After Lull, Funny Business Resumes

A look at possible trip wires

If you do not regularly visit this newsletter’s website, you might not realize that there is a section called Reprisals.

The idea is to document any suspected examples of blowback directed at me for pursuing this research.

That the CIA might want to retaliate against me for conducting this research is not just conjecture.

The Agency confirmed in writing last year that it maintains a classified file on me, most likely furnished by one or more Five Eyes partner agencies. By definition, this file is almost certainly focused on my activities inside the U.S., and not while I lived in Russia.

While it is nearly impossible to confirm any particular reprisal, I find it instructive to note when an action occurs and describe the nature of the suspected reprisal. It is also beneficial, as a data monitoring device, to list possible motives.

After all, a warning via this communication channel could indicate particular sensitivities around a given topic.

Previous reprisal clusters

So far, reprisal actions have been primarily concentrated in the financial space, namely stolen credit card information, account hacking, and de-banking.

One particularly humorous example from the winter of 2024 included an order of sandwiches (all chock full of meat) for around $250 from a restaurant in California. I am, of course, a vegan who lives on the East Coast.

Chuckles aside, a message was clearly sent. We know who you are, we know what you’re doing, and we have ways of making your life difficult.

That was one of two credit card hacks in the weeks following the CIA’s disclosure that it had an unacknowledged or classified association with my grandfather, Jay Reid.

The next bout came a few months later, after I filed a series of FOIA requests with the National Security Agency (NSA).

In the final request, the most likely offender, I asked for a count of responsive records held by the NSA on Jay’s house, the other seven houses on his street, and the Catholic church at the end of the street for the month of June 1970.

That request was denied in full for national security reasons.

The next set of hacking attempts came in the spring of 2024, just after I received from the New Jersey archives a copy of the Herbert W. Reed long-form birth certificate. At the time, I was in the process of securing a copy of the birth certificate belonging to Jay’s sister, Florence.

The most recent reprisal, prior to this renewal of activity, came days after I launched this newsletter, when one of the banks where I held a checking account, M&T Bank, sent a letter threatening to close my account.

The letter, sent from a corporate office and not my local branch, cited the Patriot Act in demanding employment and other information.

I cannot recall the bank having requesting information in this manner before, and certainly not since I had moved back to the U.S. in 2014. None of the other banks where I maintain an account have ever done this, either.

M&T Bank followed through on the threat. It closed my account in late 2024.

Why now?

Two weeks ago, I saw signs that one of the credit card accounts that was hacked last year had again been compromised.

Then, yesterday, I got a strange email from PayPal notifying me that I had sent nearly $180 to someone I did not know. That would be concerning if my name was Wendy McEntyre.

The recent examples of financial shenanigans fit the pattern established last year - PayPal and Wells Fargo accounts were involved, and the sums of money were less than $500.

Again, it has all the makings of a message being sent. But what message is that?

Over the past month, although I have been writing about Per Jacobsson, I have been pursuing more documents related to the question of whether or not Jay’s cousin Karl Harr might have served in the OSS (the forerunner to the CIA), and how that might have all connected back to Jay.

I have especially zeroed in on the following two lines of inquiry:

1. OSS training on Santa Catalina Island at the end of World War II, particularly the Korean POWs question

2. The possibility that Jay may have interacted with Hugh Tovar, a high-ranking CIA official who trained on Santa Catalina Island at the same time as the agent Moon Duck Harr, who I suspect, but have not confirmed, was actually Karl Harr

Last week, I traveled down to Maryland and spent a day on the second floor (texts section) of the National Archives building in College Park, Maryland.

Ironically, while I was photographing documents, DNI Tulsi Gabbard announced that the first 10,000 documents of the RFK files, which were from the FBI, had been released to the public. My understanding is that those files are available to researchers in the very section of the archives where I was working.

While at the archives, I photographed roughly 1,000 pages of OSS personnel and training files. Those documents relate to:

• Col. Carl F. Eifler

• Robert E. Carter

• Lt. Col. William A. Roseborough

• Franklin O. Canfield

• 1st Lt. Lief Bangsboll

• The West Coast A training sites on Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of California

I already had scanned copies of Hugh Tovar’s OSS personnel file as well as that of one of his suspected pseudonyms, but in attempting to draw a direct connection to Jay via eyewitness recollections, I might have tripped a wire.

These questions may seem a bit “in the weeds”, but they go directly to the heart of this entire investigation.

I do not have to strain to imagine why the Agency would not want me looking in these particular corners of history.