KARAMESSINES, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Virtual Truth Commission

1964 -- Activity while Chief of Station in Rome, countering "opening to the left". IL GENERALE DE LORENZO E IL PIANO SOLO (In Italian)

1967. Thomas H. Karamessines in 1967 started an operation to handle the antiwar press. On 8/4/67 a telegram re the new special operations group (SOG) in the counterintel section. Angleton appointed Dick Ober to coordinate SOG and expand his Ramparts investigation to encompass the entire underground press -- some 500 newspapers. SOG was designated as MHCHAOS. CIA assigned domestic political espionage the highest level of priority. SOG ops grew to sixty field agents as well as other CIA compartments. Due to the large number of reports generated computers were used for the first time to handle the traffic. CIA coordinated efforts with army agents, the local police and the FBI. Penetration of antiwar periodicals (his primary mission). John Ferrera a student was recruited to penetrate various antiwar media. details of Ferrera's successes. the FBI used its agents to create dissension within protest groups. Ober had relied on the CIA's domestic contract service (DCS) but was experiencing resistance. pp. 26-41Mackenzie, A. CIA WAGES WAR ON AMERICA from 'SECRETS: THE CIA'S WAR AT HOME', University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1997. Posted in a-infozine V1 #654. The A-Infos News Service.

September 16, 1970. Karamessines is CIA deputy director of plans.

Chile: to supervise special covert operation "FUBELT" against Chilean President Salvador Allende, according to September 16, 1970 minutes with CIA director Richard Helms.
October 16, 1970, according to CIA Operating Guidance Cable on Coup Plotting, a secret cable, ...Thomas Karamessines, conveys Kissinger's orders to CIA station chief in Santiago, Henry Hecksher: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." The "operating guidance" makes it clear that these operations are to be conducted so as to hide the "American hand," and that the CIA is to ignore any orders to the contrary from Ambassador Korry who has not been informed of Track II operations.
Source: Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archive, CHILE: DECLASSIFIED U.S. DOCUMENTS ON PINOCHET AND THE 1973 COUP

1975 Named in Senate investigation. When Hunt was queried about his relationships with Richard Helms and Thomas Karamessines he responded: "I have known Dick Helms for many years. He was Operations Chief for the CIA. He then became Deputy Director of the Plans Directorate...Karamessines succeeded Richard Helms as Chief of the Plans Directorate and I saw him from time to time." Senate Commission Analysis

1978 Death. Thomas Karamessines died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 61 on September 4, 1978 at his vacation home in Grand Lake, Quebec. He headed the covert operations part of the CIA after Richard Helms was promoted from that position to head of the CIA. David Phillips, the CIA dirty tricks operative who is making public speeches supporting the Deputy Director of Plans (dirty tricks) function, worked for Karamessines. His knowledge of the JFK assassination and the CIA's cover-up role was undoubtedly complete since he inherited the whole thing from Helms. JFK Assassination Analysis

Subordinate to Richard Helms. "If there is one trait which may be said to characterize Richard Helms, it is control. He does not reveal himself. Both Lyman Kirkpatrick (CIA inspector general from 1953 to 1962) and Thomas Karamessines -- the one a disappointed rival, the other a loyal, frankly admiring subordinate -- used almost identical words in describing Helms's instinctive restraint. He was not a man to protest with heat, they said. "You're not going to find out if Helms ever did that," said Kirkpatrick, "unless he tells you himself, because it's not the kind of thing he'd do in front of people." Karamessines made the same point in a discussion about Chile. "If Helms ever protested to a President, he did it very privately, and let me tell you, there'd be no third party to know about it." It might almost be said that Helms managed his own emotional life as he had the CIA, and kept everything within. JFK Assassination Analysis

Titles "Virtual Truth Commission" and "Telling the Truth for a Better America" © 1998, Jackson H. Day. All Rights Reserved.
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Updated November 26, 1998