Chronicle Update: Mary's Mosaic

When we reviewed Mary's Mosaic, the book by Peter Janney chronicling the life of Mary Pinchot Meyer and her murder on October 12, 1964 in swanky Georgetown, we heaped upon it great praise. A couple of years later, its author has provided an update on his ongoing investigation into Ms Meyer's murder.

 

One of the elusive figures in the Meyer murder was a man known as William Lockwood Mitchell who came forth at the time of the murder to implicate Ray Crump as the perpetrator. Crump, like Lee Oswald, was a man who had been groomed as a patsy for a murder he did not commit. The Washington, DC police worked feverishly with the CIA to railroad Crump through as the murderer of Meyer, a plot which failed due to the spectacular performance of his defense attorney.

 

The facts against Crump told otherwise. The CIA, including Wistar Janney, Ben Bradlee of Washington Post fame, James Angleton, and Cord Meyer, Mary's former husband, were involved in the murder of Mary because she was getting too close to the truth about John Kennedy's murder. Clearly the CIA was involved, but Mary was too credible and too well connected to let roam as a freelance investigator.

 

While writing the book, which took Janney over 3 decades to complete, he expended significant effort trying to locate and develop the character of William L. Mitchell. He was a graduate of Cornell University in 1962 during which time Janney speculates that Mitchell was recruited by the CIA. Subsequently, he was allegedly an instructor at Georgetown, a well known CIA front for hiding spooks. Unfortunately Georgetown said that it had no record of Mitchell.

 

One of the more disconcerting discoveries of Janney was that in all of the 5 years Mitchell was at Cornell, only one school picture was ever taken of him, a precaution his handlers most certainly took to assure his anonymity and usefulness in future assignments.

 

Even more interesting is that Mitchell was in the US military, yet absolutely no records of him can be found. Mitchell also was allegedly a Fulbright scholar, but as in previous cases, no records could be located for his alleged studies at the University of London or participation in the Fulbright program.

 

Janney eventually discovered Mitchell in California where he had risen as an associate professor of business administration at California State University East Bay during the 1970s-80s.

 

During the 1972-73 academic year, William L Mitchell became evermore known as Bill Mitchell, a move which Janney speculates as camouflage for his original name which was too closely identified with the Meyer murder. In addition to a name change, Mitchell obtained a new social security number, a tactic used frequently by the CIA to hide people, just as it provided a stolen number for Bari Malik Shabazz in the 1970s.

 

Janney finally located Mitchell in 2012 and paid him a visit at his home in California only to be greeted with a stern dismissal when Janney asked to speak to him. His brother James Mitchell likewise refused any contact or discussion with Janney.

 

With the help of attorney William Pepper, the man who has fought valiantly to reveal the government's role in the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr, Janney filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Mitchell, who by now is in his 70s.

 

The case was still in adjudication as of last year. Mitchell is clearly a person of interest in the case, not because he was a witness against a patsy, but because he is an accomplice to murder, who in our estimation should be tried for the first degree.

 

Perhaps a measure of justice can still be obtained for Meyer, and if so, for John Kennedy as well. However, the CIA will fight tooth and nail, just as it did against Jim Garrison, to prevent the rendering of justice in the agencies' multitude of murders.

Reference
Peter Janney, JFK: The Assassination of America (Conference), JFK: The Assassination of America 3 of 6 by Peter Janney, Santa Barbara, November 2013.

Copyright 2014 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.