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---
title: "Funding Conduit"
date: 2026-10-26
status: published
summary: "A November 1968 CIA Central Cover Staff memorandum lists John Hay Whitney's charitable trust as a 'Funding conduit under Project QKOPERA,' the designation it gives the Congress for Cultural Freedom."
entities:
- "[[John Hay Whitney]]"
- "[[Granary Fund]]"
- "[[Congress for Cultural Freedom]]"
- "[[Farfield Foundation]]"
- "[[Forum World Features]]"
- "[[William Harding Jackson]]"
- "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
- "[[Ramparts]]"
- "[[Charles Katek]]"
- "[[Richard Mellon Scaife]]"
- "[[Brian Crozier]]"
- "[[Whitney family]]"
tags:
- CIA
- Qkopera
- CongressForCulturalFreedom
- Foundations
- WhitneyFamily
---
# Funding Conduit
On February 25, 1967 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "a charitable trust established by John Hay Whitney received $325,000 in 1964 and 1965 from the Granary Fund of Boston, used by the Central Intelligence Agency to channel money from front organizations to various organizations here and abroad." The schedule the [[Granary Fund]] filed with the Massachusetts attorney general showed $225,000 paid to the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes in 1964 and $100,000 in 1965. Walter N. Thayer, head of the Whitney communications corporation, issued a statement in Whitney's name: "The trust which I established Dec. 29, 1958, for charitable purposes has operated since that date."[^1] David Wise and Thomas B. Ross wrote the same year that the trust was "financed in part by the Granary Fund, the CIA conduit."[^2]
In November 1968 [[Charles Katek]], Chief of the CIA's Central Cover Staff, sent the Deputy Director for Plans a memorandum on the "Scope and Possible Damage of New Allegations by Ramparts Magazine." [[Ramparts]] had sent the Internal Revenue Service a list of 145 tax-exempt organizations it suspected of CIA funding. The memorandum's annex of terminated covert funding conduits lists the Granary Fund as a Central Cover Staff proprietary (LPSIPHON/7). It lists "Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes, John Hay" twice, as Ramparts items 141 and 142, each time as a "Funding conduit under Project QKOPERA (LPCORSET/68)." The same memorandum gives QKOPERA as the project designation for the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom]], and lists the [[Farfield Foundation]] as a "Funding conduit for CCF."[^3] In 1985 the CIA answered a 1980 request for records on "the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes and the Granary Fund." It reported two documents, dated December 10, 1968 and January 23, 1969, and withheld both in full.[^4]
When [[Forum World Features]] began selling articles from [[London]] in 1966, its owner of record was Whitney, according to officials quoted by the Washington Post in 1975. An internal CIA memorandum of about 1968, which the Post quoted from Time Out, says the service was begun in January 1966 from the residue of Forum Service, an activity of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. [[Richard Mellon Scaife]] replaced Whitney early in 1973, and a Whitney spokesman said he had "no comment on the subject."[^5] [[Brian Crozier]], the service's president, later wrote that in the spring of 1965 [[John Hunt]] told him Whitney had agreed to take over the service, and printed a letter of June 10, 1965 from Hunt saying that Whitney "tentatively plans to put about $100,000 a year into Forum Features."[^6]
[[William Harding Jackson]] was managing director of J. H. Whitney & Co. when he wrote to Director of Central Intelligence [[Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter]] on the firm's letterhead on May 29, 1947: "You need only call upon me and I shall do anything within my power to be of assistance."[^7] He became Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in October 1950.[^8] The CIA's history of the [[Walter Bedell Smith]] years names [[Alexander Standish]], "a partner in J. H. Whitney & Company," among the original Princeton Consultants of the [[Board of National Estimates]].[^9] On March 26, 1969 [[Henry A. Kissinger]] wrote to Peter Flanigan about Whitney's interest in the [[Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]]: "You should know that this has twice been raised with the President and rejected both times."[^10]
[^1]: "CIA Link to Charity Funds," *San Francisco Chronicle*, February 25, 1967 (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP75-00149R000800060024-5). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000800060024-5
[^2]: David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, *The Espionage Establishment* (Random House, 1967), p. 144.
[^3]: Charles Katek, Chief, Central Cover Staff, memorandum for the Deputy Director for Plans, "Indications of the Scope and Possible Damage of New Allegations by Ramparts Magazine," November 1968, with annexes (JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, 104-10059-10026). https://archive.org/details/JFK-Assassination-Records-2025-Batch01-02
[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, Information and Privacy Coordinator, letter of May 28, 1985 responding to the Freedom of Information Act request of January 11, 1980 (CIA-RDP87B00858R000500640014-6). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP87B00858R000500640014-6
[^5]: Bernard D. Nossiter, "CIA News Service," *The Washington Post*, July 3, 1975, p. A26. https://archive.org/details/nsia-CIAForumWorldFeatures
[^6]: Brian Crozier, reply to the *Guardian*, December 1, 1976, with printed correspondence of John Hunt (June 10, 1965). https://archive.org/details/crozier-replies-to-gaurdian-by-peter-chippendale-martin-walker-the-gaurdian-december-1-1976-pp.-1-9
[^7]: William H. Jackson to Rear Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter, May 29, 1947, on J. H. Whitney & Co. letterhead (CIA-RDP80B01676R004000040034-9). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004000040034-9
[^8]: *The Pulse*, October 15, 1950 (employee bulletin of The New York Hospital), notice of Jackson's appointment as Deputy Director. https://archive.org/details/pulse1519newy_6
[^9]: Central Intelligence Agency, "General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950 to February 1953," vol. III (CREST document 00669377), passage on the Board of National Estimates and the Princeton Consultants. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00669377
[^10]: Henry A. Kissinger to Peter Flanigan, memorandum of March 26, 1969, "Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, John Hay Whitney" (LOC-HAK-1-2-69-2). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-loc-hak-1-2-69-2

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---
title: "Legend, Not History"
date: 2026-10-26
status: published
summary: "The 1862 House record names J. Pierpont Morgan as lender and voucher payee on the Hall carbines; the 1941 study calling the case against him 'legend, not history' was written by a Morgan vice president."
entities:
- "[[J. P. Morgan]]"
- "[[J. P. Morgan & Co.]]"
- "[[R. Gordon Wasson]]"
- "[[Simon Stevens]]"
- "[[John C. Frémont]]"
- "[[Morris Ketchum]]"
- "[[Franklin D. Callender]]"
- "[[Elihu B. Washburne]]"
- "[[Joseph Holt]]"
- "[[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]]"
- "[[Project MKUltra]]"
tags:
- JPMorgan
- CivilWar
- WarContracts
- MKUltra
---
# Legend, Not History
In June 1861 [[Arthur M. Eastman]] bought 5,400 Hall's carbines from the Ordnance Bureau at $3.50 each. He sold 5,000 to [[Simon Stevens]] at $12.50, and Stevens sold them to Major General [[John C. Frémont]] at $22.[^1] The House select committee on government contracts, reporting through [[Elihu B. Washburne]], found that "the arms were placed under the control of J. Pierpont Morgan to secure him the payment of $20,000 he had advanced to Stevens."[^2] Stevens testified: "I got them from J. Pierpont Morgan, to send to General Fremont." He said Morgan was to be refunded the $20,000 with interest "and to be paid for his services and expenses in attending to the sale and collection of the money as trustee for all parties concerned."[^3]
Captain [[Franklin D. Callender]] of the St. Louis arsenal testified on October 26, 1861: "According to the best information I have, J. Pierpont Morgan sold them to the government." He produced a bill dated August 7, 1861, headed "The United States to J. Pierpont Morgan, Dr.," for 2,500 carbines at $55,550. It was marked paid on September 10, with a receipt signed "J. PIERPONT MORGAN, By his attorney, J. T. HOWARD." A second bill in Morgan's name for $58,175 was marked "Not paid for want of funds."[^4] The committee valued the arm at "very nearly $12 50" and found that the claim sought "some $49,000 over and above the value of the property sold."[^5] The War Department commission of [[Joseph Holt]] and [[Robert Dale Owen]] docketed the claim as Case No. 97 in Morgan's name.[^6]
The standard account of the affair is *The Hall Carbine Affair: A Study in Contemporary Folklore*, printed in 1941 in an edition of 100 copies and revised in 1948 in an edition of 750. Its preface states that, "insofar as the case against Morgan is concerned," the transaction "is legend, not history."[^7] Its own reckoning, from [[Morris Ketchum]]'s statement to the committee, is that Morgan retained $26,343.54 of the voucher's proceeds, including a $5,400 commission, and passed $28,650.96 to Ketchum on September 16, 1861.[^8] The author was [[R. Gordon Wasson]], a vice president of [[J. P. Morgan & Co.]][^9]
Wasson's 1956 mushroom expedition to Huautla de Jiménez was joined by the chemist James Moore and drew a $2,000 contribution from the [[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]], a conduit for the CIA's [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]] program.[^10]
[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, 37th Cong., 2d sess., House Report No. 2, "Government Contracts," section "The purchase of the Hall carbines," pp. 40 to 43. https://archive.org/details/governmentcontra00unit_1
[^2]: House Report No. 2, 37th Cong., 2d sess., p. 43. https://archive.org/details/governmentcontra00unit_1
[^3]: House Report No. 2, 37th Cong., 2d sess., testimony of Simon Stevens, "Testimony: Purchase of Arms," pp. 242 to 245, quoted in the committee's report at p. 43. https://archive.org/details/governmentcontra00unit_1
[^4]: House Report No. 2, 37th Cong., 2d sess., testimony of Captain Franklin D. Callender, October 26, 1861, quoted at pp. 47 to 50. https://archive.org/details/governmentcontra00unit_1
[^5]: House Report No. 2, 37th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 51 to 53. https://archive.org/details/governmentcontra00unit_1
[^6]: R. Gordon Wasson, *The Hall Carbine Affair: A Study in Contemporary Folklore* (revised edition, 1948), pp. 44 to 48, quoting the Report of the Commission on Ordnance Claims and Contracts, Senate Executive Document 72, 37th Cong., 2d sess., p. 460. https://archive.org/details/hallcarbineaffai012466mbp
[^7]: Wasson, *The Hall Carbine Affair* (1948), title page, copyright page and preface. https://archive.org/details/hallcarbineaffai012466mbp
[^8]: Wasson, *The Hall Carbine Affair* (1948), pp. 21 to 23. https://archive.org/details/hallcarbineaffai012466mbp
[^9]: Annie Jacobsen, *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis* (Little, Brown and Company, 2017).
[^10]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate* (1979), chapter 7.