady, who was executed, and those who assist assassins and terrorists today, who are violently interrogated and vigorously prosecuted, Ruth and Michael Paine were treated with kid’s gloves by the Warren Commission, who was never informed that Michael’s mom was a friend and agent of the former head of the CIA and Warren Commissioner Dulles.

“If the employees of the Book Depository had eaten their lunch in a little different place,” said Dulles, “if somebody had been at one place where he might easily have been instead of another at one particular time – the ‘ifs’ just stand out all over it. And if any one of these ‘ifs’ been changed, it might have been prevented…It was so tantalizing to go over the record [of events], as we did, trying to find out every fact connected with the assassination, and then to say if any one of the chess pieces that were entered into the game had been moved differently, at any one time, the whole thing might have been different.”

...Without endorsing any particular conspiracy theory the “new political landscape” allows for the assassination of the President to be viewed more honestly and clearly and not as it was previously presented, and elevates the discussions and debates to a new level, one that requires the national security state to give up its assassination secrets so it can be more fully understood.

Well, Bill, you've come a long way since your early interviews with Volkmar Schmidt, who supplies solid evidence that LHO actually tried to kill General Walker.

Yet your portrait of David Talbot's book in your theory about Ruth Paine doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

While I'm interested in the role of D.H. Byrd, owner of the TSBD -- especially if he was involved with General Walker, I find nothing in David Talbot's book to make me more suspicious of Ruth Paine -- but rather the reverse.

It now seems to me that Lee Harvey Oswald was selected as the Patsy in the JFK murder, precisely because he tried to kill General Walker.

Yet the linkage of Dulles' 1950's mistress with Michael Paine's mother seems a seriously weak link upon which to base a cogent theory of conspiracy. David Talbot doesn't try to make this linkage -- but your own reading, Bill, seems to press the Mary Bancroft scandal. You write: “But with typical obstinacy, Ruth refused to see any particular significance to this Dulles link to her family.”

It's more than obstinacy, Bill, it's purely reason and logic. There's no logical connection. Ruth's step-mother's love affair with Allen Dulles doesn't make Ruth into a CIA Agent. It's that simple.

The fact is that Ruth and Michael Paine had extended Quaker Charity to Marina Oswald when Marina was eight months pregnant, and when Lee Oswald had no job, and when Marina was whining that Lee Oswald threatened to send her and their babies back to the USSR without him. It is also a fact that if they had not done this -- then the JFK murder might have been averted.

Yet it is equally true, and David Talbot writes, that: “If the employees of the Book Depository had eaten their lunch in a little different place,” said Dulles, “if somebody had been at one place where he might easily have been instead of another at one particular time – the ‘ifs’ just stand out all over it. And if any one of these ‘ifs’ been changed, it might have been prevented…"

As David Talbot suggests, "if any one of the chess pieces that were entered into the game had been moved differently," then history could have turned out quite differently.

But they weren't moved differently. Nor does David Talbot blame the Paines for any of it. On the contrary, Talbot writes:

“In their immaculate innocence, the Paines played right into the hands of those who were manipulating Oswald.”

That conclusion, IMHO, is 100% correct.

Now all that's needed is a fresh, systematic approach to General Walker.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited November 1, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Cliff Varnell]

As David Talbot suggests, "if any one of the chess pieces that were entered into the game had been moved differently," then history could have turned out quite differently.

But they weren't moved differently. Nor does David Talbot blame the Paines for any of it. On the contrary, Talbot writes:

“In their immaculate innocence, the Paines played right into the hands of those who were manipulating Oswald.”

The questionable subtext being "those who were manipulating Oswald" killed Kennedy.

How do we know Allen Dulles wasn't framed in the patsy chain in the top perps' contingency planning?

Oswald-to-Paine-to-Bancroft-to-Dulles is a bit obvious, innit?

LBJ and Dulles were keen operatives of the Lone Nut cover-up perhaps because they both knew they'd been spared the fall guy jacket.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[Jon G. Tidd]

Many individuals had reason to want JFK out of the way. This fact is overlooked when focusing on one particular individual or group.

It should not be overlooked. A skilled intelligence professional in 1963 would have seized upon this fact. This fact predictably has led to hundreds, if not thousands, of who-dun-it books. Books that in sum lead to zero. I think JFK researchers always have overlooked [a] how vulnerable a target JFK was, and how many wanted him dead. A skilled intelligence professional in 1963 would have seen all this clearly.

Bottom line: Fine-grained analyses of the JFK assassination are interesting and valuable. But in toto, they lead nowhere.

The important question is why do they lead nowhere. I believe both this question and its answer were obvious to the plotters in 1963.

The plotters didn't want any trails leading back to them. That's why the CIA-did-it or LBJ-did-it are no more than a distraction. The plotters' whole plan, IMO, was to make LBJ and the CIA nervous and to give them a way out: Oswald.

IMO, what's needed today is not small-scale analysis but big-scale analysis.

[Richard Gilbride]

Hopefully Michel Victor Mertz's arrest record has attached successfully. After the war there was battery, forgery, burglary. a 1951 acquittal for murder, 1953 attempted murder of a policeman, 1965 incitement of a riot, finally serving 8 months of a 5-year sentence in 1971 for heroin trafficking.

Souetre pointed to Alexander Sanguinetti, liason office between the SDECE and the French Interior Ministry, as the man responsible for protecting Mertz. (Service de Documentation Exterieure et Contre-Espionage) Mertz had been part of Sanguinetti's secret unit of barbouzes- Corsican mobsters- groomed by the SDECE to penetrate the OAS. SDECE protection for the Marseilles drug labs allowed them to run amok during the 50's and 60's.

US Federal Bureau of Narcotics records on French heroin production during the late 50's to early 60's are still restricted at the National Archives due to national security (2003 information). Mertz's name was kept out of FBN files until 1965. Bud Fensterwald: "Several times during the 1960s, the US asked France to take action against Mertz, but the French refused because of his SDECE and Gaullist connections. He was literally known as one of the 'untouchables'." During this era the Paris division of the US Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs had never even heard of him.

Photos of Mertz seem to have disappeared from the French SDECE, military, prison and newspaper archives. Two poor-quality prints appeared in "The Heroin Trail", 1974 Newsday.

I have never seen these, but they sure would be interesting.

[Paul Trejo]

As David Talbot suggests, "if any one of the chess pieces that were entered into the game had been moved differently," then history could have turned out quite differently.

But they weren't moved differently. Nor does David Talbot blame the Paines for any of it. On the contrary, Talbot writes:

“In their immaculate innocence, the Paines played right into the hands of those who were manipulating Oswald.”

The questionable subtext being "those who were manipulating Oswald" killed Kennedy.

How do we know Allen Dulles wasn't framed in the patsy chain in the top perps' contingency planning?

Oswald-to-Paine-to-Bancroft-to-Dulles is a bit obvious, innit?

LBJ and Dulles were keen operatives of the Lone Nut cover-up perhaps because they both knew they'd been spared the fall guy jacket.

The Oswald-to-Paine-to-Bancroft-to-Dulles is very little -- it's very weak. Oswald/Paine was in the 1960's. Bancroft/Dulles was in the 1950's.

But more than time, it's really silly to link Ruth Paine with her step-mother's girlfriend, and claim to have a solid link!

While I agree fully that LBJ, Dulles, Hoover and Warren were the masterminds of the JFK Coverup -- there is a benign explanation -- namely, exactly what they told us -- National Security.

It is a weak link to jump to the conclusion that BECAUSE they covered up the JFK murder, that THEREFORE they must have killed JFK.

Too much weak logic.

In fact, General Walker killed JFK. General Walker was a minor king in Dallas. General Walker could get away with anything in Dallas. And he did.

The reason that LHO was selected as the Patsy, was precisely because LHO tried to kill Walker back in April 1963.

There is finally a full-length book on this topic (after half a century) entitled, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy (2015) by Dr. Jeffrey Caufield.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited November 2, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Pat Speer]

and I agree with Jon - in this game of life (which i as a teenager studied, tested, and failed miserably) it occurred to me that sometimes pawns are the exact right approach.

if what's her name had succeeded in poisoning Adolfidel Castro (there are those who think she got quite close), what would we have called that other than a checkmate by a (doomed, for certain) pawn.

these things are quite situational. and to compare life to chess other than in terminology makes no sense to me whatsoever.

i rather like Pink Floyd's metaphor (or is it an asimile?). Pigs, Dogs, and Sheep. simplifies things...

I was just racing through this thread and noticed this post, and thought I'd comment. I apologize if this was brought up in a subsequent post. But it's ironic, in my opinion, that you bring up the use of animals as metaphors for types of people in a thread about the CIA without noting that this reached its apex in George Orwell's Animal Farm, a book so revered by the CIA, and presumably Allen Dulles, that they covertly funded a movie adaptation, that was then promoted around the world.

[Thomas Graves]

On 11/2/2015 at 8:26 AM, Paul Trejo said:

On 11/1/2015 at 1:40 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

On 11/1/2015 at 1:23 PM, Paul Trejo said:

As David Talbot suggests, "if any one of the chess pieces that were entered into the game had been moved differently," then history could have turned out quite differently.

But they weren't moved differently. Nor does David Talbot blame the Paines for any of it. On the contrary, Talbot writes:

“In their immaculate innocence, the Paines played right into the hands of those who were manipulating Oswald.”

The questionable subtext being "those who were manipulating Oswald" killed Kennedy.

How do we know Allen Dulles wasn't framed in the patsy chain in the top perps' contingency planning?

Oswald-to-Paine-to-Bancroft-to-Dulles is a bit obvious, innit?

LBJ and Dulles were keen operatives of the Lone Nut cover-up perhaps because they both knew they'd been spared the fall guy jacket.

The Oswald-to-Paine-to-Bancroft-to-Dulles is very little -- it's very weak. Oswald/Paine was in the 1960's. Bancroft/Dulles was in the 1950's.

But more than time, it's really silly to link Ruth Paine with her step-mother's girlfriend, and claim to have a solid link!

While I agree fully that LBJ, Dulles, Hoover and Warren were the masterminds of the JFK Coverup -- there is a benign explanation -- namely, exactly what they told us -- National Security.

It is a weak link to jump to the conclusion that BECAUSE they covered up the JFK murder, that THEREFORE they must have killed JFK.

Too much weak logic.

In fact, General Walker killed JFK. General Walker was a minor king in Dallas. General Walker could get away with anything in Dallas. And he did.

The reason that LHO was selected as the Patsy, was precisely because LHO tried to kill Walker back in April 1963.

There is finally a full-length book on this topic (after half a century) entitled, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy (2015) by Dr. Jeffrey Caufield.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Any relation to Holden Caulfield?

--Tommy

Edited November 18, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

On ‎11‎/‎2‎/‎2015 at 10:26 AM, Paul Trejo said:

The Oswald-to-Paine-to-Bancroft-to-Dulles is very little -- it's very weak. Oswald/Paine was in the 1960's. Bancroft/Dulles was in the 1950's.

But more than time, it's really silly to link Ruth Paine with her mother-in-law's childhood girlfriend, and claim to have a solid link to the CIA!

While I agree fully that LBJ, Dulles, Hoover and Warren were the masterminds of the JFK Coverup -- there is a benign explanation -- namely, exactly what they told us -- National Security.

It is a weak link to jump to the conclusion that BECAUSE they covered up the JFK murder, that THEREFORE they must have killed JFK.

That 20th century logic is just too weak. 

IMHO, General Walker killed JFK. General Walker was a like a king in Dallas. General Walker could get away with anything in Dallas. And he did.

The reason that LHO was selected as the Patsy, was precisely because LHO tried to kill General Walker back in April 1963.

There is finally a full-length book on this topic (after half a century) entitled, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy (2015) by Dr. Jeffrey Caufield.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

BUMP

Edited November 21, 2016 by Paul Trejo
grammar