GRANDMOTHER
IS ON THE ROOF – WITH DAVID ATLEE PHILLIPS
Grandmother
is on the Roof - With David Atlee Phillips and "Maurice Bishop"
If David
Atlee Phillips sent you a message that simply read: “Grandmother is on the
roof,” you would know that something really important was up.
"Grandmother
is on the roof" is the punchline to a joke David Phillips tells to
emphasize the ability to recognize significant intelligence information before
it becomes important or generally known.
As the
joke goes, a new immigrant to America gets a letter from his brother at home
saying his beloved cat went up on the roof, fell off and died.
In
response the immigrant writes home and tells his brother not to give him such
bad information all at once, to break it down and give it to him gently - one
fact at a time so it isn't such a sudden shock. The next letter he got from
home simply said: "Grandmothers on the roof."
As
Phillips explains it, "That's what you must look for - that one new piece
of information, perhaps a single line in a report, some awareness which gives
you a funny feeling at the back of the neck - the suspicion that suddenly
becomes a conviction that something important is in motion, that grandmother is
on the roof."
Joshua
Thompson, a San Francisco private eye who wrote the books "Six Seconds in
Dallas" and "Gumshoe," says that in the hundreds of cases he
investigated there came a point where some significant piece of evidence was
discovered that led to the resolution of the crime, except the Kennedy
assassination.
Well I
think we have come to that "Eureka" - "Grandmothers on the
roof" moment that becomes a conviction, and it begins with adopting Bill
Simpich's suggestion that the assassination of President Kennedy be viewed,
referred to and investigated as an "operation" - a covert
intelligence operation.
According
to the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,
a covert operation (also as CoveOps or covert ops) is
"an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the
identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor."
In
addition, covert intelligence operations utilize clandestine tradecraft,
including deceit, deception, disinformation and black propaganda to achieve
their goals and accomplish their missions, but it is that very tradecraft that
allows us to piece together the intelligence network responsible for the Dealey
Plaza Operation.
It isn’t
just my own research that is beginning to come together, I believe that the
continuing works of Peter Dale Scott, John Newman, Bill Simpich, Larry Hancock
and others are coming together, and reflect various aspects of the Dealey Plaza
Operation, and we should have even more pieces to the puzzle with the release
of the remaining sealed records come October.
Just as
Adele Edisen led us to Col. Jose Rivera (USAR), Anthony Summers reported on the
Man on the Motorcycle in Mexico City (S.K.), Tony Veciana leads us to David
Phillips and Phillips leads us to some of the answers to the Dealey Plaza
enigma.
Gaeton
Fonzi inspired many young reporters to become journalists - investigative
journalists in the mold he established but few people know who inspired Fonzi.
That would be Philadelphia Magazine editor Alan Halpern, who took
over the small office of the Greater Philadelphia Magazine put out by
the chamber of commerce and made it into what is now known as a City Magazine.
Halpern also edited Fonzi's Washingtonian Magazine article that Fonzi wrote
while Phillips was also working for Washingtonian at the same time.
[For
more on Alan Halpern: http://jacklimpert.com/2013/07/the-day-the-editor-walked-out/ / http://www.broadstreetreview.com/cross-cultural/Alan_Halpern_Stealth_revolutionary/ http://www.phillymag.com/ ]
[For
more on Fonzi and Phillips see: https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/LastInvestigation.html /Gaeton
Fonzi Menu and The Last Investigation ]
[For
more on Phillips see: Columbia Journalism Review: David Atlee Phillips: The Man Nobody Bothered to
Call ]
And I agree, Fonzi should have made the attempt to question Phillips privately and on the record, but never tried. Fonzi made mistakes. He was very good but not perfect.
I also resent Tracy Parnell's reference to Phillips' "bashers," or accusers, as I know Phillips was "Maurice Bishop," but don't believe he was the "mastermind" of the Dealey Plaza Operation, and was set up just as much as Oswald was.
And I agree, Fonzi should have made the attempt to question Phillips privately and on the record, but never tried. Fonzi made mistakes. He was very good but not perfect.
I also resent Tracy Parnell's reference to Phillips' "bashers," or accusers, as I know Phillips was "Maurice Bishop," but don't believe he was the "mastermind" of the Dealey Plaza Operation, and was set up just as much as Oswald was.
Tracy
Parnell suggests that someone should write a more objective biography of
Antonio Veciana to discredit him, and he believes CIA propaganda assets should
write it. I say someone should write an in depth book about David Atlee
Philips, as there are many outstanding issues that should be addressed and he
has many of the answers.
How did
Fonzi get to Veciana? It began back in Dallas, where after the assassination
Dallas Sheriff Bill Decker learned, apparently from his mother, that the
accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald may have been seen with a group of Cubans at
a house on Harlandale Avenue in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, where Oswald
lived, Tippit was murdered and Oswald was arrested.
The
Cubans were reportedly associated with the anti-Castro Cuban group of violent
terrorists known as Alpha 66, and one of the Cubans was arrested in Oklahoma
and closely resembled Oswald, while another one was recorded giving a speech
and threatening the life of the President before he arrived in Texas.
In 1975
Paul Hoch wrote a memo to the Rockefeller Commission calling attention to the
fact that Sylvia Odio’s parents were arrested because of a failed attempt to
kill Castro, that Antonio Veciana was involved in, and in 1976 he (co-wrote
with George O’Toole) an article in the Saturday Evening Post that
mentioned the Alpha 66 house in Oak Cliff.
[ Saturday Eventing Post article: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/O%20Disk/Odio%20Sylvia/Item%2008.pdf ]
[ Saturday Eventing Post article: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/O%20Disk/Odio%20Sylvia/Item%2008.pdf ]
Shortly
after the publication of that article Congressional investigator Gaeton Fonzi
visited Alpha 66 founder Antoinio Veciana at his home in Florida and questioned
him about the Alpha 66 house in Oak Cliff.
Veciana
said no, he did not know the people mentioned in the article “And I never saw
Oswald at the house where we met.”
Fonzi
said, “I was taken back that Veciana should mention Oswald at all,….I was
jotting that down in my notebook and was not looking at him, but I heard him
continue,…”
“But I
remember once meeting Lee Harvey Oswald.”
As Fonzi
would relate, “It was the absolutely coincidental and credible way it came up,
the manner in which the interview had developed, which so stunned me. First
impressions are inherently circumstantial judgements, but I had no doubt then –
and have none now – that Veciana was simply and truthfully revealing what he
knew.”
While
some people doubt the story that Veciana was introduced to Oswald by his
spymaster Maurice Bishop in the lobby of the Southland Center in Dallas on the
first Saturday in September, 1963, Anthony Summers independently confirmed the
existence of “Maurice Bishop” and Summers believes how Veciana was convinced to
give him that lead is equally important.
In the
early wake of the Bishop-Philips story, two U.K. journalists Anthony Summers
and David Leigh were covering the HSCA but Leigh’s story was never published by
Ben Bradlee.
Summers
did write about it in his book “Night In Your Lifetime.”
As
Summers now recalls, “Several interviews into my sessions with Veciana, I
decided to go for broke and risk making him angry. I had repeatedly asked him
for any detail that might confirm that the name used by his contact had been
‘Bishop’. Late one night, I told him flat out that others - including me -
would have to conclude that he was lying (about the pseudonym ‘Bishop’). When
I said that, Veciana briefly looked angry, then heistated, then said ‘Come
with me’. He led me up to a sort of half-landing with an access door to an area
you might call a loft - boxes and suitcases strewn about. After some effort, he
then found what I recall as an old shoebox, filled with scraps of paper and
business card, He rifled through the box, then finally located what he was
looking for. It bore the name and phone number of a woman working in Puerto
Rico and told me to follow up if I could.”
“If I correctly recall, he had never given this woman's name to Gaeton -
and I don't think I then or ever shared it with Gaeton.”
“I flew
as soon as I possibly could from Miami to Puerto Rico - it may have been the
following morning. On arrival at the woman's office there - the Labor
Department I think - I did not announce myself, just talked with the
receptionist, found out when staff left for lunch, and waited about.
Prompted
by me, the receptionist pointed out the relevant woman amongst the crowd as
they left the building. I told her at once of the interest. She looked briefly
puzzled, then said with apparently spontenous puzzlement and surprise, ‘Oh,
Antonio, Antonio.....’ Then, over coffee, she responded as reported in
"Not In Your Lifetime" (on pp. 529 to 530) which led me to Prewett.
Prewett, as I also reported - just short of libeling her - turned out to
be transparently lying...”
In
Chapter 25 (p. 529) of Anthony Summers’ Not In Your Lifetime, and update
of his previously published book Conspiracy, he writes an Afterword: The
Continuing Search for “Maurice Bishop.”
“There
was no systematic interrogations of relevant CIA officers who might have
further confirmed the use of the name ‘Bishop.’ The Committee failed to follow
up on a key lead provided by Veciana – the identity of a prominent Cuban who
may have originally proposed Veciana to ‘Bishop’ as a promising candidate for
CIA recruitment. The Cuban’s name was known to the Committee, and is known to this
author. Other leads received cursory treatment.”
“The
Committee never tried to trace a vital witness whose name was provided by
Veciana months before the Committee wound up its inquiry. Veciana had spoken,
from the start, of a go-between whom he had used during his association with
‘Bishop.’ He explained that, in line with intelligence tradecraft, ‘Bishop’ had
always initiated their clandestine meetings, either by telephoning direct, or
through a third person who always knew how to reach Veciana. Veciana was long
reluctant to identify his third party, but finally did so – providing an odd,
invalid address in Puerto Rico. In 1980 I did follow up on the lead, and
tracked down the Veciana – ‘Bishop’ go-between. This proved to be the first
independent corroboration that Veciana really was in touch with someone called
‘Bishop.’”
“The
person who helped arrange meetings between ‘Bishop’ and Veciana was a women, a
prim grandmother in her fifties, who works as a minor functionary in a U.S.
government administrative department. She has requested anonymity, and will be
identified here only as ‘Fabiola,’ a Cuban exile who left Havana in the autumn
1961. She worked, until that year, as Veciana’s secretary at the Banco
Financiero, and was there at the time Veciana claims he was recruited by
‘Bishop.’ While she says Veciana never mentioned a CIA contact, Fabiola recalls
details which fit his story. She recalls a time when Veciana started going to
‘language courses’ in the evenings. Veciana, in his earliest interviews, spoke
of attending nightly U.S. intelligence briefings in an office building which
housed, on the first floor, the Berlitz School of Languages. Fabiola says she
did become aware that Veciana was involved in subversive activities. He once
produced the huge sum of a half a million dollars, which he asked her to
safeguard until he retrieved it…”
“He
asked her to act as an answering service for him when he was traveling, and in
the months to come Fabiola became familiar with the name of a caller from the
mainland United States. The name was ‘Bishop.’ When I interviewed Fabiola I
threw out a number of names, including that of ‘Bishop.’ ‘Bishop’ was the only
name to which she responded, and it stirred in her the memory of another name.
‘Bishop’ is firmly linked in Fabiola’s mind with a second person – ‘Prewett.’
For her the two names are so definitely associated that at first she had
difficulty remembering which was which.
Fabiola
says both individuals telephoned Veciana over the same period, and she
understood that they were associated with one another. She believed both
‘Bishop’ and ‘Prewett’ were connected with an American news publication, based
on the East Coast. Finally, she recalls that ‘Prewett’ was female.”
“A check
of American press directories turned up Virginia Prewett, a Washington
journalist who has specialized in Latin American affairs all her life. She has
written extensively about the struggle between Fidel Castro, whom she
characterizes as a ‘betrayer,’ and the Cuban exiles, whom she describes as ‘patriots.’
In the summer of 1963 Prewett attended a conference on Cuba co-sponsored by
Freedom House and the Citizen’s Committee for a Free Cuba. Her report on the
conference, later inserted in the Congressional Record, began by quoting a call
by Freedom House ‘to remove both Fidel Castro and the Soviet presence from Cuba
without delay.’ For many years, Prewett wrote for the North American Newspaper
Alliance (NANA), a syndication organization founded by Prewett’s friend Ernest
Cuneo, also a member of the Committee for a Free Cuba….”
“In
spring 1963, seven months before the Kennedy assassination, Prewett was
assailing the administration for its opposition to the raids mounted against
Cuba by Antonio Veciana’s Alpha 66 guerrillas. On April 2, in the Washington Daily
News, Prewett lambasted a Kennedy spokesman who had ‘called the daring and
gallant Alpha 66 raids on Cuba irresponsible acts.’ Prewett called this ‘an
all-time low in pronouncement of U.S. foreign policy,’ and mocked the notion
that ‘unless we stop the Alpha 66 raids against Communist Cuba, there’ll be
nuclear conflict.’ Three weeks later, after President Kennedy ordered strong
measures against would-be exile raiders, Prewett rushed to support the exile
leadership and berated the Kennedy White House for assuming it had ‘carte
blanche to create a foreign policy outside the nation’s popular consent.’ These
Prewett articles were read into the Congressional Record.”
“The
Alpha 66 raids, which so embarrassed President Kennedy and which pleased
Virginia Prewett, were the very attacks which – according to Alpha 66 leader
Veciana – were carried out on specific instructions from CIA officer ‘Maurice
Bishop.’ As Veciana tells it, ‘Bishop’s’ intention was to cause further trouble
between Kennedy and Russia – within months of the Missile Crisis which had
brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. His purpose was ‘to put Kennedy
against the wall in order to force him to make decisions that will remove
Castro’s regime.’”
In the
company of a Washington Post reporter (David Leigh), I talked to Virginia
Prewett in 1980. She agreed that she had contact with Alpha 66 in the early
sixties, and accepted that Alpha 66 was ‘probably ‘ backed by the CIA – even if
its leaders were not formally told so. Prewett made it clear she was once
familiar with the work of the group’s leader, Veciana, and asked, ‘Where is he
now?’”
“Later
in the interview, however, she said she had never met Veciana. Veciana, for his
part, says he did know Prewett, and refers to her as ‘Virginia.’ He assets he
met her at her hotel in Puerto Rico more than once, and ‘probably’ in
Washington.’ When the name ‘Bishop’ was first raised with Prewett, in the
context of the CIA and Cuba, she said, ‘Well, you had to move around people
like that.’”
“When
the name came up again, she said, ‘I didn’t personally know him,’ and later, in
response to a direct question, she said she did not know ‘Bishop.’ Prewett also
said she had never met David Phillips. Phillips – asked about Prewett –
contradicts her. He says he once knew Prewett quite well, specifically
recalling meetings in the Dominican Republic.”
Virginia Prewett, a Washington journalist for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) had indeed covered Alpha 66 activities, stories that were inserted into the Congressional Record.
Virginia Prewett, a Washington journalist for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) had indeed covered Alpha 66 activities, stories that were inserted into the Congressional Record.
It's
also worth noting that NANA was a hotbed of spy babes - including Inga Avid -
the beauty queen JFK dated when he was assigned an office job with ONI, Cord
Meyer's wife Mary Meyer, Lucianne Goldberg of Monica Lewinsky fame, and Priscilla
Johnson when she interviewed Oswald in Moscow.
For some
time NANA was owned by two former OSS officers Ivor Bryce and Ernest Cuneo, who
hired Ian Fleming, the former assistant to the Chief of British Naval
Intelligence and author of the celebrated James Bond novels. And NANA was
used as their personnel international intelligence network.
So Veciana leads us to "Maurice Bishop," who we identify as David Atlee Phillips, and Veciana's secretary leads Summers to Virginia Prewett and the hotbed of NANA correspondents and spies.
So Veciana leads us to "Maurice Bishop," who we identify as David Atlee Phillips, and Veciana's secretary leads Summers to Virginia Prewett and the hotbed of NANA correspondents and spies.
As
Summers says, “What I am here trying to get over is that Veciana's reaction to
my suggestion that he was lying seemed - and in memory still seems - so
spontaneous and genuine. And ‘Fabiola's’ was too....”
As
Anthony Summers concludes in his book, “Few can now doubt that there was a
‘Maurice Bishop,’ and that he manipulated Veciana for a U.S. intelligence
agency over many years. Veciana’s allegations about ‘Bishop’ in connection with
the Kennedy case remains just that – allegations. They are, however, deeply
troubling. It is of great importance that ‘Bishop’ be unmasked and investigated
– with all due consideration for the national security….It is getting late, but
if the American people are ever to put the Kennedy assassination behind them,
this – like other serious issues in the case – must be resolved.”
Now let
them be resolved.
If
Phillips met Oswald in Dallas in September of 1963 they must have met
previously.
For
starters, exactly where - what street address and neighborhood in Fort Worth
did the Phillips family live? Phillips' and Oswald's paths crossed in Fort
Worth and there might be an early, unknown association even though they were
there at different times
Oswald
knew the Bobby and Billy Hale twins at Arlington high school in Fort Worth
years before the twins broke into Judith Campbell's apartment while being
observed by an FBI stakeout team and their mother arranged for Oswald to get
jobs through the Texas Employment Commission.
Priscilla
Johnson knew Cord Meyer as her next door neighbor before she joined
Meyers'World Federalists, applied for a job at CIA and worked as a reporter for
NANA in Moscow.
So was
there a social connection between Philips and Oswald in Fort Worth when Oswald
was living there, and if not, where and how did they meet?
In his
book on Careers in Intelligence Phillips encourages people to seek
jobs in intelligence in response to the media's negative criticism in the
mid-1970s. Among the tidbits he notes is that a college degree isn't necessary
as he rose to the third highest position in the CIA without one.
He also
outlines the lingo and attributes of a good case officer.
[See:
Phillips Careers in Intelligence http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/06/get-job-on-intelligence-beat-by-david.html ]
There is
the question of whether Phillips was a rogue officer or if his operations were
approved by "higher authority," as they say.
In that
regard, to compare approved and rogue operations we have the Huma Bunker raid
and the anti-Castro Cuban training camps in New Orleans in the spring of 1961,
shortly before the Bay of Pigs and the OAS assassination attempt on DeGaul.
There
was the unapproved training camp at William McLaney's Lacome farm, run by
Richrd R. Davis, Jr. and Gus J. LaBarre with the MDC, where Cubans from Florida
arrived and left by Greyhound bus, and then you have the officially approved
CIA training camp at the closed Belle Chasse Naval Air Station.
When Jim
Garrison called attention to these training sites Phillips put together an
internal CIA memo that explained that the McLaney camp was not approved while
Belle Chasse was.
Phillips
wrote how the 300 Cubans were taken to the approved camp in buses with blacked
out windows so they didn't know where they were, but were observed by a Castro
spy Orlando Piedra, a former Batista policeman.
Around
the same time David Ferrie and friends raided the Houma munitions bunker and
removed weapons and explosives they took to Banister's office.
[See
Huma Bunker Raid Revisited - http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/05/houma-bunker-raid-revisted.html ]
That
this mission included an ex-Marine who dry fired his rifle and threw sticks of
lit dynamite from the moving truck precludes the New Orleans contingent from
being responsible for the Dealey Plaza Operation. The Dealey Plaza Operation
was a precise and successful military style attack on a moving motorcade that
took out a HPT - high priority target - the President of the United States. It
wasn't just a plot carried out by rogue operatives, it was a well laid out plan
successfully carried out.
And it
was closely connected to Cuban operations.]
The
National Security Council approved a number of violent maritime attacks against
strategic industrial targets in Cuba, like those conducted by the CIA raider
ship Rex. But the Alpha 66 raids against Soviet ships in Havana
harbor were not approved.
Nevertheless
ONI was interested in debriefing the Alpha 66 frogmen who attacked a Soviet
ship to learn what countermeasures the Russians had, an important point in
light of the Buster Crabb incident in which Crabb disappeared and was probably
killed while inspecting Khrushchev’s ship while he was in London.
[See
Alpha 66 ONI and ACSI Doc https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=231
- relPageId=4&tab=page ]
After
the Bay of Pigs all CIA para-military activities were given to the military,
primarily the Army, as we have seen with the assignment of US Army Rangers
Bradley Ayers and Captain Roderick to the CIA at JMWAVE. While Ayers trained a
commando team in the Everglades in small boat maneuverings and small arms
tactics and explosives, Roderick trained another team as snipers at Point Mary,
off Key Largo. Ayers said his team was led by a Cuban named Julio Fernandez,
and details some of their exploits aboard the CIA radar ship Rex, while
Roderick's team was financially supported and led by Army "Colonel"
Rosselli - John Rosselli, a close personal friend of William Harvey, his
one-time case officer.
Because Ayers and Roderick were US Army Rangers and not official CIA, they never signed a security oath, and thus Ayers was free to write a book about his work at JMWAVE, which he did - The War that Never Was," published by Bobbs Merrell, a company that hired William Harvey when he left the CIA, and one that maintained offices on the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
Because Ayers and Roderick were US Army Rangers and not official CIA, they never signed a security oath, and thus Ayers was free to write a book about his work at JMWAVE, which he did - The War that Never Was," published by Bobbs Merrell, a company that hired William Harvey when he left the CIA, and one that maintained offices on the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
In the
same vein we have the Army Intelligence (ACSI) monitoring the officially
unauthorized activities of Alpha 66, an active paramilitary group they could
also have been supporting.
PATHFINDER
PATHFINDER
If the
Dealey Plaza Operation was the same as one planned to kill Castro as he rode in
an open Jeep, then the Pathfinder contingency plan fits the bill, though it was
officially "disapproved" by higher authority, and the same plan was
used at Dealey Plaza to kill the higher authority.
According
to NPIC - National Photo Interpretation Center technicians, Pathfinder records
were kept, not in the regular JMWAVE files but in the NPIC area, where NPIC
provided pictures of the area around the Xanadu DuPont estate where the sniper
attack was planned to take place. We wouldn't even know about the Pathfinder
records if the NPIC techs didn't tell the ARRB about them.
Phillips
called his novel The AMLASH Legacy, and that would be Rolando Cubella
(AMLASH). He just happened to live nearby and his house was to be used as the
staging area for the snipers, just as Veciana's mother in law leased the
apartment used by the bazooka team, and the TSBD was in Dallas.
Pathfinder
also included a patsy and the psych war twist to blame the assassination of
Castro on Soviet Communists, ala Plan Centaur in Chile.
Besides
David Philips promoting the false idea that Castro was behind the Dallas
operation, as he tried to do with the Nicaraguan agent Gilberto Alvarado and
Veciana's cousin, his media assets were all over Dealey Plaza.
DAVID
PHILLIPS AT DEALEY PLAZA
Before
he killed the accused assassin, Jack Ruby called the unlisted phone number of
Phillips good friend Gordon McLendon, who owned a radio station Ruby visited,
and arranged a telephone interviews from Dallas City Hall as if he was working
for them.
And
another one of Philips' main media assets was very busy on the day of the
assassination pushing the communist angle.
Joseph
Goulden had attended the University of Texas and had attended the US Army's
Intelligence school at Fort Holabird, Maryland, where the Civil Air Patrol
(CAP) that Oswald was a part of, planned to send select recruits to be taught
‘the Russian language, Russian military tactics, Russian politics, and all
characteristics of the Russian people…” – something that Oswald actually did.
[For
more on CAP at Fort Holabird: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/06/civil-air-patrol-plan-for-loyalty-police.html /https://www.army.mil/article/110383/The_Army_Intelligence_Center_is_Established__1_September_1954 ]
At the
time Goulden was working as the Washington bureau chief for the Philadelphia
Inquirer.
On the
day of the assassination was pestering assistant Dallas District Attorney Bill Alexander
about the wording of the indictment. Alexander was preparing to charge Oswald
with the murder of JFK "in furtherance of a Communist conspiracy."
When LBJ
was told that was being broadcast on the radio news, he had his top aide Cliff
Carter call Texas officials to tell them to drop the communist conspiracy crap
as it would lead to WW3.
Goulden
later, with other reporters, concocted the bogus story Oswald was an FBI
informant, making up a number that made it sound real.
Goulden
was also a good friend of Philips, became executor of his estate and now
controls Phillips' personal papers.
[Phillips
Papers: David Atlee Phillips Papers
[finding aid]. Library of Congress. [PDF rendered 2009-09-15.13:16:55] [XSLT
Processor: SAXON 6.5.5 from Michael Kay] ]
SCRIPPS
HOWARD NEWS SERVICE (SHNS) NETWORK
Besides
NANA, the Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) was another media asset utilized
as a black propaganda outlet, not only for the CIA but NSA as well.
I said to myself: "Grandmother is on the roof!" when I read the screaming banner headline: "Castro Plot to murder Reagan" in the Philadelphia Daily News a few weeks before John Hinkley tried to kill the President.
I said to myself: "Grandmother is on the roof!" when I read the screaming banner headline: "Castro Plot to murder Reagan" in the Philadelphia Daily News a few weeks before John Hinkley tried to kill the President.
It is a
classic black propaganda item that continues the psychwar operation to blame
the Dealey Plaza operation on Castro Cuban Commies, an operation that continues
today with Brian Letrell, Phil Shenon and Bob Baer.
That the
SHNS was connected to the CIA was something Dallas SHNS reporter Seth Kantor
discovered when he learned his notes from Dallas of November 22nd were
still classified in the 1970s, including his phone records. When he obtained
them through a FOIA request, he learned that the key call was made from
Parkland Hospital to Miami, Florida, where he talked to fellow SHNS reporter
Hal Hendrix. Hendrix in Florida gave Kantor in Dallas deep background
information on Oswald, who had just been arrested as a suspect in the murder of
Tippit. How did Hendrix know more about Oswald in Florida than the reporters in
Dallas?
Hendrix
was known as “the Spook” because of his uncanny intelligence connections that
helped him win a Pulitzer Prize, and former CIA officer Frank Terpil lived with
his daughter.
JIM
HOUGAN – FRANK TERPIL – MAURICE BISHOP & DAVID ATLEE PHILLIPS
In 1982
Jim Hougan, the Washington Correspondent for Harpers Magazine, arranged for a
documentary TV interview with former CIA fugitive Frank Terpil, who after
serving as a CIA officer with Ed Wilson, began to freelance out his
intelligence services to African dictators like Gadafi and Idia Amin. Terpil
trusted Hougan however, and talked to him on camera that was broadcast as
“Confessions of a Dangerous Man.”
Both
Wilson and Terpil are certifiably “Rogue” CIA agents.
As Lisa
Pease wrote in Probe: “Hougan got to know Terpil rather well while making a PBS
documentary about him. In a tape-recorded interview, Hougan asked why Terpil
was going on and on about David Phillips and the AFIO. Among other things,
Terpil alleged (as have others) that Phillips' "retirement" from the
CIA was phony, and that he continued to work for the CIA through the AFIO.
Hougan asked Terpil why he kept talking about Phillips-was it personal, or
political? Political, Terpil replied.”
“Hougan
asked where Terpil and Phillips had met. Terpil's answer is astonishing, and
terribly important. Terpil had met him in Florida while living there with Hal
Hendrix's daughter. Really?”
“Asked
Hougan. Yeah, said Terpil, Phillips used to come around with Hal Hendrix, but
he wasn't using his real name. He was using an alias. What alias? Bishop,
Terpil said, Something Bishop. Maurice Bishop? Hougan asked. Yeah, Terpil
replied, Maurice Bishop.”
“Hougan
wanted to be sure Terpil wasn't putting him on, but came away convinced that
Terpil did not understand the significance of what he was saying and that
Terpil was answering honestly. Hougan asked how Terpil knew Bishop was
Phillips. Terpil said he had run Bishop through the agency's file system in the
CIA's Miami headquarters to find out who this Bishop character was. The name
that came out: David Atlee Phillips.”
When
Probe asked Hougan about this incident, he responded, "Now, in my opinion,
Terpil was telling the truth about this-because, frankly, the subject of David
Phillips' background and alias would never have come up if I hadn't grown
irritated with Terpil's constant kvetching about the AFIO."
As Cord
Meyer explained about Watergate, “On the evening of Saturday, June 17, 1972,
CIA Director Richard Helms received a phone call at his home from his chief of
security, Howard Osborn, a call whose consequences were to have a drastic
effect on his career and on the Agency he headed, although at the time he had
no way of foreseeing what was in store. Osborn reported that the men involved
in the Watergate burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters the night
before had been identified. Two of them, Howard Hunt and James McCord, proved
to be ex-CIA staff employees, and the Cuban Americans had past associations
with the Agency related to the Bay of Pigs.....A file check showed that Eugenio
Martinez, one of the five who broke into the Watergate, had been employed as a
contract capacity with the Agency in the mid-1960s in Cuban operations and was
still employed on a part-time basis by the CIA station in Miami on a $100-a-month
retainer as an informant on Cuban exile activities….”
As Meyer
explains, “Accurate and extensive biographic records maintained over a period
of many years are the indispensable institutional memory of any competent
intelligence service. Without such records, the Agency would be at the mercy of
hostile intelligence services in the same way that a man suffering from amnesia
is easy prey for the first confidence man who comes along.”
“In the
long run, the true test of an agent's reliability is the accuracy and
significance of the secret information that he is able to produce when checked
against observable events and collateral evidence.....”
And in
that sense Antonio Veciana passes the test, and with the information he
provides us, we can say, "Grandmother is on the roof!," know that we
are on to something, and that it will soon become a major story - the
Assassination of President Kennedy resolved.
After 9/11 - I wondered if there was a "Grandmother is on the roof!" moment that was missed, and so I picked up a copy of the morning newspaper for that Tuesday, September 11, 2001 and it seemed like all was well with the world, with no mention of the tragedy that struck later that day. But there, deep in the back of the first section - was a small - one column news item datelined Afghanistan - "Leader of Northern Alliance Assassinated."
After 9/11 - I wondered if there was a "Grandmother is on the roof!" moment that was missed, and so I picked up a copy of the morning newspaper for that Tuesday, September 11, 2001 and it seemed like all was well with the world, with no mention of the tragedy that struck later that day. But there, deep in the back of the first section - was a small - one column news item datelined Afghanistan - "Leader of Northern Alliance Assassinated."
The story indicated the Taliban had killed the leader of the alliance against
them by sending two suicide bombers disguised as a TV news crew - exactly the
plan that "Maurice Bishop"/David Phillips and Antonio Veciana had
devised to kill Castro in Chile, that backfired against them as Plan Centaur.
That assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance should have set off
alarms and beefed up security world wide - as it was a preliminary move before
the major strike the next day in New York City.
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