Getting Down to the Nuts and Bolts ... and the question of Cubans in "direct capacities"

[Leslie Sharp]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Indeed. The moderators should do something about it.

I checked in with the mods. Awaiting a response.

Meanwhile, what say you about the memo?

Edited August 7, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Evan Marshall]

Redacted and redacted? Read these on a regular basis and you find most of them are just rumors. JBS? The more participants that get drug into this supposed conspiracy the leakier it gets.

[Evan Marshall]

Reading the book for the 3rd and STILL don't find it credible.  I've got to get back to the 3 books I'm writing. Nothing to do with JFK as I'm convinced I've solved it to my satisfaction. Good luck on your efforts.

[Leslie Sharp]

On 8/8/2023 at 12:38 PM, Evan Marshall said:

Reading the book for the 3rd and STILL don't find it credible.  I've got to get back to the 3 books I'm writing. Nothing to do with JFK as I'm convinced I've solved it to my satisfaction. Good luck on your efforts.

I'm curious why you are compelled to revisit the Askins-related threads, Evan.  Perhaps when you take a break from those 3 books, you might share your personal encounters with him?  

[Leslie Sharp]

SOUETRE. This clearly is Jean Rene Souetre, whose name appears in a number of entries between April 25 and December 4. It appears that Souetre was part of a “kill squad” who showed up for meetings in New Orleans, Madrid, and Mexico City prior to the assassination. Souetre’s name first appeared in the “assassination literature” following a 1977 release of CIA documents, which stated that “he had been expelled from the U.S. at Fort Worth or Dallas 48 hours after the assassination . . . to either Mexico or Canada.” According to what the FBI told a Souetre acquaintance whom I interviewed, he’d been “flown out that afternoon by a private pilot . . . in a government plane.” Souetre was a known hitman for the OAS, a terrorist group in France that had targeted President de Gaulle. — Dick Russell, author, The Man Who Knew Too Much.

 

 

 

. . . As the FBI agents that spoke with Alderson remarked, this plane, part of a CIA proprietary, was technically a “government plane.” According to Lafitte, the private plane that carried Souetre from Dallas was piloted by Joseph Silverthorne.

 

The Pilot

 

/Nov 22/

Willoughby backup

team [the word team has a strike through] squad- tech

building-- phone booth/bridge

O says turn them.

Silverthorne- 

Ft. Worth

-Airport

Mexico 

—Lafitte datebook, November 15

Silverthorne, a long-mysterious name that also appears in William Harvey’s infamous, handwritten QJ/WIN notes, is Joseph “Joe” Silverthorne, a former member of the OSS and a CIA asset, who had the wide reputation of being an incredibly daring bush and cargo pilot, and an occasional and trusted assassin. Silverthorne flew over 250 flights for United Fruit Co. in the 1950s. He traveled “for a certain federal agency” to “countless countries” for “reasons best left unsaid.” He said: “Bill Harvey was my friend; I never made fun of him. You don’t do that with friends.” (Albarelli’s Florida interview with Silverthorne.)

. . . In the immediate aftermath of the murder in Dealey Plaza, Pierre Lafitte, the project manager of Lancelot recorded:

Silverthorne to MX

(Jean’s gone out)

Rene dit [says] coup de grâce

Call J.V.

(JJA)

—Lafitte datebook, November 23, 1963

[Leslie Sharp]

Chapter Notes
 

“As we know now, Willoughby and Skorzeny met…”: In 1953, CIA operative Miles Copeland, then formally employed by contracting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in Cairo, Egypt, but acting as an adviser to Egyptian President Nasser was privy to the genesis of one Skorzeny-Willoughby meeting. Nasser was attempting to modernize his military forces and to instill needed discipline, and reached out to Skorzeny through American contacts. Copeland later wrote: “He (Skorzeny) was approached in a routine manner, then at a higher level, then through a personal visit from a certain well-known Major General of the American Army…”: —The Game of Nations, The Amorality of Power Politics, Simon and Schuster, 1969, pp. 87–88

 

excerpt:

Giannettini’s sponsor in Annapolis in ’61, Pedro del Valle had always consorted with a vile collection of people, and none more so than those participating in the April 1963 "Congress of Freedom'' meeting—mentioned by Pierre Lafitte in an ominous context of “Willby [sic] soldier kill squads”—in which, according to information furnished to the Miami Police Dept. Intelligence Unit (derived from an informant in attendance) the assassination of numerous well-known figures was seriously discussed. Later in the year and somewhere beyond the bounds of the suggestive, del Valle was the lead speaker at the Constitution Party convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, held from October 18—20, 1963, an event during which “the plot to assassinate a large number of individuals which had been discussed at the Congress of Freedom [in April] had narrowed to talk of killing President Kennedy…” wrote Caufield. An all-star collection of radical right-wing talent, the convention featured among others, Georgia racist Joseph Milteer, a member of the Congress of Freedom. 
 

Hired Guns

Askins?

—Lafitte datebook, September 12, 1963

 

Askins - Willoughby OK

—Lafitte datebook, October 2, 1963

 

Canon-- S + V?

—Lafitte datebook, September 14 1963

 

Willoughby team – Canon (Z org) D.

—Lafitte datebook, November 21, 1963

 * * *

Willoughby team— Canon (Z org) D.

That men of the egocentric character and intemperance of Gen. Willoughby and Jack Canon would be involved in an operation as spectacular as November 22, 1963 should probably not shock us. Among researchers into the assassination, in addition to chipping away at Charles Willoughby, Dick Russell was the first to glance at Canon. In reference to the 1951 kidnapping and subsequent torture of a suspected Soviet spy Japanese writer Kaji Wataru, Russell wrote: “A mysterious intelligence outfit, based in Okinawa and run by Colonel Jack Y. Canon, was accused of involvement, but hard evidence was lacking.” 

            According to Richard Case Nagell, the double agent at the center of Russell’s book, the Army Counter Intelligence Corps’ (CIC) intelligence files stated that Canon’s “ZED group” [perhaps an acronym, but more likely the pronunciation of the letter “z” in many cultures.] was indeed behind the kidnapping; further, “the CIC was advised to stay clear of the project because it was considered to be an ‘indiscreet’ CIA operation.” 

            When Nagell brought up Canon’s name to an investigator for New Orleans District Attorney, the investigator’s notes read: “Jack Canon: rub-out man for the CIA.” Russell noted, as would Morris-Suzuki many years later, that Canon had affiliations with projects of Gen. Willoughby, including the “International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture,” and Willoughby’s Foreign Intelligence Digest, for which Canon became an associate editor. 

Russell also noted that a 1977 article based on a book that had been recently released by a Soviet journalist, Michael Lebedev, featured Lebedev’s claim that the assassination of Kennedy had been carried out by “an international fascist cabal,” and that the fatal head shot had been fired by an agent with the alias of “Zed.”

Edited August 20, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

Robert Emmett Johnson 

In the early ’60s, Robert Emmett Johnson, would-be journalist and skilled assassin, attested that he had been employed by Information Services International to support the agenda of dictator Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. ISI, founded and presided over by former OSS officer Ulius Amoss—dealt with extensively in the previous chapter, boasted as a trusted advisor, General Charles Willoughby. The day following the critical note, “O says done-- Oswald in place,” Pierre leaves a clue that the W. team included E. Johnson. 

W team  E. Johnson’s

(Itkin)

 

Said to be fiercely independent and opinionated, Johnson advised Special Agents of the FBI in Miami on September 19, 1961 that he had been employed as Foreign Affairs Analyst for Dominican Republic leader Generalissimo Trujillo, who had been assassinated in May of that spring. Johnson held the “analyst” position from 1956–1960. At the time of his visit from the FBI (9/61), Johnson stated he was then employed by ISI, which he described as “an independent intelligence-gathering organization” founded by Amoss, a former Chief of Staff in the US Air Force. On the ISI board of Trustees was Charles Willoughby.

            As mentioned in a previous chapter, inside Trafficante’s world at Trescornia in 1959, among those he said he recognized—all of whom had a shared history—was mercenary sharpshooter Emmet Johnson. Factoring in Johnson’s employment by the master of leaderless resistance, Ulius Amoss and ISI trustee Charles Willoughby, there is sufficient reason to suspect that Johnson was on, or involved with, “W’s” team.

            According to the meticulous research presented by historian John Simkin, a declassified document says that in 1962, Emmett Johnson was a member of “Interpen” (International Penetration Force) established in 1961 by former US Marine Sgt. Gerry P. Hemming. With funding from Santo Trafficante and several wealthy, and organized, among other things, to train members of anti-Castro groups Interpen set up a training camp in New Orleans in 1962. 

Before he died, Emmett Johnson managed to publish several books under the imprint Paladin Books (publisher of Col. Charles Askins’ books) under the name “Paul Balor.” The cover of the second edition of his book, Manual of the Mercenary Soldier, published in 1993 features a clear image of Mitchell Livingston WerBell, notorious arms equipment manufacturer and dealer who had served in Donovan’s OSS during the war.