Question to Forum members.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

If I may crave the indulgence of the respected researchers here.

In researching the possible link of the permindex corp, and MI6 in the assassination, I have run across the name Sir William Stephenson( or Stevenson) It is apprant that through his links with Permindex, and his position at MI6 he was directly responsible for the illegal importation of narcotics into Europe, and the US in the 1960s, and 1970s. Has anyone looked into this man before? and any possible links, through MI6 to kennedys assasination. At the highest levels CIA, MI6, Mossad KGB Mafia, are nothing more than Super criminal gangs, whos main players shade off into each others organisations, serving only their own interests and by association, the interests of their paymasters. Thanks for sharing, Steve.

[John Simkin]

If I may crave the indulgence of the respected researchers here.

In researching the possible link of the permindex corp, and MI6 in the assassination, I have run across the name Sir William Stephenson( or Stevenson) It is apprant that through his links with Permindex, and his position at MI6 he was directly responsible for the illegal importation of narcotics into Europe, and the US in the 1960s, and 1970s. Has anyone looked into this man before? and any possible links, through MI6 to kennedys assasination. At the highest levels CIA, MI6, Mossad KGB Mafia, are nothing more than Super criminal gangs, whos main players shade off into each others organisations, serving only their own interests and by association, the interests of their paymasters. Thanks for sharing, Steve.

See my page on William Stephenson.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWstephensonW.htm

Stephenson was born in Canada but joined the British Secret Service in the 1930s. In 1940 he was sent to New York as head of the British Security Coordination. Over the next few years he worked closely with William Donovan, the chief of the Office of Strategic Service (OSS). He was also the channel for intelligence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. After the war Stephenson and Donovan founded the World Commerce Corporation.

For more on Stephenson read A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War by William Stevenson (no relation).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Called-Intrepi...TF8&s=books

There is an interesting reference to Stephenson in Peter Wright's Spycatcher (1987):

William Harvey listened to my Cyprus experiences, he was struck by the parallel between the two problems: both small islands with a guerrilla force led by a charismatic leader. He was particularly struck by my view that without Grivas, EOKA would have collapsed.

"What would the Brits do in Cuba?" he asked.

I was a shade anxious about being drawn into the Cuban business. Hollis and I had discussed it before I came to Washington, and he made no secret of his view that the CIA were blundering in the Caribbean. It was a subject, he felt, to steer clear of if at all possible. I was worried that if I made suggestions to Angleton and Harvey, I would soon find them being quoted around Washington by the CIA as the considered British view of things. It would not take long for word of that to filter back to Leconfield House, so I made it clear to them that I was talking off the record.

I said that we would try to develop whatever assets we had down there-alternative political leaders, that kind of thing.

"We've done all that," said Harvey impatiently, "but they're all in Florida. Since the Bay of Pigs, we've lost virtually everything we had inside . . ."

Harvey began to fish to see if I knew whether we had anything in the area, in view of the British colonial presence in the Caribbean.

"I doubt it," I told him, "the word in London is steer clear of Cuba. Six might have something, but you'd have to check with them." "How would you handle Castro?" asked Angleton. "We'd isolate him, turn the people against him ..."

"Would you hit him?" interrupted Harvey.

I paused to fold my napkin. Waiters glided silently from table to table. I realized now why Harvey needed to know I could be trusted.

"We'd certainly have that capability," I replied, "but I doubt we would use it nowadays."

"Why not?"

"We're not in it anymore, Bill. We got out a couple of years ago, after Suez."

At the beginning of the Suez Crisis, M16 developed a plan, through the London Station, to assassinate Nasser using nerve gas. Eden initially gave his approval to the operation, but later rescinded it when he got agreement from the French and Israelis to engage in joint military action. When this course failed, and he was forced to withdraw, Eden reactivated the assassination option a second time. By this time virtually all MI6 assets in Egypt had been rounded up by Nasser, and a new operation, using renegade Egyptian officers, was drawn up, but it failed lamentably, principally because the cache of weapons which had been hidden on the outskirts of Cairo was found to be defective.

"Were you involved?" Harvey asked.

"Only peripherally," I answered truthfully, "on the technical side."

I explained that I was consulted about the plan by John Henry and Peter Dixon, the two M16 Technical Services officers from the London Station responsible for drawing it up. Dixon, Henry, and I all attended joint M15/MI6 meetings to discuss technical research for the intelligence services at Porton Down, the government's chemical and biological Weapons Research Establishment. The whole area of chemical research was an active field in the 1950s. I was cooperating with M16 in a joint program to investigate how far the hallucinatory drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) could be used in interrogations, and extensive trials took place at Porton. I even volunteered as guinea pig on one occasion. Both M15 and M16 also wanted to know a lot more about the advanced poisons then being developed at Porton, though for different reasons. I wanted the antidotes, in case the Russians used a poison on a defector in Britain, while M16 wanted to use the poisons for operations abroad.

Henry and Dixon both discussed with me the use of poisons against Nasser, and asked my advice. Nerve gas obviously presented the best possibility, since it was easily administered. They told me that the London Station had an agent in Egypt with limited access to one of Nasser's headquarters. Their plan was to place canisters of nerve gas inside the ventilation system, but I pointed out that this would require large quantities of the gas, and would result in massive loss of life among Nasser's staff. It was the usual M16 operation-hopelessly unrealistic and it did not remotely surprise me when Henry told me later that Eden had backed away from the operation. The chances of its remaining undeniable were even slimmer than they had been with Buster Crabbe.

Harvey and Angleton questioned me closely about every part of the Suez Operation.

"We're developing a new capability in the Company to handle these kinds of problems," explained Harvey, "and we're in the market for the requisite expertise."

Whenever Harvey became serious, his voice dropped to a low monotone, and his vocabulary lapsed into the kind of strangled bureaucratic syntax beloved of Washington officials. He explained ponderously that they needed deniable personnel, and improved technical facilities-in Harvey jargon, "delivery mechanisms." They were especially interested in the SAS. Harvey knew that the SAS operated up on the Soviet border in the 1950s tracking Russian rocket signals with mobile receivers before the satellites took over, and that they were under orders not to be caught, even if this meant fighting their way out of trouble.

"They don't freelance, Bill," I told him. "You could try to pick them up retired, but you'd have to see Six about that."

Harvey looked irritated, as if I were being deliberately unhelpful. "Have you thought of approaching Stephenson?" I asked. "A lot of the old-timers say he ran this kind of thing in New York during the war. Used some Italian, apparently, when there was no other way of sorting a German shipping spy. Probably the Mafia, for all I know ..."

Angleton scribbled in his notebook, and looked up impassively. "The French!" I said brightly. "Have you tried them? It's more their type of thing, you know, Algiers, and so on."

Another scribble in the notebook.

"What about technically - did you have any special equipment?" asked Harvey.

I told him that after the gas canisters plan fell through, M16 looked at some new weapons. On one occasion I went down to Porton to see a demonstration of a cigarette packet which had been modified by the Explosives Research and Development Establishment to fire a dart tipped with poison.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

]

Harvey and Angleton questioned me closely about every part of the Suez Operation.

"We're developing a new capability in the Company to handle these kinds of problems," explained Harvey, "and we're in the market for the requisite expertise."

Whenever Harvey became serious, his voice dropped to a low monotone, and his vocabulary lapsed into the kind of strangled bureaucratic syntax beloved of Washington officials. He explained ponderously that they needed deniable personnel, and improved technical facilities-in Harvey jargon, "delivery mechanisms." They were especially interested in the SAS. Harvey knew that the SAS operated up on the Soviet border in the 1950s tracking Russian rocket signals with mobile receivers before the satellites took over, and that they were under orders not to be caught, even if this meant fighting their way out of trouble.

"They don't freelance, Bill," I told him. "You could try to pick them up retired, but you'd have to see Six about that."

Thanks John, Quote.."We're developing a new capability in the Company to handle these kind of problems "explained Harvey."and we're in the market for requisite expertise"

These kind of problems, refering to the Assassination of unfriendly Heads of state/Politicians/statesmen. As it stands this statement from Harvey makes no sence what-so-ever, knowing what we know about the CIA, it is obvious that this "new capability" existed from its inception, so what is Harvey really saying to Wright? perhaps he is seeing if British intellegence/SAS might be up for some contracted out wet jobs on their behalf? Operation Nothwoods talked about attacking British interests in the Pacific to try and elicit a responce from them against Cuba. Gets dark down here, doesn't it...

Edited October 4, 2006 by Stephen Turner

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

If I may crave the indulgence of the respected researchers here.

In researching the possible link of the permindex corp, and MI6 in the assassination, I have run across the name Sir William Stephenson( or Stevenson) It is apprant that through his links with Permindex, and his position at MI6 he was directly responsible for the illegal importation of narcotics into Europe, and the US in the 1960s, and 1970s. Has anyone looked into this man before? and any possible links, through MI6 to kennedys assasination. At the highest levels CIA, MI6, Mossad KGB Mafia, are nothing more than Super criminal gangs, whos main players shade off into each others organisations, serving only their own interests and by association, the interests of their paymasters. Thanks for sharing, Steve.

I've read virtually everything ever published on Stephenson - including a few books only ever printed in Canada - and can find nothing substantial to even superficially verify any Stephenson involvement in the JFK matter. [Torbitt had me re-reading everything, but to no avail. Bloomfield, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.]

However, on a more macro level, please understand that OSS under Donovan was basically Stephenson's invention, in that OSS recruits were trained in a Brit-authored curriculum of espionage and sabotage techniques by Stephenson's people at "Camp X" near a town called Bowmanville, Ontario. Hence, much of what later became CIA was attributable to Stephenson and his MI6 sponsors. [More clearly codified by later liaison relationships such as Angleton/Philby, etc.]

As for what John has cited from Peter Wright's book, I am unsure of the time frame of the quoted conversation with Bill Harvey, but it seems this may have transpired soon after ZR RIFLE had been authorised, and Harvey was on the prowl for professional assassins who could be retained on an arms length basis.... an "off the shelf, deniable, self-sustaining capability" as William Casey would later coin the term during his Contra period.

If so, in developing ZR RIFLE, Harvey was seeking to acquire the castoffs of another intelligence service. Wright's suggestions of using the French may have been acted upon, given that Jean Rene Souetre [or some Frenchman using his name] was deported from Texas soon after the assassination in Dallas.

[William Kelly]

If I may crave the indulgence of the respected researchers here.

In researching the possible link of the permindex corp, and MI6 in the assassination, I have run across the name Sir William Stephenson( or Stevenson) It is apprant that through his links with Permindex, and his position at MI6 he was directly responsible for the illegal importation of narcotics into Europe, and the US in the 1960s, and 1970s. Has anyone looked into this man before? and any possible links, through MI6 to kennedys assasination. At the highest levels CIA, MI6, Mossad KGB Mafia, are nothing more than Super criminal gangs, whos main players shade off into each others organisations, serving only their own interests and by association, the interests of their paymasters. Thanks for sharing, Steve.

I've read virtually everything ever published on Stephenson - including a few books only ever printed in Canada - and can find nothing substantial to even superficially verify any Stephenson involvement in the JFK matter. [Torbitt had me re-reading everything, but to no avail. Bloomfield, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.]

However, on a more macro level, please understand that OSS under Donovan was basically Stephenson's invention, in that OSS recruits were trained in a Brit-authored curriculum of espionage and sabotage techniques by Stephenson's people at "Camp X" near a town called Bowmanville, Ontario. Hence, much of what later became CIA was attributable to Stephenson and his MI6 sponsors. [More clearly codified by later liaison relationships such as Angleton/Philby, etc.]

......

RCD,

I too have looked for such links, without the benefit of the Canadian books, and have come up with only one:

There is a reference in the Warren Commission testimony of the White Russians that John Connally, Jean DeMeniel, and someone from the George Bouhe crowd, owned or leased property (cottages) at the Tryall Club near village of Lucea at Montego Bay, on Jamaica's North Shore. The Tryal Club, a private country club and golf course, sprinkled with private estates, was owned by Sir William Stephenson (A Man Called INTREPID).

Other North Shore, Jamaica neighbors were Noel Coward, Ivor Bryce and Ian Fleming, who made comic fun of his friends and cohorts in his spy novels.

I believe that PERMINDEX = SPECTRE, BLOOMFIELD = BLOFELD and HENRY PLEASANTS = FELIX LEITER, among others.

The Tryall Club was an old Great House mansion, similar to Bellview, Ivor Bryce's greathouse on the other side of the island, except it had a golf course and 16 exclusive and expensive residential compounds. Bradley Smith, in 1956, wrote (The Pride of the Caribbean), "These magnificant estate houses have been converted into the Jamaican version of the dude ranch."

Richard Miller (Town & Country Monthly, Dec. 90, p. 130) also wrote about "Tryall Golf Club, Jamaica," though I haven't read it. Tryall's championship golf course is also the scene of an LPGA event.

Sir William Stephenson's predicessor as head of British Intelligence in USA, William Wiseman, was the case officer for Somerset Maugham, whose fictional secret agent ASHENDEN also bore similar characteristics to real spies.

While I don't know if Stephenson was in any way connected to the assassination of JFK, his proteges - Ian Fleming, Ernest Cuneo and Ivor Bryce, as executives of NANA, certainly played a role in the development of the accused assassin's public persona, via Priscilla Johnson McMillan.

Stephenson's School for Spies - Camp X, near Whitby, Ontario on north shore of Lake Ontario, certainly pumped out its share of agents, maybe a few of which became entangled in later civic affairs, much like the Bay of Pigs veterans did.

Does this info jive with RCD's info on same?

Thanks,

BK