Diego Rivera - LIRING/3 - "The Glorious Victory" (1955) - Corrected

I feel it incumbent upon me to offer a correction to this post concerning Diego Garcia as LIRING/3 for the CIA in Mexico. It was not Mr. Garcia. Though I had double checked 2 separate sources, another private author and the Senate hearings, the actual LIRING/3 is an unnamed protege of Mr. Garcia's .

This is the usual "hall of mirrors" employed by the CIA to obfuscate and mislead researchers and law makers in their quest for information. Please except my apologies for the error of being blinded by the light of the reflections/deflections of the CIA. I should have triple checked this source more diligently. At best this was probably a way for them to discredit Mr. Garcia's lifelong quest for social justice.

At any rate, it is not a good reflection on my research into Mr. Garcia , of whom I am a longtime fan. The real LIRING/3 is last referenced in a CIA document from 2013, when he was still alive, still unnamed, and in his 80's. I am now trying to ascertain which Mexican artist is the real LIRING/3.

As Winston "Win" Scott, one of the most enigmatic agents of the CIA, and a "master of deceipt", said in his still unpublished memoirs, "It Came to Little", taken from a biblical passage, "He looked for much, and lo, it came to little....", I expect my search will yield just that.

The quote comes from the book of Haggai, 1:5 to 9, when  the Lord speaks to Haggai, a prophet, and says of the people, who have not yet began to build the temple, that though they live in paneled houses and harvest much to eat, they are not yet satisfied, for, "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little." Thus was, I believe a reference to the people not yet unraveling the mystery of JFK's assassination. I told you he was enigmatic.

My apologies again for the error of having been misled. I stand humbly corrected.

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Most people wouldn't know it but Diego Rivera was also a link, through an unamed protege named LIRING3 in the Mexico City CIA division in the early 1960's. His story came to light in the late 1960's as the JFK assassination theories were gaining ground. But that's not the focus of this post; which concerns only Mr. River's oil on linen painting by from 1955. 

 It was inspired by the cup d'etat in 1954 in Guatemala. Rather than re-write it in my own words I'll just quote from the two best sites about the painting, which includes The CIA's Dullles brothers, Foster and Allen, center left and Eisenhower on the bomb. 

 Each year around this time I think about the assassination and it's aftermath, up through the 1979 House Committee hearings which sprang from the 1975 Church Committee hearings into the abuses of the CIA. The Guatemalan coup was one of the things covered, or should I say uncovered, in those hearings. 

 By 1979 the conclusion of those hearings was that a conspiracy of some sort, by either the Cubans, or our own Operation Mongoose, had been the operation which led to the assassination of our own President, just 7 weeks after we had killed the Diem brothers in Vietnam, which led to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and resolution in September of 1964.

 Rivera's name enters the picture with the Silvia Duran story. All of that aside, the story told by Rivera in this painting is a story unto itself. You can get into the LIRING/3 aspects on your own if you so chose. But the story of the painting, and the symbolism in it, is fascinating enough. At the end of each of the quotes I have provided the links from where these quotes can be found in a more fuller version. 

Here goes. This is the story of Diego Rivera's "The Glorious Victory." I hope you find this history of the painting as fascinating as I do. 

"The oil on linen paiting addresses the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état that the CIA backed to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz. In the center stands a dumbfounded US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, striking a deal with Guatemala's newly installed right-wing president, Castillo Armas. To their left is a missile held by Foster and bearing the face of the US president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Other American officials surround them, including Allen Dulles, CIA director, and John Peurifoy, US ambassador to Guatemala. 

The group is wedged between an armed rebellion on the right and the slave labor of banana plantations on the left. These three events that seem to happen impossibly at a single moment, collapsing years of violence and corruption into one massive event."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Victory 

 And now from https://sites.psu.edu/arthistory/2017/01/30/glorious-victory/ which contains enlarged insets of the story. 

"On the left side of the mural, Rivera depicts the business of the United Fruit Company. Poorly clothed men carry bananas onto a ship destined for the United States. The onerous burden of the bananas symbolizes not only the physical baggage, but also the political baggage of the United Fruit Company’s presence in Guatemala. 

A stern looking military officer guards the proceedings, demonstrating how tightly intertwined politics and business were. While the left side of the fresco is a representation of subjugation, the right side is a representation of resistance. In this segment, a group of workers and farmers take arms to defend their elected government from the CIA coup. They brandish machetes and fight for the rights of their people, some of whom can be seen sitting in prison behind."

"Dallas 1963" by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis (2013)

Here’s an interesting little book which got lost among the plethora of stuff released last year for the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of JFK. This book, however, is a bit different than the rest. There is no exploration of any theories surrounding the Presidents murder. Instead, it is a portrait of a city conflicted by old money and new morals.

The book examines the 3 years between January 1960, when Kennedy was running for President, and November 22, 1963 when he was killed. Month by month the authors take you through what was happening in Dallas during that time in relation to Civil Rights, and the public’s reaction to both the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. These events helped to fuel the already predominant view amongst conservative fringe groups that Kennedy; and his entire administration; were closet Communists.

The main characters in this dramatic run-up to the Presidents assassination are a veritable who’s who of the Dallas social/political world. There is oil tycoon H.L. Hunt; who funds right wing causes, as well as newspapers and media ads calling for the U.S. to get out of the United Nations, and the Impeachment of Earl Warren as Justice of the Supreme Court. The echoes of these actions in Texas were felt all across the country. The John Birch Society was helped enormously by Hunt’s campaign of radical rhetoric.

Disgraced Army General Edwin Walker; whom Oswald would attempt to assassinate 6 months before he killed the President; is shown in all his glory here. Beginning with his resignation from the Army, to his delusional Presidential aspirations, the General is exactly the character portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the film version of the book “Seven Days In May”; which is almost a play by play account of what General Walker was up to. 

That book was one of Kennedy’s favorites, as it dealt with the showdown between the military and the President over nuclear disarmament; which is exactly what he was attempting to do. And he was meeting with the same resistance; both in and out of the White House; as his fictional counterpart was in the book. His meltdown in front of a Senate Committee was fascinating.

Reverend W.A. Criswell, head of the Dallas First Baptist Church, led the country’s largest Baptist church at the time and was squarely aligned with the segregationists in opposition to Civil Rights for Negroes. His goal was to baptize H.L. Hunt as a way to avail himself of Hunt’s money. He was successful in both endeavors.

Congressman Bruce Alger, an oily politico from Dallas, has a gaggle of women who are smitten with the vitriolic speeches he makes about President Kennedy and the menace of Civil Rights. He is known to have bedded many of them, in spite of his own marriage. 

Alger is desperate to be re-elected and courts the right wing fringe groups to that end. He is the driving force behind the “Mink Coat Mob” incident; in which Vice President Johnson and his wife were trapped in a hotel lobby and threatened with violence by a mob of Dallas’ most refined and wealthy women. When he was told that it was not safe to walk out of the hotel he replied, “When it has become so unsafe in America that a man can’t walk his lady across the street unmolested, I want to know about it!”

Stanley Marcus, owner of Dallas based Neiman-Marcus, spent the years between 1960 and 1963 walking a tightrope. He doesn’t want to lose business, but he doesn’t want to knuckle under to the right wing fringe groups. He brokers a deal where-by his store will allow Negroes to sit in his restaurant alongside of white patrons. He then convinces other businessmen to do the same. Dallas is quietly integrated.

Ted Dealey is the editor and owner of the Dallas Morning News; a fiery right wing daily. Dealey Plaza was named for his father who founded the paper. In the 1920’s the KKK moved its national headquarters from Dallas after the elder Dealey convinced the city’s fathers that it was not good for their image as an up and coming city. But the younger Ted Dealey is in league with some of the more racist and conservative elements in Dallas. He takes the advertising money for the hateful ads; all the way up until the night before Kennedy’s fateful visit.

The quotes from General Walker about racial purity, and his obsession with Communist infiltration of the government, will have you thinking of some of the rhetoric you hear about the current administration. Medicaid was also in the news at the time. It was touted by the right wing radicals as being a blank check for the President to have a “Death Panel” and kill off elderly Americans.

There are so many players here that I can’t include them all in this short review. Let’s just say that this book, more than any other, captures the mood and feel of Dallas in the 3 years leading up to the Presidents murder. It draws no conclusions; it plays no angles; it has no agenda. It is; instead; an account of the small part which so many people and groups played in creating a climate of hate and danger. Adlai Stevenson's legendary visit to Dallas; just weeks before the President's murder; is a prime example of that climate at the time.

It is said that we are all characters on a stage; and if that is true then we all contribute to the larger picture, which is a product of our individual actions. We; as a society; are the sum and total of our collective selves. The good elements outweigh the bad ones when we are lucky. But when the darker forces take root and hold sway, we all suffer the consequences.

The book seemed familiar to me in style and in the way it builds towards a climactic ending. I read a lot of books, and the authors names sometimes get lost in the jumble, but their individual styles are often instantly recognizable. Such was the case with this book; which, in spite of its being co-authored by Mr. Davis; bears the unmistakable mark of Mr. Minutaglio’s unique style. Together they comprise an even more formidable team.

Here is a link to Mr. minutaglio’s earlier work; “City On Fire”, which I first reviewed here in 2009, and re-posted again when I re-read parts of the book for reference purposes just last month;

http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2014/07/city-on-fire-by-bill-minutaglio.html

Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald Live on TV

If you were alive on Sunday November 24, 1963 then you have never forgotten the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby as it played out in real time across America. I was watching TV with my parents when the transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald was taking place. I guess that everyone was doing the same thing. This was live TV at a time when we had just one satellite.

This film is a bit different from most of the other clips you might be seeing of the event. It seems to have been taken from a slightly different angle than the others, showing Jack Ruby emerging from screen right more clearly than some of the others. In most of the still photographs you only see a vague blur in place of Jack Ruby. He is obscured by the others in the crowd. In this clip you can actually see Ruby gut shoot Oswald.

The three days beginning Friday November 22^nd, 1963 with the President’s shooting; and ending with his burial at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday November 25^th, are days which can never be forgotten by those who were alive at the time. I remember thinking that I was living through history. I was 9 years old and a big fan of Abe Lincoln, so I could not escape the magnitude of what was happening.

But nobody expected to see Jack Ruby kill Oswald on live TV. Later on, of course, we found out that Ruby was present at the press conference on Friday at the police station where Oswald was held. He was even there for the press conferences which included Oswald, almost as if he were just waiting for the chance to shoot him. On Sunday, November 24, 1963, either in emotional distress; or by design; Jack Ruby got his chance.

"LBJ" by Phillip F. Nelson

This is the latest in the myriad of books about the assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd, 1963. I am an avid fan of the genre, both pro, and anti-conspiracy. It is, for me, the parlor game to end all parlor games. Who killed JFK, and more importantly, why?

Mr. Nelson has made a splendid effort, according to the author's bio on the cover he retired early to pursue writing this book. His premise is that the assassination was the sole brainchild of Lyndon Johnson, and further that the whole episode was caused by Johnson's lifelong desire to be President. He has even included the oft told story of LBJ declaring, at age eleven, that he would someday be President. Truth be told, many an American boy, and now girls, have harbored that same dream.

To set the record straight concerning my own feelings about the murder of JFK; I say murder rather than assassination simply because assassination usually involves a political goal, whereas the murder of JFK was more of a business decision by a wide group of influential people and organizations; I believe that Kennedy was killed by a group which included the CIA, Cuban exiles, the Mafia and Military Intelligence Units. Their motivation was a confluence of events, which, when taken collectively into consideration, affected all of these groups in such a way that it was deemed necessary to take action.

Mr. Nelson hits most of the key points, but never really connects the dots. For instance, take the Presidents changed route to the Trade Mart; the question is not so much who changed the route, as much as it is why the Trade Mart was to be the venue in the first place, rather than the larger Convention Center? The President should have been speaking at the Convention Center, which was booked in advance by Pepsi Cola for their annual meeting. LBJ was even a keynote speaker at that event. Their main concern was the spiraling price of sugar, caused in large part by Castro's takeover of Cuba. One of the guests, who flew out of Dallas just hours before the assassination/murder, was then ex-Vice President Nixon. He, ironically, was not involved in the plot.

The Convention Center was booked in order to force the President to utilize the Trade Mart instead. In that way he would have to pass the Texas Book Depository, which had only been purchased 6 months before the President’s visit, and leased, to a private firm only 6 weeks before November 22nd. The name Texas School Book Depository is also an attempt to camouflage the real owners. Most people still think that the Book Depository was a state owned facility at the time, and that it had been in operation for years.

The flight of Air Force One from Dallas is called into question by the author. His conclusion of Johnson wanting to fly aboard Air Force One, rather than Air Force Two, as further proof that LBJ was the "mastermind" of the plot to kill the President is not credible at all. Officially, he was there to accompany the body of the slain President in order to show a continuity of government at the height of the Cold War. But, in reality he was the de-facto "getaway driver."

Under Federal law in 1963 it was not a crime to kill the President. The location of the assassination held the jurisdiction for the murder and any subsequent trial. Indeed the President's security detail clashed violently with the Dallas Police Department when they removed the Presidents body from Parkland Hospital. Weapons were drawn, with the Secret Service the obvious winners.

In addition, both sides wanted the body for different purposes; the doctors at Parkland wanted to conduct an autopsy, which would have fulfilled their obligations under Texas law at the time. Dr. Crenshaw, at Parkland, had already established that JFK was shot from the front, rather than the rear. The Secret Service wanted the body back in Washington to conceal the drugs in Kennedy's system, as well as his STD's. It was at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland where the autopsy was altered to indicate one lone gunman firing from the rear.

Once aboard Air Force One with the body of JFK, and having taken the Oath of Office as the new President, who was to stop the plane from taking off with the body? The autopsy was then performed, with dubious results, at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, rather than at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, as required by the applicable laws of the time. The assassination of the President would not become a Federal Crime until 1967.

Although Mr. Nelson is correct in that there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, his work has all the earmarks which make one wonder if this book was deliberately written to discredit "Family Of Secrets" by Russ Baker, which manages to tie together all of the principal culprits from the Bay of Pigs affair through the Watergate Burglarly. All of the same players are neatly tied together in a fully researched and believable fashion. That book answers all of the questions which may be lingering in reference to the death of President Kennedy. Zapata Offshore Oil, anyone?

November 22nd, 1963

I was 9 years old when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. For many Americans, this was the day "the music died." For the most comprehensive account of that day, you can do no better than to read the Russ Baker's "Family of Secrets", about the events leading up to, and the ramifications from, what happened in Dallas, Texas 48 years ago today. I have posted this review before.

This book is the final word on the JFK Assassination and its connection to the Watergate break-ins in 1972 and the eventual seating of the first unelected President in the history of the United States. From there it moves on to explain how George H.W. “Poppy” Bush, with the aid of Zappata Off Shore Oil (headquartered in Medilin, Columbia (200 miles from shore) went on to become President of the United States, establishing a political dynasty along the way and leading to the election of George W. Bush and the Iraqi war.

Ever wonder what the Pepsi Convention in Dallas had to do with the murder of the President? Ever asked yourself how could anyone possibly engineer a plot so tightly that it would ensure that the President would pass by the Book Depository? Ever wonder who owned the Book Depository Building and how Oswald got the job a mere 6 weeks before Kennedy’s visit? Ever think about what, if any, was Vice President Johnsons’ role in all of this? Why were 3 of the country’s’ subsequent Presidents in Dallas on the day of the assassination and what does their presence there indicate?

What was Abraham Zapruder’s unwitting role in all of this? And why was his 8mm film taken by Time-Life and locked away from the public until New Orleans Attorney Jim Garrison forced its release with a lawsuit?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are the details that have bugged me for years. And this book takes it all the way back to Prescott Bush and the early days of establishing his family in finance and oil. The trail is murky until you shed some light on it as Mr. Baker has painstakingly done with this book.

For those that believe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut, acting of his own twisted accord, this book will not interest you. But if you; like myself, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, to name a few, have any lingering doubts as to what really happened, then this is the book for you.

Layer upon layer of twists and turns all lead back to the inescapable conclusion that the Oil Lobby along with the CIA, plotted, financed, planned for, and finally executed the President of the United States. Who pulled the trigger is another story- and a backseat one at best. The real story is who paid for and orchestrated the biggest crime of the 20th Century. This one act has continued to pay dividends to the oil industry, the munitions manufacturers and one family in particular.

Follow the political growth of the Bush family from its nefarious oil dealings as Zappata Off Shore Oil Group, through the turbulent late 50’s and the 60’s. Follow the money as it flows, and funds covert op after covert op. Follow George H.W. Bush on his climb to the 41st Presidency of the United States.

Who was George DeMohrenschildt and why did he and his wife take Lee and Marina Oswald under their wing during the months leading up to the assassination of the President?

What was the connection between the Bay of Pigs and Dallas and later Watergate? Why did President Nixon demand that the Watergate Burglars be paid off or it would “lead back to the whole Bay of Pigs thing.” And why did Richard Helms react so violently when this was relayed to him by H.R. Haldeman?

This is the penultimate book on the covert operations of the 1950’s CIA in Latin America and Southeast Asia. It ties together all the questions raised and argued by conspiracy theorists and refutes all the assertions put up by the Lone Assassin Theorists, showing along the way what the real goals were and how they were achieved.

Follow George W. in his early years and see how he was groomed to protect the family and secure power, both political and financial.

I cannot recommend this book enough. For me it is the final word on the events of November 22nd, 1963. It is also an explanation of the Watergate Burglary and its ultimate consequences for American politics, right up to the present day.

You will be amazed by this painstakingly researched and annotated book.