[[ Put on JFK Place with permission from Dave Ratcliffe dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com To All:I've combined the 11 posts mentioned, into the following file. Deanie Richards jfkplace@acorn.net ]] ===================================================================== "The Taking Of America, 1-2-3" by Richard Sprague Intro This is an introduction to the book "The Taking of America, 1-2-3," by Richard E. Sprague, self-published by the author first in 1976, revised in 1979, and updated in 1985. There will be eleven posts following this one that will comprise the complete 1985 updated third edition which I will be sending out with the permission of the author. From the book's own introduction, This book is not about assassinations, at least not solely about assassinations. It is not just another book about who murdered President Kennedy or how or why. It is a book about power, about who really controls the United States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book about the process of control through the manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential election process. The objective of the book is to expose the clandestine, secret, tricky methods and weapons used for this manipulation, and to reveal the degree to which these have been hidden from the American public. Assassinations are only one of many techniques used in this control process. They have been important only in the sense that they are the ultimate method used in the control of the election process. Viewed in this way, an understanding of what happened to John or Robert Kennedy becomes more important because it leads to a total understanding of what has happened to our country, and to us, since 1960. But the important thing to understand is the control and the power and all of the clandestine methods put together. Two men named Richard Sprague have been involved in examining the assassination of John F. Kennedy and its ensuing cover-up through the years. Richard A. Sprague, the former district attorney from Philadelphia, and the fearless prosecutor of the Yablonski murderers, was named on October 4, 1976, by Congressperson Thomas Downing, to be chief counsel of the just-then forming House Select Committee on Assassinations. Richard E. Sprague was a pioneer in the field of computers starting in the 1940s. His involvement studying the photographic evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy goes back to 1966: From the day it happened I was skeptical about what was being said on the TV and radio with regard to how the president was killed. But when the "Warren Report" was issued I became non-skeptical and accepted it pretty much as it was. However, when the 26 volumes became available in late 1964 and I started reading through them, I became skeptical again because I could not find confirmation of most of the so-called facts presented by the "Warren Report" and purported to be backed up by the evidence in the 26 volumes, or any other evidence. So I started work again, which caused me to need an index to the 26 volumes. This in turn lead to my contacting Sylvia Meagher and asking where I could get her index having discovered that she had created and published one that the Warren Commission hadn't seen fit to provide. She told me where I could get it and suggested we have lunch. This was in early November, 1966. She asked, "Why don't you do some real research?" and I said, "like what?" and she responded "how about the photographic evidence? A couple of people have started work on it but haven't finished." I asked her who and she said "Harold Weisberg and Ray Marcus." I contacted both men and that's more or less how I stuck my foot in the quicksand. At the time the 26 volumes became available there were only 8,000 copies printed for the whole country. The time I managed to get hold of one of these sets of all 26 volumes was when I had moved to the University Club in New York City and they had a complete set donated to the University Club by non other than John J. McCloy. So I was using John J. McCloy's personal copies for the beginnings of my research. Now, the most important thing initially that happened in finding the photos was discovering a number of photographs- -films and still photos--that showed the sixth floor window empty with nobody in it. This is what originally convinced me that we had a different sort of conspiracy going than one involving Lee Harvey Oswald, because if he wasn't in the window--and nobody was in the window--then what happened? Who fired the shots? And where from? Confirming that the films and photographs I was looking at were taken at the critical time the shots were fired, or immediately before or after that, involved a lot of work: work with plat maps, other photos, and other materials. I got hold of a map made by the surveyor for Dealey Plaza (I believe his name was Clarence West) which was drawn to scale, and Bob Cutler helped me draw onto it all of the various things that happened including all the vehicles that were moving through. And I managed to lay a set of films end-to-end starting with one rounding the turn onto Houston Street all the way through Dealey Plaza so I could track any vehicle that was in view eighteenth-of-a-second by eighteenth-of-a-second (Zapruder film speed) all the way through Dealey Plaza. This enabled me to determine where Kennedy was at all times and where anybody else was that showed up in any of the photos--particularly moving pictures--at times Kennedy was at spot so-and-so or spot such-and-such. By doing this, with some triangulation, I was able to pin down the exact timing of two particular sets of photos: a film--the Hughes film--the last frame of which shows the sixth floor window empty and ends 5.7 seconds ahead of the first shot--the first shot being fired/tied down at frame 189 of the Zapruder film; and two photos taken after the shots were fired by Dillard and, believe it or not, an intelligence man from Navy intelligence named Powell. Powell's and Dillard's photos were taken almost at the same time, 3.5 seconds after the fatal and last shot (Z-313). So that total time span is less than 17 seconds--if you add up the 5.7 seconds after the end of the Hughes film, plus the 6-plus seconds while the shots were being fired, plus the 3.5 seconds before Dillard and Powell's photos were taken--of blank, non-coverage of that window and there's no way Oswald could have gotten into the window, aimed, fired three shots, and gotten out of the window so you that couldn't see him in 17 seconds. But anyway there was another film taken by Beverly Oliver otherwise known as the Babushka lady that was confiscated by News Orleans FBI agent Regis Kennedy, and a still photograph taken by Norman Similas, confiscated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from "Liberty" magazine (which was going to publish the photo), who then turned the photo and its negative over to the FBI. I interviewed Similas and the "Liberty" magazine editor both of whom told me they had carefully examined the photograph and had seen no one in the photograph appearing in the eastern-most sixth floor window, which I calculated had been taken about half-way into the 17-second interval. I made two attempts soon after the Freedom of Information Act "viewing room" in the FBI office in Washington, D.C. was created, to request to see the Similas photograph and Beverly Oliver film, but each time the FBI person assigned to me was not able to find these photograhs. But the testimony of the people involved was good enough for me to conclude that there was nobody in that window ever. Once I got to that point I started looking for other evidence that would show where the shots did come from and I started finding all kinds of evidence of shots from the grassy knoll, and from the Dal Tex building, and from the roof or the seventh floor of the western end of the depository building--both photographs as well as witness testimony--and that lead me to decide that this was a powerful conspiracy which had involved at least four gunmen firing shots. This then lead me to decide that I should pursue the whole pattern of conspiracy including, eventually, the Martin Luther King assassination, the Bobby Kennedy assassination and the George Wallace attempt. And that led to the book. Through all of this, I just know I never would have concluded that it was a powerful and well-planned conspiracy if I had not determined that Oswald wasn't in that window-- nobody was in that window. That was the first key. There's one other thing I'd like to point out. The title of the book has more than just simple significance and it shows up in all the chapters that link all these assassinations and their cover-ups. Namely, our country has been taken from us. Us being the citizens of the United States as of 1963, and any time after that, by robbing us of our capability of electing a president we wanted for at least three, and more likely four, elections. One way of taking the country away, is to control the elections and that's really, at least part of the essence of the book. It's close to what Henry Gonzalez proposed in his original bill. He wanted the Congress to look into all four of the major assassinations--the fourth being the attempted assassination of George Wallace--and find the links between and among them, and the cover-ups, and particularly the links between the intelligence agencies and the cover-ups that he was sure were involved in all of them. And if we had had a committee which had done that, well then, we'd have been a lot further along than we are 13 years later. -- phone interview with the author, June 3, 1992 The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was the most photographed murder in history. Approximately 75 photographers took a total of approximately 510 photographs, either before or during or within an hour after the events in Dealey Plaza, and either there or nearby or related to those events. The word "photograph" in this context includes both still photos and movie sequences. The number of frames in a movie sequence ranges from about 10 to about 500; and in the count of 510 photographs, given above, the 10 to 500 frames of a single movie sequence are counted just as *one* photograph. The total number of frames is over 25,000. The Warren Commission examined 26 photographs, about 5 percent of the 510. The FBI examined about 50 photographs, or about 10 percent. The most famous of all the photographs is the Zapruder film, which had over 480 frames. Many of the photographs were taken by professional photographers. About 30 of the photographers were professionals who worked for newspapers, television networks, and photographic agencies. The Warren Commission did not interview a single one of the professional photographers, nor did the Warren Commission see any complete, uncropped copies of their photographs. Fifteen of these professionals were actually in the Kennedy motorcade, no further than 6 car lengths behind the Kennedy car. Five of these photographers were television network cameramen. The Warren Commission looked at none of their photographs. [.....] Because the professionals used movie cameras of professional quality, their films are exceedingly revealing and valuable as primary evidence. The Warren Commission looked at none of these films. During the past several years, I have collected copies of over 200 of these photographs, and I have looked at and taken notes of another 200 of these photographs, without obtaining copies of them. Some of the remaining 100 have either not been found or have been locked up or destroyed by the owners, who are fearful of the information they show. Or they have been locked up by the FBI, who have either placed them in files inaccessible to the public or possibly have destroyed them. from, "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: The Application of Computers to the Photographic Evidence" Richard E. Sprague, "Computers and Automation," May, 1970, p. 34. ----------------- end of Intro ------------------------ ============================================================== THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3 by Richard E. Sprague Reprinted here with permission of the author. Permission to distribute this book is freely given so long as no modification of the text is made. Richard E. Sprague 1976 Limited First Edition 1976 Revised Second Edition 1979 Updated Third Edition 1985 About the Author Publisher's Word Introduction 1. The Overview and the 1976 Election 2. The Power Control Group 3. You Can Fool the People 4. How It All Began--The U-2 and the Bay of Pigs 5. The Assassination of John Kennedy 6. The Assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King and Lyndon B. Johnson's Withdrawal in 1968 7. The Control of the Kennedys--Threats & Chappaquiddick 8. 1972--Muskie, Wallace and McGovern 9. Control of the Media--1967 to 1976 10. Techniques and Weapons and 100 Dead Conspirators and Witnesses 11. Nixon and Ford - The Pardon and the Tapes 12. The Second Line of Defense and Cover-Ups in 1975-1976 13. The 1976 Election and Conspiracy Fever 14. Congress and the People 15. The Select Committee on Assassinations, The Intelligence Community and The News Media 16. 1984 Here We Come-- 17. The Final Cover-Up: How The CIA Controlled The House Select Committee on Assassinations Appendix * * * * * * * About the Author Richard E. Sprague is a pioneer in the field of electronic computers and a leading American authority on Electronic Funds Transfer Systems (EFTS). Receiving his BSEE degreee from Purdue University in 1942, his computing career began when he was employed as an engineer for the computer group at Northrup Aircraft. He co-founded the Computer Research Corporation of Hawthorne, California in 1950, and by 1953, serving as Vice President of Sales, the company had sold more computers than any competitor. In 1960, he became the Director of Computer Systems Consulting for Touche, Ross, Bailey, and Smart. He became a partner in that company in 1963, and started its Advanced Business Systems Department in 1964 where he stayed until 1968. In 1968 he established Sprague Research and Consulting for Computer Information Systems Consultation. He is currently also Consultant to the President's Commission on EFTS and full time consultant to Battelle Memorial Institute of Frankfurt, Germany. In 1966, Mr. Sprague commenced an intensive program of research into the photographic evidence associated with the assassination of John Kennedy. He served a year as photographic expert advisor in the investigations conducted by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and had amassed and analyzed a majority of the known evidence on film by 1968 when he co-founded the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. He served with CTIA as an active researcher, board member and Secretary from 1968 to 1974. Following numerous radio and television appearances and extensive lecture tours of the United States and Canada (where slides and films were used to demonstrate the basic evidence of conspiracy), he began, in 1974, working toward a Congressional investigation of all four major political assassinations and the cover-ups and links among these interrelated events. He was an advisor to Representative Henry B. Gonzales (D-Texas) on House Resolution 203 which proposed the appointment of a committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King and the attempt upon the life of Presidential Candidate George Wallace. He served as a consultant to Richard A. Sprague and G. Robert Blakey, the first and second General Counsels of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and served through the end of the Committee's existence. He is author of "Electronic Business Systems" (Ronald Press) 1962, "Information Utilities" (Prentice Hall) 1969, and a celebrated series of articles which appeared in "Computers & Automation" Magazine beginning in 1970. He is also co-author with Dick Russell of "In Search of the Assassins" which is scheduled for publication by the Dial Press in 1977. The materials presented in this book are drawn from an analysis of the photographic evidence, personal knowledge and records of the Garrison investigation, research files of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and Congressional Committees. * * * * * * * Introduction This book is not about assassinations, at least not solely about assassinations. It is not just another book about who murdered President Kennedy or how or why. It is a book about power, about who really controls the United States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book about the process of control through the manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential election process. The objective of the book is to expose the clandestine, secret, tricky methods and weapons used for this manipulation, and to reveal the degree to which these have been hidden from the American public. Assassinations are only one of many techniques used in this control process. They have been important only in the sense that they are the ultimate method used in the control of the election process. Viewed in this way, an understanding of what happened to John or Robert Kennedy becomes more important because it leads to a total understanding of what has happened to our country, and to us, since 1960. But the important thing to understand is the control and the power and all of the clandestine methods put together. Much of the information in the book has been published before in the magazines "Computer and Automation" and "People and the Pursuit of Truth," both edited and published by Edmund C. Berkeley, Newtonville, Mass. The material on assassination and other events covered is based on evidence collected by the author individually or through the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. References to documentation of this evidence are given throughout the book. I am indebted to the following people for assistance in the research work involved and the preparation of the book itself: Special thanks go to Mary Ferrell who typed the original of the book. Jerry Policoff, Mark Lane, Ed Berkeley, Bob Cutler, Jim Garrison, Bill Turner, Wayne Chastain, Bob Richter, Gary Shaw, Fletcher Prouty, Rush Harp, Jones Harris, Bob Saltzman, Penn Jones, Larry Harris, Sylvia Meagher, Ray Marcus, Harold Weisberg, Hal Dorland, Paris Flammonde, Tink Thompson, Bob Katz, Joachim Joesten, Peter Downay, Harry Irwin, Dick Billings, Jim Lesar, Fred Newcomb, Lillian Castellano, Dick Russell, Tris Coffin, Mae Brussell, Bill Barry, Gary Roberts and most of all to my wife Gloria whose hard work and infinite patience made it all possible. The book is dedicated to Representative Henry B. Gonzalez for his singular courage in standing against the forces of evil. Richard E. Sprague Hartsdale, New York July 4, 1976 * * * * * * * Publisher's Word We published "The Taking Of America 1 2 3" during the winter of 1976-77. It was typed under the guns in Dallas, Texas, and offset printed in Woodstock, N.Y. A few weeks later--five hundred copies in all, 24 of which were fired off to the two House Committees involved in the investigation of the assassinations. Our elation with this `coup-de-truth' evaporated as we saw the committee destroyed at the starting line. The following summer, while motoring across our sadly taken America, I experienced a tremendous synchroneity of events which lead to my discovering the Power Control Group's secret team of murderer's and their patsies. This knowledge caused me to come out in the open even further and place a sign on route 28 enroute to Woodstock. "Who Killed J.F.K., R.F.K., M.L.K., M.J.K.?" in reflecting letters on a blood-red field. The Modjeska Sign Studios estimated 1.2 million sightings per month. And we then watched the committee suppress and muddle the evidence while chanting the Katydid like cry, of the tremendous big lie--Oswald did it, Oswald did it, Oswald did it, did it, did it. So we are bringing our knowledge up to date with the closing of the new "Warren Report" which now, due to The Witness They Could Not Kill (the sound tape that proved conclusively that more than one gun was involved in the president's assassination), at last admits conspiracy. Where do we go from here? We reach out now for a courageous commercial publisher to spread these truths that we hold self-evident out to our duped, betrayed, and steadily lied-to Americans. Rush Harp Barbara Black * * * * * * * THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3 Chapter 1 The Overview and the the 1976 Election The taking of America has been both a simple and a very complex process. It has not been the result of a coup d'etat, although some aspects of the process resemble a coup. It has not been a process similar to the dictatorship takeovers in Germany, Italy and other fascist regimes. It has not been a process like the Communist "uprisings" in Russia, Hungary and other Eastern European countries. The taking of America has been a process unique in the history of the world. The one feature that makes it unique is that what was once the greatest democracy in the world has been taken over by a power control group without the knowledge of most of the American people, their congressional representatives, or the rest of the world. The group has taken America in this fashion because manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential electoral procedure is enough to control America. Two fiendishly clever stratagems were used to keep the fact that control had been seized from being obvious to the people. The first of these was control of the established media in the dissemination of both true (blocking) and false (flooding) information. The second was the use of clandestine and secret weapons and techniques developed during World War Two and perfected during the Korean and Viet Nam wars. These techniques are so new and unusual as to be unbelievable to most citizens. Thus, the incredibility of such weapons as hypnosis, brainwashing and "programming" of patsies as assassins became a psychological tool in the bag of techniques of the power control group. The average American has shrugged off the possibility of the takeover with the belief that, "That's not possible here." The use of such weapons, coupled with a tremendous campaign through the controlled media that both whitewashes any signs of conspiracies and spreads disinformation throughout the country, has successfully blocked any serious or official attempts to get at the truth. Unofficial investigators, private researchers, and even Congressional representatives have been ridiculed and completely blocked by both the power control group and their media allies. To take over a real democracy without letting the people know it has been taken over is a fantastic achievement. A list of the accomplishments of the power control group illustrates the point. Since 1963, they have: 1. Assassinated John F. Kennedy; 2. Controlled Lyndon B. Johnson as president; 3. Forced LBJ out of the presidency; 4. Assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, assuring Nixon's election in 1968; 5. Assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King; 6. Eliminated Ted Kennedy as a contender in the 1972 elections by framing him at Chappaquiddick and threatening his children; 7. Stopped George Wallace's campaign, assuring Nixon's election in 1972; 8. Knocked Edmund Muskie out of the 1972 election campaign by using dirty tricks; 9. Covered up all of the above; 10. Controlled the 15 major news media organizations; 11. Made Gerald Ford vice president and then president; 12. Insured continuity of the cover-ups by forcing Ford to pardon Nixon; 13. Murdered about 100 witnesses and participants in the three assassinations and one attempted assassination; 14. Blocked efforts by private citizens and organizations to reveal the take-over; discredited, ruined or infiltrated these individuals or groups; murdered or were accomplices to the murders of the operating assassins; 15. Blocked efforts by members of the Senate and House to initiate investigations of the assassinations and attempted to whitewash, ridicule or eliminate these efforts (their influence and infiltration has been particularly effective in the Church Committee and in the House Rules Committee); 16. Controlled the presidential election procedure since 1964 by eliminating the candidates who might expose the truth and insuring the election or appointment of candidates already committed to covering up the truth about the take-over. The question for 1976 was: Could the power control group continue the take-over during that year's elections? Would they be successful in blocking efforts to expose the take-over by congress? Would they be able to fool the American public again, control the media, and eliminate the contenders for the presidency in 1976 who might have threatened their secure position? The answer to these questions was "Yes." The candidates on the scene during the 1976 primaries fell into three categories according to the control group's point of view. Category 1 included candidates that would continue the cover-up of the take-over. Gerald Ford led this group with Ronald Reagan not far behind him. Henry Jackson was a probable ally because of his backing of the CIA, an important organization in the cover-ups and the takeover. Category 2 included those candidates who would probably try to expose the take-over and the power control group if elected. Morris Udall, Fred Harris and George Wallace fell into this category. The third category included candidates whose intentions were not clear, or unknown at the time. Jimmy Carter, Franck Church and Hubert Humphrey remained in this group, and Sergeant Shriver and Birch Bayh were also in this category before they dropped out of the race. Efforts would have been made to eliminate Udall, Harris or Wallace if any one of them was nominated at the Democratic convention. Carter must certainly have been put to some kind of loyalty test before being permitted to continue as the Democratic nominee. Reagan and Ford were, no doubt, already "safe" candidates for the control group because of their demonstrated cover-up performances. Ford had cooperated fully in at least four ways. He was on the Warren Commission and played a leading role in the cover-up. He wrote the cover-up book "Portrait of the Assassin." He pardoned Nixon and protected the Nixon tapes. And he formed the Rockefeller Commission, appointing David Belin as head of the staff to continue the cover-up of the JFK conspiracy. Reagan had cooperated in at least three ways. He protected important witnesses from extradition from California between 1967 and 1969 for testimony before the grand jury in New Orleans and at the trial of Clay Shaw. He assisted Evelle Younger, then district attorney in Los Angeles and later California state attorney general, in covering up the assassination conspiracy in the Robert Kennedy case. And he has consistently supported the foreign and domestic clandestine activities of the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies both nationally and in California. A later chapter will describe just how the Democratic candidate may be eliminated and when. Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez from San Antonio, Texas, who introduced House Resolution 204 to reopen the two Kennedy assassination cases, the Dr. King case and the George Wallace shooting, took a public position on the possibility that the 1976 election was controlled. Gonzalez said "If we find the answers--the truth--to the questions I have raised (about the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK and the Wallace attempt), as well as those many others have raised, will the truth make us free? Yes, it will, for the truth will make us free to pursue democracy- -our system of government--through the ballot box, and we will not be subject to government by bullets. The truth will enable us to prevent such a series of events from happening again. Some of the supporters of the investigation have written to me recently of their hope that the investigation will get underway right away (March 1976) because they are concerned that there is great danger in store for the Democratic nominee for the President, whoever he turns out to be. I hope very much that these fears do not turn out to have a basis in fact." * * * * * * * Chapter 2 The Power Control Group Just who and what is the Power Control Group? Some have said it's the military industrial complex. Some prefer to put the blame on the Rockefellers and the Council on Foreign Relation. Others have talked about control shifting from the "Yankees" to the "Cowboys" and back again. The term "The Cabal," first used in an obscure paper by an unknown author in 1968,[1] described a high level conspiracy group that planned, financed and carried out the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The word Cabal has been used since then by some authors and researchers and applied to all of the major domestic assassinations. The idea of a Cabal raises more questions than it answers. Who is in the Cabal? Was the same Cabal behind the planning and financing of all five (Chappaquiddick being the fifth) major eliminations? Or are there several interlocking Cabals? What about the Warren and Rockefeller Commissions? Were they part of the Cabal? Which Cabal controls and infiltrated the media and organized the disinformation that poured forth in 1975 and 1976? Was Ford a Cabal member? Was Nixon? How about Johnson and Kissinger? Has one Cabal commanded the executions of the 100 witnesses and lower level participants? The mistake made by researchers in postulating higher level groups is that they simplify a very complex situation. To draw a distinct line between those involved in an overt conspiracy to assassinate a leader and those involved afterward in covering up the first group's actions is a mistake. The cover-ups are far more important than the original assassinations. Each assassination or attempted assassination, or other form of elimination of a leader, is only part of a greater whole. The 16 accomplishments of the power control group listed in Chapter 1, plus those now taking place and those scheduled for the future, should be considered as a continuum. The control group membership may contain individuals in various categories, some of whom planned assassinations, some of whom knew about the assassinations, and some of whom did not know about assassinations in advance. Some may have been on the firing line but have had nothing to do with the cover-ups. Some of them are victims of later eliminations. Somewhere in the power control group's hierarchy is a sub-group or perhaps several sub-groups that have been responsible for the attempted assassinations of presidential candidates, earlier assassins, witnesses, and earlier middle-to-higher level members in the power control group. These sub-groups might be thought of as intelligence-style task forces or mini-Cabals. There is little question that many of the individuals in these task forces are from organized crime and from the intelligence community, or both. They have had access to intelligence techniques and weapons that have frequently been used in the the elimination process. A second mistake made by some researchers is to assume that the Cabal's shape remains static through time. Evidence shows that the Power Control Group has been a living organism that both shrinks and grows as a function of time. The shrinkages take place through eliminations and a few natural deaths. The growth takes place for several reasons. It is necessary to use new techniques and new people for the group's activities as time passes in order to continue effective control of the media and to continue to fool the people and Congress. It's also necessary to bring new high level people into the group from time to time. Candidates for president acceptable to the group must be sworn in and must agree to continue the cover-ups. New media lackeys or new special committees or commissions are also needed. Once in a while an individual blackmails his way in. Some come in on a de facto basis. (Protectors of the Kennedys and their children fall into this category.) The very nature of the cover-up procedure has made it necessary to expose at least some of the truth to vice presidents and vice presidential candidates, in addition to presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. Each vice president elected or appointed since 1963 has had to know the truth about the cover-ups in the event he became president (Humphrey under Johnson, Agnew under Nixon, and then Ford and Rockefeller). Ford was the most important of these since he had to agree to pardon Nixon and to protect the tapes. The heads of the FBI and CIA, selected trusted second-level men, and the deputy director of plans (DDP) in the CIA have all had to know some of the truth. The members of the 40 group and their successors who presumably know all intelligence secrets of the country are, no doubt, brought into this "inner circle" of knowledgeable people. The Warren Commissioners were split. Warren, Dulles McCloy and Ford all knew the truth; Cooper, Boggs and Russell did not. The Rockefeller Commission was also split. Rockefeller certainly knows and so does Ford's man on that Commission, David Belin. Kissinger must have known the truth; so must have the officers in the Department of Defense. Then there are the Secret Team members, planted in the various media organizations, who know the truth. A later chapter will describe who they are and how they lead the media cover-up and disinformation mill. This living organism view of the Power Control Group can best be constructed and proven by starting with the cover-up efforts and the control of the media, as opposed to examining the conspiracies to assassinate each leader. It is much easier to show how Gerald Ford, for example, led the cover-up in the JFK conspiracy than it is to determine who the members of the Power Control Group were who planned and financed the assassination. It is difficult to show evidence of higher level participation in the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Dr. King and in the attempted assassination of George Wallace. It is not difficult to prove that many high level individuals conspired to cover-up the conspiracies in each of the three cases. It is not difficult to prove that they helped frame at least one of the patsies (James Earl Ray). Much of the content of this book will show evidence of the cover-ups and discuss the actions that are still taking place that protect the Power Control Group. Only summary information is included on the original conspiracies, except where there is a lack of published data. ____________________ [1] "Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal", Torbett, 1968 (Copeland Document) * * * * * * * Chapter 3 You Can Fool the People One of the questions always asked by the beginning student of America's political assassinations is, "How is it possible that all of this could be happening in our country without our knowing about it?" The "It couldn't happen here" belief has been extended to, "It couldn't happen here without our knowing about it." This is usually buttressed by such arguments as, "The Kennedys would have done something about it, if it were true", or "Such a giant conspiracy would have been exposed by someone within the conspiratorial group", or "The news media would have found out about it and told all of us by now." The fact that it is possible to fool a majority of the American people for a long period of time and to cover-up a high level conspiracy involving many, many individuals, can easily be demonstrated by using Watergate as an example. In fact, some published articles[1] show that the entire truth about Watergate has yet to be revealed. We do know now about the cover-up of the original crimes in Watergate and the cover-up of the cover-up. We tend to forget the attitude of the majority of the American people, the Congress and the media, toward Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration during the period between the June 1972 Watergate break-in and the November 1972 election and beyond into 1973. Long before Woodward and Bernstein and others began the Watergate expose, a few researchers were calling the Watergate conspiracies to the attention of a small portion of the public.[2] It was not until late 1973 that the research done by these researchers and their hypotheses about high-level conspiracies were proven correct and were generally accepted. How did it happen that for more than a year a majority of the American people were not only fooled by Mr. Nixon and his friends, but also re-elected him? Some of the same ingredients present in that situation were like those used in the taking of America. We can all learn a lot by observing what they were. What follows is a reproduction of an article by the author. (Because the article was written in l972, some of the material in it is now obsolete. However, it is reproduced here without changes to illustrate the situation and attitudes of the pre-Watergate revelation era.) It was originally written during the Watergate cover-up era (late 1972), after Nixon was re-elected and before Bernstein and Woodward were noticed by anyone. It should be noted that even in 1976, Mr. Nixon still had his vehement supporters who were blind to the ingredients required to fool the people. You Can Fool the People You can fool all of the people some of the time You can fool some of the people all of the time But you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln, 1864 The decade of 1963 to 1973 in the United State of America will go down in history for many things. In the long run it will be known through the world as the period which demonstrated that it is possible to fool most of the people all of the time. Adolph Hitler didn't fool very many people. He cowed them, frightened them, and killed them. But most Germans knew what was happening even though they chose to do nothing about it until it was too late. The exercise of power to control what happens and to restrict liberties is much more difficult in a Democracy or a Republic. The United States is always held up as the model case in which the guaranteed election of the president every four years and the two-party system, will prevent the country from being run by dictators. The people are represented by the Congress and also elect the President. A person or a group planning a coup d'etat in the U.S. would have a completely different job on their hands than Germany in the 1930's, South American or African countries in the twentieth century, or France in the 1890's or Russia in 1918. It would be necessary to fool a majority of the American people into believing that they were well represented, and that a democracy still existed, while at the same time the coup group were in reality changing the country to suit their own tastes. It is the contention of the writer that this is exactly what has happened over a period of time following World War II. The methods used to fool the American people, certainly since 1963 and to some extent also since the end of World War I, have varied slightly as administrations changed. The main thrust however has been a constant erosion of civil rights, and a swing of government away from the best interests of the people and toward big companies, banks, the military and rich individuals and families. The trend was slowed down only briefly between 1960 and 1963 when Jack Kennedy attempted to alter the situation. He was assassinated because he did so. To fool the American people is not easy. It requires immense capabilities, tricky, secret methods, hidden resources, great wealth and the equivalent of brainwashing or mind control on a grand scale. Yet that type of resource is precisely what has accomplished the deed. It is probable that, like Germany, the American people will awaken to what has been happening to them and to who has been doing it. It is also very likely, now that the Nixon administration has been restored for four more years, that by 1976 it will be too late, in spite of Watergate. George McGovern's speech on ABC Television, the evening of October 25, 1972, was a warning for those citizens who were awake, that "it can happen here." It's happening here, was his basic message. Yet, unlike Germany, the people were silent, and fooled. They didn't believe him when he said, "Your liberties are being removed, one by one." The Supreme Court by 1976 will be so packed with Nixon appointees that we will never get our liberties back. McGovern covered most of the areas in which the people have been fooled. The major area he didn't cover was that of assassination. This tool represents only the end of the spectrum of techniques used by those in control to remain in control. It has been used four times very effectively, on both Kennedys, on Martin Luther King, and in the attempt on George Wallace. In the case of Wallace, crippling was sufficient to change the political outcome in 1972. More important than the use of assassinations has been the ability to fool the American people into believing there were four lone madmen involved--and no conspiracies. The techniques involved in fooling people are more complex and subtle than those involved in the crime itself. In the Watergate case, the original crime was the use of every trick and technique necessary to re-elect Nixon. The people had to be fooled into believing that Nixon and the CIA had nothing to do with Watergate and the broader plan of which it was part. That the fooling part turned out to be so easy is due to a long series of conditioning steps taken with the American news media and the people over the preceding years. The Pentagon Papers case reveals how the people were fooled by several (successive CIA) administrations over a long period of time. Efforts against Ellsberg and the press continued in order to prevent further decay of the fooling process. How is it possible in the 20th century USA--with TV and high levels of communication, with freedom of the press, freedom of speech--to fool most of the people all of the time? Here is how it is done. Five ingredients are required. INGREDIENT 1. A PATRIOTIC ISSUE. A fundamental issue permeating nearly all conditions of life in the U.S. is needed, around which the rest of the fooling can be constructed. The perfect issue since 1947 has been "The Red Menace," or "Communism" or "The Radical Communist Left Conspiracy." No one is more adept at using this issue than Richard Nixon. The people, to be fooled, have to really believe in the issue, from the heart, from the gut. In a democracy this is the most essential ingredient. In the U.S. many, many people believe it. Some believe it because they have never heard or read anything other than "The Communists are going to take over." Others believe it because they or their parents or relatives came from Europe and "know what it's like to live under Naziism or Communism." (They don't distinguish.) Some believe because they are religious, and somehow religion is always linked to anti-communism. Others aren't sure, but they think "radical" groups might be Communist controlled. The flag waving, the national anthem, the American Legion, our prisoners of war, the draft of the past--all of these symbols are linked to the one big issue of "Communism." There can be several sub-issues of lesser significance than the fundamental issue. Some of these might be related to the main issue. Others may be unrelated. Some are used to appeal to certain segments of the population. They can be carefully exploited and added together with the main issue in a way which enhances it. Some are useful with low-intelligence-level people. Others appeal to bigots. Some are fearful issues which people would rather avoid. Others hit the individual right in his pocketbook or his security. If played one against the other, very carefully, many of these sub-issues can be blamed on Communism. Archie Bunker, of the TV series, "All In The Family", was not exaggerating when he blamed his white niece's dancing with a black neighbor boy on "a Communist plot." Examples of sub-issues used by those controlling Nixon administration to fool the people include: The black-white issue The busing issue The young radical issue The law and order issue The national security issue The old-fashioned American work ethic versus poverty and welfare issue INGREDIENT 2. REACHING THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE. To fool a majority of the people all of the time it is necessary to reach into their minds over a relatively long period of time. Make an analysis of what you, the reader, believe today or disbelieve, along with the mental condition you are in when you enter a polling booth, or write a letter to your Congressman. After some thought list all of the ways in which information might reach you today. You will list all of the environmental factors, self images, motivations, ego factors and acquired beliefs that make you do what you do, and make you think what you think. You will realize that your heritage, your schooling, your life's experience, and the present bombardment of information have an impact on how you vote. If your father and grandfather before you were strong Republicans or Democrats, you may well vote the same "pull one lever" way. You might close your mind to any messages of imminent disaster, and think, "I'm better off not knowing and just voting straight Republican." (In 1972) You might have strong faith in the "American way of life" and pay no attention to the people who go around claiming that John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were all murdered by elements of an invisible government to keep the U.S. on the military, wealthy, conservative track. You might ignore solid evidence regarding Lee Harvey Osward's, James Earl Ray's or Sirhan Sirhan's actions and instead rely on a long-term, well engineered faith that something like that "couldn't happen here." Go back in time to 1935, if you are over 50, or go back to 1945, if you are over 40, or back to 1955, if you are over 30. Examine your general overall attitudes, beliefs and prejudices as developed over that period of time between then and now. You will discover that your political beliefs about the U.S., the Presidency, foreign policy, wage and price controls, and your own economic conditions, etc., have been strongly influenced by the various news media. INGREDIENT 3. CONTROLLING THE NEWS MEDIA. In Chapter 9, the author proves that it has been possible for a very small group of people in power to control or fool nearly all of the major news media in the U.S. about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and subsequent investigations conducted by groups other than the sources of power (Warren Commission, FBI, Secret Service, CIA, Justice Department, the President). According to polls taken between 1963 and 1970, 50% to 80% of the public at one time or another during this period believed there was a conspiracy. Nevertheless, the major news media took the opposite position. A poll conducted today would, no doubt, show about one-half of the people believing there was no conspiracy. How did this happen? Is it conceivable that the power sources of two succeeding administrations (Johnson and Nixon) fooled or controlled the news media to that extent? The problem is not so difficult as it seems. Only sixteen media organizations are involved. These sixteen provide each of us with nearly all of the news we either read, see or hear. It is only necessary to control the sixteen men at the very top and that is exactly what happened. The proof contained in Chapter 9 contains specific facts about what happened inside of eleven of the sixteen organizations. Some of them maintained an editorial position oriented toward the possibility of conspiracy for several years. The last ones to convert because of high level command decisions (at the *owner* level--not the editorial level) did not do so until 1969, 5 1/2 years after the assassination. Several of the eleven conducted their own independent investigations and discovered conspiracy evidence sufficient to take that stand. Among these were CBS, Life Magazine, and "The New York Times." The sixteen media organizations are: 1. NBC-TV and Radio 2. CBS-TV and Radio 3. ABC-TV and Radio 4. Associated Press 5. United Press International 6. Time-Life 7. McGraw Hill - Business Week 8. Newsweek 9. U.S. News and World Report 10. New York Times and their news service 11. Washington Post and their news service 12. Metromedia News Network TV and Radio 13. Westinghouse Radio News Network 14. Capital City Broadcasting Radio Network 15. North American Newspaper Alliance 16. Gannett News Service Controlling the news media to that extent in order to fool the people is an extreme act. It is a last resort in an extremely serious situation. Such a situation arose when it became obvious to those in power that Jim Garrison was going to expose the truth about the assassination in court. He had to be destroyed, and he was, by fooling the news media as well as the people. Control of the press by the power group slipped a little with the Pentagon Papers, the Mylai episode, the Green Berets, the FBI use of spying, and the Watergate caper. But effective control over the fooling of the people nevertheless remains. With Watergate, people fooling shifted from controlling the news media, which suddenly awakened a little too late, to the control of the the legal system. INGREDIENT 4. CONTROLLING THE LEGAL SYSTEM. Perhaps the most important long-range ingredient in fooling the people of America is the control and influence over the legal system. The U.S. in the post-war era has reached the stage where, in case of doubt on a major issue, the people will wait to see how it is resolved by the courts. The American people in general have always had tremendous faith in their own legal system. With the exception of the South taking issue with the Warren court over black rights, the American people tend to believe that the Supreme Court will eventually right any wrongs. The faith goes much further than adjudication of crimes or disputes. People have come to rely on the legal system to tell them where the truth lies on a major issue when two sides differ completely on the facts. They believe that the adversary procedure and the perjury penalty system will ferret out the truth. Thus, to fool the people, and make them believe lies, it is essential to control the legal system. The Nixon and Johnson administrations and the Invisible Government lying underneath or off to one side of both administrations became very adept at controlling the legal system. It can be done, and has been done in several ways. Nixon, of course, loaded the Supreme Court. That is important. The complete control of the Justice Department and the FBI is also obvious. Not so obvious is the need to control Federal judges throughout the land. Truth might leak out in a trial at a local level, so U.S. courts in each area must be controlled. The Federal grand jury scheme worked out by Nixon, Mitchell and Robert Mardian is a beautiful way to guide, direct and control the legal system. It more than proved its worth in fooling the people in cases involving classified documents, the Black Panthers and other situations where the truth had to be obscured. Control over the American Bar Association and individual lawyers and district attorneys is another method used. And finally, it is often useful to control local and state police, either individually or in groups. The exercise of control is important. It may be desirable to suppress truth in a court situation during a trial or hearings. The judge can do this very effectively. It may also be desirable to delay a trial or a hearing in which the truth might be exposed. Judges and lawyers can do this quite easily. It may be desirable to entirely shut off a trial or an appeal where truth could be exposed. Nixon was able to do this to perfection. Lies and fake cases may be presented as truth in court while truth is attacked as being falsehood. This technique has been very successful. All of this takes both money and power. Judges and lawyers, must either be paid a lot of money, or frightened about their career and health. The CIA conduits used for espionage financing have been used extensively in controlling the legal system. Power has been used to control lower courts and local police or district attorneys from the highest source of power in America, the invisible government. A few examples will suffice to demonstrate how the legal system is used to fool the people. The 1972 election demonstrated that two-thirds of the people either did not associate Mr. Nixon with the Watergate affair and the Chapin-Segretti sabotage project, or else they didn't know about it or didn't care. Surely, you say, a traditional American patriot would not vote for a man who did all of the things the Watergate 7 and Chapin- Segretti and company did. But wait! The situation as of January 1973 had not yet reached the courts. Except for Bernard Barker's conviction for falsely using his notary public seal to stamp a check from Kenneth Dahlberg in Florida, no court actions had taken place. Wasn't that lucky for the Republicans, you say. It wasn't luck. The Watergate arrests took place in June 1972. By successfully delaying a whole series of trials and court actions, Mr. Nixon, through control of the courts, kept the truth away from the people until after the election on November 7. Perhaps some of the people who voted for him had doubts, but if court cases had been conducted before November 7, and conducted fairly by uncontrolled judges, the truth would have been exposed in all of its glory. Now that he had a powerful mandate from the people, it was likely that other forms of control would be used to continue fooling the people about Watergate. Some of these were covered in the prior chapters. Executive privilege has been used to a major extent. Clay Shaw was actually defended and Garrison, in effect, was put on trial, through CIA money and CIA lawyers. Garrison's attempts to bring Shaw to trial for perjury were successfully blocked by Federal courts and judges. Sirhan Sirhan's trial for the murder of Robert Kennedy was controlled by the Nixon administration in order to hide the truth from the people. The case involved controlling the judge at the trial, the district attorney, the lawyers for Sirhan, the Los Angeles police, the FBI, and some of the officials of the state of California. The control exercised has continued to prevent Sirhan from receiving a new trial based on new evidence of what happened in the assassination. THE FIVE BIG EVENTS. The five events since World War II about which the power control group must continue to fool the American people about are the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; the attempted assassination of George Wallace; and the Watergate episode. (In 1973, the truth about Chappaquiddick and its importance, together with the threats against Jackie Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, Ted Kennedy and all of the Kennedy children, had not been exposed. Chappaquiddick is the sixth big event.) All other things this group has done since 1947 fade into insignificance compared to these five. The reason is that the American people may accept such things as the Pueblo incident, the Gulf of Tonkin fake, the Mylai incident, the Pentagon Papers, the Kent State killings, the frame-ups of the Black Panthers and their murders, and even the whole Viet Nam war, but they would rise up in wrath if the truth about any one or all of those five events were exposed. Thus, Mr. Hanson for Sirhan, Mr. Fensterwald for James Earl Ray, Mr. Lawrence O'Brien and the Watergate suit--anyone opposing the findings of the Warren Commission with national prominence and success--and anyone who begins to pry too much into George Wallace's brush with death will be opposed with all the power those in control can muster. Each will be dealt with if he comes too close, just as Jim Garrison was dealt with by both the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Garrison managed to beat out the Nixon- controlled Justice Department in his own trial in September 1973. The jury in New Orleans found him innocent in spite of the fact that the prosecuting attorney, the judge, the key witness, Pershing Gervais, and the news media were all controlled by Nixon and Mitchell. By late 1973 it was becoming a little more difficult to fool the people. INGREDIENT 5. PAID COLUMNISTS OR LACKEYS. Control of the news media includes controlling or hiring selected columnists, newsmen, commentators, and lackeys. Sometimes these people are called "spokesmen for the administration." Many of them are supposedly independent. Their importance in the process of fooling the people has increased as the number of independent news media organizations has decreased and the number of organizations relying on syndicated, national columnists or commentators has increased. The Nixon administration managed to corral a great many more of these types than did the administrations of Johnson, Kennedy, or Eisenhower. In the newspaper field, there were four to five times as many columnists writing "fool the people" type news for Nixon as against Nixon. Alsop was at one extreme. More subtle were writers like C.L. Sulzberger in the "New York Times" and Gary Wills in various conservative papers. On radio, the Westinghouse network used four commentators who appeared to be liberal at first glance, but who adhered to the party line when the time came to get at the truth about the five key events mentioned earlier. These four were Peter Lisagor, Rod McCleish, Simeon Booker and Irwin Cannon. William Safire, Evans and Novak, Mary McCarthy, and occasionally Jack Anderson also fall into the "fool the people" column. The impact of these columnists on the American people has not really been measured. Alsop's and Evans and Novak's columns appear in Republican and right-wing newspapers all across the U.S. The election poll that indicated over 700 newspapers supported Nixon while fewer than 50 supported McGovern provides some estimate of how influential these papers and columnists can be. With the exception of two or three stories by Jack Anderson about Robert Kennedy and plots to assassinate Castro, none of the evidence about the truth pertaining to the assassinations has ever appeared in any of these columns. Yet the American people read these columns more faithfully than they read the front page. HOW THE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FOOLED. Now that the ingredients for fooling the people have been discussed, let's examine the net results over the past twenty-five years. Between 1957 and 1972, there was a culmination in the use of these ingredients, many of which were developed with the end of World War II. Through a succession of presidencies and political party administrations from Truman to Nixon a mixture of wealthy, military and espionage individuals developed a power base and used the five ingredients to fool the people. Except for John Kennedy, none of the presidents tried very hard to resist this power. The book "Farewell America" (by James Hepburn--a pseudonym--Frontiers Press), which has been reprinted in sections in "Computers and Automation" (1973) shows clearly what kind of power JFK tried to resist and how it resulted in his death. The American people aren't familiar with this book any more than they are familiar with a movie made from the book, with the same title. And as long as the group remains in power, the book and movie will be banned from the United States, just as "Z" was banned in Greece. The people of America were fooled into believing each of the following untruths: Kent State: The National Guard fired under intense pressure and attack by a bunch of hoodlums at Kent State University. The various grand juries have vindicated the Guard. There was no White House influence involved in the killings, or in the aftermath. Mylai: Calley was justified in shooting the civilians at Mylai because those were his orders. You can't tell a "gook" from a Viet Cong and, after all, war is war. Communism: The greatest threat to American freedom is still a world- wide Communist take-over. The domino theory may or may not be correct, but we must never give up a fight. "Peace with honor" was essential in Viet Nam. Pentagon Papers: Few people have taken the time to read the Pentagon Papers and have understood their significance. The two-thirds majority who elected Nixon in 1972 may have been puzzled by the papers or they may not have cared. No doubt, most of them believed Ellsberg a traitor and worthy of jail. It is very unlikely they will ever believe they were duped by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon and most particularly by the CIA and allies in matters pertaining to the cold war and Communism. The fundamental, gut issue of the Communist conspiracy overrides any other revelation in this field. Assassinations: In spite of polls and uneasy feelings, at least half and perhaps a majority of the American people still believe that John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray, respectively, and that the assassination attempt on George Wallace was solely Arthur Bremer's doing. They believe these men acted alone and that they were madmen. (This statement pertains to the period of 1972-73.) Watergate: Prior to the election in November 1972, a majority of the American people believed that Richard Nixon, John Mitchell, Maurice Stans and everyone else of importance in the White House had nothing to do with the Watergate affair or the activities of Donald Segretti and others prior to the election. Almost no one believed that the CIA was involved in setting up Nixon so as to capture and control the executive to an even greater degree. Democracy and Freedom: By the end of 1973 a relatively large percentage of the American people still did not relate any of the foregoing incidents or situations to their own individual liberties. They believed patriotically in America; they believed we still had a democracy; they believed that President Nixon, with his wise ways and business experience would pull us out of whatever problems we had. From the time he nailed Alger Hiss and the day he won the great kitchen debate with Kruschev, Nixon was believed to be the leader who would secure our eventual victory over Communism. The people refuse to consider the possibility that unknown forces have seized control over the U.S. for the last fifteen years and that our liberties and democracy are fading away. ____________________ [1] "Nixon and the Mafia" -- Jeff Gerth, "Sundance Magazine," December 1972. Charles Colson Interview, by Dick Russell - "Argosy Magazine," March 1976 [2] "Why Was Martha Mitchell Kidnapped?" -- Mae Brussell, "The Realist," August 1972 "The June 1972 Raid on Democratic Party Headquarters -- Part 1" -- R.E. Sprague, "Computers & Automation," August 1972 "The Raid on Democratic Party Headquarters -- The Watergate Incident -- Part 2", Ibid. * * * * * * * Chapter 4 How It All Began - The U-2 and the Bay of Pigs To understand the origins of the Power Control Group, it is necessary to return to the last years of the Eisenhower administration and examine what was going on in the Cold War. Eisenhower had suffered several strokes and a heart attack. He was partially immobilized, and entrusted a major share of the coordination of clandestine activities being conducted by the CIA against the "Red Menace" to Richard Nixon, his vice president. While Ike was warning against the military-industrial-complex's domestic influence, and attempting to move toward detente with the Soviets through a summit meeting, he was being sabotaged by the plans section of the CIA and by Richard Nixon. A part of the CIA arranged for a U-2 with Gary Powers as pilot to go down over Russia, thus giving Khrushchev a chance to expose American spying and to cancel the summit meeting. This was one of the earliest moves of the nucleus of what later evolved into the Power Control Group. In the spring of 1960, with Ike nearly senile and pressured by Nixon, he approved the plan for the invasion of Cuba and the assassination of Castro. Nixon was the chief White House action officer for what later became the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Power Control Group was beginning to organize itself with Nixon as part of it. The cold warriors and strong anti-Communist "patriots" in the Plans or Operations part of the CIA formed the original nucleus. Their plan was to make Nixon president in 1961 and to launch a successful takeover of Cuba. John Kennedy came along to upset the plan. Not only did he make the takeover impossible but he soon discovered the evils lurking in the hearts and minds of the CIA clandestine operators and laid his own plans to destroy them. The assassination of John Kennedy essentially became an act of survival for some of these individuals. Many citizens of America have forgotten that Richard Nixon was Vice President of the United States in 1959 and 1960. As an old anti-communist from the Alger Hiss and Khrushchev debating days, Nixon was in the forefront of pressure for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. What is also forgotten is that Nixon was largely responsible for the covert training of Cuban exiles by the CIA in preparation for the Bay of Pigs. (He stated this in his book, "Six Crises".) NIXON'S LIES--OCTOBER 1960. Mr. Nixon's capacity for truth is nowhere more clearly demonstrated than by the deliberate lies he told during the election campaign on national TV on October 21, 1960. He said in his book that the lies were told for a patriotic reason--to protect the covert operations planned for the Bay of Pigs at all costs. The significance of this is that Mr. Nixon considers patriotism to be, in part, the protection of plans and actions of individuals that he considered to be working for the United States' best interests. The similarities between the actions of Everette Howard Hunt, Jr., James McCord, Bernard Barker, Frank Sturgis, and others in the 1960 planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion and in the 1972 planning for the re-election of Richard M. Nixon are very striking. In both cases, what the plotters themselves considered to be patriotic, anti-Communist actions were involved. In 1960 the actions were directed against Fidel Castro, a man they hated as a Communist. In 1972 the actions were directed against Edward Kennedy, Edmund Muskie and George McGovern. Bernard Barker stated the group's collective belief when he said after his arrest that, "We believe that an election of McGovern would be the beginning of a trend that would lead to socialism and communism, or whatever you want to call it." Nixon admitted lying to the American people to protect Hunt, Barker, Sturgis, and McCord in 1960. The likelihood that he lied to protect them again in 1972 seems to be quite good. There is some likelihood that he actually hired the same old crew he trusted from the Bay of Pigs days for the 1972 Watergate and other espionage activities. Here are the facts: Nixon's Statements in "Six Crises" Richard Nixon stated in "Six Crises": "The covert training of Cuban exiles by the CIA was due in substantial part, at least, to my efforts. This had been adopted as a policy as a result of my direct support."[1] "President Eisenhower had ordered the CIA to arm and train the exiles in May of 1960. Nixon and his advisors wanted the CIA invasion to take place before the voters went to the polls on November 8, 1960."[2] While the Bay of Pigs operation was under the overall CIA direction of Allen Dulles, Richard M. Bissell, Jr. was the CIA man in charge, according to Ross & Wise.[3] Charles Cabell,[4] the deputy director of the CIA, and a man with the code name Frank Bender, were also near the top of the operational planning.[5] E. Howard Hunt Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was in charge of the actual invasion. He used the code name, "Eduardo." Bernard L. Barker, using the code name "Macho," worked for Hunt in the CIA Bay of Pigs planning. James McCord was an organizer for the invasion and was one of the highest ranking officials in the CIA. Frank Sturgis, alias Frank Fiorini, was also involved in the Bay of Pigs operations. Virgilio Gonzales was a CIA agent active in the Bay of Pigs. So was Eugenio Martinez. Charles Colson was a former CIA official who knew McCord and Hunt during the Bay of Pigs period.[6] Hunt, Barker, McCord, Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez were under indictment for the Watergate affair. Colson was Nixon's special counsel who handled "touchy" political assignments. According to "Time" magazine, Colson brought all of the others into the re- election committee espionage project at the request of Nixon.[7] In other words, it was basically the same group who worked for Nixon, Bissell and Co. in 1960 and who worked for Nixon, Colson and Co. in 1972. They were all loyal, patriotic, anti-Communist, and anti-Castro CIA agents with covert (black) espionage training. They needed Nixon's protection in 1960 and 1972, and they received it both times. Here is how Nixon protected them in 1960.[8] Kennedy-Nixon Debates, 1960 John Kennedy and Richard Nixon engaged in a series of national TV debates during the 1960 campaign. Kennedy was briefed by Allen Dulles, head of the CIA at Eisenhower's request, on secret CIA activities and international problems on July 23, 1960. Nixon was not aware of the briefing contents and was not sure whether Dulles told Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs plans. As it turned out Dulles had not mentioned the plans but had kept his remarks about Cuba rather general. On October 6, 1960, Kennedy gave his major speech on Cuba. He said that events might create an opportunity for the U.S. to bring influence on behalf of the cause of freedom in Cuba. He called for encouraging those liberty-loving Cubans who were leading the resistance against Castro. Nixon became very disturbed about this because he felt Kennedy was trying to pre-empt a policy which he claimed as his own. Nixon ordered Fred Seaton, Secretary of the Interior, to call the White House and find out whether Dulles had briefed Kennedy on the Cuban invasion plans. Seaton talked to General Andrew Goodpaster, Eisenhower's link to the CIA, who told Seaton that Kennedy did know about the Bay of Pigs plans. Attack on Kennedy by Lying Nixon became incensed. He said, "There was only one thing I could do. The covert operation had to be protected at all costs. I must not even suggest by implication that the U.S. was rendering aid to rebel forces in and out of Cuba. In fact, I must go to the other extreme: I must attack the Kennedy proposal to provide such aid as wrong and irresponsible because it would violate our treaty commitments."[9] So Richard M. Nixon actually went on national TV (ABC) on October 21, 1960, knowing we were going to invade Cuba, and lied. During the fourth TV debate, Nixon attacked Kennedy's proposal as dangerously irresponsible and in violation of five treaties between the U.S. and Latin America, as well as the United Nations' Charter.[10] On October 22 at Muhlenberg College, Nixon really turned on the fabrication steam. He said, "Kennedy called for--and get this--the U.S. Government to support a revolution in Cuba, and I say that this is the most shockingly reckless proposal ever made in our history by a presidential candidate during a campaign--and I'll tell you why . . ." The reason we should have taken with a grain of salt whatever words Nixon uttered about Watergate and Donald Segretti's espionage is clearly demonstrated in that October 22, 1960 speech. He fiercely attacked John Kennedy for advocating a plan that he, Richard Nixon, secretly advocated and claimed as his own creation. He later had the sheer gall to brag about it in his own book as a very patriotic act. Protection of Hunt and Co. How was Nixon protecting Hunt and company in 1972? He was using the Justice Department and the Republican Congressmen, among others, to delay and dilute the prosecution of the Watergate seven. He had slowed down, suppressed, and all but stopped six separate investigations, suits, and trials of the affair. Included were Wright Patman's House Banking Committee investigation, the FBI- Justice Department investigation, a White House investigation by John Dean, a General Accounting Office investigation, a suit by the Democratic Party, and a trial in criminal court of the seven invaders. Only two trials or investigations had a chance of exposing the truth at that time. One of these, a trial of Bernard Barker in Florida was not much help. The other was an investigation promised by Senator Edward Kennedy and his Senate subcommittee. It never occurred. The action for impeachment came much later. Thus, the stage was set in 1961 for the group of powerful individuals who had planned the Bay of Pigs to gain revenge on John Kennedy who tried to change the overall direction of the U.S. battle against Communism. After JFK refused to approve overt U.S. backing of the Bay of Pigs invasion, various individuals in the clandestine CIA forces vowed their revenge. In the spring of 1961, evidence had appeared indicating that Helms, Hunt, Sturgis and Barker tried to have JFK assassinated in Paris.[11] When the attempt failed, a number of other plots and sub-plots developed through the next two years. After JFK's blockade strategy against Castro during the missile crisis in 1962 was implemented, some of the high-level CIA and armed forces people wanted even more to get him out of the White House. They had favored a direct invasion or bombing of Cuba. And finally, when JFK found out about the CIA's plans for another invasion of Cuba in the spring and summer of 1963 and stopped them, they began in earnest to plan his death. ____________________ [1] "Six Crises," Richard M. Nixon, Doubleday, 1962. [2] "The Invisible Government," Wise & Ross, Random House, 1964. [3] Ibid. [4] Brother of Earl Cabell, mayor of Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated. [5] Ibid. [6] "New York Times" articles on Watergate, June 18 to July 2, 1972. [7] "Time" magazine, September 8, 1972. [8] This episode is related in detail in "The Invisible Government." [9] "Six Crises". [10] "The Invisible Government." [11] "400,000 Dollars Pour Abattre Kennedy a Paris," Camille Giles, Julliard Press, Paris 1973. * * * * * * * Chapter 5 The Assassination of John Kennedy The assassination of President Kennedy can be considered one of a series of acts by the Power Control Group to regain the control they had lost when Nixon was defeated in 1960 and Kennedy threatened their existence. The evidence pointing toward intelligence involvement and the use of a variety of intelligence techniques in the assassination is substantial. Until and unless an investigation is conducted by a group with power and money equivalent to that of the Power Control Group, with the power to issue subpoenas and to protect witnesses, it will be very difficult to draw a completely accurate picture of the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. As a substitute, this chapter is a "probable reconstruction"--a scenario--about who killed John F. Kennedy. Unlike the Warren Commission Report (another scenario), this report does not contain any physically impossible events, such as those connected with Commission Exhibit 399, the so-called "magic bullet." This scenario is based on (1) evidence gathered between 1968 and 1975 by the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, Washington, D.C. and (2) evidence gathered between 1962 and 1975 by the author. The purpose of this scenario is as a starting point for study and verification by researchers, by Congressional Committees, and by their members and staffs. This should be considered as a beginning hypothesis and scenario in contrast to the Warren and Rockefeller Commission scenarios. The best evidence available indicates the following events occurred in the summer and fall of 1963 and culminated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The basic evidence has been summarized in various articles published in "Computers and People" (formerly "Computers and Automation") since May 1970.[1] This can be considered as a guideline scenario which adheres to and explains all of the known factual evidence. How It Began The conspiracy to assassinate John Kennedy began in a series of discussions held in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. The men in the discussions were extremely angry that Kennedy had stopped plans and preparations for another invasion of Cuba (scheduled for the latter part of 1963.) One of the instigators was David Ferrie, a CIA contract agent who had been training pilots in Guatemala for the invasion. Meetings held in Ferrie's apartment in New Orleans were attended by Clay Shaw, William Seymour and several Cubans. Plans for assassinating President Kennedy developed out of those early meetings. Others whose support was sought by the group included Guy Banister, Major L. M. Bloomfield, Loran Hall, Lawrence Howard, Sergio Arcacha Smith and Carlos Prio Socarras. Oswald's Role During this period in the summer of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald was working for Guy Banister on some anti-Castro projects and used the Communist cover of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Oswald attended some of the meetings where JFK's assassination was discussed. Oswald either approached the FBI or they approached him in the later summer of 1963, and he began to tell the FBI about the plans of the group to assassinate JFK. Oswald had been a secret informant for the FBI since mid-1962. Mexico City In September, the group moved the scene of their planning to Mexico City. There they solicited the assistance of Guy Gabaldin, a CIA agent. Meetings were held in the apartment of Gabaldin, attended by Shaw, Ferrie, Seymour, Gabaldin and Oswald on at least three occasions. Others were brought into the conspiracy at this point. These included John Howard Bowen (alias Albert Osborne), Ronald Augustinovich, Mary Hope, Emilio Santana, Harry Dean, Richard Case Nagell, and "Frenchy" (an adventurer who had been working with Seymour, Santana, Ferrie, Howard and others on the Cuban invasion projects in the Florida Keys). Fred Lee Crisman, Jim Hicks and Jim Braden (alias Eugene Hale Brading) were also recruited at this point. Oswald, the Patsy Oswald continued to inform on the group to the FBI in Dallas. In mid- to late September the assassination group decided to make Oswald the patsy in the murder. They had discussed the need for a patsy in the earliest meetings in New Orleans. Billy Seymour, who resembled Oswald, was selected to use Oswald's name and to plant evidence in New Orleans, Dallas and Mexico, which could later be used to frame him. In addition, another man under CIA surveillance in Mexico City also used Oswald's name in a probable attempt to make it appear that Oswald was headed for Cuba. His name may have been Johnny Mitchell Deveraux. His picture appears in the Warren Commission Volumes as CE 237. Financial Support The team needed financial support for the assassination. They received it from Carlos Prio Socarras in Miami, who brought more than 50 million dollars out of Cuba. They also received money from Banister, and from three Texas millionaires who hated Kennedy: Sid Richardson, Clint Murchison, and Jean DeMenil (of the Schlumberger Co.). The Murchison-Richardson contribution also included soliciting the assistance of high-level men in the Dallas police force. They were powerful members of the Dallas Citizens Council that controlled the city at that time. Plans for Three Cities The group in Mexico City planned to assassinate JFK in Miami, Chicago or Dallas, using different gunmen in each case. The Miami plan failed because the Secret Service found out about it in advance and kept JFK out of the open. The Chicago plan backfired when JFK cancelled his plans to attend the Army-Navy game at Soldiers Field in early November. The group set up two assassination teams for Dallas. One was in Dealey Plaza; the second was near the International Trade Mart where JFK's luncheon speech was to be delivered. CIA Support The best evidence of CIA (Deputy-Director of Plans) involvement is the fact that the majority of the known participants were contract agents or direct agents of the CIA. In Mexico City, the meetings were held in the apartment of Guy Gabaldin, a CIA (DDP) agent, working for the Mexico City station chief. Others attending the meetings who were CIA (DDP) contract or direct agents included Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Albert Osborne, Harry Dean, Richard Case Nagell, Ronald Augustinovich, William Seymour, Emilio Santana and Fred Lee Crisman. It is likely (but not yet provable by direct evidence) that the group sought and obtained from the acting or permanent CIA station chief in Mexico, assistance or approval to go ahead with assassination plans. Tad Szulc claims that a CIA source can prove that E. Howard Hunt was acting station chief in Mexico City at the time of the Gabaldin apartment meetings (August and September 1963). Hunt has denied under oath before the Rockefeller Commission that he was in Mexico. In 1967 Richard Helms told a group of CIA officials, including Victor Marchetti, that both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie were CIA (DDP) contract agents and that Shaw had to be given CIA protection and assistance in his New Orleans trial. This is a strong indication that Hunt and Helms gave "turn of the head" approval to the Shaw-Ferrie assassination plan as a minimum form of support. Dallas The assassination group, having failed in Miami and Chicago, moved an operational team into Dallas during the second week in November of 1963. Shaw, Ferrie, Gabaldin and other high-level plotters travelled in other directions, establishing alibis as planned. On November 22, Gabaldin was in Mexico City, Shaw was in San Francisco, and Ferrie was in New Orleans. The team moving into Dallas included Albert Osborne, William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Frenchy, Fred Crisman, Jim Hicks, Jim Braden, and a new recruit from Los Angeles, Jack Lawrence. There was also a back-up rifle team of Cubans to be used at a location near the International Trade Mart in the event something went wrong at Dealey Plaza. Where the Teams Stayed The teams stayed at two locations in Dallas for two weeks. One was a rooming house run by a woman named Tammie True. During this period final preparations for the assassination in Dealey Plaza were made. These included the collecting of and planting of evidence used to frame Oswald, the recruiting of the Dallas police participants, and the plans for the escape of the team members by car and by train. The riflemen selected were William Seymour in the Depository Building, Jack Lawrence and Frenchy on the grassy knoll, and Emilio Santana in the Dal Tex building. Jim Hicks was set up as radio coordinator and a man with each of the riflemen had a two-way radio. They were Jim Braden, Dal Tex; Fred Crisman, knoll; unidentified American (tall tramp), knoll; and a man in the TSBD Building. Osborne was in overall charge of the Dallas teams, but he did not go to Dealey Plaza. A fifth gunman, known to researchers as the umbrella man, was stationed on the street with an umbrella weapon furnished by the CIA. He was accompanied by another Cuban acting as a radio man. Framing Oswald The people involved in framing Oswald included Seymour (who used his identity), someone who posed for two pictures holding a rifle, a photographer who took the pictures and someone who superimposed Oswald's head on the two negatives. Also, someone who took Oswald's rifle from his garage and his pistol from his room, taking several bullets and shells with the pistol, fired three shells and one bullet through the rifle, and planted the rifle and rifle shells on the sixth floor of the TSBD and a rifle bullet at Parkland Hospital. The pistol shells were given to William Seymour for planting later on. The photographers also planted photos of General Walker's house and driveway to implicate Oswald in the Walker shooting. Dallas Policemen Involved The policemen involved were J. D. Tippit, who was to drive two of the assassins, Seymour and his radio man, away in his police car; Bill Alexander; Jerry Hill; Sergeant McDonald; Lieutenant Montgomery; Lieutenant Johnson; and Lieutenant Batchelor, who escorted Jack Ruby into the jail to murder Oswald. McDonald was assigned to kill Oswald upon his arrest in the Texas Theatre. Jerry Hill was involved in that event as well as in the planting of evidence against Oswald in the TSBD Building. Montgomery and Johnson were involved in planting the paper bag as evidence against Oswald. Alexander and Batchelor were primarily responsible for making sure that Jack Ruby assassinated Oswald and that he didn't talk about it afterward. Alexander was present on every occasion when Ruby was questioned or interviewed in the jail, in spite of Ruby's efforts to have him removed. Other Persons Involved in Framing Oswald Also involved in framing Oswald were Marina Oswald; her lawyer, James Martin; and someone in the Dallas police force. She was talked into three points of false testimony: she said she took the two fake photos of Oswald with a camera she claimed was his. She fabricated, or was handed, the false story about Oswald's attempt to shoot General Walker and taking two pictures of Walker's house with the same camera. (Oswald did neither.) She told a false story about a falling out she and Oswald supposedly had and exaggerated his mean treatment of their children. There are good indications that these moves were made by the CIA operatives in the group who threatened to send Marina back to Russia. (Marina's uncle was a high-level officer in the KGB.) Dealey Plaza On the day of the assassination four men with rifles, accompanied by their radio men and several other team members, moved into Dealey Plaza. Seymour and a radio man entered the TSBD Building through the freight entrance and worked their way to the roof. Santana and Braden went into the Dal Tex building through the freight entrance on Houston St. and up a back staircase to the second floor. Lawrence, Frenchy, Crisman and the tall tramp took up two positions on the grassy knoll. Lawrence was inside the westernmost cupola after parking his car in the parking lot behind the knoll. Frenchy, Crisman and the tall tramp were near the fence. Jim Hicks was in the Adolphus Hotel a few blocks away, testing the two-way radio communication with the four radio men, until he proceeded to the Plaza and mingled with a large crowd (near the corner of Houston and Elm Streets). The umbrella man stood near the Stemmons Freeway sign on Elm Street accompanied by his radio man. The other team members stationed themselves in the crowd (along Elm Street). After the shots were fired, they circulated through the crowd in front of the TSBD on Elm Street, on the grassy knoll, and behind the TSBD Building, identifying themselves as Secret Service agents and asking witnesses and officials questions to find out whether the assassins had been detected. There are clear photos of one of these men. One other man was at the corner of the wall on the grassy knoll. The Shots Upon a visual and oral signal from the man at the wall and upon a radio command from Hicks, the team fired its first round of shots. Crisman received the command from Hicks and caused Frenchy to fire a shot from a position behind the fence on the knoll, about twenty feet west of the corner of the fence. This shot missed. The umbrella man fired a shot using his small-bore umbrella gun. When this shot struck JFK in the throat, the dart paralyzed JFK and later presented by Commander Humes to the FBI.[2] The shot was fired at Zapruder frame 189: JFK was behind a large oak tree, hidden from the sixth floor window of the TSBD Building. On command from Braden, Emilio Santana fired his first shot two seconds later from the second floor window of the Dal Tex building at Z 225 after JFK came out from behind the sign in Zapruder's film. The shot struck JFK in the back about 5 3/4" down from the collar line, penetrated to a depth of about two inches and stopped. The bullet fell out of JFK's back somewhere in or at the Parkland Hospital, or perhaps travelled down inside the body of the President, and was never recovered. William Seymour fired his shot from the west end of the TSBD Building upon command from his radio man between Z 230 and Z 237, after Santana's shot. He used a Mauser rifle with no telescopic sight. While he was aiming at JFK, he fired high and to the right, hitting John Connally in the back. The bullet travelled through Connally's chest and then entered his left thigh. The bullet fell out of his thigh in or near Parkland Hospital and was never recovered. Governor Connally's wrist was not hit at that time. Jack Lawrence did not fire a shot in the first round because from his cupola position he did not have a clear shot. Hicks gave a second radio command for another round of shots as JFK passed the Stemmons Freeway sign. Emilio Santana fired his second shot between Z 265 and Z 275. The bullet narrowly missed JFK, passed over the top of his head and over the top of the limousine's windshield. It travelled on to strike the south curb of Main Street, breaking off a piece of concrete which flew up and hit James Tague. The bullet either disintegrated or flew into the area beyond the overpass. It was not found. William Seymour may have fired a second shot which may have struck JFK in the upper right part of his head at Z 312. That bullet disintegrated. Upon command from his radio man, Jack Lawrence fired his first shot from a pedestal on the west side of the south entrance to the western cupola on the grassy knoll. The shot may have hit Connally's wrist. Frenchy fired the fatal shot through the trees from his position behind the fence. The Lawrence shot or possibly the second Seymour shot produced a bullet fragment that passed through Connally's right wrist at Z 313. At that time his wrist was elevated and nearly directly in front of JFK's head, in such a position that Connally's right palm was facing JFK as the governor fell into his wife's arms. The fragment entered the front of his wrist and exited from the back. Oswald's Actions Lee Harvey Oswald started November 22, 1963 with the knowledge that there might be an attempt on JFK's life during the day. He had reported this possibility to the FBI in his informer's role five days earlier; he undoubtedly thought the FBI and Secret Service would be protecting the President. His communications with the assassination team had prepared him to meet with them in the Texas Theatre if anything happened that day. There is also a possibility he received a telephone call immediately after the shots, telling him to go to the theatre. He had gone to his and Marina's rooms in Irving to pick up curtain rods for his bare windows in his Oak Cliff room. He carried the curtain rods in a paper bag on his way to work that morning with Wesley Frazier. He worked on the sixth floor of the TSBD as well as on the other floors that morning. He helped a crew of men lay a new floor on the sixth floor, move a large number of book cartons and school supplies over to the eastern side of the floor, including some cartons near the southeastern window that faced Elm Street. Oswald went to the first floor of the building at approximately 12:15 p.m. and returned to the second floor lunchroom just before 12:30. He was drinking a coke there at 12:31 when Officer Baker and Mr. Truly, the building manager, encountered him while rushing up the stairs from the first floor. At the sight of Baker's gun drawn and seeing the commotion outside, he no doubt realized what had happened.[3] He immediately left the building via the freight platform entrance on the northeast side and travelled to his rooming house via bus and taxi. He picked up his pistol there and went directly to the Texas Theater where he met two of the assassination team and was sitting with them in the theatre when the police arrived. One of these men may have been William Seymour. The Dallas police members of the team planned to shoot Oswald in the theatre while arresting him. When he was arrested he did not realize at first that he had been framed. When this began to become clear to him on Saturday, November 23, he remained confident that the FBI would get him out of the situation. After all, he worked for them! Jack Ruby Jack Ruby, in addition to his Mafia involvements and other criminal activities, was also running guns to Cuba and carrying payoff money to other anti-Castro groups on behalf of various CIA- backed projects. His involvement in the assassination of JFK appears to have been minor, even though he knew about it in advance. In his night club Ruby met on several occasions with Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, and William Seymour. The group decided to assassinate Oswald in jail after the police failed to kill him in the Texas Theatre. Alexander made arrangements to have Batchelor escort Ruby into the jail when it was known Oswald was being moved. They arranged an audible signal (an auto horn) to let Batchelor and Ruby know when Oswald was coming down an elevator into the garage. They came down an elevator opposite the one carrying Oswald. Clay Shaw gave Ruby his instructions to shoot Oswald through Breck Wall. Shaw telephoned Wall from San Francisco and Wall called Ruby. He was told it was an official CIA-sponsored act, in the best interests of the United States, and that he would be out of jail in a few days after his capture. Planted Evidence The planting of the evidence against Oswald first began with William Seymour, who used Oswald's identity during September and October, 1963. Next, the faked photographs of Oswald were created. Two of the team members used a camera of their own to take the two pictures of General Walker's house and the two shots of one of the men supposedly in Oswald's back yard. They planted the pictures in Oswald's garage. Next, they stole Oswald's rifle from the garage prior to November 22, fired several shots from it, and preserved three shells, one bullet, and several bullet fragments. They planted the rifle, the three shells, the bullet (399) and the bullet fragments in the TSBD, the hospital and the JFK limousine on November 22. They also took Oswald's pistol at some time prior to November 22, fired several shots from it and saved the shells. William Seymour, after shooting policeman Tippit, ran away in such a manner as to attract attention, throwing the shells from Oswald's gun into the air as he ran so that witnesses would see them. (The shells matched Oswald's pistol. None of the bullets matched.) All of the work with Oswald's rifle, pistol, and the fake photos was probably done at the same time. The rifle, pistol and Communist newspapers had to be available together for the backyard photos. The faking of the photographs, the firing of rifle and pistol, the retrieval of the shells from rifle and pistol and of bullet 399 and the bullet fragments from the rifle all required enough time that the event occurred well in advance of the assassination . Escape Plans As mentioned before, plans were made for the team to escape by car, train, and airplane. Evidence shows: 1. A white car was parked straddling a log barrier behind the western cupola on the grassy knoll. It left that spot one minute after the shots were fired and drove eastward on the Elm Street extension in front of the TSBD. 2. A white station wagon driving west on Elm Street stopped at the foot of the grassy knoll at 12:40 p.m., ten minutes after the shots were fired. It picked up a man who looked like Oswald and drove under the triple overpass. 3. A railroad train carrying three "tramps" began to leave the freight train area west and north of the TSBD at around one o'clock, thirty minutes after the shots. The train was under the tower control of Lee Bowers and was stopped by him. The tramps were arrested. 4. A police car stopped in front of Oswald's rooming house and honked twice around 1:10 p.m. 5. Policeman Tippit's patrol car was far out of position in the Oak Cliff area near Ruby and Oswald's rooming houses. Tippit was shot by two men, one of whom was Billy Seymour. 6. A small airplane was sitting at the Redbird Airport, a location in the same direction as Oak Cliff, a little further out from Dealey Plaza. Its engines were running. It was ready for takeoff at 1 p.m. 7. David Ferrie went to Houston, Texas on the afternoon of November 22, driving at high speed through bad thunderstorms to get there. He was positioned at a pay telephone at an ice skating rink near the Houston airport, until receiving a phone call there. After that he returned to New Orleans. Escape Routes These escape plans were modified after the assassination. It became unnecessary for any of the Dealey Plaza participants to escape by airplane. The framing of Oswald and the failure of the Secret Service or FBI to detect any of the escaping gunmen or their assistants permitted these changes. One of the men in the Dealey Plaza--probably pretending to be a Secret Service agent--reported an "all clear" situation to Shaw in San Francisco. Shaw notified Ferrie that they didn't need an airplane to escape with while Ferrie was waiting in Houston. Ferrie changed his plans and drove back to New Orleans. The gunmen who did escape followed these routes: Jack Lawrence got into his car parked behind the cupola and either drove or was driven back to his cover job location at the automobile agency. He left almost immediately afterward and travelled to North Carolina. Frenchy ran back to the freight car area and climbed into one of the box cars sitting on a siding northwest of the TSBD. He was arrested at 1 p.m. by Officers Harkness, Bass and Wise, but was released by Sheriff Elkins later in the afternoon. Santana walked out the back entrance of the Dal Tex building and may have joined Seymour in a white station wagon on Elm Street at 12:40 p.m. Seymour left the roof of the TSBD via a back stairway, exited from the freight entrance in the rear of the building, and walked on Houston Street past the Elm Street extension. He walked down the grassy knoll to Elm Street where he was picked up at 12:40 p.m. by the white station wagon. The other Dealey Plaza participants, Crisman, a tall tramp, Braden and Hicks escaped by various means. Braden was arrested and released. Hicks drove home. Crisman and the tall tramp followed Frenchy's route into the box cars. Tippit Shooting David Belin of the Warren and Rockefeller Commission is fond of saying, "Lee Harvey Oswald killed policeman Tippit. Since the case against Oswald for the Tippit slaying is so strong, it follows that Oswald also shot the President." The case against Oswald in the Tippit murder is as weak as the case against him in the JFK assassination. The most important evidence showing that Seymour and another one of the assassination team shot Tippit is the fact that six witnesses, ignored by the Warren Commission, saw two men shoot Tippit. One of them resembled Oswald. They ran away from the scene in opposite directions. Seymour ran toward the Texas Theater, throwing the planted shells up in the air so that witnesses would see and recover them. (This act would convince most people that Oswald did not shoot Tippit.) The other assassin ran in the opposite direction. There is some indication that Seymour entered the theater in a manner to draw attention and then left before the Oswald arrest. While the shells recovered were found to match Oswald's pistol, none of the bullets recovered from Tippit's body matched. Comments and Congressional Actions Needed The above scenario comes much closer to explaining what happened to John Kennedy than either the Warren Commission Report or the Rockefeller Commission report. It matches the known evidence from the two prime sources, the Warren Commission files in the National Archives, and the evidence produced by the Garrison investigation (most of which was turned over the the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, Washington, D.C.). However, without subpoena power, and with extremely limited resources, no group of citizens such as the Committee or Mark Lane's Citizens Commission can determine the ultimate truth about the assassination. Only a properly constituted Congressional committee or group with resources and subpoena power, and with the power and courage to combat the Power Control Group involved in the assassination and its cover-up, whoever they may be, can reach the truth. This chapter has been prepared as a guideline for such a committee, rather than as the ultimate solution. It should be utilized in conjunction with two other documents already submitted to the four Congressional groups interested in the case. The groups are: (1) The Senate; (2) The House Special Committee on Intelligence; (3) Thomas Downing, Representative from Virginia, who introduced House Resolution 498 to reopen the JFK assassination investigation; (4) Henry Gonzalez, Representative from Texas, who introduced House Resolution 204 to reopen the assassination inquiries on John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and George Wallace. The Two Documents 1. "Recommendations for the Senate and House Committee's Investigations of Illegal and Subversive Domestic Activities of the CIA and FBI," memorandum by Richard E. Sprague (submitted to them). 2. "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: the Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Plans and the Cover-Up," by Richard E. Sprague, in "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May, 1975. Dramatis Personae Bill Alexander - Assistant to District Attorney Wade, Dallas County. Ronald Augustinovich - CIA agent. Participated in Mexico City meetings. Officer Marion Baker- Dallas motorcycle police officer entering Texas School Book Depository after shots. Guy Banister - Head of clandestine CIA station in New Orleans - ran Banister Detective Agency. Front for anti-Castro Cuban groups. Former FBI agent and member of New Orleans police. Died of "heart attack" June 1964. David Ferrie worked for him. Oswald used his office and address. Officer Billy Bass - Dallas police officer; arrested "tramps" in Dealey Plaza. Lt. Batchelor - Dallas police lieutenant. David Belin - Warren Commission lawyer. Major L. M. Bloomfield - Resident of Montreal, Canada. Member of board of Centro Mondiale Commerciale, CIA front-organization in Rome. Visited by Ferrie and Shaw in fall 1963. John Howard Bowen - CIA agent. Alias Albert Osborne. Long clandestine record. On bus to Mexico with Oswald. Participated in Mexico City meetings. Lee Bowers - Railroad tower control operator, Dealey Plaza. Died in curious accident. Jim Braden - Alias Eugene Hale Brading. Mafia hoodlum and CIA contract agent. Acted as radio man in Dealey Plaza. CIA - Central Intelligence Agency. Fred Lee Crisman - OSS and CIA domestic agent from Tacoma, Washington. Participated with Frenchy and others as radio man in Dealey Plaza. Harry Dean - CIA operative in Mexico City. Jean DeMenil - Louisiana and Texas industrialist. Johnny Mitchell Deveraux - CIA agent, Mexico City. May have impersonated Oswald in Mexico. Sheriff Harold Elkins - Dallas County Deputy Chief. FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation, then headed by J. Edgar Hoover. David Ferrie - Resident of New Orleans French Quarter. Pilot for Eastern Airlines. Bay of Pigs, CIA contractor for pilot training and clandestine flights. Associate of Clay Shaw, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby; murdered Feb. 1967; death termed "suicide" by officials. "Frenchy" - Real name(s) not yet determined. French Canadian adventurer. CIA contract agent. Training for second invasion of Cuba in Florida Keys. Knew Howard, Hall, Seymour, Hemming, and Santana. Fired shots. Also involved in King assassination. Guy Gabaldin - Former OSS operative and CIA agent in Mexico City. Movie made about his World War II exploits, Jeffrey Hunter played Gabaldin role. Assassination planning done in his Mexico City apartment. Loran Hall - Anti-Castro adventurer from southern California. One of three men who visited Sylvia Odio and said JFK would be assassinated. Close friend of Lawrence Howard, William Seymour and other no-name key adventurers. Raising funds for them in 1963. Sgt. Harkness - Dallas police sergeant. Richard Helms - Deputy Director - Plans, CIA, in 1963. Jerry Patrick Hemming - CIA agent and trainer of mercenaries at no-name key. Jim Hicks - Radio specialist from Dallas. Was radio communications coordinator in Dealey Plaza. Placed in mental hospital run by the military. Jerry Hill - Police sergeant, Dallas. Mary Hope - Friend of Augustinovich. Participated in Mexico City meetings on the assassination. Lawrence Howard - Anti-Castro adventurer. No-name key group. Friend of Loran Hall and William Seymour. Visited Sylvia Odio. Kept no-name key photo album. Provided Garrison with pictures. E. Howard Hunt - CIA agent. Acting station chief CIA clandestine station in Mexico City in 1963. Lt. Johnson - Dallas police lieutenant. Jack Lawrence - Resident of West Virginia and southern California. Minuteman and adventurer. Fired shots. James Martin - Marina Oswald's business manager. Sgt. McDonald - Police sergeant, Dallas. Lt. Montgomery - Dallas police lieutenant; helped frame Oswald . Clint Murchison - Texas oil millionaire. Richard Case Nagell - CIA operative in Mexico City; testified before Congressional Committees. OSS - Office of Strategic Services. Lee Harvey Oswald - Dallas and New Orleans resident. CIA and FBI agent and informer. Patsy in assassination. Marina Oswald - Wife of Lee Harvey Oswald. Helped to frame her husband. Sid Richardson - Texas oil millionaire. Jack Ruby - Mafia connections. Anti-Castro CIA contracts. Owner of Dallas night club. Recruited to shoot Oswald. Emilio Santana - Cuban adventurer. Anti-Castro, in no-name key group. Was in Dealey Plaza firing shots. William Seymour - Mexican-American adventurer and hired killer. On no-name key training for second invasion of Cuba in 1963. Impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald and resembled Oswald. Fired shots in Dealey Plaza. Killed Officer Tippit. Clay Shaw - New Orleans French Quarter resident. Manager International Trade Mart, CIA contract agent, member board of directors of CIA organization, Centro Mondiale Commericale. Murdered in 1974. Living double life as Clay Bertrand, friend of David Ferrie. Sergio Arcacha Smith - Anti-Castro Cuban. Devoted to overthrowing Castro. CIA contract agent. Close to Guy Banister, Ferrie, and New Orleans CIA operations. Fled to Texas, escaped Garrison subpoena. Protected by Governor John Connally from extradition. Carlos Prio Socarras - Former premier of Cuba. Violent Anti-Castro millionaire. Backed Cuban invasion plans and CIA efforts. Lived in Miami area. Murdered in 1977. James Tague - Spectator in Dealey Plaza, hit by piece of curbing thrown up by bullet striking near him. J. D. Tippit - Dallas policeman, shot on November 22, 1963. Co- conspirator in assassination, Mafia and CIA functionary. Tammie True - Owner of CIA safe house in Dallas. Roy Truly - Manager of Texas School Book Depository. TSBD - Texas School Book Depository Building in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, from which Oswald was supposed to have fired shots at President John F. Kennedy. General Walker - Right-wing former Army General. Resident of Dallas. Supposedly shot at by Oswald. Breck Wall - Friend of Clay Shaw and Jack Ruby. Marvin Wise - Dallas police officer, arrested "tramps" in Dealey Plaza. ____________________ [1] For a complete listing of articles on political assassinations in the United States, published in "Computers and People" (formerly "Computers and Automation"), see the issues of "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May 1975, p. 6, and June, 1975, p. 5, published by Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160. [2] "1978 Los Angeles Free Press" - Special Report No 1, page 16, copy of receipt given to Commander James J. Humes MC, USN "for Missile removed on this date (Nov. 22, 1963)," signed by Francis X. O'Neill, Jr., James W. Sibert, FBI Agents. Also "Postmortem," by Harold Weisberg, page 266, the missile receipt. [3] As mentioned earlier, it is also possible that one of the team called him from a telephone inside the TSBD. * * * * * * * Chapter 6 The Assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King and Lyndon B. Johnson's Withdrawal in 1968 The Power Control Group faced several dangers in 1968. While President Johnson had cooperated fully with their desires in Viet Nam and in other parts of the world, he had not met their requirements in other areas. He had gone too far in appeasing the blacks and had shown some signs of giving in to the young people in America in early 1968. Through threats to expose his role in covering up the truth about the JFK assassination or personal threats to the safety of his family, the Group forced his withdrawal from the 1968 election race. Their plan now was to install Richard Nixon as president at all costs. Robert Kennedy and Dr. King posed real threats to this plan. Dr. King was beginning a movement in the direction of a coalition with Malcom X followers and other black militant groups. He was speaking out against the Viet Nam war. His influence might help defeat Nixon at the polls. So the Power Control Group created an environment in which he could be assassinated by his arch enemies. The FBI and J. Edgar Hoover had become a vital part of the Power Control Group by 1968. Hoover had no love for King and was harrassing him in several ways. The Power Control Group undoubtedly let Hoover know that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have King out of the way before the election campaigns really warmed up. They also passed the word along to some of the groups who were out to murder King that the crime would probably not be stopped. Fletcher Prouty has described this approach in some detail.[1] The net result of these actions was the assassination of Dr. King by a group of wealthy white bigots who employed two of the intelligence community's own expert assassins. One of these men, Frenchy, had fired shots at JFK. The other, Jack Youngblood, was a soldier of fortune and CIA contract killer. They recruited James Earl Ray and set him up as a patsy. The FBI removed King's protection in Memphis and after the assassination they took the case out of the hands of the local police to control and suppress the evidence of conspiracy. Hoover did not know exactly who was going to assassinate King or where. He did not know in advance who the patsy was supposed to be. The best evidence in support of this is that from April to June 1968 the identity of the patsy was a mystery, first unidentified, then identified as Eric Starvo Galt, then as Raymond Sneyd, and finally as James Earl Ray. If Hoover had been in on the plan, Ray's identity would probably have been revealed immediately. In fact, the scenario might have been similar to the JFK case, with Ray being killed in a shoot-out. After Ray was identified and arrested in London, Hoover and the Justice Department had to manufacture some evidence to get Ray back to the U.S. They had no qualms about bribing one witness, Charlie Stevens, to do this. They forced him to say he had seen Ray. Then a new problem arose. Ray began telling the truth to his lawyer and a writer, William Bradford Huie. He almost revealed Frenchy's true identity. The Power Control Group, led by J. Edgar Hoover, solved this problem by getting rid of Ray's lawyer, Arthur Hanes, and they hired Percy Foreman to keep Ray quiet. They also were forced to pay off or frighten off author Huie who had by then become convinced Ray was telling him the truth. Huie had found several witnesses who had seen Ray and Frenchy together. The group got Foreman to talk Ray into pleading guilty and Huie to retract his conspiracy talk and publish an article and a book claiming Ray was the lone assassin. Ever since Ray was put away for 99 years, the FBI and the Power Control Group have been hard at work covering up the truth, bribing or influencing judges who have heard Ray's appeals for a trial, publishing disinformation like Gerold Franck's book, "An American Assassin," suppressing evidence, and placing key witnesses in psychiatric wards. It is still going on. They have killed at least one reporter--Louis Lomax--who was getting too close to the truth. The local D.A., Phil Canale, was brought into the conspiracy along with Percy Foreman, Judge Battle, Fred Vinson (who extradited Ray, using Stevens' false affidavit), and local authorities who committed Grace Walden Stevens to a mental institution because she knew Charlie had been dead drunk and saw nothing. The mechanics of the assassination are as follows: Youngblood and Frenchy recruited Ray in Montreal for smuggling drugs into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada. They recruited him in the assassination plan in such a way as to make him believe they were smuggling guns to Cuba. Frenchy (Ray knew him as Raoul) set up Ray as a patsy by planting evidence with Ray's prints on it near the fake firing point. He persuaded Ray to rent a room opposite