World Commerce Corporation and the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas

[W. Niederhut]

      It's fascinating stuff--and mostly new for me-- the nexus between the U.S. military/intelligence community and the titans of corporate industry and finance.  I knew that there were close links between Wall Street and the "founding fathers" of the CIA, but have read very little about these Texas tycoons.

     Media moguls like Henry Luce, (Skull & Bones) Katherine Graham, William S. Paley, et.al., were also in the loop on the Warren Commission cover up.  If I recall correctly, Henry and Claire Booth Luce had a special antipathy for JFK.

     One of the researchers here mentioned Dresser Industries, and I think Russ Baker mentioned GHWB's work for Allen Dulles and Dresser Industries after Poppy's graduation from Yale.  I think Zapata Oil was also a CIA front company before (and after?) it merged with Pennzoil.

[Leslie Sharp]

"Lay of the land. . . lay of the land, Dallas"

Dresser Industries

The history of Dresser Industries, rising from a simple Oklahoma based pipeline business that serviced the oil industry to a conglomerate composed of long-established military contractors on a global scale, is complex. In the late 1920s, having survived as a solid but unexceptional business—except for the coveted patents they held—the Dresser family sold out to a fledgling private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman. In it what is alleged to have been a purely serendipitous moment, Ohio native and Yale graduate Henry Neil Mallon ambled through the doors of BBH, only to have Roland Harriman, a founding partner, spot him and cry out, “Dresser!” In spite of having no specific training in the specialized pipeline industry, Mallon, who was a friend of banker and politician Prescott Bush who had joined the Harriman banking firm, assumed the presidency of Dresser. During WWII, Mallon also mysteriously established a line of communication with NY lawyer and fellow OSS agent, Allen Dulles who would eventually control the Central Intelligence Agency, suggesting that Mallon long had the backing of close friends in positions of power. 

The roots of Mallon’s benefactors extended to 19th century England. BBH was the result of a merger of Alex, Brown & Sons and the old-line Harriman family interests in the US. One of the first American financial organizations to help finance post-war rehabilitation in Europe, the firm boasted some of the country’s most notable executives and directors in the field of finance including George Herbert Walker of St. Louis and lawyer/statesman Robert A. Lovett of Texas whose father was a founding member of BBH. It was Lovett junior who a young President Kennedy would consult how best to fill his first cabinet. Another propitious nepotistic hire at BBH was George Walker’s son-in-law Prescott Bush, the congressman who would spawn generations of politicians including US presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. 

            During the 1930s, the son of railroad tycoon E. Roland Harriman, W. Averell Harriman and his banking firm BBH had turned a blind eye to the rise of fascism in Germany, and continued to do business with both communist Soviet Union and Germany long after Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Particularly odious is that he did so from a unique post as US Ambassador to the Soviet Union beginning in 1943. The firms that BBH, and by extension Harriman, profited from during the war included: Union Banking Corporation—the American arm of German steel magnate and “Hitler’s Angel,” Fritz Thyssen who helped fund the rise of the Nazis; Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation; Holland-American Trading Corporation and Silesian-American Corporation whose records reveal that Harriman’s partner, Prescott Bush of BBH was board member; and Dresser Industries.

Eventually, Neil Mallon had gobbled up on behalf of BBH and Dresser a significant number of military-related industries to create one of the country’s most important cogs in the “defense of freedom.” According to his obituary, Mallon “. . . built Dresser from an obscure pipeline equipment concern to a world leader in energy related products . . . Dresser currently employs 40,000 people in North America and reported earnings of $172.3 million in 1982 on revenues of $4.16 billion.”

             Mallon proved to be an enigma in early Kennedy assassination research. Little is reported about his birth and childhood, perhaps because it lacked luster, perhaps because his early life has been deliberately obscured, or perhaps because he was a tool of US intelligence in league with the military industrial complex who benefited from decades of cover. However, Mallon may also be one of the more significant characters lurking behind the curtains, pulling strings. It has been credibly established that he was not only responsible for Prescott Bush’s son, George H. W. Bush’s move to Texas, but that he was an early investor in Bush’s oil venture Zapata Oil with operations in the Gulf of Mexico made available to US intelligence as needed. 

Although it is not the mandate of this book to debate whether Mallon’s protégé, George H. W. Bush was privy to information, let alone an active participant in the events in Dealey Plaza, no assessment of the “lay of the land” of the assassination or analysis of Dresser and Neil Mallon—with his entrenched friendship with James Angleton’s boss, Allen Dulles—would be complete without considering Bush. The fact is, nowhere in the records of Pierre Lafitte who was clearly possessed of specific and detailed information related to the planning and execution of the coup in Dallas, is there a direct reference to Bush. 

            It could be argued that given the aforementioned history, Neil Mallon and those with whom he had fraternized within the petroleum industry and the intelligence community long before his young protégé (thirty years his junior), is as much a candidate for being privy to plans for the hit in Dallas as GHW Bush. According to freelance investigative journalist Anthony Kimery’s monograph, “George Bush and the CIA: In the Company of Friends,” available online at CovertAction Magazine, December 2018, “Mallon was a friend to numerous ranking Cold War era intelligence officials, including Allen Dulles—an OSS veteran and ground floor official of the CIA . . . Mallon steered prospective candidates for spy work to Dulles and often provided cover employment to CIA operatives . . . ” According to Kimery, among them was George de Mohrenschildt, another particularly important operative with whom Mallon was well acquainted, who had been part of the spy network Dulles ran inside Hitler’s intelligence organization. Mallon personally introduced the Count to a young twenty-four year old from Connecticut, George Bush at about the same time he handed Bush the highly sensitive responsibility of negotiating Eastern-bloc deals. It soon became apparent that Bush was able to wheel and deal with the communists’ petroleum experts without the slightest grimace by US authorities. In fact, writes Kimery, “when a Yugoslavian oil industry official came to the US in 1948 to talk to Dresser Industries, the State Department barely flinched and he went straight to neophyte salesman George Bush in Midland, Texas.” Bush and de Mohrenschildt, whose mutual focus on Yugoslavia is well documented, joined a cadre of young men who served as Mallon’s (and by extension Dulles’s) eyes and ears, arms and legs in the petroleum industry during the Cold War. 

From his perch at Dresser headquarters in the Republic National Bank building, Mallon, who served on the board of RNB Dallas was the ideal conduit for his friend Allen Dulles and his fellow board member at RNB, Algur H. Meadows who leads us to the second location under scrutiny.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Ed Berger]

17 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

Thanks for this level of detail @Ed Berger

re:
Biddle Sawyer: chemical company of which the WCC took a "controlling interest" 
 

' . . . As evidenced in his private papers, by the early 1950s, Skorzeny was very much involved financially and operationally with WCC. Over the years the WCC had acquired the majority stock in worldwide trading group Biddle Sawyer Corp. headquartered in NYC which dealt in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, botanical drugs, waxes, gums, and essential oils. The transaction secured Anthony J. Drexel Biddle a membership on the board of WCC. In 1961, Biddle became US Ambassador to Spain, placing him in close proximity to Otto and Ilse Skorzeny, arms merchant Victor Oswald, and Johannes Bernhardt among various other “former” Nazis ensconced in Madrid. 

            Biddle returned to the US in April ’62, and World Commerce folded, allegedly for tax reasons, on August 31st of that year with reported gross income from trading—commodities included—to commissions and interest to just under $1 million with a total net income of $514,000, a far cry from its first year of operation, 1947 when it posted a $50,000 loss. This history of conglomerates tied directly to global commodities markets while at the same time serving as fronts for political and intelligence operations, contributes to the argument that the stock scandal with the valued food commodity vegetable oil—mostly soybean—at its center, brewing since 1962 and climaxing hours before the assassination deserves greater coverage whether tied directly to this investigation or not. 

            Prior to its folding, from 1950 through to 1958, Otto Skorzeny was in written communication with WCC president Frank Ryan and vice-president, as well as international playboy and one of Bill Donovan’s OSS agents, Ricardo Sicre. Named in Otto’s private papers, Sicre (frequently using the alias Richard Stickler) had established a training school for spies who crossed into Vichy, France into Spain. After the war, Sicre was installed as a vice president of WCC, adding to a body of evidence that WCC was being used as a privately controlled international espionage and assassination network. In time, he would arrange countless covert arms shipments facilitated under the auspices of WCC, often directly linked to US Military Assistance Advisor Groups. Much of this covert work of which Sicre played a major role involved former CIA Madrid Station Chiefs Alfonzo Rodriquez (1951) and James A. Noel (1963). Rodriguez, a.k.a. Earle Williamson and Wallace Growery, and Noel, a.k.a. Woodrow Olien, each had a lengthy history in agency operations in Cuba as well as Spain (see Endnotes) Whether they were witting participants or not, Rodriguez and Noel serve as a segue between WCC and any serious exposition of the maneuvers among elements of the CIA hierarchy that contributed to the assassination plot.  — CiD

(and can you speak to the claim that WCC folded in 1962?)

(and can you speak to the claim that WCC folded in 1962?)

This is a bit of a mystery! There's a court case from 1962, Minerals & Chemicals Philipps Corp. V. Panamerican Commodities S.A. According to Minerals & Chemicals, the company was hired by Panamerican Commodities to act as its agent, but then Panamerican broke contract, dumped Minerals & Chemicals, and hired the World Commerce Corp. Minerals & Chemicals then began pursuing subpoenas against the WCC, which would force the WCC to turn over its internal books and the like. The WCC of course resisted this, arguing that the materials contained within the WCC's books constituted a 'trade secret'. 

It's around this time that we start getting stories that the WCC was folded up: this is reported in newspapers, and all activity appears to have ceased (in that context, I've been interested in the formation of the World Banking Corporation at the beginning of 1964, and the formation of the World Finance Corporation around 1971. WBC was organized by Robert B. Anderson, Clifford Folger and Bank of America; BofA's former holding company, Transamerica, had been on the initial WCC investors. WFC, meanwhile, was incorporated by OSS veteran Walter Surrey, who had acted as a lobbyist for the WCC). 

But the Panama incorporation papers for the WCC actually include dissolution papers, dating the dissolution to October-November 1985—many, many years after 1962. I thought at first that this must have been the mistaken inclusion of a different World Commerce Corporation's in with 'the' WCC (there is at least one other company with the name, a Nicaraguan firm), but these dissolution papers list the company's secretary as Margaret Tricker, who appears in WCC materials going back to the 1950s... 

These dissolution papers also identify a major shareholder in the WCC: an entity called the Atlantic Investment Corp S.A. Tracking Atlantic Investment Corp S.A. is difficult, but a company of that name was incorporated in Panama on October 30th, 1963. The principles of this Atlantic Investment, such as director Heide Wolf Kaufmann and agent Franco & Franco, had been involved in the formation of another company on June 18th, 1962, the General Finance & Development Corporation. 

Is this Atlantic Investment Corp SA the same as the one listed as a WCC shareholder in the dissolution papers? I don't know. But the person who acted as president of Atlantic Investment Corp, Nixia Aurora Zerna, appears like a front person: Nixia had sat as president for dozens and dozens of Panamanian companies over many years, a sizable handful of which seem to have been engaged in crime and fraud. 

[David Josephs]

@Leslie Sharp @Ed Berger

Came across this if it can be of any help.

 BY KB IN ENCYCLOPEDIA — MAR 5, 2022
World Commerce Corporation. https://wydna.org/world-commerce-corporation/ 

Individuals involved in WCC:
•    William Horrigan -- president -- OSS veteran
•    John Pepper -- vice president
•    Ricardo Sicre -- vice president -- OSS
•    B.H. Boncompagni -- general counsel -- some kinfd of Italian prince from an ancient money family
•    Edward Blick -- director
•    James F. Cavagnaro -- director -- VP of Transamerica, the holding company that owns Bank of America
•    W.W. Cumberland -- director -- expert on Latin American economies, had been part of the John Foster Dulles Paris Peace Conference delegation, advisor to the State Department, financial advisor to the Haitian government, member of the New York Stock Exchange
•    William Donovan -- director
•    Daniel de Menocal -- director
•    Russell Forgan -- director -- OSS, investment banker, had been involved in the committees that set up the CIA
•    Joseph Grew -- director
•    L. Boyd Hatch -- director -- investment banker, business partner of Floyd Odhum, who owned RKO before selling it to Howard Hughes. Hatch and Odum developed Pine Glenn Clove, a private retreat for the New York and Hollywood bigwigs located in Utah
•    Frank Ryan -- director
•    William Stephenson -- director
•    Edward Stettinius -- director

Companies mentioned in the WCC 1945 papers
•    British-American-Canadian Corporation
•    Keswick Marine Panama S.A. (see Jardine-Matheson file)
•    Weyerhauser Steamship Company: the maritime subsidiary of the Weyerhauser logging and mining complex, based in canada
•    Bechtel Brothers-McCone International Company: the Bechtel conglomerate's division set up to handle projects in Saudi Arabia
•    Sun-Douglas Shipping Corporation: no available information on this company other than it was registered in Panama and appears in the Panama Papers. Wondering if this is connected to Sun Oil, because they had a subsidiary, Sun Shipbuilding.
•    Seven Seas Shipping Company: principles unknown, appears to have been set up in the 1930s.
•    International Corporation Company: one of the most generic names I've ever seen

Asbestos Mining in Venezuela Asbestos mining in Venezuela was monopolized by a company called AMVECO, which is listed in 1950s trade journals as a "partner" of WCC. WCC seems to have been involved in the 'modernization' of the Venezuelan asbestos industry, bringing AMVECO together with specialty tool manufacturers to produce more effective extraction and processing methods. It also seems to have worked closely with the Venezuelan government in building roads etc to increase traffic to and from mining sites. 

Spanish tourism WCC was, according to 1950s trade journals, deeply involved in the promotion of Spanish tourism, and undertook both a series of development projects and currency trading operations to spurr this growth. Interestingly, the Ryans frequented Spain, and Sicre lived there for some time in this period. Sicre appears in a series of columns written by an 'adventure' journalist named Robert Ruark -- and curiously enough, the inventory list of the Ruark archives shows extensive correspondence between Ruark and the WCC. Ruark's Spanish columns might be something like 'guerrilla marketing' for Spanish tourism -- they are exotic, filled with intrigue, and peppered with celebrities. In one column on Spanish bull fighting, he describes himself as part of a "secret society that strides the world" -- and mentions not only Sicre and the Ryans as members, but Texas oilman Jake Hamon as well (he was discussed in the JFK ep). What Ruark omits -- but was discovered by Ralph Ganis and Halk Albarelli -- was that Otto Skorzeny was part of this scene, and in fact lived in the same building as Ruark and Sicre. Skorzeny at this time was involved in a series of business ventures in Spain, including one that involved Texas oilmen (Degolyer and Crichton). So it seems like a neat little circle. 
More Ruark Many of Ruark's columns featuring Sicre involve safaris in Africa. One is about hanging out at Safarilandia in Mozambique with the reserve's owner, a German named Werner Alvensleben. Alvensleben was a former SS officer during WW2 who had been secretly working for the OSS. Another episode involves Ruark, Sicre, the actor William Holden (who also lived in the same building as Ruark, Sicre and Skorzeny), and a professional gambler/failed oilman/California real estate developer for the stars named Ray Ryan on a Safari in Kenya. Sicre and Ruark convince Holden and Ruark to purchase the property, which becomes known as the Safari Club. What makes this interesting is that the Safari Club is later sold by Holden and Ryan to Edward Moss of the CIA -- whose CIA file, incidentally, described his "longstanding connections to organized crime". Moss, in turn, brought Adnan Khashoggi into the Safari Club, who became its new owner. It was under these auspices that the 'Safari Club', organized by French and Middle Eastern intelligence services during Carter's reform-the-CIA efforts, was launched. Shackley's network would work closely with the Safari Club, and it was also the Safari Club that was the main driver behind the formation of BCCI. Curiously, around the time this was happening, Ray Ryan was killed by a bomb wired to the ignition switch of his car. The murder was never solved. 

The Silk King WCC principles had a close relationship with Thailand. William Stephenson, for example, was a personal friend of the Thai royal family, and the extended web of dealings with the KMT seeped down through these networks. For a Bangkok representative of the WCC, Donovan brought in James Thompson, who had served in the OSS in France before running the OSS Thailand Station. After the war, Thompson set up the Thai Silk Company Limited, which was financed by the WCC. 

Tourist Villas in JamaicaImmediately adjacent to the estates in Jamaica purchased by Stephenson, Wiseman, Donovan, etc -- Paul Raigorodsky organizes a venture called the Tryall Club Raigorodsky -- worked for DeGolyer, close friend of Jake Hamon, friend of Mohrenschildt, connected to the Tolstoy Foundation Other investors: other Dallas interests, Winthrop Rockefeller, and John Pringle & Peter Kerr-Jerrett -- involved in other development ventures with the Bronfmans, Keswicks

Stephenson & Co. in Canada Stephenson was connected to the Cement & General Development Corp, which carried out some of the development efforts in Jamaica. Along with the Harrimans and the Canadian government, Cement & General Development Corp became shareholders in the Newfoundland & Labrador Company, a public-private industrial conglomerate that was awarded extensive mining and logging concessions, given contracts to build hydro-electric plants, etc. Stephenson subsequently stepped down from Cement & General Development Corp and joined the Newfoudland & Labrador Company as chairman. At the same time that Newfoundland & Labrador was going to work, a second company, the British Newfoundland Corp, also arrived on the scene. The press reported the British Newfoundland Corp as a competitor -- but a glance through its backers shows that it emerges from the same network as the Newfoundland & Labrador Company. It has been organized by Nathan Rothschild, and the De Beer's partner Anglo-American, Rio Tinto, Hambros Bank, and Robert Benson Company.

[Ed Berger]

38 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

@Leslie Sharp @Ed Berger

Came across this if it can be of any help.

 BY KB IN ENCYCLOPEDIA — MAR 5, 2022
World Commerce Corporation. https://wydna.org/world-commerce-corporation/ 

Individuals involved in WCC:
•    William Horrigan -- president -- OSS veteran
•    John Pepper -- vice president
•    Ricardo Sicre -- vice president -- OSS
•    B.H. Boncompagni -- general counsel -- some kinfd of Italian prince from an ancient money family
•    Edward Blick -- director
•    James F. Cavagnaro -- director -- VP of Transamerica, the holding company that owns Bank of America
•    W.W. Cumberland -- director -- expert on Latin American economies, had been part of the John Foster Dulles Paris Peace Conference delegation, advisor to the State Department, financial advisor to the Haitian government, member of the New York Stock Exchange
•    William Donovan -- director
•    Daniel de Menocal -- director
•    Russell Forgan -- director -- OSS, investment banker, had been involved in the committees that set up the CIA
•    Joseph Grew -- director
•    L. Boyd Hatch -- director -- investment banker, business partner of Floyd Odhum, who owned RKO before selling it to Howard Hughes. Hatch and Odum developed Pine Glenn Clove, a private retreat for the New York and Hollywood bigwigs located in Utah
•    Frank Ryan -- director
•    William Stephenson -- director
•    Edward Stettinius -- director

Companies mentioned in the WCC 1945 papers
•    British-American-Canadian Corporation
•    Keswick Marine Panama S.A. (see Jardine-Matheson file)
•    Weyerhauser Steamship Company: the maritime subsidiary of the Weyerhauser logging and mining complex, based in canada
•    Bechtel Brothers-McCone International Company: the Bechtel conglomerate's division set up to handle projects in Saudi Arabia
•    Sun-Douglas Shipping Corporation: no available information on this company other than it was registered in Panama and appears in the Panama Papers. Wondering if this is connected to Sun Oil, because they had a subsidiary, Sun Shipbuilding.
•    Seven Seas Shipping Company: principles unknown, appears to have been set up in the 1930s.
•    International Corporation Company: one of the most generic names I've ever seen

Asbestos Mining in Venezuela Asbestos mining in Venezuela was monopolized by a company called AMVECO, which is listed in 1950s trade journals as a "partner" of WCC. WCC seems to have been involved in the 'modernization' of the Venezuelan asbestos industry, bringing AMVECO together with specialty tool manufacturers to produce more effective extraction and processing methods. It also seems to have worked closely with the Venezuelan government in building roads etc to increase traffic to and from mining sites. 

Spanish tourism WCC was, according to 1950s trade journals, deeply involved in the promotion of Spanish tourism, and undertook both a series of development projects and currency trading operations to spurr this growth. Interestingly, the Ryans frequented Spain, and Sicre lived there for some time in this period. Sicre appears in a series of columns written by an 'adventure' journalist named Robert Ruark -- and curiously enough, the inventory list of the Ruark archives shows extensive correspondence between Ruark and the WCC. Ruark's Spanish columns might be something like 'guerrilla marketing' for Spanish tourism -- they are exotic, filled with intrigue, and peppered with celebrities. In one column on Spanish bull fighting, he describes himself as part of a "secret society that strides the world" -- and mentions not only Sicre and the Ryans as members, but Texas oilman Jake Hamon as well (he was discussed in the JFK ep). What Ruark omits -- but was discovered by Ralph Ganis and Halk Albarelli -- was that Otto Skorzeny was part of this scene, and in fact lived in the same building as Ruark and Sicre. Skorzeny at this time was involved in a series of business ventures in Spain, including one that involved Texas oilmen (Degolyer and Crichton). So it seems like a neat little circle. 
More Ruark Many of Ruark's columns featuring Sicre involve safaris in Africa. One is about hanging out at Safarilandia in Mozambique with the reserve's owner, a German named Werner Alvensleben. Alvensleben was a former SS officer during WW2 who had been secretly working for the OSS. Another episode involves Ruark, Sicre, the actor William Holden (who also lived in the same building as Ruark, Sicre and Skorzeny), and a professional gambler/failed oilman/California real estate developer for the stars named Ray Ryan on a Safari in Kenya. Sicre and Ruark convince Holden and Ruark to purchase the property, which becomes known as the Safari Club. What makes this interesting is that the Safari Club is later sold by Holden and Ryan to Edward Moss of the CIA -- whose CIA file, incidentally, described his "longstanding connections to organized crime". Moss, in turn, brought Adnan Khashoggi into the Safari Club, who became its new owner. It was under these auspices that the 'Safari Club', organized by French and Middle Eastern intelligence services during Carter's reform-the-CIA efforts, was launched. Shackley's network would work closely with the Safari Club, and it was also the Safari Club that was the main driver behind the formation of BCCI. Curiously, around the time this was happening, Ray Ryan was killed by a bomb wired to the ignition switch of his car. The murder was never solved. 

The Silk King WCC principles had a close relationship with Thailand. William Stephenson, for example, was a personal friend of the Thai royal family, and the extended web of dealings with the KMT seeped down through these networks. For a Bangkok representative of the WCC, Donovan brought in James Thompson, who had served in the OSS in France before running the OSS Thailand Station. After the war, Thompson set up the Thai Silk Company Limited, which was financed by the WCC. 

Tourist Villas in JamaicaImmediately adjacent to the estates in Jamaica purchased by Stephenson, Wiseman, Donovan, etc -- Paul Raigorodsky organizes a venture called the Tryall Club Raigorodsky -- worked for DeGolyer, close friend of Jake Hamon, friend of Mohrenschildt, connected to the Tolstoy Foundation Other investors: other Dallas interests, Winthrop Rockefeller, and John Pringle & Peter Kerr-Jerrett -- involved in other development ventures with the Bronfmans, Keswicks

Stephenson & Co. in Canada Stephenson was connected to the Cement & General Development Corp, which carried out some of the development efforts in Jamaica. Along with the Harrimans and the Canadian government, Cement & General Development Corp became shareholders in the Newfoundland & Labrador Company, a public-private industrial conglomerate that was awarded extensive mining and logging concessions, given contracts to build hydro-electric plants, etc. Stephenson subsequently stepped down from Cement & General Development Corp and joined the Newfoudland & Labrador Company as chairman. At the same time that Newfoundland & Labrador was going to work, a second company, the British Newfoundland Corp, also arrived on the scene. The press reported the British Newfoundland Corp as a competitor -- but a glance through its backers shows that it emerges from the same network as the Newfoundland & Labrador Company. It has been organized by Nathan Rothschild, and the De Beer's partner Anglo-American, Rio Tinto, Hambros Bank, and Robert Benson Company.

Thank you for posting this! I actually wrote these years ago for my research partner and I had totally forgot that he had put them online

[David Josephs]

Just now, Ed Berger said:

Thank you for posting this! I actually wrote these years ago for my research partner and I had totally forgot that he had put them online

I found of few of your old writings in fact...  Great stuff btw...

[Leslie Sharp]

Jake Hamon, Dallas oil industry luminary and president of American Petroleum Institute in 1963 is but one thread to bring the World Commerce Corporation closer to the scene of the crime that was Dallas:

DALLAS . . . LAY OF THE LAND

 

Dallas… Dallas, ah goodness, I’m not sure what to say…

I wasn’t there anywhere near as often as Pierre… not at

all. But Pierre would say it was… Dallas was like the arms 

and legs of the American secret service, your CIA….

                                                    —Rene Lafitte

 

Rene says oil smooths the way to silent, 

and sometimes deadly, change.

                                                                                —Lafitte notes

 

The lay of the land… lay of the land, Dallas

                   —Lafitte datebook, November 19, 1963

Jake Hamon and related clips from CiD

. . . A little-known fact is that Dallas real estate magnate, Mattie Caruth Byrd, married to David Harold Byrd who owned 411 Elm that housed the Texas School Book Depository, officed next door to Remington Arms in the Meadows Building. Mattie was the daughter of W. W. Caruth Sr. whose homestead provided the land for Southern Methodist University where Nuremberg trial attorney Robert G. Storey built his reputation as a legal expert for the oil and gas industry. Other names ceremoniously inscribed on the buildings at SMU include oilmen Algur Meadows, Buddy Fogelson, and Jake Hamon (president of the American Petroleum Institute in ’63), each with their own stake in Skorzeny’s scheme in Spain. Caruth Sr. was on the small board of Ralph Rogers’ Texas Industries, a cement and gravel business with operations in Chico, Texas where Thomas Eli Davis died. . . .

Crichton’s Itinerary on the Road to Dealey Plaza

On September 13, 1963, just weeks after he and Brandy (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.) . . . 

Weslie G. Rogers Oil Companies

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.

. . . Of note, the address of Mrs. Frank Brandstetter in 1963 was listed as a condominium in the 3700 block of Turtle Creek where we can assume Brandy stayed the week of November 18, 1963. That summer, the Brandstetter’s building had a new tenant, an independent oilman who seems to have floated below the radar until now. Kidd’s house in Oak Lawn had recently burned beyond salvage, necessitating the move to the Turtle Creek condo. Kidd whose politics clearly aligned with the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party was a member of the Texas Crusade for Freedom and close friend to a number of his peers in the oil industry including Clint Murchison, Sr., Jake Hamon, and Paul Raigorodsky about whom much has been considered in this chapter. 

Chapter Notes:

Earl Cabell: Cabell’s activity on behalf of the anti-communist organization included a trip to Munich, Germany, during which time he was a featured speaker on the Office of Policy Coordination’s Radio Free Europe. Indeed, Cabell saw the “evils of communism” and weighed in to halt it. On his return, Cabell participated in the founding of the Texas chapter of Ike’s Crusade for Freedom and was joined by among others, Dallas patriots Neil Mallon, D. H. Byrd, Everett DeGolyer, Lewis MacNaughton, Jake Hamon, Robert G. Storey, Jr., Paul Raigorodsky, and a rather obscure name in the annals of Kennedy research, oilman Barron Kidd.

Barron Kidd Jr.: Kidd was the namesake of his grandfather, Marvin Ulmer who served as Mayor of Midland, Texas in the 1940s. Marvin was the driving force behind the founding of the highly regarded Midland Air Force Base. There is no evidence to date that the Ulmer’s of West Texas were related to Dan Ulmer of Tyler, Texas, and his brother CIA station chief Al Ulmer named elsewhere in this book. Ulmer served as station chief in Madrid in the 1950s and was familiar with Jere Wittington, the agent who was assigned to “watch over” Otto Skorzeny in Madrid.)

J. Sowell who moved office from the Adolphus Tower to 3707 Rawlins, had been a groomsman for Barron Ulmer Kidd when Kidd married Pierre du Pont's daughter in May 1963. Barron Kidd Oil and related companies, Previews Inc., and J. Sowell / Delhi Properties were among the first tenants of the building. [the name Sewell, a close relative of Clint Murchison (not Sowell) appears in Delhi-Taylor records). In 1979, Carol Wesley Rogers, daughter of Wesley G. Rogers [another tenant of Previews while Ilse Skorzeny was a contract RE agent for the international firm] married fifty-one-year-old Donald Arthur Byrd. A Dallas native, Don Byrd joined the city’s police department in March 1951. He was promoted to detective in ’54 and lieutenant in ’57, a post he held on the day that John Kennedy was assassinated. Following training with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Lieutenant Byrd joined the Special Operations Division of the department reporting directly to Captain W. P. “Pat” Gannaway. Byrd oversaw twenty-two officers of Gannaway’s Vice Squad. Gannaway claimed to have initiated a roll call at the Texas School Book Depository within an hour of the assassination, erroneously establishing that because Lee Harvey Oswald was the only employee who had left the building prior to the arrival of authorities, a pursuit to tie Oswald to the rifle found in the sniper’s next was warranted. Several hours later, Gannaway advised the media that Oswald had been in the Soviet Union and had married a Russian girl. The patsy had been effectively identified. 

 

[W. Niederhut]

18 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

"Lay of the land. . . lay of the land, Dallas"

Dresser Industries

The history of Dresser Industries, rising from a simple Oklahoma based pipeline business that serviced the oil industry to a conglomerate composed of long-established military contractors on a global scale, is complex. In the late 1920s, having survived as a solid but unexceptional business—except for the coveted patents they held—the Dresser family sold out to a fledgling private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman. In it what is alleged to have been a purely serendipitous moment, Ohio native and Yale graduate Henry Neil Mallon ambled through the doors of BBH, only to have Roland Harriman, a founding partner, spot him and cry out, “Dresser!” In spite of having no specific training in the specialized pipeline industry, Mallon, who was a friend of banker and politician Prescott Bush who had joined the Harriman banking firm, assumed the presidency of Dresser. During WWII, Mallon also mysteriously established a line of communication with NY lawyer and fellow OSS agent, Allen Dulles who would eventually control the Central Intelligence Agency, suggesting that Mallon long had the backing of close friends in positions of power. 

The roots of Mallon’s benefactors extended to 19th century England. BBH was the result of a merger of Alex, Brown & Sons and the old-line Harriman family interests in the US. One of the first American financial organizations to help finance post-war rehabilitation in Europe, the firm boasted some of the country’s most notable executives and directors in the field of finance including George Herbert Walker of St. Louis and lawyer/statesman Robert A. Lovett of Texas whose father was a founding member of BBH. It was Lovett junior who a young President Kennedy would consult how best to fill his first cabinet. Another propitious nepotistic hire at BBH was George Walker’s son-in-law Prescott Bush, the congressman who would spawn generations of politicians including US presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. 

            During the 1930s, the son of railroad tycoon E. Roland Harriman, W. Averell Harriman and his banking firm BBH had turned a blind eye to the rise of fascism in Germany, and continued to do business with both communist Soviet Union and Germany long after Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Particularly odious is that he did so from a unique post as US Ambassador to the Soviet Union beginning in 1943. The firms that BBH, and by extension Harriman, profited from during the war included: Union Banking Corporation—the American arm of German steel magnate and “Hitler’s Angel,” Fritz Thyssen who helped fund the rise of the Nazis; Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation; Holland-American Trading Corporation and Silesian-American Corporation whose records reveal that Harriman’s partner, Prescott Bush of BBH was board member; and Dresser Industries.

Eventually, Neil Mallon had gobbled up on behalf of BBH and Dresser a significant number of military-related industries to create one of the country’s most important cogs in the “defense of freedom.” According to his obituary, Mallon “. . . built Dresser from an obscure pipeline equipment concern to a world leader in energy related products . . . Dresser currently employs 40,000 people in North America and reported earnings of $172.3 million in 1982 on revenues of $4.16 billion.”

             Mallon proved to be an enigma in early Kennedy assassination research. Little is reported about his birth and childhood, perhaps because it lacked luster, perhaps because his early life has been deliberately obscured, or perhaps because he was a tool of US intelligence in league with the military industrial complex who benefited from decades of cover. However, Mallon may also be one of the more significant characters lurking behind the curtains, pulling strings. It has been credibly established that he was not only responsible for Prescott Bush’s son, George H. W. Bush’s move to Texas, but that he was an early investor in Bush’s oil venture Zapata Oil with operations in the Gulf of Mexico made available to US intelligence as needed. 

Although it is not the mandate of this book to debate whether Mallon’s protégé, George H. W. Bush was privy to information, let alone an active participant in the events in Dealey Plaza, no assessment of the “lay of the land” of the assassination or analysis of Dresser and Neil Mallon—with his entrenched friendship with James Angleton’s boss, Allen Dulles—would be complete without considering Bush. The fact is, nowhere in the records of Pierre Lafitte who was clearly possessed of specific and detailed information related to the planning and execution of the coup in Dallas, is there a direct reference to Bush. 

            It could be argued that given the aforementioned history, Neil Mallon and those with whom he had fraternized within the petroleum industry and the intelligence community long before his young protégé (thirty years his junior), is as much a candidate for being privy to plans for the hit in Dallas as GHW Bush. According to freelance investigative journalist Anthony Kimery’s monograph, “George Bush and the CIA: In the Company of Friends,” available online at CovertAction Magazine, December 2018, “Mallon was a friend to numerous ranking Cold War era intelligence officials, including Allen Dulles—an OSS veteran and ground floor official of the CIA . . . Mallon steered prospective candidates for spy work to Dulles and often provided cover employment to CIA operatives . . . ” According to Kimery, among them was George de Mohrenschildt, another particularly important operative with whom Mallon was well acquainted, who had been part of the spy network Dulles ran inside Hitler’s intelligence organization. Mallon personally introduced the Count to a young twenty-four year old from Connecticut, George Bush at about the same time he handed Bush the highly sensitive responsibility of negotiating Eastern-bloc deals. It soon became apparent that Bush was able to wheel and deal with the communists’ petroleum experts without the slightest grimace by US authorities. In fact, writes Kimery, “when a Yugoslavian oil industry official came to the US in 1948 to talk to Dresser Industries, the State Department barely flinched and he went straight to neophyte salesman George Bush in Midland, Texas.” Bush and de Mohrenschildt, whose mutual focus on Yugoslavia is well documented, joined a cadre of young men who served as Mallon’s (and by extension Dulles’s) eyes and ears, arms and legs in the petroleum industry during the Cold War. 

From his perch at Dresser headquarters in the Republic National Bank building, Mallon, who served on the board of RNB Dallas was the ideal conduit for his friend Allen Dulles and his fellow board member at RNB, Algur H. Meadows who leads us to the second location under scrutiny.

Leslie,

    Where did you find this chapter about Dresser Industries?

[Leslie Sharp]

1 minute ago, W. Niederhut said:

Leslie,

    Where did you find this chapter about Dresser Industries?

I wrote it. Let me know if you identify errors.

Dallas chapter of Coup in Dallas.

[W. Niederhut]

8 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

I wrote it. Let me know if you identify errors.

Dallas chapter of Coup in Dallas.

Well, Leslie, I need to read your book.

Honestly, I have hesitated to buy Coup in Dallas, because of the questions swirling around about the authenticity of the Lafitte datebook, but this is interesting historical material in its own right.

Also, it sounds like you have had direct experience with some of these institutions in the Dallas area.

[Chuck Schwartz]

I had no such hesitations.  I bought the book  as soon as it became available on Amazon.  Have not regretted it buying it.  I haven't learned as much about the JFK hit since I listened to Mae Brussell on Pacifica radio and read Peter Dale Scott's essays in the 1970's  .  There has been much more wirtten from 1980 thru 2020 that is good to very good.  I like John Newman's writings as well.  Jim DiEugenio 's web site and "Destiny Betrayed " is also very good. 

[Leslie Sharp]

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Well, Leslie, I need to read your book.

Honestly, I have hesitated to buy Coup in Dallas, because of the questions swirling around about the authenticity of the Lafitte datebook, but this is interesting historical material in its own right.

Also, it sounds like you have had direct experience with some of these institutions in the Dallas area.

(cont. Chapter 9, Coup in Dallas)

"Lay of the Land . . . Lay of the Land, Dallas"

 . . . This chapter will explain that of all American cities, including Miami, Tampa, or Chicago, Dallas had “everything going for it”: a right-wing Republican climate that considered Kennedy an anathema to its political goals; a social and religious community that embraced segregation and recoiled at the suggestion that a Roman Catholic could navigate the delicate balance between church and state; a law enforcement apparatus with allegiance to the city’s ultraconservative political agenda; a crime syndicate that manipulated both sides of that law; and a thriving corporate and financial cabal operating in symbiosis with the oil industry and military contractors all of whom aligned far more with the ideologies of fascist regimes than with democracies. Adding to the assertion is a Lafitte note, “Rene says oil smooths the way to silent, and sometimes deadly, change.” Above all, as Renee told the author, Dallas was the “arms and legs of the CIA,” a truth borne out.

***
 

Some of the best and brightest investigators and authors in the decades following the assassination have wrestled with an effective structure to employ when disseminating the fruits of their research. The challenge with this chapter was to present the matrix of dates, players, locations and events directly relating to Dallas in a fashion that a less knowledgeable reader could readily follow, while holding the attention of the experts—some of whom will be cynical, some not. 

. . . The result was a collage. Similarly, this chapter focused on Dallas has been recorded from multiple vantage points to determine which “camera angles'' capture the clearest resolution of the crime that took place there. The resulting collage consists of key individuals and their networks—overt as well as clandestine—set in specific locations and intertwined in service to ideologically driven motives, all of which were essential to the success and subsequent cover-up of the plot to kill Kennedy.

[After months of deliberation with Hank over the structure of Chapter 9],

It was determined that physical locations in Dallas, five specifically, would provide the best scaffolding: the Republic National Bank building; the Meadows Building; 3707 Rawlins St. in Oak Lawn; the University of Dallas; and the Texas School Book Depository at 411 Elm. 

            
The organization of the chapter also required frequent reference to members of the boards of directors of pertinent corporations and financial concerns. On the surface, the excruciating detail may seem to lack relevance; however, when considered in context it reveals what the conservative dominated media of the day chose not to reveal—that capitalism at its most toxic in Dallas was controlled by a tight knit, interwoven cabal acting on behalf of mutual self-interests and, in their view, the best interests of America.  . . . 

 

Tenants of Republic National Bank Building [including Dresser Industries presented in a preceding comment on this EF thread]

Not only was 300 N. Ervay home to the financial institution that was Republic National Bank and Howard Corp. frequently operating in concert with Empire Trust of NYC, but a significant number of other placeholders within the military/industrial/intelligence apparatus benefited from access and security provided within the building’s environment. 

            We turn now to four of those major tenants that relate directly or were positioned closely on the periphery of the plot to assassinate President John Kennedy: Schlumberger Oil Services; Lone Star Steel (which on the surface provided the essential commodity for the military during WWII, Korea and Vietnam, but played a far more intriguing role); Ling Temco Vought (LTV) (the aerospace concern that served as precursor to today’s mega military contractor L3 Technologies); and Neil Mallon’s Dresser Industries (which serviced the petroleum industry on an international scale). Each of these contractors were locked in a symbiosis with the military-intelligence apparatus, reliant on the military for profits and dependent on intelligence for security. 

Schlumberger Oil Well Services

 In Chapter 5, “Jacks of All Trades,” we learned that soldier of fortune Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. married into a family with direct personal and business ties to Schlumberger. We consider now further implications of the family-dominated worldwide oil services company whose headquarters had been relocated during the war from France to Houston, Texas. The move was made at the behest of Jean de Menil, the son-in-law of one of the two Schlumberger founders. As mentioned, when de Menil shopped for the ideal location of his Dallas office, he chose the Republic National Bank building. Counsel to Schlumberger, Leon Jaworski followed close behind.

            Schlumberger origins extend to the turn of the 20th century when Conrad Francois and his brother Marcel, two of six Schlumberger children of an affluent Alsatian Protestant family received their degrees in engineering in Paris. They soon founded the oil field exploration company, Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation, which was relocated to Houston at the outset of WWII. Another Schlumberger brother, Maurice, launched the Neuflize Schlumberger Bank which would merge with Mallet Bank, a French Protestant concern, in the early ’60s.

            The Mallet name may be familiar to some as a member of the Mallet-Prevost family who surfaced in the allegations that industrialists in league with certain military officers attempted to remove President Franklin D. Roosevelt in an overthrow of the US Government in 1933 in order to install a fascist-style regime.  [note to@Robert Montenegro] 

A student in Paris, Jean de Menil, descended from French Barons from the time of Bonaparte, met and married Conrad’s lovely daughter, Dominique, both now infamous among America’s most committed patrons of the arts, and for the extraordinary collection they amassed. Prior to assuming the helm of Schlumberger Overseas in the Middle and Far East, and Schlumberger Surenco S.A., de Menil was vice president of Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie in Paris. By 1963, the elegant couple had become a fixture in the American art world, but it is Jean’s vast network of friends and colleagues in the world of oil and gas that interests us.

 

Jean de Menil’s Good Friend Paul Raigorodsky

In 1952, Raigorodsky, as president of Petroleum Engineering, Inc. and partner of the Clairborne Gasoline Co. was handpicked by the deputy to the United States Special Representative in Europe, (Ret.) Major General Fred L. Anderson to be Senior Civilian director to oversee oil production for defense in Europe. “We use the word defense—not war,'' said Raigorodsky at the time of his appointment, shortly after he was given a top-secret office in Paris, France at 32 Avenue d’Iena. Prior to going to Paris, Paul had lived in Texas “off and on” since 1921. Born in Russia in 1898, he arrived in the US from Kiev around 1920 and soon met and married a native of New Orleans, Ethel McCaleb, a student at University of Texas and daughter of a San Antonio banker who served on the Federal Reserve. The couple had two children and divorced before the US entered the war.

            Fast forward to 1964, due to his vast network of friends within the White Russian community and the heady air he breathed in the petroleum world, Ragairodsky was called to testify before the Warren Commission. Raigorodsky identified one of Houston’s most esteemed businessmen and philanthropists, Jean de Menil as a “very close friend of mine, the financial head of Schlumberger Co.” His testimony continued to reveal that another friendship, that of roving petroleum “expert,” George de Mohrenschildt led to discussions with Jean de Menil about a proposed scheme in Haiti. 

            Was Tom Davis’s charade in July 1963 intended to disguise actual recruitment for planned invasion of Haiti, or elsewhere in the region? Was his wife Carolyn Hawley a conduit between the Schlumberger family and Tom, her malleable husband from Texas? 

            Raigorodsky told WC lead counsel Albert Jenner, “when I wouldn't go with George in the deal, he asked me to give him any suggestion as to who may be interested, so I suggested John De Menil because the Schlumberger Co. is a worldwide organization and they deal with every country in the world—you know what I am trying to say?” Eventually de Menil decided to forego the opportunity, citing the somewhat weak business pitch by de Mohrenschildt. 

Raigorodsky’s friend de Mohrenschildt would from time to time use the attorney services of one Herbert Itkin, a fact detailed in a previous chapter which described activities in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

            Relevant to this investigation, the name Itkin appears in the Lafitte datebook on both October 26 and October 27, 1963. The entry of the 27th includes the name Gali Sherbatov in the October 27th entry, initials L. O. ‘Orlov’ and ‘Harvey’. 

            The critical entries fall within the time period of Jack Crichton’s resurfacing from Romania, [note to @Robert Montenegro] Allen Dulles’s presentation before the Dallas Council on World Affairs, and the forthcoming “Lancelot Planning” of the 28th and 29th. It should also be recalled that CIA’s assassination chief William King Harvey was known from his earliest days with the FBI as a “Red-hunter.”

The previous Thursday, October 24, for a reason yet to be determined, two Dallas residents who were employees of Socony Mobil Oil Company, Everett Glover and Volkmar Schmidt, appear in Lafitte’s datebook. The note reads simply, “Glover Volkmar  K.C. Stanley”. [K.C. Stanley appears in George de Mohrenschildt's address book.] Both Glover and Volkmar will be pursued in the fifth and final location, 411 Elm—Texas School Book Depository. 

***

Author and assassination researcher Bill Simpich writes, “by May 1963, [Herbert] Itkin became the attorney for the Haitian government-in-exile. CIA documents show that Itkin's handler in 1963 was Mario Brod, who was recruited in Italy by James Angleton during World War II and had operational involvement in Haiti. Before his brother was killed, Bobby Kennedy himself was relying on mob tips from Itkin. In 1966, Itkin was reportedly researching under his code name ‘Portio,’ while Angleton held onto his private ‘Mike/Portio/Haiti’ file. In 1968, CIRA (CI research and analysis chief) Ray Rocca swore that the ‘CI Staff definitely never was in contact’ with Itkin. By 1971, CIRA's bird-dog investigator Paul Hartman was asking to review Itkin's CIA file, no doubt to educate himself on some fine points.”

It is worth repeating the two entries:

October 26th

W team E Johnson’s

(Itkin) 

 

October 27th

Gali Sherbatov-L.O. 

(Orlov)

(Itkin)

 - Harvey-

 

Paul Raigorodsky told the Warren Commission: “Now, I don't know it for a fact, but except as I was told by Father Royster that the Oswalds came through Fort Worth originally. Now, this is hearsay—that I believe they got acquainted with the people by the name of Clark, in reference to Gali’s married name.” 

Mr. JENNER. Max Clark?

Mr. RAIGORODSKY. I mean, that's all hearsay—I do not know it for a fact. While she is a Russian, in fact she is a first cousin of a very close friend of mine, Prince Scherbatoff, who lives in New York and lives in Jamaica. That's where I see him occasionally. Now, it is my understanding that the Clarks told some of their friends—again, this is hearsay, that "Here is a Russian married to an American and they don't even have milk for the babies.”

Raigorodsky’s good friend George de Mohrenschildt also named Gali Clark in his Warren Commission testimony:

Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, when did you first meet either Marina—I will put it this way: When did you first hear-- 

Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. The first time-- 

Mr. JENNER. Of either of these people—Marina Oswald or Lee Harvey Oswald? 

Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. As far as I remember, George Bouhe, who is a close friend of mine, and a very curious individual, told me that there is an interesting couple in Fort Worth, and that the Clarks know them already—Max. Clark and Gali—they know them already. Somebody read about them in the paper—I don't know exactly, I don't remember the exact wording anymore that somebody read about them in the paper, maybe Mr. Gregory, and discovered them, made a discovery. 

According to her obituary, “Gali Clark was born in France in October 1922. She was the daughter of Prince and Princess Mikhail Mikhaïlovitch Scherbatoff, exiled from Russia after the 1917 Revolution. Her father's portrait hangs in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. She met her husband, Max E. Clark, in Nice, France, during World War II. He was a pilot in the US Army. They were married in 1945 at the Orthodox Russian church in Nice, France, and after the war, they came to live in Fort Worth, where Max E. Clark was a lawyer.” 

            Clark’s clients included military contractor General Dynamics with a primary plant located in Fort Worth overseen by the President of GD, Frank Pace. We remind the reader of the brewing scandal during the months leading to the assassination, involving government contracts for the TFX F-111 fighter plane produced by General Dynamics in Fort Worth, and Bobby Baker who traveled with his girlfriend, Nancy Carol Tyler as well as Ella Rometsch, from New Orleans to Dallas at the height of the scandal. 

***

We conclude the assessment of the October 27th datebook entry by first surmising that Harvey can only mean William King “Bill” Harvey who surfaces on numerous dates in the Lafitte material. Bill Harvey has been covered sufficiently in this book, so it is only necessary to highlight his presence in context of Gali Sherbatov and Itkin and Orlov. 

            As noted previously, “Orlov” is clear reference to fellow Fort Worth citizen, Col. Lawrence Orlov, a veteran of the Air Force as well as a good friend of J. Walton Moore. 

            Ragairodsky’s testimony that confirmed his wide range of associations with intriguing characters, from Jean de Menil, to George de Mohrenschildt, to Gali Scherbatoff pulls us toward a deeper grasp of the milieu. 

The Significance of the Tolstoy Foundation

Paul Raigorodsky counted among his close friends AF Col. Herschel V. Williams, an ad man, Hollywood screenwriter, and real estate executive who worked alongside Mrs. Otto (Ilse) Skorzeny at the global real estate concern, Previews Inc. After the war, while employed by Previews, Williams joined the board of the Tolstoy Foundation along with Russian-born Raigorodsky, and Schlumberger’s Jean de Menil. 

            The Tolstoy Foundation, according to their official history, was established to respond to the needs of the Russian refugees of World War II who for various reasons were handicapped in providing for themselves and to create a center for Russian culture in America to serve the American born generation of Russian descent. Cofounded by Russian American Igor Sikorsky, aviation pioneer and creator of the Sikorsky helicopter, the foundation was confronted with the serious issue of repatriation by early February 1945. They made the decision to take on the task of bringing these refugees to Canada and the US “They arrived by boat or plane and their expenses were initially paid by the International Relief Organization (IRO). In 1946, the Tolstoy Foundation initiated a subcommittee of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service under the name of the United Relief Committee in Aid to ‘Displaced Persons of Central and East European Origin.’” It was through this subcommittee that Estonian born Ilya Mamantov and his wife Alexandria entered the US only to find themselves two decades later as central characters in the drama that unfolded on the weekend of November 22, 1963 in Dallas. 

            Sikorsky served as chairman of Tolstoy when he was nominated to the board of the Connecticut National Bank, Bridgeport, founded by the in-laws of Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. Bridgeport, “America’s arsenal” was also home of de Menil’s Schlumberger Research Center.

            Col. Williams’ and Paul Raigorodsky’s mutual interest in the Tolstoy Foundation suggests a certain degree of commonality between Williams, his employer Previews Inc., and the staunch conservative, anti-communist movement in Dallas with Raigorodsky as its semiofficial representative; and certainly, there is a strong likelihood that Ilya Mamantov, who spoke openly and frequently against “The Reds,” was at least familiar with Col. Williams. However, far more intriguing is the fact that while serving in military intelligence during the war, Col. Williams reported to Dallas’s own, Col. Robert G. Storey, Jr., a man who needs no further introduction but the significance of the history between these two men cannot be overstated.

Edited August 12, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Ed Berger]

@Leslie Sharp—an important connection with Ladenburg, Thalmann

"U.S. Investors Buy Large Share in African Development Concern" 

New York Times, November 3, 1950

A group headed by Ladenburg, Thalmann Co. and Lazard Freres, both of New York, has purchased 600,000 of the 1,667,961 shares outstanding of Tanganyika Concessions, it was officially reported here yesterday. The stock involved was sold by the British Treasury last April to an Anglo-Belgian-South African group.

Associated in the purchase of the shares were the International Basic Economy Corporation, an international development corporation of the Rockefeller family, and David Rockefeller. It was asserted that none of the shares would be reoffered for public sale in this country. 

 At a meeting in London yesterday Harry B. Lake, a partner in Ladenburg, Thalmann, and Alexander L. Hood, formerly ith that concern, were elected directors of Tanganyika Concessions. George Murnane, a partner in Lazard Freres, also was named a director. 

The transaction was carried out at official exchange rates. The understanding between the American group and the British Exchange Control Authorities provides that the sterling invested for the acquisition of the Tanganyika shares may be withdrawn at the official rate of exchange at any time. 

[...]

Tanganyika Concessions owns a 90 per cent interest in the Benguela Railroad, which serves the copper and uranium mines in the Belgian Congo. It also owns a 14 per cent interest in the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, the large Belgian mining company which owns and operates these mines.

Up until a year prior to this deal, the managing director of Union Miniere de Haut Katanga—a holding of Société générale de Belgique—was a Belgian mining engineer named Edgar Sengier (Sengier actually remained affiliate with both Union Miniere and Société générale at the time of the deal, having stepped back from his leadership role while maintaining a spot on an administrative board). It may be important, given the relationship between Ladenburg Thalmann and the WCC, and the status of the IBEC as a suspected WCC 'adjunct', that Sengier himself had crossed paths with other WCC principles prior to the formation of the company in 1945. 

Consider the case of Sengier and Congo's Shinkolobwe mine during World War 2:

After being warned by British scientists regarding the potential danger were the uranium ore to fall into the wrong hands, Sengier decided to transport half the uranium stockpile from the Congo to the United States in 1940. The ore was stored in warehouses on Manhattan Island, while Sengier himself came to New York to conduct his company’s operations.

At the time, the US Army had been actively searching for uranium. When Col. Kenneth Nichols came to Edgar Sengier, he was surprised to learn that Sengier already had 1,200 tons of it on American soil. Another 3,000 tons from the Shinkolobwe mine was also sold to the US Army and transported to the United States.

Sengier’s efforts were instrumental in helping the Americans develop the atom bomb. Before uranium ore had been brought over from Africa, the Americans relied on Canadian uranium ore, which contained only .02% uranium. By contrast,  the Shinkolobwe ore contained 65% uranium.

And the circumstances surrounding the access to the mine:

On September 26, 1944, the United States and the United Kingdom finally reached agreement with the Belgian Government that African Metals (acting for Union Miniere) would contract with the Combined Development Trust for the 1,720 tons of uranium oxide... The Combined Development Trust began to function in July, 1944, when General [Leslie] Groves and Sir Charles Hambro, the principal American and British members, undertook to negotiate the Shinkolobwe contract with Sengier. The Trust assumed control of the uranium and thorium supplies liberated by the advancing allied armies. Most important, it surveyed for the Combined Policy Committee the present and potential sources of raw material throughout the world. At the end of November, Groves, who served as chairman of the CDT, sent Stimson a report that depended heavily on the work done for the Manhattan District. It found the uranium situation encouraging. If Britain and the United States could augment their own resources with the ore of the Congo, they would have over 90 per cent of the world's likely supply. Thorium was so scattered throughout the world that such complete control was virtually impossible, but the two governments could obtain a dominant position by controlling sources in India and Brazil. If they could supplement these with the thorium of the Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, and Madagascar, so much the better. In short, the Anglo-American raw-material position was strong. But the United States and Britain should not fall into a false sense of security. Groves told Stimson that until the Combined Policy Committee instructed otherwise, the Trust would assume it should purchase major uranium deposits and remove them to safe storage. Its stockpile of uranium should be as large as possible. It probably was not yet wise to purchase thorium, but the Trust should seek options and political agreements to assure control should the mineral become as important as it seemed it might. Thus the Combined Development Trust arrived at a program of aggressive action.

So here we have General Leslie Groves, British spymaster/banker/future WCC figure Charles Hambro, and Sengier working in tandem to deliver over uranium supplies from the Congo to the Anglo-American Combined Development TRUST. Less than a decade later, two other WCC-linked entities—Ladenburg, Thalmann and the Rockefeller's IBEC—arrive in Africa the buy into the very neocolonial enterprise that Sengier was running. 

Obligatory IBEC - Baird Foundation interlinkages, via stock movement (of Chemway Corp, a chemical company controlled by Serge Semenenko) on behalf of IBEC's Robert Purcell: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tax_exempt_Foundations_and_Charitable_Tr/DltzAolBXbQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA28&printsec=frontcover 

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Ed Berger

[Leslie Sharp]

13 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

@Leslie Sharp—an important connection with Ladenburg, Thalmann

"U.S. Investors Buy Large Share in African Development Concern" 

New York Times, November 3, 1950

A group headed by Ladenburg, Thalmann Co. and Lazard Freres, both of New York, has purchased 600,000 of the 1,667,961 shares outstanding of Tanganyika Concessions, it was officially reported here yesterday. The stock involved was sold by the British Treasury last April to an Anglo-Belgian-South African group.

Associated in the purchase of the shares were the International Basic Economy Corporation, an international development corporation of the Rockefeller family, and David Rockefeller. It was asserted that none of the shares would be reoffered for public sale in this country. 

 At a meeting in London yesterday Harry B. Lake, a partner in Ladenburg, Thalmann, and Alexander L. Hood, formerly ith that concern, were elected directors of Tanganyika Concessions. George Murnane, a partner in Lazard Freres, also was named a director. 

The transaction was carried out at official exchange rates. The understanding between the American group and the British Exchange Control Authorities provides that the sterling invested for the acquisition of the Tanganyika shares may be withdrawn at the official rate of exchange at any time. 

[...]

Tanganyika Concessions owns a 90 per cent interest in the Benguela Railroad, which serves the copper and uranium mines in the Belgian Congo. It also owns a 14 per cent interest in the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, the large Belgian mining company which owns and operates these mines.

Up until a year prior to this deal, the managing director of Union Miniere de Haut Katanga—a holding of Société générale de Belgique—was a Belgian mining engineer named Edgar Sengier (Sengier actually remained affiliate with both Union Miniere and Société générale at the time of the deal, having stepped back from his leadership role while maintaining a spot on an administrative board). It may be important, given the relationship between Ladenburg Thalmann and the WCC, and the status of the IBEC as a suspected WCC 'adjunct', that Sengier himself had crossed paths with other WCC principles prior to the formation of the company in 1945. 

Consider the case of Sengier and Congo's Shinkolobwe mine during World War 2:

After being warned by British scientists regarding the potential danger were the uranium ore to fall into the wrong hands, Sengier decided to transport half the uranium stockpile from the Congo to the United States in 1940. The ore was stored in warehouses on Manhattan Island, while Sengier himself came to New York to conduct his company’s operations.

At the time, the US Army had been actively searching for uranium. When Col. Kenneth Nichols came to Edgar Sengier, he was surprised to learn that Sengier already had 1,200 tons of it on American soil. Another 3,000 tons from the Shinkolobwe mine was also sold to the US Army and transported to the United States.

Sengier’s efforts were instrumental in helping the Americans develop the atom bomb. Before uranium ore had been brought over from Africa, the Americans relied on Canadian uranium ore, which contained only .02% uranium. By contrast,  the Shinkolobwe ore contained 65% uranium.

And the circumstances surrounding the access to the mine:

On September 26, 1944, the United States and the United Kingdom finally reached agreement with the Belgian Government that African Metals (acting for Union Miniere) would contract with the Combined Development Trust for the 1,720 tons of uranium oxide... The Combined Development Trust began to function in July, 1944, when General [Leslie] Groves and Sir Charles Hambro, the principal American and British members, undertook to negotiate the Shinkolobwe contract with Sengier. The Trust assumed control of the uranium and thorium supplies liberated by the advancing allied armies. Most important, it surveyed for the Combined Policy Committee the present and potential sources of raw material throughout the world. At the end of November, Groves, who served as chairman of the CDT, sent Stimson a report that depended heavily on the work done for the Manhattan District. It found the uranium situation encouraging. If Britain and the United States could augment their own resources with the ore of the Congo, they would have over 90 per cent of the world's likely supply. Thorium was so scattered throughout the world that such complete control was virtually impossible, but the two governments could obtain a dominant position by controlling sources in India and Brazil. If they could supplement these with the thorium of the Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, and Madagascar, so much the better. In short, the Anglo-American raw-material position was strong. But the United States and Britain should not fall into a false sense of security. Groves told Stimson that until the Combined Policy Committee instructed otherwise, the Trust would assume it should purchase major uranium deposits and remove them to safe storage. Its stockpile of uranium should be as large as possible. It probably was not yet wise to purchase thorium, but the Trust should seek options and political agreements to assure control should the mineral become as important as it seemed it might. Thus the Combined Development Trust arrived at a program of aggressive action.

So here we have General Leslie Groves, British spymaster/banker/future WCC figure Charles Hambro, and Sengier working in tandem to deliver over uranium supplies from the Congo to the Anglo-American Combined Development TRUST. Less than a decade later, two other WCC-linked entities—Ladenburg, Thalmann and the Rockefeller's IBEC—arrive in Africa the buy into the very neocolonial enterprise that Sengier was running. 

Obligatory IBEC - Baird Foundation interlinkages, via stock movement (of Chemway Corp, a chemical company controlled by Serge Semenenko) on behalf of IBEC's Robert Purcell: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tax_exempt_Foundations_and_Charitable_Tr/DltzAolBXbQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA28&printsec=frontcover 

 

Tanganyika Concessions owns a 90 per cent interest in the Benguela Railroad, which serves the copper and uranium mines in the Belgian Congo. It also owns a 14 per cent interest in the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, the large Belgian mining company which owns and operates these mines.

@Ed Berger
' . . . It is first important to understand the stall in the Skorzenys’ purchase of property [in Ireland] between June 1957 and 1959. The delay is best explained by Stuart Smith who writes in the aforementioned biography of Skorzeny, “In fact, in 1958, the remaining war crimes charge hanging over Skorzeny—concerning atrocities in Czechoslovakia—had been rescinded by Austria. As a token of its good faith, his home country at last issued him a passport… That left the Irish government grappling with the nebulous rumors including Skorzeny’s alleged involvement in arms-trafficking with the National Liberation Front (FLN).” 

            Smith suggests there were rumors that had to be discarded, one linking Skorzeny to the flight of Adolf Eichmann to Egypt, but other rumors that Ireland’s intelligence service (Peter Berry included) missed. “One was a proposed 1958 mission to kill Fidel Castro on behalf of Fulgencio Batista… and the other was allegations that Skorzeny assisted in Moise Tshombe’s 1961 secession from the newly independent Democratic Republic of Congo* by training some thirty Katangan rebels in Spain.” This effort was endorsed by Americans, perhaps only nominally but in some instances, we have reason to believe they provided more than passive support. For instance, we know that Dallas oilman and executive for [Bronfman's] Empire Trust, John A. “Jack” Crichton who was Lafitte’s man on the ground in Dallas on November 22, 1963, was a signatory of the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters. 

*keeping in mind the apparent friendship between Moishe Tshombe and Jaroslav Stetzko as evidenced in the latter's approach to his friend General Edwin Walker in 1964 to ask that he extend the Katangan leader-in-exile in Spain an invitation to the US. 

. . . 

Dulles continued to communicate regularly with close associate William A. M. Burden during 1962 and early 1963. Burden, the great-great grandson of the founder of the Vanderbilt wealth, railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, who maintained a business office at a New York City address (630 Fifth Avenue) in which Dulles was also ensconced, ran the gamut of US national policy and prime corporate positions. Burden served on the boards of the Hanover Bank, Lockheed Aircraft Co., and CBS during his lengthy career. He had been a director of the Council on Foreign Relations, and founded a family investment firm that bears his name today. During the Second World War he had been a Special Assistant for Research and Development to the Secretary of the Army Air Force. 

            Following a heavy campaign contribution to the 1956 Presidential campaign of Dwight Eisenhower, Burden was granted an ambassadorship to Belgium, a position he held from 1959–1961, during the period of time that the former imperialist power was struggling to hold on to the remnants of past wealth and national glory. After the ascension to power in the Congo of charismatic leader Patrice Lumumba, Burden strongly felt the threat that Lumumba’s independence posed to Belgium’s long-time pre-eminence in the mineral-rich Congo, and was lobbying his long-time friend Dulles for action against Lumumba in 1959. 

            Dulles, Burden, and the State Department’s C. Douglas Dillon led the charge to persuade President Eisenhower to take serious action against Lumumba, culminating in an August 1960 “direct approval” by Eisenhower of Dulles’s backing of a plot to assassinate Lumumba. While the US-Belgian war to eliminate the Congolese leader moved forward in 1960–61, journalist James Phelan would report receiving a postcard from the Congo, mailed by his friend and clandestine source Pierre Lafitte, who was engaged in…something in that embattled country at the time. — Coup in Dallas

 

Associated in the purchase of the shares were the International Basic Economy Corporation, an international development corporation of the Rockefeller family, and David Rockefeller. It was asserted that none of the shares would be reoffered for public sale in this country. 

 At a meeting in London yesterday Harry B. Lake, a partner in Ladenburg, Thalmann, and Alexander L. Hood, formerly ith that concern, were elected directors of Tanganyika Concessions. George Murnane, a partner in Lazard Freres, also was named a director. 

. . . Historian Anthony Cave Brown writes: “The BACC officers contemplated at formation were Pepper (president), Ogilvy and Merten (vice-presidents), and Thomas William Hill (secretary). Hill gave his address Room 3606, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City—the same address as that of Intrepid’s British Security Coordination organization, although other reliable records indicate that while indeed located in Rockefeller Plaza, the BSC offices were at 600 Fifth Ave., the International Building (located in the complex with architectural twins La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building) where Allen Dulles leased a private office when he was ousted from the CIA. 

            At first Donovan appears to have played no formal part in the establishment of either BACC or WCC, although his law firm, at that time known as Donovan Leisure Newton Lombard & Irvine acted as legal advisers.” (A few amateur historians have written that Allen Dulles’s law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, served as advisers to BACC and WCC, but we found no hard evidence of that. Additionally, it has been written that Dulles encouraged Donovan to participate in BACC and WCC, but again no hard evidence of that was found.) This leads us to speculate that Donovan may have initially been the “face” of WCC rather than the inspiration as those listed in early documents for WCC include Harry Beaston Lake and W. W. Cumberland, both investment bankers at the firm Ladenburg Thalmann, 25 Broad St. NYC. 

            In 1879, American banker Ernst Thalmann, teamed up with Adolph Ladenburg, the scion of a German banking family. As confirmed in “History of Ladenburg Thalmann,” by World War II the firm was providing banking services for British Security Coordination (BSC), including acquisition of foreign currency which was required in small denominations by a plethora of British covert wartime agencies as well as escape packs for Allied aircrew. The SOE turned to the BSC, and the close links between the BSC and Donovan's OSS meant that there was continual collaboration between all three entities in support of this task. Harry Lake and Bill Donovan shared an address at the exclusive One Sutton Place for a number of years. It should be noted that Lake was on the board of the American Moroccan Corporation, which will have greater relevance as we pursue the role of Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. in Chapter 5.  — Coup in Dallas

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

@Ed Berger Have you looked into J. Dilworth Richardson?

J. Richardson Dilworth, 81, Philanthropist

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/31/arts/j-richardson-dilworth-81-philanthropist.html