Suite 8F Group

[Guest John Gillespie]

"...Phil Graham and Lyndon Johnson were so keen that Dillon became JFK’s Secretary of the Treasury. (Maybe it also explains why Tim Gratz used to get so worked up when anyone linked Dillion to the assassination)."

___________________________

I have always felt with deep conviction that the assassination was mostly a matter of 'follow the money.'

In Jim Marrs' "Rule By Secrecy" he asserts that Kennedy and Lincoln were the only Presidents in a 100 year span who advocated and, in kennedy's case, ordered (Exec. order #1110) that the Treasury issue notes and that they be backed by existing Gold or Silver, the latter in the case of #1110.

Kennedy was killed just five months after the order took effect. Its intent was to challenge the two most successful vehicles that have ever been used to drive up debt - war and the creation of money by a privately-owned central bank.

JG

[John Simkin]

I seem to remember a tie between Dillon and Prescott Bush as well. Did Dillon & Read have a close working relationship with Brown Brothers Harriman, the bank where Prescott worked? What about Neil Mallon of Dresser Industries? Was he connected to the Suite 8F group?

Neil Mallon does not get a mention as a member of the Suite 8F Group in “Builders: Herman and George R. Brown".

You are right about the links between C. Douglas Dillon, Prescott Bush and Neil Mallon. I am currently reading George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography by Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin (1992). It explains in great detail about the relationship between these men and Nazi Germany. Others involved include Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles, Averell Harriman, George Walker, William Draper, Robert Lovett, and William S. Farish. They were all members of the Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Complex. One of the most interesting characters is Prescott Bush's father, Samuel P. Bush, who played a very important role in establishing the MICIC during the First World War. These people deserve their own thread and I will doing this over the next few days.

[James Richards]

I am particularly interested in the possible links with this group and the General Dynamics Corporation and the $6.5 billion contract for the TFX jet fighter. I have reason to believe that this contract played a factor in the Kennedy cover-up of the assassination. This involves an ex- FBI agent called I. B. Hale. He was head of security at General Dynamics. He was also caught placing a bug in the apartment of Judith Exner. Any help with this would be much appreciated. (John Simkin)

I.B. Hale was a former All American football player from Texas Christian University and the Kilgore High School football coach. He died of a heart attack in 1971.

Sidebar: In 1959, Robert Hale, the 18 year old son of I.B. Hale was ruled to have accidentally shot and killed his 16 year old bride, Kathleen, who was the daughter of John Connolly.

Suite 8F helped to coordinate the political activities of other right-wing politicians and businessmen based in the South. This included Robert Anderson (president of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of the Treasury), Robert Kerr (Kerr-McGee Oil Industries), Billie Sol Estes (entrepreneur in the cotton industry), Glenn McCarthy (McCarthy Oil and Gas Company).... snip (John Simkin)

It might be worth noting that in 1961, Glenn McCarthy opened the Cork Club in Texas. He hired Anthony Fertitta, boss of the Maceo gambling syndicate to run it.

There is some information regarding Anthony Fertitta in the Shearn Moody Jr. thread.

FWIW.

Glenn McCarthy below.

James

[Barr McClellan]

In your book you argue that Ed Clark helped organize the assassination of JFK. I am currently reading “Builders: Herman and George R. Brown". Written by two local historians, Joseph A. Pratt & Christopher J. Castaneda, the book, published by the Texas A & M University Press, is very difficult to find. There is a very interesting section on the Suite 8F Group, a collection of right-wing political and businessmen based in Texas. The name comes from the room in the Lamar Hotel in Houston where they held their meetings. Key members of the group included George Brown and Herman Brown (Brown & Root), Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, John Connally, Jesse H. Jones (chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation), Gus Wortham (American General Insurance Company), James Abercrombie (Cameron Iron Works), Hugh R. Cullen (Quintana Petroleum), William Hobby (owner of the Houston Post), William Vinson (Great Southern LifeInsurance), James Elkins (American General Insurance and Pure Oil Pipe Line), Morgan J. Davis (Humble Oil), Larry Bell (Bell Corporation) and Albert Thomas (chairman of the House Appropriations Committee). Pratt and Castaneda claimed that four lawyers, Ed Clark, Alvin Wirtz, Thomas Corcoran and Homer Thornberry also worked closely with the Suite 8F Group. Did you come across Ed Clark's connections with the Suite 8F Group while you were doing your research into Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK?

The group of key Houston business leaders was well-known despite a preference for secrecy. Clark attended as an outsider whenever he wished but was not a regular member.

As a sidebar, an interesting reason for his “alien” status was Houston leaders considered their city bigger than Texas, somehow elevating a part to more than the whole. But that was part of the mystique they promoted.

More specifically, at the meeting to consider JFK’s visit as part of a birthday for Congressman Albert Thomas, Clark was there for several days and participated.

More to the point, Clark was also there for a meeting of a Texas group interested in the State’s history, the super-secret Knights of San Jacinto. The point is media spin and its propaganda were important parts of the control exercised. Clark was right there. This is mentioned at page 182 of my book.

[Shanet Clark]

A COLD WAR Navy Secretary and Treasury Secretary was also in Suite 8F:

(John Simkin's file on Robert Anderson:)

Robert Bernerd Anderson was born in Burleson, Texas, on 4th June 1910. He graduated from the University of Texas Law School. He worked as a lawyer until he became a member of the Texas State House of Representatives in 1932. The following year he was appointed as Assistant Attorney General of Texas. In 1934 he became a Texas State Tax Commisioner.

Anderson purchased the KTBC Radio Station. In 1943 he sold it to the wife of Lyndon B. Johnson for $17,500. By 1951 the station was earning $3,000 a week.

A close friend of Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison, Anderson became president of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association.

When Dwight Eisenhower won the presidency, Anderson, became Secretary of the Navy. In May 1954, Mr. Anderson left his Navy post to become Deputy Secretary of Defense. From 1957 to 1961, he served as President Eisenhower's Secretary of the Treasury. In this post he introduced legislation beneficial to the oil industry.

After leaving office, he was active in business, investment and banking affairs, and carried out diplomatic missions on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was also reported that he worked as a consultant and lobbyist for Sun Myung Moon and his Church of Unification.

In 1987, Anderson was found guilty of tax evasion. This was related to possible money laundering involving an unregistered off-shore bank that he operated. He was disbarred and sent to prison.

Robert B. Anderson died in New York City on 14 August 1989.

[John Simkin]

David Harold Byrd was another member of the Suite 8F Group.

Byrd's cousin was Harry F. Byrd, who was described by Alden Hatch (The Byrds of Virginia: An American Dynasty) as "the leader of conservative opinion in the United States." Byrd also had a close relationship with Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson and John Connally. As Byrd pointed out in his autobiography, I'm an Endangered Species: "Another goal was to reach a rapport with the politicians who ran things, especially at the seat of state government in Austin.... Sam Rayburn, Morrie Sheppard, John Connally, and Lyndon Johnson on the national scene were to become men I could go to any time that I wanted action, and so were a succession of Texas governors."

Barr McClellan points out that Byrd, along with Clint Murchison, Haroldson L. Hunt and Sid Richardson, was part of the Big Oil group in Dallas. McClellan argues that "Big Oil would be during the fifties and into the sixties what the OPEC oil cartel was to the United States in the seventies and beyond". One of the main concerns of this group was the preservation of the oil depletion allowance.

In 1961 Byrd joined forces with James J. Ling and Chance Vought Corporation to form Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV).

In November, 1963, Byrd left Texas to go on a two-month safari in Africa. While he was away JFK was assassinated. According to the Warren Commission the shots were fired from Byrd's Texas School Book Depository.

In February, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, granted a large defense contract to LTV to build the A-7 Corsair II.

This meant that the four corporations that gained the most from the Vietnam War were associated with the Suite 8F Group. Ling-Temco-Vought, Brown & Root (Halliburton), Bell Helicopter Corporation and General Dynamics.

[Lee Forman]

David Harold Byrd was another member of the Suite 8F Group.

Byrd's cousin was Harry F. Byrd, who was described by Alden Hatch (The Byrds of Virginia: An American Dynasty) as "the leader of conservative opinion in the United States." Byrd also had a close relationship with Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson and John Connally. As Byrd pointed out in his autobiography, I'm an Endangered Species: "Another goal was to reach a rapport with the politicians who ran things, especially at the seat of state government in Austin.... Sam Rayburn, Morrie Sheppard, John Connally, and Lyndon Johnson on the national scene were to become men I could go to any time that I wanted action, and so were a succession of Texas governors."

Barr McClellan points out that Byrd, along with Clint Murchison, Haroldson L. Hunt and Sid Richardson, was part of the Big Oil group in Dallas. McClellan argues that "Big Oil would be during the fifties and into the sixties what the OPEC oil cartel was to the United States in the seventies and beyond". One of the main concerns of this group was the preservation of the oil depletion allowance.

In 1961 Byrd joined forces with James J. Ling and Chance Vought Corporation to form Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV).

In November, 1963, Byrd left Texas to go on a two-month safari in Africa. While he was away JFK was assassinated. According to the Warren Commission the shots were fired from Byrd's Texas School Book Depository.

In February, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, granted a large defense contract to LTV to build the A-7 Corsair II.

This meant that the four corporations that gained the most from the Vietnam War were associated with the Suite 8F Group. Ling-Temco-Vought, Brown & Root (Halliburton), Bell Helicopter Corporation and General Dynamics.

As per his Warren Commission interview, William J. Newman was a member of the DPD Reserve for about 18 months, in March of 1964. He was called in to assist with the Oswald transfer on Sunday. He was also a 6 year employee of Ling-Temco. Just another interesting coincidence.

Hmm - I think the individual that maintains this page [link below] is in error. Wrong Newman. William E [bill] Newman was an unemployed electrician at the time of the assassination. It would be interesting of course if he had worked for Ling also.

http://www.historymatters.com/analysis/wit...Map/NewmanW.htm

This looks like it could be an interesting document.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r5646j3q5t3nwn37/

William O. Brown Jr.1

(1) Department of Economics, Ball State University, 47306 Muncie, IN, U.S.A.

Accepted: 5 April 1994

Abstract This paper uses anecdotal evidence to identify a group of firms that had significant ties to President Lyndon Johnson and determines the effect of Johnson's unexpected rise to the Presidency on the market value of these firms. The unexpected nature of President Kennedy's death eliminates the confounding event problem typically associated with election results. We are able to identify four separate portfolios of firms that had political ties to Lyndon Johnson. Our research suggests that the market expected significant benefits to accrue to these firms as a result of Johnson's becoming President.

When Catholic John Kennedy and Johnson were running together in 1960 a joke hop-scotched around the parties in Texas and Washington that Kennedy had told Johnson, Lyndon, when we get elected I'm going to dig a tunnel to the Vatican, and Lyndon had replied, That's OK with me as long as Brown & Root gets the contract (Dugger, 1982: 286).

- lee

[Pat Speer]

I am particularly interested in the possible links with this group and the General Dynamics Corporation and the $6.5 billion contract for the TFX jet fighter. I have reason to believe that this contract played a factor in the Kennedy cover-up of the assassination. This involves an ex- FBI agent called I. B. Hale. He was head of security at General Dynamics. He was also caught placing a bug in the apartment of Judith Exner. Any help with this would be much appreciated. (John Simkin)

I.B. Hale was a former All American football player from Texas Christian University and the Kilgore High School football coach. He died of a heart attack in 1971.

Sidebar: In 1959, Robert Hale, the 18 year old son of I.B. Hale was ruled to have accidentally shot and killed his 16 year old bride, Kathleen, who was the daughter of John Connolly.

Suite 8F helped to coordinate the political activities of other right-wing politicians and businessmen based in the South. This included Robert Anderson (president of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of the Treasury), Robert Kerr (Kerr-McGee Oil Industries), Billie Sol Estes (entrepreneur in the cotton industry), Glenn McCarthy (McCarthy Oil and Gas Company).... snip (John Simkin)

It might be worth noting that in 1961, Glenn McCarthy opened the Cork Club in Texas. He hired Anthony Fertitta, boss of the Maceo gambling syndicate to run it.

There is some information regarding Anthony Fertitta in the Shearn Moody Jr. thread.

FWIW.

Glenn McCarthy below.

James

James, I believe Connally's daughter's death was ruled a suicide, although questions lingered. The other weird thing about Bobby Hale was that, according to The Dark Side of Camelot, he and his brother were observed trying to dig up dirt on JFK during his fling with Marilyn. One can only assume they were working for dad, helping General Dynamics gain some leverage.

[James Richards]

I am particularly interested in the possible links with this group and the General Dynamics Corporation and the $6.5 billion contract for the TFX jet fighter. I have reason to believe that this contract played a factor in the Kennedy cover-up of the assassination. This involves an ex- FBI agent called I. B. Hale. He was head of security at General Dynamics. He was also caught placing a bug in the apartment of Judith Exner. Any help with this would be much appreciated. (John Simkin)

I.B. Hale was a former All American football player from Texas Christian University and the Kilgore High School football coach. He died of a heart attack in 1971.

Sidebar: In 1959, Robert Hale, the 18 year old son of I.B. Hale was ruled to have accidentally shot and killed his 16 year old bride, Kathleen, who was the daughter of John Connolly.

Suite 8F helped to coordinate the political activities of other right-wing politicians and businessmen based in the South. This included Robert Anderson (president of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of the Treasury), Robert Kerr (Kerr-McGee Oil Industries), Billie Sol Estes (entrepreneur in the cotton industry), Glenn McCarthy (McCarthy Oil and Gas Company).... snip (John Simkin)

It might be worth noting that in 1961, Glenn McCarthy opened the Cork Club in Texas. He hired Anthony Fertitta, boss of the Maceo gambling syndicate to run it.

There is some information regarding Anthony Fertitta in the Shearn Moody Jr. thread.

FWIW.

Glenn McCarthy below.

James

James, I believe Connally's daughter's death was ruled a suicide, although questions lingered. The other weird thing about Bobby Hale was that, according to The Dark Side of Camelot, he and his brother were observed trying to dig up dirt on JFK during his fling with Marilyn. One can only assume they were working for dad, helping General Dynamics gain some leverage.

Hey, Pat.

Wasn't there a thread some time back where we talked about Connally's daughter's death and some other connected material? I can't get the search function to operate at the moment.

James

Okay, I found that thread.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ic=6538&hl=

James

[Lee Forman]

When the topic of GD comes up, I wish I had a photo of Jerry Hoy to look at. Anyone have such an item?

I think this was raised before - still gnaws - as per the letter from RB Cutler to Sprague - Gary Shaw showed the tramp photo around GD in Dallas and everyone said 'That's Jerry Hoy.'

- lee

[John Simkin]

I have put what I have on David Harold Byrd here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/MDbyrdDH.htm

There is very little on Byrd on the web. However, I would highly recommend this article written by forum member, Richard Bartholomew:

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_i...e/rambler3.html

http://www.bartholoviews.com/Bio.htm

It includes the following passage:

Byrd prepared well for the trip: Temco, Inc. was an aircraft company founded by D.H. Byrd and which later merged with his friend James Ling's electronics company (1960), and aircraft manufacturer Chance Vought Corporation (1961) to form Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). Byrd became a director of LTV and bought, along with Ling, 132,000 shares of LTV in November 1963. Byrd then left the country to go on his two-month safari in central Africa. He returned in January to find his good friend Lyndon Johnson president of the United States, his building famous, and a large defense contract awarded to LTV to build fighter planes - to be paid for out of the 1965 budget which had not yet been approved by Congress.

Mac Wallace, who received a five-year suspended sentence in the shooting death of John Douglas Kiner in Austin on October 22, 1951, went to work for Temco, Inc. of Garland, Texas five months after his trial. He remained in that position until February 1961, four months before Henry Marshall's mysterious death on June 3, 1961, when he transferred to the Anaheim, California offices of LTV.

The transfer required a background check by the Navy. "The most intriguing part of the Wallace case was how a convicted murderer was able to get a job with defense contractors. Better yet, how was he able to get a security clearance? Clinton Peoples [the Texas Ranger Captain who investigated the Marshall and Kiner murders] reported that when the original security clearance was granted, he asked the Naval intelligence officer handling the case how such a person could get the clearance. 'Politics,' the man replied. When Peoples asked who would have that much power, the simple answer was, `the vice president,' who at the time was Lyndon Johnson. Years later, after the story broke [of Billie Sol Estes' March 20, 1984 testimony that implicated Lyndon Johnson, Malcom Wallace, and Clifton Carter in the death of Henry Marshall], that investigator could not recall the conversation with Peoples but he did say no one forced him to write a favorable report. He also added that he wasn't the one that made the decision to grant the clearance. The whole matter might have been solved with a peek at that original report but unfortunately, when the files were checked, that particular report was suspiciously missing. It has never been seen since."

Wallace was transferred and given clearance in February 1961. "In January 1961, the very month Johnson was sworn in as vice president, and the month Henry Marshall was in Dallas discussing how to combat Estes-like scams, Billie Sol Estes learned through his contacts that the USDA was investigating the allotment scheme and that Henry Marshall might end up testifying. The situation was supposedly discussed by Estes, Johnson, and Carter in the backyard of LBJ's Washington home. Johnson was, according to Estes, alarmed that if Marshall started talking it might result in an investigation that would implicate the vice president. At first it was decided to have Marshall transferred to Washington, but when told Marshall had already refused such a relocation, LBJ, according to Estes, said simply, 'Then we'll have to get rid of him.'"

According to Craig Zirbel, author of The Texas Connection, in May 1962, "...Johnson flew to Dallas aboard a military jet to privately meet with Estes and his lawyers on a plane parked away from the terminal.... This incident would probably have remained secret except that LBJ's plane suffered a mishap in landing at Dallas. When investigative reporters attempted to obtain the tower records for the flight mishap the records were "sealed by government order."

Still more LTV intrigues were revealed by Peter Dale Scott: "A fellow-director of [Jack Alston] Crichton's firm of Dorchester Gas Producing was D.H. Byrd, an oil associate of Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison, and the LTV director who teamed up with James Ling to buy 132,000 shares of LTV in November 1963. While waiting to be sworn in as President in Dallas on November 22, Johnson spoke by telephone with J.W. Bullion, a member of the Dallas law firm (Thompson, Wright, Knight, and Simmons) which had the legal account for Dorchester Gas Producing and was represented on its board. The senior partner of the law firm, Dwight L. Simmons, had until 1960 sat on the board of Chance Vought Aircraft, a predecessor of Ling-Temco-Vought. One week after the assassination, Johnson named Bullion, who has been described as his 'business friend and lawyer,' to be one of the two trustees handling the affairs of the former LBJ Co. while its owner was President."

[John Simkin]

There is very little on Byrd on the web. However, I would highly recommend this article written by forum member, Richard Bartholomew:

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_i...e/rambler3.html

http://www.bartholoviews.com/Bio.htm

It includes the following passage:

Still more LTV intrigues were revealed by Peter Dale Scott: "A fellow-director of [Jack Alston] Crichton's firm of Dorchester Gas Producing was D.H. Byrd, an oil associate of Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison, and the LTV director who teamed up with James Ling to buy 132,000 shares of LTV in November 1963. While waiting to be sworn in as President in Dallas on November 22, Johnson spoke by telephone with J.W. Bullion, a member of the Dallas law firm (Thompson, Wright, Knight, and Simmons) which had the legal account for Dorchester Gas Producing and was represented on its board. The senior partner of the law firm, Dwight L. Simmons, had until 1960 sat on the board of Chance Vought Aircraft, a predecessor of Ling-Temco-Vought. One week after the assassination, Johnson named Bullion, who has been described as his 'business friend and lawyer,' to be one of the two trustees handling the affairs of the former LBJ Co. while its owner was President."

This article by Paul Kangas, The Realist (1990) is interesting about Jack Crichton, George Bush and the Bay of Pigs:

Nixon told Pepsi, Standard Oil and other corporations who lost property given back to the farmers of Cuba, that if they would help him win, he would authorize an invasion to remove Castro. To further impress contributors to his campaign, then Vice-President Nixon asked the CIA to create Operation 40, a secret plan to invade Cuba, just as soon as he won.

The CIA put Texas millionaire and CIA agent George Bush in charge of recruiting Cuban exiles into the CIA's invasion army. Bush was working with another Texas oilman, Jack Crichton, to help him with the invasion. A fellow Texan, Air Force General Charles Cabel, was asked to coordinate the air cover for the invasion.

Most of the CIA leadership around the invasion of Cuba seems to have been people from Texas. A whole Texan branch of the CIA is based in the oil business. If we trace Bush's background in the Texas oil business we discover his two partners in the oil-barge leasing business: Texan Robert Mosbacher and Texan James Baker. Mosbacher is now Secretary of Commerce and Baker is Secretary of State, the same job Dulles held when JFK was killed. (Source: Common Cause magazine, 3-4/90).

On pages 43/44 of Fabian Escalante's CIA Covert Operations 1959-1962: The Cuba Project (2004), he claims that in 1960 Richard Nixon recruited an "important group of businessmen headed by George Bush (Snr.) and Jack Crichton, both Texas oilmen, to gather the necessary funds for the operation". He is talking about Operation 40, the group that Warren Hinckle and William Turner described in Deadly Secrets, as the “assassins-for-hire” organization.

[John Simkin]

For sometime I have been trying to find the person who linked Suite 8F, the CIA, the oil industry, the State Department and Lyndon Johnson together. I think I have found him: Thomas Clinton Mann.

If you type in “Thomas Clinton Mann” into Goggle you get at number one the Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_C._Mann

As is usually the case, it is what the entry does not contain is the most revealing.

Mann was born in Laredo, Texas, on 11th November, 1912. Mann went to Baylor University in 1929 and graduated five years later. In 1934 he began work as a lawyer in Texas. It was in the 1930s that Mann got to know Lyndon Johnson. In an interview he gave to Joe Franz in November 1968, Mann admits that he first met LBJ during this period. However, he claims that they did not close at this period because LBJ was more interested in domestic issues whereas his main concern was foreign affairs.

In 1942 Mann joined the Department of State and held various diplomatic posts in Uruguay (1942-43) and Venezuela (1947-49) before being appointed director of the State Department's Office of Inter-American Affairs.

In the summer of 1950, Tommy Corcoran, who worked for United Fruit Company, went to see Mann in his office in Washington. Corcoran told Mann he was worried that Jacobo Arbenz would win the forthcoming election in Guatemala. He asked Mann: "Does our government have any program for bringing about the election of a middle-of-the-road candidate in Guatemala?" According to Mann, he replied: "No, we don't. That is for the people of that country to decide."

However, we now know that Mann, like Eisenhower, did give their approval for what became known as “Operation Success”, the CIA operation to overthrow Arbenz. This was an operation that involved David Phillips, David Morales, Henry Hecksher, Carl E. Jenkins, Tracy Barnes, Howard Hunt, Richard Bissell and Rip Robertson.

We also now know that the State Department was very much against this CIA operation. A State Department policy paper in August 1953 stated: “Our secret stimulation and material support of the overthrow of the Arbenz Government should subject us to serious hazards. Experience has shown that no such operation could be carried on secretly without great risk of its leadership and backers being fully known. Were it to become evident that the United States had tried a Czechoslovakia in reverse in Guatemala, the effects on our relations in this hemisphere, and probably the world at large, could be as disastrous as those produced by open intervention.”

The overthrow of Arbenz in June 1954 shows that it was the CIA and not the State Department that was running U.S. foreign policy.

Two weeks after the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala, Thomas Mann arrived in the country as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy. Before this he had been working with George Joannides in the U.S. Embassy in Greece.

In the 1968 interview with Joe Franz, Mann was asked: “Would you care to comment on whether the revolution against Arbenz was CIA - directed, inspired?” Mann replied: “No, I wouldn't comment on that even if I knew, because I don't think one should.” Franz then asked: “Is there conflict between the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department? Do they work independently of each other, or do they try to fuse their efforts?” Mann replied: “You know, this is the same kind of question we were talking about a minute ago. If you have a strong Assistant Secretary or a strong Ambassador or a strong Secretary of State, there is no problem with control. It's where people abdicate their responsibility that the troubles come. I never had any trouble in controlling any bureau or embassy that I was in charge of, and that goes for the CIA. I think they're a very valuable service, and their main function is information gathering. If one were to imagine where we would be without the CIA, then I think you'd begin to see things in perspective. Of course, they're never able to publicize their successes, so people get a distorted view.”

In September 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Mann as the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. In October 1957 Mann became Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. He also held the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (August 1960 - January 1961).

When it was decided to overthrow Castro in Cuba, it was only natural that the CIA reassembled the team that had brought down Arbenz in Guatemala. It was decided that Mexico City should be the base of the operation.

At the time, Winston Scott was head of the CIA station in Mexico. Although his extreme right-wing views made him attractive to this group, it seems that he was definitely kept in the dark about certain aspects of the plan.

What is really interesting is that LBJ lobbied JFK when he became president, to appoint Thomas Mann as the US ambassador to Mexico. JFK agreed and Mann arrived in Mexico City in January 1961. According to Scott’s reports officer, Anne Goodpasture, Scott got on better with Mann than previous ambassadors.

David Phillips was the next to arrive in Mexico City. He worked under Scott and the two men got on very well together. In April 1963 Scott wrote that: "His (Phillips) comprehensive understanding of human beings combined with a thorough knowledge of covert action techniques and his fluent Spanish make him unusually valuable... He is the most outstanding Covert Action officer that this rating officer has ever worked with."

At the same time, David Morales and Carl E. Jenkins had arrived at JM WAVE in Miami to work under Ted Shackley, Chief of Base for the Cuban Project. Jenkins was responsible for selection and training of cadre, assignment of officers for invasion brigade, maritime infiltration and operational management of small teams and individual agents.

Win Scott suggested to Richard Helms that Phillips should become his deputy station chief. However, in June 1963, Helms decided to appoint Phillips as Chief of Cuban Operations. Desmond FitzGerald arrived in Mexico City to tell Phillips that he had the freedom to roam the entire Western Hemisphere mounting secret operations to get rid of Fidel Castro. Phillips also provided support to organizations such as the DRE via George Joannides.

When Oswald or/and his impostor arrived in Mexico City in September 1963 the man/men were closely watched by the CIA. As reports officer, Anne Goodpasture, pointed out, the two types of “security” information that most interested the CIA station concerned “U.S. citizens initiating or maintaining contact with the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic installations” and “travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens or residents.” Oswald or his impostor was clearly of great interest to the CIA.

Information on Oswald was collected by four different CIA operations: LEINVOY, LIEMPTY, AMSPELL and LIERODE. Scott ran the first two whereas Phillips controlled the last two.

As Win Scott points out in his declassified memoir: "Every piece of information concerning Lee Harvey Oswald was reported immediately after it was received to: U.S. Ambassador Thomas C. Mann, by memorandum; the FBI Chief in Mexico, by memorandum; and to my headquarters by cable; and included in each and every one of these reports was the entire conversation Oswald had, from Cuban Consulate, with the Soviet Embassy".

Scott was later to discover that the CIA in Washington was not sharing the information they had on Oswald via AMSPELL and LIERODE. John Whitten, the CIA section chief on Mexico based in Washington was also denied this information. He carried out the initial CIA investigation into Oswald and when he started asking questions about what had been going on in Mexico City, he was immediately replaced by James Angleton.

When Gilberto Alvarado contacted the U.S. embassy in Mexico City on 25th November 1963 and said he had some important information about Lee Harvey Oswald. It was David Phillips who was brought in to interview him. After a long session with Alvarado he declared that Alvarado was telling the truth. Mann also seemed convinced that the assassination of JFK was part of a communist conspiracy.

Interestingly, Scott doubted Alvarado’s story (although he continued to accept that Oswald was part of a communist conspiracy). He was now aware that Phillips was a member of a group that included Richard Helms, James Angleton and Tom Karamessines, who did know what had been going on in Mexico City.

Scott felt betrayed by Phillips and Angleton and November 1963 marked a change in their relationship.

What we now also know is that the Phillips inspired plan to blame Fidel Castro for the assassination of JFK was abandoned by the end of November. Instead, Oswald was now to be presented as the lone gunman.

Mann and Scott were shocked by these developments. As Mann pointed out in an interview with Dick Russell in 1990, “it was the strangest experience of my life”. As Jeff Morley points out: “Why would senior U.S. government officials, every one of whom professed to loathe Fidel Castro and more than a few of whom had countenanced conspiracies to murder him, refuse to investigate contacts between his government and the man who just killed the president with a gunshot to the head? Why would they want to prevent examination of the seemingly pregnant possibility that the pro-Castro Oswald was part of a communist plot, especially at a time when Gilberto Alvarado, vouched for by David Phillips, the chief of Cuba operations in Mexico, was still being questioned?”

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmannT.htm

[Linda Minor]

In your book you argue that Ed Clark helped organize the assassination of JFK. I am currently reading “Builders: Herman and George R. Brown". Written by two local historians, Joseph A. Pratt & Christopher J. Castaneda, the book, published by the Texas A & M University Press, is very difficult to find. There is a very interesting section on the Suite 8F Group, a collection of right-wing political and businessmen based in Texas. The name comes from the room in the Lamar Hotel in Houston where they held their meetings. Key members of the group included George Brown and Herman Brown (Brown & Root), Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, John Connally, Jesse H. Jones (chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation), Gus Wortham (American General Insurance Company), James Abercrombie (Cameron Iron Works), Hugh R. Cullen (Quintana Petroleum), William Hobby (owner of the Houston Post), William Vinson (Great Southern LifeInsurance), James Elkins (American General Insurance and Pure Oil Pipe Line), Morgan J. Davis (Humble Oil), Larry Bell (Bell Corporation) and Albert Thomas (chairman of the House Appropriations Committee). Pratt and Castaneda claimed that four lawyers, Ed Clark, Alvin Wirtz, Thomas Corcoran and Homer Thornberry also worked closely with the Suite 8F Group. Did you come across Ed Clark's connections with the Suite 8F Group while you were doing your research into Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK?

The group of key Houston business leaders was well-known despite a preference for secrecy. Clark attended as an outsider whenever he wished but was not a regular member.

As a sidebar, an interesting reason for his “alien” status was Houston leaders considered their city bigger than Texas, somehow elevating a part to more than the whole. But that was part of the mystique they promoted.

More specifically, at the meeting to consider JFK’s visit as part of a birthday for Congressman Albert Thomas, Clark was there for several days and participated.

More to the point, Clark was also there for a meeting of a Texas group interested in the State’s history, the super-secret Knights of San Jacinto. The point is media spin and its propaganda were important parts of the control exercised. Clark was right there. This is mentioned at page 182 of my book.

The Lamar Hotel was built by Texas real-estate tycoon Jesse H. Jones in downtown Houston as his home. He lived in the penthouse of the hotel, whereas Herman Brown merely leased Suite 8-F on the eighth floor below Jesse. The story was that "the boys" liked to gather socially in Herman's suite to play cards and shoot the breeze, maybe have a drink or two and a cigar. The suite was only used for that purpose and to give Herman a place to stay when he was in Houston; he made his home in Austin, Texas.

Jesse Jones had been one of the most quietly powerful men in Texas for many years. He had worked in Washington, D.C. with H.P. Davison of J.P. Morgan Co. in the International Red Cross in 1918 and was on close terms with Woodrow Wilson, his Cabinet and financial backers and advisers, including Colonel E.M. House, whose family was closely tied in business with Jesse Jones' uncle, whose estate he had first moved to Houston to administer in 1898.

Jones became head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in Herbert Hoover's administration and was held over by FDR. In that role he became the country's number-one lender to bankers and businessmen suffering from the depression. The men who frequented the Brown suite in the Lamar Hotel saw Jones as their ticket to federal power. As much as they came to hate the New Deal, they liked the fact that Jesse was a fellow Knight of San Jacinto--that secret brotherhood of descendants of men and women who had been near the battlefield at San Jacinto when Mexico was defeated in 1836 and the Republic of Texas was declared.

They took pride in the fact that Texas was the only "republic" that was annexed into statehood after having been an independent nation with its own president; that it had been admitted by treaty. Most of those men still felt more loyalty for the old Republic of Texas than they did for the USA.

[William Kelly]

In your book you argue that Ed Clark helped organize the assassination of JFK. I am currently reading "Builders: Herman and George R. Brown". Written by two local historians, Joseph A. Pratt & Christopher J. Castaneda, the book, published by the Texas A & M University Press, is very difficult to find. There is a very interesting section on the Suite 8F Group, a collection of right-wing political and businessmen based in Texas. The name comes from the room in the Lamar Hotel in Houston where they held their meetings. Key members of the group included George Brown and Herman Brown (Brown & Root), Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, John Connally, Jesse H. Jones (chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation), Gus Wortham (American General Insurance Company), James Abercrombie (Cameron Iron Works), Hugh R. Cullen (Quintana Petroleum), William Hobby (owner of the Houston Post), William Vinson (Great Southern LifeInsurance), James Elkins (American General Insurance and Pure Oil Pipe Line), Morgan J. Davis (Humble Oil), Larry Bell (Bell Corporation) and Albert Thomas (chairman of the House Appropriations Committee). Pratt and Castaneda claimed that four lawyers, Ed Clark, Alvin Wirtz, Thomas Corcoran and Homer Thornberry also worked closely with the Suite 8F Group. Did you come across Ed Clark's connections with the Suite 8F Group while you were doing your research into Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK?

The group of key Houston business leaders was well-known despite a preference for secrecy. Clark attended as an outsider whenever he wished but was not a regular member.

As a sidebar, an interesting reason for his "alien" status was Houston leaders considered their city bigger than Texas, somehow elevating a part to more than the whole. But that was part of the mystique they promoted.

More specifically, at the meeting to consider JFK's visit as part of a birthday for Congressman Albert Thomas, Clark was there for several days and participated.

More to the point, Clark was also there for a meeting of a Texas group interested in the State's history, the super-secret Knights of San Jacinto. The point is media spin and its propaganda were important parts of the control exercised. Clark was right there. This is mentioned at page 182 of my book.

The Lamar Hotel was built by Texas real-estate tycoon Jesse H. Jones in downtown Houston as his home. He lived in the penthouse of the hotel, whereas Herman Brown merely leased Suite 8-F on the eighth floor below Jesse. The story was that "the boys" liked to gather socially in Herman's suite to play cards and shoot the breeze, maybe have a drink or two and a cigar. The suite was only used for that purpose and to give Herman a place to stay when he was in Houston; he made his home in Austin, Texas.

Jesse Jones had been one of the most quietly powerful men in Texas for many years. He had worked in Washington, D.C. with H.P. Davison of J.P. Morgan Co. in the International Red Cross in 1918 and was on close terms with Woodrow Wilson, his Cabinet and financial backers and advisers, including Colonel E.M. House, whose family was closely tied in business with Jesse Jones' uncle, whose estate he had first moved to Houston to administer in 1898.

Jones became head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in Herbert Hoover's administration and was held over by FDR. In that role he became the country's number-one lender to bankers and businessmen suffering from the depression. The men who frequented the Brown suite in the Lamar Hotel saw Jones as their ticket to federal power. As much as they came to hate the New Deal, they liked the fact that Jesse was a fellow Knight of San Jacinto--that secret brotherhood of descendants of men and women who had been near the battlefield at San Jacinto when Mexico was defeated in 1836 and the Republic of Texas was declared.

They took pride in the fact that Texas was the only "republic" that was annexed into statehood after having been an independent nation with its own president; that it had been admitted by treaty. Most of those men still felt more loyalty for the old Republic of Texas than they did for the USA.

Linda,

With your unique background, perhaps you would know some details about the San Jacinto Foundation and the San Jacinto Fund?

Do you know when it was founded and its directors?

Thanks,

Bill Kelly