Monday, October 26, 2015

Valkyrie at Dealey Plaza Re-visited

Valkyrie at Dealey Plaza Re-visited - Bill Kelly

Image result for Valkyrie Hitler


David Talbot's new book "The Devil's. Chessboard" mentions the role Allen Dulles and his agent-mistress Mary Bancroft played in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler.

The significance of this has yet to be fully drawn out but the recurring Valkyrie theme that runs through the JFK assassination narrative certainly merits further scrutiny.


As I mention in my review of  "Devil's Chessboard" [http://JFKCountercoup.blogspot.com], [1] when it comes to killing Castro the CIA-Mafia plots get the most attention while the Valkyrie plot has been ignored despite its numerous direct ties to what happened at Dealey Plaza, beginning with Lee Harvey Oswald and Volkmar Schmidt.

It was at a party at Schmidt's Dallas home in February 1963 that George deMohrenschildts set up specifically for Oswald to meet Michael Paine when Schmidt says he talked privately with Oswald and first brought up the subject of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler.

In a phone conversation Schmidt told me that while talking with Oswald he used a reverse psychology technique he learned from a German doctor who knew some of those involved in the Valkyrie plot, and Schmidt actually mentioned the Valkyrie plot to Oswald.[2]

While discussing right-wing general Walker, Schmidt said he compared Walker to Hitler and asked if Hitler had been assassinated how different the world would be? Schmidt implied Walker should be killed before he became another Hitler.

Born in Germany and raised in his formative years by the German doctor, Schmidt was - like George  deMohrenschilts, an oil geologist. Schmidt was was recruited in Germany by Magnolia Oil company of Dallas - the company that used the red Pegasus sign as its logo and later merged with major conglomerates.

Schmidt told me that when he learned that Oswald had taken a shot at Walker and killed JFK he felt terribly guilty, especially every time he drove through Dealey Plaza, as he believed he was responsible for planting the assassination seed in Oswald's mind.


Schmidt told me that he felt responsible saying, "naturally it was a terrible responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had to cry because, you know. But I exonerate myself completely because I had the best intent, embarrassed Kennedy...I may have triggered it. Actually, a few days after I talked with him, he bought his weapons."

Shortly after the Walker incident Oswald packed up all his family belongings, including the rifle said to have been used to shoot at Walker, and was about to suddenly and unexpectedly move his family to his home town of New Orleans. But Mrs. Paine, who was driving them to the bus station, suggested Marina and the daughter should stay with her in Texas while Oswald went on alone to New Orleans, find a job and apartment and then she would drive them there when he was settled in.[3]

And that he did, getting a job at Riely Coffee and an apartment on Magazine Street while reconnecting with his mother's sister aunt Muriel and uncle Dutz Murret.

Ruth Paine then drove Marina, the daughter and the Oswald's belongings, including the rifle, to New Orleans.

After an interesting and eventful summer in the Crescent City, the Oswalds considered returning to Texas. Ruth Paine wrote to the pregnant Marina and invited her to come and live with her in Texas until she had the baby. If she agreed, Ruth Paine wrote, Marina should write her a letter in care of Arthur Young, Paoli, Pennsylvania, where she would be visiting her husband's mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young. [4]

Ruth Paine was on a summer station wagon vacation with her kids driving to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C.  and Ohio visiting friends and family. Ruth wrote to Marina saying if she agreed to move in with her in the return letter she would pick Marina up in New Orleans and take her to Texas while Oswald went to look for work in Philadelphia.

One of the places Ruth Paine visited on the trip was the Forbes family Island off Massachusetts before driving to the suburban Philadelphia farm of her husband Michael's mother.[5]

An eccentric heiress and humanitarian member of Cord Meyer's World Federalists - Ruth Forbes Paine had married the equally eccentric Arthur Young, genius inventor of the Bell Helicopter 47A - the MASH helicopter with glass bubble and girders.[6]

Arthur Young got his son-in-law Michael Paine a job at Bell Helicopter in Texas,  and it was in care of Arthur Young that Marina wrote to Ruth Hyde Paine agreeing to the new arrangements - she would go to Texas to have the baby and wait for Ruth Paine to pick her up in New Orleans.

Most significant however is Michael's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young's association with Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles's agent and mistress who was intimately involved in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler.[7]

In the late 1930s Ruth Forbes Paine traveled with Mary Bancroft on a steamship to Europe when Bancroft met a Swiss businessman who she would marry, putting her in position, when the Second World War broke out, to meet and work with Allen Dulles.

While working with Dulles, the top OSS chef in Europe, Bancroft met Hans B. Gisevius, a Nazi officer who was involved in the Valkyrie plot.

Years in the making the Valkyrie assassination and coup plan stemmed mainly from disgruntled military officers and it fell to Claus Von Stauffenberg to carry out, leaving a briefcase bomb under a map table next to Hitler in the Wolfsschanze Eagles Lair bunker in Bavaria.

Dulles and Gisevius had opposed the use of a bomb, preferring a pistol up close or a sniper in a motorcade ambush as more likely to succeed and their fears proved true. 
Gisevius  supported the coup but was against the bomb plot. He told Von Stauffenberg "I just I have the feeling we'll never succeed. I'm not speaking through fear. But I have a feeling very few of us will be alive this time next year, regardless of what happens with your bomb.">The bomb failed to kill Hitler and hundreds, some say thousands were subsequently rounded up and executed, but Gisevius escaped with the assistance of Bancroft and Dulles, who provided him with fake credentials.

After the war Bancroft translated Gisevius' account of the Third Reich and after Gisevius testified against the Nazi leadership at Nuremberg, Dulles brought him to Washington as a CIA consultant. In Washington Dulles arranged for the ex-Nazi officer to stay with his deputy Tom Braden, who lived with his wife and their eight kids in a big house next to RFK's Hickory Hill. Braden would write a book Eight Is Enough that would be made into a popular family TV show and pattern for The Brady Bunch, and an episode on the ex-Nazi living with all those kids would certainly be entertaining. As Talbot notes, Braden also interviewed Allen Dulles for the Kennedy Library. [9]

So after visiting Michael's mother, Mary Bancroft's good friend in Philadelphia, where Ruth Paine got Marina's letter, she drove to DC and visited her sister, who worked at the CIA, and then went on to Ohio to see her father before picking up Marina in New Orleans. [10]

Arriving in New Orleans in late September Ruth Paine stayed the night and the next day took Marina, the daughter and the Oswald's belongings including the rifle and drove them to Texas. Early the following morning Oswald slipped out  town and went to Mexico City to visit the Cuban and Soviet embassies.

The same September 25th day in Washington DC CIA officer Desmond Fitzgerald briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  temporarily chaired by Air Force Chief Gen. Curtis LeMay while Gen. Taylor was in Vietnam.

Fitzgerald reported to the Joint Chiefs on the CIA's Cuban covert operations with emphasis on how the military could support them, an assignment given USMC Gen. Krulak, whose aide Colonel Higgins was in attendance. Higgins' memo of the meeting, released under the JFK Act, includes the bullet point that Fitzgerald mentioned the CIA was studying the Valkyrie plot and adapting it to use against Castro.[11]

September 24-25, 1963 was a busy time on the Devil's Chessboard as there were many moves by key players besides Ruth Paine moving Marina and the rifle to Texas, Oswald leaving for Mexico and Fitzgerald briefing the Joint Chiefs.

JFK signed National Security Action Memo approving "Project Four Leaves," a military communications order that remains classified. [12]


JFK then he left on a "Conservation Tour," first stop in northeast Pennsylvania to visit Mary Pinchot Meyer's mother in Milford, Pennsylvania. Mary Pinchot had met JFK thru his college schoolmate William Attwood, who would later become an intermediary between JFK and Castro, before she married Cord Meyer.  Meyer was an ex-Marine who founded the World Federalists in support of a strong United Nations, an organization that included Philadelphia college student Priscilla Johnson and Ruth Forbes Paine Young, Michael's mom and Mary Bancroft's good friend. [13]

Cord Meyer joined the CIA in 1951 and became one of Dulles' top deputies, eventually replacing Tom Braden as chief of the International Organizations Division.

While Mary Meyer had separated from Cord Meyer, she maintained her friendship with JFK and she accompanied him on the first leg of the September Conservation Tour that took JFK to her mother's house. Then JFK moved on to the Mid-West during which the details of the president's November trip to Texas were announced.

When Oswald returned to Texas from Mexico Ruth Paine helped arrange for him to get a job at the Texas School Book Depository, a building owned by D.H. Byrd, a founder of the Civil Air Patrol in Texas, an organization Oswald was affiliated with in New Orleans.

Byrd was good friends with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay, and at the time of the assassination, when Oswald was allegedly shooting at president Kennedy from his building, Byrd was on an African Safari with a German Barron whose father (same name), according to one OSS document source, was an assassination expert after WWI and the son an avid supporter of the Valkyrie plot who wrote a manifesto on the plot after it failed. [14]

There are a half dozen references to the Valkyrie plot in the natural course of the JFK assassination narrative, which requires further, more in-depth analysis as it relates to what happened at Dealey Plaza.

Washington attorney Jim Lesar, director of the Assassinations Archive and Research Center, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CIA documents related to the CIA study of the Valkyrie plot that was to be used against Castro, as mentioned in the Higgins Memo.

Until we get these records however, we can see for our selves how the CIA tried to adapt the Valkyrie plan to be used against Castro, as they did try to recruit some disenchanted Cuban military officers who were close to Castro including Rolando Cubella (AMLASH) and Gen. Almeida, both of whom have been extensively reviewed and analyzed elsewhere.

Among the differences in the Valkyrie plan and the post-Mafia plots to kill Castro we find that the idea of using a bomb was discarded in favor of a sniper attack on Castro while he was riding in an open Jeep, a common situation.

Other aspects of the Valkyrie plan that were adopted besides the murder of Castro and the take over of the Cuban government was the Northwoods style psych-war media campaign to blame the assassination on communists.

When news of the CIA's plans to kill Castro were made public it was at first suggested that Castro retaliated and killed JFK before the CIA could kill him, but others claimed it was more likely that one of the CIA plans to kill Castro was redirected to kill JFK instead. If that was the case then it must have been a CIA plan that utilized a sniper attack on an open car motorcade, one of a number the CIA had on the shelf ready to go, waiting for the right situation to present itself.

Among the CIA plans to kill Castro that utilized snipers attacking an open car in a motorcade were the Hemingway House affair - discussions after the fact, and the Pathfinder plan to shoot Castro when he visited a north shore resort he was known to frequent.

Both required accurate high powered rifles with scopes, similar to the ones they attempted to infiltrate into Cuba on October 31, 1963 when the CIA raider ship The Rex deposited anti-Castro commandos with high powered rifles with scopes who were captured and paraded on Cuban TV the next day.  The story made the front page of the November 1, 1963 New York Times, and the names of the captured commandos are mentioned in Red Friday, the book written by Carlos Bringuier, the DRE Cuban Oswald was arrested with in New Orleans. [15]

One important aspect of the Valkyrie plan was a psych war operation to blame the assassination of Hitler on the SS, and monitor and control the media reports, just as the Dealey Plaza operation included blaming the assassination on Castro, a psych war campaign using media assets that continues today.

Besides the assassination, coup and psych-war aspects of the Valkyrie plot that could have been adapted to use against Castro and may have been redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, there was one other important part of the Valkyrie plan that could have been used - getting the victim to sign off on the operation.

Von Stauffenberg drew up the Valkyrie plan as a response to a possible revolt by slave laborers by mobilizing the home guard to quell the revolt and seize key government buildings and communications facilities.  Hitler approved and signed off on the plan without knowing the secret Phase that required his elimination. [16]

I don't know if this part of the Valkyrie plan was adapted for use against Castro, but the National Security Council and JFK did approve a number of violent covert operations against targets in Cuba, but JFK rejected the assassination plans. RFK however, did pressure Des Fitzgerald and others to step up their Cuban ops against Castro and RFK was personally introduced to some of the anti-Castro commandos who were being sent to Cuba to attack strategic installations and infiltrate rifle teams.[17]

The National Security Action memo authorizing a special military communications project Four Leaves could also be revealing once it is declassified.

The use of Phase One and Phase Two parts of the plan is another interesting parallel between Valkyrie and Dealey Plaza as they are the same terms used by Von Stauffenberg for Valkyrie and professor Peter Dale Scott to describe the official response to the assassination of JFK. According to Scott's analysis the original Phase One is the disinformation cover story to blame the assassination of JFK on Castro, that could have instigated a full scale US military attack on Cuba, that was subsequently superseded by the Phase Two promotion of the of the deranged lone assassin being responsible for the act.

In conclusion, if the CIA plans to kill Fidel Castro had anything to do with the assassination of JFK at Dealey Plaza then the CIA's proposed adaption of the Valkyrie plot to be used against Castro should be explored in detail.

Bill Kelly

bilkelly3@gmail.com 


Notes –  Valkyrie at Dealey Plaza Revisited - “The conspiracy alone must speak.”

1)      Talbot, David. “The Devil’s Chessboard” (HarperCollins, 2015) Re: Valkyrie, p. 134. “Dulles arranged for Mary….to work with the tall, imperious double agent Hans Bernd Gisevious….(who) became involved in the July 20, 1944 bomb plot against Hitler, barely fleeing with is life to Switzerland when it failed.”

2)      Kelly, William. January 1995 Telephone conversation with Volkmar Schmidt.
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html. Schmidt said that Dr. Wilhelm Keutemeyer of Heidelberg served as a foster father whose associates Frederick von Halen and Von Trott were directly involved in the Valkyrie plot. Schmidt: “….naturally it was a terrible responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had to cry because, you know. But I exonerate myself completely because I had the best intent, embarrassed Kennedy, and I certainly didn’t tell him to take a pot shot at him.”

3)      Warren Report, p. 730. Ruth Paine drove Oswald’s family and belongings to New Orleans and back to Texas in late September.

4)      Ford, Gerald, with John Stiles “Portrait of the Assassin” Re: Marina’s letter to Ruth Paine in care of Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa. (BK: The only place I have seen this letter).

5)      Bancroft, Mary. “Autobiography of a Spy” (Wm. Morrow, 1983) p. 55, for Ruth Paine Forbes’ association with Mary Bancroft.

6)      Young, Arthur. Inventor of the Bell Helicopter 47A. http://www.arthuryoung.com/about.html (BK: I also have an extensive three hour tape recorded interview with Young in his library.)

7)      Bancroft, Mary. “Autobiography of a Spy” (Wm. Morrow, 1983) p. 202-240 for the roles Dulles, Bancroft and Gisevius played in the July 20, 1944 Valkyrie Plot to kill Hitler.

8)      Forman, James. “Code Name Valkyrie – Count Von Staufenberg and the plot to kill Hitler,” who quotes Gisevius: “I just have the feeling we’l never succeed. I’m not speaing through fear. But I have a feeling very few of us wil be alive this time next year, regardless of what happens with your bomb.”

9)      Braden, Tom.  Talbot, David."Devil's Chessboard" p. 369, p.547 (JFK Library interview), p. 553 (Rockefeller financial support for covert ops). 

10)  Ruth Paine’s Summer Vacation – Paper by Barbara Lamonica, Steve Jones and Carol Hewett, Esq. presented at 1995 COPA Conference, Washington D.C. and Steve Jones – The Confessions of Ruth Paine - DPQ  http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2015/10/steve-jones-confessions-of-ruth-paine.html   /

11)  Higgins Memo: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/04/higgins-memo-numbered-w-bullet-points.htm  - “He commented that there was nothing new in the propaganda field. However, he felt that there had been great success in getting closer to the military personnel who might break with Castro, and stated that there were at least ten high-level military personnel who are talking with CIA but as yet are not talking to each other, since that degree of confidence has not yet developed. He considers it as a parallel in history; i.e., the plot to kill Hitler; and this plot is being studied in detail to develop an approach.”

12)  Four Leaves http://whd.jfklibrary.org/Diary/  - White House Diary - For Monday September 23 1963 – SUBJECT: Assignment of Highest National Security Priority to Project FOUR LEAVES. In response to a recommendation by the Secretary of Defense, the president, under the authority granted by the Defense Production Act of 1950, today established the program listed below as being in the highest national security priority category for development and production. “President Kennedy assigns the highest national security priority to Project FOUR LEAVES to develop and produce a military communications system.” FOUR LEAVES McGeorge Bundy THE WHITE HOUSE DIARY SEPTEMBER 23 1963
http://www.jfklibrary.org/White%2BHouse%2B...eptember/23.htm

13)  Meyer, Cord. “Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA”

14)  Talbot, David. Re: LeMay and Byrd. “The Devil’s Chessboard” p. 512, 524, 539-40. “D.H. Byrd received scant attention after the Kennedy assassination, despite his buildings role in the crime. He Warren Commission never questioned him – even after the millionaire took the odd step of removing the eight-plane window from which Oswald allegedly fired his shots at Kenedy’s limousine and hanging it in his Dallas mansion. Byrd said he feared that souvenir hunters might steal Oswald’s so-called sniper’s perch from the book warehouse, but he displayed the infamous window in his own home like a trophy. …The owner of the Texas School Book Depository was closely associated with a number of passionate Kennedy adversaries, including Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief…who bestowed a glowing Air Force commendation on Byrd in May 1963…” Re:  D. H. Byrd on safari 11/22/63 with German Baron Werner von Alvensleben, WWII double-agent and son of “assassination expert.” See: Dallas Morning News December 1963 and 1945 OSS X2 Report  http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2015/10/oss-x-2-report-on-werner-von-alvensleben.html   "Hunting history is rife with the tales of derring-do with 6.5mm cartridges. W.D.M. Bell whacked many elephants and Werner von Alvensleben slew hundreds of buffalo with what they termed a “small-bore rifle,” namely, the 6.5×54 Mannlicher-Schönauer."  Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/12/gun-test-alexander-arms-6-5-grendel-hunter/#ixzz3qMkGtu2F and see "The Baron in Africa," which says that Von Alvensleben's favorite rifle was the 9.3 x 62 mm Manlicher-Schonauer.

15) New York Times, November 1, 1963 p. 1. Re: The Rex. 

16)  Forman, James. "Code Name Valkyrie - Count Von Stauffenberg and the plot to kill Hitler" http://hub-e.com/content/james-d-forman-fb2-ebook-get-code-name-valkyrie-count-von-stauffenberg-and-plot-kill-hitler. "The plan had a code name Valkyrie, and it would be developed at two levels with two sets of orders. Officially Valkyrie was a scheme to activate units of the Home Army to seize population centers in case of a rebellion by the foreign slave laborer sin Germany. Behind this facade the plan was to evolve into a complete takeover of the government by the Army. Phase One - plan for mobilizing the Reserve Army. Purpose: to crush mutiny of slave laborers.This part of the plan was submitted through channels and approved by Hitler himself. Phase Two - the second, secret plan: Item 1- Disposal of Hitler. Item 2 - Preparation of orders upon Hitler's death...Direct the Reserve Army to undertake the following - Occupy first the city of Berlin...Principle objectives: Imprisonment of key Nazi and SS officials, occupation of vital government buildings, railroad stations and other government centers, especially broadcast stations. Immediate command of the mass media, newspapers, wireless radio - cannot be over stressed. The conspiracy alone must speak. Orders from Hitler's East Prussian HQ must be entirely isolated and contained. The conspiracy alone must speak." For Peter Dale Scott's "Phase One" - "Phase Two" analysis see: Deep Politics series. 

17) Re: Pathfinder records - ARRB interviews with NPIC employes stationed at JMWAVE, where the CIA officers kept the Pathfinder documents filed separately from regular station files by keeping them in the NPIC section.