Does Gregory Douglas Live on?

A review of Patriotism Unhinged 1963-2024

Patriotism Unhinged 1963-2024 is a rather strange, almost bizarre book on the JFK case. Its author is a man named James Manning. According to the book Manning is a small businessman and a licensed private investigator living in Norfolk, Virginia. In his own words, the book is the culmination of his lifelong pursuit of justice. (Manning, pp. 147-48) And if one looks at the man’s home as depicted in a photo near the end, he seems to have done fairly well for himself.

At the start of this review, I do not want to leave the impression that the book has no value at all. There are some decent things in the rather slim volume. But I wish to make clear the warning encased in the title above. It was bad enough when Peter Janney invoked the name of Gregory Douglas in his book Mary’s Mosaic. But Manning goes even beyond what Janney did in his seeming endorsement of Douglas. Manning actually states that somehow Douglas’ 2001 book Regicide was targeted and crushed by the CIA due to some of the documentation in that volume. (Manning, p. 143)

Let me explain why this claim gives me pause. No one knows if Douglas is the real name of the author of Regicide. Why? Because the man behind something called TBR News, also went by the name of Walter Storch. In fact, when former CBS News reporter Kristina Borjesson first contacted TRB that is what he said his name was. And on that phone call, he recommended to her a book called Regicide.

The last part of that book is simply beyond the pale. These pages purport to be documents chronicling a series of JFK conspirator meetings between March and November of 1963. First, it is hard enough to comprehend that any kind of record would be made of such matters. But, beyond that, the people in attendance included no less than the following personages:

FBI

CIA

Joint Chiefs of Staff

Vice-President Johnson

Organized Crime

In addition, the plot included Corsican assassins and the Mossad. According to Douglas/Storch, the main designer of the plot was James Angleton, chief of counter-intelligence for CIA. And the record also included phone calls made by Angleton’s office to people like Sam Giancana, the Mafia don in Chicago.

If one knows anything about the man, the idea that someone as secretive and prolix as Angleton would keep a record of the biggest crime he was ever going to commit—and do it months in advance, implicating his cohorts—is hard to comprehend in and of itself. But there were also some errors in the story that tended to give it away. For instance, Storch/Douglas had the Bay of Pigs occurring in April of 1962. He had Allen Dulles’ middle name listed as Welch instead of Welsh. Third, the book had Lyman Lemnitzer listed as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had been replaced by Max Taylor months prior.

In Regicide, Storch/Douglas stated that JFK was turning over state secrets to the Soviets. And Manning borrows that idea here. (p. 13). I have never seen anything to back this up. Excepting perhaps the accusations made during Angleton’s nutty molehunt. (See Cold Warrior by Tom Mangold, p. 88). According to Manning, which he again gets from Regicide, Angleton was also wiretapping Bobby Kennedy’s phone.

Manning reprints, as whole chapters in his book, parts of Regicide. These are largely based on what were called the Crowley documents. Robert Crowley was a CIA officer who worked in the Directorate of Operations.

Please note the following, which Manning does not reveal in his book. A third name for Douglas/Storch was Peter Stahl. He apparently had three names because he spent many years as a con man. He was reportedly involved in counterfeiting things like Rodin statuettes, and forging documents about the Third Reich--for instance a highly suspect four volume series about Gestapo Chief Heinrich Muller. But beyond that there was evidence that Douglas/Storch/Stahl wrote news stories and then put other reporter’s names on them, e.g. Brian Harring.

Now, when the book came out, journalist Joe Trento was quite surprised. Because Trento was friends with Angleton, author William Corson and Crowley. (Crowley had co written a book with Corson). The reason for that surprise was because Crowley had left his documents to Trento. In fact, after Crowley passed in 2000, Trento wrote a book called The Secret History of the CIA, which was based on his association with Crowley. I was puzzled by the problem this presented: why would Crowley leave his papers to two different writers? So I phoned Trento. He made it quite clear that Douglas/Storch/Stahl was conning everyone. He emphatically stated that the man did not have anything like what he said he did. Apparently, Mr. Manning never called Mr. Trento.

Manning includes another episode from Regicide. He says that there were discussions within the Agency as far back as February of 1963 about how to assassinate Kennedy. These included exploding Air Force One, enlisting Dr. Max Jacobson to poison the president and attaching a bomb to his boat off Hyannis Port. (Manning, p. 15)

Manning also writes that George DeMohrenschildt was Lee Oswald’s handler in Dallas/Fort Worth. And it was he who informed the CIA that Oswald was hired at the Texas School Book Depository in October of 1963. (p. 20) The author does not explain—and neither did Douglas/Storch/Stahl-- how this could have been done. Because, at that time, DeMohrenshchildt was in Haiti---he had journeyed there in June. He never saw Oswald again.

Resembling Regicide, Manning has a team of Corsican assassins arriving in Canada and then escorted into Detroit by Giancana. In Regicide, it was over the Windsor International Bridge. Manning changes that to the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Why he did that is inexplicable, since the latter did not exist back then.

Manning has three of the Corsicans leaving through a private airfield on the day of the assassination. They were piloted by David Ferrie who was there in Dallas. Manning implies that somehow Ferrie disposed of them in flight and Ferrie was the last to to see them.

Again, one really has to wonder. Ferrie’s weekend of the 22^nd is one of the most studied that there is, perhaps second only to Jack Ruby. New Orleans DA Jim Garrison started that preoccupation. From Ferrie’s much adduced itinerary, it is most improbable to place him at a private airport in Dallas on the day of the assassination. In fact, it is difficult to place him in that city. What we know is that he departed New Orleans on the 22^nd for Houston and then proceeded to Galveston with two companions. They all then returned to New Orleans on the 24^th. Ferrie then spent a day in Hammond with his friend Thomas Compton before returning to New Orleans on the 25^th. (William Davy, Let Justice Be Done, pp. 46-47; Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, pp. 7-8). As Garrison pointed out, there was some suspicion about just what Ferrie was doing at an ice skating rink standing next to a phone while not skating. Just as there was a problem with going goose hunting without shotguns. But there is simply nothing like what both Manning and Regicide describe.

For whatever reason, and it is bewildering, Manning throws in the tales of Steve Rivele. This was about criminal Christian David’s accusations about a three man assassination team out of Marseilles. Manning then admits that this story was undermined when two of the three had alibis. (Manning, p. 25) Manning then brings up an alternative theory that Rivele suggests today. Well, Rivele has passed on so we cannot entertain just where he got his new sources. But I did not really trust his first source, Christian David. Why an author would want to toss in one discredited story after another, this process eludes me.

But not even that is enough for Manning. Like Regicide, he brings in the whole Mary Meyer imbroglio. I will not comment on this whole sorry episode, which was aggrandized beyond reason by the likes of Leo Damore and Tim Leary. I have written quite enough about this mirage. (Please click here for a surfeit of articles https://www.kennedysandking.com/content/tag/MARY%20MEYER)

But not even that is enough for Manning. He now drags in John Curington and his quite dubious book, H. L. Hunt: Motive and Opportunity. I reviewed this book for Oliver Stone when we were working on JFK Revisited. I thought the book was so poor that I wrote the review only for Stone and never published it. For instance, according to Curington--who worked for Hunt--his boss was motivated to begin plotting against JFK and RFK when the president nixed Hunt’s attempt to open an exhibit at the World’s Fair in New York. I wish I was kidding about that. I am not. (Curington, p. 18). How bad is this book? Curington writes that it was Bobby Kennedy who convinced his brother to take on LBJ as his Vice President! (Curington, p. 86) This is utterly bizarre, and it should be enough to swear anyone off Curington. Curington was also the source for Marina Oswald being in Hunt’s offices the Saturday after the assassination. Which is something Marina vehemently denies, as she does that she was ever there at all. (Joan Mellen, Our Man in Haiti, p. 375) In an addendum to that book, Mellen does a nice job decimating both Curington and Paul Rothermel. Both men were accused of embezzling millions from Hunt.

Manning entitles one section of the book, “A Convention of Hitmen in Dallas”. He then lists almost twenty names. But some of them are not in any ordinary sense assassins e.g. Edward Lansdale, Mitch Werbell. And some of them have so many liabilities that they fall inward on the accusations e. g. Charles Harreslon, James Files and Malcolm Wallace. For instance, Joan Mellen did a notable job in her book on Lyndon Johnson showing that Wallace was in California at the time of the JFK murder. (Faustian Bargains, p. 257)

There is one part of Manning’s book that I found laudable. He titles Chapter 10 “20 People Who Knew about the JFK Murder Before it Happened.” There are some problems with some of the people in this chapter e.g. Tosh Plumlee, John Roselli, Karyn Kupcinet. But generally speaking Manning brings up some creditable people, like Rose Cheramie and Adele Edisen. Many people know about the former person. Not nearly enough know about the latter, so I am glad Manning brought her into the book. (For those who want more info, click here https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKedisen.htm)

In this section, Manning even brings in some interesting cases from people that I never heard of before e. g. Elizabeth Cole, Peter Tash Anestos.

If only Mr. Manning had dedicated his book to that particular subject. I think he would have done a quite notable and interesting job. Instead, he got shoved under a freight train called Regicide. Which more or less doomed his efforts.