Pierre Lafitte datebook, 1963

[Leslie Sharp]

9 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

HST, 11/22/1963, Aspen Colorado.  Fear and Loathing, first use. Can't find his letter to William Kennedy on msnbc/bing.  Frustrating.

But does Thompson say that the US government set Vosjoli up for life  in Aspen?

[Ron Bulman]

33 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

But does Thompson say that the US government set Vosjoli up for life  in Aspen?

Nope.  I'm still only on page 168 if Vosjoli lands in Aspen w/HST.  His letter was about his anger about JFK's death and frustration over isolation from news about it in Aspen's remote location, news wise at the time.  All should read the letter, he's passionate in it.  I've linked it here before.  I'll look again tomorrow.  Don't mean to distract from the thread topic but I'm stumped on the letter.

[Pete Mellor]

14 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Pete, I'm looking for the source for the "quiet life somewhere in Colorado"? I recall that he says he spent time with Leon Uris in either Aspen or Vail (or both?) but I thought he 'retired' to Florida.

Leslie, according to John Newman he states that de Vosjoli holed up in Colorado, and quotes de Vosjoli's autobiography 'Lamia' for that info.

[Leslie Sharp]

2 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Leslie, according to John Newman he states that de Vosjoli holed up in Colorado, and quotes de Vosjoli's autobiography 'Lamia' for that info.

Thanks, Ron. I'm mostly interested in whether the US government actually funded his relocation, and if so, why?


(btw, Bob Wills Day is underway in in Turkey, Texas!)

[Ron Bulman]

8 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Thanks, Ron. I'm mostly interested in whether the US government actually funded his relocation, and if so, why?


(btw, Bob Wills Day is underway in in Turkey, Texas!)

The HST letter I mentioned, which I've not looked further for yet, illustrates the remoteness of Aspen at the time.  At tiny, small plane airport or a long drive over two lane mountain passes.  A local TV station, yesterday's Denver Post.  A great place to hide someone at the time.

First trip through Turkey going that route to Colorado I forgot my cap.  Bought a Bob Wills Day one at the museum.  Still wear it occasionally.

 

[Leslie Sharp]

20 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

The HST letter I mentioned, which I've not looked further for yet, illustrates the remoteness of Aspen at the time.  At tiny, small plane airport or a long drive over two lane mountain passes.  A local TV station, yesterday's Denver Post.  A great place to hide someone at the time.

First trip through Turkey going that route to Colorado I forgot my cap.  Bought a Bob Wills Day one at the museum.  Still wear it occasionally.

 

Aspen Institute had been there for over a decade.

(We lived in Vail 1986-88 and drove that route a number of times.)

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/heritage/

 

Tks for Asleep at the Wheel!

[Ron Bulman]

I've heard of the Aspen Institute but never knew exactly what it was or when it originated.  Interesting, older than I would have guessed.  Just by the name my first thought would be a think tank or something like it.

I finally found the letter.  It is a classic in JFKA lore imho.  He expresses his fear and loathing, the death of hope, the dirtiest hour in our time and so much more.  He also alludes to the isolation, no one in 500 miles, has to be at Western Union at 8:30 when they open.  In one of his other books he complains about small plane slow trips to Denver before he can head to NY or California, sometimes delayed by weather in the winter.

Been to Aspen once myself, over Independence pass.  Camped on the creek below Maroon Bells before they closed it off.  Through Vail in 1964 with my dad to Rifle where I saw my first deer killed by him.  Again a few years ago just to see it.  The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens are magnificent.

thedirtysouth: The Origin Of "Fear And Loathing"

 

[W. Niederhut]

Yeah, Ron, Aspen was remote in the early 60s, and Vail was undeveloped. 

Colorado was a vast wilderness area in those days.

I had to look this one up-- they didn't pave Independence Pass until 1967.  (They finally paved Cottonwood Pass a few years ago.)

As for Texas swing, I missed Bob Wills Day yesterday, but here's Ron Wood playing pedal steel on a Rolling Stones' cover of Bob Wills Is Still the King.

They aren't exactly the Texas Playboys, but the Stones got the basic, sh*t-kicking Texas swing right.

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Leslie Sharp]

@W. Niederhut Hilarious!  You made my day.
I'm going out on a limb here and speculate they didn't perform that little tune ever again! 

[Leslie Sharp]

On the wings of murder. The pigeon way for unsuspecting Lee.

Clip, clip his wings.

—Lafitte datebook, November 9, 1963

 What do France in December 1942, World War II, and the French Resistance—precisely where our story begins—have to do with the assassination of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, the event that shattered the American landscape? This chapter will begin to reveal that the roots of our great American tragedy dive deeply into European soil two decades back, at a time when democracies and monarchies hung by mere threads in the face of National Socialist Germany’s military juggernaut and when all hands and all means were called upon to save the Allies from defeat.

         As we shall read, the comrades in this monumental effort produced strange bedfellows and shifting expedient alliances that joined anti-National Socialists with French pro-fascist terrorists and gangsters, anti-communists, anti-monarchists, Allied commandos, all of whom exploited the means of assassination to advance their collective and sometimes contradictory ends. It’s clear from the outset that this chapter, and the fullness of the book, will not argue that the assassination in Dallas was a new weapon in the arsenal of war and international affairs. Far from it. The beginnings, described here, establish the foundation for what eventually evolved into a complex set of interrelated aims, enterprises, individuals and methods that ultimately triggered the murder of an American president. The events described in this chapter provided the tip of the spear for what ultimately became a kind of assassination incorporated. 

 

. . . Returning now to the assassination of Darlan which serves as template for the future set-up of Lee Harvey Oswald as “the perfect patsy” on November 22, 1963, soon after the execution of Francois Darlan’s assassin, Fernand Bonnier, there were scattered and persistent reports that the young Frenchman had been a patsy of sorts and that he was not an avid monarchist but was only an impressionable, somewhat naïve, youth, who had been manipulated toward murderous ends by skillful others. This belief stems from the fact that Bonnier’s “friend,” Henri d’Astier, while active in La Cagoule, on several occasions joined Filliol in carrying out a devious tactic for ridding La Cagoule of suspected double-agent members by manipulating them into veiled assassination efforts during which it would be highly likely that they would be captured or killed. Filliol dubbed this manipulation “the pigeon way.” Here, one is easily reminded of the quote by CIA official Miles Copeland: “You can sometimes gain points in the war of dirty tricks by killing an expendable person on your own side and blaming it on the other when considering this type of lethal deception.” And in mid-November 1963, Pierre Lafitte, in New Orleans, would jot down in his datebook: “On the wings of murder. The pigeon way for unsuspecting Lee [Oswald]. Clip, clip his wings,” no doubt a reference to Jean Filliol’s tactic of manipulation within his assassin camps. — H. P. Albarelli Jr.

 

[Ron Bulman]

I'd read of Thomas Eli Davis, a gun runner.  That's about it.  His connections and maybe more importantly those of his wife are intriguing.  As is the possibility they might have delivered diagrams of Dealy Plaza or maybe more to Otto less than a month before the assassination?

[David Josephs]

@Leslie Sharp You probably have this yet if not...   I ordered Coup and look forward to getting into it asap.

Interesting how the FBI provided an image which makes the SBT impossible...  The "E" used an image of the wrong car

Edited July 16, 2023 by David Josephs

[Ron Bulman]

3 hours ago, David Josephs said:

@Leslie Sharp You probably have this yet if not...   I ordered Coup and look forward to getting into it asap.

Interesting how the FBI provided an image which makes the SBT impossible...  The "E" used an image of the wrong car

David, maybe Leslie will elaborate further but this article is discussed in some depth and a couple of paragraphs quoted near the end of the last chapter of Coup.  The author, David Duffy interviewed an FBI agent in Dallas in April 1977 about Souetre.  He also interviewed Dr. Alderson (by phone I think, 2X maybe) and Souetre himself.  Who said he wasn't involved but believed there was a French connection and thought a Mertz might have been involved.  A real person and an alias he used himself.  This section goes on to quote an interview of Alderson by J. Gary Shaw.

I clicked on enlarge image in the article you posted but it's still too small to read.  I'd like to read the whole thing though I don't know about the "next page", it's sourced to the Weisberg collection at Hood College, maybe I'll try to track it down.  For now I'll get out my magnifying glass.

P.S. They claim Duffy was a little more reliable/thorough than some Enquirer authors, also, the article didn't come out for six years after his FBI interview for some reason.

[Leslie Sharp]

8 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

David, maybe Leslie will elaborate further but this article is discussed in some depth and a couple of paragraphs quoted near the end of the last chapter of Coup.  The author, David Duffy interviewed an FBI agent in Dallas in April 1977 about Souetre.  He also interviewed Dr. Alderson (by phone I think, 2X maybe) and Souetre himself.  Who said he wasn't involved but believed there was a French connection and thought a Mertz might have been involved.  A real person and an alias he used himself.  This section goes on to quote an interview of Alderson by J. Gary Shaw.

I clicked on enlarge image in the article you posted but it's still too small to read.  I'd like to read the whole thing though I don't know about the "next page", it's sourced to the Weisberg collection at Hood College, maybe I'll try to track it down.  For now I'll get out my magnifying glass.

P.S. They claim Duffy was a little more reliable/thorough than some Enquirer authors, also, the article didn't come out for six years after his FBI interview for some reason.

Yes, @Ron Bulman, @David Josephs once he realized Jean Souetre appears in Lafitte's datebook, Hank relied on the clues to Souetre left by Duffy. We discussed at length the automatic blowback of sourcing anything published in the Enquirer. Hank's professional view was that Duffy was a solid reporter who took risks and if the only venue  he could persuade to fund and publish his investigative work was a tabloid, then so be it.  The facts are the facts.  I think we've evolved and accept that being interviewed on Sputnik or RT of Al Jazeera does not automatically destroy the credibility of an investigation; however, we now have to factor in "disinformation." And yes, it's possible Duffy was an expert in the art decades ago.  However, the fact that Jean Souetre's files remain either unreleased, or lost in the wind, suggests to us that Duffy was 'on to something' very early on.

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

@Benjamin Cole

We can reactivate this thread to address your concerns:

 

My recent post on FB in response to an inquiry:
 

To borrow a hackneyed phrase -- it is what it is, for now. I'm making a degree of progress in the quest for additional samples, but I have to emphasize that if Hank was unsuccessful, why on earth would I be under the illusion I might be?

Remember that the original examination by MI-6 contractors in London was stalled pending more exemplars.
 

And speaking of MI-6, had they issued the final report on authentication, wouldn't you agree that many in the community would immediately cry, "psyop!" When Hank told me about the firm's history with British Intel, and that the ink and paper specialist was Ukrainian, I asked why he couldn't make this even more difficult?! 
 

In other words, when we secure authentication, the authenticator will be under scrutiny: How much did we pay for a positive read? Who selected the team of examiners? Did we get a second opinion? One only has to follow the decades-long Dead Sea Scroll controversy to realize that the detail provided by Lafitte (recorded in real time) could languish in the limbo of pseudo-science for years. 
 

So, I've decided to press on in the precise way Hank intended for us to. He only agreed to engage in authentication to satisfy the Australian documentary company who convinced him that the actual process would be an intriguing footing for the 6-8 part series based on "Coup in Dallas." In the end, the company/producer ended up with the PDF of the db, and a dozen hours of film from IRB and London sits in a can somewhere. 
 

Hank's underlying attitude -- and for those who knew him well this won't come as a surprise -- was "take it or leave it." He knew how he virtually stumbled on to Rene Lafitte's doorstep; how long it took to gain her trust; that she never asked for $; that Phen only reluctantly and over a period of years honored Rene's wishes that she respond to Hank's inquiries and requests. There was never a hint he considered the possibility the datebook was fabricated. 
 

Which brings me to the observation/concern I shared with Charlie (paraphrasing): how does one square a high regard for Hank's professional acumen established in "A Terrible Mistake" and numerous articles and essays, and yet intimate he might have been fool enough to fall prey to an elaborate hoax? And how precisely was the hoax orchestrated? Fake a diary and sit and wait for a journalist to knock on your door? A decade after your demise? 
 

I know there are examples of missteps in investigative work, as did Hank, but because I knew him, personally, to be hyper- vigilant I'm even more inclined to argue he wouldn't risk his career in the way being intimated here. 
 

Calling a spade a spade.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Leslie Sharp