Best JFK books of the last 2 years?

[James Lateer]

The Skorzeny Papers is a major new treasure trove of information on the JFK assassination.

The author, Ralph Ganis basis this book on information which he has gathered from the actual personal papers of Otto Skorzeny which somehow have survived, at least in large part, since the early 1950's.

The general thesis of The Skorzeny Papers is that the perpetrators of the JFK assassination can be identified purely from the examination and the analysis of these papers. That is based, in part, on the identification of Skorzeny as being the one and the same as the famous CIA assassin who had the code name QJ/WIN. Interestingly, Ganis does not actually claim to have proof that Skorzeny was the individual known as QJ/WIN. Instead Ganis maintains that Skorzeny was part of the QJ/WIN assassination organization, but that QJ/WIN might not have referred to just one individual.

Although the above described theory may at first sound unlikely, it is really amazing just how far Ganis is able to get by using his thesis about Skorzeny and the assassination of JFK. Ganis traces the story of Skorzeny beginning (for our purposes) when Skorzeny was a prisoner of the U S military in a place called Camp King in Germany after World War II. When released, Skorzeny (within a few years) wound up living in Madrid, Spain, apparently under the protection of the Spanish Government of General Francisco Franco.

In the Skorzeny papers, Ganis found evidence of numerous well-known organizations such as the WCC , the IRO, the Tolstoy Foundation, General American Oil. Co., the French OAS, the BACC, the ECA (Marshall Plan) and on and on which had some connection to Skorzeny. Evidence of this was present in the papers in one way or another, even though Skorzeny was not necessarily a member of the groups. The overall picture presented of Skorzeny was that he was closely involved with US and possibly French intelligence over the period from 1946 up to 1967 and possibly beyond.

However, the only real activities attributed to Skorzeny and proven were (1) being a go-between in oil deals, the trade in certain minerals, arms sales and similar businesses and (2) running a training camp for para-military commandos for various groups who were in need of this type of training. His training camps were near the French-Spanish border. The only outside "reviews" of the effectiveness of his training said that it was basically out of date in terms of technology, being more of a vintage World War II program rather than a more modern curriculum.

When it comes to the JFK assassination, however, the theory of Ganis involving Skorzeny is more vague in nature than that of most other JFK authors. This is because Ganis visualizes the Skorzeny network as a network basically run by the CIA along with Skorzeny for purposes of (among other things) assassination. Therefore, the network could have been employed by any number of groups or persons. Like discovering a murder weapon, even though you know it was used in a murder, you can't necessarily determine who fired the weapon just by examining it.

The following are the main points brought out by Ganis in The Skorzeny Papers:

1. The orders of the JFK assassination came from high-up. He suggests General Lyman Lemnitzer, the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.
   
2. The motive for the assassination was the impending release of scandalous material about the British Profumo Scandal, the Senate Bobby Baker scandal, the involvement between JFK and the spy Ellen Rometsch and the desire to suppress these issues.
   
3. The Skorzeny group was extremely active in the month or two prior to the assassination.
   
4. French OAS operative Jean Souetre was in Dallas on 11-22-63 and he was the shooter.
   
5. Many, if not most, of the key people in Dallas who supported the assassination plan had been involved with Skorzeny and Skorzeny's type of activity dating back to the era of World War II, either in Europe with the war crimes process, oil deals or similar activity.
   
6. US intelligence along with the Tolstoy foundation seemed to deliberately concentrate these conspiracy-minded clandestine operatives in Dallas in particular. The concentration of these people in Dallas was undoubtedly much more intense than in other comparable cities for some reason which is unclear.
   
7. The big names in the JFK case which Ganis connects with Skorzeny and the JFK murder are George de Mohrenschildt, Warren Comm. Counsel Robert Storey, Judge J. C. Duvall, Jack Ruby and his friend Thomas Eli Davis III (a weapons salesman), Jean Rene Souetre, Col.Jack Crichton, D. Harold Byrd (owner of the TSBD), Paul Raigorodsky, and three or four others.
   
8. Other, more tangential characters, are David Martin (Chief of Staff for Senator Thomas Dodd), the brothers of William F. Buckley and his brother-in-law, actress Ava Gardner, William Harvey, E. Howard Hunt, Allen Dulles, , David Atlee Phillips, the OSS, the British SOE and SAS, Cuban Mario Kohly, Richard Nixon and George H W Bush.
   

Here are the main flaws in the analysis presented by Ganis in the Skorzeny Papers.

1. The motive suggested by Ganis for the murder of JFK could not remotely be the true motive.
   
2. The presentation of Skorzeny does not include things which we know about Skorzeny from his own memoirs and from other Nazi memoirs and sources. This would include his alleged affair with Eva Peron and thus the possible a relationship with Argentinian dictator Juan Peron.
   
3. Although Skorzeny was apparently employed by the CIA to lead their assassination bureau, there was no information proving any actual assassinations which resulted from it or even any close calls.
   
4. Apparently, any references to other fugitive Nazis who were involved with Skorzeny were scrubbed from the papers. We know from other sources that Skorzeny was friends with such fugitive Nazis as Stuka Pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel, RSHA SS official Walter Schellenberg, Gestapo Chief Heinrich Muller (apparently) and possibly Martin Bormann.
   
5. There is no information about any Nazi money which Skorzeny had access to, although in 1963, Skorzeny was dealing in art treasures, which could be related to Nazi plundering.
   
6. There is no allowance for the myriad of other important people who are, by consensus, associated with the assassination such as Clay Shaw, David W. Ferrie, Carlos Bringuier, Richard Case Nagell, Eugene B. Dinkin, Joseph Milteer, and even James O. Eastland.
   
7. His portrayal of Madrid, Spain as the hotbed of JFK conspiracy has also been done with both New Orleans and Montego Bay, Jamaica with equal credibility.
   
8. As with many theories, it would be unlikely that there would have been a 55 year cover-up just to protect this handful of basically wretched and anonymous actors.
   

The information gathered by Ganis agrees with that of another similar source, The Three Barons: The Organizational Chart of the Kennedy Assassination in certain key respects:

1. The central role of David Martin and implicitly Senator Thomas Dodd in the JFK hit.
   
2. The attribution of the orders coming from NATO and General Lyman Lemnitzer.
   
3. The connection of ex-Nazis to the Kennedy murder.
   
4. The status of George de Mohrenschildt as a Nazi agent.
   
5. The tie-in between the Eastern European anti-Communist fanatics and the movement of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his associates and the JFK assassination.
   

James Lateer