PROBABLE CAUSE AUSTRALIA
A Continuing Inquiry into the JFK Assassination
Issue 2 - May/June 1993
Probable Cause Australia is the only Australian magazine dedicated to the JFK assassination.
Editorial
Welcome to the second issue of Probable Cause, the Australian JFK Assassination
Information Centre's newsletter. We hope you all enjoyed the first issue (it was sold out by April!) and that you'll enjoy this issue even more.
First, let's apologize for this issue being late, but we've been waiting for things to happen, and I'm sure you'll agree that the news, announced on the front cover, that Fletcher Prouty and David Lifton have joined our crew is terrific. Fletcher Prouty will
appear in this issue, while David Lifton will appear next issue as we jump on the JAMA article and attack it with full force.
Since we last spoke the Australian centre has managed to obtain two of its biggest goals. We now have a complete set of The Warren Commission - that's all 26
volumes! We've been after a set for a long time now, it just seems we weren't looking in the right place.
Many hours have been spent by your editorial committee trying to make some sense of the most confusing volumes of testimony we've ever seen. The set we have is in pristine (get it?) condition and now all we have to do is sit down and read it. There is nothing better than actually being able to go back to the original documents and check for yourself. No more facts second-hand, now we can hunt them down in the volumes and see for ourselves.
We hope to now bring you a two page spread each issue titled "From the Warren Commission" and will include such things as the actual photos of the men who were placed next to Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas police lineups. That should get you talking! The volumes are here for us all, one call and you can come and spend an entertaining hour or seven perusing the cornerstone of the government's view on the case.
The other goal conquered is just as important. We now have the complete, uncut, full five hour version of "The Men Who Killed Kennedy." There's five parts to this excellent British documentary (the best ever made on the assassination) and if you thought you saw it all when Channel 10 showed less than half of the material
available to them, you were wrong. This is a must and there' s more details, and a review, somewhere inside this weighty tome.
Also, we've managed through the Dallas KAIC to get hold of the actual Oswald backyard photos. I mean, not the originals, but copies. They will appear in an issue
soon, if not this one. They're very interesting to view next to each other and the photos will be accompanied by an article written by our own photographic analyst. Can't wait for that one!
News from Walt Brown is both good and not so good. First of all, he called the first issue of PC, "A journalistic success in every sense of the word," and promised to let everyone know about us at the MidWest Symposium where he was a guest speaker. His trip down under has been placed on hold, and therefore so has our seminar, until further notice! (This is the bad news guys!) But there is good reason for the postponement.
The Dallas Police have finally opened their archives so, with the release of between 3,000-5,000 pages of documents, Walt's going to be fairly busy in the upcoming months. However, and this is the good news, he'll be keeping us up to date with just what the files contain and what, if anything, this does to change any views on the case. Good luck, Walt!
Read this issue, and enjoy.
Steve Gerlach
Badgemen - Plural by Steve Gerlach
In Walt Brown's "The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald" the author takes the idea of Badgeman a step further from singular to plural. The idea that all the assassins that day were dressed as police not only makes a lot of sense, but is actually backed up by more proof than you could fire a Mannlicher at.
Whilst we have all agreed that the gunman on the Grassy Knoll was wearing a uniform, most probably a Dallas police uniform, so he could easily move through the crowd and not be questioned - no one has ever thought this applied to the other shooters in the Texas School Book Depository or the Daltex Building. Heck, even Oliver Stone messes this one up and has the other shooters in Acme Air-conditioning overalls; a very flimsy fact based only on the so-called evidence that Ruby said to Oswald before the assassination that he had the air-conditioning equipment.
Dressed as Dallas Police makes sense.
And it's backed by facts.
Let's look at them:
1) A man in a police uniform is seen behind the Grassy Knoll standing where shots are heard and smoke is seen during and just after the assassination.
2) Two men are seen on the six floor of the TSBD in the sniper's window. They are said to be wearing light shirts. (Light blue? Dallas Police uniform shirts were sky blue.)
3) The two policemen seen escorting the tramps through Dealey Plaza are NOT Dallas police. Fletcher Prouty backs this point up, stating in his book "JFK" that the uniforms differ slightly from Dallas police uniforms. The tramps are supposedly taken to the Sheriff's office (Dallas police had nothing to do with the Sheriff's office) and are then supposedly set free. The police in the photo are carrying shotguns, not rifles; Dallas police only carried rifles.
4) When the TSBD was finally sealed off from the public after the assassination and investigations centered on the sixth floor, a civilian was placed at the back door of the Depository and was told not to let anyone out. Fine and dandy. This guy didn't let anyone out except "two Dallas police carrying shotguns".
5) A police car rolls up at Oswald's boarding house and gives two beeps on the horn. There are two police in the car. All other cars were in Dealey Plaza, except for officer Tippit and he was supposedly driving solo.
6) Tippit is shot by two people in Oak Cliff, one of his killers is dressed in an overcoat covering all his body (to hide a police uniform?) Also note that a spare uniform was found in the back of Tippit's car.
Walt Brown makes a good case for the fact that anyone wanting to take such a risk in shooting the President would also make sure they could escape as easily as possible.
If the shooter on the Knoll is in a uniform, why not the others?
Who could walk through Dealey Plaza after an assassination and carry a shotgun by their side without fear of reproach other than a policeman? There's no need for a fast escape or hiding, they just stand there and blend with the crowd.
A police-assassin could walk up and down Dealey Plaza with a shotgun before, during and after the assassination without looking suspicious. Were the three tramps just a way of getting the shooters out of Dealey? The police-shooters couldn't just leave the area (that would look suspicious) so the tramps were "arrested" and taken only so far so they could all escape together.
Walt Brown's clincher on this idea is simple. If no one saw or heard Oswald run down the stairs or use the elevator after the assassination then they didn't hear anyone else run down the stairs or use the elevator after the assassination!!! It's simple, if someone did shoot from the sixth floor of the TSBD, then where did they go if they didn't immediately escape down and out of the building?? Easy.
THEY WENT UP.
Up to the seventh floor of the Depository where they put their police jackets over their blue shirts. Then the two shooters sat and waited. Waited for there to be enough police on the sixth floor that they could safely come down and mingle with the rest of the force, look like they were doing their job, and then slowly leave (with their shotguns) out the back of the TSBD where the civilian guarding the door let them out.
They then walk to the railway yards, pick up the three tramps, march them through Dealey and mysteriously disappear down towards the Sheriff's office. On their way to the safe house and freedom.
Meanwhile, good old Badgeman number one from the Knoll has been picked up by Tippit and they drive to Oswald's boarding house. Tippit, like Roscoe White, had just started on the force and had come from New Orleans and had connections with the Mafia. Tippit was hired to drive the assassin and Oswald out to the safe house. Just like a police uniform, no one's going to stop a police car, now are they??
Tippit and Badgeman honk for Oswald and then drive to their pre-arranged meeting point. The story from here can go one of two ways:
1) Tippit, used to driving drug dealers and petty-crooks to safety is appalled by the news that the President has been assassinated and keeps quiet until he has Badgeman and Oswald in the car. Then, being heroic and stupid, he tells them he can't got through with it and that he's going to arrest them and take them back to the authorities. Badge and Oswald are, naturally, against this and kill him before he has a chance to do anything else. Badge and Oswald then run off in different directions. Badge to the safe house, Oswald to the Texas Theater - the place he was told to go if anything went wrong.
or 2) The idea was simply to kill Oswald and kill him quick. No questions could be asked if Oswald was killed fleeing from a policeman. Heck, they could have pinned anything on him then. Oswald was told he would be driven to the safe house with Badgeman. When Tippit pulls up along side Oswald in the street, he tells Oswald he can't go through with it all and that he is going to arrest him and take him back to Dallas. This is designed to make Oswald panic and run and give Tippit a clear shot of his back. But Oswald continues to walk calmly along the road. Tippit gets out of the car, leaving Badgeman in it, and begins to walk towards Oswald to arrest him when Oswald turns and shoots him instead. Oswald and Badgeman then panic and both run off as in number 1.
THE REST IS HISTORY.
We're not dealing with bit-players anymore. We're talking about people able to get their hands on police uniforms, they're able to infiltrate the Dallas police force, and they are able to have a huge influence over both the state and federal investigations. Who are these people? Who do they work for? Your guess is as good as mine. But they're high up, able to get and do what they want. Dare I say they're from inside the government?
From all the suggested evidence, the case for there being Badgemen - plural, wearing police uniforms, strengthens with every review of the evidence. It all fits nicely into place, everything makes sense, and we get one step closer to solving this case for all time. And that's definitely an unusual situation for this case.
Lee Oswald - Who and What Was He? by Walt Brown
Both from the official publications and from arduous digging done by dedicated researchers, we have arrived at a point where we have a reasonably large data bank regarding Lee Oswald, the prime official suspect in the killing of John F. Kennedy and Dallas police officer Jefferson Davis Tippit on November 22, 1963.
"Officially", nothing has been done since the House Select Committee on Assassinations recommended to the Justice Department that they take a new look at a case that was fifteen years old. "Nothing" is the key word in the last sentence, as that is exactly what the Justice Department did, except that ten years after the House Committee asked them to do something, they did. In 1988, they ruled the case "CLOSED".
So what we have learned about Lee Oswald of late has been through private labors, and while all the research, digging, and initiative is to be commended, we have almost reached the point where "more is less" with regard to Oswald. In short, we have learned so much about him that we can be sure of almost nothing, and any hypothesis suggested can be countered by other known facts.
Consider some of the contradictions: we are told that he was orphaned by his mother, or, alternatively, overly pampered by her. At the same time, there are suggestions that he fell in with the wrong company while being ministered to by his "surrogate father", Charles "Dutz" Murret.
Oswald was an avid reader who disliked school and was frequently truant. (In an odd irony, both Oswald and Ruby were temporarily institutionalized as early teens for truancy.)
After being released from the clutches of Dr. Renatus Hartogs, Oswald took up two pursuits. The reading of Marxism, and, when that bored him, he would put it down and pick up his brother's Marine Corps Manual, which he memorized.
From the age of 17 until November 22, when we know he committed the violent act of swinging at a police officer in the Texas Theater, his life is characterized by non-violence. Although he tried to enter the Marines prematurely, he bided his time reading Karl Marx, then quit school to join the Corps at age 17. He virtually ignored the more militaristic aspects of his chosen career, including the maintenance of his rifle, and was, according to his Marine cronies, so atypical a Marine and so peace oriented that he would have made Gandhi look like a serial killer.
But he had to pass his time in the Marines somehow, so he became an open and avowed Marxist, an odd commodity, to say the least, in the fighting force that has always been viewed as the "gung ho" "semper fi" leathernecks that clear the beaches so that democracy may wash ashore. He studied the Russian language, was tested in it, subscribed to Russian periodicals, listened to Russian music and always took the red pieces when playing chess. His Marine buddies thought this behaviour strange, but when they reported it to superiors, the silence was deafening. The test he took on February 25,1959, is instructive; although his score was not outstanding, the very fact that he took it is unusual, and he scored far higher on it than the vast majority of those who will read this article. How did he come to take the test? Was he sweeping the barracks one day only to have an officer enter and yell, "Hey! Any of you guys want to take a Russian language test?" Or did the range officer, noticing that Oswald was
piling up a lot of "Maggie's Drawers" with his rusty rifle, suggest, "Look, kid, you can't hit a barn. Why not learn the language so you can translate the surrender terms when we storm Stalingrad?"
Once this avowed Marxist with a high security clearance had learned all he needed to know, he got out of the service as fast as he got in, with no questions asked...almost as if they either didn't want him any more or wanted to create that illusion...
He then defected to Russia, loudly (for the sake of listening devices), denounced America, and promised the Russians all our secrets. But they studiously avoided his collection of secrets, using his skills instead to manufacture radios and pull down a salary that would keep him in cabbage all his days.
He met and married Marina Prussakova in haste, and then immediately let her know he wanted to return to the United States, as he had had enough of the workers' paradise. Despite her kinship to a Soviet Intelligence Officer, she was routinely allowed to leave the Soviet Union, a situation that caused much concern for the white-Russian emigre group in Dallas-Fort Worth who tried, with mixed success, to befriend her and her at times obnoxious husband.
The Soviets, it seemed, were as eager to be rid of Lee Oswald as the Marine Corps had been, so they allowed Marina Oswald to accompany her husband out of the country. It seems interesting in retrospect to consider that we have been led to believe that the KGB had no interest whatsoever in what Oswald knew. Likewise, the ever-impoverished Oswald did not approach and Soviets to sell the data he possessed. Upon returning home, (after getting State Department guarantees of money and no prosecution), the CIA and the FBI adopt the KGB's attitude toward Oswald, and the still impoverished prodigal son shows no interest in selling what he knows about Russia to the highest American bidder.
Oswald, the self-styled intellectual and theoretician, ever ready to debate at social gatherings or talk shows, begins a career of sheet metal work, photo enlarging, coffee machine greasing, and filling textbook orders. The vast majority of such work could have been done by a well trained chimp, and probably better.
Oswald tells his brother that nobody knows the reason for his return, and given Oswald's machinations in the seventeen months after his return, maybe he did not know himself. He wants to send Marina back to Russia; he wants to return; he wants to go to Cuba; personally, he couldn't afford cab fare across town.
He then straddles the issue of Castro's Cuba, putting himself at some slight risk to distribute Fair Play For Cuba literature, usually just for publicity or photo opportunities - or to establish some sort of bona fides. He then spends much of the summer of 1963 in the company of Guy Bannister and David Ferrie, on the Anti-Castro side of the fence, with absolutely no attendant publicity. It's one thing to write to V. T. Lee in New York for FPCC literature, and it's not much of a risk - unless you allow Carlos Bringuier to push you around for which Oswald, and not Bringuier, was convicted - but it could be deadly serious for a pro-Castro Marxist to attempt to infiltrate the Government sponsored terrorist campaign that was centered in Guy Bannister's Fiefdom.
After spending one day on a voter registration line in Clinton, Louisiana, with hundreds of non-caucasians in order to become a registered voter there so as to obtain employment in a nearby mental hospital, Oswald headed for his rendezvous with destiny in Dallas. Again using his brilliant intellect as a foot in the door, he secured employment at the Texas School Book Depository, an isolated eyesore at the rump end of industrial Dallas in 1963. The work was temporary, he was told, as the normal textbook rush would end, as would his employment, by mid November. The installation of flooring in the building allowed Oswald the luxury of employment there November 22, and the Presidential motorcade was then tailored to pass that very building.
The rest of the story has been the subject of hundreds of books - some excellent, some not so good - but all have added to our understanding of Oswald, the man who allegedly tried to kill both Edwin Walker and John Kennedy, a duo clearly NOT in the "separated at birth" category. He also made sure that photographs of him were found, displaying two cheap weapons and two newspapers so unlike in their orientation as to suggest that either their reader was an idiot, or was putting us on. A person photographed with Popular Mechanics and Sports Illustrated can hardly be accused, on the basis of that photograph, of being a stamp collector.
Knowing this all-too-brief resume of Oswald, we can hypothesize just a little. If Oswald had stayed in Minsk, and Nikita Khrushchev had been shot on November 22, 1963, the headlines in the USSR might have read:
KHRUSHCHEV SLAIN
ALLEGED ASSASSIN QUIT SCHOOL TO JOIN
UNITED STATES MILITARY;
HAD TOP-SECRET CLEARANCE AT BASE
WHICH LAUNCHED OVERFLIGHTS AT USSR;
CONNECTED TO NEW ORLEANS FAR-RIGHT
GROUP ENGAGED IN ANTI-CASTRO ACTIVITY
WAS TAUGHT RUSSIAN IN US MILITARY
BEFORE HE 'DEFECTED' TO SOVIET UNION.
On the other hand, Oswald could have been employed at the Texas School Book Depository on November 22,1963, and you can read headlines that say:
JFK SLAIN IN DALLAS
PRO-CASTRO 'RED' MARKSMAN HELD
MARINE DEFECTOR PROMISED
TOP-SECRET MATERIAL TO USSR;
CONVICTED IN CUBAN RIOT IN N. ORLEANS
And so you have it. No biographical dictionary could ever admit to giving its readers an accurate picture of Lee Oswald. The best they could offer is a listing, dates of birth and death, and then some nouns and adjectives.
Oswald, Lee Harvey (October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963) Orphan; intellect, marine, defector, loving husband, wife beater, marksman, blue collar employee, photographer, FPCC chairman for New Orleans, employee of Guy Bannister; Marxist; Pacifist; Assassin; Patsy.
(Choose 4)
Food for thought. An interested psychologist or psychiatrist might want to wade through the existing material and prepare a psycho-biography of Oswald, who may, for all we know, have been some kind of neurotic who did not know from one day to the next if he was Oswald or Hidell; a good exploration of this concept, by a trained expert, might add to our understanding. A good point of departure for such a study would be R.B. Cutler' s work, ALIAS OSWALD which documents the physical and mental confusions of the "historical Oswald".
Roscoe White - Fact or Fiction? by Steve Gerlach
The Roscoe White theory is a pearl in the dead of night for assassination researchers and theorists. It offers so much information as to the identity of the Grassy Knoll gunman and those behind him pulling the strings. It is the most thought provoking theory and the closest we can get to actually labeling those involved and naming the actual shooters. It is the lost treasure of Atlantis. It is the Rosetta stone of the assassination.
Or is it?
Larry Howard, Director of Operations of the Dallas KAIC, recounts the strange events of the Roscoe White story:
One day, in the spring of 1990, a young man by the name of Ricky White walked through our doors and came to us and said, 'I think my father killed John Kennedy and I'd like for you all to prove he didn't.' We get many kooks that come by with all these crazy stories and we thought here's another one. We asked him, 'Why do you think your father killed John Kennedy?'
And he said, 'Well, in 1982, I found my father's footlocker in Paris, Texas, after my Grandfather died, in an old room at the back of the house. In the footlocker was a diary that told of my father's participation in the assassination of JFK.'
White, according to the diary, fired two shots at Kennedy from behind the picket fence with a 7.65 German Mauser. Roscoe White believed both shots hit Kennedy.
'My father's code name was 'Mandarin', and the other two gunmen were 'Saul' and 'Lebanon'. And as I read further it also says my father killed a police officer on Tenth and Patton, it didn't say officer Tippit, just a police officer.'
The first thing we asked, being skeptical, was, 'Where's the diary?'
He said, 'I don't have it. The FBI took it from me in 1988.'
So, our first thoughts were, well here's another kook.
In the footlocker with the diary, Ricky found a key to a safe deposit box. He asked the D.A. of Midland, Texas, to help him attempt to access the deposit box at a Dallas bank. The D.A. notified the FBI who then interrogated Ricky for nearly five hours, taking him to the federal building along with his father's personal effects - including the diary. Within hours of Ricky returning home with his father's things, an FBI agent
carrying a briefcase comes to the house saying he left his notebook in the box containing Roscoe's things. He is alone momentarily with the box as Ricky's wife
leaves the room to inform Ricky of the agent's presence. Later, it is discovered that the diary is missing from the box.
We said, 'What else do you have?'
He said, 'Well, my father left on the same ship Oswald did to the Philippines.'
And sure enough, he had the documentation to prove that.
White served in the Marine Corps with Oswald. The two were stationed together in Marine Air Wing I at Japan's Atsugi Air Base, home of a highly secret CIA operation.
'And my mother worked for Jack Ruby.'
And low and behold he had a picture of his mother and Jack Ruby together.
And he said, 'My father joined the Dallas Police department in October of 1963.'
And then we really got excited. White said, 'My father had photographs of things no one else had pertaining to the case.'
His father died in 1971 and in 1975 someone broke into their house in Paris, Texas where he'd moved to. There were two men, one stabbed his mother with an ice-pick,
and they stole only the assassination material.
They were arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, where the police found this assassination material and they called the FBI and the Dallas Police. The FBI then came in and looked at these photographs that White had in his possession.
After Oswald was arrested, the Dallas Police found two backyard photographs of Oswald holding a rifle and communist newspapers. In this box of material stolen
from the White home was a third backyard photograph, with Oswald in a different pose, that no one in the world had ever seen.
We started to add all these things up. These things you can't deny, this is hard evidence that his father was involved.
But there was more. Using a cryptic written message left by his father, Ricky White travels back to Paris, Texas, to his grandfather's empty house. There in the attic, shielded by boards, Ricky discovers an unusual steel container. He returns to Midland before opening the container. It was a round steel container with an air-tight sealed lid. It was from the Navy, it's what they use to carry pistols in so they don't rust. He
went and got a crowbar and opened the top.
Inside the container, wrapped in pieces of plastic were three old decoded cables to his father.
These were orders to kill John Kennedy.
Ricky White told us that, in the now-stolen diary, it stated that his father's code name was 'Mandarin' and that he worked for some kind of Rifle program.
The first cable said, 'Forget foreign assignments. Destination Dallas.' It was sent to code-name 'Mandarin' just like Ricky said. At the bottom of the cable were the words 'RE/RIFLE XXX DESTROY' It was dated August l963.
The second cable, dated September 1963 said, 'Dallas destination chosen. Hide within
department.' Which meant the police department. So he got a job at the Dallas police department.
The last cable was dated December 1963 and it said, 'Stay within department, all witnesses have eyes ears and noses.' and at the bottom again, 'RE/RIFLE XXX
DESTROY' just like in the others.
These cables also had printed on them Roscoe White's military serial number.
Along with the three cables were negatives of Roscoe White's mother and father which only he had access to, his military dog-tags bearing his serial number (the same one as on the cables) and thus identifying him as the recipient of the messages, a picture of Jack Ruby shooting Oswald, a picture of the Warren Commission meeting so that you'd know what all this related to. And in the bottom of the casket was a small green
book, a short-hand dictionary, and his father had taken it and started, in his handwriting, at the back of the book upside-down, he wrote, ' Roscoe Anthony
White. Twenty-eight people died under the witness elimination program.'
Roscoe White killed 28 of the witnesses after the assassination.
In this book there was also newspaper clippings of the people he murdered. And there is a numbered code on every page. Since the summer of l990, we haven't been
able to break one of those codes. We are still trying.
Roscoe White's mysterious death also supports his son's story. In 1970, after Roscoe White suddenly became religious, he decided not to be an assassin anymore. He'd got a job at a welding shop and in l971 he was given another assignment and he refused to do it. He went to lunch, came back, and lit his welding torch. He blew up. Someone had placed a five gallon container of liquid fuel underneath his workbench.
He lived for 26 hours, long enough, on his death bed, to tell his pastor Jack Shaw that he'd killed many people on foreign and domestic soil for his country. At the time he thought it was right but now he knew it was wrong. He asked for God to forgive him. Then he died. And with that last statement he made, I am convinced the Roscoe White story is absolutely true.
Larry Howard
The Roscoe White theory is also supported by other evidence:
* Two witnesses identified Roscoe White in Dealey Plaza near the picket fence at the time of the assassination.
* An eyewitness was in J.D. Tippit' s house a week before the, assassination and saw Roscoe White and another man in discussion with Tippit.
* An Ex-CIA operative met Roscoe White in Dallas in the Summer of 1962 concerning the purchase of guns.
* A woman's father was friends with Roscoe White and Jack Ruby and was possibly involved with eliminating witnesses. Her father was killed by Dallas Police while
trying to escape when in custody for conspiracy to murder.
* A friend of Lee Oswald's in New Orleans was told about Roscoe White in the late summer of 1963 by Lee Oswald.
* A nightclub owner was introduced to Roscoe White by Jack Ruby in the owner's club.
All this evidence does point strongly to the case that, not only was White the Grassy Knoll gunman, he also killed Tippit when Tippit decided not to drive White and Oswald to the safe house (see BADGMEN - PLURAL also in this issue), and he then went on to lake part in eliminating witnesses - most possibly while still dressed as a Dallas Policeman! (Remember cable no. 8: 'stay within department'!!)
The Roscoe White theory also explains that the orders to assassinate the President came from the hierarchy of the government itself. The whole case; the shooting,
the cover-up, the assassins, the patsy - everything, is solved by the Roscoe White theory.
If only, only, we had that diary and could break the codes. If, if...
If.
The Great American Coup D'etat
A letter and article from "Mr. X" - L. Fletcher Prouty
Dear Steve,
Correspondence traveling via the Publisher is always late. It is batched and forwarded as the collection gets bothersome. Thus, your fine letter of March 15th had to wend its way from south of the equator, to our storm battered shores into Carol Publishing, and finally here to "Gay Town" D.C.
I am delighted with your letter, moreso with your publication. As a first effort it is great. I hope it signals an up-hill, steadily rising standard that will surpass all others in its field. In some cases this will not be difficult; and I, for one, hesitate to make comparisons so early. I appreciate your thoughtfulness in sending me this first copy of "Probable Cause."
This causes me to take immediate steps to have something in the mail to you while I take more time to review your work in detail. I have read almost all of it; but now I want to do it more minutely. Then you'll hear from me again. I'll see if I can suitably respond to your request for material.
As I did during my work with Oliver Stone, I am going to urge that you reduce your recapitulation of the Warren Report mythology, and move into the more important area
of "Why?" It bothers me no end to see so many good researchers frothing at the seams as
one suggests that the "Magic" bullet went this way, and the other suggests otherwise; or that Oswald was a terrible U. S. Marine marksman, and others credit him with skill.
Or even worse, to find that a whole new folk-lore has been created about the policeman father [Roscoe White] of some juvenile in some such way as we went through the "Mafia" era. We need to get the serious people into serious thought in order to build upon what we
are learning and what we have known.
This is one thing I admire about Stone. The very first time I met him he was already talking about the great significance of the JFK Vietnam decision. He had already written the "Man X" scenario into the script before I ever met him and ever saw the script itself. I found out later that the Editor of FREEDOM magazine (where most of my "JFK, the CIA, Vietnam..." stuff had already been published) had long before sent him a set of those articles; and even more importantly that Jim Garrison had sent him copies of the lengthy correspondence I had had with him (Jim) while I was in the process of reviewing his manuscript. Stone was right into that and was ready to put Vietnam, along with other things into the script. Then I saw myself in the mirror as "Man X".
It was a stroke of genius to open the film with those great lines from the Eisenhower speech of Jan. 1961.
In short, this is the way future work has got to go. I've had the "Dallas" scenario. It's time to move forward.
I don't know whether you know this or not; but some years ago I broadcast regularly with Mark Aarons on ABC Radio (Australia). We did a lot of shows on the "Secret team" lines among other things. We finally got into the period of the Nugan-Hand Bank failure, the
death of Frank Nugan and the disappearance of Michael Hand. I knew Mike and met him several times as his CIA work brought him into the Pentagon to visit with Lansdale. It is truly amazing how all of this circles around. All we do in that Pentagon is listen to Songlines. By the way, Mike Hand is one of our more famous "MIA's."
I am enclosing a bit of a speech I made a while back. It was delivered to a small local organization. If you have any use for it you are free to use it.
You'll hear from me later as I work my way back through "Probable Cause." That's a good title. Your question "Probable Cause" and my question "Why" belong together... in good company.
I'm very busy with a Swedish reporter in town, a plan for a major Chinese movie, and I have been invited to join the Dalai Lama while he is here at the National Press Club on (April) the 29th. I worked on the operation that slipped him out of Tibet in 1959, and then worked a long time to support the Khampa tribesmen of SE Tibet during 1959-1960. All this keeps a guy
going.
Sincerely,
L. FIetcher Prouty.
Lyndon B. Johnson....John F. Kennedy and the Great American Coup D'etat by L. Fletcher Prouty
* On Nov. 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson became President of the United States of America.
* On that same date, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.
* On Nov. 26, 1963, President Johnson signed a National Security Action Memorandum #273, the highest level national security document, as guidance for future Vietnam plans and
policy. This brief directive most significantly initiated changes reversing Kennedy's Vietnam policy of NSAM #262, Oct 11, 1963. Kennedy had decreed then that "the bulk of U.S.
personnel would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965."
Strangely, this NSAM #273, which began the change in Kennedy's policy toward Vietnam, was drafted on Nov. 21, 1963...the day before Kennedy died. It was not Kennedy's policy. He would not have requested it, and would not have signed it. Why would it have been drafted for his signature on the day before he died; and why would it have been given to Johnson so
quickly? Johnson had not asked for it. On Nov. 21, 1963, Johnson had no expectation whatsoever of being President on Nov. 26th.
* On Nov. 29, 1963, President Johnson met with J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director, to discuss the list of names compiled for the commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These men were: Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman; Rep. Gerald R.
Ford, R-Mi; Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La; Sen. Richard B. Russell, D-Ga.; Sen. John Sherman Cooper, R-Ky.; John J. McCloy, New York banker; Allen W. Dulles, formerly Director of Central Intelligence; Sen. Jacob Javits, D-NY: and General Lauris Norstad, U.S. Air Force. All were approved to serve on the Commission, except the last two, who for reasons unknown did not serve with the body.
Johnson and Hoover were old friends who had lived across the street from each other in Washington for the past 19 years. They understood each other. They needed each other.
As recorded in a Memorandum for the Record, written by Hoover on that date and copied for eight of his senior FBI deputies, Lyndon Johnson, who had been in the third car behind Kennedy in the Dallas motorcade, took advantage of this first White House meeting to ask his old friend some personal questions that had caused him great concern since the assassination.
He asked, "How many shots were fired?" Hoover told him, "Three." Then Johnson asked, if any had been fired at him? Hoover replied, "No, three shots were fired at the President and we have them. The President was hit by the first and the third bullets and the second hit the
Governor (Connally)." (This statement was wrong, e.g.: one stray bullet hit a curbstone one and one-half blocks away and a fragment wounded a by-stander. That bullet was a missed shot: therefore it was either number four, or the cause of the contrived theory about
the "Magic" bullet that allegedly hit both men.)
This discussion, between the two old friends, which took place on Nov. 29, 1963, one week after President Kennedy's assassination, is important. It reveals the deep concern of President Johnson. He heard bullets pass over his head. He never forgot that sound and its
significance. He had been educated at Dealey Plaza.
* In early June 1971, a few days after the Pentagon Papers appeared in The New York Times, Leo Janos, formerly of the Johnson White House staff, attended a luncheon in the private dining room of the Johnson Library with the ailing ex-President and other friends.
As Janos reported later, in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine of July 1973:
"During coffee, the talk turned to President Kennedy, and Johnson expressed his belief that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy. He never believed that Oswald acted alone, although he could accept that he pulled a trigger."
Johnson followed that with a statement that had the megaton force of a full-sized hydrogen bomb. He said, and Janos wrote:
"We had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean."
That was June of 1971. Lyndon Johnson died in January 1973, and this Janos article appeared in July 1973. Since that date, with those words of,
(1) the man who established the Warren Commission itself,
(2) the man who was in the motorcade behind Kennedy, and
(3) the man who, as President, became privy to the darkest secrets of the government
...it should have become clear to everyone by now that Kennedy was killed as a result of a massive conspiracy by a team of professional killers following a consensual decision from the highest levels of people in the country, perhaps in the more modern sense...in the world.
Clearly, by late 1963, the decision had been made that:
(1) "Kennedy had to be deprived of re-election."
(2) "Kennedy had to go."
(3) "A Kennedy dynasty had to be thwarted."
The fact of conspiracy, underscored by President Johnson himself, makes it clear that the Report of the Warren Commission, which maintains that one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, with one "mail order" rifle and three bullets killed John F. Kennedy and severely wounded Governor John B. Connally at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, is totally false and contrived.
The Report of the Warren Commission has been used to provide the life blood of a massive cover-story that has been kept alive for decades to brainwash generations of Americans and others around the world. It perpetuates the American coup d'etat.
A case can be made for no conspiracy when it can be proved that one man acted alone. As soon as more than one man is involved, the senseless act of a "lone nut" can no longer be used as an excuse. A conspiracy is evidence of malice and of an evil plan to obtain an
objective. This is the great significance of Johnson's statements. He confirms the conspiracy.
These points are topped by his belief that "We had been operating a damned Murder Inc." That fact defines the nature of the crime.
Note Johnson's choice of words. "We had been operating..." The "We" has to mean the United States Government, or at least an agency or instrumentality of the government. Further, Johnson underscores that "We had been operating" this murder capability over
time. He does not limit its work to a single event, i.e. the Kennedy murder. He remembers back through the years to the close of WW II, at least, to the uncounted times when enemies of the government had been killed by this "Murder Inc." quickly, cleanly and with precision...and without their apprehension and prosecution by anyone. This is the nature of a
government-sponsored "Hit Man" professional operation.
Johnson chose the Mafia term "Murder Inc." to describe what he meant. This choice of words has great significance. Teams of professional "hit men" are recruited, trained, equipped, by this government, in order that they may live this strange existence as normal individuals. They are always available for these special duties any where and against any target.
They are skilled automatons who are set in motion by a code system that does not require the identities of those who have made the "Decision."
Johnson goes one step further. He calls this unit "Murder Inc." As we know, a corporate body is eternal, if desired. These murder teams belong to an organization that is, in a special sense, timeless. Such murders are not arranged and carried out on an "ad hoc" basis. These teams are always ready.
With the above in mind, let me go a step further. I don't know whether or not you saw the Oliver Stone film "JFK." I don't know what you thought about it, if you did. I do know that for the tens of millions around the world who did see the movie, that "Man X-Jim Garrison"
scene on the Mall, near the Vietnam Memorial, was the climax, the awakening.
Those audiences in those packed theaters began to see, and to believe that the lies and mythology they had been spoon-fed for decades by the government's Report of the Warren Commission, and by our subservient media was, and still is, false.
With this in mind, it is time to face reality. What caught their attention was the simple question, "Why?...Why was President John F. Kennedy killed?" To understand the reasons why this decision had been made, we need to take a penetrating look at the Kennedy era.
So much has taken place since then. So much has happened to each one of us since then. We don't remember the details. We have been misled by the media and by a flood of books that are not true history. Perhaps, we just never knew.
At the time Kennedy was elected, Nov. 1960, I was an Air Force Colonel assigned to the immediate office of the Secretary of Defense, Thomas Gates. I had been in the Pentagon for six consecutive years. All had been spent as Chief of Special Operations that, in military
terminology, meant, "The support of the clandestine operations of the CIA." I was with Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, 1955-1960, the Secretary of Defense, 1960-1962 and with the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1962-1963.
The Eisenhower period, 1953-1960, was one of prosperity and featured the build-up of the massive military industrial complex as one of the greatest concentrations of raw power and
enormous wealth in the history of the world.
We should all know Eisenhower's "Farewell Address" of January 17, 1961, wherein he documented the concentration of power in the Military-Industrial complex: "The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the Federal government...In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted..."
Like Lyndon Johnson, General Eisenhower was a man who knew. He was telling the American public about things the way they are. The United States had been involved,
covertly, in the warfare in Southeast Asia since September 1945. We had been involved in Korea since 1945 and in warfare there during the early fifties.
By the end of the eight-year Eisenhower era the great powers within and outside the federal government had arranged for the certain transfer of leadership from Eisenhower to Richard Nixon. They had miscalculated.
Everything had been prepared for an uninterrupted transfer of that great power to the Nixon era. This "Power Elite" was so certain of electoral success that major programs such as the make-war Vietnamese operations, the TFX fighter plane procurement project (at an estimated $6.5 billion, it was the largest aircraft procurement project ever devised) and many projects of a similar nature were poised to come into fruition early in the planned Nixon period in order to continue the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars from the government to those industries.
Clandestine operations that are employed to create "make-war" situations wherever planned had increased in size and frequency during the last years of the Eisenhower term under the direction of John Foster Dulles, the Sec. of State and his brother Allen, the Director of the CIA. At the time of the election, there was the "on-the-shelf" Cuban/Castro matter, there was the Chinese encroachment in Tibet with the impending threat to India, there was active trouble in Laos and Vietnam, and the biggest of them all, the rebellion in Indonesia that had failed in 1958 (in which a Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald had been involved) lay in waiting for another flare-up at the proper time.
These plans, worth hundreds of billions of dollars in military expenditures were set. They had been prepared for a pliant Nixon, and the experienced administration he planned to inherit.
Then came the campaign of 1960. Up from nowhere came this impossibly youthful, Democratic, Catholic candidate, Sen. John F. Kennedy. Yet when the 66,000,000 ballots had been counted, Kennedy had won by a margin of less that half of one percent.
As an old timer in the Pentagon, I sensed the disappointment and the fury of the incumbents. It happened that on the day before the Kennedy inauguration, while Washington was being blanketed by a raging blizzard, I was directed to go to Secretary Gates' office just before 5 P.M. with a last minute item involving the Cuban Exile Training Program (the Bay of Pigs "ZAPATA" project).
My office was a few doors down the hall. I arrived at Mr. Gates' office around five to find an enormous crowd of "well wishers" flooding his office to say "Good-bye." His outer office and the corridor were jammed. His secretary smiled as I mentioned my appointment, looked at the huge crowd in the Secretary's office, and pointed to the door of the deputy's office. He was alone.
I walked in to find an old friend...Jim Douglas. I had been through countless meetings with him over the past years. He smiled as I came in, rose from his desk and leaned against the window sill looking toward me. Over his shoulders I could barely see the city of Washington through the swirling snowflakes.
Within a few minutes I had covered the subject of my business; and then asked permission to add a question. He smiled.
I said, "Mr Douglas, ever since the Cuban exile program began earlier this year I have briefed you, or Mr Gates, day to day. Tomorrow when I come in with a similar briefing, may I expect that the new Kennedy men will have been made aware of this subject, or do I have to read them into the program?"
Mr. Douglas turned slowly and looked toward the Potomac River and the White House obscured by snow, then he turned to me and said, "Prouty, I'll be damned if I know. We haven't met the bastards."
This may have been no more than an emotional response. I expect it was true. It accurately reflected the feelings of the long term Eisenhower loyalists who were being removed from their offices by the new Kennedy up-starts...the "Whiz Kids." Both sides had no desire to meet.
Such feelings give birth to pressures at the highest levels that smoldered into flame as the years rolled by.
Shortly after Kennedy took office, the Bay of Pigs program became a disaster. At the same time he was faced with a major decision concerning Vietnam, and, following a lengthy and detailed Bay of Pigs investigation by the Cuban Study Group, Kennedy signed one of the most significant policy directives of his 1,000 day tenure. Yet, it is surprising how few people
know about it and how little has been written about it. How little it is known.
We have all heard that Kennedy had vowed to break the CIA into 1,000 pieces. But how many have ever heard how he planned to do it, and what policy he had established to achieve that goal?
In brief, on June 2B, 1961, President Kennedy himself signed National Security Action Memorandum #55. This important order was directed solely to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff who at that time was General Lyman Lemnitzer. It's subject, clearly stated, was
"Relations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations." In layman's
terminology, "Cold War Operations" meant "Clandestine Operations."
Kennedy opened that directive with memorable words:
"I wish to inform the Joint Chiefs of Staff as follows with regard to my views of their relations to me in Cold War Operations:
a) I regard the Joint Chiefs of Staff as my principal military advisor 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.
b) The Joint Chiefs of Staff have a responsibility for the defense of the nation in the Cold War similar to that which they have in conventional hostilities..."
I was the officer instructed to staff this paper, and two others, NSAM #56 and #57; and to brief the Chairman and the Chiefs at their next meeting. First they were surprised to discover that this order had been addressed directly to them and was signed by the President. It had not come through Secretary of Defense, and had not been sent to other top-level addressees such as the Secretary of State and the Director of Central Intelligence. This procedure was
rare, and meaningful.
Next, they were amazed to hear that the limits of their lawful function were being broadened to include "Cold War Operations." Needless to say, these policy statements created a great discussion, and then were sealed in TOP SECRET files for further analysis and study.
Interpreted as the President intended, this policy, if carried to its conclusion and not interrupted by his death, would have brought about an enormous change in the way the Vietnam situation, that from 1945 to 1963, had been under "operational control" of the CIA, would have been pursued. Without question this new policy was the major stepping stone on the way to Kennedy's promise that "the bulk of U.S. personnel would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965."
The blunt statement of the Kennedy policy may well have been the ultimate pressure point that created the climate in which the decision was reached to do away with the President. Another example highlights how his changes impacted on the military industrial complex
where they were most sensitive.
During the last years of the Eisenhower era, the Air Force and Navy were deep in plans for new fighter aircraft. The Air Force proposal was for a swing-wing fighter designated the TFX. The processing of this procurement program had been all but completed during 1960; but the budget people bowed to Eisenhower's request to stay within the scope of his budget. They
moved the project into the expected Nixon term. Everyone concerned knew that this project was a natural for the Boeing Company and that it would begin at a $4 billion figure and rise from there. The TFX was on the threshold, along with Castro and Vietnam as the election came.
But...Kennedy won. McNamara entered the office of the Secretary of Defense and Arthur Goldberg, a brilliant political strategist, became the Secretary of Labor. Between them they came up with a procurement philosophy that would allocate that enormous sum of money to areas that were most sensitive on the political map as determined by the Labor Dept's voting patterns.
McNamara announced a new round of studies and the bidders were signaled that their production projects and sub-contractors physical plant locations should be spread over the most desirable array of county voting districts.
Finally, in November 1962, after delaying for nearly two years, McNamara announced the TFX award, which by that time included the Navy and its funding, to the General Dynamics-Grumman team of bidders. Their proposal had been structured to approximate the Goldberg plan. The shock of that award, for the reasons mentioned, was terrific. The TFX battle was fought in Congress well into 1963. This gambit, along with other changes brought about during the Kennedy years, created the kind of opposition that is beyond control.
Increasingly, in the Clubs and Boardrooms of the wealthy, the powerful, the munitions makers... augmented by their bankers and their lawyers, voices began to rise as they mentioned that "God Damned" Kennedy, and worse. In the halls of the Pentagon, in
the CIA and other centrally effected areas tensions rose. Finally a consensus coalesced and from that impersonal initiative a decision was reached.
Those few, who knew the methodology and the codes that activated what Lyndon Johnson called "Murder Inc." pushed the button. The deadly system was set in motion. Like the deadly Ghurka scimitar, it is never extracted from its sheath without drawing blood.
The time and place was decided. The intricate and detailed cover story was outlined and made ready, not only for the day of the crime; but for the years to follow. The site was selected and prepared. The professional team moved into place. The elements of the plan went into effect, the carefully manipulated motorcade moved into position, and the shots were fired.
The news media interrupted ongoing programs to announce:
"President Kennedy has been shot dead, gunned down during drive through Dallas."
"Three bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons, were heard."
(Except for these first moments, this type of gunfire was never reported again in the media.)
"Secret Service men immediately unslung their automatic weapons and pistols."
(Also an incorrect statement.)
These same words were flashed around the world. The Thousand Days of the Kennedy era had come to an end.
The great American coup d'etat had taken place.
It was November 22, 1963.
Prince of Thieves - Richard Nixon and the JFK Assassination
Part One of Three - by E. Burton Mercer
It was a feeling of dread, of fear and loathing. Of paranoia. It was June 23, 1972, and
Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States, was waiting for his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, to enter the Oval Office and brief him on a third-rate burglary at a local hotel complex.
The media were already making the connections. Almost as if they knew where to look, the press had connected the five burglars arrested at the Watergate hotel to the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), Nixon's cash soaked re-election apparatus. But that didn't bother Nixon as much as the man he knew had been controlling the burglars on their midnight
excursion into the Watergate five nights before. That man was E. Howard Hunt, Jr., and as far as Nixon was concerned, Hunt was a time bomb waiting to go off.
Haldeman arrived. There were problems. Big problems. On June 17, the five arrested men were nothing more than nameless reactionaries; four Cuban-exiles, and another man, James W. McCord, Jr. They were caught red-handed in the Democratic National Committee's
offices at the Watergate hotel complex, all wearing business suits and rubber gloves, all loaded up with screwdrivers, pliers, voice distorters and bugging devices. And cash. Lots of cash. Traceable cash. One of the burglars, Bernard L. Barker, a veteran of the Bay of Pigs fiasco of more than a decade before, had some interesting things in his bank account, and it
had Nixon scared.
"But they've traced the money to 'em," proclaimed Nixon.
"Well, they have," said Haldeman. "They've traced to a name, but they haven't gotten to the guy yet."
"Would it be somebody here?" Nixon asked.
"Ken Dahlberg," Haldeman stated.
"Who the hell is Ken Dahlberg?"
"He's, ah, he gave $25,000 [to CREEP] in Minnesota and, ah, the cheque went directly in to this, to this guy Barker."
The connection was made, right there, between the Committee to Re-Elect the President and
the Watergate burglars. As ominous as this was, though, Nixon knew it was only the tip of the iceberg. He had other things on his mind.
The idea of a cover-up was, to Nixon's thinking, a relatively simple procedure. Haldeman suggested that the way to stop the FBI investigation was to bring CIA Director Richard Helms on side; all Helms had to do was tell FBI Director Patrick Gray that the Watergate burglary was part of a CIA operation, "National Security" he could call it, and nip the investigation
in the bud. Nixon liked the idea. "I mean you just, well, we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things," he said. Haldeman agreed.
And then Nixon turned to his real fear, his real motivation. The words fumbled from his mouth, his paranoia bubbling hot. "Of course, this is a, this is a Hunt, you will - that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab, there's a hell of a lot of things and that we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves." He continued: "When you get these people in, say: 'Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that'...ah, without going into the details...don't, don't lie to
them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is a sort of comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it. 'The President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah, because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this
case', period!"
Another connection was made. First, from the Committee to Re-Elect to the Watergate burglars, and then, from the Watergate burglary to the Bay of Pigs. An abstract connection indeed. Why was Nixon scared of opening "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" up again? It was laughable. The events surrounding the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 were, by 1972, common knowledge.
By 1960, the CIA, under the direction of Allen W. Dulles, was vehemently opposed to Fidel Castro's relatively new Communist regime in Cuba, and proceeded to devise a plan to land several thousand Cuban-exiles at Cuba's Bay of Pigs in a pre-dawn invasion. Once established, the exiles were to form a provisional government, and Castro would then be toppled in a popular coup as thousands of Cuban's joined this government in a new, democratic revolution.
Unfortunately for the CIA, however, the newly sworn in president, John F. Kennedy, wisely refused to provide US military assistance for the invasion. As a result, the Cuban-exile brigade were slaughtered or captured on the beach head before the invasion really got underway.
This Kennedy decision foiled the CIA's plans in more ways than one. The Bay of Pigs strategy had counted on US military assistance, with the CIA knowing full well that Castro's forces could easily take the exile brigade alone in battle. Kennedy had told the CIA months in advance that no military assistance would be provided, yet the CIA went ahead with their invasion preparations anyway.
They were hoping to bluff Kennedy into committing US forces, to scare him into intervention. That tact, as history shows, failed.
The end result was egg on the new Kennedy administration's face. To the world at large,
the new Commander-in-Chief had bungled his first foreign policy initiative, an initiative that
had begun with the previous Eisenhower administration. In the long term, however, a more ominous specter has risen; Kennedy had created three new, rabid enemies: the Cuban-exile community, Fidel Castro, and more importantly, the CIA. Battle lines were being drawn.
Whilst accepting public responsibility for the invasion's failure, privately Kennedy knew that
the CIA had lied to him. He took immediate action, and over the ensuing months, animosity between the White House and Central Intelligence festered into paranoia and deceit. Eventually, heads started to roll. CIA Director Allen Dulles was fired. Director of Plans
Richard Bissell was fired. And Deputy Director Gen. Charles P. Cabell was fired.
Kennedy then instigated a massive overhaul of the CIA's role in peacetime. Tactfully proclaiming to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds", Kennedy issued a series of top secret directives, National Security Action Memoranda's (NSAM's)
#55, #56 and #57, which theoretically ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take control of covert paramilitary operations - a responsibility previously enjoyed by the CIA. Changes were afoot, to say the least.
Unfortunately, Kennedy's new directives were never implemented, the documents instead being relegated to a filing cabinet to collect dust. Apparently even the Joint Chiefs didn't want to upset the CIA. And who can blame them?
But that was history. Now it was 1972, and the events surrounding the Bay of Pigs fiasco were old news, disseminated many years before by many different people, the military, the media, the public.
Yet, for some reason, it was driving Richard Nixon nuts. Nixon's weird secrecy didn't escape Bob Haldeman's watchful eye. A man trained and accustomed to Nixon's ways, Haldeman was known as the president's "Berlin Wall"; and besides, he had been through the bizarre "Bay of Pigs thing" before.
As far back as 1969, immediately after Nixon had assumed office, John Ehrlichman, Nixon's chief adviser on domestic affairs, was called into the Oval Office. Nixon said he wanted all the facts and documents the CIA had on the Bay of Pigs, a complete report on the whole project".
According to Haldeman, "about six months after that 1969 conversation, Ehrlichman had stopped in my office. 'Those bastards in Langley are holding back something,'" Ehrlichman
had said. "'They just dig in their heels and say the President can't have it. Period. Imagine that! The Commander-in-Chief wants to see a document relating to a military operation, and
the spooks say he can't have it.'
'What is it?'
'I don't know,'" Ehrlichman said. "'But from the way they're protecting it, it must be pure dynamite.'"
Despite all of this, however, Ehrlichman was confident that CIA Director Richard Helms would comply to Nixon's request. "Rest assured," he said. "The point will be made. In fact, Helms is on his way over here right now. The President is going to give him a direct order to turn over that document to me."
Haldeman states: "Helms did show up that afternoon and saw the President for a long secret conversation. When Helms left, Ehrlichman returned to the Oval Office. The next thing I knew Ehrlichman appeared in my office, dropped into a chair, and just stared at me. He was
more furious that I had ever seen him; absolutely speechless...I said, 'What happened?'
'This is what happened,' Ehrlichman said. 'The Mad Monk [Nixon] has just told me I am now to forget all about that CIA document. In fact, I am to cease and desist from trying to obtain it.'
Even the most cursory and disinterested examination of the above series of events would lead one to conclude that CIA Director Helms had told Nixon not to pursue this "Bay of Pigs document", for reasons not yet known. One might assume that this "dynamite" document was
highly classified, yet the only classified document (as of 1972) relating to the Bay of Pigs operation was The Cuban Study Group document, drawn up at the behest of President Kennedy in the wake of the invasion fiasco.
Yet this document was not a CIA document; it was a military document, and the CIA had no control over it.
Reasonably, the only other explanation is that "Bay of Pigs" referred to something else; a code word for some other top secret CIA operation that both Nixon and Helms had intimate knowledge of. And as far as Nixon was concerned, this "Bay of Pigs" operation was
"dynamite" enough to cause the CIA to stop the FBI's Watergate investigation.
Nixon continued: "...[it's] very bad, to have this fellow [Howard] Hunt, ah, you know, ah, it's he, he knows too damn much and he was involved, we happen to know that. And that it gets out that the whole, this is all involved in the Cuban thing, that it's a fiasco, and it's going to make the...CIA look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole, uh, Bay of Pigs thing which we think would be very unfortunate for [the] CIA and for the country at
this time, and for American foreign policy..."
With a final "I would just say, 'Look, it's because of the Hunt involvement'", Nixon ordered Bob Haldeman to meet with CIA Director Helms and begin the Watergate cover-up. And Bob Haldeman did just that.
From prison, Haldeman would later write: "This time the CIA was ready. In fact, it was more than ready. It was ahead of the game by months. Nixon would walk into what I now believe was a trap."
That afternoon of June 23, 1972, Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman met with CIA Director Richard Helms and Deputy Director Vernon Walters in Ehrlichman's White House office. The CIA "was stonewalling me" says Haldeman, claiming that the Watergate break-in was in
"no way" connected to a domestic CIA activity. That was until Haldeman decided to play "Nixon's trump card."
"The President asked me to tell you [that] this entire affair may be connected to the Bay of Pigs," Haldeman said. "And if it opens up, the Bay of Pigs may be blown..."
According to Haldeman, this statement was followed by "turmoil in the room" with CIA
Director Helms "gripping the arms of his chair, leaning forward and shouting, 'The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this! I have no concern about the Bay of Pigs!'"
"Silence. I just sat there," Haldeman later recalled. "I was absolutely shocked by Helms' violent reaction. Again I wondered, what was such dynamite in the Bay of Pigs story?"
Haldeman later "went back to see the President and told him his strategy had worked. I told Helms that the Watergate investigation 'tracks back to the Bay of Pigs.' So at that point...he said we'll be very happy to be helpful."
Nixon was more than pleased. His "Bay of Pigs" strategy had worked, and the CIA were now more than willing to comply in a cover-up of the Watergate break-in.
Yet Haldeman's confusion remained. He still had no idea what "Bay of Pigs" actually meant; whatever it was however, it certainly had both Nixon and Helms scared. Scared enough to instigate one of the biggest cover-ups in history. All Haldeman knew was that it involved
"these Cubans", "Hunt" and "the CIA", and that if the truth were ever to come out it would effect "the CIA", "the country" and "American foreign policy".
And all of this because five guys got busted in a break-in at the Watergate hotel.
Years later, former CBS news correspondent Dan Schorr contacted Haldeman. Schorr had been investigating CIA covert activities, and according to Haldeman, Schorr had uncovered evidence relating to "the mystery of the Bay of Pigs connection in those dealings between Nixon and Helms."
Haldeman then began to "put Schorr's facts together with mine", and in doing so inadvertently stumbled onto the real mystery behind Watergate, the real meaning of "the Bay of Pigs".
He had also unlocked the darkest secret, the deepest fear in Richard Milhous Nixon's political past.
"It seems that in all of those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs," Haldeman later said,
"he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination."
CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE...
Why not continue and read issue 3 & 4 of Probable Cause Australia?
Backcopies of all issues, including all photographs, are still available. Just contact the editor via the Feedback link on the Probable Cause Australia welcome page.
N.B. The opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of the editor but all comments will be passed on to the relevant authors.
Credits
Editor-in-Chief : Steve Gerlach
Art Editor : E. Burton Mercer
Managing Editor : Paul Jones
Contributing Editor : Steve Webb
Photographic Analysis : Tony Skomina
Internet : Steve Gerlach
Contributors : L. Fletcher Prouty, Walt Brown, Dallas JFK-AIC, Mary Dinsdale, Steve Gerlach, Paul Jones, E. B. Mercer, Steve Webb.
Art Direction : Louie Louie Enterprises Australia
