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JFK The Enduring Secret

Jeff Crudele

An in depth tutorial and discussion around the assassination of John F. Kennedy, (JFK) the country's 35th president who was brutally murdered in Dallas Texas on November 22, 1963. The series comprehensively explores the major facts, themes, and events leading up to the assassination in Dealey Plaza and the equally gripping stories surrounding the subsequent investigation. We review key elements of the Warren Commission Report , and the role of the CIA and FBI. We explore the possible involvement of the Mafia in the murder and the review of that topic by the government's House Select Committee on Assassinations in the 1970's. We explore the Jim Garrison investigation and the work of other key figures such as Mark Lane and others. Learn more about Lee Harvey Oswald the suspected killer and Jack Ruby the distraught Dallas night club owner with underworld ties and the man that killed Oswald as a national TV audience was watching. Stay with us as we take you through the facts and theories in bite sized discussions that are designed to educate, and inform as well as entertain the audience. This real life story is more fascinating than fiction. No matter whether you are a serious researcher or a casual student, you will enjoy the fact filled narrative and story as we relive one of the most shocking moments in American History. An event that changed the nation and change the world forever.

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S7 · E327
August 9 · 15 min
Episode 327 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 3
In the late summer of 1933, with the Great Depression holding Chicago in a frozen grip, twenty-two-year-old Jacob Rubenstein and his sister Eva packed a single suitcase and looked west. Under the sun-drenched palm trees of California, a strange transformation occurred. The volatile, quick-tempered kid from the West Side tenements seemed to vanish, replaced by a well-mannered, meticulously dressed young gentleman who openly admired local beat cops and managed newspaper subscription crews. Yet, the street-hustler DNA remained active underneath his polished veneer as he ran lucrative racetrack tip sheets from Santa Anita to Bay Meadows. But this fragile West Coast peace was shattered in 1937 when his mother, Fanny, suffered a complete psychiatric collapse. Returning to the familiar grime and chaos of his family's Chicago home, the polished gentleman dissolved. Jacob immediately plunged back into the raw, competitive arena of the streets—scalping tickets, selling cheap watches out of his pockets, and violently beating a man to the pavement who hurled an anti-Semitic slur at him. Desperate for a real position of authority and respect, Jacob found his calling in late 1937 as an organizer for the Scrap Iron and Junk Handlers Union. It was here that he met the ultimate mentor who would redefine his life: Leon Cook, the union’s brilliant, idealistic, college-educated attorney. Jacob idolized Cook, pouring his manic energy into the union while frequently serving as its blunt instrument and "muscle" to keep hostile employers and wildcat strikes in line. Then came the cold night of December 8, 1939, when a bitter power struggle ended in gunfire. Mob-aligned union president John Martin shot Leon Cook at point-blank range, a lethal blow that eventually claimed Cook's life and allowed the Chicago syndicate to seize control. Shattered and violently frozen out by the mob, twenty-eight-year-old Jacob made a profound, deeply emotional choice to preserve his mentor's memory: he legally adopted Cook’s first name as his own middle name. From that moment on, he was Jacob Leon Rubenstein—and later, Jack Leon Ruby. Every time he signed a document, introduced himself to a Dallas police officer, or handed out a strip club business card, he carried the name of a murdered man and the heavy shadow of his violent past.
S7 · E326
August 9 · 13 min
Episode 326 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 2
If you visit Westlawn Cemetery just outside Chicago, you'll find a simple granite headstone for the man who silenced Lee Harvey Oswald on live television. But carved right in the center of that marker is a bracketed childhood nickname: Jack "Sparky" Ruby. In part two of our special miniseries, we rewind the tape to the cobblestones of 1920s Chicago to meet the teenage Jacob Rubenstein long before the strip clubs, the mobsters, and the history-shattering events in Dealey Plaza. This is the story of a boy running wild on Roosevelt Street—a kid who refused to sit at a school desk, refused to work for a boss, and violently beat anyone who dared call him by his own name. Following his designation as a dependent ward of the state in 1923, young Jacob was temporarily exiled to a rural Illinois foster farm—a quiet landscape that must have felt like another planet to a boy raised on the pavement of the Maxwell Street ghetto. Though his fractured family was loosely patched back together a couple of years later, the household remained a chaotic, disorganized pressure cooker. Jacob quickly sought his education on the streets, bouncing between grammar schools and repeating the third grade before dropping out permanently after the eighth grade at age sixteen. Traditional high school was an unaffordable luxury; for Jacob, survival meant money, and he made a lifelong rule: he would never work for a boss, choosing instead to survive on pure grit as a street hustler. As the Great Depression squeezed the Chicago streets dry, Jacob's hustle took on many forms. He and his teenage friends became street-level ticket scalpers outside local ballparks and boxing arenas, which led to his first physical altercation with a police officer. Though he escaped charges through his brother's early political connections, the margins on the street grew razor-thin, pushing Jacob into a highly unusual black-market venture: printing and selling unauthorized bootleg copies of copyrighted sheet music. The scheme landed him a brief, humiliating stint behind bars, deepening his view of himself as an outsider who had to scrape, claw, and fight for every single dime. During these formative years, Jacob’s personality split into two completely contradictory worlds. To some, he was a gentle, polite boy who idolized world welterweight champion Barney Ross. To others, he was a manic street brawler with a legendary hair-trigger temper who was obsessed with physical health and boasting he could hit harder than Joe Louis. Nothing triggered his volcanic rage faster than his childhood nickname "Sparky"—a name his sister Eva claimed mocked his awkward, wobbling walk like a comic strip horse, but his brother Hyman insisted was a badge of lightning speed and street intelligence. By 1933, with the Chicago streets dry and Al Capone's gangster empire fracturing, Jacob packed his bags for California carrying with him the deep insecurities and explosive temper that would one day seal his fate in a Dallas basement.
S7 · E325
August 9 · 19 min
Episode 325 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 1
On November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby stepped out of the shadows of a crowded Dallas police basement and shot Lee Harvey Oswald live on national television, silencing the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy forever. In a single moment, Ruby opened a canyon of doubt and conspiracy that has never closed, cementing himself as one of the most mysterious and controversial figures in modern history. To the public, he was a Dallas strip club owner and midnight hustler, a man of wild and irreconcilable contradictions who could beat a patron into the concrete one moment, and weep over a sad news story, buy groceries for a struggling mother, or cook tender lamb chops for his beloved dogs the next. But who was the man beneath the dark fedora? In this first episode of our deep-dive series, we takes a wander back to the core of the JFK story to understand the volatile behavior of this highly complex individual by looking past the neon lights of the Carousel Club and rewinding the tape to where it all began. To trace the roots of Ruby's explosive violence, we travel back to March 25, 1911, and the crowded, impoverished immigrant streets of Chicago's West Side. Born Jacob Rubenstein, he was the fifth of eight living children born to Joseph and Fanny Rubenstein, Polish Jewish immigrants who had fled the violent, repressive rule of Tsarist Russia. Growing up in what his own family described as a below-middle-class ghetto on Morgan Street, Jacob’s world was defined by coal smoke, ethnic street fights, and extreme domestic trauma. The Rubenstein home was a toxic pressure cooker of parental strife and heavy violence, driven by his father's severe alcoholism and explosive rages, leading to constant police interventions and an eventual family disintegration when Jacob was just ten years old. As his family collapsed, Jacob watched his mother, Fanny, descend into severe, tragic mental illness. Plagued by a bizarre, lifelong delusion that a sharp fishbone was permanently lodged in her throat, she spent years dragging her children to clinics, eventually slipping into intense paranoia and being committed to Elgin State Hospital in 1937. Left to run wild, Jacob dropped out of school by the eighth grade to become a street hustler, earning the lifelong nickname "Sparky"—a name born of his awkward walk or lightning-fast temper, which he so thoroughly despised that he would instantly attack anyone who dared say it to his face. Despite the childhood neglect, Jacob remained deeply devoted to his mother, internalizing her frantic anxieties and intense volatility in ways that would profoundly shape his adult life. By age eleven, Jacob’s truancy and incorrigible behavior at home led to an evaluation by the Institute for Juvenile Research. The resulting 1922 psychiatric report is a chillingly prophetic document, describing an egocentric, quick-tempered, and highly erratic child desperate for attention he could never receive at home. Declared a dependent ward of the state, Jacob was torn from his siblings and isolated in foster homes, fostering a desperate need to "be a somebody" that would follow him all the way to the Carousel Club. Decades later, both the Warren Commission and his defense attorney, Melvin Belli, would weaponize this traumatic past—with Belli claiming that in Ruby's highly emotional, shattered mind, shooting Oswald was a bizarre attempt to protect a grieving Jacqueline Kennedy, substituting the First Lady for the broken mother he could never save in Chicago. Join us as we begin this miniseries, uncovering how the scars of Chicago's streets paved the way for the fateful basement in Dallas.
S7 · E324
August 8 · 26 min
Episode 324 Jack Ruby Miniseries Prelude Episode
Join us in this prelude episode of a miniseries series covering Jack Ruby. Our podcast coverage now moves to tell the story of this central character in the assassination. Jack Ruby was an enigmatic figure that some say was the "cleanest available test of the conspiracy hypothesis". While sixty years of intense debate over Lee Harvey Oswald’s guilt have left questions of ballistics, trajectories, and acoustics in a perpetual draw, what Jack Ruby did is not in dispute—his crime was captured live on national television before millions of stunned viewers. The opening chapter argues that while every other line of inquiry in this historic case requires proving that a specific event occurred, the puzzle of Jack Ruby only asks us to explain a tragedy that the world saw happen in real time. The ultimate tragedy was the denial of access to Lee Harvey Oswald and the trial that never was... the trial that might have produced the truth or at least got us closer to it To build an investigative roadmap for the episodes to come, this prelude episode reconstructs a series of glaring anomalies and timeline mysteries from that fateful November weekend. It probes the oddities of Ruby’s alibi—including why he was counting cash for strip club ads at the Dallas Morning News desk with a clear view of Dealey Plaza at the exact moment of the motorcade shooting—his highly debated presence at Parkland Hospital that afternoon, and his bizarre ability to infiltrate the midnight police press conference to correct the District Attorney on Oswald's political affiliations. Most striking of all is the razor-thin four-minute gap between Ruby’s Western Union receipt at 11:17 AM and the fatal basement shot at 11:21 AM, prompting listeners to evaluate whether he was simply a grieving citizen acting on impulse or part of a coordinated security failure. The episode also sets the stage for a deep dive into the dark institutional and underworld networks that defined Ruby's existence. It previews the upcoming investigations into his sudden spike in late-1963 phone calls to high-level mob and Teamster figures, his mysterious 1959 trips to Havana, and his hidden history as a potential FBI informant. Crucially, the series prepares to confront the chilling legacy of the jail cell itself—exploring Ruby's frantic deathbed claims that he was being poisoned, his private visits from MKULTRA-linked psychiatrist Dr. Jolly West, and the highly suspicious, rapid succession of deaths that silenced the journalists and associates who tried to tell his story, including reporters Bill Hunter, Jim Koethe, attorney Tom Howard, and Broadway columnist Dorothy Kilgallen. Ultimately, the miniseries is anchored by a compelling, tragic psychological portrait of a man whose life was propelled by a volatile cycle of "aspiration and humiliation". Drawing on a remarkable 1922 psychiatric report that diagnosed an eleven-year-old Ruby as an egocentric attention-seeker, the series traces how a lifetime of failed commercial ventures—from liquid vitamins to exercise twist boards—and a hyper-sensitivity to anti-Semitic slurs transformed into a desperate, final bid for recognition. This essential opening chapter invites listeners to sit as the jury, laying out the raw evidence to decide whether Jack Ruby's fatal act was a chaotic institutional failure or a chillingly coordinated design
S7 · E328
August 3 · 40 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 14
In Episode 14 of the Noss Gold Treasure, the investigation shifts to the early 1970s as President Richard Nixon positions himself to gain access to the vast fortune hidden inside Victorio Peak. The episode explores a pivotal July 6, 1970 meeting at Nixon's Western White House in San Clemente, California, where geologist Keith Alexander—representing a coalition of treasure hunters known as the "Filthy 50"—met with Nixon and Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman. Alexander revealed secret knowledge of 742 gold bars weighing 40 to 50 pounds each (totaling over 3 million troy ounces) stockpiled at White Sands, seeking executive immunity and an official agreement to monetize the gold through the U.S. Mint. Three days after the San Clemente meeting, Ehrlichman dispatched a personal memorandum to Treasury Secretary David M. Kennedy inquiring how the group could legally recover and sell the treasure. On July 17, 1970, Secretary Kennedy responded with an accommodating roadmap, noting that no federal license was required to search for or possess buried treasure, while proposing a 50/50 split with the government based on the prior Fort Huachuca precedent. However, when Kennedy proved too rigid regarding strict regulatory compliance, Nixon replaced him on February 11, 1971, with former Texas Governor John Connally—a close associate of Lyndon B. Johnson and an alleged co-incorporator of the LaRue Corporation, an entity formed in 1967 to manage and launder Victorio Peak gold proceeds. The episode then unpacks one of the most consequential economic maneuvers in modern American history: Nixon's live televised address on Sunday, August 15, 1971, closing the gold window and ending the direct convertibility of U.S. dollars into gold. By dismantling the Bretton Woods monetary system, Nixon eliminated international audits and physical reserve accountability, effectively creating a systemic blind spot where missing national reserves or illicitly extracted military gold could no longer be tracked or audited. Connecting internal White House memorandums, Treasury Department correspondence, corporate records, and Watergate-era disclosures, Episode 14 details how Nixon installed key gatekeepers and altered global monetary policy to set the stage for the massive thefts that followed. From San Clemente to the Oval Office, this episode exposes how presidential authority and monetary policy intersected with the covert plundering of America’s most controversial treasure. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
S7 · E327
August 2 · 37 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 13
In Episode 13 of the Noss Gold Treasure, we delve into one of the most audacious gold smuggling operations in modern history: the post-presidential pipeline orchestrated under Lyndon B. Johnson between 1969 and 1970. Drawing on direct video interviews with vintage WWII B-24 Liberator pilot Fern Hamill, this episode exposes how 130 tons of ancient gold bars stolen from Victorio Peak were covertly transported out of the United States. Weekly shuttle runs using official U.S. government vehicles—bearing White Sands Missile Range stickers on their windshields—hauled 500 to 800 pounds of gold per week directly across the Mexican border to General Roberto Fierro Villalobos International Airport in Chihuahua City. At the Chihuahua City airport, crew member Arturo weighed each gold bar on the tarmac before loading it directly into the bomb bay racks of the B-24 bomber under 24-hour Mexican military guard. To conceal the massive four-engine bomber from aerial observation when it was not flying, LBJ utilized Department of Defense resources to construct a private airstrip and a massive Quonset hangar 114 miles south at his 108,724-acre Las Pampas Ranch. This dual-location infrastructure provided the perfect covert staging network, allowing the crew to execute month-long loading cycles for 13 separate ten-ton missions. The episode breaks down the long flight paths along the Pacific corridor to refineries in Vancouver, Canada, where 11 flights successfully delivered 110 tons of gold into international channels. However, the operation was not without catastrophic failures: during the 7th and 9th flights, severe engine failures forced Hamill and Arturo to trip the bomb bay doors, ditching 20 tons of gold into the Pacific Ocean off the coast near Carmel, California. Connecting direct video testimony from pilot Fern Hamill, tape recordings of LBJ, and revelations from Bill Gulley’s White House exposé Breaking Cover, Episode 13 pulls back the curtain on high-level executive and military corruption. Featuring operational oversight from former White Sands commander Major General John Shinkle and high-ranking military handlers, this episode demonstrates how official government vehicles, defense resources, and presidential authority were leveraged to pull off what Hamill called the world's biggest gold heist. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
S7 · E326
August 1 · 47 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 12
In 1958, Air Force Captain Leonard Fiege, Airman Tom Berlett, and civilian Bill Schriever entered a cave at Victoria Peak, discovering massive, pyramid-shaped stacks of gold bars stamped with Spanish double crosses alongside the remains of 29 human skeletons. Choosing to act honorably and follow proper legal procedures rather than stealing the gold, Fiege and Berlett left the cave untouched. They subsequently hired senior Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps colonels to form "The Seven Heirs" corporation to legally assert their rights as the discoverers of the treasure. Seeking official permission to complete their recovery, the airmen presented their findings in Washington, D.C., leading the U.S. Secret Service to administer federal polygraph examinations to both Fiege and Berlett on September 5, 1961. Both officers passed without any indication of deception, providing official, government-verified proof that the massive gold cache inside Victoria Peak was real. However, instead of granting legal access, Secret Service Agent Lilburn "Pat" Boggs issued a chilling warning directly to Captain Fiji: "The government will never let you get to the gold". Behind the scenes, federal authorities were already executing a covert extraction. Transcribed phone calls from July 31, 1961, between White Sands Commander Major General John Shinkle, Leland Howard of the U.S. Mint, and Agent Boggs reveal a top-secret military operation set for August 1, 1961, to excavate and seize the gold while strictly barring Fiji and Berlett from the base. Shortly after, a special Pentagon team led by Captain William Orby Swanner inspected, photographed, and inventoried the gold, allegedly shipping portions to Fort Knox without any official public accounting or receiving records. The aftermath exposed a ruthless cover-up designed to erase the discovery and silence all witnesses. Base photographer Charles Abston later recalled seeing General Shinkle personally using a forklift to load heavy, sealed containers into a moving van prior to transferring commands, while Captain Fiji and his family endured decades of relentless death threats whenever he attempted to go public. Episode 12 lays bare how federal agencies used lie detector technology to confirm the reality of the Victoria Peak treasure—only to secretly steal it and threaten the service members who found it. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
S7 · E325
July 21 · 34 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 11
On June 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson made a highly orchestrated visit to White Sands Missile Range. While the official itinerary claimed the 139-minute stop was merely to witness a missile demonstration and inspect an unpaved desert runway known as the Northrup Strip, the reality was far more secretive. The trip—which required nine months of meticulous preparation—was actually an elaborate cover allowing the President and Vice President to personally inspect the Noss treasure at Victoria Peak, located just a five-minute helicopter ride away. Following this secret inspection, a plan was set in motion to settle the decades-long treasure dispute. By November 1963, Ova Noss was waiting at the prestigious Brown Palace Hotel in Denver for a direct meeting with President Kennedy, arranged by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The plan was for the President to take control of the treasure and finally ensure the Noss family received a fair share. However, on November 22, the tragic news of JFK’s assassination in Dallas shattered those hopes. Watching the fateful broadcast, Ova devastatingly realized that once again, getting close to a settlement had been derailed by murder. Even more chilling than the canceled meeting is the military cover-up that concluded just 24 hours before the assassination. During the summer of 1963, the Museum of New Mexico conducted an authorized excavation at Victoria Peak under strict military control. When the museum's archaeologist drafted a truthful report documenting previous military excavations, secret polygraph tests, and Treasury Department involvement, army officials ordered it to be heavily censored. All incriminating evidence was scrubbed from the record, and the falsified report was finalized on November 21, 1963—exactly one day before Kennedy was killed. This episode unravels the haunting six-month timeline leading up to the JFK assassination and explores the dark questions surrounding the military's actions. The censored scientific report didn't just hide past military thefts; it created the plausible deniability that protected Lyndon B. Johnson's upcoming operations. Tune in to discover how the tragedy in Dallas effectively handed the most powerful office in the world to LBJ, paving the way for him to systematically loot the Victoria Peak treasure using military aircraft over the next decade. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
S7 · E324
July 19 · 38 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 10
In the summer of 1976, an Illinois oilman named Ed Atkins received a tape containing an explosive conversation: former President Lyndon B. Johnson admitting to moving stolen gold from White Sands Missile Range to his ranch in Mexico. Discussing the heist with Fred Drolte, LBJ explicitly detailed using a big plane—later identified as a B-24 Liberator bomber—to transport the gold, cementing the tape as a "smoking gun" of presidential theft. However, after Atkins handed the tape to his lawyer, Daryl Holmes, for safekeeping, Holmes died under mysterious circumstances in 1977. Following his death, the LBJ tape and Atkins' White Sands files were the only items stolen from the lawyer's office. This episode begins to dive deep into the origins of these presidential gold heists, proving the corruption began well before the 1973 Nixon theft. We trace the pattern back to the early 1960s at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, where President John F. Kennedy authorized $10,000 in taxpayer money to fund a treasure excavation. When Ed Atkins and his son John finally gained access to dig at the base years later, they found nothing. A base security guard later revealed the shocking truth: the military had previously cordoned off the area and extracted the gold using military trucks and helicopters. At the center of the Fort Huachuca extraction was Bill Shriver, a civilian operative working under military and CIA supervision. Schriever secretly extracted an estimated 3.5 million troy ounces of gold from Fort Huachuca long before civilian treasure hunters were granted permission to dig, laundering the proceeds through a company called Pyramid Enterprises. In a sworn 1981 affidavit, Schriever confessed that a staggering 11 million troy ounces of gold were taken from Fort Huachuca and Victoria Peak combined, exclusively using military aircraft. The pursuit of this truth came with a deadly price. Less than a year after giving his sworn testimony, Bill Shriver was beaten to death in Los Angeles. Ed Atkins himself had been warned that his entire family would be killed if he didn't stop investigating White Sands, and he later died in 1979 under circumstances a CIA operative suspected was murder. Tune in to uncover how Fort Huachuca established the dark, deadly template for presidential treasure theft that ultimately paved the way for the Victoria Peak heist. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
S7 · E323
June 29 · 54 min
Episode 323 The Cuba Project and Mongoose: The Aftermath of the Bay of Pigs
Even though I am technically in the middle of the Noss Gold Treasure epiodes, I felt the need to go on a "wander" and produce a new episode for our core journey here at JFK The Enduring Secret. In Episode 323, we begin to explore one of the most intense backdrops of the Kennedy administration: the Cuba Project. Following the disastrous and public failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, did not choose to retreat. Instead, they doubled down, concluding that the next attempt to topple Fidel Castro needed to be smarter, tighter, more deniable, and relentless. This commitment birthed Operation Mongoose, a massive covert program led by counterinsurgency specialist Brigadier General Edward Lansdale and strictly overseen by the White House. To wage this secret war, the CIA established JM WAVE in the suburbs of Miami—a massive intelligence station that functioned as a "small spy city". Under the leadership of Ted Shackley, this operation directed thousands of Cuban exile operatives, commanded an enormous budget, and conducted hundreds of "pinprick" sabotage raids against Cuban infrastructure. However, beneath the official campaign lay a much darker shadow war. This episode delves into the deeply secretive "Operation 40," a targeted killing and counterintelligence unit originally intended to purge communist officials. We also explore "ZR RIFLE," the CIA's executive action program that astonishingly partnered with the Mafia to orchestrate assassination plots against Castro, and the chilling "Operation Northwoods," a declassified proposal by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stage fake terrorist attacks on American soil as a pretext for a full-scale invasion of Cuba. Ultimately, the Cuba Project failed in its primary objective: Castro survived, and the secret war was effectively swallowed by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet, its true legacy was the creation of a vast, unaccountable paramilitary network. The operatives trained participants in the Florida swamps—including men like E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis—and would later surface in some of the darkest chapters of American history, from the hunt for Che Guevara to the Watergate scandal. Tune in to explore how a secret machine built to kill a revolution ended up haunting the United States for the rest of the century. APPENDIX — A Chronology of the Secret War March 1960 — President Eisenhower approves the original CIA covert-action program against Castro that Kennedy will inherit. January 3, 1961 — Eisenhower reportedly suggests to General Lemnitzer that the U.S. "could think of manufacturing something" to justify intervention in Cuba. January 1961 — Kennedy is inaugurated; the U.S. and Cuba sever diplomatic relations. Early 1961 — Richard Bissell directs William Harvey to build a "stand-by" assassination capability; the ZR/RIFLE Executive Action project takes shape. April 17–19, 1961 — Brigade 2506 lands at the Bay of Pigs and is destroyed within three days. April 22, 1961 — Kennedy appoints the Taylor–Kennedy Board of Inquiry (Cuba Study Group). June 13, 1961 — The board reports: "no long-term living with Castro as a neighbor." October 5, 1961 — NSAM 100 directs post-Castro and military-contingency planning. November 3, 1961 — Kennedy authorizes the covert program that becomes Operation Mongoose. November 30, 1961 — Kennedy's memorandum formally establishes Mongoose; Lansdale named Chief of Operations. December 1, 1961 — RFK tells the Special Group Cuba is now top priority; Castro declares, "I am a Marxist-Leninist." January 18–19, 1962 — Lansdale assigns 32 planning tasks; RFK calls Cuba "top priority — all else is secondary." The Special Group (Augmented) is established. February 1962 — Shackley brought to JMWAVE; soon made station chief. JMWAVE relocates to NAS Richmond under the Zenith Technical Enterprises front. February 20, 1962 — Lansdale submits the six-phase Basic Action Plan aiming at revolt by October 1962. (John Glenn's orbital flight occurs the same day — later a Northwoods pretext target.) February 26, 1962 — RFK orders Lansdale to stand down to intelligence-gathering for three months; the Joint Chiefs' frustration hardens. March 1962 — SGA approves Phase I (intelligence only). The JCS draft Operation Northwoods. March 13, 1962 — Lemnitzer signs the Northwoods memo ("Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba") to McNamara. March 16, 1962 — Kennedy flatly rejects Northwoods and any overt U.S. military force in Cuba. April 1962 — Harvey reactivates the Roselli/Mafia plots under ZR/RIFLE; arms and poison pills delivered in Miami. August 23, 1962 — NSAM 181 orders Mongoose "Plan B plus" developed with all speed amid the Soviet buildup. August 30, 1962 — SGA authorizes the Matahambre copper-mine sabotage; the raid fails. October 1962 — U-2 flights discover Soviet missiles; the Cuban Missile Crisis erupts. October 30, 1962 — The SGA orders a halt to all sabotage; Mongoose effectively ends. 1963 — Mongoose disbanded; the SGA abolished; the regular Special Group resumes control. June 19, 1963 — A new externally based sabotage program against the Cuban economy is approved. Fall 1963 — The CIA passes AM/LASH (Rolando Cubela) a poison pen while the administration explores a UN back-channel to Castro. October 24, 1963 — The Special Group approves thirteen major sabotage operations. November 22, 1963 — President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas; both the AM/LASH plot and the Cuban back-channel are cut short.
S7 · E322
June 27 · 48 min
Episode 322 Our Meeting with Congresswoman Luna in Washington DC
In this special update episode of JFK The Enduring Secret, Andrew Isler and Mark Adamczyk and myself recap our recent trip to Washington, D.C., for a highly anticipated meeting with Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. After a chaotic day of travel, we secured nearly an hour with the Congresswoman and her staff to discuss the ongoing issues and lack of compliance surrounding the 1992 JFK Records Act. The conversation highlights how we made the case for shifting the focus from requesting specific, isolated documents to addressing the broader, systemic issues regarding the National Archives (NARA) and their compliance with the JFK Records Act. We were delighted at Representative Luna's bias toward action on the topic; she eagerly reviewed Andrew and Mark's prepared briefs and material that we also delivered to her on behalf of Doug Horne, highlighted critical points, and demonstrated a serious commitment to the JFK task force's transparency mission. Listeners will get an inside look at the team's key recommendations to Congress, which include requesting a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit of the JFK records collection to establish a true, accurate inventory of what the National Archives holds. We also discuss a push for the release of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby's heavily guarded tax returns, and the urgent need to track down 27,000 missing legal orders previously issued by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). Congresswoman Luna was so receptive to the GAO audit, that she instructed her staff to draft a letter to the agency right there in the meeting. Andrew provided them with a pre-drafted request letter to make it even easier to do. Imagine that. Thank you Andrew! Finally, our episode wraps up on a lighter note, as we share our post-meeting sightseeing adventures around D.C., including a hike up the famous Exorcist stairs in Georgetown, a celebratory dinner at the Watergate Hotel, and a reflective nighttime visit to the Lincoln Memorial. Tune in to hear the full breakdown of this monumental step forward, and learn how you can contact the Congresswoman's office to support the push for complete transparency. In order to get all the details of what we were asking here is a link where Andrew posted some of these documents on the Chokeholds website. And for additional kicks, here is the link to the Rand Paul comment on his inability to gain access to Church Committee records. Rand Paul Clip: https://x.com/jfkchokeholds/status/2067263368507871334?s=46 Chokeholds-Where you can find our recommendations https://jfkchokeholds.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026.06.09-Brief-for-Meeting-with-Representative-Luna.pdf
June 23 · 48 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 9
Episode 9 plunges into the darkest chapter of the Victoria Peak saga, a chilling period between 1955 and 1963 when the United States military transformed from guardian to thief. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode details the heartbreaking aftermath of Ova Noss’s forcible eviction from the Hembrillo Basin. With the claim site now officially a restricted military zone, the Army's actions turned vicious—Ova's beloved horses were left to die in their corral, and her rock house camp was shot to pieces. The family was effectively exiled, but the mountain’s secrets could not be contained. The narrative takes a staggering turn in February 1958 when active-duty Air Force personnel, Captain Leonard Fiege and Airman Thomas Berlette, accidentally rediscovered the exact treasure chambers Doc Noss had found 20 years prior. Crawling into a hidden cavern, they were met with stacks of crude gold bars piled like cordwood, ancient artifacts, and the remains of numerous human skeletons. Their astonishing find was later validated when both men easily passed formal military polygraph examinations. However, their attempts to secure a legal claim through official channels only alerted corrupt military brass to the exact location of the unimaginable fortune. With the treasure exposed, the vault guards officially became the robbers. Under the command of Major General John G. Shinkle, the military orchestrated massive, top-secret extractions in the early 1960s, pulling bullion out under the cover of night using chain-gang style operations. To conceal these brazen thefts, the Army sponsored a sham, tightly controlled civilian excavation in 1963, only to deliberately censor the archaeologists' final report. Military officials wiped out all seismic evidence of the caverns and eyewitness accounts of prior military digs, creating a fraudulent public document to support their narrative that the gold was entirely a myth. The episode concludes with a chilling cascade of violence and a heartbreaking missed opportunity. On November 22, 1963, Ova Noss was waiting in a Denver hotel for a scheduled meeting with President John F. Kennedy, who intended to finally resolve her legal ownership of the gold—a meeting that was tragically canceled by his assassination in Dallas. What followed was a grim era of relentless surveillance, death threats, and a string of brutal murders linked to the stolen gold. Tune in to hear how patriotism became a cover for unchecked greed. And remember, if you want to read the definitive account of this incredible saga, you can secure a rare, signed copy of John Clarence's Gold House trilogy by contacting Jeff Crudele directly at podcastjfk@gmail.com Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
June 23 · 28 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 4
Episode 4 propels us into a chaotic twelve-year period from 1937 to 1949, where the Noss family's dream of extracting the Victoria Peak treasure begins to violently unravel. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode details how the formidable obstacles of World War II, a sprawling military expansion, and Milton "Doc" Noss's own personal demons collided to seal the mountain's riches tighter than a government vault. Desperate for capital following the devastating 1939 shaft collapse, Doc formed the Cheyenne Mining Company, unknowingly appointing a venomous Secret Service informant named Merl Horesman to his inner circle. Matters worsened in November 1940 when a second reckless dynamite charge triggered a massive landslide, completely entombing the gold. As the Noss workforce marched off to fight in WWII, the U.S. Army swallowed up the desolate Hembrillo Basin to create the White Sands Proving Ground. In a truly surreal moment of history, Doc and Ova Noss found themselves barred from their own claim by soldiers just in time to witness the Trinity atomic blast on July 16, 1945—literally standing as spectators at the dawn of the nuclear age while their treasure slipped into military hands. Fearing imminent government confiscation, a deeply paranoid Doc scattered 110 gold bars—weighing roughly 4,000 pounds—across over a dozen secret desert caches. Drifting and desperate, he partnered with a Texas businessman named Charlie Ryan in late 1948. Together, they concocted an elaborate scheme to smuggle the bullion into Old Mexico aboard a surplus DC-3 aircraft, even clearing a secret runway under the guise of a lead and silver mining operation. But the joint venture quickly turned lethal when Doc overheard Ryan plotting to double-cross him and fly the fortune out alone. Tune in to hear how this treacherous web of betrayal set the stage for a frantic, midnight race to dig up and re-hide the gold, leading Doc directly toward a deadly confrontation. And remember, if you want to read the definitive account of this incredible saga, you can secure a rare, signed copy of John Clarence's Gold House trilogy by contacting Jeff Crudele directly at podcastjfk@gmail.com.
June 23 · 30 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 5
Episode 5 takes us deeper into the post-WWII era, where personal betrayal and unprecedented military expansion collide to choke the Noss family's access to the gold. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode explores Milton "Doc" Noss's spiraling paranoia and his prolonged absences from Victoria Peak. In a shocking maneuver, Doc secretly annulled his marriage to Ova in an Arkansas court in October 1945 and later married another woman, a decision that plunged the Cheyenne Mining Company—and the legal rights to the treasure itself—into a chaotic battle for control. While the Noss family fractured from within, the U.S. Army transformed from a neighboring presence into an occupying force. In a truly surreal twist of history, the military utilized the newly formed White Sands Proving Ground to host Operation Paperclip, a top-secret initiative that brought 350 Nazi scientists and captured V-2 rocket components to the New Mexico desert. Even more astonishing are the allegations that stolen Holocaust loot and Nazi gold were covertly brought to the United States under this classified cover and hidden within the very same cave systems as the Noss treasure. As the military initiated condemnation proceedings to seize exclusive possession of the land, a defiant Ova Noss stepped up to legally secure the family's claim, successfully reorganizing the company and filing renewals in her own name. Meanwhile, a drifting and financially desperate Doc formed a fateful partnership with a Texas businessman named Charlie Ryan in late 1948. What began as a front for a lead and silver mining operation was actually an elaborate scheme to smuggle the Victoria Peak gold into Old Mexico using a surplus DC-3 aircraft. However, this volatile alliance quickly soured as Doc's erratic behavior, heavy drinking, and history of swindling pushed Ryan to his breaking point. Tune in to hear how this intricate web of secret marriages, military takeovers, and dangerous smuggling plots set the perfect stage for Doc’s tragic demise. And remember, if you want to read the definitive account of this incredible saga, you can secure a rare, signed copy of John Clarence's Gold House trilogy by contacting Jeff Crudele directly at podcastjfk@gmail.com. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
June 23 · 21 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 6
In Episode 6, the simmering tensions between Milton "Doc" Noss and his double-crossing partner, Charlie Ryan, finally boil over into a deadly 48-hour window. Based on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this gripping episode breaks down the frantic, minute-by-minute events of March 4th and 5th, 1949. The chaos begins with a tragic airplane crash at Victoria Peak involving Doc's stepson, Marvin Beckwith, which provides Doc with the perfect cover to slip away from Ryan's watchful eyes without raising suspicion. Knowing that Ryan was planning to steal 110 gold bars and fly them to Mexico without him, Doc seized this momentary distraction to act. Under the cover of a freezing desert night, he enlisted the help of a rodeo cowboy named Tony Jolly. Together, they embarked on a frantic midnight operation, digging up roughly 4,000 pounds of crude gold bullion and scrambling to re-bury the 110 bars across several new, secret caches. By dawn, the gold was safely hidden from Ryan, but Doc had unknowingly set the stage for his own demise. The climax of the episode arrives at noon on March 5th in Hatch, New Mexico. Furious that the gold was missing, Ryan marched Doc into a rented house at gunpoint. Following a chaotic scuffle where Doc shoved a table into Ryan and attempted to flee toward his truck, Ryan shot the unarmed Doc Noss just below his right eye, killing him instantly against his front bumper. With that single gunshot, the man who held the keys to the greatest treasure in North American history was silenced forever. Adding insult to fatal injury, the episode concludes with the staggering mockery of justice that followed. Listeners will be stunned to learn that both the presiding judge and the defense attorney in Ryan's murder trial were actually secret investors in Doc's mining company—a glaring conflict of interest that ultimately allowed Ryan to walk away a free man, despite the testimony of five eyewitnesses who watched him shoot a fleeing man. Tune in to hear the tragic final hours of Doc Noss. And remember, if you want to read the definitive account of this incredible saga, you can secure a rare, signed copy of John Clarence's Gold House trilogy by contacting Jeff Crudele directly at podcastjfk@gmail.com Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
June 23 · 31 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 7
Episode 7 picks up in the immediate, chaotic aftermath of Milton "Doc" Noss’s tragic murder on March 5, 1949. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode shifts the focus to his steadfast wife, Ova Noss, who is left to face a bitter, multi-front war for the Victoria Peak treasure. While Doc’s double-crossing killer managed to walk free despite the testimony of five eyewitnesses, Ova soon found herself staring down an even more formidable nemesis: the United States government. Before she could even properly grieve, Ova was plunged into a vicious probate battle. The legal proceedings revealed a shocking secret: Doc had covertly annulled their marriage in an Arkansas court in 1945 and married another woman named Violet. Navigating this heartbreaking personal betrayal, Ova made a brilliant legal pivot on the advice of her attorneys, asserting her rights not merely as a widow, but as the legal co-discoverer of the 1937 treasure. Meanwhile, the probate inventory exposed the terrifying reach of federal authorities, listing seized maps, documents, and dozens of gold bars that had already been confiscated by the Secret Service and the Denver Mint. Refusing to surrender her claim, Ova doubled down on the physical extraction of the gold. She hired contractors to carve a drivable road up the rugged mountain and engineered a new "lower Noss shaft" to bypass the catastrophic 1939 cave-in. But as she inched closer to regaining access to the fabled treasure rooms, the U.S. Army's presence at the White Sands Proving Ground morphed into a hostile occupation. Under the command of Brigadier General George Eddy, the military initiated condemnation proceedings, dismissed Ova's valid state permits, and explicitly threatened Ova and her daughter that they would be "shot on sight" if they returned to the peak. Surrounded by treacherous former partners conspiring to steal her lease and a military apparatus determined to lock her out of her own fortune, Ova stood as a lone David against an impossible Goliath. Tune in to hear how this resilient woman fought to keep her family's massive discovery alive in the face of insurmountable corruption. And remember, if you want to read the definitive account of this incredible saga, you can secure a rare, signed copy of John Clarence's Gold House trilogy by contacting Jeff Crudele directly at podcastjfk@gmail.com Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
June 23 · 24 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 8
Episode 8 escalates the bitter war between Ova Noss and the United States military from bureaucratic red tape into outright hostility. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode details how the U.S. Army systematically dismantled Ova's physical access to Victoria Peak. Under the command of Brigadier General George Eddy—who openly displayed a map of the treasure site in his office and explicitly threatened that Ova and her daughter would be "shot on sight" if they returned—the military transformed from a neighboring installation into a hostile occupying force. The climax of this David versus Goliath struggle arrives on July 23, 1955. Despite holding valid state prospecting permits that were not set to expire for another three months, Ova and her excavation crew were forcibly ejected from the Hembrillo Basin without any due process of law. The timing was agonizing, as Ova's crew had just uncovered a diagnostic sign carved into the lower shaft and believed they were only feet away from the treasure. Upon a brief, permitted return to the site shortly after the eviction, the family discovered a heartbreaking and gruesome scene: the military had padlocked their excavated shafts, shot their rock house camp full of bullet holes, and left Ova's beloved horses dead and bloated inside their corral. To survive this onslaught, Ova relied on a complex legal loophole and a dedicated group of allies. While the federal government had condemned the surface of the land to expand the White Sands Proving Ground, the state of New Mexico legally retained the subsurface mineral rights. With the help of loyal contractors, proxy filers, supportive U.S. Senators, and New Mexico Land Commissioner Guy Shepard, Ova managed to keep her legal claim alive on paper. Yet, she found herself fighting a multi-front war, battling not only the Army's brute force and corrupt local politicians, but also facing devastating allegations that her own sons had secretly sold her out for million-dollar payoffs. Tune in to hear how the tragic 1955 eviction officially transitioned Victoria Peak from a private family mining claim into a restricted military vault, perfectly setting the stage for the massive, top-secret government thefts to come. And remember, if you want to read the definitive account of this incredible saga, you can secure a rare, signed copy of John Clarence's Gold House trilogy by contacting Jeff Crudele directly at podcastjfk@gmail.com. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.
June 22 · 32 min
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 3
Following the monumental discovery detailed in our last episode, Episode 3 plunges deep into the treacherous caverns of Victoria Peak. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode chronicles the perilous efforts of Milton "Doc" and Ova Noss to extract their newfound fortune—and the intense paranoia that soon consumed them. Navigating broken ancient ladders and toxic, blistering bat guano, Doc slowly retrieved the first pieces of the horde in the spring of 1938. What he found was staggering: crude gold "cactus" bars piled like cordwood, a gold crown, ancient artifacts, and the chilling remains of chained human skeletons. But with unimaginable wealth came immediate danger. Rumors of the discovery triggered kidnapping threats that forced the family to temporarily flee to Gallup, New Mexico. Doc's extreme caution reached a fever pitch, fueled by the trauma of a prior kidnapping where his captors had savagely burned the bottoms of his feet attempting to extract the location of another gold cache. The situation turned catastrophic in 1939 with two devastating blows. In August, a hired engineer set off an excessive dynamite charge, causing a massive landslide that sealed the main treasure shaft under tons of rock. Desperate for capital to clear the debris, Doc took a massive gamble in the fall of 1939 by taking four or five gold bars to the Denver Mint. Though the bars were officially assayed at $97,000, the Mint confiscated the bullion and issued a "hold certificate," refusing to pay Doc unless he revealed the exact location of the remaining treasure. This brazen confiscation confirmed Doc's deepest fears that the federal government intended to seize his entire fortune. It thrust the Noss family into a perilous legal war against the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 and drew relentless, around-the-clock surveillance from both the Secret Service and the FBI. Tune in to hear how the dream of Victoria Peak quickly devolved into a nightmare of dynamite, deception, and government overreach. And remember, if you want to read the definitive account of this incredible saga, you can secure a rare, signed copy of John Clarence's Gold House trilogy by contacting Jeff Crudele directly at podcastjfk@gmail.com Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by author John Clarence.

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