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Cryptonym: LPHIDDEN

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Definition:
An extremely sensitive operation run by the Office of Security in 1954. Private investigator Robert A. Maheu was paid by a competitor of Aristotle Onassis in 1954 to carry out a campaign of wiretaps and dirty tricks against the Greek shipping tycoon - with the knowledge and approval of the CIA and then-vice president Richard M. Nixon.
Status:
Unknown
Sources:

104-10122-10141 MEMO RE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CIA AND ROBERT MAHEU, PREPARED FOR DCI

Bio of Robert Maheu: 1940-47 FBI, private business for a few years, Office of Security for Small Business Administration 1952-54. He was then brought in as a "covert asset" of the Office of Security to be on call. Within months, he was brought into LPHIDDEN. He was hired by Niarchus to tap Onassis' businesses, with the understanding the fruits of his labor could be passed on to the US Government. In August 1954, he obtained a covert security clearance and became a Covert Associate in LPHIDDEN, and also a CSC for another case (TWIXT). Much more background in this document.

Charles Braddock, Washington Post, 8/2/78: Maheu Admits '54 Anti-Onassis Drive. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/08/02/maheu-admits-54-anti-onassis-drive/46221201-7536-49d9-9613-8f1c2168a673/

"Private investigator Robert A. Maheu was paid by a competitor of Aristotle Onassis in 1954 to carry out a campaign of wiretaps and dirty tricks against the Greek shipping tycoon - with the knowledge and approval of the CIA and then-vice president Richard M. Nixon, according to a Playboy magazine article. Maheu, a former FBI agent who later became a top aide to billionaire Howard Hughes, was hired by Stavros Niarchos to undermine a lucrative contract Onassis had signed with the Saudi Arabian government to transport oil, writer Jim Hougan says in the September 1978 issue of the magazine...He reported his anti-Onassis activities regularly to the CIA, Maheu said, including the use of the illegal and "unproductive" wiretap on Onassis' New York office. The CIA also helped his operatives in Rome, where derogatory stories about Onassis were peddled to a newspaper. Onassis eventually lost the contract. He died in 1975." See the CIA version in 1966, admit they owe Maheu a debt for this: http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=103969&search=%22111_540%22+111540#relPageId=71&tab=page

2/14/69 memo to Chief, ID, see pages 1 and 6: http://cryptocomb.org/CIA%20-%20LPHIDDEN.pdf

An extremely sensitive operation run by the Office of Security in 1954. It was one of the first operations to utilize Maheu, who handled Howard Hughes' organization and many other sensitive operations for OS thereafter.

104-10121-10355: CENTRAL COVER STAFF REQUESTED AN EXPEDITE QKENCHANT CLEARANCES

"...According to Central Cover Staff, (MAHEU) has been utilized since (1954)" His number is #111 540. Central Cover staff was also seeking an expedited QKENCHANT clearance for his son Peter Maheu. 2/14/69 memo.

104-10122-10344: MAHEU, ROBERT A. [LONG COMMITTEE INTERESTED IN MAHEU BECAUSE INVESTIGATING WIRETAPPING ACTIVITIES]

"Robert A. Maheu, a personnel executive and former FBI agent, has been utilized by the Office of Security on many sensitive assignments since the early fifties. He has also on several occasions been cleared for use by the DDP in various capacities...the only significant association that the Agency has had with Maheu during (1954-55) involved the struggle between two Greek industrial giants, Stavros Niarchus and Aristotle Onassis. Onassis had just concluded a deal with King Saud which would allow him to control approximately 90 per cent of the oil shipments out of Saudi Arabia. In comsummating the deal, he allegedly employed every trick in the book. His achievement caused much consternation among the British, German and American interests. Niarchus also realized as a result of this the balance of power and influence weighed heavily in favor of Onassis in their private battle. It was this mutual concern of the United States and Niarchus that set the stage for a joint venture. Niarchus supplied the money, personnel and documents; the Agency furnished the communications, courier facilities, and direction in the form of our Commo channel, pouch system, and the NEA Division's expertise and guidance." Bernard Fensterwald, Chief Attorney for the Long Committee, described Maheu as "the type who employed the technique of cutting the Government in just enough on his touchy operations to permit him to hide behind their skirts if he were caught." 6/7/66, anonymous internal CIA memo.

David Talbot, The Devil's Chessboard, Chapter 13: https://erenow.com/modern/the-devils-chessboard-allen-dulles-the-cia/14.html

"While Trujillo succeeded in crushing dissent at home, by 1956 there was one man—Jesús de Galíndez—who, in the dictator’s mind, threatened his regime’s world image. Galíndez, who lived in a book-stuffed apartment on lower Fifth Avenue and enjoyed going to Latin dance clubs at night, did not strike his academic colleagues at Columbia as an international man of danger. But to Trujillo, he was a treacherous serpent who was poisoning opinion against his regime. Not long before he vanished, Galíndez had completed a damning, 750-page dissertation on the dictator’s odious rule, “The Era of Trujillo,” and submitted it for a PhD degree at Columbia. Scholarly theses do not normally incite violent passions. But Trujillo knew that Galíndez, who had worked in the Dominican civil service, had inside information about his savage and corrupt regime...it was not Trujillo thugs who were responsible for Galíndez’s disappearance on that chilly March night after he taught his final class. His kidnapping was a sophisticated operation run by Robert A. Maheu and Associates, a private detective firm staffed by former CIA and FBI employees that the intelligence agency used as a “cut-out” to do dirty jobs on U.S. soil, where the CIA was forbidden by law to operate. Grabbed by Maheu agents who were waiting for him in his apartment, Galíndez was drugged and carried into an ambulance, then driven to a small airport in Amityville, Long Island. There he was loaded into a twin-engine Beech airplane that was specially equipped to fly long distances and flown south, stopping for refueling after midnight in West Palm Beach, before continuing on to the Dominican Republic. After landing in Trujillo’s kingdom, Galíndez—still half conscious—was transported to Casa de Caoba, the dictator’s favorite hideaway."

124-10216-10055: No Title

5/3/61, Col. Sheffield Edwards, Director of Security, told the FBI: "in connection with CIA's operation against Castro he personally contacted Robert Maheu during the Fall of 1960 for the purpose of using Maheu as a "cut-out" in contacts with Sam Giancana, a known hoodlum in the Chicago area...Maheu obtained Sam Giancana's assistance...Colonel Edwards said that since this is "dirty business" he could not afford to have knowledge of the actions of Maheu and Giancana in pursuit of any mission for CIA."

1993.08.11.18:33:04:650058: MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD: SUBJECT: LUNCHEON MEETING WITH WILLIAM K. H

10/4/67 memo by Howard Osborn about his luncheon with William K. Harvey: "(Bill Harvey) asked me whether or not we still used Bob Maheu or had anything to do with him. I said we did not and asked him why. He said that in the last telephone call we had with 'Johnny (Roselli), which lasted for more than an hour, 'Johnny was quite vehement and bitter about Maheu, indicating that Maheu would 'sell anyone down the river to protect his own neck.'"

1993.07.21.08:58:07:430620: ROBERT A. MAHEU: OS/SAG FILES PROVIDED TO THE HSCA

Playboy article on the amount of money passed on from Howard Hughes through Maheu to the Nixon White House during the Watergate era; also see this 1973 Jack Anderson column: http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=103946&relPageId=151&search=watergate

Contributors:
Bill Simpich

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