Tom Dunkin was born in
Los Angeles on 8th January, 1925.
Dunkin joined the US Marines in 1942
and took part in the invasion of Okinawa.
After the Second World War he was sent to China
(1945-46). He also served at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station (1946-47)
before becoming squad leader with the Second Marine Division (1947-48).
In 1952 Dunkin graduated
with a degree in journalism, from the University of Georgia. He worked
as a reporter for the Tampa Tribune
(1952-54), Orlando Sentinel (1952-55)
and the St Petersburg Times (1955-61).
Dunkin covered the Fidel
Castro led revolution
in Cuba as a photo-journalist.
He also did freelance radio and television work while in Cuba (WSUN-TV
and WDAE). He also wrote for the Soldier
of Fortune magazine and La Gaceta,
a Cuban newspaper printed in Tampa.
Dunkin was a close friend
of Tony
Cuesta and
other important figures in the anti-Castro community based in Florida.
He was also associated with several members of the Intercontinental
Penetration Force. This included Gerry
P. Hemming,
Roy Hargraves, William
Seymour, Steve Wilson, Howard
K. Davis, Edwin Collins and Dennis
Harber.
Dunkin became editor of
the Glades County Democrat in
1961. He took leave of absence in early 1963 so that he could cover
the activities of Commandos
Liberty, an organization run by Tony
Cuesta.
Commandos
Liberty was
involved in the sinking of the Russian merchantman
Baku. His articles and photos
of these missions appeared in Life Magazine
in April, 1963.
Tom Dunkin on an assignment
(1962)
After leaving the Glades
County Democrat in 1964, Dunkin worked as an undercover
agent for for Florida Legislative Investigations Committee. Later
that year he joined the Atlanta Journal.
His work included the coverage of the Summerhill and North Avenue
riots in 1966 and the effort to depose the Francois Duvalier regime
in Haiti. He also joined the team that established a base in Haiti
with the long-term objective of overthrowing the Fidel
Castro government
in Cuba.
In 1967 Dunkin joined the
Columbus Ledger. It was while
working for this newspaper he covered the court-martial at Fort Benning
of William Calley. This was followed by work as a photojournalist
for Florida Today (1972-74). Dunkin
then served a research assistant, secretary and writing collaborator
with the Florida Supreme Court Justice, Alto Adams. Together they
produced two books, The Fourth Quarter
and The Law of the Land.
As well as working as a
freelance journalist and photographer, Dunkin worked as a part-time
division judge and as a volunteer at the Fort Pierce Police Department.
Tom Dunkin died in 1994.
Operation
Tilt: Photographs
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Tom Dunkin,
letter
to Richard
Billings (June,
1967)
First contact with No
Name Key group was in July or August, 1962, when small group was camping
on south shorts of Lake Okeechobee, near Pahokee-Belle Glade.
Among those present were
Howard K. Davis, identified as "car leader", Gerald Patrick
Hemming, aka "Jerry Patrick", Joe Garman, and Steve Wilson.
Group a bit publicity shy,
but in September, at request of WFLA-TV Tampa friend, Don Starr, tried
for footage on their activities. Met with Davis and Patrick in Miami
on Sat. Sept. 15, finally, around 2 a.m. Sunday Sept. 16, got approval.
Two carloads departed Miami
for No Name Key, including Davis, Patrick, Cuban known only as Pino,
among others. At the camp on No Name Key, Steve Wilson was in charge.
Other Americans there included Ed Collins, Bill Seymour, Canadian
Bill Dempsey, one individual identified as Finnish and in doubtful
status with Immigration, named Edmund Kolbe, also Roy Hargraves.
Number of men transported
by boat from No Name Sunday, Sept 16, for a demonstration which was
filmed on Big Pine Key, near No Name, by WFLA-TV sound crew, by myself
with film going to WTVT Tampa, plus stills which were used in Miami
Herald story on 20 September and in Glades County Democrat 21 September
1962.
Democrat article read by
a friend Larry Newman Jr., managing editor of Dayton (Ohio) Daily
News, resulting in request for a feature with fresh art, dated 15
October.
Returned to Miami on Saturday
20 October, or possibly Friday. At any rate, after beer-drinking session
in bar of Hotel Flagler, at which time Dennis Harber first encountered,
accompanied Roy Hargraves to tourist court on Flagler where he was
living with female know only as "Betty" whom he later reportedly
married.
Arrival at 2 a.m. brought
protest from Betty, who rather profanely instructed Hargraves to "get
the hell out of here and take your queer friend with you." Later
gratifyingly learned she had thought Harber was outside instead of
me.
She protested to Hargraves
that he was wasting his time with a revolution. He advised her he
had too much time invested to quit. We slept in my car outside Patrick's
headquarters, Federico's Guest House, 220 NW 8th Ave.
Howard K. Davis at that
time lived at 3350 NW 18th Terrace. He accompanied both trips to No
Name Key, and was reported leader of group. (Davis, interestingly,
was listed in Associated Press Florida wire story F56MH ( believed
to be March 24, 1960, but could have been 1959) as among 29 persons
whom the Miami News listed as banned from aircraft rental on Border
Patrol orders. Davis, and another American known only as "Art",
later identified as Arthur Gerteit, were check pilots for CBS-Rolando
Masferrer Haitian invasion "air Force" in November, 1966.
Gerteit was later identified in United Press International dispatch
from Tifton, Cal, early 1967 (Apr. 11) where Cuban arrested with bombs
as he rented an airplane, as "an FBI Decoy")
On second trip to No Name
on behalf of Dayton Daily News, Harber accompanied group, which included
Cuban known to me only by last name of Pino, who also had been present
at first filming session. Pino reportedly head of an exile group called
Christian Army of Anti-Communist Liberation (ECLA), and not quotable
by name at that time.
Harber was drunk on departure
from Miami, and took one pint of whisky with him, which he asked be
rationed to him slowly. I performed this task. Pino much amused at
Harber, whom he called "el profesor."
Harber at that time was
night clerk for the Flagler Hotel, 637 West Flagler, and also taught
English (to Cuban exile students) at a language school next door to
the hotel.
Harber was described by
Patrick at that time as having terminal cancer. At present, according
to last report from Patrick, Harber was serving sentenced in Mexico
for murder, undocumented to me.
Harber lived in a small
apartment behind Flagler Hotel, and shared it with various of the
Americans occasionally, including Seymour, Collins, and a Czeck lad
known as Karl Novak, who I don't recall seeing on No Name.
(2)
Tom
Dunkin,
Deposition
on Project Nassau (29th August 1969)
I first became
aware that the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was going to film
a documentary of a planned invasion of the Republic of Haiti by Cuban
and Haitian exiles some time around April or May, 1966. Mr. Andrew
St. George, a freelance writer with whom I had been acquainted since
we were reporting on the activities of Fidel Castro from the hills
of Oriente Province, Cuba, in July 1958, first called this operation
to my attention. At this time I was employed as a newspaper reporter
for the Atlanta Journal.
During the
same period (April-May, 1966), I attended a meeting at the home of
one Mitchell Wer Bell in Powder Springs, Georgia, along with Andrew
St. George and a Mr. Jay McMullen, who St. George introduced to me
as a producer from CBS. At this meeting the discussion was very general
in nature and principally concerned with the feasibility of undertaking
a filmed documentary of an attempted invasion of Haiti. It was also
at this time that Jay McMullen approached me with regard to my future
availability for employment on this project as a cameraman and writer
in the event that the operation took place. At this stage, there were
no concrete plans discussed in my presence. The project seemed to
be in the offing. Wer Bell was obviously being contacted because of
his knowledge of and contacts in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti,
and Latin America in general.
My next direct
involvement in the project took place on September the 11th, 1966.
About 7:00 a.m. I received a telephone call from St. George. He asked
me to meet him at the Atlanta airport. On this occasion, St. George
was accompanied by Jay McMullen, a cameraman named James Wilson, and
a sound technician named Robert Funk. I gathered from their conversation
that they had been filming something to do with the invasion operation
up in the New Jersey area. The entire crew stayed in Atlanta about
two or three days.
It was on
Sunday, September the 11th, 1966, that Jay McMullen offered me a job
on his CBS production crew as general assistant. My duties were to
do camera and sound work and anything else that came up. I was hired
on a freelance basis by McMullen and he told me my salary would be
$150.00 per week plus expenses for food, lodging and transportation.
McMullen did not have to do a selling job on me, I was eager to become
a part of what then had all the earmarks of being a top news project.
On September
12, 1966, I took a two-months' leave of absence from the
Atlanta Journal. My agreements with Jay McMullen were
all oral, there was no written contract of employment made.
On Monday
and Tuesday, September 12-13, 1966, accompanied by the above named
CBS crew members, we shot a filmed sequence of weapons being loaded
in a car and on a boat. This sequence was filmed at Mitchell Wer Bell's
home in Powder Springs, Georgia, and both the car, a Volvo, and the
boat belonged to Wer Bell. The weapons consisted of about a dozen
or so Enfield 30 caliber rifles and about a half-dozen 38 Special
two barrel over-and-under Roehm Derringers.
This film
sequence was shot by Wilson. There was some sound also as I recall,
but Wer Bell's face was never photographed. Mostly the shots consisted
of Wer Bell's hands loading rifles into the trunk of the car and into
a box on the boat. We also filmed some scenes of Wer Bell's car towing
the boat on a highway in the vicinity of Powder Springs. Georgia.
Immediately
upon completing the filming of the loading sequence, Jay McMullen
and his crew departed for Miami leaving me with the car, boat and
Wer Bell. I was to accompany a Haitian driver on the trip south to
Miami supposedly towing the boat containing the weapons. My job was
to film the travel sequence, tape record an interview with the Haitian
driver during the trip and also to record news and weather from the
radio in the car during the course of the trip for purposes of time
and location identification on sound. The only problem was that St.
George did not provide a Haitian driver for the trip. The interview
of the "Haitian driver" took place a few days later, in
Miami and was simulated to make it sound like it took place during
the actual transportation of the car and boat from Powder Springs,
Georgia to Miami.
(3)
Tom Dunkin, statement
(1990)
January to August, 1964,
worked as undercover investigator with the Florida Legislative Investigations
Committee. Duties included infiltration Committee for Nonviolent Action,
which was approaching Florida on "Peace March" from Quebec
via Washington and bound for Guantanamo, Cuba, to protest U.S. policy
regarding Cuba.
Mission was to prevent
Florida getting the notoriety Georgia had acquired for alleged law
enforcement mistreatment of marchers. Contacted group at Americus,
GA, and after initial encounter, recommended procedures that accomplished
goal until the group tangled with Key West conchs and Cubans, but
no serious situations.
Later investigated various
university pacifist groups including students and faculty members.
This involved University of Miami, University of Florida and Florida
State University. A major point of interest was efforts by one faculty
member at University of Florida, to abolish ROTC.
Later assigned to riots
in St. Augustine during June-August, 1964, with objective of intelligence-gathering
to aid in preventing violence. During this time, researched progress
on National State's Rights Party's efforts to get enough signatures
on petitions to enable inclusion on Florida ballot for candidates
John Kasper and J.B. Stoner. Reported to Tallahassee headquarters
that possibility practically non-existent. Committee Staff Director
John Evans promulgated this information to the public via United Press
and party's political progress aborted in Florida. Also attended and
photographed a number of Ku Klux Klan rallies in St. Augustine-Ocala
area and reported to committee on them.
(4)
Tom Dunkin, letter
to Jim Garrison (29th April, 1968)
It is my understanding
that the Clay Shaw trial may be scheduled during early May.
I hope to be assigned to
cover the trial for the Ledger, as I did the preliminary hearing a
year ago last month.
I'm certain the trial date
will be well noted by the wire service and will trust in such for
notification of the date.
Having had the opportunity
to encounter some of the people in whom your investigation has shown
an interest, I should be willing to offer any assistance to you that
this past experience might possibly provide.
Should you have any questions
with which you might feel I could be of help, I will be available
to you, your staff or representatives at any time.
(5)
Tom Dunkin, Intrigue
at "No Name" Key, Back Channels (Spring 1992)
Oliver Stone's JFK seems
to have achieved a double objective of being a moneymaker and a political
activity stimulus, one of the movie's directors avers.
Although he denies any
spooky associations, it's going to be interesting to see if future
release of classified files on the Kennedy assassination pinpoints
new intelligence community involvement, Roy Hargraves, a man with
some shadowy past connections, acknowledges.
Hargraves denies any "contract
CIA agent" links, although he was involved in military training
of Cuban exiles in Florida and Louisiana. British author Anthony Summers
hung the contract agent tag on members of the International Penetration
Force in his book, Conspiracy.
Summer's book on the JFK
assassination cites an FBI raid and the closing of a training site
near Lake Ponchatrain several months before Kennedy's death as a possible
contributing factor in the assassination.
Hargraves recalls there
are many unanswered questions in the Cuban exile aspect of the Kennedy
case. Early in New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's probe,
"Garrison accused us of training the ‘triangulation team'
of three alleged snipers at No Name Key."
No Name Key was the principal
Florida training site for the IPF freelance volunteer instructors.
"We testified before Garrison and convinced him he was wrong,"
Hargraves recalls, "and we went to work for him for about a month"
early in Garrison's late 1966 and early 1967 investigation.
Garrison's, whose two non-fiction
books, A Heritage of Stone, and On the Trail of The Assassins, were
the basis of Stone's JFK said in them that Kennedy's "ordering
an end to the CIA's continued training of anti-Castro guerrillas at
the small, scattered camps in Florida and north of Lake Ponchatrain
"added to the disenchantment which contributed to the President's
murder.
Another interesting aspect
of the Garrison investigation, is that, according to Hargraves, a
Cuban exile investigator hired by Garrison" ripped off half the
budget" to handicap the probe. Bernardo de Torres, a Bay of Pigs
veteran, "was working for the CIA", Hargraves said, during
the Garrison investigation.
De Torres, who has since
disappeared from his former Miami haunts, also served as a security
consultant to local and federal law enforcement units during President
Kennedy's visit to Miami after Fidel Castro's release of the prisoners
from the Bay of Pigs invasion.
(6)
Gordon Winslow,
Cuban Exile
Website (2004)
A month after his (Tom
Dunkin) death in 1994, we were given access to his home where he worked.
His files had been ransacked and most covered two to three inches
on the living room floor. Luckily there were about ten boxes of salvageable
records which included about 5,000 sleeves of negatives, around 300
cassettes, a few reels of movie film, numerous slides and a few photographs.
Most of the negatives were made for local news stories but many also
had been taken in the Cuban rebel area and later in the anti-Castro
camps in South Florida.
|
Forty
years after John Kennedy's murder in Dallas, the event remains
a part of the American conscious. Polls show the majority of
the public still believes there was some sort of conspiracy
involved in his assassination and the average person thinks
it just might be exposed once the government releases all the
confidential documents some day. Those that deny the conspiracy
question scoff at all this, stating that no conspiracy could
have been good enough that somebody would not have talked after
all this time. After all we all know even successful criminals
feel compelled to tell someone, sometime. Someone Would Have
Talked tackles that objection head on, examining a number of
examples of individuals who talked when they shouldn't have.
Some talked before the assassination and some afterwards. These
are not the people who sold their stories or whose names you
would see in the tabloids. These are real people, many of them
involved in the secret war against Castro and the U.S. Government
project intended to assassinate him. You find their remarks
in reports made to Police, the FBI and Secret Service. Reports
which were never addressed in any coordinated or proactive criminal
investigation. The records have been released, people have talked,
witnesses have finally revealed the elements of both the conspiracy
and the cover-up, the real history is here in Someone Would
Have Talked and the 1,400 pages of reference exhibits that come
on this CD with it. (Larry Hancock, JFK Lancer Publications)
|
Someone
Would Have Talked
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
