The Many Hats of Jack Chrichton

Big Oil, Military Intelligence and D.P.D. ...OH MY!

"The Communists, since 1917, have sold communism to more people than have been told about Christ after 2,000 years."

Conservative radio commentator Paul Harvey, September 1960: He urged his readers to support the "counter-attack . . . mounted (of coursei) in Dallas.

The head of the intelligence component of Dallas Civil Defense, was Jack Chrichton.ii

On Jan 18, 1960, Tracy Barnes called a meeting. Those in attendance included E. Howard Hunt and the rest of the team responsible for the Guatemala Coup of 1954. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss rerunning the same campaign plan against Cuba.

Richard Nixon was Cuban case officer and assembled a group of businessmen headed by George Bush Sr. and Jack Crichton, both Texas Oilmen, to gather funds for Operation 40.iii The plan was put together by the 5412 Group, a subcommittee of the NSC (National Security Council). Lyndon Johnson later called Operation 40 “Murder Inc. in the Caribbean.” In Deadly Secrets, Warren Hinckle and William Turner described Operation 40 as an “assassins-for-hire” organization. Involved in it's operations were Sam Giancana amd Santo Traficante. The Cuban plan called for Castro's assassination and included a false flag attack on Guantnamo naval base to coincide with an invasion by a Cuban exile brigade.iv

Who was Jack Chrichton?

According to Conservapedia, “Jack Crichton (October 16, 1916 – December 10, 2007), was an oil and natural gas industrialist from Dallas Texas, who was among the first of his ranks to recognize the importance of petroleum reserves in the Middle East. In 1964, he carried the Republican banner in a fruitless campaign against the second-term reelection of Governor John Connally, then a Democrat, who switched parties nine years later.”

When Chrichton was enrolled at Texas A&M University, his classmates included future industrialist Harry Roberts "Bum" Bright and Earle Cabell, later a mayor of Dallas, Crichton wrote an award-winning essay, "The Political Career of Huey P. Long".

In 1990, Crichton wrote in the The Dallas Morning News that he first realized the vastness of the Middle Eastern oil reserves prior to 1950. In 1951, he helped to establish the San Juan Oil Company in Dallas, where he became the vice president of operations. He later became president of the Yemen Development Corporation and the Dorchester Gas Corporation and was involved in mining copper, zinc, gold, silver ande nickel through his Arabian Shield Development Company.v

Crichton served in the U.S. Army in WW II as a field artillery officer and and an O.S.S. special agent. He won the Air Medal, five Battle Stars, and the Bronze Star. He retired as a colonel in the Army Reserve. Crichton's O.S.S. service during WWII was just one facet of his persona. He wore another hat in November 1963. He was president of NAFCO Oil and Gas, Inc. and counted among his associates, Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt, Earl Cabell, D.H. Byrd, Sid Richardson, George H.W. Bush and George de Mohrenschildt. In fact, he, de Mohrenschildt and several other oil men were involved in negotiations with Fulgencio Batista, the military dictator of Cuba. In August 1953 Crichton joined the Empire Trust Company. He eventually became a vice-president of the organization. According to Stephen Birmingham, the author of Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York; “...the company had a network of associates that amounted to "something very like a private CIA". The Empire Trust was also a major investor in the defense contractor General Dynamics.

In 1956, Crichton became commander of the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, which operated under Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmeyer, the overall commander of all Army Reserve units in East Texas. According to Crichton, there were about a hundred men in the unit, with nearly half of them coming from the Dallas Police Department.

In 1961, Crichton joined with fellow Dallas conservatives to establish the program "Know Your Enemy", which aimed to combat communist influence that "was undermining the American way of life." In 1962, Crichton opened a command post underneath the patio of the Dallas Health and Science Museum with the goal of maintaining the continuity-of-government were the United States attacked.

Know your enemy

In Big D in 1963, JFK was the enemy. Dallas was the Capital of ultra-conservatism. In there eyes, it was he that was undermining the American way of life.

Crichton's activities at the time of the assassination are suspicious to say the least. He was the first person to interview Marina Oswald after the assassination. Why wasn't it the FBI or Dallas Police? In addition, within hours of the assassination, he contacted a White Russian immigrant named Ilya Mamantov who worked for Sun Oil Company as an oil geologist. Manantov was an ultra-right winger who was an acquaintance of Ruth Paine. Crichton used Mamantov as a translator in his interview with Marina.vi Crichton knew Mamantov personally as a fellow petroleum geologist. He also knew him because Mamantov was a precinct chairman of the Republican party, for which Crichton became the 1964 candidate for governor of Texas. Since Mamantov and Marina were the only speakers of Russian, How do we know that the answers given by Oswald's wife were what Mamantov said they were? According to Russ Baker, the author of Family of Secrets, they "were far from literal translations of her Russian words and had the effect of implicating her husband in Kennedy's death."

Crichton met with H.L. Hunt shortly after the assassination. Why? Crichton's close friend, Deputy Police Chief George L. Lumpkinvii, drove the pilot car of Kennedy's motorcade. Also in the car was Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmeyer, commander of all Army Reserve units in East Texas and Crichton's commanding officer. The pilot car stopped briefly in front of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lumpkin spoke to a policeman controlling traffic at the corner of Houston and Elm. As mentioned, Crichton's was linked with Big Oil in Dallas. In his book Blood, Money and Power, Barr McClellan states,

“Big Oil in Dallas during the fifties and sixties what the OPEC oil cartel was to the United States in the seventies and beyond. One of the main concerns of this group was the preservation of the oil depletion allowance.”

If JFK were re-elected, that entity would likely have been eliminated.

Strangely, another Army Intelligence officer, James Powell, was seen on the sixth floor of the TSBD near where the Manlicher Carcano was found. He later found himself trapped in the building when it was sealed off after the assassination.

At the actual moment of the assassination of President Kennedy and the wounding of Governor Connally, Crichton was attending the annual luncheon held that year at the Adolphus Hotel on Commerce Street in Dallas on the Friday before Thanksgiving Day to honor the TAMU and University of Texas football teams, who meet on the gridiron annually on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Crichton recalls:

“I walked over to Elm Street to see the Kennedy delegation. . . . President Kennedy and Jackie made a handsome couple. She was resplendent in her pink dress and pink pillbox hat. The crowds on the sidewalks applauded, and waved as they drove by. . . . I entered the hotel . . . The room was almost filled, and people were seated at the individual tables. ... We had the invocation, and many guests began to eat their lunch. Suddenly we heard sirens screaming and someone from outside ran up to the head table and excitedly said, 'The President, Vice President, and Governor Connally have all been shot.' I stood and announced the news. There was stunned silence in the room. Someone then produced a radio, and the news confirmed that the President (and Connally) had been shot."

In Summary; Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

In November 1963 Jack Alston Crichton was involved in the arrangements of the visit that President John F. Kennedy made to Dallas. His close friend, Deputy Police Chief George L. Lumpkin, a fellow member of the the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, who drove the pilot car of Kennedy's motorcade, would later tell the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he had been consulted by the Secret Service on motorcade security, and his input had eliminated an alternative route.viii Also in the car was Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmeyer. The pilot car stopped briefly in front of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lumpkin spoke to a policeman controlling traffic at the corner of Houston and Elm. So, it appears that Chrichton and Lumpkin played a role in the decision to change the motorcade route from continuing down Main street to turning on Houston and then onto Elm.

In 1956 Jack Alston Crichton started up his own spy unit, the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment in Dallas.ix In an interview Crichton claimed that there were "about a hundred men in that unit and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department." Crichton served as the unit's commander under Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmeyer, who was in overall command of all Army Reserve units in East Texas. Why were Whitmeyer and Lumpkin in the pilot car of Kennedy's motorcade?

Crichton also went up against John Connolly in the Governor race of 1964. He was very critical of both Connolly and LBJ calling for them to make public the findings in the Billie Sol Estes investigation. George Bush backed up Crichton's calls and both men went on the political attack. So we have Bush and Crichton vs LBJ and Connally. Why?

Bush and Crichton were political allies as well as business associates. Both were involved in the financing of the Operation 40 assassination squads. Chrichton was connected to army intelligence and had been an O.S.S. Operative in WWII. Bush was CIA connected and eventually became it's director. Both were deeply tied to Dallas Oil and Kennedy haters like their oil business associates, H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison. Chrichton played a role in questioning Oswald's widow through fellow oil man, Illya Mamantov who was an acquaintance of Ruth Paine. The convenient tie in of Dallas Police,x particularly Crichton's good friend, Lumpkin, adds fuel to the fire. The speculation that D.P.D. played a role in framing Oswald and aiding Ruby has long been a haunting the events of November 63.

The Evidence

Did Chrichton Played a Role in the Events of November 22, 1963

Chrichton was a very powerful and well connected right wing conservative. His Empire Trust network acted as a private CIA.

He commanded an entire Intelligence detachment (488th).

He was part of the influential right wing oil cartel of Dallas and had the ears of billionaires like H.L. Hunt.

He was well connected to the Dallas Police and many of them were part of his 488th command.

He used his influence to be the first to interview Marina Oswald and used his personally chosen translator who was also a member of the right wing Dallas oil cartel.

He as well as Oswald's widow made visits to H.L. Hunt shortly after the assassination. Why?

He and his crony, Lumpkin, played a roll in the choosing of the motorcade route.

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

Endnotes

i Authors comment.

ii Pronounced “CRAYTON”

iii All three just happened to be in Dallas on the day of the assassination.

iv According to Fabian Escalante (The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba), in 1959, Crichton and Bush raised funds for the CIA's Operation 40. Originally it was set up to organize sabotage operations against Fidel Castro and his Cuban government. However, it evolved into a team of assassins. One member, Frank Sturgis, claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents...

v Conservapedia

vi Bloody Treason, Noel Twyman, p.521

vii Lumpkin was a fellow member of the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment.

viii What did you say, George???

ix Russ Baker points out in Family of Secrets (2008) Crichton served as the "intelligence unit's only commander... until he retired from the 488th in 1967".

x Forty or fifty of them were members of the 488th.

Bibliography

Blood, Money and Power, Barr McClellan

Bloody Treason, Noel Twyman, Laurel Publishing, 1997

CIA Covert Operations 1959-1962: The Cuba Project, 2004, bFabian Escalante

Family of Secrets, Russ Baker

Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York, Stephen Birmingham