A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination

by H. P. Albarelli, Jr.

Overview

Reporting new and never-before-published information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, this investigation dives straight into the deep end, and seeks to prove the CIA’s involvement in one of the most controversial topics in American history. Featuring intelligence gathered from CIA agents who reported their involvement in the assassination, the case is broken wide open while covering unexplored ground. Gritty details about the assassination are interlaced throughout, while primary and secondary players to the murder are revealed in the in-depth analysis. Although a tremendous amount has been written in the nearly five decades since the assassination, there has never been, until now, a publication to explore the aspects of the case that seemed to defy explanation or logic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936296569
Publisher:	Trine Day
Publication date:	04/19/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	488
Sales rank:	428,500
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

H. P. Albarelli Jr. is an author and reporter whose previous works can be found in the Huffington Post, Pravda, and Counterpunch. His 10-year investigation into the death of biochemist Dr. Frank Olson was featured on A&E’s Investigative Reports. He lives in Indian Beach, Florida.

Read an Excerpt

A Secret Order

Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination

---

By H.P. Albarelli Jr.

Trine Day LLC

Copyright © 2013 H. P. Albarelli, Jr.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-936296-56-9

---

CHAPTER 1

Lee Harvey Oswald in New York City and Elsewhere

Oswald, NYC and the Shadow of MK/ULTRA

Often overlooked in the chronology of Lee Harvey Oswald's early years is that when he was 12 years old he lived in New York City for a period of about eighteen months, in 1952-1954. Astute readers will also recognize these as critical years in the development and operation of the CIA's MK/ULTRA safe house in the city's Greenwich Village, operated by Federal Bureau Narcotics agent and covert CIA consultant George Hunter White. The first-floor safe house was located at the corner of Bedford and Barrow streets. According to a 1978 CIA document, "an elusive Frenchman who was engaged in the import-export business" owned the two-story, brick apartment house, just a short walk away from Chumley's, one of agent White's favorite watering holes and perhaps a primary reason for its selection. The building that housed the safe house was torn down several decades ago, but Chumley's, with all its ambiance and ghosts, is still there.

Marguerite Oswald and Lee moved to New York City from Texas in early August 1952. For several weeks, Lee and Marguerite lived in a small, fifth-floor apartment located at 325 East 92nd Street, Brooklyn. The cramped unit was shared with Lee's half-brother John Edward Pic, his 18-year old wife Margaret, and their newborn child. Pic's mother-in-law, Mary Fuhrman, a Hungarian immigrant, owned the triplex building that housed the apartment, and while away from the city for about eight weeks she allowed Margaret's family use of the space. Marguerite Oswald enrolled Lee in a private school, the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran School in the Bronx. Within days, Lee became chronically truant. After Marguerite learned that he had skipped nearly two weeks of classes, she placed him in a public school.

John Pic was a Hospital Corpsman and Radioman with the United States Coast Guard. Beginning in early January 1952, and continuing for about four months, Corpsman Pic was assigned to assist with an outbreak of streptococcal infection at a U.S. Navy installation in Bainbridge, Maryland.

Bainbridge is about 170 miles away from Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, the Army's chemical and biological warfare center and, at the time, Dr. Frank Olson's place of employment. The outbreak occurred not long after the CIA had initiated top-secret Project MK/NAOMI, a joint program with Fort Detrick's Special Operations (SO) Division, headed by Dr. Olson. Project MK/NAOMI's objective was to aggressively develop a cornucopia of lethal biochemical weapons that the CIA could use in targeting people – both individually and in groups – for incapacitation or death.

Said one SO Division bacteriologist about MK/NAOMI: "Our mission was pretty simple and to the point: to provide the CIA with every means possible to maim or kill targeted groups or individuals through the use of toxic and lethal biochemical agents. We worked hard at it and delivered." One of the CIA's earliest documents on the program's genesis uncharacteristically lists some of its objectives: "How to knock off key people ... knock off key guys ... make death look as if from natural causes ... [such as a] method to produce cancer ... and to make it appear as heart attack."

The same document cites the case of an imprisoned "Russian ... who had been subjected to the routine administration of intimidation, bright lights and more severe roughing, followed by insulin shock."

On site for the Bainbridge outbreak, along with Oswald's half-brother Pic, were bacteriologists from the U.S. Army's biological warfare center at Fort Detrick, as well as physicians from the Armed Forces Epidemiological branch. Dr. Charles H. Rammelkamp, Jr., a member of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB), was also present during the outbreak. Readers knowledgeable about the findings of the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, may recall that the committee took a cursory look at experiments approved, sponsored, and undertaken by the New York School of Medicine and AFEB on physically-healthy mentally retarded children at the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York, done at the time of Rammelkamp's tenure.

The experiments centered on selected children being fed infected stool extracts obtained from individuals with hepatitis, thus infecting the children with the virus. Additionally, Dr. Rammelkamp was at the center of another controversial experiment conducted in the early 1950s. This experiment, conducted concurrently with the Bainbridge outbreak, involved American servicemen stricken with streptococcus, which can cause rheumatic fever and heart disease. The servicemen, hospitalized at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, were intentionally not treated with penicillin, which at the time was still being investigated as an effective treatment for rheumatic fever.

In a 1966 Time magazine article, Harvard University's Dr. Henry K. Beecher (whose actual name was Henry K. Unangst), asked by the magazine to consider Dr. Rammelkamp's experiments, stated that he was "concerned about experiments that are designed for the ultimate good of society in general but may well do harm to the subject involved." Earlier Dr. Beecher had stated in the New England Journal of Medicine that since World War II, the numbers of patients used as unwitting experimental subjects was increasing at alarming rates. Beecher told Time's editors that the increase was causing "grave consequences," but he declined to name any physicians, hospitals, or universities involved in such experiments. Beecher also did not reveal to Time or to anyone else that he, too, like other Harvard officials of his day and today, was involved in such experiments. Nor did Beecher disclose that for the previous thirteen years or more, he had served the CIA as a covert asset and consultant on interrogation and mind-control techniques, including the use of LSD, as well as his specialty – anesthesia. (See my book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments, for details about Dr. Henry Beecher's work for the CIA overseas, which included several surreptitious meetings with Sandoz Chemical company officials. See NOTES section on Beecher's real name.)

We do not know if Dr. Frank Olson was among the Fort Detrick scientists who traveled to Bainbridge during the outbreak, but we do know that members of his Fort Detrick Special Operations (SO) Division were present, and that at the time, they were especially interested in creating a biological warfare weapon out of Group A streptococcus.

Group A streptococcus is a bacterium commonly found in the throat and skin. Infections can range from mild to life-threatening. Detrick's scientists wanted to deploy the bacterium through aerosol spraying, quite similar to what the SO Division had done earlier in an Eyes-Only, top-secret LSD experiment in Pont St. Esprit, a village in Southern France. That French experiment had produced better than expected results, an entire town was thrown into complete chaos and madness, but drew more scientific scrutiny than desired due to the unfortunate and unintended deaths of four townspeople. To circumvent this scrutiny, and to offer "viable" scientific explanations for the outbreak of insanity that took over the townspeople, the CIA and U.S. Army dispatched scientists from nearby Sandoz Chemical Company, the same company that had provided the CIA and U.S. Army with the LSD used in the experimental attack on the town.

As readers may suspect, the Sandoz scientists conjured up a seemingly viable medical explanation for the outbreak of insanity that was able to hold up until the incident became shrouded with time and largely forgotten. (Again, see A Terrible Mistake on the so-called Pont St. Esprit "ergot outbreak.")

From about 1948 through 1968, Fort Detrick scientists mounted a variety of plans that involved surreptitious bacterial and chemical spraying attacks in both domestic and foreign locations. Two of the very first plans considered, according to once-classified Army, FBI, and CIA documents, were a covert spraying in the New York subway system in 1949 and a simulated spraying attack through the Pentagon's ventilation system, also in 1949. Indeed, at the request of the CIA's Technical Services Section, George Hunter White himself, in 1952, detonated a small aerosol device that released a cloud of vaporized LSD in a New York City subway car. The reported results of this experiment were destroyed by the CIA in 1973.

Also in 1952, Dr. Olson's Fort Detrick SO Division undertook covert advance work, using Army microbiologists posing as state public health workers, in the Florida towns of Avon Park and Carver Park. The covert work was in preparation for secret experiments planned for 1956 through 1958 involving the release of infected mosquitoes into selected low-income African-American neighborhoods dense with public housing. As a result of the mosquitoes, many men, women and children became dreadfully ill, and some died.

According to one newspaper account of these secret experiments: "Within weeks of the first exposures, hundreds of men, women, and children became sickened with typhoid, mysterious fevers, chills, excruciating abdominal cramps, breathing problems including bronchitis, as well as neurological disorders such as encephalitis." (This author's 2002 FOIA request for documents regarding SO Division's Florida experiments was denied.)

Equally noteworthy is the fact that, not long after the Florida experiments, Fort Detrick's SO Division microbiologists assisted in several covert attacks against rural and agricultural areas in Cuba. These attacks involved aerial spraying with swine flu virus, dengue, and other lethal infectious agents. As a result, hundreds of farm animals and several humans died.

After his Bainbridge deployment, from April 1952 to February 1953, Lee Harvey Oswald's half-brother returned to New York City and was assigned to the Coast Guard's Port Security Unit at Ellis Island. The Security Unit, an outgrowth of the Espionage Act of 1950, was charged with identifying, investigating, and ridding New York harbor, the Longshoremen's union, and the maritime industry of communists and subversive elements.

John Pic's subsequent assignment is extremely interesting because earlier, in April 1951, one of Frank Olson's killers was being held, pending deportation, in a cell on Ellis Island. Later, at the same time that John Pic was assigned to duty on the island, several major drug traffickers from France and Corsica were also being held at Ellis Island. They had been apprehended in a major Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) operation headed up by George Hunter White, acting as a dual narcotics-CIA operative.

Illicit drugs impounded from these arrests were transferred to a secret holding compound in New Jersey where, according to CIA documents, the drugs were disbursed to various researchers under contract with the CIA, and to other unknown places. One of the French traffickers apprehended by White would be sent to a federal prison in Atlanta, where he would be subjected to intense mind control experiments.

Multiple drugs were used during these experiments, including morphinum, dicain, and heroin. Readers may recall that some of these same drugs were discovered listed in John Pic's notebook in 1964. (Dicain, a strong local anesthetic, has never been available in the U.S. It can only be purchased overseas, and was used in Eastern Europe. In 1953-1956, the CIA experimented with the drug for possible mind-control uses.)

Of equal interest is that during World War II, George Hunter White and a number of other FBN agents assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the CIA, worked very closely in New York City with Port Security and the Office of Naval Intelligence on what is now commonly called Operation Underworld. This was the top-secret project that involved freeing infamous gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano from prison in return for his, and the Mafia's, assistance with security at America's ports and with the Allied invasion of Italy. All of the FBN agents assigned to work on Operation Underworld went on to become covert operatives for the CIA, and would become involved with Projects MK/ULTRA and MK/NAOMI.

Some of the drug traffickers and criminals held for deportation at Ellis Island were given the option of staying in the United States indefinitely if they "volunteered" for various secret government projects, including CIA-funded Project Artichoke experiments that were just beginning at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and various mental hospitals in Louisiana. At Tulane University in New Orleans, Dr. Russell R. Monroe was just beginning his research on neurological brain dysfunctions in the minds of criminals and psychopaths. The CIA and the military, which were quickly drawn to the program, were becoming intrigued with the possibilities of creating what were then referred to as "aggressive soldiers" and now are called "super soldiers."

Worth noting here is that adjunct to the Espionage Act of 1950 was the Emergency Detention Act of 1950, which created six large internment camps for thousands of persons who were to be apprehended and detained in the event of an internal security emergency. Among the six camps nationwide was the barbed wire -surrounded former Army installation in Avon Park, Florida.

After a few tumultuous weeks living with half brother Pic and his family in the late summer of 1952, Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother moved to a small, dank, basement apartment located at 1455 Sheridan Street in the Bronx. There, Lee complained of having to sleep on the living room couch. At the time, Marguerite worked at Lerners Dress Shop located at 45 East 42nd Street.

Interesting to note is that George Hunter White's wife, Albertine, called "Tine" by those closest to her, shopped at Lerners and had friends who worked there. Like Marguerite, Albertine White also worked in the clothing business as a buyer for the Abraham & Strauss Department Store in Brooklyn at 422 Fulton Street. After working at Lerners, Marguerite Oswald, in February 1953, went to work for Martin's Department Store in Brooklyn at 501 Fulton Street, a very short walk from where Albertine worked. Again, we find that Albertine had close friends who worked at Martin's.

Albertine and George White enjoyed living in New York City. Their apartment was at 59 West 12 Street in the Village. The Whites had many friends, although most of them were mainly attracted to the couple because of Albertine's vivacious personality and charming ways. George could be quite gruff and moody. His consumption of large quantities of alcohol, mainly Gibson's gin, didn't serve to enhance his social skills. His propensity to surreptitiously dose his guests with LSD, supplied to him by the CIA, also did not help matters much. During one of their many dinner parties George, much to Albertine's displeasure, secretly dosed a number of their friends with LSD, sending two women to the hospital in total panic and confusion at what was happening inside their heads.

George White frequently used Central Park and the Bronx Zoo as rendezvous points for his meetings with criminals, confidential informers, intelligence agents and drug traffickers. White's alias for conducting business with and for the CIA was "Morgan Hall." Morgan Hall is also a section of the American Museum of Natural History in Central Park, opened in 1900 and named after magnate J.P. Morgan. It houses the minerals and gems collection. According to the Warren Commission Report, one of the first places John Pic took Lee Oswald to sightsee was the Natural History Museum.

George White's date book for 1953 contains numerous references to his meetings with unsavory characters at the Natural History Museum. It was a favorite rendezvous point for White. Several of White's date book notations cite a person referred to only as "Lee," but this Lee is thought to be much older than Oswald, and a close acquaintance of White's.

Okay, just a little pin prick, There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!

– "Comfortably Numb" Roger Waters and David Gilmour, 1979

Lee Oswald and School in New York

Lee Oswald greatly disliked attending school in New York. His attendance records, as provided to the Warren Commission, reveal that he was "excessively absent." By one authoritative count, Oswald missed over seventy-five days of school in a 12-month period. Teachers and school officials recalled that Lee was an extremely smart youngster, but that he "refused to salute the flag" and preferred to be alone. Oddly, some teachers recalled him to be "slight ... and thin" while others said he was "well built."

In the spring of 1953, Lee was picked up by a truant officer at the Bronx Zoo, a place he often visited when skipping school. Angry at being apprehended, Lee called the officer a "damned Yankee." This was reportedly the third time Lee had been picked up for being truant.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from A Secret Order by H.P. Albarelli Jr.. Copyright © 2013 H. P. Albarelli, Jr.. Excerpted by permission of Trine Day LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

CoverImage,
Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Dedication,
Quotes,
From Here to ...,
Photo - Lee Harvey Oswald,
Down The Rabbit Hole ...,
Lee Harvey Oswald in New York City and Elsewhere,
Almost: The Sad Ballad of Rose,
What Did Dimitre Dimitrov Know?,
"Welcome Back to America, Mr. Oswald.",
Who Was David Sanchez Morales?,
The Strange & Somewhat Untimely Wisdom of Dale E. Basye,
Oswald, Cuba, and Other Places,
The Bizarre Diary of Eric Ritzek,
The Strange and Sad Saga of Charles William Thomas,
Femme Fatale Enigma: Viola June Cobb,
NOTES,
Back Cover,