Rob Reiner And Soledad O'Brien Aim To Reveal JFK's Real Killers

[Jonathan Cohen]

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

The Skorzeny-Ehrhardt approved guerilla warfare manual also states that the rifle commandos need to get jobs that employ them in and around the kill zone, in advance of an assassination plot, so they can best plan how to attack their target and calm suspicion from locals (who may become worried if they see unfamiliar faces in their town). 

So what? This is hardly evidence of a connection to what happened in Dealey Plaza.

[Leslie Sharp]

[Nov 22]
Willoughby back-up

team squad - Tech

building - phone booth/bridge

O says turn them . . . 

Silverthorne - 

Ft. Worth 

airport

Mexico.

Lafitte datebook  Friday, November 15, 1963

Edited January 15 by Leslie Sharp

[Jonathan Cohen]

CompletelyUnverifiedDateBook.com.

[Leslie Sharp]

2 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

CompletelyUnverifiedDateBook.com.

Are you an equal opportunity skeptic? 

Are you also rejecting the research presented in the podcast "Who Killed JFK" that argues General Willoughby was intricate to the Dallas plot or that his Zed unit commander Col. Jack Canon was one of the shooters in Dealey?  

Indulge the hypothetical; no doubt you have in the past on this forum.

Hypothetically, how do you explain that Lafitte knew that a Willoughby squad was involved in Dealey, or that the strategist, Otto Skorzeny who Willoughby had known in a military capacity since the early 1950s, directed that the sniper positions should be turned?

I'll flesh out why the specific assertion that Willoughby was tactician to Harvey's strategist is likely invalid in a future comment.


 

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 minute ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Hypothetically, how do you explain that Lafitte knew that a Willoughby squad was involved in Dealey, or that the strategist, Otto Skorzeny who Willoughby had known in a military capacity since the early 1950s, directed that the sniper positions should be turned?

I don't explain anything, because that would require starting from the assumption that the datebook is real. As we know, it has not been independently verified as such or provided for examination by the wider research community. Until it has, there's literally zero point debating "what ifs" about its purported contents.

[Leslie Sharp]

4 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

I don't explain anything, because that would require starting from the assumption that the datebook is real. As we know, it has not been independently verified as such or provided for examination by the wider research community. Until it has, there's literally zero point debating "what ifs" about its purported contents.

Have you challenged the list of shooters named by Dick Russell in Episode 10, two of whom appear on the list based solely on verbal testimony from decades ago?  Does that testimony trump a written document? Are Col. Bishop, Tosh Plumlee, Robert Blakely credible sources?

 

I simply don't understand why you would take their claims any more or less seriously than a written record maintained by Pierre Lafitte. Has anyone challenged the source of those interview tapes? Who conducted the interviews, who edited them? (For the record, we chose to omit Bishop and Plumlee as corroborating sources for reasons I suspect some in the forum will understand.) 

[Jonathan Cohen]

21 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Have you challenged the list of shooters named by Dick Russell in Episode 10, two of whom appear on the list based solely on verbal testimony from decades ago?  Does that testimony trump a written document? Are Col. Bishop, Tosh Plumlee, Robert Blakely credible sources?

I simply don't understand why you would take their claims any more or less seriously than a written record maintained by Pierre Lafitte. Has anyone challenged the source of those interview tapes? Who conducted the interviews, who edited them? (For the record, we chose to omit Bishop and Plumlee as corroborating sources for reasons I suspect some in the forum will understand.) 

What are you talking about, and on what basis would you assume I "take their claims" seriously? I don't believe a word Tosh Plumlee says about a south knoll shooter. And I don't believe anything in the datebook until it is authenticated and made widely available for study by the research community.

[Leslie Sharp]

1 minute ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

What are you talking about, and on what basis would you assume I "take their claims" seriously? I don't believe a word Tosh Plumlee says about a south knoll shooter. And I don't believe anything in the datebook until it is authenticated and made widely available for study by the research community.

What is your general assessment of the research and conclusions presented in the podcast?

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

CompletelyUnverifiedDateBook.com.

Unverified does not mean discredited as you imply.  If you read a bit, it is now established that Pierre Laffite was a real person.  That he worked as a contract agent, undercover for the Fedeal Bureau of Narcotics, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  An impressive resume to say the least, given some of the cases he worked on.  

[Leslie Sharp]

This revisit to Tracy Barnes was prompted by the partial discrepancy between those shooters identified by Lafitte and those named in the podcast Who Killed JFK - Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brien.  As we know, the podcast relies heavily on Dick Russell's RC Nagell research that relied heavily on both Robert Morrow and Col. Bishop a.k.a. John O'Hare.

 

 

 

Tracy Barnes

Tracy was a sweet guy but he could never draw a straight line between two points. — Jake Esterline. https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbarnesT.htm 

 

Bissell's assistant, C. Tracy Barnes, drafted the DDP's response, completing it in January 1962. Barnes was well qualified to present the DDP's case, although hardly an objective observer. One of the Directorate's two Assistant Deputy Directors (Richard Helms was the other), Barnes had set aside his usual duties for a year to concentrate on the Cuban operation. Although he rarely imposed operational direction himself, he often reviewed and approved decisions in Bissell's name. Barnes thus had gained a comprehensive view of (and significant responsibility for) the project, obtaining wide knowledge of its details as well as working with many of the policymakers involved.  https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbarnesT.htm 

(note: Bissell's pseudonym John L. Kane.  PL Datebook May 23: Ask T. about Oswald magazine? Kane and Zale. NY.)

 

 

Tracy Barnes, whose pseudonym in the early 1960s was William D. Playdon, was the 2nd cousin of Jock Whitney.  Barnes was COS London (1957-59)  while Jock was Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (1957-61).

 

Jock Whitney's No. 2 at Whitney Communications was James Kernan, brother of Francis Kernan.  James worked at  Carter Ledyard as well. Both Barnes and Frank Wisner were Carter Ledyard alumni.  Francis Kernan was lead partner at White Weld (overlap with Brown Bros. Harriman), board of FNB Boston and United Fruit. His wife was related to the Sturgis family. Legal counsel for the Whitney interests in Louisiana was Monroe Lemann law firm whose principal, Stephen Lemann was purported to be agency station paymaster in 1963.

 

In addition to Barnes' relevant history in Frankfurt in the mid-1950s during which stint he would have been aware of SS Skorzeny in Madrid, records indicate that the London CIA station was keeping eyes on Otto and Ilse Skorzeny's whereabouts including travel through GB, and their controversial attempts to secure permanent visas in Ireland in order to purchase property. That effort began in 1957.

 

 

Robert Morrow and Richard Case Nagell

Reiner-O'Brien rely heavily on Col. Bishop as well as assertions made by Robert Morrow which I believe Dick Russell considered reliable with over two dozen references in TMWKTM. I'm still on the fence about Morrow, but perhaps not to the degree Hank Albarelli seemed to be. I don't know that this particular review set in motion the serious doubts about some of Morrow's claims, but the issues are familiar.  https://www.jfk-assassination.net/morrow.htm

 

For our purpose, an example: Dick writes, In Dallas, Willoughby's wealthy oilman friend H. L. Hunt was going beyond polemics.  Mario Garcia Kohly, Sr., the right-wing Cuban exile who according to Robert Morrow was the CIA's choice (by arrangement with Richard Nixon) to take command in Cuba after the Bay of Pigs, met with Hunt soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis. A letter from Kohly to the oil millionaire, dated December 12, 1962,. . . indicates Kohly had been hosted by H. L. and his wife only recently.

 

We know from government records that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Manuel Artime, not Kohly, unless he/they were playing both sides. AMWORLD (a possible subject of the August meetings in New Orleans reflected in the Lafitte datebook) was the only administration-sanctioned effort in 1963. 

 

That said, Kohly appears in the Lafitte datebook March 9, in context of the names Diggs (Morrow's direct agency contact) and WerBell and Austin . . . and T.  Govt. docs confirm that WerBell was traveling the region with Frank Austin sporting a large check signed by a rich Texan to persuade Latin American leaders that Kohly (not Artime?) had significant backing to replace Castro. We know that against the advice of his director at Lifeline, H. L. met with Kohly within weeks of Lafitte's datebook entry; we know that "Hunt" is mentioned in a datebook entry; we have yet to conclude whether that entry is E. Howard Hunt, or Texas oil baron H. L. whose head of security Rothermel appears in other Lafitte records.

 

Interestingly, as Dick notes, Richard Case Nagell threatened a libel suit against the agency if it didn't demand that Morrow omit the "unsupported allegations" in his forthcoming book.  

 

Morrow also claims that Tracy Barnes instructed him to buy rifles in July.  T appears in the datebook in July only on the 29th and 30th (assuming the T -5passports for Ella - w.o.(?)  and No —T followed by W  entries are references to the ubiquitous T found throughout the datebook.  

 

It's important to pause and note that Ella Rometsch surfaces in the datebook in June and there are no parallel Ella entries with T until those on July 29 and possibly 30; so, is Barnes/T wrapping things up with Ella on behalf of James Angleton? Entries related to Ella in Aug, Sept, Oct. do not coincide with T entries for those months.  Do we have another "T" to contend with?

 

Assuming Barnes is T, and Barnes is handling Robert Morrow related to rifles that end up with David Ferrie, then Barnes/T did not involve Lafitte in that particular operation — or Lafitte  found no reason to make notes in his datebook. Recall that Lafitte appears to either be unfamiliar with Morrow's agency contact "Diggs" earlier in the year or he's questioning Marshall Diggs for some other reason.  We don't see Diggs again, and we never encounter Morrow in the datebook UNLESS he is the "M" in the Aug. 26 entry that reads, Oswald — bank?"  M—meet T.  (M is used elsewhere in the datebook  in reference to Marina.  It's also possible M is Marcello.)
 

If Barnes was also handling Richard Case Nagell, and if Nagell met Oswald on at least one occasion in New Orleans, we're not seeing evidence of it in the db; again, it's possible Lafitte had no reason to be involved in that aspect but it does seem odd that if T is instructing Lafitte regarding Oswald, Nagell's presence isn't noted in his record. 

 

Morrow and Kohly were arrested in October.  Lafitte doesn't record any alarms; T/Barnes is active in Lafitte's world in October only on Oct. 9 (the OSARN entry T call Oswald to purpose [propose or prepare?] weapons, and Oct. 24 when it appears T is in Madrid. If T is Barnes, he seems to have recovered from Morrow's arrest fairly easily. (is the Oct. 9 T reference that includes "weapons" a clue that the July Carcanos were intended for Oswald - in November?)

 

(note: Another possible datebook ref. to random gun buys comparable to the Carcanos identified by Morrow is March 26, McWillie guns with Davis-Oswald.  However, T is not mentioned in surrounding dates other than March 7th and 13th, both of which include Caretaker and mention nothing about guns. However, on April 6, Lafitte is asking whether Oswald can shoot Walker. If Barnes' directive to Morrow to purchase the Carcanos had occurred earlier than July, it might be possible the Morrow/Ferrie rifles were intended for the Walker incident; otherwise, we can reasonably consider that the March 26 McWillie/Davis/Oswald entry is related to the Walker shooting.)

Edited January 17 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

If Jack Canon is now an acceptable candidate for shooter in Dallas, how did his Texas compadre — the award-winning sharpshooter Col. Charles Askins avoid close scrutiny prior to finalization of this podcast?

 

 

Hired Guns

Askins?

—Lafitte datebook, September 12, 1963

 

Askins - Willoughby OK

—Lafitte datebook, October 2, 1963

 

. . . Add Askins (Harvey)

—Lafitte datebook, October 8, 1963 

 

Canon-- S + V?

—Lafitte datebook, September 14 1963

 

Willoughby team – Canon (Z org) D.

—Lafitte datebook, November 21, 1963

 

Col. Charles “Boots” Askins, Jr.

Boots Askins was a storied gunman in Texas since the early 1930s, and had moved within far-right circles all his life. Author Jeffrey Caufield, in his study of the assassination of JFK, features a letter from Joseph Milteer (himself a racist and far right associate of Willoughby and Walker) to Charles Askins pertaining to a forthcoming meeting of one of the myriad clandestine organizations that the radical right was running during the ’60s, indicating very “hush-hush” stuff.

Born in October 1907, the son of a prominent hunter and writer, Askins Jr. followed in his father’s footprints and, according to legend, "left some marks deeper than his dad." Prior to enlisting in the US Army, Askins had served in the US Forest Service and Border Patrol in the American Southwest.

During WWII, he served as a battlefield recovery officer, making landings in North Africa, Italy, and D-day. Following the war, he was posted in Spain as an attaché to the American embassy, assisting Franco’s administration in rebuilding the arms and ammunition factories after the war. This is but one clue that Askins was well known to General Willoughby and through that connection, he knew fellow Texan “Cactus Jack” Canon. In his role at the embassy in Madrid, Askins undoubtedly encountered Johannes Bernhardt of SOFINDUS, Otto Skorzeny, and Victor Oswald, all of whom need no further introduction to our reader. As attaché, Askins would also have been familiar with US Embassy officials including CIA agent Al Ulmer, and fellow attaché Jere Wittington, Otto and Ilse’s close friend and minder. [In fact, a document recently surfaced in a newly released batch to confirm that Askins was assigned to keep an eye on Otto’s munitions deals in Madrid.]

After several years in Madrid, enjoying the company of his family and bird hunting in the Spanish countryside, Askins was sent to Vietnam to join the select number of Eisenhower “advisors” training South Vietnamese soldiers in shooting and paratrooping. During those years, the colonel managed to earn his airborne qualification with both countries, amassing 132 jumps before calling it quits. While posted on the Vietnamese front, Askins would have encountered Jack Canon and Lucien Conein, among a number of other legends in that ill-fated endeavor.

Throughout his military career, Askins also indulged in big game hunting at every chance, and continued to do so the remainder of his life. He retired to San Antonio, Texas having been stationed at Fort Sam Houston when he returned stateside. He died there in March 1999. In a carefully worded statement, repeated by all who write about the legendary “Boots” Askins, “He retired from government service in 1963.”

(cont. in forthcoming sequel to CiD)

Askins' role with the Texas Border Patrol has come into focus recently following research into the history of the head of Southwest Region Immigration and Naturalization Services in 1963, Harlon B. Carter.

Answers to questions regarding unimpeded infiltration and exfiltration of shooters brought on board the assassination plot [by Otto Skorzeny and Charles Willoughby] can now be considered through the INS lens, not just the FBI.   Harlon Carter and Charles Askins go back to pre-WWII Texas when both launched careers in the Border Patrol.  While Askins attained notoriety as an expert marksman and then served in Europe, Carter advanced to become head of the entire Patrol, gaining infamy for his Bracero Program: in essence, let undocumented workers cross unimpeded as long as they went back home when their masters were finished extracting blood, sweat, and tears for ten cents on the dollar.

 

Harlon Carter would leave the INS several years after the assassination in Dallas to launch an operation that culminated in a coup within the National Rifle Association known as the Revolt at Cincinnati. Basically, Carter altered the NRA mandate from one of a once beloved sportsman’s association to a full fledge political lobby in service of the private interests of the arms and munitions industry.

 

[reverse dot-connecting from the NRA to Jean Souetre:]

Many in the research community will know that the myriad of discrepancies in the Jean Rene Souetre saga resurfaced in 2003 when the head of an LA-based mail order firm that had enjoyed a rather sensational contract with the NRA for more than a decade, hired a French reporter to “interview” Souetre and then published her findings.  According to the transcript, the former OAS Captain insisted he wasn’t in Dallas, pointed the finger at Michel Mertz, and Bradley O’Leary advanced Souetre’s claims as fait accompli in “The Triangle of Death.”  Prior to publication of his book, O’Leary co-produced the documentary filmed primarily in Moscow titled “The Secret KGB JFK Assassination Files” that also relies on the research leading to claims of Souetre’s innocence.  Would this 1999 documentary effort have been approved by the director of the FSB, successor to the KGB?

 

What isn’t widely known is that O’Leary landed that NRA contract through his personal association with Wayne LaPierre, the protegé of the former head of INS SW Harlon Carter who was a decades-long buddy of sharpshooter Charles Askins identified in the records of Pierre Lafitte. Following Carter’s death, Wayne LaPierre ran the NRA with a similar iron fist for another three decades, and it was LaPierre and his executive committee that authorized the $30,000,000 contribution to the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump not long after certain NRA leaders returned from a trip to Russia. In 2020, among those issues that surfaced during NY AG Letitia James’ investigation was LaPierre’s shelling out millions to mail order king Brad O’Leary — who in 1999 and again in 2003 attempted to cement Souetre’s innocence.

 

A member of NRA remarked recently that he had been paying dues since 1976 and that he could not recall a single article in the association magazine about the assassination of President John Kennedy in Dallas.

 

Edited January 23 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

Col. Charles Askins (continued)

In another account by an avid gun historian, we learn that Askins "did not hesitate to shoot opponents regardless of race or nationality but didn’t consider those of minority status worth counting in his tally." Askins himself said that he hunted animals so avidly because he wasn't allowed to hunt men anymore.

 

An expert on the use of lethal force and editor and contributing columnist to two of the country's most read gun magazines wrote, “I knew Charlie Askins as a man who was fun to drink with, but a man you wouldn't want to get drunk with. He was an adoring husband and father, a lover of horses and a sucker for stray dogs. When his many fans wrote him, he answered them promptly and (usually) politely. Perhaps it was a natural compensation for the part of him that went beyond survival euphoria in the pleasure he took after killing a man… There were facets of Charlie that I wouldn't want in a cop. There was racism. There was a killer instinct, too strong, strong enough to sometimes slip its leash.”

[Leslie Sharp]

On the Question of Herminio Diaz Garcia as a Shooter in Dealey
 

Hank Albarelli <hankalbarelli>	Jan 16, 2019, 5:07 AM
to me, A FYI

 

From: Hank Albarelli  
Date: January 16, 2019 at 7:06:54 AM EST
To: dick
Subject: Note to Angleton

There’s a very interesting post-assassination note to Angleton from Lafitte (this from you [sic] the Angleton family member) that points up two things: there was an assassin referred to as “Ostrich” that Lafitte agrees w/ Angleton as being very good (but seemingly not used in Dallas); and Lafitte agrees with Angleton on the merits of having not used Cubans in “direct capacities.”  I [sic] pretty certain I know who Ostrich is/was but will only say once I’m absolutely there. [Ludwig Nebel]
 

sharp <lesliemsharp17>	Jan 16, 2019, 11:47 AM
to Alan, Hank

 

It is indeed.  I wonder if the comment warrants a prominent place - perhaps very early in the book.

 

Alan Kent <alanlkent>	Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 11:56 AM
to Hank, me

I don't know where it ideally belongs, but it would be a very effective answer to the inevitable questions about the Cuban shooters who populate a great many scenarios. And "direct capacities" implies to me that Cubans may have been utilized in "other capacities," which I believe that a small number were. 

 

 

sharp <lesliemsharp17@gmail.com>	Jan 16, 2019, 12:14 PM
to Alan, Hank

 

Hank and I had a similar discussion by phone this morning.  

 

But I don't know that we can leap from "having no direct capacities"  to "may have been utilized in 'other capacities,'" at least not if we are relying on evidence from Lafitte and or Angleton.  The Cubans were working for the CIA, no doubt, but does that mean they were involved in the assassination of Kennedy.  I realize that tomes have been written on the topic, which makes this exchange between Lafitte and Angleton all the more explosive ... ergo a fairly prominent place in the book.    

 

I have frequently argued that in the end, the Cubans were used as patsies. Hank makes a strong argument that Cubans could not be trusted.   

leslie sharp <lesliemsharp17>	Jan 16, 2019, 1:37 PM
to Hank, Alan

 

I said 'huge', because it indicates to me at least that Cubans were hardly instrumental in the assassination, contrary to what many researchers have argued .  It is also huge if it can be determined that Lafitte / Angleton did not employ any Cubans - at all - in any capacity - in the operation.  

 

Alan makes a sound argument that Cubans may have been used in 'other capacities' in his monograph about Umbrella Man and Radio Guy, among others, but if those characters haven't surfaced in any Lafitte material, the claim that Cubans were on the ground will need to come from other sources.  Alan, I haven't read your work in that area for a month or so.  I'll revisit it in light of this new development.  I do remember being impressed by the logic and by the conclusions, but now I have to ask, why didn't those characters surface in Lafitte's writings, particularly when he actually referenced 'Cubans' not being utilized in a 'direct capacity'?  Could it be he wasn't privy to them being used?

 

Hank Albarelli	Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 12:30 PM
to me, A When I worked at the White House I was told by a Cuban “leader” to never trust a Cuban with anything you don’t want known or much else. Filed it away in my head. Andreas hated JFK as he blamed him for having killed his parents.

Hank Albarelli <hankalbarelli>	Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 2:41 PM
to me, Alan

 

I think it’s important to consider that Lafitte, Angleton, and Harvey shared a cultural bias against Cubans... obviously they stuck with “their own” — Americans, French, Italian, Jews/Israelis, a few others. QJ/WIN no Cubans... worth thinking about... 

Alan to Hank, me

I think that point is important - and the ethnic bias in favor of "their own" plays into this. They believed that the Cubans talked too much, and probably that half of the radical Cuban community was infiltrated by Castro's G-2. Another, complementary point, is that using Cubans as gunmen in Dallas would have been far more dangerous than using white men who spoke multiple languages. A greater chance that a person of color would be noticeable at that time and place.

Hank Albarelli <hankalbarelli>	Jan 16, 2019, 5:06 PM
to A, me Great points!