The Three Barons

by J. W Lateer

  U.S. Foreign Policy, SISS and the Micro-Management by

  Robert Kennedy

  It is not surprising that the Kennedy brothers were trying to personally manage virtually everything in the government. Even worse was the fact that it was RFK, the one of the two who most lacked any particular philosophy, who became the one with his fingers in the greater number of pies. It is a sign of a tremendously weak government where close family members were the only ones to be trusted and even more importantly, the only ones to be consulted. (We are seeing this dilemma in the current Trump administration at the date of this writing).

  The ultimate absurdity, if true, is the strong possibility that RFK might have been personally entangled with Lee Harvey Oswald while working on one of his covert projects. One source for that is Otto Otepka, who believed that his investigation of Oswald was of personal concern to RFK. Otepka even believed that his dogged following of the LHO case could have been the actual reason for his subsequent persecution by the Kennedy administration. Another source of information about a possible Oswald-RFK connection is that provided by Judyth Vary Baker regarding the anti-Castro weaponized cancer project in New Orleans. Apparently, the murder plots against Castro, known as Operation Mongoose, were personally supervised by RFK.

  The Final Showdown Between JFK’s Massachusetts Mafia and SISS

  On April 16, 1962 a man named John Francis Reilly took over as head of the Office of Security in the State Department from William O Boswell. In a later hearing on the Otepka case, Reilly testified that he was recommended for his new job by Andy Oehmann who was Executive Assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy. In addition to John Francis Reilly, there was a team of people from Massachusetts with connections to the Kennedy clan who were hired at State. One would be Joseph E. Rosetti, who had worked in JFK’s Congressional office. Another would be Robert J. McCarthy, also from Massachusetts. Still another would be Charles W. Lyons who had worked as an evaluator under Otepka. The fourth would be David L. Belisle, also from Massachusetts. Author Gill refers to this group as the Massachusetts Mafia.

  After the arrival of these administrators, there was an immediate attempt to lure Otepka away from his job by sending him to the War College, which was sometimes considered an honor by employees at State. Otekpa refused the War College offer. But, important to the Otepka story was the fact that even such a seemingly minor personnel decision was met with a letter from Senator Karl Mundt. Mundt was an extreme conservative who had served in both Houses of Congress during a long career; a member of SISS, and had been closely involved with State Department issues. Mundt had even been involved with the Alger Hiss case fifteen years prior as a member of HUAC. The letter from Mundt was sent to Roger Jones, the Deputy Undersecretary for Administration. Mundt expressed disapproval of the treatment of Otepka, and raised the specter of possible future Soviet penetration of the State Department.

  Two days later, Roger Jones was called to appear in front of SISS. Jones was pointedly questioned about the seemingly minor issue of Otepka’s job description. The message from SISS was clearly “hands off Otepka.” The next security controversy at State was the advent of the “short form report” which eliminated many of the questions on the prior required longer-form report. With the new report, the person who was the investigator had to summarize any negative information against an applicant and even pass over negative information in the process of boiling down information to fit onto the short form. Otepka felt that this turned the front-line investigator into an evaluator.

  The next controversy regarding Otepka and his role at State was the case of Harland Cleveland. Cleveland was Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. Like Dean Rusk and Walt Rostow, Harland Cleveland had studied in England as a Rhodes Scholar. Gill describes Cleveland as a “peace-nik.” In an interview, Cleveland had asked Otto Otepka “what are the chances for Alger Hiss [being rehired]”? Cleveland’s main duties revolved around the United Nations. Cleveland wished to begin an Advisory Committee for employment of people in the United Nations. This committee, like many of the other State Department security cases, came under much discussion at State. Generally, there was a desire on the part of many people to get more and better candidates to work at the U.N.

  Another example of the role of SISS in investigating seemingly minor issues was the case of Povl Bang-Jensen. The connection to the U.N. led to a situation surrounding the possible murder of a Danish diplomat in New York named Povl Bang-Jensen. Jensen had refused to name certain people who had been involved in the 1956 Hungarian uprising. SISS had investigated the mysterious death of Bang-Jensen. Part of the story involved possible information revealing Soviet agents who were infiltrating the U.S. Government. SISS had issued a report sharply questioning the New York police in their finding of suicide in the Bang-Jensen case.

  Cleveland Advisory Committee on International Organizations member Leonard Boudin wrote to the NY Times ripping SISS. Andew Cordier (in re U.N) and Ernest Gross [former SD legal advisor] were close friends of Alger Hiss. Otepka denied approval to Cordier and Gross for the new Committee possibly because of the murder of Bang-Jensen over the issue of the Hungarian revolt and the matter of 80 political refugees. Otepka said SY now had no jurisdiction over UN employees because of the 1953 decision by Ike to setup the “International Employees’ Loyalty Review Board.”

  In October, 1962 at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, SISS issued its 202 page report on Otepka’s case. The report cited 1) Otepka’s difficulties with the Office of Security, 2) deliberate subversion of the law in issuing passports to Communists, and 3) discussed the mysterious career of William Arthur Wieland who some had blamed for the rise of Castro in Cuba. The SISS report was signed by all 9 members: Dodd (D,Conn) Chmn Eastland(D,Miss), Olin Johnson (D,SC), Sam Irvin (D,NC), John McClellan (D,AR), Ev Dirksen, Min Ldr (R,IL), Roman Hruska (R,NE), Ken Keating, (R,NY), and Hugh Scott, (R,PA). In an unusual move, SISS demanded that Otepka at least be named to his old position entitled Deputy Director of the Office of Security. This was a confrontational report because it asserted the right of Congress to decide on the employment of someone in the Executive Branch who was not subject to the Senate Confirmation process. This demand was all the more unreasonable because of the secretive nature and procedures of SISS.

  Even with the requirement of confirmation by the Senate of Cabinet members and other select high officials, the process is open and public. If Senators have objections to such a high-level appointment, those objections have to be raised directly to the appointee in public. The process asserted by SISS is essentially the right to demand the hiring or firing of any Executive employee, even to the level of clerks and secretaries. Also suggested by the SISS report is that the properly constituted management of the State Department is not qualified or capable of enforcing policies in the area of security. Logically, there seems little difference between the SISS proposal and the proposal of turning over to SISS (a committee that operates in secret) of the entire operation of each and every department of the Federal Government if SISS so desired.

  It is at this point where it becomes apparent that SISS is either drunk with power or sincerely feels that it is standing alone against an imminent and likely takeover of the United States government by pro-Communists or subversives. These demands by SISS went far beyond any activities and methods of Joe McCarthy. McCarthy operated by publicly slinging mud at those he suspected of subversion. McCarthy never demanded the right to dictate the management structure of the State Department nor asserted the right to decide who to hire and fire there.

  As we examine the list of which Senators were chosen to serve on SISS, as was mentioned in a previous chapter, we see that in thus constituting this subcommittee, the entire Congress effectively signed off on a plan to allow the extreme right-wing members of the Senate to do a hatchet-job on the Kennedy Administration. If SISS did not get its way on the issue of perceived subversion, then at what extreme would they stop to solve this percei
ved problem? It is very likely that SISS felt justified in cooperating in some way with the assassination of JFK.

  Ms. Frances Knight became the head of the Passport Office back in 1955. In 1958 the Supreme Court held that a person could not be denied a passport without due process of law. In 1961, the Supreme Court upheld the requirement that Communists must register. The Internal Security Act of 1950 had prohibited the issuance of a passport to Communists.

  In January, 1962, Dean Rusk approved a rule which gave people the right to confront those accusing them of being Communists. Miss Knight as head of the Passport Office was, by this rule, forced to issue passports to Communists or else allow the Communist to have access to secret FBI and CIA files which they would be entitled to use in their defense. Miss Knight, like Otepka, had testified before SISS on this issue. Author Gill is again deceptive when he replaces the word “Communists” in his reporting to “dangerous espionage agents,” in describing exactly who should be denied a passport under the above laws. Miss Knight was strongly opposed on her policies by Abba Schwartz, Administrator of the Bureau of Security & Consular affairs and by Department of State Attorneys Chayes and Lowenfeld.

  Per author Gill, the person who was most engaged in promoting more lax passport rules was Robert Kennedy.(RFK again!!). (OOO p. 156). According to historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. the two persons who first recommended loosening the passport rules for Communist travel were Averell Harriman and George Ball. Gill describes “the growing army of domestic spies, saboteurs and professional agitators dedicated to the destruction of the American society.”

  The passport procedures as well as those relating to loyalty and security became the object of SISS inquiries. This story seems to get more bizarre as it unfolds. SISS, a group of nine hand-picked, right-wing Senators wanted to place its judgment in place of decisions of the elected and Senate-confirmed officials in the Executive Branch, as well as in place of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. And almost all of the SISS activity was being conducted in secret. With clandestine enemies of democracy like the furtive SISS, you didn’t need Communists to destroy our democratic traditions. SISS would take care of that job themselves. And of course, according to Otepka biographer Gill, the law is an ass.

  The drastic steps being taken by SISS cannot be explained in terms of a real, credible threat of a Communist takeover of the U.S. In the judgment of this author, the SISS policy was not considered necessary to protect against a home-grown threat by Communists against the U.S. It is much easier to understand the Red Scare tactics of SISS when viewed as a policy designed to protect from Communism such Catholic-oriented countries as Italy, France and even French Indochina. And the concern was much the same regarding the rest of the far-flung and soon-to-disappear empires of France, England, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal.

  There are several vantage points from which to evaluate the security rules as interpreted by Otepka. First, to be acceptable as a rule, regulation or law, the rule has to serve to notify the person who must abide by the rule as to the specific behavior allowed or prohibited. The Otto Otepka type of rule states that an employee of the State Department cannot do anything of which Otto Otepka does not personally approve, even after the fact. That is not a legitimate rule. Second, a rule generally applies to behavior of the person subject to the rule. In our legal system, a person is not normally penalized for the behavior of another person acting independently, not involved in an agency relationship, unless we are talking about a parent being responsible for the behavior of a pre-adolescent child. Third, when a person is deprived of a government job, there is in many cases the right of due process of law. This might go doubly for the due process right of a person seeking a passport, or a person being deported or deprived of his citizenship. Otepka supposedly loved rules and regulations, but apparently despised the due process of law. Author Gill even suggests that the thousand-year history of English common law was a gigantic mistake, misguided, just so much time and effort, wasted. (This disrespect for U.S. law could have come from Gill’s wife, who was a veteran Nazi and a Nazi spy).

  At this crucial time when SISS was confronting the State Department on issues of security, loyalty and passports, the first proven advanced knowledge of the JFK assassination plot was recorded, spoken by Florida Mafia kingpin Santos Traficante in September, 1962.

  Only four months after he was hired, Francis Reilly was promoted to a job which was created for him titled Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Security in August, 1962. During these months, Senator Thomas Dodd was acting Chairman in charge of SISS. Although James O. Eastland was the actual Chairman of SISS, he hardly ever attended meetings. Instead, Eastland allowed Dodd to function as temporary chairman. The reason Eastland stood aside for Dodd is not completely clear. Possibley it was that a northern Democrat would be free of the likely stigma that existed in some circles because of the segregationist image of most southern Democrats, especially Eastland.

  Another interpretation might be that the Northern Catholic faction of the Democratic party powers actually held sway over the Southerners in Party dynamics. They might have demanded this role for Dodd. Even more sinister is the possibility that ex-Nazis acting through Senator Dodd and Julius Klein had bribed enough Senators to make possible the powerful role that Dodd had assumed. (There was ample circumstantial evidence of such bribing of Senators which came up in the Dodd censure hearings).

  It was at this time in August, 1962 that the anti-Otepka activities of Reilly increased. Otepka’s secretary was harassed. Reilly chose David Belisle to serve as his chief of staff and to help in the effort to thwart Otekpa in his security duties. Mrs. Eunice Powers, Otepka’s secretary was harassed. Three evaluators began to cooperate with Reilly and Belisle. They were Frederick Traband, Joseph Sabin and Carl Bock. Under new procedures, investigators effectively became the evaluators. During this period, Reilly testified directly to SISS on security matters. Specifically, Reilly lied to SISS about Otepka’s handling of the controversial Wieland case. Reilly claimed that Otepka had removed himself from the controversial case, which was not true.

  The Wieland case was given to Robert McCarthy, an investigator. In the same month, Reilly removed Otepka’s name from the list of SY officials who could be contacted by the FBI. As a result of the less detailed clearance procedures, the Civil Service Commission began to complain that the State Department security reports were lacking information (regarding the employee) which was needed by the Commission itself to function.

  In the spring of 1963, pressure mounted for Otepka to resign from the State Department and it seemed to increase exponentially. Robert McCarthy was from Massachusetts and boasted of his connections with the Kennedys. He had an offer brought to Otepka’s attention that he might be considered for a post as Ambassador. When Otekpa declined, McCarthy voiced surprise to his co-workers, asking them what they thought might be used to further tempt Otepka to leave his security position. In 1962 SISS had issued its report asking for changes to State Department security procedures, but Otepka realized that Dean Rusk had no intention of implementing the SISS recommendations.

  Otepka had indeed considered resignation. The person who dissuaded Otepka from resigning was Jay Sourwine, the counsel to SISS. Toward the end of 1962, Otepka and Jay Sourwine were having lunch together once or twice a month. Experts on Congressional Committee procedures say that it is considered unethical to approach a member of a Congressional committee “on the side,” ie. outside the regular hearings process.

  Otepka Begins His Insubordination: SISS vs. The Kennedy Administration

  Jay Sourwine told Otepka that his resignation could lead to an irreparable breakdown of security, not just at State, but thoughout the Federal Government. The relationship of Otepka to Jay Sourwine of SISS became the focus. We have seen that Sourwine was likely becoming personally involved with Lee Harvey Oswald at this time in New Orleans in the FPCC case. Otepka first talked to SISS in August, 1961. Otepka was aware at that time that the State Dep
artment did not want him to be meeting like this with Sourwine. Truman’s directive 9835 of 1948 banning revelation of classified material to Congress was still in effect. Sourwine knew, however, that the State Department could not afford politically to completely prohibit Otepka from testifying. In February, 1963, Otepka received notice through State Department channels that he was to testify to SISS again. During the next two months, Otepka was to testify four times before SISS. The hearings were secret and closed. When presiding at one hearing, Senator Everett Dirksen questioned Otepka about reprisals he might have encountered. After a short period of questions, Otepka laid out the entire scenario of reprisals he had encountered from management. Otepka reported to SISS that Evaluations Division had been stripped of intelligence gathering and he discussed the new “short-form” evaluations.

  Sourwine inquired into the Advisory Committee on the Arts under Bureau of Cultural affairs on which proposed members would include Archibald MacLeish, Melvyn Douglas, Agnes DeMille and George Seaton. Later names added to the Advisory Committee were Marian Anderson, Roy E. Larson, Chairman of the Executive Committee at Time, Inc., Peter Mennin, President of Julliard, and Warner Lawson, Dean of Music at Howard University. An obstacle arose when Archibald MacLeish and actor Melvin Douglas (husband of Nixon Senate opponent Heleg Gahagan Douglas who had been labeled by Nixon “The Pink Lady”) refused to fill out the State Department employment form and security questionnaire. Otepka said Douglas could clear his name in this process, but he refused. Archibald MacLeish had been a speech writer for FDR and was called the “Bard of Harvard Yard.” The SD Personnel department refused both Douglas and MacLeish, but Otepka was ordered to henceforth send no security files to the State Department Personnel staff.