I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. I spent some of Thursday night looking through some more of Prouty's CD-Rom. In his "Don't Get Mad: Get Even" article he mentions Dulles' testimony to the Fulbright Committe that Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane wasn't shot down. That's very interesting because just a couple weeks ago the news reports were comparing Iraq's missle capabilities to the Russian missle that shot down Powers' plane! Also, In Marrs' book "Crossfire" it's mentioned that shortly before Powers was killed he said in a radio interview that he believed a bomb placed on his plane had brought it down.
Do you know if that 195 page testimony that Fletcher has is available? If so, I'd like to buy a copy.
TimI'm going to work my way back into the active swing of things. I have been busy, but on a low key. I have not felt too well. Anyhow we had a fine holiday and were joined by my son and his wife. Most of all they helped us with the chores.
Then to change things, I got up fairly early this morning and went out to do all sorts of "winter" work myself. I kept it up until about 2 pm. That's rare for me these days. So now I'm back at the computer to see if I can keep up a useful flow of work to you. I'll identify each one as I come up with it:
a) Tim Canale, Basement films re "Dulles' Testimony" with reference to Power's U-2 plane that went down over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960.
As Canale recognizes, Powers was not "Shot Down". I was, at that time assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates) in the Special Operations business of providing military support for other over-flight projects for the CIA over the southern and eastern parts of Asia in those days, and had attended many of the meetings where all these activities were discussed. We all knew very well that because of the Paris "Summit Conference" scheduled for early May 1960 that we had been forbidden to fly over-flights until the meetings were over... all types of over-flights.
I had to issue orders grounding the planes we were operating... mostly transports dropping essential supplies to the Tibetans defending themselves from the on-coming Chinese. As a result we made a special request to the White House for permission to continue to fly them, because they would not bother the Paris Conference. The answer was "No... stay grounded".
((There's a rare little Tibetan book about this subject "FOUR RIVERS, SIX RANGES ... Reminisces of the Resistance Movement in Tibet" from the Dalai Lama's office in India. It illustrates the situation at the time.
Both the report on recent news, and the Marrs' book are wrong about the U-2 being "shot down". Canale asks whether or not I can identify the 195 pages of testimony that I have used as reference to write about that. The answer is positively "Yes". I have written more about this subject, and the significance of the fact that is was covered up as the JFK assassination has been covered by the press.
(By the way, Senator JFK, was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of that period and attended the meetings that are described in these gov't books.)
There is one old book, "Events Incident to the Summit Conference". Hearings before the Comm. of Foreign Relations U.S. Senate, 86th Congress (Second Sessions) May 27, June 1,2, 1960, printed for the use of that committee by the U.S. gov't Printing Office, Wash: 1960.
But...Canale will want to use care with this splendid little old book because it gives much of the general background; BUT does not quote Allen Dulles. That comes in the second, and much more important book:
EXECUTIVE SESSIONS OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE (HISTORICAL SERIES), Volume XII, EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION, l96O (Made public 1982, printed for the Comm. of Foreign Relations.
It is on page 314 of this large volume that Allen Dulles himself, then Director, Central Intelligence said in response to a committee question:
Then on page 337, Dulles adds:
"We don't have information that is at all complete. It is our belief that there was some malfunction of the plane when it was at altitude, that is around 70,000 feet. These planes, under certain conditions, do flame out at very high altitudes. ((LFP--they need pure hydrogen added to their Jet Propulsion fuel supply at such altitudes. we used to provide this Hydrogen from special stockpiles at the Air Force Base in Ohio)) whether that malfunction was or was not caused by a ground-to-air missile we do not know
"We are quite certain the plane was not hit by a missile, because if it had been hit by a missile, it would have disintegrated in the air and they wouldn't have the pieces they now have"
((LFP-Nor the living body of Powers either.))
1) These are reasonable quotes from Dulles. The book has more, and I have quite a bit more as I have written years ago when I was in the business. I have no idea whether these two official books are still available via the Gov't Printing Office. Mine were provided to me because I worked on the program.