Guy Banister and the CIA

[Gerry Down]

51 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:

The 1960 CIA document shows that the agency was interested in Guy Banister about a year after he and I addressed a rally in New Orleans to oppose the World Youth Festival in Vienna.

 

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.assassination.jfk/c/7fKgzfeYtpI?pli=1

 

Wow you knew Guy Banister? That's amazing. Do you put any credence in what was written about him in "Crime of the Century"? - That he was giving some type of college lecture with Oswald in May 1963?

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul Bleau is coming out with a really interesting essay as part 3 of his "Exposing the FPCC" for K and K.

It will touch on some of these subjects. It is largely based on Garrison's files as distributed by Len Osanic.

I should add, Malcolm and Bart have also discovered another hidden gem in the CIA files.

The CIA was paying Shaw directly for his intelligence work abroad in the fifties. A fact they deliberately lied about and which Shaw deliberately lied about repeatedly. Even under oath at his trial.

This does two things: 1.) It explodes the whole HSCA myth about Shaw being part of the voluntary businessmen's program of over 100,000 interviews per year BS,

and

2.) It backs up the discovery by Joan Mellen about Shaw being a valued contract CIA agent since the fifties.

 

I'm really looking forward to that essay from Bleau. Parts 1 and 2 are phenomenal, so I'm very interested to see what he dug up for part 3. 

If Shaw and J. Monroe Sullivan were both cleared through QKENCHANT, would that not allow for the use of the Trade Mart as a full-blown CIA cover operation? Jessie Core and William Martin come to mind as Trade Mart CIA sources, but it's seems like the point of the QKENCHANT program was to enable CIA activities and corporate infiltration that went way beyond just information gathering from a handful of DCD informants. 

I've wondered if the DCD itself was at times used as cover mechanism. It would not be difficult to shroud covert meetings, drops, etc. as routine contact with informants, and it would be a great way to pass information to and from agents under corporate cover. 

[Douglas Caddy]

3 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Wow you knew Guy Banister? That's amazing. Do you put any credence in what was written about him in "Crime of the Century"? - That he was giving some type of college lecture with Oswald in May 1963?

Gerry: I first met Banister in 1955 while I was enrolled in Alcee Fortier High School in New Orleans. Kent Courtney invited me to join him in attending a meeting in the Roosevelt Hotel at which Banister gave a report on the Aaron Cohn Crime Commission that was investigating organized crime in the Big Easy. Banister then was the Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department. I subsequently attended another meeting organized by Banister on the same matter. Courtney and Banister were close friends. 

Oswald was attending a different high school in New Orleans in 1955-56. He and his mother lived on Exchange Place in the French Quarter, a five-minute walk from the Police Headquarters. Six years later Banister was Oswald's control officer in the city and the next year Oswald gained infamy as the alleged assassin of JFK. I later became a friend of Howard Hunt, who has been named a figure in JFK's death, and represented him in Watergate in 1972. But in 1955-56 all three of us were within walking distance of each other in New Orleans but none of us had an inkling of what lay ahead for each.

After graduation from Georgetown University in 1960 I took a job in New York City and had no further contact with Banister after that date.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Douglas Caddy

[Gerry Down]

37 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Gerry: I first met Banister in 1955 while I was enrolled in Alcee Fortier High School in New Orleans. Kent Courtney invited me to join him in attending a meeting in the Roosevelt Hotel at which Banister gave a report on the Aaron Cohn Crime Commission that was investigating organized crime in the Big Easy. Banister then was the Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department. I subsequently attended another meeting organized by Banister on the same matter. Courtney and Banister were close friends. 

Oswald was attending a different high school in New Orleans in 1955-56. He and his mother lived on Exchange Place in the French Quarter, a five-minute walk from the Police Headquarters. Six years later Banister was Oswald's control officer in the city and the next year Oswald gained infamy as the alleged assassin of JFK. I later became a friend of Howard Hunt, who has been named a figure in JFK's death, and represented him in Watergate in 1972. But in 1955-56 all three of us were within walking distance of each other in New Orleans but none of us had an inkling of what lay ahead for each.

After graduation from Georgetown University in 1960 I took a job in New York City and had no further contact with Banister after that date.

That's an impressive connection to such key characters in the jfk assassination story. Can I ask what do you mean by "six years later Banister was Oswald's control officer in the city"? That seems to imply some kind of connection between Banister and Oswald in 1962, though LHO wasn't in New Orleans in that timeframe until April 1963.

[James DiEugenio]

TG: If Shaw and J. Monroe Sullivan were both cleared through QKENCHANT, would that not allow for the use of the Trade Mart as a full-blown CIA cover operation? Jessie Core and William Martin come to mind as Trade Mart CIA sources, but it's seems like the point of the QKENCHANT program was to enable CIA activities and corporate infiltration that went way beyond just information gathering from a handful of DCD informants. 

 

Paul is doing a three parter based on those Garrison files.

The third part is going to address the points you make above about the ITM.

Edited August 15, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

On 8/13/2022 at 4:32 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Thanks to Uncle Malcom once again as Bart Kamp used to refer to him on here.

A line on page 105 caught my attention and got me to thinking.  "Bannister employee Joe Newborough also stated that Bannister was a conduit of funds for the CIA".  The disburser of CIA funds in the summer of 1963 was George Joannides.  Who probably disbursed a few funds for some of Oswald's activities.  Through an intermediary in both cases I'd guess, on instruction from David Phillips or David Morales or ?

Now I'm going to pull SWHT off the shelf and let Larry refresh my memory (it needs having that done a little more every year now). 

From all the way back in 2010.  Page 141 of Someone Would Have Talked.  "New documents provided by researcher Malcom Blunt confirm that Sanjenis, the individual in charge of Operation 40, was actually the number one exile in the AMOT organization trained and prepared by David Morales."

[Paul Brancato]

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I'm really looking forward to that essay from Bleau. Parts 1 and 2 are phenomenal, so I'm very interested to see what he dug up for part 3. 

If Shaw and J. Monroe Sullivan were both cleared through QKENCHANT, would that not allow for the use of the Trade Mart as a full-blown CIA cover operation? Jessie Core and William Martin come to mind as Trade Mart CIA sources, but it's seems like the point of the QKENCHANT program was to enable CIA activities and corporate infiltration that went way beyond just information gathering from a handful of DCD informants. 

I've wondered if the DCD itself was at times used as cover mechanism. It would not be difficult to shroud covert meetings, drops, etc. as routine contact with informants, and it would be a great way to pass information to and from agents under corporate cover. 

Didn’t Jean-Pierre Lafitte work as a chef at the Trade Mart?

[Larry Hancock]

Ron, there appears to be a much stronger connections between David Phillips and events in New Orleans, starting in 1960.   At that time Phillips was in the Cuba Project as a propaganda officer; by the summer of 63 Fitzgerald had pulled him back into SAS for a new round of propaganda duties supporting AMWORLD, targeting the FPCC and focusing largely on Central American countries where AMWORLD was intended to gain support.   New Orleans was ideal for that given its Central American ties in trade, health care, etc.  And there was already a tool in place there - with INCA.

Its always important to separate the different functions,  propaganda vs. counter intelligence, vs. just basic collections vs political action - and keep them all separate from paramilitary operations.  Of course Morales specialty was paramilitary orations and to some extent CI.  Its also important to recall he was the military advisor to DRE, which gives us a critical connection between New Orleans and SAS/WAVE.

[Benjamin Cole]

On 8/14/2022 at 11:31 AM, Ron Bulman said:

Where did you read a spiral bound copy of SWHT?

In Thailand. 

[Benjamin Cole]

On 8/14/2022 at 10:54 AM, Larry Hancock said:

 

Ben, you will find a good bit about the "new" propaganda campaign being built around Oswald's media image in New Orleans in Tipping Point (on MFF) although I don't think I went back to revisit the earlier Bay of Pigs era abortive effort.   Actually I've come to think that New Orleans may indeed be more crucial to understand how Oswald ended up as a patsy in Dallas than the events in Mexico City.

Its pretty interesting to revisit Garrison's take on Oswald's allegiances in New Orleans, which most of us haven't looked at in awhile, if ever, and to recall that the Clinton incident occurred well after Oswald's  Cuba/Castro support media appearances.

http://22november1963.org.uk/jim-garrison-oswald-banister-new-orleans

Garrison's commentary, though often general, is so often on target I suspect he was being fed information by someone inside the CIA. 

I happen to agree with Garrison's explanation of the Walker shooting. It was a LHO biography builder and perhaps also tested LHO's nerve or willingness to participate in shooting at someone (intending to miss). It helped LHO trust handlers for the bigger job ahead.

My pet explanation of the JFKA remains a false flag op gone awry, LHO as the patsy, impromptu or otherwise, but the actual mechanics remain out of reach, and so I can only venture that as an IMHO. 

Of course, I read the excellent Tipping Point. 

In elementary school days, the front wall of the classroom was covered with blackboards.

When I ponder the JFKA, I wish we had large backboards like that, with relevant events and characters listed. Memories fade, connections lost. 

It is forever lamentable that the work the JFKA research community has done was not done by a vigorous WC all those decades ago. 

 

 

 

 

[Larry Hancock]

In considering Shaw as a CIA contract employee it might be interesting to compare him to another contract employee who we know a good deal about - David Phillips.  Phillips was recruited by the CIA for the range of contacts he had as publisher of the the South Pacific Mail, at the time the largest English language newspaper in the region.  His initial role was as a "spotter" and recruiter for CIA sources within communist groups, that evolved into case officer work with those recruits.

His next contract role was as a media and propaganda specialist in the Guatemala project and following that he was actually inserted into Cuba, still as a contract employee, using the cover of his own media marketing and promotions consultant.  That role allowed him a broad series of contacts, this time focused on spotting and establishing contacts within anti-Castro groups. 

It was only after having his cover blown inside Cuba and coming back to the United States that he was offered an actual job with the Agency, again in a propaganda role in the new Cuba Project launched in the spring of 1960.

Of course that tells us nothing specifically about Shaw but perhaps it gives us some clue as to why he was brought on as a contract employee and the possibility that he too might have been used as a "spotter", among other roles.

[Gerry Down]

25 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

In considering Shaw as a CIA contract employee it might be interesting to compare him to another contract employee who we know a good deal about - David Phillips.  Phillips was recruited by the CIA for the range of contacts he had as publisher of the the South Pacific Mail, at the time the largest English language newspaper in the region.  His initial role was as a "spotter" and recruiter for CIA sources within communist groups, that evolved into case officer work with those recruits.

His next contract role was as a media and propaganda specialist in the Guatemala project and following that he was actually inserted into Cuba, still as a contract employee, using the cover of his own media marketing and promotions consultant.  That role allowed him a broad series of contacts, this time focused on spotting and establishing contacts within anti-Castro groups. 

It was only after having his cover blown inside Cuba and coming back to the United States that he was offered an actual job with the Agency, again in a propaganda role in the new Cuba Project launched in the spring of 1960.

Of course that tells us nothing specifically about Shaw but perhaps it gives us some clue as to why he was brought on as a contract employee and the possibility that he too might have been used as a "spotter", among other roles.

It would be difficult to see Shaw even having the time to be a contract employee of the CIA. The role of director of the Trade Mart would have been a very demanding role. There are only so many hours in the day.

The only caveat to this is Orest Pena did say in his HSCA testimony that he had seen Shaw in the Habana bar. Could this have been as part of his role as a spotter as there was alot of cuban exiles hanging around that bar? Or simply part of his job as director of the Trade Mart going around to business and bars like the Habana bar.

[Larry Hancock]

Shaw was with the Trade Mart for a number of years, in fact the helped found the organization in 1947,  the year after he left his WWII service.  In addition he traveled internationally in activities related to both domestic goods sales and imports and had numerous international contacts. In addition he was in contact with other Trade Mart groups around the country, from coast to coast.  Interestingly, like Phillips he was also involved with theatrics, being a published playwright.

Its also important to note that contract work assumes an effective cover where the individual spends most of his time in the role related to his cover...Phillips continued to run a newspaper following his recruitment.  The whole point is to look totally involved in the cover job....which provides the context for the spotting and recruitment.   So...the busier the better, more opportunities.

 

[Douglas Caddy]

17 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

That's an impressive connection to such key characters in the jfk assassination story. Can I ask what do you mean by "six years later Banister was Oswald's control officer in the city"? That seems to imply some kind of connection between Banister and Oswald in 1962, though LHO wasn't in New Orleans in that timeframe until April 1963.

Gerry -- I have sent you a private message on the forum regarding this, -- Doug

[Gerry Down]

3 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Gerry -- I have sent you a private message on the forum regarding this, -- Doug

Thanks.