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Starred Review: THE DEVIL’S CHESSBOARD by David Talbot

28 July, 2015

KIRKUS REVIEW

THE DEVIL’S CHESSBOARD: ALLEN DULLES, THE CIA, AND THE RISE OF AMERICA’S SECRET GOVERNMENT

by David Talbot (Pub Date: Oct. 13th, 2015)

“Washington, D.C., regulars may know some of this information, and foreign nations certainly do, but all engaged American citizens should read this book and have their eyes opened.”

Former Salon founding editor-in-chief Talbot (Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love, 2012, etc.) shares his extensive knowledge and intense investigations of American politics with a frightening biography of power, manipulation, and outright treason.

The story of Allen Dulles (1893-1969), his brother John Foster, and the power elite that ran Washington, D.C., following World War II is the stuff of spy fiction, but it reaches even further beyond to an underworld of unaccountable authority.

Russ Holmes Obituary

NYT-0002015723-HOLMESR_22_152932780.1_190935

Russell B. Holmes, former CIA specialist on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died of cancer on December 18, 2014. Mr. Holmes was a career intelligence officer with the Office of Strategic Services and the CIA. He was born on September 20, 1923 in Mystic, CT. Mr. Holmes served as an officer in the Navy during WWII. He then enrolled at Brown University, where he met Fiora, his wife of 64 years. At the CIA, Mr. Holmes worked on foreign and domestic affairs, including counter-intelligence issues in Europe and Southeast Asia. He retired in 1979, but continued working as an archivist of CIA documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. These archives came to be known as the “Russell B. Holmes Work File,” one of the most cited sources on the Kennedy assassination. Mr. Holmes supported charities, scholarships at various universities, and was a member of the Kennedy Center Circles for the Performing Arts. Mr. Holmes is survived by his wife and daughter, Jennifer Starr Holmes. Interment will take place at the Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 2pm. Memorial donations may be made to The Washington Home and Hospice, 3720 Upton St. NW, Washington, DC 20016.

Mr. Holmes was a CIA archivist who maintained an extensive collection of CIA documents on the Kennedy assassination. These documents contain a wide range of materials spanning a time period beginning before the assassination and extending into the 1990s. While a variety of subjects are represented, there is particular focus on Oswald’s trip to Mexico City and the Garrison investigation of the late 1960s. The Russ Holmes Work File was declassified in the late 1990s.

http://www.maryferrell.org/archive/docsets/1064/index.html

New Releases from the NDC

July 14, 2015

The National Declassification Center has released a listing of 102 entries that have completed declassification processing between February 9, and June 26, 2015 and are now available for researcher request. This release consists of records from both military and civilian agencies. Highlights include:

Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, War Diaries, 1946 – 1953,
Department of State, Records Relating to Cuba,
Department of State, Brazil, U.S. Consulate General, Rio de Janeiro: Classified Central Subject Files,
Department of State, Treaty Background Subject Files,
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Strategic Planning Files of the Deputy of Special Operations, Edward G. Landsdale,
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA); Records Concerning Research on Silent Aircraft, and
Records of the Naval Air Systems Command, PHOENIX Missile System Program Review Records

[Read More…]

Professor David Wrone – The Warren Report on the Murder of JFK: Truth or Cover-Up?

39 minutes (https://vimeo.com/123052883)

David Wrone, Ph.D: A former professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, where he taught American history, Indian History and the JFK assassination for 35 years. He has published numerous book reviews on the subject and edited The Legal Proceedings of the 1975 court record on the fight to obtain the January 27, 1964 executive session transcript of the Warren Commission. He co-edited, with D. Guth,“The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Comprehensive Historical and Legal Bibliography,” 1963-1979 (Greenwood Press, 1980). He is the author of, “The Zapruder Film” (University Press of Kansas).

In his 40 years of research and reading on the assassination, he has concentrated on the evidence found in files of the FBI and has sued the government for Zapruder film records, especially relating to its acquisition and purchase. Professor Wrone received his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Illinois-Urbana. He is Secretary and a member of the Board of Directors of the AARC.

Become a Member of the AARC!

Support the declassification of government records relating to political assassination by becoming a member of the AARC →

Benefits include discounts on CDs, DVDs and VIP access to special conference events.

Why the last of the JFK files could embarrass the CIA

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Shortly after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Chief Justice Earl Warren, who oversaw the first official inquiry, was asked by a reporter if the full record would be made public.

“Yes, there will come a time,” the chairman of the Warren Commission responded. “But it might not be in your lifetime.”

It will soon be in ours — that is, unless the CIA, FBI or other agencies still holding on to thousands of secret documents from a series of related probes convince the next occupant of the White House otherwise.

A special team of seven archivists and technicians with top-secret security clearances has been set up at the National Archives and Records Administration to process all or portions of 40,000 documents that constitute the final collection of known federal records that might shed light on the events surrounding JFK’s murder, POLITICO has learned — files that according to law must be made public by October 2017.

“There are going to be appeals to the president, the Central Intelligence Agency for sure,” predicted Malcolm Blunt, a British researcher who has spent nearly two decades poring over JFK records. “Particularly on cover issues — corporations and financial institutions, banks and business used for cover purposes.”

[Read More…]

Professor G. Robert Blakey’s address to the 2014 AARC may be viewed here.

Read Dan Hardway’s article, “A Cruel and Shocking Misinterpretation” here.

Bookmark our Video page for updates on the upcoming release of presentations by Rex Bradford, Malcolm Blunt, Jefferson Morley and other distinguished investigators, historians, and scholars who appeared at our 2014 Conference.

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Bryan Bender is the defense editor for POLITICO Pro. He was previously a D.C.-based reporter for the Boston Globe and Jane’s Defence Weekly, where he covered U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and the Balkans. He also writes about terrorism, the international arms trade, and government secrecy. He is author You Are Not Forgotten, the story of an Iraq War veteran’s search for a missing World War II fighter pilot in the South Pacific. He is currently a board member of the Military Reporters and Editors Association.