Operation Sandwedge: Kennedy/Wallace

Robert Charles-Dunne · August 14, 2005

John, Robert Charles-Dunne will always rise to the defense of Fidel.
Where is he now that Bush and Rove need him?

I am awaiting their urgent plea for help.

What is the basis of Sonthour's charges?

Rove put on a seminar in Wisconsin when I was State College Republian Chairman. One of the attendees (my predecessor as State Chairman) is now a Wisconsin judge. I am sure he would affirm, as I have previously posted, that the seminar involved nothing but organizational techniques. There was nothing hinting of dirty tricks.

Why would you expect anything else? This could mean that Karl Rove never suggested to anyone that the political process be undermined through the use of dirty tricks. Or, it could mean that Karl Rove was smart and discerning enough to realize that one doesn't stand before a large audience of people, of unknown allegiances, and urge them to commit criminal acts.

Does Sonthour have a source who he claims attended a "dirty tricks" seminar?

It is facially absurb that one would run a seminar on dirty tricks. I am not a dirty trickster but I can assure you if I was I would not teach them in an open seminar, for heaven's sake. Does the mafia run "seminars" on murder?

Thank you. Presumably, one conducts dirty tricks on a more covert level than you originally suggested above. This doesn't mean that Karl Rove never instructed others in the art of filthy politics; only that if he did so, he carefully chose those who were allowed to attend his tutorials. Rather like the current White House practice of allowing only people who have signed a Republican allegiance pledge to attend party rallies for the incumbent. It's called preaching to the converted, and one custom-tailors one's sermon material for the audience.

This may also explain why Segretti may have discussed only pizza pranks with you, but far more serious acts, perhaps including murder, with somebody else.

Sometimes a little common sense helps separate the wheat from the chaff.

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Tim Gratz · August 15, 2005

Per John, here is what Sonthour (whoever he is) wrote:

Rove spent the Watergate years in similar actions and even was paid by Republican organizations to lead seminars on college campuses, lecturing young Republicans on how to engage in dirty tricks of their own.

Here is what Robert wrote:

Why would you expect anything else? This could mean that Karl Rove never suggested to anyone that the political process be undermined through the use of dirty tricks. Or, it could mean that Karl Rove was smart and discerning enough to realize that one doesn't stand before a large audience of people, of unknown allegiances, and urge them to commit criminal acts.

So Robert agrees with me that "one does not stand before a large audience of people, of unknown allegiances, and urge them to commit criminal acts". This is simple common sense. If Rove was indeed into dirty tricks, he could have sounded me out, found out if I had any moral objection thereto, and if his conclusion was that I did not, then ask me to find a similarly-minded flunky to which he could teach his dirty tricks.

Rove was certainly smart enough to realize that Democrats could have planted spies in the College Republicans, or that (believe it or not) some College Republicans had ethics and political morality.

Unless Sonthour has evidence (witnesses) to support his allegation, I submit his article is about as accurate as Sprague's book!

Tim Gratz · August 15, 2005

I wrote:

John, Robert Charles-Dunne will always rise to the defense of Fidel.

Where is he now that Bush and Rove need him?

To which Robert replied:

I am awaiting their urgent plea for help.

I take this as Robert's tacit admission that his posts criticizing my "Castro did it" scenario area direct response to an urgent plea for help from none other than the birthday boy (Fidel turned 79 on Saturday).

Has Robert come into possession of a large number of expensive Cuban cigars in the last few months?

A joke, guys and girls! (I now feel required to put a label on these posts for those unable to know how to recognize facetiousness.)

Edited August 15, 2005 by Tim Gratz

Tim Gratz · August 15, 2005

Robert, however, did effectively come to the defense of Rove since, as noted above, he effectively disparages as facially ludicrous the Sonthour assertion that Rove taught political dirty tricks in large open forums.

Let me get back to the stupidity of the Segretti affair. Segretti should have known better than to attempt to recruit the state chairman of a Young Republican organization to be the Wisconsin co-ordinator of his dirty tricks campaign. One would not even want to involve a campus chairman in such an operation since the repercussions would be enormous if the operation was discovered.

Ulasewicz might be James Phelps or Rollin Hand. Segretti was Maxwell Smart.

Edited August 15, 2005 by Tim Gratz

John Simkin · August 15, 2005

John, I think you're way off to suggest that Bellino was CIA. He was a Kennedy family loyalist, through and through. The CIA excuse to Maheu makes perfect sense. McCarthy was shaking everyone up, and Bobby was, at least for awhile, in bed with him. What I think is hard to grasp is the nature of the private spooks, the cut-outs. They were not CIA employees. They would just as soon work for a Latin-American dictator, Howard Hughes, or the mob, as for the CIA. And they would often play both sides. That is what is so interesting to me about Maheu. And Howard Hunt, later on. While working for Hughes, they used their government connections to do his dirty work, and made it look like it was in the national interest.
These men were all up for grabs. We will never know where their real loyalties lay. Consider that Frank was working for Maheu during the Galindez disappearance, which may or may not been at the request of the CIA. Consider that Shimon was with Maheu during his supposedly top secret meetings with Giancana. While you can make the connection then that Maheu and the CIA were conspiring with Kennedy and Bellino to overthrow Nixon in 72, where does that leave these men? By talking about Bellino's wire-tapping they are clearly co-operating with Nixon, and are therefore against Maheu and the CIA. Why would they do this? I believe it all came down to who was buttering their bread that week.

Another excellent post by Pat! (IMO.)

Pat, you have obviously got Tim’s approval, for your views on Carmine Bellino. That is not surprising as there is evidence that Bellino was working for the Republican Party.

You are right to suggest that I cannot prove that Bellino was a CIA asset. After all, it is only in rare cases like Maheu, that CIA assets are exposed. In his case, it was necessary as the CIA were trying desperately to link the assassination with the Mafia. This meant that they had to reveal that Maheu had also been working as a CIA asset. Over the years he has attempted to cash in on this by writing about some of his CIA activities (although I am sure that he has not told the full story of his work with the CIA).

You are probably right that John Leon and Lou Russell were mainly motivated by money during the Watergate Scandal. The same of course could be said of Carmine Bellino. Just because it was in his interest to work for the Kennedy family in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, does not mean that he was unwilling to work for the Republican Party or the CIA in the 1970s. After all, he was quite willing to work for Hoover and the FBI in the 1930s.

I think most people would agree that people are motivated by two important factors: money and ideology. Tim Gratz has been accused of being paid to take part in some sort of disinformation campaign on this forum. I disagree with this argument. I believe Tim is very much like myself, he is motivated more by ideology than money.

History shows that most people are motivated primarily by money. However, a small minority are so ideologically committed that they cannot be bought (Fidel Castro fits into that category and that is why the CIA have found it so difficult to deal with him).

However, I do not agree that Carmine Bellino's career suggests he was motivated primarily by money. In the 1930s he was willing to serve the right-wing ideology of J. Edgar Hoover. In the 1940s and 1950s he was willing to serve the Kennedys, who at the time also embraced this right-wing, fanatical anti-communist, ideology. Bellino was adaptable and by the 1960s was willing to work for John and Robert Kennedy when they moved to the left. In the 1970s Bellino was working for Edward Kennedy, who was following in the tradition of the 1960s liberal agenda. If Bellino was a Kennedy loyalist one would expect him to have been doing everything he could to have destroyed Richard Nixon.

Some aspects of his behaviour suggests this was the case. Leon, for example, believes that Lou Russell was in the pay of the Democratic Party via Bellino. But is this true? The behaviour of Bellino does not support this.

According to Jerris Leonard, it was Leon who told Bellino that Lou Russell was being questioned by the FBI. Bellino then contacts Russell. We have no idea of what was said but if he was working for Edward Kennedy and the Democratic Party he would surely have told him to give the necessary evidence that would hurt Nixon. If he did do this, Russell does not follow Bellino’s orders. What we do know is that Bellino put Russell into contact with William Birely, who arranges for him to stay on the top floor of the Twin Towers complex in Silver Spring, Maryland. Birely says he does this because he felt sorry for Russell after Bellino told him about his problems. Birely was obviously looking after Russell and I assume was trying to persuade him to give certain information about Nixon and the Watergate Scandal.

As it was Bellino who persuaded Birely to take this action, if Pat is right about this, Birely would have been working on behalf of Edward Kennedy and the Democratic Party. However, an examination of Birely’s past shows this to have been unlikely. Birely had been a close friend of Richard Nixon since 1947. He had a long record of being a supporter of far-right causes. In the early 1970s he was a leading figure in the Sons of the American Revolution. Interestingly, Lee R. Pennington, the CIA asset who also plays an important role in the Watergate cover-up, was involved with Birely in this organization.

Another interesting fact is that Birely was also very friendly with Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods. Rose also had another friend called Tony Ulasewicz, the chief operative of Operation Sandwedge. Ulasewicz got to know Rose via her brother, Joseph Woods, a private detective who did work as part of Operation Sandwedge. I think it is possible that Birely was one of the operation's paymasters.

The most suspicious aspect of the behaviour of Bellino and Birely during this period is that they did not encourage Russell to give evidence against Nixon. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case.

John Leon definitely seems to have been working on behalf of the Republican Party at this time. His information about the wiretapping activities of Bellino and JFK that he gave to George Bush definitely hurt the Democrats and helped to hamper the Watergate investigation. However, Leon, like Russell, was a dangerous figure to the Republicans. Neither men could be guaranteed to tell only part of the story. In the past, both men had been involved in carrying out dirty tricks for Nixon and the Republicans. It was in the interests of the Republicans, rather than the Democrats, that both Leon and Russell were silenced by having heart attacks.

Robert Charles-Dunne · August 15, 2005

Per John, here is what Sonthour (whoever he is) wrote:
Rove spent the Watergate years in similar actions and even was paid by Republican organizations to lead seminars on college campuses, lecturing young Republicans on how to engage in dirty tricks of their own.

Here is what Robert wrote:

Why would you expect anything else? This could mean that Karl Rove never suggested to anyone that the political process be undermined through the use of dirty tricks. Or, it could mean that Karl Rove was smart and discerning enough to realize that one doesn't stand before a large audience of people, of unknown allegiances, and urge them to commit criminal acts.

So Robert agrees with me that "one does not stand before a large audience of people, of unknown allegiances, and urge them to commit criminal acts". This is simple common sense. If Rove was indeed into dirty tricks, he could have sounded me out, found out if I had any moral objection thereto, and if his conclusion was that I did not, then ask me to find a similarly-minded flunky to which he could teach his dirty tricks.

Rove was certainly smart enough to realize that Democrats could have planted spies in the College Republicans, or that (believe it or not) some College Republicans had ethics and political morality.

Unless Sonthour has evidence (witnesses) to support his allegation, I submit his article is about as accurate as Sprague's book!

In reaching this conclusion, you have deleted a portion of my post that deals with precisely that, thereby intentionally giving the false impression that what John cited and what I wrote are mutually exclusive. They are not. To wit:

"This doesn't mean that Karl Rove never instructed others in the art of filthy politics; only that if he did so, he carefully chose those who were allowed to attend his tutorials. Rather like the current White House practice of allowing only people who have signed a Republican allegiance pledge to attend party rallies for the incumbent. It's called preaching to the converted, and one custom-tailors one's sermon material for the audience."

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Robert Charles-Dunne · August 15, 2005

I wrote:
John, Robert Charles-Dunne will always rise to the defense of Fidel.

Where is he now that Bush and Rove need him?

To which Robert replied:

I am awaiting their urgent plea for help.

I take this as Robert's tacit admission that his posts criticizing my "Castro did it" scenario area direct response to an urgent plea for help from none other than the birthday boy (Fidel turned 79 on Saturday).

Absurd reductionism. Ho hum. Nothing new there. And no matter how fantastically you might imagine yourself, I doubt very much that Castro loses much sleep over your wholly ineffective rants against him, let alone feels compelled to enlist others to defend him against the indefensible.

Has Robert come into possession of a large number of expensive Cuban cigars in the last few months?

Where I live, I can buy expensive Cuban cigars on any day of any week of any year, without breaking any laws. I don't need Jefe to send them to me. My efforts here are entirely pro bono.

A joke, guys and girls! (I now feel required to put a label on these posts for those unable to know how to recognize facetiousness.)

Your stand-up is indistinguishable from your sit-down. Don't give up your night job.

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Robert Charles-Dunne · August 15, 2005

I wrote:
John, Robert Charles-Dunne will always rise to the defense of Fidel.

Where is he now that Bush and Rove need him?

To which Robert replied:

I am awaiting their urgent plea for help.

I take this as Robert's tacit admission that his posts criticizing my "Castro did it" scenario area direct response to an urgent plea for help from none other than the birthday boy (Fidel turned 79 on Saturday).

Absurd reductionism. Ho hum. Nothing new there. And no matter how fantastically you might imagine yourself, I doubt very much that Castro loses much sleep over your wholly ineffective rants against him, let alone feels compelled to enlist others to defend him against the indefensible.

Has Robert come into possession of a large number of expensive Cuban cigars in the last few months?

Where I live, I can buy expensive Cuban cigars on any day of any week of any year, without breaking any laws. I don't need Jefe to send them to me. My efforts here are entirely pro bono.

A joke, guys and girls! (I now feel required to put a label on these posts for those unable to know how to recognize facetiousness.)

Your stand-up is indistinguishable from your sit-down. Don't give up your night job.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

John Simkin · August 15, 2005

Tim, you might be interested in joining this debate on Christian Fundamentalism.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4654

We are currently having difficulty getting people to defend this philosophy. You have shown on several different threads: abortion, George Bush, Iraq, Just War, corruption in the Republican Party, etc. that you are one of these Christian Fundamentalist extremists. As I said on the thread this morning:

The teachings of Jesus Christ have motivated reformers with a social conscientious for centuries. Most of the much needed reforms that took place in the UK in the 19th century came about because individuals had a good knowledge of the teachings of Jesus. This included the successful campaigns against slavery and child labour in the early part of the 19th century. The demands for universal suffrage and the welfare state in the second-half of the 19th century mainly came from those inspired by the reading of the New Testament. George Bernard Shaw once claimed that Jesus was the world’s first socialist. Others, like the historian Richard Tawney, rightly pointed out that the Labour Movement in the UK had been more influenced by Methodism than Marxism.

The link between Christianity and reform has been in evidence throughout the world. This includes the United States. You have followed a similar pattern to that of Europe. The campaigners against slavery were devout Christians. The early Labour movement relied on the leadership of Christians. After the war, committed Christians such as Abraham Muste, George Houser (two men that deserves to be better known), and Norman Thomas helped establish the first effective civil rights groups such as Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). Like the Quakers, members of the FOR were Christian pacifists (based on their interpretation of the teachings of Jesus).

The success of the FOR inspired the setting up of the Congress of Racial Equality. Again this was a Christian pacifist organization. In early 1947, CORE announced plans to send eight white and eight black men into the Deep South to test the Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in interstate travel unconstitutional. Organized by Baynard Rustin, this two week pilgrimage through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky was the beginning of the civil rights movement.

CORE inspired others to join the struggle for civil rights. In 1957 Rustin, Martin Luther King and Ralph David Abernathy established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The new organisation was committed to using nonviolence in the struggle for civil rights, and SCLC adopted the motto: "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed."

In the 1950s and 1960s several members of organizations like CORE and SCLC were murdered by people who considered themselves as Christians. This raises the important issue: How can the followers of Jesus Christ come to such different conclusions?

History gives us an answer. Christian reformers have mainly belonged to smaller religious groups that have not been under the control of the state. Ever since the nationalization of the Catholic Church by the Romans, the state has been very good at using Christianity to support the status quo.

In recent years, in the UK and most of Europe, virtually all Church groups, have been on the side of reformers. When Margaret Thatcher was prime minister she accused the leaders of the Church of England of being Marxists. Despite this, church leaders continued to give into this attempt at smearing them and they played an important role in stopping the welfare state from being dismantled under Thatcher's extreme right-wing government.

The continued liberalism of religious leaders was reflected in the almost complete unity they showed in the campaign against the Iraq War.

The United States has not followed this pattern. The main reason for this was the McCarthyism that took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This period of history managed to virtually destroy the reform movement in America. Those that survived were in such a minority that it was possible to smear them as being “Marxists” or “Communists”. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI played a very important role in this. All the leading figures in the civil rights movement suffered from being identified as “left-wing”. Leaders of CORE and SCLC were common targets for Hoover. Especially when people like Martin Luther King became concerned about issues like the Vietnam War and the plight of the low paid.

It is this irrational fear of “leftists” that is often displayed by Christian Fundamentalists like Tim Gratz. This is why I asked Tim about his actions during the Civil Rights campaigns. For people like Tim showed no interest at all in civil rights during this period. Instead they joined J. Edgar Hoover in going along with the idea that it was some sort of “communist conspiracy”.

It is no surprise that it is now these old Cold War hardliners are now supporters of Christian Fundamentalism. It also helps to explain why they are unwilling to speak up for the poor and the dispossessed today. Instead they are advocates of maintaining the privileges of the rich and powerful. How can they defend this position that is so different from that advocated by Jesus Christ? With great difficulty and helps explain why it will take a brave (or foolish) supporter of Christian Fundamentalism, to join this debate.

Maybe you are willing to brave or foolish enough to join the debate.

John Simkin · August 15, 2005