by Joan Mellen
In the spring of 2013, Judge McKnight requested Beckham’s telephone number so that he might clear up some unresolved issues. He hoped to visit Beckham too.
“You have the wrong number!” Beckham said frantically to his old acquaintance. He refused to acknowledge that he even knew Charlie McKnight. He would have nothing more to say.
LEE OSWALD’S FEMALE COMPANION IN LOUISIANA, SUMMER 1963
Among those who “became dead,” to borrow Jack Martin’s locution, was nineteen-year-old Gloria Wilson. (See Chapters 13 and 14.) After A Farewell to Justice was published, speaking at Clinton Courthouse, I learned that there had been an autopsy done on Gloria, the woman who had been seen often in the company of Lee Oswald during the summer of 1963. If there was a woman who could claim to have been Oswald’s companion in Louisiana during that summer, it was Gloria Wilson.
I was told that Dr. Richard Munson, who had performed the autopsy, had stated unequivocally that Gloria had not died of natural causes. “That woman was murdered,” he told people. Gloria had been suffering from a septic infection, the result of a botched abortion with a blunt instrument. There was also poison involved, Garrison investigator Anne Dischler whispered to me in 2012.
That night at Clinton Courthouse, I met a local resident of Clinton named Hadley Hudnall. He told me that Oswald sometimes stayed with Gloria on St. Helena Street, just three blocks east of Clinton Courthouse, where we were talking. That Gloria knew Oswald well had been revealed to Anne Dischler in the late 1960s. Gloria’s lover, Norman (Sam) Dunnehoe, resided in Eunice, Louisiana, where Anne lived. A married man, “Sam” had sworn Dischler to secrecy during his lifetime. After Dunnehoe’s death, his wife moved up north.
Gloria Wilson’s murder brought the number of murdered Clinton witnesses to two: Gloria Wilson and Andrew Dunn, who had been found dead in his jail cell, strangled while lying flat on his bunk. (See Chapter 14.)
JIM GARRISON, GEORGE RUFUS BROWN, BROWN & ROOT, AND CIA
During the years of his investigation, 1965 to 1969, until President Lyndon Johnson decided in 1968 not to run for re-election, Jim Garrison remained infuriated with Johnson for refusing to release Warren Commission records. As a man of the sixties, Garrison was, of course, a reader of Ramparts magazine. He was particularly intrigued by the December 1967 issue which carried a story called “Building Lyndon Johnson.”
Long before Johnson biographer Robert A. Caro wrote as if Johnson’s connection to Herman and George Brown of Brown & Root were a discovery of his own, author David Welsh described Lyndon Johnson as the protégé of defense contractors Herman and George Brown, whose company, a Halliburton subsidiary since 1962, was profiting astronomically from forty projects in Vietnam.
In 1965, Brown & Root earned $630 million. By 1967, Brown & Root was in line for $1.6 billion as they built bases and construction projects all over Vietnam, including a half-mile-long span across the Han River at Da Nang. The Navy helped fill the Brown & Root coffers with “war risk insurance premiums,” as if Brown & Root itself were part of the U.S. military. In Vietnam, it was CIA that supervised the interrogation of prisoners, honing the torture techniques the Agency would utilize later at Guantanamo, at Abu Ghraib, and at Bagram Air Base. CIA’s Office of Security, rather than the clandestine services, did the research on sensory deprivation that was at the heart of CIA’s torture practices.
Garrison focused on a particular section of Welsh’s article that appeared under the sub-title “THE CIA’S BROWN & ROOT DIMENSIONS.” At once, Garrison drew a connection, a line between Lee Harvey Oswald, CIA, George Brown (Herman had died in 1962), and Lyndon Johnson, who had accelerated the Vietnam War so violently after the murder of President Kennedy. They were all connected.
Garrison now became responsible for CIA’s generating documents that affirmed the Agency’s long-time relationship with Herman and George Brown. Although they were released under the 1992 John F. Kennedy Records and Collection Act, these documents bear no direct relationship to the Kennedy assassination. Rather, they outline CIA’s relationships not only with the Browns, but with a long list of Texas businessmen and defense contractors.
That Jim Garrison suffered from government plants being embedded in his investigation we know (See Chapter 12). Among them was that particularly shady New Orleans detective William Gurvich, who plied his greasy trade in and around the Port of New Orleans. Gurvich may well have been part of the Office of Security’s “Confidential Correspondent Program,” although no such connection has emerged in a document.
Gurvich had offered his services to Jim Garrison for “one dollar a year.” Knowing that Garrison was looking into CIA as a possible sponsor of the Kennedy assassination, Gurvich denied any connection to the Agency. Short-handed and naïve, Garrison had allowed Gurvich access to his investigation. Gurvich then helped himself to documents from Garrison’s files.
In a treasonous taped interview with Clay Shaw’s lawyers, Gurvich spewed forth half-digested gobbets of information he had concocted as a result of his penetrating Garrison’s offices and filching his records. Of particular interest to CIA was Gurvich’s statement that “Garrison refers to Herman Brown of Brown & Root as a CIA agent.”
Garrison had in fact struck home. Both Herman and George Brown were long-time assets of the clandestine services of the Central Intelligence Agency. The documentation, in the form of a CIA release to the National Archives, would become available only after Garrison’s death. Not only were the Browns CIA assets, but at times they were enlisted in facilitating the foreign relations of the United States, replacing the elected government.
Foreign Service officer George McGhee witnessed a treaty negotiated at “Huntland,” George Brown’s Middleburg, Virginia estate. It involved the withdrawal from Dutch control of West Irian, which shared a land mass with New Guinea. At the time, Herman was involved in a collaborative project with Freeport Sulphur’s oil and gas division and was not present.
Gurvich had added: “If I can use the exact quote, he [Garrison] said that ‘no corporal would have reported to Herman Brown of Brown & Root. It would have been at least a captain.’” Gurvich passed this “information” on to Dallas Morning News and sometime Newsweek commentator Hugh Aynesworth. Soon CIA knew that Garrison had brought the name “George Brown” into his investigation. (Herman had died five years earlier.)
At the top of the list of Aynesworth’s CIA contacts was J. Walton Moore, chief of CIA’s Dallas field office. The record reveals that on October 10, 1963, Aynesworth had “expressed some interest ... in possible employment with the agency.” He told Moore that he had applied for a visa to Cuba. Then, as Moore reported to his CIA superiors, Aynesworth had “offered his services to us if it develops that he receives a visa.”
Cautious, Moore submitted a “name check request” on Aynesworth. Aynesworth did not become a CIA employee, although he would remain their informant. He was also an FBI informant.
On December 22, 1967, Hugh Aynesworth telephoned George Brown. A measure of Aynesworth’s connections among CIA-connected Texas defense contractors is that George Brown took the call. His purpose, Aynesworth told Brown, was to inform him that Jim Garrison suspected that he had been involved somehow in the assassination of President Kennedy.
Embellishing the distortion, Aynesworth added that Garrison was about to indict Brown for being “involved with the CIA in its objective of covering up the conspiracy for President Johnson,” obviously no indictable crime even if it were true. “Should you be interested,” Aynesworth told Brown, “I could secure for you at least one document in Garrison’s own handwriting.” Whatever Gurvich’s virtues or lack thereof as a private detective, he was a practiced thief. Garrison never had any intention of indicting the construction mogul Brown. But what did truth matter when it came to wreaking havoc on Jim Garrison’s investigation?
Finding Aynesworth’s telephone call “disturbing,” George Brown distanced himself, turning the matter over to Brown & Root president Herbert Frensley. Brown req
uested that Frensley contact Ben P. Haynes at the CIA’s Houston field office, to which both George Brown and Herbert Frensley were well-known.
Ernest Rische, chief of the CIA’s Houston office, knew Aynesworth, although he did not have a high opinion of this journalist. Rische believed that as a reporter Aynesworth lacked “objectivity.” Rische was inclined to hold Aynesworth at a certain distance. CIA knew that Aynesworth had been present at Dealey Plaza at the time of the Kennedy assassination and later in the day had appeared at the site of the murder of police officer J. D. Tippet. As if all this Zelig-like activity weren’t enough, Aynesworth would later serve as a pallbearer at Jack Ruby’s funeral.
In the late sixties, Aynesworth had focused his attention on the Garrison investigation. He informed Clay Shaw’s lawyers that witnesses who turned against Garrison were “in danger of being harmed and possibly killed if the facts of this matter are not brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities.” For this preposterous accusation, Aynesworth had no evidence whatsoever. Rische’s questioning of Aynesworth’s “objectivity” was something of an understatement.
On December 26, 1967, Herbert Frensley telephoned Ben P. Haynes at the Houston CIA field office with news of Aynesworth’s unwelcome call to George Brown.
“Keep me informed of any future developments in this matter,” Haynes said. Then he reported to his superiors: “Neither Brown nor Frensley expect a response.” The documents generated within CIA from Aynesworth’s original call to George Brown bear the subject line: “Possible Attempt To Embarrass Agency.”
The following day, December 27th, Ernest A. Rische reported to the Director of the Domestic Contact Service. “In view of Brown’s close cooperation with the Agency in its [08]. . . .” Rische writes. “[08]” referred to funding operations. The text of the remainder of this document, marked SECRET/ SENSITIVE, was redacted.
Rische now requested of Haynes that he meet personally with Frensley.
CIA took the matter of the exposure of its relationship with George Brown seriously. On January 2nd, 1968, CIA generated a “Routing and Record Sheet” in search of “traces” or information about Aynesworth’s original source, the detective William Gurvich. This document traveled from George S. Musulin of the Operational Support Section, the engine of the Domestic Contact Service, to Donovan E. Pratt, the Deputy Chief of Counter Intelligence, Research & Analysis Branch.
A separate request for information about Gurvich went to the Deputy Chief, Support and Logistics (DO/DCSL) of the Directorate of Operations. The routing sheet was copied to the Office of General Counsel (Lawrence Houston), and to the Deputy Director of the Office of Security (DD/OS).
It turned out that a wide range of Agency components knew and used Herman and George Brown as well as Brown & Root employees and the Brown Foundation. This complex network of associations developed by CIA was a far cry from the intelligencegathering service Ambassador David K. E. Bruce and President Harry S. Truman had viewed as the Agency’s chief function.
Those briefed on the surfacing of George Brown’s name in the Garrison investigation included the Domestic Contact Service; the DD/P or clandestine services; the Office of Security; Counter Intelligence; the Directorate of Operations; and the Office of General Counsel. For George Brown to have been associated publicly with CIA, let alone by left-wing Ramparts magazine or freewheeling Jim Garrison, who was raising questions about CIA involvement in the Kennedy assassination, was no small matter.
The released documents reveal CIA once more to be operating consistently on a “need-to-know” basis. Donovan Pratt at Counter Intelligence, Research & Analysis, wrote to George Musulin at the Domestic Contact Service to inquire whether George Brown had been their contact. He had no idea.
“Is George Brown the president or an officer of Brown & Root?” Pratt asks. “Has the George Brown of reference been a DCS contact? If so, replies to the usual questions are requested so that file checks can be run: when contact started, purpose of contact, number of contacts, reports resulting, present status of contact, and location(s) of contacts.”
On January 5th, 1968, Ben Haynes and George Musulin conferred on the telephone regarding Gurvich, the Garrison investigation, and the involvement of George Brown. Musulin said he required more information. Haynes then telephoned Herbert Frensley at Brown & Root.
There have been no further approaches from Gurvich, or anyone who represents him, Frensley said.
Having been instructed by his Agency superiors to confer with Frensley in person, Haynes requested a meeting. Frensley replied with hauteur. In the hierarchy of power accelerating rapidly after the Kennedy assassination, defense contractors like Brown & Root considered themselves above CIA, a mere hired hand serving their interests. He would be available only early on the morning of January 8th, Frensley said.
Still, Frensley reassured CIA. There had been no further developments in the “Guravich [sic] approach through Aynesworth,” Frensley said. He had advised George Brown “to ignore the matter” and “thus far he has.” Along the way, CIA had informed Frensley “on Guravich [sic] and his methods.”
Satisfied by this, Rische then reported reassuringly to Musulin. Frensley had informed him “that Brown has not the slightest intention of trying to gain access to the documents referred to by the Newsweek correspondent.” It seems apparent that CIA preferred that George Brown stay far away from Garrison’s investigation, Aynesworth, and the Kennedy assassination.
As a result of George Brown’s name surfacing in the Garrison investigation, and in response to the Ramparts article, CIA generated documents that attested to its long history with Herman and George Brown, as well as with a group of lesser Brown & Root executives. At the same time, CIA was compelled by a congressional probe to admit to its use of the Brown Foundation as a cover for its illegal domestic operations. Included as well was documentation of CIA’s interest in other foundations various Texans had set up and placed at the disposal of the Agency.
These documents implicated CIA in domestic activities that transcended the parameter of its charter. They also reveal why CIA was so determined to stop Jim Garrison by any means available. Jim Garrison was moving ever closer to exposing treason where power resided, and the role of CIA in the national power structure.
The most comprehensive document was released by CIA’s all-powerful Office of Security, and it exposes Herman and George Brown as CIA assets. This revelation came in a Memorandum to the Chief of CIA’s LEOB/SRS component. LEOB stood for “Liaison Employee Opportunities Branch,” as opaque and impenetrable a name as could be devised. SRS was the “Security Research Section” of the Office of Security. Dated December 20, 1967, this document is eight pages long. Its subjects are Ramparts and “Brown and [sic] Root.”
Listed under “Brown and Root” are nine company executives who had been “approved for contact use,” along with the dates of their CIA clearances:
Ross White, 11 March 1950
Isaac Newton Towne, Vice-President in Charge of Foreign Operations, 11 December 1952 and 16 February 1952
Merritt Allen Warner, Chief Project Accountant, 31 January 1957 and 11 April 1957
Thomas Kenneth Montgomery, 15 February 1957 and 8 May 1957
Louis Dell Bradberry, 4 October 1957
Bobby Joe Williams, 14 July 1965
Richard Andrew Wagner, Civil Engineer [the Agency explains that a Provisional Security Covert Approval was issued for contact and assessment, but that Wagner was not utilized], 3 August 1965
Elmer Ray Remkes, 6 August 1965
John Gilman Mackin, Jr., 19 July 1966
This same document goes on to outline George Brown’s long history with CIA. Listed as “Executive Vice-President of BROWN and ROOT, Inc.,” George had been granted a Covert Security Clearance on 23 October 1953. On 22 April 1965 George was “granted a Provisional Covert Security Approval,” rendered on 18 June 1964. CIA adds that George Brown’s clearance was canceled 2 June 1967, in keeping with the date of his retireme
nt from Brown & Root.
Like Clay Shaw, whose true CIA service is finally exposed above, George Brown was far from being one of those mere businessmen “routinely” (CIA’s preferred adverb) debriefed by the Domestic Contact Service. As an operative of the clandestine services, George had been granted his Covert Security Clearance on [24] and [08] projects.
This was CIA code. [24] referred to “operational details.” When [01] appears on these documents, it denotes the absence of a person’s cryptonym, one that had been assigned to the individual by CIA, but was being kept secret.”
Herman Brown’s Covert Security Approval was granted to him by CIA on 13 December 1953. It endured until, according to CIA, it was canceled 15 February 1966, four years after his death. Another oddity in the fragmentary record as released is that Brown & Root executive Ross White is described as having been approved for contact use in 1950, three years earlier than either Herman or George Brown.
Although the specifics of how CIA used Herman and George Brown are not unveiled in these documents, traces of their activities have emerged in other records. The Browns intersected with several CIA business assets. For example, when the courts divested CIA asset Howard Hughes of his control of Transworld Airlines, among those placed in charge of the trust holding Hughes’ stock was—George Brown.
Under “Brown Foundation” in the December 20, 1967, document cited above, CIA states that there “is no OS [Office of Security] subject file on the Brown Foundation.” This is misleading. A January 1968 “Memorandum to the Deputy Director, Plans (DDP) from the Chief, Central Cover Group” concludes that the Brown Foundation of Houston, Texas was among “the most vulnerable to exposure because public records reflect direct ties from Agency funding instruments identified by Congressman [Wright] Patman in 1964 to legitimate foundations and Agency projects they have sponsored.”
**Examples discussed in the author’s The Great Game in Cuba include AMPATRIN, the CIA cryptonym for Michael J. P. Malone, Czarnikow-Rionda factotum and Robert J. Kleberg, Jr.’s right-hand man. Cuban exile leader Alberto Fernández is referred to in the many CIA documents tracking his operations with the Tejana as AMDENIM-1.