Dalla complains, rationalizes, in anniversary article

[David Andrews]

Anniversary article in The Guardian today:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/18/jfk-assassination-dallas-legacy-political-conspiracy-extremism

"Dubbed ‘city of hate’ after the 1963 killing, the Texas metropolis has largely moved on but the forces that brought death to Dealey Plaza are arguably more prevalent than ever "

 

[Douglas Caddy]

I live in Houston. Whenever I visit Dallas, I cannot get out of my mind that this is where President Kennedy was assassinated. To me an ever-present atmosphere of gloom pervades the city.

[Bill Fite]

I was in Dallas for a conference in the 1980s.  There was a reception the first night in the Reunion Tower.  I was there looking out the window and an attendee from Dallas came up to me and asked me if I was alright, I looked upset.  

I said I was OK but something was bothering me that I couldn't put my finger on.  Then I looked back out the window down at the street and asked 'That's it, isn't it?'.   He just said yes.  My first encounter with Dealey Plaza and I'd only read the magazine articles in the 60s and maybe 1 book at that time.

Months later I'd moved to Dallas and was lost in the city.  I found a sign for the highway I wanted and was driving on when I felt bad again then recognised the triple overpass and then the picket fence.

I hate that place.

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Anniversary article in The Guardian today:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/18/jfk-assassination-dallas-legacy-political-conspiracy-extremism

"Dubbed ‘city of hate’ after the 1963 killing, the Texas metropolis has largely moved on but the forces that brought death to Dealey Plaza are arguably more prevalent than ever "

 

      Well, the article presents a lot of interesting details about the legacy of the JFK assassination and Dallas's conservative, right-wing culture but, unfortunately, it is also quite misleading about the fact that JFK was assassinated by a carefully orchestrated conspiracy.

      In fact, the author directly links "conspiracy theories" with Dallas's kooky, right-wing culture-- reinforcing the old CIA propaganda trope that conspiracy theories are monolithic and "kooky."

      And, needless to say, the general drift of the article is to deflect public attention away from the conspirators in the U.S. government who actually murdered JFK.

[Leslie Sharp]

At the risk of being accused of shameless promotion, a full chapter of Albareli's last investigation is dedicated to the "lay of the land" that was Dallas.  I trust those following this thread know the difference between hawking a book and contributing to an understanding of why Dallas was the perfect scene of the crime.

 

 

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

The 1963 records of Pierre Lafitte provide indisputable evidence that Dallas was always the designated scene of the crime to overthrow the US government as President Kennedy prepared to run for reelection. 

The rationale for selecting Dallas may seem complex and even controversial, in particular to those that believe the Chicago, Miami or Tampa plots were meant to succeed. Lafitte’s entry on November 1, “Trial runs . . . mistakes aplenty – Not Good” sets that record straight. 

         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.

[Leslie Sharp]

How It All Began

On Monday, December 18, 1950, David Martin, Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and his special assistant, Dr. Richard Salzman, spoke before a large group of prominent Dallas, Texas businessmen at a special luncheon at the eighteen-story Baker Hotel, a popular venue for leading conservatives of Dallas. The event was underwritten by the just-forming Dallas Council on World Affairs, a group that would soon form a tight bond with CIA director Allen Dulles.

         Martin and Salzman, who had traveled to Dallas from their home office at 62 West Forty-Fifth Street in New York City, told the assembled businessmen of their plans for bringing over “2,000 top men of science and letters from Europe to the United States and settling them into jobs where their know-how is needed.” In his capacity as director of the original International Rescue Organization (IRO) in late January 1949, Martin had met secretly with Col. Boris Pash and Otto and Ilse Skorzeny, bringing them into the intelligence network assembled by the CIA which included the IRO and World Commerce Corporation. By the time of the Martin-Salzman Dallas visit in 1950, the board of the IRC had included several leading Soviet social democrats, a fact that drew criticism from their rival for CIA funding, the Tolstoy Foundation made up of many Monarchists and right-wing Russian exiles who refused to cooperate with even moderate socialists. Vying for contributions in Dallas, Martin told the audience, “These 2,000 plus displaced scholars and scientists are the cream of a crop of 25,000 exiled professionals abroad who have fled from Communist countries. These scholars and professionals include engineers, medical doctors, journalists, veterinarians, artists, dentists, geologists, chemists, political scholars, legal experts, architects, and professors of the technical sciences, the humanities and the arts.” 

         Added Dr. Salzman, “They are people Russia would pay heavily to import. They are men who would not only enrich our American culture but could be of infinite value to our war and defense efforts.”

         Explained Martin, “IRC’s goal is to resettle these 2,000 gifted refugees before the revised displaced persons act expires in June 1951, but so far there has been a barrier against brains in the resettling of displaced persons because Americans and Canadians are much more willing to sponsor a farm hand sight unseen than to assure a job to an unknown scientist or engineer.” Martin paused and said, “This is where we need the vision and intellect of businessmen like all of you.”

         Martin continued, “Each displaced person must have a sponsor in his new homeland to guarantee his housing and a job before he can be admitted. The IRC has already processed 750 of the 2,000 professionals, and some are already arriving in the country. Each one is thoroughly screened politically before he is invited to this country.”

         According to Martin, “Each person is screened by the United States Army Counter Intelligence Corps. We work very closely with the government and the military. Each person is also screened by the Displaced Person Commission. And perhaps the most important screening is that given by his fellow refugees.”

         Said Dr. Salzman, “It is in our national self-interest to get all 2,000 professionals screened and processed. Never has this country prepared for a war in which so little was known about the enemy. These 2,000 are the men who know the chemistry, the geology, the geography, the politics, the roads and bridges behind the Iron curtain.” Explained Martin, “To finance this very worthy and crucial project the IRC last month launched a $1,600,000 fund campaign entitled the Resettlement Campaign for Exiled Professionals. Much of this fund will be spent in this country to prepare the newcomers to fit the requirements of American industries, universities, hospitals, and other employers.” Added Dr. Salzman, “The IRC not only needs more money but also is carefully hunting for job opportunities for the skilled refugees.”

         At a question-and-answer session following their presentation, Martin and Dr. Salzman referred several times to an earlier column by Victor Riesel that had appeared in the Saturday, March 25, 1950 edition of the Dallas Morning News. Riesel’s column, extremely supportive of the IRC’s efforts and its Iron Curtain Refugee Campaign, acted to pave the way for the Martin and Dr. Salzman visit and presentation. Wrote Riesel: “that’s why the IRC is frankly the savior of political and intellectual leaders. That’s why it tries to keep alive a handful of creative minds such as Ivan Duvynec.”

         Duvynec had been “a top-ranking Soviet graphite geologist, who prepared master geological and hydrogeological maps for the Soviet government before he “slipped from behind the Iron Curtain and wandered into this end of the Cold War,” but not before “his sister had been shot by the Soviet secret police” and his “three brothers, scientists all,” were placed in “prison camps somewhere beyond the Arctic Circle” and his parents had died.” Out of Ivan Duvynec’s pain, and the thousands like him, Riesel wrote, “can come power for freedom across the globe.” 

         Even before the 1950 IRC visit to Dallas and Riesel’s column, other concerted efforts had been made to gain the support of the Dallas business community in refugee activities including that of Faye Green, a former Dallas schoolteacher who went to Europe in 1944 and became section chief of the Department of Care and Maintenance for displaced persons (DPs) for the IRC in Geneva, Switzerland, returned to Dallas several times, including late 1949, to speak on issues involving DPs. 

         Earlier that year, Eugene M. Solow, head of the Dallas Jewish Welfare Federation who had been a member of a Dallas delegation to Rome, Italy assisting in surveying the needs of displaced persons in Europe and Israel, began pushing hard for enhanced displaced persons support. And at another meeting, February 1949, held at the Baker Hotel, representatives from seven Catholic Church discussed the issues of dealing with bureaucratic “red tape” that they felt slowed the flow of displaced persons from Europe to the United States. Church officials complained that only 5,000 of over 60,000 displaced persons had arrived in the United States since January 1948. 

         Thus, one of America’s most politically conservative cities, oil-rich Dallas opened its arms to White Russian immigrants who had fled communism and began to make their mark on the community, foreshadowing the arrival of Kennedy’s assassins in 1963. 

[Leslie Sharp]

5 hours ago, Bill Fite said:

I was in Dallas for a conference in the 1980s.  There was a reception the first night in the Reunion Tower.  I was there looking out the window and an attendee from Dallas came up to me and asked me if I was alright, I looked upset.  

I said I was OK but something was bothering me that I couldn't put my finger on.  Then I looked back out the window down at the street and asked 'That's it, isn't it?'.   He just said yes.  My first encounter with Dealey Plaza and I'd only read the magazine articles in the 60s and maybe 1 book at that time.

Months later I'd moved to Dallas and was lost in the city.  I found a sign for the highway I wanted and was driving on when I felt bad again then recognised the triple overpass and then the picket fence.

I hate that place.

a vignette of possible interest, Bill:

Reunion Tower was Ray Hunt's prize development, Ray being the son of H. L. by another mother. In 1983, during his campaign for sheriff, Don A. Byrd left a boozy reception at Reunion one evening, drove up Preston Rd. and wrapped his car around a tree. Dallas was still a prudish city so the unseemly behavior cost him the election.  Byrd was a DPD motorcycle patrolman then detective in November 1963, serving under Capt. Pat Ganaway who headed a narcotics unit.  Ganaway is infamous for having claimed there was no serious organized crime in Dallas — straight from Dir. Hoover's playbook.  (This, while Robert F. Kennedy was in hot pursuit of the mob in Dallas. The trial was moved to Wichita Falls for some reason.) Ganaway was also among the first to go public that Oswald had lived in Soviet Russia and brought his bride back to Texas e.g., a commie lone nut who shot Kennedy.  Byrd miraculously advanced his career from that motorcycle to Police Chief in just a few years. I believe he was also the first in charge of organizing and decimating the department's assassination records.  I know all of this from research related to an Oak Lawn address, 3407 Rawlins.  Among the tenants in May of 1963 of the newly opened Oak Lawn Plaza was Wesley Rogers Oil Co. out of Oklahoma. A few years later, Rogers' daughter married Don Byrd.  3407 was a location critical to teasing out how Ilse Skorzeny might have justification to be in and out of Dallas in the spring, summer and autumn in the lead up to the assassination of John Kennedy. Rogers Oil company was neighbors in the building with international real estate company, Previews Inc. which had provided lucrative employment in addition to cover for Mrs. Otto Skorzeny as she pursued their personal and ideological interests on a global scale.  Was Byrd dating Rogers' daughter in November 1963?  Was Byrd related to Mattie Caruth and D. H. "Dryhole" Byrd?  Did any of these characters know Ilse Skorzeny? Yet to be determined.

A circuitous way of saying that I too hated the ethos of the Dallas I experienced 1970-1987.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Leslie Sharp