Move over James McCord. Ron Tammen had something in common with another famous guy with CIA ties

(Plus—hello!—another assassination plot)

Before we get into my next post, I’d like to say a little something about the election we recently endured:

If you know anything about me, you probably know how I’m feeling right about now. I haven’t exactly been keeping my beliefs hidden on some of the key issues over the years:

• On Hitler and Nazis/fascists and the people who wish to emulate them? They make me sick. They’re the most morally repugnant and spiritually bankrupt people on the planet.
• On racism and xenophobia? I despise it in all its forms. I believe diversity makes us stronger. 
• On LGBTQIA+ rights? 100% for. I believe sexual orientation has a genetic component, and I also think that people should just mind their own business and let everyone live their lives.
• On science and medicine? I have the highest regard for scientists and medical professionals. During Covid, I advocated for masking and, when the vaccine was available, getting one. 
• On transparency and truth-telling in the press, politics, and government? I expect nothing less. If I think someone who knows something about the Tammen case is intentionally attempting to mislead me or distract me from the truth, I will make a very huge stink over it.

I could go on but I think you get my drift. 

Here’s what I personally plan to do to make it through the next four years: I will continue to seek the truth about Ron Tammen, which will include submitting lots of new FOIA requests and fighting the good fight in whatever form it takes. I will continue to trust my eyes and my ears when conducting my research, even if someone in a position of authority tries to tell me something entirely different. During my off hours, I will continue to volunteer at the local food bank and clothing room to help people who are struggling, be they Americans by birth or, if the words on the Statue of Liberty still have any meaning at all, immigrants and refugees. I will treat the people and pets I encounter from day to day with kindness and respect. I will call out racism, fascism, antisemitism, and misogyny whenever and wherever they rear their despicable heads, and, as an added bonus, I won’t be taking any crap from bullies and narcissists. And finally, because I’m footing the bill, if someone should ever attempt to submit a comment that runs even the slightest bit counter to the principles I’ve described above, they will be granted exactly 0.00 column inches on this blog site. Their views are not welcome here. Everyone clear on that? OK, moving on. I won’t be taking questions. 

The number in the top right corner

As you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out the meaning behind the marks on Ron’s FBI documents, and, thankfully, all those hours have paid off. First and foremost, we’ve learned that Ron had been on the FBI’s Security Index, which not only tells us that the FBI and DOJ knew he was still alive (there was no need to put him on the Security Index if he was dead), but they were keeping close tabs on him because they thought he was either A) dangerous or B) a threat to national security. When I first made that discovery, it became my go-to talking point whenever someone asked me how my research was coming along. It’s kind of like when my nephew at the age of three or four had just seen The Empire Strikes Back and felt the need to tell everyone in his universe the most jaw-dropping revelation of the film. (He was too young to understand the importance of spoiler alerts.) But make no mistake: in this girl’s opinion, the finding that Ron Tammen was on the FBI’s Security Index is tantamount to learning that (spoiler alert!) Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. Strike that. It’s way bigger because it’s true.

One mark that’s taking me a little longer to figure out is the number that appears near the top righthand corner of ten of Ron’s documents, always hovering near the letters Hac. Today we’re going to discuss that number and a few other people that have one, including a person who is well-known in JFK circles. This is a fitting topic for today because this is also the 61st anniversary of the day that’s etched on every Boomer’s brain. It’s the day when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding on the back of a black Lincoln Continental convertible waving to onlookers in downtown Dallas.

The number we’ll be discussing is 10.

To begin with, the FBI guys of yore were incredibly prescient for choosing to jot down the seemingly more sensitive marks by hand as opposed to giving them their own stamp. While I’ve found that Google and other search engines recognize the letters and numbers on FBI stamps, they don’t pick up on handwritten scribbles. As a result, I’ve had to conduct assorted searches regarding various iterations of related topics and read through the results page by page until I’ve found whatever scribble I’m looking for that day, be it a “Hac” or a “Ph” or an “lf “or a “see index” and now, a 10. 

Well, I have good news. Not only have I found several 10s, but I’ve found some 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and so on up to 10 and even an 11 and possibly a 15. Although I’m still not sure about what each number means, I do have some thoughts regarding their overall significance and who may have assigned the numbers.

The number that got me started on my learning curve was 8, which had been assigned to none other than Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife Marina. Similar to the placement of Ron’s 10, the Oswalds’ 8 usually appears in the upper right corner of their respective documents. Sometimes the 8 appears alone, like Ron’s 10, while other times it appears with a dash and a 1 (e.g., 8-1). And although I haven’t seen this with the Oswald documents, other people’s 8s were sometimes followed only with a dash (e.g., 8-).

Here are some examples of Lee and Marina Oswald’s 8s:

The document that seems to shed the most light is dated 9/12/61. Someone from the State Department’s Division of Security was seeking information about Marina Oswald from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The Oswalds were still living in Minsk at that point; they didn’t return to the U.S. until June 1962. 

About midway down the page, we see that the office seeking the information was the Visa Office. To the right of that box is another box that seeks to know “REASON FOR REQUEST OR TYPE OF PROGRAM” under which is typed in all caps “VISA SECURITY CASE.” And directly above those words, someone has handwritten the letters “Ci” and the number 8-1.

Ostensibly, it appears that the 8-1 has something to do with visas and any security-related issues that pertain to obtaining one. Otherwise, why would someone have made those notes inside the box? Judging by the fact that Marina was Russian, I think it’s safe to presume that the FBI and State Department were on high alert about her, so the 8-1 is likely a red flag. 

As for what the Ci means, I’ve come up with a couple possibilities. I wonder if it either refers to the CIA , shortened to Ci, or perhaps counterintelligence, which was part of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division back then. The FBI file number for this case begins with the number 105, which is the classification for foreign counterintelligence, so that tracks. The CIA was heavily involved with the visa-granting procedure too, and, like the FBI, it was often the recipient of requests for security information from the State Department. Could it be that the CIA assigned the numbers based on some sort of code or scale, and then communicated those numbers to the FBI, State Department, etc., when the agencies were in need of their input? That way, the CIA wouldn’t have to share everything that they knew about someone—they could distill their intel down to a number that signifies the person’s degree of risk, kind of like how the National Hurricane Center categorizes hurricanes. Another possibility is that the State Department sought the security information from the other agencies and they themselves assigned the numbers. I’ve noticed that the State Department uses hyphens a lot in their recordkeeping. 

To err on the side of caution, I think we can state for now that Marina’s 8-1 was indeed a red flag, and may have communicated sensitive information to the State Department’s Visa Office. I think we can also conclude that 8-1 pertains to national security, since that was one of the main purposes for the State Department’s Security Division. Also, if a person’s FBI document has a number in the righthand corner, I think we can presume that they were being investigated by the FBI plus at least one other federal agency, such as the CIA or State Department, since I don’t think the number was assigned by the FBI. Despite those inferences, we also know that Marina was granted the visa, because Lee was permitted to return home in June 1962, accompanied by Marina and their new baby. As concerned as everyone seemed to be, the State Department eventually gave the OK.

It bears mentioning that, from what I’ve ascertained, the Oswald documents were given the 8s and 8-1s only if they were dated before November 24, 1963, the date when Jack Ruby assassinated Lee Oswald on national television. Like the FBI’s Security Index, it appears those 8s were only good while Oswald was alive. After he was killed, the info that the 8s contained was no longer relevant. 

I’m posting three other documents with an 8 or an 8- or an 8-1 on them. One is about Thomas Peasner, who you may recall I wrote about on this website. The document is dated around the time that he’d been interviewed by military intelligence about his ostensible communist leanings. The other documents concern people tied to Cuba, including the CIA’s attempts to send “hoodlums” to assassinate Fidel Castro.

In the FBI’s eyes, Ron was a 10. So was Frank Sturgis.

Here’s why I feel the need to talk to you today. We already know that Ron has been linked by stamps and scribbles to James W. McCord, one of the Watergate burglars, and a former operative for the CIA and Project Artichoke. Now we have a tie to Frank Sturgis, another of the Watergate burglars, who also has been linked to the CIA. Sturgis was frequently referred to as a soldier of fortune, and in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he inserted himself into some high-level antics between the United States and Cuba, including, it’s believed, the Bay of Pigs. In short, Frank was a pill. He also went by the name Frank Fiorini.

Here’s the document I’ve found in which Frank is given a 10-1.

Interestingly, Frank was given a 4-1 on another document, which matches the 4-1s that can be found on Hank Greenspun’s documents describing an alleged burglary plot in Greenspun’s Las Vegas Sun office in early 1972. As you probably recall, Hank Greenspun and Ron Tammen have similar Hac notations on their FBI records.

In addition, another document of Frank Sturgis’ has a 1- beneath the 4-. I’ve found another 1- on a document describing five people found in Phillip Seib’s office at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., the night of the Watergate burglary. Frank Sturgis was one of those people. That document also appears to have a Hac written at the top, though the word is illegible and looks like it has a couple extra letters. I have a theory on what it says, but for now, you have to admit, the H looks similar to the Hacs on Ron’s and Hank Greenspun’s records.

According to researchers Alan J. Weberman and Michael Canfield, Frank Sturgis was one of three so-called “tramps” who were pulled by Dallas police from a railroad boxcar shortly after Kennedy’s shooting. They were then marched across the square to the Criminal Courts Building as cameras flashed. The authors assert that E. Howard Hunt and someone who went by the name of Dan Carswell were the other two tramps.

But that’s not all.

Two other documents that carry the elusive number 10 are as follows:

• An assassination plot in April 1969 against Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, father to the current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau— The 10 is preceded by a 7 and 4. The threat was made by way of several phone calls from someone in Oklahoma City. (The records are heavily redacted, so it’s tough to tell what actually happened.) I don’t believe it ever made the newspapers.

• An investigation into the Southern Christian Leadership Council, and whether the organization was being influenced by communists—Martin Luther King, Jr., was the organization’s president from its start in 1957 until his assassination in 1968.

Look, I realize there are discrepancies, and I also know that some very above-board people were saddled with a number in the upper righthand corners of their FBI docs. But I do know similarities when I see them, and it does appear that Ron was being tied to some famous names having to do with Watergate and, OK, I’ll say it, the assassination of JFK and other assassination plots. And so I have to ask: when do these similarities to Ron’s documents become totally predictable and not at all surprising?

###

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.