I am indebted to fellow Substack author, Jon Fleetwood, for drawing my attention to a deeply intriguing memo that was part of the JFK files that were just dumped. Fleetwood’s piece on the memo is linked below.
The CIA memo, dated 19th July 1967, opens with a long quotation from an article published in Ramparts, June 1967.
As Fleetwood points out, though the Ramparts piece was already public:
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…the newly released CIA files are significant because they confirm the Agency was aware of Underhill’s allegations at the time and considered them serious enough to document in an internal intelligence report.
The Ramparts piece and the CIA memo relate to a man named J. Garrett Underhill.
“J. Garrett Underhill had been an intelligence agent during World War II and was a recognized authority on limited warfare and small arms.
A researcher and writer on military affairs, he was on a first-name basis with many of the top brass in the Pentagon.
He was also on intimate terms with a number of high-ranking CIA officials—he was one of the Agency’s ‘un-people’ who perform special assignments.”
What is intriguing about the subject is the following:
“The day after the assassination, Gary Underhill left Washington in a hurry. Late in the evening he showed up at the home of friends in New Jersey. He was very agitated.
A small clique within the CIA was responsible for the assassination, he confided, and he was afraid for his life and probably would have to leave the country.
Less than six months later Underhill was found shot to death in his Washington apartment. The coroner ruled it suicide.”
Ah, yes, the D.C. coroner ruled it a suicide. I recently wrote a book about homicides staged to look like suicides. It is likely that many murderers have gotten away with this trick.
The CIA memo continues quoting the Rampart’s article:
“The verdict of suicide in Underhill’s death is by no means convincing.”
His body was found by journalist Asher Brynes of The New Republic:
“He had been shot behind the left ear, and an automatic pistol was under his left side. Odd, says Brynes, because Underhill was right-handed.”
Brynes also stated:
“Brynes thinks the pistol was fitted with a silencer, and occupants of the apartment building could not recall hearing a shot. Underhill obviously had been dead several days.”
“The friends whom Underhill visited say he was sober but badly shook. They say he attributed the Kennedy murder to a CIA clique which was carrying on a lucrative racket in gun-running, narcotics and other contraband, and manipulating political intrigue to serve its own ends.”
Underhill believed:
“Kennedy supposedly got wind that something was going on and was killed before he could ‘blow the whistle on it.’”
The friends, despite knowing Underhill to be “perfectly rational and objective,” initially struggled to believe him. But as the memo records:
“I think the main reason was… that we couldn’t believe that the CIA could contain a corrupt element every bit as ruthless—and more efficient—as the mafia.”
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The totality of circumstances—including the fact that the CIA insisted on keeping this memo top secret until now—suggests that Underhill knew what he was talking about and that his stated fear was well-founded.
To be sure, it’s possible that Underhill did not know—or chose not to disclose to his friends—the extent of the activity in which the “CIA Clique” was involved. It may have been more than just gun-running, narcotics, and other contraband.
Going pack to the Roman Praetorian Guard, the trouble with elite security services is that the secrecy they are granted almost inevitably tempts at least some of their members to engage in nefarious enterprises. Considering this, it strikes me as remarkable that the CIA hasn’t assassinated more than just one president.
A plausible reason for this is that, since Kennedy, the CIA has been able to intimidate and blackmail politicians into compliance instead of killing them. If my memory serves, CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton once visited an independent-minded Senator in his office and nonchalantly repeated verbatim the Senator’s bedtime conversation with his wife the night before. Instead of having Angleton arrested, the Senator was frightened into compliance.
Here’s the first paragraph of the memo:
Note that the RYBAT marking meant that CIA employees were not allowed to photocopy it.
It also strikes me as notable that the author of the CIA memo does not write any sort of assessment of the validity of the story reported in Ramparts.
That Underhill was found shot to death in his Washington D.C. apartment suggests that someone whom he trusted had given him the impression that he was safe and did not need to flee abroad.
Readers who enjoy real-life cloak and dagger stories should check out the full MEMO, which contains many other intriguing elements.
See also Jon Fleetwood’s report on this memo: ‘Small Clique Within the CIA Was Responsible for the Assassination’: JFK Files
This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.
