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The Philippines is a frontline of another cold war





Like in the Cold War, the United States is attempting to contain the influence of a great power rival in Southeast Asia. To counter China, the United States' approach to its relationship with the Philippines invokes déjà vu. Despite the passing of decades, the players, strategy and results remain the same.

First, the players. Many who have studied U.S.-Philippines relations during the Cold War focus on the relationship between President Reagan and the infamous Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. This is because Ronald Reagan was the quintessential "cold warrior" whose administration attempted to counter communist influence by supporting U.S.-aligned dictators the world over.



What gets less attention is President Carter's own complicity in propping up the Marcos regime. Carter, often categorized as a human rights-focused president, supported the Marcos regime after the declaration of martial law in the Philippines in an effort to keep U.S. access to military bases on the archipelago. While it is debatable whether Joe Biden is the new Jimmy Carter, he is a Democratic president who is claiming that his administration prioritizes human rights while navigating relationships with regimes that have dubious human rights records.

On the Philippines side, the comparison of President Rodrigo Duterte to Ferdinand Marcos is obvious: Duterte's drug war, encouragement of extrajudicial killings, shuttering of critical media and scoffing at international law echo the Marcos regime's myriad abuses. What's more, the children of both Marcos and Duterte are running on both parents' legacies in the Philippines presidential election.

Second, the strategy. The Philippines is, once again, seen as a geopolitically necessary bulwark against a superpower that threatens U.S. hegemony in the region. And again, the U.S. approach to containment is a prioritization of military superiority against China through access to bases on the Philippines.

To maintain access to these bases, the U.S. buys off the Philippine government with a steady stream of security assistance, turns a blind eye when atrocities are committed with said security assistance and reassures the Philippine government of lasting support whenever international or domestic criticisms are made.

Like in the first Cold War, the Philippine government is being given materials to engage domestic enemies, not foreign aggressors. Even with the most recently proposed arms sale of 10 F-16 fighter jets and a Harpoon Block II anti-ship missile system, the Philippines is no match for full-scale combat with the Chinese military and must rely on the military might of the U.S. to protect it. This approach does not foster sovereignty and self-determination; it leads to dependency and lackeyism.

Lastly, the results. In both cold wars, ordinary citizens at the crossroads of conflict were sacrificed. During the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, it is estimated that 3,257 people were murdered and 35,000 were tortured by the U.S.-backed Philippine security state. As of now, estimates put Duterte and his security forces' body count at approximately 30,000; this does not figure in the recent spate of killing human rights defenders. Along with Duterte's killings, his crackdown on critical media and political opposition mirrors Marcos's approach to dissent. As with most reigns of terror, we will not know the gravity or magnitude of the abuses committed until the regime has long disappeared.

What happened after Marcos's ouster was a critical reevaluation by the Filipino people of the Philippines' relationship with the United States due to the United States' unwavering support of Marcos.

As a result, the reawakened democracy voted in 1991 not to ratify a treaty that allowed the U.S. access to bases in the Philippines. It wasn't until 2014, with the signing of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, that the U.S. was allowed to fully station bases in the Philippines. If the U.S. is determined to follow the exact same approach in the new cold war with regards to the Philippines, a similar backlash is bound to occur.

Setting aside the questionable utility of participating in another cold war, the United States owes it to the people of the Philippines not to repeat the mistakes we made in the first Cold War. This starts with distancing ourselves from human rights abusers who will cause more harm than good in the long term, and taking steps to demonstrate that human rights are a priority.

One substantial way to do this is to limit U.S. military aid to the armed forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police. By withholding security assistance until perpetrators of human rights violations are held accountable for their actions, the U.S. creates an incentive for the government of the Philippines to develop a framework to address human rights concerns and gives the U.S. moral consistency when criticizing other states of human rights abuses.

Did George H.W. Bush Coordinate a JFK Hit Team?   This is not the first time and surely will not be the last that George H.W. Bush, former Director of the CIA and the 41st President of the United States, has been implicated in the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our 35th president.  In an earlier study, for example, “Was George H.W. Bush involved in the assassination of JFK?”, John Hankey and I both address this question, where he provides a great deal of evidence supporting a role for GHWB in the Dealey Plaza turkey shoot. In this new study, Richard Hooke substantiates that claim and advances additional proof of his own.  I believe that they are right. That GHWB knew Malcolm “Mac” Wallace from Yale is especially stunning.  ”Mac” Wallace was LBJ’s personal hit man and murdered as many as a dozen persons for Lyndon, including one of his own sisters, who was talking too much about his business to allow her to continue to speak.  There is substantial proof that LBJ was involved in the assassination, where his life had been dedicated to becoming “the president of all the people”.  As Phil Nelson, LBJ: Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination (2nd revised edition, 2011) documents, he was relentless in its pursuit.  Madeleine Duncan Brown, Texas in the Morning (1997), Barr McClellan, Blood, Money & Power (2003), and Billy Sol Estes, A Texas Legend (2004), have also identified LBJ as the pivotal player, which has been confirmed by E. Howard Hunt, “Last Confessions” (2007), who identified LBJ, Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phillips, William Harvey and David Sanchez Morales as in “the chain of command”. Even Jack Ruby, who was in the position to know, asserted that, if someone else had been Vice President, the assassination would never have occurred.  McClellan concluded that Texas oil men, such as Clint Murchison and H. L. Hunt, had provided financing for the assassination in order to preserve the oil depletion allowance at 27.5%, which remained unchanged under LBJ.  I had over 100 conversations with Madeleine Duncan Brown, who began an affair with Lyndon in 1948 and bore him a son, Steven, in 1950 (who was not his only child out of wedlock but was his only male offspring), who told me about their renderzvous at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, TX, on New Year’s Eve, only six weeks after the assassination, when she confronted him with rumors that he had been involved, since no one stood to gain more personally, whereupon Lyndon blew up and told her that the CIA and the oil boys had decided that JFK had to be taken out.  And that Mac Wallace was involved is not in serious doubt. Wallace went to work for Harry Lewis and L & G Oil. In 1970 he returned to Dallas and began pressing Edward Clark for more money for his part in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to Barr McClellan it was then decided to kill Wallace. “He had to be eliminated. After driving to see his daughter in Troup, Texas, he went by L & G’s offices in Longview, Texas. There his exhaust was rigged for part of it to flow into his car.”On 7th January, 1971, Malcolm Wallace was killed while driving into Pittsburg, Texas. He appeared to have fallen asleep and after leaving the road crashed his car. Wallace died of massive head injuries. Soon afterwards Clifton C. Carter died aged 53. 1971 was also the year Billie Sol Estes was due to leave prison. According to Clint Peoples, a Texas Ranger based in Austin, Billie Sol Estes had promised to tell the full story of the death of Henry Marshall when he obtained his freedom. On 9th August, 1984, Estes’ lawyer, Douglas Caddy, wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter Caddy claimed that Wallace, Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson and Cliff Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. Caddy added: “Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders.” This is consistent with Billy Sol’s interview with French investigative reporter, William Reymond, during which he explained that Lyndon had sent his chief administrative assistant, Cliff Carter, down to Dallas to make sure that all the arrangements for the assassination were in place, which he reaffirms in A Texas Legend (2004).  Billy Sol knew both Cliff Carter and “Mac” Wallace personally, inferring their involvement from personal conversations. A copy of email correspondence between John Simkin of The Education Forum and Douglas Caddy may be found on amazon.com, which substantiates Lyndon’s use of Cliff Carter to convey instructions to “Mac” Wallace to commit those crimes.  I am therefore stunned to discover that GHWB and “Mac” Wallace were both members of Skull & Bones at Yale. YouTube - Veterans Today - Why the Dal-Tex Matters According to The Warren Repor (1964), three shots were fired during the assassination.  The FBI and the Secret Service concluded that day that the first had hit JFK in the back, the second had hit John Connally in the back, and the third had hit JFK in the back of the head, killing him.  It would later surface that one shot that had been fired had missed and injured a distant bystander, James Tague.  For those who believed more than three shots had been fired, this was not especially problematic, where it turns out that eight, nine or ten shots appear to have been fired from six different locations.  (See, for example, “Dealey Plaza Revisited: What happened to JFK?”)  But for those who are committed to only three, it posed a delicate predicament, which led to the fabrication of the “magic bullet” theory that the back shot had actually hit the back of his neck, exited his throat, and entered the back of Connally. All of the evidence is against it; indeed, it is not only provably false but not even anatomically possible, insofar as cervical vertebrae intervene, as I explain in “Reasoning about Assassinations”.  It nevertheless became the fulcrum of the “official account”, since otherwise the throat wound and the wounds to Connally have to be explained on the basis of other shots and other shooters.  Extensive, meticulous and detailed examination of the medical, ballistic and eyewitness testimony supports the conclusion that JFK was hit four times–once in the back (from behind); once in the throat (from in front); and twice in the head (once in the back of the head from behind and once in the right temple from the right/front).  None of those shots appear to have been fired from the 6th floor “assassin’s lair” but three from the Dal-Tex, where the acoustics were such that they sounded as though they could have been fired from the Texas School Book Depository.  Richard’s study suggests that GHWB was at that window of the Dal-Tex: Let me emphasize that this is my analysis of the shot sequence, which I have elaborated in several places, including “What happened to JFK–and why it matters today” (UW-Madison, 22 November 2011), where Richard does not necessarily agree with me, even though we both believe three shots were fired from the Dal-Tex, which is the subject that he addresses in his study below. One appears to have missed and injured James Tague. Another appears to have hit the chrome strip above the windshield. And the third appears to have hit JFK in the back of his head. In particular, Richard believes that another shot was fired from behind the picket fence, which Ed Hoffman, among others, supports. And I agree that there may have been yet another shooter. YouTube - Veterans Today - George H.W. Bush Coordinated the Dal-Tex Hit Team GHWB at the TSBD: a Houston oil man by Richard Hooke George H.W. Bush was working for the CIA at least as early as 1961; more than likely he was recruited in his college days, at Yale, when he was in the Skull and Bones Society. He and his wife Barbara moved to Houston where he ran an offshore oil drilling business, Zapata Offshore Co., which was a CIA front company with rigs located all over the world, making it very convenient for him to vanish for weeks at a time on CIA business where one would suspect what he was doing. Bush was a major organizer and recruiter for the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was codenamed Operation ZAPATA. Col. Fletcher Prouty, former Pentagon high ranking official, who was the basis for the “Col. X” character in Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, obtained two Navy ships for the operation that were repainted to non-Navy colors and then renamed HOUSTON and BARBARA. George H.W. “Poppy” Bush is one of the few who could never recall where he was or what he was doing when JFK was assassinated; as a matter of fact, for over 20 years, he could not recall any details at all. He was 39 years old at the time and chairman of the Harris County (Houston) Republican Party and an outspoken critic of JFK. But on 21 November 1963, GHWB was staying at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Dallas and spoke that very evening to the American Association of Oil Drilling Contractors. Some time later,he was reportedly at “the ratification meeting” at the home of Clint Murchison, Sr., receiving last minute instructions and toasting JFK’s murder the night before it happened. [NOTE: Madeleine Duncan Brown has written about this event in her book, Texas in the Morning (1997). It was corroborated by Nigel Turner in Part 9, "The Guilty Men", of "The Men who Killed Kennedy".] YouTube - Veterans Today - Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig reported to Jim Garrison he knew of twelve arrests made in Dealey Plaza that day. One, in particular, was made by R.E. Vaughn of the Dallas Police Department, was of a man coming out of the Dal-Tex Building, who said he was “an independent oil operator from Houston, Texas.” The prisoner was taken from Vaughn by Dallas Police detectives, and that was the last he saw of him:  no mug shot, no interview, no fingerprints, or name is in existence of this mystery man. “Independent oil operator from Houston” was always George Bush’s (CIA) cover. Exactly why was he arrested? Garrison reported the man came running out of the Dal-Tex building and authorities could hardly avoid arresting him because of the clamor of onlookers. He was taken to the Sheriff’s Office for questioning, although there is no record of it. Afterward, two officers escorted him out of the building to the jeers of the waiting crowd. They put him in a police car and he was driven away; presumably right back to Dealey Plaza, because that is where he would be photographed with USAF Gen. Edward Lansdale. Ed Landsdale was identified walking past “the three tramps” (center) by no less authorities than L. Fletcher Prouty, the liaison between the Pentagon and the CIA for covert activities–who was the basis for the figure, “Col. X”, in Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, and Victor Krulak, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, both of whom knew him well. As for the identity of GHWB, we have these observations from Ralph Cinque, a professional chiropractor, who is an expert in dealing with person’s bodies and clothing, “The case for George HW being there is cinched. What’s the serious alternative? That a simply amazing coincidence occurred in which a man who  looked strikingly like him just happened to be there? How many times does V (for Vendetta in the film, “V for Vendetta”) have to tell us that he, like God, does not play dice and does not believe in coincidences? Neither do I or any other serious student of murder,  especially not when it involves the JFK assassination.” We have a photo of him standing in front of the Texas School Book Depository; we have photos of Ed Lansdale in Dealey Plaza at the time; and we have yet another in which Lansdale, who was famous for arranging assassinations around the world, is waiting to speak to him.  In this case, it may justifiably be said that “these pictures really are worth more than a thousand words”. The Phony Alibi The next that we hear of George H.W. Bush on 22 November 1963 comes from an FBI Memorandum according to which GHWG, having been cut loose from his anonymous interrogation at the Dallas Sheriff’s Office, called into SAC Graham W. Kitchel of the FBI Office in Houston alleging was establishing a phony alibi in saying he recalled hearing, in recent weeks, a man named James Parrott talking of killing the President when he came to Houston. Shortly after Bush made this call, FBI agents were dispatched to the Parrot house. In another FBI memo Parrot’s mother said James, who was not home when the FBI arrived, had been home all day helping her care for her son Gary. Mrs. Parrot advised that shortly after 1 PM a Mr. Reynolds came by and talked to her son about painting some signs at Republican Headquarters on Waugh Drive. The net effect was Kerney Reynold’s, George Bush’s assistant, gave Parrot an alibi and Parrot was Bush’s alibi; everyone’s ass was covered. A bogus phone call reporting a would-be assassin who was one of Bush’s Republican Party sign-painters; who himself is also freed by an alibi from one of Bush’s buddies, really doesn’t cut it; this is CIA Alibi 101. This type of stuff cannot be allowed to stand in history; if Bush was so concerned about his sign painter, why didn’t he call in to alert the FBI before President Kennedy came to Dallas? Bush has handed us his head on a silver platter with this memo; that’s why he always said he didn’t remember what his was doing on 11/22/63; he was hoping this incredibly stupid memo never surfaced. Bush was worried he had been seen and subsequently panicked and stupidly called the FBI, thinking he was being clever by providing evidence that it wasn’t him that was arrested in front of the Dal-Tex building that day. It seemed like a good idea, at the time, but he was actually creating a permanent record of his involvement. The memo identifies Bush as an oil man from Houston placing a long distance call from Tyler, Texas. Bush was trying to establish he was not in Dallas during, or shortly after, the assassination. He must had been worried that someone would identify him as the oil man detained running out of the Dal-Tex building and being ushered in and out of the Dallas Sheriff’s office. This FBI memo, dated 22 November 1963, states that Bush called from Tyler, Texas but there is no proof he was actually there. For over 20 years after the assassination, Bush said he did not remember where he was when the assassination took place at 12:30 PM in Dallas.  The only other person of whom I hae heard such a story was Richard Nixon, who flew out of Love Field just two hours before JFK flew in. Conspicuously, this FBI memo fails to provide an answer to where George Bush actually was. The memo, however, does tell us that the first moment Bush was free to create a phony alibi was at 1:45 PM. Bush was staying in downtown Dallas at the Sheraton Hotel, just few blocks from Dealey Plaza, yet he’s trying to tell us he was in Tyler, Texas at 1:45 PM. George Bush’s CIA assignment was obviously in Dallas, that’s why he was staying there, so what would he have been doing in Tyler? JFK had just been shot at 12:30 PM. Would  Bush not have been in Dallas at 12:30 PM as well, like everyone else, which was presumably the reason for him having been in town at the Dallas Sheraton Hotel? Would Bush not have driven down the road to Parkland Hospital, to check on the President’s condition; like everyone else? Except Bush was being interrogated at the Sheriff’s Office. The FBI Memorandum Bush appears to be a candidate for prosecution for treason: his alibis for 22 November 1963 are fabricated and we have evidence that shows he was there. An FBI memo of a call from Tyler Texas does not prove his location, except that he had concocted a textbook CIA alibi, that he was lying and probably was an accessory to JFK’s murder. Bush maintained for over twenty years after the assassination that he simply did not remember what he was doing at the time of the assassination. As a matter of fact, he had no explanation even in his autobiography; and then, all of a sudden, he concocted a story that he was speaking in Tyler, Texas to The Rotary Club. Aubrey Irby said Bush was speaking when the bellhop came over and informed Aubrey that JFK was dead. Mr. Aubrey passed the info on to Mr. Wendell Cherry Irby, who passed it onto Bush, who stopped his speech. According to Irby, Bush explained he thought a political speech was inappropriate under the circumstances, concluded speaking and simply sat down. It is inconceivable that George Bush could not have recollected this event for more than 20 years. Walter Cronkite’s announcement to the world that JFK was dead came on TV at 1:38 PM. Does anyone think that Bush was making a speech at that time, in Tyler, Texas, to the Rotary Club, after the President and Governor Connally were known to have been shot at 12:30 PM? President Kennedy had been scheduled to give a speech for lunch at the Dallas Trade Mart, after he passed through Dealey Plaza. Everyone who was anyone around Dallas was going to attend that speech; and after JFK was shot, most rushed to Parkland Hospital to find out the latest news concerning the gravely wounded President and Governor. A speech being given in Tyler, Texas, inside a building owned by right wingers, to a group of Republican JFK haters, hardly qualities as evidence Bush was not in Dallas, where the available evidence suggests that he was on assignment for the CIA and was supervising the Dal-Tex hit team, from which three shots appear to have been fired with a Mannlicher-Carcano, which appears to have been the the only non-silenced weapon that was used: Bullet hole/Doorway Man/Dal-Tex window/Danny Acre and Johnny Rosselli(?) Next, George Bush can be seen in photos of Dealey Plaza, next to the TSBD doorway and Ed Lansdale, shortly following the assassination (see below). These photos, unmistakably George Bush, tell us where he went after he left the Dallas Sheriff’s Office: back to the crime scene to get an update on all that he had missed. He must have made his call to the FBI reporting James Parrot from the Dallas Sheriff’s Office, at 1:45 PM, because Bush is seen in Dealey Plaza with Lansdale, who would leave the plaza at about 2 PM and walk past “the three tramps” toward the parking lot. Bush obviously had to go straight back to Dealey Plaza for him to be photographed with Lansdale, who remained around Dealey Plaza until Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theater at 1:50 PM. If Lee had not been arrested, then Lansdale, as “Plan B”, might have framed the three tramps–Charles Rogers, Charles Harrelson and Chauncey Marvin Holt (often misidentified as E. Howard Hunt)–who had been directed to go to a boxcar and the assassination have been blamed on them. Holt (CIA), the tramp with the hat, reported that they were found in the box car and taken through the plaza right after Oswald was arrested, which he knew because he was listening in, on a CIA provided radio concealed inside the paper bag that he is carrying in the familiar photos. An Incriminating Memorandum An FBI Memo from director J. Edgar Hoover (to the right), discovered by John McBride in 1988 but written just seven days after the assassination, provides verification George H.W. Bush was an officer of the CIA in 1963 and was provided updates on the anti-Castro Cubans. George Bush has said this memo was referring to another “George Bush” because he wasn’t in the CIA at the time.  But while there was another man by that name, he was a file clerk and would not have been receiving a memorandum about the Bay of Pigs operation.  And other information has surfaced showing the George Bush in the document was indeed George H.W. Bush and had the same address. In 1976, President Ford appointed George Bush as the Director of the CIA, replacing William Colby. Bush served in this role for 357 days, from 30 January  1976 to 20 January 1977. Bush falsely testified before Congress that he had never worked for the CIA, and it was widely reported that this was the first time that a civilian would be appointed to run the agency.  But that was more poppycock from Poppy. George Bush appears to have been a CIA lifer, probably recruited right out of Yale. George H.W. Bush (CIA) was also a close friend with George De Mohrenschildt (CIA), including they were both members of the Dallas Petroleum Club. After De Mohrenschildt was found shot to death the day before he was to be questioned by Gaeton Fonzi for the HSCA reinvestigation of the deaths of JFK and MLK in the late 1970s, Bush’s name and address were found in De Mohrenschildt’s address book: “Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland.” CIA documents reveal that during the planning of the Bay of Pigs Operation (Operation Zapata), De Mohrenschildt made frequent trips to Mexico and Panama and gave reports to the CIA. His son-in-law also told the Warren Commission that he believed De Mohrenschildt was spying for the planned Cuban invasion. George De Mohrenschildt, notably, was Lee Harvey Oswald’s best friend and appears to have been his handler after Oswald was brought to Dallas in the fall of 1963 and would find work at the TSBD. Was Bush in the Window? In The Killing of a President (1994), Robert Groden observes that a dark-complected man was seen in the window whom James Richards has identified to Jim Fetzer as having been Nestor “Tony” Izquierdo, for whom there is a statue in Freedom Park of “Little Havana”, Miami, Florida.  He was an anti-Castro Cuban, whom GHWB may have known from the Bay of Pigs.  I have built upon the prior research of Duncan MacRae, “Dal-Tex Shooter 2nd floor”, which provides the most suggestive interpretation of the location from which three rifle shots appear to have been fired: Given that Bush was in the building at the time, I infer that he was there in the background, inside the window of a broom closet of a uranium mining company on the second floor of the Dal-Tex building (which was a CIA asset). My interpretation is that someone with GHWB’s preppy haircut, large left ear, tall height, body language (head tilt), hairline part and forehead profile, was supervising the Dal-Tex hit team (see collage below). He was in Dallas for a reason, which was not to watch the presidential motorcade, and appears to have been a supervisor rather than a shooter, were it is very likely he was communicating using a radio device with a spotter. That spotter may have been Danny Arce (CIA), who can be seen speaking into a walkie-talkie, out on Houston Street (in the Altgens6 photo above), standing next to Johnny Roselli (CIA/Mafia). Arce was talking with someone as multiple shots were fired. Ruth Ann (CIA) was reported (by complicit witness Loy Factor) to have been counting down a cadence and to have been receiving information by walkie-talkie from the 6th floor of the TSBD. Umbrella Man’s companion, possibly Orlando Bosch (CIA) [NOTE: or Filipe Vidal Santiago], was not talking on his radio as limousine passed the Stemmons Freeway sign and the Umbrella man pumped his umbrella up and down, which appears to have been a signal to “keep firing” because the target was still alive.  [NOTE: It was at a location that was visible from all of the shooting locations that I have identified above.] Chauncey Holt (CIA), the oldest of the tramps, said he had a CIA supplied radio, concealed in his brown paper bag that kept him updated on events even from inside the Rock Island Railroad boxcar. Holt had delivered 15 sets of fake Secret Service ID and left them in a red pick-up truck parked in the lot behind the  grassy knoll, which was used by the Dallas Police Department, earlier that morning, facilitating the escape of the grassy knoll shooters. And Lee Bowers, the railway tower switchman, also testified to the Warren Commission that he observed strange people driving behind the picket fence and noticed one using a walkie-talkie. Proof Sketch GWHB was there (1) The FBI report (memo) Bush called in at 11/22/63 1:45 PM identified him as an oil business man from Houston, Texas and the FBI office he called was the Houston office. (2) The man arrested running out of the Dal-Tex building at approximately 12:35 PM on 11/22 was said (per Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig) to have identified himself as “an oil man from Houston”. Bush was arrested by R.E. Vaughn of the Dallas Police Department. (3) Bush called his FBI warning about James Parrot by long distance to his friend, FBI Special Agent Graham W. Kitchel, at the FBI office in Houston. (4) James Parrot had no history as a subversive but was a sign painter for George Bush’s Republican Senate campaign. (5) James Parrot was quickly provided an alibi by another friend, who was also an assistant of Bush, Kerney Reynolds. (6) George Bush was staying in Dallas at the downtown Sheraton Hotel and had spent the previous night (of the 21st) there. (7) There are at least two photos of George Bush (CIA) in Dealey Plaza speaking with police shortly after JFK was shot at 12:30 PM. (8) One of those photos has Bush (CIA) standing next to Ed Lansdale (CIA). (9) One of the photos shows Bush near the TSBD doorway in a zone police had cordoned off, which would have taken special ID (CIA). (10) The photo next to Lansdale most likely was taken between 1:45 PM, when Bush called in his bogus FBI memo, and 2 PM, when Lansdale is pictured exiting the plaza passing the three tramps. The tramps were taken from the boxcar at approximately 1:50 PM, when Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theater. (11) For over 20 years, George H.W. Bush said he did not remember what he was doing during the assassination, then he suddenly remembered he was giving a speech to the Rotary Club in Tyler at 1:38 PM, while his FBI call reporting James Parrot was placed at 1:45 PM. (12) His attendance with Malcolm “Mac” Wallace at Yale, when “Mac” was LBJ’s personal hit man, and his attendance at the ratification meeting at the home of Clint Murchison, Sr., are powerful circumstantial evidence of his complicity in the assassination of JFK. POSTSCRIPT Remarkably, there is a figure (in the DCA film) walking off the corner of Houston & Elm and toward the Dal- Tex building, where “the oil man from Houston” (George H.W. Bush) had been arrested minutes earlier, who looks a great deal like his son, 17 year old George W. Bush.  This figures ear, nose (where a crude effort to change the nose has been made in the second of these three images), bridge indent and jawline are a very close match to George W. Bush, where the preppy loafers and white sox he’s wearing are cheerleader appropriate.  It looks like W. was there, too. Richard M. Hooke, a student of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and former computer systems analyst for Bank of America, is also a writer and researcher regarding the death of President John F. Kennedy. Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer, is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a columnist and editor for Veterans Today.

Related Posts:

• The JFK Altgens6: Bill Shelley’s Shrunken Head
• JFK Special 5: Oswald Was In Doorway After All!
• JFK: Why Buell Wesley Frazier was erased from Altgens6
• The JFK War: An Insider’s Guide to Assassination Research III
• JFK: 49 Years in the Offing — The Altgens Reenactment

 

 

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Coco Chanel the Nazi spy: New document reveals that fashion designer worked for Hitler's military intelligence French documentary claims late fashion designer worked for the Nazis Had relationship with senior Gestapo officers during Second World War Code-named 'Westminster'- referring to her affair with Duke of Westminster Exploited friendship with Winston Churchill to try and strike truce in 1943 Other French stars' relationships with the Nazis also called into question Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier and Sacha Guitry all said to have had links French researchers claim to have found indisputable evidence that Coco Chanel worked as a spy for the Nazis during the Second World War. A written record made public for the first time in a documentary broadcast on French television last night is said to prove that the late fashion designer was a member of Abwehr - Adolf Hitler's secret military intelligence agency. The documentary also raised questions about the role played by other French celebrities during the Second World War, including singers Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier and dramatist Sacha Guitry. +7 Claim: A document made public for the first time in a documentary broadcast on French television last night is said to prove that Coco Chanel was a member of Abwehr - Adolf Hitler's secret military intelligence agency     The newly revealed document suggests that while working for the Nazis, Coco Chanel (pictured left and right) went by the codename 'Westminster' - a reference to her affair with the Duke of Westminster in the 1920s L'Ombre d'un Doute [The Shadow of a Doubt], broadcast on the state-owned France 3 channel yesterday evening, countered the French government's official claim that almost every well-known figure from the time either joined the Resistance movement or simply boycotted the Nazis. Although the claim has long been considered spurious by French historians, the issue of doubt has largely been ignored by mainstream French broadcasters. +7 Links: Coco Chanel is pictured with Winston Churchill's son Randolph at Ascot in the mid-1930s According to the documentary, Chanel's involvement with the Nazis began around the time of the collapse of the French army in 1940. She returned to Paris shortly after and moved in to the Ritz Hotel, which was doubling as the Luftwaffe's French headquarters at the time. She soon began an affair with a senior Gestapo officer by the name of Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage and became so closely acquainted with the Nazi upper echelons that she was sent to Madrid in 1943 where she exploited her past acquaintance with Winston Churchill to try and strike a truce with British officers stationed there. Churchill allegedly ignored the offer, with historian Henry Gidel saying Chanel 'displayed incredible megalomania and naivety in imagining that she could change Churchill's mind.' The newly revealed document suggests that while working for the Nazis, Chanel went by the codename 'Westminster' - a reference to her affair with the Duke of Westminster in the 1920s. Her official Abwehr number was F-7124 according to official Nazi record - which has been secretly held in the French Ministry of Defence archives for the past seven decades. The host of the documentary, historian ******* Ferrand, went on to claim that Chanel used her Nazi influence to try and reclaim the perfume business she sold to a Jewish family in 1924. +7 The documentary claims Edith Piaf (pictured) accepted two invitations to perform at private Nazi functions   Ties: The documentary's claims that singer Maurice Chevalier (left) and dramatist Sacha Guitry (right) were linked to the Nazis largely centred on the idea that the stars' careers flourished in occupied France Justine Picardie reveals the complexity of Chanel's relationships   Ferrand said the fashion designer had hoped that Nazi rules banning Jews owning businesses may lead to the company being confiscated and given back to her, but it later merged that the Wertheimer family had already sold their stake in Chanel perfume to a German businessman. The documentary's claims that Piaf, Chevalier and Guitry were linked to the Nazis were less fleshed-out and largely centred on the idea that the stars' careers flourished in occupied France - with Piaf also accepting two invitations to perform at private Nazi functions. The documentary claimed that officials in post-War France scrubbed the celebrities' records of Nazi links and invented ties to the Resistance movement in order to help rebuild the country's reputation. AT LEAST 1,000 ex-Nazis were hired by the U.S. as spies during the Cold War... and the CIA even helped them move to America Newly disclosed government records indicate the CIA and FBI ignored potential war crimes when they hired these ex-Nazis in the 1950s and 1960s Turned Nazis performed a variety of spy tasks from training for a possible invasion of USSR to laying communication cables in East Germany  While death camp wardens and Gestapo officers were being tried at Nuremberg in the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. was putting other former Nazis on the payroll. It has been revealed through recently disclosed government documents and interviews that at least 1,000 ex-Nazis were recruited by the American military, FBI and CIA to become Cold War spies and informants, the New York Times reports. Not only did they hire former Third Reich members suspected of carrying out war crimes, they went so far as to help their spies immigrate to the U.S. and cover up their involvement in the war in an attempt to protect them from the U.S. Justice Department's own Nazi hunters. And that estimate is considered conservative by the historians who were tasked by the government to declassify the war-crime records. Scroll down for video +6 Working for us: It has been revealed that at least 1,00 former Nazi police officials and collaborators were recruited by the FBI and CIA in the aftermath of World War II to become Cold War spies for the U.S. Above, Adolph Hitler greets SS officers at his birthday on April 20, 1937 'U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes,' University of Florida historian Norman Goda told the Times. 'Information was readily available that these were compromised men.' Records reveal that these spies and informants were recruited from every level of the fallen Nazi regime, from SS officers to Adolf Eichmann's own mentor and 'master race' proselytizer. U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes. Information was readily available that these were compromised men Norman Goda, historian, University of Florida In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA Chief Allen Dulles were in agreement that these former Nazis would be more helpful to the U.S. as Soviet spies than in prison.  In Maryland, Army officials trained Nazi officers for a possible invasion of Russia while in Connecticut an ex-Nazi guard was hired to study Soviet-bloc postage stamps for possible hidden messages. In Virginia, a former top adviser to Hitler himself gave classified briefings on the Soviets while ex-SS officers living in East Germany lay surveillance cables and tracked train movements. However, the records also showed that many of these former Nazis ended up not being effective spies, and some were even double agents. One of the more senior Nazis recruited by the U.S. was Aleksandras Lileikis, who was connected to the mass murder of 60,000 Jews in a Lithuanian ghetto. Nazi spies found on the coast of Maine in 1942   War criminal: The CIA knew of Aleksandras Lileikis' possible connection to the mass murder of Jews in Vilna, Lithuania, but they hired him anyway to become a spy in East Germany in 1952. Four years later they helped him move to the U.S. (his immigration picture on the right) +6 Above, a view of the ghetto in Vilna, Lithuania where nearly 60,000 Jews stayed before their deportation to death camps Lileikis also worked for the CIA after the war, and the agency even wrote in documents their knowledge of his war crimes. They wrote that Lileikis worked 'under the control of the Gestapo during the war' and that he 'was possibly connected with the shooting of Jews in Vilna'. Lileikis was hired to spy in East Germany in 1952, and the agency paid him $1,700 a year and eventually helped him immigrate to the U.S. four years later. He lived here for forty years before he was discovered in 1994 living outside Boston, and prosecutors moved to put to deport him. A CIA lawyer called the Justice Department telling them 'you can't file this case.' The CIA and Justice Department allegedly came to an agreement that Lileikis would not be put on trial if the agency turned over their evidence showing the former Nazi was turned into a U.S. spy. Ultimately, they let Lileikis get deported before making public their embarrassing past of hiring ex-Nazis. And even though they wrote about his involvement in the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto in internal memos, their official comment was that they were not aware of any war crimes. 'There is no evidence, that this Agency was aware of his wartime activities,' the CIA said in a 1995 statement. Another senior Nazi turned-American-spy was Otto von Bolschwing, who was a mentor and top aide to Adolph Eichmann - one of the masterminds of the Holocaust. It shouldn't have happened. He never should have been admitted to the United States. It wasn't consistent with out values as a country. Gus von Bolschwing, son of ex-Nazi turned U.S. spy Otto von Bolschwing Despite writing papers on how to terrorize Jews, the CIA hired Bolschwing as a spy in Europe and eventually moved his family to New York City in 1954 as 'a reward for his loyal postwar service and in view of the innocuousness of his [Nazi] party activities'. But when Eichmann was captured living in Argentina in 1960, Bolschwing feared he too would be exposed and put on trial as a conspirator with the creator of the 'Final Solution'. The CIA however reassured Bolschwing that they would protect him, and he did live freely in the U.S. for another 20 years before Nazi hunters tracked him down and moved to deport him from the country. Bolschwing agreed to give up his citizenship in 1981, and he died a few months later. Bolschwing's son, 75-year-old Gus Von Bolschwiung, is critical of his father's post-war counter-intelligence career. 'They used him, and he used them,' Gus von Bolschwing told the Times. 'It shouldn’t have happened. He never should have been admitted to the United States. It wasn’t consistent with our values as a country'  None of these ex-Nazi spies are known to be alive today. Eichmann's man: Otto von Bolschwing (left) was a mentor and top aide to Adolph Eichmann (right), one of the masterminds of the Holocaust. He was hired by the U.S. to spy in Europe in the aftermath of World War II. He lived in the U.S. for more than two decades before he was discovered by Nazi hunters and deported   It was one of Churchill’s most daring – and successful – plans of World War II. The creation of a secret spy network manned by ordinary men and women desperate to do their bit to beat the Nazis. Now the daring exploits of these half-forgotten heroes of the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, are fully revealed in a new TV series, Secret War. Take the amazing story of the Polish aristocrat Krystyna Skarbek. She joined the fight against Hitler when she was parachuted into France, where she employed her magnetic and flirtatious personality to persuade the Gestapo to release a team of fellow SOE agents they had captured. Seductive: Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green, was based on Krystyna Skarbek James Bond author Ian Fleming, who is thought to have been Krystyna’s lover, based Bond girl Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale and Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love on her. Tragically, after being awarded the OBE and George Medal for her exploits, Krystyna was stabbed to death in London by a spurned lover in 1952. Equally fearless was Violette Szabo, whose story was featured in the classic film Carve Her Name With Pride. Violette was the daughter of an English father and a French mother, and married to a French Foreign Legion officer. After her husband’s death at the battle of El Alamein, Violette was desperate to fight the Nazis. She completed her first mission in occupied France successfully, despite being arrested and talking her way out of trouble. She was not so lucky on her next mission, which coincided with D-Day. She ran into an SS Panzer Division while working with the French Resistance, and was wounded and captured in a shoot-out. Tortured by the Gestapo in Paris, she gave nothing away and was executed at Ravensbruck concentration camp. She was 23. Her daughter Tania went to Buckingham Palace to collect her mother’s George Cross in 1946, aged just four. Clever: Krystyna Skarbek used her 'flirtatious personality' Bruno Gimpel is one of the Secret War's few survivors. 'I was only 17 in 1944, and was running around with a revolver and a sub-machine gun,’ he recalls proudly. ‘What boy wouldn’t have enjoyed that?’ Bruno’s war began in June 1940 when, as the 13-year-old youngest son of an Italian banker living in London, he heard Italy’s Fascist dictator, Mussolini, had joined Hitler’s war against Britain. ‘My father and elder brother were interned as enemy aliens, and my mother and I were put on a troop ship with other members of Britain’s Italian community, and swapped in neutral Lisbon for a ship carrying Italy’s British community.’ After the Allies invaded Italy in 1943, Bruno and his mother took to the hills, where the 16- year-old was contacted by an SOE mission parachuted in to make contact with Italian partisans fighting behind the German lines. ‘I was recruited because I could speak English and Italian,’ says Bruno, who had a ringside seat for some of the war’s fiercest fighting – including Operation Tombola, when an SAS unit of just 40 men stormed the German 51st Division HQ manned by over 300 soldiers. Did Bruno ever think his life might end violently? ‘When you are young you don’t think about such things,’ he answers modestly. After the war, Bruno became an accountant in Milan. He looks back on his days as a guerrilla fighter as the most fulfilling of his life. And the best memory of all? ‘Getting my own back on my two elder brothers who sat out the war in England. They’d always looked down on me as a bambino, but the war made me a man.’

 

 

 

 

A Chinese spy ship has been spotted off the coast of Hawaii during a giant U.S.-led naval exercise.

The vessels crashed the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill which involves 22 countries, 40 ships and more than 250,000 soldiers.

Despite the potential threat to U.S. security, Beijing's defence ministry said they had the right to send in the intelligence boats, even though four ships and 1,000 of their soldiers were already part of the operation.

U.S. Marine Corps have shown off a new amphibious vehicle in Hawaii (shown). The Ultra Heavy-lift Amphibious Connector (Uhac) can travel on land and sea.

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Warfare: The Chinese vessels were spotted at the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill where the U.S. Navy was showing off one of its new amphibious vehicles (pictured)

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Presence: The Chinese naval destroyer Haikou (left) and frigate Yueyang were already involved in the drill

The Navy played down any intelligence risk associated with the vessels and noted that China also sent a similar ship to monitor the same exercise two years ago.

'We've taken all necessary precautions to protect our critical information,' said Captain Darryn James, chief spokesman of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. 'We expect this ship will remain outside of U.S. territorial seas and not operate in a manner that disrupts the ongoing Rim of the Pacific maritime exercise.'

In a statement, China's Defence Ministry, said its naval vessels had the right under international law to operate 'in waters outside of other country's territorial waters'.

'China respects the rights granted under international law to relevant littoral states, and hopes that relevant countries can respect the legal rights Chinese ships have,' it added.

U.S. officials hope China's participation in RIMPAC will help resolve tensions but analysts believe their presence may help Beijing strengthen its naval capability,

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Military might: The drill off the coast of Hawaii involves 22 nations, as well as 49 surface ships (including new U.S. machinery), and more than 200 aircraft

The U.S. also conducts surveillance operations in international waters and airspace and the Navy did not voice protest over the appearance of the vessel.

Still, James said he was unaware of any participant doing something similar since the RIMPAC drills began in 1971.

'To my knowledge, this is the first time a nation has ever sent a surveillance ship near Hawaii while also having invited ships participating in the RIMPAC exercise,' James said.

The Chinese ships participating in the drills are missile destroyer Haikou, missile frigate Yueyang, supply ship Qiandaohu and hospital ship Peace Ark. 

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Future of warfare: The US displayed a prototype of its new amphibious transport vehicle, the Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connecter (UHAC). It can drive onto the shore and scale objects up to three metres high on land

The exercises come at a time when tensions are high between Beijing and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines over China's pressing of territorial claims in the South and East China Seas.

They also come after a dispute between China and Vietnam that led to one of the worst breakdowns in ties since they fought a brief war in 1979.

A Chinese spy ship has been spotted off the coast of Hawaii during a giant U.S.-led naval exercise.

The vessels crashed the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill which involves 22 countries, 40 ships and more than 250,000 soldiers.

Despite the potential threat to U.S. security, Beijing's defence ministry said they had the right to send in the intelligence boats, even though four ships and 1,000 of their soldiers were already part of the operation.

+4

Warfare: The Chinese vessels were spotted at the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill where the U.S. Navy was showing off one of its new amphibious vehicles (pictured)

+4

Presence: The Chinese naval destroyer Haikou (left) and frigate Yueyang were already involved in the drill

The Navy played down any intelligence risk associated with the vessels and noted that China also sent a similar ship to monitor the same exercise two years ago.

'We've taken all necessary precautions to protect our critical information,' said Captain Darryn James, chief spokesman of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. 'We expect this ship will remain outside of U.S. territorial seas and not operate in a manner that disrupts the ongoing Rim of the Pacific maritime exercise.'

In a statement, China's Defence Ministry, said its naval vessels had the right under international law to operate 'in waters outside of other country's territorial waters'.

'China respects the rights granted under international law to relevant littoral states, and hopes that relevant countries can respect the legal rights Chinese ships have,' it added.

U.S. officials hope China's participation in RIMPAC will help resolve tensions but analysts believe their presence may help Beijing strengthen its naval capability,

+4

Military might: The drill off the coast of Hawaii involves 22 nations, as well as 49 surface ships (including new U.S. machinery), and more than 200 aircraft

The U.S. also conducts surveillance operations in international waters and airspace and the Navy did not voice protest over the appearance of the vessel.

Still, James said he was unaware of any participant doing something similar since the RIMPAC drills began in 1971.

'To my knowledge, this is the first time a nation has ever sent a surveillance ship near Hawaii while also having invited ships participating in the RIMPAC exercise,' James said.

The Chinese ships participating in the drills are missile destroyer Haikou, missile frigate Yueyang, supply ship Qiandaohu and hospital ship Peace Ark. 

+4

Future of warfare: The US displayed a prototype of its new amphibious transport vehicle, the Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connecter (UHAC). It can drive onto the shore and scale objects up to three metres high on land

The exercises come at a time when tensions are high between Beijing and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines over China's pressing of territorial claims in the South and East China Seas.

They also come after a dispute between China and Vietnam that led to one of the worst breakdowns in ties since they fought a brief war in 1979.

During the drill, the U.S. Marines displayed  a prototype of its new amphibious transport vehicle.

The Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connecter (UHAC) concept is designed to power across the water with a payload of nearly 200 tons at up to 20 knots (23 mph).

It is capable of driving up on to the shore and over the top of obstructions up to 10 ft (3 m) high

 

Russian spy chiefs ordered Anna Chapman to seduce whistleblower Edward Snowden, claims defector  Ex-KGB agent Boris Karpichkov makes claims over proposal background Alleges that plan was launched for Chapman to keep Snowden in Moscow This would be so the Russians could continue to question him, he claims They apparently met just once - but Chapman proposed in tweet last year +6 Ex-spy: Anna Chapman has become a celebrity in Russia since she was deported there four years ago Former intelligence agent Anna Chapman was told by Russian spy chiefs to seduce Edward Snowden, a defector claimed today. Ex-KGB agent Boris Karpichkov alleged that a plan was launched for Chapman, 32, to keep US whistleblower Snowden, 31, in Moscow - so the Russians could continue to question him. The two were said to have met just once - but Chapman proposed in a tweet in July 2013. Mr Karpichkov told journalist Nigel Nelson for the Sunday People: ‘If Snowden had accepted he would have a right to Russian citizenship. That would lock him in Russia. As a citizen he’d need permission to leave.’ Mr Karpichkov - who fled to Britain after 15 years as a KGB agent, but is still in contact with sources in Moscow - said Snowden became ‘concerned about what the consequences would be’ of being attached to Chapman. Former Conservative MP Rupert Allason, better-known now as spy writer Nigel West, said that Chapman was ‘sophisticated enough to live with an American’. Mr Allason told the Sunday People: ‘There aren’t many of those in the FSB (formerly the KGB). She would be prepared to use her obvious gifts.’ In September 2013, Chapman refused to answer questions about the proposal in a bizarre five-minute interview with NBC, and walked out after she was asked about the tweet. She has never publicly commented on it. Chapman, the daughter of a senior KGB agent, was arrested in 2010 with nine others, accused of working for a spy ring for Russia's external intelligence agency. +6 Edward Snowden is wanted in the US after leaking classified details of government surveillance programmes   Anna Chapman was arrested in 2010 with nine others, accused of working for a spy ring for Russia's external intelligence agency. She pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy and was deported back to Russia in 2010 She pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy and was deported back to Russia in July 2010 as part of a prisoner swap. She has since become a celebrity in Russia. She married British public schoolboy Alex Chapman in 2002 and the pair moved to London, but divorced in 2006. When unmasked as a Russian agent, she was stripped of her British passport. Since returning to Moscow, Chapman - dubbed a 'femme fatale' - has carved out a lucrative career as a TV presenter, model and owner of a fashion brand. Question: They were said to have met just once - but Chapman proposed to Snowden in a tweet in July 2013 In the spotlight: Since returning to Moscow, Chapman has carved out a lucrative career as a TV presenter, model and owner of a fashion brand Snowden left his long-term girlfriend Lindsay Mills in Hawaii when he fled the US, and was granted asylum in Moscow in August 2013, after six weeks of waiting at the city's airport. In the summer Snowden was reunited in Russia with Miss Mills, a pole-dancer. The pair were pictured together on a theatre date in Moscow. Snowden now has a three-year residency permit. He is wanted in the US after leaking classified details of government surveillance programmes. His critics view him as a traitor, while supporters see him as a hero who spoke up for civil liberties.

 

Ten of the greatest: Espionage coups

 

From the Enigma cipher machine used during World War II to the Cambridge spies, The Enigma cipher machine was the basis of German secret communications during World War II. The chances of anyone who didn't know the settings being able to break it were infinitesimal, and so the Germans believed it to be impregnable. The code-breakers at Bletchley Park, a collection of Britain's most brilliant mathematicians and intellectuals, were aided in their task by a design flaw in the machine and errors by German operators. From 1940 they were decrypting German intelligence signals picked up by wireless intercept stations and producing a stream of material codenamed 'Ultra', which Churchill described as the secret weapon that won the war.

The Engima cipher machine was the basis of German secret communications during World War II but there was a design flaw in the machine and errors by German operators

 

2. GEORGE SCOVELL, 1812

Scovell  was a forerunner of the code-breakers of the 20th century. A member of Wellington's staff during the Peninsular War with the French, Scovell was responsible for intercepting and decoding the enemy's communications, which then were made by enciphered dispatch. In spring 1811 the French, aware that their codes were being cracked, introduced something more sophisticated. Scovell cracked it in two days. At the end of 1811 they brought in the Great Paris Code. Scovell set to work, and by December 1812, when a letter to Napoleon was intercepted, he was able to decipher it and thus provide Wellington with information vital to his victory in June 1813. In later life he was knighted and became a general and Governor of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Sir George Sovell was responsible for intercepting and decoding the enemy's communications during the Peninsula War with the French

3. THE CAMBRIDGE SPIES, 1934

Probably the ablest group of spies ever to work for a foreign intelligence service. They were recruited during the Thirties by Arnold Deutsch of the OGPU, predecessor of the KGB. First was Kim Philby, who later joined MI6. Philby recommended Donald Maclean of the Foreign Office and Guy Burgess of the BBC and later MI6. Burgess recommended Anthony Blunt, who worked for MI5; Blunt recommended John Cairncross of the Foreign Office. Between them these five provided their Soviet masters with a stream of information from the heart of the British government.

 

 

 

Anthony Blunt and four others formed the ablest group of spies ever to work for a foreign intelligence service

4. ELYESA BAZNA (CICERO), 1943

Elyesa Bazna (Cicero), valet to the British ambassador to Turkey during WWII, photographed documents and sold the film to the Germans - but they didn't make as much use of his material as they could have. After the war, when Bazna tried to spend his ill-gotten gains, he discovered the Germans had paid him in counterfeit money. He was played by James Mason  in Five Fingers in 1952.

 

 

 

James Mason (right) played Elyesa Bazna (Cicero) in Five Fingers in 1952

5. APHRA BEHN, 1666

Aphra Behn was a writer whose wit and ability brought her to the attention of the court of Charles II. After the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665, Behn was recruited to go as a political spy to Antwerp. She cultivated many contacts and sent a stream of reports back home, notably giving advance warning of a Dutch operation to sail up the Thames and burn the English ships. Unfortunately most of her information was disregarded and she was never paid. Having spent all her money in the King's service, she was thrown into a debtors' prison. On her release, disgusted with political service, she supported herself by writing and became one of the first English female professional writers.

Aphra Behn was recruited to go as a political spy to Antwerp in 1665 after the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War

6. KLAUS FUCHS, 1944

In 1949, to the shock of Western governments, the Soviet Union exploded a test atomic bomb - a coup for the Russians, but the beginning of a new, more dangerous, phase in the Cold War.

At about the same time, newly decrypted Soviet intelligence messages revealed that plans of the first US atomic bomb had been leaked late in WWII by a British scientist.

An investigation pointed to several possible traitors, and under questioning Klaus Fuchs, a physicist who had worked in the U.S. on the Manhattan Project, admitted he had given the Soviets all the information he had about the bomb. Fuchs, a German communist who had come to Britain before the war and had been given British nationality to work on top-secret projects, was one of several scientists to betray atomic secrets.

 

 

 

Physicist Klaus Fuchs (left) admitted he had given the Soviet Union all the information he had about the atomic bomb (right) which they exploded in 1944

Colonel Oleg Penkovsky provided MI6 with details about Soviet missiles in 1960

7. OLEG PENKOVSKY, 1962

Penkovsky was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) officer, who first approached the Americans in 1960, but was rejected by the CIA. MI6 believed he was genuine, and in their hands he provided details about Soviet missiles and guidance systems, which revealed that the Soviets weren't as advanced as the West had thought.

His information proved vital in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was betrayed, arrested in October 1962 and executed. His courier, British businessman Greville Wynne, was arrested and later released in a spy swap.

8. FRANCIS WALSINGHAM, 1586

I've never much liked Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's spymaster, but I admire the patience and tradecraft that brought about his great espionage coup. Elizabeth refused to condemn Mary Queen of Scots without evidence of a plot, so Walsingham sent an agent to Mary, posing as a Catholic friend, who suggested to her a secret system of communicating via messages stuffed in beer casks. She later used the system to give her consent to an invasion plot by Anthony Babington, with Spanish collusion. Babington was arrested and died under torture and Elizabeth agreed to Mary's execution.

 

 

 

Francis Walsingham (left) tricked Mary Queen of Scots (left, being executed) into giving her consent to an invasion plot against Elizabeth I

9. CROSS SYSTEM, 1941

The messages deciphered at Bletchley Park gave MI5 early warning of German spies being sent to Britain, with the result that most were easily picked up and imprisoned or executed. It occurred to MI5 that it would be more useful to persuade the captured spies, in return for their lives, to work for the British by double-crossing the Germans, and thus began the Double Cross system, by which a stream of disinformation was fed to the Nazis. By spring 1942, it was clear that MI5 controlled all the agents operating in Britain and that the Germans were being successfully deceived by their inaccurate reports. Double Cross agents fed false information on the location of V1 and V2 rocket landings, causing the programming to be altered, and played a vital part in misleading Hitler about the location of the D-Day landings.

A wireless message sent to the Germans by Spanish born double-agent Juan Pujol Garcia, code named Garbo

10. OLEG GORDIEVSKY, 1983

Former Soviet spy Oleg Gordievsky receives the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and Saint George from Queen Elizabeth II