Did the INS pick up Jean-Rene Souetre in Dallas?

[Leslie Sharp]

29 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Thanks, Ron!

It was unconscionable that those responsible for publishing legible images didn't contact our editor before hitting "print".   

I'm having difficulty attaching more screenshots; the alert indicates some of the files are too large.  Bear with me.

Also, I hope when revisiting the dispute related to Souetre's whereabouts on November 22, members will keep in mind the broader implications that Col. Askins — who knew Otto Skorzeny personally in Madrid and who had served with Harlon B. Carter in the US Border Patrol before Carter became the Regional Commissioner of the INS in charge of Laredo, El Paso, Houston, Dallas etc. — appears in Lafitte's record within days of significant references to Souetre as well as Willoughby, Walker, Davis, Silverthorne and Otto & Ilse Skorzeny, Angleton, and William King Harvey.

Thursday, September 12, 1963
Askins?

Edited June 27, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Ron Bulman]

 and others.

On 6/14/2023 at 11:33 AM, Steve Thomas said:

I would say no.

from:

Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron pp. 231-232

https://epdf.tips/legacy-of-secrecy-the-long-shadow-of-the-jfk-assassination.html

 

“Virgil Bailey, an INS investigator in Dallas in 1963, told researcher

Gary Shaw years later about “picking up a Frenchman in Dallas shortly

after the assassination of President Kennedy.” The man’s description

was very close to Mertz’s, and he looked just a few years older than

a cover identity Mertz often used. Based on age and description, the

man Investigator Bailey remembered could not have been either

the real Souetre or the young French chef. Bailey also recalled that “the

Frenchman . . . had been tried in absentia in France and was under a

death sentence for collaboration with the National Socialists during World War II.”

 

Germany invaded France on May 10, 1940 and France surrendered on June 25, 1940.

In May and June, 1940, Jean-Rene Souetre was nine years old.

Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944.

In August of 1944, Souetre was thirteen years old and living in a military boarding school, where had had been since the age of eleven.

 

Steve Thomas

Steve, I mentioned in a recent post this is all still confusing to me.  I'm inclined to believe Souetre was not arrested by the INS on 11/22/63.  IF he was in Dallas he was more likely flown out of there or Fort Worth by Silverthorne in an Air America plane, Carswell AFB is in FW.  Thoughts.

As you said someone well may have been arrested by the DPD and turned over to the INS.  As you mention the DPD records are lacking, from the three or more tramps to Eugene Hale Brading, and others.  If aliases and false passports may have been used it gets more complicated.

[Ron Bulman]

Leslie, if you happen to look in, I'm wondering what you think about a source.  Peter Kross.   Mentioned 4X I believe in Coup.  In relation to Varga, Marton, Souetre entering Mexico on 11/22 and  Soutetre at Plantation Key.  

He has multiple books with few reviews.  That doesn't mean anything in itself.

 Amazon.com: Peter Kross: books, biography, latest update

[Chuck Schwartz]

Paul B., this document mentions JM WAVE and Madrid in the same sentence (not sure if this helps).

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=AMCRASH-1

[Leslie Sharp]

18 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Leslie, if you happen to look in, I'm wondering what you think about a source.  Peter Kross.   Mentioned 4X I believe in Coup.  In relation to Varga, Marton, Souetre entering Mexico on 11/22 and  Soutetre at Plantation Key.  

He has multiple books with few reviews.  That doesn't mean anything in itself.

 Amazon.com: Peter Kross: books, biography, latest update

@Ron BulmanYes, Ron, we cite Kross. One of Hank's researchers was in direct communication with PK prior to publication.

A number of seasoned researchers have long discounted the SAC source who Kross relies on. However, other than ad hominem attacks on the SAC in general, I've yet to read anything in the form of actual proof to impugn his specific claims that Souetre was in the US in 1963.  

And, as argued previously, to insist Marton and Varga were behind bars — in what is obviously a country club prison environment — is naive at best, particularly in the political climate of early '60s France with a former Vichy official and QJ/WIN spotter at the helm of INTERPOL ensconced in Paris.  

Now that we know SW INS Commissioner Harlon Carter was a long time friend of sharpshooter Boots Askins identified by Pierre Lafitte in the lead up to Dealey, we have another piece of the puzzle at the Mexican border.

Can anyone produce documents to confirm Souetre's own claims that he was in Spain on November 22? Is a suspect's "word" sufficient to discontinue the investigation? Has anyone read the affidavits of his alleged witnesses, one of whom was an OAS General?

Perhaps if HSCA had been less obsessed with Oswald and opted to also track down a known assassin or assassins alleged to have been in Dallas on November 22, we might have known more much sooner.  By definition, their approach confirms just how perfect Oswald was as the patsy.

Kross is also among the few, if not the first to identify Jane Roman in context of Jean Souetre. Why has his revelation been ignored for a decade?

During their interview with Jane Roman, in addition to the focus on Oswald in Mexico City, did the HSCA also interrogate her about Souetre? Had they availed of the independent research handed over generously by Gary Shaw and Bud Fensterwald and pursued their leads to Souetre et al, we might have known more much sooner.  

It is my understanding the Shaw/Fensterwald files are buried in a storage garage in the DC area as I write.

Further to Jane Roman and what she said, vs. what she was asked: did Jeff Morley inquire about Souetre, or just Oswald? Did the Warren Commission consider Roman's role in dissemination of the 1963 reports on Souetre — known to the CIA for his attempts on de Gaulle's life in an attack not entirely dissimilar to Dealey — and his appeal to "continue" receiving support from the agency" in the spring?  From there, they might have unearthed Roman's knowledge of Ilse Skorzeny in and out of the US since 1957, but I digress.

Jane Roman surfaced in the March 9, 1964 document, and it's possible I've overlooked instances, but to my knowledge no one — including those on this forum arguing we should accept Souetre's own words as evidence he wasn't in Dallas —  who has tracked the confusion surrounding Soutre/ Roux/ Mertz on behalf of the French intelligence has actually pursued the potential significance.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=83405#relPageId=1
 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Steve Thomas]

The Preident of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, TX. on November 22, 1963. Two days before that, on November 20, 1963, Lajos Marton was sitting in a courtroom in the Fort Neuf de Vincennes, Paris, France being sentenced to 20 years in prison. His sentence was commuted from the death penalty to 20 years. He was sent to the Saint Martin de Re prison on the Ile de Re. The Ile de Re is a small island in the Atlantic, just off the west-central coast of France,.near the town of La Rochelle.

In his book, "Il Faut Tuer de Gaulle", Marton wrote that he was interned in La Sante on his way to the Saint Martin de Re prison when he learned of JFK's assassination.

Steve Thomas

 

[Ron Bulman]

On 6/28/2023 at 2:31 PM, Leslie Sharp said:

Yes, Ron, we cite Kross. One of Hank's researchers was in direct communication with PK prior to publication.

A number of seasoned researchers have long discounted the SAC source who Kross relies on. However, other than ad hominem attacks on the SAC in general, I've yet to read anything in the form of actual proof to impugn his specific claims that Souetre was in the US in 1963.  

If Hank trusted his researcher's evaluation of Kross source(s) that's a plus.  Hank is respected by a lot of people from what I've read.  I'd just like to know who the source for the information is.  

Is one noted in JFK: The French Connection?  Did Hank's researcher ask Kross about this?  He's written several related books, all with few reviews, many of those shallow.  Has anyone out there heard of him before or reviewed his work?

Was the SAC source ever named?  Other quotes in Coup of Kross seem legit.  The quote on pages 2-3 about Darlan seem to be pretty straightforward history.  He does quote the CIA website on the OSS in it.  

Then the part on page 296 about Wild Bill Donovan on the way back from a clandestine trip to England in 1940 in a Flying Boat is documented in the end notes.  "The Flying Boats of Foynes", History Ireland.

What the heck is a flying boat?  Not a seaplane.

The English version Wild Bill flew on was a little more sleek.

 

[Gerry Down]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:03 AM, Larry Hancock said:

The best I can tell is that the ZR crypt was used for "outsourcing" assets for illegal tasks, something where you would not want to use your own personnel or even operationally approved assets - given its association with Staff D  I suspect that was primarily for things like burglaries, safe cracking, thefts, strong arm stuff against couriers etc.  Certainly reason to think it could involve things like poisonings, etc on occasion. 

From this i take it the CIA would engage with individuals from criminal gangs and hire them to carry out these kinds of tasks. A natural follow on from this would be to hire hitmen from these gangs to knock off people who were creating problems for the CIA. 

Do we have any evidence of the CIA hiring known hitmen from criminal gangs to silence people that posed a problem to CIA operations? Take for example the killing of Eladio del Valle. If he was in some way involved in the periphery of the JFK assassination, you could imagine the CIA going out and hiring a hitman from a criminal gang to take him out of the equation just as the Garrison investigation was about to take off. 

It would not be the kind of stuff that would be reported up or signed off by the top brass of the CIA, but one could imagine Morales for example taking CIA cash and using it to organize such a hit of his own volition. 

[Larry Hancock]

While we can document cases of elimination attempts, several of which failed, they involved third parties and poison, with the criminal asset delivering the poison but not necessarily actually dosing the target - that was left to local surrogates.  We see that in Iran, in Cuba and actually those instances were "signed off" at very high levels inside the CIA (not at Director level but usually one step lower at Hemisphere level) but never authorized above the CIA - I cover examples of this in my book Shadow Warfare. 

As to actual assassinations with weapons, that was almost always done through CIA surrogates with rebel or revolutionary groups the CIA was supporting - that provided for deniability, worked in some cases and failed in others.  The Executive Action program we talk so much about with Harvey was actually a  new concept which is why we have his notes on how such a thing might even be put together - again I cover that in the book, it reflects the problem of acquiring assets and is why Harvey turned to Angleton for advice, with their first thought to go to an allied intelligence group as a way to ensure deniability - the British turned them down flat.

While using criminals for everything from burglary to wire taps to strong arm acts and break ins was done both domestically and internationally by Staff D (and sometimes personally by Angleton it appears) "hired guns", as so common in the movies, was not at all standard practice in CIA field operations given that they almost always were working with surrogates they could encourage or manipulate into assassinations - and actually the surrogates were often the ones to take the idea to their case officers rather than the other way around.

[Gerry Down]

4 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

While we can document cases of elimination attempts, several of which failed, they involved third parties and poison, with the criminal asset delivering the poison but not necessarily actually dosing the target - that was left to local surrogates.  We see that in Iran, in Cuba and actually those instances were "signed off" at very high levels inside the CIA (not at Director level but usually one step lower at Hemisphere level) but never authorized above the CIA - I cover examples of this in my book Shadow Warfare. 

As to actual assassinations with weapons, that was almost always done through CIA surrogates with rebel or revolutionary groups the CIA was supporting - that provided for deniability, worked in some cases and failed in others.  The Executive Action program we talk so much about with Harvey was actually a  new concept which is why we have his notes on how such a thing might even be put together - again I cover that in the book, it reflects the problem of acquiring assets and is why Harvey turned to Angleton for advice, with their first thought to go to an allied intelligence group as a way to ensure deniability - the British turned them down flat.

While using criminals for everything from burglary to wire taps to strong arm acts and break ins was done both domestically and internationally by Staff D (and sometimes personally by Angleton it appears) "hired guns", as so common in the movies, was not at all standard practice in CIA field operations given that they almost always were working with surrogates they could encourage or manipulate into assassinations - and actually the surrogates were often the ones to take the idea to their case officers rather than the other way around.

Making a distinction between assassination and murder, to kill Castro would be an assassination whereas to kill Eladio del Valle would be outright murder. Assassination would be quiet a complex task as the target person would have security etc which would make them hard to kill, whereas to murder Eladio del Valle would be quiet easy from a logistical point of view and therefore could be carried out by a simple hitman. Alot of cubans would view Castro as a legitimate military target whereas they might be more reticent to kill someone like Eladio del Valle.

So, though i have no evidence of it, i could see how if CIA officers wanted someone murdered, they would hire a back alley hitman to carry it out. i mean, if spouses can hire hitmen to kill their other half, then the same feat would be no problem for the CIA especially as they would have access to murky underworld contacts through their legitimate assets.  If they waned to hire a hitman, they could simply bypass their legitimate asset, and go straight to the hitman. Especially when dealing with murder, the less people that knew about it the better. 

Of course there is very little on paper about the CIA carrying out assassinations, so there would be alot less, and probably zero, in the case of an actual murder. So if the CIA did use this tactic of hiring hitmen, then we'd almost surely never hear about it. 

[Larry Hancock]

Gerry,  the CIA was actually pretty bureaucratic and actually controlled its funds pretty tightly - you can even find the expense reports for ZRIFLE including travel and wages.  As an example, even the first Castro assassination project with Roselli had to be funded and that required telling at least three officers so they would approve the funds out of their budgets.  I spent a lot of time on Shadow Warfare trying to provide and in depth overview of real life CIA covert covers and dirty practices (including political assassinations and murders at all levels) that have actually been investigated and documented. 

Its really good to have a solid grasp of what laws govern CIA operations as compared to military operations;  the CIA actually had to reach an understanding with DOJ that officers involved in murder would not be prosecuted if it were associated with a sanctioned mission - otherwise they certainly could be charged and prosecuted, even if it involved the murder of a CIA employee or asset.

Now of course insiders who got involved with illegal dealings - including CIA guys, or DEA guys or ATF guys - who got personally dirty and had their own external sources of cash no doubt could afford murders or bribes or whatever related to their side business...so could CIA surrogates who did the same once they had gotten dirty as well.

We  know that several of the CIA Cubans circa 62 onward through Iran Contra got involved in drugs, weapons and other dirty business and took out competitors with bombings and murders....Miami was famous for that for awhile.  But that is a different story entirely.

All I can tell you is based on the actual assassinations - and murders - that we know about, the ones involving CIA officers most often had those officers working with people who they trusted and who were also deniable i.e. their surrogates, not paid hit men who would have posed a variety of risks and who would have been more difficult to control after the fact.

 

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Larry Hancock

[Leslie Sharp]

20 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

If Hank trusted his researcher's evaluation of Kross source(s) that's a plus.  Hank is respected by a lot of people from what I've read.  I'd just like to know who the source for the information is.  

Is one noted in JFK: The French Connection?  Did Hank's researcher ask Kross about this?  He's written several related books, all with few reviews, many of those shallow.  Has anyone out there heard of him before or reviewed his work?

Was the SAC source ever named?  Other quotes in Coup of Kross seem legit.  The quote on pages 2-3 about Darlan seem to be pretty straightforward history.  He does quote the CIA website on the OSS in it.  

Then the part on page 296 about Wild Bill Donovan on the way back from a clandestine trip to England in 1940 in a Flying Boat is documented in the end notes.  "The Flying Boats of Foynes", History Ireland.

What the heck is a flying boat?  Not a seaplane.

The English version Wild Bill flew on was a little more sleek.

 

@Ron Bulman Ron, great questions.

When asked, Kross responded, "I stand by what's in the book." As with many investigative reporters, he explained that his research for the book had long been stored away, and he made no generous offer to go in search of the name(s) of his sources. Had his reporting not dovetailed directly with details revealed by Lafitte, I venture Hank would not have cited him until the name(s) were nailed down.*

Loosely defined, Flying Boats were trans-Atlantic craft designed to land near what is now Shannon Airport, bogland and estuaries.  On a related note, based on details found in Skorzeny's papers, we suspect Skorzeny was in on the design of the first Shannon runway.  I'm especially interested because my in-laws were best friends with the Irish contractor in charge of the project, McInerny construction; from there, I have reason to suspect Otto and Ilse frequented their hotel in Killarney, Co. Kerry during their period ensconced in Martinstown House.

*Ron, I may be dreaming, but did @Steve Thomas mention the name of the SAC guy recently?

 

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

*Ron, I may be dreaming, but did @Steve Thomas mention the name of the SAC guy recently?

Not that I have seen.  But I must say I respect Steve's work.  I don't blame him for bringing up the fact the Hungarians were officially in prison at the time of the assassination per the statements and more he provided.  I also don't discount out of hand the possibility that given the power and connections of those involved that a deal might have been made for their services.

[Steve Thomas]

12 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I also don't discount out of hand the possibility that given the power and connections of those involved that a deal might have been made for their services.

Ron,

Dates of early release:

Lajos Marton was released from the Saint Martin de Re prison on March 22, 1968. Also released from Re on that same day were:

https://deltas-collines.org/galerie/QQQQQQQQQQQQQQ

Pierre Magade (involved in the attack on de Gaulle at Petit-Clamart)

Raymond Mura (who escaped from the St. Maurice l'Ardoise prison camp with Jean-Rene Souetre in February of 1962)

Gerard Baudry

Armand Belvisi

Dominique Cabannes de Laprade (released from Sante)

Andre Canal ("The Monocle" - Head of Mission III of the OAS)

etc,. etc., etc,...

The list goes on.

There was no "deal".

Steve Thomas

 

 

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Steve Thomas

[Allen Lowe]

two things -

1) I have never trusted Albarelli since, in A Secret Order, he expressed a belief in the ridiculous "twist" party that LHO was supposed to have attended. This is one of the dumbest theories of LHO's pre-assassination actions. It didn't happen.

2) This may seem strange to ask, but I think is completely logical: Did Souetre/Mertz or whoever else was supposedly involved from the French side speak English? Has anyone ever confirmed that he/they/it did?

I continue to be wary of supposed recountings of events like LaFitte's diary because they are just too perfectly designed to fit into the plot - they too perfectly satisfy our desires, so many years after the fact, to sum everything up into neat and tidy organizational explanations and to thus confirm our theories.