Sunday, April 23, 2006

WHY THE BLOOMFIELD ARCHIVES SHOULD BE OPENED TO PUBLIC

In 1968, Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, a Montreal prominent lawyer, was named as an associate of Clay Shaw, the New Orleans businessman indicted of conspiracy in the JFK assassination by District Attorney Jim Garrison. According to Italian newspapers articles, Bloomfield would have been the major shareholder of Permindex, a shadowy corporation to which Clay Shaw was related.

Since both Clay Shaw and Bloomfield were intelligence veterans of World War II, and since Permindex was suspected of funneling money for intelligence operations, including assassination attempts on General De Gaulle, Bloomfield eventually became the victim of his supposed association with Shaw, to the point where he was perceived by some as the architect of the assassination plot against President John F. Kennedy.

First of all, it must be stressed that the allegations against Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, even his hypothetical relation with Clay Shaw, never were documented. The more explicit accusations against him (in Torbitt's Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal) was even coming from an unpublished manuscript written under pseudonym and giving for source two anonymous US federal agents. Most of the other speculations about Bloomfield took roots in this unsubstantiated and uncorroborated text, and never bring any solid evidence against Bloomfield.

Why was the rumor mill so hard with Bloomfield? Because, regardless of any JFK assassination connection, he was a character related to the world of espionage during World War II, and that, well after WWII, he still played some important historical part in international politics, that up to the 1980's. In many aspects, Louis Mortimer Bloomfield was comparable to William Stephenson, the man called Intrepid, except that his story was never made public.

Before its death, Bloomfield donated his personal papers to Canada National Archives, under condition that they are made public twenty years after his death. However, nearly two years after the end of this delay, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) refuses to make available the Bloomfield documents, even after legal procedures were taken on this matter in Federal Court.

Even -and furthermore- if Bloomfield have nothing to do with the JFK assassination, it is more than time that his archives become opened to the public and that his true story finally been told.

There is one overwhelming argument in favor of this: that his personal archives been open to the public -twenty years after his death- was the clear expressed will of this eminent attorney. Whatever was Bloomfield intention in giving his archives and in asking that they become open to the public, he deserves this will to be respected, just as much as the public deserves to know the truth about him.

Will the content of his archives clear him of any connection with the JFK assassination? Or will this content show what really happened in Dallas? We don’t know but Louis Mortimer Bloomfield knew and asked for it to be revealed.

This two dimensions conviction is the reason I took action in court to get those papers released, and I convey everyone to support their opening.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very interesting! Clearly the actions of the Canadian authorities indicate that something in the Bloomfield archives is being deliberately hidden.

Perhaps "Freedom of Information" proceedings can be initiated to determine exactly which government officials made this "final determination of policy," and why. Furthermore, those officials could then be prosecuted for "official misconduct," based on the explicit wording of Mr. Bloomfield's so-called "will."

Obviously the restriction in this donation to the Canadian national archives, is something different than a "last will & testament." However, the Bloomfield archives are being held by a public agency, at public expense, for what we can only assume to be historical public purposes. Mort Bloomfield's intentions for donating his papers to a public agency, would seem to be making those records accessible to the public. Otherwise, the papers most probably would be kept for ever in private hands.

A good start would be to obtain as much information as possible *about* the archives: how many volumes; how many pages in each volume; brief descriptions of each volumes; etc. By process of elimination, much of the archives may be accessible backwards, since parts of this material may also exist in other places.

12:12 AM  
Blogger youshouldknow said...

You can see a description of the archives on Library and Archives Canada website at: http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000000813.pdf .

The hearing in Canada Federal court on the matter of opening the Bloomfield Archives to the public will be held on October 17. 2006 in Montreal.

Library and Archives Canada is arguing that the law doesn't give anybody the right to consult archives hold by them...

8:58 PM  

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