Angelic Visions

Archaeologist: Mountain Meadows Massacre graves found in Utah

Nichole Osinski

The (St. George, Utah) Spectrum

September 20, 2015

 

Photo one-https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/20/mountain-meadows-massacre-site/72525842/

 

ST. GEORGE, Utah -- An archaeologist from California believes he may have found the two mass grave sites that hold the bodies of men, women and children murdered in the Mountain Meadows Massacre in southwest Utah in 1857. However, the graves aren't on land the Mormon church purchased in order to memorialize the victims in one of the darkest chapters in Utah's pioneer history.

Everett Bassett said it took him about 20 minutes to discover the two mass graves sites in August 2014. After speaking with descendants of the victims, he presented his findings on Sept. 12 at the Mountain Meadows Massacre Foundation’s meeting in Harrison, Ark.

Bassett said that after reading U.S. Army documents from 1859 about the burials and visiting the site previously thought to hold the graves, he determined the current burial locations were incorrect.

The massacre was the center of controversy almost from the beginning, a violent culmination of the friction between members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other pioneers at the time.

Historians have pieced together the details of the attack, which took part during a territorial conflict later called the Utah War.

It occurred on Sept. 11, 1857, about 30 miles north of St. George.

The Baker-Fancher party, made up mostly of Arkansas emigrants, was camped in the meadows on their way westward when nearby militia leaders made plans to attack the wagon train and blame the attack on Native Americans, the local Paiute Indians. Some of the militiamen tried to disguise themselves by wearing Native American dress.

photo two-https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/20/mountain-meadows-massacre-site/72525842/

After a five-day siege near Cedar City, Utah, militia leaders deceived the emigrants into coming out. Maj. John D. Lee offered safe passage if they would surrender and follow them north.

Escorted by the armed militiamen, the party walked about a mile before the Mormon militia turned and attacked, killing approximately 120 men, women and children and sparing only 17 children younger than seven.

The Mormon church, which expressed "profound regret" for the massacre in 2007, owns the 800-plus acres of land where the incident occurred and erected a monument in 1990 to the victims. The property owned by the church was also believed to house the two grave sites.

Phil Bolinger, Mountain Meadows Massacre Foundation president, said the church had told the foundation that there would not be much left of the erected graves on the property due to damage and erosion over the years.

“We never actually believed that,” Bolinger said. “We knew that the military built a sepulcher or cairn and that they were still out there.”

Using the Army records, Bassett was able to locate the California/Old Spanish Trail, which led him to a piece of private property that is not owned by the church. Bassett said the massacre site is correct but after comparing the historic records to the Mormon church-owned property, he realized the burial locations were marked in the wrong places.

“I was looking around and realized I was actually standing on top of this massive pile of rocks down in this ravine,” Bassett said. “The measurements taken by the Army were so accurate that when I followed the map using surveying equipment I was like 2 feet from it.”

The first grave site Bassett located was for the murdered men and boys. He found the grave for the women and children about 357 yards to the north of the first site. Both graves are made of granite stones piled about 30 feet across and about 6 feet tall to form rectangular sepulchers, Bassett said.

 

Though the graves will have to be exhumed to confirm their authenticity, Bassett is positive the locations are correct. 

The Mountain Meadows Massacre Foundation is trying to come to an agreement with the land owner for conservation of the sites and wants to give them national monument status.The Mormon church-owned site was designated as a national historic landmark in 2011.

“It’s the highest order of federal protection out there and that has been our goal from the beginning,” Bolinger said. “We want to honor and respect those that were lost at Mountain Meadows in one of the worst tragedies in the westward expansion."

Contributing: David DeMille reprint in USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/20/mountain-meadows-massacre-site/72525842/

The American Uknown Child: Joseph Augustus Zarelli

      ON a cold day in February 1957 a box was found by the side of Susquehanna Road, in the Fox Chase area, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…Inside were the remains of a small boy. He remained unidentified for 65 years…In a world where true crime draws audiences by the millions, the tragic story of an unidentified boy still brings sorrow and empathy to our hearts. Warning graphic photos

photo 1

      The boy was found in a sparsely wooded area, home to rabbits and muskrats. The road was empty of civilization save one building. It was a religious compound called The Good Shepherd School for Wayward Girls. The school was set back from the road and on the other side of the road, it was used by residents as a dumping ground. A bassinet box with a small body inside might go unnoticed. Except two people in a day found the box. One was a trapper of the small animals that lived in the area. He did not report it for fear of his traps being confiscated. The second, on February 24, 1957 was a college student Frederick Benonis. He noticed the box had writing on it that said, “Furniture, Fragile, do not open with a knife” The man saw there was a small body in the box, he did not initially report it.

      Benonis did not report it because he often went up that road, and stalked the girls at the school, but that night there was a story about a missing 4-year-old girl named Mary Barker. So Benonis told his priest who advised him to call the police. That is how America’s unknown child was found. It was February 25, 1957 when the small child was brought to the attention of the police. Mary Barker was found trapped and deceased in a hall closet, so now who was the boy in the box?

       He had brownish hair with a shabby buzz cut. There were clumps of his hair in the box with him. It appeared his hair was cut after he died. His toes and fingernails were recently clipped. His body was clean, his toes and fingers were wrinkled, suggesting he had been in the water.  There was a blue men’s cap in the box with the blanket wrapped around his body. Farther away from the scene was a tan scarf and yellow shirt in a size that would have fit him. Though it was not determined they were his.

photo 2

       The cause of his death was blunt force trauma to his head and neck. He had been beaten to death, there were bruises on his face, arms, and legs. The coroner determined the wounds were all inflicted at the same time. He was 3’4” tall and about 30 lbs. It was determined his hair was cut after his death to possibly conceal his identity. He was malnourished and appeared to suffer from neglect and abuse. After the autopsy it was discovered that he had surgical procedures besides his injuries:

1. A cut down scar, used by doctors to insert a cannula. A cannula is a thin tube used to insert medicine, or to do an infusion. It is an emergency procedure. There were scars on his chest and his groin area, they were evidence of a medical procedure. He had other scars, but they were more injurious. All were healed. That is except the blows to his body that took his life.
2. One of his eyes glowed a blue color, like a dye had been put into it. It was used to determine injury to the retina. They hoped he may have seen an ophthalmologist and if they could identify the doctor, they could identify him.

It was determined he was 4-6 years old. He was malnourished and was not vaccinated for smallpox. It would have been common at that time. He had not eaten for hours before he died, but a brownish liquid was in his throat, like he was vomiting it up. He had no broken bones.

       The police put up posters with pictures of his face at death, looking for clues and even dressed him up deceased for photographs to help identify him. He was never identified. In 1998 he was exhumed to retrieve DNA in hopes of identifying him. He was given a more proper burial, and the police that worked on his case provided him with a headstone and buried him in Ivy Hill Cemetery. He was not just famous in Philadelphia but in the whole nation and they called him “America’s unknown child”. He is still buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery.

courtesy of find a grave

      There was an eyewitness who drove down Susquehanna Rd. on February 24. A motorist saw a woman and a boy standing at the back of a car digging in the trunk. He thought they might have car trouble and slowed down; he asked if they needed help. The two stopped what they were doing, turned around by the trunk and covered the license plate with their bodies and said nothing…They just stood there. The man eventually just left them there. When he told the police where it happened, it was 200 feet from where the body was found.

There were a few theories as to how he came to Susquehanna Road, but one of the most eerie and seemingly accurate was revealed by a young woman known only as M for Martha or Mary. A psychiatrist from Cincinnati, Ohio contacted the Philadelphia police and said one of his clients knew of the boy. She had suffered much trauma as a child and did not want to come forward…

Eventually she did and told this story:

 Her mother was an abusive woman and had bought the boy from a man in 1954. He was known as Johnathon to M. He was at that time very young. He was mentally handicapped and could not speak or take care of himself. The mother abused him both physically and sexually. The boy became sicker. He lived in the basement of their house for two years and did not see anyone else but the family. His hair grew long from lack of care, and he was malnourished.

She said her mother killed him out of anger as she fed him baked beans and he vomited them up. She hit his head against a wall as punishment. She tried to bathe him, and he died in the bathtub from the abuse. She cut his hair, and nails and took him out to an area known as Fox Chase to get rid of the body. As they were on the road a passing car asked them if they had car trouble as they were getting him out of the trunk. M was with her mother while disposing of the body. They found a cardboard box and put his body into the box.

It is believed this story is the correct origin of the boy in the box. It matched so many details of the boy as determined by the autopsy…M stopped talking to police after that. America’s unknown child remained that until 2022. Through DNA genetic family testing, both now deceased parents were identified.

     Betsy was a pretty teen-age Catholic girl who loved dancing to Frank Sinatra records in her Tioga neighborhood in the 1950s. She graduated in 1950 and shortly after gave birth to a baby girl. Because she was unmarried the baby was put up for adoption. It is thought a Catholic organization arranged it. I found it interesting that the school across the road was a Catholic organization…Betsy would eventually go on to marry the manager John J. Plunkett of the famous Goldman Theater in Philadelphia, but before that she would meet Gus. 

     In the spring of 1952 Betsy met Gus. Gus was the child of Italian immigrants, a stone mason in West Philly. When Elizabeth Mary (Betsy)Abel and Augustus (Gus) Zarelli got together, they had a baby named Joseph Augustus Zarelli on January 23, 1953. He would gone to become famous because of his death. Since it was the second baby for Betsy it was thought maybe she put Joseph up for adoption too. From the journey his life took, I would say something else happened to Joseph. By February 25, 1957 Joseph Zarelli’s small lifeless body was found by the side of the road in the Fox Chase area of Philadelphia.

     In her obituary in 1991 it shows she had three living children…Barbara Ferrigno, Robert, and Kathleen Plunkett. Gus was five years older than Betsy and did not marry until 1960 to Cynthia Pashko and went on to have 4 additional living children and he passed away in 2014. It was family DNA in 2022 that identified that the remains of Joseph Augustus Zarelli was in fact, America’s unknown child.

Photo 4- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joseph_Augustus_Zarelli

Photos 1 and 2 from Natasha Mullins, medium.com

1. Mullins, Natasha, (2021), Decades after he was found there is still hope for American’s unknown child, com, https://medium.com/the-mystery-box/decades-after-he-was-found-there-is-still-hope-for-americas-unknown-child-678ce17ff7ec#
2. Nark, Jason, Ruderman, Wendy, Marin, Max, The biological parents of the boy in the box Josephy Augustus Zarelli, com, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-biological-parents-of-the-boy-in-the-box-joseph-augustus-zarelli-have-finally-been-identified/ar-AA16HuXa
3. Obituaries courtesy of Ancestry.com, and Newspapers.com

The American Uknown Child: Joseph Augustus Zarelli

      ON a cold day in February 1957 a box was found by the side of Susquehanna Road, in the Fox Chase area, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…Inside were the remains of a small boy. He remained unidentified for 65 years…In a world where true crime draws audiences by the millions, the tragic story of an unidentified boy still brings sorrow and empathy to our hearts. Warning graphic photos

photo 1

      The boy was found in a sparsely wooded area, home to rabbits and muskrats. The road was empty of civilization save one building. It was a religious compound called The Good Shepherd School for Wayward Girls. The school was set back from the road and on the other side of the road, it was used by residents as a dumping ground. A bassinet box with a small body inside might go unnoticed. Except two people in a day found the box. One was a trapper of the small animals that lived in the area. He did not report it for fear of his traps being confiscated. The second, on February 24, 1957 was a college student Frederick Benonis. He noticed the box had writing on it that said, “Furniture, Fragile, do not open with a knife” The man saw there was a small body in the box, he did not initially report it.

      Benonis did not report it because he often went up that road, and stalked the girls at the school, but that night there was a story about a missing 4-year-old girl named Mary Barker. So Benonis told his priest who advised him to call the police. That is how America’s unknown child was found. It was February 25, 1957 when the small child was brought to the attention of the police. Mary Barker was found trapped and deceased in a hall closet, so now who was the boy in the box?

       He had brownish hair with a shabby buzz cut. There were clumps of his hair in the box with him. It appeared his hair was cut after he died. His toes and fingernails were recently clipped. His body was clean, his toes and fingers were wrinkled, suggesting he had been in the water.  There was a blue men’s cap in the box with the blanket wrapped around his body. Farther away from the scene was a tan scarf and yellow shirt in a size that would have fit him. Though it was not determined they were his.

photo 2

       The cause of his death was blunt force trauma to his head and neck. He had been beaten to death, there were bruises on his face, arms, and legs. The coroner determined the wounds were all inflicted at the same time. He was 3’4” tall and about 30 lbs. It was determined his hair was cut after his death to possibly conceal his identity. He was malnourished and appeared to suffer from neglect and abuse. After the autopsy it was discovered that he had surgical procedures besides his injuries:

1. A cut down scar, used by doctors to insert a cannula. A cannula is a thin tube used to insert medicine, or to do an infusion. It is an emergency procedure. There were scars on his chest and his groin area, they were evidence of a medical procedure. He had other scars, but they were more injurious. All were healed. That is except the blows to his body that took his life.
2. One of his eyes glowed a blue color, like a dye had been put into it. It was used to determine injury to the retina. They hoped he may have seen an ophthalmologist and if they could identify the doctor, they could identify him.

It was determined he was 4-6 years old. He was malnourished and was not vaccinated for smallpox. It would have been common at that time. He had not eaten for hours before he died, but a brownish liquid was in his throat, like he was vomiting it up. He had no broken bones.

       The police put up posters with pictures of his face at death, looking for clues and even dressed him up deceased for photographs to help identify him. He was never identified. In 1998 he was exhumed to retrieve DNA in hopes of identifying him. He was given a more proper burial, and the police that worked on his case provided him with a headstone and buried him in Ivy Hill Cemetery. He was not just famous in Philadelphia but in the whole nation and they called him “America’s unknown child”. He is still buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery.

courtesy of find a grave

      There was an eyewitness who drove down Susquehanna Rd. on February 24. A motorist saw a woman and a boy standing at the back of a car digging in the trunk. He thought they might have car trouble and slowed down; he asked if they needed help. The two stopped what they were doing, turned around by the trunk and covered the license plate with their bodies and said nothing…They just stood there. The man eventually just left them there. When he told the police where it happened, it was 200 feet from where the body was found.

There were a few theories as to how he came to Susquehanna Road, but one of the most eerie and seemingly accurate was revealed by a young woman known only as M for Martha or Mary. A psychiatrist from Cincinnati, Ohio contacted the Philadelphia police and said one of his clients knew of the boy. She had suffered much trauma as a child and did not want to come forward…

Eventually she did and told this story:

 Her mother was an abusive woman and had bought the boy from a man in 1954. He was known as Johnathon to M. He was at that time very young. He was mentally handicapped and could not speak or take care of himself. The mother abused him both physically and sexually. The boy became sicker. He lived in the basement of their house for two years and did not see anyone else but the family. His hair grew long from lack of care, and he was malnourished.

She said her mother killed him out of anger as she fed him baked beans and he vomited them up. She hit his head against a wall as punishment. She tried to bathe him, and he died in the bathtub from the abuse. She cut his hair, and nails and took him out to an area known as Fox Chase to get rid of the body. As they were on the road a passing car asked them if they had car trouble as they were getting him out of the trunk. M was with her mother while disposing of the body. They found a cardboard box and put his body into the box.

It is believed this story is the correct origin of the boy in the box. It matched so many details of the boy as determined by the autopsy…M stopped talking to police after that. America’s unknown child remained that until 2022. Through DNA genetic family testing, both now deceased parents were identified.

     Betsy was a pretty teen-age Catholic girl who loved dancing to Frank Sinatra records in her Tioga neighborhood in the 1950s. She graduated in 1950 and shortly after gave birth to a baby girl. Because she was unmarried the baby was put up for adoption. It is thought a Catholic organization arranged it. I found it interesting that the school across the road was a Catholic organization…Betsy would eventually go on to marry the manager John J. Plunkett of the famous Goldman Theater in Philadelphia, but before that she would meet Gus. 

     In the spring of 1952 Betsy met Gus. Gus was the child of Italian immigrants, a stone mason in West Philly. When Elizabeth Mary (Betsy)Abel and Augustus (Gus) Zarelli got together, they had a baby named Joseph Augustus Zarelli on January 23, 1953. He would gone to become famous because of his death. Since it was the second baby for Betsy it was thought maybe she put Joseph up for adoption too. From the journey his life took, I would say something else happened to Joseph. By February 25, 1957 Joseph Zarelli’s small lifeless body was found by the side of the road in the Fox Chase area of Philadelphia.

     In her obituary in 1991 it shows she had three living children…Barbara Ferrigno, Robert, and Kathleen Plunkett. Gus was five years older than Betsy and did not marry until 1960 to Cynthia Pashko and went on to have 4 additional living children and he passed away in 2014. It was family DNA in 2022 that identified that the remains of Joseph Augustus Zarelli was in fact, America’s unknown child.

Photo 4- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joseph_Augustus_Zarelli

1. Mullins, Natasha, (2021), Decades after he was found there is still hope for American’s unknown child, com, https://medium.com/the-mystery-box/decades-after-he-was-found-there-is-still-hope-for-americas-unknown-child-678ce17ff7ec#
2. Nark, Jason, Ruderman, Wendy, Marin, Max, The biological parents of the boy in the box Josephy Augustus Zarelli, com, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-biological-parents-of-the-boy-in-the-box-joseph-augustus-zarelli-have-finally-been-identified/ar-AA16HuXa
3. Obituaries courtesy of Ancestry.com, and Newspapers.com

Get very specific with what you want....

 

 

photo-https://www.livescience.com/universe-machine-probes-dark-matter.html

Be Extremely Specific in what you ask the Universe for 

 

Posted on Reddit @ r/getmotivated

Posted by

u/Dpmotivates

2 hours ago

 

 

 

Be Extremely Specific in what you ask the Universe for [Article]

 

Have you ever heard the saying "be careful what you wish for"? Well, when it comes to manifesting your desires and asking the universe for what you want, it's not just about being careful - it's about being extremely specific. The universe is listening, but it can only give you what you ask for. Here are my 5 Reasons why it is important that we are specific with our goals

1. You get a sense of clarity - When it comes to asking the Universe for something, specificity is even more crucial. The Universe responds to our thoughts and desires, but it doesn't always interpret them in the way we intended. If we're not clear about what we want, we can end up manifesting something that isn't aligned with our true desires. By taking the time to really think about what we want and spell it out in detail, we gain a better understanding of ourselves and our true desires. This clarity can help us to make better decisions and take actions that are more aligned with our goals.

2. You have a sense of motivation - While clarity is one benefit of being specific in our requests to the Universe, motivation is another important factor that can come into play. When we have a clear and specific goal in mind, it can serve as a powerful motivator to take action and make progress towards that goal. For example, if we have a vague desire to "be more successful," it can be difficult to know where to start or how to measure our progress. But if we get specific and ask the Universe for a promotion at work, or to land a specific client for our business, we now have a clear goal to work towards. This can give us a sense of purpose and direction, which can help to increase our motivation and drive to succeed.

3. You get better at making decisions - Asking the Universe for specific outcomes can also help us to become better decision-makers. When we have a clear goal or desire in mind, we can evaluate our options and make decisions based on whether they will bring us closer to or further from that goal. By focusing on what we truly want and need, we can make choices that bring us closer to our desired outcomes and align with our values and priorities.

4. You get to measure your progress - Another benefit of being specific in our requests to the Universe is that it allows us to measure our progress towards our desired outcomes. When we have a clear and specific goal in mind, we can track our progress and see how far we have come towards achieving that goal. Measuring our progress can provide a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment as we move closer towards our goals. It can also help us to identify any areas where we may need to make adjustments or change our approach in order to achieve our desired outcome.

5. You have a sense of accomplishment - When we have a clear and specific goal in mind, we know exactly what we are working towards, and when we finally achieve it, we can experience a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Moreover, when we achieve a specific goal, we can use that experience to build our confidence and self-belief. We can look back at our accomplishments and know that we are capable of achieving great things when we set our minds to it. This can help us to approach future challenges with a sense of optimism and excitement, knowing that we have the ability to succeed.

What are you manifesting at the moment? Are you being clearly specific on what you want?

The Volkswagen Spy: American's cold war story about espionage

      In 1961, Marvin Makinen was a chemistry student at Free University in West Berlin, Germany. He pulled up to the border crossing between West and East Berlin and told them, “I am about to begin a weeks-long road trip through the U.S.S.R.” (Chapple, 2021) was in the Ukraine taking a photo of what the Soviets determined was a military object. So, he was arrested at Kyiv.

 Photo one

   Before he stopped at the border, he had being engaged by American Intelligence to travel through the Soviet country side as a tourist to gather military and civilian structure information for the U.S. government.

      Though he appeared like a benign student, the Soviets were watching his every move as he drove through Ukrainian countryside. He was arrested in Kyiv and imprisoned in a Soviet prison. The penalty in USSR at that time for his crime was imprisonment or death by shooting. A body belt with film, a notebook and a copy book with intelligences records were taken from him at his arrest.

  Photo two

       Makinen (Also referred to as MacKinnon by Soviets) was tried by a closed military tribunal and sentenced to 8 years in a Soviet prison. There was an article in the NY Times stating, “The Soviet Foreign Ministry made a protest at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow against what it described as the continuing use by the U.S. intelligence agencies to use tourists for espionage in the Soviet Union.” (Topping, 1961) Though he only served 2 years in Vladimir Prison, one year was in solitary confinement. Then moved to a labor camp called Mordovian ASSR (autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic). It is the same as an oblast or close to what we in the U.S. call states, Canadians call provinces. Makinen and Rev. Walter Ciszek were later traded to the U.S for two Soviet spies.

  Photo three

Makinen went back to work in the U.S. upon return. During WWII he was sent to Budapest and worked on a committee in the Swedish foreign ministry to save Raoul Wallenberg’s life. Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Jews from death, but Wallenberg was arrested on January 17, 1945 and disappeared. There was a big controversy when Wallenberg was brought to Moscow and was said to have died in a Soviet prison, and several inmates of Vladimir prison testified he was there in the 1950s.  Makinen found staff members who identified Wallenberg from photographs and Makinen determined he was under special treatment in the prison. Sweden declared him dead in abstenia dated for 1952. It is said he rescued over 100,000 jews but that is a story for another time. Makinen continued to work on his case as part of his life’s work.

 Photo 5- copy of Soviet investigation in Ukraine of Marvin Makinen.

Makinen is still thriving to this day at 83, is married, has two children and at least one grandchild. He has a PhD from University of Oxford, and is still the president of an organization called the “Independent Investigation in Raoul Wallenberg’s Fate, Inc.”

Citations

Photo one-https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kgb-american-spy-captured-volkswagen/31621210.html

Photo two-https://sofmag.com/how-the-kgb-caught-americas-volkswagen-spy/

Photo three-https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-marvin-makinen-1939-namerican-professor-photographed-with-his-mother-95872560.html

Chapple, Amos, (2021), How the K.G.B. caught America’s ‘Volkswagen Spy’, Radio free Europe, https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kgb-american-spy-captured-volkswagen/31621210.html

Chapple, Amos, (2021) How the K.G.B. caught America’s ‘Volkswagen Spy’; A story of cold war espionage, Soldier of fortune, https://sofmag.com/how-the-kgb-caught-americas-volkswagen-spy/

Topping, Seymour, (September 5, 1961), Soviet jails U.S. tourist as spy; to try him as a western agent, NY Times, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/09/05/97243631.html?auth=login-smartlock&pageNumber=1

Hacienda Arms Apartments: Hollywood and the Sunset Strip

      They called it the “house of Francis” in the 1930’s. A luxurious Mediterranean style hotel owned by the Hollywood studios to house temperamental Hollywood artists and their decadent lifestyles. The Hacienda Arms Hotel (aka Coronet apartments) was located on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. That parcel of land was bought in 1926 by Alexander R. Gallos and within a year the Hacienda Arms was finished. It cost e parcel of land, on what would become the Sunset Strip, was purchased by Alexander R. Gallos in 1926. Less than one year later, the building, which was designed by architect Charles Sherman Cobb, was complete and ready to make its debut. By 1927 it opened its doors to the Hollywood elite, a few mobsters and the artists who lived there. It originally resembled an Italian villa, but The Hacienda arms featured luxury living with all the amenities.

Photo One-White building on the right

      The Hacienda offered clients/residents the experience of being among the nouveau riche of Hollywood. The apartments had either four or six rooms which according to the needs of the residents were furnished or unfurnished. It also had housekeeping and laundry services. It housed celebrities like Loretta Young, Jeannette McDonald, and Marie Dressler. Marie Dressler won an academy award for best actress in 1931 for her role in Min and Bill. `

       In 1935 there was a murder in the building. On April 25, 1935, Paul Wharton, a dress designer who lived with his mother was murdered, shot in their apartment. The media coverage created a scintillating tale about sex and deceit. Billy Williams shot Paul Ivar Wharton, and Henry Bolte. Then he turned the gun on himself. It was determined by the police that the motive was monies owed by both Bolte and Wharton. The story became more sensationalized because of the tale underneath. The stranger men blog will come out later this week. Paul was a gay person at a time where it was not accepted nor permitted in society. This tale seems to have as much to do with Paul’s sexuality as his financial issues.

Photo 2 Hacienda Arms 1978

      In the next four years another scandal would break out. Not only did the building cater to the stars of Hollywood, but also their appetites. In 1939 Lee Francis was arrested for running brothels around the L.A. area. Francis insisted that she had been involved in the “industry” but had retired and left the business behind. Francis was accused of running the classiest brothel on the Sunset Strip at the Hacienda Arms Hotel. She allegedly catered to the likes of Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy (who was once almost banned from the brothel), and Errol Flynn. The same allegations revealed women used her services. The “House of Francis” had the prettiest women in town. Women like Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow spent time with the women. Harlow would take the women home with her and was accused of having a rough sexual appetite. MGM was said to have an account with “House of Francis” under an alias of course. Francis had a good relationship with the police and politicians at the time with bribes of up to 40% of her take.

Photo three- Lee Francis

The building was also sold that year to Phil Goldstone and changed its name to the Coronet Apartments. Within the next year Ciro’s club opened close by and during the 1940s and 1950’s it was a hotspot for celebrities and like Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart. If you were photographed there, Hedda Hopper or some other Hollywood columnist would provide the free gossip/publicity.

The apartments were sold many times between 1940 and the 1970’s. In the late 1970s Rod Stewart bought the Coronet apartments with a partner to renovate the entire building. The partnership split up and the build went empty for a time, home to squatters and derelicts. 1983 Rod Stewart was robbed at gunpoint and his Porsche Carrera stolen. The building then mysteriously burned down in 1983. Before the fire, Westcap Financial Group had agreed to purchase the building for $4.2 million dollars (Citron, 1983). They went on with the sale and renovated the property. The name was changed to Piazza Del Sol. It is rebuilt and today it is full of offices. Several movie production companies rent space there. Tori Spelling and Ryan Seacrest have a hip Japanese restaurant called Katana on premises. The area that was a full of celebrities from the 1930s until the 1960’s went downhill, but today construction is going on and the area again is making a comeback. Stay tuned for the “Stranger men” story next about the murder at Hacienda Arms.

  Photo three- Piazza Del Sol 2008

Website at www.angelicvisions-healing.com

References

Deutschmann, Jennifer, (2021), The scandalous history of Hollywood’s Hacienda Arms Hotel, grunge.com, https://www.grunge.com/472778/the-scandalous-history-of-hollywoods-hacienda-arms-apartments/

Alan Citron (August 21, 1983). "Facade Survived Fire: Historic Site Status Sought for Coronet". Los Angeles Times.

William A. Gordon (2006). The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book. pp. 124-125. North Ridge Books.

E.J. Fleming (2005). The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling, and the MGM Publicity Machine. McFarland. 

Turner, Gustavo, (2019), The Sunset Strip: Story of an L.A. Icon, discoverlosangeles.com, https://www.discoverlosangeles.com/things-to-do/the-sunset-strip-the-story-of-an-la-icon

Photo one- Pinterest-https://www.pinterest.com/pin/358036239133861795/

Photo two-https://wehoville.com/2019/04/01/hacienda-park-and-the-origins-of-the-sunset-strip-out-of-the-ashes/

Photo three- https://aventurasnahistoria.uol.com.br/noticias/reportagem/o-historico-hacienda-arms-o-mais-famoso-bordel-que-ja-existiu-na-california.phtml

Photo four-https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hacienda_Arms_%28Piazza_del_Sol%29,_West_Hollywood.JPG

Operation Mincemeat: The man that never was

     It is 1943 and WWII was raging in North Africa. Off the coast of Spain, a young fisherman discovered the body of man with briefcase attached to his wrist by a chain. The man was dressed in a British officer’s uniform, so the fisherman believed the man was victim of the ongoing war in Europe. This is how Operation Mincemeat began, a British strategy that changed the war.

     In 1939 Rear Admiral John Godfrey along with his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming put in motion a deception operation based on a suggestion in the “Trout Memo”. The ‘trout memo’ came from a novel and compared the use of deception in war time to fly fishing. It stated, "The Trout Fisher patiently casts all day. He frequently changes his venue and his lures. If he has frightened a fish he may 'give the water a rest for half-an-hour,' but his main endeavor, is to attract fish by something he sends out from his boat, is incessant.” (Macintyre, 2010) The memo lists 54 ways that the enemy like fish can be lured or hooked. On the list was number 28. Put false papers on a dead body to mislead the enemy. No. 28 was adapted to Fleming’s own list of ideas. He helped write of methods for confusing an enemy at sea. (Smyth, 2010) Ian Fleming would go on to create the famous character spy James Bond, write successfully popular books that were turned into movies.

Photo One

     In 1943 during WWII, Germany occupied Sicily. They had a source of raw materials for the German military, including copper, bauxite, chrome, and oil. Hitler had a fear of losing the island to the allies. During the Casablanca Conference in January of 1943, it was decided the allies would invade Sicily, take it back and do it by July. That is when Operation Husky was born. Since it was such an obvious choice the allies had to produce a plan to distract the Germans. That is when Operation Mincemeat was born.

     Britain decided that the Eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean was the target. They staged an area in Cairo, Egypt to practice maneuvers and set up troops, so it appeared as if they were organizing for a mission. They even placed military equipment like tanks to make it appear it was larger than it was. They hired Greek interpreters, gathered maps and currency in Greek. Then communications were set up with telephones, radio transmissions all so the Germans were certain they were headed to Greece. Finally with the ideas of Fleming and Godfrey, they just needed one more item, a dead body. They would use a corpse with a British uniform and identity. The body would be attached by a chain to a brief case with fake secret documents pointing to Greece and Sardinia as the targets of the British invasion. This is where Major William Martin played his role.

      In my previous blog about Glyndwr Michael, it tells the story of how a homeless man became a hero in WWII. This is where he went on stage. Michael died of white phosphorous poisoning (rat poison) in an abandoned warehouse in England. Pathologist Bernard Spilsbury determined he was the perfect actor for the part. The British military erased all traces of Glyndwr Michael and recreated him as Maj. William Martin. They dressed him in a British uniform, provided him a wallet with his new identification, even a picture of a girlfriend. He had the appropriate wallet litter including a letter from his girlfriend Pam. Who was in the steno pool at MI5. The briefcase was attached to his wrist with a chain, and the dead man was placed in the water off the coast of Spain. It was there he was discovered by the fisherman.

Photo two-

      Two British intelligence officers from MI5 conducted the plan, Ewan Montagu, and Charles Cholmondeley. Montagu stated there should be three criteria for the documents in Martin/Michael:

• Clearly but casually identify the target
• Name locations as cover
• It should be in casual correspondence that would not be carried officially by diplomatic courier or encoded signal

     The body of Major William Martin was discovered by the fisherman at 9:30 am on April 30, 1943. Spanish officials called in Francis Haselden the local British vice-consul. Within days the British authorities called around frantically looking for the contents of the briefcase, creating some backstory. Major Martin was autopsied on May 1^st and the cause of the death was listed as ‘death by asphyxiation due to drowning’. The intel about the fictious Major Martin got back to German intelligence in the area. Though neutral Spain was mostly pro German, and they became convinced the intel they received was real.

     Hitler met with Grand Admiral Karl Donitz and was convinced the evidence gathered revealed the targets for the allies’ invasions were, Sardinia and the Peloponnesus, not Sicily. Hitler moved the experienced 1^st Panzer Division from France to Salonika, Greece. The invasion took place on July 9, 1943, when the allies invaded Sicily in what was called Operation Husky. By the time the Germans realized what happened it was too late.

      Though Germany and Italy had a pseudo relationship during the war, Hitler never trusted the Italians. He refused to join with the Italian military or to waste to many troops, so the area was poorly manned. Though the British expected to lose 10,000 during the campaign, the actual loss was about a seventh of that amount. The losses in Sicily were far less that calculated because of Operation Mincemeat. The operation went off with ease. Historian Michael Howard, while describing Mincemeat as "perhaps the most successful single deception operation of the entire war", (Smyth, 2010)    

      As a result of the campaign Cholmondeley and Montagu were made members of the ‘officers of the order of the British Empire.’  Hitler suspended the Kursk offensive 13 July. He was afraid the ally’s invasion of Sicily was a beginning that would result in them going after the Balkans. He wanted his troops on the ready. The Kursk offensive was a campaign in the Kursk Oblast region in USSR against the Soviets. Germany gave up the campaign to the Soviets.

1. Macintyre, Ben, (2010), Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, Crown Publishing,
2. NPR staff, (2010), Dead man floating: World War II’s oddest invasion, org, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127742365
3. Smith, Denis,(2010). Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat. London: Oxford University Press. 

Photo one- By Jrryjude - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112684003

Photo two- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glyndwr_Michael.jpg

The Plutonium Files: US Government tests radiation on citizens

    Before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, doctors in the U.S. were experimenting on their people injecting them with plutonium and irradiating them. Only the people never knew or gave consent. The U.S. has tested radiation and atomic radiation on citizens for decades during the cold war. They have conducted these experiments to understand the effects of radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body.

Photo One

     I discovered something called the Plutonium Files and the book is difficult to get and an expensive read. It talks about the period in 1945 when the U.S. was getting ready to launch the first atomic bomb. The book relates the stories of those who were injected with radiation by the United States Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan project.

      18 men, women and children were injected between 1945 and 1947 and none of them knew what was being done to them nor gave informed consent. They were chosen because it was believed (Or so they claimed) the people were mortally ill. Though many lived years after the experiment. There were other experiments going on with radiation too:

• Nashville, Tennessee pregnant women were given radioactive cocktails-Vanderbilt University
• Prisoners from Washington and Oregon had their testicles irradiated
• University of Cincinnati irradiated 200 people over 15 years
• 74 boys at Dickensian State school fed oatmeal with radioactive iron or calcium. Homeless or unwanted boys
• University of Chicago, one of three sites for plutonium injections
• University of Chicago fed strontium and cesium to 102 people in solutions with Argonne National Laboratory

     All these were done to the people without consent. While developing the atomic bomb as a weapon the doctors in the United States who participated violated the Hippocratic oath, the Nuremberg Code the American Medical Association guidelines, and US Government Regulations. (1) The people used in the experiments according to author Eileen Welsome, “were the poor, the powerless and the sick—the very people who count on the government to protect them.” A collaborator on the project (Clarence Lushbaugh) told Welsome the director in Cincinnati Eugene Saenger picked the people from the ‘slums’ because, “these persons don’t have any money and they’re Black and they are poorly washed.” (2)

     Examples of the judgement of the medical staff deciding to administer the radiation is as follows:

A man in a car accident in Oakridge, Tennessee the medical staff label him elderly and in poor health. The staff did not expect him to live that long, or so they stated. He was 55 and other than partially blind was in good condition. He lived another 8 years with the radiation in his blood stream, died of a heart attack.

 Another subject Albert Stevens from San Francisco, California was injected at University of California hospital. They said he had terminal cancer, turns out he was misdiagnosed and lived with radiation in his blood for 21 more years.

Then there was Eda Schultz Charlton, a 49-year-old who went to the University of Rochester hospital. She was not terminally ill, even not seriously ill. But she was injected with plutonium. Over the next few years, she suffered with depression, fatigue, arthritis, nausea, spasms, and other illnesses. She had a file with 314 pages of doctor’s reports. Her doctor Dr. Christine Waterhouse was recruited by Dr, Samuel Bassett the overseer of the plutonium injections. She cared for Eda for 29 more years, Eda lived 37 more years. Dr. Waterhouse never told her she was injected with plutonium.

      The experiments remained secret until 1993, when President Clinton ordered a congressional investigation. In 1995 the reports came down, refusing to blame those who injected their patients. Clinton spoke out against the passive report saying, “the actions failed both the test of our national values and the test of humanity.” No one paid attention, two hours later the O.J. verdict was in and that was the louder noise.

1. Longworth, R.C., (1999), Injected! (Review of the Plutonium Files), Sagepub, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2968/055006016
2. Welsome, Eileen, (1999), The Plutonium Files: America’s Secret Medical Experiments During the Cold War, Delacorte Press
3. Moss, William, and Roger Eckhardt. (1995). "The human plutonium injection experiments." Los Alamos Science. 23: 177-233.
4. Photo One: www.allthatsinteresting.com

Cary Grant: What you didn't know

     Millions have come to the U.S. to pursue the American dream and have endured much to have a chance to better their lot in life. Archibald Alexander Leach came from Bristol, England in 1920 and became a part of history in the Golden age of Hollywood. He epitomized the handsome, suave sophisticated leading man for decades. He arrived in Bristol on January 18, 1904, at 1:00 a.m. He was raised as an only child of Elsie and Elias Leach. He left this earth as Cary Grant one of the most famous actors in history. He had an older brother who died before he was born, and that death would haunt the family resulting in decisions and behavior with affected Cary his entire life.

      I grew up with only small references to him, he was a retired actor by the time I was able to perceive his presence. To me he was Cary Granite on the Flintstones, 30 minutes of Father Goose when I was eight, and as an adult the actor in North by Northwest. It was not until the internet, and You Tube old movies I became aware of him. Yet now after getting to know who he was and his work I consider him profoundly extraordinary as an artist and a person. In fact, Cary Grant is a national treasure whether you like his style or not.

     I was reluctant to tell his story as a person, but to honor him his story must be told. It seems to me at times we think those who are public do not deserve privacy. Since he has passed on, I will tell you parts of what I have read and learned from watching his movies. I have watched at least 25 of them from Sinners in the Sun to Walk, Don't Run.  For the blog I have utlized his own account and that of a biographer Scott Eyman along with Carygrant.net that includes his story in his words.

      My own recovery has taught me it can be difficult to recover from trauma in childhood. Knowing that made me appreciate him more. If you have suffered and worked through it, you understand the incredible nature of his story.  He was raised with addiction, abandonment, and the profound grief of his mother. Cary had an older brother who passed before he was born, and his mother struggled with her grief. She struggled so much that his father committed his mother to a sanitarium, where she stayed for decades. Cary was told at first, she left and then she died. He was 9 years old at that time.

        Upon his death bed Cary’s father confessed his mother was still alive. Cary was about thirty-five, and it was just as his career was taking off in Hollywood. He later was reunited with a woman who he did not know and who did not recognize him. She lived until 1973 so there was time to get to know her later in life. Elsie was released and cared for financially by Cary, who visited her periodically. She lived on her own at least 20 years after that period.

.     After Cary’s mother was gone, he was left to fend for himself. His father was gone most of the time and had started another family in a nearby town. They were a financially modest family even before Elsie’s disappearance.  A teacher brought Cary around to the local theatres in Bristol. Cary ended up getting a job helping behind the scenes at 13-14 years old. He fell in love with performers, and the whole environment. It created a place to go where he was part of a “family.” A sentiment he felt much through his life. He said once that he thought acting drew orphans looking for a family. Cary got permission to join a troupe of acrobats The Pender Group when he was “released” from school. He first forged a signature, but later Pender and his father worked out a deal. Cary would learn a trade, be cared for, and send money home weekly. He ended up caring for his family in a way he never saw as a child. The group toured though England performing. It was the Pender Troup that would get Cary Grant to New York City during the time of Vaudeville. Grant trained and performed from the Vaudeville era until the modern movie era. He could play the piano, sing, and perform acrobatic stunts. He was also a stilt walker, and one of his early jobs was walking on stilts at Coney Island.

       Those around him said Cary was beautiful as a young boy. He was handsome when he got himself to Hollywood. The silent movies had given way to the “talkies” when motion pictures had sound. The famous Mae West was one of the first to help him get his start in the movies. He realized early on he need an approach and used his leading man good looks and skills for comedy, though he also acted in several dramatic movies as well. It was his personal struggles that drew me to his story. Some of the same issues were part of my own story, just without all the enormous success. To me it made his journey even more incredible.

        When you are deprived and neglected in childhood it sets up situations of survival and creates behavior that is not easily changed. He was considered miserly by many, others stated he was just frugal. What I recently read is that even though he stopped school at 14 he had the wisdom and savvy of an MBA. Cary considered himself a businessperson and managed his career as such, he made his own financial deals.

      As he aged, he struggled with his romantic relationships, so he tried to work it out with a therapist using L.S.D. It was an experimental procedure at the time. He used it for breakthroughs to hasten his recovery around women and relationships. There were rumors about his sexuality through his life. Two of his wives have come forward to dispute rumors. If he were alive today there would be no speculation, no one would care. His biographer Scott Eyman was thorough and covered it better than this blog. Frankly, it is not our business. He did end up having a good marriage with his last wife Barbara Harris who had nothing to do with show business, except him.

         Archie created a character with the name Cary Grant. He did what many who come from traumatic backgrounds do, he reinvented himself. Many in Hollywood change their names for the business it seems the producers did not think Archie Leach had the same draw. He was talented, and handsome. He created a tall, handsome, sophisticated, and well-dressed leading man with a mid-Atlantic style accent. He made sixty-five pictures, becoming rich and famous. Personally, he often struggled between Archie Leach and Cary Grant. Grant once said no wonder his marriages failed; his wives had married a hollow man.

        Friends said when he retired in the 1960’s he began to relax and became happier with himself in general. He had a daughter Jennifer at 62 with Dyan Cannon, but the marriage did not last. Jennifer was adored by her father, and he focused on being the kind of parent he did not have. He finally wed Barbara who created a loving marriage with him, and Cary Grant had found peace. He died November 30, 1986, and there is no actor his alive that is his equal.

     I appreciate how hard he worked to improve his lot in life and then himself as a person. It allowed me to understand his journey from a recovering perspective. Most people would have stopped with being rich and famous, but he worked too to improve himself. Though born in Bristol, England he became a citizen of the U.S. in the 1940’s. He is a tremendous example of the human spirit's determination to succeed. He came from very humble roots and overcame those situations, he rose to become a Hollywood legend. 

        Cary Grant, “I have made over sixty pictures and lived in Hollywood for more than 30 years. Thirty years spent in the stimulating company of industrious, excitable, dedicated, loving, serious, honest, good people. Casts and crews. I recognize and respect them. I know their faults and their insecurities. I hope they know and forgive mine. Thirty years ago, my hair was black and wavy. Today it is gray and bristly. But today people in cars, stopped alongside me at a traffic light, smile at me!”

The Ultimate Cary Grant Pages, https://www.carygrant.net/

Eyman, Scott, (2020), Cary Grant: a Brilliant Disguise, Simon and Schuster

Allen Dulles, JFK, the CIA and the Warren Commission Pt. 2

  

 

   “We can now say without fear of contradiction that, thanks to the Warren Commission critics Oliver Stone and the internet, the CIA’s first version of the JFK Story- that the agency fully supported a serious investigation into the death of the president- is now discredited and defunct according to the agency (C.I.A.) itself.”  (Stone, 1991)

      This blog focuses on the relationship between President Kennedy and Allen Dulles. Along with their relationship is the global relations Dulles had set up in Southeast Asia, and Kennedy’s potential sabotage of Dulles’ covert affairs. Were the issues enough to line up an assassination plot against President John F. Kennedy?

     Allen Dulles ran the C.I.A. From 1953 through November 29, 1961. When he was in charge his brother John Dulles Foster was functioning as Secretary of State to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was reported there was little of the usual friction between the two agencies.

     Kennedy issued an executive order placing cold war psychological warfare programs under the control of his national security. He then issued Presidential memoranda to implement Presidential executive control over covert C.I.A. operations through the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Kennedy wanted the release of information on MJ-12 (Majestic-12) and the C.I.A. covert operations sent to his office. Dulles responded with a letter including this statement, “For reasons of security, I can not divulge pertinent data on some of the more sensitive aspects of MJ-12. Activities which have been properly classified under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.” (Dulles, 1961)

     On April 17, 1961, 1,500 trained Cuban ‘freedom fighters’ tried to oust Castro from power at the Bay of Pigs and failed. The C.I.A. who backed the operation and trained the troops faced extreme scrutiny from President Kennedy. That along with failed Coup D’état against French leader Charles De Gaulle led to the firing of Allen Dulles as Director of the C.I.A.

     Allen Dulles had been an operator on the world stage since WWI. In the 1954 he had set up an agreement with Britain and France to keep Southeast Asia out of the hands of the Communists. Later Winston Churchill changed his position, taking Britain out of the agreement and later so did France as they still were in control of parts of Indochina. That same year the fight of Viet Bien Phu rebels made the area vulnerable to Communist takeover.

      The C.I.A. negotiated with leaders and political platforms for certain candidates that supported the west. They manipulated the certification of election results. The C.I.A. was heavily involved with Southeast Asian politics, meaning Allen Dulles was heavily involved. In November 1963, the C.I.A. supported the Vietnamese generals who had staged a coup and set up a new American approved regime.

     President Kennedy fired Dulles, wanted to place the C.I.A. agency under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and two days before he was assassinated Kennedy had accepted an invitation from Indonesian President Sukarno to visit spring of 1964. Dulles had other plans for Indonesia, and Kennedy could foil them.

      Allen Dulles though not active C.I.A. at that time (it is claimed he still ran it) had planned a regime change in Indonesia through violence, to gain access to their natural resources. Dulles had lied to Kennedy and told him Indonesia did not have profitable resources. Indonesia has a valuable shipping lane next to the South China Sea, along with the largest copper and gold mine at Grasberg. Are these reasons enough for Dulles to have been considered a suspect in the assassination of Kennedy? Was President Kennedy a threat to the American’s deep state?

   In a book called the Devil’s Chessboard leveled several accusations were leveled at the former C.I.A. Director. Among the accusations were that any agency connection to Lee Harvey Oswald was buried. While Oswald was arrested and killed Dulles was moved into ‘The Farm’ a secret C.I.A facility in Virginia. It is also leveled that Allen Dulles served the American Corporate and political elites. (Talbot, 2017)

       After the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, a new president was sworn in, President Lyndon B. Johnson. Within one week on the 29^th, he issued an Executive order #11130 creating the “President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy” or the Warren Commission. The commission was to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to head the commission. One of the six board members was none other than Allen Dulles. It is like hiring a fox to guard your hen house.

        Allen Dulles even attempted to “strong arm former President Harry S. Truman when he dropped hints that an out-of-control C.I.A. might have been involved in Kennedy’s murder.”  Later after the results of the Warren report were released, reports came out stating that the evidence given to the Warren committee from the C.I.A. might have been inaccurate. C.I.A Chief historian David Robarge issued a report in 2014 stating, C.I.A. officers were instructed to keep the agency focused on what the agency believed was the ‘best truth’ at the time, that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing John F. Kennedy. Are we really surprised?

1. Stone, Oliver, (1991), JFK, Warner Brothers
2. Staff, (1969), Allen W. Dulles, C.I.A. Director From 1953 to 1961, Dies at 75, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/1969/01/31/archives/allen-w-dulles-cia-director-from-1953-to-1961-dies-at-75-allen-w.html
3. Salla, Michael E., (2009), President Kennedy’s deadly confrontation with the CIA & MJ-12 over ET/UFO XFiles, exopoliticsjournal.com, http://exopoliticsjournal.com/vol-3/vol-3-2-Salla.htm
4. Dulles, Allen, (1961), MJ-12, Operations Review: The MJ-12 Project,” http://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/mj12opsreview-dulles-61.pdf
5. Fox, Will, (2019), Doubt and Deception: The public opinion of the Warren Report
6. Curtin, Edward, (2016), Allen Dulles ‘Indonesia Strategy’ and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, org, https://www.tribunal1965.org/en/allen-dulles-indonesian-strategy-and-the-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy/
7. Talbot, David, (2017), The devil’s chessboard: Allen Dulles, the C.I.A., and the rise of the American secret government, org, https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/devils-chessboard-allen-dulles-cia-rise-american-secret-government/
8.  Shenon, Philip (2014), “Yes the CIA Director was part of the JFK Assassination cover-up, POLITICO Magazine

9. Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Lyndon B. Johnson: "Executive Order 11130 – Appointing a Commission To Report Upon the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy," November 29, 1963". The American Presidency Project. 

The Civil Rights March Selma to Montgomery: Viola Liuzzo story

    The third civil rights march between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama finished up on March 25, 1965. The fight for civil rights for black Americans had taken a serious turn and many from the northern states had come south to help the cause. Viola Liuzzo was one of these people and this is her story.

     Viola was born April 11, 1925 in California, Pennsylvania.  Her mother was a teacher and her father worked in the coal mines. Viola had one sister. After an accident in the mine that blew off one of her father’s (Heber) hands, the family was forced to move around the southern states so her mother Eva could find work. Being raised in the south during the depression left the family desperately poor and living in one room shacks with no running water. Much of her young life she was exposed firsthand to the unfair treatment of African Americans in the south. The blond haired, blue eyed beauty witnessed horrific acts against the black community drastically shaped her activism as she became an adult.

     The series of events began the winter of 1965 as, “The organizers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee conducted a series of non-violent marches and mass meetings” through out the south. (Staff, 2018) Marion, Alabama is a speck of town, with a population of 3800 people. It is most famous for two reasons; it is the birthplace of Coretta Scott King and Bloody Sunday.

      Bloody Sunday began on February 18, 1965 when the peaceful protests of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNVCC) were met with the Alabama state troopers and Marion police. The police beat the protesters killing one Jimmie Lee Jackson. Jackson was a youth leader who was killed as he tried to protect his mother and grandfather from police brutality. After dying from his injuries in a hospital in Selma, supporters took his body and laid it on the steps of the state capitol building.

     On March 7, 1965 the first of the marches between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama began at the Chapel A.M.E. church in Selma. It began with 300 people marching to the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Along the way the group gathered another 300 people. By the time they crossed the bridge, they were met with the violence of vigilante groups, and the Alabama State police. The violence was filmed and featured on national television. It became an important piece of evidence in passing the ‘Voting Rights Act of 1965’.

       In 1965, Viola was married to her second husband James Liuzzo. They lived in Detroit, Michigan where he was a Teamster’s union business agent. She had two children from her first marriage and three with James. Viola had gone down the path of many women in the 1960’s by going back to school. She attended Carnegie Institute to become a medical technician. Afterward she continued to take college courses at Wayne State University.

    Viola was an activist at heart and by 1964 had drawn the attention of the FBI. She protested the Michigan State Dept. of Education for their lax attitude to students dropping out of school. In protest she pulled her children out of school and was arrested. She once wrote a letter to the Detroit Free Press calling out the government for its attacks on Teamster President, Jimmy Hoffa. She was active in the NAACP with civil rights issues. This was due in part to her own experience growing up in the south, and her close friendship with a woman named Sarah Evans.

     Viola, like the rest of the U.S. was horrified by the images of police brutality against black Americans in Selma on bloody Sunday. After a protest at Wayne State University on March 16, 1965, she called her husband and told him she was going to Alabama. She left her children with family and friends, contacted the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They gave her the job delivering aid, recruiting volunteers, and transporting people (both volunteers and marchers) to and from airports, bus terminals and train stations. She used her own Oldsmobile to drive back and forth.

     At the end of the third march on March 25, 1965 she was transporting people between Selma and Montgomery. Viola was travelling with Leroy Moton a 19-year-old black man, which in the south was scandalous in 1965. They were driving along highway 80 and a car with several white men tried to force them off the road. Later as they were getting gas, the same car came by yelling profanities at the two. Finally, as the pair drove on, the same car came up next to them and saw a white woman with a black man. They shot her in the head killing her instantly. Viola’s car veered off into a ditch. The men came to the wreckage and investigated the scene. They thought there were two bloody dead people, so they drove away. Leroy played dead as the men were walking around. He flagged a car down and escaped the crime uninjured. It turned out the men were Ku Klux Klan members.

       In the car with the Klan members was an FBI informant. He immediately called in the crime and named the other men. Gary Rowe (34) had been an FBI infiltrator to the Klan for years. He also named, Eugene Thomas (42) and William Eaton (41). The two men were arrested for the murder of Viola Liuzzo. The FBI trying to cover its tracks so they would not be seen as participating in her murder tried to defame her. The broken glass from the gunshots imbedded in her arm. They tried to say the wounds were needle marks and that she used heroin. They also tried to say she abandoned her family and was sleeping with black men. Unlike the men who died during the civil rights movement and seen as heroes, Viola was scrutinized and accused by the initial investigation.

       Her death so impacted the nation, that President Lyndon B. Johnson went on T.V. expressing his outraged at her death and promising her murderers would be brought to justice. At her funeral in Michigan, she finally got her hero’s reward. In attendance were Martin Luther King, Jr, Jimmy Hoffa, William Milliken, Roy Wilkins, and Walter P. Reuther.

     Gary Rowe had been an informant for the FBI since 1960, reporting on the Bessemer Klavern (a unit of Klansmen). Since he was in the car with the murderers they were captured quickly. All including Rowe were tried and acquitted of her murder but found guilty of violating her civil rights.

      This case drew attention during the 1980’s. Viola Liuzzo had notified Birmingham, Alabama FBI Bureau Office that racially motivated violence was imminent, and the FBI did not take any action. Two civil rights workers (Bergman and Peck) sued the U.S. government for being assaulted during their participation in the Freedom Riders demonstrations based on this knowledge. Viola’s family also sued the federal government, but the courts found in favor of the US government.

      The US Congress created the Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail in 1996 along Highway 80. “This included a marker memorializing the life of Viola Liuzzo.” (Fritzler, 2008) Montgomery Alabama has a civil rights memorial and Viola Liuzzo’s name is included on the monument. In 2015 she was given an honorary doctorate degree by Wayne State University and she has a memorial statute in Detroit.  

Staff, (1965), Viola Liuzzo Murder, FBI Vault, https://vault.fbi.gov/

Viola%20Liuzzo/Viola%20Liuzzo%20Part%201%20of%2017/view#document/p2

Fritzler, Eric, (2008), Viola Liuzzo Papers, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, http://reuther.wayne.edu/files/UP001745_.pdf

Staff, (2018), Selma to Montgomery, NPS.gov, https://www.nps.gov/semo/learn/historyculture/bloody-sunday.htm

Stanton, Mary (2004). "Viola Liuzzo and the Gendered Politics of Martyrdom: From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo", Harvard Women’s Law Journal, pp26

Kneebone, John, (2015), Mapping of the second Ku Klux Klan 1915-1940, Virginia Commonwealth University, https://labs.library.vcu.edu/klan/learn

Spratling, Cassandra (1965-03-25), Wayne State hails civil rights icon Viola Liuzzo as hero, Freep.com, https://www.freep.com/story/life/2015/04/10/viola-liuzzo-wayne-state-university-honor/25603257/

Carter, Evan James (July 23, 2019), Statue unveiling honors civil rights martyr Viola Liuzzo, The Detroit News, https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2019/07/23/statue-unveiling-honors-civil-rights-martyr-viola-liuzzo/1806348001/