The Attempted Assassination of Charles deGaulle

[Steve Thomas]

Robert McKeown said Ruby ‘had a whole lot of jeeps he wanted to get to Castro.’

I remember reading about this years ago.

Does anyone have any information about how many jeeps we are talking about here?

It seems like it would have to be a whole fleet of them for an entire government to be interested.

1) where did Ruby acquire a fleet of jeeps?

2) where did he store them?

3)  How did he move them?

4) In order for an arms for hostages swap to be succesful, the buyer would have have received them. Is there any evidence that Castro actually received "a whole lot of jeeps?

Steve Tnomas

 

 

 

[Leslie Sharp]

3 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Well, I finally ordered Coup In Dallas yesterday so maybe I'll start getting caught up on this thread and a couple of others in the next few weeks.  My first thought when I read sulfur was, somehow related to freeport sulfur (?), which I don't remember the details about.

As an aside, I came across this image while thumbing back through Joan Mellen's Our Man In Hati.

LIFE MAGAZINE APRIL 26 1968 THE FRENCH SPY SCANDAL | eBay

Ron, Sorry for the disjointed posts. Hank's investigation wasn't suited to COUP Lite or cliff notes, although that concept is currently under consideration for a new publication.  

Someone said recently reading Coup is like woodworking ... you make a first pass, then another, then another.

Freeport Nickel was under the Freeport umbrella.  Clay Shaw-related.  I cut my research teeth on Lisa Pease's amazing research into Freeport.  It's the foundation of my decades of research into corporate genealogy, the Industrial in the Military Industrial Comlex. 

[Benjamin Cole]

12 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Comes from a letter he wrote to Thomas Miller, a fellow inmate in the Dallas County jail.

The "n-a-z-i" he was talking about was Lamar Hunt.

I'm covering it in part 4 of my series, "The Conspiracy to Kill Lee Harvey Oswald."

I'll be posting it later today.

I  look forward to your post.

I am entirely open-minded about the origins of the JFKA. 

I suspect the Miami station/exiles/mercenaries of the CIA...but that whole story is possibly misdirection. 

All I know is that JFK was struck by shots too close in succession to have been issued by a lone gunman armed with a single-shot bolt action rifle. IMHO. 

[Leslie Sharp]

On 3/24/2023 at 2:14 PM, Steve Thomas said:

Leslie,

I don't know the exact date. The photographer didn't date them; but you've seen pictures of the prison, you've seen pictures of the men in the prison. You know when they went in and when they came out.

As far as sosmeone feeding Fensterwald false information, I've told you about Gilbert Lecavalier.

Steve Thomas

On 20 Nov 1963 he [Marton] was granted a new judicial disposition and began his 20 year term in Ile de Re, where Varga was also serving his sentence.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Paul Brancato]

6 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

On 20 Nov 1963 he [Marton] was granted a new judicial disposition and began his 20 year term in Ile de Re, where Varga was also serving his sentence.

So he was perhaps not yet in custody on Nov 12, but was on Nov 22. 

[Leslie Sharp]

5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

So he was perhaps not yet in custody on Nov 12, but was on Nov 22. 

I'll be addressing this in more detail, but for now, yes this supports travel in mid-November. However, the controversy includes Laszlo Varga.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

On 3/26/2023 at 6:14 AM, Gil Jesus said:

Comes from a letter he wrote to Thomas Miller, a fellow inmate in the Dallas County jail.

The "n-a-z-i" he was talking about was Lamar Hunt.

I'm covering it in part 4 of my series, "The Conspiracy to Kill Lee Harvey Oswald."

I'll be posting it later today.

@Gil Jesus Gil, a research colleague and friend is following this closely. It's possible you've answered these questions previously, and if so, can you point me to the EF thread or your online contributions elsewhere? 
 

He writes,

I read the full transcription and in doing so . . . I still remain puzzled as to, 

• why Jack didn’t realize he had been entrapped before he “walked down that ramp Sunday morning”—what happened on the ramp to fully enlighten him as to his precarious predicament? 
•  was the note smuggled out of the jail to a Thomas Miller who had actually been released by that time? 
•  Any handwriting experts match the handwriting with other Ruby docs?  Do we know the note’s full history of possession?
• If Miller had been released, writing a letter to a fellow prisoner seems both risky and unnecessary when one can have direct communication via face-to-face conversation.
  
  And I want to ask if you've come across the pie-shaped doodle on a page in the Ruby letter? I've been told it appears on a page.  I ask because the person who spotted it had spotted a similar doodle in the Lafitte datebook.  Remember that Lafitte references "Ruby" in two datebook entries.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Gil Jesus]

13 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Gil Jesus Gil, a research colleague and friend is following this closely. It's possible you've answered these questions previously, and if so, can you point me to the EF thread or your online contributions elsewhere? 
 

He writes,

I read the full transcription and in doing so . . . I still remain puzzled as to, 

• why Jack didn’t realize he had been entrapped before he “walked down that ramp Sunday morning”—what happened on the ramp to fully enlighten him as to his precarious predicament? 
•  was the note smuggled out of the jail to a Thomas Miller who had actually been released by that time? 
•  Any handwriting experts match the handwriting with other Ruby docs?  Do we know the note’s full history of possession?
• If Miller had been released, writing a letter to a fellow prisoner seems both risky and unnecessary when one can have direct communication via face-to-face conversation.
  
  And I want to ask if you've come across the pie-shaped doodle on a page in the Ruby letter? I've been told it appears on a page.  I ask because the person who spotted it had spotted a similar doodle in the Lafitte datebook.  Remember that Lafitte references "Ruby" in two datebook entries.

The letters to Miller can be found here:

https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/33049970417260-jack-ruby-handwritten-letter-from-jail-identifying-lbj-as-the-kennedy-assassination-mastermind

Check them out and see what you think.

[Paul Brancato]

Sure doesn’t sound like Ruby did what he did because of mob pressure. 

[Leslie Sharp]

On 3/24/2023 at 2:14 PM, Steve Thomas said:

Leslie,

I don't know the exact date. The photographer didn't date them; but you've seen pictures of the prison, you've seen pictures of the men in the prison. You know when they went in and when they came out.

As far as sosmeone feeding Fensterwald false information, I've told you about Gilbert Lecavalier.

Steve Thomas

@Steve Thomas Before outlining in detail those in authority who could effect the release or escape of recently incarcerated known assassins in 1963, the following excerpts resulting from a simple word search “escape” reflect lax prison conditions (as evidenced in the prison attire in undated photos of Lajos Marton & Laszlo Varga which have been presented in this discussion as proof they couldn’t have crossed the MX – US border), porous prison systems and international borders, and apparent weak attempts to recapture escapees . . .  [relevant phrases in bold.]         

 

·       Following their arrest, Souetre and Brousse were transferred, first to the prison de Maison Carrée in France, then back to Algeria, where they and the others arrested with them were tried before a military tribunal on December 17, 1961. The press referred to this group as Souetre’s “First Algerian Marquis.” 

Four days later, they were sentenced to three-to-four years in a detention camp at Saint Maurice l’Ardoise; however, the sentence was suspended and replaced with an administrative detention of indeterminate length. Apparently, the terms of confinement were somewhat generous because, in January 1962, Souetre was allowed to marry Josette Marcaihou of Aymeric. Four days later, they were sentenced to three-to-four years in a detention camp at Saint-Maurice l’Ardoise]. However, the sentence was suspended and replaced with an administrative detention of indeterminate length. Indeed, the camp’s commander, General Claude Clement, attended the ceremony. [under dispute.] Souetre and his new wife enjoyed a confined honeymoon, but days later the newlywed soldier escaped the camp along with seventeen others. After his escape, Souetre quickly assumed a leading role in planning the OAS attack on General de Gaulle at Petit-Clamart. De Gaulle escaped unharmed. Very much involved in the August 22, 1962 attempt to kill de Gaulle were Souetre’s close associates Laszlo Varga, Lajos Marton, along with Hungarian Gyula Sari, and Corsican born Francois Duprat, identified as one of the lead architects of Holocaust denial in France.

About a month after escaping, Souetre emerged in Feb–March 1962 living in Spain, and from there he often traveled to Portugal. On several occasions at this time Souetre approached CIA officials and tried to persuade them to provide the OAS with backing as the best and most “viable alternative to communism” in France. As we have seen, there are at least two declassified CIA documents that purport to outline these meetings. Meanwhile, his new bride, provided false identity papers, had joined him in Madrid but because of his continued OAS activities, she soon left him, returning to France where she filed for a divorce. Due to her use of false documents in Spain, her divorce was interrupted by her falsification of papers. Having paid the fine for the offence, she was released, the divorce was finalized, and Josette Marcaihou disappeared from history. 

 

·       Brousse -- Influential member of the Committee of the Association of Mayors of France and Overseas, in charge of the Youth and Sports Commission, member of the steering committee of the Council of European Municipalities, he joined Algerian War and became head of the SAS of Masséna. Opposed to the Algerian policy of France, he was the animator of the first "French Algeria" maquis, in the territories of Mostaganémois, with as companions Sheikh Si El Hadj Tekouk Ben Tekouk Senousssi, Captain Souetre, commandos of the air, and René Villard, Algerian civil leader of France-Resurrection. Arrested, placed in solitary confinement, he escaped and went into exile. 

 

·       Pierre Lafitte would also cross paths with Filliol—who like Lafitte would use at least twenty aliases—when in 1944 he was associated with the SS Waffen Charlemagne Division, a French unit aiding the National Socialists in their occupation of France. It is reported by surviving members of Lafitte’s family that he was with the SS Brigadefuhrer Krukenenberg in April 1945, just prior to its being moved to Berlin to defend Hitler in his final bunker days, but independent confirmation of this remains elusive. There is no evidence that Lafitte was ever captured, let alone brought to trial; however, at the end of World War II, Filliol was tried in absentia and sentenced to death. His sentence was never carried out because he escaped to Spain and fascist dictator General Francisco Franco refused to extradite the killer. 

 

 

·       The New York Times article is a bit off about General Giraud not having popular support. Indeed, Giraud was a national hero who had served in the French army for forty-six years, through both world wars. American diplomat Robert Murphy said of Giraud, “This extraordinary old soldier had a brilliant service record as a young officer in North Africa. He knew the country well, and he knew Arabs well and was generally respected by them. Giraud was somewhat of a specialist in escape.”    

 

·       Lafitte, operating under the alias Jean Pierre Martin, visited Martino in prison on at least one occasion in 1961. This is known only because of a notation made by George Hunter White: “Pierre to see Martino Cuba—call Rene.” [Rene being Pierre’s wife.] A subsequent notation by Lafitte reads: “Siragusa re Martino Cuba.” This pertains to former OSS officials and Federal Narcotics Bureau agent Charles Siragusa, who was approached by the CIA in 1960 about contracting American Mafia figures in Cuba, and elsewhere, to help three CIA employees imprisoned with Martino to escape. It is thought that perhaps Siragusa contacted White and Lafitte for help with this request. 

 

 

·       Of those named by Trafficante, readers are already familiar with Loran Eugene Hall, understood to have known alleged assassination bagman John Martino; Lucien Rivard, whose 1965 daring escape from prison in Canada would make headline news in the US as a known narcotics smuggler operating out of Havana; and Leslie Bradley, trained pilot and self-described soldier of fortune who had been arrested for plotting and participating in an invasion of Nicaragua meant to embarrass Fidel Castro. According to FBI documents, “Cuban authorities charged that the [Nicaragua] plot was hatched on orders from the United States (CIA) to discredit the Castro regime.” The lesser-known individual identified by Trafficante as “Hudson,” was also involved in that failed plot. Deitsch writes that Hudson was an alleged “British Journalist,” sometimes called Carlos Juan Wilson-Hudson who “reportedly worked for Batista.” We know with certainty that he was known to Pierre Lafitte as J. Wilson-Hudson a.k.a. JW-H. Before delving into this obscure character identified by Trafficante as being present in Trescornia when Ruby visited the prison, it is important to place that imprisonment in context.

 

·       A February 26, 1962 exposé “Neo-National Socialists Linked to Algeria French” by correspondent Waverley Root, then living in Paris, published in The Washington Post, reveals that European extremists—known as Ultras—in Algeria were “now tied in with the worldwide clandestine neo-National Socialist organization which has existed ever since the end of the war, built around a core of Hitlerites who escaped post war justice. The head of this international National Socialist underground has always been believed to be Madrid’s man of mystery, Otto Skorzeny, the SS trooper who rescued Mussolini from his captors.” More chilling, Root continues, “Skorzeny is reported to maintain contacts with former National Socialists scattered throughout the world, especially in Latin America and the Middle East. They have not given up hope that National Socialistsm may yet triumph throughout the world, and they seem prepared to lend their aid in any desperate venture of like political ideology which might achieve a Rightest authoritarian government anywhere.” (emphasis added.)

Root’s informed sources said that “two of four defendants in the trial escaped and made their way to Spain.” The trial he refers to was the result of the arrest of those involved in the 1957 bazooka attack on General Raoul Salan. The far-right extremists were convinced that the general wasn’t fully on their side to halt the movement toward independence from France in Algeria. All charged with the attack had been found guilty. Among them was Doctor René Kovacs, who was sentenced to death in absentia following his escape. A physician by training, Kovacs was born in Algeria of [notably for our purposes] Hungarian parents. Along with his aide, Joseph Ortiz, a restaurateur, and fellow far-right extremist, the two fled to Spain. 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Paul Brancato]

Jail time appears to mean very little.

[Steve Thomas]

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Steve Thomas Before outlining in detail those in authority who could effect the release or escape of recently incarcerated known assassins in 1963, the following excerpts resulting from a simple word search “escape” reflect lax prison conditions (as evidenced in the prison attire in undated photos of Lajos Marton & Laszlo Varga which have been presented in this discussion as proof they couldn’t have crossed the MX – US border), porous prison systems and international borders, and apparent weak attempts to recapture escapees . . .  [relevant phrases in bold.]         

 

·       Following their arrest, Souetre and Brousse were transferred, first to the prison de Maison Carrée in France, then back to Algeria, where they and the others arrested with them were tried before a military tribunal on December 17, 1961. The press referred to this group as Souetre’s “First Algerian Marquis.” 

Four days later, they were sentenced to three-to-four years in a detention camp at Saint Maurice l’Ardoise; however, the sentence was suspended and replaced with an administrative detention of indeterminate length. Apparently, the terms of confinement were somewhat generous because, in January 1962, Souetre was allowed to marry Josette Marcaihou of Aymeric. Four days later, they were sentenced to three-to-four years in a detention camp at Saint-Maurice l’Ardoise]. However, the sentence was suspended and replaced with an administrative detention of indeterminate length. Indeed, the camp’s commander, General Claude Clement, attended the ceremony. [under dispute.]

 

Yes, prison escapes are intriguing, but what's your point?

You wrote, "   Following their arrest, Souetre and Brousse were transferred, first to the prison de Maison Carrée in France, then back to Algeria, where they and the others arrested with them were tried before a military tribunal on December 17, 1961. The press referred to this group as Souetre’s “First Algerian Marquis.” 

Uh, no.

Maison-Carrée is a prison in Algeria. It's about 12 miles south of Algeries on the northern coast of Algeriaon the river Harrach.

Souetre was captured in Algeria, first imprisoned in Algeria and then flown to France. The military Tribunal was in Paris.

You omitted his time in Santé.

 

The Camp Commandant at St. Maurice :'Aordoise was not General Clement. That is not "under dispute".

Saint-Maurice l’Ardoise : Un camp pour activistes dans le Gard en 1962

By Didier Lavrut

https://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/2589

“The camp director, appointed on December 19, 1961, took up his post on January 4, 1962. This was Achille Perrodo, who was previously director of the Thol camp. The report he sent on 9 January , i.e. three days before the arrival of the first activists,…”^17.

^17.Arch. dép. du Gard, CA 1574. Rapport du directeur du CARS au préfet, 9 janvier 1962.

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

[Leslie Sharp]

34 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Yes, prison escapes are intriguing, but what's your point?

You wrote, "   Following their arrest, Souetre and Brousse were transferred, first to the prison de Maison Carrée in France, then back to Algeria, where they and the others arrested with them were tried before a military tribunal on December 17, 1961. The press referred to this group as Souetre’s “First Algerian Marquis.” 

Uh, no.

Maison-Carrée is a prison in Algeria. It's about 12 miles south of Algeries on the northern coast of Algeriaon the river Harrach.

Souetre was captured in Algeria, first imprisoned in Algeria and then flown to France. The military Tribunal was in Paris.

You omitted his time in Santé.

 

The Camp Commandant at St. Maurice :'Aordoise was not General Clement. That is not "under dispute".

Saint-Maurice l’Ardoise : Un camp pour activistes dans le Gard en 1962

By Didier Lavrut

https://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/2589

“The camp director, appointed on December 19, 1961, took up his post on January 4, 1962. This was Achille Perrodo, who was previously director of the Thol camp. The report he sent on 9 January , i.e. three days before the arrival of the first activists,…”^17.

^17.Arch. dép. du Gard, CA 1574. Rapport du directeur du CARS au préfet, 9 janvier 1962.

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

Are you deliberately deflecting from the essence of the facts presented relating specifically to escape from lax prisons and allowed to travel through porous borders for some reason?

I could have been selective and ommitted those facts you consider in error so that you would be compelled to address the salient question.

You actually have no proof that Marton was in prison on the dates in question ... unless in the past you have posted documents I haven't seen that have been weighed carefully for authenticity to establish they're not part of a contrived paper trail.

cc. Jeffrey Sundberg

Edited March 30, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

4 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Jail time appears to mean very little.

Those in question in this particular discussion are known escapees, known to be trained assassins, to have been involved in recent assassination plots, and known — in the instance of Souetre, to have been in New Orleans and in Dallas in 1963.  They can also be linked to SS Otto Skorzeny's camps. 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Steve Thomas]

32 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Are you deliberately deflecting from the essence of the facts presented relating specifically to escape from lax prisons and allowed to travel through porous borders for some reason?

I could have been selective and ommitted those facts you consider in error so that you would be compelled to address the salient question.

You actually have no proof that Marton was in prison on the dates in question ... unless in the past you have posted documents I haven't seen that have been weighed carefully for authenticity to establish they're not part of a contrived paper trail.

cc. Jeffrey Sundberg

Please show me your proof that Lajos Marton escaped from the prison at Re.

Steve Thomas