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The Attempted Assassination of Charles deGaulle


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On the question of John Wilson - Hudson

Hank Albarelli writes in Coup in Dallas ...

The authors have unearthed information on Wilson-Hudson that is no less than intriguing and germane to our story. Described in government documents as having brown hair, blue-green eyes, a ruddy complexion, a small mustache, and wearing glasses, the official observed him as being very intelligent, astute, and well informed on current events. He carried with him a UN press pass (his wife, Eliana Gabriela, was active with the UN) issued in Santiago, as well as a document authorizing him to enter at will the Los Cerrillos airport in the country’s Capital at any time, issued by the International Police Section of the Chilean Investigation Service. 

            Gleaned from a number of CIA documents we learned the following: 

(1) Wilson-Hudson was a Spanish citizen of British descent, who resided sometimes in Madrid and sometimes in Chile. He first arrived in Chile on 28 January 1939 bearing a Spanish passport. He was born in Liverpool, England on 29 December 1916 or 1917. He studied at Oxford University in England and left his studies there in July 1936 “to enlist as a volunteer in the Spanish Loyalist Forces, whereupon he acquired his Spanish citizenship.” Wilson-Hudson was married to Eliana [Gabriella Sara] Bronfman-[Weinstein].

(2) Wilson-Hudson, while in Chile, in the capacity as a journalist “opened a one-man crusade against the British Government, in violation of restrictions placed on such activities by foreigners in Chile.”

(3) Wilson-Hudson’s businesses were described by the CIA as “consisting of trade in copper, lead, and Sulphur.” In the late 1950s, he traded in illicit nickel. 

(4) A CIA report read: “Another report dated 20 June 1959 from a usually reliable source stated that PAUL HUGHES, an American soldier of fortune, claimed to have at his disposal three aircraft, including one bomber, and planned to launch an attack on Puerto Cabanas, Nicaragua, during the weekend of 27–28 June 1959. Hughes said that Carl WILSON, a British journalist, and about 65 volunteers would join him in the attack. Source commented that HUGHES also vaguely spoke of possibly bombing Managua for the psychological effect. WILSON said that Castro had no knowledge of HUGHES’ plan.

(5) United Press International carried the story datelined 1 July 1959 from Havana, Cuba, saying that Police had raided a private home in suburban Biltmore the day before and seized a large quantity of arms and arrested three Americans and a Briton. The Americans were identified as Paul HUGHES, an officer in Castro’s rebel army; Efron R. PICHARDO, of Miami, Florida; and Joseph BARDOR, of Los Angeles, California. The Briton was listed as Carl John WILSON. 

A Nickel Deal in the Midst of an Assassination Plot

Analysis of a string of Lafitte datebook entries supports the hypothesis that Pierre was at least privy to, if not the orchestrator of, yet another nickel transaction that was underway in the summer and fall of 1963, and that John Wilson-Hudson was involved. 

June 7, 1963

Else [sic]  and W’s wife= shipment $

-John ‘Wilson-H- —Ruby 

 

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15 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Or, is it possible he's referring to someone far more obscure?
Texas gunrunner Robert McKeown said Ruby ‘had a whole lot of jeeps he wanted to get to Castro.’ Ruby wanted McKeown to write a personal letter of introduction to Castro for Ruby so he could talk to Castro about releasing some unnamed friends detained in Havana. At that time, Santo Trafficante was being held at the Trescornia detention center in Cuba. Was Ruby instrumental in winning Trafficante's release at that time? John Wilson Hudson (a.k.a. John Wilson), an English journalist supposedly detained with Trafficante in the camp, indicated that Ruby came to see Trafficante in Trescornia. After Ruby shot Oswald, according to CIA cables, Wilson contacted the American Embassy and reported that "an American gangster called Santo . . . was visited by an American gangster type named Ruby." If Ruby was trying to sell jeeps to Castro, as McKeown said, was this an arms-for-hostages type deal? Get Castro the jeeps and get Trafficante out of jail? Recent events remind us this certainly wouldn't have been the only such effort in history. Trafficante was released from the detention center in August,1959, possibly just after Ruby's appearance there.” 
 

. . . Kantor goes on: “U.S. embassy records in London referred to Wilson only as a self-described ‘free-lance journalist,’ residing in Chile during most of the 1940s and 1950s. Wilson told American embassy officials that he actually had been working for Cuban dictator Batista in the late 1950s and was deported by Castro after a term of imprisonment in 1959… “But a confidential November 28, 1963, memorandum from the office of Richard M. Helms, at that time CIA deputy director for plans, reveals much more about Wilson. The CIA file on him went back to 1951.”

            The confidential November 28, 1963 memorandum by Helms was sent to Sam Papich at the FBI. The file, wrote Kantor, “shows that Wilson [was] well educated at Oxford University [England], had been born in Liverpool, December 29, 1916, had reached Chile on January 28, 1939, from Buenos Aires, and ‘was a contact of one Bert Sucharov, a suspected Soviet agent in Santiago, Chile.’” 

We knew from government records that the enigmatic John Wilson-Hudson, named on several key dates in the 1963 datebook kept by assassination project manager Pierre Lafitte, was the alleged journalist who conveniently named Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby as an associate of Mafia don Santo Trafficante. We further learned from the research of A. J. Weberman and Michael Canfield, authors of Coup d’État in America, that Wilson-Hudson had in 1939 formed a version of the US isolationist pressure group, the America First Committee, in Santiago, Chile, known there as The Universal Peace Movement. That long buried aspect of Wilson-Hudson’s history began to make sense of the web the enigmatic John Hudson found himself in two decades later when he was imprisoned by Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

. . . The significance of the October 30th [Lafitte datebook] entry, made just one day after Lafitte tells us about the “Lancelot Planning” is volatile because there is an inexplicable similarity between it and an entry in one of Jack Ruby's notebooks which Dallas police located on the day Oswald was shot. It reads: "October 29, 1963 -- John Wilson -- bond." The FBI checked Dallas police and sheriff's records to determine if a “John Wilson” had made bond. They also consulted two different private attorneys whose names were John Wilson, both of whom indicated they had not dealt with Ruby. The FBI concluded there was no reason for the notebook entry. We now know otherwise.

 

 

Edited by Leslie Sharp
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Presumably Carl John Wilson is the same person? John Wilson mentioned in a Ruby notebook? Sulfur and nickel? Madrid? Fascist? Lots of questions. L

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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

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37 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Presumably Carl John Wilson is the same person? John Wilson mentioned in a Ruby notebook? Sulfur and nickel? Madrid? Fascist? Lots of questions. L

Difficult to dismiss out of hand.

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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

 

 

 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.
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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. 

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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.

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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.
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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.

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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 by Leslie Sharp
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