FINALLY, PROOF: Charles Tracy Barnes was the CIA Chief of Domestic Operations Division, Support!

[Ron Bulman]

Before I read Alan Kent's essay "A Well Concealed T" near the end of Coup In Dallas I didn't know much at all about Tracey Barnes.  He was another upper level CIA official in charge of something or other.  In regard to Chuck Schwartz earlier question to Leslie.  

Right from the start of his entrance into the OSS in WWII in Switzerland, Barnes "patron" there and in the CIA was Dulles.  He requested Barnes assignment immediately after meeting him.  Barnes went to Yale as did Angleton (who didn't graduate) though not at the same time, both were members of the secret Scroll and Key society, the alternative to Skull and Bones, lifelong secretive commitments.

Dulles put Barnes in charge of operation PBSUCCESS, the Guatemalan coup.  He brought in David Phillips, Howard Hunt, David Morales, Rip Robertson, Henry Hecksher and more.  

Richard Bissell left much of the operations work for the Bay of Pigs to Barnes.  Barnes is the one responsible for blaming the lack of air cover for the failure of the operation on JFK.  Bissell and Dulles were fired, he remained unscathed in 1963, still loyal to his mentor.  

Chuck, in another thread reminded us that Ted Shackley was head of JMWAVE then, and, I didn't know reported to Barnes.  Hmm.  Morales reported to Shackley then?  Helms replaced ? with Joannides to deal with the Cubans in the DRE in New Orleans, reporting directly to him???  It all gets very confusing.

I guess it was though, a domestic operation.  Using foreign assets?

[Robert Montenegro]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

RM--

I am a fan of yours. I am nowhere in your league as a primary docs researcher, though I have done some. 

Please keep posting in the EF-JFK and, yes, it takes nearly unlimited forbearance to deal with certain participants here. 

My only advice as an old man: Never take anything personally, and some people here need serious counseling---but what can we do? 

Just grin and bear it.  The site allows you to put certain participants on "ignore." 

 

Thank you for the kind words. I will take your sage wisdom under advisement, and apply it. 

As I have stated before, I do suffer from shell-shock and PTSD, so any little bit of probing into my discipline as a documents hound does send me over the edge sometimes.

Ultimately, I am biased, in the sense that I believe the murder of President Kennedy was not just the forcible removal of a head of state, but that it represented an act of terrorism with a message.

And that message was simple: if you try to do what JFK did, we will destroy you.

In effect, every US president since 22 November 1963, has been a transient official, with no real power.

When the figurehead is just a shill, that is a fascist state.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Robert Montenegro

[Benjamin Cole]

6 minutes ago, Robert Montenegro said:

Thank you for the kind words. I will take your sage wisdom under advisement, and apply it. 

As I have stated before, I do suffer from shell-shock and PTSD, so any little bit of probing into my discipline as a documents hound does send me over the edge sometimes.

Ultimately, I am biased, in the sense that I believe the murder of President Kennedy was not just the forcible removal of a head of state, but that it represented an act of terrorism with a message.

And that message was simple: if you try to do what JFK did, we will destroy you.

In effect, every US president since 22 November 1963, has been a transient official, with no real power.

When the figurehead is just a shill, that is a fascist state.

You won't get any disagreement from me.

I have argued we have seen four presidents deposed by the Deep State in my lifetime: JFK, Nixon (possibly), Carter and Trump. 

This does not make the deposed President automatically a saint, although I have high regard for JFK, and Carter was not a bad fellow. 

It just means the Deep State wanted a better option (by their lights). 

I look forward to your contributions, and hope they are received graciously even by those who may disagree with your interpretations. 

For reasons that escape me, some participants in the EF-JFKA think biliousness and feculent invective are positives. Also, that they alone can divine the truth. 

You have my DM, send a note if ever you feel exasperated with the behavior of other participants in the EF-JFKA, or for any other reason as well. 

I look forward to gaining a deeper understanding of the JFKA, and our government, by reading your posts. 

[Robert Montenegro]

1 minute ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You have my DM, send a note if ever you feel exasperated with the behavior of other participants in the EF-JFKA, or for any other reason as well. 

I look forward to gaining a deeper understanding of the JFKA, and our government, by reading your posts. 

Thank you, once again for your kind words of encouragement.

[Joseph Backes]

3 hours ago, Robert Montenegro said:

Thank you for the kind words. I will take your sage wisdom under advisement, and apply it. 

As I have stated before, I do suffer from shell-shock and PTSD, so any little bit of probing into my discipline as a documents hound does send me over the edge sometimes.

Ultimately, I am biased, in the sense that I believe the murder of President Kennedy was not just the forcible removal of a head of state, but that it represented an act of terrorism with a message.

And that message was simple: if you try to do what JFK did, we will destroy you.

In effect, every US president since 22 November 1963, has been a transient official, with no real power.

When the figurehead is just a shill, that is a fascist state.

Yes, use that ignore option. Best way to deal with the Right-wing nonsense on here. 

Joe

[Paul Brancato]

15 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

As Pat said, this has been discussed for some time and I think it brings into play the fact that Domestic Operations had a fairly broad remit (legal or not) at the time.  Ostensibly it did not "spy" on foreign agents - the CIA was to hand that off to the FBI and we have concrete examples of that, one being "Tumbleweed". 

Domestic operations did a good deal of work establishing domestic "covers" for foreign operations - which was actually one of Barnes' long time specialties and possibly the reason he was given the assignment. It also identified and maintained contacts with American's with international contacts or those traveling abroad who could be used as sources or assets. 

Which is why De Morenschildt was cultivated as a source for Domestic Operations.  I've always been curious as to what Divisions actually used Clay Shaw.  The same would be said for Meheu and his operations against foreign diplomats.  That may even be revealed in more current documents; I admit to never going back to take a look at either Shaw or Meheu in that respect.

And of course J Walton Moores files remain largely a mystery - they would give us a very interesting insight into Domestic Operations activities.

 

 

Larry - your second paragraph and last paragraph, last one first. Are J Walton Moore’s files among the unreleased ones? Morley et al have focused on Joannides, and understandably. But what about guys like Moore? Are Hunt’s CIA files fully released? Tracy Barnes? It would seem to me that all files dealing with CIA domestic operations would be the most important ones if we are to be able to determine whether CIA was involved in a domestic assassination. 
Domestic covers for foreign operations, which like Robert M I assume means for foreign operatives  in the US. Is that your understanding of it? If so, exactly how far does that go? I’m thinking possibly  Russian and Eastern Europeans, Germans, French etc. Does this intersect with Paperclip for instance? Providing false names and bios? Please elaborate on this interesting specialty of Tracy Barnes. 

[Charles Blackmon]

8 hours ago, Robert Montenegro said:

 

And that message was simple: if you try to do what JFK did, we will destroy you.

In effect, every US president since 22 November 1963, has been a transient official, with no real power.

When the figurehead is just a shill, that is a fascist state.

You nailed it! Keep up the good work.

[Leslie Sharp]

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

34 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

@Paul Brancato
If I can step in here once again: obsessing on the military structure of the plot to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas is going to lead us astray, once again. With few exceptions, the active players determined to murder Kennedy also had ties to industry both pre and post the Cold War. Barnes and Wisner for instance where with Carter Ledyard headed by consigliere to the Whitney Dynasty.  Do we think they ever broke those ties? US intelligence agencies weren't "protecting democracy" on a global scale. They were servicing corporate expansion, full stop. That was the very purpose of SOFINDUS, World Commerce, Permindex etc.

For that reason, we should revisit Moore thru the lens of  his connections to the oil industry, vis a vis George de Mohrenschildt and Col. Lawrence Orlov.

As previously noted: Other candidates under consideration while Hank was alive included J. Walton Moore whose good friend Col. Lawrence Orlov appears in the Lafitte datebook.  Hank and I contemplated that Moore as COS Dallas was T, responsible for an operational structure not dissimilar to QJ/WIN or WI/Rogue organized for the one off Lancelot Project — the plan to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas where Moore was based and where Orlov engaged in the oil business. In short, there was more than one T functioning from early 1963 through November.

Another candidate was Birch Dilworth O'Neal, for reasons I won't elaborate on in this thread lest it detracts from Robert's brilliant research other that to say that he married into Oklahoma oil.

Lastly, Hank left me with notes to pursue clues to Ukraine connections to the Dallas hit, specifically Gen. Charles Willoughby's close ties to OUN leader Jarslov Stetzco. So we went in search, and have since pursued a number of avenues including one Steve Tanner who was among the first two hundred OSS recruits, and responsible for Eastern European ops to infiltrate Ukrainian solders into Soviet Russia.  Tanner is identified in Otto Skorzeny's private papers as revealed by Major Ralph Ganis in "The Skorzeny Papers," and according to Ralph, Steve and Otto formed a lifelong friendship. In a classic incident of "high strangeness and synchronicity" that followed Albarelli around, Tanner retired to a lake resort less than an hour's drive from Pierre Lafitte's last residence.  We only have to consider US involvement in the Ukraine / Russia conflict to realize what is really at issue:  OIL

For these reasons, Hank decided that Alan Kent's thorough analysis and convincing argument: Tracy Barnes was a pivotal character in the plot and Lafitte identified him, for some unknown reason, simply as T, (likely because he had been knows as Trick among agent comrades for years) — would be presented in essay form as a stand-alone document in the appendix of Coup. He considered this investigation a "work in progress," and anticipated precisely what unfolds here and on other venues in pursuit of a common goal: to solve the cold case murder investigation of Jack Kennedy.  For now, Barnes as "T" makes the most sense." 

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, of course we can't know if "all" the documents that ever existed have been released but we have had fair sized numbers of documents on several of the folks you mentioned for many years - I had personnel files on Hunt over a decade ago.  But no idea what the "universe" of those files was originally.

I've listed J Walton Moore as a major item on the MFF legal action as an example of files which we should have - as far as I know none have been released for 1962/63 but its an area I've not specifically visited for quite some time so I might well be behind the curve on that.  Frankly any of his day to day working files would tell us a good deal about Domestic Contacts (as was pointed out above, there were two discrete domestic groups but we don't know that some officers in the field did not wear both hats...not uncommon in the FBI or CIA for that matter).

[Matt Allison]

21 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

The same would be said for Meheu and his operations against foreign diplomats.  That may even be revealed in more current documents; I admit to never going back to take a look at either Shaw or Meheu in that respect.

A quick aside, not looking to derail the topic, but I wonder if this originated from Barnes' DOD shop; there is no routing info given on this, but FWIW, a newly cleared-of-redactions doc on the bizarre stuff Maheu was up to:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2023/157-10004-10270.pdf

 

[Paul Brancato]

5 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Paul, of course we can't know if "all" the documents that ever existed have been released but we have had fair sized numbers of documents on several of the folks you mentioned for many years - I had personnel files on Hunt over a decade ago.  But no idea what the "universe" of those files was originally.

I've listed J Walton Moore as a major item on the MFF legal action as an example of files which we should have - as far as I know none have been released for 1962/63 but its an area I've not specifically visited for quite some time so I might well be behind the curve on that.  Frankly any of his day to day working files would tell us a good deal about Domestic Contacts (as was pointed out above, there were two discrete domestic groups but we don't know that some officers in the field did not wear both hats...not uncommon in the FBI or CIA for that matter).

Larry - you listed Moore on the MFF legal action, thank you for that. Could you elaborate on the second question I had regarding Tracy Barnes creating cover for foreign operations? Are we talking foreign operatives in the US?

[Larry Hancock]

My impression would be that it would be setting up companies to handle supply, support, shipping, basically infrastructure activities for deniable operations overseas.  The CIA handled that two ways - purchase off shore and ship off shore to foreign operations but in some instances things and people needed commercial or professional covers to  work in offshore operations.  Barnes had done that sort of thing before, setting up commercial companies doing business say in Africa and using them as covers for shipments of various sorts.

So not foreign operatives in the US but covers for US operations overseas ie Domestic Operations.  In Shadow warfare I write about Barnes and Bissell being involved in that sort of thing during the fifties.

[Robert Montenegro]

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

So not foreign operatives in the US but covers for US operations overseas ie Domestic Operations.  In Shadow warfare I write about Barnes and Bissell being involved in that sort of thing during the fifties.

 

Utterly fascinating insight, Mr. Hancock, that makes sense.

On a personal note, "Shadow Warfare: The History of America's Undeclared Wars" is must read and a constant reference point for me.

Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and the Fortune 500 companies of the 1950's were intrinsic to each other...

Edited July 11, 2023 by Robert Montenegro

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks Robert, and Executives from many of the largest companies personally volunteered to help the CIA using company assets in a variety of ways -  receiving both commercial intelligence back on occasion and even sometimes briefings on planned operations in advance. It was considered a patriotic duty and I imagine profitable "networking" at the time....not totally unlike what happened on the media side of things as well. Quid pro Quo.

We often think of Bissell being involved in such things, or Angleton but I was surprised to the extent that J.C. King, Western Hemisphere chief, was involved in  very high level business contacts - but under Dulles it was all just SOP it seems.