Troy Houghton: The Minuteman

Hey Rand... good stuff. Is there a definitive book on these 1960s Minutemen?

This code is from a follower of Troy Houghton in San Diego, Keith Gilbert. I believe it was written in 1968. I got it from an FBI file on Gilbert and the Minutemen in connection with the MLK and Robert Kennedy assassinations.

Now that looks a lot like the old Zodiac printing !

Rufus T Firefly wrote:

Hey Rand... good stuff. Is there a definitive book on these 1960s Minutemen?

Yes, even though it was written in 1968, J. Harry Jones, Jr., The Minutemen (1968) is still the definitive work on the Minutemen. I've been in constant contact with Harry these past few months. The book is out of print, but you can still get a used copy on Amazon.com and elsewhere. It's a fascinating read.

sandy betts wrote:

Now that looks a lot like the old Zodiac printing !

What do you think of these, Sandy?








HERE IS AN FBI DOCUMENT WITH A MINUTEMEN "ON TARGET" SHOWING DISDAIN FOR JACK "RUBY" RUBENSTEIN (Note the anti-Semitic use of Rubenstein, just as in these letters from LA):

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=136096&relPageId=6

Intrigued to say the least. The lined paper looks like the Bates case letters. Some of the writing is similar too. The southern CA postmark interest me for sure, as I fully believe that Zodiac was in southern CA during the 63-67 era, and may have been involved in the DOMINGOS/EDWARDS, SWINDLE, and BATES cases. As a matter of fact, my own POI came to Vallejo in 1968 I believe, and I am trying to track him in Southern CA in the early to mid 60's. His wife may have attended college in Long Beach.

The problem for me as a non-professional writing expert, is the Bates letters seem to have been written with the writers weak hand. I think if he wrote the letters a second time with his weak hand, they would look even more different, so it may be hard to say if the JFK letter writer is the same writer.


Rand, do you have any letters with similar tone or language written in cursive? Is there a site where these letters can be found?

Same Washington stamp as used on the Riverside letter, I think it was the Hautz letter?

Rand what was the info showing possible link between the Revolutionary War and Zodiac?

Morf: Here's the link: http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/ When you get in, click on Box 19-20 -- that's where all the Ruby letters are (and there are lots of them).

AK: Sean at Zodiackiller.com had a long post about this years ago, I believe. There are tons of Revolutionary war and Z connections. What I can remember, aside from what I've already mentioned here are:
Jefferson: invented a copier, fountain pen, Monticello
On the first series of letters, Z used a copier for Rush to Editor; dripping pen card, LB has something to do with a lost city of Monticello (NIN would know, I believe).
The murder dates and places: Columbus Day weekend and Washington and Cherry streets, Samuel Adams birthday (a very important figure to the MM), July 4th, a "citizen", etc.

As we know, a Timex watch was found near Cheri Jo Bates's body. The story is that it came off in a struggle. Two things have bothered me about that: 1) how does a watch come off in a struggle? esp. when Bates probably had no idea that she was going to be killed, and it would have happened so fast. (2) how could someone not know that their watch was missing in a struggle. He would have picked it up unless: he left it as a clue/sign, whiich is precisely what I think he did -- if it was Houghton.

The Timex watch was a clue, IMO, that it was the work of the Minutemen.
Just as the Zodiac moniker is a clue, with double meaning given the Minutemen logo, that this is the work of the Minutemen. It's an obvious point, but one worth making. I can't think of another suspect aside from Houghton, who had a reason to choose a timepiece for a signature.

Incidentally, the pictures of Houghton were taken a bit after CJB's murder (the first week of November 1966). Eerie to say the least. Note the watch that TH is wearing in the June 1966 Look magazine article (where he's sitting down in his office).

Something else about this: "WHEN WE WERE WALKING AWAY FROM THE LIBRARY I SAID IT WAS ABOUT TIME. SHE ASKED ME, 'ABOUT TIME FOR WHAT?' I SAID IT WAS ABOUT TIME FOR HER TO DIE....SHE WENT VERY WILLINGLY.

Two things: he specifically stresses the concept of "time" and "she went willingly." Two more reasons why I believe that the watch was left deliberately as a clue/sign of the Minutemen.

Zodiac placed a clock on the envelope of the Exorcist letter as well.

Here are some other tidbits:

1) the national headquarters of the Minutemen was 408 South Pine in Norbourne, Missouri; this was TH's home away from home (San Diego). Peek through the Pines?

2) one of the more high-profile members of the organization was Cindy Melville. Melvin Eats Blubber was a reference to Melville Eats Blubber buttons.

3) The Phillips 66 Map: The Minutemen used road maps for "dead drops." Here's a passage from The Minutemen by J. Harry Jones, Jr. about Mary Tollerton, a MM member, trying to hide maps from LE:

She had put a road map in the glove compartment as the officer approached, she said.
"Why?" was the inevitable question.
Because the road map had markings on it she did not wish the police to see. By slipping it in the glove compartment with numerous other unmarked road maps, she had hoped it would go unnoticed. Markings? Yes -- Minutemen 'dead drops' over the state of Florida. (A 'dead drop' is a place messages can be hidden for the eventual pick-up by their intended recipient or his courier. It may be just about anything -- a hollow tree trunk, a bus depot locker...)

ONE OF Z'S MOTIVE: TAKE OVER THE PRESS

Minutemen Trust Few in Fighting 'Red Takeover': Leader Addresses 150 at Van Nuys Meeting of Southern Freedom Councils
PAUL WEEKS
Los Angeles Times; Aug 23, 1964;

[skipping down to the important stuff]

[From a Minutemen pamphlet passed out at the meeting]
"The Communists realize that their control over the American news media is a weapon more powerful than their mechanized troops...all the media of mass communication are effectively controlled by the enemy so they can make people think whatever they want them to think." Haughton stressed the Minutemen contention that government, authority, power is corrupted by Communist infiltration.

[A movie of General Edwin Walker on Communist atrocities plays]

When the lights went on, Haughton wearing horn-rimmed spectacles leaned heavily on the lectern and read haltingly from his notes. He apologized for having a poor memory and having to read his remarks [reminds me of the BRS phone call]. Sometimes he couldn't read his notes and shrugged his shoulders.

[skip down]

(The [Minutemen] pamphlet says "...we must use our enemies' own tactics against them. Today's wars are not being won by massed armies or atomic bombs. They are being won by psychopolitical weapons, by infiltration, subversion, and espionage.")

Haughton urged infiltration into politics. One way to help a candidate, he said, would be to infiltrate the opposition party, and say, volunteer to distribute leaflets -- then throw them all down a storm drain.
Haughton laughed. The crowd laughed.

Or, he said, one could do wonders to sabatoge an organization by infiltrating it with a switchboard operator or a secretary who could cause no end of damage.

Two women, he said, infiltrated the organization of a long-established political machine in a Midwestern city two years ago and caused so much trouble and consternation the machine lost an election.

[skipping down]

Haughton went on to tell how the general public doesn't know it but all kinds of effective weapons, including military surplus, are available for purchase.

He also said with broad innuendo that rifle clubs are booming in California. You wouldn't find out from any rifle club member that he belonged to the Minutemen, said Haughton.

There were ways, he said, to get weapons and ammunition economically from the government for target practice and training.

"When our constitutional government is threatened," the pamphlet says, "we are morally justified in resorting to violence to discourage Communists and their fellow travelors."

Haughton followed the Minutemen line, as set down in the pamphlet, with remarkable accuracy.

The Minutemen pamphlet says, "the objectives of the Minutemen are to abandon wasteful, useless efforts and begin immediately to prepare for the day when Americans will once again fight in the streets for their lives and their liberty."

The Minutemen organization developed a political party in 1966, the Patriotic Party. Here is a page from one of their newletters. Notice that "can still" is crossed out and replaced with SHALL.
Notice also that it calls Humphrey a PINKO. I believe that the pink stickers inside the Halloween Card sent to Avery were in reference to him being a PINKO FAG (one of the pink stickers had the Nazi symbol for homosexuals on it: a triangle, and Houghton as a KKK member would have been familiar with the triangle sign for homosexual)

This is the attempted rape in Riverside weeks after CJB murder. The description of the killer matches that of Z and, of coures, TH, who lived and worked in Southern California.

That last paragraph does jump out at you.

***

This is an example as to why our addresses should not be on our driver's licenses. This girl must have been terrified. Cheri's best friend's name and address were all over the paper.

Notice that Houghton was arrested for "malicious destruction" in 1966 when he tore two pages out of a library book. CJB was murdered outside RCC library on Oct. 30 1966:




Notice that Troy Houghton shot out a woman's tires (se third column):



Robert DePugh was speaking at a MM fundraiser in LA on Oct. 30, 1966. Troy Houghton was the West Coast regional coordinator with headquarters in LA. No doubt, TH was there that afternoon. The speakng engagement started at 2pm, giving TH plenty of time to go to Riverside. This was the same day that a huge MM bust occurred in NY.

I've posted my view that the Halloween Card depicts a flasher, and that this is a clue regarding Z's identity (YOU ACHE TO KNOW MY NAME, SO I'LL CLUE YOU IN...)




Troy Houghton was in the newspapers quite a lot. Almost everytime, they mentioned his convictions for indecent exposure. The incident happened in LA in 1957; he was arrested again and it made the front page of the LA Times and other papers in 1961 for failure to register as a sex offender in San Diego, where he moved to and was living at the time. Interestingly, the MM newsletter, ON TARGET, mentioned the fact that TH was always being called a sexual offender in the newspapers. More interesting still, the ON TARGET mention of this singled out, not the LA Times, but the San Francisco newspapers. Z had a problem with them as we know. Here's the FBI document with the ON TARGET discussion of this -- it's in the last paragraph on the page:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=1391705

Here is some more on TH in the newspapers that features his flashing in Cheyenne, WY in Jan. 1967, right before he disappeared in May 1967:

Okay, this is a bit long-winded, but bear with me. I'll explain what I believe the Red Phantom letter was about.

1) The MM organization was about taking back the US from a Communist takeover. The MM were training to be guerrilla fighters up in the hills, who would swoop down and reconquer the US.
Their raison d'etre and inspiration was a book from 1929 called: THE RED NAPOLEON, a novel by Floyd Gibbons published in 1929 predicting a Soviet conquest of Europe and invasion of America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Napoleon

2) The June 17, 1966 issue of Time magazine (the same time as Troy Houghton appeared in Time's sister magazine, Look) featured a story about General Vo Nguyen Giap (the guerilla strategist for North Vietnam) called North Vietnam: The Red Napoleon. Here is the article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899210,00.html

3) Okay so we have the RED NAPOLEON as an inspiration for the MM and it was used to describe the North Vietnamese strategist regarding guerilla warfare. MM literature regarding the conduct of guerrilla warfare borrowed from Mao and other Asian strategists who essentially invented guerrilla warfare. It was called: THE EASTERN WAY OF WAR. So this is the RED part. But why Phantom?

4) The Eastern Way of War is about guerrilla warfare and asymmetric warfare. Another popular name for this is: PHANTOM SOLDIERS.
The Red Phantom is, IMO, a combination of THE RED NAPOLEON and PHANTOM SOLDIER.

5) Why was the letter about Count Marco? Here is something rather mindblowing: the person who discovered the Phantom Soldiers was MARCO POLO
Indeed, the very first paragraph of the book by H. John Poole, Phantom Soldier is the following:

"When Marco Polo returned from the Far East to Venice in 1295, he warned of the Karauna raiders in the barren deserts of Upper Persia. Of Indian and Mongolian descent, the Kauranas were said to have the power to conjure up a magic, choking gloom through which to approach lucrative caravans.

In India they acquired the knowledge of magical and diabolical arts, by means of which they are enabled to produce darkness, obscuring the light of day to such a degree, that persons are invisible to each other, unless within a very small distance. Whenever they go on their approach is consequently not perceived.
--- Marco Polo

Here is the link to the book and page: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6358136/Phantom-Soldier-John-Poole

So we have RED NAPOLEON and PHANTOM SOLDIER both being the impetus behind the Minutemen and especially Troy Houghton's role as a recruiter and trainer for an underground guerrilla army.
Then we have the body of the RED PHANTOM letter being about Count Marco, and we know that Marco Polo discovered the Karaunas of Upper Persia and told the world about their secret, invisible method of warfare, which was known as the phantom soldiers and the "Eastern Way of War."

Though I have not yet researched this, I bet that the Karaunas murdered people to collect slaves for the afterlife. I'm going to research this and see if it is true or not.

I just looked up the Karaunas in Marco Polo's travels and found that they made slaves out of people who attend the cattle after they pillage the village. Here are links to these two pages:
http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/library/polo.pdf
http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/library/polo.pdf

I just found what I'm looking for further in Marco Polo's book. He speaks of Kublai Kaan and the Tartar Internment Ceremony of murdering people to collect slaves for the afterlife:

It is likewise the custom, during the progress of removing
the bodies of these Princes, for those who form the
escort to sacrifice such persons as they chance to meet on the
road, saying to them, "Depart for the next world, and there
attend upon your deceased Lord," being impressed with the
belief that all whom they thus slay do actually become his
servants in the next life. They do the same also with
respect to horses, killing the best of the stud, in order that
he may have the use of them. When the corpse of Mongou
Kaan was transported to this mountain, the horsemen who
accompanied it, slew upwards of twenty thousand persons
who fell in their way.

http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/library/polo.pdf

An interesting connection/coincidence. One can see several possible Citizen Kane references in Z's letters. The My Name Is cipher can be easily translated as MY NAM KANE; RKO appears prominently in the upper right hand part of the 340 cipher (RKO put out Citizen Kane in 1941); and there's the "citizen" letter: Citizen Kane. Moreover, the paleo-Hebrew letter, teth, which looks like a crosshair symbol, is thought by some to be the Mark of Cain the first murderer in history:


Interestingly, Xanadu is the fictional estate of Charles Foster Kane, the title character of the film Citizen Kane. The estate gets its name from the real ancient Mongolian city, Xanadu, which was the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China, after he decided to move the capital of the Yuan Dynasty to Dadu, present-day Beijing. It is located in what is now known as Inner Mongolia and was known for its splendor. Kaan, as the post above relates, was at the center of the Tartar ritual of slaying people to collect slaves for the afterlife.

Here is background material and support for my contention that the Minutemen were heavily involved in guerrilla and underground warfare. This is an FBI document that lists MM literature:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=118921&relPageId=3

I want to go back and emphasize the similarity between the Minutemen training session lectures that Houghton gave regarding explosives and Z's discussion of them.

Here are some notes that were found at a week-long Minutemen training session in 1965 at which Houghton lectured:
"Telephone harassment is good.
Enemy has a mental conflict when taking out silent no. (number). Then when you dial silent # it has a psychological affect.
Physical harassment--shine light in window of Communist.
Mail-harassment-is-very-good.
If-mail-harassment-comes-at-time-when-moral-is-kind-of-low,-then-stop-&-give-it-some-long-thought.
One-of-the-set-rules-of-Guerrilla-Warfare-is-don't-operate-with-a-set-pattern-or-plan.

EXPLOSIVES
Tincture of Iodine or Iodine Crystals. pour out in place, evaporate in front of fan, pour on Kleenex-- take Ammonia pow on paper keep wet at all times, this forms Ammonia Tri Iodide is very explosive. It is too dangerous. It is self detonated. Put this under the door.
Make Black Powder. use match heads for sulfur. sodium nitrate. potasium nitrate. charcol
[skipping down]
Any time a Minuteman is killed, he must do in 1,000 of the enemy to make up for his life being taken.
[Skipping down]
(search files--)--CRACK SAFE
[Skipping down]
Intercept, Decode messages of the Enemy. Computers are not needed for a secure code. It is organized confusion.
The cipher rather than the code.
cipher is similar to hiroglythics.
Code is another actual word."

Aside from the spelling errors, note, among other things, that the person uses "pow" for powder like Z used "pow" for powered on this page of the bus-bomb letter:

Take one bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer + 1 gal of stove oil & dump a few bags of gravel on top + then set the shit off + will positivily ventalate any thing that should be in the way of the blast.

The death machine is all ready made. I would have sent you pictures but you would be nasty enough to trace them back to developer + then to me, so I shall describe my masterpiece to you. The nice part of it is all the parts can be bought on the open market with no questions asked.

1 bat. Pow clock -- will run for aprox 1 year
1 photoelectric switch
2 copper leaf springs
2 6V car bat
1 flash light bulb + reflector
1 mirror
2 18" cardboard tubes black with shoe polish inside + oute

http://www.zodiackiller.com/BombLetter4.html

The distribution of the characters in the My Name Is cipher (see below) is consistent with The Minutemen (crosshair symbol):

THE MINUTEMEN ⊕
3 Es = 3 Taurus symbols in the cipher
2 Ns = 2 Ns in the cipher
2 Ts = 2 As in the cipher
2 Ms = 2 Ms in the cipher
⊕ = ⊕

Here is my theory regarding the significance of Z's claim that the LA Times "don't bury me on the back pages like some of the others"

In the March 13, 1971 letter to the LA Times (click here: http://www.zodiackiller.com/LATimesLetter.html ), Z said that he was writing to the LA Times because "they don't bury me on the back pages like some of the others." During my research of the Minutemen in the newspaper archives, I've noticed that The LA Times featured many stories -- far and away the most stories of any newspaper -- about Houghton (virtually anything he did that was mildly newsworthy) and the Minutemen. The Bay Area papers tended to bury Houghton and the Minutemen on the back pages OR they talked about TH's indecent exposure conviction, which they ran on the front pages. Everyone thinks that Z's comment about burying him in the back pages was a complaint about not getting coverage for his activities. But this makes no sense: the Bay Area papers gave the Zodiac far more coverage than any other newspapers in the country (for good reason). So there's been lots of discussion about what Z could have meant by this strange statement that the LA Times "don't bury him on the back pages." The confusion arises from the assumption that Z was a nobody in his everyday life. Once that preconception is jettisoned, the seemingly odd statement becomes a possible clue about Z's identity -- that he was known not just for being Zodiac but for his everyday identity. I think it's Houghton pointing out that the LA Times covers his exploits more than any other paper.