Who was Pierre Laffite?

[John Kowalski]

7 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

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.)

Hi Leslie:

Have A Secret Order and will review the Charles F. Gilroy.

[Leslie Sharp]

4 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Hi Leslie:

Have A Secret Order and will review the Charles F. Gilroy.

In the event you're familiar with Canadian based Javelin:

Further to this [Lafitte's] alleged swindle of Ralph Loomis, we learn from court documents relating to an SEC case, “On December 23, 1958, we filed a complaint for an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of MA which alleged, among other things, that registrant and one Ralph L. Loomis were offering for sale unregistered stock of Canadian Javelin, Ltd., were circulating articles and communications describing such stock for a consideration received and to be received from the issuer and from underwriters without fully disclosing the receipt of such consideration and the amount thereof and were engaging in transactions, practices and a course of business which operated as a fraud and deceit on purchasers.” 
    In discussing this case, the agent opined, “John Doyle, [the founder of Canadian Javelin, Ltd.] is not a fugitive from justice. He is, however, a genuine financial wizard, a skilled organist and a native of the US who may not return to that country because, as John Diefenbaker once inelegantly put it, ‘he will end up in the coop for three years if he does.’ He is also Chairman of the Executive Committee of Canadian Javelin Limited, a Newfoundland corporation described to me by a US government lawyer who has studied it for years as ‘the most mysterious company known to man.’ Canadian Javelin, through a network of subsidiaries, controls huge quantities of iron ore and timber in Labrador, oil and potash in Saskatchewan, silver in El Salvador, and other minerals from northern Quebec to Arizona.” Lafitte’s indictment for defrauding Ralph Loomis would have been ancillary to the SEC cases against Loomis and Payton.
    “The most mysterious company known to man,” harkens back to the World Commerce Corporation, described similarly by those searching the history of WCC. Wilson-Hudson was known to deal in nickel, to have been involved in at least two transactions with WCC, and to have had deep connections in Canada. It should be noted that John Doyle, founder of “the most mysterious company known to man,” also spent much of his time on Nassau Island in the Bahamas along with a number of our persons of interest that were also involved with the World Commerce Corporation, including Sir Stafford Sands and Otto and Ilse Skorzeny. And it is further noted that Thomas Eli Davis listed as a recent employer, New Netherlands Mining. While it is doubtful he worked for what was a long defunct company by that name, it is worth contemplating that he meant Javelin’s concern, Newfoundland Mining.
    According to accounts, during that year, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought ten civil actions and instituted three criminal actions in which the illegal sale of Canadian securities in the United States was involved. Details concerning these actions include, SEC v. Ralph L. Loomis and F. Payson Todd, SEC v. Canadian Javelin Limited, et al: “On December 23, 1958, we [SEC] filed a complaint for an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of MA which alleged, among other things, that registrant and one Ralph L. Loomis were offering for sale unregistered stock of Canadian Javelin, Ltd., (a crime that a number of soldiers of fortune were accused of in the same timeframe) were circulating articles and communications describing such stock for a consideration received and to be received from the issuer and from underwriters without fully disclosing the receipt of such consideration and the amount thereof and were engaging in transactions, practices and a course of business which operated as a fraud and deceit on purchasers.” 

[Leslie Sharp]

On 5/20/2024 at 2:39 PM, Matt Cloud said:

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:

 

 

Thanks Matt.

I had focused on Ben Bradlee more than Graham, given Bradlee's presumed close proximity to Ehrman in Paris – he with Newsweek and she reporting for Hearst prior to returning to the states to cover the UN.  It seemed likely Bradlee put in a good word on her behalf with Phil once the purchase of Newsweek was finalized.  It's also possible that Ehrman's stint in Jackie's Press Corp for her Far East trip impressed even Jackie herself and from there Phil Graham was persuaded to hire her? He prided himself in vetting every hire, but if she joined WaPo in January 1963, it's possible he was by then in no condition to fulfill his commitments.  All speculation at this juncture. Bradlee later marries Sally Quinn, daughter of Gen. Wm. Quinn who was the first deputy of the fledgling DIA. Quinn had served under MacArthur and undoubtedly knew General Charles Willoughby, a prominent character in the 1963 records maintained by Pierre Lafitte, so there are a number of intelligence arteries to choose from when pursuing the death of former WaPo reporter Anita Ehrman. Prompted by your observations, I revisited Katherine Graham's own version of her personal history to be reminded that Phil served as assistant to Gen. Bill Donovan for four months; admittedly he was unhappy on day one and asked for transfer, but it took another three plus months to detach from Donovan who would become a key cog in the concept of the World Commerce Corporation - a quango not dissimilar in structure to COMSAT – government in league with private enterprise for "the good of all," purportedly. Graham was also on the board of RAND. Who is manipulating whom for legitimate cover and profit on the global stage?  Kay then mentions that two or three years later, Donovan's home in Georgetown went on the market and she made a bid; for whatever reason she fails to note the irony let alone repeat that her husband had served directly under Donovan albeit a brief period. Maybe Georgetownians are accustomed to such high strangeness and synchronicity.  Graham's friendship with George Smathers can't be dismissed either, not when factoring in his good friend and business associate Grant Stockdale who appears in the Lafitte datebook just days before Anita's death and a week before Graham suicides.  Lafitte makes a note on July 27 that George Hunter White (FBN heavily involved with Gottlieb and Angleton) would talk to Otto Skorzeny in Madrid / Stockade about Graham's location – Chestnutt Lodge, infamous for mind control experiments that Hunter White had been au fait with since the early 1950s. Anita dies on either the 28th or 29th (Lafitte makes a note of George and D.C. above the name A.L. Ehrman on July 30). Phil Graham suicides on Aug. 3 and Grant Stockade catapults from a window in the Du Port building in Miami ten days after the assassination in Dallas. Do these tragedies share a common denominator?  I also hadn't realized the coincidence that Graham and Robin Webb spent long periods of time in Puerto Rico.  By chance, Paul Aguirre, property developer heavily invested with Smathers' and Stockades' business associate and buddy Bobby Baker, was a native Puerto Rican and reports indicate that the Aguirre / Baker entourage including Carole Tyler and East German Ellen Rometsch traveled to PR simultaneous with a Graham/Webb trip in May/June 1963. 

 

Edited May 29 by Leslie Sharp

[Matt Cloud]

20 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Thanks Matt.

I had focused on Ben Bradlee more than Graham, given Bradlee's presumed close proximity to Ehrman in Paris – he with Newsweek and she reporting for Hearst prior to returning to the states to cover the UN.  It seemed likely Bradlee put in a good word on her behalf with Phil once the purchase of Newsweek was finalized.  It's also possible that Ehrman's stint in Jackie's Press Corp for her Far East trip impressed even Jackie herself and from there Phil Graham was persuaded to hire her? He prided himself in vetting every hire, but if she joined WaPo in January 1963, it's possible he was by then in no condition to fulfill his commitments.  All speculation at this juncture. Bradlee later marries Sally Quinn, daughter of Gen. Wm. Quinn who was the first deputy of the fledgling DIA. Quinn had served under MacArthur and undoubtedly knew General Charles Willoughby, a prominent character in the 1963 records maintained by Pierre Lafitte, so there are a number of intelligence arteries to choose from when pursuing the death of former WaPo reporter Anita Ehrman. Prompted by your observations, I revisited Katherine Graham's own version of her personal history to be reminded that Phil served as assistant to Gen. Bill Donovan for four months; admittedly he was unhappy on day one and asked for transfer, but it took another three plus months to detach from Donovan who would become a key cog in the concept of the World Commerce Corporation - a quango not dissimilar in structure to COMSAT – government in league with private enterprise for "the good of all," purportedly. Graham was also on the board of RAND. Who is manipulating whom for legitimate cover and profit on the global stage?  Kay then mentions that two or three years later, Donovan's home in Georgetown went on the market and she made a bid; for whatever reason she fails to note the irony let alone repeat that her husband had served directly under Donovan albeit a brief period. Maybe Georgetownians are accustomed to such high strangeness and synchronicity.  Graham's friendship with George Smathers can't be dismissed either, not when factoring in his good friend and business associate Grant Stockdale who appears in the Lafitte datebook just days before Anita's death and a week before Graham suicides.  Lafitte makes a note on July 27 that George Hunter White (FBN heavily involved with Gottlieb and Angleton) would talk to Otto Skorzeny in Madrid / Stockade about Graham's location – Chestnutt Lodge, infamous for mind control experiments that Hunter White had been au fait with since the early 1950s. Anita dies on either the 28th or 29th (Lafitte makes a note of George and D.C. above the name A.L. Ehrman on July 30). Phil Graham suicides on Aug. 3 and Grant Stockade catapults from a window in the Du Port building in Miami ten days after the assassination in Dallas. Do these tragedies share a common denominator?  I also hadn't realized the coincidence that Graham and Robin Webb spent long periods of time in Puerto Rico.  By chance, Paul Aguirre, property developer heavily invested with Smathers' and Stockades' business associate and buddy Bobby Baker, was a native Puerto Rican and reports indicate that the Aguirre / Baker entourage including Carole Tyler and East German Ellen Rometsch traveled to PR simultaneous with a Graham/Webb trip in May/June 1963. 

 

Whew!  There's a lot in there and yes all valuable.  Thank you.  

Here's another:

Mrs. H.E. Talbott Dies in Fall; Widow of an Aide to ...

 

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 1962/07/16 › archives › mr...

 

 

Mrs. Margaret Talbott, the widow of Harold E. Talbott, Secretary of the Air Force in the Eisenhower Administration, plunged to her death yesterday morning ...

 

THE U-2 AFFAIR: HIGH-FLYING PLANE WAS BUILT ...

 

CIA (.gov)

https://www.cia.gov › readingroom › docs

 

 

PDF

 

19, 1954, and questioned in great detail by Gardner and the scientists. over lunch with Harold Talbott, the Secretary of the Air Force,. Allen Dulles, and ...

Meanwhile a tongue-in-cheek response until I've combed through more of the above: George Smathers and bawdy young woman was a pairing that continued into this century.  Just don't ask me how I know.  

 

[Leslie Sharp]

7 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

Whew!  There's a lot in there and yes all valuable.  Thank you.  

Here's another:

Mrs. H.E. Talbott Dies in Fall; Widow of an Aide to ...

 

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 1962/07/16 › archives › mr...

 

 

Mrs. Margaret Talbott, the widow of Harold E. Talbott, Secretary of the Air Force in the Eisenhower Administration, plunged to her death yesterday morning ...

 

THE U-2 AFFAIR: HIGH-FLYING PLANE WAS BUILT ...

 

CIA (.gov)

https://www.cia.gov › readingroom › docs

 

 

PDF

 

19, 1954, and questioned in great detail by Gardner and the scientists. over lunch with Harold Talbott, the Secretary of the Air Force,. Allen Dulles, and ...

Meanwhile a tongue-in-cheek response until I've combed through more of the above: George Smathers and bawdy young woman was a pairing that continued into this century.  Just don't ask me how I know.  

 

I wonder if Talbott factored in with the final contract for the F-111. Memory serves the bidding began in 1962.

[Matt Cloud]

6 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

I wonder if Talbott factored in with the final contract for the F-111. Memory serves the bidding began in 1962.

Well Talbott's significance at least must be understood as giving overhead reconnaissance authority to CIA and taking it away from Air Force.  This allowed CIA -- and then John McMahon's NRO -- to have monopoly on the scary images shown of launch sites and things in space and such.  Cuban Missile Crisis.  I would also speculate that the "alleged leak of the U-2 plans" that sets off the infamous mole-hunt in 1958 or so was probably an essentially authorized act of strategic balancing that may well have passed from Talbott to Harriman to Moynihan in Geneva to ... someone on the other side. 

As to F-111, see here:

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0563power/

 

Keep in mind RAND's Harold Brown, later AF secretary (65-69), and Secretary of Defense during Carter -- satellites.  The "J.D. Tippit of Connecticut" worked directly under him in 65 in Washington, when he wasn't drawing cartoons.

 

Back to Talbott:

 

Also Monsanto.

Also:

The following and associated reports read to me like Talbot was essentially booted out of office for a trumped up stealing office  pens charge.  Which is to say, something else lies beneath.  

INVESTIGATIONS: Mulligan Stew

https://time.com/archive/6804139/investigations-mulligan-stew/

 

TIME

AUGUST 1, 1955 12:00 AM GMT-4

 

Like many businessmen going into Government service, New York’s Harold Elstner Talbott Jr. gave up a good deal to join the Eisenhower Administration as Secretary of the Air Force. He sold his stock holdings (more than $700,000 worth), resigned as director of Chrysler Corp., cut all his business connections except one: half ownership of Mulligan & Co., a small Manhattan firm (15 employees) engaged in clerical-efficiency studies. Last week that side interest had Harold Talbott in trouble.

 

Out of the Files. Before taking office in 1953, Talbott told the Senate Armed Services Committee about Mulligan & Co. Under an agreement with Partner Paul Mulligan, he explained, “no work was to be done while I am in Washington that had to do with defense work essentially.” But recently the Senate’s Permanent Investigations Subcommittee heard that, from his Pentagon office, Secretary Talbott was still drumming up business for Mulligan & Co. When questioned,

Talbott had a quick answer: “Everything I have done is proper and ethical. I did not solicit any business.” From the firm’s files, however, sub committee staffers picked up correspondence written by and to Secretary Talbott.

 

On his “Secretary of the Air Force” stationery, Talbott had written many letters to get business for Mulligan & Co. from firms with defense contracts: Chrysler Corp., Olin Industries Inc., Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corp., Avco Manufacturing Co.

Avco’s President Victor Emanuel, who has a $200 million defense backlog, gave Mulligan a contract and enthusiastic recommendations to his friends.

 

At Talbott’s request, the subcommittee quickly called a public hearing. The Air Force Secretary, at 67 still black-haired and straight-backed, marched into the hearing room with four officers, including a major general. “This is a shocking thing,” he protested heatedly, “to point a finger of suspicion at a man that does not deserve it.” Talbott, whose Government pay is $18,000 a year, said that his income from Mulligan & Co. is more than $50,000 a year (no significant change since 1953). Said he: “I was very anxious to retain my interest in Mulligan on account of the income, which I felt I needed.” However, he offered to give up the partnership and income completely if the subcommittee would clear him of any misconduct, and “if … I will be helping the Air Force and the Administration.”

Then Subcommittee Counsel Robert F. Kennedy* began questioning him about Mulligan & Co.’s attempts to renew a contract with RCA a few months ago.