Holy crap. Ronald Tammen’s FBI docs have the same identifying numbers stamped on them as a guy from the CIA

P.S. So far, they’re the only two people on the planet with this combination of identifying numbers

P.P.S. And even though CIA dude is famous for something else, you won’t believe what he was doing in 1953

Greetings! Admittedly, that was a rather lengthy title and subtitle, not to mention sub-subtitle, but sometimes a person has to put everything out there ASAP and this qualifies as one of those times.

I’ve found documents that tie Ronald Tammen to…well…this guy:

His name was James W. McCord, Jr., and he became famous in 1972, when he was identified as one of five Watergate burglars. What’s interesting about McCord, along with E. Howard Hunt, who masterminded the burglary, is that they were longtime CIA operatives just two years before it happened. And, although the CIA doesn’t claim him as such, burglar Frank Sturgis has been linked to Langley as well. 

Mind you, the FBI didn’t come off squeaky clean. Another famous Watergate plotter, G. Gordon Liddy, had been with the FBI in the late 1950s to early ‘60s. McCord had ties to the FBI too. He’d worked there after graduating from college in 1949. In 1951, he moved over to the CIA, where he worked until August 1970.

So, would it surprise you to learn that the FBI’s identifying stamps on James W. McCord’s FBI Watergate documents match the stamps on Ronald Tammen’s documents? That certainly surprised me! Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, no other people on the planet—and by “planet,” I mean no other people whose FBI documents have been posted online—possess that combination of stamps on their FBI documents.

How is it possible that a quiet 19-year-old who mysteriously went missing from an Ohio college campus in 1953 has anything in common with a seasoned CIA operative…so much so that the FBI has lumped those two individuals in the same category? How?

I made this discovery yesterday as I was searching through more FBI records that had the stamp ST-102 on them. As I read through the documents, it occurred to me that, despite the documents having the same ST-102 designation, they were very, very…different. The information that the FBI had wanted to keep secret was all over the map, from the names of potential confidential informants; to details regarding urban guerilla warfare; interstate gambling; Black nationalism; JFK’s assassination; Watergate; Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; and the cute and funny foursome whose antics kept me giggling so much as a third-grade girl. I speak, of course, of The Monkees, a 1960s pop group that starred in its own TV show and that brought us such tunes as I’m a BelieverLast Train to Clarksville, and Steppin’ Stone. Evidently, the FBI had a problem with 9-year-old mini me dancing in the rec room to Micky Dolenz (my favorite), Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork because the Monkees posed a danger of some sort, what with their outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War and all. (Although the three other Monkees have passed away, I just want to say to Micky, if he ever happens to be reading this: thank you for your outspokenness. You were right.) 

It was a broad range of topics—too broad. I figured that, for ST-102 to have any meaning, there must be some way for the FBI to break topics down by category. In addition, I noticed that the ST numbers didn’t stop at 102. They ranged from 101 to at least the teens, possibly higher. Also, just because one document in a subject area happened to be assigned ST-102 doesn’t mean that all of the documents in that subject would have that designation. Sometimes, another would be given an ST-105, for example. 

Most important of all, I noticed another number that usually accompanied the ST-102 number. This number is preceded by the letters REC. Don’t ask me what REC stands for. I’m not sure. If you have any ideas, please feel free to suggest them in the comments.

Here are some examples of the REC numbers that accompanied ST-102:

  • James Franklin Hooker et al (urban guerrilla warfare): 15
  • Carlton Benjamin Goodlett (potential information source): 16
  • Susan Heiligman Frank aka IS China (something related to JFK assassination): 40
  • Dino Vincent Cellini (interstate gambling): 42
  • The Monkees (outspoken against Vietnam War): 72

Ron’s REC number was 19. Consistently. If there was an ST-102 on a page, there would be an REC-19 close by.

As for James McCord, his REC number was 19 too. He had a lot more pages (I mean, we’re talking Watergate), so I can’t say for certain that the 19 always showed up with the ST-102, nor can I say that he was always assigned an ST-102. However, what I can say for sure is that in multiple documents on James W. McCord, Jr., there was an REC-19 right next to ST-102.

I’ve found no other person, to date, with the ST-102, REC-19 designation. I’ll keep looking, and I invite you to do so as well. You can start by visiting The Black Vault as well as the FBI Vault and start looking at documents for the ST-102 stamp. If you find anything that supports or refutes my theory, please let me know.

Let’s talk a little more about James McCord’s activities. We know without a doubt that he was CIA from 1951 to 1970, which, if we trust the two stamps on his Watergate-related documents, could be a strong indication that Ron was CIA too. Also, we know all about Watergate. We have info up the wazoo about his role in Watergate. But he wasn’t officially in the CIA anymore by then. What was going on with James McCord in the 1950s is less known.

Thankfully, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., has done an exhaustive amount of research into the suspicious death of Frank Olson, whom we’ve spoken of. Olson, who was a bioweapons expert, had been given LSD at a cabin retreat days prior by CIA officials Sidney Gottlieb and Robert Lashbrook. On November 28, 1953, while he was visiting New York with Lashbrook, he “fell” out of a 10th-story window at the Hotel Statler. 

According to Albarelli, in 1953, McCord was part of the Security Research Staff of the CIA’s Office of Security Branch. He was a colleague of Morse Allen’s, also of the Security Branch, who was one of the key players in the CIA’s mind control efforts. McCord was sent to New York shortly after Olson’s death to investigate what happened. He also helped ensure that the original police report about Olson’s death was never seen. McCord helped orchestrate the CIA’s cover-up.

Albarelli’s book is titled “A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments.

There’s a lot more to learn here, but for now, let’s leave it at this: Not only do we have a tangible link between Ron Tammen and the CIA, but this could also be a link to MKULTRA. 

Therefore, while we’re looking for the ST-102s, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for REC-19s. Whatever we find could help us determine how Ron might have been used by the CIA after he disappeared.

17 thoughts on “Holy crap. Ronald Tammen’s FBI docs have the same identifying numbers stamped on them as a guy from the CIA

  1. Slogging through Black Vault. This is tedious. I just read something in an overview of MK Ultra that caught my attention:

    https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/intellipedia/intellipediamkultra.pdf

    “1 In some cases, academic researchers being funded
    through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these
    purposes”

    In your descriptions of Doc Switzer, he comes off as something of a wannabe. Wouldn’t he be the perfect source for the CIA to cultivate and keeping him ignorant of the endgame?

    Nothing earth shattering there, just wanted to share a little something as I continue to trudge through the vault.

    1. It’s definitely possible. Thanks for slogging. I’ve been spending a lot of time there too. It ain’t easy, but every little bit helps!

  2. Hey there, me again. I’m also thinking about the meaning of ST. Could it mean “Sensitive Topic”? A longtime reader had suggested “Secret.” And then there’s the possibility that it stands for “Special” in keeping with the Special File Rooms that the FBI had for the sensitive/secret/special stuff.

    As for the REC, the FBI had a Records section in their Files and Communication Division. Maybe that’s a number assigned by them? Again…brainstorming…

  3. So there are a few things we definitely know:

    1) the CIA and FBI are the OSU/UMich rivals of US intelligence services

    2) J. Edgar kept files on everyone in DC, presumably including McCord

    3) at some point, McCord was the CIA’s domestic clean-up guy for ??? amount of time

    So perhaps ST-102 is the FBI’s reference to McCord and his file/activities therein? Especially if the CIA wasn’t keeping them abreast of what was going on

    1. Very interesting. You’re so right about OSU/UMich. In Albarelli’s book, he says that part of the reason Hoover hated the CIA was bc they stole a lot of his people, including McCord.

      As for ST-102, I found another example in the FBI docs pertaining to the NPRC fire in St. Louis in July 1973 (ST-102, REC-11). It had to do with a a couple of men who were stopped in Orlando with shredded Army payroll papers and an expense voucher and one said that he’d been at the center on July 9 or 10 and that he joked about the fire and indicated he had some knowledge about it. (The fire started shortly after midnight July 12.) Very, VERY strange.

      1. That, and Hoover thought he should be head of all intelligence when the CIA was formed, and took it personally when everyone else thought that was a bad idea.

  4. Here’s another idea about the meaning of REC. I wonder if it stands for Record #. Not sure how that would work as far as filing would go, since Ron Tammen and James McCord would be filed together in that situation, and that would be…bizarre. But we’re just brainstorming, so nothing’s off the table.

  5. As a college student in the late 1960s, most students knew the FBI and CIA had people on every campus. The FBI were looking for both drug dealers and potentially violent anti-war protesters.

    The CIA was monitoring all “anti-war” activities – something forbidden by law – they weren’t allowed to operate on American soil. They considered all anti-war protesters to be Communists or Communist sympathizers. Everyone who participated in anti-war protests had FBI files. Including me.

    The CIA was also actively recruiting and not just for working on college campuses but for CIA careers. Generally, those recruited would tell their families and friends they got jobs with the US State Department so foreign assignments would be totally logical. I had a friend who was a “narc” on my campus. Good man and a single father. The CIA attempted to recruit him and we discussed it. He declined somewhat reluctantly because of his child.

    To my knowledge it was extremely rare for the CIA to completely change an agent’s identity (especially with family) so, sadly, it’s more likely that the use of the same numbers was bad record keeping that a genuine connection. They didn’t have proof readers or computers that could catch wrong duplicate information.

    1. Thanks for looking this up. Not sure that would make sense in this case since these numbers are permanent, but we can toss it in the pile.

  6. James McCord! Some of us knew without reading the caption. That was a famous mugshot back in the day. No time to respond more tonight.

  7. May, June, August 1973, but no mention but one in July 1973, hmm, does make me wonder about the timing.

    1. Good eye! I was picking sample documents rather at random, so there may be a July 1973 in the bunch too. I’ll take a look sometime (not tonight…long day, too tired). Also, in my rush to get this posted, I had some of the docs out of order. I fixed that. But again, mostly I chose these because the two stamps were clearly visible. Thanks for your comment and your attention to detail.

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