REGICIDE — THE OFFICIAL ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY,

by Gregory Douglas (Monte Sano Media, 2002; 224 pgs.; $19.95 — ISBN 1591482976).

Your first reaction may be the same as mine — an addition to the several dozen books already written, struggling with the obvious fiction of the Warren Report! This is not the case, however. You should notice the word “Official” in the sub-title. While working on his book “Gestapo Chief,” the biography of Heinrich Muller, Gregory Douglas became acquainted, and then good friends, with Robert T. Crowley, former Assistant Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations of the CIA. Crowley, or “Crow” as he was known within the CIA, had been a close associate and supervisor of Muller when he was brought into the CIA following WWII.

After his retirement and increasing age with an approaching chest operation where cancer was suspected, Crowley turned over his files to the author, Gregory Douglas, with the understanding that they were not to be opened, or used until after his death. On Tuesday, 10 October 2000, on page 6, the Washington Post reported the death of “Robert Trumbull Crowley, 76, a senior CIA official...”
Douglas was now free to use the Crowley papers. This astounding book is the result: “The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy”! To a major extent it is the reproduction of much of Robert T. Crowley’s files in the typewritten print of those files, with Crowley’s underscoring and emphasis on them, along with the explanations by Gregory Douglas. The book is so astounding that many may find themselves questioning the authenticity of even this original file material as I did. Therefore I refer you to two other sources:

1) The New York Times of 3 October 1963 editorial page (50 days previous to the assassination of JFK) carried a column by the well-known journalist Arthur Krock, “The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam” in which he described the CIA in Viet-Nam refusing to carry out orders from the President delivered to them by Ambassador Lodge. In closing this column Krock says, “If the United States ever experiences an attempt at a coup to overthrow the Government it will come from the CIA and not the Pentagon.”

2) In 1973 Col L. Fletcher Prouty, USAF (Ret), after retirement from nine years as the liaison officer for the Pentagon with the CIA, wrote a book, “The Secret Team — The CIA and its Allies in control of the United States and the World.”

These two items by independent authors overlap and support what you will find in this book. It was the compatibility of what Arthur Krock and Fletcher Prouty, independent authors, had written that gave me assurance that I was reading authentic documents.

In the review of CIA “Operation Zipper” in this book you will see CIA agents James J. Angleton and Robert T. Crowley planning the assassination of the president, beginning in early March of 1963. Before the end of March, according to the documents, J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice President, and General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been brought into the plan along with the Chicago Mafia and Israeli Mossad. The Chicago Mafia’s recruitment of the Corsican Mafia assassins in Marseille, France, alerted French Intelligence that a political assassination was planned in the U.S. and they alerted the U.S. Embassy, who apparently alerted no one. LBJ was concerned that he was also targeted and had to be assured by J. Edgar Hoover that he was not a target. It seems clear Lee Harvey Oswald was strictly the “patsy” he claimed to be.

Why and how did the CIA persuade so many high government officials to join them in a coup to overthrow the elected U.S. government? It is all here! Crowley was convinced the “Zipper” project was in the best interest of the country! You will find it helpful to review your history of the Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban missile crisis, which brought about a fatal fracture of trust between the President and his intelligence agency! Also the CIA had discovered that via his brother, Robert Kennedy, and the senior KGB agent in the Washington USSR Embassy, the President had established a private line of communication with Nikita Khrushchev which the CIA considered treasonous.

Where JFK had planned to reduce our commitments and involvement in Viet-Nam, LBJ engineered the Gulf of Tonkin incident and expanded them. JFK was strongly opposing the Israeli development of nuclear weapons — LBJ was complacent and ignored these developments.

Frank Turberville, Jr.
Milton, NC