Joshua S. Lewis, M.Div.

CHILLING: Former intelligence officer said the CIA killed JFK before his untimely death that was called a "suicide." JFK Files: 104-10170-10145 RYBAT 19 JUL 1967 MEMORANDUM SUBJECT: Ramparts: John Garrett UNDERHILL Jr., Samuel George CUMMINGS, and INTERARMCO Ramparts of June 1967, Vol. 5, No. 12, pp. 28-29, contains the following passages about subjects: "The day after the assassination, Gary Underhill left Washington in a hurry. Late in the evening he showed up at the home of friends in New Jersey. He was very agitated. A small clique within the CIA was responsible for the assassination, he confided, and he was afraid for his life and probably would have to leave the country. Less than six months later Underhill was found shot to death in his Washington apartment. The coroner ruled it suicide." "J. Garrett Underhill had been an intelligence agent during World War II and was a recognized authority on limited warfare and small arms. A researcher and writer on military affairs, he was on a first-name basis with many of the top brass in the Pentagon. He was also on intimate terms with a number of high-ranking CIA officials—he was one of the Agency’s ‘un-people’ who perform special assignments. At one time he had been a friend of Samuel Cummings of Interarmco, the arms broker that numbers among its customers the CIA and, ironically, Klein’s Sporting Goods of Chicago, from whence [sic] the mail-order Carcano allegedly was purchased by Oswald." SECRET RYBAT " The friends whom Underhill visited say he was sober but badly shook. They say he attributed the Kennedy murder to a CIA clique which was carrying on a lucrative racket in gun-running, narcotics, and other contraband, and manipulating political intrigue to serve its own ends. Kennedy supposedly got wind that something was going on and was killed before he could ‘blow the whistle on it.’" "Although the friends had always known Underhill to be perfectly rational and objective, they at first didn't take his account seriously. ‘I think the main reason was,’ explains the husband, ‘that we couldn't believe that the CIA could contain a corrupt element every bit as ruthless—and more efficient—as the mafia.’" "The verdict of suicide in Underhill’s death is by no means convincing. His body was found by a writing collaborator, Asher Brynes of The New Republic. He had been shot behind the left ear, and an automatic pistol was under his left side. Odd, says Brynes, because Underhill was right-handed. Brynes thinks the pistol was fitted with a silencer, and occupants of the apartment building could not recall hearing a shot. Underhill obviously had been dead several days." "Garry Underhill’s chilling story is hardly implausible. As a spy apparatus, the CIA is honeycombed with ‘self-contained cliques’ operating without any real central control…." A check of Agency records has yielded the following information about John Garrett UNDERHILL Jr.: DPOB: 7 August 1915, Brooklyn. Education: Attended high school in Brooklyn and graduated from Harvard in 1937. Death: 8 May 1964. SECRET RYBAT