Jean Rene Souetre expelled from the US 18hrs after JFKA?!

[Larry Hancock]

I really don't know how to answer you Paul,  those posts detail the FBI investigation in response to the French request, their follow up with French intelligence and French intelligence inquiry into the whole matter including the confusion with the letter and card exchange with Souete's former acquaintance in Texas - no visit was made - just mail - as well as the detailed backtracking of the misinformation about the French restaurant employee who did travel to Texas, Mexico and Canada and then back to France. The FBI located the Texas man who had invited that Frenchman to visit him in the US and look for work and who himself verified his identify and his travel to the Fort Worth area and on to Mexico. After French intelligence interviewed the Frenchman themselves (he had already returned to France) they were satisfied that the whole thing (which had originated in a news story in a small French newspaper) was a mistake and as you can see their concern about DeGaulle's travel to Mexico was no longer an issue.  The links in my blog posts to the various documents  make that story quite clear, to me at least.  If you don't find it so you can call me to discuss it further 580-347-3213.  Or perhaps you can state more specifically why you don't find the FBI and French intelligence conclusions to be reasonable in regard to the fact that a Frenchman did travel to  the Dallas area, on to Mexico, and back through Canada to France - but that he was specifically identified, described his own travel, contacts and movements in detail and was not Souerte.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Larry Hancock

[Denis Morissette]

[Denis Morissette]

Steve, I’ve reached my maximum upload amount. I’ll post a link.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Denis Morissette

[Denis Morissette]

Second page. https://ibb.co/hRrHgmd

[Paul Brancato]

Denis - thanks for digging this out, even if I can’t understand it. Any chance you could translate? The name Mertz is plainly visible, as is CIA, so I’m curious. 

[Denis Morissette]

Loose translation:  I had nothing to do with these events. It was a shock when I heard about this when it was published by The Inquirer. I’ve never had the visit of any police or investigators, so I was unable deny I had ties with a certain Dr. Alderson I may have met 40 years ago… However, it seems possible to me that M. Mertz, a notorious « barbouze » and trafficker had the opportunity of using my identity in dubious activities. It’s up to him to answer these questions.

[Denis Morissette]

A barbouze was a secret agent used by France in secret operations in Algeria in those days. I sent Souetre the photo of him with Dr Alderson of Texas and the one of someone who looks like him with Oswald in Minsk. The WC identified him as Alfred of Cuba. Marina was present when that Minsk was taken. 

[Steve Thomas]

17 hours ago, Denis Morissette said:

Steve, I’ve reached my maximum upload amount. I’ll post a link.

Denis,

Thank you for that. It's a little hard to make out his handwriting. I was able to get about 50%.

Your loose translation is spot on.

Thank you again for your effort to dig this out.

PS: The barbouzes were something, weren't they?

Steve

Edited May 29, 2022 by Steve Thomas

[Paul Brancato]

On 5/19/2022 at 7:30 PM, Larry Hancock said:

Paul, if you back though the links in my post  you will find that the French actually tracked down and interviewed he restaurant employee who had been in Texas, Mexico and Canada and who was associated with the original small French newspaper speculation that led to French intelligence contacting the FBI in the first place.   With that and the information from the FBI they had the full story that the only connection to Texas for Souetre was the Christmas cards and letters and that involved correspondence only - although it had confused the investigation for a time. At that point French intelligence merely advised the FBI, thanks them for their help and that was it as far as I can tell.   Of course I'm doing this post from memory but that is my recollection.  As to why one would believe the FBI, well first off they did do a detailed investigation with several agents and took the French request seriously, that is clear and we have a pretty solid point by point detailing of the inquiry, not just some superficial memo written without spending time on it.   As to the French,  they had instigated the inquiry over concern about Souetre being in the US but most particularly in Mexico - with DeGaulle's planned spring 1964 trip in mind.  And that trip did proceed as planned:  https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/20/archives/de-gaulle-ends-hls-mexican-visit-speeches-brief-as-he-starts-back.html

He also participated in several open car motorcades and very public appearances while in Mexico: 

 

 

Larry - I’ve been putting off organizing a response on why I don’t feel this is the final version. Eventually I’ll do it, but generally it has to do with Fensterwald, who appears to have had eye witnesses that tell a different story. But one simple question I have is whether the FBI investigation and subsequent report to the French proves to you that Michael Mertz wasn’t in Dallas possibly using Souetre as an alias. The general thing that concerns me is that while the specifics of the FBI report may answer a specific question about Souetre’s whereabouts, which was what the French were inquiring about, it doesn’t eliminate the possibility that assassins from the European milieu either as part of ZRRIFLE, QJWIN, AMWORLD were in Dallas that day, or that one or more members of OAS didn’t organize a hit team, or that Mertz wasn’t there. Did the FBI specifically say that no Europeans were expelled from the area, regardless of what name they used? 

[Larry Hancock]

The FBI only investigated the lead in terms of Souetre - simply because they had been requested to by the French due to concerns abut De Gaulle's planned trip to Mexico.  As far as I know they had no specific lead about Mertz.  Of course they found that the restaurant employee who had visited his friend in Forth Worth had indeed left the Dallas/Fort Worth area at that time (not Souetre) so a European had left (not expelled per se but I suspect he was on a visa so their might have been a time frame in play) for Mexico City.   

As you say, the FBI inquiry doesn't write off lots of other possibilities, simply because their investigation was very focused on what the French had asked them to check.

 

[Pete Mellor]

12 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Larry - I’ve been putting off organizing a response on why I don’t feel this is the final version. Eventually I’ll do it, but generally it has to do with Fensterwald, who appears to have had eye witnesses that tell a different story. But one simple question I have is whether the FBI investigation and subsequent report to the French proves to you that Michael Mertz wasn’t in Dallas possibly using Souetre as an alias. The general thing that concerns me is that while the specifics of the FBI report may answer a specific question about Souetre’s whereabouts, which was what the French were inquiring about, it doesn’t eliminate the possibility that assassins from the European milieu either as part of ZRRIFLE, QJWIN, AMWORLD were in Dallas that day, or that one or more members of OAS didn’t organize a hit team, or that Mertz wasn’t there. Did the FBI specifically say that no Europeans were expelled from the area, regardless of what name they used? 

Yeah, good post Paul, my thoughts are that I reckon we'll never know for sure.

[Guest]

On 5/13/2022 at 5:44 PM, Leslie Sharp said:

cut...   I understand you are very close to the solution of all the mysteries of President Kennedy’s assassination, but I suspect you are without key information. This information concerns the holders of many of the missing cards, Jean Souetre, as well as Jean Paul Filiol, both known to have been in Dallas on 22 November 1963. . . . Included in this knowledge are Mme. Lamy and M. Litt, all mentioned before, and extremely distasteful individuals. . . . I am anxious to spell this out for you by coming to Washington, D.C. ...  cut        

 

Do you have some more information on this Mme. LAMY ?

As George DM's partner in the Sigurd Company was a Marie LAMY...

The other partner (and his girlfriend) was Sylvie .... (still looking for her last name)

I have already mentioned Marie LAMY in another topic.

LAMY is a common name in France, but nothing would surprise me... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Guest]

Just found that this Mme LAMY was Alice Lamy, she was the wife of Filliol

On 30 November 1945, she confessed to being present on 9 June 1937 (murder of the Italian Roselli brothers by the extreme right-wing Cagoule org.), but she admitted nothing else...

Edited January 18, 2023 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Roger Odisio]

On 6/7/2022 at 8:22 PM, Larry Hancock said:

The FBI only investigated the lead in terms of Souetre - simply because they had been requested to by the French due to concerns abut De Gaulle's planned trip to Mexico.  As far as I know they had no specific lead about Mertz.  Of course they found that the restaurant employee who had visited his friend in Forth Worth had indeed left the Dallas/Fort Worth area at that time (not Souetre) so a European had left (not expelled per se but I suspect he was on a visa so their might have been a time frame in play) for Mexico City.   

As you say, the FBI inquiry doesn't write off lots of other possibilities, simply because their investigation was very focused on what the French had asked them to check.

 

While preparing for a trip to Mexico by DeGaulle in the Spring of '64, French authorities contacted the FBI after they came across a story claiming that Souetre was in Dallas at the time of the JFA and was arrested and deported shortly thereafter.  Together, they determined that a man named Michel Roux (who was, they said, "not identical" to Souetre) had indeed been in Fort Worth at that time and left of his own volition.  Souetre had used Roux as one of his many aliases. That ended the inquiry.

 

This finding that Souetre did not use the Roux alias in Dallas, or at least Roux himself was there, may have satisfied the French, but it does *not* put the matter of Souetre's possible role in the JFKA to rest. Why would it?  As far as I can tell, there had been no determination about where Souetre himself was. Certainly the FBI wasn't interested in exploring Souetre's possible role--but rather covering it up if it surfaced.

 

There is, however, this passage in Albarelli, Coup in Dallas, p, 431, "The FBI had little in its files on Souetre, but the CIA notified the FBI that it had a large dossier on the Frenchman as well as photographs of him.  The full content or extent of the CIA's files on the Frenchmen have never been revealed despite numerous Freedom of Information filings, all of which have been denied to date."

 

Note to Bill and Larry:  Are the CIA's Souetre files on your list of things to ask NARA about?

 

Larry mentions that "FBI Dallas had initially advised the National Inquirer reporter [on the story] that it had no files on Jean Souetre or any expulsion from Dallas but that it would query IRS [apparently a typo for INS]." But he mentions no follow up.  Even if  Souetre's being  arrested and hustled out of Dallas was recorded in some way (a dubious assumption at best), it's even more unlikely authorities would acknowledge it when asked later.

 

For a fuller treatment of Souetre and his whereabouts during the JFKA, including matching it with entries in the Lafitte notebook, see the last chapter in Coup in Dallas, "D'Affaire Kennedy".  Seems like that's the definitive treatment so far of Souetre's possible involvement, in the context of the findings throughout the book.

[Paul Brancato]

4 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

While preparing for a trip to Mexico by DeGaulle in the Spring of '64, French authorities contacted the FBI after they came across a story claiming that Souetre was in Dallas at the time of the JFA and was arrested and deported shortly thereafter.  Together, they determined that a man named Michel Roux (who was, they said, "not identical" to Souetre) had indeed been in Fort Worth at that time and left of his own volition.  Souetre had used Roux as one of his many aliases. That ended the inquiry.

 

This finding that Souetre did not use the Roux alias in Dallas, or at least Roux himself was there, may have satisfied the French, but it does *not* put the matter of Souetre's possible role in the JFKA to rest. Why would it?  As far as I can tell, there had been no determination about where Souetre himself was. Certainly the FBI wasn't interested in exploring Souetre's possible role--but rather covering it up if it surfaced.

 

There is, however, this passage in Albarelli, Coup in Dallas, p, 431, "The FBI had little in its files on Souetre, but the CIA notified the FBI that it had a large dossier on the Frenchman as well as photographs of him.  The full content or extent of the CIA's files on the Frenchmen have never been revealed despite numerous Freedom of Information filings, all of which have been denied to date."

 

Note to Bill and Larry:  Are the CIA's Souetre files on your list of things to ask NARA about?

 

Larry mentions that "FBI Dallas had initially advised the National Inquirer reporter [on the story] that it had no files on Jean Souetre or any expulsion from Dallas but that it would query IRS [apparently a typo for INS]." But he mentions no follow up.  Even if  Souetre's being  arrested and hustled out of Dallas was recorded in some way (a dubious assumption at best), it's even more unlikely authorities would acknowledge it when asked later.

 

For a fuller treatment of Souetre and his whereabouts during the JFKA, including matching it with entries in the Lafitte notebook, see the last chapter in Coup in Dallas, "D'Affaire Kennedy".  Seems like that's the definitive treatment so far of Souetre's possible involvement, in the context of the findings throughout the book.

Roger - thanks for picking up the ball. Many good researchers dismiss Souetre, or any French connection generally. DeGaulle did not. Albarelli likewise. The first reason this general theory appealed to me, and the reason I keep coming back to it, are entries in William Harvey’s files referring to the use of foreign agents and assassins. Combined with the QJWIN enduring mystery, the possible links of Otto Skorzeny to that individual or operation, Private Dinkins overhearing OAS radio traffic, etc, even Operation Gladio, Lemnitzer being sent to head NATO, Permindex, all of it points in the direction of possible outsourced assassins with a European connection. None of it actually conflicts with theories revolving around the CIA - Dulles Helms Angleton Phillips etc.