Nicholas Katzenbach and the Ordination of Lee Harvey Oswald as the Lone Assassin

One of the harvests of the Assassination Records Review Board was a memo composed by Nicholas Katzenbach (b. January 17, 1922) in which he lays out the case against Lee Harvey Oswald on November 25, 1963. To a man who was supposed to uphold the idea of innocence until conviction the memo surely stands as a profound betrayal of that ideal. But as always in the world of deep politics, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

There are still many who speak derisively of a conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy but we note that the Jewish leaders of Czechoslovakia denied the existence of the Holocaust in 1944 even as Vrba and Wetzel provided them with firsthand accounts of its workings. We mince no words about the overwhelming evidence showing that there was indeed a conspiracy to murder the President of the United States and that it was orchestrated and covered up by the most powerful men in the nation. The memo of Nicholas Katzenbach is the smoking gun of the cover-up.

Katzenbach was deputy attorney general at the time he sent the memo to Bill Moyers ( b. June 5, 1934 ) who was then special assistant to President Johnson. Katzenbach would later become Attorney General while Moyers would assume duties as press secretary for Johnson. On the surface the memo is astounding in its brazen willful disregard for due process and careful collection and consideration of facts. Katzenbach writes:

"The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he had no confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial...Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off...Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat—too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.)...We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort."

At first glance the memo might appear as something pulled straight out of the Nazi Handbook of Justice. As such it is utterly astounding and stupefying that a man destined to become Attorney General of the United States would use the powers of the executive branch to frame an innocent man. Yet he was no common gangland thug. According to his Wiki article he was educated at the most elite schools including Philips Exeter Academy, Princeton, and Yale as well as selected as a Rhodes Scholar. He was a World War II POW, held numerous mid-level government posts prior to the Johnson presidency after which he was lead legal counsel in IBM’s 14 year battle with the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit which ended in 1982.

There is good evidence that the memo was crafted as early as the 23d of November which makes it even more remarkable. How was it that the Justice Department determined Oswald’s guilt at such an early date? After all it took the Warren Commission 9 months to arrive at its Kangaroo Court conclusions. How then could the government claim in less than 3 days that Oswald was the only guilty party? The House Select Committee on Assassinations spent 1976-78 investigating the Kennedy assassination – among others – yet Katzenbach managed to conclude that Oswald was guilty as charged by the government and press possibly within hours.

Fortunately James Douglas sheds some light on the matter in his book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matter. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had previously briefed Johnson on some information he had received concerning Oswald’s alleged presence in Mexico City linking him to the Cubans and Soviets. Edgar informed Johnson that he doubted that the voice and images sent to him were those of Oswald and that the information had been supplied to him by the CIA as a deception. Thus the CIA had some motive for relating Oswald to the communists.

The reason turns out to be Operation Northwoods which Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, approved in 1962. The plan called for staged attacks on US soil in order to incite public opinion to demand war against Cuba and if necessary the USSR. Indeed, the JCS nearly compelled Kennedy to launch a first strike against the USSR during the October Missile Crisis.

Johnson was also concerned about his own life, asking Hoover at one point if the assassins had targeted him as well. Hoover confidently affirmed that he was not a target. This quick conclusion has its own implications which we will have to explore elsewhere. Nonetheless, Johnson surmised that he was dealing with powerful forces which he could not fully control.

As a way of finessing a potential crisis with the USSR and Cuba, Johnson pulled out the stops to keep Operation Northwoods from spinning out of control by painting Oswald as a lone nut who singlehandedly assassinated the president. There was to be no pretext for implicating the USSR or Cuba in the assassination of the President.

Indeed Jacqueline Kennedy sent a letter shortly after the murder to Nikita Khrushchev absolving him of any involvement in the plot.

We believe that this memo is a direct link in the changing of Johnson’s mind about the establishment of a presidential commission to investigate the murder which means that Bill Moyers was involved in this transformation. Johnson was initially satisfied that local investigations and governments assisted by the FBI were properly authorized and positioned to handle the murder investigation. Yet by 11/28/1963 Johnson was lobbying in favor of the commission.

We also know that Joseph Alsop (October 11, 1910 – August 28, 1989) of the Washington Post lobbied Johnson vigorously for the establishment of such a commission especially on 11/25/1963 in a personal call with the President. The following day the Post published an editorial calling for such a commission. By the 28th Johnson called Senator Eastland to terminate his Congressional investigation.

The risk of letting Texas authorities or Congress investigate the murder was the danger that uncomfortable facts implicating certain people in certain unsavory acts would lead directly back to the CIA. Oswald as we have noted elsewhere was a top CIA, FBI, ONI, and Customs intelligence agent. He had nothing to do with the murder of the President except that he thought he was involved in counter-intelligence to thwart it. As he surmised he was indeed the patsy for the murderers.

The government would have been busier than a one handed paper hanger at the Taj Mahal trying to explain how a CIA agent was involved in the murder of the President. Thus Johnson worked the phones to arm twist Long and Warren to participate in his commission to frame Oswald. Johnson on at least two occasions uses the threat of 40 million lives lost in nuclear war to persuade each man to sit on the commission. It was no idle or speculative threat. The Military Industrial Complex wanted its war.

At this point we believe that Johnson was attempting to make the best of a bad situation. He gave into the war mongers by massively escalating the war in Viet Nam – a decision he regretted at the time. But if the CIA could murder Kennedy, it could also murder him.

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

The War Against Truth

With all of the corruption gushing out of America since the end of World War II we have often wondered why it is so difficult to apprehend the truth about American history and political elites. After watching a PBS documentary on Auschwitz survivors Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler we saw an epiphany which explains much: people cannot believe in evil. We do not fully know why but people refuse to believe that people do evil but the phenomenon operates powerfully.

One of the brilliant conceptions of the constitution is that the founders saw a system of checks and balances as necessary to retard the progress of evil. They recognized its existence and sought to curb it. Unfortunately the American Civil Religion and its dogma of the ever perpetual virginity of the United States has created a phalanx of scales covering the eyes.

Even when corruption is exposed such as at Tamany Hall or in Chicago Machine politics there is a belief that it is transient, isolated, and benign - perhaps like the pranks of frat boys. Unfortunately such naievete is misplaced.

The Vrba and Wetzler story is one of grand heroism where two young men escaped their Nazi captors at Auschwitz and then made an Indiana Jones escape into Czechoslovakia and then to Hungary. They reported in exquisite detail the perpetrators, victims, and atrocities at the death camps. They were eye witnesses and victims yet what was the response of the Czech Jewish Council? Utter disbelief and contempt.

It took arduous and painful proofs - interrogations of two eye witness victims - before the Council would accept the testimony of these two heroes. The jews preferred much rather to believe their Nazi tormentors than their own people. Can you imagine the frustration these two men must have felt? Eventually their report was written and distributed - often greeted with a yawn or contempt among Jews - but it finally fell into believing hands when the British picked up the report and broadcast it on the BBC.

It is for reasons such as this no doubt that Eisenhower ordered his army to photograph and document the Satanic treatment of people by other people - if indeed you can call such beings human.

America faces its own grand deceits with its history. It is obvious to him who has an ear or an eye that the CIA in concert with the Military Industrial Complex murdered John Kennedy and later Robert Kennedy. It is as plain as day that the FBI murdered Martin Luther King. But the mind refuses to accept these truths.

Recently History Channel International and some varied writers have emerged to attack what they label conspiracy theories. It is interesting that they never attack conspiracy deniers - thus their asymmetry belies their pretenses for truth.

The line of attack has moved from ridicule to sophistry. They draw upon a rich vein of intellectual fraud perfected by totalitarians with a strange brew of post modernism, deconstructionism, and the theater of the absurd. The tactic generally runs thusly: bring out an intellectual or academic type to speak sonorously about the lunacy of the conspiracy exposer by labeling him a truth knower attempting to project his vision of the world upon history.

The chief argument is that history is a story always under revision and thus impossible know. The truth knower is cast as an apocalyptic who claims a special hold on the truth which others do not have and that as such the truth holder is dangerous.

The tactic is quite brilliant and conceived by the master propagandists - the German Nazis. Operation Paperclip brought the Nazis to America where the Fouth Reich operates in open sight. If we accept the idea that truth and conclusions cannot be known then we should eliminate police departments, forensic science, courts, and determinations about job performance, intelligence, math or any other area requiring critical thinking skills to make definite affirmations. Yet we do not hear such antagonists to conspiracy calling for these abolitions.

It is not that human epistemology is infallible. But sufficient evidence has been marshalled to demonstrate that sociopathic "Americans" in very high positions and respect with no allegiance to America have committed crimes against the nation. I would add that the World Trade Centers were destroyed by American intelligence operating in connection with Mossad and possibly British Intelligence.

The mind recoils at such thoughts but there are no other credible explanations for myriad anomalies surrounding the many crimes against the American people by the sociopaths.

Beware of one trick against the truth. Propagandists often spend years building up high profile advocates of certain positions who then suddenly or mysteriously change position 180 degrees. These are intelligence operations designed to demoralize certain groups of people. David Horowitz is one such example - the uber radical 1960s activist turned neocon.

Murdered CIA director William Colby famously said that the CIA controls every news personality of importance - by extension we can say that the CIA controls nearly all of the establishment press. As such escaping the miasma of lies is extremely difficult. This control extends to the universities.

All who wish to know truth must accept that evil is with us and that it is possible that husbands murder wives and vice versa. The Lord prophecied brother rising up against brother. Thus it is no stretch of the imagination that the organs of government are controlled by parasites who seek to subjugate America.

The Bush's, Rockefellers, Bundys, Buckleys and other monied elites along with their academic co-conspirators are doing as Jamie Dimon said, the Lord's Work. Fortunately the Lord Jesus warned of Gentiles who lord it over others - just as the Too Big To Fail powers insist upon doing.

It is almost too late to fight the suppressive and odious police state and without a recognition of evil among us it will be impossible to escape the coming night.

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

General Edward Lansdale And The Murder Of John Kennedy

A very unsavory figure Edward Lansdale (February 6, 1908–February 23, 1987) was a legendary Cold War character who was perhaps America’s most capable CIA spook operating in Asia. Ostensibly an Air Force officer he was more accurately a CIA officer heavily involved in Philippine and Viet Nam politics. He was also spotted in Dallas on November 22, 1963 during the immediate aftermath of the murder of President Kennedy. Putting his CIA skills to domestic use, he was in charge of the hit squad who assassinated Kennedy.

One cannot overstate the contribution of fellow Air Force officer Leroy Fletcher Prouty (January 24, 1917 - June 5, 2001) to our understanding of Lansdale whose career in intelligence began during World War II around 1943 and whom Prouty first met in 1952. Lansdale’s most important roles in Asia included the removal of Philippine president Elpidio Quirino and the fabrication of war in Viet Nam.

Prouty retells Lansdale’s story of how he had a blank check which he used to underwrite elaborate stage shows manipulating Philippine opinion in the removal of Quirino. His ability to effect regime change without excessive bloodshed endeared him to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Lansdale singled out Ramon Magsaysay who was captain in the Philippine army for elevation to the presidency but he first required a stint as Philippine Secretary of Defense.

Lansdale enabled this rise by staging Huk rebellions wherein a battalion of Magsaysay’s would split into two groups. The first would dress as rebels and attack a village by storming it, burning huts, firing weapons, and creating pure pandemonium which sent the natives fleeing from the village. Much of this pandemonium was augmented with sound systems and other cinematic equipment. Later, the other half of the battalion would follow up by capturing the “communist rebels.” Lansdale would make sure that press and video cameras were present reporting Magsaysay coming into the village and ordering that the rebels be shot and then dumped over the side of the truck. After they were certain that the villagers witnessed all of this, they loaded up and headed down the road for breakfast.

Lansdale applied a similar technique in Viet Nam where under orders from John Foster Dulles – but directly contrary to President Eisenhower – he relocated 1.1 million North Vietnamese to South Viet Nam in order to create the Viet Cong insurgency. These Northerners were peasants who were promised land and money for relocating. The CIA airline and Navy transport handled the migration. Of course when they got to the south they received nothing – not even food. So to survive they turned into bandits and were dubbed Viet Cong. Thus the “insurgency” was created to justify further intervention of the CIA and American military advisors in Indochina. We will explore the wherefores of this in another American Chronicle.

The success of these operations made Lansdale famous and valuable among multiple branches of the US government– military, CIA, and Department of State. On November 1, 1963 he “retired.” Where he retired to was Dallas and what he retired to was presidential murder. He had spent 1962 and 1963 working with Operation Mongoose at the American University. Mongoose was not about killing Castro as many think – its primary purpose was countering and checking Kennedy. At some point Landsdale was given orders to head up the hit squad – a Landsdale specialty – using Camp Athena agents who were flown in from Greece for the hit. Landsdale was also highly instrumental in the scenario management and cover-up which according to Prouty more than anything finger his involvement.

There is an astonishing photograph which proves that Lansdale was in Dallas at Dealy Plaza when the killers shot the President. Strange that a retired CIA and Air Force officer should be in Dallas on November 22 with the three actor tramps. We are prepared to conclude that, given Lansdale’s expertise at regime change, scenario planning, and physical evidence placing him in Dallas with the three decoy tramps, Lansdale was a central actor in the murder of John Kennedy. We feel yet that other powers issued the order but Lansdale took care of the hit team’s insertion and evacuation as well as key aspects of the cover-up.

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Massive Child Trafficking In Midwest Exposed

Middle America has earned such a reputation of naïve respectability - if not prudishness - that it is shocking to discover that powerful politicians going all the way to the White House have been and are involved in human trafficking of young kids in what George Bush derisively called “flyover country.” Although these cases are quite old we have just discovered two incidents of pedophilia and human trafficking occurring in the 1980s stemming from sex rings which is still alive today and which are managed by some of the nation’s and region’s most powerful men. We will provide full reports elsewhere but we want to alert America to the despicable corruption and support which official West Des Moines provides for human trafficking. If you care about your kids – and clearly some in West Des Moines do not – lock them up or leave that cesspool of a city before they are taken.

The story we uncovered involved the courageous battle of Noreen Gosch, whose son Johnny was kidnapped on September 5, 1982 in West Des Moines, IA while beginning his paper delivery route, to find her son and his abductors. There is so much to this case but we wanted to describe the utter corruption and complicity of the city of West Des Moines in the travesty of human trafficking. There are a few good guys in the case but they are vastly outnumbered and outgunned by officials in low and high places. The story would send chills down the spine of any American who believes that government officials are paid to protect them. That is simply not the truth as we discover in West Des Moines.

When Noreen called the West Des Moines police department it took an officer 45 minutes to travel the 10 blocks to her house. While taking her missing persons report the officer asked her if this was the only time her son had run away. The galling contempt which the police officer displayed in asking Noreen that loaded question was the first signal that the police department gave that it would cover up the crime. Noreen had just explained that five witnesses had seen various parts of the kidnapping which included a car with suspicious characters circling the paper drop off who had asked questions of the boys there.

Frustrated with the unresponsiveness of the West Des Moines police department Noreen organized a party of about 23 friends and neighbors to go searching that afternoon for Johnny in likely places where kidnapped kids might be found either dead or alive. During the search of Walnut Woods a couple came back to her distraught when she and other members of the search teams were informed by the chief of police of the West Des Moines police department to stop their search.

It wasn’t just that the police chief stopped the search. He got on a picnic table with a bullhorn and told ordered everyone to go home because the kid was nothing but a “blankety blank” runaway. The people of West Des Moines did nothing about this episode from their police department.

One of the five witnesses we mentioned previously was another kid who saw Johnny attacked by a man with a taser gun and then thrown into a car. Noreen discovered some time later that the police chief went to that family and threatened them to be quiet – to say nothing whatever. This allowed the police chief to enter Johnny in the national missing persons database as a runaway.

The police department made extensive efforts to suppress the story and to cast Noreen as a fringe person. Two weeks after Johnny’s abduction Noreen found a small article in the Des Moines Register reporting two girls who had been abducted to Omaha but who were miraculously recovered. When she took this article to the police chief asking him to call the Omaha police to see if there were a connection to her case he absolutely refused to do so. Frustrated with the complete uselessness of the West Des Moines police department Noreen approached the FBI for help who also refused to assist.

With two refusals to help from two law enforcement agencies Noreen called a press conference to enlist public support only to be greeted with death threats afterward.

But the kidnapping of Johnny was not an isolated event in West Des Moines. Eugene Martin, another paper boy was kidnapped in August 1984 and Mark Allen was kidnapped in 1986, both boys also being 12-13 years old. With this kind of threat one would have thought that the city would demand action. Although FBI agents were compelled into action after the abduction of Eugene Martin virtually nothing happened after Mark’s disappearance. Their parents did and said nothing. Noreen reports that they were intimidated into silence by the West Des Moines police department who instructed them not to talk to Noreen or to make any public waves.

Two weeks prior Eugene’s kidnapping an informant told Noreen that another paper boy would be kidnapped the second week of August 1984 on the south side of West Des Moines which was exactly how the crime unfolded. Noreen taped the conversation which she then took the West Des Moines police department who curtly told her to go away telling her that she had gone over the edge.

At one point after a substantial amount of publicity over the case in 1996, Johnny escaped from his captors and managed to surreptitiously visit his mother for a very brief period one Sunday night. He had provided specific names of people involved in the human trafficking ring which she then took to the District Attorney in West Des Moines. After presenting details and leads in the case, she asked him if he would investigate. He told her that the names were too prominent to investigate.

We have seen that not only were the police obstructing justice but the FBI and District Attorney’s office were also suppressing investigations into the crime. But lest you think that it was specific to a limited period of time we need to fast forward to 2006 when an anonymous informant provided pictures of Johnny being tortured. Noreen again went to the police department to offer the pictures for analysis and as in 1982 the West Des Moines police department simply ignored her. They didn’t even return her phone calls. Instead they held a press conference claiming that the pictures were not of Johnny only to be later contradicted by the National Center For Missing Children.

The most extraordinary tale of this long nightmare came when a new police chief in the West Des Moines police department called a meeting as one of his first official acts to instruct his detectives and other department officials to spend no time on the case and to do nothing to help Mrs. Gosch who found out about this official order from a detective in the department. The police department confirmed the cover-up to New York police detective James Rothstein who called the West Des Moines police department for information after independently discovering the case. Rothstein was told by a senior police officer that the department had created a composite of Johnny as a token effort so that they could say that they had done something but beyond that they had done nothing.

We also learn that the West Des Moines police chief had been instructed to stand down before the kidnapping of Johnny had occurred. It is completely astounding that someone had the authority to order with malice afore thought a police department not to investigate or respond to a child kidnapping. What beasts live in West Des Moines, IA?

It turns out that the monsters of West Des Moines are only a piece of the puzzle of a much larger human trafficking ring which stretches to Omaha and to the highest circles of Washington. We strongly invite you to visit the Justice For Johnny Gosch website for more details of this sordid crime.

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Rob Kirby: The Rest of the (Gold) Story

Left: Image of tungsten gold reported in news video posted on Run To Gold.

When a video of tungsten filled gold bars hit the internet a few months ago, many thought that they had found the smoking gun to the rumors which had started even weeks before when certain writers alerted the world that LBMA Good Delivery bars were in fact frauds. But alas pulling on the roots of evil brings up a clump of dirt as Rob Kirby reports in his latest article, The Rest of the Story as carried by Zero Hedge. The connections he traced surprised even us.

Financial analyst Rob Kirby reported in 2009 strong evidence of fake gold bars which were gold plated tungsten found in the vaults of an Asian bank. Tungsten has properties close enough to gold which make it a credible substitute when assays are not taken. Then earlier in 2010 an older German video surfaced showing an actual tungsten filled bar. Even then naysayers denied the existence of such a plot to defraud gold purchasers - and we grant that in terms of forensic evidence they could plausibly deny the allegations. After all, where was the chain of evidence?

Rob Kirby takes us a step closer in tracing how the tungsten flowed. He corrects his error regarding the origin of the tungsten as being an eastern European country rather than the USA - a plot which started in the 1980s or early 1990s. However, the gold was shipped to Panama and then to Mena, Arkansas from where it was shipped via armored commercial carriers to southern California where it was plated with gold and stamped Good Delivery.

Subsequently the gold plated tungsten was shipped to Engelhard Vancouver for paper trail purposes after which it was shipped to Fort Knox to be exchanged for whatever gold was available. From there, the real gold was shipped to Panama where it awaited delivery into the international supply chain.

In order to release such huge quantities of gold on the international markets, a cover was needed to merge it into a sea of other gold. The Clinton administration under the auspices of Larry Summers and Robert Rubin began massive gold leasing which they adroitly signaled to those in the know as the strong dollar policy. The reason for the criminal activity was to keep interest rates low so that the government could spend its way into oblivion and continue to rack up massive debts. The country needed the spending skills of George Bush the younger to accomplish that goal.

From the foregoing all kinds of dots are connected which heretofore remained a bit blurry. Mena airfield was well known as a cocaine exchange from where it was sold into the USA to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. It is only now that we know it was also a gold laundering facility. More than likely Ron Brown and Vince Foster were murdered in connection to knowledge of these activities although we remain open to other interpretations as Brown himself was a crook. Foster was perhaps murdered as a warning to Clinton about other matters - such as obeying his true masters - the Bush Crime Syndicate.

The bottom line is that Fort Knox is totally bereft of its gold. This story began in the 1960s when the United States as a member of the London Gold Pool participated in gold price suppression schemes. Today, JPMorganChase, HSBC, and other elite Too Big Too Fail banks run the the government's racket to manipulate the gold price. But we hasten to add that these banksters are the government of the USA.

Unfortunately for the criminal thugs at the banks who openly brag about their feats there are those who try to alert the CFTC. Such whistleblowers are marked for murder and initimidation as Andrew Maguire of London found out to his surprise. We have documentation where banksters have publicly called for the murder of exposers of crimes. These calls for murders have come from the very largest banks such as Goldman Sachs.

As a footnote, you now know why Manuel Noriega is sitting in a US prison waiting to rot to death if in fact he is not already dead.

References:

Kirby, Rob, The Genesis of the Gold-Tungsten: The Rest of the Story, Zero Hedge, 4/3/2010, http://www.zerohedge.com/article/genesis-gold-tungsten-rest-story

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Three Authors On America's Occult Government

(Below) From history.com - Nixon Releases Audio Tapes: Armed with damning testimony including Nixon's own statements on tape, Congress began the official impeachment process (Photo Credit: Bettmann/CORBIS)

We have recently come across a trio of authors who are perhaps only related in this author’s mind but who shed important light on America’s post war political economy. One deals with Nixon and Watergate, another with the Bush dynasty, and another with American Empire. The fascinating aspect about these authors and their stories is that they are respectable establishment types who are not considered to be on the fringe of intellectual society. On the other hand, those of us steeped in the occultic nature of our government will find little new revelation. Nonetheless we highly encourage examinations of their works.

The first author is Len Colodny whose seminal book Silent Coup was a best seller when published in 1991. He made the argument that Nixon was removed from power by subversive forces in his own administration with special thanks to the traitors Alexander Haig and John Dean. Dean along with Bob Woodward, who gave us the Deep Throat deceptions, has dominated the understanding and interpretation of Watergate and Nixon’s villainy in the affair. Colodny originally exculpated Nixon as an unwilling participant manipulated by forces more focused than himself but has since recanted of that view based upon new information from Nixon’s tapes. His current thesis is that Nixon took an active role in the cover-up while John Dean thought that he could throw Nixon under the bus to save his own hide. Dean prevailed while Nixon was thrown to the sharks. They both participated in obstruction of justice with Nixon directly handling the cover up in March of 1973.

None of the foregoing alters our thesis that the CIA engineered the political assassination of Richard Nixon because of his unwillingness to mind his masters. This is where our next author, Russ Baker picks up the story in his book Family of Secrets. He shows that the Bush’s going back to Prescott Bush have established powerful intelligence connections and with other oligarchs of the occult have much of American power structures in a vice grip. He shows George H. W. Bush’s mysterious presence in Dallas on the day of Kennedy’s assassination, his Zapata Oil Company which was a front for intelligence work and many other associations related to the CIA. Long time readers of these Chronicles know that we extend the thesis further by asserting an involvement by the Bush’s in the Kennedy assassination.

The final author of note is Chalmers Johnson who has sterling credentials as a former professor at the University of California Berkeley who was a Far East affairs expert who then started his own consulting firm in said matters after retiring from his academic position. He was a Cold Warrior who came to alter his position fundamentally after work with the CIA and further study of the Soviet phenomenon. One of his first disturbing observations is that the CIA so missed the boat on the crack-up of the USSR that he wondered what the CIA was doing with all of its funding.

He was further alarmed by the continued bellicosity of the United States following the demise of the USSR. Surely its dissolution would justify a peace dividend which was briefly discussed at the time. However with over 1000 bases around the world – and hundreds of them acquired after 1991 – he began to develop his thesis that America has turned from a republic to an Empire just as did Rome.

Strangely enough the CIA and its paymasters had the same thesis about themselves. In fact, one former CIA asset, an erstwhile preacher named Robert Thieme, jr. fulminated at great length about the need for the United States to transform itself from republic to an Empire because we had long outgrown that structure of government which was no longer suitable for the Cold War.

So Johnson has caught up with Colonel Thieme in his view of the American century but takes the opposite position that this is bad for our country and is causing its political, economical, and social exhaustion. Watching interviews of Johnson done five years ago  so eerily sound as though they were done this year (2009) because of his prescient anticipation of the economic crises we would face.

Although there is nothing new of substance in these books they each show different angles of the hidden powers and agendas which rule America which superficial students of American history usually overlook. They are worth reading especially by those who think that folks such as those publishing the The American Chronicle are possibly kooks.

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

McGeorge Bundy and the Assassination of John Kennedy

McGeorge Bundy was not exactly a household name among Americans even during his tenure as National Security Advisor to President Kennedy and later to Lyndon Johnson. However, we have documented evidence showing a pattern of activity which places him near the inner circle of men who ordered the murder of Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

Commentary Magazine famously linked Bundy with George F. Kenan as co-author of a seminal paper outlining the United States’ need to maintain eternal vigilance against its communist foes in a policy subsequently known as containment. We could say that Bundy at one time belonged to the old Henry Jackson wing of the Democrat party which acknowledged the need for military preparedness and did not see America as the evil boogey man of self loathing of the modern Democrat establishment.

Born to a prominent, privileged, and wealthy Boston Brahmin family Bundy was educated at elite schools. After graduation from Yale he worked in policy and academic positions including the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University. After his stint in government in the 1960s he became president of the Ford Foundation and later professor of history at New York University. He always maintained an influential role in the Democrat party as well as in foreign policy think tanks.

With such a dignified background we can see how he would fit well in government and indeed as a former classmate of John Kennedy in grade school he seemed a natural choice to the new President as a national security advisor. Although Bundy comes across as a mid to high ranking administration official his influence far exceeded his position. His true paymasters were not the President but the power elite of institutions from which he owed his allegiances.

With such a relatively low profile, it seems improbable that Bundy would be palpably involved with the murder of his boss but as we pull the evidence together it become abundantly clear that he was positioned to make astoundingly important decisions which were important in the sabotaging of the Kennedy administration and in taking the man’s life. It is the classic tale of Julius Caesar whose immortal line, et tu Brute, could be said to apply aptly to Bundy.

We reported in a previous Daily Jeremiad how McGeorge Bundy unilaterally acted to rescind a decision which President Kennedy made earlier on Sunday April 16, 1961 authorizing the Bay Of Pigs invasion which included a pre-dawn attack on Castro’s 3 remaining T-33 jet aircraft. The story of the Bay of Pigs has been both written about and misreported extensively. However we show that Bundy was the man who called off the air attack without consultation or authority from the President. Amazingly Bundy managed to keep his position because whether through naivety or impressive tap dancing from Bundy, Kennedy chose to believe that Bundy was not responsible in any sinister way for the sabotaging of the attack. Instead Kennedy vented his wrath toward the CIA. However much involved the CIA was in undermining its own operations, Bundy’s role was even more important in part because of its subtle nature.

The effects of the failed Bay Of Pigs invasion was the creation of animosity towards Kennedy from the Cuban Exiles specifically but from conservative Americans generally who saw the president as weak, ineffectual, and pink. Thus the willful compromise of the invasion cost Kennedy considerable political capital – all achieved by a vaguely worded communiqué from Bundy to the CIA operations officers, of whom Richard Bissel and General Cabell were chief, telling them that they “should not” launch the air attack on the T-33s.

All of the foregoing could be dismissed as innocent incompetence if it were an isolated event. However, given the details we present elsewhere such a conclusion is unwarranted especially in the case of Bundy who has been acknowledged far and wide as a brilliant man who suffered fools contemptuously. These types of actions of Bundy were not isolated. To see the pattern we must fast forward to November 21, 1963.

At this time we again see Bundy undermining his boss. In October of 1963 Kennedy issued NSAM 263 ordering the CIA and Military to remove all US personnel from Indochina by 1965. The first down payment of that action was the ordered removal of 1000 personnel by Christmas of 1963. But strangely enough a draft NSAM countermanding NSAM 263 was discovered circulating 11/21 by none other than our faithful public servant McGeorge Bundy. This new document known as NSAM 273 would be signed by President Johnson on November 26, 1963.

This raises the interesting question of why would Kennedy reverse himself so soon after the issuance of orders to begin withdrawal? Well the answer is rather simple. Kennedy had not reversed himself but his NSA advisor had reversed him because Bundy’s superiors ordered the reversal of policy. And if you are not alert to subtlety Bundy’s superior was not the President of the United States.

Bundy had already shown in a very high profile situation willingness and capacity to countermand the president. But to repeat ourselves, Bundy did not do this because he was calling the shots – he did so on orders of his superiors. As brilliant and gifted as was Bundy his mental constitution and other qualities did not make him leadership caliber although he certainly advised such people. Bundy showed the same weasely traits John Dean would show in his treason against President Nixon.

In repetition of the Bay of Pigs behavior Bundy crafted new policy in the President’s name without authorization or guidance from Kennedy. Between 11/21 and 11/25 NSAM 273 went through several drafts, as Colonel Fletcher Prouty demonstrates, being ready for Johnson’s signature on the 26th. Thus a 180 degree reversal of US foreign policy had been achieved in about 40 days’ time from the issuance of NSAM 263. That is called a coup d’etat. There is no innocent explanation for it. It was treason pure and simple with Bundy playing an important role in the policy change.

What this change also implies is Bundy’s advance notice of the murder of Kennedy. It is conceivable that Bundy received a request to draft a new policy from someone in the administration and our current view is that Bundy did so in anticipation of a new President. We may change our opinion when we better understand the reporting structures in the Kennedy White House.

Another area fertile for study is the Yale Cabal and its relationship to US intelligence and the Kennedy assassination. We will titillate you just a bit by noting that others have observed a strong relationship between Yale University and the CIA and its predecessor organization. Such central managers as James Jesus Angleton, George Bush, and William Buckley along with our primary subject McGeorge Bundy all claim Yale as their alma mater. They are tied together in a blood pact to govern the United States whether they hold office or not – the elite will not be ruled over by the plebeian.

Copyright 2009 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Who Was Lee Oswald?

Veteran scholar of the John Kennedy Assassination Joan Mellen has published another ground breaking study documenting Lee Harvey Oswald’s deep connections to US intelligence. She is perhaps best known for her work on Jim Garrison’s cutting edge investigations into the Kennedy assassination when he was district attorney for New Orleans. Her recent article, Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?, demolishes the Warren Commission’s pack of lies stating that Oswald was a lone sociopath. He was most emphatically not the president’s assassin.

Mellen of course is not presenting any new fundamental information but she has meticulously documented some obvious ties which Oswald had with US intelligence during the 1950s and 1960s starting with his tour with the Marines. Although Mellen does not cover all of Oswald’s intelligence connections she presents some of the more salient ones including his work for the CIA, FBI, and US Customs Intelligence while ommitting his US Naval Intelligence work. Two bits of explosive information provided include Oswald’s espionage work in the USSR plus his very high status as an intelligence agent.

This picture is totally at variance with the Warren Commission which spends relatively little space on Oswald out of the 26 volumes it issued to obfuscate and confuse the American public. The Commission completely hacks Oswald in the most shameful and deceitful manner in order to concoct the absurd story that Oswald single handedly assassinated JFK from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963.

We will not detail the ludicrousness of that story as others have thoroughly dismantled it elsewhere. The important point is that Oswald successfully entered and exited the USSR during the uber height of the Cold War; was debriefed by the CIA upon his return; married a high ranking KGB officer’s daughter; was known to be affiliated with many intelligence agencies; knew Jack Ruby; and held many menial jobs with their own interesting relationships. This is hardly the profile of a lone sociopath. If you want to see a sociopath, study the Columbine murderers who were more than likely MK Ultra victims.

What this means is that the CIA was directly involved in the Kennedy assassination cover up. I assert that it was directly involved in its planning and execution as well. The great pains which the CIA took to cover up its connections to Oswald are rather astounding considering that Oswald was supposed to be a deranged loner.

The case against the CIA was established convincingly by Garrison and corroborated with additional evidence by Joan Mellen. There is no smoking gun to be sought. As in any other complex crime, the weight of the evidence need merely be assembled to establish the basis for conviction. Garrison and Mellen have done this. The endless navel gazing over the identity of the Kennedy killers can stop and trivial pursuit of arcane evidence can desist. Oswald was not the President’s murderer. In fact, Oswald was never on the 6th floor of the TSBD nor on the 5th floor from which one of the many shots was fired.

When the Oligarchs determined to murder Kennedy, Oswald was a convenient patsy who had been prepped by months of careful manipulation by his CIA handlers to take the rap. Oswald spake sooth when he declared that he was just the patsy.

As for the immediate case of the CIA and Oswald my thesis is thus– Oswald was sent to the USSR to provide technical information so that the Soviets could shoot down Gary Powers in order to sabotage Eisenhower’s détente initiatives. Eisenhower briefed JFK on this episode which resulted in his brother Robert developing a keen interest in Oswald so that the Kennedys could monitor CIA activity against them. This probably explains in part Kennedy’s wish to splinter the CIA although certainly the Bay of Pigs must factor into their distrust of that dark organization. Because RFK feared that his very early knowledge of Oswald would be exposed by Garrison’s investigation, he went full out to destroy it by unleashing his attack hack Walter Sheridan against Garrison. Whether he did this to prevent political embarrassment or because he feared CIA retaliation is something yet to be determined.

The 45th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination finds us making great strides in the resolution of this national night mare – a night mare perpetuated by very powerful forces within and without government including most notably the press. It is time to throw away the quackery about Lee Oswald being the president's killer and recognize that only an organization with the sophistication and vast resources of the CIA could kill a president.

Copyright 2008 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

The Strange Death Of Nelson Rockefeller

Why is it that the deaths of so many post war, mostly white males, leaders are best described by Churchill’s metaphor about riddles, enigmas and conundrums? The passings of Kennedy, King,  and Foster are but a few of the marquee names whose deaths are shrouded in suspicion. To that list we can add Nelson Rockefeller, the 4 time governor of New York, whose expiration eventually turned into a tabloid circus. We will review a few of the theories which hold the most promise in explaining the death of Mr. Rockefeller.

The People

We should introduce some of the key characters of the drama, the first of whom is the former governor and Vice President born July 8, 1908, and reported dead January 26, 1979. He of course was the son of billionaire John D Rockefeller, Jr reputed a billionaire in his own right. His family still owned Rockefeller Center at the time of his death.

The next most prominent character is Megan Marshack, a native of Sherman Oaks, CA, whose name is sometimes spelled Marshak or Marshach, but which we suspect are errors due to lack of access to source biographical documents. Her birth date is given variously as c. 1952 or October 1953, while contemporary news accounts reported her age as anywhere from 25 – 31. She was described by People, in February, 1979, as a former AP radio night editor who was making about 15,000 USD when Rockefeller offered her a position as his assistant for 60,000 USD per year in 1977. The jump in income is quite startling and would be 4-5 times that number in constant 2009 dollars. Marshack received forgiveness of a 45,000 USD interest free loan Rockefeller had made to her for purchase of a co-op two doors from his townhouse.

Her whereabouts since the death of Rockefeller remain enigmatic. The New York Times reported on November 13, 1979 that she accepted a position as a publicity agent for Broadway producer Anthony Cohen. Subsequently she was reported as a writer or producer for WCBS-TV in New York. There are a few articles from 2003-2004 with a byline of the name Megan Marshack in the North County Times, but we failed to obtain confirmation from the publisher that the writer was indeed the same person of our story. Her Wiki article cites Personality Parade of December 28, 2008 claiming that “Marshack married a journalist and was living in Southern California.” That citation is bogus although other ones seem accurate.

The next person of interest is Ponchitta Pierce who, like her friend and neighbor Megan, was not exactly a household name nationally but was more well known in New York city as a TV hostess, as People magazine put it. She was reported as being 36 at the time. Her SourceWatch.org biography adumbrates an extensive career in telecast and print journalism as hostess, writer, and contributing editor. She also serves on numerous non-profit organization boards as well as on the Council On Foreign Relations.

In an article published in The Straits Times, Singapore on October 19, 2004 she is quoted:

"Greater coverage of news beyond our borders would help to balance the focus on ourselves, enable us to understand and appreciate the lives and cultures of other people, and make us more informed partners in an increasingly globalised world.”

This is semantically verbatim to the views of David Rockefeller given in an interview by Benjamin Fulford on December 2, 2007. We can see that Pierce may be a noteworthy cog in the Illuminist / CIA controlled press whose job it is to shape world opinion in favor of what they perceive as unified and inevitable world government. Fulford is also an admitted Illuminist which explains his ability to interview such an elusive character as David Rockefeller.

One other actor in this saga worth mentioning is Hugh Morrow who, as spokesman for the Rockefeller family, created considerable confusion with his varied stories about the timing and location of Nelson Rockefeller’s death. Morrow had been a longtime public relations advisor and aide to Rockefeller beginning in 1959 who also was the recipient of at least two loan forgivenesses and gifts from Rockefeller, including a 100,000 USD gift and 30,000 USD loan.

The Drama

News accounts vary because the story kept changing as the days following Rockefeller’s death passed. Keep this in mind as you research yourselves the timeline preceding and following his death. We present what we believe is the best redaction of events.

January 26, 1979 Event Source

?? ?? Rockefeller eats dinner with family at 812 Fifth Avenue David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, 1981

?? 20:45 Rockefeller at townhouse at 13 West 54th Street driven by chauffeur Andrew Hoffman David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, 1981

20:50 20:59 Rockefeller invites Marshack to his townhouse to work on art book David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, 1981

21:00 21:30 Marshack leaves her co-op at 25 W. 54th St to visit Rockefeller wearing long black evening dress Attire according to Morrow

21:30 22:00 Rockefeller dies; Morrow is with Marshack Time of death by Peter David Beter; Morrow’s presence per Marshack

22:50 23:00 Marshack calls Ponchita Pierce to come to townhouse; EconomicExpert.com

23:15 Pierce arrives at townhouse from the building at 25 W. 54th St EconomicExpert.com

23:16 Pierce calls 911 Peirce according to Peter David Beter

23:20 23:30 Two police arrive one named George Frangos;

Rockefeller found on floor in suit (other reports claim he was on sofa and another without shoes on) David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace; New York Daily News 11/6/1998

23:30 23:40 Paramedics (one named William McCabe) arrive. Time is interpolation by author David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace

January 27, 1979

00:00 Paramedics leave for Lenox Hill Hospital rather than closer St. Claire’s Hospital New York Daily News 11/6/1998

00:20 Dr. Ernest Esakof declares Rockefeller dead New York Daily News 11/6/1998

01:00 Morrow delivers statements about the last hours of Rockefeller’s life; says Rockefeller died at Rockefeller Center New York Daily News 11/6/1998

January 28, 1979

?? 11:59 Rockefeller cremated Peter David Beter

The above timeline is not without problems or controversy. Perhaps the most controversial element is the time of death for which I have quoted the dubious Dr. Peter David Beter whose audio newsletter 43 provides the timing. Beter alleges that Marschack, Henry Kissinger, and David Rockefeller were all murdered within a few days of Rockefeller’s alleged murder. However, Beter does make use of known news reports for other details and provides a time of death which makes more sense of the highly conflicted reports provided by official spokesmen.

Causes of Death

The official story regarding the sequence of events changed at least 3 times with the location, time of death, and people present at the time of death subject to continuous revision. The Rockefeller story imploded under the weight of the facts so much so that the family eventually issued a statement declaring that they would say no more about the death.

The official cause of death was a heart attack yet no autopsy was performed. Some have simply speculated on the cause without evidence.

Silence breeds speculation and speculation has indeed run rampant. There are three primary interpretations of Rockefeller’s death. The quasi official story is that Marshack was Rockefeller’s mistress and by implication – though never explicitly stated - was engaged in sexual intercourse when he was struck with a heart attack. One version claims that Marshack struggled for an hour to get from underneath Rockefeller, implying that they were on the floor doing it. Somehow I don’t think that Rockefeller was that athletic at 70 despite his personal physician Dr. Kenneth Ryland's claim that he was in excellent health.

Another variant also claims sexual antics but this time homosexual bondage. The theory holds that he died of a heart attack during this activity and that the family proceeded with haste to dispose of the evidence and story. However, they could have easily squelched or explained away the bruises offering that he had a heart attack - as you do - when you get to a certain age.

The other major explanation put forth by Beter is that Rockefeller was murdered. His proof is slender although some would say non-existent. Beter contends that Rockefeller was shot in the forehead after which a doctor was called to cover up the wound with Calamine Lotion. After the place was cleaned up, the paramedics and police were called. The story has some commendations but there is the opposing claim that Rockefeller had just died when the paramedics arrived. They in fact administered life support yielding a faint sign of life according to the New York Daily News. Yet in the end he was doomed.

Riddles and Conundrums

This story is full of  riddles and conundrums which may never receive satisfactory answer. We will start at the top and work our way down in order to untangle them. Marshack is a completely elusive character. Not only has no one caused her to talk to date but no one knows when she was born nor has anyone shown a picture of her since 1979, which picture was probably taken a few years earlier. For someone so critical to the story one would think that the vaunted investigative skills of the New York Times would have been able to uncover those bits of detail. And yet it is as though no one cares.

After the death of Rockefeller she remained holed up in her apartment for days – though not the weeks others reported.

Ponchitta Pierce is a strange bird flying in and around the activity. We understand that she knew Rockefeller 10 years, yet after she placed the call to 911 she left the house to return home. Why would a friend who was a news woman leave such an historic scene? Ms Pierce has remained silent on this story although she has been quite visible as a journalist and philanthropist.

Hugh Morrow, acting like The Three Stooges all by himself, must have suffered vertigo after wearing out three fabled stories in less than as many days. His actions have all of the traits of someone afraid of the truth and desperately wanting to cover up something. Many have thought that there was some embarrassment regarding Rockefeller being found with his mistress which he was attempting to side skirt; and while we agree that it is awkward, Rockefeller would not be the first man so compromised. We need only recall Franklin Roosevelt and his mistress in the much circumspect days of the 1940s.

But the accelerated cremation of Rockefeller’s body puts a lie to that explanation. The family could have maintained with a straight face that Marshack was working on a book with Rockefeller that evening, had a heart attack, died, and went to his reward. Instead there was a cacophonous circus of stories which didn’t add up, leaving the distinct impression that something jarring had shattered the otherwise stoic demeanor of the Rockefellers. Remember, it was Morrow’s job to be a public relations and communications expert. Yet he fell all over himself in a pot pourri of lies and contradictions.

It is also interesting that, as a relative newcomer to Rockefeller’s life, Marshack found herself in his will – especially for a somewhat trivial amount of 45,000 USD. Why would he have taken the time to update his will with that detail? Marshack had started working for him privately in 1977 yet two years later was a beneficiary in his will.

It also seems strange that Rockefeller’s 18 year old grandson Steven was often quoted in the press at telling moments. Out of the quite fecund Rockefeller family, one would have thought that a more mature and knowledgeable source could be found. One surreal quote was, "I don't know what Megan's role was exactly but if she was involved with Grandaddy, I hope she did the best she could and that she was instrumental in some of his success." The implication would be that she may not have been his mistress – a conclusion which most had certainly drawn by then. He surely knew that she was his grandfather’s aide yet that did not provide any meaningful understanding of the events.

Was It Murder?

To conclude with murder we would like to have a motive and theory of operations. One could argue that Morrow and Marshack stood as benefactors of Rockefeller’s death.  They were the only two with him at the time of death – at least as far as we are able to discern. Friends described her as a gold digger; yet that is not nearly the same as a murderer. As circumstantial as the evidence, we have to believe that he would be worth more to them alive than dead.

But if they were involved in murder, I would think that they would have coordinated their stories better. Instead Morrow is completely undone by a series of second rate stories suggesting that he was rattled by an unexpected event.

Could a professional assassin have murdered Rockefeller? If so, we would need to ask who would have benefitted materially from Rockefeller’s death. Whom did he piss off so badly? For that I have no answers although Dr Beter stated that Henry Kissinger was behind the plot. Kissinger certainly has the personality for murder, and is indeed guilty of political assassination, and, I believe, involved in Kennedy’s murder. However, without a motive we need to pause in our thoughts.

To assume murder means that the paramedics did not notice a bullet hole in his forehead as Beter avers was doctored. Maybe they truly did not attempt resuscitation. The public record seems to indicate that they attempted revival, but if they did not it would not be the first time the newsfakers of the press have lied to us.

For all of its defects I for one believe that murder makes the most sense of the incoherent stories, the refusal of an autopsy, and rush to cremate. I also believe that Pierce’s involvement had more import than we currently know. There is no evidence that Marshack is alive - a condition which is quite consistent with Beter's claim that she herself was murdered in February 1979. The similarities between Monica Lewinsky, Chandra Levitt, and Linda Tripp suggest strongly an intelligence operation.

Finding out who wanted him dead would be a ripe area for further investigation.

References:
New York Times
People
New York Daily News
Peter David Beter, Audio Newsletter 42,43
David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, Internet

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Do Conspiracies Exist?

If an authority figure wants to shut down discussion about historical or current events which don't follow the party line, his one trump card is to label an idea a conspiracy theory. But is a conspiracy nonexistent  because someone - especially someone in authority - calls it a conspiracy theory? And what does it mean when the authority figure becomes personal and calls you a conspiracy theorist? We say bring it on. We believe that conspiracies exist and will always exist whenever two or more are gathered in the name of politics.

Cass Sunstein a law professor at Harvard taking a leave of absence to serve as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs co-authored a paper on "Conspiracy Theories" in which he defines a conspiracy as "an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role."

So far so good. Unfortuntely the not so good professor proceeds to debunk conspiracies as essentially the workings of an unhinged mind. With this assessment we strongly disagree by calling upon the witness of history and its players to demonstrate otherwise.

The most primitive example is the story of Julius Caesar wherein leading Senators of SPQR determined that it was in their and the republic's best interests to remove Caesar from power. We assure you that the histories do not report a lone nut as the culprut, Brutus being a prominent and respectable Roman politician.

I would surmise that the Roman populace would not have inveighed against those anticipating a plot against Caesar's life as such intrigue frequently surrounded the throne and centers of power. Indeed, when the Praetorian Guard become the primary king making apparatus, anyone not believing in conspiracies had to be  a little off his rocker.

Another important example of conspiracy was the plot to assassinate Jesus. As most Christians are aware, the leading Jewish citizens - especially those of the Sanhedrin - had sought for some time to silence Christ who was attracting quite a following and whose teachings seemed seditious to their rule. Judas was bought for 30 pieces of silver and the rest is history and salvation. I can assure you that Judas did not act or conspire openly among the other 11 disciples and thus sought to conceal his role.

Although these examples are interesting and constructive, we have a more systematic presentation of the concept of conspiracy with Machiavelli whose treatise The Prince - whether satire or not is immaterial - develops the notion of the prince of the realm needing to promulgate certain strategems to consolidate, retain, and perpetuate power. Whatever one may think of Machiavelli, he is not known as a kook.

One would think that it is self evident that various parties in a society conspire in varying degrees of stealth to obtain objectives - certainly in the political realm. Did Richard Nixon earn the sobriquet Tricky Dick because he was an upright practicing Quaker who showed his poker hand to one and to all so as to give all an equal chance to destroy him? I think we all know the answer to that question.

We will admit that conspiracy theories prosper in the absence of facts and knowledge. We admit that some are totally wacky and not worthy of serious consideration. We agree that those who argue that the moon landing was a hoax are mistaken. But the way of resolving such ambiguities is not through invective but through examination of the facts and discoveries of missing links. Indeed the fact that facts are missing is often itself an indication of conspiracy.

A relatively recent example of partial facts in the aftermath of fact finding is the case of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in which a court found James Earl Ray guilty of conspiring (with himself of course ) to kill Dr. King. Unfortunately the court did not hear all of the facts. However, a civil trial which began in November 1999 in Memphis revealed a mountain of facts demonstrating without question that the government of the United States murdered Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is of a verity that people often disguise their true motives and means to achieve their political aims. We all have seen this from the time of competing with siblings, to competing in school, to survival in business, church, and elsewhere. Did the Archbishop of Canturbery Thomas à Becket die from a random act of lone nutness and Henry II not have plausible deniability?

The moral of the story is that conspiracies occur all of the time and that they may well explain the truth of an otherwise insoluable mystery. We will do much to expose conspiracy in this country both in real time and in history.

Copyright 2010 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Who Sunk The USS Maine?

American nationalists stoked the flames of foreign adventurism and empire in the late 19th century through the sensational yellow journalism alleging to document the evils of Spain on the backyard island of Cuba. These flames soon engulfed the island when the USS Maine sank amidst an explosion on February 15, 1898. Many investigations followed over the years which sought to identify the perpetrator but those efforts failed to find a culprit. We believe that the most likely culprit is the fox guarding the chicken coup.

The splendid little war which followed the sinking of the Maine launched the USA on an imperial adventure which continues to this day. Leading Americans wished to see the country take its place among the great powers lest she lose advantages to European states. If war were required to bring the fruits of empire then let it be done and done quickly.

A causus belli requires convincing proof. Thus an investigation into the sinking of the Maine was quickly launched under the direction of Captain William T. Sampson whose investigation concluded, without the advice of outside experts, that the Maine sunk from a mine explosion which in turn triggered an explosion in the ship's magazines. The commission failed to assign responsibility although that was but a detail to Theodore Roosevelt who resigned his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to lead the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill.

In 1911, after excavating and extensively documenting the remains of the Maine, a court of inquiry headed by Rear Admiral Charles E. Vreeland examined the site before the Maine was sent to its final repose. Its findings corroborated much of the Sampson inquest but noted that a smaller explosive was used to cause the damage.

Still not satisfied with the findings of earlier courts of inquiry the US Navy commissioned Admiral Hyman Rickover in 1976 to investigate the explosion after which his commission concluded that an internal fire in the coal room caused by spontaneous combustion ignited the magazines in a conflagration.

Not to be outdone, the National Geographic conducted its own investigation in 1999 after which it concluded that both internal coal room fires and external explosion conspired to sink the Maine.

Foreign commentators have viewed the sinking in less sympathetic terms among whose ranks include many who believe that the United States or US nationals deliberately sunk its battleship as a pretext for war with Spain. Enter Captain Jorge Navarro Custin, a Cuban naval historian who defected from Cuba in 1961 to the United States, who has published a book offering a more original thesis implicating US industrialists and Cubans.

The logic ot the collaboration rests upon mutually beneficial politics which provided the Cubans a benefactor who could deliver them from Spain and the United States a convenient pretext to declare war on colonial power. He further details the work of Frederico Blume, born in Denmark, who worked his way to Peru in service to the country in its wars against Chile. His specialty was naval explosives.

Blume is credited with inventing wave, battery, and clock activated mines which attached to ships. The explosive power of the devices was not great but it was sufficient for sinking ships among whose first targets were Chilean naval vessels. The designs for the explosives were sent to New York through the mediation of Cuban patriots where they were fabricated into working mines and then sent to Cuba where Cuban revolutionaries worked with the Americans to sink the Maine. The Cubans sunk other Spanish ships with these devices including the gunboat Relámpago.

The explanation makes the most sense of those offered to date. The exploding coal theory has been debunked sufficiently elsewhere that it has no credibility as an explanation of the sinking of the Maine. The two earliest inquiries each concluded that external explosions caused the destruction. Custin has now extended those findings by attaching to the Maine event names and a web of connections from Peru to America to Cuba. And what a tangled web it is.

When considered with the heated rhetoric of the times, when the Hearst and Pulitzer papers were inciting agitation and war against Spain, the story of Custin fits very nicely with the political maneuvering of Roosevelt and other jingoists of the day who fought McKinley in his preferences to avoid war.

References:
Apuntes Históricos Sobre la Historia de Cuba - Volumen I
CUBA: The Spanish American War - the sinking of the "Maine"

Who Killed James Forrestal?

When a former Secretary of Defense plunges to his death news and speculation will run rampant. James Forrestal’s plunge from a window at Bethesda Naval Hospital sent shocks throughout official Washington and the nation at large. Naval officials lost no time in establishing an investigation looking into the death. Unfortunately the report was sequestered until released by a Freedom Of Information Act request which has shed some new light on the case. However, after carefully examining its contents, we believe that James Forrestal killed himself.

The conclusion of suicide is not an easy one to make especially in the case of such a personage as Mr. Forrestal who whether reviled or admired commanded respect and attention. Many strange details uncovered at the time of the investigation and later provided abundant grounds to suspect foul play. In fact enough evidence existed that police officials should have been investigated to determine the sufficiency of the evidence for a conclusion of suicide.

Time Of Death

The drama started during the very early hours of May 22, 1949 when Hospitalman 2d class William Eliades heard a loud thud coming from across the room where he was reading a magazine. He rushed to the bacteriology lab to find the cause of the sound when looking out the window he saw a body lying face down. At the same time LT Dorothy Turner who was a nurse working the nearby towers also heard a loud thud. She hurriedly made rounds to see if her patients were all right.

In the mean time Eliades went onto the 3d floor ledge to check the pulse of the body but found none. Shortly thereafter LT JG Francis Westneat arrived on the scene whereupon he pronounced the man dead.

Concurrently Dorothy Turner realizing that Forrestal was under watch in tower 16 ran to LT Regina Harty who was the nurse in charge of Forrestal to determine his whereabouts. They ran down to his room, flipped on the lights only to discover Hospital Apprentice Robert Harrison groping around in the dark looking for Forrestal with Hospital Apprentice Edwin Utz’s flashlight after Utz came to him in Forrestal’s room from the nursing station to perform a bed check requested by the Information Desk. Forrestal was not in the room but his bed had broken glass and Turner noticed the slippers with a razor blade next to them.

Harrison went to the galley about 15 minutes later where he notice the window open and the screen pulled away.

Soon camera men were photographing the body on the ledge while hospital officials notified senior commanders and the county coroner who provided authorization to move the body into the morgue where it was identified as that of James Forrestal. The body was clad in pajamas and found with a bathrobe sash tied around its neck.

The Investigation

Hospital officials lost no time in convening an investigation which Rear Admiral M D Willcutts launched with a panel of five physicians. They began hearings later in the day by going to the morgue to identify the body for the record and request an autopsy to be performed. The following day they began closed door testimony from twenty witnesses who had material knowledge about both the patient and the activities in the hospital on the night of the death.

The Doctors

The doctors told a very consistent story about Forrestal’s mental condition which was described as reactive depression from as early as Forrestal’s consultation with Dr. William Menninger and Dr. George Raines in Hobe Sound, FL. The latter was a Naval doctor who was the physician in charge of Forrestal’s case and care. The story was so consistent it sounded rehearsed.

The doctors stated that Forrestal was a very fatigued and depressed man who carried potential of suicide though no suicidal acts occurred in Hobe Sound or at the hospital. Forrestal was admitted to the Bethesda Naval Hospital on April 2, 1949 after first flying to Hobe Sound for rest on March 29. However Robert Lovett a friend who lived on Jupiter Island noticed that he was sleepless, restless, depressed – a diagnosis with which Forrestal agreed and called his former aid Ferdinand Eberstadt to come to him in Florida with Dr. Menninger of Topeka, KS. All agreed that Forrestal required immediate hospitalization and had him flown to Bethesda.

He was admitted under suicide precautions though not necessarily suicidal. Dr. Raines prescribed insulin sub-shock therapy to keep him sedated and constant 24 hour observation with someone assigned to his room. Two other interns, Dr Robert Deen and Dr David Hightower were to stay in the adjoining room to provide immediate care if required.

Doctors Raines and Stephen Smith conducted lengthy therapeutic interviews in order to assess and treat the mental stresses plaguing Forrestal. They testified that Forrestal did not show any suicidal thoughts nor did he have any specific suicidal ideation though Dr. Raines stated that were Forrestal to commit suicide he would chose hanging or pills. He specifically stated that Forrestal would not choose jumping or razor blades. He related a story where Forrestal handed him a razor blade. He asked what it was for. Forrestal told him that it was proof that he would not use a razor blade to kill himself.

The testimony uniformly confirms that Forrestal did not pose a specific suicidal danger although it was certainly risk which they needed to manage. In time Forrestal began to recover in a slow steady though erratic manner. His progress warranted the relaxation of initial restrictions which forbade leaving his room and visitors. The doctors testified that such relaxations were essential for reconnection with the world and development of self confidence.

The Corpsmen and Staff

The corpsmen, Price and Harrison, testified that though Forrestal’s behavior on the day of suicide was peculiar it was not outside the norms of previously established boundaries and was thus not cause for alarm. However Price noted that Forrestal was heavily pacing that evening in a way that he had not previously seen and had opened the window of the adjoining room which was also somewhat out of the ordinary because he raised the blinds to the top. They both noted that he did not take his sleeping pills which, again, was not terribly unusual as he had recently developed a pattern of sporadic consistency in taking them.

Because of Forrestal’s restlessness the corpsman and nurse recommended a consultation with Deen to determine how to handle it. Forrestal had been up for orange juice and coffee and then asked who had just visited his room after Harty left after a routine check. That seems to have been the straw which broke the camel’s back for them but Deen after consulting with Harty determined that the choice for taking the sleeping pills should be Forrestal’s.

The rest of the night staff who interacted with Forrestal that night stated that beyond these quirks he was in good spirits though not ebullient; showed friendliness to Utz; and seemed to show no troublesome aberrations.

The Pathologist

The board called Dr William Silliphant last who was the pathologist who conducted the autopsy. He stated that Forrestal died from injuries resulting from a fall from a high place. He enumerated multiple injuries and traumas consistent with such a fall. But when the board asked him about strangulation he emphatically denied asphyxiation or strangulation as a cause or factor in death stating that absolutely no evidence was found for it.

Wrap Up

After hearing all of the witnesses the board called back Raines to find out why Raines left town when Forrestal was at a vulnerable stage in his recovery. Raines had previously said that the most dangerous point in suicidally risky patients is when depression lifts and patients begin to recover their vitality as was clearly happening with Forrestal. He had used this to explain and exculpate his actions. Raines recycled the script that he needed to allow his patient more autonomy and independence in order to facilitate recovery and confidence. The board meekly acquiesced.

The board concluded its investigation within less than two weeks which was summarized by a Finding of Facts which essentially said that the treatment was consistent with state of the art psychiatric care, the patient died from severe traumas from a fall, and that no negligence could be attributed to the staff. The report was reviewed and slightly amended to fix the precise time of death and then locked away for 60 years.

Evidence For Murder

The silence was as deadly as the fall because it begat incessant speculation about the death. Was it murder, an accident, or really suicide? The gossip columnists were vicious with even some administration officials suggesting questions many years later during their oral histories at the Harry S. Truman Library.

The board clearly did not have any forensic competence even though they were highly qualified doctors. Some of the suspicious findings to emerge over time which did not have satisfactory answers included

• Broken glass in Forrester’s bed

• Broken glass on rug
• A hand written poem by Sophocles by a hand other than Forrestal’s
• Scuff marks on the window sill in the kitchen
• An immediate sterilization of Forrester’s room
• Suppression of the autopsy and the Board of Investigation Report
• Forrestal’s improvements versus a sudden regression and lack of suicidal evidence
• The new corpsman assigned

We admit being troubled by these artifacts and had assumed at one point that they revealed an open and shut case of foul play. However, we delved into additional evidence, particularly the Nurse’s Notes to synchronize the testimony with Forrestal’s state of mind. Those Notes hold the key to unlocking the testimony.

The Nurse’s Notes

As part of watching Forrestal 24 hours per day, the corpsmen assigned to Forrestal maintained a detailed log documenting his medication, feeding, and behavior. It included insightful observations about his activity as well as very mundane things such as bowl movements. The notes are not necessarily exhaustive especially when continuous 24 hour surveillance was cut back. Nonetheless they are a running history of the man in as much detail as one could want.

After reading through them one gets a strong sense of Forrestal’s mind and recovery. Certain indicators stand out strongly such as appetite, outside interests, and physical activity. While progressing through the Notes one starts to sense the rhythm and expected behavior at certain shifts in Forrestal’s engine. The day of death exhibited a number of low keyed but disturbing differences from the pattern which had been developing.

A couple of weeks before his death, Forrestal asked the corpsman if his conversations between him and doctors were recorded. The corpsman told him no but Forrestal did not accept that. He became so insistent that the Corpsman invited him to call the Doctor which he did. Still not entirely satisfied he made yet another search of the room for recording devices. He found none and eventually gave up but the interesting activity preceding this outburst was an intense spasm of pacing.

Raines told the BOI that Forrestal expressed an acute concern over the press reports of his hospitalization and the rumors which certain columnists had been spreading. Sometimes it was too painful to hear so Forrestal asked Raines to listen and summarize the radio broadcast. After comparing the two episodes I developed the opinion that Forrestal began to fear for his reputation and thought that some of the details of his hospitalization had been leaked to the press. I suspect that reports got out but cannot say if it was deliberate or who let them out. Forrestal had relatively few visitors with family, President Truman, and Secretary of Defense Johnson being the most notable. There was only one other or possibly two others beyond these visitors.

Another typical behavior of Forrestal’s was to wake between 5:15 -06:00 and remain awake. On the day of his death he awoke, asked what time it was, then pulled the sheets back and rolled back to sleep for another 60-90 minutes, something which he had never done before. I was quite alarmed when I read that.

The corpsmen note that Forrestal was very quiet during the day. At that point in his stay they usually noted something about his mood and various conversations he might make but on this day it was almost a solemn quiet. Again, the persistence of the Notes in this vein also struck me as uncharacteristic. Although he ate well he did not eat as well as he had and ignored his extra feeding which by that point was very uncharacteristic. Raines notes at one point that although Forrestal gained 5 pounds it was still quite short of the 20 or so pounds he had lost over the past several months.

Perhaps the most disturbing comment Forrestal made on the Saturday morning of his death was that he did not want to see his planned visitor. According to Dr Deen he actually saw Paul Strieffler, his business manager, for a short time but his attitude of wanting to cancel the visit was contrary to his attitude of the past few weeks where outside visits seemed to put him in a good mood.

Both Price and Harrison recorded heavy pacing as we mentioned previously. We have seen that this activity was a sign of heightened agitation. Forrestal also refused his sleeping pills which when accompanied by his pacing indicated that he was in no hurry to go to sleep. Pace also testified to Forrestal raising the window and blinds as high as possible in the adjoining bed room but when Pace approached him he let them down stating that he did not want to get him in trouble.

Forrestal also did two uncharacteristic things by asking for orange juice and then drinking coffee. For someone who was not falling asleep but who should have been long asleep this was not a good idea. In fact Forrestal was caught in the galley by Utz alone. He drank the coffee then went to bed. But when the Nurse came by for a routine checkup he asked Harrison who just left showing again that sleep was far from his mind. Normally he would have been long asleep.

Putting It Together

We, the doctors, and corpsmen noted that these activities viewed in isolation would have not violated the pattern which Forrestal had recently shown but considered together they raised a big bright red flag. It is my belief that Forrestal was in some measure embarrassed by the press coverage which would diminish his future credibility in whatever endeavor he chose to pursue. His life had been so absorbed in his work which he recently lost that it seemed improbable that he could resume a self-respecting life. His statements and actions clearly signaled premeditation of suicide which he saw as the only remedy of his predicament.

But what about those suspicious evidences noted above? Let’s start with the scuff marks. The scuff marks were probably made by Forrestal in struggling to open the window. Other testimony mentioned that some of the windows were difficult or impossible to open. He more than likely put one of his slippered feet on the sill to gain better leverage. He may have been interrupted from flying out the window when Utz came in with coffee to which Forrestal ad-libbed with a late midnight coffee break – something without precedent for him.

The broken glass in his bed is a puzzle – it is hard to know the significance of that. Maybe it was plan B or a decoy. Maybe Forrestal broke something in frustration. In any event the slippers and razor blade are significant. The razor blade was a message to Raines that he still had that option but was not interested in using it.

The poem was never properly handled by the BOI. It clearly is not written by Forrestal. Perhaps he had his son or wife write it. Maybe his Butler brought it to him on a visit. In any event, I believe that Forrestal did leave it. Although he does not strike me as one interested terribly much in poetry he did well in English and classics in school and he did have a reputation as an intellectual.

The broken glass on the rug could have been accidentally left from the cleanup of Forrestal’s room later that day. The room should have been preserved for clues for criminal intent but it now all seems moot.

The board could have quelled a lot of latter day speculation and confusion if it had released its report in its entirety but there were understandably sensitive and private data in it so its release would not have been in the interest of Forrestal’s family – especially his sons.

And what about the noose around his neck? That too was a playful reminder to Raines of their conversation where stated that he would die by hanging himself but that either he had changed his mind or that the facilities for hanging were not satisfactory. In essence, the razor blade and noose were Forrestal's sad farewell to his psychiatric caregiver who was not available for him at his deepest moment of need.

We also laid out the movements of each actor in the testimony to see where they were at each moment from midnight to 02:00 and realized that there was too much movement and too little time for a team of assassins to enter the room and toss Forrestal out the window. Raines was right when said that Forrestal was still quick after all these years.

The End

It thus seems to us, after consolidating the evidence, that instead of using the razor by Forrestal’s slippers we should use instead the razor given to us by Occam – to wit: the simplest explanation is to be preferred over the more complex especially when it is sufficient to explain phenomena.

We are open to continued exploration of the role of murder in Forrestal’s death but we feel that the evidence provides satisfactory explanation of suicide.

References:
Medical Records of James Forrestal
Autopsy of James Forrestal
Wilcutts Investigation of Death
 
Copyright 2009, David Bonn