Guy Banister and the CIA

[Cory Santos]

22 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Cliff hasn't visited the forum in over a year.  I hope he's alright.  If not maybe that's his ghost by your pool.

No, his unpaid food and drink bill continues.   This is what happens when one loses a bet and the other person enjoys welfare.  

[James DiEugenio]

Cory:

Don McGovern's part 2 is coming up soon.  He will delve into that like no one but him can do. And if you do not know who he is, it is your loss.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/reviews/collateral-damage-mark-shaw-s-public-atrocity-part-2

And please note this by Don on Summers and Monroe,   https://www.kennedysandking.com/articles/marilyn-tony-summers-and-his-paper-tiger

And no its not the same.  It is literally impossible for RFK to have been in Brentwood that day.  (See Susan Bernard, Marlyn: Intimate Exposures, pp. 186-87)

What this has to do with Guy Banister and the CIA is beyond me.

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Douglas Caddy]

On 8/24/2022 at 3:07 AM, Bob Ness said:

 

Thanks to you both. Doug Caddy suggested something earlier but took his explanation off line. Beginning to think I'm no longer part of the cool kids hahaha!

I am today requesting Gerry Down to post verbatim in this topic the private message that I sent him about this matter.

[Douglas Caddy]

On 8/24/2022 at 3:11 AM, Bob Ness said:

Doug would you mind answering that for me too? That's the first thing that came up for me too.

 

On 8/24/2022 at 3:11 AM, Bob Ness said:

Doug would you mind answering that for me too? That's the first thing that came up for me too.

I am today requesting Gerry Down to post verbatim in this topic the private message that I sent him about this matter.

[Tom Gram]

14 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

Ok, applying your same logic and rules now, Ms. Murray’s account that RFK visited LA on the day Marilyn was murdered is corroborated by a mayor, police officer, Peter Lawford’s ex,Fred Otash, a former police chief, and John Dickie, just to name a few.   
The same logic and rules have to be consistently applied.   

I'm not familiar with the evidence for RFK in Brentwood, but I agree with Jim that if there is directly contradictory evidence i.e. it is impossible for RFK to have been there, it's not remotely the same as Oswald at 544 Camp St. The evidence that Oswald's FPCC charade was a propaganda operation is as compelling as it gets, and I don't see how anyone can honesty believe at this point that lowly lone-nut Oswald decided on his own to open his phony "branch" of the nationally defunct FPCC and spread the good word of Fidel Castro in 1963 New Orleans. It's beyond absurd.

Oswald was observed through INS surveillance of Cuban exile groups, and one INS investigator told the Church Committee words to the effect that "Oswald was known to be a member of Ferrie's group", and "he had an office in..." before he was cut off and asked to come in to testify. The Committee took executive session testimony from at least three INS officers: Wendell Roache, Ron Smith, and Art Bero, and likely several more. ALL of that testimony (plus the testimony of Orestes Pena which triggered the INS/Customs investigation) has disappeared.  Essentially the entire documentary record of the Hart-Schweiker committee investigation of Oswald in New Orleans has completely vanished. There must be an innocent explanation though, right? Not a chance in hell. The INS/Customs angle is astonishingly suspicious, and one of several credible examples of independent corroboration for Delphine Roberts.

Basically, the overall evidence suggests that Roberts was likely telling the truth about Oswald at 544 Camp St. - and the only logic necessary to come to that conclusion is actual logic. 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Tom Gram

[James DiEugenio]

This is really something:

 Essentially the entire documentary record of the Hart-Schweiker committee investigation of Oswald in New Orleans has completely vanished. 

You would have thought that the ARRB would have been turning over things to find this material instead of smearing Fletcher Prouty.

[Gerry Down]

13 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is really something:

 Essentially the entire documentary record of the Hart-Schweiker committee investigation of Oswald in New Orleans has completely vanished. 

You would have thought that the ARRB would have been turning over things to find this material instead of smearing Fletcher Prouty.

If there was something big in there, how come Hart or Schweiker didn't come out and tell us all? Any connection between Oswald and Ferrie would have been big news if Oswald was indeed one of "Ferries group".

[James DiEugenio]

 

According to Mellen for example, this was about the INS records. And if you follow the Church Committee, that work was not done by the senators, but the staff lawyers and investigators.

It was then tossed upwards.  It appears that, within a week, the INS stuff was neutralized.

[Gerry Down]

As per Orest Pena, Oswald was hanging around with the FBI, INS and Customs. Obviously his job was to expose pro Castro exiles for these groups. But how did they have such reach as to get into the church committee and what appears to be to make the original testimonies disappear. That's an extraordinary ability. And then for Hart and Schweiker to not come out publicly and denounce this. I can't understand what mechanism they employed to achieve such a successful wide-ranging cover-up.

Even the investigator saying he cut off the witness before he said where Oswald had his office. Why would an investigator cut someone off like this and then write that that is what they did. Doesnt seem natural.

[Tom Gram]

8 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

 

According to Mellen for example, this was about the INS records. And if you follow the Church Committee, that work was not done by the senators, but the staff lawyers and investigators.

It was then tossed upwards.  It appears that, within a week, the INS stuff was neutralized.

Well, the INS investigation went on at least through December '75. The Committee actually included references and footnotes to aspects of the INS testimony in rough drafts of their report, but they were all removed by the final draft.

My guess would be that sometime before the release of the report, all the INS/Customs stuff was neutralized due to "national security" or some crap, and when the records were turned over to the Senate Select Committee someone deep-sixed all of them.

I think the Church Committee got too close to what Oswald was really up to in New Orleans, and went outside the scope of their mission of examining the performance of the intelligence agencies in the assassination investigation - and got stomped out by the Executive Branch, or something along those lines. 

[Gerry Down]

52 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

Well, the INS investigation went on at least through December '75. The Committee actually included references and footnotes to aspects of the INS testimony in rough drafts of their report, but they were all removed by the final draft.

My guess would be that sometime before the release of the report, all the INS/Customs stuff was neutralized due to "national security" or some crap, and when the records were turned over to the Senate Select Committee someone deep-sixed all of them.

I think the Church Committee got too close to what Oswald was really up to in New Orleans, and went outside the scope of their mission of examining the performance of the intelligence agencies in the assassination investigation - and got stomped out by the Executive Branch, or something along those lines. 

There seems to be 5 angles to this specific cover-up:

1- The guy who said on his phone interview that Oswald had an office and was one of Ferries group, I doubt he said this in his official in-person testimony or we would have heard about it. Someone must have told him to keep quiet.

2 - Then you have the guy doing that interview who seems to not want to know what he is supposed to be investigating.

3 - The INS/customs stuff is kept out of the final report.

4 - Then the testimonies go missing from senate select committee.

5 - Hart and Schweiker not coming out publicly afterwards and saying there was stuff kept secret (but as Jim D says, did they know about what the staffers were doing under them?).

How were they able to achieve such a cover-up of the INS/Customs stuff? The cover up seems to have been led by the FBI because if Oswald's connection to INS/Customs was discovered, then so too would Oswald's relationship with Warren de brueys. So it would seem your talking about the fbi and their contacts doing this cover-up. But even then it seems extraordinary that they were able to achieve such a wide ranging cover-up.

Gerald Ford was president at the time and he had an established relationship with the fbi. That would have been of some help.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Gerry Down

[James DiEugenio]

As Tom notes, the first two phone calls with Roache got through. And we have those.

After that, the INS stuff was going to be neutralized. And this is detailed above by Tom.

According to Jim Gochenauer, there was a strong military presence with the committee.  From his pre interview onward.

This included his interview with Schweiker.  Who actually asked him if he felt intimidated by the two Navy guys there.

 

[Gerry Down]

8 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

As Tom notes, the first two phone calls with Roache got through. And we have those.

After that, the INS stuff was going to be neutralized. And this is detailed above by Tom.

According to Jim Gochenauer, there was a strong military presence with the committee.  From his pre interview onward.

This included his interview with Schweiker.  Who actually asked him if he felt intimidated by the two Navy guys there.

 

Does Gochenauer say why the military were present during interviews?

[Joe Bauer]

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I think the Church Committee got too close to what Oswald was really up to in New Orleans, and went outside the scope of their mission of examining the performance of the intelligence agencies in the assassination investigation - and got stomped out by the Executive Branch, or something along those lines. 

Agree.

[Tom Gram]

Back to Banister for a moment. I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I looked into it a bit more and am starting to think this is something legitimately suspicious. The CIA in 1967 wrote the following memo, which states that Banister's OS file reflects that he was approved for use as a foreign intelligence source on 11/16/60, (the exact same memo also says the approval occurred on the 10th, but we'll go with the 16th for now) which I believe was four days after Sergio Arcacha Smith became FRD delegate in New Orleans and one day after William Dalzell had his first alleged contact with the CIA Field Office about the Free Voice of Latin America:

That's all well and good right? Wrong. The problem is that the OS files for neither Banister nor GB&A reflect any contact approval in November 1960. Unless I'm missing something the relevant documents appear to have disappeared:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=102735#relPageId=1

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=102736#relPageId=1

Betsy Palmer's notes, the HSCA staffer who reviewed Banister's CIA files, mention the security approval, but the language she uses is identical to the above 1967 memo.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1f8Wdj1_s0giks1waCAlJ2pwhsVjoof1p?direction=a

Where the hell are the contemporaneous records reflecting Banister's CIA contact approval  for "routine exploitation as a foreign intelligence source" in November 1960?

Edited August 26, 2022 by Tom Gram