The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

by Jon E. Lewis

  [. . .]

  May 1972: J. Edgar Hoover had the Gemstone File: threatened to expose Dallas–JFK in an “anonymous” book, The Texas Mafia. Instead, someone put sodium morphate in his apple pie. The corpse was carted away from his home in the back seat of a VW and his files were “burned”, but some of them got away.

  28 May 1972: First break-in at Watergate: McCord, Barker, Martinez, Garcia, Gonzales, Sturgis, DeDiego and Pico stood guard outside. Hunt and Liddy directed the operation from a (safe?) distance – across the street. The object was to check on Onassis’s two men at Democratic Party HQ: Larry O’Brien and Spencer Oliver. (O’Brien’s chief PR client had been “Hughes”; Oliver’s father worked for Onassis.) McCord wire-tapped their phones. But!!!! little did McCord know that the plumbers were being observed by Hal Lipset, Katherine Graham’s S.F. detective who had followed two of the plumbers from Liz Dale’s side in S.F. to Watergate. Lipset “watched in amazement” as the plumbers broke in and bugged the phones: then reported back to his boss Katherine Graham. Lipset and Graham set the trap for the Watergaters when they returned to remove their bugs and equipment.

  [. . .]

  February 1974: Mafia Hearst’s daughter Patty “kidnapped” by Lipset’s SLA in a fake terrorist action.

  Martin Luther King’s mother was murdered by a black student, a self-declared “Israelite” – “acting alone”, who was escorted to the church by somebody – and who had a list of other mothers as targets. Next day the target Shirley Chisholm got the message and rushed to sign off the DNC suit against CREEP naming Francis L. Dale; she had been the last to hold out.

  [. . .]

  6 August 1974: Nixon and Ford signed a paper at the White House. It was an agreement: Ford could be President. Nixon got to burn his tapes and files and murder anyone he needed to cover it all up.

  7 August 1974: [. . .] Rockefeller sent Kissinger to the White House with Nixon’s marching orders: “Resign right now.” Nixon and Julie cried. But there was still some hope, if Nixon resigned immediately, of drawing the line somewhere – before it got to the King of the Mountain himself – Onassis. Nixon, on trial, would blurt out those names to save himself: Onassis, Dale, “Hughes”, even JFK.

  8 August 1974: Nixon stepped down, and Ford stepped up: to keep the cover-up going.

  [. . .]

  30 August 1974: Ford hires Mafia lawyer Becker to work out a pardon deal for Nixon, who might otherwise name Onassis, Graham, and Pope Martini to save himself.

  [. . .]

  8 September 1974: Ford pardons Nixon for “all crimes committed” from 20 June 1969 (make that January) through August 1974.

  [. . .]

  October 1974: Ford drops “extradition” of Hughes from the Bahamas. Explanation: “We dropped it because we knew he wouldn’t come.” THAT’S FOR SURE.

  “Four documents; four bodies twisting slowly in the breeze.”

  Lyndon Johnson: Sodium morphate “heart attack” at his ranch on the Pedernales River. Among his last words: “You know, fellows, it really was a conspiracy . . .”

  Alexander Onassis’s plane crash at the “1000 foot Walter Reuther Level”, via a fixed altimeter, at Athens Airport.

  Eugene Wyman: California Democratic Party Chairman and JFK assassination pay-off bagman: Heart attack.

  L. Wayne Rector, Hughes’ double: Killed at Rothchild’s Inn of the Park, London.

  [. . .]

  Losing his son Alexander took all the fun out of killing for Onassis. Who was there left to inherit the world empire he had dreamed of handing over to his son?

  December 1974: Brezhnev had scheduled a meeting with Sadat. The outcome wouldn’t help the US, no matter how many trips Henry made to the mid-East with clean socks and blank checks. A new US “secret weapon” was apparently used, a tiny speck of metal, introduced somehow into Brezhnev’s lymph system. It lodged in the cluster of lymph nodes over his heart, and there it was coated with layers of phlegm, much as an oyster creates a pearl around an irritating grain of sand. Brezhnev’s lymph system clogged up: he got the flu and the meeting with Sadat was cancelled. Russian doctors X-rayed him and found a huge lump in his chest. Then they put him before a Kirlian camera and checked his aura for cancer. No cancer.

  Note: Kirlian photography is the latest Russian diagnostic tool. It reveals the presence of disease, physical or moral (it also detects lies).

  Brezhnev’s lump had to be treated with radiation therapy: hence the rumors he had cancer. It took six weeks to clear up.

  March 1975: Onassis died. The Mafia Organization regrouped itself. Prince Faisal watched his uncle, King Faisal, silently watch the shift of Mafia Power and couldn’t stand it any more. He shot his uncle, the spiritual leader of 60,000,000 Moslems, who had played ball with Onassis all along.

  South Vietnam’s Thieu, dubious about which way the Mafia cookie would crumble, now that Onassis was dead, decided the time was right for him to split. He abandoned the war effort, cursed the US, and split for Taiwan, his plane so overloaded with gold bullion that he had to dump some of it overboard.

  15 March 1975: Roberts got the “Brezhnev Flu” and spent 2 weeks at UC Hospital. Doctors there, without the Kirlian photography diagnostic technique, assumed the softball-sized lump over his heart was cancer. It wasn’t.

  April 1975: The Cambodian domino was no fun at all – it fell right over. Premier Lon Nol fled to exile in a Hawaiian suburb.

  [. . .]

  Which brings us almost to the present time. Ford, Kissinger and Rockefeller squat like toads on the corpse of America. By the time of the Bicentennial the stink may be unbearable.

  Ford now plans a propaganda mode version of his book, Portrait of an Assassin, which will reiterate the exploded cock and bull notion that Oswald was JFK’s lone assassin. With singular inept misunderstanding of the times, he seems to think Americans will take his word for it and be reassured in the face of those crackpot conspiracy theories. He doesn’t seem to realize that he will be reminding or informing Americans of his role on the infamous Warren Commission.

  I hope this outline will make individual Gemstone papers easier to understand.

  If You Found This Outline Interesting

  You won’t be reading it in the papers for quite some time. At present the only way to spread this information here in America is hand to hand.

  Your help is needed. Please make 1, 5, 10, 100 copies or whatever you can, and give them to friends or politicians, groups, media. This game is nearly up. Either the Mafia goes or AMERICA goes.

  GUNPOWDER PLOT

  It seems odd that the most famous political conspiracy in English history should have made an obscure soldier with a fondness for explosives quite so famous. You have to wonder why it’s Guy Fawkes’s effigy that’s burned on 5 November and not that of Robert Catesby, the ringleader, or even Robert Cecil, the king’s spymaster and, so some have suggested, the real conspirator.

  The details of the plot itself are well known. At dispute is not the story of Guy Fawkes caught red-handed in a cellar under the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder and an awful lot of brushwood – rather the train of events which led him there. Plot organizer Robert Catesby came from a family of devout and active Catholics and was said to possess great personal magnetism, which he used to recruit others to his cause of Catholic rebellion. His coterie of conspirators included minor members of disaffected Catholic gentry, a fair few of Catesby’s relations and even one of his own servants, and a few big hitters who had the funds and horses to lead the uprising which was planned to follow the assassination of king and Parliament.

  Guy Fawkes had been recruited in Flanders, where he was working for the Spanish military, and returned to join the conspiracy. However, on a return trip to Flanders to drum up support for their plot, Fawkes was spotted by one of Robert Cecil’s spies. Cecil had succeeded his father, Lord Burghley, as right-hand man to first Elizabeth I and then James I, and had inherited the vast network of spies and informants set up by his father and
Walsingham during Elizabeth’s reign. Cecil soon made the connection between Fawkes and Catesby, though he seems to have taken little action to pursue the matter further at that time – around six months before the plot was uncovered.

  By 26 October 1605, everything was ready. The gunpowder had been brought in and installed in a cellar the plotters had leased, which was placed handily under the main House of Lords chamber. On this night, however, Lord Monteagle, a Catholic MP, who had not been known to be “at home” during any previous evening during 1605, just happened to be around to receive an anonymous letter warning him to avoid the opening of Parliament on 5 November. He took the letter straight to Robert Cecil. Six days elapsed before the Monteagle letter was shown to the king and the search of Westminster was not ordered until the night of 4 November, nine days later. On Fawkes’s capture, he was tortured to make him reveal the names of his co-conspirators. Days later, a confession was finally extracted, though Fawkes’s signature on the document bore little resemblance to his usual one (presumably in consequence of the torture). Fawkes’s statement read:

  I confese, that a practise in generall was first broken unto me, against his Majestir for reliefe of the Catholic cause, and not invented or propounded by my selfe. And this was first propounded unto mee about Easter Last was twelve moneth beyond the seas, in the Lowe Countries of the Archdukes obeisance, by Thomas Winter, who came thereupon with mee into England, and there imparted our purpose to three other Gentleman more, namely Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, and Iohn Wright, who all five consulting together of the means how to execute the same, and taking a vow among ourselves for secrecie, Catesby propounded to have it performed by Gunpowder, and by making a Myne under the upper House of Parliament: which place wee made a choice of the rather because Religion having been unjustly suppressed there, it was fittest that Justice and punishment should be executed there.

  This being resolved amongst us, Thomas Percy hired an House at Westminster for that purpose, neere adioyning to the Parliament House, and there we begun to make our Myne about the II of December 1604.

  The five that first enterd into the worke were Thomas Percy, Thomas Cateby, Thomas Winter, Iohn Wright and myself: and soon after wee tooke another unto us, Christopher Wright having Sworne him also, and taken the Sacrament for secrecie.

  When we came to the very foundation of the Wall of the House, which was about three yards thicke, and found it a matter of great difficultie, wee tooke unto us another Gentleman Robert Winter, in like manner with oath and sacrament as afore said.

  It was about Christmas when we brought our myne unto the Wall, and about Candlemas we had wrought the wall halfe through: and whilst they were working, I stood as Sentinell to descrie any man that came neere, whereof I gave them warning, and so they ceased until I gave notice again to proceede.

  All we seven lay in the House, and had Shot and Powder, being resolved to die in that place before we should yield or be taken. As they were working upon the wall they heard a rushing in the Cellar of removing of Coales, whereupon we feared we had been discovered: and they sent me to go to the Cellar, who finding that the Coales were a-selling and the Cellar was to bee let, viewing the commoditie thereof for our purpose, Percy went and hired the same for yeerely rent.

  We had before this provided and brought into the House twentie Barrels of Powder, which we removed into the Cellar, and covered the same with Billets and Faggots, which were provided for that purpose.

  About Easter, the Parliament being prorogued till October next, we dispersed ourselves and I retired into the Low countreys by advice and direction of the rest, as well to aquaint Owen with the particulars of the Plot, as also lest by my longer stay I might have growen suspicious, and so have come into question.

  In the meantime Percy having the key of the Cellar, laide in more Powder and wood into it. I returned about the beginning of September next, and then receiving the key again of Percy, we brought in more Powder and Billets to cover the same again, and so I went for a time into the Countrey till the 30 of October.

  It was a further resolve amongst us that the same day that this act should have been performed, some other of our Confederates should have surprised the person of Lady Elizabeth the King’s eldest daughter, who was kept in Warwickshire at Lo.[rd] Harrington’s house, and presently have her proclaimed as Queen, having a project of a Proclamation ready for that purpose, wherein we made no mention of altering of Religion, nor would have avowed the deede to be ours, until we should have had powder enough to make our partie good and then we would have avowed both.

  Concerning Duke Charles, the King’s second sonne, wee had sundry consultations how to seise on his Person. But because we found no means how to compasse it (the Duke being kept neere London, where we had not Forces y-nough) we resolved to serve our turn with Lady Elizabeth.

  THE NAMES OF OTHER PRINCIPALL

  Persons, that were made privy

  Afterwards to this horrible

  Conspiracie

  Catesby and his followers were tracked to Holbeche House, Staffordshire, where he and several others died in the ensuing gun battle. The rest were captured and committed for trial.

  Except, that is, for one Francis Tresham. He alone out of all the plotters was spared the horror of being hung, drawn and quartered, which seems odd considering that anyone else who had anything remotely to do with the plot was summarily executed. Perhaps his immunity from that horrible fate can be explained by his association with Cecil. It was assumed that Tresham was the author of that anonymous letter to his friend Monteagle, though some claim it was Cecil himself. In any event, Monteagle’s loyalty to the crown had already been bought by the king’s previous leniency.

  In 1601 the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, had marched on the city of London to highlight abuses he felt had been perpetrated by the Privy Council in general and Robert Cecil in particular. Devereux was arrested along with his supporters Robert Catesby, Lord Monteagle and Francis Tresham.

  Those who believe Cecil was behind the whole Gunpowder Plot claim that, at this point, Tresham and even Catesby himself became double-agents for Cecil in return for being spared execution. Certainly, having one or more men on the inside of the conspiracy would have explained why Cecil had been in no rush to uncover the plot. It would also explain how he could have masterminded events to further his own ends, giving the green light to further persecution of Catholics – whom he despised for their allegiance to another ruler (i.e. the Pope) – and to the lucrative confiscation of monastic lands.

  In the end, it is Cecil’s own character as a ruthlessly ambitious and efficient man which scuppers this theory of a conspiracy within a conspiracy. The benefits do not seem radical enough by half to have been worth his effort. In the end, a handful of political bit players were executed, the Jesuits were expelled from England and had their lands taken, and the general Catholic populace was forced to keep its head down for the next two hundred years. However, prominent Catholic aristocrats remained influential members of the king’s inner circle and England soon signed a lasting peace treaty with Catholic Spain. Perhaps, in the end, Cecil appreciated how far the boat could be rocked but knew not to push it any further.

  Guy Fawkes was a patsy in plot by Elizabethan secret service to justify religious cleansing of Catholics in England: ALERT LEVEL 2

  Further Reading

  Francis Edwards, Guy Fawkes and the Real Story of the Gunpowder Plot, 1969

  Antonia Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot, 2000

  Martin Stephens, The Desperate Remedy: Henry Gresham and the Gunpowder Plot, 2001 [a novel]

  HAARP

  Near Gakona, Alaska, is the 33-acre (12ha) site which houses America’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP. Here scientists transmit a 3.6MW signal into the ionosphere so that other colleagues in white overalls can “understand . . . and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems”. Put another way: if the nature of the ionosphere
, that layer of sky which commences 30 miles (50km) above the planet’s surface, is properly understood we can all have better satellite TV and telephone signals.

  A worthy aim. But maybe improved communications is not HAARP’s true purpose. HAARP is funded by the Office of Naval Research and administered by the US Navy together with the United States Air Force and the University of Alaska. Of course the military, more than most, have a vested interest in communications and navigation, but the prevalent suspicion about HAARP is that it is a weapon capable of delivering several types of mass destruction.

  Suggestions that HAARP could be used for “geophysical warfare” first appeared in Angels Don’t Play This HAARP (1995) by Nick Begich and Jeanne Mannings, with the investigation continued by Jerry E. Smith in HAARP: The Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy (1998). HAARP’s transmitter works by heating the ionosphere above the site, leading some to claim that it is designed to alter the world’s weather systems to the advantage of the US. Even the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 is said to have been caused by a HAARP firing, the proof offered being one of cui bono (“who benefits?”): the tsunami devastated the economies of America’s Asian competitors; ergo, the US was responsible. Smith also asserts that HAARP uses extremely-low-frequency (ELF) waves which can be used for remote mind control.

  More plausible is the notion that HAARP’s Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI) transmitter can be used as a “death beam”. HAARP is much like the patented weapon system designed by Dr Bernard Eastlund to destroy missiles and aircraft systems by transmitting pulses of electromagnetic radiation. (Eastlund’s patent, as the Texan physicist himself acknowledges, owes much to the work on “weapons of doom” undertaken by the eccentric Croat genius Nikola Tesla, many of whose inventions are supposedly still kept under strict wraps by the US authorities even though Tesla died over 50 years ago.)