Talk:Paul Helliwell

Hopsicker and Helliwell
Recent additions to the article include several problematic sources. An example is the use of Daniel Hopsicker's self-published book Barry and the Boys. This is not a reliable source; see for example Del Hahn's biography of Barry Seal, Smuggler's End, who discusses the many, many problems of Hopsicker's work. There is no reason to use such material in an article on Helliwell and I have removed it.

Another problematic source is Paul Williams' book Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia. I have not yet finished reading this, but there are many many problems with this work, which has already been cited several times in the article. Rgr09 (talk) 19:28, 3 September 2019 (UTC)


 * What in particular do you take issue with? I found the Williams book to be quite revealing.Neighborhood Nationalist (talk) 12:59, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

National Park Service and Helliwell
The article currently gives a vague cite for Helliwell's China activities from a National Park Services web page. This page is from the online version of John Chambers' book OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II (The book is located here; see this webpage for Clayton Laurie's review of the book).

The gist of the cite in the article is how Helliwell sent an OSS representative to check on a Korean general's undercover program in 1945. The representative was a "27-year-old lieutenant and Brown University graduate from upstate New York [who] had trained at Area E and Catalina Island", but the edit fails to give the name of the lieutenant or explain what 'Area E' was, and bizarrely mislinks the Korean program to the Eagle Scout Service Project).

The lieutenant was E. Howard Hunt, and the story comes from Hunt's 1974 autobiography. Chambers comment on the Hunt's book: "Hunt’s memoir has been likened to the novels he wrote." Clearly he does not have much confidence in Hunt's story. I have rewritten the whole quote just to mention that Hunt served in China under Helliwell; all the other extraneous and/or unreliable details are not needed for the article. Rgr09 (talk) 03:15, 4 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Ha! That was probably my addition but I don’t quite remember. Anyway, thank you for taking care of that and having the curtesy to leave a note. I don’t know how that how that bogus link could have come about haha. Neighborhood Nationalist (talk) 13:03, 18 September 2019 (UTC)