Who was Pierre Laffite?

[Ron Bulman]

Before this thread disappears, I mentioned in an earlier post that it should include Pierre's affiliation with Lucien Conein.  Who I was not very familiar with before A Terrible Mistake.  Skipping through, Nuremburg, transferred to work for William King Harvey in Berlin. Liaison, interviews/assessments of prospective German scientists.  1954, dispatched to work with General Edward Lansdale in Southeast Asia.  This and following from ATM, pgs. 335-337.

"Conein had known Laffite since his war time days in France, and later used Laffite for at least one sensitive mission in Vietnam.  The two men shared in common not only their French heritage, but also a mysterious connection to the Corsican Brotherhood.  Laffite had years earlier been awarded a special Corsican Brotherhood medallion bearing the Brotherhood's coat-of-farms and Napoleonic Imperial Eagle.  . . .  Pierre Laffite - - was an expert in many so called black operations, including breaking and entering, covert surveillance, disguises, and impersonation.  According to Gerald Patrick Hemming, a former soldier of fortune and CIA contractor who knew Conien well, "Laffite, . . . , was a master of all, except killing."  According to Conein, Laffite had been in Vietnam at the time of Diem's death and had "assisted in important ways, but never in any way related to the actual murder."  In 1962 Conein would put CIA officer William King Harvey in touch with Laffite.

In November 1973 Conein was asked to work for the Drug Enforcment Administration. (reportedly, he was approached by E, Howar Hunt, then a 'special employee' in the Nixon Whitehouse).  Conein naturally though of his fiend, Laffite, . . . FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics).  Laffite, who knew virtually every major drug trafficker in the world, including the entire cast of infamous French Connection case, now gave his friend Conein a crash course in the machinations of international drug trafficking.

Thanks to Laffite, Conein quickly progressed from consultant to director of the DEA's newly formed Special Operations and Field Support Division."

Much more there on Conein developing assassination teams targeting foreign drug traffickers.

[John Kowalski]

On 1/6/2024 at 1:44 AM, Ron Bulman said:

I've read somewhere recently that George Hunter White's wife Albertine donated all of his papers first to a small college or maybe even local library 2-3 years after he passed.  They then went to Perham, then now Stanford.

I have no idea about digital access, but I guess anyone wanting to check Hank's sources on this can go to Stanford and do so.  Not sure where to find the Enrique book, haven't looked.

Ron:

The George White papers at Stanford have an affidavit regarding Jean Pierre Lafitte. it can be found on page 17 of this document. 

https://archive.org/details/jean-pierre-lafitte

Here is a list of his documents at Stanford.

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6k40059b/entire_text/

You can order copies of these documents by contacting specialcollections@stanford.edu.

At the bottom pf the page is a list of digitized items including his address book. Lafitte's           address is on page 39.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 20 by John Kowalski

[Leslie Sharp]

 

As indicated, Albarelli accessed the Hunter White archives during his groundbreaking pursuit of the death of Frank Olson, both at Foothill College and later at Stanford.

Hank writes that George and Pierre met earlier, ' . . . In all actuality, White had known Lafitte since at least 1948, after the narcotics agent traveled to Marseilles from Istanbul . . . White and Lafitte hit it off in grand style, spending hours together, drinking and discussing Lafitte's strong interest in returning to New York City to open a restaurant there. The gathering turned out to be the beginning of a long association. . . . ' A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments. H. P. Albarelli Jr., Trine Day, 2009

[Details of the Orsini / Shillitani heroin deals, in Lafitte's own words, can also be found in ATM, pg. 420-425]

[The facts of the Kretske case can be found here: https://www.ifar.org/case_summary.php?docid=1179736851]

Hunter White appears in the 1963 datebook maintained by his good friend Pierre on five dates:
 

Hunter White (George, Geo)     Feb 19        July 28 30     Aug  21  29

Aside from his name appearing in August along with the name "Joannides" (logically presumed to be CIA agent George Joannides), the July entries are sensational by any measure, indicating that Hunter White is in discussion with Otto Skorzeny and/or Grant Stockade regarding  the implications that Washington Post publisher Phil Graham is back in Chestnut Lodge (an infamous mental healthcare facility for those familiar with the MKULTRA and subsequent projects run by Sidney Gottlieb) and two days later he is in Washington D.C. on the day it was reported that a former WaPo reporter, 28 yr old Anita Ehrman had been found dead in her D.C. residence.

 

Edited May 20 by Leslie Sharp

[John Kowalski]

1 hour ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Hunter White appears in the 1963 datebook maintained by his good friend Pierre on five dates:
 

Hunter White (George, Geo)     Feb 19        July 28 30     Aug  21  29

Hi Leslie:

Where is Lafitte's datebook?

[Matt Cloud]

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

As indicated, Albarelli accessed the Hunter White archives during his groundbreaking pursuit of the death of Frank Olson, both at Foothill College and later at Stanford.

Hank writes that George and Pierre met earlier, ' . . . In all actuality, White had known Lafitte since at least 1948, after the narcotics agent traveled to Marseilles from Istanbul . . . White and Lafitte hit it off in grand style, spending hours together, drinking and discussing Lafitte's strong interest in returning to New York City to open a restaurant there. The gathering turned out to be the beginning of a long association. . . . ' A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments. H. P. Albarelli Jr., Trine Day, 2009

[Details of the Orsini / Shillitani heroin deals, in Lafitte's own words, can also be found in ATM, pg. 420-425]

[The facts of the Kretske case can be found here: https://www.ifar.org/case_summary.php?docid=1179736851]

Hunter White appears in the 1963 datebook maintained by his good friend Pierre on five dates:
 

Hunter White (George, Geo)     Feb 19        July 28 30     Aug  21  29

Aside from his name appearing in August along with the name "Joannides" (logically presumed to be CIA agent George Joannides), the July entries are sensational by any measure, indicating that Hunter White is in discussion with Otto Skorzeny and/or Grant Stockade regarding  the implications that Washington Post publisher Phil Graham is back in Chestnut Lodge (an infamous mental healthcare facility for those familiar with the MKULTRA and subsequent projects run by Sidney Gottlieb) and two days later he is in Washington D.C. on the day it was reported that a former WaPo reporter, 28 yr old Anita Ehrman had been found dead in her D.C. residence.

 

Thanks for this.  Phil Graham was read-in on VENONA during the late '40s.  See Sacred Secrets by Jerrold & Leona Schecter, pp. 156-57.

 

Graham was also on the board of COMSAT -- the "privatization" of the CORONA satellite program -- and during this period, Kennedy had had Clark Clifford keeping tabs on what Graham might be revealing as to its inner-workings.  See Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, pp. 162-63.

 

COMSAT was being run out of the mansion in Washington, DC called Tregaron, 3100 Macomb Street, NW, where it so happens a young assistant to the secretary of labor named Pat Moynihan was living, in the Dacha, ten feet from the main mansion.  

 

Including your other post on the subject here:

 

 

[Leslie Sharp]

19 minutes ago, John Kowalski said:

Hi Leslie:

Where is Lafitte's datebook?

Hi John.

The datebook is in private hands.  It's possible we'll be able to publish a facsimile for broad distribution hopefully before the end of the year.

I don't remember how familiar you are with Coup in Dallas, but Osborne a.k.a. Bowen appears in a datebook entry as does Clay Shaw.

[Ron Bulman]

12 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Ron:

The George White papers at Stanford have an affidavit regarding Jean Pierre Lafitte. it can be found on page 17 of this document. 

https://archive.org/details/jean-pierre-lafitte

Here is a list of his documents at Stanford.

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6k40059b/entire_text/

You can order copies of these documents by contacting specialcollections@stanford.edu.

At the bottom pf the page is a list of digitized items including his address book. Lafitte's           address is on page 39.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for this John, it's very interesting.

I did notice in the affidavit White notes Laffite also worked for the Secret Service, albeit on a counterfeiting case.

In the list of digitized items are his daily appointment books.  1934-1962, then it skips 1963/64 and comes back with 1965, the year he retired, then skips to 1970/71.  I looked at the 1962 book, a lot of what is there is pretty much illegible.  Most of it seems to reflect personal appointments.  A majority of the weekdays have nothing posted.  Many Saturdays and Sundays say beach.  One Friday 3/23/62 entry that is legible says "president Kennedy talks at U of C."  Then after Tuesday 7/10 it stops, no more entries the rest of the year, or until 1965 I guess, I've not looked at it yet.

I did look at January 1953.  It has business entries/notes on virtually every page.  I'm going back to November/December of that year looking for anything about Frank Olson.

[John Kowalski]

11 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Thanks for this John, it's very interesting.

I did notice in the affidavit White notes Laffite also worked for the Secret Service, albeit on a counterfeiting case.

In the list of digitized items are his daily appointment books.  1934-1962, then it skips 1963/64 and comes back with 1965, the year he retired, then skips to 1970/71.  I looked at the 1962 book, a lot of what is there is pretty much illegible.  Most of it seems to reflect personal appointments.  A majority of the weekdays have nothing posted.  Many Saturdays and Sundays say beach.  One Friday 3/23/62 entry that is legible says "president Kennedy talks at U of C."  Then after Tuesday 7/10 it stops, no more entries the rest of the year, or until 1965 I guess, I've not looked at it yet.

I did look at January 1953.  It has business entries/notes on virtually every page.  I'm going back to November/December of that year looking for anything about Frank Olson.

Have been reading his datebooks. Am looking for information on Albert Osborne, Camp X in Canada and Edward Lawton Smith.

[Greg Doudna]

16 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Thanks for this John, it's very interesting.

I did notice in the affidavit White notes Laffite also worked for the Secret Service, albeit on a counterfeiting case.

In the list of digitized items are his daily appointment books.  1934-1962, then it skips 1963/64 and comes back with 1965, the year he retired, then skips to 1970/71.  I looked at the 1962 book, a lot of what is there is pretty much illegible.  Most of it seems to reflect personal appointments.  A majority of the weekdays have nothing posted.  Many Saturdays and Sundays say beach.  One Friday 3/23/62 entry that is legible says "president Kennedy talks at U of C."  Then after Tuesday 7/10 it stops, no more entries the rest of the year, or until 1965 I guess, I've not looked at it yet.

I did look at January 1953.  It has business entries/notes on virtually every page.  I'm going back to November/December of that year looking for anything about Frank Olson.

 

Edited May 21 by Greg Doudna

[Ron Bulman]

13 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Ron you looked at the 1953 and 1962 appointment books of Lafitte? And it sounds like you are able to also look at 1934-1962, 1963/64, 1965, and 1970/71?

NO.  If you had read and paid attention to the above posts, or looked at the links John provided you should have noticed these are the appointment books of George Hunter White of the Federal Bearu of Narcotics.  The supervisory agent responsible for the FBN then in turn the FBI and CIA hiring Pierre Laffite as a special employee for special projects.  White does mention Laffite multiple times in the 1953 appointment book.

[Leslie Sharp]

4 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Have been reading his datebooks. Am looking for information on Albert Osborne, Camp X in Canada and Edward Lawton Smith.

Albarelli writes, '. . . [Edward Lawton] Smith was reported to look like Lee Harvey Oswald, and he often traveled to Mexico City in the early 1960s. According to FBN and CIA documents, Smith had been in the Canadian army during World War II, serving in Germany, France, and Belgium, as well as serving four years with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, Canadian Army. Records indicate that he “received an honorable discharge despite a court martial which involved the killing of a fellow Canadian soldier during a fist fight. The victim crashed into a plate glass window. Smith was convicted and sentenced to be shot. However, the conviction was reversed by Criminal Court Appeals and Smith was returned to duty.”

    After his military service, Smith “acquired a petty criminal record in Montreal and has spent most of his adult life there. He earned himself a reputation as a muscle man for various Canadian mobs. About two years ago his association with a Canadian Mafia group became known to our New York office. Because of the absence of any adult criminal record, his past service as a muscle man and his reliability to the criminal code, he was used as a courier to smuggle large quantities of illicit drugs from Montreal to the United States, principally New York City.”

    Smith was recruited in New York City around 1957 by Lafitte to be an undercover, paid special employee reporting to George White and Garland Williams. “He succeeded in introducing an undercover US Narcotic Agent to the principal Canadian gangsters from whom large evidential narcotic purchases were made followed by coordinated arrests of both the Canadian suppliers and the New York distributors.” In 1959, Smith had mysterious dealings with June Cobb and Warren Broglie in New York City, perhaps related to a drug trafficking ring based in New Orleans. 

    Because of Smith’s undercover work, “a major international narcotic drug smuggling and distributing conspiracy case was developed. Smith as of this date [1960] is still testifying in Federal Court in New York City against the many criminals involved. His conduct as a witness has been exemplary even under severe cross examination by highly talented criminal defense lawyers. SMITH has no criminal record in the United States and his Canadian criminal record is not available. He is about 5’10’’, very handsome, flashy dresser, lives flamboyantly and is the lady-killer type. We do not have a photograph of him. Although he is presently married to a former stripteaser, divorce proceedings are pending. He has been temporarily living at the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn but will leave there shortly upon termination of Federal Trial in New York. He expects to make his home in New Jersey but can always be reached, even at a later date, through the New York office. The Armstrong Circle Theatre Television Program and Reader’s Digest magazine are interested in dramatizing his accomplishments for law enforcement.”     
    
Smith’s daughter, who declined to be identified in this book due her serious concerns about possible retaliation, says of her father: “He led a strange and secret life. We know he worked for the CIA, but really have no idea what he did.”

Scenes from Lafitte’s New Orleans
In 1961, with significant funding from Californian industrialist Patrick J. Frawley and Dallas oilman Clint Murchison, mentioned previously as a financial benefactor of Ferenc Nagy’s Permindex, and with financial support from his friends at International Trade Mart, Lloyd Cobb and Director Clay Shaw, twenty-seven-year-old Ed Butler founded the Information Council of the Americas (INCA). His publications under that banner were relied on by the CIA in a blitz of propaganda just prior to the invasion at the Bay of Pigs which could explain his association with Deputy Director CIA, Charles Cabell. Some of their money went toward a film titled Hitler in Havana, reviewed as a “tasteless affront to minimum journalistic standards” by the New York Times. . . . '

Chapter notes:
Hanna Yazbeck and Edward Lawton Smith: CIA files, see Mary Ferrell site. 
Author’s [Albarelli] interviews with daughter of Edward Lawton Smith, Canada, March–April 2017.

 

Edited May 21 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

@John Kowalski

John, have you located documents to confirm Angleton, specifically, utilized CMC / Permindex in counter-intel operations?

[John Kowalski]

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

John, have you located documents to confirm Angleton, specifically, utilized CMC / Permindex in counter-intel operations?

Thank you for the information regarding Edward Lawton Smith.

Never found any information about an Angleton using CMC in a counter-intel operation.

[John Kowalski]

Leslie:

Albarelli mentions Edward Lawton Smith's military records and his daughter. Do you know who has a copy of his military records and how he was able to interview her?

[Leslie Sharp]

15 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Leslie:

Albarelli mentions Edward Lawton Smith's military records and his daughter. Do you know who has a copy of his military records and how he was able to interview her?

John, the short answers are 'no.'

If you have a copy of A Secret Order, note that former PB/SUCCESS communications officer Charles F. Gilroy was a primary source of info. on Smith. (I'll screenshot the relevant pages or reproduce the text if you don't have a copy. Let me know.)

Hank's process included a lot of "cold calling," so it's possible he just tracked down Smith's daughter's contact information and gave her a call; or someone like Gilroy pointed him in the direction, or maybe even June Cobb although he indicates he didn't connect with the daughter until 2017. It sounds as if she might have accessed the military records but Hank never mentioned to me he had copies. 

The May 19th entry in Lafitte's 1963 datebook reads, "Smith – Montreal"  along with the name Mondolini [Paul] followed by not good w/Trafficante and the phrase murder will call.  I don't know what aspect of Smith's history you're focused on, but perhaps you recognize the timeframe and/or are aware of Mondolin's history with the Corsican drug cartel?  The other Smith datebook entry is, logically, the same "Edward Lawton Smith", and as Hank initially deduced, the name "White" appearing with Smith and "Harvey" would be George Hunter White; however, we now have reason to consider the possibility that since other references to Pierre's good friend George Hunter White read Geo or George, the "White" may well be another character associating with Bill Harvey and Edward Lawton Smith.  

Mondolini background found in Coup . . . In addition to Battisti in Cuba, Lafitte also dealt with Amedeo Barletta and Paul Damien Mondolini. Barletta, a Calabrian, was Mussolini’s counsel and “administrator of Mussolini’s family in the United States,” and, according to the FBI, had been a wartime double agent planted by the Italians in Latin America. This, of course, put him close to Otto Skorzeny, as the former SS officer’s private papers reflect.
    In 1942, the Bureau ordered Barletta’s arrest in the Dominican Republic, but he fled to Argentina, where he remained until the end of the war. Soon thereafter, he turned up in Havana, as a representative for several large American automobile and pharmaceutical companies, including, according to writer Cirules, General Motors. Before the war, Barletta had been a General Motors sales manager in the Dominican Republic, where he clashed with dictator Rafael Trujillo, who claimed that Barletta was plotting to assassinate him. Cirules also claims that Barletta, alongside Lansky and Battisti, headed a “Mafia family” and was involved in drug trafficking. 
    Paul Mondolini, a.k.a. Paul Marie Bejin, Jacques Desmarais, and Eduardo Dubian, was born in Corsica in 1916. In wartime Marseilles, where he migrated at an early age, he worked, like many morally ambidextrous bandits, both for the Resistance and, at the same time, collaborated with the Germans during the Nazi occupation of France. Remarkably, Mondolini later served as chief of police in Saigon, Vietnam, before he went on to gain worldwide notoriety when he took part in the sensational 1949 robbery of the royal jewelry of the wife of the Ismailian prince Aga Khan, an operation which, according to a disgruntled former deputy of France’s intelligence chief Roger Wybot involved Wybot himself, along with at least four unidentified gunmen, one of which was allegedly Pierre Lafitte. Otto Skorzeny, was very involved with Wybot as was Otto’s wife, Ilse. 
     Mondolini’s association with Pierre Lafitte extended back to their days of drug running in Marseilles and Indochina for Francois Spirito and Paul Carbone. In Cuba, where he did not well establish himself until 1955, Mondolini, in partnership with Corsicans Antoine D’Agostino and Jean Baptiste Croce, who owned two nightclubs in Havana, became a major player in moving heroin via Cuba to Montreal, Canada. Interesting to note here is that Mondolini’s prominent activities in Cuba coincided almost day-by-day with numerous trips to Cuba taken by CIA Inspector General Lyman B. Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick said in 1968 that his Cuban trips were “an effort to help the [Cuban] government establish an effective organization to fight Communism.” Kirkpatrick would also say that at the time the CIA was flush with money. “There basically wasn’t a limit,” he said. “We got what we asked for.” And nearly two-thirds of the money went for covert operations.
    British crime historian Charles Wighton significantly noted in 1960, “The overseas section of the Corsican gang working in the closest collaboration with the American Mafia in Montreal, Havana, and Mexico City [is] run by [Antoine] D’Agostino and the notorious Paul Mondolini.” Indeed, it was Mondolini, along with fellow Corsican Jean Jehan, who masterminded the infamous international heroin caper popularized by the hit film The French Connection. Worth noting here is that Jehan, according to CIA records produced in 1976, was thought to be the off-the-record owner of the Bedford Street building in New York City where George Hunter White, with steady sidekick Pierre Lafitte, operated his CIA-funded safe house, an urban abode of erotic pleasures melded with the horrors brought on by unguided psychedelic journeys. Throughout his drug trafficking career, multilingual Mondolini was considered one of the shrewdest and most intelligent dealers that the FBN confronted. 
    In Cuba, Lafitte was also well acquainted with Santo Trafficante, Jr., whom he initially knew from his days in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. . . .