“The Devil’s Chessboard : Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government “
by David Talbot
This is a difficult book to read, for the second time. David Talbot lays out in cruel, sad detail just how evil a man was Allen Dulles, and sadly, the American foreign policy that he presided over for his years in power.
The message of this book is, “Was Allen Dulles capable of arranging or, better word, orchestrating the assassination of John F Kennedy.” The answer, “yes”.
My personal experience of the disastrous sadness of it all, besides the day of the president’s murder, is six months I spent in Iran in 1978 as the reign of the Shah crumbled and and rabid Ameriphobia began its rise, or, appearance. The CIA unseating of democratically elected Mossadegh in 1953, whose crime was believing that Iran owned the oil in its ground, has reaped such bitter fruit that if you don’t want to curse Allen Dulles for the president’s death you can certainly curse him and his CIA for this disaster of foreign policy and hubristic intervention.
A side note, Bell Helicopter figures large in the story of the president’s death. Readers are perhaps unaware that Bell Helicopter pretty much took over Isfahan during the Shah’s days. There is even a Facebook page for Bell/Textron/Isfahan alumni.
I will share a picture or two I took while there.
This is a mordant account, and there is almost too much to chew on. But Talbot does what every writer would love to be able to do, take us up to 30,000 feet for the big picture and swoop right down to the ground for the undressing humiliation of Jacobo Arbenz whose crime was believing that Guatemalan farmers should own the land they farmed. Or for the savage beating to death of Patrice Lumumba, elected leader of the Congo newly independent of Belgian rule at the hands of CIA funded mercenaries in Katanga. A powerful account, makes me want to cry. The premise of these blow by blow accounts of Dulles directed assassinations and coups around the world are that “ if he could do it there, he could do it here.”
I agree.
The patterns are established. Manipulation of “little mice” with no concern for the demise of those destroyed. Sleight of hand so that Dulles is never linked to his doings. A facade of false gentility before the neck is snapped. Extraordinary reach through his network of acquaintance… it was not a safe thing for Allen to know who you were.
Ruth Paine still does not understand this simple truth.
………I find that I have bit off more than I can chew with this topic, there really should be Parts 1, 2, 3 and more to this essay . They will come.
I do not agree with every shade and nuance to the story told by Talbot, but I buy the basic thesis.
Allen Dulles did it.
I admit to being very invested in the question of the Forbes/Naushon connection that he elaborates on and that I found out about after Max Good’s film alerted me to the basic question of the connection to the Forbes family and Naushon. If I may, I feel an equal measure of exasperation with Ruth Paine and my ex-wife Beatrice Forbes Manz in showing the same degree of disinterest in the cataclysm that swirled around their family, most likely because of the family’s connections, and equal retreat into comfort with the assurance that “Oswald “ did it. This is the psychology that Martin Schotz talks about.
I went all the way to California to ask Ruth Paine one question. “Was Allen Dulles invited to Naushon?” as David Talbot states in his book. “Yes”, she answered me. “Do you have personal knowledge of this?”, I asked. “I read it somewhere “ she answered.
Given that David Talbot’s source for his statement is his interview with Ruth Paine, we have gone in a circle.
I am still in pursuit of the answer to this question. I will write later about my review of Mary Bancroft’s diaries, I hope to talk with David Talbot in November at the Wecht Institute. I have some thoughts about family papers to look at and I’m booked to go to Sweden to track down some correspondence that might shed some light on the question of why Lee Oswald was hanging around with Michael Paine in 1963.
But next is New Orleans.
I’m going to New Orleans this week. And, if I survive the forecast 100 degree heat, I’m going to trace Lee’s connections there, particularly the summer of 1963 as he shuttled back and forth on Magazine Street. Small apartment with Marina and June at one end, provocations for Bannister at the other. I will have a tour guide, who, I hope, will have an air conditioned car. I’ve been reading a book by Mary Vary Baker, who claims to have had an affair with Lee there that summer. I will have some thoughts on that as well.
~ Robert
Next week - Magazine Street
Below: two images from Khorasan, Iran. 1978.
“The Loom” ©️ Robert Manz
“Water of Life” ©️ Robert Manz
A personal note on some success.
My screenplay, the White Gloves, Legend was runner up for feature length drama at the Woods Hole film festival a week ago.
I have been invited to join the Faculty of the 22nd Annual Forensic Science and Law Symposium of the Cyril H. Wecht Institute - the JFK Assassination at 60, to make an oral presentation. My talk will be entitled “A Forbes Family in-law’s perspective on the relation between Lee Oswald and the Paines.”