CONFIRMED: Vice President of PERMINDEX, Dr. Ernst W. Imfeld, was a Nazi intelligence asset...

[Ed Berger]

1 hour ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Thank you, @Ed Berger

And, I don't want to hi-jack Monté's work on Imfeld, but considering Permindex surfaces in both studies, and the Lafitte datebook entries relating to Dalzell and to the desert, and to Eritrea and to Crichton, we may encounter a significant convergence of research here.

I'll respond to a section of one of your recent posts on the in a recent thread on the 488th intelligence unit, and then if Monté requests, we can take the discussion back to your thread.

The other was a dominant stake in the Yemen Development Corporation. Crichton was president of this company too, and its chairman was George E. Allen (who was also over at Floyd Odlum's Atlas Corporation, which is its own infinite can of worms, leading directly to things like the World Commerce Corporation). The Yemen Development Corporation was set up to carry out oil exploration in the Kingdom of Yemen, which at that time was shaping up to be a major geopolitical pivot point (and for the British, something that appeared as the last stand in their waning empire). But it had a covert side: the State Department and the CIA were the forces behind Yemen Development, with the mandate of the company being an effort to obtain a foothold in the region ahead of the Soviets. 

You're one of the few in recent years to take an interest in Allen, Odlum, and Atlas Corporation, so thanks for reigniting this research. The connection to World Commerce is 'huge.' I believe we may be in the process of establishing without doubt that Permindex was, as noted in Coup in Dallas, the god-child of WCC, or perhaps more accurately said, the next iteration of a model that likely originated with SOFINDUS in Latin America and Spain, or perhaps as far back as the British East India Co./ Hudson Bay, or even further back to the Hanseatic League?

Speculation aside, and I'm going to jump ahead two decades so I hope you'll indulge and understand why in a moment: you're likely aware that Dallas independent oilman H. L. Hunt entered into a deal with North Yemen in 1981 and inching his way offshore in the Red Sea. (aside: I went to work for the Hunt family the year prior. The Dallas hotel was full of brass that required polishing; our "brass polishers" were Ethiopian immigrants.) This is relevant to your thread because the summer of 1963, Jack Crichton joined the board of H. L.'s Hunt "Foundation." Crichton was in Romania later that fall, several weeks prior to the assassination on a friendly mission along with (I believe) five other oil experts — all of whom worked for Rockefeller's Standard operations. Crichton was the only "independent" on the trip; this may advance your hypothesis, "foothold in advance of . . . " Whether it is documented, or rumor, Frank Wisner was carrying on an affair with Princess Cadja of Romania at the time. Wisner appears in the Lafitte record on two dates in 1963.

Of possible relevance, FBI Bardwell Odum's brothers - one a minister and the other with the State Department - both had histories in Russia.  Again, I'll expand further if it seems important to this exercise. 

Yemen Development ended up being a very troubled venture, to say the least. An August 1957 CIA memorandum makes reference to Yemen Development in the context of operations in the region, while a CIA document from November of the same year shows that they were hunting for buyers for the company, while few were interested in picking it up due to costs. Ultimately, it went bust, as did a follow-up effort under the auspices of the American Overseas Investment Corporation, but a successor company stepped in 1961—the John Mecom Company (details of this are in numerous petroleum journals from the period, such as volume 33 of Petroleum Engineer, 1961).

As you note, Mecom's company was a CIA front, cloaked under an umbrella of Continental Oil whose board included former Sec. Army Frank Pace* who shared a small investment board (Nation-Wide Securities) intermittently with Allen Dulles, Maxwell Taylor, and Ret. Navy Admiral Robert B. Barney, the chairman of Bath Iron Works.  The threads in this particular tapestry constitute the Military-Industrial Complex writ large, or, as some are figuring out, a fascist government by definition — corporations controlling government — shielded by the America flag.
*Pace was CEO of General Dynamics and I think you'll recognize the overlap with Atlas board members. Pace would have been privy to the F-111 scandal involving Bobby Baker. Lafitte records Baker's visit to New Orleans along with Carol Tyler and Ellen Rometsch in May 1963; one of Marcello's front-men in the restaurant business, Nick Popich played host.  Popich and Dalzell, as noted in another post, were working to secure Red Sea drilling rights. 

So I find it interesting: we have Crichton, starting in 1955, running an Empire Trust holding, the Yemen Development Corporation, which was actually part of a CIA-effort to route around the Soviets in Yemen by obtaining oil concessions there. Then, when have Crichton, at the very least, using the name of a military intelligence unit, the 488th, that appears to have been monitoring Soviet oil activities. Maybe there's something here? 

If I can interject, just three years prior, Crichton of Empire Trust — with his established credential from deGolyer-MacNaughton — was a pivotal component of the [Algur H.] Meadows—[Otto] Skorzeny oil scheme based in the capitol of Franco's fascist Spain, Madrid.  At the time, Otto and Ilse Skorzeny were also immersed with Frank Ryan's World Commerce Corp. Al Meadows provided a venue for at least one meeting during 1963 related to the plot to kill the president in his beloved Dallas. Crichton, "Algur" Meadows, Otto and Ilse Skorzeny appear in the Lafitte datebook, as does "Ilya" as in Mamantov who Crichton seconded to translate for Marina the afternoon of Nov. 22.  More on that incident in another thread.

As one final dangling thread, we have one of Guy Bannister's associates, William Dalzell, turning up in spring of 1960 acting as an agent of Yemen—traveling to "make contacts with representatives of oil companies to market" Yemen oil concessions. There's actually a reference to Crichton and the Yemen Development Corporation within Dalzell's FBI file, but the scan is very bad and the Mary Ferrell search isn't tracking it down at the moment. I'll post it when I can find it. But the FBI also inquired with the John Mecom Company about Dalzell; the company's W. Angie Smith said that Dalzell sounded "vaguely familiar". Mecom denied any knowledge of Dalzell, however.

There's a directly link from Mecom to Continental Oil to (?) McKeown related to a request to import or export coffee making machine to Cuba or some strange tale.  (If it is determined this is significant, I'll track down the story - which I'm sure you're your familiar with.) It is significant here because McKeown is identified with Thomas Eli Davis AND Jack Ruby in the saga, both of whom are identified in the Pierre Lafitte datebook for 1963.  Apologies for digressing, but this may well be significant because Davis was traveling in North Africa in late 1963.  We'll see where this might lead.

"You're one of the few in recent years to take an interest in Allen, Odlum, and Atlas Corporation, so thanks for reigniting this research."—Very happy to do that! The relationship between Odlum/Atlas, his expanded business network, the World Commerce Corp and the various WCC 'adjunct' corporations (Argus Corp, Liberia Company, etc) have been a massive rabbit whole for me for the past several years. And as I'm sure you can sympathize, the more info that is amassed, the murkier the picture gets... 

I'm in total agreement that there was some sort of structural relationship or continuity between the WCC and Permindex. In the Nagy archives in New York City I had found correspondence with William Donovan, which alluded to Donovan's promotion of Permindex in the project's nascent phases. On the flip side, there was Bloomfield correspondence found in his archives with Richard Coit, a veteran of the British Security Coordination in New York City. The letter was addressed in the care of Coit's former boss, William Stephenson—so we have here indicators of some relationship between figures circulating around Permindex and the leading figures in the WCC. 

Throw in the fact that the family of the WCC's Frank Ryan controlled Bache & Co., with the Bache family being intermarried with the Bronfmans and the Loebs and holding the dominant stock in Empire Trust with them...

These interlocks between Mecom, Continental Oil, and General Dynamics (leading us, inevitably, back to Odlum and beyond) seem critically important to me, both in terms of understanding the overarching structure of the military-industrial complex but also how these sinews fundamentally shaped the historical development of Dallas and the state of Texas itself. I am unfamiliar with Nationwide Securities—do you have a link or a recommendation where I can read more about this?

You mention the Popich - Dalzell - Yemen connection. This is key, I think, and suggests the continuity between Dalzell's Yemen efforts and the eventual oil concessions for the Mecom company (despite Mecom's efforts to hide the trail when the FBI came knocking). The ties between Popich and Marcello (and seemingly with Lafitte!) are demonstrable, and the same came be said for Mecom and Marcello. In fact, there relationship was close enough that it was continued by Mecom's son well into the 1970s. 

Great point regarding the arrival of the Hunts in Yemen. Have you seen the lawsuit between Crichton's company and the Hunts over those concessions? 

Quote

. In early 1981, representatives of Arabian Shield Development Company (Arabian Shield) and Dorchester International, Inc., entities related to Dorchester Gas Company, travelled to Yemen to negotiate an oil and gas concession with the Yemeni government and national oil company. At approximately the same time, the Hunt Oil Company (Hunt Oil) sought to acquire the same concession. The Yemeni government awarded the concession to Hunt Oil in August 1981. Arabian Shield and Dorchester International later began to suspect that Hunt Oil had used improper means to win the concession. They filed suit against Hunt Oil, Ray Hunt, and others on October 2, 1987, for tortious interference with an advantageous business relationship.

Much more to say, but want to check with @Robert Montenegroto see if we should take this discussion elsewhere. 

[Leslie Sharp]

34 minutes ago, Ed Berger said:

"You're one of the few in recent years to take an interest in Allen, Odlum, and Atlas Corporation, so thanks for reigniting this research."—Very happy to do that! The relationship between Odlum/Atlas, his expanded business network, the World Commerce Corp and the various WCC 'adjunct' corporations (Argus Corp, Liberia Company, etc) have been a massive rabbit whole for me for the past several years. And as I'm sure you can sympathize, the more info that is amassed, the murkier the picture gets... 

I'm in total agreement that there was some sort of structural relationship or continuity between the WCC and Permindex. In the Nagy archives in New York City I had found correspondence with William Donovan, which alluded to Donovan's promotion of Permindex in the project's nascent phases. On the flip side, there was Bloomfield correspondence found in his archives with Richard Coit, a veteran of the British Security Coordination in New York City. The letter was addressed in the care of Coit's former boss, William Stephenson—so we have here indicators of some relationship between figures circulating around Permindex and the leading figures in the WCC. 

Throw in the fact that the family of the WCC's Frank Ryan controlled Bache & Co., with the Bache family being intermarried with the Bronfmans and the Loebs and holding the dominant stock in Empire Trust with them...

These interlocks between Mecom, Continental Oil, and General Dynamics (leading us, inevitably, back to Odlum and beyond) seem critically important to me, both in terms of understanding the overarching structure of the military-industrial complex but also how these sinews fundamentally shaped the historical development of Dallas and the state of Texas itself. I am unfamiliar with Nationwide Securities—do you have a link or a recommendation where I can read more about this?

You mention the Popich - Dalzell - Yemen connection. This is key, I think, and suggests the continuity between Dalzell's Yemen efforts and the eventual oil concessions for the Mecom company (despite Mecom's efforts to hide the trail when the FBI came knocking). The ties between Popich and Marcello (and seemingly with Lafitte!) are demonstrable, and the same came be said for Mecom and Marcello. In fact, there relationship was close enough that it was continued by Mecom's son well into the 1970s. 

Great point regarding the arrival of the Hunts in Yemen. Have you seen the lawsuit between Crichton's company and the Hunts over those concessions? 

Much more to say, but want to check with @Robert Montenegroto see if we should take this discussion elsewhere. 

I'll wait to respond after we hear from Monté.

[Robert Montenegro]

37 minutes ago, Ed Berger said:

Much more to say, but want to check with @Robert Montenegroto see if we should take this discussion elsewhere. 

 

2 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

I'll wait to respond after we hear from Monté.

 

Keep this thread going people!

 

You guys are hitting the nail square on the head—keep hammering!

 

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Robert Montenegro

[Leslie Sharp]

9 minutes ago, Robert Montenegro said:

 

 

Keep this thread going people!

 

You guys are hitting the nail square on the head—keep hammering!

 

 

Gracias, mi amigo. 

[Leslie Sharp]

1 hour ago, Ed Berger said:

"You're one of the few in recent years to take an interest in Allen, Odlum, and Atlas Corporation, so thanks for reigniting this research."—Very happy to do that! The relationship between Odlum/Atlas, his expanded business network, the World Commerce Corp and the various WCC 'adjunct' corporations (Argus Corp, Liberia Company, etc) have been a massive rabbit whole for me for the past several years. And as I'm sure you can sympathize, the more info that is amassed, the murkier the picture gets... 

I'm in total agreement that there was some sort of structural relationship or continuity between the WCC and Permindex. In the Nagy archives in New York City I had found correspondence with William Donovan, which alluded to Donovan's promotion of Permindex in the project's nascent phases. On the flip side, there was Bloomfield correspondence found in his archives with Richard Coit, a veteran of the British Security Coordination in New York City. The letter was addressed in the care of Coit's former boss, William Stephenson—so we have here indicators of some relationship between figures circulating around Permindex and the leading figures in the WCC. 

Throw in the fact that the family of the WCC's Frank Ryan controlled Bache & Co., with the Bache family being intermarried with the Bronfmans and the Loebs and holding the dominant stock in Empire Trust with them...

These interlocks between Mecom, Continental Oil, and General Dynamics (leading us, inevitably, back to Odlum and beyond) seem critically important to me, both in terms of understanding the overarching structure of the military-industrial complex but also how these sinews fundamentally shaped the historical development of Dallas and the state of Texas itself. I am unfamiliar with Nationwide Securities—do you have a link or a recommendation where I can read more about this?

You mention the Popich - Dalzell - Yemen connection. This is key, I think, and suggests the continuity between Dalzell's Yemen efforts and the eventual oil concessions for the Mecom company (despite Mecom's efforts to hide the trail when the FBI came knocking). The ties between Popich and Marcello (and seemingly with Lafitte!) are demonstrable, and the same came be said for Mecom and Marcello. In fact, there relationship was close enough that it was continued by Mecom's son well into the 1970s. 

Great point regarding the arrival of the Hunts in Yemen. Have you seen the lawsuit between Crichton's company and the Hunts over those concessions? 

Much more to say, but want to check with @Robert Montenegroto see if we should take this discussion elsewhere. 

@Ed Berger I'll start here (and the gods must be watching over us because this doc. is buried deep in my old files — pre-Coup in Dallas.)
 

Nation-Wide Securities

(Division of Calvin Bullock Funds)

One Wall Street

New York City, NY

 

Board of Directors

1960

Frank Pace, Jr.

Former Secretary of the Army under President Truman

Board of Directors, Time, Inc.

Board of Directors, Continental Oil Corporation

Board of Directors Colgate Palmolive

Board of Directors/ CEO General Dynamics

 

Maxwell D. Taylor*

Former Army Chief of Staff under President Eisenhower

 

Robert B. Carney

Former Chief of Naval Operations under President Eisenhower

CEO, Bath Iron Works

Board of Directors, Bell Helicopter  with Pearson Beverly Garrett, President Texas Bank and Trust (located at the corner of Poydras and xxxxx) with Robert Wiley Baxter, president of Rio Grande National Life Insurance, Dallas, employer of Louis Steven Witt; shared 

 

Arthur Burns

Director of Bureau of Economic Research

Dean of Law School, Columbia University

Board of Directors, Twentieth Century Fund with Adolf A. Berle, Latin American statesman; Board of Directors of Nationawide  Insurance; Board of Human Ecology Fund, Cornell University

 

Grayson Kirk

President of Columbia University

Board of Directors, Socony Mobil Oil Corp.

Board of Directors, IMB – International Business Machines

 

Harris J. Nelson

Financial Columnist, Barron’s Weekly

 

Nathaniel P. Hill

Financier

 

Hugh Bullock

President Calvin Bullock, Ltd.

 

 

1961

As above with exceptions:

 

Maxwell D. Taylor leaves the board

 

 

Allen W. Dulles joins the board

Former Director of Central Intelligence Agency

Representing Sullivan & Cromwell law firm

 

 

1962-1964

as above with exception

 

Robert E. Clark, joins the board

Vice President, Calvin Bullock, Ltd.

Former OSS

 

1965 -1967

as above with exception:

 

Maxwell D. Taylor rejoins the board

Former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff

Former Ambassador to Vietnam

*Note: Max Taylor replaced WH Draper Sr. in Mexico City as chair of Mexico Light and Power when Draper assumed the head of US nuclear for-profit company Combustion Engineering.  this placed Taylor in Mexico City at a critical juncture in the early 1960s and likely brought him into close contact with COS Win Scott.  Draper was on a bank board with the future DCI John McCone, former head of Bechtel. Draper also formed one of the first venture capital firms with Gaither and Anderson.  All were original representatives to NATO.

[Leslie Sharp]

@Ed Berger I knew that the Hunt - Crichton relationship had gone south. I also knew that Rosewood Hotels, under the Rosewood Development Corp. had been established around the same time as the Hunt brothers' silver debacle; Rosewood (most suspected) was their sister's effort to protect her portion of the inheritance.  The brothers were permanent fixtures at The Mansion on Turtle Creek in the early '80s, and no doubt some of these deals we are considering were negotiated over fine wine and cigars in the private dining rooms. Rosewood's first foreign properties included exquisite hotels in the Middle East, no doubt meant to keep Hunt petroleum executives happy. 

On a side note, and bear with these personal anecdotes.  They serve to reinforce what is being posited on this and other threads directly related to Albarelli's (and others before him) investigation into the assassination.  The general manager pool of Rosewood hotels was limited almost exclusively to European trained hoteliers coming out of the Cold War: names like Richter, Eisle, Zuest, de Toth, etc.  Individually they were pleasant enough; collectively they were a formidable authoritarian force with employee practices that might not have been illegal, but were certainly in contradiction to best union practices.  On one occasion, the group gathered in the bar at The Mansion, a rare (and frowned upon by corporate) occasion. I passed through with a client and noticed they were wearing shirts that "weren't crisp white", again-  against corporate protocol.  Then I noticed they were brown shirts. I whispered to the bartender, "what's up?" and he pointed to a calendar.  It was April 20.

Another bit of trivia that might be relevant: the Chief of Police Don Byrd on whose watch fell the responsibility for ensuring the files related to November 22, 1963 were made available in a timely and efficient manner, wrapped his car around a tree en route home from a party hosted by Ray Hunt.  We found Byrd intriguing because he rose from patrolman to Chief within a few short years following the assassination. Byrd married into wealth — an Oklahoma oil family who owned a posh condo on Turtle Creek. They were among the first tenants of 3707 Rawlins, (Oak Plaza in Oak Lawn, just two blocks from Lucas B&B and Ruby's former Vegas Club) — along with a New York based international real estate concern, Previews Inc.  Otto Skorzeny's wife, Ilse - identified by Lafitte as the Nazi commando's "arms and legs" — had used Previews Inc. as cover since the mid-1950s.  I'll explain where this is going* ... but first:  

Don A. Byrd served under Capt. Pat Gannaway (narcotics) who was among the first to state publicly that Oswald had been in the USSR.  In less than a decade, patrolman Don was Chief Don.  So far, I've never been able to establish a direct genealogical connection between Don A. Byrd and D.H. Byrd, board member of Crichton's Dorchester Gas, based in Amarillo Texas — Pan-Tex and Bell Helicopter (and 40 minutes north of my hometown.)

*Previews Inc. was cofounded by Archbold van Beuren who created CUE magazine, New York's entertainment/real estate/style magazine pre-War.  Archbold served under Wild Bill Donovan — who along with Stephenson and Dulles served as the face of WCC — as his chief of security. If you're familiar with the Amerasia case, it was van Beuren who was assigned to investigate.  Some say that the incident launched what would become the Cold War propaganda machine.  Again, Previews Inc. — with brand new digs in Oak Lawn Dallas in the spring 1963 (shared with Byrd's future in-laws) — places Otto Skorzeny's wife, Ilse, one degree from van Beuren, and she and Otto's benefactor Donovan, and moving right up the food chain to DCI Allen Dulles (future board member of Nation-Wide Securities).

Edited July 23, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Ed Berger]

@Leslie Sharp This is great info, thank you for sharing your personal experiences! These sorts of anecdotes and first-hand experiences definitely help contextualize what can often be abstracted by the passage of time into history, and make it immediate in new ways. I was just about to ask, when I saw the name Don Byrd, if he was related to the infamous D.H. Byrd. Out of curiosity, do you recall the name of the monied Oklahoma family that Don Byrd married into? 

I am very familiar with the Amerasia case. There is an episode contained in that case that I've had something of a minor obsession with, and maybe can help track us back through the denizens of the Third Reich, the WCC and the elusive Yemen connection. It took place when Van Beuren visited Donovan to alert him about the classified documents. In response, Donovan called upon Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and Julius Holmes, then serving as assistant sec. of state. Donovan, Van Beuren, an OSS legal counsel, and Holmes all met at Stettinius' home to discuss the issue and how to navigate it. 

Edward Stettinius subsequently winds up as one of the founding figures in the World Commerce Corporation. He also sets up what I consider to be an 'adjunct' to WCC, the Liberia Company, which operates shipping, air freight, and natural resource extraction in the African country (besides Stettinius, other WCC principles in the Liberia Company included Frank Ryan). Before he was cut short by an untimely death, Stettinius had plans for something akin to the Liberia Company—i.e., another WCC adjunct corporation—in, where else?, Yemen. 

Julius Holmes, meanwhile, joined up as a director of the Liberia Company. So of the group that was assembled around the Amerasia case, we have Van Beuren going to Previews, Donovan to the WCC, Stettinius to the WCC and Liberia Company, and Holmes to the Liberia Company. 

A little bit of a historical puzzle that maybe people can help crack: there was an insurance man-turned-conman of the highest degree, Stewart Hopps, who worked in the OSS's secret insurance unit during the war. And, yet, Hopps and associate named Cecil Stewart

Quote

came under scrutiny for selling war insurance to strategic U.S. industries and reselling some of the risk to Latin American affiliates linked to N a z i insurers. The men also ran a steamship company that chartered tankers for Royal Dutch Shell, a N a z i collaborator that used Hitler's slave laborers.

Years later, Hopps would be implicated in a byzantine insurance fraud with a character out of Tangiers named Rene Mars. According to one newspaper article from the time, 

Quote

The San Francisco millionaire [Stewart Hopps] testified he met Rene Mars, backer of the Tangiers insurance company, after World War I, and had conducted several businesses with him for many years. He said they worked closely with the late former United States Secretary of State Edward Stettinius in the operation of a world commerce corporation following World War II. 

He explained the Mars groups was internationally known as "very conservative bankers" who moved from Paris to Tangiers when French money was frozen after a period of postwar currency instability. 

I've had a terrible time locating anything on Rene Mars in either Paris or Tangiers, or on his banks and banking partners. Because Hopps sometimes used fake personas in his frauds, I started to suspect that Rene Mars might not have even existed. But National Archives listing, bundled in a pile of items concerning OSS and military records on German assets and funds in foreign countries at the end of the war, has the following:

Quote

141436 Information on organization of two companies: Marti S.A., Tangier, organized to acquire real estate in Tangier; and Societe Marocaine de Procedes Industriels et Brevets d'Invention, incorporated by Rene Mars, in Tangier. This is the third company Mars has incorporated from June 10 to July 2, 1945. 1 p. July 1945

Anything like this ring any bells, @Robert Montenegro?

The FBI would later list as an associate of one Virgil Dardi, a former Transamerica executive (a company, it must be said, that helped capitalize the WCC)-turned-Pepsi executive-turned fraudster. Dardi, in turn, has a multitude of connections, but two that stand out: 1) he was implicated in a major corporate fraud, the convoluted tendrils of which snake through the Murchisons; and 2) he was a repeat business partner of William Zeckendorf, one of the key forces alongside the Wynne family (historically tied to the Murchisons) in the Dallas-Forth Worth Great Southwest Corporation. 

[Leslie Sharp]

@Ed Berger Separate from my forthcoming reply to your contribution above, I decided it might be less confusing if I started a  thread, "World Commerce Corporation and the assassination of Kennedy in Dallas".   I think we published some interesting material that hasn't been covered to date. 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

2 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

@Leslie Sharp This is great info, thank you for sharing your personal experiences! These sorts of anecdotes and first-hand experiences definitely help contextualize what can often be abstracted by the passage of time into history, and make it immediate in new ways. I was just about to ask, when I saw the name Don Byrd, if he was related to the infamous D.H. Byrd. Out of curiosity, do you recall the name of the monied Oklahoma family that Don Byrd married into? 

I am very familiar with the Amerasia case. There is an episode contained in that case that I've had something of a minor obsession with, and maybe can help track us back through the denizens of the Third Reich, the WCC and the elusive Yemen connection. It took place when Van Beuren visited Donovan to alert him about the classified documents. In response, Donovan called upon Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and Julius Holmes, then serving as assistant sec. of state. Donovan, Van Beuren, an OSS legal counsel, and Holmes all met at Stettinius' home to discuss the issue and how to navigate it. 

Edward Stettinius subsequently winds up as one of the founding figures in the World Commerce Corporation. He also sets up what I consider to be an 'adjunct' to WCC, the Liberia Company, which operates shipping, air freight, and natural resource extraction in the African country (besides Stettinius, other WCC principles in the Liberia Company included Frank Ryan). Before he was cut short by an untimely death, Stettinius had plans for something akin to the Liberia Company—i.e., another WCC adjunct corporation—in, where else?, Yemen. 

Julius Holmes, meanwhile, joined up as a director of the Liberia Company. So of the group that was assembled around the Amerasia case, we have Van Beuren going to Previews, Donovan to the WCC, Stettinius to the WCC and Liberia Company, and Holmes to the Liberia Company. 

A little bit of a historical puzzle that maybe people can help crack: there was an insurance man-turned-conman of the highest degree, Stewart Hopps, who worked in the OSS's secret insurance unit during the war. And, yet, Hopps and associate named Cecil Stewart

Years later, Hopps would be implicated in a byzantine insurance fraud with a character out of Tangiers named Rene Mars. According to one newspaper article from the time, 

I've had a terrible time locating anything on Rene Mars in either Paris or Tangiers, or on his banks and banking partners. Because Hopps sometimes used fake personas in his frauds, I started to suspect that Rene Mars might not have even existed. But National Archives listing, bundled in a pile of items concerning OSS and military records on German assets and funds in foreign countries at the end of the war, has the following:

Anything like this ring any bells, @Robert Montenegro?

The FBI would later list as an associate of one Virgil Dardi, a former Transamerica executive (a company, it must be said, that helped capitalize the WCC)-turned-Pepsi executive-turned fraudster. Dardi, in turn, has a multitude of connections, but two that stand out: 1) he was implicated in a major corporate fraud, the convoluted tendrils of which snake through the Murchisons; and 2) he was a repeat business partner of William Zeckendorf, one of the key forces alongside the Wynne family (historically tied to the Murchisons) in the Dallas-Forth Worth Great Southwest Corporation. 

The Yemen connection is of course intriguing. Do you have the specific dates?

We mention Stettinius only briefly.  

 Brown explains that among those legal advisers [Donovan and Leisure’s firm] was Lt. Col. Otto C. Doering, Donovan’s second in command at the OSS. Donovan only became an official director of WCC in October 1947. At the same time, Edward R. Stettinius, Secretary of State from November 1944 to July 1945, who had substantial holdings in WCC joined the board. According to Brown, in due course a number of other people prominent in intelligence and special operations joined the firm, as directors, officer, or shareholders. They included J. Russell Forgan of the Glore Forgan group of merchant bankers (and future career ambassador David Bruce’s successor as chief of OSS Europe; Lester Armour (former deputy chief mission to Moscow who would inherit the chairmanship of the Swift Armour packing company of Chicago); W.K. Eliscu (a member of Donovan’s OSS staff); Lieutenant Colonel Rex L. Benson (staff member of the British Secret Intelligence Service and chairman of merchant bankers Robert Benson and Company of London. Here it should be noted that Benson was the lead SOE interrogator of Otto Skorzeny after his surrender. Brown adds that the WCC board also included several persons who had been prominent in the Canadian intelligence services.

Re. Tangier
Tangier was a hotbed in the early 1960s as you know.  Frank Wisner Jr. joined the foreign service in late 1962 and his first State Department post was Tangier.  We've yet to determine whether the Wisner mentioned by Lafitte is Sr. or Jr. My candidate is Jr. given this posting and that he is possibly conferring with his father in mid-1963 from Morocco.  

And, not to diverge too far from Permindex, but you'll recall that African-American Richard Gibson moved the HQ for the FPCC from NYC to Tangiers.  Hank had reason to believe the alleged sightings of Oswald by a milieu of ex-pats including Winthrop Buckingham who knew both Warren Broglie and June Cobb were far more credible than researchers have accepted. 

Re. Previews to Amerasia

Founded in the early 1930s, the name “Previews, Inc.” was adopted in 1933 when Talbot Henderson, a real estate agent for the Douglas Elliman Co. in New York, got the idea of showing films of properties to potential buyers from the city before embarking on the time-consuming process of arranging on-sight viewings. Henderson convinced two Rhodes scholars from his college years, two brothers with strong business and finance experience in NYC, a family relative—Oliver Keep who was the publisher of Cue Magazine along with Keep’s brother, and a man who would not only replace Keep as publisher of Cue but twenty-five years later take over the helm as chairman of the board for the magazine. 

            Founded in 1932, Cue (the precursor to New York magazine) cemented itself almost overnight as the go-to theatre, arts and entertainment magazine for New York society, from “Bohemia” to Park Ave. Reading between the lines, Talbot of Previews, Inc., along with Oliver Keep and Archbold van Beuren, both of whom were on the ground floor of Cue AND of Previews, saw the potential for a quid pro quo arrangement . . . use the slick magazine, Cue to promote exclusive real estate to the target markets of Previews, and in turn, Cue would benefit from the advertising revenue and the panache of being associated with those who could afford the unique national and international properties that Previews represented.

            A portion of the van Beuren family fortune had been derived from land that was developed into Union Square in Manhattan in the 19th century. Archbold’s biography, including his role in the founding of Previews and Cue before WWII, may not seem relevant to our story, that is until one considers that at the close of WWII and before the OSS was circumvented by the Central Intelligence Agency, Archbold van Beuren had served as Chief of Security for William “Wild Bill” Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services. 

            As has been reported extensively, it was only after months of wrestling for funding and jockeying for positioning that Donovan failed and his OSS was shut down, at least officially; however, as we learned in earlier chapters, this was not before he had set in place a vast intelligence apparatus deeply embedded in industry around the world via the World Commerce Corporation.

            While there is no solid proof that van Beuren’s Previews, Inc. was a component of that apparatus, we do know of several individuals involved with the international real estate organization that fit the profile of non-official intelligence agents trained to exploit their private, professional roles. Among them, US Army/Air Force Col. Herschel V. Williams. 

Amerasia 

Before Donovan’s concept of how an effective American intelligence should be run was thwarted, he and his security chief, Previews cofounder van Beuren featured in a sensational episode in the annals of domestic espionage. . . .

Re. Don A. Byrd
Don A. Byrd: According to official records obtained by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Lt. Byrd was involved in the 1962 investigation into bookmaking and related crimes of John Eli Stone—an associate of Mafia boss Joe Civello—who the reader will recall was eventually indicted in Wichita Falls, TX, by a federal prosecutor on behalf of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Don Byrd’s boss, Pat Gannaway would a year later declare in an interview with the Dallas Morning News that organized crime had not taken hold on his watch. Following a somewhat meteoric rise thru the ranks, including filling the role that Gannaway vacated when he retired as head of Special Operations Division, Don Byrd became the Chief of the Dallas Police in 1973 where he served until retirement in ’79. He then ran for and was elected Sheriff of Dallas County, a post he filed from’81–’84. Byrd planned on reelection but one evening, following a party at Reunion Square hosted by oilman Ray Hunt (another son of H. L. Hunt) Byrd was driving down Preston Road not far from the Rawlins St. address when he careened off course causing a serious accident. He was charged, and although he was acquitted at trial, his law enforcement career was over.

Re. Wesley G. Rogers

Oklahoma oilman Wesley G. Rogers was the other primary tenant at 3707 Rawlins when the professional office building opened its doors. Rogers listed six oil and gas related businesses on the building marquis compared with Barron Kidd’s seven. Although Rogers maintained a large spread near Holdenville, OK, the family spent most of its time in an exclusive residential enclave in North Dallas. Their close neighbors included: Buck Wynne Jr., of the Wynne family dynasty, whose real estate investments involved Clint Murchison, Trammel Crow, and Leo Corrigan among others; Jack Ruby’s banker, Michaux Nash, who did business with one of the principals in the Algur Meadows 1963 petrochemical scheme in Longview, TX, that caught Otto Skorzeny’s keen interest; and Jake Hamon, the notorious independent oilman involved with the Skorzeny-Meadows scheme since 1952, president of the American Petroleum Institute and a close friend of—among others in the industry both national and international—Paul Raigorodsky and Clint Murchison.

            In the spring of 1963, Wesley Rogers leased office space for six separate oil and gas entities in the Oak Plaza professional building at 3707 Rawlins. As noted, Rogers joined an exclusive roster of new tenants that included Barron Kidd Oil (under seven separate business names), Delhi Properties managed by J. Sowell—a former tenant of the Adolphus Tower, who stood as groomsman for Barron Kidd, Jr., in the du Pont/Kidd wedding in Delaware—All World Travel agency, Tom Stanley’s architectural firm, and John Tysen’s* Previews, Inc. Within the decade, Rogers would become the father-in-law of Donald A. Byrd, former Dallas Police officer who served in the narcotics division under Pat Gannaway at the time of the assassination of Kennedy. Byrd would eventually advance to the position of Dallas Police Chief, a powerful post he held until crashing his car into a tree in the Highland Park neighborhood on his way home from a party hosted by one of H. L. Hunt’s sons. During his tenure, Byrd was in charge of approving release of department documents pertaining to events in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.

Re. John Tysen of Previews

Advancing the in-depth review of the presence of Previews, Inc. in Dallas in November 1963, John Colquhoun Tysen who joined Previews, Inc. in 1936 was no doubt hired directly by a young board which included Archbold van Beuren. By 1950, van Beuren and the Previews board elected Tysen as president of the real estate firm in 1950. 

            Born to American citizens living in Paris where Tysen senior represented Morgan banking interests in France, John C. was educated at Downside School and later Trinity Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Downside’s alumni included noted spy novelist Nigel West (the pen name for British MP Rupert Allason) and Tom Bethell, who many Kennedy assassination researchers recognize as having infiltrated the Garrison investigation. (Bethell befriended “the godmother” of Kennedy research, Mary Ferrell, with whom he shared a keen interest in New Orleans jazz). 

            As president of Previews, Tysen successfully positioned the domestic and foreign inventory as “glamorous, exotic, without precedent,” from Tangier to the Tyrol Mountains. By the early ’60s, Tysen, who was elected chairman a year later, had been in and out of Dallas pursuing potential clientele among the city’s social and business elite including bankers, wealthy oilmen and ranchers, their wives and their lovers for years. During the same period, Tysen was also in and out of the Bahamas, having recently joined the board of Sir Stafford Sands’ Bahama Development Co. along with Dallas developer Leo F. Corrigan, Jr.**  

            Tysen’s employee, Mrs. Otto (Ilse) Skorzeny is known to have used the Bahamas as one of several key international locations from which to conduct the business projects of “the Skorzenys.” 

            Hitler’s banker, Hjalmar Schacht—advisor to the Skorzenys—is known to have financed Sir Stafford Sands’ various projects stemming from his connections in the Bahamas. It is logical to conclude that these introductions alone might prompt John Tysen to lease space for the Previews Dallas office in Oak Plaza professional building occupied by Corrigan’s architect of choice, T. E. Stanley, who had recently designed the Emerald Beach Hotel in the Bahamas for Leo and his partner in the project, Algur Meadows, “a dear friend of Otto and Ilse Skorzeny since 1952.”

11:30 meet Warsaw (+hotel)with T.   

Hjalmar / Ilse - Get $

—Lafitte datebook, November 7, 1963


 

(Let's see if we can bring in @Greg Doudna for the remainder of this post, considering his interest in H. L. Hunt's atty. John Curington and chief security Paul Rothermel. Note: Rothermel appears in the ledger of Pierre Lafitte.  You'll note by the end of this excerpt, we've come full circle to H. L. Hunt and Yemen and to World Commerce Corp and Permindex.)

Re. Ed Jordan, Leo Corrigan's son in law

**An equally intriguing milieu housed in Thornton’s Mercantile building provides an expanded look behind the curtain. In a well-documented episode, Jack Ruby had recently met Connie Trammell, a young University of Texas student who was on the brink of graduation and looking for opportunities. She told Ruby that she had contact information for Lamar Hunt and that he might be interested in her as an employee. Ruby jumped at the opportunity, explaining that he needed to take care of some business in the Mercantile, and that it was a simple enough act of kindness to drop her off to meet Lamar, the son of H. L. Hunt. 

            Ruby’s business was most likely related to the leases on his establishments, the Carousel Club in downtown Dallas and the Vegas Club in Oaklawn [two blocks from Previews Inc offices]. According to Ed Jordan, an officer at Mercantile National who would later join Lamar Hunt on the board of the city’s prized Cowboy’s football team, also managed Corrigan Properties for his father-in-law which owned the buildings that housed Ruby’s clubs. Jordan later reported that on the day in question, Ruby insisted that he wanted to “see to the boss,” which Jordan knew to be his father-in-law, Leo Corrigan, Jr.

            Jordan’s colleague at Mercantile National was Jacques Pierre Viliere, a dapper Frenchman from New Orleans who joined the Dallas bank in 1946 advancing to vice president of Mercantile’s international department by 1968. When Jacques moved from New Orleans to Dallas, he left behind his brother Pierre Blaise Villere to continue in a public relations enterprise the brothers had launched together. Their clients in the Crescent City included Clay Shaw’s International Trade Mart, and Permindex, the international front closely aligned with the World Commerce Corporation which, as covered earlier, benefited from the business acumen of Jack Crichton. Jacques Villere became honorary consul of Belgium and is seen photographed with Dresser’s Neil Mallon on the occasion of bestowing him with the Cross of the Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Couronne. According to Major Ganis in The Skorzeny Papers, the Villere brothers appear in the private papers of Otto Skorzeny.

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

@Ed Berger

141436 Information on organization of two companies: Marti S.A., Tangier, organized to acquire real estate in Tangier; and Societe Marocaine de Procedes Industriels et Brevets d'Invention, incorporated by Rene Mars, in Tangier. This is the third company Mars has incorporated from June 10 to July 2, 1945. 1 p. July 1945

Ed, take note of the closing paragraphs of my latest response, related to John Tysen, Previews, and Ilse Skorzeny.  I would bet a small amount of money Rene Mars is somewhere not far behind (or ahead as it were).

[Ron Bulman]

22 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Ron Bulman, have you ever come across the exact address of Joannides' purported living arrangements in New Orleans?

No. I just read what Jeff Morley said.  A FOIA document?  Maybe you know better than I. Joannides had residences in both Miami where he was based at JMWAVE and in New Orleans in the summer of 1963?  I've wondered before if the latter might have been a safehouse.

[Leslie Sharp]

29 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

No. I just read what Jeff Morley said.  A FOIA document?  Maybe you know better than I. Joannides had residences in both Miami where he was based at JMWAVE and in New Orleans in the summer of 1963?  I've wondered before if the latter might have been a safehouse.

I know Jeff M. has been in search of that address for quite some time, as was Hank btw.

A researcher based in New Orleans has never found it either.
 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Leslie Sharp