The Report that got Allen Dulles Fired

[John Cotter]

12 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.)

 

UN Representative Conor Cruise O’Brien was portrayed very negatively in the Siege of Jadotville film. O’Brien later became an Irish government minister, the editor-in-chief of the Observer newspaper in London and a Unionist politician in Northern Ireland. He became so rabidly opposed to Irish nationalism and the IRA, that I suspect he had British intelligence connections.

[Leslie Sharp]

8 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

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.

All while existential racel issues were playing out in America, when in fact the real power grab under way was of course natural resources. And Kennedy isn't innocent in that particular respect.

W.A.M. Burden in Belgium under Eisenhower warrants far more attention; his Cerro offices at 600 Fifth might have attracted Dulles on retirement, as might have a number of other MIC headquarters. 

[Leslie Sharp]

1 minute ago, John Cotter said:

UN Representative Conor Cruise O’Brien was portrayed very negatively in the Siege of Jadotville film. O’Brien later became an Irish government minister, the editor-in-chief of the Observer newspaper in London and a Unionist politician in Northern Ireland. He became so rabidly opposed to Irish nationalism and the IRA, that I suspect he had British intelligence connections.

His association with the former SS Commander most admired by the Fuhrer is surely of interest at this point? Neutral Ireland harboring a known Nazi and wife?

More air brushing in the Irish media.  It's not a comfortable history; however it remains relevant today as witnessed in pro-Hamas activism on the island.  

[Leslie Sharp]

Just now, Leslie Sharp said:

His association with the former SS Commander most admired by the Fuhrer is surely of interest at this point? Neutral Ireland harboring a known Nazi and wife?

More air brushing in the Irish media.  It's not a comfortable history; however it remains relevant today as witnessed in pro-Hamas activism on the island.  And to confuse things further, one of those runways at Shannon –– facilitating arms shipments and personnel – was engineered by Skorzeny under contract with the McInerneys. I'm relatively familiar because the latter were close friends of my extended family.

 

[John Cotter]

21 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

Arms for whom? The IRA?

Did it have anything to do with the 1970 “Arms Crisis” which threatened to bring down the Irish government and which involved, among others, the Belgian businessman and former SS member Albert Luykx?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Luykx

[James DiEugenio]

Grand Slam was made up of Swedish, Indian, Ghanian and Ethiopian troops under Major General Chand of India.

It was approved by U Thant and Kennedy.

If i recall, it only had something like 11 casualties  on the UN side.

To me it was an example of what the UN could do for a just cause when necessary.

But without Kennedy, the UN pulled out.

In less than a year after Kennedy's murder, everything went downhill.  Until Indonesia, Katanga was known as one of  the richest mineral deposits there was.  And since the Belgians had sacked the treasury, Lumumba knew he had to keep hold of it for the country to have an economic future.

 

Edited 3 hours ago by James DiEugenio

[Leslie Sharp]

44 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Arms for whom? The IRA?

Did it have anything to do with the 1970 “Arms Crisis” which threatened to bring down the Irish government and which involved, among others, the Belgian businessman and former SS member Albert Luykx?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Luykx

Yes, we speak to the Arms Crisis (and I thought I included ref. to Lyckx; it's possible it was left on the cutting room floor in final edit.  Looking back, the Irish chapter of Coup should have been the bones of a separate book but we were anxious to lay the foundation of the geo-political, geographical importance of Ireland.)

' . . . Among those representing the Irish government at the reception for the Skorzenys was Mayo “Mafia” and backbench Teachta Dála (TD) Paddy "The Bishop" Burke, known as such for his diligent attendance at constituents' funerals. Decades later, his son Ray would be identified in the press as among the most corrupt politicians the country had ever known. Bishop Burke was joined at the Skorzeny reception by up-and-coming member of Dáil Éireann, TD Charles J. Haughey, anxious to welcome the glamorous couple just in from Madrid. In a little over a dozen years from that first public outing with Otto and Ilse, Charlie Haughey would play a central role in the “Arms crisis of 1970.” The scandal, and the preceding border campaign of 1956–1962, dubbed “Operation Harvest”—a guerilla warfare action carried out by the IRA aimed at overthrowing British rule in The North—are backdrop to the prime years spent in Ireland by guerilla warfare expert and alleged arms dealer, Otto Skorzeny and wife Ilse. . . .

. . . In 1956, just months before Skorzeny began his quest for Irish visas, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched “Operation Harvest,” an overtly ambitious guerrilla effort that was meant to secure the political unity of Ireland by force of arms. It was waged against the backdrop of a “thaw” in international relations and drew inspiration from successful anti-colonial guerrilla struggles in Algeria and Cyprus. We know with certainty how deeply involved were Otto Skorzeny and those identified by Pierre Lafitte in the Algerian uprisings, so any assessment of the Irish campaign that began in December 1956 should be considered in context and timing. The start of Operation Harvest also coincided with the 1956 insurgency in Hungary against Russian domination. Irish Republicans, legitimately, were quick to point out the hypocrisy of those who praised the armed revolt of the Hungarians but condemned the Irish resistance fighters. During the ’50s the British had been ruthlessly suppressing anti-colonial revolts in Kenya, Malaya, and Cyprus, and while their colonial empire was crumbling, their conceit that they were still a supreme military power remained. Suez burst that bubble, and we know that Skorzeny was heavily involved there as well. It was in the wake of that British humiliation in Egypt that Operation Harvest was launched in Ireland. By the end of 1957 there were several hundred IRA members interred in Dublin, Belfast, and other British prisons, and there were 125 internees in the Curragh Camp in County Kildare, only miles from where Otto and Ilse would set up camp in 1959… In a world of struggles for national self-determination it was clear that the Irish struggle remained unfinished business. The lull which followed the end of the campaign in 1962 proved illusory and six years later the nationalists and republicans of the Six Counties rose up, never to retreat again. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

31 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Grand Slam was made up of Swedish, Indian, Ghanian and Ethiopian troops under Major General Chand of India.

It was approved by U Thant and Kennedy.

If i recall, it only had something like 11 casualties  on the UN side.

To me it was an example of what the UN could do for a just cause when necessary.

But without Kennedy, the UN pulled out.

In less than a year after Kennedy's murder, everything went downhill.  Until Indonesia, Katanga was known as one of  the richest mineral deposits there was.  And since the Dutch has sacked the treasury, Lumumba knew he had to keep hold of it for the country to have an economic future.

 

From Dick Russell's "The Lafitte Datebook: A Limited Analysis" presented in the Front Matter of Coup in Dallas, Hank Albarelli's last investigation:

A. L. EHRMAN: This July 30 entry clearly refers to Anita L. Ehrman, a foreign correspondent whose body was found that day in her Washington apartment. The only other reference to this appears in my 1992 book, citing a notebook seized from Richard Case Nagell by the FBI on September 20, 1963 but not released until 1975. That entry says: “ANITA L. EHRMAN. 7-30-63 WASHINGTON, D.C.” Nagell was involved with Oswald in an assassination plot. 

Subsequent investigation into Ms. Ehrman reveals:
Anita Louise Ehrman — who was planning to contribute to coverage of the civil rights progress in America and who had just recently interviewed Evers’ friend James Meredith — had been based in Paris in the late ‘50s during which time she covered the Algerian war of independence from both on the ground, in Tunisia, and the French capitol.  On return to the states in 1960, she was assigned by Hearst newspaper NY Journal American  to cover the United Nations beat in NYC including the newly elected Sec. Gen. U Thant.  Paul Guihard, a leading reporter for France’s major newspaper was posted in Paris in the late ‘50s. He too was transferred to NYC in June, 1960.  Guilhard was murdered September 30, 1962 during the riots at Ole Miss.

Unfortunately, we've yet to nail down a version of the article referenced here in the papers of Investigative Journalist Bob Considine, but evidenced here is Ehrman's focus on U Thant following Hammarskjold's death.  Those familiar with the Lafitte story know that it was Considine who first recognized the enigmatic Lafitte might hold a myriad of secrets; from Considine's lead, Albarelli ended up on the Lafitte doorstep and the rest is history. I'm told that Considine considers Pierre as the one who got away. (paraphrasing.)

 

Box 45

Ehrman, Anita, [untitled piece on U Thant] https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/c/considine_b.htm

Edited 6 hours ago by Leslie Sharp

[John Cotter]

52 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Yes, we speak to the Arms Crisis (and I thought I included ref. to Lyckx; it's possible it was left on the cutting room floor in final edit.  Looking back, the Irish chapter of Coup should have been the bones of a separate book but we were anxious to lay the foundation of the geo-political, geographical importance of Ireland.)

' . . . Among those representing the Irish government at the reception for the Skorzenys was Mayo “Mafia” and backbench Teachta Dála (TD) Paddy "The Bishop" Burke, known as such for his diligent attendance at constituents' funerals. Decades later, his son Ray would be identified in the press as among the most corrupt politicians the country had ever known. Bishop Burke was joined at the Skorzeny reception by up-and-coming member of Dáil Éireann, TD Charles J. Haughey, anxious to welcome the glamorous couple just in from Madrid. In a little over a dozen years from that first public outing with Otto and Ilse, Charlie Haughey would play a central role in the “Arms crisis of 1970.” The scandal, and the preceding border campaign of 1956–1962, dubbed “Operation Harvest”—a guerilla warfare action carried out by the IRA aimed at overthrowing British rule in The North—are backdrop to the prime years spent in Ireland by guerilla warfare expert and alleged arms dealer, Otto Skorzeny and wife Ilse. . . .

. . . In 1956, just months before Skorzeny began his quest for Irish visas, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched “Operation Harvest,” an overtly ambitious guerrilla effort that was meant to secure the political unity of Ireland by force of arms. It was waged against the backdrop of a “thaw” in international relations and drew inspiration from successful anti-colonial guerrilla struggles in Algeria and Cyprus. We know with certainty how deeply involved were Otto Skorzeny and those identified by Pierre Lafitte in the Algerian uprisings, so any assessment of the Irish campaign that began in December 1956 should be considered in context and timing. The start of Operation Harvest also coincided with the 1956 insurgency in Hungary against Russian domination. Irish Republicans, legitimately, were quick to point out the hypocrisy of those who praised the armed revolt of the Hungarians but condemned the Irish resistance fighters. During the ’50s the British had been ruthlessly suppressing anti-colonial revolts in Kenya, Malaya, and Cyprus, and while their colonial empire was crumbling, their conceit that they were still a supreme military power remained. Suez burst that bubble, and we know that Skorzeny was heavily involved there as well. It was in the wake of that British humiliation in Egypt that Operation Harvest was launched in Ireland. By the end of 1957 there were several hundred IRA members interred in Dublin, Belfast, and other British prisons, and there were 125 internees in the Curragh Camp in County Kildare, only miles from where Otto and Ilse would set up camp in 1959… In a world of struggles for national self-determination it was clear that the Irish struggle remained unfinished business. The lull which followed the end of the campaign in 1962 proved illusory and six years later the nationalists and republicans of the Six Counties rose up, never to retreat again. 

Many thanks for that expansive reply.

[Leslie Sharp]

2 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Many thanks for that expansive reply.

Let me know if anything contradicts your understanding of the period. We were cognizant of possible campaigns to misrepresent what was already a hugely complex history.

[Ron Bulman]

The big question here is why didn't Allen get fried by Eisenhower over the report?