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Internet Disinformation
Now lets turn to the Dave Furhmann material: Of course this is made all the more difficult for people with little true background of the historical events, by the fact that there are so many authors/historians who have written contrived books that are not true. Just citing a page-long bibliography of books, does not prove a thing, in most cases. I was a Professor at Yale University during the latter part of the Forties, and I had plenty of experience with "text books" that were worthless. This is the burden of the academic community. Where can they get the truth? Certainly not on the Internet from people such as Furhmann, either. Now I am not sure that this sad situation applies to Furhmann, because he never puts his cards on the table and never gives his readers any evidence of his education, experience, or other background that in any way might qualify him for the trash he writes. I did note that he wrote that he "spent three months in Germany at the end of (his) tour (in what, Grammar school?) doing all kinds of things totally unrelated to (his) previous duties...some of which required going on trips as an escort or driver." That's high level qualifications for the White Tower of academia he preaches from. b) Furhmann opens his diatribe against me with: "Prouty was in New Zealand when Kennedy was shot, and believed that the Christchurch Star reported on Oswald's background far too quickly." That's quite an opening for a complex subject that he returns to several pages later. Having placed me in New Zealand at the time of Kennedy's assassination, he makes the next leap in his story with: "Finally, with regard to Prouty's trip to McMurdo (McMurdo Sound is on the coast of Antarctica, and is not in New Zealand) in the final weeks of 1963". (My official orders from UNITED STATES ANTARCTIC PROJECT OFFICER placed our group at McMurdo on 16 November 1963 and arrival back in Christchurch, NZ on 23 November 1963, local date and time. To correct Furhmann's creative lies, that is one week in November.) He fails to tell the reader that what I really wrote about in my book, "JFK, the CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy", was that as Chief of Special Operations on the Joint Staff in the Pentagon my then-current JCS orders listed the termination of those duties as mid-1964). I was one who had considerable Nuclear training. Therefore I had received "Order Number 7258, dated 4 November 1963" that "authorized me to proceed on or about 11 November 1963, from Washington, D.C. to New Zealand...on temporary duty in connection with JCS activities for a period of approximately eighteen days' as the Military Escort Officer. That selected wording meant it was a highly classified program; and was followed by an Amendment Order #7258A, dated 2 December: 1963 to add the fact that we went to "McMurdo Sound, Antarctica" and had returned to Washington, D.C. on Nov 28, 1963. The reason for this trip to Antarctica was to complete an important project initiated by the Atomic Energy Commission during August 1960 to install the first nuclear power plant for Antarctica, i.e. the PM-3A Nuclear Power Plant. The group I accompanied were top Nuclear Power people from several companies and included Congressmen, newspaper men and others. The installation and operation of the PM-3A Antarctic Nuclear Reactor was a major U.S. Navy project. During earlier Congressional hearings, it had been determined that "the construction of nuclear power plants in the Antarctic would cut the cost of operations, particularly logistics, at the Navy stations there." Of course David Furhmann ignored all that. Instead he dreamed up the idea that: "Prouty's trip to McMurdo in the final weeks of 1963, implies that this was odd and not in keeping with his regular duties." Again this untruth is manufactured by Furhmann. I had been assigned to Special Operations (under one job title or another) since 1955. The facts are that I had been involved with the United States Antarctic Projects Office for years. I was awarded a "Commendation" by the Chief of that office in 1959. Furthermore, I had first been ordered to a "Nuclear Weapons" course, by the Air Force in 1951. During 1952, I attended the Air Force "Command and Staff College" and completed its Nuclear Weapons course. Because he is ignorant of these and other facts, Furhmann misinterprets the fact that I had discussed my retirement with the Air Force during Sept 1963, that "I was simply waiting around to be released from the service." I believe he has said Lansdale and I were discussing my "Fun and Games" while I was waiting to retire. Lansdale did retire from the Air Force in October 1963; but "Fun and Games" is an old CIA term for "Covert Operations." Furhmann wouldn't know things like that. Actually during Sept 1963 I was sent on an official trip to Admiral Felt's headquarters in Hawaii, where I spent a week with him and his staff on some "Top Secret" studies. During late September 1963 I worked in the Pentagon on my official duties with my boss General V. H. Krulak on the development of the "McNamara-Taylor" Trip Report that became one of Kennedy's most important documents, National Security Action Memorandum #263 of early October 1963. This is the directive in which President Kennedy announced that 1,000 men would be brought home from Vietnam by Christmas 1963 and that all U.S. personnel would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965. (There is a photo in my "JFK, the CIA, Vietnam...a book showing the full page headlines of the military newspaper STARS AND STRIPES reporting just that.) Furhmann can't handle hard print items like that. He would rather create untrue, slanderous material. Furhmann does not understand the value of true research. He's wrong again when he tries to tell us where Richard Nixon was on Nov. 22, 1963. He cites as his authority for a statement in the Dallas Times Herald of Nov 22, 1963 that Nixon was "in a taxi driving from Idlewild Airport when an excited citizen told him that the President had been shot. I know of no less than four such "authoritative" scenarios that give Nixon four locations, none in Dallas, when he heard that JFK had been shot. On the other hand, I have learned from one of the most able "JFK Assassination" researchers, Richard Sprague, that he spoke personally with the General Counsel of PEPSICO that Nixon, one of their lawyers at the time, was in an office, in Dallas, when they learned of the assassination of President Kennedy. No responsible person has refuted that; and that is what I have written in my book for people like David Furhmann to read and learn. Does he read? c) There's no way I can continue through Furhmann's libelous fantasies, although I have been given the opportunity to correct his trash; but I have selected one more because it so clearly identifies and demonstrates the intention of his, or his employer's mindless work. As a long-time author, I wonder what his real motivation is? It can only appear as an effort to discredit me. He never lays his cards on the table. He never provides anything that might lead his readers to believe what he is writing, or who he gets it from. How would he know anything about my relationship with co-workers in the Pentagon. He called Gen. Krulak my mentor. What in any of my writing would give him that idea. Or has someone (or Agency) prepared material for him. At least he ought to understand that a man who came on active duty as a U.S Army Cavalryman on July 10, 1941 and retired as a U. S. Air Force Colonel during January 1964 has in his own records of government orders that verify every day of that period of service. Of course those orders are also a part of the Government's records resources. It is not just the fact that the orders exist; but that they define precisely what my duties were during those years. As a result, when I write that I was on Okinawa at the time of the Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, I can prove it. (Look in my book and see the pictures.) When I write that I was in and out of Vietnam many times during the years 1952-1953-1954 as an Air Force Heavy Air Transport Squadron Commander, I can prove that with orders and more photos. This scholar Furhmann writes: "Prouty reports on meetings and events related to the Teheran Conference (Nov 28-Dec 1, 1943) as if he had been standing there." Furhmann must have missed the fact that I wrote that I had been in Cairo at the time that earlier conference and then had been ordered (Yes: military orders on paper) to fly a plane-load of passengers from Cairo to Teheran on Nov 27 1943. They were the Chinese (T. V. Soong) delegation to that conference. So having flown them there, I was standing there, talking and listening. What does Furhmann think the pilots do while they are flying VIP's, and after they have delivered them to their destination. I learned that the passengers generally like to speak with their pilot, and I generally took advantage of that. Furthermore Teheran, during that Big Four Conference period, was loaded with newsmen and they are easy to approach. The hotels are filled with the staffs of all these visitors. They all talk. Furthermore, one of our jobs during or after such events was to fly the "PATHE" news film cases to Khartoum where they would be put on the fastest plane back to the States. Obviously, we got to know some of those professionals and picked up on-the-spot news from them in both Cairo and in Teheran. d) Furhmann continues to expose his ignorance as he proceeds with: "Prouty's secret knowledge about the elite's organizing principle and the War System derives from a very special source--a suppressed Kennedy administration study...a study so secret that the group of Power Brokers who conducted it met in an underground storage and security area in the Hudson Valley of New York called Iron Mountain. And Furhmann, now quite carried away with himself adds, "The explosive issue they addressed was: Could America survive if and when a condition of permanent peace should arise?" He continues, totally carried away with his cleverness, "Their conclusion was the organization of society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer...without a believable war threat no government could remain in power and consequently the elimination of war implies the eventual elimination of national sovereignty." With these paragraphs, Furhmann is carried away beyond his usual dream world into one of total fantasy. First of all, those words above are not mine... he should know better... he has lifted them from a novel written by Leonard Lewin entitled "Report From Iron Mountain" and published by Dial Press in 1967, and by MacDonald & Co in London in 1968. Despite the years of publication, i,e. 1967 and 1968 Furhmann calls it a suppressed Kennedy administration study." Doesn't he recall that President Kennedy died on Nov 22, 1963, and that his administration ended at that time. To get the subject back to fact and reality, let me say that when my book "The Secret Team" was published in 1973 by Prentice-Hall my editor was an old friend of Leonard Lewin. During a conversation, some years later, my publisher asked me if I had read "Report From Iron Mountain"? When I said, "No", he said that he would send me a copy. I read the book and was amazed to discover how much of the language and "small talk" discussions attributed to people in Washington during Kennedy's time, sounded so real and periodically distinct. I had arrived in the Pentagon during 1955 in Eisenhower days. At that time PhD's, or other campus elite were not too numerous in its staid and calm halls. Then, it just happened, that the day before Kennedy's inauguration, while I was working for the Secretary of Defense, Thomas Gates, I was asked to come by his office before 5 pm for a routine briefing on the Eisenhower Anti-Castro plan of that time. At that time I ran into a crowd of well-wishers there to say good-bye to the man I believe was the best Secretary of Defense we have ever had. His Secretary saw me at the doorway and just pointed at the Deputy Secretary Douglas' office. He greeted me with his customary broad smile, and we discussed the current status of the Anti-Castro project. Then I asked, When I come here tomorrow for this usual status report, I will be visiting a totally new Secretary, Robert McNamara. May I be able to assume that they have been briefed and brought up-to-date on this Cuban project; or will I have to go back to B.C. and start from the beginning?" Mr. Douglas paused a moment, looked out of his windows at the raging blizzard outside, turned and then said: "Prouty, I don't know what to tell you. We haven't met the bastards." Among old friends this response was understood, and I shook hands with him and went back to my office. On the next morning, I noted the fast changing environment of the "Secretary's 3rd Floor" area of the Pentagon. Never before had so many PhD's inhabited that zone. Before long those of us who had been there for years began to notice a new and very different concept of the Pentagon, the Military Establishment, and the Kennedy Team throughout Washington. What struck me deeply was that Lewin's novel was filled with that characteristic talk and ideas. He did a magnificent job. As I read it during the mid-seventies it carried me back to those Kennedy days in a way no other author has done. On top of that the content of his novel was in many ways over-powering. In a Book Review item in the March 19, 1972 "New York TIMES" Lewin himself wrote: "Most reviewers, relatively uncontaminated by exposure to real-politik, were generous to what they saw as the author's intentions: to expose a kind of thinking in high places that was all too authentic, influential, and dangerous, and to stimulate more public discussion of some of the harder questions of war and peace. But those who felt their own oxen gored--who could identify themselves in some way with the government, the military, systems analysis, the established order of power--were not. They attacked, variously, the substance of the Report, the competence of those who praised its effectiveness; and the motives of whomsoever they assigned the obloquy of authorship, often charging him with a disingenuous sympathy for the Report's point of view." With his closing sentence, Lewin states "that the work is fictitious." He had written a remarkable novel. In closing this subject Furhmann attempts to have his readers believe that I had been taken in by this "Hoax." To come to this academic conclusion he totally overlooks the facts of the case. I heard of Lewin from his old friend my Prentice-Hall editor during the Seventies. I corresponded and spoke with Lewin many times after that. My own book "JFK, the CIA, Vietnam and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy was not published until 1992. Well, that's it for this odd-ball, libelous critic, David Furhmann. Now I have written this to challenge him to come clean and lay his cards on the table. Has he created all of this untrue and inaccurate material himself; or is he doing this in the employ of his masters. Having worked so many years in conjunction with the CIA, but from another arena I can say that I have met many who have accepted the low life of a CIA scribe. Could he be one of the mob from the "Other side of the river." L.Fletcher Prouty I have gone a step further with to respond to the dis-info spead by John Mcadams. Infomation regarding his deception and who he really is can by found at John Mcadams / Paul Nolan, which one is he! Laughing Stock of the Internet Col. L. Fletcher Prouty Responds to Accusations of Involvement in Right Wing Extremist Groups Interview Date: April 3, 1996 "Esquire magazine published an article, in which they just made up these things, I've never written for Liberty Lobby. I've spoken as a commercial speaker, they paid me to speak and then I left. They print a paragraph or two of my speech same as they would of anybody else, but I've never joined them. I don't subscribe to their newspaper, I never go to their own meetings, but they had a national convention at which asked me to speak and they paid me very, very well. I took my money and went home and that's it". I go to the meeting, I go home, I don't join. That sole speech was years ago and was no different than the speech I gave at the Holocaust Memorial Conference. I spoke my own words and ideas. I do admit to having been a rather active public speaker for all types of audiences, on a commercial except for Rotary, They're gratuitous from my point of view. "The funny thing was two months earlier I had spoken at the Holocaust Conference for the second annual meeting of the Holocaust Group which I learned later the Liberty Lobby is completely opposed to. Dr. Littel, of the Holocaust Memorial organization invited me to attend and make a few comments,as others were requested. Col. Prouty has been asked to attend at the Holocaust Conference again later this year ! Well, they put all this in this Esquire magazine but did it all backwards, as though I was a member, writing with these people or joining them. The only club I've joined is the Rotary Club !". The attempt of character assassination is a sign you have become a small threat. Others, at the levels I know of, have played up that as though I had been converted to something. It is just their "gentlemanly" tactic of dealing with people they can't handle otherwise.. In fact it is a CIA characteristic trait...as I well know. When they can't handle you, they attack your character. This classic was found on the internet; " An essay written from a leftist perspective by Chip Berlet, deals with the ties, and Mark Lane, and the extreme right-wing paranoid Liberty Lobby. Nothing here shows Prouty to be a Nazi or an anti-Semite, but shouldn't he show better judgment in whom he associates with?" This implies I associate with Nazis, or why else write it! The writings of Furhmann, Perry, Berlet, Posner, etc. are slick, cleverly written, but not based in the true facts. I wonder what they do for a living? where they work? Who pays them to write? My credentials are laid out for all to see. L.Fletcher Prouty ---------------------- Like Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone, many things have been written to discredit their good work. You can read Col. Prouty's insite to the days when he briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and draw your own conclusions. Read his book "The Secret Team" which deals with his first hand knowledge of the CIA and Covert Operations and draw your own conclusions. Read his good article "The Guns Of Dallas" right here at the web site, and draw your own conclusions. Ironically, the more they set up the personal attack, a conclusion can be drawn that the closer to the truth Col. Prouty and others are, with regards to the Kennedy assassination. Len Osanic =========== |