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Michele Metta interviews Jim DiEugenio on JFK, the CIA, Shaw, and Italy


Paz Marverde

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Edgardo Pellegrini, an Italian journalist, in 1995, during a conference in Rome revealed he was in constant contact with Garrison's staff. I could give you more details, but they are in Italian ... A translation would be needed. Pellegrini was investigating Centro Mondiale Commerciale, at the time Garrison was investigating Clay Shaw 

Paz will know more than me, obviously.  Edgardo Pellegrini is listed as a journalist for Paese Sera.  He wrote the 1973 book Gli Ermellini da Guardia: Magistratura e repression in Italia 1968 - 1973, which is listed in Ernest Mandel's book Power and Money as part of the literature on 'state-induced massacres covered up by the Italian judiciary'.  Pellegrini's (Italian language) book is here - 

https://www.amazon.it/ermellini-guardia-Magistratura-repressione-1968-1973/dp/B00BAT6XHO

The following articles confirm Paz's comment about Pellegrini and the Garrison case.  The article below talks about the May 1970 book Strage di Stato [State Massacre], which was a volume assembled by investigative journalists on the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing.  After the bombing, hundreds of figures on the left 'gathered information, testimonies and statements to provide an interpretative key to the events different from the official one'.  Information on the bombing, and the surrounding events, was gathered from all levels of society.  Pellegrini was one of the sources of information from Rome.  Throughout the 60's (and through the years of the Garrison investigation), Pellegrini had written for the 'foreign section' of the left-wing L'Unita newspaper.  Under the pseudonym of 'Samuel Evergood', Pellegrini had written various 'correspondences from the United States' (all of which were actually written by him in Rome) that had been sourced from various contacts within the USA.  So, when L'Unita was covering the Garrison case, Pellegrini was the guy who would have covered those US-based stories on the assassination, and who would have directly contacted figures in the US for information on what was occurring.  When the Piazza Fontana bombing occurred in December 1969, Pellegrini would have only just finished covering Garrison’s trial several months earlier.

http://www.magzine.it/una-strage-di-stato/

The article states

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Following alternative investigations into Kennedy's death, Pellegrini came across Permindex, a company that financed many neo-fascist groups, including Italian ones.

Michele Metta talks about Strage di Stato, and Pellegrini's involvement, here.

http://www.lantidiplomatico.it/dettnews-il_centro_mondiale_commerciale_ed_il_caso_pasolini__parte_seconda/82_19442/

In a commemorative edition of Strage di Stato, Pellegrini added an appendix where he discussed how he'd stumbled across Clay Shaw's membership of CMC-Permindex.

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Clay Shaw came out financing Permindex.  And Permindex financed the neo-fascists in Italy and in South Tyrol.  Some time before, following my story about the Wanninger crime (an aspiring model killed in Rome) I had been attacked and kicked out of the office of a strange German film producer who didn't produce films.  And I still had in my eyes the heading of a letter in front of him, on his desk: Permindex, of course.  After the Piazza Fontana massacre, the Milanese judges searching the house of a supposed coup-supporter found an old letter from General Allavena, head of the secret services, in which he recommended not to dig too deeply into the Wanninger case...

At the 1995 conference mentioned by Paz, Pellegrini was asked about the genesis of Strage di Stato.  Pellegrini responded that the group assembling the book had been inspired by the earlier examples of Jim Garrison and Mark Lane.

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On the death of Kennedy, two exceptional characters had acted.  One, probably everyone who saw the movie JFK knows who he is: Louisiana prosecutor Jim Garrison, who is the focus of the film.  The other person, on the other hand, was a lawyer, a self-appointed lawyer for the reputation of Lee Harvey Oswald.  His name was Mark Lane, and he wrote a wonderful book called America on Appeal (likely the Italian title for RUSH TO JUDGEMENT).  Jim Garrison and Mark Lane made the two greatest counter-investigations, I think, of this century, of a state crime.  That is: the counter investigations made by the Louisiana Attorney and this lawyer were absolutely a spectacular thing, and in the group of Democratic and Left journalists (as we who contributed to the drafting of the book Strage di Stato were), we were constantly in contact with them, with their groups, and we studied their investigative techniques like journalistic methods that were alternative methods to those in power.  These investigative journalistic techniques were fully imported by the group that later made Strage di Stato.  These are the various components that were behind us.

Strage di Stato was published on May 13th 1970, amid various concerts, lectures and theatrical performances, and was a big success.  It sold 20,000 copies immediately, and another 20,000 copies were printed two months later, in July 1970.  By 1971 there were five editions, and that fifth edition contained additional commentary.  The book was reprinted continuously up to 1977, by which point Strage di Stato had sold half a million copies.  And Pellegrini says the book was directly inspired by the work of Garrison and Lane.  This is no small thing.

Edited by Anthony Thorne
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No, not at all.

Amazing, how all these years later, still finding out new info on the Garrison and Permindex and man does the CMC look worse and worse as more comes out.

I will never forget how that second generation of researches like Scott, Summers, and especially Hoch, felt this was all to be disregarded.

They actually trusted FBI asset Jim Phelan, who we now know was a complete and utter xxxx.  And if Albarelli was right, he actually burglarized Garrison's office with a couple of CIA agents. After saying he had no connection and hated the CIA.  He also said of course that he had no connection to the FBI before that.  Turns out he lied about both.

This Pellegrini guy sounds like a real first rate investigative reporter. 

Edited by James DiEugenio
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10 hours ago, Anthony Thorne said:

Paz will know more than me, obviously.  Edgardo Pellegrini is listed as a journalist for Paese Sera.  He wrote the 1973 book Gli Ermellini da Guardia: Magistratura e repression in Italia 1968 - 1973, which is listed in Ernest Mandel's book Power and Money as part of the literature on 'state-induced massacres covered up by the Italian judiciary'.  Pellegrini's (Italian language) book is here - 

https://www.amazon.it/ermellini-guardia-Magistratura-repressione-1968-1973/dp/B00BAT6XHO

The following articles confirm Paz's comment about Pellegrini and the Garrison case.  The article below talks about the May 1970 book Strage di Stato [State Massacre], which was a volume assembled by investigative journalists on the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing.  After the bombing, hundreds of figures on the left 'gathered information, testimonies and statements to provide an interpretative key to the events different from the official one'.  Information on the bombing, and the surrounding events, was gathered from all levels of society.  Pellegrini was one of the sources of information from Rome.  Throughout the 60's (and through the years of the Garrison investigation), Pellegrini had written for the 'foreign section' of the left-wing L'Unita newspaper.  Under the pseudonym of 'Samuel Evergood', Pellegrini had written various 'correspondences from the United States' (all of which were actually written by him in Rome) that had been sourced from various contacts within the USA.  So, when L'Unita was covering the Garrison case, Pellegrini was the guy who would have covered those US-based stories on the assassination, and who would have directly contacted figures in the US for information on what was occurring.  When the Piazza Fontana bombing occurred in December 1969, Pellegrini would have only just finished covering Garrison’s trial several months earlier.

http://www.magzine.it/una-strage-di-stato/

The article states

Michele Metta talks about Strage di Stato, and Pellegrini's involvement, here.

http://www.lantidiplomatico.it/dettnews-il_centro_mondiale_commerciale_ed_il_caso_pasolini__parte_seconda/82_19442/

In a commemorative edition of Strage di Stato, Pellegrini added an appendix where he discussed how he'd stumbled across Clay Shaw's membership of CMC-Permindex.

At the 1995 conference mentioned by Paz, Pellegrini was asked about the genesis of Strage di Stato.  Pellegrini responded that the group assembling the book had been inspired by the earlier examples of Jim Garrison and Mark Lane.

Strage di Stato was published on May 13th 1970, amid various concerts, lectures and theatrical performances, and was a big success.  It sold 20,000 copies immediately, and another 20,000 copies were printed two months later, in July 1970.  By 1971 there were five editions, and that fifth edition contained additional commentary.  The book was reprinted continuously up to 1977, by which point Strage di Stato had sold half a million copies.  And Pellegrini says the book was directly inspired by the work of Garrison and Lane.  This is no small thing.

Anthony,

amazing work. Thank you indeed!

Yes, there is, I add, a very peculiar story about that "Samuel Evergood", the pseudonym Pellegrini used. The reason was that l'Unità was the Italian Communist Party newspaper, so the USA would have never allowed a Communist journalist to work in the United States.

 

 

Edited by Paz Marverde
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Paz, no I don't, not really, but I've spent the past 8 years researching Italian westerns for a film project and I have a couple of Italian-language books on that subject, so a bit has sunk in.  Google translate also gives me a head start though and I tidied things up a bit from there.

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The film project I'm doing is a long history of spaghetti westerns, put together with the assistance of US writer Tom Betts, who ran the American magazine WESTERNS ALL' ITALIANA.  It's a long, review based project with lengthy credits and filmographies and info about multiple movies.  Italian writer Roberto Curti helps every so often with advice and feedback, and UK writer Jason Slater (who knows the guy) offered to get Franco Nero to write a foreword.  The book is multi-volume and won't be ready for years though.  The complete credits of the movies (minus the reviews) runs for more than 200 pages - the review text and info runs for hundreds of pages more.  It's like a crazy hobby.

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1 hour ago, Anthony Thorne said:

WESTERNS ALL' ITALIANA

Absolutely wonderful. Sergio Leone made the best of them, IMHO. Thanks, also, to a very young Clint Eastwood, by the way. Giù la testa is my preferred, with a terrific Rod Steiger and an epic history of love, friendship and betrayal. C'era una volta il West has an astonishing Fonda. Nice to meet you, Anthony 

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