Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years
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23. Niarchos personally won Dulles over when the director stopped in Athens to visit Ulmer as part of a secret 1956 “world tour” of CIA stations. Dulles was treated to a weekend on Niarchos’s 190-foot yacht. Niarchos introduced the bonvivant Dulles to the willful and alluring Queen Frederika of Greece (granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm) and made his yacht available to them for their private purposes. See Grose, Gentleman Spy, pp. 430, 452.
24. Peter Evans, Nemesis (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 140.
25. Grose, Gentleman Spy, p. 452.
26. James Presley, Never in Doubt: A History of Delta Drilling Company (Houston: Gulf, 1981), pp. 41–45.
27. Author interview with Keating Zeppa, February 3, 2007.
28. The FBI document is available at the Assassination Archives Research Center on page 14 of this longer file: www.aarclibrary.org/notices/Affidavit_of_George_William_Bush_880921.pdf 29. Author interview with Kearney Reynolds, March 4, 2007.
30. This cannot be corroborated, as no relevant Secret Service records have been publicly released.
31. Telephone interview with James Parrott conducted by independent researcher Bruce Campbell Adamson, May 31, 1993.
32. Steve Berg, “Republicans Tear Into Clinton; Family Values Issue Widens Cultural Gap,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, August 19, 1992.
5: OSWALD’S FRIEND
1. Letter from de Mohrenschildt to Bush, available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation Web site(www.maryferrell.org). It includes the official routing slip where Bush checks “yes” after “do you know this individual?” (104-10414-10013). Also available is a memorandum from Inspector General John Waller to Bush summarizing what is in the CIA files on de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10378); and a letter from Bush to de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10134).
2. Associated Press, “Russian-Born Society Figure Knew Kennedy’s Family and His Assassin,” Washington Post, November 25, 1964.
3. Norman Mailer, Oswald’s Tale (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 458.
4. George de Mohrenschildt’s family were Russian nobility of Swedish and German extraction; de Mohrenschildt de-Germanized his name upon immigrating to the United States.
5. David L. Francis, former mayor of St. Louis and governor of Missouri.
6. Serving with Samuel Bush on the War Industries Board was Robert S. Lovett, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, chief counsel to E. H. Harriman, and executor of Harriman’s will. Lovett had been in the Texas law firm of the family of future secretary of state and Middle East envoy James Baker. Lovett’s son, Robert A. Lovett, would go on to become an important figure in the Bush saga, as a business partner with Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman, and during World War II, as an aide to Ambassador Harriman in Moscow. Under Harry S Truman, he would be instrumental in the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency.
7. Mrs. Harriman’s late husband was a cousin, major financier, and business associate of E. H. Harriman,whose sons, Averell and Roland Harriman, were Skull and Bones mates and later business partners of Prescott Bush, and employers of Prescott’s father-in-law, George Herbert Walker.
8. Steve LeVine, The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 34.
9. Dimitri called himself von Mohrenschildt, while George, who didn’t find the German appendage useful in America, went by de Mohrenschildt.
10. Obituary of Edward G. Hooker, New York Times, March 30, 1967.
11. From the University of Liège, Belgium, 1938.
12. Long before he headed up the CIA, Dulles had revealed his consummate skill in government service, which included a stint at the U.S. embassy in Istanbul at the time the United States was trying to wedge its way into the now-defeated Ottoman Empire—whose former oil properties in Mesopotamia (Iraq) were the subject of intense international competition following World War I—and in Washington as chief of the Near East desk at the State Department. He would also serve as an adviser on German war reparations. During his trips to Europe as a lawyer, Dulles gathered intelligence on political conditions. Switching between public and private service seemed to come naturally to him, particularly when it involved carry ing out intelligence work.
13. Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), p. 147.
14. Serge Obolensky, One Man in His Time (London: Hutchinson, 1960).
15. William F. Buckley Sr. had started Pantepec in Mexico in 1914. After he resisted restrictions placed on American oil companies and land ownership by the Mexican Constitution of 1917, Buckley Sr. was expelled in 1921 by Mexican president Álvaro Obregón. The Mexicans suspected Buckley of working with other American corporate figures to topple the government.
16. David A. Andelman, A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today (New York: Wiley, 2007).
17. Warren Commission testimony, p. 267.
18. Other members included Clint Murchison (employer of George de Mohrenschildt and friend of J. Edgar Hoover), Fred Florence (executive of the CIA-controlled Republic National Bank), oilman H. L. Hunt (business associate and friend of Murchison and a staunch anti-Communist), Bernard L. Gold (owner of Nardis Sportswear, which employed both Abraham Zapruder and Mrs. George de Mohrenschildt), and R. Gerald Storey (later, chief of the JFK assassination investigation in Texas).
19. Letter from Senator Prescott Bush to Eisenhower national security aide and cold war propaganda expert C. D. Jackson, dated March 26, 1953. Found in a footnote to Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro (New York: Harper Collins, 1981).
20. Though the couple divorced in 1973, they remained close until de Mohrenschildt’s death in 1977.
21. As a one-paragraph article with a Havana dateline buried in the New York Times of June 14, 1954, noted: “Interest in the possibility of petroleum production in Cuba increased here today with the announcement that a group of American oil operators would start a series of wells within ninety days. The announcement said these operators, from Texas and California, had signed a contract to drill exploratory wells on leases of the Transcuba Oil Company and the Cuban Venezuelan oil voting trust.”
Eighteen months later, on January 4, 1956, the Times reported:
Cuba’s hopes of taking her place among the oil producing nations of the world are rising slowly. There has been no spectacular strike but the steady increase in production from small wells and the inflow of capital for exploration work is highly encouraging.
Oilmen from Texas, Oklahoma and California in particular are appearing in Cuba in increasing numbers. Various small companies and some with considerable resources have been formed.
Last September the Stanolind Oil and Gas Company (Standard Oil of Indiana) signed a contract with Trans-Cuba Oil Company and the Cuban-Venezuelan Oil Voting Trust in Havana, which have large holdings. The Stanolind will spend $2,000,000 yearly in exploration and drilling during the next five years. It is estimated that investors will have committed $25,000,000 for exploration work during the next two years.
22. Back in the 1930s, Lansky had hit upon the Caribbean as a perfect place to launder illegal profits for mob bosses from the Northeast. He funneled the cash into a wide range of gambling ventures, hotels, and other businesses, as well as the drug trade, and became close to the Cuban authorities. For more, see Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1991).
23. During the first six months of 1955, Cuba produced 151,122 barrels of oil, three times the production of the previous year. October 1955 saw daily production running more than 50 percent above the average for the first half of the year. “Rise in Domestic Oil Flow Bolsters Cuba; Exploratory Capital Pouring into Island,” New York Times, January 5, 1956.
24. “Oil Drilling Deal Set,” New York Times, November 30, 1956.
25. “Cuban-Venezuelan Unit Chooses Trustee,” New York Times, May 14, 1956.
26. Stephen Birming
ham, Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 409–410.
27. Empire Trust corporate filings with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, as of 1966.
28. Henry Brunie, Empire Trust’s president, was a best friend of and served as best man at the wedding of Warren Commission member John J. McCloy.
29. John A. “Jack” Crichton interview, July 6, 2001, Oral History Collection, Sixth Floor Museum,Dallas.
30. The 488th Army Intelligence Detachment.
31. R. Hart Phillips, “Cuba Limits Search for Oil; Nationalization Step Seen,” New York Times, November 22, 1959.
32. These refineries were not affected, however, since most of the oil they refined came from other countries. Much of it, in fact, came from Venezuela.
33. William A. Doyle, “The Daily Investor,” Portsmouth Herald (New Hampshire), August 14, 1961.
34. John Kouwenhoven, Partners in Banking: An Historical Portrait of a Great Private Bank, Brown Brothers, Harriman & Co., 1818–1968 (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1983 reprint), p. 206.
35. Erik Hedegaard, “The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt,” Rolling Stone, April 5, 2007.
36. Fabian Escalante, The Cuba Project: CIA Covert Operations, 1959–62 (Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press, 2004), p. 44. The book was originally published in Spanish in 1993; the first English-language version was published in 1995. It should be noted that the book does contain mistakes and exaggerations—for example, Prescott Bush is referred to as “Preston,” and he is given almost singular credit for the rise of Eisenhower and Nixon to the presidency. While that was certainly an oversimplification, as we shall see, in fact Prescott Bush and his friends did play a crucial if little-known role in the rise of both men. See also John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995), p. 115.
37. As her husband told the Warren Commission, Mrs. de Mohrenschildt managed to clear Mikoyan's extensive security and exchange pleasantries with the Communist official on board his plane before takeoff; she claimed to have told him he would be welcome in the United States at any time.
6: THE HIT
1. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p. 103.
2. George Bush, Looking Forward (New York: Doubleday, 1987), p. 87. All he says is, “When President Kennedy came to Dallas on November 22, 1963, it took all his powers of persuasion just to get his Vice President and the Democratic senator from Texas to shake hands.”
3. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), p. 524.
4. Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, Seven Days in May (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).
5. Frankenheimer also directed the film adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate, Richard Condon’s novel about a brainwashed assassin stalking a president.
6. David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (New York: Free Press, 2007), p. 148.
7. Laurence Leamer, The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963 (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), p. 438.
8. For a full description of how Kennedy’s policies aggravated Rockefeller interests in Latin America,see Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), especially chapter 27, “Camelot Versus Pocantico: The Decline and Fall of John F. Kennedy,” pp. 396–420.
9. JFK to Walter Heller, September 12, 1963, audiotape 110.3 transcript, Presidential Recordings, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, Massachusetts. Cited in Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 622.
10. Many prominent oilmen, including Robert Kerr and D. Harold Byrd, were involved with uranium mining.
11. Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 160. Scott quotes a Ku Klux Klan organizer saying, in 1961, that “half of the police force in Dallas were members of the KKK.”
12. Jack Langguth, “Group of Businessmen Rules Dallas Without a Mandate from the Voters,” New York Times, January 19, 1964.
13. Burton Hersh, Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2007), pp. 162–64.
14. Kennedy ordered FBI interviews at the offices of several steel executives who, by raising their prices, had gone against a pact with unions to protect workers’ job security in return for the unions’ not making demands for higher wages. Kennedy asked the steel executives how they could expect workers to forgo raises when the companies were raising prices. The companies quickly repealed their price increases as a result of the intimidation. See Michael O’Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 2004), pp. 643–45.
15. “The New Athenians,” Time, May 24, 1954.
16. William Denslow, 10,000 Famous Freemasons, with a foreword by Harry S Truman (Metairie, LA: Cornerstone Book Publishers, reprint 2004).
17. The company’s practices would draw public attention years later with the release of the film Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep as Karen Silkwood, the factory activist who died in a mysterious car crash on her way to hand a reporter documents about the uranium-related deaths of Kerr-McGee workers.
18. Robert Baker and Larry L. King, Wheeling and Dealing: Confessions of a Capitol Hill Operator (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), pp. 123–26.
19. Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 142.
20. Thomas Petzinger Jr., Oil & Honor: The Texaco-Pennzoil Wars (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987), p. 38.
21. Oral history interview with George C. McGhee, June 11, 1975, Harry S Truman Library and Museum,Independence, Missouri.
22. Ibid.
23. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 438.
24. Adam Bernstein, “George C. McGhee Dies; Oilman, Diplomat,” Washington Post, July 6, 2005.
25. Bruce Campbell Adamson, Oswald’s Closest Friend: The George de Mohrenschildt Story (Santa Cruz, CA: privately printed, 1996), vol. 2, p. 6.
26. Scott, Deep Politics, p. 249.
27. House Select Committee on Assassinations, vol. 9, pp. 103–115. Available through the MaryFerrell Foundation.
28. National Geographic, May 1956, p. 665.
29. “Memo: Meeting with HSCA Staffers” (NARA record number 104-10066-10201). Available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
30. Testimony of George A. Bouhe, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 8, pp. 369, 374.
31. Photo accompanying a Newspaper Enterprise Association feature story on Lady Bird Johnson,as published August 15, 1963, in the Evening Tribune (Albert Lea, MN).
32. Allen W. Dulles Papers: Digital File Series, 1939–77. Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, NJ.
33. Raymond L. Garthoff, A Journey Through the Cold War: A Memoir of Containment and Coexistence (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001), p. 193.
34. Scott, Deep Politics, p. 31.
35. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 9, p. 235. Available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
36. Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hired to Kill Oswald and Prevent the Assassination of JFK (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003), p. 168.
37. Edward Jay Epstein, The Assassination Chronicles: Inquest, Counterplot, and Legend (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), p. 558.