Post by Rob Caprio on Apr 1, 2024 20:08:30 GMT -5
All portions are ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
spartacus-educational.com/CRIsouetre1.jpg
i.servimg.com/u/f16/11/04/29/06/souetr10.jpg
Jean Souetre and Michel Mertz?:
content.invisioncic.com/r16296/monthly_2018_04/image.png.2bab5466ff99d5f89ed418a5febfacc7.png
[Note: This was written about nine years ago and never posted anywhere until now. I forgot about it until I found it recently. It was originally supposed to be #399 in my "Statements That Sink The WC's Conclusions" series, which was going to end at 400 installments, but I realized that there was so much not covered that the series had to go on.
This made the LNers furious as they wanted my series done at 400 and this too probably led to my removal from the JFK Assassination Forum and the purging of my series as the LNers cannot deal with the evidence since it shows their faith is totally incorrect.]
The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) shot and killed President John F. Kennedy (JFK) all by himself on November 22, 1963. They said he used a cheap, old mail ordered rifle, a 40” Mannlicher-Carcano (M-C), to accomplish this task from the southeastern sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Building.
They of course never supported any of this with actual evidence, nor did they pursue leads that did NOT point in the direction of their claim. We have seen this numerous times in this series, and we will look at another lead they never pursued in their "search for the truth” during their “fact-finding” mission. This particular lead involved both the FBI and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) too, but the WC was never told about this deportation. Why?
This post will look at the story of Jean Souetre/Michel Roux/Michael Mertz and how he may have been involved in the assassination of JFK. Keep in mind he was in Ft. Worth in the morning of November 22, 1963, and in Dallas during the afternoon. His background certainly would qualify him as an assassin too.
***********************************************
Jean Souetre went by quite a few names as he has also been called Michael Mertz and Michael Roux. We have proof that he was in America, and the city of Dallas, Texas, on the day of the assassination because a CIA document has been found that says so. In CIA document 632-736 it says the following.
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images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5114787ee4b0807f570d7372/1492743446560-MI0VBGRKO67A9EVH6GIF/image-asset.png
AAZ-22592
1 Apr 64
SECRET
Jean SOUETRE’S expulsion from the U.S.
CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
RELEASE IN FULL 1995
Jean Souetre aka Michael Roux aka Michael Mertz---On 5 March, 1964, Mr. Papich advised that the French had hit the Legal Attache in Paris and also the SDECE man had queried the Bureau in New York City concerning subject stating that he had been expelled from the U.S., at Fort Worth or Dallas 48 hours after the assassination.* He was in Fort Worth the morning of 22 November and in Dallas in the afternoon. The French believe that he was expelled either to Mexico or Canada. In January he received mail from a dentist named Alderson living at 5803 Birmingham, Houston, Texas. Subject is believed to be identical with a Captain who is a deserter from the French Army and an activist in the OAS, the French are concerned because of De Gaulle’s planned visit to Mexico. They would like to know the reason for his expulsion from the U.S. and his destination. Bureau files are negative and they are checking our files with indications of what may be passed to the French. Mr. Papich was given a copy of CSCI-3/776,742 previously furnished the Bureau and CSDB-3/665,207 together with a photograph of Captain SOUETRE. WE/3Public; CI/SIG; CI/OPS/Evans.
* * of President Kennedy
* Document Number 632-736
SECRET
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=9342&relPageId=2
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Who was “Mr. Papich” anyway?* Was he a CIA asset? It should be noted too that SDECE stands for “Service de Documentation Exterieure et Contre-Espionage.” In 1963/1964 this was the French equivalent to the CIA. The “Bureau” in New York City refers to the FBI’s office there. What is interesting about Souetre’s movements on November 22, 1963, is that he was in Fort Worth in the morning and Dallas in the afternoon. Either he was a groupie of JFK’s or he was involved in something that pertained to the president’s travel. Otherwise, the coincidence is too great IMO. The OAS stood for “Organisation de l'armée secrète” or "Organization of the Secret Army" in English. It was founded in January 1961 in response to De Gaulle granting Algeria her independence. In a nutshell, they were a right-wing extremist group that participated in terrorist activities. One of these activities involved political assassinations.
[*Note: Since I wrote this I have learned so much more. This Papich man may be Sam Papich who was interviewed by the Church Committee in March 1975. Here is that interview.
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1403#relPageId=2]
We see a reference to a dentist by the name of “Alderson” who lived in Houston, Texas. Is this just a coincidence? One of the main activities of the OAS, according to some researchers, was drug trafficking as they were shipping heroin all around the world from Algeria and this is why they had such an issue with De Gaulle’s decision to grant them independence. We have seen ties between drugs and Houston already in this series (Rose Cheramie), so was this an activity Jean Souetre was involved in? Clearly the SDECE were tracking him already, otherwise, how would they know about his mail to and from a dentist in Houston?
We see why the French were concerned with this matter as De Gaulle planned a trip to Mexico in the summer of 1964 and wanted to know if Souetre had been deported there. The document also mentions that Souetre had been “expelled” from the U.S. forty-eight hours after the assassination and in order to be expelled one has to be caught first. This statement proves Souetre was detained by U.S. authorities and also shows they had to have had a valid reason for doing so. What was that reason? Why doesn’t this document tell us that? It does tell us that he was expelled from TEXAS though and the group who does the expelling is the INS. Obviously he had NO legal right to be here (i.e. visa, business, etc…), but we don’t know the exact reason they expelled him instead of detaining him.
Why was a terrorist, obviously wanted in France, released and deported in such a secretive way? Why did the CIA, FBI and INS keep this document from the WC? Perhaps what is contained in CSCI-3/776,742 is why. It was written in July 1963 by the OAS at a time when they were on the ropes as the SDECE had destroyed much of their organization and imprisoned most of the top leadership of the organization. It hints at Souetre’s possible participation in OAS’s assassination attempts on De Gaulle and seeks the help of the CIA to join them in these attempts.
In fact, in Henry Hurt’s Reasonable Doubt he says Jean Souetre was convicted of participation in an assassination attempt (p. 415). Hurt reports that a court document said that Souetre was “a trained and experienced terrorist and perfectly capable of murder.” (Ibid.) This document also shows both the CIA and FBI were well aware of Souetre and the OAS’s plans well before November 22, 1963, thus, they had to keep this away from the WC.
[Note: The knowledge of these CIA documents is due to the tenacious work of researcher Mary Ferrell who had them released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).]
Souetre told the CIA that he was OAS’ “coordinator for external affairs.” The document says he told the CIA that they may share the same goal of removing De Gaulle from power and they would need “money and material support” to carry it out. The CIA representative told Souetre that “the U.S. had absolutely no intention of working with any person or group against the duly constituted government of France.” These groups could include right-wing ones in Dallas and New Orleans as researchers Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., and Gary Shaw have learned. He supposedly had ties with anti-Castro Cubans too in the U.S.
More twists come when we learn that a Michael Roux was in Fort Worth on November 22, 1963, visiting social acquaintances. Documents released through FOIA have shown that the FBI looked into this, but dismissed it as not being of any interest. Michael Roux entered the U.S. through New York City on November 19, 1963, and left via Laredo, Texas, on December 6, 1963, thus, this could NOT be the man that was deported “48 hours after the assassination” as CIA document 632-736 says. Roux’s acquaintances vouched for him, so the FBI dropped the matter.
The OAS hated De Gaulle for giving Algeria its independence and one can say that JFK was in favor of this move. It was something that he talked about for many years before becoming president so it is not incorrect to say if the OAS hated De Gaulle for this act they most surely would have hated JFK as well. Research has posited that these deserters did not hate De Gaulle for simply giving freedom to the Algerians, but rather because this was going to upset the heroin pipeline they had established there. In other words, this was going to cost them, and others, a fortune. This all ties into Vietnam as well as that was known as the “Golden Triangle” for heroin. Could this pipeline have traveled to Houston, Texas?
CIA document CSCI-3/776,742 says that Souetre told the CIA representative that “he traveled on various passports, one of them being a U.S. passport.” As we have seen before in this series it was/is difficult to get a U.S. passport, so how does a person who is a deserter, convicted participator in an assassination attempt and terrorist get one then? Obviously, NOT in the normal way. Also, perhaps he had them in other peoples’ names as Roux or Mertz. Both of these were real people as we have seen with Roux already.
Researcher J. Gary Shaw found and interviewed Alderson the dentist in October 1977. It turns out his name was Larry Alderson and he had become friends with Souetre from his time in the service. He had been stationed in France as a Security Officer on a joint post with French military personnel. They became friends and stayed in touch over the years leading up to 1963. Alderson described Souetre as follows: “He was good-looking, tall, rather angular, last time I saw him. He had kind of curly-hair, dark brown, good-looking guy, handsome guy.” (Telephone Interview with Dr. Larry Alderson and Gary Shaw, October 5, 1977, 4:30 p.m.)
In an interview the following day he gave us further information pertaining to Souetre.
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- Souetre was approximately twenty-five years old in the early ‘50s.
- Souetre was a linguist who spoke excellent English with no trace of an accent; he also spoke Spanish and German.
- He was sharp dressed and a ladies' man.
- He was well acquainted with “all the French politicians.”
- He stood six-foot-one and weighed about 175 pounds. (Telephone Interview with Dr. Larry Alderson and Gary Shaw, October 6, 1977, 4:00 p.m)
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The FBI had him under surveillance and interviewed Alderson soon after the assassination in regard to his association with Souetre. He therefore was familiar with the information showing Souetre had been in Fort Worth and Dallas on the day of the assassination. This is proof that the FBI knew about Souetre’s whereabouts on November 22, 1963, and that he had been expelled from the country long before CIA Document 632-736 was written. Alderson told Shaw that the FBI “…felt that Jean knew who or he himself had assassinated Kennedy.” (Telephone Interview with Dr. Larry Alderson and Gary Shaw, October 5, 1977, 4:30 p.m.)
If we tie this in with FBI Document 105-120510-2 which was dated April 8, 1963, we see the FBI had reason to suspect Souetre of something a full eight months before JFK was assassinated. How do we know this? Because this document called for an investigation on Alderson and he clearly could NOT have been involved in anything, therefore, his only valuable connection was to Souetre. Here is what it said.
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United States government
Memorandum
TO: Director, FBI DATE: 4/8/63
(ATT: FOREIGN LIASON UNIT)
FROM: SAC NEW YORK XXXXXXXXXXXX Informant
SUBJECT: Alderson,
5803 Birmingham, Houston, Texas
IS-FRANCE
Informant
For the information of the Bureau and Houston, on 4/3/63 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Houston is requested to identify the ALDERSONS, and when this information is forthocoming, the Bureau is requested to advise what, if any, information may be furnished to this source.
2-Bureau (RM)
2-Houston, (RM)
1-New York, XXXXXXXX
Informant
LHB:EG
(5)
FBI Document 105-120510-2
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Another FBI Document, 105-120510-1, would call for Alderson’s wife, mother and father to be investigated as well. Surely the FBI were not interested in the Alderson family this much (and if they were they have NEVER told us why), right? This shows in all likelihood that the FBI was tracking Jean Souetre as early as April 1963 (if not earlier), so why was he released so easily on November 24, 1963, then?
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=125412#relPageId=2
Since the name Jean Souetre is tied to two others, Michael Roux and Michael Mertz, could one of these men have been using that name on November 22, 1963? The authorities claimed Michale Roux was “okay” after they checked out his hosts, but was he? What about Michael Mertz?
Dr. Alederson recalled that Jean Souetre was a “political activist of the neo-Nazi persuasion.” (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, p. 418) This would mean he was extremely right-wing in his thinking. Dr. Alderson said they only communicated around Christmastime and that he never saw Souetre in the United States. He further asserted that the FBI Agents interviewing him said they had “traced Souetre to Dallas a day before the assassination and then lost him.” As he said in his interview with Gary Shaw, he said the FBI Agents had felt “Souetre had either killed JFK or knew who had done it.” (Ibid.) Clearly there was NO reason for his quick release UNLESS it was to cover up what he knew, and the FBI’s mishandling of this situation, as it points to a conspiracy. None of this was even started to do some dutiful work by our intelligence agencies either as all of this by work the CIA and FBI came AFTER the French had inquired about it. Why is that?
Souetre would deny his knowledge of Dr. Alderson to a reporter in 1983 and he would go on to deny that he was in Dallas on the day JFK was assassinated. He also denied any special knowledge of JFK’s death. All this was said at a time when he was the public relations manager at a fancy gambling casino run by the Mafia! (Ibid.)
Remember Michael Mertz? Well, Souetre told the reporter that this man and he were enemies and he suggested to the reporter that perhaps Michael Mertz was using his name on that day. He further claimed that Mertz had used his name on several occasions before.
In the book Triangle of Death: The Shocking Truth About the Role of South Vietnam and the French Mafia in the Assassination of JFK (noted as TOD from now on) by Brad O’Leary and L.E. Seymour they devote some time to Mr. Michael Mertz. This is an interesting book and they are the ones that provided the CIA’s and FBI’s documents for this post. If you can find it I recommend it for the JFK assassination researcher as I don’t agree with all the conclusions it reaches, but it is filled with stuff many other books on the subject do NOT have. The biggest issue I have with this book is they posit that JFK was behind and endorsed the murder of the Diem brothers in S. Vietnam and of course this is not true.
They give a great importance to this topic and wonder why hardly anyone else has picked up on it and I have to agree with them. Why is there so little interest in a man with rabid right-wing ties and past involvement in conspiracies and assassinations so ignored by the main CT research community? Why was he detained and why was he left go so easily? I would love answers to these questions, how about you?
In this book they say Michael Mertz worked for the SDECE (again, at that time the equivalent to the CIA) at the time of the JFK assassinations and this is why he was in the files of SDECE. Michael Victor Mertz had served in the French military during World War II until France’s defeat to Germany on June 22, 1940. Mertz, along with thousands of others, was then “recruited” into the German Army and forced to fight for Germany if need be. He would defect at the first chance and join the French resistance for the rest of the war. He would work the Haute-Vienne and Limousin districts and would kill many German Army personnel passing through these areas over the course of the war. He would receive multiple medals by the war’s end for valor. He had become an expert in killing.
Mertz would join French intelligence in post-World War II times and would work as a deep undercover operative in the colonies of France (Algeria, Morocco, Congo and Vietnam) to keep these areas under French control. He would also work in Germany and Turkey as Turkey was a key supplier of opium for the French heroin syndicate. Mertz would eventually join a heroin smuggling network while working for SDECE. He would eventually handle the part of the network that dealt the heroin to the U.S. Mafia. He was again excellent at his work and his ultimate bosses—the Guerini Brothers-crime lords of the Marseille Mob by the early 1960s and its global heroin syndicate---were very pleased with Mertz and he made a lot of money in a short period of time. Much of the heroin came to the U.S. in French cars (most notably Citroens) as they could hold up to 220 pounds of heroin in them.
By the early spring of 1961 SDECE needed his help again so he took a break from the heroin trafficking business to help his country. The issue was the independence of Algeria. (Most of this information comes from TOD pp. 93-97). Mertz would be fighting against the OAS that had Jean Souetre on its side. He would infiltrate the OAS very successfully and allow himself to be detained so he could further work the top echelon of the OAS from a detention camp. He would learn of the plans to blow-up De Gaulle with a bomb while he was driving home from work, and he alerted his contacts with the SDECE to stop it. The plan was stopped and the OAS agents were arrested and again Mertz had become a hero. The SDECE, like the CIA, used many of the Marseille Mob to help them defeat the OAS. We have seen in this case the many times the CIA used the U.S. Mafia for various deeds too. (TOD, pp. 99-102)
Both Mertz and Souetre would be in the same OAS detention camp at the same time in July 1961 before Souetre broke out and escaped. Did Souetre also windup working for the CIA? Some researchers believe he is the man that went by the CIA cryptic code name of QJ/WIN. This person, QJ/WIN, was a foreigner with U.S. Mob contacts and who was recruited into the CIA’s executive-action program. (ZR/RIFLE) To me, it is as likely this could have been Mertz as it is Souetre. Especially when we remember how the CIA supposedly rebuffed Souetre about entering into assassination plots against De Gaulle. Surely they would be more interested in a man like Mertz, right? Also remember, the major boss of Mertz were the Guerini Brothers who headed the Marseille Mob and they were providing the U.S. Mafia with a lot of heroin. This is important to remember because the Kennedy brothers had an all-out war going with the U.S. Mafia at this time and I’m sure they were not happy with all this heroin coming into the country via the Marseille Mob network. This would make Mertz a prime candidate by the Guerini Brothers to get rid of JFK to ease the pressure on his associates and customers—the U.S. Mafia.
Also, think about this. Why would Souetre travel to Texas under his OWN NAME if he was going to be involved in the assassination of JFK? Since we see the name Souetre wouldn’t it make more sense for Mertz to be using that name to tie his deeds to Souetre whom he hated? Furthermore, Mertz’ bosses---the Guerini Brothers—had a lot of reasons (millions) to be concerned since their biggest heroin clients in the U.S. were under siege by the Kennedy administration (Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana). All of these Mob bosses had vast heroin distribution networks in place and they got their supply from the Marseille Mob which Mertz was a part of. This meant Mertz had a lot to lose too. (TOD, pp. 127-128)
Let’s look at some comments Jean Souetre told to Monique Lajournade on June 9, 1999, in a very rare interview. [Ms. Lajournade was a French researcher working with co-author Brad O’Leary for the TOD book.]
Q: What do you think about the idea of Mertz using your name?
Souetre: I think it’s completely possible that Mertz was in the United States, at the time of the Kennedy’s murder, using my name.
Q: Do you think he was part of the assassination of Kennedy?
Souetre: What I find very strange is the fact that he was there in Dallas for the day of the crime and under my identity. What was he doing there that day? It’s obvious that he knew that something was going to happen, and that by implicating Captain Souetre he could blame the CNR [Comite Nationale de la Resistance—the later name of the OAS].
Q: CIA Document 632-796 states that one of these three men (yourself, Mertz, or Roux) were in Dallas the day Kennedy was killed. Did you ever know a man called Roux?
Souetre: I cannot remember anyone with that name. I’m convinced that the man who was in Dallas that day was Mertz under my identity for all the reasons I mentioned before.
Q: What do you think about all that’s going on with respect to Kennedy’s assassination today?
Souetre: What shocks me most is to see that Mertz was never interrogated. First, he was on the crime’s location, then he got expelled by the FBI, exfiltrated to Canada. One doesn’t get rid of a suspect like that so quickly. One tries to get information from him. What was he doing there? Apparently there has been no proper investigation. Consequently, Mertz was able to continue with his illegal activities. I find it quite strange that the U.S. authorities---who were able to find me so easily---never pursued Mertz for proper questioning. When they approached me, I proved to them that I wasn’t the one in Dallas, that I had never been to the United States. So who else could it be? I am convinced that Mertz was there that day? Why aren’t they?
From there, as one information leads to another, they should have interrogated Mertz, he was the one getting his orders from Sanguinetti, transmitting the information. He could have been interrogated and said what he knew, at least his relations with the Mafia, through his connections, what he had done on the drug traffic level and so on. He never got interrogated or worried. Instead he died in a luxurious castle in France with lots of money.
I ask myself why. Why was Mertz protected from the Americans by the French services? Could it be that the French services were afraid the Americans would discover the truth?
…So the Americans arrived, introduced themselves, and told me they were preparing this book on OAS; and their first question was “What were you doing in Dallas the day of Kennedy’s assassination?” “Why did you come here I demanded?” “I wasn’t there and….I don’t have anything to say.”
…Later I discovered that they were from the CIA. Why me, but NOT Mertz? I find it really curious that he was never interrogated.
At any rate, the French services could have known about the preparation of the assassination but wouldn’t have given the information to the U.S. authorities. Or maybe they did transmit the information, and then it was hidden. (Jean Souetre Interview with Monique Lajornade, June 9, 1999, covered in TOD, pp. 132-137)
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We know Souetre hated Mertz so he had some bias in throwing the spotlight on him, but I think overall it makes more sense to think based on this information that it was Mertz in Dallas and NOT Jean Souetre. We do have a few other things to consider though.
Firstly, in Henry Hurt’s book, Reasonable Doubt, he makes an interesting observation through photographs. On page 12 of the photographs section (following page 262 of the book) he published this photograph of Jean Souetre.
i.postimg.cc/SN81ZKT0/Osw-alds-buddy-jean-rene-souetre.jpg
Here’s an array of Jean Souetre.
spartacus-educational.com/CRIsouetre1.jpg
Now, here is a photograph found among LHO’s possessions showing him posing with a person only noted as “Alfred From Cuba".
i.postimg.cc/LsdZsC9Z/osw-ald-alleged-and-friend.jpg
Could this be Jean Souetre? I can’t say it is for sure, but there are certainly some similarities there. Why would LHO be hanging out with a known terrorist like Jean Souetre? Just a thought here, but could Souetre have been working for the CIA after all in some capacity?
Secondly, I have done a post in this series on PFC Eugene Dinkin and what he learned before the assassination and we should remember a few things. He was stationed in Metz, France, and one of the groups that were being tracked was the OAS. Dinkin's job was one of code breaker and he said he saw traffic that pointed to an “ultra-right economic group" that were planning to kill JFK. His warning letter to Robert Kennedy did no good and after he went AWOL (Absent Without Leave) he was eventually caught on November 13, 1963, and then sequestered for four months.
Here is more information that Harold Weisberg saved from the National Enquirer regarding Jean Souetre.
jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/N%20Disk/National%20Enquirer/Item%2094.pdf
It is apparent there was something to this story as the FBI were tracking Jean Souetre for many months before the assassination, but they never had to act because in all likelihood the real Souetre never came to America as he said he never entered the U.S. at all. It is highly likely Michael Victor Mertz came to Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, on November 21 and November 22, 1963, and that he had something to do with the assassination. The quick manner in which he was apprehended and then deported WITHOUT ANY INTERROGATION or questioning is quite odd. It would appear that Mertz did have high coverage as Souetre said in his interview.
We don’t know if the WC was ever made aware of this information or not, but at this point do you think they would have really followed this lead? I doubt it as it could ONLY lead to a conspiracy scenario. With leads like this left unchecked there is no way we can rest assured that the WC came to the correct conclusion, thus, they and their conclusion are sunk.
spartacus-educational.com/CRIsouetre1.jpg
i.servimg.com/u/f16/11/04/29/06/souetr10.jpg
Jean Souetre and Michel Mertz?:
content.invisioncic.com/r16296/monthly_2018_04/image.png.2bab5466ff99d5f89ed418a5febfacc7.png
[Note: This was written about nine years ago and never posted anywhere until now. I forgot about it until I found it recently. It was originally supposed to be #399 in my "Statements That Sink The WC's Conclusions" series, which was going to end at 400 installments, but I realized that there was so much not covered that the series had to go on.
This made the LNers furious as they wanted my series done at 400 and this too probably led to my removal from the JFK Assassination Forum and the purging of my series as the LNers cannot deal with the evidence since it shows their faith is totally incorrect.]
The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) shot and killed President John F. Kennedy (JFK) all by himself on November 22, 1963. They said he used a cheap, old mail ordered rifle, a 40” Mannlicher-Carcano (M-C), to accomplish this task from the southeastern sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Building.
They of course never supported any of this with actual evidence, nor did they pursue leads that did NOT point in the direction of their claim. We have seen this numerous times in this series, and we will look at another lead they never pursued in their "search for the truth” during their “fact-finding” mission. This particular lead involved both the FBI and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) too, but the WC was never told about this deportation. Why?
This post will look at the story of Jean Souetre/Michel Roux/Michael Mertz and how he may have been involved in the assassination of JFK. Keep in mind he was in Ft. Worth in the morning of November 22, 1963, and in Dallas during the afternoon. His background certainly would qualify him as an assassin too.
***********************************************
Jean Souetre went by quite a few names as he has also been called Michael Mertz and Michael Roux. We have proof that he was in America, and the city of Dallas, Texas, on the day of the assassination because a CIA document has been found that says so. In CIA document 632-736 it says the following.
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images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5114787ee4b0807f570d7372/1492743446560-MI0VBGRKO67A9EVH6GIF/image-asset.png
AAZ-22592
1 Apr 64
SECRET
Jean SOUETRE’S expulsion from the U.S.
CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
RELEASE IN FULL 1995
Jean Souetre aka Michael Roux aka Michael Mertz---On 5 March, 1964, Mr. Papich advised that the French had hit the Legal Attache in Paris and also the SDECE man had queried the Bureau in New York City concerning subject stating that he had been expelled from the U.S., at Fort Worth or Dallas 48 hours after the assassination.* He was in Fort Worth the morning of 22 November and in Dallas in the afternoon. The French believe that he was expelled either to Mexico or Canada. In January he received mail from a dentist named Alderson living at 5803 Birmingham, Houston, Texas. Subject is believed to be identical with a Captain who is a deserter from the French Army and an activist in the OAS, the French are concerned because of De Gaulle’s planned visit to Mexico. They would like to know the reason for his expulsion from the U.S. and his destination. Bureau files are negative and they are checking our files with indications of what may be passed to the French. Mr. Papich was given a copy of CSCI-3/776,742 previously furnished the Bureau and CSDB-3/665,207 together with a photograph of Captain SOUETRE. WE/3Public; CI/SIG; CI/OPS/Evans.
* * of President Kennedy
* Document Number 632-736
SECRET
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=9342&relPageId=2
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Who was “Mr. Papich” anyway?* Was he a CIA asset? It should be noted too that SDECE stands for “Service de Documentation Exterieure et Contre-Espionage.” In 1963/1964 this was the French equivalent to the CIA. The “Bureau” in New York City refers to the FBI’s office there. What is interesting about Souetre’s movements on November 22, 1963, is that he was in Fort Worth in the morning and Dallas in the afternoon. Either he was a groupie of JFK’s or he was involved in something that pertained to the president’s travel. Otherwise, the coincidence is too great IMO. The OAS stood for “Organisation de l'armée secrète” or "Organization of the Secret Army" in English. It was founded in January 1961 in response to De Gaulle granting Algeria her independence. In a nutshell, they were a right-wing extremist group that participated in terrorist activities. One of these activities involved political assassinations.
[*Note: Since I wrote this I have learned so much more. This Papich man may be Sam Papich who was interviewed by the Church Committee in March 1975. Here is that interview.
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1403#relPageId=2]
We see a reference to a dentist by the name of “Alderson” who lived in Houston, Texas. Is this just a coincidence? One of the main activities of the OAS, according to some researchers, was drug trafficking as they were shipping heroin all around the world from Algeria and this is why they had such an issue with De Gaulle’s decision to grant them independence. We have seen ties between drugs and Houston already in this series (Rose Cheramie), so was this an activity Jean Souetre was involved in? Clearly the SDECE were tracking him already, otherwise, how would they know about his mail to and from a dentist in Houston?
We see why the French were concerned with this matter as De Gaulle planned a trip to Mexico in the summer of 1964 and wanted to know if Souetre had been deported there. The document also mentions that Souetre had been “expelled” from the U.S. forty-eight hours after the assassination and in order to be expelled one has to be caught first. This statement proves Souetre was detained by U.S. authorities and also shows they had to have had a valid reason for doing so. What was that reason? Why doesn’t this document tell us that? It does tell us that he was expelled from TEXAS though and the group who does the expelling is the INS. Obviously he had NO legal right to be here (i.e. visa, business, etc…), but we don’t know the exact reason they expelled him instead of detaining him.
Why was a terrorist, obviously wanted in France, released and deported in such a secretive way? Why did the CIA, FBI and INS keep this document from the WC? Perhaps what is contained in CSCI-3/776,742 is why. It was written in July 1963 by the OAS at a time when they were on the ropes as the SDECE had destroyed much of their organization and imprisoned most of the top leadership of the organization. It hints at Souetre’s possible participation in OAS’s assassination attempts on De Gaulle and seeks the help of the CIA to join them in these attempts.
In fact, in Henry Hurt’s Reasonable Doubt he says Jean Souetre was convicted of participation in an assassination attempt (p. 415). Hurt reports that a court document said that Souetre was “a trained and experienced terrorist and perfectly capable of murder.” (Ibid.) This document also shows both the CIA and FBI were well aware of Souetre and the OAS’s plans well before November 22, 1963, thus, they had to keep this away from the WC.
[Note: The knowledge of these CIA documents is due to the tenacious work of researcher Mary Ferrell who had them released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).]
Souetre told the CIA that he was OAS’ “coordinator for external affairs.” The document says he told the CIA that they may share the same goal of removing De Gaulle from power and they would need “money and material support” to carry it out. The CIA representative told Souetre that “the U.S. had absolutely no intention of working with any person or group against the duly constituted government of France.” These groups could include right-wing ones in Dallas and New Orleans as researchers Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., and Gary Shaw have learned. He supposedly had ties with anti-Castro Cubans too in the U.S.
More twists come when we learn that a Michael Roux was in Fort Worth on November 22, 1963, visiting social acquaintances. Documents released through FOIA have shown that the FBI looked into this, but dismissed it as not being of any interest. Michael Roux entered the U.S. through New York City on November 19, 1963, and left via Laredo, Texas, on December 6, 1963, thus, this could NOT be the man that was deported “48 hours after the assassination” as CIA document 632-736 says. Roux’s acquaintances vouched for him, so the FBI dropped the matter.
The OAS hated De Gaulle for giving Algeria its independence and one can say that JFK was in favor of this move. It was something that he talked about for many years before becoming president so it is not incorrect to say if the OAS hated De Gaulle for this act they most surely would have hated JFK as well. Research has posited that these deserters did not hate De Gaulle for simply giving freedom to the Algerians, but rather because this was going to upset the heroin pipeline they had established there. In other words, this was going to cost them, and others, a fortune. This all ties into Vietnam as well as that was known as the “Golden Triangle” for heroin. Could this pipeline have traveled to Houston, Texas?
CIA document CSCI-3/776,742 says that Souetre told the CIA representative that “he traveled on various passports, one of them being a U.S. passport.” As we have seen before in this series it was/is difficult to get a U.S. passport, so how does a person who is a deserter, convicted participator in an assassination attempt and terrorist get one then? Obviously, NOT in the normal way. Also, perhaps he had them in other peoples’ names as Roux or Mertz. Both of these were real people as we have seen with Roux already.
Researcher J. Gary Shaw found and interviewed Alderson the dentist in October 1977. It turns out his name was Larry Alderson and he had become friends with Souetre from his time in the service. He had been stationed in France as a Security Officer on a joint post with French military personnel. They became friends and stayed in touch over the years leading up to 1963. Alderson described Souetre as follows: “He was good-looking, tall, rather angular, last time I saw him. He had kind of curly-hair, dark brown, good-looking guy, handsome guy.” (Telephone Interview with Dr. Larry Alderson and Gary Shaw, October 5, 1977, 4:30 p.m.)
In an interview the following day he gave us further information pertaining to Souetre.
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- Souetre was approximately twenty-five years old in the early ‘50s.
- Souetre was a linguist who spoke excellent English with no trace of an accent; he also spoke Spanish and German.
- He was sharp dressed and a ladies' man.
- He was well acquainted with “all the French politicians.”
- He stood six-foot-one and weighed about 175 pounds. (Telephone Interview with Dr. Larry Alderson and Gary Shaw, October 6, 1977, 4:00 p.m)
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The FBI had him under surveillance and interviewed Alderson soon after the assassination in regard to his association with Souetre. He therefore was familiar with the information showing Souetre had been in Fort Worth and Dallas on the day of the assassination. This is proof that the FBI knew about Souetre’s whereabouts on November 22, 1963, and that he had been expelled from the country long before CIA Document 632-736 was written. Alderson told Shaw that the FBI “…felt that Jean knew who or he himself had assassinated Kennedy.” (Telephone Interview with Dr. Larry Alderson and Gary Shaw, October 5, 1977, 4:30 p.m.)
If we tie this in with FBI Document 105-120510-2 which was dated April 8, 1963, we see the FBI had reason to suspect Souetre of something a full eight months before JFK was assassinated. How do we know this? Because this document called for an investigation on Alderson and he clearly could NOT have been involved in anything, therefore, his only valuable connection was to Souetre. Here is what it said.
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United States government
Memorandum
TO: Director, FBI DATE: 4/8/63
(ATT: FOREIGN LIASON UNIT)
FROM: SAC NEW YORK XXXXXXXXXXXX Informant
SUBJECT: Alderson,
5803 Birmingham, Houston, Texas
IS-FRANCE
Informant
For the information of the Bureau and Houston, on 4/3/63 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Houston is requested to identify the ALDERSONS, and when this information is forthocoming, the Bureau is requested to advise what, if any, information may be furnished to this source.
2-Bureau (RM)
2-Houston, (RM)
1-New York, XXXXXXXX
Informant
LHB:EG
(5)
FBI Document 105-120510-2
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Another FBI Document, 105-120510-1, would call for Alderson’s wife, mother and father to be investigated as well. Surely the FBI were not interested in the Alderson family this much (and if they were they have NEVER told us why), right? This shows in all likelihood that the FBI was tracking Jean Souetre as early as April 1963 (if not earlier), so why was he released so easily on November 24, 1963, then?
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=125412#relPageId=2
Since the name Jean Souetre is tied to two others, Michael Roux and Michael Mertz, could one of these men have been using that name on November 22, 1963? The authorities claimed Michale Roux was “okay” after they checked out his hosts, but was he? What about Michael Mertz?
Dr. Alederson recalled that Jean Souetre was a “political activist of the neo-Nazi persuasion.” (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, p. 418) This would mean he was extremely right-wing in his thinking. Dr. Alderson said they only communicated around Christmastime and that he never saw Souetre in the United States. He further asserted that the FBI Agents interviewing him said they had “traced Souetre to Dallas a day before the assassination and then lost him.” As he said in his interview with Gary Shaw, he said the FBI Agents had felt “Souetre had either killed JFK or knew who had done it.” (Ibid.) Clearly there was NO reason for his quick release UNLESS it was to cover up what he knew, and the FBI’s mishandling of this situation, as it points to a conspiracy. None of this was even started to do some dutiful work by our intelligence agencies either as all of this by work the CIA and FBI came AFTER the French had inquired about it. Why is that?
Souetre would deny his knowledge of Dr. Alderson to a reporter in 1983 and he would go on to deny that he was in Dallas on the day JFK was assassinated. He also denied any special knowledge of JFK’s death. All this was said at a time when he was the public relations manager at a fancy gambling casino run by the Mafia! (Ibid.)
Remember Michael Mertz? Well, Souetre told the reporter that this man and he were enemies and he suggested to the reporter that perhaps Michael Mertz was using his name on that day. He further claimed that Mertz had used his name on several occasions before.
In the book Triangle of Death: The Shocking Truth About the Role of South Vietnam and the French Mafia in the Assassination of JFK (noted as TOD from now on) by Brad O’Leary and L.E. Seymour they devote some time to Mr. Michael Mertz. This is an interesting book and they are the ones that provided the CIA’s and FBI’s documents for this post. If you can find it I recommend it for the JFK assassination researcher as I don’t agree with all the conclusions it reaches, but it is filled with stuff many other books on the subject do NOT have. The biggest issue I have with this book is they posit that JFK was behind and endorsed the murder of the Diem brothers in S. Vietnam and of course this is not true.
They give a great importance to this topic and wonder why hardly anyone else has picked up on it and I have to agree with them. Why is there so little interest in a man with rabid right-wing ties and past involvement in conspiracies and assassinations so ignored by the main CT research community? Why was he detained and why was he left go so easily? I would love answers to these questions, how about you?
In this book they say Michael Mertz worked for the SDECE (again, at that time the equivalent to the CIA) at the time of the JFK assassinations and this is why he was in the files of SDECE. Michael Victor Mertz had served in the French military during World War II until France’s defeat to Germany on June 22, 1940. Mertz, along with thousands of others, was then “recruited” into the German Army and forced to fight for Germany if need be. He would defect at the first chance and join the French resistance for the rest of the war. He would work the Haute-Vienne and Limousin districts and would kill many German Army personnel passing through these areas over the course of the war. He would receive multiple medals by the war’s end for valor. He had become an expert in killing.
Mertz would join French intelligence in post-World War II times and would work as a deep undercover operative in the colonies of France (Algeria, Morocco, Congo and Vietnam) to keep these areas under French control. He would also work in Germany and Turkey as Turkey was a key supplier of opium for the French heroin syndicate. Mertz would eventually join a heroin smuggling network while working for SDECE. He would eventually handle the part of the network that dealt the heroin to the U.S. Mafia. He was again excellent at his work and his ultimate bosses—the Guerini Brothers-crime lords of the Marseille Mob by the early 1960s and its global heroin syndicate---were very pleased with Mertz and he made a lot of money in a short period of time. Much of the heroin came to the U.S. in French cars (most notably Citroens) as they could hold up to 220 pounds of heroin in them.
By the early spring of 1961 SDECE needed his help again so he took a break from the heroin trafficking business to help his country. The issue was the independence of Algeria. (Most of this information comes from TOD pp. 93-97). Mertz would be fighting against the OAS that had Jean Souetre on its side. He would infiltrate the OAS very successfully and allow himself to be detained so he could further work the top echelon of the OAS from a detention camp. He would learn of the plans to blow-up De Gaulle with a bomb while he was driving home from work, and he alerted his contacts with the SDECE to stop it. The plan was stopped and the OAS agents were arrested and again Mertz had become a hero. The SDECE, like the CIA, used many of the Marseille Mob to help them defeat the OAS. We have seen in this case the many times the CIA used the U.S. Mafia for various deeds too. (TOD, pp. 99-102)
Both Mertz and Souetre would be in the same OAS detention camp at the same time in July 1961 before Souetre broke out and escaped. Did Souetre also windup working for the CIA? Some researchers believe he is the man that went by the CIA cryptic code name of QJ/WIN. This person, QJ/WIN, was a foreigner with U.S. Mob contacts and who was recruited into the CIA’s executive-action program. (ZR/RIFLE) To me, it is as likely this could have been Mertz as it is Souetre. Especially when we remember how the CIA supposedly rebuffed Souetre about entering into assassination plots against De Gaulle. Surely they would be more interested in a man like Mertz, right? Also remember, the major boss of Mertz were the Guerini Brothers who headed the Marseille Mob and they were providing the U.S. Mafia with a lot of heroin. This is important to remember because the Kennedy brothers had an all-out war going with the U.S. Mafia at this time and I’m sure they were not happy with all this heroin coming into the country via the Marseille Mob network. This would make Mertz a prime candidate by the Guerini Brothers to get rid of JFK to ease the pressure on his associates and customers—the U.S. Mafia.
Also, think about this. Why would Souetre travel to Texas under his OWN NAME if he was going to be involved in the assassination of JFK? Since we see the name Souetre wouldn’t it make more sense for Mertz to be using that name to tie his deeds to Souetre whom he hated? Furthermore, Mertz’ bosses---the Guerini Brothers—had a lot of reasons (millions) to be concerned since their biggest heroin clients in the U.S. were under siege by the Kennedy administration (Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana). All of these Mob bosses had vast heroin distribution networks in place and they got their supply from the Marseille Mob which Mertz was a part of. This meant Mertz had a lot to lose too. (TOD, pp. 127-128)
Let’s look at some comments Jean Souetre told to Monique Lajournade on June 9, 1999, in a very rare interview. [Ms. Lajournade was a French researcher working with co-author Brad O’Leary for the TOD book.]
Q: What do you think about the idea of Mertz using your name?
Souetre: I think it’s completely possible that Mertz was in the United States, at the time of the Kennedy’s murder, using my name.
Q: Do you think he was part of the assassination of Kennedy?
Souetre: What I find very strange is the fact that he was there in Dallas for the day of the crime and under my identity. What was he doing there that day? It’s obvious that he knew that something was going to happen, and that by implicating Captain Souetre he could blame the CNR [Comite Nationale de la Resistance—the later name of the OAS].
Q: CIA Document 632-796 states that one of these three men (yourself, Mertz, or Roux) were in Dallas the day Kennedy was killed. Did you ever know a man called Roux?
Souetre: I cannot remember anyone with that name. I’m convinced that the man who was in Dallas that day was Mertz under my identity for all the reasons I mentioned before.
Q: What do you think about all that’s going on with respect to Kennedy’s assassination today?
Souetre: What shocks me most is to see that Mertz was never interrogated. First, he was on the crime’s location, then he got expelled by the FBI, exfiltrated to Canada. One doesn’t get rid of a suspect like that so quickly. One tries to get information from him. What was he doing there? Apparently there has been no proper investigation. Consequently, Mertz was able to continue with his illegal activities. I find it quite strange that the U.S. authorities---who were able to find me so easily---never pursued Mertz for proper questioning. When they approached me, I proved to them that I wasn’t the one in Dallas, that I had never been to the United States. So who else could it be? I am convinced that Mertz was there that day? Why aren’t they?
From there, as one information leads to another, they should have interrogated Mertz, he was the one getting his orders from Sanguinetti, transmitting the information. He could have been interrogated and said what he knew, at least his relations with the Mafia, through his connections, what he had done on the drug traffic level and so on. He never got interrogated or worried. Instead he died in a luxurious castle in France with lots of money.
I ask myself why. Why was Mertz protected from the Americans by the French services? Could it be that the French services were afraid the Americans would discover the truth?
…So the Americans arrived, introduced themselves, and told me they were preparing this book on OAS; and their first question was “What were you doing in Dallas the day of Kennedy’s assassination?” “Why did you come here I demanded?” “I wasn’t there and….I don’t have anything to say.”
…Later I discovered that they were from the CIA. Why me, but NOT Mertz? I find it really curious that he was never interrogated.
At any rate, the French services could have known about the preparation of the assassination but wouldn’t have given the information to the U.S. authorities. Or maybe they did transmit the information, and then it was hidden. (Jean Souetre Interview with Monique Lajornade, June 9, 1999, covered in TOD, pp. 132-137)
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We know Souetre hated Mertz so he had some bias in throwing the spotlight on him, but I think overall it makes more sense to think based on this information that it was Mertz in Dallas and NOT Jean Souetre. We do have a few other things to consider though.
Firstly, in Henry Hurt’s book, Reasonable Doubt, he makes an interesting observation through photographs. On page 12 of the photographs section (following page 262 of the book) he published this photograph of Jean Souetre.
i.postimg.cc/SN81ZKT0/Osw-alds-buddy-jean-rene-souetre.jpg
Here’s an array of Jean Souetre.
spartacus-educational.com/CRIsouetre1.jpg
Now, here is a photograph found among LHO’s possessions showing him posing with a person only noted as “Alfred From Cuba".
i.postimg.cc/LsdZsC9Z/osw-ald-alleged-and-friend.jpg
Could this be Jean Souetre? I can’t say it is for sure, but there are certainly some similarities there. Why would LHO be hanging out with a known terrorist like Jean Souetre? Just a thought here, but could Souetre have been working for the CIA after all in some capacity?
Secondly, I have done a post in this series on PFC Eugene Dinkin and what he learned before the assassination and we should remember a few things. He was stationed in Metz, France, and one of the groups that were being tracked was the OAS. Dinkin's job was one of code breaker and he said he saw traffic that pointed to an “ultra-right economic group" that were planning to kill JFK. His warning letter to Robert Kennedy did no good and after he went AWOL (Absent Without Leave) he was eventually caught on November 13, 1963, and then sequestered for four months.
Here is more information that Harold Weisberg saved from the National Enquirer regarding Jean Souetre.
jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/N%20Disk/National%20Enquirer/Item%2094.pdf
It is apparent there was something to this story as the FBI were tracking Jean Souetre for many months before the assassination, but they never had to act because in all likelihood the real Souetre never came to America as he said he never entered the U.S. at all. It is highly likely Michael Victor Mertz came to Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, on November 21 and November 22, 1963, and that he had something to do with the assassination. The quick manner in which he was apprehended and then deported WITHOUT ANY INTERROGATION or questioning is quite odd. It would appear that Mertz did have high coverage as Souetre said in his interview.
We don’t know if the WC was ever made aware of this information or not, but at this point do you think they would have really followed this lead? I doubt it as it could ONLY lead to a conspiracy scenario. With leads like this left unchecked there is no way we can rest assured that the WC came to the correct conclusion, thus, they and their conclusion are sunk.