Phil Ochs was the fiercest and most dedicated protest songwriter of the 1960s. Planning rallies, performing at countless fundraisers, protesting the Vietnam war: Ochs’ tenacity and dedication to leftist causes is well known, and rightfully so. At the very moment Bob Dylan shied away from politics, Ochs doubled down on his political convictions.
Yet, a puzzling rumor has circulated about the troubadour. Phil’s college roommate and lifelong friend, Jim Glover, said Phil confided a dark and confounding secret to him: Phil was in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Could this be true?
BACKGROUND
While Ochs would come to be known as an outspoken leftist, his roots were quite patriotic. The son of a World War II veteran and doctor, Ochs attended Staunton Military Academy- a prestigious military school in Virginia. There he was classmates with future Nixon White House Counsel, John Dean (of Watergate fame) and Barry Goldwater, Jr., son of the notorious, conservative Republican senator.
Ochs then attended Ohio State University, where participation in ROTC was mandatory. Phil rose the level of Lieutenant in the Air Force while at OSU. However, his love of folk music was beginning to emerge. Then, he met Glover.
Jim Glover was a red-diaper baby through and through. Born in Cleveland, Glover’s parents were involved in the Communist Party USA, hosting party meetings at their house- even housing the party leader (and eventual CPUSA Presidential candidate), Gus Hall, in their attic after he was charged under the Smith Act for “advocating to overthrow the government”. The Glover household was ever-filled with the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
Ochs met Glover and the two hit it off quickly. Glover showed Ochs the protest folk cannon and taught him how to play guitar. In fact, Ochs’ first guitar was Glover’s– he won it in a bet on the 1960 presidential election. Glover thought Nixon would win. Ochs disagreed, and won the bet. Their friendship blossomed quickly and they formed a folk duo, “The Singing Socialists.” They performed around Columbus, however, after being pointedly questioned by a particularly conservative audience member about their political alliances, Ochs quickly insisted they change the band name to “The Sundowners”.
“Phil was pretty gung-ho military when we first met,” said Glover. “He knew about the Kingston Trio, but he didn’t know about Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, or any of that.” While Ochs and Glover became fast friends, there were occasional hiccups in their relationship.
Wernher von Braun, NASA aerospace engineer and former Nazi collaborator, came to speak at OSU in 1960. Glover joined a fellow student in protesting the event, handing out fliers mentioning von Braun’s former Hitler-allied association. The student who joined Glover at the protest proudly wore his Socialist Worker’s Party jacket. Upon returning to his dorm, Glover found Ochs was angry with him.
John Pell Coster Train was a Harvard-educated, multimillionaire investment banker and a founder of the literary magazine, The Paris Review. The Review was co-founded by CIA agent Peter Matthiessen in 1953. The magazine’s editor, George Plimpton, was later outed as a CIA “agent of influence”. The magazine published (and sidelined) certain articles in an attempt to control the cultural narrative in the US’ fight against communism.
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan served as the publisher of The Paris Review on paper, but never put up a penny. The CIA funneled funds though Khan’s foundation to publish the magazine. Khan, a French-born statesman and son of a Pakistan-founding father, attended Harvard, where his roommate was: John Train.
In the 1980s, Khan became co-ordinator of the UN Humanitarian and Economic Assistance Programs relating to Afghanistan. Therein, Khan and Train funneled CIA money to help train the Mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet Union.
But long before this, Train was a “fully cleared and witting” asset for the CIA. Various now-declassified CIA documents list cryptonyms WUSALIFY (Train, Cabot & Associates, Train’s investment banking firm) and WUSALINE (International Capital Corporation [ICAP], a CIA proprietary corporation housed and managed by Train, Cabot & Association). Train even had his own cryptonym: WUBRINY-1.
Jim Glover (left) and Phil Ochs performing at Ohio State University in 1960.
“What are you doing? Don’t you know that guy’s a Socialist Worker’s Party guy?” Phil questioned.
“I don’t know, I just thought it was important that people knew that [von Braun] was a Nazi,” replied Glover.
On another occasion, Glover questioned the authority of his ROTC superior. He put his Army cap on backward (an affront to the uniform) and refused to march in their daily routines. “They’re going to get you now, man. They’re going to get you now..” replied Ochs.
Ochs frequently mentioned to Glover that Glover was “fair game” because of his communist past. Finally, Ochs admitted to Glover that there was a campus spying-program at OSU that Ochs was working with. These types of programs were rife on college campuses across the country as the anti-war and civil rights movements began to take off. Ochs told Glover, “I’ll never lie to you, but there are some things I can’t tell you.”
WAS IT AN ACT?
Despite his military connections, Ochs’ political awakening does appear to be in good faith. Ochs frequently attended dinner at the Glover household and learned everything he needed to know from Glover’s parents. Hugh, and his wife Frieda, were “fellow travelers” in CPUSA (a frequent designation to those who were involved in the party but wished to avoid the social and legal troubles directed at card-carrying members) and were cited in Cleveland Police records as being “of a dangerous nature”.
Ochs and Glover featured in the Columbus Star performing at The Sacred Mushroom folk club in Ohio
1940s Columbus Police Department records on Jim Glover’s parents, Hugh & Frieda
Ochs, always an avid reader and news junkie, immediately began writing songs from what seems to be a socdem, patriotic perspective. His first song, “The Ballad of the Cuban Invasion”, is told from a viewpoint of a confused and disillusioned American:
Why were they wearing my country’s clothes?
Why were they spending my country’s gold?
Who are my friends and who are my foes?
The headlines were lying, why wasn’t I told?
In short order, Ochs would write songs that would eventually populate his first album, All the News Fit to Print. Songs like, “One More Parade”, “Talkin’ Vietnam”, and “Ballad of William Worthy” come from the perspective, not of a frothing radical, but of a disillusioned peacenik college student. Ochs’ classic “Power and Glory” rings of some patriotism, even as it criticizes the “land that’s still troubled by men who love to hate”:
Here is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh, her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Her glory shall rest on us all, on us all
GREENWICH VILLAGE
In due course, first Glover, then Ochs, moved to New York City to join the emerging folk music scene. From nights at legendary clubs like the Gaslight Cafe, the Bitter End, Gerde’s Folk City and Cafe Wha?, folk luminaries like Bob Dylan, Dave van Ronk, Joan Baez and others created the socially conscious folk scene still revered today.
Glover joined up with his future wife Jean Ray to form the folk duo, Jim & Jean. Ochs emerged as an uncompromising and dedicated protest songwriter; a mouthpiece of the growing peace movement. Ochs sold out shows at Carnegie Hall, as folkies came to hear his delightful blend of biting social commentary, soaring melody and sardonic wit. Ochs regularly passed up paying gigs to play for free at protests and rallies. As the early 60s counterculture emerged, the folkies (Phil & Jim included) were at the forefront of radicalism.
In 1963, Glover and Phil were living together at 163 Thompson St. in Greenwich Village. One day, according to Glover, Phil came home flustered, and flatly asked Jim:
“I heard there’s a plot to kill JFK. Have you heard anything about it?”
LH Oswald passing out fliers for the FPCC, and his membership card from May ‘63
Jim said no, he hadn’t, but wanted to know where Phil was getting this information from. Phil admitted he was working with, “National Security- it was kind of like the CIA, but domestic. Hoover is the bad guy.”
Phil then said he was going to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to try and find out more. The FPCC was the organization that Lee Harvey Oswald was working (or pretending to work) for in New Orleans, just a few months before the assassination. Glover contacted the head of FPCC, VT Lee, many years later, who confirmed Phil was indeed working with them.
But at that time, Jim didn’t know what to make of any of this. Phil always seemed to know things: he predicted that Kennedy would win the election, he knew about the military plots to assassinate Castro, he even read about Lee Harvey Oswald’s defection to Russia in 1959. But this? This was quite a prediction.
Then, some time later that year (again, according to Glover), FBI agents showed up at the apartment. They wanted to know where Phil was. Glover, remembering that Phil told him Hoover was the bad guy, told them nothing. Indeed, Phil’s FBI file confirms they were looking for him in the Fall of ‘63.
Train also had contact with some interesting characters surrounding the Kennedy assassination. Documents show Train was in contact with George de Mohrenschildt (one of Lee Harvey Oswald’s close associates and likely handler) in early 1963 in Haiti.
Page 1 of Phil Ochs’ FBI file, opened in 1963
All of this information and more is compiled in our forthcoming documentary, Psychic Cowboy.
If you’d like to learn more about the project, please email: scrapyardpictures@gmail.com
2005 email exchange between Jim Glover and Michael Ochs— Michael denies Jim’s claim
FBI Special Agents looking for Phil Ochs less than a month before the Kennedy assassination
THE ASSASSINATION
Unfortunately, Phil was correct. The assassination of John Kennedy remains a monumental and harrowing breakpoint in American history- to some, it was the country’s complete loss of innocence; to others, it was a military coup from which the country has never recovered; to all, it was the saddest moment in 20th-century America.
The country laid in mourning through the end of 1963. Jim and Jean, still in their Thompson St. apartment had been on tour at the time of the assassination, but returned to New York shortly thereafter. However, they hadn’t seen Phil- until he finally showed up at their apartment in January of 1964.
After telling Phil about his own harrowing story on the day of the assassination (more on that in our forthcoming documentary), Jim asked Phil the question every American remembers: where were you when JFK was killed?
Phil looked his college roommate and old friend in the eye, “I was in Dallas.”
“What were you doing there?” was Jim’s next, logical question.
“I was sent there as a ‘National Security Observer’,” Phil replied. “I was in Dealey Plaza.”
“Well.. can you prove it?”
“Someone was filming me. I was standing in front of a garage door. There was a cameraman there, with a camera pointed at me.”
Jim never knew what to make of it. But, this was his oldest friend. Why would Phil lie to him about this? There’s certainly no benefit to claiming you were in Dallas on 11/22/63. Especially not for a lefty, protest songwriter.
Years later, a documentary, The Men Who Shot Kennedy, aired on A&E. Whether all the film’s claims were accurate or not, the film contained a number of clips from the chaos of Dealey, shortly after the assassination. And in it, Glover found this clip:
WHY WOULD PHIL BE THERE?
In the wake of the President’s murder, the world was desperate for truth. Jim urged Phil tell his story, but Phil flatly refused. Phil was afraid for his life; likely, rightfully so. Phil seemingly told no one else his true whereabouts on 11/22. Michael Ochs, Phil’s brother, denied the claim. Arthur Gorson, Phil’s longtime friend and manager, claims Phil was in New York. Two biographies about Phil, Michael Schumacher’s There But for Fortune and Marc Eliot’s Death of Rebel describe differing accounts of Phil being in New York at the time.
In 1964, while on stage, Jim told a crowd at the Gaslight Cafe that Phil was in Dealey Plaza. After the gig, Phil was incensed, “What are you trying to do? Get me killed?” While Phil feared for his life, he was also concerned about his legacy. If the left knew he was connected to some National Security-apparatus, no matter how tangentially or for what purpose, his reputation as a mouthpiece of the counterculture would be ruined. Jim always maintained that Phil was searching for the truth, always trying to find the good guys. But this connection, coupled with the gravity of the assassination, would be too much for anyone to handle.
The obvious question: if Phil had somehow been connected to military intelligence since his college, maybe even high school days: why would they send him to Dealey Plaza?
Keep in mind, even well into his junior year at Ohio State, Phil was criticizing Jim for his leftist values. But as he and Glover grew closer, and the country engaged in a seemingly untethered string of brutal interventions and military humiliations, Ochs’ political leanings began to change for good.
He believed in America, but hated what it was becoming. He yearned for the principles it supposedly was founded on. He loathed the direction it was taking. Which, undoubtedly, motivated his songwriting. His military contacts, who likely experienced no such softening of their attitudes, couldn’t have been pleased with Ochs’ work. In the lead up to November ‘63, Ochs only became more radical- and more popular.
So, why send Ochs to Dallas? To shut him up.
Civil rights attorney and JFK researcher, Bill Simpich, discusses why Phil Ochs may have been in Dealey Plaza
UNSTOPPABLE
And so Ochs continued on. He organized two separate “The War is Over” rallies (before the Vietnam war actually concluded) in Los Angeles and New York City- singing and marching alongside thousands of demonstrators. He was arrested in Chicago, alongside Hoffman and Rubin, at the infamous ‘68 DNC and later testified in court on behalf of the defendants.
He organized the “An Evening with Salvador Allende” benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in 1974, after the US toppled the leftist regime in Chile; it was the first public discussion of the CIA being involved in that coup. When the US government finally did end the campaign in Vietnam, Ochs organized one last “The War is Over” concert in Central Park. Over 100,000 people attended.
His commitment was clear. He would not be silenced.
FINAL CONNECTIONS
As even a lay Ochs fan knows, Ochs’ depression, alcoholism and bipolar disorder would consume the latter years of his life- all leading to his suicide in 1976, at the age of 35. In many ways, Ochs predicted his own death. He felt the dream of America had died at the ‘68 DNC. His album released the following year, entitled Rehearsals for Retirement, featured his own gravestone as its cover art.
All of this information and more is compiled in our forthcoming documentary, Psychic Cowboy.
If you’d like to learn more about the project, please email: scrapyardpictures@gmail.com
But Ochs, to his tremendous credit, refused to go quietly. While he would never talk about his involvement publicly, Ochs proceeded to become the most prolific and outspoken protest songwriter of the 1960s. As Bob Dylan and others retreated to folk rock and love songs- Phil was palling around with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, still stumping at anti-war rallies and singing increasingly anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist tunes.
Ochs repeatedly told Glover he couldn’t talk about his own whereabouts on 11/22 but, he said, he wrote a song about it, Ochs’ seminal track, “Crucifixion”. That the song chronicles the Kennedy assassination is well-known. The story of Ochs performing the song for Bobby Kennedy (and bringing Kennedy to tears) is widely-known, as well. But, it’s full context may remain a mystery. The song does, of course, include the lines:
Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and Eric Andersen at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival
They say they can't believe it, it's a sacrilegious shame
Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?
But you know I predicted it, I knew he had to fall
Glover insists Ochs left clues in other songs, as well. From his 1970 track, “One Way Ticket Home”:
Does anybody know my name, or recognize my face?
I must have come from somewhere, but I can’t recall the place
They dropped me at the matinee, they left without a trace
Ticket home, I want a ticket home
Elvis Presley is the king, I was at his crowning
My life just flashed before my eyes, I must be drowning
Ochs had a lifelong fascination with Elvis, but it’s all too easy to see Presley used as a metaphor in the above. “I was at his crowning..”
Ochs even used to joke on stage, “Well, as you know, I’m a folk singer for the FBI.”
The cover art for Ochs’ 1969 album, Rehearsals for Retirement
His final few years were marred by erratic behavior, stilted songwriting and alcoholic fits that alienated him from both friends and family. But there are two incidents worth mentioning.
In the early 70s, disgusted with the American scene, Ochs traveled the world. He visited South America, accompanied by David Ifshin (then-President of the National Students Association, a notoriously CIA-funded organization). In 1973, Ochs visited various countries in Africa and even wrote and recorded a single, “Bwatue”, in ‘73 with two fellow African musicians.
However, late one night in Tanzania, Ochs was attacked and robbed. His assailants choked him so badly, he lost the top three notes of his vocal range.
His attackers left Ochs’ wallet, stole no money, left his passport- they took only his knife. Phil, although tremendously paranoid at this time, maintained the attack was orchestrated by US agents.
JOHN TRAIN KILLS PHIL
Then in 1975, as his mental state declined further, Ochs announced that he was now John Train. John Train had killed Phil Ochs. “The reason I killed him was he was some kind of genius but he drank too much and was becoming a boring old fart. For the good of societies, public and secret, he needed to be gotten rid of,” claimed Train.
Setting aside the not impossible prospect that John Train may have been some sort of MK-ULTRA alter-personality of Ochs’, it’s worth investigating who John Train was. Michael Schumacher, one of Ochs’ biographers, claims Ochs got the name “from [his] big-screen heroes John Ford and John Wayne,”
However, there was another John Train alive at this time, as well.
John Train contracted with the CIA on various projects for over 30 years
Declassified CIA documents identifying John Train as WUBRINY-1, “fully cleared and witting”. (Courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation)
And Train’s WUSALINE company would later provide cover for Thomas Devine, a “former” CIA officer and business partner of George HW Bush.
Given all the info above, is it possible Phil Ochs knew the “real” John Train was a bad character? Could they have had some contact at some point- given Train seems to have become “witting” as early as the mid-50s (around the time Ochs left his private military high school to join ROTC at Ohio St.)?
Was Ochs’ adopting Train’s name a way of him subconsciously succumbing to the military coup that forever changed the direction of America on 11/22/63? To get rid of this protest singer who needed to be killed, “for the good of societies, public and secret”?
WAS PHIL A SPY?
Suppose that all of this is true: that Phil Ochs was involved in a campus spying program at Ohio State, that he heard from military intelligence contacts about the Kennedy assassination before it happened, and that he was in Dealey Plaza when the murder happened- one enormous question remains:
What does this mean for the legacy of Phil Ochs?
Without question, Ochs’ determination in seeking truth, believing in democracy and freedom, and relentlessly fighting for a more peaceful world, were foundational aspects of his personality and his life’s work. The long arm of intelligence stretches far and wide in America and it always has. The majority of Americans would be shocked to know the extent to which the intelligence agencies and the military have dipped their toes into cultural affairs. In the end, it’s culture that influences people more than law. So, from their tyrannical, agenda-setting perspective, they’d be fools not to have contacts all over the entertainment industry. But, that doesn’t mean everyone involved always knows the full extent of what it is they’re getting involved in.
If anything, Phil’s being in Dealey Plaza and refusing to stay quiet, refusing to shut up like they demanded of him, makes him infinitely more heroic. Phil had the courage to stand by his principles and continue to be a very public, outspoken critic of the military industrial complex. And his (and his generation’s) inability to course correct the country was ultimately what destroyed him. Bob Dylan shied away from politics just month’s after the Kennedy assassination, presumably without military intelligence contacting him at all.
Phil Ochs is the most strident and tenacious protest songwriter of the 1960s, without any of this backstory.
With it, he’s an unparalleled titan of 20th-century protest history.
In a rare television appearance for Phil, he was a guest on Murray the K’s show, The Sound is Now in 1968. In this clip, Phil is chastised for his songwriting by an obviously planted college student (who is so nervous he doesn’t ask his prescribed question correctly, so Murray then has to follow up and clarify), an Episcopalian priest who calls Phil selfish and finally, Tex McCrary, a World War II veteran, Yale graduate and member of Skull and Bones.