488th Army Intelligence Unit

[Leslie Sharp]

Crichton’s Itinerary on the Road to Dealey Plaza

On September 13, 1963, just weeks after he and Brandy Brandstetter (presumably the hotelier joined in) and their fellow members of the 488th Intel had completed training at the Pentagon, the Dallas Morning News published a brief notice, “Dallas Man Joins Oil Group for Romanian Visit.” Crichton had been invited to participate in a US State Department delegation in conjunction with the American Petroleum Institute on a fact-finding mission to Princess Caradja’s beloved Romania and native land of his good friend Brandy Brandstetter. (Of note: Jake L. Hamon, Dallas oilman who in his capacity as president of the American Petroleum Institute traveled around the globe, had also been an active participant in the Meadows-Skorzeny venture in Spain where he met Ricardo Sicre, vice-president of the World Commerce Corporation who is named throughout the Skorzeny papers.)

         In spite of being locked behind the Iron Curtain at the time, the Americans were somehow allowed access to Romania’s petroleum executives. The delegation which departed on September 23rd, included a state department representative, two representatives of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and Socony Mobil interests and one from Continental Oil. Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank, whose president [John Jay McCloy] would become a driving force on the Warren Commission, used Republic National of Dallas as a correspondent bank in Texas; Continental Oil’s board included former Sec. of the Army, Frank Pace who was outgoing president of General Dynamics — military contractor embroiled in the TFX scandal that exposed lobbyist Bobby Baker. A subsidiary of Continental, San Jacinto Petroleum has been identified as a CIA conduit. Pace was also a longtime board member of Nation-Wide Securities with former DCI Allen Dulles and Gen. Maxwell Taylor. Ten percent of Nation-Wide’s investments were in the petroleum industry.

         On October 17th—one day before James Angleton told Pierre Lafitte that there had been a high-level gathering in DC, the Dallas Morning News published a brief announcement, “Former CIA Boss Sets Dallas Talk.” The story read: “Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency will address a meeting of the Dallas Council on World Affairs at noon on Monday, October 28, in the Baker Hotel . . .” Neil Mallon, a member of the board of Republic National Bank had been a friend and confidant of Allen Dulles throughout Dulles’s tenure as director of Central Intelligence. It was through Dulles’s prompting that Mallon founded the Dallas chapter of the Council on World Affairs, an invaluable instrument for the agency since 1951 and the perfect venue on October 28, 1963, for Dulles to promote his book and speak on national security issues including reference to specific activity in hot spots around the world, suggesting he was being briefed in spite of his having left the agency in 1961. The Dallas chapter of the Independent Petroleum Association of America also held their monthly meeting on October 28th.

         On October 27th, the Dallas Morning News followed up and announced that oil expert Jack Crichton, having recently returned from an oil tour of Romania, would present his report to the Dallas chapter of the [American Society of] Petroleum Engineers on the following Friday, November 1st. 

         On October 29th, Kent Biffle of the Dallas Morning News published a summation of Allen Dulles’s speech the night before under the headline, “Allen Dulles Looks Behind Red Moves."  “Khrushchev announced he ‘isn’t going to the moon next week’ to foil the Kennedy plan for a joint moon effort.” Dulles said, ‘Russians are arming Algerian troops in hopes of finally gaining a solid foothold in Africa . . . The Soviets have been trying for ten to fifteen years to find the foothold they want in Africa. They tried in Egypt, the Congo, Guinea and Ghana.’” Biffle continued, “Dulles said that in arming the Algerians against the Moroccans, the Reds are again trying to find a satisfactory foothold in Africa.” We should underscore here that as DCI Allen Dulles had been a frequent visitor to the hotels and homes of numerous close friends in Dallas, Texas, including of course Mallon. Indeed, some people close to the CIA director would quietly remark that Dallas had become an important base of operations for the CIA, second only to headquarters in Langley, Virginia. 

         Dulles’s October 28th talk before Mallon’s Dallas Council on World Affairs further tilled the soil when he included reference to the Algerians’ fight for independence — a subject close to the heart of this book. The speech was a companion piece to other recent impassioned anti-communist pleadings at various venues around the city including those of the woeful, anti-Red princess from Romania. Jack Crichton’s report to Dallas petroleum executives — scheduled within days of Dulles’s speech at the DCWA — recapped his Romanian oil tour which most assuredly described the plight of that country under The Reds, planting propaganda and further stoking the anti-communist fires in Dallas. Crichton’s talk was just four days prior to Lafitte making a note, Meet with Crichton at Tech building.

[Leslie Sharp]

19 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

On what planet do any of these things have ANYTHING to do with one another? Why are you connecting the fact that William F. Buckley's family did business with Jack Crichton 70 years ago to the fact that a magazine founded by Buckley just as long ago is now, in 2023, supporting a specific presidential candidate? The leaps in logic are extraordinary and reveal absolutely nothing.

 

You mean the unverified, un-authenticated "datebook" ?

 The through-line, @Jonathan Cohen, is oil and  ideology.

Dallas . . . Lay of the Land

' . . . Dedicated assassination researcher Mae Brussell, who some consider one of the most unsung heroes of the effort, began to pursue Robert Morris, along with Generals Willoughby and Walker as early as 1984 when she recognized their deep ties to the Nazi movement that survived the war. She identified Robert Morris as having trained in US counterintelligence and psychological warfare as well as his early association with the publisher of the National Review, William F. Buckley, Jr.[*}, whose disdain for John Kennedy permeated his editorial magazine. It was Buckley who formed the Young Americans for Freedom [referenced previously in context of CPAC which is thriving during this perhaps final phase of the coup in Dallas] that took hold on college campuses across the country with a pledge to root out the curse of communism. [emphasis added.]

         After arriving in Dallas, Morris began cultivating associations with right-wing extremists including the generals and their acolytes, the Schmidt brothers, and the man with the financial means, H. L. Hunt. As a skilled counterintelligence propagandist, Morris was now in the perfect position to assist with furthering the legend of Lee Harvey Oswald. It behooves us to offer a verbatim account of Mae Brussell’s assessment of the Walker “incident.” One can clearly recognize the hand of a skilled propagandist like Morris: 

November 23, 1963, one day after Kennedy's death, Gen. Edwin Walker*** called Munich, Germany, from Shreveport, La. Walker's important story, via transatlantic telephone, was to the Nazi newspaper Deutsche National Zeitung un Soldaten-Zeitung. Walker couldn't wait to tell them in Munich that Lee Harvey Oswald, the lone suspect in the Dallas murders, was the same person who shot through his window in April 1963 . . . There was never one shred of evidence, or a reliable witness, that could make this connection. Dallas police and FBI were taken by surprise . . . In order to cover this over-exuberance of trying to link a Marxist assassin to this altercation, it became necessary to have Ruth Paine deliver that ridiculous letter to Marina Oswald on December 3, 1964. The delayed letter was to have been written the night Lee was out shooting in Walker's home.

      But General Walker, now home from military service in Munich, knew the importance of such propaganda. He was calling the same people who, under Hitler, published and controlled the newspapers. There were two motives for this call. First, it gave international attention to the fact that Oswald, the Marxist gunman, was shooting at Walker as well as the President. General Walker knew too many people in the Defense Department and in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that could be part of this assassination. He made himself appear as a victim instead of a suspect.

      The other reason, along with the expertise of Robert Morris's counterintelligence and psychological warfare training, was to create a profile for Lee Harvey Oswald.

      No possible motive could explain why Oswald would really want to kill President Kennedy. By having Oswald appear to shoot the right-wing General Walker with his John Birch connections, his militant anti-communist stance, then shoot John Kennedy, the same Commie-sympathizer Walker was accusing of treason, it would appear that Oswald was just nuts. He didn't know right from left . . . The Munich newspaper Walker called was linked to the World Movement for a Second Anti-Komintern, part of the Gehlen and US right. Some of Hitler's ex-Nazis and SS-men were on the Staff. The editor, Gerhard Frey, was a close friend with various Nazi members of the Witiko League. The Witiko League and the Sudetendeutch Landsmannscraft were organizations for displaced refugees. By the summer of 1948 they formed large organizations and by 1955 Dr. Walter Becher was elected to the executive board of the Witiko League. Becher was one of the kingpins of Nazi front organizations. . . Becher had been praised frequently by the “American Opinion.” [the extreme right publication of the John Birch Society.] 

General Willoughby, identified extensively in previous chapters, was a virtual roving board member for ultraright-wing, rabid anti-communist organizations around the country, including Bill Buckley’s Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)—a group that would soon be led in Dallas by former US Army enlistee Larrie Schmidt who had been stationed in Munich, Germany serving under General Edwin A. Walker. While in Munich, Schmidt organized CUSA (Conservative - USA) along with a handful of fellow soldiers intent on returning to the US to take charge of the conservative movement. His first act in Dallas, 1962, was to join the local chapter of the John Birch Society (JBS) whose first president was Robert J. Morris. 

*Buckley was recruited into the CIA in 1951 where he served under E. Howard Hunt, Mexico City, working on political action.  He was a longstanding member of the Knights of Malta.

Gen. Charles Willoughby along with Gen. Pedro del Valle (both of whom appear in the Lafitte datebook) were members of the Armed Services of Committee of the Shickshinny Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, a far-right-wing controversial org. claiming to be the "real" Knights of Malta.  As Dr. Jeffrey Caulfield writes, 'Its grand marshal was Charles Pichel who corresponded with Ernst Hanfstaengle, who was once an aide to Adolf Hitler . . . '  Caulfield continues, 'Bonner Fellers and Russell Maguire, the editor of American Mercury, sponsored Willoughby for membership [into the Shickshinny Knights]. . . '  Following a brief stint as assoc. editor of American Mercury, William F. Buckley Jr. created National Review — noted earlier for its enthusiasm for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. entering the 2024 race as an independent.    

continuing with excerpts from Coup in Dallas: 

American Mercury magazine had promoted American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell, as well as providing an audience for a young Christian evangelical Rev. Billy Graham, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. . . . Maguire’s magazine was eventually sold off to a shadow company of Willis Carto with General Edwin Walker remaining on as military advisor and partial owner. It was Carto who single handedly brought Holocaust Denial to the US around the same time that McCarthy and his team, including Roy Cohn, launched their red-baiting. It cannot be ignored that Carto’s final propaganda sheet, American Free Press provided a venue for a number of reporters and journalists who in the mid 2000s would infiltrate the Kennedy assassination research efforts under the guise of truth seeking sold as being in alignment with John F. Kennedy’s philosophy and policies had he lived to serve out his term. In fact, history insists that contributors to AFP are closely aligned with Carto’s legacy, not that of John F. Kennedy. . . . General Willoughby closes one particularly lengthy diatribe he shared with his good friend, DCI Allen Dulles with a quote of fascist philosopher, Oswald Spengler, “Untergand de Abendlandes” in reference to Spengler’s “Decline of the West.” Without notes, (Francis Parker] Yockey wrote his first book, Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, in Brittas Bay, Ireland over the winter and early spring of 1948. Clearly, he shared Willoughby’s admiration of Spengler in Imperium, a Spenglerian critique of 19th century materialism and rationalism dedicated to “the hero of the twentieth century.” It is believed that he meant Adolf Hitler. Holocaust Denier Carto of the Liberty Lobby, and later owner of the American Mercury, as well as the American Free Press, took on the task of publishing Yockey’s Imperium when Britain’s infamous fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley failed to do so because of personality clashes with Yockey. The reader is reminded that ad man, propagandist H. Keith Thompson, long-time protégé of Yockey, handled public relations for Lee Oswald’s mother, Marguerite Claverie Oswald in 1964. It has been reported that Willis Carto was Yockey’s last visitor in jail before he bit down on the cyanide pill he had tucked away rather than be interrogated by American authorities.

According to John Simkin's early collection of data related to Texas petroleum expert Jack Crichton of the 488th:

In 1961, Crichton joined with fellow Dallas conservatives to establish the program "Know Your Enemy", which aimed to combat communist influence that "was undermining the American way of life." In 1962, Crichton opened a command post underneath the patio of the Dallas Health and Science Museum with the goal of maintaining the continuity-of-government were the United States attacked.^[3]

In November 1963, Crichton was involved in the arrangements of the fatal visit of U.S. President John F. Kennedy to Dallas. Crichton's friend, Deputy Police Chief George L. Lumpkin, a member of the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, drove the pilot car of Kennedy's motorcade. Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmeyer, the East Texas Army Reserve commander, was also in the car. The pilot car stopped briefly in front of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lumpkin spoke to a policeman controlling traffic at the corner of Houston and Elm streets.

At the time of the assassination of President Kennedy and the wounding of Governor Connally, Crichton was attending the annual luncheon held that year at the Adolphus Hotel on Commerce Street in Dallas on the Friday before Thanksgiving Day to honor the TAMU and University of Texas football teams, who meet on the gridiron annually on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Crichton recalls:

I walked over to Elm Street to see the Kennedy delegation. . . . President Kennedy and Jackie made a handsome couple. She was resplendent in her pink dress and pink pillbox hat. The crowds on the sidewalks applauded, and waved as they drove by. . . . I entered the hotel . . . The room was almost filled, and people were seated at the individual tables. ... We had the invocation, and many guests began to eat their lunch. Suddenly we heard sirens screaming and someone from outside ran up to the head table and excitedly said, 'The President, Vice President, and Governor Connally have all been shot.' I stood and announced the news. [emphasis added] There was stunned silence in the room. Someone then produced a radio, and the news confirmed that the President (and Connally) had been shot.<sup>[5]

note: Crichton was in a heated campaign against incumbent Connally for governor of Texas.</sup>

 

Edited October 10, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Ron Bulman]

On 10/10/2023 at 3:11 PM, Leslie Sharp said:

In 1962, Crichton opened a command post underneath the patio of the Dallas Health and Science Museum with the goal of maintaining the continuity-of-government were the United States attacked.^[3]

I've read about this elsewhere some years back.  On here, I think.  Pictures were posted of the parking lot, building and a side or back entrance heading downstairs.

I may have walked across the patio.  My mother took me to the science building at Fair Park at about 9-10 years old.

I've also re read recently it was a communications HQ for the DPD.  If it was also used for maintaining Continuity In Government plans there is no telling who might have been there for what aspects of government.  Military Intelligence, besides the 488th?  CIA, State, maybe not FBI? 

[Steve Thomas]

8 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I've read about this elsewhere some years back.  On here, I think.

 

I've also re read recently it was a communications HQ for the DPD.  If it was also used for maintaining Continuity In Government plans there is no telling who might have been there for what aspects of government.  Military Intelligence, besides the 488th?  CIA, State, maybe not FBI? 

Ron,

You might be interested in this link:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25119-old-dallas-civil-defense-emergency-operations-center/?tab=comments#comment-383820

 

Steve Thomas

[Ron Bulman]

3 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Ron,

You might be interested in this link:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25119-old-dallas-civil-defense-emergency-operations-center/?tab=comments#comment-383820

 

Steve Thomas

That's it Steve.  Still fascinating, and mysterious.  Thanks.

[Steve Thomas]

2 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

That's it Steve.  Still fascinating, and mysterious.  Thanks.

Ron,

I don't think anyone has ever really  explored a possible link between the Texas State Guard Reserve Corps and WRR (the radio station at the Fairgrounds).

Biggio and Stringfellow were manning the Special Service Bureau radio communications there on 11/22.

Stringfellow was identified as a source for information that 5' 10"", 165lb. Harvey Lee Oswald was a communist and had been to to Cuba, etc. etc.  That communication went directly to the Intelligence people in Austin and bypassed the 112th MID in Dallas.

I find that very significant and suspicious.

Steve Thomas