Robert Emmett Johnson

[Tim Gratz]

When Gerry Hemming told me that Ramfis Trujillo had provided funds for the assassination of John F. Kennedy (as revenge for the CIA's murder of his father Gen Rafael Trujillo) he told me the funds were handled by Robert Emmett Johnson.

Gerry Hemming also states he believes Johnson was the "Raul" who participated in the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Johnson was not a novice to assassination plots.

He is mentioned in Hinckle and Turner's "The Fish is Red" (updated and retitled "Deadly Secrets") as participating in an aborted plot to kill Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. According to "The Fish Is Red", the plot was organized by an exile politician named Raul Dagnais, who was living in Montral. Johnson is described as a maramilitary journalist and mercenary who had once been on Trujillo's payroll.

The book implies the assassination attempt may have been funded by Jesuit priests unhappy that Duvalier had installed voodoism as the official religion of Haiti.

To execute the plot, Dagnais and Johnson turned to Gen Leon Cantave, the former chief of staff of the Haitian army. The book says that Johnson was so concerned about the lack of training of the Haitan volunteers who had agreed to help Cantave. that he turned to Hemming's Interpen organization for training assistance. He specifically talked to Hemming and his close associate Howard Davis.

Davis introduced Johnson to Eddie Bayo, a name familiar to all of us, and Johnson and Bayo prepared an agreement that once Duvalier was removed the Cuban exiles could use it as a base to launch attacks against Cuba.

The plot ultimately failed leading Duvalier to commence a slaughter of anyone even rumored to have assisted Cantava. (Neither right wing nor left wing dictators appreciate assassination plots in which they are the intended victim.)

Apparently Johnson wrote an article about the unsuccessful assassination attempt that was published in the April 1968 issue of "True" magazine. The title of the article was "I Stuck Pins In a Voodoo Dictator." (The magazine may be "True" but the title is false; Johnson stuck neither pins nor bullets in Duvalier.) ("The Fish Is Red" footnotes the article as a source.)

If Hemming is right about the Kennedy assassination being partially funded by Ramfis Trujillo with Johnson acting as the middle-man, Johnson was part of the conspiracy that killed JFK.

Does anyone have any additional information about Johnson?

Edited April 15, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

Recall that Gerry Hemming told us that Mario Tauler Sague assisted Raul in his escape to Canada after the King assassination. He identified Sague as the "Mexico City Mystery Man".

[Pat Speer]

Recall that Gerry Hemming told us that Mario Tauler Sague assisted Raul in his escape to Canada after the King assassination.  He identified Sague as the "Mexico City Mystery Man".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hemmings just has all the answers, doesn't he? Call me somewhat skeptical. As for the Johnson attempt on Duvalier, let's recall that de Mohrenschildt visited the U.S. military in April 63 asking them to overthrow his boss Duvalier. Any known connection between de Mohrenschildt and Johnson?

Edited April 15, 2005 by Pat Speer

[Tim Gratz]

Pat, Gerry may not have all of the answers but he may have some of the important ones. "The Fish Is Red" documents his connections to Johnson. As noted, I think it is based largely on Johnson's article in "True" magazine.

[Tim Gratz]

The idea to capture Haiti to use it as a base for attacks against Cuba was, also, the motive behind Masferrer's "Project Nassau", funded by CBS.

[Ron Ecker]

As I've related in a previous thread, Hemming has stated that during the week of the JFK assassination Johnson went to Dallas from Canada with Arturo Espaillat, Trujillo's former chief of intelligence who had raised money from Canada and Europe to fund a French team in the assassination.

Hemming told Dick Russell in 1975 that sometime after the death of Espaillat in Lisbon a few years before, Johnson went to work for a private CIA operation in Baltimore called International Services of Information.

Ron

[Tim Gratz]

Interesting, Ron! Thanks for the help!