-Ht l Rp l Ous l F 4 AccuRcyr The Mystery of the Black Books by Warren Hinkle 111

A saga of hotshot international espionage from the great days of Ramparts

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n New Orleans, as you probably then working for Ramparts maga- other places in the world at the know, the D.A. is called the zine, was chewing the conspiracy drop of a dollar. His disillusion I "Jolly Green Giant." Jim Gar- fat with Jim Garrison and enjoy- with the C.I.A. began when he rison is tall enough, and normally ing a Southern bourbon without worked for them in the Congo. jolly enough, and, in his dealings benefit of mint. Turner_suggested. "You can rescue nuns," the Agency with a cheating government and an that it would be nice to know what had told him. He found himself ambush-primed press in the months I • Z. I ' .11 • II shooting up supply boats instead. and years after the Kennedy assas- clere_f_hlna_ERennedy. Assuming But he kept flying, partly for the sination, he showed himself green that they didn't do it, they doubt- money, which was good, partly be- enough to earn the title, whatever less had a pretty good idea who cause he was hooked on adventure, the significance of tine original did. The thought of the K.G.B.'s and the C.I.A. was the big Connec- nickname. bulging files on the C.I.A. lit Gar- tion. Most everyone also knows, in rison up. It is testimony to the perverse- some snickering fashionable way, "Even if they'd cooperate," Tur- ness of his world that—although he what happened to the District At- ner said, "we could never make the came to see himself as working for torney and his assassination inves- approach from the D.A.'s office. The the bad guys, an employment he tigation. In New York terms, he wolves out there would never stop was loath to give up because he en- closed opening night. But some- howling if they caught us asking joyed the means if not the end— where back in the primordial ooze the time of day of the K.G.B." his dangerous compulsion to simul- of the Garrison investigation there Garrison frowned. taneously do something for the good lingers a story that has never been Never mind that, said Turner. guys was limited by his inability to told before. It is not an assassina- Ramparts would make the Russians find any. Ile had once tried an un- tion story, it is primarily a mys- an offer they couldn't refuse. I was dercover assignment for the federal tery story, and it is not even a the editor at Ramparts in those nares, but their bumbling ways story about Garrison himself, al- days, so what happened after that nearly got him killed. Given the though his interests at the time inevitably i nvolved me. paucity of angels, he latched onto spurred on the events. There have It was a week later. In hot pur- Ramparts as a reasonable alterna- been good reasons for the long si- suit of his goal, Turner was having tive to evil and a place where lence of the participants, or vic- coffee in a San Francisco restau- double agents were granted instant tims, as the telling places certain rant with a young man who had no status as war heroes. As often as people where they perhaps should name. He was the shady side of he was in the office, and visiting not have been, and involves the thirty-five, tall, tanned, sandy- our homes, there remained a restive violation, or alleged violation, of haired, with high raw cheekbones quality about him, a separateness, several laws of the land, among and polished turquoise eyes. He as if he were lonely out there in the them those proscribing the unau- was not a professional mystery cold and wanted companionship, yet thorized dealings by private citi- man, although he was mysterious didn't want to come all the way in. zens with the governments of un- about his profession, and it would We called him Jim Rose. At least friendly foreign powers. By now, be as accurate to say he had several that was the name by which he was though, Richard Nixon the Elder names as none, because names to known to everyone on the magazine, has left pecker tracks all over those him were as paper plates, to be including one of the secretaries previously clear ground rules, and used and then discarded. His pri- with whom he took up housekeep- one no longer knows if one is deal- mary employment, in the year and a ing between derrings-do. But he ing with an old enemy or a new half that Ramparts had known him, had a name for every day of the friend until one picks up the morn- was that of a contract combat pilot week. He was Jack Carter when ing paper. So I will be indiscreet. for the C.I.A. He flew a Douglas he worked in Miami, until later he As the story quickly becomes B-26 out of Miami on itinerant became too hot and decided to "kill caught up in the whirlpools and bombing raids against the Cuban off" Carter by simulating a plane rapids of international intrigue, I coastline. His targets were usually crash at sea, thus discouraging the will begin, as simply as possible, pedestrian objects such as oil tanks, spoilsports in the F.A.A. from in- at the beginning—which, as is the although once he made a pass over quiring further into the checkered case in many mysteries, was a con- a Russian-built radar installation. history of Carter's flight plans. He versation over a friendly drink He had also flown aerial reconnais- had several newspaper clippings re-, about a proposition of dubious le- sance missions over Cuba out of porting his own death, which he gality. Central and South American air- would exhibit with the eager shy- In the New Orleans Summer of fields. ness of someone showing you an 1968, Bill Turner, an ex-F.B.I. man He had flown and fought in many appendix scar or bottled gallstone.

12e ESQUIRE: APRIL He was also known as Dawes, also tion in America, save perhaps the was and explained the peculiar cir- as McLeish, also as several other CIA., he boarded a jet for Mexico cumstances of his mission. The Rus- people, among which I was always City, on his way along the yellow sian warily asked for the camera partial to Rose, because of Gertrude brick road to see the wizard of es- which hung around Rose's neck, and Stein and all. But by any name he pionage at the Russian Embassy. It said he would return it when their was, as Damon Runyan said about had been agreed all around that the conversation was completed. Rose those types who stand out among act of asking to borrow a cup of got it back later, "in better work- other types of their type, the "gen- intelligence from the K.G.B. had ing order than when I gave it to uine item." He loved adventure, and best take place in another country. him." second only to that he loved talking By the estimate of the Reader's The Russian and the young about adventure. Digest, the Russian Embassy in American without a name talked This Rose with no tame was the Mexico City is "one of the world's for two hours. Rose explained Gar- man we tapped to send to the Rus- great sanctuaries of subversion." It rison's theory of the assassination, sians. has the appearance of a giant cuck- and the Russian nodded on occasion Turner hardly had time to raise oo clock that has been put under at the mention of the C.I.A. Rose the subject over coffee that morn- house. arrest. A grey Victorian made his plea for "sanitized" in- ing when Rose, indicating a devil- mansion bedecked with gingerbread formation from the K.G.B. files on may-care willingness to make the cupolas, it is cut off from the out- Oswald and others. approach to the K.G.B., said he side world by grounds dotted with "Our assumption is that you would volunteer. peach trees and patrolled by sen- must have information about these Anyone who has seen a good spy tries with a do-not-touch look about matters that we do not," he said. movie knows how to get in touch them, who are in turn cut off from The Russian rose from his seat with the K.G.B. All you do is go to the street by an iron fence unsuit- unblinking. He asked Rose where a Russian Embassy and ask to see able for pole vaulting. The twenty- he was staying, and suggested he the Second Secretary, who is in- four-hour work of the Embassy is stick to his hotel and not do too variably the resident Soviet intelli- carried out behind shuttered win- much touring. "It may be neces- gence chief. (If you're looking in dows to the sound of crickets at sary for you to stay in Mexico an American Embassy for the night, melting into the click and City for a few days." C.I.A., best try the Cultural At- whir of camera shutters by day, as Rose was followed when he left taché first.) moat of the handsome houses across the Embassy for the hotel. "They Anyway, that's what we did. And the street on the Calzada de Tacu- used a tail on a tail," he said. "It it worked. baya are apparently in the posses- was a very professional job." There was, however, some hesi- sion of camera bugs of various in- When Rose went down to dinner tation before the fateful knock at telligence services who have made a that evening, a burly man in a the K.G.B. door. Rose quite under- hobby of photographing everyone rumpled suit sat down directly standably gave thought to the dam- including the milkman who ap- across from his table, making no age possible to his C.I.A. meal proaches the Russian Embassy. Not pretense that he was doing any- ticket, or his person, lest word get to be outdone, the Russians also thing but watching Rose. Rose sent back to Langley, Virginia, that one photograph everyone who comes him a complimentary vodka, and of their pilots was fraternizing through their main gate, and oc- the big man smiled, displaying sev- with the enemy. But the lure of casionally even photograph the hid- eral gold teeth in a setting of black rubbing noses with the K.G.B. even- den photographers across the teeth. tually overshadowed any cautionary street. The next day Rose received a re- reserves in his nature. When he Rose walked chin high through quest to visit the Embassy. said he was ready to go, we took the moat of cameras. Once inside, The Russian was blinking again. extreme steps to insure that the he asked to see someone who could He spoke in careful, circumven- man with no name would leave no get word back to Moscow. He was tive, translated-from-the-Martian trail should any untoward or un- ushered to a monastic waiting phrases, as if his every word was fortunate event occur while he was room. A stocky, owl-eyed man with being broadcast that instant to a dealing with the enemy. We bought the look of a well-groomed card stadium full of hostile people. His his airline ticket with cash, so it mechanic soon entered, blinking in caution was taken by Rose as some could not be traced back to Ram- a formal, quizzical manner which sort of a signal, because the Rus- parts. We even shook him down for gave the impression that he only sian hardly said anything more incriminating matchbook covers. blinked during working hours. than, "Don't call us, we'll call you." When we were satisfied be could The visitor introduced himself "What you request is not impos- not be connected to any organiza- as the undercover emissary that he sible. But it is not necessary that

ESQUIRE APRIL 129 it will happen. The only way that end of paranoia. The Ramparts peo- stains on them, not to mention hen it could possibly occur is in a way ple assumed Rose's disappearance scratchings and other placental al- that would be most unexpected, and meant death, or a double cross. terations. No author since the untraceable to its source. Some- Rose, seeing no report of our ar- dawn of movable type has got him- thing might be left in your hands, rest under the Espionage Act in self together enough to dam the for instance, by a visitor to your the papers, assumed the govern- babbling brook of creativity, settle country. That is all for now." ment was suppressing the news un- the last word and position the final The official smiled, extended his til they hunted him down. Each comma, and then had the time or hand, and gave Rose his camera. non-fact reinforced another non- the money to completely and per- "Do you like books?" he asked. Rose fact, with me not speaking all the fectly retype his manuscript before said that he did. The Russian gave while lest the aftertaste of Guin- sending it to the publishers, or they him several books, "all about how ness escape my mouth. to the printers. This masterpiece of the East and West could get along It was straightened out several the touch system was patently the together." Rose reached in his hundred corkscrews later. But it product of some boiler-plate rewrite luiapsnck. The only reading materi- was a Seconal letdown when we bank in the basement of an intelli- al he had was an R. Crumb comic learned, upon Rose's belated surfac- gence factory. book, which he presented to the ing, that all we could do was wait The content of the manuscript appreciative Russian, who, express- some more for some sign from the confirmed the validity of the super- ing unfamiliarity with some of the K.G.B. that might or might not ficial assessment of its origin. This idiom, in particular the phrase come. unheard-of publishing outfit had as "Gimme some reds," said that he The only concrete result of that well-developed and documented a would have it translated. traumatic mission to the Russian conspiracy theory as Garrison's Rose was en route back to San Embassy was• an invitation for the own—with many of the same vil- Francisco when there occurred one editors of Ramparts to attend the lains by name, and others of the of those bollixes that come from too Red Army Ball in Mexico City, same faces, but different aliases. much sucking on the row cone of which was graciously declined. The shock waves were equally as paranoia. We was about to go great at Ramparts. The mystery through customs in the crowded ometime later, Jim Garrison manuscript was as sprinkled with Los Angeles International Airport, took a long-distance call in details as an ice cream cone dipped one of the seven plastic wonders of S his New Orleans office. The in chocolate jimmies, There were the world, when he suddenly found caller identified himself as the trav- names and addresses, where rele- himself staring into the bloodshot eling representative of the Fron- vant, about the clandestine opera- recesses of my own one good eye. tiers Publishing Company of Ge- tions of the Central Intelligence Rose came up and gave me what I neva. That firm had, the caller said, Agency. A Ramparts team of New suppose was the password for his an important four-volume original Left researchers had been digging secret mission. He instantly as- work on the Kennedy assassination into the internal operations of the sumed that my extraordinary pres- which was about to be published in C.I.A. for the better part of a year ence in the customs area was meant Europe. Would Mr. Garrison be in- and had scavenged numerous scraps to head him off at the pass from terested in seeing the manuscript? of available information, save what- some certain disaster that had be- Yeah, sure, send it, Garrison said, ever was tattooed on the inside of fallen our comrades. hanging up. Another nut. John McCone's belly button. A large He repeated the password. I The United States mails depos- part of the material in our files was looked at him as if he were pan- ited a fat package in the New Or- unknown to the general press or handling in Swahili. I snarled some- leans District Attorney's office. It public. But these manicured pages thing nasty and incoherent to the contained three thick volumes of so inexplicably handed down from effect that if he shaved his legs he manuscript, each bound in black. the mountain repeated, in a matter- might get a job in the chorus of the When this manuscript later of-fact manner, many of our zeal- Nutcracker Suite. The atomic pile emerged in book form, its title was ously acquired supersecrets- behind his turquoise eyes flared into Farewell America. The author, ac- and revealed many more, all of critical mass, and he stepped back cording to the book jacket, was which subsequently checked out. as if his toes had just dissolved be- James Hepburn, a thirty-four-year- Whoever James Hepburn was, he fore his eyes. He was gone before I old writer, former acquaintance of had reliable sources of information could remember who he was, for if Jacqueline Bouvier, and former stu- about the inner workings of Ameri- truth be told, I had forgotten—so dent at the London School of Eco- can intelligence. hung over and generally dissipated nomics and the Institute of Politi- The poop on the C.I.A. was plot- was I, an empty egg carton that cal Studies in Paris. ted in with the subtlety of a Vin- had just been helped off the plane Garrison's office called Ramparts cent Price movie. The book's text from Ireland, whence I had fled in to say that the Miracle of Fatima gasped for breath as it crawled a deep funk to drink my way had occurred. Instead of a lovely through hills and valleys created by ai through the apocalypse of turning lady, the creator had sent down mountainous footnotes, which were thirty. I was twenty-nine when I something to read. as jam-packed as a lifeboat with left and a human junk heap when The next day a courier arrived whole file drawers full of classified 1 returned, and could not even rec- from New Orleans lugging a Xerox data. The manuscript revealed the ognize the most unforgettable per- of the sign from the K.G.B. It was locations of secret C.I.A. schools for son I had ever met. But Rose knew a heavy sign : a thousand-odd pages sabotage; exposed C.I.A.-owned none of that. Believing my cata- of flawless typescript, as if part of newspapers, radio stations and pub- tonic hello to be a signal that we an I.B.M. demonstration at a con- lishing houses in Cyprus, Beirut, were all in the gravest peril, he vention of old-maid office managers, Aden, Jordan, Kenya and other went underground from his under- or from the Pope. Book manu- countries in Africa, the Middle ground assignment. That began a scripts normally have at the mini- East and the Far East; named the carnival of pixilation, a lost week- mum a few peanut butter and jelly C.I.A.'s clandestine commercial

139 ESQUIRE: APRIL "covers" in the United States, and The three-volume manuscript was who is not exactly a raving Bolshe- recorded the Agency's role as co- accompanied by a cryptic note: if vik. Why would Springer authenti- director of the Eisenhower Admin- we were interested in seeing the cate such a force-fed K.G.B. book? istration, and examined its links— fourth volume, we should cable a The inevitable thought arose that through Kermit Roosevelt in the law firm in Geneva, and arrange- this might be a superior triple- Fifties and John McCone in the ments would be made. decker C.I.A. cake with Ian Flem- Sixties—to the oil industry. Among An obvious deduction, Watson: ming icing to somehow entrap other epithets, the manuscript al- the fourth volume would name the Ramparts. leged that former "specialists" for murderers. Further investigation revealed the C.I.A.'s D.C.A. (Department of We cabled. We waited. A week that Frontiers Publishing Company Covert Activity) were members of later Garrison's office telephoned: had never published a book before, an assassination "team" at Dallas. "You know that fourth volume? and apparently had no plans to pub- Similar working details were dis- Well, it just walked in the door." lish anything else in the future. closed about the K.G.B., the assess- There was to be a further com- Farewell America was then pub- ments being quite favorable. This plication. The messenger who had 44' lished in France in a hard-cover supported our belief that the manu- arrived in New Orleans from Ge- edition by Frontiers. The review in script had been typed on Russian neva did not have the final volume L'Express called the book ". . . the typewriters fitted with American with him. We would have to send a most violent indictment ever writ- characters. representative to Geneva to inspect ten by a man about his country, out Many sections of the book were it in person. of love for that country." Not a bad non sequiturs which reminded me At that, I began to wonder if this notice for a composite. of Grouch() Marx's line in Duck were a present from the K.G.B., or Finally, a memo by Jaffee found Soup: "A child of five would under- a booby trap from somebody else. its way to our offices. It was filled stand this. Send somebody to fetch My plans to convene a meeting of with disconcerting information, in- a child of five." The gratuitous the paranoia bureau were aborted cluding a thumbnail sketch of the mention of a 1931 liaris detective when I learned that Garrison had publisher of Frontiers, one R—, story by an author who used the already sent a young volunteer who had taken our man in tow and premonitory pseudonym "Oswald packing off to Europe to collect the was apparently treating him to all Dallas" made at least impish sense. tainted goods. The innocent sent the secrets of Paris, save the one But I couldn't figure the humor of abroad was Steve Jaffee, the broth- we were after. numerous out-of-context references er of a Newsweek reporter in Los R published a magazine dur- to Roy Cohn, the former boy witch- Angeles, the peach-fuzz side of ing the early Sixties. He was in his hunter, whose selected quotations twenty-five, who had been working thirties, had been in the French merited several vague footnotes with Mark Lane on another assassi- army, and had studied for a time with citations such as "Roy Cohn, nation theory. at Harvard. Jaffee felt he was the at the Stork Club in 1963." Jaffee was told to go to Paris, in- key to the preparation of the man- Later, after we had gone scuba terview James Hepburn, and find uscript and added that R— was diving in the black waters of the out his sources. highly placed in French intelli- .■)..‘ ..Cci manuscript's authorship, much of The answer came from Paris : it gence, specializing in American oil this strangeness was to be cleared is impossible to meet the author. interests. up somewhat, as was the motiva- The author is a "composite." The individual so described took tion behind a puzzling chapter al- Cables between Jaffee and his his thumbnail biographer crawling leging astonishing Secret Service contact weaved back and forth like to places high and low in Paris, all foul-ups which made the Dallas as- carrier pigeons drunk on elderber- in the line of duty. R— said they sassination almost a pushover. The ries. Such facts or allegations of would drop in on General de Gaulle critique amounted to a white paper fact as reached us from this static at the Elysee Palace and see if he on the deficiencies of the Secret across the Atlantic made only one was busy. He was. Then R— ar- Service, and was obviously prepared thing clear: we were shadowbox- ranged a meeting with Andre Du- by someone very much on the In- ing with a high-level intelligence cret, the head of the French Secret side. The mystery book provided a operation—although not necessarily Service. Ducret was most gracious, lengthy analysis of the demonstra- the K.G.B. French intelligence was and told the young American that bly superior security arrangements suddenly in the running, and even he was ducking down the hall to see of other nations, particularly the C.I.A. became suspect. the General for a second and would France and Russia, for protecting In his search for the Paris "edi- say hello for him. The Secret Ser- the lives of their chief executives. torial offices" of the publisher, Jaf- vice Chief returned shortly and There was a puzzling hurrah for fee found himself at one point in handed Jaffee de Gaulle's card, with Daniel P. Moynihan, a professional the modern offices of a, fat-cat inter- a personal note scribbled by the thinker of moderate means, who so national law firm. Some of the peo- General: far as I knew had zero to do with ple he had met in Paris told him GENERAL DE GAULLE guarding the President: "Only that financial interests were in- Je rids tres sensible d la Daniel P. Moynihan, a former long- volved. He even heard that the Ken- con fiance que vans m'exprimez. shoreman, had some idea of such nedy family itself had underwritten Before Jaffee left, the Secret Ser- things." the cost of the book, but he was vice head also told him how impor- The thesis of the mystery text unable to substantiate this. tant his mission was and how was that of John F. Kennedy as the Farewell America was published France appreciated his efforts. Jaf- good guy-golden boy of American in Germany, with fanfare but with- fee was duly impressed, despite the democracy, whose honest policies out the final volume, and became a fact that he himself did not know were so at odds with the power-mad moderate best seller. The phony what he was doing. and corrupt C.I.A. and its billion- book was syndicated in Bud, Ger- R— indicated that the docu- aire oilmen kingmakers that he was many's largest daily newspaper, ments on which the book was based accordingly snuffed. But by whom? which is owned by Axel Springer, were all (Continued on page 170 )

ESQUIRE: APRIL 131 dozen emery boards snioothing a dozen THE MYSTERY OF THE BLACK BOOKS very rough nails. "Do you understand?" he asked sweetly, then. smiling as if he (Continued. from page 131) locked up man at the endurance genie. As the had just shot John Wayne down over for safekeeping in a Liechtenstein bank sensuous intelligence agent wandered Wake Island, he added: "So, American vault, but they were in luck as one of drunkenly around the bistro, having people talks so much about the sex. But the sources, a French intelligence agent left his jacket on the chair, Bensky very few cases have I met orgy. Why? named "Philippe," was in town, and went through his pockets, discovering In Japan we think American people they would have a drink. He brought business cards and press cards in sev- must have sex so often." There was a Jaffee to a dingy Latin Quarter bar at eral identities, only a few of them in brief but pregnant silence, followed by midnight, where Philippe, speaking R—'s own name, and a British pass- a small explosion. only in metaphor, told how he had in- port in yet another name. "This is a highly inhibited society," terviewed one of the men who had been Bensky dropped these identities on said Julian Beck. in the Kennedy ambush group at a ho- in subsequent conversations, "We seek sex and yearn for it," said tel in Mexico City, where they had Cu- which caused the Frenchman to raise another man. ban music and dangerous "instru- ever so slightly his egg-skin eyebrows "One problem is that everyone's mind ments." and compliment the Managing Editor is worried about samsara [the world of There was one more little thing be- on Ramparts' "excellent sources" of in- suffering] and ducca [trouble] and the fore we got to see the fourth volume. formation. enormous political and social pain," said R— said it was being "rewritten." Back home, we at last developed a Ginsberg. "Everybody's mind is taken Frontiers was anxious to publish Fare- good hunch about who was dealing in off sex. But since we're making a mov- well America in America—and wanted the bridge game in which Ramparts ie...." His voice dropped, and he slow- Ramparts to publish it, just as Axel was playing a dummy hand. The droopy ly unbuttoned his faded Levi's, pulling Springer had been so kind in Germany. fleur-de-lys of French intelligence over- them off without once raising his but- It was time either to retreat or send shadowed the cardboard publishing tocks from the floor. To everyone's in- in reinforcements, so I bludgeoned Lar- house of Frontiers, but that in itself tense interest, he then folded them into ry Bensky, the cdrrent victim on the was of little specific help in tracing the a neat bundle, as if they had just come Ramparts sacrificial altar of the Man- river of data in Farewell America to its out of the drier. His jockey shorts fol- aging Editor's chair, into catching a source, because the French S.D.E.C.E. lowed, to be folded in turn and the night plane to Paris. Bensky was not was so notoriously, and almost hilari- cameras focused on his tiny isubbin of all that happy about going, since he had ously, ridden with K.G.B. double agents a penis as if it were the snout of the been a founder of a Franco-American that, as a matter of course, Frenchmen Loch Ness monster, surfacing after anti-war group during his previous res- were offered vodka before wine at in- aeons from the icy waters. The atmo- idence as an editor of the Paris Review ternational spy gatherings. sphere was not conducive to an orgy, and had reason to think the French po- There were also some noisy cross however, and even Ginsberg kept on his lice would be watching him carefully. signals indicating that the hook's brew- anti-war T-shirt, which said: "Under Bensky found It— to be a very av- masters might be in the private sector Nixon 4,500.000 tons of bombs, equal to erage-looking Frenchman with very bed of International espionage. A dandruff- 227 Hiroshimas." No one else so much teeth, a chain smoker of Gitanes, a collared crew of former French spies, as untied a shoelace. Allen looked dis- chain lover of women, with a strong tossed in the garbage when the rotten appointed but vindicated, both sorry taste for luxury, a seemingly inexhaust- apple that had been French intelligence and happy at seeing his point proved. ible supply of pocket money, and many was drawn and quartered after World "It gets harder and harder," he mildly flashily dressed friends with nice apart- War II, had been hired en bloc by the observed, "to act the part of an orgiaat ments and no visible means of support. French oil cartel. The pate of flab as more and more tons of bombs fall on He was an expert in "pillow-talk in- around their midsections was strength- Indochina, I think the Government has telligence," having been assigned by ened by the addition of Marseilles thugs created conditions that are unencourag- French intelligence, with its concern and floating assassins to their number, ing to full sexual expression." for industrial counterespionage, to in- creating a relatively sophisticated and filtrate the social circles of the oil in- vicious chorus line of Harry Painters in Where are we going, Walt Whitman?/ dustry in New York and Texas by se- berets ready to do whatever was neces- The doors close in an hour./Which way ducing the daughters of the petroleum sary that the Frenchies might gain a does your beard point tonight?—A.G., magnates. "I learned English to screw bigger share of the world oil lamp, "A. Supermarket in California." them," the Frenchman told Bensky, Standard Oil be damned. Despite several hours and several The French intelligence agent came This wise something by the way of meetings with Ginsberg, I still found it on as an orgy freak, or, more precise- cherries on the matzos, as the hard sometimes to know where his own ly, he came on as a combination self- S.D.E.C.E. itself assumed as a prime beard was pointing. He plays, after all, voyeur and fettishist about being an part of its raison d'etra the protection so many roles, some of them serious. orgy freak. He sat in Paris sidewalk and furtherance of French petroleum There is the disciple of Whitman who safes ostentatiously picking his teeth, interests. (It remains an object of bar wants desperately to be taken seriously and otherwise acting the part of Terry- bets in Paris whether it was the as a poet. There is the clown who put Thomas playing the stud. His conversa- S.D.E.C.E. proper or the free-lance on an Uncle Sam hat for the famous tion was that of an after-dinner speak- French oil agents who erased Enrico poster of the Sixties. There is the angry er in a bordello catering to civil ser- Mattei, the Italian nil magnate whose prophet, the Jeremiah who warns of vants. He would preface intimate ac- North African holdings encroached on pollution and repression. And there is counts of the sexual proclivities of French vital interests, and who con- the youth hero who has already sur- prominent politicians with the phrase, veniently perished in a plane crash near vived several youth movements to be- "It is known in French intelligence Milan in 1962 which had the suspicious come the Rod McKuen of the hip and that . . . ," then proceed to the nitty markings of that other political plane hairy. "He began with the muse of gritty about several prominent Amer- crash of General Sikorski off Gibraltar hatred," wrote Alan Harrington shunt ican politicians and their biyfriends. in 1943, in which Winston Churchill was a Ginsberg-modeled character in his Bensky rolled up his sleeves, and alleged to have pulled the fatal cotter novel, The Secret Swinger. "Having re- went to beat the devil. He ducked pin.) At any rate, such types as these, viled his times and been honored for it, R- 's efforts to lure him to the whore- who possessed sufficient rough magic the poet had raged out of his dark houses, where he was certain a trap lay to make the Moroccan leftist Ben Barka strangeness and become attractive." germinating for him, pleading a Bene- disappear from the Left Bank and from Finally, I put it up to him. dictine vow of celibacy from a previous the face of the earth in 1965, had the "How do you describe yourself, Al- incarnation, and instead maneuvered financing if not the suavity (that ap- len?" the Frenchman into successive cat-and- parently was R—'e function) to palm "I'm a good, solid, steady worker. mouse encounter sessions of drinking off Farewell America on the public li- Old reliable. I'll last a long time and I'll cognac in bistros of Berisky's choice, braries of the world. This was some- be a good guy." ill On the third night, he beat the French- thing they might wish to do inasmuch

570 ESQUIRE: APRIL as the hook contained between its hard finally coughed up Volume Four, with "personal friendships" developed with- covers considerable dirt on the Ameri- the names and numbers of the players in the Kennedy inner circle, 11— can oil industry, including the not very in the Dallas assassination bowl, and if would not say with whom, it had come nice suggestion that the kingpins of we succeeded in pinning the goods on to rest in the hands of French intelli- American petroleum got together to one Intelligence agency as opposed to gence, which had made this expert use knock off the President of the United another, then we could screw James of' it. States. Hepburn and run the story with its It sounds mad, I know, but when you proper by-line—"Who Killed Kennedy, That is everything there is to know get into it, and down to it, all real mad- by the K.G.B." I thought that would about the mystery of the black books ness takes place in some factual con- make a terrific Ramparts cover. except who did it. text. The French are not the only ones Under prodding, the proprietorship of Bensky returned from the Paris talks who have found other uses for old spies. Frontiers Publishing came clean as to with little more substantial than a Everywhere, former intelligence agents their most extraordinary source: the fervent dislike for the other side. When for hire constitute a black belt of over- Material on the internal foul-ups of the pressed to the wall, R— handed over privileged crud. What really goes on in Secret Service—detailed down to the the long-awaited fourth volume, which the world is made all the more dread- number of bourbons a Secret Service- consisted of one double-spaced page, and fully complicated when one becomes man had had the night before and how here is what it said: aware of the existence of this private many aspirins he took the morning ("The Man of November Fifth") half-world on top, or rather beneath, after—was hand delivered from the in- "The choice made by the people of that other half-world of officially sani- ner councils of the Kennedy family. The the United States on November 6th, tized clandestine intelligence work and chapter was based on a private, unpub- 1968, will have profound and far-reach- subversion. lished and undistributed memorandum ing consequences for the life, liberty prepared for Attorney General Robert and happiness of the universe. The peo- e never learned for certain wheth- Kennedy after his brother's murder. ples of the earth are awaiting new de- Wer R— worked for the French Bobby had convened a select committee cisions. The man of November 5th can- intelligence, with or without its K.O.B. the day after the assassination, which not escape the conflicts of the modern brandy float, or for the Watergate di- was to conduct a secret investigation of world. If he chooses to ignore them, he vision of French private intelligence, the Secret Service, independent of the will only delay their consequences. If he or, for that matter, fot some other work of other federal agencies such as is prepared to confront them, he can squad of Flying Dutchmen. Someone the F.B.I. or the C.I.A. overcome them. substantial was paying his whoring and Bobby suspected someone had got to "John and Robert Kennedy had the typesetting bills. He admitted to being the Secret Service and prepped the courage to meet these problems and a plant but would not say who potted murder of his brother, and he trusted break down the doors to the future. him. All his identities were phony. He none but his own men to tell him if his They were stopped by the frightened had never been the publisher of a worst fears were groundless. confederates of the traditions on which French magazine. But in his earnest ef- This committee's report excoriated they infringed. forts to get Ramparts to publish his the Secret Service for organizational "When John Fitzgerald Kennedy's thing, R-- did clear up several of the and functional deficiencies, R— said, head exploded, it was for some the minor mysteries about the black hooks. but cleared it of involvement in any signal for toasts. The funeral did not He said the extraordinary detail about plot. Once he was 'assured, Bobby ap- go unnoticed. One November morning the C.I.A. had come from the files of the parently lost all interest in the investi- the cannon boomed, the Panama Canul S.D.E.C.E., which of course kept tabs gation. He didn't even turn the report was closed, flags flew at half-mast, and on the competition. The information in over to the Warren Commission, al- even Andrei Gromyko wept. Adlai Ste- the hook about the K.G.B. had come though it was far more critical of the venson declared that he would bear the from the same source; he denied it Secret Service than the Warren Report. sorrow of his death till the day of his came directly from the K.G.B. The nas- This astonishing memorandum had own, and the Special Forces added a ty details shout the American petro- lain hidden somewhere in the file cabi- black band to their green berets. Almost leum industry were the product of the nets of Camelot ever since. Through five years passed, and another bullet same files, and from R—'s own years of spying and snookering his way into the inner social circles of the filthy oil BAD TIMES SONG rich. He also explained the derivation of James Hepburn, the pseudo-author of Farewell America. James was from the Where is my cat, my rake. French "j'aime," and Hepburn was My poultry seasoning and my stick? added in tribute to at least one of Where is the heart I Fled who flung your hat R—'s favorite cinema actresses. Over the millstream years back? On the basis of this less than com- plete information, Ramparts purchased an option to publish Farewell America Where is my tail and purpose strait in America, paying for it with a pest- Far which I /ought and won with luck dated cheek drawn on a bank with And where my kin of shining hue which we no longer had an account. I The dark put up? had never bounced a check on an in- telligence agency before and it seemed somehow a fair idea. If the truth be How do I live and by whose right? told, the cables I was sending Benaky When the war goes on, the price goes up. urging him to hurry up and make haste Whose treasuries may I sack- so we could go to press with James And who would give me ransom should I try? Hepburn's exclusive were in that grey area between little white lies and big black lies. It was in for a dime, in for To ask such questions is a childish rote. a dollar, and I couldn't see the harm in Besides, they do not fit hanging tough and trying to find out The answers given by the great. just who had gone to all this expense A snake under every stone, nnd effort to bloody up the good name of the C.I.A. and eminent American oil- men. In every suitcase and in every bed, There being no Geneva Convention of The thing to do is not to ask but act. publishing, I figured that if the culprits —JEAN GARR1CUE

172 ESQLPRE: APRIL shattered the brain and stopped the all the prints in existence. partially successful. They managed to heart of another Kennedy who had Bensky volunteered the most articu- con the largest daily newspaper in Ger- taken up the fight. late explanation of these strange go- many and newsmagazine in France into "There was another funeral. Once ings-on. The Minsky Theory is the prod- buying their poke, not to mention thou- again the Green Berets formed the uct of his tiptoeing through the intel- sands of book buyers in both countries Honor Guard; once again the Stars and ligence poppy fields of Paris without who were taken along for the ride. And Stripes flew at half-mast. On an eve- getting dizzy from the fragrance. He although Farewell America has never ning in June, Robert Kennedy joined believes R— was working with a po- been reviewed or written about in the his brother beneath the hill at Arling- liticized wing of the French intelligence United States, for reasons now familiar ton, and those who pass by can bring service which had become the last bas- to the readers of this history, numerous them flowers. tion of gainful employment for various copies of the book have somehow "The tombs are splendid, but the supporters of the right-wing militarists wormed their way into the public li- scores have not been settled. who lost out to reality in the French braries and card catalogs of the nation, "Who killed them? Iedochina and Algerinn colonial wars. including the Library of Congress. "And why?" These types were all young-to-middle- I do not know what happened to the aged rightist playboys of the intelli- shipment of books in Canada, except t isperhaps indicative of the nature gence world, grinning Fascists with that six hundred of them ended up I of the real knowledge of the Ken- souped-up cars and a hand in the till in Bill Turner's basement. It— had nedy assassinations on the part of the of private business deals, of whom asked him at their breakfast tote-h-tote authors of Farewell America that their R— was a specimen. A thinking cult if Turner would like "some copies" of manuscript finally ended on a question among their number, anxious to develop the book. Turner said sure, of course. mark. some ploy that would appeal to de Two months later he received n notice At that, it remained chock-full of an Gaulle, hit upon the black books to from a freight forwarder in San Fran- odd lot of goodies. Stalemated in the at- worm their way into favor. The General cisco that they were holding something tempt to determine to which intelligence was of course very anti-American, but for him. It was a considerable poundage agency to award the by-line, I adopted was known to have achieved something of Farewell America, sent via Montreal a new tactic which, in retrospect, may of a personal rapprochement with Jack to Turner's Mill Valley home. Turner have been counter-productive: I told the Kennedy. whom he liked and who he refused to accept the skid of books, truth. Frontiers Publish was in- was convinced was the murder victim since there was a $282 shipping tag to formed via its Geneva, Paris and Va- of a conspiracy within the United be paid, and he did not feel like sub- duz, Liechtenstein, addresses that Ram- States. General de Gaulle was also ex- sidizing a foreign government to that parts would regretfully not publish its tremely concerned about France's fu- amount. He so notified . book as it would not tell us which brand ture sources of energy, which he saw at wired bark telling him where to pick name of espionage it represented. R--- the mercy of the American and British up money to pay the shipping cost. Fol- said that Frontiers would publish the petroleum cartels. Industrial counter- lowing It—et instructions, Jim Rose book itself in America, as it had suc- espionage, both oil and nuclear, was an went to a Swiss bank in San Francisco cessfully done elsewhere. They pro- important function of French intelli- and got the money. ceeded to print a hard-cover, 418-page gence. The object of the black books, So the ex-F.B.I. man keeps the only English-language edition of Farewell therefore, was to show de Gaulle that known extant stash of the black books America in Belgium which was air- be was right in his views about the next to his lawn mower. It is a slowly freighted to Canada, warehoused and conspiracy to kill Kennedy, and at the dwindling pile, as he is constantly both- prepared for distribution in America. same time create a scandal both in Eu- ered by requests to send copies through For reasons best known to Frontiers rope and the United States by linking the mail. Most of these orders come —a publishing firm which, needless to the hated American oilmen to the as- from bookstores ear college campuses, nay, has ceased to answer its telephones sassination. Neat, no? one shop apparently getting his address —the book was never brought into the There are differences of opinion about from another. He mails out a dozen or United States. I fear now that its fail- the Bensky Theory, but I will refrain. more copies each month, at ;6.95 a pop. ure to surface may have had something If that was the purpose of the black The Los Angeles City Library has five to do with my promise to R— to books, the perpetrators were at least copies. -el "write about" the book when it was published in the United States. I meant that as a promise, not a threat, but they FRANK PERDUE IS CHICKEN! may have interpreted it otherwise. The plot died lingering. A month (Continued from page 117) milk the them, when they are two weeks old. At after the events just described, R----- cows every twelve hours," the same time, the tips of their beaks showed up in California. He telephoned Perdue's chicken business begins at are removed to prevent them from peck- Bill Turner, with whom he had had the breeder farms, where Perdue keeps ing each other. By now, the chicks have no previous contact, Turner was getting about 700,000 laying hens and 70,000 already been moved to one of the 560 ready to fly to New York, but offered escort cockerels. These birds have the broiler farms on Delmarva that Perdue to stop by R—'s hotel on the way to best jobs in chickendom and usually has under contract. the airport. Jim Rose—our supersecret live up to fifteen months, at which point The broiler farms are mainly mom- emissary—was driving Turner to the they give out. The hens start producing and-pop operations. The parent broiler airport, and he joined the meeting. The eggs when they are twenty-two weeks company supplies the chicks and feed, encounter was light on substantive con- old, and reach their peak around thirty supervises and inspects, then returns versation, but the next evening weeks, when they attain an 85-percent for the full-grown broilers after nine called Rose, who had let it slip that he rate, which means 86 eggs for every weeks. The grower works on guarantee was staying in Sausalito, and said that 100 hens every day. Then, of the eggs or percentage, and chickens are gond to he was leaving town but had "a pres- laid, 85 percent have "hatchability." It get into now because they don't take ent" for the gang at Ramparts. Typical- takes twenty-one days in the huge much space. Says Perdue: "A man in •-s ly, although R— was staying at the Chick Master incubator trays for them cotton or tobacco or truck farming, one Fairmont Hotel, the present was in the to hatch, and, it seems, they have a bet- of them, if he has to go out of business hands of the bell captain of the St. ter on-time record than most airlines. now, he has a choice: he can either go Francis Hotel. From the bellboy Rose Chickens still possess air sacs, ves- to work in a factory or he can put in retrieved a can of 16-millimeter film. It tiges of a time thousands of years ago chickens." was a perfect print of the famous Zap- when they could really fly. Now, all that Many contract farms also raise corn ruder film, at that time off limits to the the useless air sacs do is fill up with and soybeans and other crops. Chickens world at large and under lock and key unwanted fluids, making chickens very are just another crop, that's all. But it in the vaults of the National Archives receptive to respiratory disease. As at doesn't take up much space, and the In Washington and at Life magazine, consequence, almost the first thing hu- crop is a wonderfully dependable one. which had paid Zapruder a tidy sum for mans do to live chickens is vaccinate in any given calendar year, the only 174 ESQUIRE; APRIL