Financing the Ratlines

Who was Patricia Spector Martinson?

Green Beret author, DEA and even Watergate?

Refer back to our posting of Chapter 20, in which a 1975 New York Times News Service (NYTNS) article appeared under the headline "Is Model the Link to Drug Ring?" The "model" was identified under her sketch as Patricia Richardson Martinson, said to be the former wife of a World War II intelligence officer named William H. Spector. The authors of the piece wrote that Spector had been going from one police department to another, ranting obsessively about his ex-wife's connection to a drug ring. While stirring up some investigative interest, he was unsuccessful proving his case against her.

The New York Times, had spent a month on research, the authors said, starting with unspecified documents furnished them by Spector. The police agencies which he apparently contacted (listed in the blurb to the right) go from the local cops all the way up to Interpol.

Although the NYTNS article failed to identify the French financier who was friends with President Nixon, we feel certain he could only have been Paul-Louis Weiller, creator of Air France.

It's Not MY Fault!

We get a somewhat adequate picture of Patricia from the full article linked above, but only a vague impression of her accuser, William Spector, as an outraged husband from upstate New York unable to cope with his wife leaving him. Probably just a psycho with a vivid imagination, over-reacting to being jilted, right?

Spector failed to explain why he had set up the car dealership in tiny Ogdensburg, New York, on the U.S. side of the Canadian border, when his family owned one of the biggest Cadillac dealerships in the East two hours to the south in his hometown of Syracuse. Did he perhaps know that being located so close to Canada would be useful to a drug ring operating between Canada and the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, where his wife was born? And on that note, exactly how did he meet his young wife unless he had been to St. Maarten himself at the precise time the scheme was being planned?

Why did this story so pique the interest of Robin Moore, who had previously written The Green Berets in 1964, followed by The French Connection in 1971? Was there possibly much more to this story than meets the eye?

Answering these questions requires research into the murky background of Mr. Spector, beginning first with his felony indictment in 1971. Prior to October that year he had sold seven cars that had "floor plan" financing without paying the bank $18,000 on its lien. His defense attorney attempted to offer flimsy evidence that the crime began in mid-1970 when Spector said he first discovered the beautiful Patricia had secretly charged $20,000 in bills to his credit accounts. To remedy this debt he created new liens against his home and business to the bank whose money had not been paid on the cars—a worthless endeavor considering the fact that the prior lienholders quickly foreclosed (allegedly without giving personal notice to Spector) before the end of 1971, preventing these third liens from being paid off.

What children?

It is not known if Bill confronted Patricia about her spending habits, only that six months after their home and business were taken in foreclosure —from some time in May until July 24, 1971—he claimed he was hospitalized for an undisclosed ailment. He came out to find "his children" alone, his wife having returned to St. Maarten; he had to spend an entire week attending to the matter of finding a nanny, he told the jury. Unsurprisingly it took these twelve men and women only two and half hours to say they did not believe a word of that rubbish. Rightly so, it seems, as he had no children! At least his 1995 obituary mentioned none.

Most intriguing of all is that not until August 1974 (at the exact time Richard Nixon resigned) did Spector begin claiming that

"a drug ring was using his cars to smuggle heroin across the Canada-U.S. border during the early 1970's. Neither attorney brought any of these allegation to bear" in his criminal trial.

Family Background

Spector's father, Solomon Spector, was a Jewish immigrant from Russia, naturalized as an American citizen in 1914, the same year he began selling cars in Syracuse. There were four sons—Joseph, Myers, William, and Nathan Theodore—all born before Solomon and his wife, the former Ida Cohen, divorced. When Solomon died in Miami in 1978, having cut William and Theodore out of his will, they sued the estate, valued at upwards of a million dollars, settling out of court.

Two Spector brothers enlist.

Ida's Jewish father had run a grocery store in Syracuse, but her youngest brother became a physician, Dr. Nathan Cohen, in Elmira, N.Y., where William himself lived for 16 years before starting the dealership near the Canadian border. Elmira was not far from his prep school,  Manlius School in DeWitt, New York, which he attended from 1936-39, before entering Cornell.

One of Frank Wisner's OSS Agents in Bucharest

Bill Spector appears to have put off military service until he was drafted. He had already completed his degree at Cornell and moved on to the University at Buffalo when called to serve. He entered as a First Lieutenant and was shipped off to Augusta, Georgia for training. Because he had learned the Russian language from his parents, the lieutenant was assigned to the secret intelligence unit of the OSS in Bucharest, commanded from August 1944 until January 1945 by Frank G. Wisner with Major Robert Bishop, second in command. The goal in sending an OSS team to Romania had been to rescue 2,000 captured airmen held as prisoners of war there and in Bulgaria, but the mission would continue for a year after peace with a secret stay-behind unit remaining within the Soviet-controlled sphere.

Bill Spector talks about Romania.

At that time Romania was a monarchy which had gained  Transylvania, Bessarabia and much Hungarian territory after being on the winning side in WWI, but, because of strong anti-Russian sentiment in those acquired regions, a Nazi-allied Iron Guard gained political power of the country. By the time WWII began, the Romania entered the war on the German side. At precisely the moment in 1944 that the Soviet armies reached the border, however, King Michael, who had been installed by military dictator Prime Minister Marshall Ion Antonescu, switched over to the side of the Allies, possibly hoping to save its industrial base from the Russians. The wealthiest industrialists in Bucharest was a man we've met before, quite recently, Nicolae Malaxa.

Anticipating Germany's surrender, Allen Dulles left his OSS station in Bern to begin plans for secret peace negotiations with Germany at  the Berlin station. In January 1945 Wisner was assigned to Berlin, as  second in command to Dulles. As the war in Europe was coming to a  close, the OSS would be disbanded in September 1945.

Wisner's previous assignment in Bucharest was left under the temporary command of his immediate subordinate, Major Robert Bishop, and this is where things really started to become interesting for the young officer, Lt. William H. Spector, whose name appears in recently declassified Top Secret files relating to certain events that occurred in the career of Major Bishop at this time.

Major Bishop and his boss, Frank Wisner, had worked long and hard in developing Romanian intelligence agents who had penetrated Romania's Communist Party:

Many tons of German documents and film

Wisner served during the war as the self-confident and capable head of the OSS station in Bucharest. He was credited with masterminding a number of operations in the Balkans, including the pinpointing of the Ploesti oil fields in Romania for the massive raid the U.S. Air Force launched from Egypt. In September 1944 while in Romania, Wisner was informed by Romanian intelligence—which had penetrated the Romanian Communist Party undetected—that the Russians planned to impose Soviet-friendly regimes in Eastern Europe. Wisner wanted to act against the Soviet plans, but no one would allow him. Wisner's experiences with Russian forces in the Balkans laid the groundwork for a growing anticommunism that was reinforced during his tour of duty in postwar Germany. There he was second in command to Allen W. Dulles at the OSS station in Berlin. American intelligence agents often encountered hostility in their Soviet counterparts and were impeded in their missions in Russian-controlled areas. By the time the two men were recalled to the United States, Dulles had begun to sympathize with Wisner, who wanted to move on from searching for Nazis to finding out what the Communists were doing.

Wisner moved along to Berlin, leaving behind the cache of documents and files the two men had collected against the Nazis only to have the index to the files be either destroyed or rendered useless. Were these the same files that revealed the atrocities of which Nicolae Malaxa was guilty? Is it possible Malaxa, whose son-in-law, George Palade, was a medical researcher, made a deal with the Rockefeller banking establishment to bring him and his family to the United States and sweep whatever war crimes they may have committed under the proverbial rug?

Russians were supporting Malaza/Malaxa?

One page of the Report relating to the investigation of his successors against Major Bishop seems to contain Malaxa's name, (misspelled as Malaza in the black inset to left). We know there was a connection between Max Ausnitt and Malaxa, though not entirely friendly. The question becomes whether these files could have been seen by Richard Nixon during his stint as a Navy lawyer. Was he in the right place at the time these files were sent to the United States for storage? Whether Nixon discovered this on his own, or was used by someone else who did know, seems irrelevant at this point.

A Report released by the CIA as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request, however, mentions that William H. Spector was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. military in 1945, engaged to marry Elisabeth Mezey-Feher, the subject of the 1945 report :

11. Fiance: 1st Lt. William H. SPECTOR ASN 0-438 705; age 23; born Syracuse, New York Residence: 132 W. 11th St., Elmira, New York

***

18. Identification papers: a. Subject carries a Dutch "Protection Passport" issued April 14, 1945, by the Royal Swedish Legation in Bucharest (Charge d'Affairs K. Anjou), temporarily representing the interests of the Netherlands Government. The passport is valid until July 14, 1945. b. Major Bishop stated on April 29th that Lt. Spector had obtained a Roumanian passport and exit visa for Subject late in March through his connections with a Gen. Stonescu, Roumanian Minister of Foreign Affairs. This passport was left at the office of the Russian Legation by Lt. Spector when he attempted to obtain Russian plane clearance. The plane clearance was not granted and the Russian Passport Control Office is still in control of the Roumanian passport. Subject professed absolutely no knowledge of the above passport or transactions and is extremely anxious to have this matter clarified by her fiance, Lt. Spector. c. Allied Force Permit No. 12501. issued on April 14, 1945 by the U.S. Military Representative, ACC, for Roumania, entitling owner to travel to Italy. Valid until July 14, 1945. d. Subject has no birth certificate. She left her only certificate with the Dutch Consul in Bucharest, Mr. Charles Dozzy, from whom a copy can be obtained if necessary. e. Letter of introduction from Mr. Lolle Snit, Phillips Radio Co. representative in Roumania, Hungary and Holland (Dutch citizen) to Mr. Oscar Berntsen, Phillips Radio Co. representative in Belgrade. Subject did not visit Berntsen while in Belgrade. f. A letter of recommendation dated 16 April 1945 by Major Robert Bishop, OSS/X-2 representative in Bucharest. g. A letter by Lt. William H. Spector dated 17 March 1945 to Mr. B. Y. Berry, American Representative in Roumania, declaring his engagement to Subject. h. Several miscellaneous personal letters.

The full declassified TOP SECRET Report dated 11 October 1945 which contains the report about  Spector's fiancee is titled "Report of Investigation in case of Major Robert Bishop, AC, 0918130," who was ordered to leave the Bucharest's OSS Station just as Spector's fiancee was attempting to leave the city in his own personal automobile. By his refusal to leave as ordered, Bishop faced a severe reprimand and even court-martial. As we see from the stamp, this report was not released by the CIA until 2006, pursuant to the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. From the records of the Interagency Working Group (IWG) we learn that Major Robert Bishop of the Office of Strategic Services, was at the X-2 Branch in Bucharest, Romania before the end of WWII and that hearings were held to determine whether he had committed certain violations relating to Elisabeth Mezey-Feher, Lt. Spector's fiancee, who was a suspected informer to the German Nazis in Romania.

We do know that Max Ausnitt told the subject of one report he would pay $25,000 to anyone who helped him escape Romania. That subject was at the time none other than the fiancee of Lt. William Spector—Elizabeth Mezey-Feher (a/k/a Jocky Cristea)—rumored to be then living in Major Bishop's residence. We know that Spector obtained a Dutch passport for this "strikingly beautiful" woman who had married a Romanian man (Ionel Cristea) to head her Jewish stepfather's textile business in order to protect it from the Nazis. Her name was added to Major Bishop's list of sources of information which he eventually completed for the officer sent to replace him in Bucharest.

Both Ausnitt and Malaxa were still alive in 1951, and Frank Wisner, who by that time was back in covert intelligence work, was aware of Malaxa's deportation hearing, while struggling to keep those who had been allowed to escape away from each other's throats. Major Bishop was also back in the CIA by that time. Could he perhaps have recruited Spector as well? These men had helped develop escape routes for persons who had survived the Nazi regime and wished to find safety away from the Soviets, who were about to take charge of their post-war country.

That was all part of subterfuge which involved Lt. William H. Spector's engagement to Elisabeth Mezey-Feher. But once she escaped to Naples, and Spector was transferred to Austria, she married not Spector but another soldier named Elmer L. Kincaid, Jr. and later lived in Bronxville, NY, where she worked as a Conover (Powers) model. She sometimes was in touch with Spector, who still wanted to marry her, she told a friend not long before she made her way to Hollywood and into the movies as Lisa Ferraday. (See Lisa Kincaid, Appendix C.) She was also mentioned in a gossip column in 1949 in connection with a group that included Pat DiCicco, Howard Hughes' associate, and Cubby Broccoli, who later produced Ian Fleming's James Bond novels for the movies.

We are informed by Peter Grose in his book, Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain, that after the war Bishop worked for the International Rescue Organization (possibly he meant the International Relief and Rescue Committee, which was later shortened to the International Resc

Operation Rollback
by Peter Grose

ue Committee) and that he helped develop the "rat lines" with Krunoslav Draganović, financing the escape of Nazis through the Counter Intelligence Corps' unvouchered funds. One of the men in charge of those funds was Carmel Offie, who had been in charge of the Naples OSS team, where Spector's "fiancee" escaped to. Was that a mere coincidence? (See also chapter 9 of Frances Stonor's book, The Cultural Cold War.)

Think about this for a second. Is it possible the same ratlines were used to distribute heroin? This idea is not original to me; it was suggested by David Guyatt in his essay "The Mafia, the CIA & the Vatican's Intelligence Apparatus," in which he stated:

The principal means of funding Operation Amadeus activities was the hugely profitable narcotics business. Large stocks of SS morphia had been smuggled out of Europe and into "Catholic" South America at the end of the War in accordance with the Sunrise agreement.

The morphia was accompanied by looted SS gold and large quantities of counterfeit British banknotes, forged in concentration camps by captive but skilled counterfeiters as part of an SS scheme known as Operation Bernhardt.

The escape "lines" used to move wanted men around South America, away from the prying eyes of Israeli agents, also proved ideal as smuggling routes for drugs. Decades later, the stocks of heroin smuggled into the United States for distribution by the CIA-protected Mafia would be complemented with locally grown cocaine.

French Connection Through Haiti and French Antilles

Saint Martin/Sint Maarten

What was Spector's wife—or more likely Spector himself—doing between the West Indies and Canada from 1969 until 1971? It was not until Patricia Richardson (or Richards, as her name was given in the account of Spector's criminal trial) left her husband that he "discovered" through her diaries that she had known quite an assortment of extremely dodgy characters in St. Maarten, in the late 1960's, at about the same time she married William Spector. In Chapter Three of Henrik Kruger's book, we find these same men mentioned there as well. They were all members of Marcel Paul Francisci's international cartel, consisting of heroin refining labs in France, a distribution network run by the Corsican Mafia, and a money-laundering system of banks to hide the source of funds and make it available for reinvestment. As Kruger stated:

Most of it [heroin] was sold on the U.S. market, where Italian and Cuban wholesalers entered the scene. In 1971 the Corsican Mafia delivered 80 percent of the heroin on the U.S. market. They deposited their millions in Bahamian, Swiss, and Lebanese banks, reinvesting some of it later in legal enterprise.

The "Italian and Cuban wholesalers" mentioned above were described in greater detail in Chapter 9, where he wrote that Francisci used his connections with French politicians to negotiate an international agreement whereby his cartel could import opium into France and export the refined heroin through Italian mobsters. The distribution network (export) consisted of two air and three sea routes into the United States. As to the sea routes, he wrote:

The shipping lanes... either ended in  

• Brazil/Paraguay,  
• Haiti and the French West Indies, or  
• went directly to the east coast of the United States. 

Heroin smuggled into the U.S. from the French Antilles and Haiti, like that from Paraguay, went via Florida or Mexico.

The French Antilles islands—those islands within the Lesser Antilles subject to French colonial rule —are composed of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy, and the northern half of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten (an island divided between the French to the north and the Dutch half to the south). Therefore, it is not surprising that French criminals would be able to ship drugs out of St. Maarten.

French Connection to Lebanon

 It is also not remarkable that the distribution network run by French gangsters would involve Lebanese banks to launder their profits. When the League of Nations, after World War I, divided up the Ottoman Empire, the French were given a mandate over Syria and Lebanon, while the British took control of Palestine and Iraq. Additional clues about this Lebanese connection appear in Chapter 20:

Several things point to [Robert] Vesco involvement in the long‑standing partnership of the CIA, the Lansky/Trafficante syndicate and the Cuban exiles, in a drugs ‑for ‑guns ‑for ‑terror deal to step up armed suppression and anti‑communism in Latin America. Journalist [Jim] Hougan* ventures that the conspirators might have used such go‑betweens and couriers as the beautiful Patricia Richardson Martinson. According to her ex‑husband, the former army intelligence agent William Spector, Ms. Martinson had very close relationships with almost everyone of importance in the drug business:

• Yussef Beidas, the Lebanese founder and managing director of INTRA Bank, known as one of the major financiers of the heroin traffic; 
• Paul Louis Weiller, a French financier similarly alleged to be behind the narcotics trade [the French financier named above as Nixon's friend];
• Eduardo Baroudi, a big‑time heroin and gun smuggler suspected of having arranged Beidas' mysterious death in Switzerland; 
• Christian "Beau Serge" David; 
• Conrad Bouchard, a top heroin trafficker heavily involved in Frank Peroff's Vesco heroin allegations; and 
• Marcel Boucan, the skipper of the Caprice du Temps, which was seized in 1972 with 425 kilos of pure heroin.

________________
*Hougan, Jim. Spooks: The Haunting of America — The Private Use of Secret Agents. New York: Bantam Books, 1979. 481 pages.

Nixon's Blackmail of a Few Good Men

The day after I put the last post online, I got a phone call from my friend Kris Millegan, publisher of Trine Day books. He wanted to remind me that, whether or not Richard Nixon met George Smathers or Bebe Rebozo in Miami earlier than has been documented, he really went to Congress shortly after the war because he had blackmailed certain government and Wall Street attorney/bankers with documents he discovered amongst captured German financial documents he reviewed during his years in the Navy.

In America's Nazi Secrets (published by Trine Day in 2010), John Loftus added a short footnote on page 221, not as a citation but a mere addendum to help explain why Vice President Nixon may have "received one Belarus leader in the White House...a major war criminal...," but the real meat of the discovery that gave rise to what Millegan call's Nixon's blackmail appears in the earlier book, John Loftus wrote with Mark Aarons (Secret War Against the Jews),which has been excerpted for convenience with the most relevant portion printed below:

Nixon's blackmail.

 
 

 

~~~ 
AGNOSTICS FOR NIXON, Part One
by Kris Millegan

"I am being the devil’s advocate … "         
                                                          —President Nixon, White House Tapes, March 13, 1973

Nixon's Beginning in Politics

Richard Milhous Nixon tried to be his own man, yes, sometimes he was the creature of others, but at the end of the day, he attempted to run his own show … and lost. You see, Tricky Dicky was a blackmailer.

July 1947 - HUAC

Nixon’s political career began when he was elected to the 80^th Congress in 1947 along with 107 other freshmen representatives, including future rival John F. Kennedy, future speaker Carl Albert and future senators Jacob Javitts and George Smathers. There they joined future president Lyndon Johnson, who had been in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1939. In 1949 LBJ moved on to the Senate, just when another future president Gerald Ford showed up to serve in the House of Representatives.

Just as Richard Nixon tells several different stories about where he was when President Kennedy was assassinated, there are several different tales about how Nixon became involved in politics. In the 1979 Memoirs of Richard Nixon, he writes about receiving a letter from the manager of the Whittier branch of the Bank of America, Herman Perry:

Dear Dick, Do you want to run for the Republican ticket? Airmail me your reply.

HL Perry

And at the Nixon Library website they glorify the anniversary date of the famous letter of September 29, 1945 and Nixon’s reply of October 6, 1945, where he writes, “I feel very strongly that Jerry Voorhis can be beaten and I’d welcome the opportunity to take a crack at him.” 

The website states “Nixon was a young up-and-coming attorney, a graduate of Duke University Law School, and a naval officer during World War II who had returned to his hometown of Whittier to work at an established law firm.”

Conrad Black writes in 2008 in Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, that Nixon telephoned Perry on October 1^st and then wrote his letter on October 2.

From Nixon admirer Ralph De Toledano in his book, Nixon, written in 1956, we learn about an ad placed in 26 newspapers by a "Committee of One Hundred Men":

WANTED – Congressman candidate with no previous political experience to defeat a man who has represented the district in the House for ten years. Any young man, resident of district, preferably a veteran, fair education, no political strings or obligations and possessor of a few ideas for betterment of country at large may apply for the job. Applicants will be reviewed by 100 interested citizens who will guarantee support but will not obligate the candidate in any way.

De Toledano says the first contact was by phone while Nixon was still living in Maryland and in the Navy. Nixon received this telephone call from Herman Perry, in which he asked, "Are you a Republican, and are you available?" 

What did Nixon do in the Navy? 

Again there are many different versions.

Wikipedia’s blurb states:

Nixon was eligible for an exemption from military service, both as a Quaker and through his job working for the OPA, but he did not seek one [exemption] and was commissioned into the United States Navy in August 1942. He was trained at Naval Air Station Quonset Point, Rhode Island and was then assigned to Ottumwa Naval Air Station, Iowa, for seven months. He was subsequently reassigned as the naval passenger control officer for the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command, supporting the logistics of operations in the South West Pacific theater. After requesting more challenging duties, he was given command of cargo handling units. Nixon returned to the United States with two service stars (although he saw no actual combat) and a citation of commendation, and became the administrative officer of the Alameda Naval Air Station. In January 1945, he was transferred to Philadelphia's Bureau of Aeronautics office to help negotiate the termination of war contracts. There he received another letter of commendation, this time from Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal. In October 1945, he was promoted to lieutenant commander. He resigned his commission on New Year's Day 1946.

According to Mae Brussell, in “How Nixon Actually Got Into Power” from The Realist, Aug 1972, Nixon was working under “special orders”:

Nixon's 15 months in the South Pacific ended when he was transferred to Fleet Air Wing 8 at Alameda, California, and from there he was assigned on special orders to the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. The Navy assigned him to "winding up" active contracts with such aircraft firms as Bell and Glenn Martin.(19)

As a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, Richard Nixon's next task was that of "negotiating settlements" of terminated war contracts in the Bureau of Aeronautics Office at 50 Church Street, New York City.(20)

[Note from editor at QJ: This address was one of the Hudson Terminal Buildings near the World Trade Center, which has since been demolished. On the third floor was the office of the American Rocket Society, whose president at one time was Robert Truax, whose obituary in 2010 stated: "Mr. Truax was a career naval officer lent to the Air Force for top-secret projects, and later a corporate aerospace executive and an entrepreneur. His early research for the Navy laid the foundation for the liquid-propelled rockets that are the centerpiece of American space efforts, and he was a leader in developing the Thor, Viking and Polaris missile programs.When Wernher von Braun and other German rocket experts came to the United States, Mr. Truax led the team that debriefed them. As president of the American Rocket Society, he was an early, vigorous advocate of the American space program."]

Jay Gould castle site for Nazis

That year was 1945, when importation proceedings began for the 642 Nazi rocket and aerospace experts and scientists from Germany to the U.S. Through the "generosity of the Guggenheim Foundation they obtained a suitable site – a huge medieval castle, built by financier Jay Gould on a 160-acre estate at Sands Point, Long Island. Here the Germans began work on a secret project for the Navy's Office of Research and Inventions.(21)

19. Alameda, air contracts
          Ralph De Toledano (Duell, Sloan, Pearce), Page 37
20. New York, Contracts
         My Sir Crises (Pyramid Books, 1962), Page 81
21. Importation of Germans
        Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War
          Clarence Lasby (Atheneum Press, 1971), Pages 4-5

Here is Russ Bakers take on Nixon’s rise, from Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years, 2009:

Nixon's Big Break

In Nixon's carefully crafted creation story, his 1945 decision to enter politics was triggered when the young Navy veteran, working on the East Coast, received a request from an old family friend, a hometown banker named Herman Perry. Would he fly back to Los Angeles and speak with a group of local businessmen looking for a candidate to oppose Democratic congressman Jerry Voorhis? They felt he [Voorhis] was too liberal, and too close to labor unions.

The businessmen who summoned Nixon are usually characterized as Rotary Club types–a furniture dealer, a bank manager, an auto dealer, a printing salesman. In reality, these men were essentially fronts for far more powerful interests. Principal among Nixon's bigger backers was the arch-conservative Chandler family, owners of the Los Angeles Times. Nixon himself acknowledged his debt to the Chandlers in correspondence.

"I often said to friends that I would never have gone to Washington in the first place had it not been for the Times," he wrote.

Though best known as publishers, the Chandlers had built their fortune on railroads, still the preferred vehicle for shipping oil, and held wide and diverse interests.

Yet Voorhis appears to have recognized that forces even more powerful than the Chandler clan were opposing him. As he wrote in an unpublished manuscript, "The Nixon campaign was a creature of big Eastern financial interests ... the Bank of America, the big private utilities, the major oil companies." He was hardly a dispassionate observer, but on this point the record bears him out.

Nixon partisans would claim that "not a penny" of oil money found its way into his campaign. Perhaps. But a representative of Standard Oil, Willard Larson, was present at that Los Angeles meeting in which Nixon was selected as the favored candidate to run against Voorhis.

Voorhis, Littell, and Tommy the Cork ?

Representative Voorhis had caused a stir at the outset of World War II when he exposed a secret government contract that allowed Standard Oil to drill for free on public lands in Central California's Elk Hills. But the establishment’s quarrel with Voorhis was about more than oil.

While no anti-capitalist radical, Voorhis had a deep antipathy for corporate excesses and malfeasance. And he was not afraid of the big guys. He investigated one industry after another – insurance, real estate, investment banking. He fought for antitrust regulation of the insurance industry, and he warned against the "cancerous superstructure of monopolies and cartels." He also was an articulate voice calling for fundamental reforms in banking. He knew Wall Street was gunning for him. In his memoir, Confessions of a Congressman, Voorhis recalled:

The 12th District campaign of 1946 got started along in the fall of 1945, more than a year before the election. There was, of course, opposition to me in the district. There always had been. Nor was there any valid reason for me to think I lived a charmed political life. But there were special factors in the campaign of 1946, factors bigger and more powerful than either my opponent or myself.

And they were on his side.

In October 1945, the representative of a large New York financial house [emphasis Baker's] made a trip to California. All the reasons for his trip I, of course, do not know. But I do know that he called on a number of influential people in Southern California. And I know he "bawled them out." For what? For permitting Jerry Voorhis, whom he described as "one of the most dangerous men in Washington," to continue to represent a part of the state of California in the House of Representatives, This gentleman's reasons for thinking me so "dangerous" obviously had to do with my views and work against monopoly and for changes in the monetary system.

It is not clear whether Voorhis knew the exact identity of the man. Nor is it clear whether Voorhis knew that his nemesis, the Chandler family, had for several years been in business with Dresser Industries. The latter had begun moving into Southern California during the war, snapping up local companies both to secure immediate defense contracts and in anticipation of lucrative postwar opportunities.

One of these companies, Pacific Pump Works, which manufactured water pumps, later produced components for the atomic bomb. The Chandlers were majority shareholders in Pacific Pump when Dresser acquired the company, and so gained a seat on the Dresser board, along with such Dresser stalwarts as Prescott Bush. But there was even more of a Bush connection to the movers and shakers behind Nixon's entry into politics.

In October 1945, the same month in which that "representative of a large New York financial house" was in town searching for a candidate to oppose Voorhis, Dresser Industries was launching a particularly relevant California project. The company was just completing its purchase of yet another local company, the drill bit manufacturer Security Engineering, which was located in Whittier, Nixon's hometown. The combined evidence, both from that period and from the subsequent relationships, suggests that Voorhis's Eastern banking representative may have been none other

than Prescott Bush himself. If so, that would explain Nixon's sense of indebtedness to the Bush family, something he never acknowledged in so many words but clearly demonstrated in so many actions during his career.

A Basis for Blackmail?

And then there is the tale former Justice Department investigator and author John Loftus tells in  America’s Nazi Secrets, 2010:

When Richard Nixon was a naval officer, he was assigned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to review captured German financial documents, some of which, according to legend, involved the Dulles brothers and their clients. The Dulles brothers promptly financed Nixon’s first run for Congress and then prevailed upon Eisenhower to take him on as Vice President. Australian intelligence records confirmed that President Nixon used the eastern European Nazi vote as his ethnic counterweight to the Jewish vote for the Democrats in five key states.

Nixon getting brimmed by Prescott Bush, a good friend and business partner of the Dulles brothers … and a director of a Nazi Bank.

Hmm, if Nixon is blackmailing the Dulles brothers, that could explain a few things. 

Those Nasty Nazis

Such as this from Howard Blum’s Wanted: The Search for Nazis in America, where we again run into Mr. Herman Perry of Whittier, California:

The gray farmhouse was surrounded by shouting men. A rock crashed through a window. Other stones slammed against the front door and roof. Stefan Feraru tried to call for help, but it was useless: The telephone lines had been cut. At least a hundred men crowded the finely shaven green lawns stretching from the road to the main house. Most were just observers, up from Detroit for a fine summer's day in the country. The crowd, though, had been drinking and the alcohol and sun mixed to make them restless and aggressive. Many, waving their bottles in the air, started chanting in a tough, loud cadence: "Com-mun-ists ... Com-mun-ists ... "

At the head of the lawn, directly in front of the farmhouse, was a more menacing group of approximately thirty men. They were neither drunk nor merely restless. They had planned the assault on the Rumanian Orthodox Episcopate in Grass Lakes, Michigan, as if it were a military operation: first the phone lines would be cut, a barrage of rocks, and then the final push ­ – the seizure of the Vatra. In fact, many of these men were trained soldiers. They had been trained twenty years ago in Rumania when they fought with the Iron Guard.

These men, some brandishing broom handles, advanced toward the house. A priest's new Buick directly in their path became an easy target: Windows were smashed and tires slashed. Another volley of rocks was thrown as they moved closer. Inside the farmhouse, Bishop Moldovan and his priests began to panic. "We were scared," Stefan Feraru remembered. "We had come to the Vatra a few days early to prepare for the annual church congress. We knew there would be some discussion, some debate, but we never expected an attack. These men were wild."

Father Oprean, a short priest with a long, gray beard, decided he could stop the assault; he believed no one would attack a priest dressed in his black cassock, a cross hanging from his neck. He walked out to the front porch and raised his arms, appealing for quiet. "Fellow Christians," he began. But before he could continue, he was dragged from the porch. Clutching the priest's beard, the attacker spun the priest as if he were a child's top into the crowd. Men surrounded the priest, pushing, punching, and kicking until Father Oprean fell to the ground. He lay dazed, a small, old man, his black cassock spread about the green grass like a discarded rag.

Bishop Moldovan had no choice but surrender. If a battle were to be fought, he would have to wage it in an American court. On Independence Day – July 4 –1952, he surrendered the two hundred-acre-farm in northern Michigan to the priests and supporters of the newly chosen dissident bishop – Valerian Trifa.

The Reverend Vasile Pascau, Bishop Moldovan's secretary, had been inside the farmhouse during the assault and later wrote: “… a group of Iron Guardist hoodlums … invaded our property … beating an old priest ... creating terror among our women, children, and old people, exactly as Hitler did once in Germany against the Jews. After this kind of ordeal, they took over our property by force, chasing us out."

On Wednesday, May 11, 1955, Bishop Trifa had the honor of offering the opening prayer before the U.S. Senate … Trifa's presence had been requested by Vice President Richard M. Nixon. … it was no political accident that Richard Nixon invited Trifa to the Senate. It seemed more than coincidental that Richard Nixon had a rather incriminating history of involvement with another Iron Guardist who had also immigrated to America – Nicolae Malaxa.

In his June 1941 trial, Viorel Trifa was identified as "commandant of the student Iron Guard corps; he has organized this corps and supplied it with arms." But it was another trial held that same month which named Trifa's source for the tanks, guns, and munitions used in the revolt and pogrom. The source was Nicolae Malaxa, the chief contributor to the Iron Guard and the wealthiest man in Rumania, if not all Eastern Europe. Both Trifa and Malaxa were convicted and both shared the same eventual fate – sanctuary in the United States.

During the 1930s, Malaxa had perceptively invested a sizable loan from the Rumanian government intended for his locomotive factories into other industries, By 1939, he had purchased controlling interests in numerous steel, rubber, munitions, and artillery factories; Malaxa had seen the future of Europe and had realized the next decade's profits were to be earned from guns, not butter.

Malaxa, though, was not just a businessman. He also was a political force in Rumanian politics, an agent who actively worked and conspired with the Nazis and the Iron Guard. From his factories, Malaxa hoped, would come the weapons which would win the New Order.

Albert Goering

In 1936, Malaxa went to Berlin to meet with Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering and the two men parted as business partners. This personal agreement became formalized in the 1940 Wohlstadt Pact which integrated Malaxa's industries with Germany's. Directing this new Nazi industrial coalition were Nicolae Malaxa and Albert Goering, younger brother of the Reichsmarschall.

Malaxa's partnership with the Nazis also intruded into domestic Romanian politics with his staunch support for the Iron Guard. A telegram sent on January 8, 1941, by the German minister in Ruwallin to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin accurately documents the financier’s relationship with the Guardists: "In this fight between the General [Antonescu] and the legionnaire command, one man plays a role who even earlier played a secret part in Rumanian politics: … the present financial mainstay of the legionnaires, N. Malaxa. The legionaires let the clever, big industrialist finance them. He has in his plants the leader of the legionnaire labor organization, Ganeu, and their green flags flutter above his factories.... Malaxa has even again supplied with arms the legionnaire police.... " Just two weeks after this secret diplomatic telegram was sent, the Iron Guard revolt broke out, and Malaxa's complicity became even more conspicuous: His house served as the Bucharest Guard headquarters and munitions depot.

Malaxa, however, was more successful in business than politics, and after the revolt failed he was convicted and jailed by the Antonescu government. He remained in jail for only six months and, under pressure from the Nazis, the Rumanian officials were forced to begin returning Malaxa's industrial properties. By April 1945, all of Malaxa's holdings were restored.

Declassified by CIA 2004-2006

With the defeat of the Nazis, the adaptive Malaxa was ready to make new alliances. Grady McClaussen [phonetic?], head of the American Office or Strategic Services (OSS) in Rumania, signed personal contracts and became an employee of Malaxa's while still stationed in Rumania as an agent of the OSS. These contracts stipulated that McClaussen would be paid certain sums once Malaxa arrived in the United Slates. Ten years after these contracts were signed, immigration officials would argue that these agreements were actually bribes: money to be paid to the OSS agent if McClaussen got Malaxa into the United States.

Obituary in New York Times, July 2, 1950

[Note from editor at QJ: This OSS agent "McClaussen" was actually a war-time intelligence officer named Grady Cameron McGlasson, who died suddenly in July 1950 and was buried in Arlington Cemetery. See the obituary to the right, which reveals that he graduated from the Naval Academy, only to become an Army Colonel, an intelligence officer at the head of a group of Greek guerrillas, parachuting behind the enemy lines in the Balkans during WWII. McGlasson was a member of the American delegation to the Allied Control Commission for Rumania, which dealt with Malaxa's factories after flying from Athens in the fall of 1944, according to an essay written for Foreign Affairs magazine in 1952 by Barry Brannen called "The Soviet Conquest of Rumania".]

It's Not Rocket Science, Is It?

Malaxa's dealing with the OSS did not preclude, however, his making similar overtures to the Russians. For reasons never disclosed, the Communist government of Rumania in April 1945, issued decree without precedent: Malaxa received $2,460,000 in American money for steel manufacturing plants which had been appropriated by the new Rumanian government and then given to the Russians as reparation payment.

But, despite this ability to make unique deals with the Communists, Malaxa remained intent on immigrating to the United States. On September 29, 1946 Malaxa arrived in New York as part of a Rumanian government trade mission. He was never to return to Europe.

See "FDR and the Holocaust" in FDR Library

In 1948, Malaxa formally applied for permanent residence in the United States, appealing for admission under the Displaced Persons Act. For the next ten years Malaxa was to fight a legal battle to remain in America – the best legal battle his money could buy. Malaxa's first step was to claim millions of dollars which had been deposited before the war in the Chase National Bank [John J. McCloy would later be named its chairman] in the name of one of his corporations. These funds had been frozen as enemy assets during the war by John Pehle [pronounced Pa-ley] of the Treasury Department.

Normally, such funds are used for postwar compensation to American companies (such as Standard Oil) which had property confiscated by Rumania. However, John Pehle [see a photo in The American Jewish Weekly Chicago in March 30, 1944] had since returned to private practice [his resignation from War Relief Board was announced Jan. 27, 1945] and Malaxa shrewdly hired the law firm of Pehle and Loesser [sic] to argue his case. This time, Pehle and Malaxa won. [Pehle's partners were Lawrence S. Lesser, James H. Mann, Ansel F. Luxford, former general counsel of IRS, and Karl Riemer.]

Similarly, Ugo Carusi was United States Immigration commissioner when Malaxa first attempted to enter as a displaced person. When Carusi resigned his job, Malaxa hired him. Other former government officials and their associates were recruited – and compensated – to assist in Malaxa's legal suits:

• Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell;

• former Air Force Secretary Thomas K. Finletter's law firm; and

• the firm of former Undersecretary of State Adolph A. Berle, who personally testified on Malaxa's behalf before a Congressional Subcommittee on Immigration.

The briefs of these lawyers, though, were no match for the vivid eyewitness testimony detailing Iron Guard atrocities which were heard at every Immigration hearing. A victim of justice, Malaxa tried, instead, privilege. At Malaxa's urging, the junior senator from California, Richard Nixon, introduced a private bill in 1951 which would allow Malaxa to remain permanently in the United States. Congressman Emanuel Celler, head of the House Immigration Committee later said on television, "I saw something suspicious about the bill ... I held up the bill.”

The bill was never passed. The bill was defeated, but it was not the end of Nixon's involvement with Malaxa. The Rumanian (or one of his lawyers or advisors) now had a new scheme. In May 1951, at the height of the Korean War when all industry was under war-time control, Malaxa organized the Western Tube Corporation. The company, of which Malaxa was treasurer and sole stock owner – a thousand dollars worth – planned to manufacture seamless tubes for oil refining. Athough most similar manufacturing was done in the East, Malaxa's plan was to construct facilities on the West Coast, near the California oil fieIds. It had taken Malaxa five years in the United States to locate what he insisted was the perfect site for new industry – a small suburb east of Los Angeles, Whittier, California. And for Malaxa's purposes, the site was perfect. It was, coincidentally, the hometown of the then junior senator from California, Richard Nixon. This was, for Malaxa's purposes, just the first of many perfect coincidences.

Western Tube's California address was 607 Bank of America Building, Whittier. This was the same address as that of the law firm Bewley, Kroop & Nixon. Throughout his Senate career, Nixon's name remained part of the official firm title and Nixon used the office on his vacations in California.

Thomas Bewley, Nixon's long-time friend and law partner, was secretary of Western Tube.

Herman L. Perry, the vice president of Western Tube, was an old Nixon political supporter, the same "family friend" whom Pat Nixon credited as the man who "got Dick ... to oppose Congressman Jerry Voorhis."

On May 17,1951, the Western Tube Corporation filed for a "certificate of necessity" to give top war-time priority to its materials and personnel. Also, the company filed a petition seeking "first preference quota" for its treasurer, Nicolae Malaxa, on the grounds that he was indispensable to the operation of Western Tube. These two applications were personally promoted by Senator Nixon. Nixon telephoned the executive assistant to INS Commisioner James Hennessy to plead for Malaxa's permanent entry. And a letter sent by Nixon to the Defense Production Administrator marked "Urgent" insisted, "It is important strategically and economically, both for California and the entire United States, that a plant for the manufacturing of seamlees tubing for oil wells be erected … urge that every consideration it may merit be given to the pending application."

Both appeals were successful. The application for Western Tube was quickly approved and on September 26, 1953, Malaxa was admitted from Canada under a special first-preference petition as a permanent resident.

Yet, once Malaxa obtained permanent residence in the United States, nothing further was ever done to make Western Tube a reality. Neither Malaxa nor Nixon nor any of the corporation's other sponsors ever again concerned themselves with Western Tube. Congressman John Shelley of California was later to observe, "It is impossible to discover any reasons for creating Western Tube and seeking a certificate of necessity other than to give Malaxa a springboard for entry into the United States."

A year after becoming a permanent resident, Malaxa visited with Juan Peron in Argentina. Malaxa also met in Buenos Aires, according to the CIA, with Otto Skorzeny, the Nazi parachutist who had rescued Mussolini in 1943. Skorzeny, now settled in Madrid, remained a close associate of other Rumanian exiles, including Horia Sima, the head of the Iron Guard.

When, ten months later, Malaxa attempted to re-enter the United States, he was challenged once more by the INS. In 1958, after two years in the courtroom, Hearing Officer Arnold Martin ruled against Malaxa and ordered him deported. Malaxa appealed the decision and won. Another Nixon friend, U.S. Attorney General William Rogers, affirmed the Immigration Appeals Board's ruling. "How interesting," Congressman Shelley noted with judicious understatement, "that this man ... found sanctuary in the United States thanks to the special favors accorded him by Mr. Nixon and Mr. Rogers. This was at a time when thousands of deserving displaced persons, victims of Mr. Malaxa's Nazis, Iron Guardists, and Communists, were unable to obtain admission. Maybe they would have done better if they transported plunder and been friendly enough with Richard Nixon to obtain his personal intervention in their behalf."

The Lawyers Take the Case

In attempting to document the information about Malaxa's court case, this editor (QJ) happened upon the case of UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Chaja KASEL DE PAGLIERA, Petitioner, v. Joseph SAVORETTI, District Director, United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, District No. 6, Miami, Florida, Respondent. UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Nicolae MALAXA, Petitioner, v. Joseph SAVORETTI, District Director, United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Respondent. Civ. Nos. 6705-M, 6728-M, which is reported as UNITED STATES v. SAVORETTI, 139 F. Supp. 143 (S.D. Fla. 1956) - Decided Feb. 15, 1956.

David W. Walters, Miami, Fla., and Jack Wasserman, Washington, D.C., were the attorneys of record for petitioner, Nicolae Malaxa. Walters was the finance chairman for Florida Congressman Fascell's campaign and Drew Pearson named him also as "the attorney for ex-dictator Perez Jiminez of Venezuela". Pearson also disclosed in 1963 that immigration attorney Wasserman represented Carlos Marcello.

Malaxa's writ of habeas corpus case, pooled with the others, was designated Civ. No. 6728-M, and the court made the following findings of fact pertaining to him:

1. Petitioner, a 71-year-old stateless native of Roumania, was issued an immigration visa for permanent residence on or about September 26, 1953, and was admitted to the United States for permanent residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at Rouses Point, New York.

2. Petitioner was admitted for permanent residence after the Attorney General had certified that his services were urgently needed in the United States, and that they would be beneficial to our national interests.

3. Petitioner was admitted to the United States for permanent residence after his case had been investigated and approved by the Department of State and the Department of Justice.

4. The petitioner applied for and received a reentry permit from agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, valid until December 17, 1955.

5. The petitioner proceeded with the aforesaid reentry permit to Argentina and on October 12, 1955, while he was in Argentina, the Immigration and Naturalization Service revoked the said reentry permit without a hearing. This revocation was declared null and void *148 by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on December 7, 1955, and no appeal has been taken from such decision.

6. On December 16, 1955, the petitioner arrived at Miami, Florida, in possession of valid travel documents, including a valid reentry permit, which he presented to the immigration authorities.

7. Without notifying petitioner of any charges and without assigning any reasons, the respondent has refused to permit petitioner to reenter the United States and has confined him on parole, with limited exceptions, to the State of Florida. Petitioner has been denied permission to visit his family in New York or to conduct business activities there or to visit counsel in Washington, D.C. He has been denied permission to travel in the United States, except that he may be present in cities where his immigration case will be heard.

8. Respondent has not advised petitioner or the Court of the charges against petitioner, nor have any reasons been advanced as to why it is necessary to restrict petitioner's liberty of movement in the United States.

9. Petitioner's immigration hearing began on January 26, 1956, and it appears that considerable time will elapse before a final administrative decision is reached.

10. The restriction and interference with the petitioner's liberty pending final administrative decision in his case will cause him irreparable injury.

The court then ordered Malaxa's release from confined and required the U.S. Government to furnish a hearing for him before denial of re-entry into the U.S. Listen to Mae Brussell on Malaxa and Operation Paperclip below, or read transcript: beginning at 16:40 on the tape, where she talks briefly about Howard Blum’s book mentioned above: Wanted! Search for Nazis in America. After discussing Nixon's political birth in 1946, after his stint in the Navy and at the Bureau of Aeronautics at 50 Church Street in New York City, she mentions here her 1972 Realist article about Nixon's role with Allen and John Foster Dulles with Operation Paperclip, before resuming with Blum's book at 24:30.

Mae brings up Nixon's meeting with Herman Perry's group at 28:00, reminding us that all this was occurring six months after Malaxa was allowed to come into the U.S. on September 29, 1945, to receive $2,460,000 in reparations to his business, which had to be deposited in Chase National Bank. All the funds had been maintained for him, she says, by John W. Pehle of the Treasury Department, throughout the war. After coming initially to New York, he settled in Whittier, California (30:00), where he opened a "dummy front" company called Western Tube Corporation. He claimed he made tubes for oil refining with the address of 607 Bank of America Building in Whittier. Coincidentally, that was also the address of the law office of Richard Nixon at Wingert & Bewley until Wingert's death in 1943. Thomas William Bewley lived until 1986. When Nixon joined the firm it became Kroop, Bewley & Nixon, although nothing appears online indicating the full name of Kroop.

Then Along Came Oswald

Brussell makes a fascinating case about Nixon's working with Tom Bewley and Herman Perry in setting up Western Tube Corp. for Malaxa, who she said stayed in New York long enough to accept the millions of dollars provided him by the U.S. Government (the Dulles brothers), then went to Whittier and on to Argentina, at the same time as another family, Alexandr Romanovich Ziger, a Polish Jew, who lived in Argentina between 1938 and 1956. In another location Brussell stated about this Nazi family, whom she referred to as Lee Harvey Oswald's only connection to Nazis:

The Argentine Connections: Isaac Don Levine and the Ziger Family
    The Warren Report wasn't published until September, 1964. Testimony of witnesses and exhibits were being collected up to the day of printing. Yet as early as June 2, 1964, Isaac Don Levine, another arch-enemy of Communists and a so-called expert on the Soviet mind, was arranging with the Warren Commission staff to bring the daughters of Oswald's boss, Alexander Ziger, from the Minsk Radio factory to Argentina. He suggested using CIA assistance.
    What was that about?
    "When the Oswalds left Russia they smuggled out a message to one of the relatives of the Zigers living in the U.S. They wanted help to get the Zigers’ daughters out of Russia. The daughters, having been born in Argentina, could claim Argentine citizenship. Levine suggested some confidential source in the American Government such as the CIA should contact the Argentine Government to set machinery in motion. (Memorandum from W. David Slawson: Conference with Mr. Isaac Don Levine, May 23, 1964).
    January 21, 1964, John J. McCloy told Commission members, before any witness was yet called, "this fellow Levine is a contact with Marina to break the story up in a little more graphic manner and tie it into a Russian business, and it is with the thought and background of Russian connections, conspiracy concept."
    If there was a Russian conspiracy to kill President John Kennedy, John McCloy, Isaac Don Levine, Allen Dulles, and J. Edgar Hoover, not to speak of Nixon and others, would squeeze that out.
    Remember Gary Powers strongly hinted at Oswald's role in downing the U-2, breaking up the Eisenhower-Khrushchev meeting while Lee was employed at the Minsk Radio factory?
    Nicolae Malaxa, Otto Skorzeny, and international CIA-DIA agents were thick in both Minsk and Argentina. It was Alexander Ziger and his family who introduced Lee to Marina Oswald. That same evening they were at the home of an unidentified woman just returned from the U.S.
    The President of the U.S. had been murdered in 1963.
    Six months later the CIA is supposed to assist the Ziger daughters?
    One more connection to Richard Nixon.
    When poor Whittaker Chambers almost collapsed from the strain of having to testify against Alger Hiss, it was Isaac Don Levine who took "Chambers by the arm, a reluctant Chambers, and arranged the meetings where he would begin to smear Hiss." (Friendship and Fratricide, Meyer Zelig).
    When Levine was searching for a Soviet connection to Kennedy's death, he was also doing business with Marina's new manager, James Martin. It was Martin who was selling the photo of Oswald posing with Communist literature and a rifle, the same evidence pulled from the Paine's garage. Notice the similarity to the Whittaker Chambers pumpkin papers years earlier that launched Nixon's political career and convicted Alger Hiss.
    If the evidence didn't fit the conclusions of the investigators, the one picture would sell the Oswald assassin story.