by J. W Lateer
Willoughby’s Wilhelminian friends happened to be the social superiors even of Dr. Konrad Adenauer who despised the Protestant Prussians. Willoughby was suggesting, in effect, to go over the head of Adenauer and set up a fascist Wilhelminian group, ostensibly even more fascist than the fascist Nazi’s. The message was, “Why waste time with reprobate Nazis (who were working with their friend Allen Dulles) when the Wilhelminians were available?”
The top man among Wilhelminians, perhaps world-wide, would be Dr. Wernher von Braun, his father being a Prussian noble and very powerful in German Government even before Hitler. Von Braun was the ultimate unimpeachable, indispensible (and invulnerable) Wilhelminian, and Willoughby could very well have gained his support. And ditto for von Braun’s best friend Walter Dornberger.
John J. McCloy, who bossed the Warren Commission, began his career with the Wilhelminians before the days of Hitler. Willoughby underscores the power of these Prussian figures, dating back to the days of the Teutonic Knights in the 1200’s and before. Apparently, they weren’t going away anytime soon. Per Vladimir Lenin, “he who controls Germany, controls Europe, controls the world.”
This is a lot of dynamite loaded into one simple letter. And when Willoughby’s suggestion to Allen Dulles went nowhere, he followed up with another suggestion, almost as nefarious as the first one. On October 30, 1955, Willoughby offered to set up social club connections between American GI’s and German soldiers at the level of privates and corporals throughout Germany. Keep in mind that West Germany, at the time, was being run either by ex-Nazis or “Wilhelminians” (take your choice). So our American GI’s could become infected with Nazi fascism or worse. Real nice guy, this Willoughby!
After being rejected by Dulles and revealing an intense case of sour grapes, he wrote again to Allen Dulles on December 3, 1955 deploring the fact that the CIA would not accept his offers. He blamed that fact on the old feud between the intelligence community and MacArthur dating from WWII.
But author Russell has an even more disturbing story to relate. As of October, 1957, the spy network of Nazi General and former CIA employee Reinhard Gehlen extended its influence into the Far East. In October, 1957, there was a far-reaching and ominous conference in Asia which involved Chaing Kai-shek of Nationalist China (i.e. Taiwan), Syngman Rhee of South Korea, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam and Gehlen’s spy organization. Also present was a German named Fritz Cramer who was a former German intelligence officer. Cramer was at that time the head of a right-wing vigilante group that hunted leftists at the bidding of private industrialists, presumably in Germany. The ominous addition to this fascist cabal was the American Security Council. Per author Russell, the ASC was a partner to the Fritz Cramer group. The American Security Council and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations Organization were the two private organizations (among those which included prominent Americans) most heavily involved in the JFK assassination, in the opinion of this writer. (These groups would have provided face-to-face background support to the plotters, although not necessarily participating in the actual Dallas operation).
In his definitive work on the assassination, General Walker, Dr. Jeffrey Caulfield presents some information on Fritz Cramer. At page 319 Caulfield writes: “On May 20, 1961, Major Archibald Roberts, working at the U.S. Army Information Office in New York, wrote General Willoughby in Washington, D.C. and told him ‘it would be very helpful to our campaign to enlist German professionals on the post to assist in the expose of Overseas Weekly.’ Roberts told him that Fritz Cramer in Bonn, Germany – who published an anti-Communist newspaper – could help their cause and secure files on the publishers of Overseas Weekly and ‘help tie in the Commie technique of the operation.’ Roberts asked Willoughby, ‘can we impose on your prestige to establish contact with this man, General?’ Roberts concluded the letter saying ‘all we’re after is evidence that will enable us to destroy Marion Respach [an editor of the newspaper], smash Overseas Weekly, and expose the International Communist Conspiracy.’ On May 25, 1961, [General Edwin] Walker wrote Roberts and thanked him for his great work. He told him ‘I am worried about nothing.’”
Joseph W. Bendersky has written extensively about military intelligence, especially between the World Wars. He has included Charles Willoughby in his well-regarded analyses. According to Bendersky, in post-WWII America, Willoughby’s right-wing allies and associates included General Albert Wedemeyer, Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R.MI), and most importantly, the powerful publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Robert McCormick. Per Bendersky, American Catholic anti-Communists especially liked Willoughby, with such people as Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen writing him long letters and publicly claiming to having prayed often for Willoughby.
Bendersky characterized Willoughby’s philosopy as pitting the “white race” which had special talents against “the teeming millions of the Orient and Tropics.” This was stated by Willoughby, having served in the past as the U.S. attache in Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Willoughby considered the Russians not to be real white people, but part of “Mongoloid-Panslavism.” It is obvious that Willoughby was not skilled in anthropology. He saw a battle between Saxon and Cossack. As mentioned previously, it is apparent that when Willoughby immigrated to the U.S., he retained his German racial-type nationalism which transcended Nazism and had roots, actually, in the dim world of pre-history.
Colonel Robert McCormick wrote to Willoughby on the subject of the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco. He felt that Jews in the U.S. had prevented the diplomatic recognition of Franco’s government as revenge for the Spanish Inquisition.
During the Korean War, Willoughby had worked with Generals George E. Stratemeyer and Edward M. Almond, two of MacArthur’s top generals. These men, along with Willoughby were sought after by Congressional committees for their advice on political-military matters. Stratemeyer, in particular, had testified on the Korean War before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS). Conservative political views, especially on racial matters, dominated the thinking of these right-wing retired generals and the Congressional Committees were apparently applauding their thinking. Stratemeyer in particular endorsed the thinking of former Army Intelligence officer John Beatty, who wrote a book portraying Nazi Germany as a country “strangled” economically, politically and militarily and forced into war against its will. Beatty’s book touched off a prolonged firestorm of controversy because of its anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi content.
Bendersky describes “the old wartime clique” of military generals as persisting and showing a great deal of continuity well into the 1950’s and even beyond. He names General Bonner Fellers, Major General Ralph C. Smith, Col. Truman Smith (a reputed Nazi-sympathizer before WWII), Stratemeyer, Wedemeyer, General Robert E. Wood (CEO of Sears, Roebuck) and General Charles Willoughby as members of this clique. Willoughby, for his part, was working with the John Birch Society in order to publish a new edition of his book, MacArthur.
According to Bendersky, following World War II, the vicissitudes of the Cold War generated a “renewed admiration for German culture.” Two of these right-wing retired military figures, Col. Truman Smith and General Albert Wedemeyer renewed the relationships they had with German officers before the war. The most prominent Nazi General involved was, per Bendersky, General Hans Speidel. Despite being an “ardent” Nazi and serving as Rommel’s chief of staff, Hans Speidel had been made commander of NATO ground forces. This fact was also noted by author T.H. Tetens in his book on Nazi resurgence.
Charles Willoughby advocated a restored Germany. He wanted all the Eastern Territories forfeited by Germany after the war to be returned. Willoughby was on record opposing the war crimes trial of the Krupps whom he described as martyrs.
Willoughby and Dr. Walter Becher
Both, Bendersky and Tetens specifically detail the unsavory relationship maintained between Charles Willoughby and Dr. Walter Becher. Becher had been a Nazi Party editor when the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia. After World War II, he not only belon
ged to Neo-Nazi parties, he organized something called the Witiko-Bund and became the spokesman for millions of Germans who were expelled from the Eastern Territories and had become refugees inside of West Germany. In the early 1950’s Becher set up a very effective German lobby in Washington, D.C.
Becher had to have been part of the Bundesnachtrendiest, the BND, which was the West German Intelligence agency run by former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen. This can be deduced from the fact that he died in Pullach, Bavaria. Pullach was a small town in which the only industry was the main headquarters of the Gehlen spy agency. This headquarters had been set up by Gehlen back when he worked for Allen Dulles as a CIA employee. The headquarters in Pullach was maintained thereafter.
The reader should focus on Becher and Gehlen, because Gehlen was likely a facilitator of the JFK assassination and Becher was his representative in the U.S. Bendersky informs us that Becher had a close relationship with various senators and congressmen. One of Becher’s close confidants was George Brada. Brada was the author of a 1953 book on Free Czechoslovakia. Brada wrote about an “Asiatic race” which was subverting the entire planet by means of “intrigue.” This left no doubt that Brada was promoting the idea that Communism and Jews were the same and that they must be eliminated even more thoroughly than they had been by Hitler.
According to Bendersky, Charles Willoughby maintained close contact with Becher and Brada for the next twenty years, presumably between 1945 or 1950 well into the 1960’s or 1970’s. Willoughby was involved with conferences of the German expellees from the forfeited Eastern Germany well into the 1960’s. Brada claimed in conversation with Willoughby that American politicians with whom his friend Walter Becher spoke privately, always complained about Jews. Becher and Brada were still trying to gain acceptance by the U.S. government even under Richard Nixon as late as 1969.
In General Walker, assassination expert Dr. Jeffrey Caulfield provides additional information on Walter Becher. At page 550, he states that Walter Becher attended the 1964 Republican convention and wrote a glowing article on Goldwater in the Deutsch National-Zeitung. Dr. Caulfield further states that Becher made frequent trips to visit American political leaders on the far right in the 1950’s, including Senator Joseph McCarthy and William Jenner, and was reportedly the liason between neo-Nazi groups in West Germany and the U.S.
Charles Willoughby was also the military editor of a prominent right-wing, anti-Semitic magazine called American Mercury, and also a frequent contributor. When anti-Semitism went totally out of fashion in the U.S. post-WWII, Willoughby became embroiled in a feud with conservative publisher William F. Buckley over the merits of American Mercury. Despite this anti-Semitic connection, Willoughby tried to “make nice” with the powerful American Jewish Committee and lauded the State of Israel.
From 1957 to 1967, Willoughby maintained close relations with German spy Walter Becher and his friend George Brada. Becher considered Willoughby their most important political contact in the U.S. Willoughby also served as a consultant on matters of military intelligence in the 1950’s, working with both U.S. G-2 executive officer Colonel Frederick D. Sharp as well as Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor. As late as 1958, Willoughby was an expert witness for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Cold War.
This chapter cannot be complete without a recitation of the disturbing facts about Walter Becher brought to light by German expert T.H. Tetens in The New Germany and the Old Nazis. Becher joined the Nazi party as early as 1931, although he rejoined in 1938. Because he wanted to boost his brand back in Germany, Becher decided to first build an influential organization or network of connections in the U.S. This, he theorized, would translate into influence back in the old country.
Walter Becher’s main Congressional contacts became Senators William Jenner (R.IN) and Joseph McCarthy (R.WI) and House members Francis E. Walter, B. Carroll Reece, Albert H. Bosch and Walter E. Judd. Writing in 1961, Tetens states that while Becher was at that date chairman of the All-German Bloc in the Bavarian Landtag and Secretary of the Sudeten-Deutsche Association, his main power came from Washington. In the minds of Germans, their only hope for the return of the Eastern Territories lay in the political influence of Walter Becher in America, chiefly in the State Department and Congress.
In 1961, of the 53 million people in West Germany, 10 million (20%) had come from the Eastern Territories lost to Germany due to the War. These people still carried a heavy grudge against the appeasers of Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam. In 1961, the position of the Adenauer Government both in speeches in the Bundestag and elsewhere was that Germany would never accept the Oder-Niese eastern boundary line. Tetens, a top expert on German geopolitics, says that expelling the Sudeten Germans from their homes and their exile in West Germany was just payback for their role in helping the SS murder several hundred thousand people in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere during the war.
Despite this theory propounded by Tetens, the fact is that Britain and, to a lesser extent, France and Russia would do anything possible to weaken Germany. Britain had always pursued a policy of preventing 1) the unity of all Germans under one government and 2) German self-sufficiency in food because of the British desire to blackmail Germany by use of a naval blockade. Since France and Russia were always in fear of Germany, the British were the only ones with enough military might and favorable geography to be able to continually, time after time, dismember Germany.
Obviously the Germans expelled from the Sudetenland were just plain expelled. There was no due process to find out if they, as individuals, had aided the Nazis. Very likely most of them had never harmed anybody. Clearly this act by the U.S. and Britian was every bit as evil as mass eviction has always been dating back to the Cherokee Trail of Tears in the U.S. or the Babylonian Captivity of the Old Testament. This is true whether done by Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt or whoever.
That said, Walter Becher was riding the crest of a wave of hatred by Germans against the U.S. and Britain over this issue. It is easy to see why the Sudeten Germans would consider the murder of a U.S. President just a small down payment in payback for their plight. In March, 1959, General Charles de Gaulle stated at a press conference that the Oder-Neisse line was Germany’s definite eastern border and should not be changed. In response, Bonn said “the German borders are still those of December 30, 1937.”
For our analysis of the JFK assassination, we should note that John Foster Dulles felt that the unstable Oder-Niesse line could lead to an atomic holocaust. But when Tetens was writing in 1961, there was no diplomatic solution on the table. The Sudeten expellees still looked to the activities of Becher in the U.S. as their only hope. Small wonder that Becher held them in the palm of his hand.
In 1957, influential Congressman Usher L. Burdick inserted a Walter Becher article in the Congressional Record. In 1959, German newspapers reported more successes of Becher with the U.S. Congress. Becher was traveling the U.S. for weeks at a time working on this issue. Per Tetens, he had access to 71 newspapers and 32 million listeners on the Mutual Broadcasting Network. Becher claimed the support of 150 Congressmen. The German newspaper Volksbot published letters and telegrams on the refugee issue from Herbert Hoover, Generals Charles Willoughby, Pedro del Valle, Albert Wedemeyer as well as various politicians.
Tetens reports the names of members of Congress who sent letters of support. He lists about 50 names. For our purposes, the names that stand out are James O. Eastland, Thomas J. Dodd, Prescott Bush, Strom Thurmond, Speaker John W. McCormack and Charles J. Kersten. Some of these like Bush and Kersten were no longer in office. But Dodd, Eastland and McCormack were most likely directly involved in the JFK assassination as we shall see later in later chapters.
While author Bendersky lists Walter Becher’s ally as George Brada, Tetens mentions Dr. Richard Sallet. He says that in Washington, Dr. Sallet conducted a campaign of pity for the Volksdeutsche and threatened that they would make trouble in Europe if their homelands were not returned to them. It was
through the efforts of Sallet, says Tetens, that Congress and the State Department responded with some degree of sympathy. Like George Brada, Sallet had written on the subject of German-related historical issues.
Our standard for including a person on the JFK organizational chart is that the person must have made a material contribution to the plot, beyond just moral support or giving an anonymous donation of funds. So what is the case against Charles Willoughby?
1. There is the anonymous letter sent to author Dick Russell which unequivocally names Willoughby as the “mastermind” of the assassination. This letter was considered credible enough to be included in the two most thorough and credible JFK assassination books: TMWKTM by Dick Russell and General Walker … by Dr. Jeffrey Caulfield.
2. JFK was murdered by an alliance of the worldwide Nazi/fascist network in partnership with the Southern Segregationist leadership. Of the Americans with connections to the worldwide fascist networks, Willoughby probably had the most due to A) his career in military intelligence and B) his high level participation with insiders in right-wing circles like the American Security Council, H.L. Hunt, Billy James Hargis and others.
3. Willoughby had been head of intelligence for the entire nation of Japan for the five years of the U.S. occupation. No other military or civilian intel figure could come close to that level of country-wide responsibility. Only General Reinhard Gehlen, head of West German intelligence, and/or General Charles Willoughby had the German loyalty and skills to co-ordinate a German-U.S. based plot like the JFK conspiracy.
4. Uniquely, Willoughby saw himself as the prototypical “Wilhelminian,” which is a loyalty to the Prussian tradition of German history. This attitude blended perfectly with that of the other two Barons: De Mohrenschildt and von Braun, both of whom have also been implicated in the plot by some excellent sources.
