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Cover of "General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy" by Jeff Caufield, 2015>
For the past five years this website has quietly promoted the superb JFK Assassination explanation by Jeff Caufield, namely, "General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy" (2015). It's time again to feature this book for readers, since I know of no better introduction to the Walker-did-it conspiracy theory (CT).
I am not being paid to promote Jeff's book - but I see a need for it because Hollywood has now offered Rob Reiner's CIA-did-it rehash.
It is accepted history that from 1961 to 1963, a CIA/Mafia fusion tried several times to kill Fidel Castro. This fact inspired many JFK conspiracy theories over the decades. Enter Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brian who are fairly late to this game with their new podcast, "Who Killed JFK?" All episodes are not published yet, but so far what I am hearing is another CIA-did-it CT.
By contrast, Jeff Caufield’s own research has yielded a full-length book (more than 900 pages) about the JFK Assassination through the lens of resigned Army General Edwin A. Walker. I have enjoyed a long email correspondence with Jeff since 2012, and he is a marvel of the historical method. So, I will promote Jeff's book here by offering a quick preview.
CHAPTER ONE: Caufield begins with a sharp focus on Guy Banister and his 1963 connections in NOLA, especially his activities to promote racial segregation in Louisiana. Banister connected with groups like the White Citizen's Council, the Louisiana States Rights Commission (which demanded the State's Right to segregation). He detested the FPCC (Fair Play for Cuba Committee), and he organized a student-spy program in New Orleans.
CHAPTERS TWO and THREE: Caufield adds to the roster of Guy Banister's political connections, including David Ferrie, Kent Courtney, Leander Perez, Daniel Burros, George Lincoln Rockwell, and the American Nazi Party.
CHAPTER FOUR: Caufield concentrates on the racial tensions of 1963 and the fallout with regard to JFK speeches on the topic. Joseph Milteer, a Southern segregationist, was secretly tracked by FBI informant, Willie Somerset, for years.
CHAPTER FIVE: Caufield documents Milteer's presence at Dealey Plaza on 11/22/1963 as an activist linking the Dallas radical right with the New Orleans radical right and members nationwide.
CHAPTER SIX: Caufield offers details of radical right activists like Kent Courtney, Revilo Oliver, George Soule, Cameron Terry, and Guy Banister, which Caufield obtained from FBI surveillance of the so-called Congress of Freedom meetings.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Caufield traces General Walker through FBI files in connection with Colonel Gale, James Venabe, Kenneth Goff, William Gale, Wesley Swift, Woody Kerns, and Wally & Olga Butterworth, in the context of the Constitution Party Meeting in Indianapolis during October 1963.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Caufield surveys FBI files about former military men in the radical right underground. He cites Lieutenant General Pedro Del Valle, Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer, Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, Rear Admiral John G. Crommelin, General Albert C. Wedemeyer, and Major General Charles Willoughby as well as the Shickshinny Knights.
CHAPTER NINE: Caufield exposes three versions of the Jim Garrison ill-fated case against Clay Shaw, involving Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO), Carlos Bringuier, Gordon Novel, Kerry Thornley, Thomas Beckham, William Gaudet, Clinton Wheat, Stanley Drennan, Carl McIntire, and several Cuban Exiles in New Orleans.
CHAPTER TEN: Caufield delves deeper into the Southern radical right activities of Joseph Milteer with special attention to Leander Perez, Emmet Irwin, and George W. Gill in the context of 'White Citizens Councils.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Caufield illuminates radical right activities in Dallas covering such activists as Dan Smoot, Robert Alan Surrey, Billy James Hargis, Jim Braden, H.L. Hunt, Lamar Hunt, Nelson B. Hunt, the Hunt Oil Company, and the Dallas Minutemen.
CHAPTER TWELVE: Caufield focuses on the resigned General Edwin A. Walker and his false 1961 narrative that JFK fired and "muzzled" him because of his great patriotism. Walker ran for Texas governor in 1962. He supported the NIC (National Indignation Convention), along with White Citizens Councils in Dallas. Walker bitterly protested JFK's proposals for disarmament.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Caufield details the drama of General Walker staging a racial riot at Ole Miss U., with the support of Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett. It was in protest of James Meredith, the first Black American (and air force veteran) who insisted on registering as a student in this traditionally all-white University. After hundreds were wounded and two were killed, JFK sent Walker to an insane asylum. After two days Walker was released. After twelve weeks Walker was acquitted in Mississippi.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Caufield continues the saga of General Walker, who, after his acquittal, organized a US Southern coast-to-coast speaking tour with the racist Reverend Billy James Hargis, called, "Operation Midnight Ride." In this tour, Walker and James would slam JFK and call for school segregation in all US States that demand it. During his journey, Robert Surrey fired his house-boy, Wm. Duff. After Walker's return to Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly tried to kill Walker. Surrey first accused Wm. Duff.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Caufield recounts the enraged response of resigned General Edwin Walker to JFK's proposed Civil Right Act of 1963. In September 1963, Senator James O. Eastland formally labeled the FPCC 'communist' while LHO pretended to be an FPCC secretary for street creds so he could get a quick visa to Havana from Mexico City. En route, drivers (Loran Hall and Larry Howard) visited Silva Odio to ask for support from her Exile group. No luck. Also, no luck for LHO in Mexico City. On October 23, 1963, General Walker led radical rightists to booby-trap the Dallas Memorial Auditorium for the next night's speech by UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, whom they had labeled 'communist.' On 11/20/1963, Walker held another closed meeting with segregationists Leander Perez, Joe Newbrough, and Edward Suggs (aka. Jack Martin).
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Caufield reports on LHO and the elements of the JFK Assassination including the TSBD building, Wesley Frazier, the JFK shooting, the J.D. Tippit shooting, the arrest and interrogation of LHO, Dealey Plaza witnesses, and the many controversies surrounding the shots and wounds.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Caufield devotes this chapter to the life and times of Jack Ruby, including the Mafia, Cuba, the John Birch Society, the Minutemen, killing LHO, and testifying for the Warren Commission (WC).
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Caufield covers the aftermath of the JFK Assassination with regard to General Walker. Just as the rightists blamed the leftists (communists) for the killing of JFK, the leftists blamed the rightists (Walker and his associates). Ultimately, since the FBI blamed LHO alone for the killing, the expected war between left and right never happened, and General Walker simply faded away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Caufield peruses the first informants who emerged in opposition to the WC conclusions. Thomas Anderson, Taylor Caldwell, Raymond Broshears, and Harry Dean. Caufield pays special attention to Harry Dean and his relations with the FBI, the Joe Pyne Show, Jim Garrison, W.R. Morris, and John Rousselot. Caufield personally interviewed Harry Dean and reviewed Harry's memoir, "Crosstrails."
CHAPTER TWENTY: Caufield returns to the topic of Guy Banister, especially his projects of creating phony communists in order to infiltrate left-wing organizations on college campuses and any level of government, and to spy on any government officials suspected of communism.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Caufield returns to the topic of LHO in Clinton, Louisiana supporting a voting rights drive for CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). David Ferrie and Clay Shaw were allegedly with LHO there, as testified by nine eyewitnesses, white and black, including the town Marshall and a State Representative. The Voter Registrar knew Guy Banister well. Showing LHO in this venue helped to portray LHO as a leftist. Also mentioned are Richard Van Buskirk and John Rarick for their organized resistance to school integration.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Caufield reveals LHO as a "false communist," that is, a decoy, or a junior double-agent, one of Guy Banister's spies to infiltrate left-wing political groups on college campuses and the FPCC. Since 1954 Senator James Eastland and his Senate Internal Security Subcommittee had proclaimed that all groups involved with racial integration must be raided as and investigated as possible Soviet puppets. Segregationist James Pfister began planning the SCEF raid in detail starting in 1956, proclaiming that school integration was communist. Caufield added the names of Robert Morris and Hubert Badeaux, and features LHO's writings sharply criticizing communism.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Caufield cites the October 4, 1963, raid by LUAC (Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee) on the integrationist group, SCEF (Southern Conference Education Fund) founded in 1949. SCEF was raided on suspicion of subversive communist activities controlled by the USSR. Caufield wonders if LHO was groomed as a false communist as early as 1956, at 17 in the Louisiana Civil Air Patrol under David Ferrie (perhaps for Guy Banister). Because in 1956 LHO sent mail to the SLP (Socialist Labor Party) and the YPSL (Young Peoples Socialist League) both targets of Guy Banister in 1956.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Caufield concludes his book with evidence that the New Orleans segregationist activists were in close contact with the Dallas segregationist activists. Caufield speculates that LHO was just one more "false communist" controlled by Guy Banister. LHO became good at posturing Marxism. Caufield wonders -- perhaps Banister ordered LHO to cooperate with General Walker in a false flag shooting of General Walker in Dallas on April 10, 1963. If so, then perhaps LHO was talked into a plot on 11/22/1963 which (he was told) was another false flag shooting by an accomplice with LHO's rifle. Perhaps.
So -- I hope this quick survey of all 24 chapters of Jeff Caufield's innovative and interesting book, "General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy" (2015) was useful to you.
Thank you,
--Paul
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