Questions for Douglas Caddy

[John Simkin]

Douglas Caddy has agreed to answer questions on the Forum. Please post your questions on this thread and he will do his best to answer them.

(1) In September, 1960, you joined forces with Marvin Liebman and William F. Buckley to establish the right-wing Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Do you still hold right-wing views?

[Douglas Caddy]

(1) In September, 1960, you joined forces with Marvin Liebman and William F. Buckley to establish the right-wing Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Do you still hold right-wing views?

I have been portrayed as a super right-winger when in fact today I am a progressive-liberal who supported Al Gore for President in 2000 and Howard Dean for President in 2004 and belong to People for the American Way, ACLU, and other organizations of similar character. It is true that one time I was pretty conservative, being involved in launching the modern conservative movement in the 1950s and '60s, but I later came to realize that the movement had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists. I have not voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 1984.

My political philosophy has always been that the American eagle needs two strong wings to fly. At one time in the 1950s and '60s the eagle was tilted somewhat too much to its left wing. However, at the present time the eagle is dangerously weighted in favor of its right wing, so much so that its very survival as a symbol of liberty and democracy is at risk.

[Ron Ecker]

Well said! You certainly have American "conservatism" today well pegged. And welcome to the forum.

[John Simkin]

I have been portrayed as a super right-winger when in fact today I am a progressive-liberal who supported Al Gore for President in 2000 and Howard Dean for President in 2004 and belong to People for the American Way, ACLU, and other organizations of similar character. It is true that one time I was pretty conservative, being involved in launching the modern conservative movement in the 1950s and '60s, but I later came to realize that the movement had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists. I have not voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 1984.

My political philosophy has always been that the American eagle needs two strong wings to fly. At one time in the 1950s and '60s the eagle was tilted somewhat too much to its left wing. However, at the present time the eagle is dangerously weighted in favor of its right wing, so much so that its very survival as a symbol of liberty and democracy is at risk.

Thank you for that information. I have now updated your webpage.

(1) I believe in the past you represented Billie Sol Estes. On 9th August, 1984, you wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter you claimed that Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. You added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."

Did Billie Sol Estes provide you with any evidence that suggested his story was true?

(2) Could you explain in more detail what you mean by the phrase that the conservative movement in "had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists"?

[Dawn Meredith]

Welcome to the forum.

Do you recall being asked to be present for a press conference in May of 1998 representing Barr McClellan, regarding the fingerprint match by print expert Nathan Darby, of the known prints of Mac Wallace and the latent print found at the School Text Book Depository?

You did not attend this press conference, do you remember why?

Do you have an opinion of the fingerprint evidence?

Did/do you believe the allegations Billie Sol made of Mac Wallace?

Do you still represent Billie Sol?

Many thanks,

Dawn Meredith

[Robin Ramsay]

1. Did Estes provide any documentary evidence in support of the allegations contained in the affidavit?

2. Did the Justice Department do any investigative work in response to the allegations?

3. Were you his lawyer after these events, and if so for how long?

4. What, if any, feedback have you had from the revelation of your role in the Estes story?

[Steve Dunnington]

1) Was the Mullen Company a front for the CIA so 'cover' could be given to agents ????

2) If so... did you continue to have any contact with the agency after leaving Mullen, were you any kind of an asset for the purposes of domestic or foreign intelligence????

3) Did your association with the Mullen company, Howard Hunt and other Watergate individuals lead you to any contacts that brought on your representation of Billie Sol Estes????

4) Was General Foods your cover employer at Mullen Company ???

5) Are you the same Douglas Caddy who as an attorney based in Houston, TX has written extensively on laws and regulations in the insurance industry???? ( I 'googled' your name and found some articles by one, Douglas Caddy)

I'll have some more questions soon...... that was a great article in The Advocate , by the way.

[Tim Gratz]

All of the questions asked by John, Dawn, Robin and Steve (with one or two exceptions) are excellent and I am sure we all look forward to Mr. Caddy's replies.

[Douglas Caddy]

Could you explain in more detail what you mean by the phrase that the conservative movement in "had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists"?

I became active politically while still in high school in New Orleans in the early 1950's. Later, as a student at Georgetown University, I helped organize the National Student Committee for the Loyalty Oath in 1959. This led to the creation of Youth for Goldwater for Vice President in early 1960 and later that year to Young Americans for Freedom. This was the genesis of the modern conservative movement in the United States.

In 1961 the first mass conservative rally, sponsored by YAF, was held in Manhattan Center in New York City. The next year an even larger rally was held in Madison Square Garden.

If I were to pinpoint when the conservative movement was first hijacked by sociopaths, I would say it took place in 1974, just after President Nixon was forced to resign. His resignation opened the way for the sociopaths to take over.

In late 1974, the board of directors of the Schuchman Foundation met. Robert Schuchman was the first national chairman of YAF. In attendance at the meeting, in addition to the foundation?s directors, were Edwin Feulner, Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors. Coors, president of Coors Beer Company, told the foundation directors that unless they did exactly what he and Feulner and Weyrich directed them to do, he would destroy them and their organization.

The Schuchman Foundation directors brushed aside Coors? threat. Shortly thereafter, Coors, Feulner and Weyrich organized the Heritage Foundation and the Committee for a Free Congress. The latter two organizations, extremely well funded in the last 30 years, have crafted the national legislation and federal regulations that have enriched the wealthy and crucified the poor and disabled in America.

Since 1974 the conservative movement and the Republican Party, dominated by sociopaths with no social conscience whatsoever, have successfully engaged in what I call "The Politics of Death."

In addition to the sociopaths, a large group of opportunists moved into the conservative movement and the GOP and gained power. The emerging Abramoff lobbying scandal, which leads directly to members of Congress and to the White House, is an example of this opportunism.

Before this scandal has run its course, other opportunists such as the hypocritical Christian leader Ralph Reed and his cohorts will be exposed for sacrificing the public good for their personal gain.

[John Dolva]

Douglas, I'm puzzled by: "At one time in the 1950s and '60s the eagle was tilted somewhat too much to its left wing. "

I've never thought so myself. This was a time of extreme right and extreme left. I think they feed off and react to each other. Tit for tat.

Could you elaborate please? Can you pinpoint 'a time', or was it more of a perception based on from where one looks?

[Douglas Caddy]

(1) I believe in the past you represented Billie Sol Estes. On 9th August, 1984, you wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter you claimed that Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. You added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."

Did Billie Sol Estes provide you with any evidence that suggested his story was true?

My relationship with Billie Sol Estes began in 1983 when Shearn Moody, a trustee of the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas, asked me to visit Billie Sol who was incarcerated in the federal prison at Big Spring, Texas. Billie Sol had telephoned Mr. Moody at the suggestion of a fellow inmate who knew Moody from past days when that inmate had been a lobbyist in the state capital. Billie Sol told Moody that he wanted to tell the story publicly about his long and close relationship with Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) as LBJ?s bagman and requested Moody's assistance in getting this done. Moody was happy to oblige.

I met with Billie Sol in prison, who related his desire to tell all. I suggested that he do so in book form and that I would be helpful in any way that I could since I already had two books published.

Moody and I heard nothing more from Billie Sol until soon after his release from prison in early January 1984. At that time he called Moody and Moody again asked me to visit Billie Sol at the latter's home in Abilene, Texas.

There Billie Sol presented me with a copy of the recently released book that his daughter, Pam Estes, had written based on my suggestion to him when he was in prison. Its title was "Billie Sol: King of the Wheeler-Dealers" and it had caused a minor sensation. Based on its limited success, Billie Sol said that he wanted to have his own story published. His daughter's book only told her personal story of the tribulations of the Estes' family in the preceding 20 years.

However, Billie Sol said that before he could tell his full story in book form that he had to get immunity from prosecution by the Texas law authorities and by the U.S. Department of Justice as there is no statute of limitations for murder. A friend of mine, Edward Miller, a former Assistant Director of the FBI, arranged for Miller and myself to meet with Stephen Trott, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, to discuss the question of granting immunity to Billie Sol.

Miller and I met with Trott several times. The Forum has already in its discussions among its members remarked upon the letters exchanged between Trott and myself. In the end the immunity effort came to an abrupt halt when Billie Sol got cold feet at the last moment and backed out of a meeting with three FBI agents sent by Trott to meet with him and myself in Abilene in September 1984.

The contents of the letters between Trott and myself speak for themselves. Billie Sol did not provide me with any evidence that his story, as detailed in the letters, was true. I never heard nor saw the clandestine tape recordings that he claimed that he had in his possession that had been made years earlier, which allegedly supported his contentions.

However, there is quite a bit of supporting evidence from other sources. This is as follows:

(1) In 1964, J. Evetts Haley, a distinguished Texas historian, wrote "A Texan Looks at Lyndon."

Millions of copies of this paperback were widely distributed. Haley's book provided concrete evidence concerning most of the murders outlined in my correspondence with Trott.

(2) In attempting to get Billie Sol immunity in 1984, I worked closely with Clint Peoples, U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Texas. Peoples had followed the Estes' story for many years, having been assigned to the Estes' pending criminal case in the 1960's when he was a Texas Ranger. Peoples had several large file drawers containing materials about Estes and the murders that he showed me when I visited him in the U.S. Courthouse in Dallas. He was on good terms with Estes and constantly encouraged me to do my best to get Estes' story out. When he retired he became head of the Texas Rangers Museum in Waco, Texas, and in 1992 was killed in an automobile accident. Where Peoples' extensive files on Estes and the murders are today is unknown.

(3) I arranged for Lucianne Goldberg, then a literary agent and now sponsor of http://www.lucianne.com/, to visit Billie Sol in Abilene in 1984 in an effort to get his story published. Lucianne there disclosed to us that she had once met Malcolm (Mac) Wallace, who was the stone-cold killer retained by LBJ, when she had worked in the White House in LBJ's administration.

(4) The Texas Observer, a highly respected journal of opinion, published a thoroughly researched article by Bill Adler in its November 7, 1986 issue titled, "The Killing of Henry Marshall." The article is required reading for anyone interested in the murders.

(5) In 1998, a video titled "LBJ: A Closer Look" was released, having been produced by two Californians, Lyle and Theresa Sardie. The video contains interviews with key persons who knew of the murders and of the LBJ-Billie Sol connection.

(6) In 2003, the book "Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ murdered JFK" was published. Its author is Barr McClellan, father of Bush's current press secretary in the White House, Scott McClellan. Barr McClellan was a lawyer with the law firm in Austin that handled LBJ's secret financial empire before and after he became President.

(7) Also in 2003, the History Channel showed "The Men Who Killed Kennedy: The Final Chapter." Much of this show drew on McClellan's book and my letters to Trott. After it was telecast several times, immense pressure was brought upon the History Channel to withdraw the video from being offered for sale to the public. For the first time in its own history the History Channel succumbed to this outside pressure that was orchestrated by Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Pictures Association of America and former LBJ aide, and reluctantly withdrew the video from public circulation.

(8) Both Barr McClellan and I, among others, have in our possession documents and papers, too numerous and lengthy to detail here, that help to round out the full LBJ-Billie Sol story, including letters from LBJ to Billie Sol.

[Larry Hancock]

Mr. Caddy, in the letters you submitted to Justice it appears that Estes was willing to offer Kyle Brown as a first hand witness to Cliff Carter's remarks about Johnson.

William Remond has a video of Brown confirming this. Unfortunately Brown does not seem to be talking to other researchers.

In his most recent book Estes goes back on this and says the witness was not Brown but someone he will not name. This seems to seriously hurt his original stand.

I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that point?

-- thank you, Larry

[Douglas Caddy]

Welcome to the forum.

Do you recall being asked to be present for a press conference in May of 1998 representing Barr McClellan, regarding the fingerprint match by print expert Nathan Darby, of the known prints of Mac Wallace and the latent print found at the School Text Book Depository?

You did not attend this press conference, do you remember why?

Do you have an opinion of the fingerprint evidence?

Did/do you believe the allegations Billie Sol made of Mac Wallace?

Do you still represent Billie Sol?

I was not asked to attend the press conference in May of 1998 regarding the fingerprint match by print expert Nathan Darby. Barr McClellan had informed me of Mr. Darby's conclusion about the fingerprint but I did not learn about the press conference until some time afterwards.

Based on Mr. Darby's superb professional credentials, I have every reason to believe his conclusion about the fingerprint is accurate.

I do believe that the allegations about Malcolm (Mac) Wallace made by Billie Sol are well-founded, based on documents that I have read. I should add that my strongest reason for so believing is that U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples told me that he had learned of Wallace's involvement from his own investigation long before Billie Sol retained my legal services.

I have not represented Billie Sol since late 1984, after he had a last-minute change of mind and refused to meet with the FBI agents sent to Abilene to interrogate him by Assistant Attorney General Trott and FBI Director Webster. I put a great deal of time into arranging just such a meeting at the request of Billie Sol and was sorely disappointed, as was his daughter Pam, when he abruptly backed out.

[Douglas Caddy]

Douglas, I'm puzzled by: "At one time in the 1950s and '60s the eagle was tilted somewhat too much to its left wing. "

I've never thought so myself. This was a time of extreme right and extreme left. I think they feed off and react to each other. Tit for tat.

Could you elaborate please? Can you pinpoint 'a time', or was it more of a perception based on from where one looks?

My general political philosophy based on the concept that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly straight, a left wing and a right wing, is strictly my personal viewpoint. It should be noted that William F. Buckley?s magazine, National Review, did not begin publishing until 1955 (50 years ago) and up to that time there was a complete void of conservative intellectual thought. A few years after National Review appeared, Goldwater assumed the political mantle of Robert Taft, who had died in 1953. Young Americans for Freedom was born in 1960, which led to the modern conservative movement, since hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists.

[Douglas Caddy]

1) Was the Mullen Company a front for the CIA so 'cover' could be given to agents ????

2) If so... did you continue to have any contact with the agency after leaving Mullen, were you any kind of an asset for the purposes of domestic or foreign intelligence????

3) Did your association with the Mullen company, Howard Hunt and other Watergate individuals lead you to any contacts that brought on your representation of Billie Sol Estes????

4) Was General Foods your cover employer at Mullen Company ???

5) Are you the same Douglas Caddy who as an attorney based in Houston, TX has written extensively on laws and regulations in the insurance industry???? ( I 'googled' your name and found some articles by one, Douglas Caddy)

I'll have some more questions soon...... that was a great article in The Advocate , by the way.

(1) The Mullen Company was a front cover for the CIA and, in fact, had been organized as an entity by the CIA. Its CIA background was disclosed in Senator Howard Baker's supplemental statement to the Senate Watergate Committee's final report.

I have never been employed by the CIA or any other intelligence organization. I did at one time join the Association of Former Intelligence Officers as an Associate Member by paying a one year's dues of $10 but did so because I was interested in receiving materials published by the organization. I never attended any of its meetings or met anyone associated with the organization.

When I was graduated from New York University School of Law I became an employee of General Foods Corporation at its White Plains, N.Y. headquarters. One of the reasons the company employed me was that while attending law school, I worked as an employee in the New York City private offices of then Governor Nelson Rockefeller, on the staff of Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. I was conversant with the New York political scene as well as national politics.

At no time while working for General Foods was I informed that the Mullen Company, which it retained to represent its Washington interests, was a CIA front. In 1969 General Foods assigned me from its headquarters to work in Washington as a prelude to opening its own office there with my being its chief spokesman in Washington. The company told me that for the first year I would be working out of the Mullen Company offices in the Kiplinger Newsletter Building. During that first year there several things occurred that raised questions in my mind about the Mullen Company but I never reached the ultimate conclusion that it was actually a CIA front. Howard Hunt came on board the Mullen Company some months after I began working out of its office, which was how I came to make his acquaintance. At no time was I ever on the payroll of the Mullen Company. I was exclusively employed by General Foods.

I should add that there has always been a question in my mind whether I was used by General Foods and the CIA unwittingly to provide "cover" for the Mullen Company. For example, I served on the Washington Representatives Committee of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, representing General Foods, which lent the air of legitimacy to the role of the Mullen Company being retained by General Foods. By the way, besides General Foods, the Mullen Company's second major client was the Mormon Church. Robert Mullen, a Christian Scientist by religion, was the author of a book on the history of the Mormon Church.

(2) I never had any contact with the Mullen Company after I left employment by General Foods other than my legal representation of Howard Hunt, who was a Mullen employee. Robert Bennett, now Senator Robert Bennett of Utah, apparently was misquoted by Woodward-Bernstein in the Washington Post after Watergate broke about my time at Mullen. He subsequently wrote me a letter of explanation. Bennett, a Mormon, had purchased the Mullen Company from Robert Mullen, apparently at the CIA's direction, about the time I left General Foods to join a law firm in Washington.

Bennett's letter is included in my professional files on the founding of the modern conservative movement, Watergate, Billie Sol, and other matters that I donated some years ago to the University Library Archives of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon.

(3) No person that I was associated with at General Foods, Mullen Company, or in Watergate led me to representing Billie Sol. As I have previously explained, this came about through my acquaintance with Shearn Moody, a trustee of the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas.

(4) General Foods was my sole employer when I worked out of the Mullen Company offices at the behest of General Foods. I have concluded that General Foods knew the Mullen Company was a CIA front and that General Foods cooperated with the cover operation and undoubtedly benefitted from it by receiving "inside? government information that was beneficial to its corporate interests, much akin to the United Fruit Company.

(5) I am the author of two books on insurance, both published by the Texas A&M University Press.