OPERATION ZIPPER:

[Randy Bednorz]

Well, Bob, I'd said that the "snake-in-a-cotton-condom" was just a snow-flake on the tip of the iceberg. Think about it. I actually stumbled onto the Building-K/Propaganda-factory and four-foot condom story first, like I said, while drooling over the young Janet Leigh. [And that voice! Listen to the way she sooths the PTSD-stricken "Col. Ben Marco" -- Frank Sinatra . . . while they're riding on the train . . . ] After that, the Anaconda anecdote.Anyone could argue "This isn't conclusive proof of anything." But it gets much, much better. Soon, the Red Dragon will take off his bathrobe and reveal his tattoo. . . . Too many consistent "coincidences" and insinuations are not coincidental for their consistency.

[Bob]

JanetJamie Lee ain't so bad either!

[ThomZajac]

I'm no expert, but I've got to think there is something here-

[Phil Dragoo]

Dick Condon. You were suggesting Phillips' mother was Angela Lansbury.Helms was with the Indianapolis Times. Now defunct. As the Indianapolis News whose editor M. Stanton Evans Ann Coulter called the greatest living authority on McCarthy.Indianapolis, home to Welch Candy Company, Robert Welch, founder of John Birch Society.Way-station on the Road to Jonestown.Angleton eager to paint the JFK assassination as a Soviet operation, hence his brutal treatment of Yuri I. Nosenko whose report the KGB wrote off Oswald as unstable was a hundred eighty degrees out of phase.Fonzi's narrative of Veciana and Maurice Bishop is fascinating. Veciana being taken to Texas to witness Bishop with Oswald.There is in Dulles & Dulles the sense of ownership, is there not. And you refer to the Ivy League aristocratic attitude. Hunt's deathbed deflection of blame to LBJ, claiming Johnson put Cord Meyer on it, implicating the foreign assassin.Deflecting, deflecting.I've seen Charles Drago use the term dramatic construct; that he and Evica used that term.You indicate a fondness for dramatic creation on the part of all the author-actors, Phillips, Hunt, and re Condon and the film trailer interview with Sinatra.I caught that aversion in Sinatra. Look who went down on the run up to HSCA. Badda bing, badda boom, left the building, left the room.Danny Aiello after Ruby said he didn't believe all that conspiracy stuff.Standing in the shadow of Nuremberg is no time to come out as a nay-sayer.You're suggesting the assassination was a backstage bit among the repertoire company at the Langley Academy of the Arts.Vidal, Gore; The Art and Arts of Howard Hunt.

[Bob]

ThomZajac wrote:I'm no expert, but I've got to think there is something here-You'll get no argument from me! That is a nice comparison compilation with the two photos and the drawing Thom. Nice work! Check out the eyebrows, mouth, chin and other similar features in the photos. It sure looks like the same guy.

[ThomZajac]

There's a Pulitzer in your future, Bob. (Too bad about your Packers though).

[Bob]

ThomZajac wrote:There's a Pulitzer in your future, Bob. (Too bad about your Packers though).I don't know about that Thom, but I know some people would describe me by taking a few letters out of Pulitzer...As being a real putz.

[Randy Bednorz]

Dragoo: "You're suggesting the assassination was a backstage bit among the repertoire company at the Langley Academy of the Arts."That's no foul ball. And when I read Mrs. Phillips' letter, the parallel sort of jumped out at me. There are things about this that are potently suggestive, but so liquid in their connections that the specifics are hard to fathom.Around 2003, San Francisco Chronicle published an article by a literary analyst about Richard Condon.She said that research indicated that Condon was a master plagiarist. For instance, she pulls a paragraph from "Manchurian" to show how it was taken from a paragraph in Gibbons' "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." She describes a Condon sitting by a coffee-table piled with books, scribbling away at the drafts for his books. And from there, a bulging set of possibilities present themselves. They even amplify, from what I'm going to discuss now.The Station Chief at Havana during 1954 -- an identity whom I need to research further -- may have been Helms. Even if it wasn't Helms, Helms was posted in Havana that year, and Phillips is effusive with anecdotes describing personal exploits with him.At Langley, Wisner was developing something called "The Mighty Wurlitzer" -- a euphemism for a worldwide propaganda network that would enable the Director of what had been called variously "Clandestine Operations" or "Directorate of Plans" to call up any number of news-editors and media people around the world to publish . . . . anything.In passing, it is extremely important -- I say this with emphasis -- that Helms' 2003 memoir "A Look Over My Shoulder," bears no mention anywhere of Phillips. Not in the Index. Not in footnotes. Not in text -- anywhere. Yet the footnotes, text and index references just about every other CIA author -- Bissell, Hunt, Meyer and others -- of that time. He is especially descriptive of Hunt's literary accomplishments. He said that he kept boxes of Hunt's spy novels in his office to give out to visitors up to the time he was awakened at 3AM with a call that Hunt had been arrested at the Watergate. And as I've said, Hunt and Phillips "go way back." From Phillips, I get the impression that the older Hunt was a sort of father-figure or big brother. PHillips looked up to him. He aspired to Hunt's publishing record.The 1954 Station Chief was close friends with Hemingway. And I'll be jumping all over the chronology here, but things bear mention.In my readings, I stumbled across "Texas Monthly" -- Dallas' local version of the "Washingtonian" -- as a useful source. They had published a "35th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination" issue in November, 1998. It was bulging with summaries and comparisons of the "theories," stories about Roscoe White and missing diaries, interviews with Perry Russo. It was a treasure-trove, for a magazine of that size. I chose to get a subscription.As I started plumbing for more information about Condon, I stumbled across a link to Texas Monthly and a reference to an article published in August, 1994. I wanted to download that article. Well, the Texas Monthly archives went back to the late 1980s. When I found the August, 1994 volume, I discovered that among all the years and months in the archive, it was the only one missing -- from the late 80's to around 2001. There was no link. there was no download. You had to write or telephone the magazine's offices and order it."The Don of Dallas" was an interview with Condon. He described meeting with Hemingway, and there was a chillness in the air. It must have been winter in Havana. Hemingway loaned Condon his sport-coat, and Condon quotes himself saying "I'm proud to wear the mantle of Ernest Hemingway."Later, toward the end of the article, Condon is asked "Who do you think killed JFK?" And instead of saying "Oswald" or "The Mafia" -- mythical cover stories that well may be half-true -- he says "I think the CIA did it."Now, do you remember a crime drama featuring Gwenyth Paltrow, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey, entitled "Seven?" I think it was released in 1997. Indulge me here: the nuns told me in grade-school that movies and TV would rot my mind. I went to three great state universities, and spent all my adult life surrounded with books. I would feel guilty in my days of working when I watched more than TV news. So in retirement, I've taken to watching a lot of cinema. I can't even count the number of films that I've seen 15 or 20 times. And it is especially -- especially important, in this discussion, that we are able to separate fiction from reality, even as we may think we've uncovered a connection between fiction and reality with a broader view of things like public opinion, psychological warfare and media.As for "Seven," I only bring it up as an instance where fiction may reflect reality. And there is a scene where Pitt and Freeman are scouring for a hook to the identification of the "John Doe" serial-killer (Spacey). They meet with an FBI asset in a coffee-shop, hand him a list of books and some money for his trouble, and hasten him off to a local public library.So I wonder about that missing issue of Texas Monthly, August, 1994, and the effort I made to place an order for a xerox of it.I have self-knowledge, and it tempers my behavior and judgment with my understanding that I'm a bit paranoid.Back to Phillips. Based on his rambling narrative, it seems as though the work he described at Building K -- the propaganda-shop -- may have had a more widespread and pervasive use of agency resources. Phillips had been posted in Lebanon after the stint in Havana, making trips around the Mediterranean to France and Spain. Another important fact: he'd become an art-lover, visiting the Prado Gallery, and, most likely, La Quinta del Sordo -- "house of the deaf man" -- Francisco Goya's home with its wall paintings. Later, in Mexico City, Phillips would develop his knowledge of art history with paintings of the revolutionary period.In Lebanon, he met William Peter Blatty, and was asked to proof-read the draft for "The Exorcist." Certainly, this wasn't part of a classified project, as Phillips just candidly describes it.But since we're talking about Lebanon, let me offer you this page. It is an anecdote with symbols and images about cover-stories and the relationship between a concentrated industry and the National Security apparatus. Make sure you take in the footnote:

[Randy Bednorz]

This could be an "EDIT" to my previous post, and I don't like posting twice in a row. It seems . . . impolite . . . But I re-examined Dragoo's remark: " . . . You're suggesting the assassination was a backstage bit . . " to a Langley Theater production. I think that's the wrong way to characterize it. You can go back and read the Ellul passage about pre-propaganda and propaganda of action. Ellul develops that pairing much more thoroughly in subsequent pages, and the mass-psychology it addresses. I may already have mentioned a book published in the late '60s -- a psychologist's study about the impact of the assassination on small children.For my generation? I was 16 in 1963. Bob Dylan: "You think somethin's happenin' . . . but you don' know what it is . . . do you? Mis-ter Jones!"Let's take a scalpel to the dark underbelly of psychological warfare, psychological shock. You could even dovetail this with a foray into "post traumatic stress disorder." Or I could post a story by my New York Vietnam veteran friend, about the same repetitive dream he has with the sound of a .45 going off. The dream proceeds through a convoy mission in Kontum province, with the boys passing a joint around, playful -- friendly banter -- backslapping. Everything about the dialog suggests a real "band of brothers." It culminates with blood and body parts everywhere -- "What are we? Balloons filled with blood?" My friend was waking up screaming in puddles of sweat at 3AM as late as 1996 -- at one time, camped out under a freeway for six weeks, his family fraught with anxiety about his whereabouts.The Church Committee unearthed some 200-plus assassination projects emanating from Langley over several years. It would seem that such an ambitious undertaking would involve carefully constructed cover-stories -- for effect. And the page I should've added -- and will do so later -- following the "giant condom" joke, spoke to a "condom-factory in Brazil, sold by Colonel J.C. King to Johnson and Johnson." An overt reference to the pharmaceutical company, but I can see people scoot to the edge of their chairs about some sort of confirmation of the Barr McClellan research.The important thing, though, is there had to be a veritable "factory."Let's imagine you're on the local city council.Debate is rising about zoning ordinances for dirty book stores. And some of these dirty book stores feature dirty books showing naked, 70-year-old ladies.A media campaign picks up, citing repetitively that these dirty books showing naked old ladies have increased the instance of old-lady-rapes. And -- maybe -- this media campaign is really being run by some "special-interests" who want to buy certain properties -- properties currently developed as dirty-book-stores featuring dirty books of naked old ladies.They know you're a city-councilman -- there's going to be a vote soon . . . You live with your elderly, 70-year-old spinster-sister. One day, you come home, and there's sis blasted to pieces, body parts everywhere, blood everywhere. The police -- possibly under the thumb of the group eagerly awaiting some great commercial property bargains -- apprehend some guy. Lo and behold! They discover a cache of magazines featuring naked old ladies in his closet.The guy is greeted by the press, and stammers "I'm just a patsy! I'm just a patsy! I don't even like looking at pictures of naked 70-year-old women!"The Mayor pounds his gavel. You're still mourning your sister. Here comes the vote . . . .

[Bob]

VERY interesting dissertation again Randy. I'm still trying to soak it all up. Speaking of soaking, this sort of reminds me of a scene in Blazing Saddles. It's the scene where Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) is taking a bath while Taggart (Slim Pickens) is scrubbing his back with a back brush...Lamarr: "My mind is a raging torrent flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives."Taggert: "Goldarn it, Mr. Lamarr...you use your tongue prettier than a $20 whore."Here is that classic scene from that classic movie...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C35Zhdk2V4UBottom line Randy...I appreciate your perspective. It certainly means truly thinking out of the box."Y'all got to get into your minds how the spooks think. They're not ordinary crooks. Think the unthinkable. Question everything. We're through the looking glass here, people. White is black and black is white." - Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison in JFK