Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (79 page)

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.

38
. “Memo on the Oswald Case,” M. D. Stevens of the CIA to Chief/Research Branch/SRS/OS, December30, 1963, based on Stevens’s review of files, including State Department cables (NARA record number: 1993.08.17.09:41:50:590064). In the HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation. The State Department maintained an interest in Marina Oswald, who was a Soviet alien seeking U.S. citizenship.

39
. Testimony of George A. Bouhe, Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. 8, p. 371.

40
. House Select Committee on Assassinations, FBI file on George de Mohrenschildt, document,section 8, 100-32965-251, pp. 23–25. Found by researcher Bruce Campbell Adamson.

41
. Letter from George de Mohrenschildt to John F. Kennedy, February 16, 1963. Found by researcher Bruce Campbell Adamson at John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, Massachusetts.

42
. The club’s members at that time included David Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney, publisher of the
New York Herald Tribune.

43
. Multiple government debriefing documents available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation. See NARA records 104-10436-10014 and 104-10070-10076.

44
. HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, box 14, “Contact Report WUBRINY Haitian Operations” (NARA record number 104-10070-10076). Available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation.

45
. Though Devine is not identified by name in this document, he is in another CIA document: “Memorandum: MESSRS. George Bush and Thomas J. Devine,” January 30, 1968 (NARA record number 104-10310-10271). Available through Mary Ferrell Foundation. That document identifies Devine specifically as working in operation BRINY and claims that he began working in this capacity that June. No documents have surfaced showing anyone else being part of the very small operation WUBRINY. Indeed, all the available evidence indicates that Devine was the main or even only member of WUBRINY, and therefore the person code-named WUBRINY/1, the designated top dog of the operation. If, in fact, Devine and WUBRINY/1 were synonymous, then the CIA memo noting that Devine joined WUBRINY in June was in itself an attempt to hide the involvement of Poppy’s business associate in the April meetings with de Mohrenschildt.

46
. Author interview with Thomas Devine, September 4, 2008; author interview with Gale Allen,September 15, 2008.

47
. When George de Mohrenschildt came to Washington, he was accompanied by his wife Jeanne. LBJ’s private secretary at the time of their visit was Marie Fehmer. According to Marie Fehmer’s oral history, she was recruited to be Vice President Johnson’s secretary in 1962, directly from her college sorority. She claimed not to have known him, to be surprised by the offer, and to be somewhat reluctant to accept it (see Marie Fehmer oral history interview, August 16, 1972, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas). But she was not unconnected herself. Her father, Ray, worked for D. Harold Byrd’s military contracting firm LTV. And her mother, Olga, worked at Nardis Sportswear with Jeanne de Mohrenschildt and Abraham Zapruder. After working for LBJ, Marie Fehmer joined the CIA, where she became one of the top female supervisors; see William Marvin Watson with Sherwin Markman,
Chief of
Staff: Lyndon Johnson and His Presidency
(New York: Macmillan, 2004), p. 39.

48
. Correspondence from Walter Jenkins to George de Mohrenschildt, April 18, 1963, De Mohrenschildt file, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas.

49
. Pete Brewton,
The Mafia, CIA & George Bush
(New York: S.P.I., 1992), p. 194.

50
. Matlack had been a longtime aide to General Edward Landsdale, a top counterinsurgency figureand intelligence officer deeply involved in anti-Castro operations. (See chapter 16 for more on Lansdale.)

51
. Russell,
The Man Who Knew Too Much
, p. 305.