Jim DiEugenio on The Devil's Chessboard

[Paul Brancato]

Jim - great review. I am slowly reading the book, patiently not skipping ahead to DeGaulle etc., so it's nice to get a good hint of what is to come. I agree with you that it is strange that no one comments here on the section on DeGaulle, especially considering the stuff most of us already know about the presence of a French assassin in Dallas (Mertz/Soutre) or on Dinkins (do I recall his name right?) who picked up info on the assassination of JFK while monitoring OAS communications. I guess I never realized fully how deep the rift was between JFK and Dulles.

I suspect that some readers here think that Dulles was right about the dangers of Communism, and JFK wrong in his efforts to arrive at peaceful coexistence with the Soviets and in his support for third world nationalist leaders like Lumumba. We will never know what kind of world we would be living in today if Dulles and company had not 'won' the debate.

[Dawn Meredith]

I am kind of surprised that no one has mentioned what I consider to be really important information, some of it original, in the book that I specifically detailed in the review.

Let me name just a few:

1. The bombshell interview of DeGaulle after he returned form JFK's funeral and said that Kennedy's death was clearly a conspiracy between his security forces and the military; that Oswald was simply a cover story and was supposed to be disposed of, but Jack Ruby became the clean up guy. This is within days of the murder.

2. Kennedy telling the French ambassador that he does not have control over the CIA, but he will do what he can to back DeGaulle during the OAS revolt. He later revealed he did not believe Dulles' denials of non involvement, This was clearly one of the reasons JFK fired him.

3. Dulles actually lobbied his way onto the Warren Commission. This is striking, since as far as I can tell, no one else did that. Some of these guys had to have their faces slapped to agree to serve on this thing: like Russell and Warren. Why would Dulles do such a thing?

4. Well, maybe because his agenda from the beginning was to cover up absolutely everything about the case and turn it into (lying) biographies of Oswald and Ruby? Which he did, more than any other Commissioner.

5. That Bill Harvey was on a plane to Dallas in November from Italy. Which means that the following people were in Dallas either on the day of the assassination or in the weeks leading up to it:

Allen Dulles

David Phillips

Howard Hunt

Bill Harvey.

Hmm. Maybe they were all Cowboys fans? I doubt it.

6. But this attraction might explain why Dulles was at the Farm from Friday to Sunday night though, eh? Perhaps coordinating the "plumbing" put in by his former subordinates who admired him like an idol. Some retirement eh? Should not Clover and he have been at their home in Georgetown, watching the TV spectacle. After all he was retired.

7. What other Warren Commissioner had an agent inside the Garrison camp?

8. What other Warren Commissioner flew to Missouri to get Truman to retract his editorial about the CIA being out of control and doing things he never dreamed they should do. An article Harry Truman started about 9-10 days after Kennedy's murder. (And by the way, Talbot did not include the best part of this exchange between Harry and Dulles--the part that was the most incriminating of his own guilt in my view.)

Anyway, it is a really good book. Everyone should read it.

Really, I cannot believe how many off topic responses are here. It was a great review Jim. I plan to read it again, and I have the book, it's my next book to read. Reading Don Jeffries' now. I wish his chapter on John John was longer.

After I re-read this comprehensive review I will comment further. Some of the things you mentioned I already knew, but the DeGaulle stuff was very telling. I think most leaders knew it was a conspiracy pretty quickly.

Dawn

[Scott Kaiser]

Jim - great review. I am slowly reading the book, patiently not skipping ahead to DeGaulle etc., so it's nice to get a good hint of what is to come. I agree with you that it is strange that no one comments here on the section on DeGaulle, especially considering the stuff most of us already know about the presence of a French assassin in Dallas (Mertz/Soutre) or on Dinkins (do I recall his name right?) who picked up info on the assassination of JFK while monitoring OAS communications. I guess I never realized fully how deep the rift was between JFK and Dulles.

I suspect that some readers here think that Dulles was right about the dangers of Communism, and JFK wrong in his efforts to arrive at peaceful coexistence with the Soviets and in his support for third world nationalist leaders like Lumumba. We will never know what kind of world we would be living in today if Dulles and company had not 'won' the debate.

strange that no one comments here on the section on DeGaulle

I've learned that some folks are blind.

[James DiEugenio]

That's why I jumped back on.

Sometimes you have to spell this stuff out. Or it gets lost in the shuffle.

Edited December 21, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Thomas Graves]

That's why I jumped backed on.

Sometimes you have to spell this stuff out. Or it gets lost in the shuffle.

So according to you, Talbot has proved that not only Harvey, but Dulles, Phillips, and Hunt were in Dallas "either on the day of the assassination or the weeks leading up to it."

Amazing, Jimbo. I didn't know that.

Thanks!,

--Tommy

Uhh.. Assuming they weren't all in Dallas on 11/22/63, just how many weeks "leading up to the assassination" are we talking about here? Two? Four? Twelve? Half a freaking year?

Edited December 20, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Brian Schmidt]

Great review, Jim.

It is well documented that Dulles was in Dallas in late October 1963 as part of the book tour. He places Harvey in Dallas in early November, per his deputy Wyatt, who saw him board a plane for Dallas. As for Phillips, he relies on the Veciana story of DAP meeting Oswald in September. In the case of Hunt, he really doesn't provide any hard evidence, but discusses the Marchetti Liberty Lobby article and ensuing lawsuit, as well as Hunt's own confession.

Edit: He also asserts Morales was in Dallas.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Brian Schmidt

[Thomas Graves]

Great review, Jim.

It is well documented that Dulles was in Dallas in late October 1963 as part of the book tour. He places Harvey in Dallas in early November, per his deputy Wyatt, who saw him board a plane for Dallas. As for Phillips, he relies on the Veciana story of DAP meeting Oswald in September. In the case of Hunt, he really doesn't provide any hard evidence, but discusses the Marchetti Liberty Lobby article and ensuing lawsuit, as well as Hunt's own confession.

Thank for the summary, Brian.

Now I understand.

All four of those bad guys were in Dallas within four or five weeks of each other.

--Tommy

[Paul Brancato]

What's up Tommy? Are you reading the book? Or grinding some invisible axe?

[Thomas Graves]

What's up Tommy? Are you reading the book? Or grinding some invisible axe?

Hi Paul,

Neither, actually.

I was just thanking Brian for coherently summarizing what Jimbo had kinda alluded to in point " 5) " of his post.

I mean, Jimbo has a way with words which, IMHO, tends to cast irrational, exaggerated, hyperbolic aspersions on anyone and everyone he thinks might have been involved in the assassination of JFK, even documented high-level CIA scumbags like Harvey, Dulles, Phillips, and Hunt (all of whom I do believe were involved to some yet-undetermined degree.)

So where am I coming from on all this?

Just something I learned in law school, of all places.

i.e. , In order to ensure that the the average citizen (read "suspect") is accorded his or her Constitutional Rights, the worst (read "documented CIA scumbag") among us must be accorded those very same rights.

No, I'm not saying Jimbo is (or was) trying to deny anyone their Constitutional Rights, for cryin' out loud.

Jus' sayin' that the fact that four known high-level CIA scumbags were in Dallas at different times during the four or five weeks "leading up to the assassination" doesn't necessarily mean that they were there on assassination business. Hey, even scumbags deserve a break from time to time. Take me, for example. You know, documented "paid professional disinfo agent" that I must be. I need all the freaking breaks I can get around here.

Regardless, thanks for asking, Paul,

--Tommy

PS As for reading the book, maybe I'll get around to it some day. But I already have a good idea on how horrible those big scumbags Allen and John Foster were, and I'm afraid that if I read the book, I'll learn so many bad things about them (is this correct grammar, Jon G. Tidd?) and their friends that it will throw me into a Deep Deep Politics mode, and I'll actually start believing that 9/11 was an inside job, that ISIS was intentionally created by Sandy Berger, that the moon really is made of green cheese, and that Lee, Harvey, and Henry were Sodomite Aliens From Another Solar System who were genetically engineered to resemble each other light years before they came to Earth. And if I do that, I'm afraid that I'll eventually start hating my Dead Mother's Apple Pie, (her potato salad was even better), the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers, The Grateful Dead, and, heaven forbid, TCU Football. And well, ... life simply ... won't be worth living ... anymore.

But hey, if you do read anything in it about Guy Bannister, or David Sanchez Morales, or Billings' "Spanish Trace / Shepherd" (you know, the powerfully-built "Spanish"-looking guy who had a one-inch scar on his left eyebrow) or, even better -- since-deceased-at-93-years-of-age ONI Special Agent Robert David Steel (who, when I asked him, could remember how long his small WW II boat-- USS Sea Scout [q.v.] was, and where he was when he heard Pearl Harbor had been attacked, but for the life of him couldn't remember where the heck he was when he heard JFK had been shot), please do let me know about it. Oh, and BTW -- Steel, a native Texan, was a very good friend of Dallas polygraph specialist, Paul Bentley...

If anyone wants to see what Steel looked like (I'm guessing around year 2000), all they gotta do is google Robert D. Steel in quotation marks, and you can see his nice obituary picture. FWIW, he lived in that hotbed of Intelligence and "professional paid disinfo agents," my hometown, La Jolla, California.

Seriously.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[James DiEugenio]

Great review, Jim.

It is well documented that Dulles was in Dallas in late October 1963 as part of the book tour. He places Harvey in Dallas in early November, per his deputy Wyatt, who saw him board a plane for Dallas. As for Phillips, he relies on the Veciana story of DAP meeting Oswald in September. In the case of Hunt, he really doesn't provide any hard evidence, but discusses the Marchetti Liberty Lobby article and ensuing lawsuit, as well as Hunt's own confession.

Edit: He also asserts Morales was in Dallas.

Thanks Brian.

But if you read the review, I did not rely on the same sources in my review that Talbot did.

For instance, if you follow the footnote on Phillips, I rely on his brother's phone call with him to place him in Dallas on the day of the assassination.

As per Hunt, I rely on the Angleton memo which does state specifically that Hunt was in Dallas that day.

BTW, its hard to believe, but the traffic to this review has gone through the roof.

It is getting 1400 hits per day, and about 1200 visits. Which is an amazing ratio.

Edited December 21, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[David G. Healy]

...

deleted: duplicate post

Edited December 21, 2015 by David G. Healy

[David G. Healy]

Great review, Jim.

It is well documented that Dulles was in Dallas in late October 1963 as part of the book tour. He places Harvey in Dallas in early November, per his deputy Wyatt, who saw him board a plane for Dallas. As for Phillips, he relies on the Veciana story of DAP meeting Oswald in September. In the case of Hunt, he really doesn't provide any hard evidence, but discusses the Marchetti Liberty Lobby article and ensuing lawsuit, as well as Hunt's own confession.

Edit: He also asserts Morales was in Dallas.

Thanks Brian.

But if you read the review, I did not rely on the same sources in my review that Talbot did.

For instance, if you follow the footnote on Phillips, I rely on his brother's phone call with him to place him in Dallas on the day of the assassination.

As per Hunt, I rely on the Angleton memo which does state specifically that Hunt was in Dallas that day.

BTW, its hard to believe, but the traffic to this review has gone through the roof.

It is getting 1400 hits per day, and about 1200 visits. Which is an amazing ratio.

great topic, great review, great sales = the big leagues. Congrat's Jim and David Talbot of course!

p.s. the book is getting more ink, er..... pixels NOT being reviewed by the NYT -- go figure, lmao!

Edited December 21, 2015 by David G. Healy

[Brian Schmidt]

Jim--when I was reading Talbot's book, I was waiting for him to mention some of the things you did in your review, but he never did. I wish he would have delved a little deeper into the veracity of the claims that all those men were indeed in Dallas with more supporting evidence, but I suppose it was outside the scope of the book.

[James DiEugenio]

At his talk in LA, he did say that he attempted to get William Harvey's travel vouchers from the CIA.

HIs claim was denied. In the book, he says that Dan Hardway, an HSCA investigator, did try and get both Harvey's travel vouchers and his security file. And he could not.

BTW, the thing that surprised me that Talbot left out, was the last part of Dulles' conversation with Truman while Dulles was on the Warren Commission. This was when Dulles flew out to Missouri to try and get Truman to retract his Washington Post editorial about the CIA being out of control and not being anywhere near what he envisaged it to be when he approved the plans for it. Recall, the column appeared on 12/22/63. But from Truman's notes, he began work on this editorial about one week after Kennedy was killed.

Talbot includes the visit there, and the phony memo that Dulles wrote to CIA files about it. But he left out what I thought was the most incriminating part of the visit. Where Dulles himself brings up Kennedy's name as being the reason for the visit. Again, this was while he was on the Warren Commission! And it was in regards to Vietnam!

So as I wrote in my book, Destiny Betrayed, second edition, "Dulles' comments imply that he thought Truman wrote the column due to his suspicions about the CIA, Kennedy's murder, and the Vietnam war--which Johnson was now in the process of escalating. What makes this even more fascinating is that if one looks at the very first wave of Kennedy assassination boohs and essays, no one connected those dots-... that early. By getting Truman to retract, was Dulles trying to prevent anyone from doing so in the near future? If so, as prosecutors say, it reveals "consciousness of guilt" . (pgs. 380-81)

Puzzling to me why Talbot left that out. Maybe he does not agree with me about Kennedy and Vietnam.

Edited December 21, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Larry Hancock]

Jim, I finally got around to checking Flawed Patriot and in the 2006 edition page 208 under the headline Rome And The Italian Connection it describes an aide waking Harvey up on

Nov. 22 in Rome to give him news of the assassination. When does Talbot have him flying off to Dallas?