A CIA Agent’s Stunning Confessions Before His Death | Spies, Hoods, And The Hidden Elite | DC

Summary

This documentary reveals the story of Chanty Marvin Holt, a CIA contract agent and mob associate, detailing his confessions about dealings with organized crime and CIA operations. Holt narrates his involvement with figures like Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, his time at notorious CIA operations such as the Bay of Pigs, and suspicions surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy. Holt also discusses his extensive network and the clandestine activities he was involved in, which intertwined dangerous mafioso and intelligence worlds. His revelations shed light on covert historical events and individuals who have shaped subterranean currents in American history.

Highlights

• Learn how CIA agents were involved in covert global operations and historical turning points. 🌍
• Understand the intricate relationship between organized crime and intelligence agencies. 🤝
• Explore the untold aspects of the JFK assassination from Holt’s confessions. 🕵️‍♂️

Key Takeaways

• Chanty Holt lived a double life as a CIA agent and mafia associate. 🕵️‍♂️
• His involvement spanned infamous historical events including the Bay of Pigs and JFK assassination. 🇺🇸
• Meyer Lansky was a significant figure in Holt's life, offering both criminal and intellectual engagements. 🃏

Overview

Chanty Holt's life narrative is a gripping tale of espionage and criminal alliances that takes the viewer through a labyrinth of secretive U.S. operations and global intrigue. Growing up around crime in Southern Kentucky, Holt eventually found his way into the intelligence community, working closely with notorious criminal figures like Meyer Lansky. His life unfolds almost like a spy novel, with stories of daring operations and multifaceted connections.

Holt recounts his ventures with the CIA, including his involvement in the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion and other Cold War escapades. The documentary delves into his relationships with Mafia figures and reveals how these connections facilitated numerous clandestine tasks. His skills as a painter, pilot, and forger made him a uniquely versatile asset in both the espionage and criminal underworlds.

The assassination of JFK stands as a pivot point in Holt's narrative, bringing together the many threads of organized crime and intelligence conspiracies. Holt's recollections offer a startling perspective on the events surrounding the assassination, countering official reports with his inside knowledge and suggesting a much deeper entanglement of powerful entities in historical events.

A CIA Agent’s Stunning Confessions Before His Death | Spies, Hoods, And The Hidden Elite | DC Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] the men in the photos are known only as the three tramps they started snapping pictures right about yeah right about here this is Chanty Holt a career criminal now living in California Hol claims that he is this man the in the Hat his story is
• 00:30 - 01:00 [Music] fantastic this is the story of chony Marvin Holt a longtime contract agent for the Central Intelligence Agency and a mafia associate you're about to see the interview conducted with Mr Holt
• 01:00 - 01:30 just 8 days before he died this is his story [Music]
• 01:30 - 02:00 very few people know the incestous relationship that that you know existed and probably exist at the moment between these various very powerful elements organized crime intelligence Community the uh the uh uh political uh and
• 02:00 - 02:30 powerful business [Music] interest I felt that the American public had a right to know the as as many of the details that I have [Music] available I grew up in
• 02:30 - 03:00 Southern Kentucky where bootlegging was a way of life it it's probably the most important crop just like marijuana is in certain counties now and uh it was nothing unusual about bootlegging because uh uh when the uh Scotch Irish uh immigrants came to Kentucky uh in the early part of the 17th century they bought brought their Steels with them and and whiskey making was a one of their skills and they always did it for the young Chanty there was no Stigma attached to being a bootlegger not only
• 03:00 - 03:30 uh you know distilled the whiskey what we delivered it usually to uh somewhere like Knoxville Tennessee which is closed about 40 miles and as far away as as Cincinnati chy Holt got around and getting around got him in trouble he ended up in reform school in shiloi Ohio now it's they have prisons for youthful offenders that was what it would have been in those days but they called it a reform school and I'd uh been in there
• 03:30 - 04:00 for I Got U railroaded by the FBI for Joey riding in the car that was that was Hoover's big thing in those days was catching youthful car thieves usually someone else caught them and they took the credit and uh although we were in right in the middle of the war I mean Hoover took the time to send wire after wire down to Louisville wanting to know why we hadn't been prosecuted gives you an idea how what importance he placed on those type things this teletype April
• 04:00 - 04:30 23rd 1942 from Hoover to FBI Louisville office says in part Chanty Marvin hot at all advised by return teletype status prosecution of this case in the event final prosecution complete submit report immediately reflecting results of prosecution it signed Hoover while I was there I met uh several people that were connected Ed with organized crime so he
• 04:30 - 05:00 said if you want to if you want I'll put you in touch with with these guys in in Baltimore who are work hand and glove with with maransky uh one was sa Bloom and his brother Morris sa Bloom handled all the bookmaking operations for Lansky in the Baltimore area and uh so then through it was through that connection that he came down to uh lansi came down to uh Baltimore to visit with u and
• 05:00 - 05:30 to see his son buddy Lansky who at that time was u in the Phils Clinic he was disabled he's in the Phils clinic and I I knew him I had gotten acquainted with him with Buddy and we used to go over and play chess with him that sort of thing because I was doing some painting painting work for the uh uh restoring a painting right across the street chony Holt's skills as a painter would serve him well a Renaissance man he developed
• 05:30 - 06:00 other skills he became an arms expert in the military as well as learning how to fly an airplane Holt also did another kind of flying but not inside a cockit my uncles by marriage owned a small one ring circus and uh from the time I was six years old I mean I was uh running up and down the tight wire you know swinging on
• 06:00 - 06:30 the trapes I worked in uh in so I worked in in this family surface and uh I did a a single trap ease act I worked in a flying act I did a low wire act a Highwire act uh shot from the cannon uh all that sort of thing you know the circus performer in Shany Holt thought getting shot out of a cannon was a hell of a lot safer and easier than getting shot at
• 06:30 - 07:00 [Music] Chon's Baltimore connection with Meer Lansky would lead to a long relationship with the mobster and other important mob figures including the head of the
• 07:00 - 07:30 Detroit family Peter leavi I did a little work for him in painting he s he sent some paintings over to me for to be restored and that started a relationship with liav Voli that lasted uh well it lasted 50 years it lasted from uh from 44 until the date of his death in 19 1984 I had a lot of other other qualities that they that they they like first of all I was a pilot secondly I was a uh very good shooter I was a uh
• 07:30 - 08:00 weapons expert I and and of course the art didn't help it didn't hurt because it it extended to forgery if necessary uh and uh uh the uh and of course I was a good very good accountant very good money manager and probably I did more money managing and more uh fiscal type work down through the years than I did other types of uh work Chon's math skills he
• 08:00 - 08:30 was brilliant with figures caught Meer Lansky's attention so Lansky was coming down to Baltimore to see buddy and he was going to you know check up on the operation there the bookmaking operation and C Bloom called me I was working in the shipyard he called me and asked me if I'd like to come over and meet Mar lanski so he had he had told he told my Lansky that I I was a mathematical genius well I may have seemed like a mathematical genius to to to him but uh
• 08:30 - 09:00 anyway so ly came in he we're talking and it turned out that uh he was he was like me in the sense that he used to work mathematical problems just like he'd work a crossw word pzz he he'd get a whole a book with nothing with problems in mostly algebraic problem so he uh said I want to work out this little problem for you and you show show me the fallacy in it because you start out with with the premise and you end up
• 09:00 - 09:30 and and it looks like 2 equals 1 so we go down through the uh uh we go down through these equations and uh it started out with a equals B well down in the middle of this computation you divide by a minus B well a minus if a equals B A minus B is zero so uh I pointed it out I said there there's a fallacy and he said U uh oh yeah that's right he says uh anything divided by zero the the answer is zero and uh so I
• 09:30 - 10:00 said told him well technically he was technically was wrong for for the simple reason that the answer is not uh zero it's infinity and so he was very very impressed and he said now if you ever come down to Florida because I had said I thought about coming to Florida after the war he says if you come down to Florida he said uh be sure and look me up you can tutor me and analytical
• 10:00 - 10:30 differential integral calculus subject he was interested in so I knew that I'd made a very very valuable uh connection johy Hol got a closeup and a personal look at one of the most powerful members of organized crime Lansky although he had a very violent past having been you know a member of the bug the uh bugs and Meer gang and he could be as ruthless as the next person and he could uh in you
• 10:30 - 11:00 know in uh getting what he wanted however he was he was extremely intelligent he was polite he was um very lowkey uh he was compassionate many things that you you don't find in the in in the average gangster he he never actually thought of himself a as a gangster although to do that you'd have
• 11:00 - 11:30 to exclude his early his early life because he just considered himself simply a gambler who was providing the public with something that They begged for well I knew him from uh start starting in 44 I knew him until he went to Israel as a matter of fact I had a short letter from him just before he went to Israel saying he was he had decided to uh you know go to Israel and live Lansky writes to Marvin Holt in a
• 11:30 - 12:00 letter dated May 25th 1970 dear Marvin I have decided to go and live in Israel I will be here at Ray for a few days Ray is Ray Ryan's El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs the letter goes on to say I would like to see you before I go fly down here if you can I don't dare come to La if I don't get to see you before we leave I want to thank
• 12:00 - 12:30 you for the past favors keep your nose clean I will write you from Israel if I don't get to see you your friend Meyer Lansky wanted to migrate to Israel but was having difficulties entering the country like the letter he wrote to chony Lansky's personal appeal to the prime minister of Israel is also handwritten Lansky tells monan Bean he wants very much to live in Israel and blame s His Image problems on the media
• 12:30 - 13:00 chony became acquainted with another notorious crime figure the man many say created a gambling Oasis in the Nevada desert Bugsy seagull soon after I uh after the war I went South and hooked up with the uh uh with with Lansky started working for his his organization I worked for his main accounting firm and I also was off his manager of one of his
• 13:00 - 13:30 uh uh his front organizations which was used for uh a lot for stock manipulations and that sort of thing and uh I also uh worked at the uh at the Colonial Inn which was the the plushest of the carpet joints there in Florida at that time the Colonial Inn in Hollandale Florida was a hot spot Show Business types mobsters and politicians flocked to the the Glamorous gambling nightclub
• 13:30 - 14:00 Resort it was Lansky's prototype for Las Vegas gambling and casinos all the while Holt was privy to the Lansky Las Vegas Bugsy seagull connection actually I met him actually before they they started the they started the flamingo the first trip that I made West with him to meet seagull he was going out because seagull wanted him to put in go into buying the El Cortez Hotel on their first trip to
• 14:00 - 14:30 Las Vegas Lansky told Hol he wasn't worried about Jay Edgar Hoover the mob had compromising photos of the FBI director and his Aid Clyde Tolson taken at the delcho lodge in La Hoya California the mob was worried about seagull's mishandling their money in Las Vegas the Brotherhood who' put up $6 million uh they were getting to be get concerned about their money so we went out to talk to uh talk to seagull again
• 14:30 - 15:00 and to uh uh look into the rumors that he in Virginia Hill had been squirreling away money for their their retirement so we went out and we talked to all the vendors and so forth this principal one was the general contractor was Dale Webb and we talked to him and and we discovered at once that seagull he was he he was he hadn't paid
• 15:00 - 15:30 D web nearly as much money as he said so it was obvious that he was stealing so we came back and shortly after that they had a big meeting in Nana when all the everybody every top mob mob figure in the well not only in in the country but Lucky oano came from Italy came to Havana to uh um have this have conference about what they were going to do about about Lansky
• 15:30 - 16:00 I mean about uh about seagull Lansky pleaded for him you know said he look what you know he served us long and well why don't we give him just a little piece of the action and and and let let him get out and uh he came back so he said okay so Lansky and I made another trip to uh to California and he told Lansky and I right to our face that you know we
• 16:00 - 16:30 could shove it that the flamingo was his and he was keeping it and that was that because he had a he had a violent violent uncontrollable temper and so as far as that went I mean that was his that was his death warrant that conversation was on 19th of June 1947 a day later seagull was dead on the 20th we followed seagull around all day to the barber shop to his lawyer uh he went over to to a place on H Fountain
• 16:30 - 17:00 Avenue to meet a girlfriend you know he didn't didn't seem like he had a work didn't seem like he had a worry in the world seagull was murdered three shots to the Head chony denied any involvement in the actual murder of seagull he didn't pull the trigger he swears but he hints at his role at Lookout performing surveillance for the mob Hitman he never denies his relationship with another important crime figure Peter leavi was
• 17:00 - 17:30 one of the most important organized crime uh figures in the country he was probably the last of of a Dying Breed he grew up in um St Louis uh a big Sicilian family uh he was imported by the Purple Gang into Detroit in the uh the early 30s to act as enforcers then uh they finally took over
• 17:30 - 18:00 and he became one of five ruling Dawns of Detroit the Detroit operated differently than say New York New York had five separate families headed by five separate people they had one family that was headed by five ruling da of which one was uh Peter leavi he was into everything I mean he was into own sharking and he was into into anything
• 18:00 - 18:30 that prostitution anything that that that that the mob is normally uh you know in uh involved in and he had really he had a really a great love for art and he was a uh he was a sucker when it came to buying art especially Italian art he loved he loved buying Italian art and uh we used to buy that stuff by the room full you know of course he was trying to
• 18:30 - 19:00 clean up his image and he he he was a competent painter I have some of his [Music] paintings it was during the karor committee hearings into organized crime that ch's career took a turn Meer Lansky had been ordered to testify he was of the few guys that didn't end up in jail
• 19:00 - 19:30 because most of them in ended up in jail because of contempt of congress but he he got up there and he answered all their questions and uh uh he well he appeared first without a lawyer then he had his lawyer but uh you know I mean uh he he was quick on his feet chony is quick too immediately accepting an offer of a unique job offered him by Lansky the year is 1953 I can can put you in a job if you
• 19:30 - 20:00 want to have a job I could put you in over here at the uh International uh rescue committee as a a controller at a real good job at a real good salary I thought it was a philanthropic organization like the Red Cross or something like the name implies they like those innocuous names of the CIA so I uh I I was sitting there when a guy walk in from Washington his name was Richard Sloter came in and he explained
• 20:00 - 20:30 to me The Facts of Life that uh this was a proprietary interest of the CIA ch's aliases were many he would use 25 different names while working for the mob and the CIA we had two type of aliases we had floating aliases that uh more than one agent used and uh uh a number of agents used over the years that you slap a picture on now I used I
• 20:30 - 21:00 I had uh I used U Charles horley Robert Ralston Marvin Hoy which is not too far from my own name however as far as deep cover agents Alias has went I had three Deep Cover a that would withstand the the vigorous uh scrutiny one was the one that I used the longest time was John armoon I used Kerney L Sigler and I used
• 21:00 - 21:30 Dean ruts the CIA hadn't been in business too long but already had a clear Target Guatemala chony assumed a new identity and began training for his mission at a secret CIA base in Arizona so I became Robert rson and I had these these U uh all these credentials in that name so I went out to Aria which is a big base well it became
• 21:30 - 22:00 an awful big base later it wasn't much of a base in those years was right near Tucson that the CIA used was a training uh training facility and I went out to get some multi-engine training because in in preparation for going down to uh to Guatemala Chon's personal records include copies of CIA contract agent paperwork this type of supporting documentation involving a CIA contract agent has never
• 22:00 - 22:30 been made public before I first went to Guatemala as a part of a fiveman uh assassination team I guess you'd call us that went down to uh figure what we what we're going to do uh it looked like that uh our Benz was going to win the the next year's election and we were trying to get a uh CIA approved candidate to uh um to run in in against him but the plan
• 22:30 - 23:00 was a failure and our BS remained in power so here we were with this guy who was an out andout communist sitting there at that time Eisenhower delis and those guys all up and down the line and you know this guy's got to go so we found another guy who had was was in prison down there and his name is cilia cilia Aras and he he was educated in the United States uh he had gone to the uh
• 23:00 - 23:30 the command and general staff school at lenworth and so forth he he was uh he he's caught in the coup and the uh he uh sentenced him to death and he was in he was in jail so we went down and and got the guy out of jail uh which was very easy all we did was just grease a few palms and he walked right out into a limousine you know wasn't wasn't a007 type deal you know our Moss backed with a 300 man Army and the CIA invaded
• 23:30 - 24:00 Guatemala from Nicaragua I was flying a c47 and we used it we had a c47 because we would either we could either push U ordinance out the door or or we could actually use it for leaflets and of course we were were flying over Guatemala City just Distributing Those leaflets About to for our BS to give up and so forth and which he did he threw in the sponge in August he he fled the
• 24:00 - 24:30 country and of course uh then uh Eisenhower was able to uh uh uh say that Guatemala was now back in the hands of the people even while working for the CIA chony continued to work for organized crime I always kept in touch uh and if uh uh you know if my Lansky or any of his group wanted something of me they certainly would uh they didn't
• 24:30 - 25:00 didn't hesitate to ask [Music] me when Castro landed uh up in escam BR mountains and started his little Revolution he got some he got some aid from C from uh from Lansky simply
• 25:00 - 25:30 because Lansky was just sort of hedging his b as a matter of fact he had an agreement with Castro that if he took over the government he'd let him continue operating the casinos after Castro actually came to power in 1959 uh he let them operate for about two months and then he confiscated the hotels confiscated them and so naturally they were in interested in getting back to uh back to Cuba Lansky himself
• 25:30 - 26:00 personally had a $1 million contract out on uh on C on Castro so here we had these these people and then we had the CIA and we had the Bob all trying to get get rid of uh get rid of Castro Cuba wasn't the only interest so was the Dominican Republic and its dictator tro the government was pushing very very
• 26:00 - 26:30 vigorously to uh to get rid of Castro and they had uh uh Enlisted the aid of U uh truo and Johnny abbis who is his uh head of security who was one of the uh best assassins in the world but they suddenly somewhere in the uh about this time the state department decided hey we've had enough of tril tril has to go
• 26:30 - 27:00 so we're going to so they started putting plans in the hopper to kill to kill uh truo so that removed one very very uh dangerous foe of uh uh of Castro a CIA letter dated March 17th 1961 sent to a CIA team including chony says in case you plan to hunt this
• 27:00 - 27:30 territory recommend high-powered foreign-made rifle with telescopic scope and silencer have already obtained necessary licenses and paid the fees that means the tro assassination had the go-ahead he was murdered two weeks later [Music]
• 27:30 - 28:00 the mob had never forgotten how Castro had double crossed them so they set in motion a series of deadly plans to assassinate the Cuban leader Lansky had uh actually uh it was he had actually offered a contract of a million dollars for for anyone who would uh dispose of
• 28:00 - 28:30 Castro now he had a viable in my opinion it was the most workable plan to assassinate Castro that uh they ever was ever conceived and uh they had uh assassin chosen they gotten the weapon in it came in with some circus equipment it was um uh they had rented a an apartment which
• 28:30 - 29:00 was within 300 yards of the of the television station where he used to walk back and forth and Harang for hour on end and so forth and uh but at the last minute uh uh it it was C called off and it was called off through pressure from the state department the CIA didn't want to give up they wanted a location in South Florida to keep close tabs on Castro they again turned to Meer Lansky
• 29:00 - 29:30 down in the Florida Keys at Marathon had built this uh this airport strictly for his use but the CIA began to use it and we started making flights from Marathon it wasn't too far marath from Marathon into Cuba and we would insert agents into Cuba we would uh deliver arms and ammunition into into Cuba uh we made um
• 29:30 - 30:00 you know literally dozens and dozens of flights uh into uh into Cuba uh in uh in 19 in 1960 Intrigue in aptitude and infighting CIA and state department doomed any efforts uh everybody seemed to be working across purposes and finally uh at the uh uh just before the 1960
• 30:00 - 30:30 election uh they they came up with this idea of invading Cuba and uh what started out to from being a very uh uh small over the Beach deep type raid uh turned into a to a full Full Assault that Full Assault the Bay of Pigs invasion would be a complete f a major embarrassment for the Kennedy
• 30:30 - 31:00 administration and the impetus for operation [Music] mongus Operation was a h ill conceived um operation joint operation between organized crime and the CIA to to actually simp kill Castro and
• 31:00 - 31:30 um they had there some various memos as a matter of fact I have a few memos how it how it ended up how they were talking about what they were going to do and so forth here are some of the memos chony refers to these men participated in a meeting held at a small airport between Palm Springs and Indio California the name Bermuda Dunes in that meeting uh Peter Voli and I flew in from uh from
• 31:30 - 32:00 Arizona uh Sam Gan Conor Johnny roselli uh came in from Chicago uh William King Harvey came from from Langley William King Harvey was a legend in the CIA he was the only member he was the only CIA member there but of course he was the he was the one that was laying out the plan who was William
• 32:00 - 32:30 King Harvey chony was well aware of his involvement in other CIA operations William King Harvey was the head of uh task force W that had been renamed originally that was a part of uh ZR rifle operation called ZR rifle ZR rifle was nothing more than and that an assassination uh uh group that went
• 32:30 - 33:00 around the world assassinating people and Harvey happened to be the head of ZR rival on December 14th 1961 top Echelon leaders of the CIA and the mafia met at Bermuda Dunes airport in Palm Springs to discuss ground rules for operation ch's memos from that meeting show an executive action was planned executive action means assassination the target the beard
• 33:00 - 33:30 Castro the ground rules CIA only maximum security non attributability plausible denial need to no basis Harvey set the tone of the meeting at the Bermuda Dunes airport they were going to uh eliminate the beard and uh how it was going to be done and what just starting as to what Personnel they were going to hire uh
• 33:30 - 34:00 first of all they were trying to decide what uh Krypton they were going to use for this because they had decided that they would uh sign it a cryptonym and would end up in the official cie files uh am normally C oper operations involving Cuba had an AM uh start to their cryptonym so we said well we don't don't want to
• 34:00 - 34:30 use don't want to use am what are we going to use they started looking down the list and an M Mo was some uh cryptonym for some obscure Place way out in the Pacific somewhere so we said hey that would be a good use Mo and somebody said well what's going to go with what goes with M Mo and so it flows you know so somebody said hey how about mongoose you know the Mongoose never loses you know that's that's a good one you know everybody everybody agreed just hey
• 34:30 - 35:00 we'll call it operation it's also decided any further discussions about operation would be face to face nothing in writing the cia's William King Harvey was clearly in charge it was a very short meeting because of the fact that uh 20 minutes an hour yeah 20 minutes an hour it didn't take very long I mean he laid it out precise terms uh these guys wanted to get out you know and uh you know take on off and
• 35:00 - 35:30 uhh there guys like Gan Conor and roselli I mean they're reluctant you know to get together these high and leavi too these high ranking Mobsters don't like to meet with each other and rarely do they so we kept it short and sweet and that was it an August 14th 1962 inter office CIA Memo from William King Harvey to the director of clandestine operations says in part our
• 35:30 - 36:00 contract agents in Miami and Los Angeles have been assured by me that no reference to this operation appears in our Central [Music] files our first order of business was to set up a documentation Mill so we
• 36:00 - 36:30 started looking around for for a plant and we found one that was ideal and it was in financial trouble it was called the Los Angeles stamp and stationary company it was a very old uh La firm that owned a very valuable building uh in uh uh in downtown uh Los Angeles which was ideally set up because what we could do the the first four floors of this
• 36:30 - 37:00 building was devoted to uh legitimate business we went right on with their printing they printed they did they did banners they did badges they did uh high high quality printing such as stock certificates bonds that sort of thing but more importantly in that for our which for us was the fact that they made police badges for just about every uh police department in in in the United
• 37:00 - 37:30 States and then the then the top floor was devoted to our clandestine operation so we had a we had a group of uh of employees that knew nothing about what went on upstairs but upstairs we did all the disinformation stuff all the all the fake IDs uh and that sort of thing the agency also wanted a machine shop to handle weapon modifications we discovered this place at uh at golita
• 37:30 - 38:00 which is California which is at the Santa Barbara Airport so there again it was located on on the airport so we could taxi we could land there taxi in pull right in we had a big hanger just pulled right into that facility which is great you know for loading and un unloading arms and that sort of thing and there again this was an operating machine shop that uh continued its own work but when we came along we said hey we want uh uh we want 500 silencers we
• 38:00 - 38:30 got 500 silencers by late 1962 both covert operations were up and running both were used by the mob and the CIA Holt's immediate supervisor on behalf of the agency was Phil twombley Philip twamley had been at one time the Executive Vice President for Caribbean operations of Coca-Cola which which used to boast that
• 38:30 - 39:00 it was the eyes and ears of the CIA in the Caribbean so we know that they he was well connected we never actually knew how well until we got to the till we start came to the West Coast and we were told that all of our funds would be coming from Philip twamley and all of our orders would be coming from Philip TWY or and a longtime agent by the name of Richard
• 39:00 - 39:30 Wilson the head of the CIA uh in uh Los Angeles was a guy by the name of Ernst liuer and we were told at no except in an extreme emergency we were not to contact lier that our operations was outside the normal Loop of the of the
• 39:30 - 40:00 CIA so suddenly I mean at first uh we we had no trouble setting up all these things but then we started making making requests for Capital Equipment that we felt that we needed and um it it had just slowed to a trickle for some reason I mean we just weren't getting any funds but suddenly in early 1963 the purse strings loosened we're not talking about uh L little little uh procurements we're
• 40:00 - 40:30 talking about Big Ticket items among them was a uh we we wanted a corporate jet to fly back and forth in a fast f we wanted to get a and the best one at that time was the Gulf Stream which was a turbo prop job the startling thing about it was they were telling us hey you you're we got money at the end of 63 I mean at the end of April in ' 63 I received
• 40:30 - 41:00 a a note from Philip TWY which um uh in which he said that we would soon be receiving a special order from our distributor in New Orleans a letter from TWY dated April 29th 1963 is addressed to Jack Moon 's favorite Alias I want you to personally supervise
• 41:00 - 41:30 this project and make the delivery yourself to New Orleans it signed regards Phil our distributor in New Orleans happened to be G banister H who was a is a well-known person known to all the assassination researchers because he was a very mysterious guy and was was probably Lee Harvey osw Well's
• 41:30 - 42:00 control tw's letter to chy Holt AKA Jack Moon ended with this instruction the customer wants all the original artwork destroyed when the job is [Music] completed it bothered me from day one was the vilification of Lee Harvey
• 42:00 - 42:30 Oswald because I know that Lee Harvey Oswald was a uh was a py I know that he was executed just the same as everyone else chy is absolutely convinced that Oswald was framed although my re Revelations probably won't add uh too much to what's uh what's already been said but all I wanted to do was to uh uh
• 42:30 - 43:00 I felt that the uh the American people are entitled to [Music] know the editing for the next portion of the Hol interview will be minimal you will hear chony Holt's words as he spoke them he's talking about his New Orleans assignment its late spring 1963 it turned out that this work was for Lee Harvey
• 43:00 - 43:30 Oswald we did uh documentation uh identity documents in the name of Lee Harvey Oswald Lee Henry Oswald Leon Osborne and Alec H Alex hell we weren't sure at the at the time who's who were actually doing it who this person was for simple reason that the same picture that appeared on Lee Harvey
• 43:30 - 44:00 Oswald also appeared on Leon Osborne we didn't know whether this guy was actually Leon Osborne or or that or he might not he might have been neither so we didn't know exactly who this was so we we delivered some of this some of this uh uh documentation was redoing some other documentation that someone else had done and it was very amateurish and uh would
• 44:00 - 44:30 never pass wouldn't pass mustard if you looked at it very closely you know it was a forgery so it was merely cleaning it up some it was new uh one of the new one of the new things that we did for for him was to show a a card showing that uh Lee Harvey Oswell was a member of the Communist Party well that presented a little problem for us because I didn't even know what what that c looked like and and we hunted and hunted and hunted trying to find find
• 44:30 - 45:00 what it looked like and we were finally told by experts that hey those guy those Communists don't carry these don't carry any cards but they wanted it so we just had to wing it and make them a nice looking uh card that showed him a member of the Communist party so we completed that in the uh uh in the uh in May May or June in August uh we made a trip to uh to New Orleans
• 45:00 - 45:30 to deliver some guns and so forth I had a a note we had a note from George Reynolds George Reynolds operated for proprietary interest at Morgan City Louisiana and uh he relayed he was a high level apparently he he operated at a high level because a lot of instructions came
• 45:30 - 46:00 from him and a lot of money came from him a lot of money came from from his organization direct uh direct to whomever whomever I said send it to so he worked at a high level besides he was extremely well connected uh to the intelligence Community his sister was married to to uh Frank beler
• 46:00 - 46:30 who was one of the uh uh most powerful figures legal figures in in California now Frank beler was also he was partners with Joe ball not actually not actually Partners in their Law Firm they had the separate law firms but they operated together Joe ball like belshire was an influential legal figure he was was president of the California State Bar and gained National exposure as a
• 46:30 - 47:00 senior Council to the Warren Commission according to chony both belshire and ball were part of an interlocked web with far-reaching connections chony elaborates further about this Shadle WE Network George Reynolds had a brother whose name was Bob Reynolds he was chief of station at JM wave very and he was a high level CIA uh uh individual
• 47:00 - 47:30 employee besides Frank beler was related to ja belter a ja belter oil company they had oldtime oil money from Texas he also was known to be a CIA asset it was well known and so all these all these things were working were working to uh together so I get a letter from George reyolds telling me that that he and Leroy Young
• 47:30 - 48:00 Who happen to be his second in command he was a weapons expert helicopter pilot uh you know Soldier of Fortune type and that they were going to be in uh New Orleans uh for about a 20 20-day 20-day period And I was going to New Orleans to deliver some guns to Lis mcil who was a high level uh uh C uh high level
• 48:00 - 48:30 organized crime figure all these people of course were connected to the CIA CIA knew what was going on so I was going to deliver these guns over there so while I was there and was going to I had some stuff for guy banister uh he sent me this note saying he was going to be there and that he was going to be at the Lal hotel and to meet a guy by named Thomas Eli Davis Thomas Davis he was another one of those Soldier of Fortune types that that work for the work for
• 48:30 - 49:00 the CIA so while we was while we were over there on the on the ninth day of of uh of a of August in 63 I I had never seen Oswald so I was down talking to to guy banister and he said well oswal was was over uh on the next street handing out leaflets to why don't I go over
• 49:00 - 49:30 and and take a look at him I don't have to introduce myself but you know going at least I'd see him so I went over and it turned out that uh Lee Harvey Oswald and a guy named Carlos bruer got into a shoving match there and uh they they both ended up getting U arrested actually for nothing really so so so I went back over and Guy V said well you know I guess we should get go
• 49:30 - 50:00 down and get oswal Bailey M and so forth but before we could bail him out uh a uh Oswald's Uncle Doug Dutch morett worked for Carlos marello so they sent a guy down to get him out of um the uh out of jail course F and that was on a Friday and on Monday he
• 50:00 - 50:30 was appear Night Court I went down to Night Court to to see what was going on and they gave and talked to him I talked to him for a while and uh they uh gave um you know gave him a little fine and then and he left that was your first uh that was the first time I saw Oswald in Night Court yeah that's first well I saw him but the first time I introduced myself to him you know went up and said who was and so forth and and uh and talked to him for a
• 50:30 - 51:00 while and H he was an interesting interesting kid to talk to he he just turned 24 well he had he wasn't even 24 then he's 23 then he he didn't turn 24 until October but uh we had we had an interesting little talk and then on uh on Friday uh he was back in front of the uh the trademark handing out leaflets again I happened to be in in the trademark
• 51:00 - 51:30 talking to a guy by name Lloyd Cobb Lloyd Cobb they called him the potato man because he owned 8,000 Acres of potatoes up around Jackson Louisiana he was as far rightwing as you can get and he was very very high up those guys at the trademark John Lawrence may have been the president of the trademark Mark and Clay Shaw uh may have been the director but
• 51:30 - 52:00 they all took their uh took their uh orders from Lloyd Cobb so ju I went in and just as I came out of the building I look and there's a television camera there uh taking pictures of w wsd is start taking pictures of of this this little uh handing out these pamphlets
• 52:00 - 52:30 well I I just duck down the side and I I thought I I thought I wasn't caught on film but it turned that that turned out that I was a television news crew was outside the international trademark and captured on film Oswald passing out fair play for Cuba protest leaflets transferred to Stills it clearly shows Oswald at work from a different angle you see bystanders reading the leaflets
• 52:30 - 53:00 in this still taken from the film Oswald's head is turned away from the camera and from another still chony in sunglasses is seen exiting the trademark building he's on the far right on ch's left Leroy Young George Reynolds assistant well the all this stuff really concerned Philip twombley twombley resolved the
• 53:00 - 53:30 problem of chony being identified on that news film with the help of New Orleans FBI agent Warren De Bru the disinformation campaign worked as twamley wrote chony dear Jack The Potato Man advised our distributor in New Orleans that Warren has submitted a report and has positively identified the man coming out of the trademark as the public relations man not chony again and the distributor in New Orleans was Guy banister Lloyd Cobb was able to uh pull
• 53:30 - 54:00 all these strings and get and had them misidentified by employees of the trademark who were that he was their boss and so we managed to we managed to extricate ourselves from that possibility I I couldn't understand is why that they were so worried about it and why that they were doing so much with they was had so much interest in
• 54:00 - 54:30 Oswald Oswald was an interesting kid but you know they tried to say that they were trying to separate us from the fireplay for Cuba uh act and didn't want us involved and so forth indicated clearly to me uh you know well didn't then but later on I got the idea as hey you know this guy is was important to them and I and later on I understood why because they undoubtedly had had other plans for him and the fact that it was
• 54:30 - 55:00 that this this inquiry was initiated by Philip twamley indicated to me that twamley was cognizant of of these plans that were that were in the work about the same time of the New Orleans episode with Oswald chony received an unusual order from the Texas gun dealer in the summer of 1963 we received
• 55:00 - 55:30 a uh an order I guess youd call it an order or a request from a a a u a gunsmith in Dallas by the name of John T Masons spelled with an e and asking us to buy all the existing uh models of the manle Carano rifle the
• 55:30 - 56:00 Manley car Carano was an atalian made military rifle probably the poorest made military rifle that was ever designed they called it the manlier uh the name of manlier shouldn't even been on it maner was a great Austrian gun maker but the only thing that he had anything to do with in with the manly Carano was that he designed the magazine but they said bu these
• 56:00 - 56:30 existing uh uh buy these guns they and do they had us doing a lot of chronogra uh work on them uh measuring uh uh muzzle velocity and that sort of thing using all kinds of loads underloading overloading and so forth and um we um so we that's a normal sort of thing with we we bought we bought these
• 56:30 - 57:00 we bought these these rifles from Sam cumings who was another had another CIA front over on at Western Surplus out on Roy Seca in in Pasadena we bought these things for $3 a piece this will give you an idea how how what what kind of a gun these were so you'd be better off with a bow and arrow uh so then they sent us a bunch of the man the one particular
• 57:00 - 57:30 man Carano shot a 6.5 millimeter uh used bullet and um we received a bunch of 6.5 Man car bullets at first glance if you you look at them at first glance you think that they are they're on fire that the new new bullets just cast but if you
• 57:30 - 58:00 examine them very carefully you could see that they had been fired at least once and they had been fired into either water or a wading or something so they didn't get uh uh uh just just formed you know uh formed out of shape distorted or whatever you want to call it uh then they ask us to load a number of these into a 264 Remington case 264
• 58:00 - 58:30 and 6.5 are the same that but however the the um uh the Remington I mean you can you can use that from a quality snipers rifle such as a such as a uh reming 700 and one of those I mean instead of sticking with that sticking with that cheap Char carono so it's obviously these these
• 58:30 - 59:00 people who do this have have something in mind so we loaded uh we loaded a lot of those cases we also loaded cases for them what they call Mexican loads Mexican loads are you take in this case we took a 308 case and we necked it down so that it would take the 6.5 then we put the 6 .5 in it and of course this would be be could be fired from a from a
• 59:00 - 59:30 uh a 308 and a lot there's a lot of good good 308 around as a matter of fact the M14 which was the Top Flight military rifle at that time used the 308 however the only drawback in that of course is is the fact of firing that small projectile out of lot you you don't know where the hell it's going I mean you certainly you certainly know uh you're going to deliver it somewhere
• 59:30 - 60:00 but you can't be sure of hitting anything so it's apparent that that Mason uh at Mason's they've got they've got something going something going there so we produced all that stuff and delivered it to him in the in the summer of uh of 1963 [Music]
• 60:00 - 60:30 on April 23rd 1963 the first news release came out concerning President Kennedy's trip to Dallas what happened at that time they were Kennedy himself was he on the one hand he was talking
• 60:30 - 61:00 about having big speech before the 256 Brigade saying this is going to be delivered this flag is going to be delivered to a free Cuba we will never let up and blah blah blah all that political rhetoric when in fact his Emissary William Atwood was at that time negotiating with r Castro to ease up on some of the restrictions and and build up a improve the relationship with the
• 61:00 - 61:30 United States well I mean this is not what the CIA uh they wants to hear so what they decided to do was that we're going to create this disturbance and uh uh which was probably attempt on the life of the president or I seemingly attempt on his life that would be laid to the door of the proastro Cubans that way it would inject
• 61:30 - 62:00 a little life back into their program so that was what they that was what we we were told so as part of our what we our role in was going to be was that we were going to um Forge a lot of identification Secret Service identification not only only the cards that they carry but the lapel pens that they wear the only the problem in
• 62:00 - 62:30 this of course is the fact that the that they change that lapel uh every two or three days of course the only person who would actually know would be another secret service agent I mean I'd look at it I wouldn't know you wouldn't know but they thought it was important enough to he to have the real the real thing so we we were waiting we were waiting on this before we could could make our delivery
• 62:30 - 63:00 to uh to Dallas chony was to deliver the fake Secret Service identification to Dallas but even before Dallas the president had been scheduled to speak in Miami however the Secret Service got wind of an assassination plot against the president in that Florida City we prepared some stuff for the Miami thing which was supposed which supposed to take place on November the 9th this incident yeah this incident and we
• 63:00 - 63:30 provided the same type of identification as we were as we did for Dallas the only problem is that uh they intercepted some a telephone conversation that indicated that there was going to be an attempt on Kennedy's life and they didn't have the motor Cade they took him directly to where he was going to speak by helicopter and returned him by helicopter and they had to cancel that operation so we we were
• 63:30 - 64:00 waiting for the for this for the second one which is going to be in Dallas because it seemed that that was going to be uh a viable project uh and uh we were waiting for the word from twamley what the color of the uh identification badges were going to be for that particular day that was the only thing remaining that we had to put together and to be uh be delivered and
• 64:00 - 64:30 how many were we were going to produce chy and his Confederates knew the JFK was going to be in Texas early on we knew that he was going to be in San Antonio Houston uh Fort Worth and Dallas however the exact date we didn't learn the exact date until uh probably uh uh maybe the
• 64:30 - 65:00 uh oh as late as the 15th or 16th I'm really not sure exactly when we learned because it his his agenda hadn't hadn't been exactly set chony was waiting to hear when and how many sets of fake Secret Service IDs were needed in Dallas then the orders arrived it came from from Philip TW uh he did not tell tell us precisely how
• 65:00 - 65:30 we were to get it there except that it was to be delivered hopefully it was be delivered on the the night of the 21st tw's memo it's dated November 12th 1963 to Jack Los Angeles stamp and stationary company says in part number needed undetermined this time but will not be in excess of 15 tble is referring
• 65:30 - 66:00 to the sets of fake Secret Service IDs he says schedule accordingly the color of the uh the the Secret Service uh acting ones the ones that are uh charged with the protection of the president they were these lapel pin easily recognized vble they look like a little kind of like a Good Conduct metal but uh and
• 66:00 - 66:30 they change them from time to time because they figure if they if they're they you have the same color too long somebody's going to make a handful of them so they keep changing them changing them so uh we didn't find out until uh about the 16th that uh they the color it was going to be which turned out to be the same uh
• 66:30 - 67:00 colors as the as they have on the te the the flag of Texas those were the pins chony was ordered to deliver to Dallas Our intention first was to fly uh directly from Los Angeles uh to to Dallas which is no problem then on November the 12th I received a uh letter from from Peter
• 67:00 - 67:30 leavi in which he he uh told me to be sure and stopped by the ranch that uh Charlie museri and and Charlie uh nicoletti and Leo Missouri wanted to go to Dallas and um uh on their way to New Orleans he indicated that he had picked up for us a large station wagon which was uh registered in the name of John om
• 67:30 - 68:00 Al and all the documents indicated John O Ali I had a driver's license and identification of the name of John om Al which is the name I decided that I was going to use on this particular trip chony picked up the mafia hitman at Grace Ranch owned by liav Voli the ranch also provided safe haven for contract agents of the CIA so we arrived there expecting that we would all four fly to
• 68:00 - 68:30 uh to Dallas however when we got there we discovered that nicoletti in mouri had a hell of a lot of luggage and and it was heavy luggage and weighed a lot so we we thought that it was going to be too risky flying it uh doing it that way so we had this station wagon we said oh what the hell I mean we'll we'll drive from Tucson drive from Tucson to Dallas so we all we all took off uh we
• 68:30 - 69:00 encountered first at Lordsburg New Mexico we had uh car car trouble which held us up for a few hours while they were trying to get the part uh then uh just just west of um El Paso we hit had a storm that was so a wind storm was so bad that we had to stop you couldn't
• 69:00 - 69:30 drive took the paint Rod off the car a check of the El Paso Times weather report for November 21st quote a frle system passed through the city about 730 a.m. with winds recorded from 29 to 35 mph [Music]
• 69:30 - 70:00 it was a cou and I do not believe that that is the way not in in this country you know for a change of command JFK and Jackie Kennedy arrive in Dallas by plane it's November 22nd early the same morning chony also reaches Dallas he drops off the mob hit men and checks into the Adolphus Hotel I received a note from uh from Tomley
• 70:00 - 70:30 telling me that he was going to be that week he was going to be at the botling convention uh in uh Dallas uh he told me that he had made a reservation for Joe Cy and I at the adus hotel where we could stay and rest up a little if we wanted to be before we before we uh came back to the coast he also indicated that he was going to be staying at a private home which I uh uh
• 70:30 - 71:00 believe uh was probably with Clint merchon because he was a he was a uh very close friend of Clinton merchon and that also that he would be that he would be meeting Kendall there Kendall of course was of pepsicola was another one that uh uh bragged about being the eyes and ears of the CIA tw's note to Chanty tells him to stay as long as you
• 71:00 - 71:30 like at the Adolphus twam also reserves a room for Joe KY a fellow pilot and CIA contract agent everything is taken care of just sign the tab tble continues Kendall and I are staying with friends tw's instructions to Chanty were simple we were supposed to meet a an individual by the name of home omeria omeria had a um he was violently uh
• 71:30 - 72:00 anti-castro I mean anti- Kennedy no one hated Kennedy any more than than Homer Asia according to records from the house select committee on assassinations the Secret Service received a tip that on November 2st 1963 Homer s ofia was overheard bragging his group had plenty of money and that his Bankers will proceed with the arms deal as soon as we take care of Kennedy
• 72:00 - 72:30 at that time he and a guy by named poino Sierra they were running around putting together what they said was a expeditionary force that was going to uh to invade Cuba uh the Cubans of course that was just the name just the thing that he actually wanted to uh they wanted to hear so we were put it in a station wagon owned by hom retaria they were to uh uh they gave us the uh uh tag
• 72:30 - 73:00 number and so forth T of the of the pickup truck and we were and keys we had a set of keys master keys and uh uh all we we were just going to put the uh false identification there was nothing else no guns anything else would put it in in there and lock it lock it up and that that would be it a picture taken years later in a parking lot behind the notorious grassy null shows Chanty
• 73:00 - 73:30 pointing to the area where his station wagon was parked they had a parking area that was used by uh law enforcement Personnel that was locked which we had a key to and we were able to go in there and we went around we looked for the pickup truck and we didn't see it so we uh relocked the gate and um KY and I decided that we would go out to the go out to redb bird airport at
• 73:30 - 74:00 Redbird airport was a plane just purchased using CIA covert funds that was the plane that was sitting there waiting for us to take it back to California or actually we were going to take it back to uh Bermuda Dunes where erned un Levy there at the B Dunes Aircraft company was going to do a top overhaul to make sure that it was was in good condition so we went out and I
• 74:00 - 74:30 dropped off I dropped off Cy there and U it's interesting that uh Dwayne January who at that time was the manager of that airport he still remembers that plane very well and the reason he remembers the plane very well is the fact that the the painting was on it it had had been owned by Gear Company and it had a beautiful beautiful rendering of a huge
• 74:30 - 75:00 gear that took up the entire tail on this aircraft and he remembers it he also remembers it because of the fact that uh candy spent so long running engine up running engine up that that he had a complaint from the residents around there that he was making too much too much noise so uh but that was that was his job to do that so then I went back and as when I came back to Del Plaza this time uh the pickup truck was
• 75:00 - 75:30 there it was now about 10:30 in the morning I took the the uh Satchel uh holding all the the IDS and I uh put them in the pickup truck locked it walked away uh about 11:00 a person who I never had never met hesia but he had been introduced to me I
• 75:30 - 76:00 mean he had he I'd seen pictures of him uh and uh it looked like it appeared that's who it was came got in the pickup truck and drove off a few minutes later chy noticed some suspicious activity in the parking lot behind the grassy null now while I was there there are several other cars that were uh that were in the in and out and the parking lot that had people in them that at
• 76:00 - 76:30 least one of whom I I knew very well uh one of the persons who drove in sat at the entrance for a long time and then left was an individual by the name of of uh aldoa San who was one of the foremost assassins in the world chony observed him talking on the radio back and forth y looked
• 76:30 - 77:00 like he's clicking the mic and so forth and talking on it and so forth and then after a while he uh uh he left drove out of the parking area according to Chanty sarapin was a freelancer an assassin For Hire he was freance he work for anybody anybody who would chony was ordered to stay in the area of the TWY told him some sort of staged Pro Castro demonstration would take place
• 77:00 - 77:30 sort of in a in a support position almost like an observer I guess so I strolled up by the uh almost up to the corner of Houston and Elm Street I was on the South Side I never actually got up there and I looked over there and I saw quite a few Latin types I saw PE individuals that it uh I had seen
• 77:30 - 78:00 in the past one of them of course was Lis pada who was another uh another assassin uh Freddy Lugo who was also another worldclass assassin and of course I thought I saw orando Orlando Bosch uh the FBI said later on said couldn't have been BOS Bosch wasn't there but because we had him under such type of surveillance but I certainly wouldn't believe the FBI so he was up
• 78:00 - 78:30 there other individuals that looked uh I thought that I saw rip Robertson he was another had been a a uh he was a CIA contract agent and I but I hadn't seen him since uh 54 so uh you know you might have it might have looked like him another individual I thought I saw was a guy named Tony po to stood for Tony
• 78:30 - 79:00 posan but uh there again uh it he really wasn't because later on he told me I saw him later on and he hadn't been out of Southeast Asia but it was somebody looked like him and wore that same they had the the floppy uh fatigue type stuff that they wore the military type hat and so forth so he was another he was another mysterious looking guy that was over there so they were over there and you know they're wandering around Del
• 79:00 - 79:30 Plaza for some uh some purpose and uh they had a you know an unusual number of I mean it'd be hard to find at a at the Soldier of Fortune meet it would be hard to find as many military types I was wandering around uh in in De Plaza and of course course you really weren't wondered about that but after all we were getting ready to have a demonstration so uh so I
• 79:30 - 80:00 thought so anyway I didn't uh uh it didn't bother me too much and of course you're you're you're you know you're tempted to go over and talk to these guys and but then again you're operating on a need to know basis and so you you leave these guys or what long you don't do do anything about it chony would learn later there were some other notorious individuals in De Plaza I've always thought that it was some effort to you know muddy the water we got as
• 80:00 - 80:30 many bad guys running around as you can possibly get and they all seem to gravitate it just seems to me more than coincidental that they would all show up in Dallas at the same time and I think that if they had uh uh if the sheriff's department the FBI or the uh Dallas Police Department if they had done their job that jail down there would have been full of Nefarious characters with all
• 80:30 - 81:00 kinds of reputation chony was worried his instincts told him something was up but his orders from pumble were clear I had these batf credentials and they were saying if there is any if you have any if you have any trouble you go and jump in this box car they identified the Box Car you get in this box car
• 81:00 - 81:30 which will appear to be locked it'll have a seal on it and everything else and sweat out what what happens if if you if they're they have some kind of a serious confrontation the box car was in a train yard behind the grassy null it was the ninth car in a line of box cars but there was another order given Shany an order for weapons uh usually uh almost all the request for Armament of
• 81:30 - 82:00 any kind either just stock uh uh rifles pistols to uh silen rifles silenc pistols almost all of it came from uh George Reynolds in Morgan City Reynolds told cha to make a delivery I had had instructions that I was to deliver uh uh some
• 82:00 - 82:30 guns and some IDs to two other individuals one of whom was uh Charles harlson and another was an individual that I knew as Richard Montoya Charles Roger I mean Charles harelson I had never met he had been pointed out out to me one time in John Mason's gun store by a guy I was with and he said that's that that is Charles
• 82:30 - 83:00 harelson uh that he is a he's a part owner in this gun store now I had later on I did some ID false ID work for Charles harlson except he was using the Alias of Terry Southern at that at that time so I'd seen his picture you know so I mean enough that you're pretty have see
• 83:00 - 83:30 him the one time and having his picture I mean you you're a pretty good idea that hey this is the guy so he walked up to me and uh he said are you John Ali and I said uh yeah and he said I'm I'm Charles harlson I said no you're Charles Harper because that was the name of the uh the uh identification was the name of Charles har Harper and U so I gave him the ID
• 83:30 - 84:00 and then they had requested that I bring over a couple of guns for for for him and the other guy who I'll get to in a minute and so I gave him this uh uh Smith and Wesson uh model 40 and uh I gave that to him and the other guy was a guy named Richard Montoya I had met him sometime before I met him at the home of Orlando Pedra Orlando Pedra was a had
• 84:00 - 84:30 been formerly was the chief of police of uh of Havana he was at that time living in in this plush estate on Pine Tree Drive in Miami and uh was he was actually Batista's pay master so I met him I went over with we went over to see see Pedra about something and this guy was introduced to me as as Richard
• 84:30 - 85:00 Montoya and uh he spoke uh a very good Spanish I assumed that he was probably uh an an American Born uh person that spoke Spanish because he didn't look uh you know he didn't look like a Cuban that he was probably one of of ped's uh bodyguards because he had a lot of them so uh that was the second guy so I gave
• 85:00 - 85:30 him his ID uh and uh then I uh uh and gave him the gun uh gave him the uh and uh so they took this and they walked away [Music]
• 85:30 - 86:00 the crowds had begun to gather along the Route in anticipation of seeing the president of the United States and the first lady it was noon Chanty was pacing in the parking lot behind the grassy null waiting for the staged demonstration to begin I was told specifically by Philip H TWY that they were going to have this he described it very specifically that it was going to be a
• 86:00 - 86:30 nonviolent demonstration incident that would be laid to the door of the proastro Cubans I just assume that included there if it's going to be something that's that's uh serious enough to inject some life into this thing it has to be more than a than a few placards that it's going to be uh uh more than those we hate Kennedy uh placards that
• 86:30 - 87:00 they were going to have to do something and I would assume that hey they're going to take a shot at that motor gate and uh with with the intention not hitting anyone maybe that's why they were going to use the maning carnal because they couldn't couldn't be possible they wouldn't know where where they going to shoot on the surface the plan seemed simple the demonstration would leave to public outrage you know that there's going to be a swell of public opinion is hey turn the screws on
• 87:00 - 87:30 Castro they'd have been yelling for them invade invade Cuba and everything else the presidential motorcade was moving closer and closer chony could hear the crowd growing excited it was 12:30 [Music] when the shooting started at
• 87:30 - 88:00 12:30 then immediately after the first shot which was a weak type shot I realized that this was not any any simple demonstration you know in addition to all the shots people were screaming and carrying on and running in all these directions I didn't actually see see the shooting although I was behind the picket fence within 25 yards of the motor Gade but I didn't see it
• 88:00 - 88:30 stand by just a moment please something has happened in the motorcade route stand by please put me on Phil put me on something has happened here we understand there is been a shooting the presidential car coming up now we know it's the presidential car and can see Mrs Kennedy's Pink Suit there's a secret service man spread eagle over the top of the car we understand governor and Mrs Connelly are in the car with president and Mrs Kennedy we can't see who has been here if anybody's been hit but apparently something is wrong here something is terribly wrong chy didn't see the president's shot but he sure
• 88:30 - 89:00 heard something oh I heard it very well enough to know first of all that there was more shots fired than the three they claimed and it seemed to me like uh that uh you know and being a you know somewhat of of an of an expert uh you know on shooting um that the shots did not all come from the same direction I am quite sure that the shots were from different
• 89:00 - 89:30 caliber guns and from a different source and I know that there's four shots and possibly five shots it's very hard to distinguish uh shots that are fired with a with an automatic or semi-auto uh from you can shoot them as fast that the sounds merge together but I I believe that there's probably five shots and that they came from uh different sources
• 89:30 - 90:00 it was just a fusel of shots in a very very short period of [Music] time my first was to hey just get out of here you know just go over mix with the crowd you know
• 90:00 - 90:30 and go but I'd been in I had been given Specific Instructions and when you when you're given Specific Instructions that's that's what you do we I had enough time to uh just barely get to get to the box car and when I arrived there these two other individuals known to me as harelson and and Montoya were already there indicated they were close by and um we jumped in the jumped in the
• 90:30 - 91:00 Box Car closed the door and uh just settled down to uh wait everything out there was a search party came by many times but this this box car appeared to be locked it had a seal on it and they kept passing it up we could hear them outside we could hear their uh uh their radios and so forth the three sat in the Box Car for over an
• 91:00 - 91:30 hour listening to a police radio receiver chony had concealed in a brown paper bag then around 2:20 p.m. the box car started to move moved up the tracks and then it backed down the tracks and stopped what actually happened was that the U uh uh lee Bowers who happened to be the tower operator which which supervised all the the movements in the yard happened to see uh somebody jump on
• 91:30 - 92:00 a jump on the train further up and he ordered the train stopped and they backed down they backed down the tracks a little ways we didn't we weren't too concerned about at that time because of the fact that after all it was a switching yard but suddenly they stopped and uh for some reason they chose that that time they didn't pass the Box Car up so we heard them uh rattling at the door and U I immediately got out my U uh
• 92:00 - 92:30 batf uh credentials uh because I certainly didn't want to have a uh a bunch of trigger ha ha happy cops dragging us out of there so the minute they open the door of course I flashed my credentials and said I was with the batf had a badge and that sort of thing all the credentials and D Harkness was a sergeant for the U uh with the uh Dallas Police Department he was in charge of
• 92:30 - 93:00 this detail and another officer by name of Roy vaugh was almost like his second in command uh so we identified ourselves or identified myself I did all the Talking identified and said hey we're we're with a batf we're we're working undercover we're investigating this uh this armed shipment and send this box car and U he and Von conferred for a little bit and
• 93:00 - 93:30 uh they decided that they would send me over to uh send us over to the U the little uh uh area that had been set up as investigative type office like a command center or something yeah a little little Command Center they had they had the sheriff's department they had the police department they had the FBI was all there and it was over at the sheriff's Sheriff's department so uh he assigned two cops Marvin wise and Billy
• 93:30 - 94:00 Bass to escort us over and we started over and it was just like a leisurely walk wasn't didn't seem like it was anything urgent uh harelson was in the front at that time and he was just sort of strolling along like like uh he was enjoying the whole situation uh he was probably smoked up on something thing because he was a notorious narcotics user so uh then he suddenly changed uh
• 94:00 - 94:30 Montoya went by him and Montoya got in front so they took us around the plaza by the Texas Book Depository they were headed to the Sheriff's command post near Elm and Houston once there the three were interrogated briefly and released these men would later be called the three tramps they were taking pictures of everybody in sight and uh incidentally there's a lot of guys are
• 94:30 - 95:00 pictures that they ended up taking their pictures that they still aren't sure who they were I mean one guy they one guy they picked him up uh they took a picture of this one guy I mean he's dressed all in black almost like a ninja uh and uh they they they still they still don't know who that guy was uh and uhh there's a picture of one guy uh that the uh the police are putting in a police car uh and uh he's a military type
• 95:00 - 95:30 looking guy you know very fit had that crew haircut on they're putting him in there and they've been trying to identify this guy for all these years and they and they haven't been able to he just he just got lost in the shovel like everybody else did while a number of suspects were questioned within minutes of the shooting that wasn't the case for chy Montoya and harelson they were detained 2 hours later just look at the shadows and the
• 95:30 - 96:00 photos it's clearly late afternoon the pictures were taken uh by reporters from the newspaper reporters as we were walking around they took pictures of us all the way around that that Plaza you see a lot there's a lot of them walking in front of the school Book Depository johy Holtz claim to be one of the so-called three traps has been documented elsewhere there is more than just Holt's word there is also his face
• 96:00 - 96:30 it's just too Lois Gibson is the Houston Police Department's forensic artist she made comparisons of Holt and the in the photographs this is just conclusive to me that that's the same man she also compared pictures of Charles harelson with the Trap photo again a perfect match I'll stake my reputation on it for sure looking at the feet of the tra you will notice he has a distinctive walk toes pointed outward the same characteristics possessed by
• 96:30 - 97:00 chony chony developed his unmistakable gate as a result of his earlier years on the circus Highwire off camera chony hints at the use of disguises in covert operations Phil TWY told chony to dress the part of a working man I was instructed to just blend in with the other individual that were there uh and uh uh the workers that were in The Yards
• 97:00 - 97:30 so chony in his working man's clothes along with his boxar companions were led to the Dallas County Sheriff's Command Post in the Criminal Courts Building the deputy sheriff that was in charge of sort of a preliminary type uh investigation was a guy by the name of uh David Elkins so they took us up there and and uh had a few few words with him and uh he called over to the police uh
• 97:30 - 98:00 department and will Fritz who was the chief homicide detective and was really in charge of the whole thing uh came over and told Elkins turn him over to Gordon Shanklin of the FBI chony was briefly interrogated by Gordon Shanklin of the FBI ch's fake credentials from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms came in real handy so he looked at him he was sort of convinced he asked
• 98:00 - 98:30 us a few questions which um uh didn't seem like he was too much interested he uh wanted to know how long we've been in the Box Car we said two hours he want to know did you hear the shots no we didn't hear the shots what were you do why did you have the door closed yeah because we didn't want anybody from the outside knowing what we were doing were you aware of what was going on no uh what were you doing all this time oh we were looking at the paperwork and we were inventorying the the the arms and
• 98:30 - 99:00 ammunition Shanklin asked if chony and his two Associates were armed they were the two guns I had was very were very unusual one gun was a a shorty 45 it was a 45 that was just simply cut down they had taken all natural national match part they cut down the slide they cut down the grip they cut down everything about otherwise it was just like any other 45 except had a hell of a kick and
• 99:00 - 99:30 uh that was one which is and of course it was hard hard Chrome and uh uh it was very very unusual gun I would probably $2500 $3,000 worth of gunsmithing in the other gun that I had was a technically it was a a simmering l22 uh it was usually referred to as the lickman because he was the guy designed it it was a very small 45 that was as
• 99:30 - 100:00 was as small as the 25 because you can see in the pictures it it's laying beside the the the 25 and is no bigger but it wasn't a semi-automatic what you had to do you'd fire a shot and then you'd you'd rack it fire again rack it like that but it was a uh and of course it it was accurate up to about 25 yards and had one hell of a kick well these
• 100:00 - 100:30 were these were rare guns and they they were very interested in the guns and they he asked me if I could if I mind if uh if they photograph the guns and I said no so they photographed the guns they they gave them uh gave them back to us and um it was only years later through an ex FBI agent that I managed to uh to get a hold of the pictures he got the pictures for me although he couldn't find the negatives in the files but he
• 100:30 - 101:00 did he did send me the uh you know contact print Shanklin bought chona's story and told the three men they were free to go once oswal was arrested I mean the FBI took no more interest in finding anybody because uh within 15 minutes jover had already declared that the president had been shot by a a uh communist carrying
• 101:00 - 101:30 terrorist and once Oswald was captured that was the end of the game chy noticed someone he knew at the command post it was a mafia career as I was walking out uh uh actually as we were walking as we were walking in uh Jean bra who was a organized crime figure happened to be walking
• 101:30 - 102:00 out and I knew him he had been detained temporarily I knew him because and I'd seen him uh just the past week I knew him because we shared offices uh in in a building at the corner of San vicenti in Wilshire in uh in Beverly Hills so uh uh I had seen him the week before and he indicated that he was going to be
• 102:00 - 102:30 in uh Dallas going to be staying at the Cabana said hey you why don't you come by and and have a drink so I knew he was there but I didn't give any indication of uh of knowing him he didn't give any indication knowing me which of course I suppose was uh it would have been disastrous if we hadn't because here I am he knows me as Moon I'm using an alias of John ali uh in in this particular operation he had changed
• 102:30 - 103:00 his name from Jean Brading to Jim Jim Braden and he had been arrested under that name Jim Braden and suppose I'd run in and say hi Jean you know he said hey hello Jack I can see that there would have been a they had have scooped us up in a hurry Jim Braden the next C on parole was in the building across from the school Book Depository the delex building he was there he says to make a
• 103:00 - 103:30 phone call Braden was also taken into custody and [Music] released outside the command post chony headed toward the nearest telephone there was a lot of sley bars and so forth along in there so I walked down there and uh went in to use a telephone I didn't want to go in the delex building or any of those buildings I I
• 103:30 - 104:00 want to get as far away from De Plaza as I could get but on the other hand I wanted to find out what um what they had told uh what they had talked about you know with Jim Braden I knew he was at the Cabana so I called over and I uh spoke to him Braden said the police questioned him and let him go chony asked Braden if he wanted to fly back to California with him Braden
• 104:00 - 104:30 declined but he offered chony a ride to Redbird airport chony accepted Braden would later leave Dallas by way of Love Field everybody scattered to the win chony and fellow Pilot Joe Cy took off to the grace Ranch in Tucson were they refueled before returning to California Joe KY who was uh was the the pilot that had gone with me uh we didn't we really didn't talk too much because you know
• 104:30 - 105:00 you were just you you were just reflecting on everything that happened and it was almost all the way into Tucson I mean it was he he he he attended to the to the Flying and I handled the radio and but you know I was just actually alone with my thoughts I really wasn't interested in talking at all [Music]
• 105:00 - 105:30 the Kenedy seem to be a group of individuals that like to live on the edge uh when you when you are in that business and you use your power you are going to provoke someone else equally as powerful somebody put it together very mely after the assassination Chanty kept
• 105:30 - 106:00 a low profile in December he got a letter from Peter laavo the mob boss wrote chony quote to wish him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year hope 1964 is better than 1963 the letter made chony uneasy because liav volley new Chanty was in Dallas when JFK was murdered chony wondered what else liav Voli knew about the events of November
• 106:00 - 106:30 22 chy had a good reason to be JY my uh father-in-law called me up from Beverly Hills and said there was two very mysterious gentlemen looking for me and they had the uh information on my car which is a new Cadillac with with Arizona plates which wouldn't be hard to spot they had the N number on my airplane that I owned
• 106:30 - 107:00 personally and of course the first thing I thought about was uh was Dallas I didn't know whether it was I didn't know whether it was the cops or whether it was somebody just going to cut the umbilical cord chony contacted his ally attorney Frank belshire belshire advised him to see his associate Joseph ball so I went down and U uh Joe ball happened to be in Washington because they had formed the
• 107:00 - 107:30 Warren Commission and he was appointed as a senior counsel to the Warren Commission so he wasn't there but his uh one of the senior Partners hunt talked to me and I told him my story I told him was there I had nothing to do with the assassination and so forth and he didn't he just took a sort of inuent attitude he didn't seem to be concerned said don't worry about it he said that U that Joe had been appointed to the warrant
• 107:30 - 108:00 commission and it it had been formed for the sole purpose of proving Beyond doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was the Lone assassin and anything aside from that was going to be pushed under the rug you can believe me chony realized the fix was in already a game plan for the Warren Commission and and this was this was in December of of 63 in January 1964
• 108:00 - 108:30 chony received a letter of assurance from Frank belshire the letter reads I spoke to Joe ball today and went over the gist of your conversations with Mr Hunt Joe assures me there will be no legal problems resulting from the activities in Dallas if beler said something I mean he may he made a promise you know the ball will carry through Joseph ball was busy with his duties as senior councel for the Warren Commission his duties involved one
• 108:30 - 109:00 certain aspect of the investigation which fortunately included Del Plaza and what happened inside the uh The Book Depository that's where his that's where his expertise came although he did do some questioning regarding the uh uh the shooting of officer tibit but he's mainly confined with with with uh with that portion of it he was designed to
• 109:00 - 109:30 show that hey Oswell was up there he he did the shooting by all by himself Joseph ball also managed another sensitive area of the investigation the testimony of eyewitnesses and the police who said they had encountered Secret Service agents in D Plaza Mr sells I testified and and his testimony was supported by other agents as well that there were no Secret Service agents on
• 109:30 - 110:00 the ground according to the special agent in charge of operations in Dallas there were no agents on foot in D Plaza all secret service Personnel were assigned to the president's motorcade the uh other individuals several other individual indicated that they saw and were stopped at various times by uh people uh who were carrying Secret Service uh
• 110:00 - 110:30 identification and this was in the in the behind the picket fence and it also happened in the rear of uh of The Book Depository from all of this my only conclusion can be that someone had for Secret Service uh uh identification uh that they were using either we did it at our studio or someone else did it I
• 110:30 - 111:00 would probably would be willing to make book that it was the uh Secret Service ones that we had produced uh a few days before Jean Hill was the closest eyewitness to Kennedy's murder just feet from his limousine across the street from the grassy null she says she saw someone shoot the president from the null and like many many others she ran to chase the man then she was stopped by a man who had Secret Service credentials he had shown me some ID Secret Service
• 111:00 - 111:30 he said he say secret service yes sir a more disturbing aspect of the Warren commission's work became apparent to chony years later in 1970 Joseph ball had hinted to chony that tampering with the evidence had occurred The Dillard photo was one prime example the photo shows the window just below the sixth floor window where Oswald was alleged to had fired from this picture was taken by
• 111:30 - 112:00 the Dallas Morning News photographer following the president's motorcade it was taken about 15 seconds after the last shots were fired ball suggested to Chanty without elaborating that the Dillard photograph had been altered they weren't about to uh entertain any other Theory at all if if it was was a credible witness that gave them testimony uh that didn't agree with their preconceived ideas they just didn't hear him chony had mixed feelings
• 112:00 - 112:30 when he learned that some persons or person were intent on not revealing what really happened on November 22nd I thought that our um our role was so peripheral that undoubtedly you could you could put a you could put a pretty good spin on it you know what I mean and uh so it was a great relief although we still you still
• 112:30 - 113:00 didn't feel that we're actually in the clear because I in the back of my mind there these two guys who were looking for me chy decided to leave the country while the waren commission deliberated on January 12th Frank belshire wrote chony he recommended chony take advantage of a safe house in Mexico that belshire and Joseph ball owned they owned a lot and lot of uh of properties together including a safe house in alapo next door to Los pri's that uh uh was
• 113:00 - 113:30 used by contract agents of the CIA card carrying agents CIA high level organized crime figures such as lii John roselli Gian cona doc stasher uh all those guys so they were you know they really they were really joined the belard letter to chony continued quote let me know when you want to use the aapco house as far as I
• 113:30 - 114:00 know the house is empty call Jorge and let him know when you would be arriving the letter is signed best regards Frank belshire so chony and two other CIA contract agents flew to Acapulco beautiful house and uh so while we were there I get a letter from from Ernie dunlevy uh who was u ray Ryan's uh partner and handled all the operations
• 114:00 - 114:30 that dealt with aircraft I got a letter from Ernie dun he said there's a couple of guys there looking for me he tells chony they said they were friends of yours but I have my doubts so I could see that they were for some reason somebody was was really interested so I decided that I called up um Philip TWY and told him you know I'd like to make myself scarce he said well call up these
• 114:30 - 115:00 uh your colleagues at the uh proprietary interest that you have and uh see if they can handle things so I called up Tony matna at the Los Angeles stamp stationary company he assured me that he could he would having trouble carrying on I called U uh Dewey Martin who ran the uh uh our F our modification plant in h in golita uh and he said no production
• 115:00 - 115:30 would continue he he he'd get his orders directly from from George Reynolds and uh Ernie donees live he said you know I can handle everything down here so I kept I called everybody that I knew at had worked with JM wave I called U Larry DS Tom Franklin Philip kuster uh all these were highlevel uh CIA uh individuals there JM wave was the huge
• 115:30 - 116:00 CIA facility in south Florida that organized and supplied the cia's secret war against Cuba then I started uh shopping around to get to get a new front something to something or get a new assignment [Music]
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