L. Fletcher Prouty

[Jack White]

In the thread "George H.W. Bush and Assassination of JFK," the following was quoted on 4/15/06 from an article by Steve Kangas (confused with Paul Kangas):

Recently I interviewed former CIA liaison officer L. Fletcher Prouty. He is a consultant for the excellent new movie on how the CIA killed JFK, being made by Oliver Stone. He told me that one of the projects he did for the CIA was in 1961 to deliver US Navy ships from a Navy ship yard to the CIA agents in Guatemala planning the invasion of Cuba. He said he delivered three ships to a CIA agent named George Bush, who had the 3 ships painted to look like they were civilian ships. That CIA agent then named the 3 ships after: his wife, his home town and his oil company. He named the ships: Barbara, Houston & Zapata. Any book on the history of the Bay of Pigs will prove the names of those 3 ships.

I replied on 4/15/06:

As this passage shows, Kangas has to be read with care, as he was careless with his facts. The last quoted sentence is flat wrong, yet he states it for emphasis. And what is his source? Fletcher Prouty. Mark Lane also quotes Prouty on the same subject in his book Plausible Denial, indeed Lane uses what Prouty told him to end his book on a dramatic note. Good drama perhaps, but misinformation as history.

Prouty told Lane that he secured two "ships," the Barbara and the Houston, for the invasion. But Prouty told Kangas that he secured three ships, the Barbara, Houston, and Zapata. Which was it? It doesn't matter, as in either case it appears to be another Prouty tall tale.

According to the CIA's Grayston Lynch, who took part in the invasion, "the CIA procured six cargo ships from the Cuban-owned Garcia Line," these being the Carbie, Atlantico, Houston, Rio Escondido, and Lake Charles (Decision for Disaster, p. 33). (Prouty told Lane that he procured the Barbara and Houston from the Navy.) There is no indication that the Houston or any other of these six ships was previously named something else. There was no ship named Barbara involved before or after. There was no ship named Zapata involved before or after.

The invasion convoy included two LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry), one named the Blagar, of which Lynch was the case officer, and one named the Barbara J, of which Rip Robertson was the case officer. There is no J associated in any way with the name of George Bush's wife.

John Geraghty posted the following on 5/3/06:

Just to settle it i emailed the Bush library, Barbara Bush has no middle name and her maiden name is Pierce, as far as I can see (barring a nickname or inside joke) the J has nothing to do with Barbara Bush.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...c=964&st=30

I guess it depends on whom one choses to believe. I believe Prouty.

Let me make my point with a comparison. Roger Craig told of certain 11-22

events. Dave Perry disputes Craig's story. Craig was there; Perry was not.

I choose to believe Craig.

Likewise, Prouty was there, his doubters were not.

Jack

Edited February 27, 2007 by Jack White

[William Kelly]

Col. Fletcher Prouty.

At the time of President Kennedy's death a massive "Cover Story" had been created and orchestrated by the decision makers of a highest level "Power Elite" to provide a format of "Governmental Published Evidence" to support its theme that Kennedy was killed by a "Lone Gunman" who fired three shots from the Texas School Book Depository. It is their contention that there was then, and is now, no conspiracy, a single gunman did it...alone. That's all! That's not true.

The hit men are just pros. They do the job for The CIA anywhere. They are impersonal. They get paid. They get protected, and they have enough experience to "blackmail" anyone, if anyone ever turns on them...just like Drug agents. The job was clean, quick and neat. No ripples.

The whole story of the POWER of the Cover-up comes down to a few points. There has never been a Grand Jury and trial in Texas. Without a trial there can be nothing. Without a trial it does no good for researchers to dig up data. It has no place to go and what the researchers reveal just helps make the cover-up tighter, or they eliminate that evidence and the researcher.

As soon as the NSAM #55, "Relations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations" had been signed by President Kennedy, it was delivered to the Secretary of the Joint Staff who immediately sent it to my superior, the Chief of the newly created staff section, "Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities" SACSA. The head of SACSA at that time was an Army General William Craig. (Replaced by Gen. Krulak).

Gen Krulak was the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1962-1964 and my immediate boss. I was the Chief of Special Operations on the Joint Staff and I wrote sections of this NSAM, along with a few other members of his staff. ….

From the end of April 1961 to early June 1961 this "select" Group, (the post-Bay of Pigs Cuban Study Group Dulles, Taylor, Burke, RFK) met in room 2E980 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff area of the Pentagon. At that time my office was room 2D958 (SACSA), only a few doors away

NOTE: In paragraph four of Bundy's first draft of NSAM #273 (j) it appears that he may have had something else, other than Vietnam policy, on his mind on Nov 21, 1963.

Rather strangely, in this original draft that he circulated among many of the top echelons of the Government, with personal "Cover Letters" to the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone and to his brother William in McNamara's office, he wrote some most important lines that appear to have more to do with a potential emergency situation in the United States than any connection with Vietnam policy as described by NSAM 263, October 11, 1963. One of these powerful statements follows:

"4. It is of the highest importance that the United States Government avoid either the appearance or the reality of public recrimination from one part of it against another, and the President expects that all senior officers of the Government will take energetic steps to insure that they and their subordinates go out of their way to maintain and to defend the unity of the United States Government both here and abroad."(j)

Read that carefully! This draft places the "highest importance" on the fact that the "U.S. Government avoid either the appearance or the reality of public recrimination (FOR WHAT?) from one part of it ("it" is a singular pronoun and limits this subject to the U.S. Government, alone, and does not include Vietnam!) against another."

What type of "recrimination" was Bundy expecting on the day before Kennedy died; and what was this "recrimination" by one part of the U.S. Government against another? For some obscure reason did these men believe that there would be some enormous uprising in the United States as a result of "WHAT?" After all, these first draft memos were dated Nov 21, 1963. (Copies of memo to McCone of CIA, and to William Bundy, enclosed (k) and (l).

What did Bundy and these other top officials know on Nov 21, 1963, that caused them to circulate such a document? Could they have been aware of the elaborate decision that had been made for the assassination planned for the very next day?

On the other hand, this hardly seems like the type of highest level policy statement that Kennedy would have dictated on, or just before, Nov 21, 1963. He had left on a speaking tour of Texas. Certainly if he had thought some major event that would create a massive up-rising was about to take place, he would not have gone off to Texas with Lyndon, Connally and Yarborough, nor would he have authorized the majority of his Cabinet officers to fly together to Japan on Nov 19th.

This "Mac" Bundy draft was written and circulated widely throughout the upper echelons of the government from the White House on Nov 21, 1963 the day before Kennedy was assassinated.

I possess copies, dated Nov 21, 1963, with brief covering memos, on White House stationary, addressed to such top level officials as the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone (k); to Don Wilson (k) with USIA and a special note to his brother William Bundy (l), who was working with McNamara at that time. Several of these copies are marked for changes. One of these sets does mark out this strange Par. #4, see above.

The William Bundy copy is interesting because it too is dated Nov 21, 1963. Mac asks his brother to "compare it with your own notes and check with Bob McNamara..." This raises at least two ideas: a) both McGeorge and Bill Bundy had been at the Honolulu Conference on Nov 20, 1963, therefore "Mac" Bundy may have been asking Bill to refer to notes made there during those sheltered meetings, or during the long flight from Honolulu to Washington.

Then by suggesting he "check with Bob McNamara" he may have believed that McNamara, who was in Honolulu with them, and with whom "Mac" Bundy may have traveled late on the night of Nov 20, may have come up with some later ideas during inflight discussions.

I have other copies of this draft document that were done on various typewriters and they certainly indicate that this draft document had to have been quickly circulated through all of the highest governmental levels...on the 21st. On these draft copies there are some notes, and line outs. One of these (m) suggests the deletion of this troublesome, perhaps prophetic "Par 4" above.

Keep in mind the opening lines of Bundy's draft are:

"The President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge. He directs that the following guidance be issued to all concerned:..."

Then in paragraph 4, of the Nov 21, 1963, first draft of this NSAM we find this Presidential policy statement....considering that the assassination took place during the next twenty-four hours, saying:

"4. It is of the highest importance that the United States Government avoid either the appearance or the reality of public recrimination from one part of it against another, and the President expects that all senior officers of the Government will take energetic steps to insure that they and their subordinates go out of their way to maintain and to defend the unity of the United States Government both here and in the field."

If this policy of NSAM 273 was actually dictated by Kennedy, then what was Bundy's real intention with that cryptic bit of writing on the day before President Kennedy's death? Was that Bundy's secret warning of the impending assassination? Did he know about the assassination plot? Where was Bundy himself when he wrote it? In the normal course of events that draft of an NSAM would have been circulated to other top officials and then signed by Kennedy as his "Vietnam Policy". Consider these choices with care:

a) was Bundy telling us what Kennedy wanted done, i.e. "all senior officers of the Government will take energetic steps to insure that they and their subordinates go out of their way to defend the unity of the United States Government both here and abroad; or, was this a concealed warning highlighted in the draft of NSAM 273, from McGeorge Bundy, President Kennedy's "Special Assistant for National Security Affairs" to other top officials of the U.S. Government informing them that he believed the President was going to be assassinated? Does this mean that Bundy, among others, knew of the assassination plot on Nov 21? If not, why would he have written such an ominous statement without a reference to the main subject of these NSAMs: VIETNAM?

Then, in the routine processing and coordination of draft documents, and with the passing of time and other events...in this case an Assassination, this strange Par. #4 of the Nov 21, 1963, first draft was deleted right after the President's death. It does not appear, in its initial awesome language of Nov 21st, in the draft documents of Nov 24, 1963, and it is no where to be seen in the final and Presidentially approved draft of Nov 26, 1963. This important progression warrants careful study and consideration of its relevancy to the possibility of top level knowledge of the assassination planning beforehand.

No where in the final, Presidentially approved, version of the Nov 26th draft of NSAM #273 does that quotation from paragraph 4 of the Bundy draft of Nov 21, 1963, appear as written. As written above, Bundy's par 4. statement makes reference only to the "United States Government" and to its "Senior Officers" while the Johnson approved content of NASM #273 on Nov 24th and on Nov 26th directly introduces the "U.S. policy in South Vietnam".

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4068253/National-Security-Action-Memos-555657

Fletcher Prouty - Essay on NSAM's #263 and #273

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:QQj83bcUV8cJ:www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php%3Fp%3D9935+SACSA+2D958+Pentagon&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Two, little known, frequently misquoted but most important U.S. Government documents can be used to prove otherwise. They may be used as proof of the fact that President Kennedy was the victim of a well planned and classically executed assassination as the result of a decision made--perhaps not long after his election in 1960--…..

This earlier set of NSAMs begins with number 55, that originated from the work of the "Post Bay of Pigs" Cuban Study Group that he had created on April 22, 1961, to:

"Study our Governmental practices and programs in the areas of military and paramilitary, guerrilla and anti-guerrilla activity which fell short of outright war with a view to strengthening our work in this area."

Kennedy had selected the four members of that important group craftily, with care and skill. Following the failure of the CIA's Anti-Castro "Bay of Pigs" operation he resorted to the battle cry of the Kennedy Clan, "Don't Get Mad: Get Even!"

The group he appointed and assembled was a masterpiece of political craftsmanship:

a.) Allen W. Dulles, Director of Central Intelligence, whose "Bay of Pigs" operation had just collapsed.

b.) Maxwell D. Taylor, General, formerly Chief of Staff, U.S. Army.

c.) Arleigh Burke, Admiral, Chief of Naval Operations.

d.) Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General, the power behind the throne and the committee "watchdog".

From the end of April 1961 to early June 1961 this "select" Group met in room 2E980 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff area of the Pentagon. At that time my office was room 2D958, only a few doors away. Many of the men there to be questioned by this group were long-time associates of mine. They would wait in my office until they were called by the committee. After their sessions, many would return and discuss the subject.

I have, today, a copy of the "Letter to the President" written by Gen Taylor, 13 Jun 1961, as a summary of the Cuban Study Group's work. He added this surprising note for the President's consideration:

"As we have found no difficulty in reaching a unanimous view on all essential points under consideration, we are submitting this view as a jointly agreed study."

Had Kennedy lived to be re-elected this document would have led to the abolishment of the CIA, and to the replacement of the National Security Act of 1947...

As soon as the NSAM #55, "Relations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations" had been signed by President Kennedy, it was delivered to the Secretary of the Joint Staff who immediately sent it to my superior, the Chief of the newly created staff section, "Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities" (SACSA).

The head of SACSA at that time was an Army General William Craig. He called me to his office, gave me the copies of the NSAM's #55, 56, and 57 and asked me to study them carefully because they would be on the "Chiefs Agenda" for an early meeting.

The Chiefs of Staff meet regularly in the "Gold Room" in the heart of the windowless Joint Chiefs of Staff area in the very depths of the Pentagon. The agenda for each meeting is selected with care and the many items run from routine unclassified material to that of the very highest security classification. The military service, and the Joint Staff briefing officers are notified well in advance that they are on the Agenda for that date; but do not know at what time after the start of the meeting they will be called upon to present their elaborate presentations. Therefore they wait in a large room across the hall until one after the other is called. In most cases, the order of briefing is in the reverse order of the security classsification with the unclassified presentations first and the most highly classified last.

In the "Gold Room", the Chairman and the Service Chiefs sit at a large table, along with ranking staff associates from each service. Rows of special staff members are seated behind them. As a result of the security classification "pecking order" these extra staff officials leave after the briefing on their special subject had been given and before the next higher level of classification begins. So: as the morning proceeds both rooms thin out with the departure of these officials.

On that day in July 1961 when I briefed NSAM #55, I was the last briefing officer in the waiting room and the Chairman and the Service Chiefs themselves were the only officers in the "Gold Room". Although I had been with the JCS for less than two months at the time, I knew all of them and had worked with some of them quite frequently during the previous seven years that I had been in the Pentagon with the Headquarters, U.S. Air Force and with the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

The briefing began with the definition of "Cold War Operations". The simplest way to describe this is to say that they are secret, clandestine operations sponsored by the highest authority of the U.S. Government "in support of an existing government friendly to the United States, or "in support of a rebel group seeking to overthrow a government hostile to us". To make a fine point, "Cold War Operations" are distinct from "Secret Intelligence Operations".

…Although such operations had been carried out by the U. S. Government, in one way or another, since 1948-1949…it was surprising to see how little the Chiefs of Staff actually knew about them and how little close-in experience they had in that area of combat. As one of the prominent members of the U.S. Senate, a member of that select group who are always informed of such CIA activities before they take place, told me one day when I had been sent to tell him about one of these operations, before it began, "Keep it short. What I don't know about it won't hurt me." I had learned that by "short" he meant "Don't tell me anything." That was Senate "oversight" in the 1950's. The JCS felt much the same way and had limited their participation in both the planning and operations of such activities as much as possible.

As the discussion of NSAM #55 broadened, General Lemnitzer and General Shoup, both of whom had commanded military units on Okinawa that had provided extensive support for the huge CIA operation that took place against the government of President Sukarno of Indonesia in 1958, admitted that they had not realized that was what had been done with the plane-loads of weapons and other war material that had furnished in response to a "classified" request made by the CIA agent in U. S. Military uniform. It did not take long to see that these military men, all Chiefs of their services, were not Cold Warriors, and did not intend to be.

When I read to them President Kennedy's statement from NSAM #55:

"I regard the Joint Chiefs of Staff as my principal military advisors responsible both for initiating advice to me and for responding to requests for advice. I expect their advice to come to me direct and unfiltered" you could have heard a pin drop in the "Gold Room". They had never been included in the special policy channel which Allen Dulles had perfected over the past decade that ran from the National Security Council (NSC) to the CIA for all clandestine operations. They did not want to be involved; but their services did get involved inevitably whenever the CIA operators approached them for support: such as weapons from the Army, airlift from the Air Force or sealift from the Navy. Despite this logistical support they rarely, if ever, participated in the over-all operational planning with the CIA--even for such enormous "secret" activities as the "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba...unless specifically so ordered.

After I had briefed the Chiefs on the key elements of that paramount Presidential directive, NSAM #55, there was little discussion. NSAM #56, "Evaluation of Paramilitary Requirements" had been delivered to the Secretary of Defense by the White House. Its required assignment was the compilation of an "inventory (of) the paramilitary assets we have in the United States Armed Forces." This specialized task had been assigned by Sec. McNamara to General Edward G. Lansdale.

The third Presidential directive, NSAM #57, "Responsibility for Paramilitary Operations" was another strange document. As written, the primary thrust was contained in an enclosure that proposed the establishment of a "Strategic Resources Group" for initial considerations of all paramilitary operations and for approval, as deemed necessary, by the President.

Despite this quite specific language defining the role of this new group, the covering letter contained a recommendation that:

"The Special Group (NSC 5412 Committee) will perform the functions assigned in the recommendation to the Strategic Resources Group."

For an important paper from the White House, its language alone was quite a surprise. The message of the directive is carried in the enclosure; yet it is negated by that sentence cited above that assigns the responsibility for "paramilitary operations" back to the system used by the NSC and the CIA since 1954. The confused language that does this is a "recommendation" about a "recommendation". We know that the basic paper, NSAM #57 (enclosure) was written by General Maxwell Taylor, as was NSAM #55. The basic letter that reverses the Taylor procedure was written and signed by McGeorge Bundy. In this connection, it is interesting to recall that it was McGeorge Bundy who had made the telephone call to General Charles P. Cabell, the Deputy Director, CIA on the evening before the "Bay of Pigs" invasion canceling the essential air strikes against the last of Castro's combat aircraft, even though President Kennedy had directed those same air strikes that same afternoon. Later, Bundy, with this brief message, again reversed a decision of the President as affirmed in NSAM #55 and #57.

"I regard the JCS as my principal military advisors both for initiating advice to me and for responding for advice."

By concluding that the "Special Group (5412 Committee)" would "perform the function" of the new Strategic Resources Group, NSAM #57 left the former Cold War Operations system in place, with a stroke of the McGeorge Bundy pen. This circumscribed the role of the Strategic Resources Group. The super-secret "5412 Committee" that consisted of the Vice President, a high level official each from State and Defense plus the Director, Central Intelligence had been created early in the Eisenhower years and had become the compliant tool of the Dulles brothers.

The JCS recognized this loop-hole immediately and slipped through it. They did not want the job of clandestine Cold War Operations. With its toe firmly in the door as a result of the "loop-hole" in NSAM #57, the CIA began an argument that effectively neutralized NSAM #57 and the other directives. NSAM #57 said:

"Where such an operation (clandestine) is to be wholly covert or disavowable, it may be assigned to CIA, provided that it is within the normal capability of the agency."

This seemed to make it clear that a small and covert operation would still be assigned to the CIA, despite Kennedy's NSAM #55.

Then NSAM #57 added: "Any large paramilitary operation wholly or partly covert which requires significant numbers of militarily trained personnel, amounts of military equipment which exceed normal CIA-controlled stocks and/or military experience of a kind and level peculiar to the Armed Services is properly the primary responsibility of the Department of Defense with the CIA in a supporting role."

It would seem that this language might have made it indisputably clear what President Kennedy wanted. On the contrary, the CIA with the support of certain willing military leaders (such as those with the U.S. Army Special Warfare elements), began a long series of meetings to discuss and filibuster, "What is a small covert operation; and what is a large one?" They, of course, battled to stake out as large a claim as possible. These arguments progressed to the subject of the eventual transfer of such operations from an embattled CIA to the larger and more experienced military.

The question was raised, "Suppose the CIA begins a certain Cold War Operation with a small, covert activity that leads through a normal sequence of events to a large operation that becomes a major military conflagration far beyond that agency's capability? When and how will the transfer of the responsibility for that larger operation from the CIA to the military take place, and at such a time is there any chance, at all, that the operation can then be kept secret and plausibly deniable as required by NSC Directive #5412?

General Maxwell D. Taylor became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff October 1962 and Ambassador to the Government of South Vietnam in July 1964. Since he had written these papers and originated the concept of the Special Resources Group, he knew the concept, at least, and had the support of the President. What eventually came about in Vietnam, when the first military troops under direct military command landed at DaNang in March 1965, was a direct result of the policy of NSAM #57. The warfare in Indochina that had begun in 1945 under the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had become too big for the CIA alone. With the landing of the U.S. Marine battalions, under the command of a Marine General, the entire nature of that warfare that had been carried out under the aegis of the CIA, changed; but it took twenty years for the clandestine work of the CIA to achieve that level...and this was not done during JFK's lifetime.

Returning to the time of the original briefing of these three documents, especially to that of NSAM #57, in July 1961, the Chiefs wondered how these new policy ideas had reached the President. Some thought that Ted Sorenson, the President's Counsel, and, perhaps Bobby Kennedy were responsible for it. Some suspected that Walt Rostow and Bill Bundy may have come up with the concept. If they could have discovered the source of these documents they would have been better able to evaluate their true significance. This was an interesting question. (During my study of them prior to presenting the briefing to the Chiefs, I had come to the conclusion that Sorenson and Bobby Kennedy may have put this together because Bobby had attended all of the meetings of the Cuban Study Group and I knew almost all of the officials--military and CIA--who had been brought before that group during May-June 1961. My guess was wrong.)

Many years later, this author invited Admiral Burke to lunch, along with a good friend who is a lawyer. During this most cordial luncheon, I asked the Admiral directly if the Cuban Study Group had ever issued a "REPORT" to the President after the conclusion of its lengthy deliberations. He answered, "No. The only report our Group made to the President was oral." Furthermore, he noted that Bobby Kennedy had attended all of the meetings. His inference was that with Bobby in the room, there was no need to report the findings to his brother whom he saw every day.

The Admiral's response was technically true. There was no "Report"; but he had shaded the fact. His response leaves open another possibility. General Maxwell Taylor may, with the consent of the other members of the Cuban Study Group, have written his lengthy letter to the President on his own in order to present his own views about the way this nation should carry out Cold War Operations. After all, he was the paramilitary expert and the others were not. In view of the situation at that time, this may be the correct interpretation of these important events. The Admiral and the others on the Group hid under the fine print that General Taylor had delivered a "letter" to the President, and not a "report". This famous "Report" was discovered nearly a generation later at the Kennedy library filed under "Letters" and not "Report". ( I possess a copy of that full report.)

The President had recalled General Taylor to active duty on June 26, 1961, just two days before he signed NSAM #55, "Relations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations", and said that he would be his "Military Representative for Foreign and Military Policy and Intelligence Operations".

Continuing his behind the scenes plan to downgrade the CIA, the President signaled his acceptance of the "Report on the Defense Intelligence Organizations" that had been written by a group headed by General Graves B. Erskine, USMC (Ret'd) and long-time head of the Office of Special Operations within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Kennedy then announced his intention, on July 11, 1961, to establish the Defense Intelligence Agency. Following this announcement, Secretary McNamara created the DIA on August 1, 1961, and its first leader was Air Force Gen. Joseph F. Carroll, formerly an agent with the FBI. This was followed, August 16 through August 25, 1961, by a large recall of Army Reserve and National Guard troops,….

Essentially a copy of a letter Fletcher Prouty sent to Jim Garrison at a time when Garrison was having difficulty finding a publisher for his manuscript, ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASSASSINS. Garrison gave a copy of this letter to his publisher who gave a copy to Oliver Stone. When Stone read this he said, "I can make a movie of this." That was the start of "JFK", a feature film receiving 8 Academy Award nominations.

Dear Jim,

It is amazing how things work, I am at home recuperating from a major back operation (to regain my ability to walk); so I was tossing around in bed last night...not too comfortable...and I began to think of Garrison. I thought, "I have got to write Jim a letter detailing how I believe the whole job was done."

By another coincidence I had received a fine set of twenty photos from the Sprague collection in Springfield, Mass. As the odds would have it, he is now living just around the corner here in Alexandria. Why not? Lansdale lived here, Fensterwald lives here. Ford used to live here. Quite a community.

I was studying those photos. One of them is in the "Tramps" picture that appears in your book. It is glossy and clear. Lansdale is so clearly identifiable. Why, Lansdale in Dallas? The others don't matter, they are nothing but actors and not gunmen: but they are interesting. Others who knew Lansdale as well as I did, have said the same thing, "That's him. What's he doing there?"

As I was reading the paper the Federal Express man came with a book from Jim, that unusual "Lansdale" book. A terrible biography. There could be a great biography about Lansdale. He's no angel; but he is worth a good biography. Currey, a paid hack, did the job. His employers ought to have let him do it right.

I had known Ed since 1952 in the Philippines. I used to fly there regularly with my MATS Heavy Transport Squadron. As a matter of fact, in those days we used to fly wounded men, who were recuperating, from hospitals in Japan to Saigon for R&R on the beaches of Cap St Jacque. That was 1952-1953. Saigon was the Paris of the Orient. And Lansdale was "King Maker" of the Philippines. We always went by way of Manila. I met his team.

He had arrived in Manila in Sept 1945, after the war was over, for a while. He had been sent back there in 1950 by the CIA(OPC) to create a new leader of the Philippines and to get rid of Querino. Sort of like the Marcos deal, or the Noriega operation. Lansdale did it better. I have overthrown a government but I didn't splash it all around like Reagan and Bush have done]

Now, who sent him there? Who sent him there in 1950 (Truman era) to do a job that was not done until 1953 (Ike era)? From 1950 to Feb 1953 the Director of Central Intelligence was Eisenhower's old Chief of Staff, Gen Walter Bedell Smith. Smith had been Ambassador to Moscow from 1946 to 1949. The lesser guys in the CIA at the time were Allen Dulles, who was Deputy Director Central Intelligence from Aug 1951 to Feb 1953. Frank Wisner became the Deputy Director, Plans (Clandestine Activities) when Dulles became DDCI. Lansdale had to have received his orders from among these four men: Truman, Smith, Dulles, and Wisner. Of course the Sec State could have had some input...i.e. Acheson. Who wanted Querino out, that badly? Who wanted HUKS there?

In Jan 1953 Eisenhower arrived. John Foster Dulles was at State and Gen Smith his Deputy. Allen Dulles was the DCI and General Cabel his deputy. None of them changed Lansdale's prior orders to "get" Querino. Lansdale operated with abandon in the Philippines. The Ambassador and the CIA Station Chief, George Aurell, did not know what he was doing. They believed he was some sort of kook Air Force Officer there...a role Lansdale played to the hilt. Magsaysay became President, Dec 30, 1953.

With all of this on the record, and a lot more, this guy Currey comes out of the blue with this purported "Biography". I knew Ed well enough and long enough to know that he was a classic chameleon. He would tell the truth sparingly and he would fabricate a lot. Still, I can not believe that he told Currey the things Currey writes. Why would Lansdale want Currey to perpetuate such out and out bullxxxx about him? Can't be. This is a terribly fabricated book. It's not even true about me. I believe that this book was ordered and delineated by the CIA.

At least I know the truth about myself and about Gen. Krulak. Currey libels us terribly. In fact it may be Krulak who caused the book to be taken off the shelves. Krulak and his Copley Press cohorts have the power to get that done, and I encouraged them to do just that when it first came out. Krulak was mad!

Ed told me many a time how he operated in the Philippines. He said, "All I had was a blank checkbook signed by the U.S. government." He made friends with many influential Filipinos. I have met Johnny Orendain and Col Valeriano, among others, in Manila with Lansdale. He became acquainted with the wealthiest Filipino of them all, Soriano. Currey never even mentions him. Soriano set up Philippine Airlines and owned the big San Miguel beer company, among other things. Key man in Asia.

Lansdale's greatest strategy was to create the "HUKS" as the enemy and to make Magsaysay the "Huk Killer." He would take Magsaysay's battalion out into a "Huk" infested area. He would use movies and "battlefield" sound systems, i.e. fireworks to scare the poor natives. Then one-half of Magsaysay's battalion, dressed as natives, would "attach" the village at night. They'd fire into the air and burn some shacks. In the morning the other half, in uniform, would attack and "capture" the "Huks". They would bind them up in front of the natives who crept back from the forests, and even have a "firing" squad "kill" some of them. Then they would have Magsaysay make a big speech to the people and the whole battalion would roll down the road to have breakfast together somewhere...ready for the next "show".

Ed would always see that someone had arranged to have newsmen and camera men there and Magsaysay soon became a national hero. This was a tough game and Ed bragged that a lot of people were killed; but in the end Magsaysay became the "elected" President and Querino was ousted "legally."

This formula endeared Ed to Allen Dulles. In 1954 Dulles established the Saigon Military Mission in Vietnam...counter to Eisenhower's orders. He had the French accept Lansdale as its chief. This mission was not in Saigon. It was not military, and its job was subversion in Vietnam. Its biggest job was that it got more than 1,100,000 northern Vietnamese to move south. 660,000 by U.S. Navy ships and the rest by CIA airline planes. These 1,100,000 north Vietnamese became the "subversive" element in South Vietnam and the principal cause of the warmaking. Lansdale and his cronies (Bohanon, Arundel, Phillips, Hand, Conein and many others) did all that using the same check book. I was with them many times during 1954. All Mathuseanism.

I have heard him brag about capturing random Vietnamese and putting them in a Helicopter. Then they would work on them to make them "confess" to being Viet Minh. When they would not, they would toss them out of the chopper, one after the other, until the last ones talked. This was Ed's idea of fun...as related to me many times. Then Dulles, Adm Radford and Cardinal Spellman set up Ngo Dinh Diem. He and his brother, Nhu, became Lansdale proteges.

At about 1957 Lansdale was brought back to Washington and assigned to Air Force Headquarters in a Plans office near mine. He was a fish out of water. He didn't know Air Force people and Air Force ways. After about six months of that, Dulles got the Office of Special Operations under General Erskine to ask for Lansdale to work for the Secretary of Defense. Erskine was man enough to control him.

By 1960 Erskine had me head the Air Force shop there. He had an Army shop and a Navy shop and we were responsible for all CIA relationships as well as for the National Security Agency. Ed was still out of his element because he did not know the services; but the CIA sent work his way.

Then in the Fall of 1960 something happened that fired him up. Kennedy was elected over Nixon. Right away Lansdale figured out what he was going to do with the new President. Overnight he left for Saigon to see Diem and to set up a deal that would make him, Lansdale, Ambassador to Vietnam. He had me buy a "Father of his Country" gift for Diem...$700.00.

I can't repeat all of this but you should get a copy of the Gravel edition, 5 Vol.s, of the Pentagon Papers and read it. The Lansdale accounts are quite good and reasonably accurate.

Ed came back just before the Inauguration and was brought into the White House for a long presentation to Kennedy about Vietnam. Kennedy was taken by it and promised he would have Lansdale back in Vietnam "in a high office". Ed told us in OSO he had the Ambassadorship sewed up. He lived for that job.

He had not reckoned with some of JFK's inner staff, George Ball, etc. Finally the whole thing turned around and month by month Lansdale's star sank over the horizon. Erskine retired and his whole shop was scattered. The Navy men went back to the navy as did the Army folks. Gen Wheeler in the JCS asked to have me assigned to the Joint Staff. This wiped out the whole Erskine (Office of Special Operations) office. It was comical. There was Lansdale up there all by himself with no office and no one else. He boiled and he blamed it on Kennedy for not giving him the "promised" Ambassadorship to let him "save" Vietnam.

Then with the failure of the Bay of Pigs, caused by that phone call to cancel the air strikes by McGeorge Bundy, the military was given the job of reconstituting some sort of Anti-Castro operation. It was headed by an Army Colonel; but somehow Lansdale (most likely CIA influence) got put into the plans for Operation Mongoose...to get Castro...ostensibly.

The U.S. Army has a think tank at American University. It was called "Operation Camelot". This is where the "Camelot" concept came from. It was anti-JFK's Vietnam strategy. The men running it were Lansdale types, Special Forces background. "Camelot" was King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table: not JFK...then.

Through 1962 and 1963 Mongoose and "Camelot" became strong and silent organizations dedicated to countering JFK. Mongoose had access to the CIA's best "hit men" in the business and a lot of "strike" capability. Lansdale had many old friends in the media business such as Joe Alsop, Henry Luce among others. With this background and with his poisoned motivation I am positive that he got collateral orders to manage the Dallas event under the guise of "getting" Castro. It is so simple at that level. A nod from the right place, source immaterial, and the job's done.

The "hit" is the easy part. The "escape" must be quick and professional. The cover-up and the scenario are the big jobs, They more than anything else prove the Lansdale mastery.

Lansdale was a master writer and planner. He was a great "scenario" guy. It still have a lot of his personally typed material in my files. I am certain that he was behind the elaborate plan and mostly the intricate and enduring cover-up. Given a little help from friends at PEPSICO he could easily have gotten Nixon into Dallas, for "orientation': and LBJ in the cavalcade at the same time, contrary to Secret Service policy.

He knew the "Protection" units and the "Secret Service", who was needed and who wasn't. Those were routine calls for him, and they would have believed him. Cabell could handle the police.

The "hit men" were from CIA overseas sources, for instance, from the "Camp near Athena, Greece. They are trained, stateless, and ready to go at any time. They ask no questions: speak to no one. They are simply told what to do, when and where. Then they are told how they will be removed and protected. After all, they work for the U.S. Government. The "Tramps" were actors doing the job of cover-up. The hit men are just pros. They do the job for The CIA anywhere. They are impersonal. They get paid. They get protected, and they have enough experience to "blackmail" anyone, if anyone ever turns on them...just like Drug agents. The job was clean, quick and neat. No ripples.

The whole story of the POWER of the Cover-up comes down to a few points. There has never been a Grand Jury and trial in TExas. Without a trial there can be nothing. Without a trial it does no good for researchers to dig up data. It has no place to go and what the researchers reveal just helps make the cover-up tighter, or they eliminate that evidence and the researcher.

The first man LBJ met with on Nov 29th, after he had cleared the foreign dignitaries out of Washington was Waggoner Carr, Atty Gen'l, Texas to tell him. "No trial in Texas...ever."

The next man he met, also on Nov 29th, was J. Edgar Hoover. The first question LBJ asked his old "19 year" neighbor in DC was "Were THEY shooting at me?" LBJ thought that THEY had been shooting at him also as they shot at his friend John Connally. Note that he asked, "Were THEY shooting at me?" LBJ knew there were several hitmen. That's the ultimate clue...THEY.

The Connallys said the same thing...THEY. Not Oswald.

Then came the heavily loaded press releases about Oswald all written before the deal and released actually before LHO had ever been charged with the crime. I bought the first newspaper EXTRA on the streets of Christchurch, New Zealand with the whole LHO story in that first news...photos and columns of it before the police in Dallas had yet to charge him with that crime. All this canned material about LHO was flashed around the world.

Lansdale and his Time-Life and other media friends, with Valenti in Hollywood, have been doing that cover-up since Nov 1963. Even the deMorenschildt story enhances all of this. In deM's personal telephone/address notebook ha has the name of an Air Force Colonel friend of mine, Howard Burrus. Burrus was always deep in intelligence. He had been in one of the most sensitive Attache spots in Europe...Switzerland. He was a close friend of another Air Force Colonel and Attache, Godfrey McHugh, who used to date Jackie Bouvier. DeM had Burrus listed under a DC telephone number and on that same telephone number he had "L.B.Johnson, Congressman." Quite a connection. Why...from the Fifties yet.?

Godfrey McHugh was the Air Force Attache in Paris. Another most important job. I knew him well, and I transferred his former Ass't Attache to my office in the Pentagon. This gave me access to a lot of information I wanted in the Fifties. This is how I learned that McHugh's long-time special "date" was the fair Jacqueline...yes, the same Jackie Bouvier. Sen. Kennedy met Jackie in Paris when he was on a trip. At that time JFK was dating a beautiful SAS Airline Stewardess who was the date of that Ass't Attache who came to my office. JFK dumped her and stole Jackie away from McHugh. Leaves McHugh happy????

At the JFK Inaugural Ball who should be there but the SAS stewardess, Jackie--of course, and Col Godfrey McHugh. JFK made McHugh a General and made him his "Military Advisor" in the White HOuse where he was near Jackie while JFK was doing all that official travelling connected with his office AND other special interests. Who recommended McHugh for the job?

General McHugh was in Dallas and was on Air Force One, with Jackie, on the flight back to Washington..as was Jack Valenti. Why was LBJ's old cohort there at that time and why was he on Air Force One? He is now the Movie Czar. Why in Dallas?

See how carefully all of this is interwoven. Burrus is now a very wealthy man in Washington. I have lost track of McHugh. And Jackie is doing well. All in the Lansdale--deM shadows.

One of Lansdale's special "black" intelligence associates in the Pentagon was Dorothy Matlack of U.S. Army Intelligence. How does it happen that when deM. flew from Haiti to testify, he was met at the National Airport by Dorothy?

The Lansdale story is endless. What people do not do is study the entire environment of his strange career. For example: the most important part of my book, "The Secret Team", is not something that I wrote. It is Appendix III under the title, "Training Under The Mutual Security Program."This is a most important bit of material. It tells more about the period 1963 to 1990 than anything. I fought to have it included verbatim in the book. This material was the work of Lansdale and his crony General Dick Stillwell. Anyone interested in the "JFK Coup d'Etat" ought to know it by heart.

I believe this document tells why the Coup took place. It was to reverse the sudden JFK re-orientation of the U.S. Government from Asia to Europe, in keeping with plans made in 1943 at Cairo and Teheran by T.V. Soon and his Asian masterminds. Lansdale and Stillwell were long-time "Asia hands" as were Gen Erskine, Adm Radford, Cardinal Spellman, Henry Luce and so many others.

In October 1963, JFK had just signalled this reversal, to Europe, when he published National Security Action Memorandum #263 saying...among other things...that he was taking 1000 troops home from Vietnam by Christmas 1963 and ALL AMERICANS out of Vietnam by the end of 1965. That cost him his life.

JFK came to that "Pro-Europe" conclusion in the Summer of 1963 and sent Gen Krulak to Vietnam for advance work. Kurlak and I (with others) wrote that long "Taylor-McNamara" Report of their "Visit to Vietnam" (obviously they did not write, illustrate and bind it as they traveled). Krulak got his information daily in the White House. We simply wrote it. That led to NSAM #263. This same Trip Report is Document #142 and appears on page 751 to 766 of Vol II of the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers. NSAM #263 appears on pages 769-770 (It makes the Report official).

This major Report and NSAM indicated an enormous shift in the orientation of U.S. Foreign Policy from Asia back to Europe. JFK was much more Europe-oriented, as was his father, than pro-Asia. This position was anathema to the Asia-born Luces, etc.

There is the story from an insider. I sat in the same office with Lansdale, (OSO of OSD) for years. I listened to him in Manila and read his flurry of notes from 1952 to 1964. I know all this stuff, and much more. I could write ten books. I send this to you because I believe you are one of the most sincere of the "true researchers." You may do with it as you please. I know you will do it right. I may give copies of this to certain other people of our persuasion. (Years ago I told this to Mae Brussell on the promise she would hold it. She did.)

Now you can see why I have always said that identification of the "Tramps" was unnecessary, i.e. they are actors. The first time I saw that picture I saw the man I knew and I realized why he was there. He caused the political world to spin on its axis. Now, back to recuperating.

L. Fletcher Prouty

http://www.apfn.net/dcia/prouty.html

Edited January 1, 2009 by William Kelly

[Peter McGuire]

The idea that Kennedy was too radical for the military-industrial complex is the thesis behind the two motion pictures about the case: the dull 1973 version. Executive Action, which starred Burt Lancaster, and Oliver Stone's JFK. Stone emphasised Vietnam: Kennedy was shot to stop withdrawal from Vietnam. This is the thesis of the late L. Fletcher Prouty, former US Air Force Colonel, who had a remarkable book. The Secret Team, published in America in 1973. Prouty was a really important insider, not only the US Air Force's liaison officer with the ClA's covert operations in the 1950s, but someone who had also been in charge of presidential security. As former liaison with the CIA, Prouty had watched the growth of the agency covert operations. As a security officer, Prouty looked at the events that day in Dallas and saw the absence of presidential security. As Prouty pointed out, the absence of security is all you need to arrange. Prouty implied, but never quite stated, that the US Secret Service had to be part of the plot. Unfortunately for Prouty his book got buried under the Watergate scandal.

Extract from Who Shot JFK (2002)

An excerpt from the book JFK The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L. Fletcher Prouty

Birch Lane Press, 1992 - hard cover, 1st edition

This situation cannot be treated lightly. How did it happen that the Kennedy cabinet had traveled to Hawaii at precisely the same time Kennedy was touring in Texas? How did it happen that the subject of discussion in Hawaii, before JFK was killed, was a strange agenda that would not come up in the White House until after he had been murdered? Who could have known, beforehand, that this new--non-Kennedy--agenda would be needed in the White House because Kennedy would no longer be President?

Is there any possibility that the "powers that be" who planned and executed the Kennedy assassination had also been able to get the Kennedy cabinet out of the country and to have them conferring in Hawaii on an agenda that would be put before President Lyndon Johnson just four days after Kennedy's death?

President Kennedy would not have sent his cabinet to Hawaii to discuss that agenda. He had issued his own agenda for Vietnam on October 11, 1963, and he had no reason to change it. More than that, he had no reason at all to send them all to Hawaii for such a conference. It is never good practice for a President to have key members of his cabinet out of town while he is on an extended trip. Why was the cabinet in Hawaii? Who ordered the cabinet members there? If JFK had no reason to send them to Hawaii, who did, and why?

Keep in mind, through this series of vitally important questions, that we are piling circumstance upon circumstance. It is the body of circumstantial evidence that proves the existence of conspiracy.

As soon as the Honolulu conference broke up, these same cabinet members departed from Hawaii on an unprecedented trip to Japan. No one has explained why the Kennedy cabinet was ordered to Japan at that time.

This trip to Japan was not some casual event. Someone had arranged it with care. A reading of newspapers from late November 1963 reveals that extracts of speeches supposedly given by some of these cabinet officers in Japan were made available and then printed, for example, even in the Washington, D.C., Star.

We all know now that these cabinet officers did not reach Japan and that their VIP aircraft returned to Hawaii. Why would newspapers in the United States print extracts of their speeches as though they actually had gone to Japan and delivered those speeches? Who had set this trip up so meticulously that even such details as the press releases appeared to validate the presence of the cabinet members in Japan when in fact they never went there?

Edited April 29, 2010 by Peter McGuire

[Ron Ecker]

Why was the cabinet in Hawaii? Who ordered the cabinet members there? If JFK had no reason to send them to Hawaii, who did, and why? . . .

As soon as the Honolulu conference broke up, these same cabinet members departed from Hawaii on an unprecedented trip to Japan. No one has explained why the Kennedy cabinet was ordered to Japan at that time.

From "The Tokyo Flight" by me:

Rusk and Defense Secretary McNamara attended a conference on Vietnam, with military officers and other officials, in Honolulu on November 20-21. The purpose of the meeting was to review the situation after the assassination of South Vietnam's President Diem earlier that month. The conference date and location were chosen to dovetail with Rusk's scheduled trip to Japan. But in his book Colonel Prouty asks with suspicion why all those Cabinet members who would be on the Tokyo flight had to attend the Honolulu Conference. Calling it "one of the strangest scenarios in recent history," Prouty asks "Why was the cabinet in Hawaii? Who ordered the cabinet members there?"

In fact Rusk was the only Tokyo-bound Cabinet member who attended the Honolulu Conference. According to Salinger, the five members of the Cabinet who were to join Rusk and Salinger for the trip to Japan arrived in Hawaii, along with their wives, on the evening of November 21, when the Honolulu Conference was over and McNamara was already on a plane headed back to Washington.

In his book Prouty calls the Cabinet members' trip to Japan "unprecedented," and says, "No one has explained why the Kennedy cabinet was ordered to Japan at that time." But in fact the explanation can be readily found in the official records of the JFK administration.

In June 1961 JFK met in Washington with Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, and in a joint statement they announced an agreement "to establish a joint United States-Japan committee on trade and economic affairs at the cabinet level." In a November 8, 1961 press conference, JFK commented on "the success and significance of the first meeting of the Joint United States-Japan Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs," which was held the week before in Japan, and which he described as a "joint Cabinet group." (The acronym for this committee in State Department documents is the Joint ECONCOM.) The second annual meeting was held in Washington on December 3-5, 1962, and the third was to have taken place in Tokyo on November 25-27, 1963.

http://hobrad.angelfire.com/tokyo.html