Autobiography of a Spy
Be sure and get to a library and have the librarian locate a book
written by Mary Bancroft. Title: Autobiography of a Spy. 1983 Morrow
Bancroft relates the story of her childhood, her two marriages, her
affair with Allen Dulles, and her work in Switzerland with the Office
of Strategic Services during World War II.
Just a line to get you started: "Two of our Boston friends, Ruth and
Lyman Paine, had moved to New York and gave wonderful parties in
their West Side apartment. We met a lot of their friends, mostly in
the arts. Ruth was a painter. Lyman, an architect, was interested in
what he termed "The Ultimate Reality," which I interpreted as my old
friend, truth. Lyman and I had endless discussions about the ultimate
reality while sipping highballs of bathtub gin and ginger ale that
would have taken the varnish off a table if they had happened to
spill."
Mary's first husband was Sherwin Badger who was employed by United
Fruit Co.. Do some research on the fruit co.. It was owned by John
Foster Dulles brother of Allen Dulles, I'm sure you know who they
were. Allen was CIA Director removed by JFK. Mary also knew Ruth
Forbes-
Ruth Paine's mother - Mary said, "Ruth Forbes was a very good friend
of mine."
Mary's son, Sherman, worked for Henry Luce at Life Magazine.
Mary was not only a mistress to Allen Dulles; she was also sleeping
with Henry, husband of Clare Boothe Luce.
Son Sherman Jr. attended Dartmouth University at the same time
that George deMohrenschildt's brother taught Russian and published
the
Russian Review.
See Columbia University: Oral History of Mary Bancroft, 1972.
page243.
Clark Wilkins wrote:
United Fruit is a very interesting company. It was actually owned by
the Rockefellers who are cousins of the Dulles family with one of the
Dulles brothers serving as a director of United Fruit.
United Fruit took a huge loss on the stock market when Castro
nationalized their assets in Cuba. It was an enormous financial
disaster at the time, nearly comparable to the ENRON story of today.
Under the Rockefellers and Dulles management, United Fruit was very
friendly towards the CIA as well as several "banana republic"
dictators in Central America.
The term "banana republic" refers to United Fruits major cash crop,
bananas. Because bananas quickly spoil, they must be cut, loaded,
trans****ted, and delivered to market in about two weeks time. If
there is any interruption in the delivery process, the entire crop can
spoil and United Fruit would lose a fortune. To make certain delivery
was on time, the dictators of these Central American countries were
put on United Fruit's payroll. They saw to it that the crops were cut
and delivered without any interruption (such as a strike by the farm
workers). So im****tant was speed that United
Fruit often owned its own railroads that carried the crops from the
plantations to the waiting ****ps. Again, fast ****ps were required and
there were a number of prestigious ****p lines that carried the fruit
to its destination - which was
usually New Orleans. Some of the owners of these ****p lines have been
mentioned in CT literature.
Once the ****ps arrived in New Orleans they had to be speedily
unloaded. "Wildcat" strikes by stevedores could not be tolerated.
The bananas could rot in the ****ps hold in just days and the
stevedores knew this and could easily force a fruit company to cave
into a strike before the cargo spoiled. To prevent "wildcat" strikes,
the fruit companies needed control of the unions and this is where the
Mafia came in, running the longshoremen's union to make sure there
would be no strikes in much the same way that the CIA worked with the
Mafia during WWII to control the
waterfronts. Oswald's Uncle Dutz was involved in the longshoremen's
union in New Orleans. Control of the longshoremen's union extended
from beating up the opposition to "collecting" dues from the union
member****p. The Mafia's "dues" collectors were drawn from local
boxers. Sylvestor Stallone's character, Rocky Bilbao, was based on
such a collector. Oswald's uncle Dutz was also a boxer (So was Jack
Ruby). The Mafia kept the ****ps being unloaded in a timely manner in
exchange for "a piece of the action" of
the fruit companies. They became stockholders in the fruit companies
which included Standard Fruit, the company that initially hired/
screened Lee Harvey Oswald for his job at Reily Coffee. One of the
major stockholders in Standard Fruit was the Vacarro (sp?) family (I
can't remember if they were from Sicily or Italy). The president of
Standard Fruit also owned most of the boxing gyms in New Orleans.
When the Rockefellers later sold United Fruit, it was purchased by a
suspected Mafia smuggler and, afterwards, Federal narcotics agencies
would attribute United Fruit to the rising
im****tation of drugs into the US.
The rise of Castro, who nationalized United Fruits holdings in
Cuba, opened the door to possible "copycat" communist revolutions
taking place in other Central American countries and resulting in more
losses for United as well as Standard Fruit. The fruit companies now
required the protection of the US Gov't. This was why the CIA was
invited into United Fruit (The CIA's interest in protecting fruit
companies dates back to their 1954 revolution in Guatemala as well as
US Marines in Central America in the 1930's). To
obtain the cooperation of the CIA, the fruit companies would lobby the
US Gov't by making campaign donations and providing the CIA and State
Dept. with "free" intelligence on Central America. People like
Senator Dodd found themselves on the payroll while others, like
William George Gaudet, provided intelligence articles for lobbying
Wa****ngton and, in particular, the CIA, on the need to keep Central
America communist free. Gaudet felt he was so
close to the CIA he often described himself as a
CIA "agent". Gaudet worked out of the International Trade Mart in New
Orleans which Oswald demonstrated
in front of and from which at least two other companies lobbied
Congress and the CIA. Clay Shaw would run the ITM and use it to
provide "conference space" to Henry Luce's Time-Life which would later
buy, and never show, the Zapruder film (Henry Luce is mentioned in the
post below). To fund this lobbying, the fruit companies used "pretax"
dollars - or offshore money that had yet to reach the US for
taxation. They let their "banana republic" dictators, like Anastasia
Somoza, make untaxed donations from their own
treasuries. These donations were illegal and anyone in the US
receiving and distributing these funds was required to register as a
Foreign Agent. It became im****tant then that the recepient agent of
those donations not be called to testify as to the source of the
funds. The agent selected by
Samoza was Dr. Alton Ochsner, his personal physician who could, under
patient client privilege, not be called to testify against Samoza.
Ochsner, along with United Fruit, funded William Gaudet's intelligence
re****ts being distributed on Capital Hill. Ochsner also funded Ed
Butler's INCA who
engaged Oswald in his New Orleans radio debate. When Oswald appeared
on WDSU TV and WDSU Radio, the managing owner of the station was an
INCA member
and a director of the ITM along with an officer of Standard Fruit.
Care had to be taken that agents of Castro did not penetrate this New
Orleans operation and so company employees of Standard and Reily were
subjected to
"screening" by a former FBI agent. Such a background check was run on
Lee Harvey Oswald with a falsified result.
So - yes - United Fruit is an interesting company to do research on.
Just a thought.
--- Clark Wilkins
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