Question about Souetre and New Orleans?

[Steve Thomas]

Over the years I have seen references about Jean-Rene Souetre being in Louisiana and being at a training camp, and or a suitcase with $200,000 in it.

I've also seen references to Souetre being in Florida in April, 1963 - perhaps the Hotel Fontainbleu?

But the only thing I have ever seen are the same second or third hand references being repeated over and over.

Has anyone ever seen a first-hand reference from someone saying, yes, I was there and yes, I saw these things?

And, if so, could you direct me to a citation or citations?

 

Thanks,

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

[Larry Hancock]

Steve, I share your pain.  I went on exactly that same quest and found what you are finding...nothing but third party information and in context nothing about his activities of that year or his travels which would have tended to make sense of it.  Good hunting..

 

[Steve Thomas]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

Steve, I share your pain.  I went on exactly that same quest and found what you are finding...nothing but third party information and in context nothing about his activities of that year or his travels which would have tended to make sense of it.  Good hunting..

 

Larry,

 

Thanks. It's frustrating at times, isn't it?

I spent about a year trying to get something from the French National Archives. It was only a list of names of the people who were also tried alongside of Souetre before the military tribunal in December, 1961 only to be told that it was still classified ! 

 

I ultimately did find it, - in a newspaper no less :-)

 

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

On 4/4/2017 at 2:15 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Over the years I have seen references about Jean-Rene Souetre being in Louisiana and being at a training camp,

Steve Thomas

 

 

 

A Possible French Connection
http://www.xiconhoca.org/PDF/DDeRoux/Apossiblefrenchconnection.pdf

In a lawsuit initiated by Gary Shaw against the Department of State, and filed by Bernard Fensterwald, it says, “Equally, when DeGaulle visited New Orleans on May 3, 1963, there was a plot against his life by OAS sympathizers...all of which has been confirmed by one of those sympathizers”.

 

Does anyone know much about this visit by DeGaulle to New Orleans in May, 1963?

Lee Harvey Oswald had moved there shortly before that.

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

[Steve Thomas]

On 4/6/2017 at 10:55 AM, Steve Thomas said:

 

A Possible French Connection
http://www.xiconhoca.org/PDF/DDeRoux/Apossiblefrenchconnection.pdf

In a lawsuit initiated by Gary Shaw against the Department of State, and filed by Bernard Fensterwald, it says, “Equally, when DeGaulle visited New Orleans on May 3, 1963, there was a plot against his life by OAS sympathizers...all of which has been confirmed by one of those sympathizers”.

 

Does anyone know much about this visit by DeGaulle to New Orleans in May, 1963?

Lee Harvey Oswald had moved there shortly before that.

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

This is on page 7 of Fensterwald's memo, page 9 of the pdf file.

 

I've been looking and I can find no record or newspaper article of this visit.

 

Steve Thomas

[Larry Hancock]

Steve, looked into that long ago and found that he visited New Orleans in 1960 and that was it; not in 1963.

https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/visits/france

 

He was planning to visit Mexico in 1964 and did so in March of that  year.  That's about as close as you can get him..

 

[Jeffrey Reilley]

 

"...a) met Howard Hunt and Jean Claude Perez (Chief of ORO) in Madrid; went

to the Caribbean with Laszlo Varga, Lajos Marton, and

Buscia;

c) went to New Orleans and met with Carlos Bringuier; d) went to Dallas and

met with General Edwin Walker; e) went to Lake Pointchartrain and helped'

train anti-Casto Cubans. It is known, in any event, that during this period

he had many contacts with anit-Castro Cubans. It is also known that he visited

Spain in July, 1963."- on page 14.

Well, that seems a bit concerning...

[Steve Thomas]

7 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Steve, looked into that long ago and found that he visited New Orleans in 1960 and that was it; not in 1963.

https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/visits/france

 

He was planning to visit Mexico in 1964 and did so in March of that  year.  That's about as close as you can get him..

 

Larry,

 

Thanks.

 

I wonder who gave Fensterwald that specific date?

 

*shrug*

 

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

3 hours ago, Jeffrey Reilley said:

 

"...a) met Howard Hunt and Jean Claude Perez (Chief of ORO) in Madrid; went

to the Caribbean with Laszlo Varga, Lajos Marton, and

Buscia;

c) went to New Orleans and met with Carlos Bringuier; d) went to Dallas and

met with General Edwin Walker; e) went to Lake Pointchartrain and helped'

train anti-Casto Cubans. It is known, in any event, that during this period

he had many contacts with anit-Castro Cubans. It is also known that he visited

Spain in July, 1963."- on page 14.

Well, that seems a bit concerning...

Jeff,

 

That's what I mean by second and third hand information.

I'd like to see some first person accounts.

It's logical he would have been in Spain in July. He lived there most of the time - there and Lisbon.

 

Steve Thomas

 

Steve Thomas

[Jeffrey Reilley]

Yeah the more I read, the more I became skeptical of the veracity of the text. Still though, very interesting and eye opening, even if only half of what is written in there is true.

Edited April 8, 2017 by Jeffrey Reilley

[Larry Hancock]

Steve, I would be interested in seeing which of the points you find verifiable...and if they are really abnormal.  What we do know is that the OAS, and Souetre were working against deGaulle...there were three assassination attempts on him in 1963, five in 1964 and three more in 1965. They also reached out to the CIA trying to sell the line about deGaulle's government being heavily penetrated by communists hence untrustworthy and dangerous. Angleton actually bit on the OAS accusations and spent time on them in 1963, with his usual enthusiasm and lack of success. Both the CIA and FBI had an interest in and files on Souetre. Check pages 367, 368 and 377 for what we do know about the OAS and Souetre in that period.  I also mentioned other things discussed above as unverified...with what I learned later I wish I had just left them out but hey, researdh marches on...

[Steve Thomas]

13 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Steve, I would be interested in seeing which of the points you find verifiable...and if they are really abnormal.  What we do know is that the OAS, and Souetre were working against deGaulle...there were three assassination attempts on him in 1963, five in 1964 and three more in 1965. They also reached out to the CIA trying to sell the line about deGaulle's government being heavily penetrated by communists hence untrustworthy and dangerous. Angleton actually bit on the OAS accusations and spent time on them in 1963, with his usual enthusiasm and lack of success. Both the CIA and FBI had an interest in and files on Souetre. Check pages 367, 368 and 377 for what we do know about the OAS and Souetre in that period.  I also mentioned other things discussed above as unverified...with what I learned later I wish I had just left them out but hey, researdh marches on...

Larry,

 

I liked your line about Angleton's "usual enthusiasm and lack of success" It made me smile.

 

These are just a couple of things I have learned.

Perez said (to Fensterwald?) that, post 1962, Souetre was part of an ultra-right, ultra-Catholic splinter group which included four men named Pichon, Lefevre, Bourget, and Grossouvre. Group called Integraliste 
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/S Disk/Souetre Jean with aka's/Item 11.pdf
page 4

 

Albert Lefevre was the one man I could find that both stood trial with Souetre in December, 1961 and who escaped with him from the Camp at St. Maurice L'Ardoise in February, 1962.

I have not researched the Integraliste organization.

Head of the OAS ORO Branch, 
Organisation-Renseignement-Opération (read Propaganda), Jean-Claude Perez  told Fensterwald on Saturday, November 20, 1982 that:
“The OAS had contact  in New Orleans with an anti-Castro group which he called the “Rosa Blanca”

The Rosa Blanca was a real network that was established in 1959 in New Orleans to oppose Castro.
So far, everything I have seen indicates to me that they were benign.

I believe that a representative of the CIA did meet with Souetre and either Yves Guérin-Sérac or Pierre Sergeant in Lisbon in May, 1963 (“I've seen both men mentioned).

I think they were trying to tip the Americans off that DeGaulle wasn't going to be part of the picture too much longer, if you get my drift.
I'm not convinced it was Hunt they met with. I think Hunt said he hadn't been back to Spain after 1962.
I think it was more likely Brown.

I believe the part about the KGB infiltrating the SDECE. It was the same thing that Vosjoli and Goytsin were telling the Americains. This information was causing the Americains great consternation. I think Kennedy even wrote DeGaulle a handwritten letter about it. I think the French were trying to steal American nuclear technology and it was getting back to the Russians.

After his escape from the prison camp in February, 1962, I wondered how, on foot, he was able to get from the southern coast of France to Spain in 1963. I think it was through the efforts of Pierre Guillaume – head of the naval section of the OAS, and naval advisor to one of the Putsch generals, but I can't remember if it was Gardy, or Jouhaud. Souetre would take Guillaume's place in the OAS when Guillaume was arrested in 1962.

Les soldats perdus : des anciens de l'OAS racontent

Author:
Vincent Quivy

“ Without economy and without resources since he had deserted, Soueter was trying to work to earn enough.

In the autumn of 1963, however, he received 1 million old francs which enabled him to buy a business on the beach in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.”

The OAS veterans who made it to the Balearic Islands were destitute.
I'm not sure about the 1 milliion francs. Quivy doesn't say who gave it to him.

http://jeanjviala.free.fr/1963 a 1965.htm
Le colonel Broizat vivait à Madrid, Joseph Ortiz, le docteur Kovacs, Jacques Achard et Jean-René Souètre à Palma de Majorque, Athanase Georgeopoulos, Robert Tabarot, Michel de la Bigne et Camille Vignau dans la région d'Alicante ... "En situation irrégulière, ils ne pouvaient obtenir un emploi et vivaient dans le dénuement". Anne Dulphy L'algérie française et l'Espagne franquiste in l'Algérianiste, numéro 121 mars 2008.

“In an irregular situation, the were not able to obtain employment and lived in destitution”.

Palma de Mallorca is the major city and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situated on the south coast of the island on the Bay of Palma. As of the 2009 census, the population of the city of Palma proper was 401,270, and the population of the entire urban area was 517,285, ranking as the twelfth largest urban area of Spain - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palma,_Majorca

He would  return to Palma de Majorque in 1971 after his sojourn in Africa with the Tschombe affair.

 

From everything I have read of Souetre's writings, I believe patriot - yes, as he saw patriotism.

Assassin - no.

 

Like I said, these are just a couple of things.

 

PS: Have you ever read any of the writings of Guerin Serac? Total war on a global scale.

Some scary stuff.

Steve Thomas
 

[Steve Thomas]

15 hours ago, Jeffrey Reilley said:

Yeah the more I read, the more I became skeptical of the veracity of the text. Still though, very interesting and eye opening, even if only half of what is written in there is true.

Jeff,

 

Don't stop.

Always question. Double check and cross reference.

Be skeptical.

 

These are good.

 

Steve Thomas

[Larry Hancock]

That all seems credible to me Steve, certainly the OAS was reaching out to the US and the CIA in order to undermine DeGaulle. Hunt was in Spain supporting the Artime project by 64, but probably not in 63...its just so easy to toss Hunt's name in anywhere and make things look suspicious...grin.  If OAS reps met with somebody I certainly can see it being Angleton, especially since they were claiming Russian infiltration in Paris. Guerin Serac is new to me but through the fifties and into the sixties global warfare and nuclear warfare were just constants, you ran into it everywhere - well at least anybody my age did. . 

[Steve Thomas]

4 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

That all seems credible to me Steve, certainly the OAS was reaching out to the US and the CIA in order to undermine DeGaulle. Hunt was in Spain supporting the Artime project by 64, but probably not in 63...its just so easy to toss Hunt's name in anywhere and make things look suspicious...grin.  If OAS reps met with somebody I certainly can see it being Angleton, especially since they were claiming Russian infiltration in Paris. Guerin Serac is new to me but through the fifties and into the sixties global warfare and nuclear warfare were just constants, you ran into it everywhere - well at least anybody my age did. . 

Larry,

"its just so easy to toss Hunt's name in anywhere and make things look suspicious...grin."

 

You got that right.

 

"If OAS reps met with somebody I certainly can see it being Angleton..."

 

My bet is on Irving Brown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Brown

He was involved in Algeria, Chile (Allende), Africa, Western Europe (Spain and France), a real "get around" guy. Meaning he ceratinly got around a lot.

If I understand it, he may have been advising the French generals during the April, 1961 putsch in Algeria.

 

Yves Guerin-Serac - total war across all specrtrums of society - religious, cultural, economic, military. 

He had a real global and take no prisoners outlook.

Reading him and Roger Trinquer (a great believer in torture to get information) together will keep you up at nights.

 

Steve Thomas