The Devil's Chessboard

by David Talbot

  478“It would be a waste of time”: Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye” (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), 358.

  479he looked “very tired”: Thomas Maier, The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 432.

  479“From the time he stepped off that plane”: President Kennedy in the Island of Dreams documentary, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cznNVmdXqmk.

  479“Here he was”: Ibid.

  479“When my great-grandfather left here”: Ibid.

  480“There is an impression”: Maier, Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings, 437.

  480“He never would have been President”: Ryan Tubridy, JFK in Ireland: Four Days That Changed a President (London: Collins, 2010), frontispiece.

  481“But there were many times when the key”: O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 368.

  481The indomitable people of Ireland: President Kennedy’s address before the Irish Parliament, June 28, 1963, JFK Library.

  482“JFK accomplished an Americanization”: AS papers, JFK Library.

  482Kennedy had come under the spell: Maier, Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings, 431.

  483“The trip meant more to him”: Tubridy, JFK in Ireland.

  Chapter 18: The Big Event

  484“a little tepid”: AS journals, Oct. 2, 1963, NYPL archives.

  484The Soviet spy “has been fully indoctrinated”: Allen W. Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 91.

  485“our desire to be ‘loved’”: Ibid., 165.

  485“massive recruitment” of Nazi war criminals: Ibid., 106.

  485he sat for a remarkable interview: NBC News special, The Science of Spying, Internet archive, www.archive.org.

  486“We’d kill him”: Bridgeport (CT) Telegram, Jan. 14, 1975.

  486“I shall have to persuade myself”: AWD letter to Cass Canfield, Oct. 15, 1961, www.foia.cia.gov.

  487“use your potent association”: Sherman Kent letter to AWD, Nov. 15, 1962, AWD papers, Mudd Library.

  487“brilliantly selective candor”: New York Times, Oct. 15, 1963.

  487“the best news I have read in a long time”: Julius Ochs Adler letter to AWD, Jan. 26, 1953, Mudd Library.

  488“We can annihilate Russia”: Fred Cook, The Warfare State (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 29.

  489“He had promised to protect them”: Robert Caro, The Passage of Power (New York: Vintage, 2013), 269.

  490“Come clean, Lyndon”: Sylvia Jukes Morris, The Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce (New York: Random House, 2014), 519.

  490“Lyndon had been very dark”: AS journals, March 21, 1963, NYPL archives.

  491“Poor Lyndon”: Ibid., Jan. 6, 1963.

  491“like being a cut dog”: Caro, Passage of Power, 205.

  491“who believes as I do”: Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy and Johnson (New York: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1968), 204.

  492Johnson had become a “political liability”: Dallas Morning News, Nov. 22, 1963.

  492“This guy looks like a bandit”: Caro, Passage of Power, 298.

  493Johnson made a strange power grab: Ibid., 170.

  494“I need you to do exactly as I say”: Saint John Hunt, Bond of Secrecy (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2012), 10.

  496“open up that whole Bay of Pigs thing”: H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (New York: Times Books, 1978), 66.

  496“I liked all those men”: Miami Herald, June 5, 2005.

  497“I can tell you that’s the biggest load of crap”: Erik Hedegaard, “The Last Confession of E. Howard Hunt,” Rolling Stone, April 2, 2007.

  498Saint John Hunt flew to Florida . . . to hear his [father’s] final testament: Saint John Hunt, Bond of Secrecy; also author interview with Saint John Hunt.

  500“Dave Morales did dirty work”: Author interview with Wayne Smith.

  500“We all admired the hell out of the guy”: Morales entry, www.spartacus-educational.com.

  500“When some asshole needed to be killed”: Author interview with Ruben Carbajal.

  500“He did whatever he was told”: Author interview with David Morales’s daughter.

  500“off-the-board” operation: Saint John Hunt, Bond of Secrecy, 43.

  501Harvey and Morales . . . “could have been manufactured”: E. Howard Hunt, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), 141.

  501“that no good son of a bitch”: Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013), 389.

  501“You’re somebody we all look up to”: Saint John Hunt, Bond of Secrecy, 45.

  502“We tried to get Harvey’s travel vouchers”: Author interview with Dan Hardway.

  505“[Hunt’s] luck has run out”: The Spotlight, August 1978.

  506“This is a thing in my mind”: Author interview with Victor Marchetti.

  507They “threw him under the bus”: Author interview with Sally Harvey.

  507“Bill always had very good opportunities”: CG Harvey letter to Bayard Stockton, Stockton papers, University of California–Santa Barbara Special Collections.

  507“It is difficult to prepare a fitness report”: William Harvey fitness report, October 1962, www.foia.cia.gov.

  Chapter 19: The Fingerprints of Intelligence

  510witness scenes of sexual exploitation: Anthony Summers, “The Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald,” Esquire (British edition), December 1993.

  511he made the thirteen-year-old the subject: Dick Russell, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins (New York: Skyhorse, 2008), 252.

  511Hartogs went on to work with Dr. Sidney Malitz: Ibid., 254.

  513“ought to be shot”: FBI interview with David Ferrie, Nov. 27, 1963, www.maryferrell.org.

  513A CIA memo titled “‘Truth Drugs’”: www.cia.gov.

  513he was one of the young marines: Martin Lee, Robert Ranftel, and Jeff Cohen, “Did Lee Harvey Oswald Drop Acid?” Rolling Stone, March 1983.

  514he had taken a “hop”: Author interview with JFK assassination researcher Mary LaFontaine.

  514There was a magical element to Oswald’s journey: Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime (New York: Open Road, 1998), 111.

  515he never could hit anything: Daniel Schorr, “From the KGB’s Oswald Files,” Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 24, 2001.

  515“an empty person”: Ibid.

  515a revealing memoir: Ernst Titovets, Oswald Russian Episode (Moscow: MonLitera, 2010).

  518“Everywhere you look”: David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (New York: Free Press, 2007), 379.

  519“I wondered why”: Newark Star-Ledger, Nov. 17, 2013.

  520“[Lee] did not know”: Russell, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, 205.

  520“a shack near Sears Roebuck”: De Mohrenschildt’s Warren Commission testimony, April 22, 1964, www.maryferrell.org.

  520“not particularly pretty”: Ibid.

  523he manhandled her: Joan Mellen, Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2102), 28.

  524put Byrd’s wife on the board: Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), 111.

  525a “very nice fellow”: George de Mohrenschildt, I Am a Patsy!, 208, aarclibrary.org.

  528“[He] was there as a distant threat”: Ibid., 215.

  529they were invited by Janet Auchincloss: Ibid., 225.

  531“not jealous of [the] Kennedys’ wealth”: Ibid., 89.

  532“Under dictatorship”: Ibid., 121.

  532“My wife and I spent”: Ibid., 270.

  532“Our phone [is] bugged”: De Mohrenschildt letter to George W. Bush, Sept. 5, 1976, www.maryferrell.org.

  533Gaeton Fonzi rolled up: Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013), 189.

  535“In spite of my faulty Russian”: Ruth Paine article, Warren Commission exhibit 460, www.maryferrell.org.

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nbsp; 535collaborated with author: Thomas Mallon, Mrs. Paine’s Garage (Orlando: Harcourt, 2002).

  536“My parents had a name for that”: Author interview with Ruth Paine.

  536“as if she were a sister”: Warren Commission exhibit 460.

  537Hyde was considered “for a covert use”: CIA memo, May 9, 1967, www.maryferrell.org.

  537Ruth’s sister, Sylvia, later went to work: See Barbara LaMonica et al., “The Paines,” as well as other Sylvia Hyde Hoke documents on www.maryferrell.org.

  538Among those invited to Naushon Island: Author interview with Ruth Paine.

  538“I was always fascinated”: MB letter to AWD, March 17, 1964, Mudd Library.

  538“I would only like to point out”: MB letter to AWD, Dec. 1, 1963, Mudd Library.

  539The conspiracy-minded would have a field day: George Michael Evica, A Certain Arrogance (Bloomington, IN: XLibris, 2006), 230.

  539the millionaire took the odd step: Wall Street Journal, Feb. 21, 2009.

  540He also belonged to the Suite 8F Group: www.spartacus-educational.com.

  540LeMay bestowed a glowing: Scroll of appreciation presented to D. H. Byrd, May 24, 1963, www.spartacus-educational.com.

  540the target of such heavy FBI and CIA pressure: Bill Simpich, “Fair Play for Cuba and the Cuban Revolution,” CounterPunch, July 24, 2009, www.counterpunch.org.

  541“to create an incident”: Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 172.

  541Oswald and Phillips were observed talking together: Author interview with Veciana. See also: Fonzi, Last Investigation, 141.

  541“I was trained by the CIA”: “Antonio Veciana Comes Clean,” Oct. 26, 2014, www.jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com.

  542“a keen operational interest”: John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2008), 392.

  543had a “maturing effect”: CIA memo from DCI to Mexico City station, Oct. 10, 1963, www.maryferrell.org. For discussion of memo, see Jefferson Morley, “Did the CIA Track Oswald Before JFK Was Killed?” Feb. 4, 2014, www.jfkfacts.org.

  543“I had never thought of him as a violent man”: Ruth Paine’s Warren Commission testimony, March 19, 1964, www.maryferrell.org.

  543“I never did discover”: Michael Paine’s Warren Commission testimony, March 18, 1964, www.maryferrell.org.

  545“I thought of going over”: Author interview with Michael Paine.

  547“The Farm was basically”: Author interview with Dan Hardway.

  547“Oh, I rated him high”: AWD OH, JFK Library.

  Chapter 20: For the Good of the Country

  549penciled in an interesting appointment: AWD calendars. Dulles placed a question mark next to Dillon’s name, perhaps indicating that the meeting—or its scheduled time—was not definite.

  550“When I appeared before them”: NBC News, The Science of Spying.

  552ran his own private intelligence network: See Gerard Colby, Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon—Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (New York: HarperCollins, 1995); and Richard Norton Smith, On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Random House, 2014).

  552David Rockefeller served with a special Army intelligence unit: David Rockefeller, Memoirs (New York: Random House, 2002), 112–21.

  553David took him to lunch in Manhattan: Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta Books, 1999), 141.

  553“I often briefed David”: Ibid., 145.

  554“I can’t begin to tell you”: Nelson Rockefeller letter to AWD, Dec. 21, 1955, Mudd Library.

  554“To say that I appreciate”: AWD reply, Jan. 16, 1956, Mudd Library.

  554asking him to pull strings: AWD letter to Laurance Rockefeller, Aug. 5, 1959, Mudd Library.

  555he dismissed Kennedy as a lightweight: Kai Bird, The Chairman: John McCloy and the Making of the Establishment (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 496.

  555“as a means of forcing you to come to terms with business”: Kennedy press conference, June 14, 1962, JFK Library video.

  556“Who is this upstart president”: Nomi Prins, All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power (New York: Nation Books, 2014), 246.

  556“an eloquent and logical articulator”: “What to Do About the Economy,” Life magazine, July 6, 1962.

  557“even if Standard Oil and David Rockefeller objected”: Richard Goodwin, Remembering America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998), 167.

  557“Neither U.S. nor Latin American businessmen”: Ibid., 204.

  557America’s reputation in Latin America as an imperial bully: David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (New York: Free Press, 2007), 62–64.

  558“We Kennedys eat Rockefellers”: Goodwin, Remembering America, 439.

  558“we moved in very different circles”: Rockefeller, Memoirs, 427.

  558“ever since I was a kid”: New York Times, Nov. 4, 1970.

  558“losing our property”: Colby, Thy Will Be Done, 313.

  559Rockefeller lashed into the president: Dallas Morning News, Nov. 14 and 17, 1963.

  559echoed in the pages of the business press: Donald Gibson, Battling Wall Street (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1994), 64–68.

  559“in their luxury bunker”: Talbot, Brothers, 275.

  560Dillon notified the president: C. Douglas Dillon memo to President Kennedy, Oct. 28, 1963, JFK Library.

  561He was supposed to be killed: Author interview with G. Robert Blakey.

  561“He was real calm”: William Weston, “The Interrogation of Oswald,” JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly 1, no. 2 (January 1996): 9–16.

  561“I was amazed”: Summers, Not in Your Lifetime (New York: Open Road, 1998), 128.

  by trying to make an intriguing phone call: Randolph Benson, “JFK, Oswald and the Raleigh Connection,” Indy Week [Raleigh, NC], Nov. 14, 2012.

  562As Simpich has detailed: Bill Simpich, “How the Warren Commission Covered Up JFK’s Murder,” Op-Ed News.com, Nov. 19, 2014.

  563“I was interrogated”: Richmond Times-Dispatch, Nov. 17, 2013.

  563As many as twenty-one law enforcement officers: JFK Facts.org, Sept. 24, 2013.

  564“The surgeons who labored”: See Charles Crenshaw, JFK: Conspiracy of Silence (New York: Signet, 1992); see also “Surgeon Who Treated JFK Remembers,” Philadelphia .cbslocal.com, Nov. 19, 2013.

  564“The list [of names] was almost a duplicate”: Talbot, Brothers, 21.

  565“What is this”: Ibid., 19.

  565Eisenhower . . . had the same reaction: Ibid.

  566The foreign press was filled with commentary: United Press International wire story, “European Press Doubts Entire Truth Revealed,” Nov. 27, 1963.

  567“What happened to Kennedy”: Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 42–45.

  568Khrushchev . . . broke down weeping: William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: Norton, 2003), 604.

  568“This is bad news”: Jean Daniel, “When Castro Heard the News,” New Republic, Dec. 7, 1963.

  569“a cloudy organism”: Washington Daily News, Jan. 3, 1964.

  569“The CIA Is Getting Out of Hand”: Sen. Eugene McCarthy, Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 4, 1964.

  570The CIA “was really HST’s baby”: AWD letter to Clark Clifford, Jan. 22, 1964, Mudd Library.

  570“deeply disturbed”: AWD letter to Truman, Jan. 7, 1964, Mudd Library.

  571“quite astounded”: AWD letter to Houston, April 21, 1964, Mudd Library.

  571“I think it was a mistake”: Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (New York: Berkley Publishing, 1986), 391.

  571“I am happy as I can be”: Hayden Peake, “Harry S. Truman on CIA Covert Operations,” Studies in Intelligence 25, no. 1 (Spring 1981): 31–41.

  572“The CIA was set up by me”: Ray McGovern, “Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?” CommonDreams.org, Dec. 29, 2009. />
  572“the two men Bobby Kennedy asked me”: Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point (New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1971), 27.

  573“lay the dust”: Warren Commission executive session, Dec. 5, 1963, www.maryferrell.org.

  573“personally persuaded”: Michael Kurtz, The JFK Assassination Debates (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 173.

  573“wanted to make sure”: Author interview with Michael Kurtz.

  574“lobbied hard for the job”: Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA (Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing, 2001), 269.

  574establishment allies like . . . Dean Rusk: Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994), 541.

  574Alsop deftly maneuvered Johnson: LBJ audiotapes, www.maryferrell.org.

  575“Whitewash”: Richard D. Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 235.

  575“I don’t think Allen Dulles ever”: Earl Warren OH, LBJ Library.

  576Dulles had “heartily” recommended: AWD letter to J. Lee Rankin, March 8, 1958, Mudd Library.

  577“A great deal of the description”: AWD memo to J. Lee Rankin, July 27, 1964, Mudd Library.

  578Rocca . . . met with Dulles: Memo from Raymond Rocca to Richard Helms, March 23, 1964, www.maryferrell.org.

  578Marguerite Oswald declared that her son: Washington Post, Feb. 13, 1964.

  579McCone . . . brought along Helms: Testimony of John McCone and Richard Helms, Warren Commission, May 14, 1964, www.maryferrell.org.

  580“one of the most fluent and self-confident”: Howard Willens, History Will Prove Us Right (New York: Overlook Press, 2013), 112.

  580“I came to like and trust”: Philip Shenon, A Cruel and Shocking Act (New York: Holt, 2013), 119.

  581a disturbing phone call: Ibid., 537.

  581“There have been many”: AWD letter to unidentified friend, May 26, 1964, Mudd Library.

  581“By George”: U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 17, 1992.

  582“I wish sometime”: AWD letter to Rebecca West, March 24, 1964, Mudd Library.