The Report that got Allen Dulles Fired

[Matt Cloud]

16 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

Take it up with Maria Shriver.    

 

Sargent Shriver

Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American diplomat, politician, and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family. Shriver was the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and founded the Job Corps, Head Start, VISTA, Upward Bound,^[2] and other programs as the architect of the 1960s War on Poverty.^[3] He was the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 1972 presidential election.

Born in Westminster, Maryland, Shriver attended Yale University, then Yale Law School, graduating in 1941.^[2] An opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, he helped establish the America First Committee but volunteered for the United States Navy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During the war, he served in the South Pacific, participating in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. After being discharged from the navy, he worked as an assistant editor for Newsweek and met Eunice Kennedy, marrying her in 1953.

Letters

America First was not a pro-Nazi organisation

This article is more than 7 years old

 

 

 

Letters

Sun 5 Mar 2017 14.20 EST

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David Smith claims that the slogan “America first” “originated with Nazi sympathisers” (Trump plans huge increase in US military, 28 February). This was very far from the case, although the America First founders were certainly determined to keep the US out of the European war.

The organisation America First was the 1940 brainchild of Yale student Robert Douglas Stuart, the son of the vice-chairman of the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago. Among Stuart’s fellow students on the original committee were Gerald Ford (later president of the US) and Potter Stewart (who later became a distinguished jurist). Another member, although not one of the founders, was John F Kennedy.

 

This student organisation was quickly taken up by the isolationists in the Congress and Senate, and grew into a very considerable national organisation. It certainly attracted many people from the Republican right, but there were probably as many Democrats in its ranks. The movement was at its strongest in and around Chicago and in New York, where it was run by the leftwing journalist John T Flynn, famous for his attacks on the excesses of Wall Street and corruption in the gambling industry.

From the outset, America First made it plain that Nazis and antisemites were unwelcome. Henry Ford, for example, was kicked off the board for his hostility to Jews. The movement barred American fascist organisations such as the Silver Shirts, the Ku Klux Klan and other such groups. Most of the US’s Nazis were to be found in the ranks of the noisy German-American Bund, who proved an embarrassment to the millions of their German-American countrymen.

By far the biggest mistake America First made was to appoint the aviator Charles Lindbergh as one of its major spokesmen. Lindbergh’s contacts with Nazi Germany and his criticism of Jewish interests did the organisation no good at all. But America First did survive until December 1941, when it was wound up after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on the US.

In an interview in 2000, the America First founder Robert Stuart was asked if the America First activists had ever held a reunion. “No, we did not,” he replied. “We may be a little sensitive to the fact that the world still thinks we’re the bad guys.” It seems that the world still does.
George Rosie
Edinburgh

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/05/america-first-was-not-a-pro-nazi-organisation

[Matt Cloud]

28 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

Letters

America First was not a pro-Nazi organisation

This article is more than 7 years old

 

 

 

 

Letters

Sun 5 Mar 2017 14.20 EST

Share

 

 

David Smith claims that the slogan “America first” “originated with Nazi sympathisers” (Trump plans huge increase in US military, 28 February). This was very far from the case, although the America First founders were certainly determined to keep the US out of the European war.

The organisation America First was the 1940 brainchild of Yale student Robert Douglas Stuart, the son of the vice-chairman of the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago. Among Stuart’s fellow students on the original committee were Gerald Ford (later president of the US) and Potter Stewart (who later became a distinguished jurist). Another member, although not one of the founders, was John F Kennedy.

 

This student organisation was quickly taken up by the isolationists in the Congress and Senate, and grew into a very considerable national organisation. It certainly attracted many people from the Republican right, but there were probably as many Democrats in its ranks. The movement was at its strongest in and around Chicago and in New York, where it was run by the leftwing journalist John T Flynn, famous for his attacks on the excesses of Wall Street and corruption in the gambling industry.

From the outset, America First made it plain that Nazis and antisemites were unwelcome. Henry Ford, for example, was kicked off the board for his hostility to Jews. The movement barred American fascist organisations such as the Silver Shirts, the Ku Klux Klan and other such groups. Most of the US’s Nazis were to be found in the ranks of the noisy German-American Bund, who proved an embarrassment to the millions of their German-American countrymen.

By far the biggest mistake America First made was to appoint the aviator Charles Lindbergh as one of its major spokesmen. Lindbergh’s contacts with Nazi Germany and his criticism of Jewish interests did the organisation no good at all. But America First did survive until December 1941, when it was wound up after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on the US.

In an interview in 2000, the America First founder Robert Stuart was asked if the America First activists had ever held a reunion. “No, we did not,” he replied. “We may be a little sensitive to the fact that the world still thinks we’re the bad guys.” It seems that the world still does.
George Rosie
Edinburgh

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/05/america-first-was-not-a-pro-nazi-organisation

https://medium.com/illumination/the-origins-of-america-first-cd602afb8176

The Origins of ‘America First’

The history of ‘America First’ is deeply rooted in U.S. foreign policy

 

Jonathan Bell

·

 

·

Jan 5, 2023

 

Anti-war protesters at the Capitol (1917) — Wikipedia Commons / Library of Congress

The term ‘America First’ has dominated the lexicon of U.S. politics in recent years, quickly becoming one of the most frequently used phrases of the Trump era. The notion of ‘America First’ was a core element of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric, which he underlined in his inaugural speech on 20 January 2017, when he famously declared: “from this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.”

However, the idea of an ‘America First’ — or a more broadly isolationist — foreign policy has deep roots in U.S. history. In his hugely influential work Common Sense, published in 1776, Thomas Paine warned against the dangers of foreign alliances and, in a spirit of revolutionary enthusiasm, proclaimed: “It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions.”

Paine wasn’t the only American to offer such a warning. Thomas Jefferson laid out a similar view on foreign affairs: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none”, and 20 years later, George Washington showed comparable scepticism towards U.S. involvement with the Old World, advising in his Farwell Address: “the great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”

Whilst a common warning can be traced through these three statements about the nature of U.S. entanglement in European affairs, this does not mean that Paine, Jefferson or Washington advocated for an ‘America First’ foreign policy. However, these early prophecies about American power and international relations do set the scene for the strand of isolationist thinking that would rise to prominence in American politics during the early twentieth century. We must turn to what historian Eric Hobsbawm termed “The Age of Extremes” to really understand the roots of ‘America First’.

‘America First’ in the twentieth century

The phrase ‘America First’ first appeared on the political scene during the 1880s, but the term gained national prominence in 1915 when it became a catchphrase of President Woodrow Wilson during his campaign trail. Wilson was an internationalist and hoped to position the U.S. as a peacemaker on the international stage, but used the term to reach out to isolationists, who desperately wanted to prevent the nation from becoming involved in the First World War.

As the Great Powers of Europe devolved into the bloody stalemate of trench warfare, America fuelled Great Britain and France with weapons and munitions but opted to stay out of the conflict directly — and In April 1915 Wilson defended his position of neutrality, stating in a speech: “Our whole duty for the present, at any rate, is summed up in the motto: ‘America First’.” This notion of ‘America First’ would become a core part of his campaign strategy during the 1916 Presidential Election, where Wilson’s slogan “He Kept Us Out of War” was used to great effect to highlight the benefits of neutrality.

 

President Woodrow Wilson breaks off relations with Germany (1917) — Wikipedia Commons

Despite the political pressure, U.S. neutrality would not last indefinitely. On 2 April 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany after both the debacle of the Zimmermann Telegram and Germany’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic. Despite ending on the victorious side of the war, Wilson would still have to deal with isolationist interference in his foreign policy, with the Senate later rejecting the post-war Treaty of Versailles and U.S. involvement in the League of Nations in November 1919, which firmly prevented further American commitments in European affairs.

However, his ‘America First’ rhetoric had proved popular with an American public eager to avoid war — and with nearly one in seven Americans born in one of the warring nations, Wilson had shown that ‘America First’ could provide a clear political advantage at the ballot box.

Europe returns to war

As war once more returned to Europe in September 1939, the question of isolationism again became a critical political question — but this time, ‘America First’ would become a much more central part of the debate around U.S. foreign policy. Just as in 1914, public opinion in 1939 was hesitant about U.S. involvement in another European war, with most Americans favouring economic recovery from the Great Depression over military intervention.

After Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, Gallup conducted a poll asking about American attitudes towards support for Britain, France and Poland. The poll found that whilst most Americans supported sending food supplies to the Allies (74%-27%) and narrowly supported providing military equipment (58%-42%), direct U.S. involvement in the war was hugely unpopular (16%-84%).

 

Protests against U.S. entry into the Second World War (1941) — Wikipedia Commons

This isolationist sentiment would express itself through the America First Committee (AFC), established in September 1940 with the goal of opposing American entry into the Second World War. Originally founded at Yale University, the AFC would grow to reach 800,000 members across 450 chapters, with especially high levels of support across the Midwest.

Among its founding members were Sargent Shriver (future director of the Peace Corps) and Potter Stuart (future Supreme Court Justice), alongside Gerald Ford — which gave the movement a great deal of energy and ambition. Even a young John F. Kennedy would donate $100 to the organisation, showcasing its popular appeal.

The America First Committee not only opposed U.S. involvement in the war but also President Franklin Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Plan. The plan provided material support to the Allies and aimed to make the U.S. “the great arsenal of democracy”, and after Roosevelt submitted the Lend-Lease Bill to Congress in January 1941, the group promised to oppose the measure “with all the vigor it can exert.” Despite the AFC’s fierce opposition, after much debate, Lend-Lease would pass both houses overwhelmingly, with Roosevelt’s request for $7 billion to purchase the equipment also being accepted.

The AFC attracted people from across the political spectrum, ranging from union leaders, pacifists, Republicans, Democrats, socialists, anti-communists and — of course — sympathisers of Hitler’s Germany. The most prominent member of the AFC was undoubtedly the aviator Charles Lindbergh, whose popular public profile helped to attract nationwide attention to the movement.

The AFC argued passionately for an ‘America First’ foreign policy, with Lindbergh asserting: “The doctrine that we must enter the wars of Europe in order to defend America will be fatal to our nation if we follow it.” However, some of the rhetoric, including from Lindbergh himself, brought accusations of antisemitism and a pro-German bias towards the group.

During a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on 11 September 1941, Lindbergh fiercely declared: “Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences,” and bitterly complained that “their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.” The speech was heavily criticised by opponents of the AFC for its antisemitic tone and quickly raised suspicions of pro-Nazi sympathies, further damaging its reputation.

From ‘America First’ to world war

Despite its strong membership, the America First Committee was to collapse as quickly as it emerged. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941, an almost immediate wave of patriotic fervour swept across the nation — and only a few days later, on 11 December, the AFC disbanded itself. In a final press release, the committee laid out their future vision for America and its role in the war: “Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained. We are at war. Today, though there may be many important subsidiary considerations, the primary objective is not difficult to state. It can be completely defined in one word: Victory.”

 

Students opposing U.S. involvement in World War Two (April 1940) — Wikipedia Commons / National Archives and Records Administration

The AFC would divide opinion with its ‘America First’ rhetoric — both at the time and in the future. In April 1941 Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, accused the organisation of being one of “Hitler’s unconscious tools” and took aim at both Lindbergh and Robert E. Wood (national chairman of the AFC) as being a “fellow traveller” of the Nazis. However, the AFC’s attempts to keep America out of the war remained relatively popular with an American public that perceived foreign entanglement as a threat to their interests — and the AFC were undoubtedly able to tap into this anxiety and attract supporters from across party lines.

Ultimately, events overtook the ‘America First’ movement of the early 1940s and the organisation failed to prevent U.S. participation in the war, but its huge membership base and influential lobbying showed how powerful the concept of ‘America First’ could be. From Woodrow Wilson to the Second World War (and beyond), the notion of an ‘America First’ foreign policy has always had a certain allure with sections of both Democrats and Republicans — even if their leaders had very different goals in mind when championing it.

And it is certainly no surprise that present-day politicians, like President Trump, have continued to take up the ‘America First’ cause and utilise it for their own purposes. History shows us that ‘America First’ is deeply rooted in American history, and the cause it represents is unlikely to disappear any time soon.

[Leslie Sharp]

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Edited 7 minutes ago by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

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Edited 6 minutes ago by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

23 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

x

 

Edited 1 minute ago by Leslie Sharp
dupe

[Leslie Sharp]

On 6/26/2024 at 6:27 PM, Paul Brancato said:

I get it. Jim has you on ignore, and by my commenting here it unavoidably comes to his attention. I hope he doesn’t mind my response here.
Does the movie shed light on Dulles being fired? That is the thrust of this thread. In my view of history the Dulles brothers are villains of the first order. What’s your view on them generally? 
I’ve read something about the Katanga ‘mutiny’. The movie is two hours long. Would you mind letting us know where the film maker discusses this? And if you know, could you tell us about the film 

 

 

Edited just now by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

@Paul Brancatocont. 

' . . . Having established that the social, political, business, and ideological climate in Ireland could well have been attractive to the Skorzenys, steps are necessary before drawing an educated conclusion as to what motivated the couple to invest in a significant property in the Curragh, ship furniture and a Mercedes Benz, and leave the sunny climes of Spain where they lived and did business in virtual solidarity with those surrounding them, to spend as much time as their visas allowed in cold, damp, conflicted Ireland.
    It is first important to understand the stall in the Skorzenys’ purchase of property 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 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. 
    It is also clear that Smith was determined to expose the justification of the Skorzenys’ right of purchase property in Ireland. He observes, “Denying Skorzeny residency, absent any evidence against him, would go against the grain of Ireland’s neutrality in international affairs,” and he continues by calling attention to Éamon de Valera’s perhaps ill-conceived note of commiseration on the death of Adolf Hitler as well as a failure to hand over suspected Nazi war criminals to the Allies. This begs the question whether or not the Irish public writ large was fully aware of the extent to which Nazi criminals lived in their midst, and might that naivete been appealing in light of the apparent heat being applied to Skorzeny as a high-profile resident of Madrid, Spain.
    By 1959, matters had evolved and Otto made his way toward Ireland. Despite having been asked specifically by Michael Andrew Lysaght Rynne to take an alternate route, Skorzeny was refused permission to enter Britain on landing in London. Rynne was then Irish ambassador in Madrid, appointed by John A. Costello who once claimed that “the fascist Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State.” During his tenure, Rynne’s role as ambassador had required keeping fellow ambassadors informed of the Irish government’s line on such matters as the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, a topic no doubt Otto Skorzeny was most familiar. 
    Ambassador Rynne’s admonitions may well have been informed by sympathies shared between outgoing Prime Minister Costello, Éamon de Valera who retained Rynne when he regained the post of Prime Minister, and any Nazi officer living in Ireland. However, and to underscore the complexities of this period in Irish history, Rynne was reporting to Frank Aiken, then Minster of External Affairs, who in spite of purportedly supporting the right of countries such as Algeria to self-determination and spoke against South Africa’s system of apartheid, had a history of Nazi sympathies himself, but was among the very few who openly opposed Skorzeny’s entry and right of property ownership. Perhaps his opposition was an indication of infighting among the contemporary fascists. Regardless, Aiken did not prevail because Mae Mooney, a civil servant within his own department, managed to secure the first visas for the Skorzenys. 
    As feared by Ambassador Rynne, Otto was detained in London and cross-examined but he was soon escorted to his connecting flight. –– Coup in Dallas, Albarelli, Sharp, Kent

*Tschombe sought refuge in Franco's Madrid where he might have been in the company of Skorzey, Degrelle, Rudel (off and on), Peron, Salan, Bernhardt on any given occasion.

Edited 21 hours ago by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

@Paul Brancato @Matthew Koch and finally, 

A February 26, 1962 exposé “Neo-Nazis Linked to Algeria French” by correspondent Waverley Root, then living in Paris, published in The Washington Post, reveals that European extremists—known as Ultras—in Algeria were “now tied in with the worldwide clandestine neo-Nazi organization which has existed ever since the end of the war, built around a core of Hitlerites who escaped post war justice. The head of this international Nazi underground has always been believed to be Madrid’s man of mystery, Otto Skorzeny, the SS trooper who rescued Mussolini from his captors.” More chilling, Root continues, “Skorzeny is reported to maintain contacts with former Nazis scattered throughout the world, especially in Latin America and the Middle East. They have not given up hope that Nazism may yet triumph throughout the world, and they seem prepared to lend their aid in any desperate venture of like political ideology which might achieve a Rightest authoritarian government anywhere.” (emphasis added.) 

    Root’s informed sources said that “two of four defendants in the trial escaped and made their way to Spain.” The trial he refers to was the result of the arrest of those involved in the 1957 bazooka attack on General Raoul Salan. The far-right extremists were convinced that the general wasn’t fully on their side to halt the movement toward independence from France in Algeria. All charged with the attack had been found guilty. Among them was Doctor René Kovacs, who was sentenced to death in absentia following his escape. A physician by training, Kovacs was born in Algeria of [notably for our purposes] Hungarian parents. Along with his aide, Joseph Ortiz, a restaurateur and fellow far-right extremist, the two fled to Spain. 

    Root contends that Algerian Europeans devoted to far-right politics had long been alleged to have international connections. “Thus gave birth to any imperfectly known organization called the Red Hand,” writes Root, referring to a mysterious terror group organized to counter the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria. According to freelance journalist Joachim Joesten, among the earliest sleuths to arrive in Dallas in pursuit of the facts of the assassination of Kennedy, the creator of the Red Hand was none other than the head of France’s DST—a man readers are now familiar with—Roger Wybot. Author Ralph Ganis, who pursued Joesten’s findings in depth, tells us that the Red Hand operated in the manner of paramilitary groups that sprang up after WWI of which Otto Skorzeny participated. Writes Ganis, “It was also very similar to the old Cagoule, the ‘hooded ones.’ 

Waverley Root also concluded that Kovacs and Ortiz, both of whom fled to Spain, were involved in the Skorzeny ring. Rounding out the triad with Kovacs and Ortiz, Root tells us that Belgian citizen Pierre Joly, “turns up regularly in French extreme-right activities of a conspiratorial nature. Joly [whose duties appear to have included propagation of extremist ideology on the printed page] was among those who appeared in Madrid when the refugees from the revolt trial arrived there.” Root then summarizes the significance of these figures ending up in Spain: The existence in Madrid, on territory where extreme Rightists of all countries can reasonably expect to find political refuge of the headquarters of an international neo-Nazi organization, helps to encourage a funneling of all revolutionary Rightists groups into the same conspiracy. But political kinship tends in any case to throw the like-minded of all countries together, so that even without formal organization there has been built up an intricate maze of cross-relationships among Right extremists of all countries. 

From there, the correspondent highlights the current crisis in Katanga, a break-away province from the Republic of Congo, which had contributed to the January 17, 1961 assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The success of the operation has been attributed to, among others, Otto Skorzeny.
       Root draws attention to the likely role played by Algerian Ultras operating outside Toulouse—long a hotbed of French Algerian activity—in delivering three French jet planes from a factory outside Toulouse to Katanga. . . .
       As we learned, the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters included Jack Crichton, the Dallas oilman who had been in business with Otto Skorzeny since 1952 and served as his point man on the 22nd of November. –– Coup in Dallas, Albarelli, Sharp, Kent

Edited 20 hours ago by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

Algeria . . . "The Cuba of Africa" –– Time magazine

https://time.com/archive/6811406/algeria-the-cuba-of-africa/

From Coup, ' ...Readers learn more about figures familiar to Lafitte since the war, including Jean Souetre who was one of Otto Skorzeny’s prized marksman and postwar trainer in the arts of sabotage, explosives, and assassinations. By the early 1960s, the former French Air Force Captain Souetre had joined the OAS in bitter opposition to President de Gaulle’s position on Algeria, a North African country defined by Time magazine in its October 18, 1963 issue as, “The Cuba of Africa.” And we learn that October 18 happened also to be a date critical to the assassination plot. An example of the significance of timing, a prominent feature in the analysis of the exclusive material secured by Albarelli, it was only ten days later that former CIA director Allen Dulles was in Dallas, Texas alerting his audience to the geopolitical threat posed by the fall of Algeria to the Algerians.

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.
1963
In 1963, Dulles maintained some of the same contacts, but there were noticeable differences. Part of this was his interest in preparing the book that would be published under his name in the fall of the year, to be titled The Craft of Intelligence. Dulles spent time going over galleys for the book and in communication with his publisher, a long-time friend, Cass Canfield, of Harper and Row. Dulles also spent a great deal of time with the men who effectively “ghosted” the book: Howard Roman, whose wife Jane Roman was part of Jim Angleton’s shop at CIA Counterintelligence, Fortune magazine reporter Charles Murphy, and E. Howard Hunt, then working for Tracy Barnes at DOD. Dulles tapped renowned CIA analyst Sherman Kent for research, and used Frank Wisner as a sounding board. There was less communication with Angleton on the record than there had been in 1962, and far less communication with Tracy Barnes. In light of the notes made by Pierre Lafitte, the timing of some of the contacts Dulles had with these men will be examined shortly. 

. . . On October 17th—one day before James Angleton told Pierre Lafitte that there had been a high-level gathering in DC, the Dallas Morning News published a brief announcement, “Former CIA Boss Sets Dallas Talk.” The story read: “Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency will address a meeting of the Dallas Council on World Affairs at noon on Monday, October 28, in the Baker Hotel . . .” Neil Mallon, a member of the board of Republic National Bank had been a friend and confidant of Allen Dulles throughout Dulles’s tenure as director of Central Intelligence. It was through Dulles’s prompting that Mallon founded the Dallas chapter of the Council on World Affairs, an invaluable instrument for the agency since 1951 and the perfect venue on October 28, 1963, for Dulles to promote his book and speak on national security issues including reference to specific activity in hot spots around the world, suggesting he was being briefed in spite of his having left the agency in 1961. The Dallas chapter of the Independent Petroleum Association of America also held their monthly meeting on October 28th.
    On October 27th, the Dallas Morning News followed up and announced that oil expert Jack Crichton, having recently returned from an oil tour of Romania, would present his report to the Petroleum Engineers on the following Friday, November 1st. 
    On October 29th, Kent Biffle of the Dallas Morning News published a summation of Allen Dulles’s speech the night before under the headline, “Allen Dulles Looks Behind Red Moves”: “Khrushchev announced he ‘isn’t going to the moon next week’ to foil the Kennedy plan for a joint moon effort.” Dulles said, ‘Russians are arming Algerian troops in hopes of finally gaining a solid foothold in Africa . . . The Soviets have been trying for ten to fifteen years to find the foothold they want in Africa. They tried in Egypt, the Congo, Guinea and Ghana.’” Biffle continued, “Dulles said that in arming the Algerians against the Moroccans, the Reds are again trying to find a satisfactory foothold in Africa.” We should underscore here that as DCI Allen Dulles had been a frequent visitor to the hotels and homes of numerous close friends in Dallas, Texas, including of course Mallon. Indeed, some people close to the CIA director would quietly remark that Dallas had become an important base of operations for the CIA, second only to headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

    Dulles’s October 28th talk before Mallon’s Dallas Council on World Affairs further tilled the soil when he included reference to the Algerians’ fight for independence—a subject close to the heart of this book. The speech was a companion piece to other recent impassioned anti-communist pleadings at various venues around the city including those of the woeful, anti-Red princess from Romania. Jack Crichton’s report to Dallas petroleum executives—scheduled within days of Dulles’s speech at the DCWA—recapped his Romanian oil tour which most assuredly described the plight of that country under The Reds, planting propaganda and stoking the anti-communist fires in Dallas. Crichton’s talk was just four days prior to Lafitte making a note, Meet with Crichton at Tech building. 

[Paul Brancato]

5 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Paul, I highly recommend The Siege of Jadotville .  . . 

An Irish-South African production, the film is based on Declan Power's book, The Siege at Jadotville: The Irish Army's Forgotten Battle(2005), about an Irish Army unit's role in the titular Siege of Jadotville during the United Nations Operation in the Congo in September 1961,^[3] part of the Congo Crisisthat stretched from 1960 to 1965.

First screened at the 2016 Galway Film Festival,^[4] the film received a limited cinema distribution in Ireland in September 2016.^[5] It had simultaneous worldwide distribution on Netflix and in a number of US iPic Theaters during October 2016.^[6][7] It won three Irish Film & Television Awards, including Best Director.

 

You might not be aware that UN Representative Conor Cruise O'Brien from Ireland who was tapped by Hammerskjöld for this operation, played a significant role in securing resident visas for Otto and Ilse Skorzeny to purchase Martinstown House in the Curragh, County Kildare.  Although the allegation that Skorzeny played a role in Lumumba's murder is not mentioned in the film, the backstory and the timing of Dag's "crash" toward the end of the film are infinitely intriguing. Neither is there mention of the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters in the film whose signatories included not only Allen Dulles but Jack Crichton of Texas, a prime suspect named in the Lafitte records as having been responsible for facilitating action on the ground in Dealey in the lead up to the assassination of John Kennedy. (Quinlan, the hero of the story, is a homeboy of Co. Kerry, my husband's home county.)

 

I will watch later today - thanks Leslie

[Leslie Sharp]

5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I will watch later today - thanks Leslie

I thought that the earlier exchanges on this thread related to Otto and QJ/WIN and the Congo justified my contributing to this discussion; yet what I've posted elicits only a "I'll watch later"?  If there is skepticism about our research presented in Coup, based solely on references made to the Lafitte datebook, one can just redact those passages or read past them . . . because the facts withstand scrutiny without the messy complication of Pierre Lafitte. @Matthew Koch

Edited 10 hours ago by Leslie Sharp

[James DiEugenio]

Jadotville was part of the UN mission. Hammarskjold had appointed Conor Cruise O'Brien to run that mission. O'Brien got decidedly mixed reviews for his performance.

But when Dag was killed, and the UN was faltering, it was Kennedy who went to the UN, not once, but twice to convince them to stay in the battle as a way of honoring Dag.  We excerpted Kennedy's speech in which he mentions this in JFK Revisited.  And it was Kennedy who approved Operation Grand Slam which ended the Katanga secession.

Everyone knows that the Belgians, and to a lesser extent the British and French backed Union Miniere and Katanga and Tshombe.  Is that supposed to be news?  And yes mercenaries were hired to back Tshombe, reportedly one was Skorzeny in the employ of CIA.  

Everything went south after Kennedy's murder. Kennedy wanted to bring in British special forces expert Michel Greene to control the Simba Rebellion tactically.  This did not occur and once Adoula retired, and Mobutu became a favorite at Fort Benington, LBJ moved the USA from center to the right.  Without Kennedy, the UN withdrew in the summer of 1964.  Now, the US and Belgium "intervened with arms, airplanes and military advisors. Mobutu brought Tshombe home from exile to replace Adoula as premier."

To put down the Simba Rebellion, the USA and Belgium formed a mercenary force which included men from South Africa and reportedly Cuban exiles.  To stop the rebellion in Stanleyville the US Air Force used C-130's to drop Belgian paratroopers on the city.  As many have said this was a military success and a political disaster. Eighteen African states accused the USA and Belgium of violation of the UN Charter.

As UN ambassador Stevenson said: a year before we were hailed as champions of a free Africa, now we were as reviled as the Belgians. (Richard Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa, pp 229-231)

[Leslie Sharp]

23 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

https://medium.com/illumination/the-origins-of-america-first-cd602afb8176

The Origins of ‘America First’

The history of ‘America First’ is deeply rooted in U.S. foreign policy

 

Jonathan Bell

·

 

·

Jan 5, 2023

 

 

 

Anti-war protesters at the Capitol (1917) — Wikipedia Commons / Library of Congress

The term ‘America First’ has dominated the lexicon of U.S. politics in recent years, quickly becoming one of the most frequently used phrases of the Trump era. The notion of ‘America First’ was a core element of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric, which he underlined in his inaugural speech on 20 January 2017, when he famously declared: “from this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.”

However, the idea of an ‘America First’ — or a more broadly isolationist — foreign policy has deep roots in U.S. history. In his hugely influential work Common Sense, published in 1776, Thomas Paine warned against the dangers of foreign alliances and, in a spirit of revolutionary enthusiasm, proclaimed: “It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions.”

Paine wasn’t the only American to offer such a warning. Thomas Jefferson laid out a similar view on foreign affairs: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none”, and 20 years later, George Washington showed comparable scepticism towards U.S. involvement with the Old World, advising in his Farwell Address: “the great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”

Whilst a common warning can be traced through these three statements about the nature of U.S. entanglement in European affairs, this does not mean that Paine, Jefferson or Washington advocated for an ‘America First’ foreign policy. However, these early prophecies about American power and international relations do set the scene for the strand of isolationist thinking that would rise to prominence in American politics during the early twentieth century. We must turn to what historian Eric Hobsbawm termed “The Age of Extremes” to really understand the roots of ‘America First’.

‘America First’ in the twentieth century

The phrase ‘America First’ first appeared on the political scene during the 1880s, but the term gained national prominence in 1915 when it became a catchphrase of President Woodrow Wilson during his campaign trail. Wilson was an internationalist and hoped to position the U.S. as a peacemaker on the international stage, but used the term to reach out to isolationists, who desperately wanted to prevent the nation from becoming involved in the First World War.

As the Great Powers of Europe devolved into the bloody stalemate of trench warfare, America fuelled Great Britain and France with weapons and munitions but opted to stay out of the conflict directly — and In April 1915 Wilson defended his position of neutrality, stating in a speech: “Our whole duty for the present, at any rate, is summed up in the motto: ‘America First’.” This notion of ‘America First’ would become a core part of his campaign strategy during the 1916 Presidential Election, where Wilson’s slogan “He Kept Us Out of War” was used to great effect to highlight the benefits of neutrality.

 

President Woodrow Wilson breaks off relations with Germany (1917) — Wikipedia Commons

Despite the political pressure, U.S. neutrality would not last indefinitely. On 2 April 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany after both the debacle of the Zimmermann Telegram and Germany’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic. Despite ending on the victorious side of the war, Wilson would still have to deal with isolationist interference in his foreign policy, with the Senate later rejecting the post-war Treaty of Versailles and U.S. involvement in the League of Nations in November 1919, which firmly prevented further American commitments in European affairs.

However, his ‘America First’ rhetoric had proved popular with an American public eager to avoid war — and with nearly one in seven Americans born in one of the warring nations, Wilson had shown that ‘America First’ could provide a clear political advantage at the ballot box.

Europe returns to war

As war once more returned to Europe in September 1939, the question of isolationism again became a critical political question — but this time, ‘America First’ would become a much more central part of the debate around U.S. foreign policy. Just as in 1914, public opinion in 1939 was hesitant about U.S. involvement in another European war, with most Americans favouring economic recovery from the Great Depression over military intervention.

After Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, Gallup conducted a poll asking about American attitudes towards support for Britain, France and Poland. The poll found that whilst most Americans supported sending food supplies to the Allies (74%-27%) and narrowly supported providing military equipment (58%-42%), direct U.S. involvement in the war was hugely unpopular (16%-84%).

 

Protests against U.S. entry into the Second World War (1941) — Wikipedia Commons

This isolationist sentiment would express itself through the America First Committee (AFC), established in September 1940 with the goal of opposing American entry into the Second World War. Originally founded at Yale University, the AFC would grow to reach 800,000 members across 450 chapters, with especially high levels of support across the Midwest.

Among its founding members were Sargent Shriver (future director of the Peace Corps) and Potter Stuart (future Supreme Court Justice), alongside Gerald Ford — which gave the movement a great deal of energy and ambition. Even a young John F. Kennedy would donate $100 to the organisation, showcasing its popular appeal.

The America First Committee not only opposed U.S. involvement in the war but also President Franklin Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Plan. The plan provided material support to the Allies and aimed to make the U.S. “the great arsenal of democracy”, and after Roosevelt submitted the Lend-Lease Bill to Congress in January 1941, the group promised to oppose the measure “with all the vigor it can exert.” Despite the AFC’s fierce opposition, after much debate, Lend-Lease would pass both houses overwhelmingly, with Roosevelt’s request for $7 billion to purchase the equipment also being accepted.

The AFC attracted people from across the political spectrum, ranging from union leaders, pacifists, Republicans, Democrats, socialists, anti-communists and — of course — sympathisers of Hitler’s Germany. The most prominent member of the AFC was undoubtedly the aviator Charles Lindbergh, whose popular public profile helped to attract nationwide attention to the movement.

The AFC argued passionately for an ‘America First’ foreign policy, with Lindbergh asserting: “The doctrine that we must enter the wars of Europe in order to defend America will be fatal to our nation if we follow it.” However, some of the rhetoric, including from Lindbergh himself, brought accusations of antisemitism and a pro-German bias towards the group.

During a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on 11 September 1941, Lindbergh fiercely declared: “Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences,” and bitterly complained that “their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.” The speech was heavily criticised by opponents of the AFC for its antisemitic tone and quickly raised suspicions of pro-Nazi sympathies, further damaging its reputation.

From ‘America First’ to world war

Despite its strong membership, the America First Committee was to collapse as quickly as it emerged. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941, an almost immediate wave of patriotic fervour swept across the nation — and only a few days later, on 11 December, the AFC disbanded itself. In a final press release, the committee laid out their future vision for America and its role in the war: “Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained. We are at war. Today, though there may be many important subsidiary considerations, the primary objective is not difficult to state. It can be completely defined in one word: Victory.”

 

Students opposing U.S. involvement in World War Two (April 1940) — Wikipedia Commons / National Archives and Records Administration

The AFC would divide opinion with its ‘America First’ rhetoric — both at the time and in the future. In April 1941 Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, accused the organisation of being one of “Hitler’s unconscious tools” and took aim at both Lindbergh and Robert E. Wood (national chairman of the AFC) as being a “fellow traveller” of the Nazis. However, the AFC’s attempts to keep America out of the war remained relatively popular with an American public that perceived foreign entanglement as a threat to their interests — and the AFC were undoubtedly able to tap into this anxiety and attract supporters from across party lines.

Ultimately, events overtook the ‘America First’ movement of the early 1940s and the organisation failed to prevent U.S. participation in the war, but its huge membership base and influential lobbying showed how powerful the concept of ‘America First’ could be. From Woodrow Wilson to the Second World War (and beyond), the notion of an ‘America First’ foreign policy has always had a certain allure with sections of both Democrats and Republicans — even if their leaders had very different goals in mind when championing it.

And it is certainly no surprise that present-day politicians, like President Trump, have continued to take up the ‘America First’ cause and utilise it for their own purposes. History shows us that ‘America First’ is deeply rooted in American history, and the cause it represents is unlikely to disappear any time soon.

Airbrushing the significance of Gen. Robert E. Wood's infiltration of AFC doesn't make him go away.

Wood was also a co-founder of the American Security Council –– a symbiosis between corporate and military/government. According to its organizing statement in 1954, ‘the American Security Council is a not-for-profit corporation which was organized by industry as a national central research and information center on subversive activities.  It gathers, correlates and indexes facsimile information about communist and other statist movements.’  The council was unique in that it was operated solely by representatives from American industries.  Many were retired military who had assumed lucrative positions in the private sector.  ASC was the inspiration of General Robert E. Wood who upon retirement was elected chairman of Sears Roebuck Co. whose international operations were persistently valuable to the intelligence apparatus, corporate and government.  The board of Wood’s private security council included a number of military brass, former government officials, and rabid anti-communist propagandists. If one were searching for the archetype of the Military-Industrial Complex, the ASC would be a reasonable candidate.  On the payroll of ASC was Senator Dodd of Connecticut when he generated a Senate subcommittee report on Bohdan Stashynsky’s supposed murder training school.

From there, we move on to Dallas and the implications relative to the assassination of President John Kennedy in Dealey:

 

While Robert Storey was Chairman of Lakewood, his law offices were in the Republication National Bank building.  That board included Corrigan's Bahamas business partner Algur Meadows, L.W. MacNaughton (long time partner of Everett DeGoyler and employer of Jack Crichton in the '50's), Karl Hoblitzelle (known for his willingness to front for CIA projects), and a Vice President of Sears Roebuck, R. L. 'Dick' Tayloe, Tayloe on the board of Chance Vought when James Ling orchestrated a purchase of the military contractor to create Ling Temco Vought, LTV.  D. H. Byrd was on that board which was chaired by Robert L. Stewart of First National Bank, the primary lender to Ling.    Other Dallas luminaries on the board of Storey's Republic were its Chairman and CEO JW Aston who would become president of American Airlines when their entire operation was moved to DFW, and Stanley Marcus, owner of the internationally renowned Neiman Marcus department store host to Madam Nu on the eve of the assassination of the Diem brothers in Vietnam.

 

[Leslie Sharp]

4 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Jadotville was part of the UN mission. Hammarskjold had appointed Conor Cruise O'Brien to run that mission. O'Brien got decidedly mixed reviews for his performance.

But when Dag was killed, and the UN was faltering, it was Kennedy who went to the UN, not once, but twice to convince them to stay in the battle as a way of honoring Dag.  We excerpted Kennedy's speech in which he mentions this in JFK Revisited.  And it was Kennedy who approved Operation Grand Slam which ended the Katanga secession.

Everyone knows that the Belgians, and to a lesser extent the British and French backed Union Miniere and Katanga and Tshombe.  Is that supposed to be news?  And yes mercenaries were hired to back Tshombe, reportedly one was Skorzeny in the employ of CIA.  

Everything went south after Kennedy's murder. Kennedy wanted to bring in British special forces expert Michel Greene to control the Simba Rebellion tactically.  This did not occur and once Adoula retired, and Mobutu became a favorite at Fort Benington, LBJ moved the USA from center to the right.  Without Kennedy, the UN withdrew in the summer of 1964.  Now, the US and Belgium "intervened with arms, airplanes and military advisors. Mobutu brought Tshombe home from exile to replace Adoula as premier."

To put down the Simba Rebellion, the USA and Belgium formed a mercenary force which included men from South Africa and reportedly Cuban exiles.  To stop the rebellion in Stanleyville the US Air Force used C-130's to drop Belgian paratroopers on the city.  As many have said this was a military success and a political disaster. Eighteen African states accused the USA and Belgium of violation of the UN Charter.

As UN ambassador Stevenson said: a year before we were hailed as champions of a free Africa, now we were as reviled as the Belgians. (Richard Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa, pp 229-231)

And from, . . .  and yes mercenaries were hired to back Tschombe, reportedly one was Skorzeny in the employ of the CIA . . .  did anyone working on JFK Revisited consider the potential import, particularly as there was a relatively significant file available on Otto by then, not to mention a plethora of books and articles?  Turning the stone seems logical to me, but then I'm writing from hindsight.

Edited 9 hours ago by Leslie Sharp

[James DiEugenio]

To say as some are implying  that somehow Kennedy did not figure prominently in the defeat of the Katanga secession is simply not accurate.

And to also imply that American policy did not drastically change after his death, this is also not accurate.

As Jonathan K notes in Endless Enemies,  the White House and the CIA now tried to blame the Simba Rebellion--some of the last of Lumumba's followers--on influence from China!

Just recall, for the disaster that took place ultimately in Congo, three men had to perish:

Lumumba

Dag Hammarskjold

Kennedy.

IMO, without those murders, and that is what they were, Belgium would not have retaken control and neither would have Union Miniere.  This is why Lumumba became a hero in Africa, and why so many streets, buildings, parks and even children were named after Kennedy.