American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us (30 page)

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Authors: Jesse Ventura,Dick Russell

Tags: #Conspiracies, #General, #Government, #National, #Conspiracy Theories, #United States, #Political Science

Chapter Five
1

King family and Ray: “Dexter King visits James Earl Ray in prison; says he believes Ray is innocent,”
Jet
, April 14, 1997.

3

FBI and King: Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Book III, cited in
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 550.

4

Hoover's logs: “The Martin Luther King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis,” by Jim Douglass, Spring 2000,
Probe Magazine
, at
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFRK/MLKconExp.html
.

5

Brown on evidence: Ibid.

6

Shot from bushes: Ibid.

7

Judge Joe Brown: “A King-Sized Conspiracy,” by Dick Russell,
High Times
magazine, 1999,
http://www.dickrussell.org/articles/king.htm
.

8

Justice Department memo:
Legacy of Secrecy
, by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann (Counterpoint: Berkeley, Ca., 2008), p. 513.

9

Ray in New Orleans: Ibid., p. 541.

10

Sartor killed: Ibid., p. 514.

11

Jowers and Liberto: “The Martin Luther King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis,” op. cit.

12

Jowers and rifle: Ibid., portions also recounted in “A King-Sized Conspiracy,” Russell.

13

Ibid., “. . . exposed in Memphis.” Testimony of William Hamblin. Ray's attorney, William Pepper, believed Hamblin, rather than Jowers's account.

14

Liberto witnesses: Ibid., citing testimony of Lavada Addison and her son Nathan Whitlock.

15

Ibid.

16

McCollough:
An Act of State
, by William F. Pepper Verso, 2008 edition, pp. 73-74.

17

Army intelligence: William F. Pepper talk on his book,
An Act of State
, in San Francisco, Feb. 4, 2003.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.html
.

18

Pepper quote: Ibid.

19

Gelber lead: FBI Headquarters file, Murkin King Section 10; Birmingham to director with copies to Memphis, L.A., Mobile/response to Miami report of April 6, 1964.

20

Hoover edict: FBI Headquarters File, Murkin King Section 10, director to SAC's in Birmingham, Memphis, and Los Angeles. Order to hold ID checks and leads.

21

Ray phone call:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 604.

22

Judge Gelber later stated that Dade County state attorney files on the Milteer case—literally thousands of pages—had somehow disappeared from a warehouse in Miami.

23

Ray brother and Stoner: Ibid., p. 697.

24

William Bradford Huie,
He Slew the Dreamer
, New York: Delacorte Press, 1970, pp. 91-97. (The original title for Huie's book was
They Slew the Dreamer
—until he decided to go with the Ray-as-lone-assassin scenario).

25

Ray and hypnosis:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 559.

26

Von Koss and intelligence work: Letter from Bernard Fensterwald Jr. to Harry Arons, Association to Advance Ethical Hypnosis, April 29, 1970, in Committee to Investigate Assassination archives, Washington, D.C.

27

Ray brother:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 561.

28

Ray's mental condition:
Truth At Last
, by John Larry Ray and Lyndon Barsten, Lyons Press, Guilford, Ct., 2008, pp. 23 and 27.

29

General's response: Ibid., p. 26.

30

Kimble and McGill: Ibid., pp. 84-85.

31

Ray phrases: Ibid., p. 104.

Chapter Six
1

Number of shots: “40 Years after RFK's Death, Questions Linger,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, June 3, 2008; Van Praag interview on
blip.tv
(viewable on Internet).

2

Bullet locations:
Chronicle
, ibid. Van Praag co-wrote a book about the assassination called
An Open and Shut Case
.

3

Noguchi finding: Ibid.

4

District Attorney's office on ballistics:
Legacy of Secrecy
, Waldron and Hartmann, p. 684.

5

Cesar statements to police: Article by Lisa Pease in
Probe
, March-April 1998, Vol. 5, No. 3.

6

Security guard: Ibid.

7

H&R 922: Van Praag interview on
blip.tv
.

8

Another gunman:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 640.

9

Polka dot dress lady:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 634.

10

Sharaga report:
The Assassination of Robert Kennedy
, by William W. Turner and Jonn G. Christian, Random House: New York, 1978, p. 76.

11

Sirhan on girl: Ibid., p. 193, quoting interview with Turner.

12

Pease article.

13

LAPD and CIA:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 678, quoting William Turner.

14

Pena and Hernandez: Article by Pease.

15

Missing evidence:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 685.

16

Philip Melanson quoted on missing evidence: Ibid.

17

Sirhan files:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 650.

18

Sirhan and gun: Ibid., pp. 652-653.

19

Sirhan sightings:
Legacy of Secrecy
, p. 659.

20

Estabrooks article: “To ‘Sleep'; Perchance to Kill?”,
Providence Evening Bulletin
, May 13, 1968 (Colgate University Archives).

21

CIA assassin program:
The Man Who Knew Too Much
, by Dick Russell, Carroll & Graf, N.Y., 1972, p. 380.

22

CIA and hypnosis:
The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,”
by John Marks, W.W. Norton, N.Y., 1991, p. 202.

23

Spiegel on Sirhan/hypnosis: “Hypnosis: Flight from Reason or Floating Toward Bethlehem?”, by Dick Russell,
Harper's Weekly
, June 28, 1976.

24

Teletype:
Who Killed Bobby?
, by Shane O'Sullivan, Union Square Press, N.Y./ London, 2008, p. 381.

25

Diamond on Sirhan: Ibid., p. 382.

26

Simson-Kallas on Sirhan: Ibid., p. 385.

27

Sirhan to Simson-Kallas: Ibid., p. 384.

28

FBI agent on programming:
R.F.K. Must Die
, by Robert Kaiser, Overlook Press 2008 edition, pp. 355-356, also posted on
www.maryferrell.org
. Today, Kaiser writes in the epilogue to a new edition of his book that he believes “the Manchurian Candidate aspect” to be what happened. “I hold it now, maybe ninety-five percent certainty,” Kaiser says, “that he really didn't remember shooting Robert Kennedy, that he probably killed Kennedy in a trance and was programmed to forget that he'd done it, and programmed to forget the names and identities of others who might have helped him do it.”

29

Spiegel quote: Ibid., p. 392.

30

Bryan and Sirhan: Ibid., pp. 398-400.

31

William Kroger:
The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination
, by Philip H. Melanson, Shapolsky, N.Y., 1991, p. 208.

32

Kroger interviews with Russell: Personal conversation (the interviews have not been published).

33

Selection of attorneys:
Legacy of Secrecy
, pp. 663-664.

34

Melanson on trial: Ibid., p. 656.

35

Sirhan on Cooper: told to author Dan Moldea.

36

Sirhan to Cooper: Ibid., p. 682.

37

Sirhan and money: Ibid., p. 652.

38

Sirhan and mob ties: Ibid., p. 651.

39

Mob involvement: Ibid., p. 671-672.

40

Morales: Ibid., p. 676.

41

Pepper and regression therapy:
Who Killed Bobby?
, p. 492.

Chapter Seven
1

Most of the material in this chapter was developed by my collaborator, Dick Russell, over the course of 20 years of research.

2

Liddy on Watergate: “G. Gordon Liddy: Voice of Unreason,”
Independent
, November 22, 2004,
http://mediamatters.org/items/200411230004?offset=20&show-1
.

3

Haldeman on Nixon and Bay of Pigs:
The Ends of Power
, by H.R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona, Dell, New York, 1978, pp. 67-70.

4

Haldeman-Ehrlichman conversation: As recounted by Haldeman in his memoir.

5

Ehrlichman and documents: Ibid., pp. 53-54.

6

First Anderson column on plots: January 18, 1971, syndicated. It's also believed that Nixon hated Anderson because of a story the columnist broke just before the 1960 election, about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother Donald.

7

Maheu and O'Brien: One matter that Nixon would obviously have been concerned about was O'Brien's possible knowledge of a $100,000 illegal campaign contribution that had come to him from Hughes, using Nixon's best friend “Bebe” Rebozo as the go-between.

8

Anderson second column on Rosselli: February 23, 1971, in the
Washington Post
: “Castro Stalker Worked for the CIA.”

9

Maheu/Mitchell meeting:
The Arrogance of Power
, by Anthony Summers with Robbyn Swan, Viking, N.Y., 2000, p. 197.

10

Hunt investigating JFK assassination: 1975 interview given by Hunt.

11

Ellsberg-Frances FitzGerald friendship: Recounted by Jim Hougan in the book,
Secret Agenda
.

12

Nixon-Helms conversation: “Richard Nixon's Greatest Cover-Up,” by Don Fulsom,
http://crimemagazine.com/03/richardnixon,1014.htm
(audiotape of Nixon-Helms-Ehrlichman session is available on
www.nixontapes.org
). See also,
The Arrogance of Power
by Anthony Summers, Viking, 2000, pp. 176-178.

13

McCord and anti-Castro operations: Enrique (Harry) Ruiz-Williams was a Bay of Pigs veteran who later became a key figure in AM/WORLD or C-Day, a plan to overthrow Castro and take back the island, scheduled for November 1963. Williams has said that both McCord and Hunt became his CIA “handlers” that year.
The Fish Is Red
, a history of the exile movement, reported that “Hunt became Williams's link to the Langley headquarters, while McCord liaisoned with brigade veterans at Fort Jackson.” Tad Szulc's biography of Hunt (
Compulsive Spy
) described how Hunt and McCord each played a role in “Second Naval Guerrilla,” another name for the proposed Cuban invasion in 1963. Ruiz-Williams recalled, “Both of them said to call [them] Don Eduardo. Both Hunt and McCord.” That was a pattern, as
Secret Agenda
pointed out, that would repeat itself during Watergate, when “McCord would be arrested and booked under a Hunt alias, ‘Edward Martin,' producing a phony ID on which the birthdate was identical with Howard Hunt's own.” McCord's phony ID, issued by the CIA to Hunt, disappeared immediately after McCord got fingerprinted by Washington police.

14

Sturgis on break-in:
True
magazine, August 1974, p. 74.

15

McCord fire and CIA contract agent: A former official with the FBI, Lee Pennington was also a director of the ultraconservative American Security Council.

16

Nixon on Hunt as “double agent”:
Memoirs
, by Richard Nixon, Grossett & Dunlap, N.Y., 1978, pp. 643-44.

17

Nixon on Hunt “scab”:
www.ajweberman.com/tape.htm
(New Nixon Tapes).

18

Los Angeles Star
on Boggs: November 22, 1973.

19

Gray and Hunt files: “Dirty Politics—Nixon, Watergate, and the JFK Assassination,”
http://mtracy9.tripod.com/kennedy.html
.

20

FBI memo about Ford informing on Warren Commission: Written to Hoover from Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, disclosed in 1991 by the
Washington Post
.

21

FBI probing Hunt's residence: Author Tad Szulc.

22

McCord to Caulfield: Letter of Dec. 21, 1972,
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4558
.

23

Helms destroying documents:
Legacy of Secrecy
, by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann, Counterpoint, Berkeley, 2008, p. 724.

24

Morgan on assassination: Interview with Dick Russell, 1976.

25

McCord helping Fensterwald: Article in
Los Angeles Times
.

26

Jaworski and CIA conduit: From
Wall Street to Watergate
: North American Conference on Latin America, November 1973, p. 30.

27

Theft of Hughes documents: “The Great Hughes Heist,” by Michael Drosnin,
New Times Magazine
, January 21, 1977.

28

Hunt claims on assassination: “Blowing Smoke From the Grave: E. Howard Hunt and the JFK Assassination,” by Don Fulsom,
www.crimemagazine.com/07/howard-hunt_jfk-assassination,0606-7
. htm citing article in
Rolling Stone
.

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