The Mystery of the Black Books by Warren Hinckle III

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...summated_ "You can rescue nuns," the Agency with a cheating government and an thatwmald_ic11gLiinwr. it1: ii why had told him. He found himself ambush-primed press in the months .theilussiansisnewabimUkemam shooting up supply boats instead. and years after the Kennedy assas- der of John__E—Kennelly 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 the 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. He 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 nen:a, 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 involved 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 previously clear ground rules, and including one of the secretaries 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 ing paper. So I will be indiscreet. week. He was Jack Carter when for the C.I.A. Ile flew a Douglas he worked in Miami, until later he As the story quickly becomes B-26 out of Miami on itinerant caught up in the whirlpools and became too hot and decided to "kill 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, at the beginning—which, as is the spoilsports in the F.A.A. from in- 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.

128 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 C.I.A., 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 name 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 -riot Iki WO -- 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.) most 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 he 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

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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 knapsack. 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 snow cone of which was graciously declined. The shock waves were equally as paranoia. He 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 C.I.A. 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 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 I 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

130 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: an assassination "team" at Dallas. had never published a book before, "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- ments being quite favorable. This Farewell America was then pub- plication. The messenger who had lished in France in a hard-cover supported our belief that the manu- arrived in New Orleans from Ge- script had been typed on Russian edition by Frontiers. The review in 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 characters. most violent indictment ever writ- representative to Geneva to inspect ten by a man about his country, out Many sections of the book were it in person. non sequiturs which reminded me of love for that country." Not a bad At that, I began to wonder if this notice for a composite. of Groucho Marx's line in Duck were a present from the K.G.B., or Soup: "A child of five would under- Finally, a memo by Jaffee found 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 child of five." The gratuitous a meeting of with disconcerting information, in- the paranoia bureau were aborted cluding a thumbnail sketch of the mention of a 1931 Paris detective when I learned that Garrison had story by an author who used the publisher of Frontiers, one R—, already sent a young volunteer who had taken our man in tow and premonitory pseudonym "Oswald packing off to Europe to collect the Dallas" made at least impish sense. was apparently treating him to all 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- numerous out-of-context references we were after. 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 hunter, whose selected quotations ing the early Sixties. He was in his twenty-five, who had been working thirties, had been in the French merited several vague footnotes with Mark Lane on another assassi- with citations such as "Roy Cohn, army, and had studied for a time nation theory. at Harvard. Jaffee felt he was the at the Stork Club in 1963." Jaffee was told to go to Paris, in- Later, after we had gone scuba key to the preparation of the man- terview James Hepburn, and find uscript and added that R— was diving in the black waters of the out his sources. manuscript's authorship, much of highly placed in French intelli- The answer came from Paris : it gence, specializing in American oil this strangeness was to be cleared is impossible to meet the author. up somewhat, as was the motiva- Interests. The author is a "composite." The individual so described took tion behind a puzzling chapter al- Cables between Jaffee and his leging astonishing Secret Service his thumbnail biographer crawling 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- sassination almost a pushover. The in the line of duty. R— said they 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 on the deficiencies of the Secret at the Myst* Palace and see if he across the Atlantic made only one was busy. He was. Then R— ar- Service, and was obviously prepared thing clear: we were shadowbox- by someone very much on the In- ranged a meeting with Andre Du- ing with a high-level intelligence cret, the head of the French Secret side. The mystery book provided a operation—although not necessarily lengthy analysis of the demonstra- Service. Ducret was most gracious, the K.G.B. French intelligence was and told the young American that bly superior security arrangements suddenly in the running, and even of other nations, particularly he was ducking down the hall to see 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- the lives of their chief executives. say hello for him. The Secret Ser- torial offices" of the publisher, Jaf- vice Chief returned shortly and There was a puzzling hurrah for fee found himself at one point in Daniel P. Moynihan, a professional handed Jaffee de Gaulle's card, with 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- far as I knew had zero to do with General: ple he had met in Paris told him GENERAL DE GAULLE guarding the President: "Only that financial interests were in- Daniel P. Moynihan, a former long- Je suis trio sensible d la volved. He even heard that the Ken- confiance que vows m'exprimez. shoreman, had some idea of such nedy family itself had underwritten things." Before Jaffee left, the Secret Ser- 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. was that of John F. Kennedy as the tant his mission was and how Farewell America was published France appreciated good guy-golden boy of American in Germany, with fanfare but with- his efforts. Jaf- democracy, whose honest policies fee was duly impressed, despite the 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 and corrupt C.I.A. and its billion- what he was doing. book was syndicated in Bad, Ger- R— indicated that the docu- aire oilmen kingmakers that he was many's largest daily newspaper, accordingly snuffed. But by whom? ments on which the book was based which is owned by Axel Springer, were all (Continued on page 170 )

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dozen emery boards smoothing 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 1.11) locked up man at the endurance game. 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- R— 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 current 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 nubbin 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- aeons from the icy waters. The atmo- were offered .vodka before wine at in- 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- however, and even Ginsberg kept on his There were also some noisy cross lice would he watching him carefully. signals indicating that the book's brew- anti-war T-shirt, which said: "Under Bensky found R— to be a very av- Nixon 4,500,000 tons of bombs, equal to masters might be in the private sector erage-looking Frenchman with very bad of international espionage. A dandruff- 227 Hiroshimas." No one else so much teeth, a chain smoker of Gitanes, a as untied a shoelace. Allen looked dis- collared crew of former French spies, 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- and happy at seeing his point proved. apple that had been French intelligence 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- observed, "to act the part of an orgiast War II, had been hired en bloc by the ments and no visible means of support. French oil cartel. The path of flab as more and more tons of bombs fall on He was an expert in "pillow-talk in- Indochli,c. I think the Government has around their midsections was strength- telligence," having been assigned by ' ened by the addition of Marseilles thugs created conditions that are unencourag- French intelligence, with its concern ing to full sexual expression." and floating assassins to their number, for industrial counterespionage, to in- creating a relatively sophisticated and filtrate the social circles of the oil in- vicious chorus line of Harry Palmers in Where are we going, Walt Whitman?! dustry in New York and Texas by se- The doors close in an hour./ Which way berets ready to do whatever was neces- 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 "A Supermarket in California." bigger share of the world oil lamp, them," the Frenchman told Bensky. Standard Oil be damned. Despite several hours and several The French intelligence agent came meetings with Ginsberg, I still found it This was something by the way of 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- beard was pointing. He plays, after all, S.D.E.C.E. itself assumed as a prime voyeur and fettishist about being an part of its raison d'être the protection so many roles, some of them serious. orgy freak. He sat in Paris sidewalk There is the disciple of Whitman who and furtherance of French petroleum cafes ostentatiously picking his teeth, interests. (It remains an object of bar wants desperately to be taken seriously and otherwise acting the part of Terry- as a poet. There is the clown who put bets in Paris whether it was the 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- poster of the Sixties. There is the angry French oil agents who erased Enrico er in a bordello catering to civil ser- Mattei, the Italian oil magnate whose prophet, the Jeremiah who warns of vants. He would preface intimate ac- pollution and repression. And there is North African holdings encroached on counts of the sexual proclivities of French vital interests, and who con- the youth hero who has already sur- prominent politicians with the phrase, vived several youth movements to be- veniently perished in a plane crash near "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 hairy. "He began with the muse of markings of that other political plane gritty about several prominent Amer- crash of General Sikorski off Gibraltar hatred," wrote Alan Harrington "about ican politicians and their boyfriends. a Ginsberg-modeled character in his in 1943, in which Winston Churchill was 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 viled his times and been honored for it, pin.) At any rate, such types as these, 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 strangeness and become attractive." to make the Moroccan leftist Ben Barka 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 "How do you describe yourself, Al- the face of the earth in 1965, had the incarnation, and instead maneuvered financing if not the suavity (that ap- len?" the Frenchman into successive cat-and- "I'm a good, solid, steady worker. parently was R—'s function) to palm 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 Bensky's choice. be a good guy." Hf braries of the world. This was some- On the third night, he beat the French- thing they might wish to do inasmuch 170 ESQUIRE: APRIL

as the book contained between its hard finally coughed up Volume Four, with covers considerable dirt on the Ameri- "personal friendships" developed with- the names and_ numbers of the players in the Kennedy inner circle, R can oil industry, including the not very in the Dallas assassination bowl, and if nice suggestion that the kingpins of would not say with whom, it had come 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 knock off the President of the United gence, which had made this expert use 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 ness takes place in some factual con- about the mystery of the black books make a terrific Ramparts cover. except who did it. text. The French are not the only ones Under prodding, the proprietorship of who have found other uses for old spies. Bensky returned from the Paris talks Frontiers Publishing came clean as to with little more substantial than a Everywhere, former intelligence agents their most extraordinary source: the for hire constitute a black belt of over- fervent dislike for the other side. When 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 world is made all the more dread- the long-awaited fourth volume, which 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 aware of the existence of this private here is what it said: 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- that other half-world of officially sani- "The choice made by the people of ner councils of the Kennedy family. The the United States on November 5th, tized clandestine intelligence work and chapter was based on a private, unpub- subversion. 1968, will have profound and far-reach- lished and undistributed memorandum ing consequences for the life, liberty prepared for Attorney General Robert We never learned for certain wheth- and happiness of the universe. The peo- Kennedy after• his brother's murder. ples of the earth are awaiting new de- er R-- worked for the French Bobby had convened a select committee intelligence, with or without its K.G.B. cisions. The man of November 5th can- 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 vision of French private intelligence, world. If he chooses to ignore them, he the Secret Service, independent of the will only delay their consequences. If he or, for that matter, for some other work of other federal agencies such as squad of Flying Dutchmen. Someone is prepared to confront them, he can the F.B.I. or the C.I.A. overcome them. substantial was paying his whoring and Bobby suspected someone had got to typesetting bills. He admitted to being "John and Robert Kennedy had the 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 him. All his identities were phony. He break down the doors to the future. 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. French magazine. But in his earnest ef- confederates of the traditions on which forts to get This committee's report excoriated they infringed. Ramparts to publish his the Secret Service for organizational thing, R-- did clear up several of the "When John Fitzgerald Kennedy's and functional deficiencies, R— said, minor mysteries about the black books. head exploded, it was for some the but cleared it of involvement in any He said the extraordinarydetail about signal for toasts. The funeral did not the C.I.A. had come from the files of the plot. Once he was assured, Bobby ap- go unnoticed. One November morning parently lost all interest in the investi- the cannon boomed, the Panama Canal S.D.E.C.E., which of course kept tabs gation. He didn't even turn the report on the competition. The information in was closed, flags flew at half-mast, and over to the Warren Commission, al- even Andrei the book about the K.C.B. had come though it Was far more critical of the Gromyko wept. Adlai Ste- from the same source; he denied it venson declared that ho would bear the came directly from the K.G.B. The nas- Secret Service than the Warren Report. sorrow of his death till the day of his ty details about the American petro- This astonishing memorandum had own, and the Special Forces added a leum industry were the product of the lain hidden somewhere in the file cabi- black band to their green berets. Almost same files, and from R—'s own years nets of Camelot ever since. Through five years passed, and another bullet of spying and snookering his way into the inner social circles of the filthy oil rich. He also explained the derivation of BAD TIMES SONG James Hepburn, the pseudo-author of Farewell America. James was from the Where is my rat, my rake, French "Paiute," and Hepburn was added in tribute to at least one of My poultry seasoning and my stick? R--'s favorite cinema actresses. Where is the heart I had who flung your hat On the basis of this less than com- Over the millstream years back? plete information, Ramparts purchased an option to publish Farewell America Where is my tail and purpose strait in America, paying for• it with a post- dated check drawn on a bank with For which I fought and won with luck which we no longer had an account. I And where my kin of shining hue had never bounced a check on an in- The dark put up? 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 Bensky urging him to hurry up and make haste When the war goes on, the price goes up. so we could go to( press with James Whose treasuries may I sack . Hepburn's exclusive were in that grey And who would give me ransom should I try? 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 hanging tough and trying to find out Besides, they do not fit just who had gone to all this expense The answers given by the great. and effort to bloody up the good name A snake under every stone, of the C.I.A. and eminent American oil- men. In every suitcase and in every bed, There being no Geneva Convention of publishing, I figured that if the culprits The thing to do is not to ask but act. —JEAN GARRIGUE 172 ESQUIRE: 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 Bensky 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? Indochina and Algerian 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 is perhaps 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. R— had nedy assassinations on the part of the of private business deals, of whom asked him at their breakfast tete-a-tete 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 a 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 Publishing 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 R—. R— book as it would not tell us which brand ture sources of energy, which he saw at name of espionage it represented. R wired back telling him where to pick 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 R—'s instructions, Jim Rose book itself in America, as it had suc- espionage, both oil and nuclear, was an cessfully done elsewhere. They pro- went to a Swiss bank in San Francisco 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 A merica known extant stash of the black books in Belgium which was air- he 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- For reasons best known to Frontiers ered by requests to send copies through 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 near college campuses, say, has ceased to answer its telephones sassination. Neat, no? —the book was never brought into the one shop apparently getting his address 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. ure to surface may have had something more copies each month, at $6.95 a pop. 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 "write about" the book when it was copies. * published in the United States. I meant that as a promise, not a threat, but they may have interpreted it otherwise. FRANK PERDUE IS CHICKEN! 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." showed up in California. He telephoned the same time, the tips of their beaks 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 no previous contact. Turner was getting ing each other. By now, the chicks have 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 to stop by R—'s hotel on the way to broiler farms on Delmarva that Perdue best jobs in chickendom and usually has under contract. the airport. Jim Rose—our supersecret live up to fifteen months, at which point emissary—was driving Turner to the The broiler farms are mainly mom- 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 encounter was light on substantive con- company supplies the chicks and feed, old, and reach their peak around thirty supervises and inspects, then returns versation, but the next evening R weeks, when they attain an 85-percent called Rose, who had let it slip that he for the full-grown broilers after nine rate, which means 85 eggs for every weeks. The grower works on guarantee was staying in Sausalito, and said that 100 hens every day. Then, of the eggs he was leaving town but had "a pres- or percentage, and chickens are good to 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 ly, although R— was staying at the much space. Says Perdue: "A man in 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- hands of the bell captain of the St. of them, if he has to go out of business 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- retrieved a can of 16-millimeter film. It to work in a factory or he can put in 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 ruder film, at that time off limits to the Many contract farms also raise corn the useless air sacs do is fill up with and soybeans and other crops. Chickeni world at large and under lock and key unwanted fluids, making chickens very in the vaults of the National Archives are just another crop, that's all. But it receptive to respiratory disease. As a doesn't take up much space, and the in Washington and at Life magazine, consequence, almost the first thing hu- which had paid Zapruder a tidy sum for crop is a wonderfully dependable one. mans do to live chickens is vaccinate In any given calendar year, the only 174 ESQUIRE: APRIL