It has previously been shown at this blog
that a great deal of intrigue was witnessed during the 1950's (shortly
following upon the acceptance of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948)
within uranium mining fields. In all likelihood, this active search for
uranium is what led to the ability of Israel to quickly become one of
the few nations in possession of a nuclear bomb. The facts, however, are
not clear and lucid--strewn haphazardly as they are among the news of
the day--making them almost hidden within plain sight.
In 1952 Byrd Oil Corp. of Dallas
registered 380,000 new shares of common stock with the Securities and
Exchange Commission--Byrd and his wife owning 62.36 percent of the
total outstanding shares, according to a prospectus from the company.
Proceeds from the sale of new stock was added to the working capital of
the company, used mainly to the pay drilling expenses.
Byrd's Three States Sold to Murchison's Delhi-Taylor
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| Click image to enlarge. |
In 1953 Byrd acquired McConnell Drilling, which was engaged in
exploration in the Rocky Mountains. He said publicly that he planned
to do extensive development work during the summer in the Uintah Basin
of Utah and was also quoted as saying the Clear Creek field was a
"major discovery" being produced by Three States Natural Gas Co., which
had recently merged with his former company, Byrd-Frost, Inc. The previous year Byrd had started to phase out Byrd-Frost and began to focus on Three States Natural Gas Company. , and it was during the mid-1950s that Three States had employed George de
Mohrenschildt.
For some reason, however, in 1961 he sold Three States to the Murchisons' Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation.
As I update this article [Jan. 12, 2026] I only recently discovered evidence that John Alston (Jack) Crichton was in the middle of these two companies.
Crichton was a passenger on a Douglas airplane N62574 registered to Delhi-Taylor Oil Co. owned by Clint W. Murchison on May 29, 1951. The two Delhi-Taylor pilots who flew for the Murchison company for many years were Don Rogers Beeler, Sr. and J. Richard Duhe.
Both pilots had flown during WWII, and Beeler, from Kansas, had been based in the India-China theater before being assigned to Love Field in Dallas. Duhe, who hailed from Louisiana, had a disability for which he was discharged after only two or three months of service.Numerous flights were logged by Immigration at Brownsville during the 1950s and 60s for the two pilots, who flew members of the Murchison family and their associates to the Murchisons' ranch near Tampico, Mexico.
We also discovered an even earlier flight for Jack Crichton listed on a May 23, 1944 manifest, indicating he was stationed at Coolidge AFB in Antigua, along with a fellow passenger named Truman Starr. The two men had boarded the Pan American aircraft, based in Miami, which apparently began that day's flight at Camaguey, Cuba--with passengers embarking at Brazil and Surinam, the British West Indies (St. Lucia) and at Coolidge Air Force Base in Antigua--and final destination in Miami.
Coolidge AFB was named for Hamilton Coolidge, a great-great-great grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and the best friend of Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had been killed in WWI. Crichton and Starr may have been part of the 25th Bombardment Group which spent "virtually its entire existence in the Antilles Islands."
Panam (PAA) was the first airline to fly to Antigua. The plane shown in the inset flashes its N#, which is unfortunately not readable. This blogger knows from research into George Doole that the men and women, if any, attached to PAA were civilians, even though they assisted the military and the OSS during the war. This research made up a chapter of Gangster Planet, Daniel Hopsicker's last book, which Linda Minor helped research and write.
George Doole's Pan Am Connection
Excerpt from Gangster Planet
Designated as a flight cadet, Doole was technically a civilian when hired by Pan American Airways Corporation at the end of his advanced training, and he shipped off to Honolulu in October 1932. Pan Am was a private corporation, cooperating with the federal government toward a dual purpose—building a commercial transnational airline service that could be converted to military purposes in the event of war.
For income in the meantime, Pan Am’s corporate directors would use contacts with the political power structure to gain concessions and con- tracts with the federal government—to ferry mail, materiel or even to transport charter passengers if needed. They agreed to convert to military use in event of war, a provision of the contract that enabled the company to be subsidized by the feds.
Doole was a mere grunt in the operation in those days, with assignments in Panama and Brownsville, Texas in addition to Hawaii. Pan Am flew only to certain countries in South America at first, leading up to its goal of expanding to China and the Far East.
Most of us never heard of Doole at all until 1975, when his name came up in Congressional House and Senate Reports after hearings had been held to investigate the CIA’s aviation activities—and abuses—worldwide. By that time, Doole was the head of Air America, known by some as “Spook Air.” How did Lt. George Doole rise to the top?
We’ve tracked his life to Hawaii in 1933, where generals, colonels and majors in the Army Air Corps got to spend their peacetime years right alongside admirals, captains, and commanders in the Navy. They all preferred to keep military use of airplanes within their own branch’s control, though there was another more powerful force that wanted to create a separate air force with a separate leadership, which finally won out.
What the directors of Pan Am wanted was to use every funding stream possible to build up their commercial enterprise—including whatever income they could finagle from military connections. Between 1932 and 1936 a great many of those connections were enjoying life in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, building up Pearl Harbor and the Hickham air base, initially under Army control.
While making jaunts between San Francisco, Panama, and Honolulu, Doole found his way to Brownsville, Texas, where one of his Pan Am colleagues with a slightly higher rank than his was Henry C. Kristofferson— the father of later Rhodes Scholar and country pop musician, Kris—cohort of the legendary Willie Nelson and the Highwaymen.
In mid-November 1936 Doole was a member of a reserve unit designated as the 42nd Reserve Bombardment, which was being given $30,000 from the federal government to build a new hangar adjacent to an unused municipal airport in Brownsville, near the border with Mexico. Doole was then the communications officer, while Kristofferson was assistant engineering officer. Later that month both men were transferred to Panama.
From Panama their paths would separate. During war years Doole’s status changed from reserve to active, as he served in the Air Force Transport Service in the India-China-Burma Theater. For several years Kristofferson would ferry executives of Saudi Aramco from place to place on Pan American Airways planes, even living in Saudi Arabia himself in 1962. We see his service as a model of how the plan’s design worked for Doole as well.
Click image to enlarge.
In 1943-45 Doole was captain of a Pan Am plane, busily transporting Naval Air troops between New York and Ireland, Portugal, Bermuda, and Brazil. Brazil was a fueling stop on the way to the Far East Theater—Philippines, Kunming and Indochina—dominated by Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers and the OSS forces there.
We found George Doole captaining a Panam World Airways flight in March 1945, listed on a Flight Manifest from Brazil to New York. Doole was a civilian pilot, who later operated deep within the bowels of the civilian aviation intelligence conglomerate known as Air America. Evan Thomas wrote Doole's obituary for Time Magazine, which revealed more about Doole's life than had ever been disclosed while he was alive:
...At the Chevy Chase Club, a Wasp bastion in a well-to-do Maryland suburb, Doole sometimes liked to while away afternoons playing bridge and backgammon... Doole lived in one of the most elegant apartment buildings in Washington, the Westchester, but he never invited any guests there, and he refused to give the management a key. ...
Winning a commission in the Army in 1931, Doole learned how to fly airplanes. He later became a pilot for Pan Am, at first flying old Ford Tri-motors on the Guatemala-to-Panama run. Along about 1953–no one seems quite sure when – Doole made an unusual career move. He went to work for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Officially, the CIA says it has no record that Doole ever worked there, but among old agency hands, he is a legend. Operating out of a small, nondescript office on Connecticut Avenue, he founded and ran a far-flung network of airlines that the agency used to carry out its covert operations all over the world. Owned by a holding company, the Pacific Corp., that was itself a CIA front, Doole’s empire included Air America, Civil Air Transport, Southern Air Transport, Air Asia and dozens of small puddle-jumper lines. Together, at their peak in the mid ’60s, these CIA “proprietaries” added up to an airline that was almost the size of TWA, employing nearly 20,000 people (as many as the CIA itself) and operating some 200 planes. Even the CIA was not sure just how many. Asked by then Deputy Director Helms to account for all the planes in Doole’s regime, a staffer spent three months on the project before confessing that he could never be more than 90% certain. The problem, explained the exasperated staffer, was that Doole was forever leasing planes between his shell corporations and changing their markings and tail numbers.
Traveling around the world, orchestrating his vast air armada, Doole kept his airplanes busy. Under the cover of legitimate freight and charter services, Doole’s airlines supplied a 30,000-man secret army in the mountains of Laos for a ten-year war against the Pathet Lao, dropped scores of agents into Red China, and helped stage an unsuccessful revolt in Indonesia. Not surprisingly, all this flying about aroused curiosity. In 1970 a New York Times reporter asked Doole if Air America had any connection with the CIA. “If ‘someone out there’ is behind all this,” Doole airily replied, “we don’t know about it.”
Doole’s pilots, who flew in and out of tiny jungle fields in abysmal weather and sometimes under enemy fire, were a raffish lot. They referred to the CIA as “the customer,” the ammunition they dropped as “hard rice” and being under heavy fire as “sporty.” Brushes with death were described as “fascinating.” To be “absolutely fascinated” meant scared witless.
Doole would appear from time to time at CIA bases from Vientiane to Panama City, but he stayed aloof from the pilots, many of whom regarded him as a bit of a snob. “I never saw the man without a tie on,” scoffs one. Doole played bridge, flew airplanes and did business deals the same way: slowly and deliberately. “The Chinese liked to negotiate with him,” recalls a former CIA official. “He was polite; he never showed any excitement. But he was tough.”
When the extent of the CIA’s covert operations was revealed by newspaper exposes and congressional hearings in the early ’70s, the agency was forced to dismantle Doole’s huge aerial empire and sell off the various planes and airfields. It was done at a profit; the agency turned over $20 million to the U.S. Treasury. Doole also did well by himself. Though he earned a government salary as a CIA employee, he augmented his income by investing, shrewdly, in the stock market. His estate when he died was worth “several million dollars,” according to a sister.
In 1971 Doole retired from the CIA. Formally, that is. He kept his hand in the aviation business as a director of Evergreen International Aviation, a company that refits and charters airplanes. Though Evergreen bought Intermountain Aviation, one of Doole’s CIA “proprietaries,” in 1975, the company insists that it has had nothing further to do with the agency. Perhaps. But when the dying Shah of Iran wanted to fly from Panama to Egypt in 1980, he flew on a chartered Evergreen DC-8. Doole arranged the charter.
The airfield in the Arizona desert where Evergreen opened its huge hangar last year, the George A. Doole Aviation Center, was once owned by the CIA. Today Evergreen workmen repair and refit commercial airliners from Pan Am, American and Emery Air Freight. It all seems perfectly ordinary and unexceptional, rather like the George Doole who enjoyed playing bridge at the Chevy Chase Club and dancing with wealthy widows. There is probably nothing remarkable about those two unmarked black Chinook helicopters that took off from a far corner of the airfield not long ago and headed south.
George Doole's death caused his proprietary empire to crumble in the hands of Oliver North and his minions--men far less capable than George. Their mismanagement of the secret airlines resulted in exposure three decades after George had helped to create it.
Evan Thomas's obituary for Doole in 1985 was written after Ronald Reagan's Executive Order 12356 [April 1982], as implemented in HR 10-24(c)4, which required a reporter seeking access to classified files to sign a secrecy agreement and allow the CIA to review and redact what the reporter wrote before it was published. Thomas described the process he went through in a 1996 article called "A Singular Opportunity: Gaining Access to CIA's Records," that appeared in Studies in Intelligence. However, it does not appear that Thomas had full access to CIA files at the time he wrote Doole's obit.
Since Doole had gone from Pan Am to the Central Intelligence Agency in 1953, it was possible that many other military and aviation intelligence operatives were also signed up then. Men like Jack Crichton, who had been stationed at Coolidge AFB in Antigua in 1944, according to the flight manifest posted above.
World War II had ended before 1948, the year Crichton married a service widow named Mary Earle Bailey, whose stepfather, Harry Lee Crichton, had married her mother in 1935, the same year Mary married Louis Clinton Bailey, who would be killed in action in China on December 22, 1944. A memorial says Louis "flew out of India, over the Hump, supplying China in their efforts to repel the invading Japanese." They had been married nine years and had two daughters. By the time Louis Bailey's body was returned to his former home of Florida, Mary Earle was married to Jack Crichton, and they traveled to Florida to bring his remains back to Shreveport.
was by then ended, but the Cold War had begun to heat up against the Soviet Union, our WWII ally.
When De Mohrenschildt testified
at the Warren Commission in 1964, he said the company he worked for was
"in Dallas." Albuquerque newspapers during the mid-1950's indicated,
however, that Three States Oil and Gas, along with Delhi Oil, were
unlisted New Mexico companies. Both companies may have been loosely
connected to the Southern Union Gas Corp., as the following item that
appeared in Lubbock, Texas in 1946, indicates with regard to Delhi:
CHICAGO, June 10, 1946 - (U.P.)—Southern Union Gas company announced today that it will dispose of all oil properties and will offer purchasing rights in the stock of the subsidiary Delhi Oil corporation to stockholders of record June 20. Delhi, an oil-producing subsidiary, took over Southern Union's Louisiana oil properties when first formed and later acquired the company's wells and leases in New Mexico.
In 1956 D. Harold Byrd was recognized as president of Byrd Oil Corporation, Byrd Uranium Corporation, McConnell Drilling Corporation, and Colorado Carbonics, Inc. Byrd Uranium Corp. went public in 1955 on the American Stock Exchange with its shares then wholly owned by Byrd Oil Corp.
Buyers of Byrd's uranium company
The
men involved in the group which would make Byrd even more wealthy were
primarily Canadian, with the exception of a state supreme court judge
named James J. Crisona, who lived in Queens, New York. In 1967 Judge
James Crisona was embarrassed when his brother, Frank Crisona,
former Queens Assistant District Attorney, was arrested with others in a
national swindle. Ten years later he was indicted again for offering
$1,000 bribe to IRS agent for approving $40,000 deduction on his 1965
income tax return. Frank Crisona's co-defendant in the swindle, Dominick
C. Lonardo, was, among other things, the president of Trans-American
Corp., a bail-bonding agency, and in 1960 he had filed a $3-plus-million
lawsuit against two competitors for libel. Lonardo, "reputed Cleveland underworld figure," would be tied into a nationwide mortgage fraud scheme in 1977 with Moe Dalitz, his father's buddy.
January 1967"According to Plain Dealer columnist Brent Larkin, the Highlander Restaurant and Lounge, 'is remembered as a gathering place' for people like Salvatore 'Sam' Vecchio and other members of the Cleveland Mafia. Like Jackie Presser’s Mayfield Heights, Ohio restaurant, The Forge and the Pettibone Club in Bainbridge, Ohio. Along with the Theatrical Restaurant on Short Vincent Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. The Highlander became a watering hole for local organized crime figures and celebrities. Mafia and Mafia wanabees rubbed shoulders and traded stories there." --By Amy A. Kisil
Clevelander charged in swindle
NEW YORK (AP) - A Cleveland restaurant owner and five other men were indicted yesterday in an alleged coast-to-coast mortgage swindle U.S. Atty. Robert M Morgenthau said they were accused of taking more than $250,000 in advance payments from mortgage applicants for commitments "in the millions of dollars" although, this money did not materialize. Those indicted included Dominick C. Lonardo, 47, of University Heights owner of the Highlander Restaurant in Cleveland, and Frank J. Crisona, 46, a brother of New York Supreme Court Justice James J Crisona. Morgenthau said the scheme was pulled off in several cities, including Cleveland. The 30-count indictment said the men operated through Columbia Resources, Ltd, New York, pretended the firm had more than $17 million in assets, listed fictitious officers and directors and induced Dun and Bradstreet to give Colombia credit ratings based on the false information. The defendants were released on bond. A hearing was scheduled for next Tuesday in Federal Court.
Associates of Buyers Abernethy and Crisona
1943
March 13, 1943 - THE LETHBRIDGE HERALD (Alberta, Canada)1951
EDMONTON, March 12, 1943.—(AP)— Charges of monopolistic control of the Vermilion oilfield, made by Elmer E. Roper (C.C.F., Edmonton) in a recent address in the legislature, was denied in a telegram received by minister of lands and mines N. E. Tanner from Bryan W. Newkirk, Toronto, member of a group operating the field. The wire, made public Thursday by Mr. Tanner, said from Mr. Newkirk's knowledge "there is no monopolistic control of the Vermilion field, and disclosed that the Canadian National Railways should have their new oil cleaning plant in operation at the Vermilion field next month. [In a speech in the legislature Mr. Roper charged monopolistic control in the Vermilion field and criticized the government for not taking over the oil cleaning plant when it was closed down by its operators.]
NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 1951 (JTA) –Mr. Arie Ben-Tovim arrived in New York today to assume the position of Consul at the Consulate General of Israel. He has served in a similar capacity in Montreal since May, 1949. Born in Jerusalem 43 years ago, Mr.Ben-Tovim is a third Israeli generation. He was educated in the Hebrew College of Jerusalem and is a graduate of the Universities of Strasbourg and Paris.
NEW YORK, Mar. 6, 1951 (JTA) – Hanan Aynor, who served with the Western European Division in Israel's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, has arrived in Montreal, Canada, to assume his new duties as Vice Consul in the Israel Consulate, He replaces Mr. Arie Ben-Tovim who was recently transferred to New York as Consul.
WINNIPEG FREE PRESS- APRIL 14, 1952
EDMONTON, April 14 (CP) —Hon. N. E. Tanner, mines minister, has announced the first entry of Quebec mining interests into the Alberta oil picture. Quebec mining interests are financing Marigold Oils limited, which has an interest in 10,612 acres of oil rights in the Barrhead area, about 60 miles northwest of Edmonton. The group financing Marigold includes
- East Sullivan Mines limited,
- Louvicourt Goldfields corporation,
- Bibis Yukon Mines limited,
- Eric Cradock and
- Bryan W. Newkirk.
THE LETHBRIDGE HERALD (Alberta, Canada) May 9, 1953
Arie Ben-Tovim returned recently to Toronto from the State of Israel where he secured licenses for oil prospecting and development for a Canadian group of oil men. This group comprises
1960
- Bryan W. Newkirk, representing Marigold Oils Limited and Barclay Oil Company, Limited,
- T. R. Harrison, representing Trans-Era Oils Limited and Wilrich Petroleums Limited, and
- A. M. Abernethy, of Minerva Mining Corporation Limited.
- Mr. Ben-Tovim is a chemical engineer by profession, and after the establishment of the State of Israel he was appointed consul of Israel in Canada where he served in 1949-50, and then as consul in New York during 1951-52. Mr. Ben-Tovim then asked to be relieved of this position so that he could return to his professional and private occupation and to engage in this oil project.
FLORENCE MORNING NEWS, FLORENCE, S.C. - APRIL 6, 1960 -
DUCK KEY, Fla., — This is a sunny blob of coral and money 95 miles from Miami down the Overseas Highway toward Key West. The coral was here when Blackbeard sailed the Spanish Main; the money was trucked in by Bryan W. Newkirk, the wolf of Canada's penny stock market, who had a hand in developing Coral Gables, has one foot in Canadian gold mines and another in uranium. With his remaining hand he directs the Florida-Southern Land Corp., which has transformed this pelican roost into a flowering hideout for the over-privileged, complete with yatch harbor, fresh and salt water swimming pools, a nine-hole long-iron golf course, and a spang new hotel of simple elegance.From the 1952 article that appeared in Canadian press, along with others, we learn that one of the men who bought out D.H. Byrd's interest in the oil company he created, which owned all his stock in a uranium company, was a Canadian named A.M. Abernethy of Toronto, Canada, partner of James Crisona of New York.
Abernethy's financial connections indicates he was one of several Canadian oil men with ties to Arie Ben-Tovim, a Canadian who served as Israeli consul in Canada and then in New York. [See Zachary Kay, Diplomacy of Prudence: Canada and Israel, 1948-1958.]
Another of the group was a Toronto stock broker, Eric Cradock, better known as the owner of Canadian sports teams. Still another was Bryan W. Newkirk, who developed Coral Gables and the small island in the Florida Keys, known as Duck Key. Roy Cohn, a member of the committee staff of Senator McCarthy at the same time as Robert F. Kennedy (later Attorney General), was one of the first residents of the island developed by Newkirk.
Roy Marcus Cohn's Connection to JFK Hit?
Cohn was a flamboyant homosexual within the J. Edgar Hoover orbit of friends, as well as within the Clay Shaw, David Ferrie circle which intersected with business interests in Permindex, a Swiss corporation whose name was short for "permanent industrial exhibitions"--a wet dream first announced by Mussolini in 1942: "Then came the war. The great olympiad of culture was forgotten while the world bled. Only a few curious German and then Allied soldiers ever wandered out to the weed-grown site to stare at the abandoned massive statue heads and slabs of marble, great foundations and debris. Italy had no time to think of the place in the difficult days after the war. But in 1952 a plan was elaborated to finish the work and turn the quarter into a permanent world exposition center, museums, government offices, and restful gardens." (Source: United Press International, April 20, 1959)
The above connections all seem to lead us to the network surrounding Bobby Kennedy
's nemesis, Roy Cohn, a Jewish corporate attorney in league with Canadian businessmen and investors, including many named in the Torbitt Document
.For anyone who is not up on the financiers for the JFK assassination named in the Torbitt Document, you can read it by clicking on the link and downloading the pdf file.
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| Roy Cohn in Duck Key |
Excerpts from website about Duck Key:
THIS PAGE CREATED BY DUCK KEY ONLINE
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
An old news article reveals that Roy Cohn of Army-McCarthy hearing fame built one of the first homes on Duck Key. He may have built 1104 Indies Drive South, the home now owned by Tom and Graham Davis....
The first homes to be constructed on the residential islands of Duck Key are located at 1104 Indies Drive South (Davis residence and and associated with Roy Cohn), 1100 Indies Drive South, 158 Indies Drive North (Copeland residence), 146 Bimini Drive (Smithwich residence), and # Schooner Drive which is owned by the Kellogg, Brown and Root....
Developer Newkirk and his wife stayed in living quarters in the Administration Building during his early visits to Duck Key. Other buildings constructed early on were given names: Villas St. Pierre, Villa Jamaica, and Villa Trinidad. Villa Trinidad became the Newkirk residence and has changed hands a number of times over the years. It is now owned by Kellogg, Brown and Root, also known as KBR Engineering & Construction and serves as a corporate retreat....
Another image in a scrapbook in possession of Hawk's Cay shows Roy Cohn in the same lounge chair but from a different angle. A small plane is visible and no doubt had landed on the small airstrip that developer John Newkirk built on Center Island. See Elizabeth Newkirk's recollections on the Duck Key Mecca web page.
In addition to being a director of Florida Southern Land Corp. and developing the resort area on Duck Key, Cohn who was only thirty-three at the time of the 1960 article indicated that he headed a group of investors associated with Lionel Corp., makers of toy electric trains and after being elected Chairman made the corporation profitable again. He was also reported to be a director of Feature Sports, Inc. which at that time was promoting boxing rematch between Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson. Johansson considered Duck Key as a possibility for a training camp for the Patterson fight. He chose Miami.
["The Government brought an action against Johansson to collect the taxes assessed and against Feature Sports, Inc., Thomas Bolan, Roy Cohn, and Humbert Fugazy to foreclose tax liens against funds held by them for Johansson's benefit. The District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered judgment against Johansson for the full amount of the taxes claimed by the Government, plus interest.... In the year and a half between the date Johansson claims to have moved to Switzerland and March 13, 1961, the record shows that he spent only 79 days in that country as compared with 120 days in Sweden and 218 days in the United States. Except for his activities in the United States during this period, his social and economic ties remained predominantly with Sweden. Indeed, the summary of Johansson's ties with Switzerland presented in his brief to this Court cites only his maintenance of an apartment and bank account there, his self-declaration of residence, and two acts by the Swiss government that may well have been predicated entirely upon his self-declaration of residence.... A contract of employment was entered into by Johansson in December 1959 with Scanart, S.A., a Swiss corporation formed that very month.... answer filed by Feature Sports alleges "as and for an offset" that it made certain payments to Scanart for Johansson free and clear of any valid assessment or lien. (R. 62-63). That these pleadings were considered as raising the issues to be tried in the case was expressly acknowledged in the parties' pre-trial stipulation. (R., p. 98.) That stipulation also specifically referred to a number of exhibits which bear on no other issue in the case except that of setoff. (Govt. exhs. 5, 15, 17, 18 and 133-E.) All these exhibits were admitted without objection. Moreover, testimony relevant to the setoff issue was elicited from appellants Cohn, Bolan, and Johansson and from William Fugazy, a member of the board of appellant Feature Sports.... To allow a setoff for that part of the $37,750.60 attributable to the second fight would be in violation of the agreement made by all the parties to this suit and the Franklin National Bank in 1960. Under that agreement, all funds received by appellants in connection with the second fight, with certain exceptions not material here, were to be deposited in the bank to secure the full collection of the taxes due on Johansson's 1960 United States income.... court refused to allow a setoff in the amount of $250,000 which was transferred to Johansson following the third Patterson fight by the Bank Germann in Basel, Switzerland. On the present state of the record, we are unable to affirm this part of the judgment. The $250,000 was transferred to the Bank Germann by Feature Sports in three installments, all prior to the date the Government's tax lien attached, and was intended as an advance on the compensation which Johansson was to receive from the third fight. Appellants contend that the transfers were in escrow and that the funds were therefore not property of the taxpayer in their possession to which the Government's lien could attach. The Government, on the other hand, contends that a valid escrow arrangement was not perfected. The findings of the district court on this issue are ambiguous. Although the court's conclusions of law and judgment clearly favor the Government, in its findings of fact it twice denominated the Bank Germann as Feature Sports' 'escrow agent.' " Ingemar Johansson et al., Appellants, v. United States of America, Appellee, 336 F.2d 809 (5th Cir. 1964)]
Cohn's mother's family controlled the Lionel Corporation which made it possible for him to acquire control of the venerable toy train maker company. Cohn borrowed over $900,000 from banks in New York, Panama, and Hong Kong to facilitate the deal. Cohn moved Lionel into the area of modern electronics. Cohn lost control of Lionel in 1962 with Lionel recording losses of more than $4 million a year.
Several books give accounts of Cohn owning a home on Duck Key.
Jacob M. Alkow in his 1985 book, "In Many Worlds" wrote of meeting Roy Cohn and Bryan Newkirk on Duck Key, His recollection of marble bridges and the death of Bryan Newkirk's son are a bit off, but for the most part his narrative agrees with news accounts of that period. Alkow died as a citizen of Israel in 1999 at age 96. He was a Chinese art expert, a movie developer in Hollywood during World War II, a Wall Street financier, and was part of the American Zionist movement and an active participant in in the struggle for Israel's creation. Of his experience on Wall Street he wrote:
"While in Los Angeles. I received a call. . . that a Mr. Brian [Bryan] Newkirk phoned from Florida. He wanted to know if I would meet him on my next visit to our office in Hollywood, Florida. He had a proposition that 'sounded very interesting.' . . . I had heard of Newkirk in Wall Street. He was a Canadian multi-millionaire, who made his fortune in uranium mines in Canada."southern point of the United States."Newkirk and his wife, Lucille, had an only son, who had died from an incurable disease, leaving them two grandchildren. To memorialize the life of his son, Newkirk bought the island of Duck Key and began to convert it into a replica of Venice. [Actually the son was involved in the development of Duck Key and his death brought building to a halt for a time. The Newkirks decided to honor their son's death by continuing the development.] Newwkirk "cut through the island with canals and spanned them with decorated marble [concrete] bridges high enough for small craft to pass underneath. Newkirk asked me to be his guest for three days on Duck Island. I would see the beauty of the site and its potentialities. My association with Wall Street wa now leading me to new ventures."Alkow wrote that he thought Duck Key to be even " . . . more beautiful than Newkirk's description of it. With its canals, curved marble bridges, and wide, two-story houses built in the exquisite architectural style of the West Indies, there was nothing like it on the North American continent". Alkow recalled that there were " about twenty other permanent residents on the island and about eight guests from all over the world, most of whom were listed in Who's Who."
"Surrounded by a view of the blue waters, I could not have wished for better accommodations. There were fifteen people at dinner and a trio played South American music. One of the guests was Roy Cohn. Like many Americans. I could not forget the important role that Roy Cohn played as the chief counsel for McCarthy's Un-American Activities Committee during one of America's darkest hours. Roy Cohn was one of Newkirk's lawyers, and he occupied a beautiful cottage. Newkirk himself was politically a reactionary, but his cool attitude toward Cohn helped to mitigate my uneasiness in getting involved with him and his associates. Newkirk alone, I thought, was bad enough for me, but with Cohn as his lawyer, it was a little too much to take. After a few days some of my fears and suspicions were allayed by Lucille Newkirk."
Of Lucille Newkirk, Alkow observed that Lucille "was as different from her husband as any wife could be different from the man she lives with". She had withdrawn herself from her husband and his opulent way of life. The bottles of Canadian rye standing on the tables of the house helped her retain her inner equilibrium."
Alkow wrote that Lucille took consolation in her life by reading books. Alkow recorded that Lucille "did not like her husband, . . . her daughter-in-law, and . . . did not like Roy Cohn." Lucille liked "honesty, humility, and intelligence. She avoided all the pleasures and pastimes of her husband". I waited for every available chance to sit and talk with her and listened to her expressions of faith with reverence.
Alkow comments further that he liked spending time with Lucille Newkirk. He observed that she was a "remarkable woman, old beyond her years. As time went on, my respect for Brian Newkirk increased because of the admiration he had for his unhappy wife."
Alkow recounts a fishing trip that he, Roy Cohn, Newkirk and his daughter-in-law took. At the end of the busy day catching fish, he writes" . . . my relations with my three companions with whom I had spent a full day were very friendly and cordial. Even Roy Cohn appeared in a better light. He was bright and interesting as a conversationalist. He avoided all controversial subjects including anything Jewish with which I tried to test him. Ironically, Newkirk. who said that he never thought of me as a Jew always thought of Roy Cohn as a Jew. When I told him angrily. 'What you call Roy Cohn a Jew?' he was embarrassed".
Newkirk tells Alkow of his plan to build a large luxurious hotel on Duck Key. He explains that he has used up "a great deal of money in the development of the island and laying the foundation for the hotel" and was in need of private and public financing to complete the project. Alkow agrees to present financing plans to his firm when he returns to Wall Street.
"On my return. I consulted with underwriters of new enterprises and they agreed to join our firm in raising the funds needed for the building of the hotel. I called Newkirk and he was delighted."
On Alkow's second visit to Duck Key he attends an elaborate party after concluding business.
"International Was the Word for Newkirk Party," read one Miami newspaper. "Alkow writes, "After the party which was hilarious, I told Lucille that while I enjoyed it very much. I was not overly impressed with the big name celebrities. She smiled and promised not to tell her husband. Quite unintentionally I derived some profit from Newkirk's reference to my association with him as his "able Wall Street financial advisor."
Alkow went through with the underwriting later in 1959. The SEC Digest in April of 1959 reported a proposed Florida-Southern Land Offering.
Florida-Southern Land Corp., Tom's Harbor, Monore [ sic. Monroe] County. Fla., filed a registration statement (File 2-14918) with the SEC on April 13, 1959, seeking registration of 2,000,000 shares. The stock is to be offered for public sale at $2 per share. The offering is to be made on a best efforts basis by Alkow & Co., Inc., for which it will receive a 36 cents per share selling commission. The underwriter also will receive an expense allowance of $50,000, payable at the rate of 5¢ per share on each of the first 1,000,000 shares sold; and it will be entitled to purchase, at one mill each, 200,000 four-year warrants to purchase a like number of common shares at prices ranging from $2 to $3 per share.
The issuer was organized in 1956 to engage in the business of buying, selling, developing and operating real properties. Its present business consists of the ownership and development of a 300-acre tract known as Duck Key, located on the Atlantic Ocean in the Florida Keys. It proposes to develop Duck Key as a luxury-type, island resort community. The Duck Key properties were acquired in 1956 from Florida corporations controlled by Bryan W. Newkirk, president of the issuer. In consideration thereof, the company issued 2,150,000 common shares to Newkirk Realty Corp. Newkirk Realty, which is said to have expended $1,131,362 on the properties, has been liquidated; and of the 2,750.000 shares. 2,529,000 were distributed to Lorita Trading Corp., a Liberian company owned by Mr. Newkirk and 138,000 shares to Newkirk personally. The company now has outstanding 2,801,655 common shares, of which 220,888 shares owned by Newkirk are to be donated back to the company.
The company first proposes to expend some $770,000 for the construction of 50 motel units and other facilities on Indies Island, one of its island properties, plus $153,000 for furnishings and equipment. $400,000 will be reserved for working capital, $125,093 will be used to repay advances by Newkirk, and $1,136,901 added to general funds to be used for either the construction of lease accommodations on Duck Key or the acquisition of additional land sites in other areas.
Florida-Southern Land Corp. underwent a name change to Florida Southern Corp. in 1961. This new entity was adjudged insolvent in August of 1963.
Thomas Bruce Morgan wrote in 1965 in "Self-creations: 13 impersonalities"
"I would do anything Roy Cohn told me to do," said the client, "because he is the most wonderful lawyer in the world. ... Over the desk was a six-foot sailfish which Cohn had caught near his vacation home at Duck Key, Florida, in 1959."The same snippet of information appeared in a 1960 edition of Esquire,
". . . Cohn awoke before eight in the morning. ... Over the desk was a six-foot sailfish which Cohn had caught near his vacation home at Duck Key, Florida, in 1959. ..."COHN, THE F.B.I. AND DUCK KEY
Although the image above shows Roy Cohn relaxing on Duck Key, F.B.I records do not substantiate that Cohn ever owned a home on the island. How is it that the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed an interest in Cohn and Duck Key?
Cohn was accused of tampering with a 1959 grand jury probe in order to save four stock swindlers from indictment. Investigators thought possibly money change hands in Las Vegas or during Cohn's visit to Florida in 1960 and that possibly Duck Key might have been the location for this exchange of bribe money.
Allegation
FBI investigation of Cohn on Duck Key
The communication above shows that in 1962 the F.B.I. conducted an investigation at Duck Key to establish if Cohn owned a vacation home on the island.The record below shows that an interview was conducted with a female to try an establish if Cohn had been on Duck Key as well as an effort to inspect Indies House ( now Hawks Cay) guest records.
Interview and effort to see Indies House records
The record below dated 8/27/1962 reports that several parties likely including County Officials reported no record of Roy Cohn owning a home on Duck Key.
Did Cohn own a home on Duck Key as the original May 1960 UPI news article stated? The picture of Cohn reclining in a lounge is evidence that Cohn visited Duck Key. A review of old property records might shed some light on this mystery.http://www.duckkeyonline.com site map
COHN ACQUITTED IN 1964
News reports of 1964 indicate that Roy Cohn was acquitted by a federal jury on charges of perjury and obstructing justice. If found guilty on all counts Cohn could have been sentenced to 35 years.
He is quoted as telling newsmen "Above all I thank God for the United States of America, where no matter who in high places moves against you, there is recourse to a jury of 12 Americans." Who in "high places" was Cohn referring to? Cohn had previously contended that "a few people" in the Justice Department were out to get him. Robert F. Kennedy was U.S. Attorney General and headed the Department of Justice at this time. The animosity between Kennedy and Cohn began in 1953 during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Cohn was made Chief Counsel to the McCarthy Committee and Kennedy was Assistant Counsel. Their differences actually led to fist fight in the outer chamber of Congress and according Donald Ritchie, the U.S. Senate historian. "they became enemies for the rest of their lives."
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