THE REAL JOHN TRAIN THE REAL JOHN TRAIN THE REAL JOHN TRAIN

                                THE REAL JOHN TRAIN

Russ Baker, in his book “Family of Secrets”  (Bloomsbury, 2009, p. 12-13) notes that it was researcher Jerry Shinley who discovered a Nov. 29, 1975 CIA memo that details George Bush Sr.’s association with former CIA officer Thomas J. Devine.

In New York city in late April 1963 Thomas Devine, as CIA operative code named WUBRINY/1, met with George deMohrenschildt, the “best friend” of Lee Harvey Oswald, who a week earlier, was exposed by deMohrenschildt as having taken a pot shot at General Walker.

When Devine had ostensibly “retired” from the CIA he formed the Zapata corporation with Bush, and when they sold it, Bush went into politics while Devine joined the investment firm of Train, Cabot and Associates, whose primary partner was John Train.

Train is described by Baker as “a longtime enthusiast of foreign intrigues,” who worked for three presidents.  

The 1975 CIA memo reads:

“Through Mr. Gale Allen…I learned that Mr. George Bush, DCI designate, has prior knowledge of the now terminated project WUBRINY/LPDICTUM which was involved in propriety commercial operations in Europe. He became aware of this project through Mr. Thomas J. Devine, a former CIA Staff Employee and later, oil-wildcatting associate with Mr. Bush. Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil [sic] which they eventually sold. After the sale of Zapata Oil, Mr. Bush went into politics, and Mr. Devine became a member of the investment firm of Train, Cabot and Associates, New York…The attached memorandum describes the close relationship between Messrs. Devine and Bush in 1967-68 which, according to Mr. Allen, continued while Mr. Bush was our ambassador to the United Nations.”

Russ Baker (p. 14) writes: “The writer of the above-mentioned CIA memo had appended an earlier memo from agency files, describing Thomas Devine’s role in a CIA project codenamed WUBRINY. Devine was ‘a cleared and witting contact in the investment banking firm which houses and manages the proprietary corporation WUSALINE.” (BRINY was actually a Haiti-based operation engaged by a corporation, code-named SALINE, that was a whole owned by the CIA. SALINE, like many CIA proprietaries, was in turn operating inside a ‘legitimate’ corporation, whose employees were generally unaware of the spies in their midst.) In this case, the cover corporation was run by investment banker, John Train, a sponsor and longtime enthusiast of foreign intrigues, backing the Afghan rebels during the Regan-Bush years. 9 Train was enormously well connected, and received appointments from president Reagan, Bush Senior, and even Bill Clinton.”

Note 9: “An article by Richard Cummings (“An American in Paris” American Conservative, February 16, 2004) asserts that Paris Review cofounder and editor Peter Matthiessen was a CIA agent whose literary activities served as a cover for his intelligence work. Also, the Review’s longtime editor George Plimpton ‘was an agent of influence’ for the CIA….invariably paid for (his) services.’”

Also see: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA, Harvard U. Press, 2008)., p. 106, and Francis Stoner Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London, Granta, 1999)

(Baker, R. p. 105)

CIA Document, “On April 25, 1963, at three thirty in the afternoon, a CIA operative code named WUBRINY/1 held a meeting in the library of the Kinckerbocker Club, one of New York’s most exclusive men’s clubs, on East Sixty-Second Street, just off Fifth Avenue.” 42

Note 42: “Members of this club include David Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney, publisher of the New York Herald Tribute.”

“There were two others present. One was C. Frank Stone III, chief of operations for the European section of the CIA’s clandestine wing. The other was M. Clemard Joseph Charles, the general manager of the Banque Commerciale D’ Haiti.”

“This ‘contact report’ was declassified in 1998 but went unnoticed at the time. The purpose of the 1963 meeting, it said, was to prepare for the impending arrival from Dallas of George de Mohrenschildt, who was described as a business contact of Haitian banker…’Mr. Charles.’”

According to Baker, de Mohrenschildt arrived the next afternoon, “at the New York offices of the investment banking firm of Train, Cabot, inside an entity code-named SALINE, 44.”

Note 44: “HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, box 14 ‘Contact Report WUBRINY Haitian Operations (NARA record number 104-10436-10014 and 104-10070-10076). Available at Mary Ferrell Foundation.”

“This was in fact the covering organization for operation WUBRINY, and WUBRINY’s chief agent and operator, WUBRINY/1 - who was none other than Thomas Devine. 45”

Note 45: “Though Devine is not identified by name in this document, he is in another CIA document, ‘Memornadum: MESSRS. George Bush and Thomas J. Devine,’ January 30, 1968 (NARA record number 104-10310-10271). Available through Mary Ferrell Foundation. That document identifies Devine specifically as working in operation BRINY and claims that he began working in this capacity that June. No documents have surfaced showing anyone else being part of the very small operation WUBRINY. Indeed, all the available evidence indicates that Devine was the main or even only member of WUBRINY, and therefore the person code-named WUBRINY/1, the designated top dog of the operation. If, in fact, Devine and WUBRINY/1 were synonymous, then the CIA memo noting that Devine joined WUBRINY in June was in itself an attempt to hide the involvement of Poppy’s business associate in the April meeting with deMohrenschildt.”

In January 1968, Devine (WUBRINY1) and George Bush Senior went to Vietnam.

So the real John Train was an investment banker who ran CIA propriety companies and was associated with both Bush’s partner at Zapata Thomas Devine and Oswald’s good friend George deMohrenschildt.