Kennedys and King Test host626

Tag: MEXICO CITY

  • John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (re-issue)

    John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (re-issue)

    Oswald and the CIA is not an easy book to read. And I think this is one of the reasons that it was underappreciated when it was first published in 1995. One would expect this result in the mainstream press. But even the research community was not up to the task of understanding the true value of this important work when it was originally published.

    newman
    John Newman, 1995 (Probe file photo)

    Jerry Rose’s The Fourth Decade discussed the book twice: once directly and once indirectly. That journal specifically reviewed the book in late 1995 (Vol. 3 No. 1). The reviewer was a man named Hugh Murray. His review was completely inadequate. He gave the book less than two pages of discussion. Murray never even addressed the volume’s two crucial chapters on Mexico City, which are the key to the book. (This would be like criticizing the Warren Report and never addressing the single bullet theory.) In the summer of the following year (Vol. 3 No. 3), Peter Dale Scott did something that may have been even worse. He wrote a long article for Rose’s publication entitled “Oswald and the Hunt for Popov’s Mole”. This piece seriously distorted and misinterpreted both the book itself and some of the important information Newman had unearthed. This sorry performance partly explains why the book’s achievement was never really comprehended even within the critical community.

    But to be honest, Newman made some mistakes that contributed to the book’s disappointing reception. The author felt it was important to get the book out quickly. He thought he should do so while the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)) was still operating in order to draw attention to its work. I thought this was an error at the time. I still do. For there were some documents, not fully processed at the time, which would have been useful to the endeavor. For instance, The House Select Committee’s Mexico City Report, aka the Lopez Report, had not yet been fully declassified. And to his credit, Newman updated his work on Mexico City with a 1999 article for Probe (Vol. 6 No. 6 ). This is included in The Assassinations.

    Secondly, because of this haste, the book is–to put it gently–not adroitly composed. Newman’s previous book, JFK and Vietnam, also deals with a complex topic: President Kennedy’s intent to withdraw from the Vietnam conflict. Yet that book is skillfully arranged and written. When I asked the author about the comparison between the two, he said, “But Jim, that book was ten years in the making.” I should also add that he had an editor on the first book. Something he did not have, at least to my knowledge, on the second.

    Third, Major John Newman was an intelligence analyst for twenty years. And he approached Oswald and the CIA in that vein. In other words, he played to his strengths. Therefore the book is a study of Oswald as he is viewed through the intelligence apparatus of the United States government. Or, as the author notes, it’s about “Oswald the file”. The author rarely tries to fill out the story or the personage. For instance, the alleged attempted suicide of Oswald in Russia is not mentioned here. Ruth Paine is mentioned once; Michael Paine not at all. Only a highly disciplined, almost obsessed mind, could hew to that line almost continuously. Or the mind of a former intelligence analyst. Consequently, because of its inherent longeurs, the book makes some demands on the reader. Which some, like Scott and Murray, were not up to.

    II

    Now, with caveats out of the way, lets get to the rewards in this valuable, and undervalued, book. No person, or body, not even the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), has ever dug more deeply into what the American intelligence community knew about Oswald prior to the assassination. What Newman reveals here literally makes the Warren Commission look like a Model T Ford. All the denials issued to that body by the likes of John McCone and J. Edgar Hoover are exposed as subterfuges. Contrary to their canards, there was a lot of interest in Oswald from the time he defected to Russia until the assassination.

    Newman first discovered this when he was hired by PBS to work on their ill-fated Frontline special about Oswald in 1993. And it was this discovery that inspired him to write the book. The CIA Director at the time of the debate in Congress over the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board had testified there were something like 39 documents at CIA about Oswald. Most of them were supposed to be clippings. Newman discovered there was many, many times that amount. Further, he discovered the Agency held multiple files on Oswald. And finally, and perhaps most interestingly, there were some puzzling irregularities within the record. (When the author expressed his continuing bewilderment about this to the archivist, the archivist replied, “Haven’t you ever heard of Murphy’s Law?” To which Newman shot back, “Every time I turn around I’m walking into Mr. Murphy.”)

    Mr. Murphy makes his appearance right at the start. Once Oswald defected to Russia in 1959 the FBI opened up a file on him for security purposes. But at the CIA there is a curious, and suspicious, vacuum. Richard Snyder of the American Embassy in Moscow sent a cable to Washington about Oswald’s defection. But the exact date the CIA got it cannot be confirmed (p. 24). Further, the person who received it cannot be determined either. Since Oswald was a former Marine, the Navy also sent a cable on November 4th. This cable included the information that Oswald had threatened to give up radar secrets to the Soviets. But again, no one knows exactly when this cable arrived at CIA. And almost as interesting, where it was placed upon its immediate arrival. (p. 25) This is quite odd because, as Newman points out (Chapter 3), Oswald’s close association with the U-2 plane while at Atsugi, Japan should have placed alerts all over this cable. It did not. To show a comparison, the FBI recommended “a stop be placed against the fingerprints to prevent subject’s entering the US under any name.” (Ibid) So, on November 4, 1959, the FBI issued a FLASH warning on Oswald. This same Navy memo arrived at CIA and, after a Warren Report type “delayed reaction”, eventually went to James Angleton’s CI/SIG unit on December 6th. Angleton was chief of counter-intelligence. SIG was a kind of safeguard unit that protected the Agency from penetration agents. It was closely linked to the Office of Security in that regard. But as Newman queries: where was it for the previous 31 days? Newman notes that the Snyder cable and this Navy memo fell into a “black hole ” somewhere. In fact, the very first file Newman could find on Oswald was not even at CI/SIG. It was at the Office of Security. This is all quite puzzling because, as the author notes, neither should have been the proper resting place for an initial file on Oswald. This black hole “kept the Oswald files away from the spot we would expect them to go-the Soviet Russia division.” (p. 27)

    Another thing the author finds puzzling about this early file is that he could find no trace of a security investigation about the danger of Oswald’s defection. This is really odd because while talking to some of his friends the author found out that Oswald knew something that very few people did: the U-2 was also flying over China. If Snyder’s original memo said that Oswald had threatened to give up secrets on radar operation to the Russians, and Oswald had been stationed at the U-2 base in Japan, there should have been a thorough security investigation as to what Oswald could have given the Russians. For the obvious reason that the program could be adjusted to avoid any counterattack based upon that relayed information. Newman could find no evidence of such an inquiry. (pgs 28,33-34) Further, the author found out that Oswald was actually part of a unit called Detachment C, which seemed to almost follow the U-2 around to crisis spots in the Far East, like Indonesia. (p. 42)

    Needless to say, after Oswald defected, the second U-2 flight over Russia–with Gary Powers on board–was shot down. Powers felt that, “Oswald’s work with the new MPS 16 height-finding radar looms large” in that event. (p. 43) The author segues here to this question: Whatever the CIA did or did not do in regard to this important question, it should have been a routine part of the Warren Commission inquiry. It was not. As the author notes, “When called to testify at the Warren Commission hearings, Oswald’s marine colleagues were not questioned about the U-2.” (p. 43) Oswald’s commander in the Far East, John Donovan, was ready to discuss the issue in depth. The Commission was not. In fact, Donovan was briefed in advance not to fall off topic. (p. 45) When it was over, Donovan had to ask, “Don’t you want to know anything about the U-2.” He even asked a friend of his who had testified: “Did they ask you about the U-2?” And he said, “No, not a thing.” (Ibid) Donovan revealed that the CIA did not question him about the U-2 until December of 1963. But this was probably a counter-intelligence strategy, to see whom he had talked to and what he had revealed. Why is that a distinct probability? Because right after Powers was shot down, the CIA closed its U-2 operations at Atsugi. Yet, Powers did not fly out of Atsugi. As Newman notes, the only link between Powers and Atsugi was Oswald. (p. 46)

    Right after this U-2 episode, Newman notes another oddity. The CIA did not open a 201 file on Oswald for over a year after his defection, on 12/8/60. (p. 47) This gap seriously puzzled the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Investigator Dan Hardway called CI officer Ann Egerter about it. It was a short conversation. She didn’t want to discuss it. (p. 48) The HSCA tried to neuter the issue by studying other defector cases. But as Newman notes: defection is legal but espionage, like giving up the secrets to the U-2, is not. (pgs 49-50) So the comparison was faulty. In fact, when Egerter finally opened Oswald’s 201 file, the defection was noted, but his knowledge of the U-2 wasn’t. This delay in opening the 201 file was so unusual that the HSCA asked former CIA Director Richard Helms about it. His reply was vintage Helms: “I am amazed. Are you sure there wasn’t? … .I can’t explain that.” (p. 51) When the HSCA asked where the documents were prior to the opening of the 201 file, the CIA replied they were never classified higher than confidential and therefore were no longer in existence. Newman notes that this is a lie. Many were classified as “Secret” and he found most of them, so they were not destroyed. Further, the ones that were classified as confidential are still around also. (p. 52)

    And this is where one of the most fascinating discoveries in the book is revealed. Although no 201 file was opened on Oswald until December of 1960, he was put on the Watch List in November of 1959. This list was part of the CIA’s illegal HT/LINGUAL mail intercept program-only about 300 people were on it. Recall, this is at a time when Oswald’s file is in the so-called Black Hole. It was not possible to find a paper trail on him until the next month. How could he, at the same time, be so inconsequential as to have no file opened, yet so important as to be on the quite exclusive Watch List? This defies comprehension. In fact, Newman is forced to conclude, “The absence of a 201 file was a deliberate act, not an oversight.” (p. 54) Clearly, someone at the CIA knew who Oswald was and thought it was important enough to intercept his mail. Long ago, when I asked Newman to explain this paradox in light of the fact that his first file would be opened at CI/SIG, he replied that one possibility was Oswald was being run as an off the books agent by Angleton. In light of the other factors mentioned in this section, i.e. concerning the U-2 secrets, the “black hole” delay, plus what we will discover later, I know of no better way to explain this dichotomy.

    III

    In his analysis of the Russian scene with Oswald on the ground, Newman made clear two important points. First, whereas most of the attention prior to this book was on embassy official Richard Snyder’s interaction with Oswald, Newman revealed a man behind the scenes, peering through the curtains: John McVickar. It was this other embassy official who asked Priscilla Johnson to interview Oswald without Snyder’s OK. (p. 72) What makes this interesting is the timing. Oswald had actually refused an interview with American reporter Bob Korengold. He had not been very forthcoming with Aline Mosby, the first journalist to talk to him. Then two things happened. First, the Russians communicated to Oswald that he would be allowed to stay in Russia (p. 73). Second, after McVickar gave Johnson the tip about Oswald, the defector agreed to meet her at her room. He arrived at nine at night. He stayed until well past midnight. (p. 72) What makes this interesting is that Newman reveals that Oswald’s room at the Metropole Hotel was equipped with an infra-red camera for the observation of its occupants-and the CIA knew this. (p. 9) Second, Oswald found out he would be allowed to stay through a Russian official who actually visited his room.

    After the long interview with Priscilla Johnson, McVickar had dinner with the reporter. Johnson, of course, worked for the conservative, and intelligence affiliated, North American News Alliance. At this dinner, somehow, some way, McVickar revealed that Oswald was going to be trained in electronics. (p. 84) Which he was.

    Besides the discoveries about McVickar, Newman actually found documents that revealed that Johnson had applied to work for the CIA as early as 1952. She then worked with Cord Meyer, who helped fund the Congress for Cultural Freedom, exposed later as a CIA conduit. At the time Newman wrote the book, it was not yet revealed that the CIA did not hire her because they later deduced she could be used to do what they wanted anyway and they classified her as a “witting collaborator.” (The Assassinations p. 435) The story based on this interview received little play in the media at the time, although it did announce that Oswald was a defector. But after the assassination, Johnson revised this original story-to Oswald’s disadvantage– and it received circulation through the wire services, including the front page of the Dallas Morning News. Thanks to Newman we now know that McVickar was ultimately responsible for it.

    Another hidden action that was first revealed in this book was that in 1961, the CIA launched a counterintelligence program against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which had been formed the year before. According to the author, that effort was launched by the CIA’s Office of Security, under the orders of James McCord. (p. 95) Further, this operation was done within the United States, which made it illegal for the Agency, and without the permission of the FBI. Making it even more interesting is that, as Newman first revealed, David Phillips was also part of this program. (p. 241) This program used neighbors hired as spies, and double agents posing as sympathizers, both reporting back to the CIA. (p. 241)

    When Oswald decided he wanted to return from Russia, Newman notes another appearance by Mr. Murphy. Actually two. No “lookout” card was inserted on Oswald by the State Department. Although it appears that one was prepared, it was never active. (p. 138) This would have alerted State and other agencies that a security risk had applied to reenter the country. Second, many FBI files that contained the security risk information on Oswald from 1959 are now missing. (p. 153) Finally, the FBI very selectively issued documents from these files to the Warren Commission. The HSCA got more of the picture. But in 1994, when the author went looking for the information hinted at to the HSCA, he couldn’t find them. (p. 154)

    When Oswald tries to return, he negotiates to have potential legal proceedings against him dropped. (p. 218) Interestingly, he was taken off the Watch List in 1960, then placed back on it in August of 1961. (But yet, his mail was opened even when he was off the list! p. 284) And at this time, there is the first documentary evidence that the CIA had an operational interest in Oswald. At the end of a memo about Oswald’s probable return, the chief of the Soviet Russia division wrote, “It was partly out of curiosity to learn if Oswald’s wife would actually accompany him to our country, partly out of interest in Oswald’s own experiences in the USSR, that we showed operational intelligence interest in the Harvey [Oswald ] story.” (p. 227)

    Marina got her exit visa surprisingly fast. Oswald explained his behavior there as, “It was necessary to make this propaganda because at the time he had wanted to live in Russia.” (p. 235) Oswald thought his passport would be confiscated when he returned. But, surprisingly-or not-Oswald was actually able to sign papers for a government loan at the American Embassy. A man named Spas Raikin of the Travelers Aid Society was contacted by the State Department to meet Oswald and his new wife in New York in June of 1962. The Oswalds made it through customs and immigration without incident. And without any evidence of an attempt at a debriefing.

    When Oswald arrived back in Texas, FBI agent John Fain did do an interview with him. Oswald then got a job at Leslie Welding, and started to subscribe to communist newspapers. At this point, Mr. Murphy pops up again. Even though the FBI had informants in many post offices looking out for just this sort of thing-a former defector subscribing to communist periodicals- and Oswald has signed a post office form instructing the post office to deliver him foreign propaganda, the Bureau did an inexplicable thing. In October, they closed their Oswald file. (p. 271)

    What makes the timing of this fascinating are two events. First, the CIA campaign against the FPCC begins to heat up, and the FBI opens up a similar front against the FPCC led by Cartha De Loach. (p. 243) Second, George DeMohrenschildt, the Baron, enters Oswald’s life. In his interview with the Warren Commission, the Baron tried to conceal his knowledge of who J. Walton Moore was. Moore was the head of the CIA office in Dallas who, it was later revealed, approached the Baron about going out to meet the returned defector. But DeMohrenschildt told the Warren Commission that Moore was “some sort of an FBI man in Dallas. Many people consider him the head of the FBI in Dallas.” (p. 277)

    Newman closes this section of the book with a beautiful Mr. Murphy episode. He notes that FBI agent James Hosty was now, rather belatedly, looking for Oswald and his wife. This was in March of 1963. Hosty also recommended that Oswald’s case be reopened. The grounds for this reopening? Oswald had a newly opened subscription to the Communist newspaper, The Worker. (p. 273) But, as the author notes, when the Dallas FBI office had previously learned of an earlier such subscription-to the exact same publication-it had closed his file! This recommendation had a caveat. Hosty left a note in Oswald’s file “to come back in forty-five to sixty days.” (Ibid) But by then, of course, Oswald would be in New Orleans. Newman poses the question: Was the reason Oswald’s case was closed for these six months because DeMohrenschildt was now making his approach to Oswald? (p. 277) Was another reason because Oswald was now about to enter the fray, along with the CIA and FBI, against the FPCC in New Orleans? (p. 289)

    IV

    The two finest parts of this distinguished work are the sections on New Orleans and, especially, Mexico City. Newman notes that the official story is that the FBI lost track of Oswald while he was organizing his FPCC group in New Orleans under the name of Hidell. This is when many credible witnesses place him in league with Guy Banister and Sergio Arcacha Smith at 544 Camp Street. But even though FBI agents Regis Kennedy and Warren DeBrueys were specialists on the anti-Castro beat in New Orleans, the FBI holds that Hosty did not know that Oswald moved to New Orleans until June 26th. In this book, the author demonstrates with a chart why this is so hard to believe. On page 300 he lists seven different events between May 14th and June 5th that should have caused the Bureau to realize that Oswald had moved. If you believe the Bureau, it wasn’t enough.

    The author suspects this methodical obtuseness was due to the fact that Oswald was in, what Newman calls, his “undercover” phase in New Orleans. That is, he has visited Jones Printing to order flyers with two different stamps applied, neither of them in his name. The first is under the name Hidell, and the second is addressed 544 Camp St. Newman believes that Banister was using Oswald to smoke out leftwing students and liberal professors at Tulane, like Prof. Leonard Reissman. Newman also brings out the fact that in a memo to the Bureau from New Orleans, the information that several FPCC pamphlets contained the 544 Camp St. address was scratched out. (p. 310)

    The next discovery made by the author is also arresting. The FBI says they discovered Oswald was in New Orleans at the end of June. (p. 317) Yet they did not verify where he lived until August 5th. As Newman notes, the latter is the same day that Oswald broke out of his undercover mode and contacted some Cuban exiles, using his real name. Or as the author puts it: ” … the FBI’s alleged blind period covers-to the day-the precise period of Oswald’s undercover activity in New Orleans.” (Ibid)

    On August 5th, Oswald begins to play an overt role as an agent provocateur with Carlos Bringuier of the anti-Castro exile group, the DRE. The Warren Commission never knew that the DRE had a CIA code name, AMSPELL. When Oswald is arrested on Canal Street after his famous altercation with Bringuier, he actually had the Corliss Lamont booklet, “The Crime Against Cuba” with him. This had the “FPCC 544 Camp Street” stamp on it. (As I showed in my first book, this particular pamphlet was very likely provided to Banister through the CIA itself. See Destiny Betrayed, p. 219) Newman then details Oswald’s arrest, his court date, his activities in front of the International Trade Mart-with flyers in his own name with his own address, and how Oswald now goes to the papers to get ads published for his cause. Oswald was attracting so much attention that J. Edgar Hoover requested a memorandum on him in late August with a detailed summary of his activities. This went to the CIA. When Oswald debated Bringuier on a radio program, the moderator Bill Stuckey offered the tape to the FBI. And the DRE reported the incident to the CIA. As Newman builds to his climax, all of this is important in light of what will happen next.

    After creating a lot of bad publicity for the FPCC in New Orleans, Oswald now lowers his profile again. At the Mexican consulate in New Orleans, he and CIA operative Bill Gaudet get visas to go to Mexico on September 17th .Why is the date important? Because on the day before, the 16th, the CIA told the FBI they were considering countering FPCC activities in foreign countries. A week later, Oswald leaves New Orleans on a bus to Mexico.

    What Newman does with the legendary Oswald trip to Mexico is, in some respects, revolutionary. Greatly helped by the release of the finally declassified Lopez Report, he actually goes beyond that magnificent document. According to the Warren Commission, Oswald was in Mexico City from Friday September 27th to Wednesday October 3rd. The ostensible reason was to acquire an in-transit visa from the Cuban consulate so he could travel from Cuba back to the Soviet Union. But as Newman notes, this story makes little sense and is likely a ruse. (p. 615) Oswald already had a passport to Russia, but the stamp warned that a person traveling to Cuba would be liable for prosecution. If he really wanted to go to Russia, Oswald could have gone the same roundabout route he had in 1959. The route he was choosing this time actually made it much harder, if not impossible, to get to Russia in any kind of current time frame.

    When Oswald first shows up at the Cuban consulate it allegedly is at 11:00 AM on Friday. (p. 356) Yet as the author notes on his chronological chart, he is supposed to have already called the Soviet Consulate twice that morning. (Ibid) The problem with those two calls is that they were both in Spanish which, as the Lopez Report notes, the weight of the evidence says Oswald did not speak. He tells receptionist Silvia Duran he wants an in-transit visa for travel via Cuba to Russia. But he has no passport photos. He leaves to get the pictures taken. When he returned with the photos, Duran told him that he now had to get his Soviet visa before she could issue his Cuban visa. (p. 357)

    Oswald now went to the Soviet Consulate. But here we find another problem with what is supposed to be his third call there. The time frames for the call and the visit overlap. He cannot be outside calling inside when he is already inside. (Ibid) Further, this call is also in Spanish, which creates a double problem with the call. Once inside, Oswald learns he cannot get a visa to give to Duran unless he requested it from Washington first. And the process would take weeks. Oswald now makes a scene and is escorted out. He goes back to the Cuban consulate. Oswald tells Duran there was no problem with the Soviet visa. She does not buy his story and calls the Soviet consulate. They tell her they will call her back. Embassy official and KGB secret agent Valery Kostikov calls back. Oswald’s attempt falls apart since Oswald knows no one in Cuba and the routing to the Russian Embassy in Washington will take too long. (p. 359) This call seems genuine. But as the author notes, and as we shall see, there was one problem with it: neither Duran nor Kostikov mentioned Oswald by name.

    Oswald creates another scene and quarrels with Cuban counsel Eusebio Azcue. Now, and this is important, Duran insists that this is the last time she saw or spoke to Oswald. This created a serious problem because the Warren Commission reported that she did talk to him again.(p, 408) The apparent source for this is an FBI memo of Dec. 3, 1963. The HSCA realized this was a problem. So they grilled Duran on this point. They tried three different ways to get her to admit she could be wrong. She stuck by her story. (pgs 409-410)

    Why is this so problematic? Because on the next day, Saturday September 28th, the Lopez Report says there was a call from a man and a woman to the Soviet Consulate. Further, in his interviews, Newman discovered that the Russians maintain that the switchboard was closed on Saturday. (p. 368) From this and other evidence, Newman concludes that the man in this call is not Oswald. Duran says the woman is not her. Further evidence of this impersonation is that Oswald had visited the Russian Consulate earlier that day. And this phone conversation has little, if any, connection to what he discussed there. From information in the Lopez Report, from CIA Station Chief’s Winston Scott’s manuscript, and interviews with the transcribers, there was also a call made on Monday, the 30th, from Oswald to the Soviet Consulate. This call is apparently lost today.

    Finally, on Tuesday, October 1st, there are two calls from Oswald to the Soviet Consulate. Right off the bat, these are suspicious because they are in poor Russian. Yet Oswald was supposed to have spoken fluent Russian. So again, these two calls appear to have been made by an imposter.

    But why? In the new Epilogue written for this edition, Newman writes it is because when Duran originally called the Soviet Consulate, Oswald’s name was not specifically mentioned. When Oswald then went to the Soviets on Saturday, and created another scene, this was the last of the actual encounters. The specific problem was this: There was no direct record made between Oswald and Kostikov. As we shall see, this could not be allowed. So the two calls on Tuesday had to be made. And the necessity was such that the risk was run of exposing the charade by not having Oswald’s voice on the tapes. Why was this so important?

    V

    Prior to Oswald’s Mexican odyssey, the FBI reports on his FPCC forays in New Orleans went into a new operational file at CIA, which did not merge with his 201 file. (p. 393) According to the author, this file eventually contained almost a thousand documents. Newman dates the bifurcation from September 23rd: shortly after Oswald goes to the Mexican consulate, and right about when he leaves New Orleans. The FBI report goes to Oswald’s CI/SIG soft file and his Office of Security file. (p. 394) But after the assassination, all the FBI reports suddenly revert back to Oswald’s 201 file. Only two compartments in the Agency had all of Oswald’s file-CI/SIG and Office of Security. As we shall see, there is a method to all this meandering.

    At CIA HQ, after the information about Oswald in Mexico City arrives, a first cable is sent on October 10. This cable is meant for the FBI, State Department and the Navy. This cable describes a man who does not resemble Oswald. He is 35 years old, has an athletic build, and stands six feet tall. (p. 398)

    At almost the same time this cable was sent, a second cable from CIA HQ goes to Mexico City. This one has the right description of Oswald. So therefore, in a normal situation, the officers in Mexico City could match the description to their surveillance take. But it was missing something crucial. It said that the latest information that CIA had on Oswald was a State Department Memorandum dated from May of 1962. This was not true. For just one example, the Agency had more than one FBI report about Oswald’s FPCC activities in New Orleans. Yet, for some reason, the file used to draft this cable was missing the FBI New Orleans reports. What makes these two varyingly false cables even more interesting is that Angleton’s trusted assistant Ann Egerter signed off on both of them for accuracy. (p. 401) Apparently, she didn’t know what she was signing, or if they contradicted each other. Further, Egerter sent Oswald’s 201 file, which was restricted, to the HQ Mexico City desk until November 22nd. (Ibid)

    For the first cable, Jane Roman was the releasing officer. She also participated in the drafting of the second cable. What makes her participation in all this so interesting is that she had read the latest information about Oswald in New Orleans on October 4th, less than a week before she signed off on the first cable. When Newman confronted her with these contradictory documents, she said: “I’m signing off on something that I know isn’t true.” (p. 405) She went on and tried to explain it with this: “I wasn’t in on any particular goings-on or hanky-panky as far as the Cuban situation … to me it’s indicative of a keen interest in Oswald, held very closely on a need-to-know basis.” (p. 405) Note her reference to the “Cuban situation”. For it was Oswald’s activities with the Cubans in New Orleans that was left out of the second cable to Mexico City. Therefore Mexico City chief Win Scott could not coordinate Oswald’s New Orleans activities with what Oswald had done on his home turf.

    For the second cable, the releasing officer was Tom Karemessines who was deputy to Richard Helms. It has never been explained why this cable had to go so high up into officialdom for permission to release it.

    There is one last piece to this mosaic that is necessary for its deadly denouement to be fully comprehended. Ann Egerter testified that their counter-intelligence group knew Kostikov was a KGB agent. But the story is that they did not know he was part of Department 13, which participated in assassinations, until after Kennedy’s assassination. (p. 419)

    All of this is absolutely central to the events that occur on November 22, 1963. Consider: Here you have a defector who was in the Soviet Union for almost three years. He returns and then gets involved confronting anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans. He then goes to Mexico City, and visits both the Cuban and Soviet embassies trying to get to Russia from Cuba. He creates dramatic scenes at both places, and here is the capper: He talks to the KGB’s officer in charge of assassinations in the Western Hemisphere. By the time Oswald returned to Dallas, the alarm bell should have been sounding on him throughout the intelligence community. Especially in view of Kennedy’s announced visit to Texas. He should never have been allowed to be on the motorcade route. The Secret Service should have had the necessary information about him and he should have been on their Security Index.

    This did not happen. In fact, at the time his profile should have been rising, these false cables within the CIA and to the FBI, State, and Navy were actually lowering it. The final masterstroke, which made sure the information would be concealed until November 22nd, was not discovered until after the book’s initial publication. As stated above, the FBI had issued a FLASH warning on Oswald back in 1959. After four years, this was removed on October 9, 1963! This was just hours before the first CIA cable mentioned above was sent. (The Assassinations p. 222)

    As Newman notes, “the CIA was spawning a web of deception”. (p. 430) When JFK is killed, and Hoover tells President Johnson about Oswald’s trip to Mexico City and his visits to both the Cuban and Russian embassies, the threat of nuclear war quickly enters the conversation. But when the FBI discovers that the voice on the tapes are not really Oswald’s it does two things: 1.) It points to something even more sinister, therefore throwing the intelligence community into a CYA mode, and 2.) It forces the Agency to hatch a cover story: the tapes were routinely destroyed days after they were made. The result of all this was an investigation that was never allowed to investigate. A presidential commission whose leader was told beforehand that millions of lives were at risk because the Cubans and Russians might be involved. And it exposed an intelligence community that was asleep at the switch, therefore allowing the alleged assassin to be moved into place by the KGB. The result was therefore preordained: a whitewash would follow. And Newman presents written evidence from both J. Edgar Hoover and Nicolas Katzenbach demonstrating that the subsequent inquiry was curtailed at its inception. Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach wrote that speculation about Oswald had to be “cut off” and the idea that the assassination was a communist conspiracy had to be rebutted. (p. 632) Newman later discovered that Hoover realized he had been duped by the CIA about Oswald in Mexico City. (The Assassinations, p. 224)

    In his new Epilogue for this 2008 edition, Newman explains why only someone who a.) Understood the inner workings of the national security state, and b.) Understood and controlled Oswald’s files, could have masterminded something as superhumanly complex as this scheme. One in which the conspiracy itself actually contained the seeds that would sprout the cover-up.

    In this new chapter, Newman names James Angleton as the designer of the plot. (p. 637) He also names Anne Goodpasture, David Phillips’ assistant in Mexico City, as the person who hatched the internal CIA cover up by saying the ersatz tapes had been destroyed in October. This is evidenced in a cable she sent on 11/23 (pgs 633-634). Yet she probably knew this was false. Because she later testified to the ARRB that a voice dub of a tape had been carried to the Texas border on 11/22/63, the night before she sent the cable (p. 654). Further, Win Scott had made his own voice comparison after the assassination. He could not have if the tapes had been destroyed. (p. 635) Angleton made sure Scott’s voice comparison never became public by swooping into Mexico City and confronting, nearly threatening, Win Scott’s widow after he died. Once he was inside the house, he removed four suitcases of materials from Scott’s office. This included the contents of his safe where the Mexico City/Oswald materials had been stored. (p. 637)

    This remarkable book could never have been composed or even contemplated without the existence of the Assassination Records Review Board. No book takes us more into Oswald’s workings with the intelligence community than this one. And his section on Mexico City is clearly one of the 5 or 6 greatest discoveries made in the wake of the ARRB. The incredible thing about the case he makes for conspiracy and cover up is this: The overwhelming majority of his evidence is made up of the government’s own records. It’s not anecdotal, it’s not second hand. In other words, it’s not from the likes of Frank Ragano, Billy Sol Estes, or Ed Partin. It is material that could be used in a court of law. And it would be very hard to explain away to a jury. Imagine the kind of witness Jane Roman would make.

    Which is why it all had to be concealed for over thirty years. So much for there being nothing new or important in those newly declassified files. Angleton knew differently. Just ask Win Scott’s widow. Or read this book.

  • Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico

    Jefferson Morley was one of the very few writers in the mainstream press who actually tried to print stories that indicated there was more to the John Kennedy assassination than the Warren Commission claimed. In his long tenure at the Washington Post he actually was responsible for getting into that publication two stories that showed there was more to the Oswald story than met the eye. Specifically, these were the long 1994 story on John Elrod and Lee Oswald, and a later story on the work of John Newman who was working on his book Oswald and the CIA. Two other stories that he worked on while at the Post were the attempts by Michael Scott to secure the purloined manuscript of his father, CIA officer Winston Scott, and the cover-up by the CIA of the role of George Joannides with the Cuban exile group the DRE in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.

    These last two form the framework for his recent book Our Man In Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA. Morley was an acquaintance of the attorney for Michael Scott who was trying to get the manuscript of his father’s book, entitled Foul Foe. There were things in the manuscript the CIA clearly did not want disseminated to the public. The long struggle ended with a little more than half the manuscript being handed over to the son. The way Morley integrates the other aspect of his quest is through Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities in the summer and fall of 1963. Joannides was the Agency case officer for the Cuban exile group called the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE). In addition to making raids into Cuba for the Agency, this group interacted with Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Most famously through the personage of Carlos Bringuier. Bringuier got into a famous tussle with Oswald on Canal Street that led to some local press attention since they were both arrested. After this, Bringuier debated Oswald on a local radio show with host Bill Stuckey. Aided by the contacts of their friend and mentor Ed Butler, the two cohorts ambushed Oswald with information about his defection to the Soviet Union. This helped compromise his local chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, of which he was the only member. Bringuier issued more than one press release after the debate. (Morley p. 174) But even more significant is the fact that Bringuier and the DRE recycled the story and the releases right after President Kennedy’s assassination. As Morley notes, this got front-page placement in major newspapers throughout the land. (p. 207) And so the legend of the alienated Cuban and Soviet sympathizer now began to take hold with the public. And this was used by the Warren Commission to somehow explain Oswald’s motivation for allegedly killing Kennedy.

    This New Orleans aspect is linked to Oswald’s strange and legendary trip to Mexico, where Scott was the CIA station chief at the time. So by telling the story of the DRE, he links it to the story of Scott’s job of surveying the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City. Morley is then able to show us what the Warren Commission did with this material. So the book becomes not just a biography of Scott, but an opportunity to show how the CIA and the Warren Commission handled the alleged commie sympathizer in the months leading up to the murder of JFK. And afterwards. Morley is a skilled enough writer, about at the level of David Talbot. So he manages to cobble this together in an adroit and manageable way. The book is never really profound or moving. But it’s never dull or cumbersome either.

    II

    A little bit more than the first third of the book deals with the life and early career of Winston Scott. Scott was not a Boston Brahmin like Ben Bradlee or Des Fitzgerald. Nor was he a born member of the Eastern Establishment/CFR crowd like Allen Dulles or Jock Whitney. He was born in Alabama in 1909 near the Escatawpa River. The “house” was made up of discarded railroad boxcars. His hometown of Jemison was northwest of Mobile. Hid father worked for the railroad and the Scotts lived right next to the tracks where Morgan Scott toiled. (p. 15) During the week Win Scott and his siblings trekked three miles to school in the town of Brookwood. And like most southern families they went to church every Sunday. An early indication of Scott’s romanticism and his desire to escape these humble circumstances occurred at age 13. He and two friends decided to run away to New Orleans. The objective was to catch a freighter to France and join the French Foreign Legion. They were stopped on their journey by a friendly policeman who made a phone call and they were returned home.

    Scott won a scholarship to attend college in Birmingham. There he met his first wife Besse Tate who he impulsively married by making his father awaken a Justice of the Peace at four in the morning. Win Scott had a head for numbers so he first became a math instructor at the University of Alabama. A paper he did on the algebraic possibilities of disguising message codes caught the attention of J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover sent one of his envoys to recruit him and Scott joined the FBI in 1941. He was first stationed in Pittsburgh and then Cleveland.

    In 1944, Scott began the journey that would eventually lead to the CIA, Oswald, and Mexico City. He decided to switch over to the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. While in Europe, he met the youngest OSS Chief of Station, a man named Jim Angleton who worked out of Italy. After the war, both OSS officers were befriended in Washington by British intelligence agent Kim Philby. Morley notes that Scott eventually suspected that Philby was a Russian double agent. Future counter intelligence chief Angleton did not. And this may have led to the eventual paranoia about CIA infiltration by the KGB, which later plagued Angleton and ended in his eventual forced resignation by Director Bill Colby.

    Along with Allen Dulles, Scot campaigned to create the Central Intelligence Agency and to grant it the power to sanction covert operations. So when the CIA was eventually established and Dulles became Deputy Director, he brought his friend and ally Win Scott into the agency that he would now stamp indelibly with his own imprint. Although Scott was not actually part of the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, he was familiar with the players involved including an officer on the rise, one David Phillips. Through his friendship with Allen Dulles, Scott asked the Director for a job outside the United States. He wanted to be station chief in Mexico City. Dulles obliged him and Scott began his thirteen-year tenure there in 1956.

    It is here that Morley introduces the figure of Anne Goodpasture (p. 83). Goodpasture is an ubiquitous character in that she has clear but rather undefined ties to Scott, Angleton, and Phillips. Like Scott she was born in the south, in her case, Tennessee. Like Scott, she served in the OSS during the war, except she was stationed in the Far East with people like Dick Helms and Howard Hunt. After the war, she moved to Washington where she came to the attention of Angleton. And this is where I have my first complaint about the book. Goodpasture is a most fascinating character. And Morley interviewed her for two days in 2005. (See page 305) Either he does not find her very intriguing, or he took most everything she said at face value. John Newman, Ed Lopez, Dan Hardway, Lisa Pease and myself disagree. Lopez and Hardway – under the supervision of Mike Goldsmith – wrote the absolutely excellent Mexico City Report for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Now Goodpasture was supposed to be working for and under Winston Scott in Mexico City. When the Mexico City Report – sometimes called the Lopez Report – was first declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board, I interviewed Lopez at his home in Rochester, New York. Since this was the first time I had seen the woman’s name repeatedly emphasized, I asked Lopez who she was. Surprisingly, he said that “She worked for Phillips when he got stationed down there … she handled all his projects for him.” (Emphasis added.) When I asked Ed what Phillips was doing there, he said, “He had some bullshit title, but he was in charge of almost all the Cuban operations from there at the time.” He then expanded on this by saying that since Phillips was constantly traveling from Washington to JM/Wave in Miami and to Mexico City, Goodpasture was the officer who guided his operations emanating from Mexico in his absence. In and of itself, this is extraordinarily interesting. It would make her a front tier figure in any book on the Kennedy assassination that focuses on both Mexico City and Phillips. Which this book does. But there is even more to the woman. It was Angleton who sent her to Mexico City on a counter-intelligence case. And he never lost touch with her. She worked on the famous CI case of Rudolf Abel in New York City. (The Assassinations, p. 174) Abel was convicted in 1957, and exchanged for Gary Powers in 1962. So the ties to Angleton were ongoing. In fact, Angleton stated that she was always in on the most sensitive cases. (Ibid) Further, she worked on Staff D. This was one of the most secret and clandestine operational units within the CIA. It dealt with both coups and assassination attempts.

    Now Goodpasture is a clever operator of course. So, like many operators she pleads that she was only downstairs playing the piano at the time. She wasn’t aware there was a bordello operating on the second floor. To Jeremy Gunn and the ARRB she said she was only a secretary for Staff D. She duplicated papers and copied materials. The problem with that is the fact that Angleton also said that Goodpasture was “very close” to Bill Harvey. Harvey was part of Staff D and one of the major players in the CIA plots to kill Castro under Richard Helms. (Ibid) And when Goodpasture received a career achievement award, it was on the recommendation of David Phillips. He cited her for having discovered Oswald at the Cuban Embassy. A citation rich in irony of course, since it did nothing to help prevent the murder of President Kennedy. (Ibid)

    Almost all of this, and more, is missing from Morley’s book. Goodpasture comes off as essentially a loyal civil servant who writes interesting reports about the history of the Mexico City station. Her ties to Phillips are hardly mentioned. Her connections to Angleton and his huge and powerful CI division are basically minimized.

    III

    This sets the stage for the ascension to power of John F. Kennedy. In this part of the book, I had another problem with the presentation. And it began fairly early. In regards to the Bay of Pigs, Morley writes that Kennedy had no objections to the plan. (p. 108) In Peter Kornbluh’s Bay of Pigs Declassified, the author briefly notes how Kennedy changed both the proposed landing site and the air support offered to the exiles. (Kornbluh, p. 8) Kornbluh writes that several CIA officials noted that Kennedy’s decisions severely hurt the operation’s chances for success. Two of them went to project coordinator Dick Bissell and offered to resign since they decided Kennedy’s limitations almost guaranteed its failure. Bissell assured them it would not and their concerns would be met. When the attack failed the two officials decided they had been misled, along with President Kennedy. (Ibid)

    A few pages later, Morley uses Kennedy’s famous quote about splintering the CIA into a thousand pieces after the debacle of the Bay of Pigs. (p. 112) He then adds, “He was just venting.” Oh, really. Consider Kennedy’s actions in the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle:

    1. Appointed the Taylor Commission, an executive inquiry into exactly why the operation failed. His representative on the committee was RFK.
    2. Signed NSAM’s 55, 56, 57. These were all aimed at forcing the Pentagon into giving him more and better advice over covert paramilitary operations. And they took away responsibility for planning overt paramilitary operations from the Agency. As John Newman writes about them, they were “the first significant chink in the CIA’s covert armor since its creation.” (JFK and Vietnam, p. 99)
    3. Created an alternative intelligence apparatus called the DIA.
    4. Sent out a memorandum stating that the ambassador in a foreign country, and not the CIA, should have ultimate control over American policy in that nation.
    5. When the Taylor Commission results were submitted, Kennedy fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, Deputy Director Charles Cabell, and Director of Plans, Bissell. This clearly put the onus for the failure on the CIA. This result was quite natural since Kennedy and his brother became convinced through the inquiry that the three fired officers had deliberately misled JFK about the plan.
    6. As David Corn notes in his book on Ted Shackley, Kennedy now moved his brother into a supervisory role over many covert operations.

    As many commentators have noted, Kennedy was actually trying to exercise some degree of control over an Agency that had not really had any since its inception. Morley, I believe, downplays this aspect. And this plays into another characteristic of the book which I will note later.

    Complementing this curious and curtailed view of JFK is his even more curious treatment of Richard Helms. I can only term the substance of Morley’s portrayal of the new Director of Plans as exalted. The portrait of Helms that comes through is essentially that of a conscientious bureaucrat who has been through it all, knows the ins and outs of the political world and is a kind of fatherly figure to the Kennedys (especially RFK). This, of course, has always been the sales image that Helms has tried to convey to the public. And it was clearly evident in his autobiography of 2003, which Morley uses to a surprising degree. The problem with accepting this public view of Helms at face value is that it contrasts with the private view that, unfortunately, some reliable people have seen close up. For instance, in my aforementioned interview with Ed Lopez, he asked me if I had seen the movie A Few Good Men. Mildly surprised at what I thought was a non-sequitir, I said that I had. He said, “Remember the scene near the end with Jack Nicholson on the stand? Him screaming, “You can’t handle the truth!” I said yes. He replied, “That was Richard Helms with us in executive session. He was laughing at us, sneering at us, shoving it in our face. He had no respect for anything. To him, we were a joke.” Reportedly, when Helms emerged from that session and reporters asked him more questions about Oswald he replied, “Your questions are as stupid as the committee’s” In filmed testimony, when Chris Dodd pressed him on the CIA’s barbaric treatment of Russian defector Yuri Nosenko, Helms response was, “Well, we could put them up at the Hilton.” This is the man who, in his private writings on the JFK case, Richard Case Nagell has nicknamed “Dirty Dick.” (See Probe, Vol. 3 No. 1)

    Furthering this view, when I interviewed former CIA agent Carl McNabb before he died, he showed me a file from his days at JM/Wave. In his personal notes was a notation, “Zap Man”. I asked him what that meant. He said that one of the officers told him this was the term given to Helm’s private assassin. So I think that foot soldiers inside the Agency might have a bit of disagreement with the picture of Dick Helms that emerges here.

    Given Morley’s slant, it was not surprising to me that he could write: “Helms also had to indulge Bobby’s demands for a plan to assassinate Castro.” (p. 159) This is the kind of sentence that could be written by Helms’ official biographer, the tendentious and shameless Thomas Powers. (Who, incidentally, wrote a blurb on the back of the book.) This completely ignores both the findings of the Church Committee, and the detailed information in the CIA’s own Inspector General Report. Which was overseen by Helms himself. These plots began in the Eisenhower administration and they continued into the Johnson administration. They were deliberately kept from the Kennedys. And RFK found out about them by accident. When he did find out about them, according to his calendar, he called Helms into his office. When questioned about this meeting, Helms conveniently contracted selective amnesia. He couldn’t recall a thing about it. (For an overview of this matter, see The Assassinations pgs. 327-329) But RFK aide John Siegenthaler did recall RFK’s response to Helms and John McCone when he found out. He told them he thought it was disgraceful and had to be stopped. (Ronald Goldfarb, Perfect Villains, Imperfect Heroes p. 273)

    To be charitable to Morley, whenever one is doing a biography of a CIA officer, this kind of imbalance tends to be a problem. The reason being is that one has to consult books about these people. The books tend to be authorized, therefore sanitized. For further example, Morley uses the official biography of Allen Dulles, Peter Grose’s all too kind volume Gentleman Spy. The reason this is done is that the alternative, a really painstaking, unauthorized view of these men takes time, money, and entails dangers. Donald Gibson recalls talking to an author who tried to do such a book about Dulles. It was never published. Gibson asked him why it was not. He said, “Do you want to hear about a big conspiracy?” The other problem involved is the fact that higher-level officers or managers will not go on the record with anything not complementary to the official story. It is difficult to find those willing to talk candidly about failures, coups, assassinations, blackmail, drug-running etc. Morley does not really navigate this problem very well.

    IV

    The best part of the book deals with Oswald’s alleged visits to the Cuban consulate and Russian Embassy in Mexico City in the fall of 1963. This section of the work owes itself to the disclosures of the ARRB. More specifically to the Lopez Report and to John Newman’s important book Oswald and the CIA.

    Morley does a decent enough job in setting the stage for this crucial episode by detailing the policy towards Cuba in late 1962 and 1963. He goes through Operation Northwooods, the Pentagon plan to create a phony provocation to launch an invasion, and how JFK turned it down. He then details some of the disputes between the Kennedys and the CIA over what should be done with Cuba. People in the Agency, like Nestor Sanchez, wanted more action. The Kennedys did not. He tries to explain this by saying perhaps the Kennedys were “just using the agency and its personnel for cover as they edged toward coexistence with Castro.” (p. 158) This seems to be what JFK was doing. But its not made clear to the reader because, in another curious lacunae, Morley never mentions JFK’s back channel diplomacy with Cuba through people like Lisa Howard, William Attwood, and Jean Daniel.

    With this backdrop, Morley outlines the four secret programs through which Oswald had to come into contact with the CIA in 1963. They were codenamed AMSPELL, LIERODE, LIENVOY, and LIEMPTY. The first two programs were run by Phillips, the last two by Scott. AMSPELL was the name given inside the CIA to the DRE. So it would seem obvious that there would be documents about this interaction forwarded to either Joannides or Phillips. But as Morley notes, there are 17 months of reports–from 12/62 to 4/64– the CIA has yet to declassify on AMSPELL. (Elsewhere on this site, you can read about his struggle with the CIA to get these documents.) LIERODE refers to the camera surveillance on the Cuban consulate in Mexico City. LIENVOY refers to the wiretapping of phone lines at the Soviet Embassy, and LIEMPTY to the photo surveillance of that embassy.

    Besides the seventeen months of missing reports, the results of the other three programs are also either lacking or questionable. As many know, to this day, the CIA has yet to produce a photograph of Oswald either entering or leaving either compound. And the photo they turned over to the Warren Commission in this regard does not even resemble Oswald. (In the Lopez Report-which is scathing about her–Anne Goodpasture tries to state that she did not realize this grievous error about the wrong photo of Oswald. until 1976. The authors make it clear that they find this suggestion not credible, as they do much of her testimony.) Since Oswald frequented the compounds a total of five times, there were ten opportunities to photograph him. What happened, and why there has never been a picture produced, is one of the great mysteries of this case. The CIA has taken decades of criticism and suspicion about Oswald’s visit to Mexico City, and much of it is based on these missing photographs. It has led some people to believe that perhaps Oswald did not actually go to Mexico City, or an imposter actually made the visits. Or both. Morley tries to forward the argument that maybe there actually was a picture. He does this by quoting the testimony of Daniel Watson and Joe Piccolo in the Lopez Report. These two CIA officers related that they had either seen or heard of a photo of Oswald in Mexico City. But in the case of Watson, the witness said it was a shot from behind, “basically an ear and back shot.” And he qualified it by saying he thought it was of Oswald. The implication being the angle made it hard to be positive. (Lopez Report, p. 97) The case of Piccolo was similar. The shot was from behind at an angle. Someone in the Agency had shown it to him saying it was Oswald. When the HSCA found this man, he said he did not ever recall having such a photo of Oswald. (Ibid pgs 103-106)

    Further, the Lopez Report states that the investigators interviewed many CIA officers who were stationed in Mexico City, or worked at Langley in support of the Mexico City operation. They all stated that “the station had not obtained a photograph of Oswald from the photo surveillance operations in Mexico City.” (Ibid, p. 108) On top of that, the report adds that the investigators could not find any evidence of a photo of Oswald being sent to Langley from Mexico City at the time. (Ibid, p. 109) If one reads the report closely, the only testimony that is unequivocal about the CIA having a photo of Oswald at the time he was there is that of Winston Scott. He could not be cross-examined since he died in 1971. But what makes this fact so interesting is three things. First, Watson testified that Scott was capable of “phonying a photo if asked to produce one. I never believed Win Scott the first time he told me something.” (Ibid, p. 99) Second, that right after Scott died, James Angleton flew to Mexico City and told his widow in no uncertain terms that he wanted the contents of Scott’s safe. It was there that Scott was supposed to have stashed the photos and the tapes of Oswald in Mexico City. Angleton had been tipped of to the safe’s contents by Goodpasture. Angleton’s trip and his theft of the evidence were authorized by Richard Helms. (Morley, p. 286) Finally, Clark Anderson, the FBI legal attachÈ in Mexico City once referred to the Oswald photos as “deep snow stuff”. (Probe, Vol. 4 No. 2, p. 28) So, if the photos were fakes, that fact could never be exposed since Scott took them to his grave. Angleton snatched them up and all of Angleton’s JFK files were destroyed when he left the CIA in late 1974. (Morley, p. 201)

    The fate of the tapes of Oswald’s alleged phone calls is also part of this huge enigma. On page 117 of the Lopez Report, the authors list at least nine calls the CIA should have taped. (They also write that there may have been one or two more.) But in looking at this list, and then reading some descriptions of the calls as related to the translators who heard them, two immediate problems arise. According to the Warren Commission witnesses, Oswald spoke fluent Russian. But the voice on some of the calls is described as speaking broken Russian, or barely decipherable Russian. Second, on over half the calls, the caller speaks in Spanish. But as the authors of the Lopez Report note, the weight of the evidence says Oswald could not speak Spanish. (Lopez Report, p. 119) Morley discusses these language issues, albeit briefly, and adds one of his own. Incredibly, the Warren Commission never interviewed Silvia Duran who talked to Oswald at the Cuban consulate. There was a call made from the Cuban consulate to the Russian Embassy on a Saturday. Yet Duran always said that after his Friday visit, Oswald never came back to their consulate. So who made that call? ( Ibid p. 236)

    There are two other points about this absolutely crucial episode that Morley mentions, although not at length. First is the delay in getting the first cable to CIA HQ about Oswald visiting the Soviet Embassy. This took over a week. It has never been adequately explained. (When I asked Lopez about this strange delay, he replied: “Jim, they were using Pony Express.”) Second, the famous memo of October 10th sent to Win Scott by Langley concerning Oswald. This memo states that it contains the latest HQ information on Oswald. It did not. Morley writes that the memo was meant to keep Scott in the dark about Oswald’s recent past. (Morley p. 192) Morley also notes how many CIA staffers at HQ signed off on the false memo, and how some of them had to have known it was false since the CIA had newer information about Oswald and the DRE and the FPCC in its hands at the time. Jane Roman, one of the staffers who signed the false memo stated that its treatment indicated they had a keen interest in the subject of the memo. Roman then added that this interest was being “held very closely on the need-to-know basis.” (Ibid p. 197) She also agreed that the interest was probably operational. This fact may also explain why the cable had to go so high in the hierarchy to be sent. It went all the way up to Tom Karamessines. Who was Helms’ deputy at the time. Everyone Morley interviewed about this particular issue thought that was odd–except the co-author of Helms’ autobiography. Did the cable keep on getting kicked upstairs because people like Roman knew it was false? And then did Helms OK its dispatch through his Deputy without having to place his name on it?

    Strangely, though Morley does a good job with this memo, he completely ignores a fact directly related to it that is probably just as important. The CIA prepared two cables at this time. One that was extremely different than this one. This second memo had even less information on Oswald and it actually gave a false description of him. This particular memo went to the rest of the intelligence agencies. (Lopez Report pgs 145-146) When one sees the two cables side by side, the effect is jarring. It is hard not to conclude that certain people inside the CIA did not want to alert anyone else that Oswald was in Mexico City.

    Morley does a good enough job on the Oswald in Mexico City incident. I just wish it had been fuller and more graphic.

    V

    The last part of the book deals with the Warren Commission inquiry, Scott’s last years in Mexico City, his retirement and his death.

    As most informed students of the assassination know, the Warren Commission inquest into Oswald’s activities in Mexico City was mildly risible. The Commission sent David Slawson, Bill Coleman and Howard Willens to Mexico City. The result of their inquiry was a rather brief composition called the Slawson-Coleman report. It was declassified in 1996. I exaggerate only slightly when I state the following: comparing it to the Lopez Report is like comparing a fifth grade reader to a novel by Henry James. The trip the Commission lawyers took was arranged by Richard Helms, who thought it would be a good idea if the representatives of the Commission had a CIA case officer to escort them on their journey to Mexico. It is clear from reading the report that the trip was a set up. The three lawyers never investigated anything themselves. For instance, it was Clark Anderson who gave them the information that Oswald was allegedly at the Hotel del Comercio. Yet it took Anderson and his FBI friend several trips to find anyone there who recalled Oswald. And of the two witnesses they found, they doubted one of them. Yet Slawson accepted this. The FBI could not find a witness to a transaction for a silver bracelet that Oswald bought for his wife. They found a witness who said Oswald was at the Cuban consulate. But this witness could not identify Oswald in a photo leafleting in New Orleans. Finally, they were escorted into Scott’s company. Scott made them swear that anything he showed them had to be discussed only with the permission of his superiors at Langley. He then played them a tape of Oswald. Slawson later commented that the tape was of poor quality and he could not identify Oswald’s voice. (Probe Vol. 4 No. 1) In spite of this the Warren Commission wrote that the CIA was not aware of Oswald at the Cuban consulate until after the assassination. (See page 777) This is really all you need to know about the Warren Commission and Mexico City. Helms, who had complete control over what the Warren Commission investigation in Mexico City, seems to have got what he wanted.

    Years later, Goodpasture decided to do a complete chronology about Oswald and Mexico. After Scott read it, he decided to leave the CIA. (Morley, p. 263) His last big assignment was covering up the true circumstances of the famous student riots in Mexico City in 1968, which led to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas massacre. In 1969, Helms gave him a distinguished service award. He then retired and set up his own lucrative consulting service for those doing business with Mexico.

    Morley ends the book with some cogent comments about Angleton. He reveals that Angleton had files on the RFK assassination in his office. Including autopsy photos. This made no sense. JFK yes, but RFK? Oddly, Morley writes that a Palestinian waiter killed Robert Kennedy. (p. 282) Sirhan was never a waiter at the Ambassador Hotel. And the sentence assumes Sirhan was the actual assassin. Which jibes with the curious and unexplained statements in the book-made more than once– that Oswald shot Kennedy.

    At the very end, Morley writes that the tapes in Scott’s safe survived at least until the seventies. This is according to the testimony of CIA officer Paul Hartman. (p. 291) After Michael Scott began to request information on his dad’s manuscript, Morley suspects– from information given to Scott’s attorney– that the CIA destroyed what Hartman saw in 1987. And with it, the last and best hope anyone had in figuring from direct evidence what really happened to Oswald in Mexico City.

  • Oswald, the CIA and Mexico City

    From the September-October 1999 issue (Vol. 6 No. 6) Probe

    Copyright 1999 by John Newman.
    All Rights Reserved.

     

    I. The Rosetta Stone

    The Assassination Records Review Board finished its search more than a year ago – a search for records relating to the murder of a president thirty-six years ago. Surprisingly, the passage of time has not managed to erode or cover over all of the important evidence. On the contrary, the work of the Review Board has uncovered important new leads in the case. I will leave medical and ballistic forensics to others. I will confine myself to document forensics, an area for which the work of the board had been nothing less than spectacular. More specifically, I will confine myself to the documentary record concerning Lee Harvey Oswald’s 1963 visit to Mexico City.

    In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) completed its work, including a report on Oswald’s activities in Mexico written by Eddie Lopez and Dan Hardway. Our first glimpses of their report began shortly after the 1993 passage of the JFK Records Act. Not even all the redactions of those early versions could hide the seminal discoveries in that work. While Lopez couched his words in careful language, he suggested that Oswald might have been impersonated while he was in Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. Lopez was more forthright when I interviewed him about this in 1995. Armed with more CIA documents and the first Russian commentary (Nechiporenko’s book, Passport to Assassination), I went further in my own Oswald and the CIA (Carroll & Graf: 1995) in advancing the argument that Oswald was impersonated in the Mexican capitol. Specifically, someone pretending to be Oswald made a series of telephone calls between 28 September and 1 October, allegedly to and from the Cuban and Soviet consulates in Mexico City.

    I concluded then, that, based on the content of the CIA Mexico City telephone transcripts alone, the speaker purporting to be Oswald was probably an impostor. I will not repeat my lengthy discussion here, other than to summarize it in this way: the speaker’s words were incongruous with the experiences we can be reasonably certain Oswald underwent. For reasons still obscure, the CIA has lied consistently for these past several decades about the tapes from which those transcripts were made. The Agency concocted the story that the tapes were routinely destroyed before the assassination. It is perhaps true that some tapes were destroyed before the assassination. But Lopez uncovered FBI documents containing detailed accounts of how two of the tapes were listened to after the assassination by FBI agents familiar with Oswald’s voice.

    More evidence would come in time. Shortly after the passage of the JFK Records Act, the public gained access to a telephone transcript the day after the assassination in which FBI Director Hoover informs President Johnson that it is not Oswald’s voice on the tapes. The Review Board diligently followed these leads and settled the matter when they found CIA documents in which the Agency itself explicitly states that some of the tapes were reviewed after the assassination. The CIA’s continued silence on the matter of the tapes stands, like a giant beacon, pointing the way forward to the investigator. The impersonation of Oswald in Mexico by someone who drew attention to an Oswald connection to a KGB assassination officer may prove to be the Rosetta stone of this case.

    Before going further, I once again pay tribute to Peter Dale Scott, who wrote of these matters as early as 1995, advancing his “Phase I-Phase II hypothesis” on largely deaf ears. I will not repeat his lengthy discussion here, other than to summarize it in this way: In Phase I, immediately after the assassination, previously planted evidence of a Cuban/Kremlin plot surfaced in Oswald’s files; this, in turn, precipitated Phase II, in which a lone-nut cover-up was erected to prevent a nuclear war.

    In Oswald and the CIA, I deliberately steered clear of the conspiracy-anti-conspiracy vortex in order to set out some of the facts concerning Oswald’s pre-assassination files. Since then, the cumulative weight of the evidence uncovered by the Review Board has led me to the conclusion that the Oswald impersonation can best be explained in terms of a plot to murder the president. I remain open to other interpretations and fresh analyses by fellow researchers, and I understand that new evidence could corroborate or undermine this hypothesis. What follows is a first stab at explaining, in a short and simple way, how those plotting the president’s murder may have left their fingerprints in the files.

    II. Puzzles and Pieces

    Since Oswald would have no reason to arrange for his own impersonation, there are three possibilities concerning the purpose of this impersonation: it was only part of a legitimate intelligence operation; it was only part of a conspiratorial plot; or, the third alternative which combines both: it was part of a legitimate intelligence operation manipulated by a plotter or plotters. These are three distinct puzzles. Into which one do the pieces fit most easily?

    For the purposes of this discussion I will reject the proposition that it was only part of a crude conspiratorial plot, carried out by schemers unfamiliar with the inner-workings of the U.S. intelligence community. By exposing themselves to such intense U.S. intelligence scrutiny, the conspirators would have put themselves at unacceptable risk and raised the chances that Oswald would not be in the Texas School Book Depository when the president’s motorcade drove by. Thus we are left with two puzzles: an intelligence operation or a legitimate operation manipulated by plotters. Before deciding, let us examine the characteristics of some of the more unique-looking pieces.

    The weirdest, most gangly piece is the 28 September phone transcript. In addition to the Oswald impersonator, there are two more speakers on this one. The phone call is between the Cuban Consulate and the Soviet Embassy at a time when no one was in the Cuban Consulate and the Soviets were in the middle of preparing a report to KGB HQ on Oswald’s activities. The FBI confirmed that the Oswald character was played by someone else. Another speaker in this transcript, the secretary in the Cuban Consulate, Silvia Duran, had to have been impersonated if, as she and her colleagues have repeatedly claimed and testified, the Cuban consulate was closed at the time of the telephone call.

    This only leaves one other person, the man allegedly in the Soviet Embassy. If he is truly in the Soviet Embassy, then one could advance the argument that this was some sort of CIA penetration operation. If the Soviet man, too, was impersonated, then there was no legitimate intelligence operation even though it was probably designed to look like one. We should bear in mind that the CIA has never publicly claimed these phone calls were part of any intelligence operation and the Russians have no recollection of such a call. In fact, at the very time this phone call was supposed to have been made to the Soviet Embassy, the three staff members with whom Oswald had visited for an hour were still in the building and in the process of assembling all of the details for a cable to KGB Central in Moscow. It is frustrating that, in 1999, when Boris Yeltsin handed over KGB files on Oswald to President Clinton, they did not include the Soviet Embassy cables that were sent at the time of this bogus 3-person telephone call. Those contemporaneous cables could provide corroboration for the later Soviet (Nechiporenko- Kostikov) account.

    The second puzzle piece is the 1 October telephone transcript, wherein the Oswald impersonator mentions a meeting with Valery Kostikov – a man known to the CIA as the chief of KGB assassination operations for the entire Western hemisphere. In fact, according to CIA cables and Kostikov himself, the real Oswald did meet Kostikov in Mexico. What, then, was the purpose of this impersonation? When we hold this second piece side-by-side with the first piece, we are drawn to the possibility of a plot to murder the president, an integral part of which was planting – in CIA channels – evidence of an international communist conspiracy.

    The third piece is a missing transcript. We know there was a 30 September tape because of the recollection of the CIA translator who transcribed it. Her name is Mrs. Tarasoff and she remembers not only transcribing it but also the fact that the Oswald voice was the same as the 28 September voice – in other words the same Oswald impostor. This piece is all the more unique because Mrs. Tarasoff remembers the Oswald character asked the Soviets for money to help him defect, once again, to the Soviet Union.

    Finally, this piece has another side to it as well: it concerns what a CIA officer at the Mexico City station had to say about it. His name was David Atlee Phillips and, in sworn testimony to the HSCA, he backed up Mrs. Tarasoff’s claim about the tape and the request for money to assist in another defection to the Soviet Union. But the Phillips story has another twist. The day before his sworn testimony, Phillips told a different, more provocative version to Ron Kessler of the Washington Post. He told Kessler that on this tape Oswald asked for money in exchange for information. Why was this crucial transcript destroyed? What motivated Phillips to tell two different stories about this piece in less than 24 hours?

    This third piece not only reinforces the likelihood that the plotters were seeking to ensure CIA sources would reveal a link between Oswald and the Soviets, but also invites us to ask questions about David Phillips. Indeed, one might ask, in view of the foregoing, what was Phillips doing during Oswald’s visit and the subsequent exchange of cables with CIA HQ concerning Oswald’s activities in Mexico?

    …

    The rest of this article can be found in The Assassinations, edited by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease.

  • Speech By Bob Tanenbaum

    From the November-December 1998 issue (Vol. 6 No. 1) of Probe

    Because CTKA was started largely as a result of the successful Chicago Symposium on the case back in 1993, and because Jim [DiEugenio] has been focusing on the HSCA in the past and current issues of Probe, we thought it would be good to share two speeches from former HSCA participants. Both of these speeches have been minimally edited for clarity. Bob Tanenbaum followed former Warren Commission member Burt Griffin to the stage. Tanenbaum responded to Griffin as he took the stage. [Note: Only Tanenbaum’s speech is online. The other speech by Eddie Lopez is available in the print version of this publication.]

    I’m in somewhat stunned disbelief to hear some of the rationalizations about what happened with the Warren Commission, and suggest that maybe we should have three lawyers with a small staff get involved in trying to decide whether or not we have a legitimate government or an illegitimate government.

    (APPLAUSE)

    I had the opportunity to meet with Oliver Stone and his people. And they’re wonderful people. I disagree with the premise. That doesn’t mean I’m right and they’re wrong. I just – I wasn’t able to prove any of that.

    But I have no quarrel with Oliver Stone. He’s an artist. We don’t go to movies to learn about American history. What we do is, when we read about a commission like the Warren Commission that has said the government of the United States is saying that Lee Harvey Oswald is the murderer of the president, what is obscene is not Oliver Stone. What is obscene is deceiving the American people with a makeshift investigation wherein their own investigators couldn’t be trusted.

    What does that tell you about the integrity of what went on in the Warren Commission? It’s not enough for me to sit here and listen and say it’s OK. We had young lawyers who were well intentioned, who were good and decent people, who thought it was wise to have as their investigators FBI, CIA, who they didn’t trust.

    Who are they going to get their information from? How are they going to investigate the case? And this issue about if we really found the truth, there could have been thermonuclear war. Well, let me tell you something. I was at Berkeley in 1963. And there was a war. And monks were immolating themselves in the streets of Saigon. And there were teach-ins at Cal. And 50-some-odd thousand Americans died needlessly in Vietnam. So we were close to thermonuclear war. What we needed was the truth.

    (APPLAUSE)

    And when I was in Washington, I had occasion to speak with Frank Mankiewicz. I didn’t invite him into my office. He called me and he came in. He put his feet up on the table, he said, “It’s government property. It’s OK if I put my feet on the table.” That’s Frank Mankiewicz.

    I said, “What can I do for you?” He said, “Well, I wanted to talk to you.” I said, “What, you’re a front-runner for the Kennedy family? You know, we’ve called Senator Kennedy innumerable times. Never had the decency even to respond once.” I said, “You want to find out here if we’re conspiratorial-minded, if we’re establishment-oriented, if we read the New York Times, Rolling Stone, if we’re suspect creatures.”

    (LAUGHTER)

    I said, I want to know from you the question that was raised. What did the attorney general, Robert Kennedy, have to do about this whole business? If after all, common knowledge is and common experience is, you know, would Bobby Kennedy permit the CIA or anybody else, underworld, overworld characters to have assassinated his brother and stood silently by?

    And his response was that Bobby Kennedy couldn’t put a sentence together about the assassination. And then on one evening, the closest he ever got to anything to do with the assassination was he was asked by Bobby Kennedy not to have any coverage of putting the brain back into the president’s coffin. And that if anybody leaked what was going to take place, then Mankiewicz was in serious trouble.

    That was the only time he said he ever was able to hear anything from his lips about the assassination. So the reason I raise these points is that, you know, unlike the doctors who were testifying – who know everything, it’s incredible – their degree of certitude about life is absolutely fascinating to me. Because in the hundreds of cases I’ve prosecuted in helping run the homicide bureau of the New York County D.A.’s office, and running the criminal courts, I always have a lot of questions. A lot more questions unanswered than otherwise. But I will tell you, what is disturbing about this whole case is somewhat of a cavalier notion that we’re going to sit down and we hope we find the conspiracy, but we’re going to use FBI people and CIA people who very well might be involved, who we don’t trust. And by golly, we don’t want to smear anybody, in case we’re wrong. But there’s always Lee Harvey Oswald. We can do whatever the hell we want to him.

    (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

    Coming from a D.A.’s office where – that really was a Ministry of Justice which is no more. When Frank Hogan was district attorney, and his predecessor was Tom Dewey – notwithstanding any elective politics, Tom Dewey was a damn good lawyer, and he was a top-notch D.A. As was Frank Hogan.

    Hogan was larger in life than his legend. He was D.A. for 32 years. He was a lifelong Democrat, always had Republican, liberal, conservative party support in New York County, which is the island of Manhattan. And that’s saying something in New York City.

    When I went into that office, I was one of 17 accepted out of 800 applications. And there was a training period for years. Not days, not a few afternoons. But for a couple of years, before you ever got near a serious case.

    And when you dealt with these cases, there was only one issue: Did the defendant do it? Is there factual guilt? And if there is, is there legally sufficient evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty?

    Now, if anyone interfered with that investigation – and I handled assassinations of police officers, the murder of Joey Gallo and so on – no one would have been immune from having to answer legally if they interfered with the investigation.

    Now, if you’re talking about honestly going forward in a murder case that happens to involve Martin Luther King and the president of the United States, do you think you would have less of standard? Would there be less of a standard? Would you permit, for example, the FBI to clear your people if you’re the legislative branch?

    If the legislative branch is now saying we are going to investigate this case, what is the reason to have the FBI and/or the CIA tell you you could hire Jones, you can’t hire Smith. You can hire Walter, but you can’t hire Sally. You can hire Jane. Wait, did they take Clearing 101, that I didn’t, when I was at Berkeley?

    (LAUGHTER)

    When they look at documents and they talk about this great sensitivity that exists, that Eddie Lopez talked about redaction. You know what that’s like? You have a document here and it says, “The Investigation,” and down at the bottom is says “Lee Harvey Oswald.” Everything else is black.

    (LAUGHTER)

    And then you surrender your notes. What we’re talking about here which is disturbing is what Adlai Stevenson talked about, someone I admired a great deal. He actually carried my neighborhood in Brooklyn, although we lost the rest of the country five to one.

    (LAUGHTER)

    I’ve been out of step a long time. And that is, we have to tell the American people the truth. And if there was no Adlai Stevenson, there never would have been a JFK.

    So what we’re talking about here is tampering with American history. And that’s the sin that’s been perpetrated. It’s not Oliver Stone, it’s not Kevin Costner. It’s not the staff that worked on “JFK.” And it’s certainly not people who have taken a tremendous amount of their own time to write about – to create the library of over 600 books on the assassination.

    Some of them may be right, some may be wrong. And it is not the obligation of private people to come up with an alternative – another theory. When I heard that this morning from the medical panel, a panelist about, well, you know, after all, we came up with our theory. What do you got?

    (LAUGHTER)

    It’s sort of like looking at the jury, well, we had nobody else to prosecute today. And this guy happens to be here. And if I could convict an otherwise innocent person, I’m a hell of a trial lawyer.

    (LAUGHTER)

    So somewhere along the line, we’ve lost the sense of balance and understanding about what we’re doing in this business. And it doesn’t mean you make popular decisions. But it does mean you make the professional decision.

    And if in the case, for example, of Phillips, who testified before the committee before Eddie Lopez came on board and he testified about this conversation that allegedly took place in Mexico City on or about October 1; and of course, you all know about the telex and the wrong person who appears on the photograph of the telex.

    And he said, well, understanding that we photograph everybody who goes into a Communist embassy, the Communists do the same thing to us. And by the way, that’s how they know each other. None of these guys ever get knocked off. They’re taking photographs. They know each other. And they’re also listening. They’re eavesdropping. They’re wiretapping phones and eavesdropping in various rooms.

    And so he said under oath, well, at that particular time, our camera system went out. You know, human error can take place. But what happened to the tape? Well, we destroyed the tape. Why did you do that? Because we recycled our tapes…

    (LAUGHTER)

    … every seven or eight days. For economy, I assume. This is this, oh, you know, what the CIA has done with respect to not being accountable to the Congress. What we’re saying here, in essence, is that 10 days after this alleged conversation, the tape would have been recycled, gone.

    Mind you, of course, we had this telex that came out about this Lee Henry Oswald. Interesting how this middle name somehow got mixed up in everything. And so the tape was gone.

    Interestingly, when I was on the committee, I had occasion to speak with Garrison and to speak with Mark Lane. I did not know either of these two gentlemen. I had basically negative impressions about them because of the coverage that they had received throughout the course of this whole period of time. Both of them, I will tell you, whether you like to hear it or not, were very cooperative with the committee when I was there. They did not, under any stretch of the imagination, offer any kind of course one should move in. An agenda that – or a road map, or a theory. They simply wanted to respond to questions that were being asked. And Mark Lane handed me a document that he had obtained, which was dated November 23. And it was a document that stated, in substance, the following. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. But it relates directly to the Phillips issue and to the issue about why the Congress cannot investigate this case.

    And it’s not maybe just the Congress. But it’s a mindset. And on this document of November 23, it stated from J. Edgar Hoover to supervisorial staff, we have – we, the agents, who have been questioning Lee Harvey Oswald in custody for the past 17, 18 some-odd hours, have listened to the October 1 tape in Mexico City of the person who allegedly was Lee Oswald. And our people questioning Oswald in custody have concluded that the voice on the tape was not the same as the person in custody.

    Now in order to pursue that, one has to have a confrontation under oath with Mr. Phillips. This is simple stuff, isn’t it? You don’t have to go to Yale Law School to figure this stuff out.

    (LAUGHTER)

    And you don’t need Bill and Hillary to figure this out. You can do – we could do it ourselves. And you hit resistance. And when you hit resistance, and you want to say let’s discuss this with the CIA, and let’s discuss with the FBI, there’s nothing to discuss with them. This is not an encounter session when you’re trying to find evidence out.

    (LAUGHTER)

    And you don’t rationalize, gee, I might create a thermonuclear war if I find out the truth.

    (APPLAUSE)

    Well, I agree in large – you know, I agree in large measure – I have a great deal of respect for Earl Warren. He was the tough D.A. of Alameda County and governor of the state of California. And no one expected when President Eisenhower appointed him to the bench that he would ever do what he did, starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, overruling Plessy v. Ferguson and a whole revolution of criminal justice up through the 60s, which of course was a hundred-some-odd years later than it should have ever happened.

    But he recognized, in large measure, himself this dilemma he was in. Which is one of the reasons why he didn’t want to be part of this commission. And he did write that existing conditions may have to override principle. And what was he talking about?

    He did not believe, I believe – and this is sheer speculation – that anybody of his integrity would have thought that everybody here, that the Sylvia Meaghers of this world and the Cyril Wechts and others who contributed to the library of inquiry of truth would have existed if he did from his – the historical record of Earl Warren, I don’t believe for one second he ever would have been in charge of this commission. And never would have permitted it to proceed the way it did.

    And it’s a shame on his career that he is so associated with his name on a report that’s a complete sham. And that is what is so disturbing. And why do I say that? Because I get right down to basics. You listen to the medical testimony about micro-invasions of the anterior cerebral left portion of the skull.

    The question is, from the very beginning, how do the police get to the defendant? These are not difficult questions that you have to answer. That is to say, if you cannot prove the truth of your case from inception, why are you getting involved in all of these theories that came down that, but for various pieces of evidence, never would have flourished?

    By that, I mean, if there were no Zapruder film, I can tell you there never would have been a one-bullet theory. I myself have been responsible for thousands of cases, acting as the head on many occasions the homicide bureau in the New York County D.A.’s office, where we had about 1,000 homicides a year. All of England had about 126 during that period of time.

    (LAUGHTER)

    This is on the island of Manhattan. In no case, in no case did anybody ever allege that A and B were shot by one bullet. Where you had two people shot, you went through the normal kinds of investigative technique with experts. But you know why they had to come up with the one-bullet theory. Because that film becomes a clock on the assassination.

    If you use the – given the murder weapon they’re using, which is somewhat different than was described initially…

    (LAUGHTER)

    … then you have to come up with a one-bullet theory to make this thing stick. And I’m still have trouble figuring out why Tippitt, on an evidentiary record, stopped Oswald. I looked at those Hughes photographs. I saw how that window ajar very slightly. And I don’t recall anybody standing up on that window heroically stating “I just murdered the president,” throwing his rifle down, so that everybody can see him. I see a window and photographs, some very short time, within a minute or so, before and after, nobody in it, slightly ajar.

    And if you accept the “Sniper’s Nest” theory, you don’t have someone standing up at all, do you? You have very, very partials of someone’s face. Very difficult to give a description of height, weight, facial characteristics. And particularly be definite about giving it to Secret Service people at a time when it went out over an alarm when there were no Secret Service people to give it to.

    So the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald in any court in America, I would suggest to you, given my limited experience of trying several hundred cases to verdict as a prosecutor would be very, very difficult, and almost embarrassing. To present the evidence on behalf of the people, in every aspect of the evidentiary record.

    And what is disturbing to me, what is disturbing in Washington, is that if you can’t do this job, then say it. Don’t walk around and publish 26 volumes and expect that the New York Times, without even reading it, or seeing the evidence, is going to endorse it and say this is the gospel truth, when you know, as an American, as a professional, that what you did was a sham.

    There’s no excuse for that. And if the Congress of the United States is going to argue, which they did – they had countless hours of this, until I got fed up and like Paddy Chayevsky, I couldn’t take it any more – and they say, well, you know, we got to work with the rest of the membership. And we need funding for other issues. Hey, well, why did you call me down here?

    (LAUGHTER)

    I’m the wrong guy for this. I can’t go around to 435 people, who were elected, and have to tell them what the investigation is and their staffs, their AAs, their LAs and all these other jokers running around. Because there was a perversion that took place.

    People are expecting to hear the truth. Which is miraculous in itself, given the nature of what’s going on. And if the American public, which I hope C-SPAN ultimately provides for everyone, demonstrates what really goes on in the House of Representatives and/or the Senate during their sessions, where you have people read articles about Richard Sprague, for example, that were published in the Chattanooga Courier into the record as a piece of evidence, then maybe we’ll see some real reform about what goes on there.

    But it is disturbing to discuss various issues that occurred when people weren’t psychologically, professionally, philosophically committed to the truth-finding process. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. To the contrary, I’m an optimist. I believe it can happen. But it has to happen under some very, very important conditions present before going forward. And that is a total commitment to finding out what occurred. And if, in fact, there are people who are contemptuous, as there were on our committee – and by the way, when I would sit at some of these hearings and hear some of the members of the committee – not Lou Stokes, who’s a very dear friend of mine – but others say how much cooperation the committee has gotten from the CIA and the FBI, I had to clear the record and clarify it.

    That didn’t endear me to the membership. There was a minority membership. There were some good people on that committee. Stu McKinney from Connecticut, who was the minority ranking member. And Richardson Preyer from North Carolina, who was the ranking member on the Kennedy side. These were good people. And Lou.

    And I understand why the Congress could not investigate this. But I chose not to be a part of it, because at that time, I had a three-year-old daughter. I now have three children. And I didn’t want her to read about an American history that I knew was absolutely false, that her father might have participated in.

    I learned a little differently at PS 238 in Brooklyn. And I believe that in my heart of hearts, we owe – we, the people who care, owe it to the entire public that the truth finally be investigated in a highly professional, independent fashion. And wherever the facts lead, not looking for conspiracy. That sounds like – it’s a word that lingers out there in the netherland, along with “circumstantial evidence.” If in fact there were two or more people who engage in an illegal enterprise, so be it. Tell the truth.

    Does anybody really believe that certain people in the executive intelligence agencies are more equipped to handle the truth than the American people? If so, then we will redefine the nature of our democracy. And that’s something I’m not prepared to do.

    (APPLAUSE)

  • No Lieutenant Columbo in Mexico City

    (Click here if your browser is having trouble loading the above.)

  • Response to Mary La Fontaine’s Recent Letter

    Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much!

    Mary La Fontaine’s charges of plagiarism may be worth filing a lawsuit over for defamation of character. But this would only be worthwhile if her book was a blockbuster seller reaping loads of royalties. Mary is so egocentric that it never occurred to her that another human being on the face of the earth might coincidentally be researching the same topic.

    My research into John Thomas Masen began with Dick Russell’s 1992 book The Man Who Knew Too Much. I became intrigued with the identification of a real Oswald look-alike and thought Masen deserved a lot more scrutiny. At the 1993 ASK Women’s Luncheon I met numerous women whose research topics were out of the mainstream and rather provocative. I thought it would be a great idea to organize these women. I don’t recall Mary La Fontaine being at that conference. Consequently I organized a women’s workshop which was hosted by Mary Ferrell and which took place in Dallas in March 1994.

    At this conference the topic of John Thomas Masen and John Elrod came up. Mary Ferrell shared her files on Elrod with me. She had no files on Masen but told me all she knew about him. Anna-Marie Kuhns-Walko was not able to attend the conference but gave us women her index to the newly released documents pouring out of the National Archives. This index contained page after page of references to John Thomas Masen. It was understood that Anna’s index was not available for public consumption and was a monumental work product that she shared with only a few select persons – I was fortunate to be one of them.

    I then asked Anna for all of the files on Masen and Captain George Nonte – which she readily shared. She also provided me with the Frank Ellsworth transcript. Anna also gave some of these same documents to Bill Adams who was working with the La Fontaines. Anna’s philosophy is that public records belong to anyone who requests them. Anna has since told me that Bill Adams never got the complete files because he never asked for them; his request was limited to specifically numbered documents and her involvement with Adams was marginal. Her involvement with the La Fontaines was non-existent. I on the other hand communicate with Anna frequently.

    My appetite whetted, I sent my college aged son to the National Archives for a few weeks in the summer of 1994 to do further research. This trip cost me $2000.00 incidently; David still uses this research assignment on his resume! David Hewett researched Ruby, Masen, Whitter, Miller, Nonte, Bertha Cheek, Nancy Perrin Rich, gunrunning, etc., etc. In addition I had David go to the Library of Congress to obtain a listing of every book that Captain George Nonte ever wrote – a list which I will happily share with the La Fontaines if they like.

    By now, I was hot on the Masen/Nonte story and decided to submit an abstract to the upcoming first annual COPA conference scheduled for October 1994. I had no idea that the La Fontaines were writing a book on the same topic. I was feeling the pressure and was working with Steve Tilly to obtain release of the 14 page classified Whitter document. Tilly would tell me in writing that it was being withheld on grounds of national security. Wow – I really thought I was on to something. Later I learned that Tilly was in error and privacy was the category under which it had remained classified until the La Fontaines’ Washington Post article (dated 8/7/94) triggered its release. Alas, it was only Whitter’s rap sheet. Bill Adams would later slam me anonymously in a journal for claiming that the Whitter document was classified on national security grounds – had he bothered to call me, he would have learned that the error belonged to the Archives, not me.

    I realized I still had lots of work to do regarding the COPA presentation. Of primary importance was the criminal court files on Miller, Whitter and Masen. I made a special trip to Dallas to obtain these files. All I got was the file numbers; the files themselves were in storage at the federal depository in Fort Worth and had to be ordered ahead of time. So I returned to Florida and asked a lawyer friend of mine in Texas to obtain the files for me which she did, including the actual trial transcript of the Miller/Whitter Terrell Armory theft.

    In the meantime Gary Shaw provided me with Masen’s November 22 fingerprint card. Now if the issue happened to be JFK’s ingrown toenails I would defer to a podiatrist’s comments about JFK’s toenail records. And so I would expect a similar sort of acknowledgment on the part of other researchers about my skills as a lawyer who has practiced both civil and criminal law in various jurisdictions. I am in my 21st year of practice in state and federal courts with landmark, headline cases to my credit. I have won every criminal jury trial that I have tried. And so I think I speak from experience when I comment on police or court procedures. And I also know how advocates hide facts that are detrimental to their position. This is just what the La Fontaines did in not revealing the full contents of Elrod’s August FBI reports. And if they knew about the November 22nd fingerprint card, they sure didn’t tell their readers. The card says on it in black and white: DATE PRINTS TAKEN. Moreover, police departments are not in the habit of arresting a person one day then calling him back in the next day after he has bonded out because they forgot to take the suspect’s prints!

    They would also have you believe that jailers keep track of cell assignments by Roman numerals such that Douglas is in Cell No. F-II (i.e. Roman numeral 2) next to Oswald in cell block F when Douglas was really in A-11 next to Elrod who described his cell as No. 10. (See my upcoming article in Probe on the cell assignment dispute.) In the last analysis, the La Fontaines failed to present any credible evidence that Elrod was with Oswald.

    Back to my research methodology: By August 1, 1994 (the designated deadline) I had submitted my COPA abstract on Masen and Nonte. The La Fontaines’ article was still unpublished in the Washington Post. I was notified on August 9th that the committee reviewing the abstracts had accepted mine. As of that date I still did not know of the La Fontaines’ pending book. It was at the October 1994 COPA conference that I first learned of the Washington Post article on Elrod, Masen, Miller and Whitter. It was Paul Hoch, in fact, who gave it to me for I do not subscribe to the Washington Post. I even got to meet Jeff Morley at COPA, the Post reporter who sponsored the article. I was so excited that the La Fontaines were writing a book on this subject. I even mentioned to Hoch that I had done alot of research on this topic and he should tell the La Fontaines about me so we could share information. But the La Fontaines were not at COPA and I had no way of knowing if Hoch ever told them about me.

    I still had lots of work to do. I was having trouble getting some of Nonte’s books through the inter-library loan program. I even went to a gun show at the Tampa Fairgrounds in March 1995 to peruse their book stalls for Nonte books and I struck gold. In addition to Masen and Nonte, I was researching military weapons and assassination weapons and was delighted to discover a convergence with Masen, Nonte, the CIA, silencers, Werbell, the Mendoza brothers, assassination weapons, 6.5 ammo, etc. all of which were overlooked by the La Fontaines. The gun show put me in contact with the book lists of para-military organizations and those were really an eye opener. I now knew that the La Fontaines’ book was imminent and wondered if they had progressed as far as I had with my Delta Force and Soldier of Fortune publications.

    Before Oswald Talked was even published, I promised Probe in the spring of 1995 that I would do a series of articles on Masen and Nonte as well as on weapons in general. My kick-off article was published in July 1995 where I introduced myself to the research community and mentioned my work on gunrunning. I was chagrined that Oswald Talked came out before my particular article on Masen but thought I would just simply combine my research with a book review.

    Needless to say, Oswald Talked was a disappointment as it related to this area of inquiry. I thought there would be more about the whole gunrunning scene and about Elrod, Masen and Nonte in particular. I had no idea that the authors would be digressing on sex-capades with Catholic priests. If only they had called me, for I have Father Machann’s address and that of Daniel Douglas, too! It was evident from their book that they did not bother to get the criminal files on Masen, Miller or Whitter. And they knew precious little about Nonte. Their knowledge of weapons and big time arms dealers was non-existent.

    Researcher Robert Dorf put together a workshop in San Francisco over the last July 4th holiday to discuss Oswald Talked (and the Mexico City aspects of the assassination). He invited me to attend to counterbalance Bill Adams who was also invited to represent the position of the La Fontaines. Actually I felt outnumbered when I learned that attendee Paul Hoch had helped the La Fontaines enormously. The presence of Mary and Ray would have slanted the discussion too much; I would have been all alone in making my case. Also, I was told that Mary had a most obnoxious personality that would put a damper on the workshop. The diatribe against me seems to bear this out. There was nothing secret about this meeting – it was simply restricted to a small group that our host chose to invite. I did the very same thing when I sponsored a Paine workshop in June 1995 and purposely avoided inviting one particular gentleman because I did not want the offensive man in my home. Simple as that. Mary seems proud that she prevented Mr. Jeremy Gunn of the Review Board from attending the meeting. But she shot herself in the foot because the consensus of the attendees was that both sides to the Masen/Elrod debate had valid points which would justify further investigation by the Review Board.

    Sorry folks, but the La Fontaines are full of sour grapes when it comes to the Masen/Elrod/Nonte material. They took a weak story line and inflated it beyond credibility to make a book sell which comes perilously close to tabloid journalism. Now I’m wondering if the rest of their book can hold up to scrutiny.

  • ARRB Meets First Hurdles

    From the July-August, 1995 issue (Vol. 2 No. 5) of Probe

    On July 21st the National Archives released the first set of ARRB approved documents. These were 16 CIA documents that the agency did not choose to contest. As Peter Dale Scott has written, “One of the documents . . . strengthens the impression that David Phillips . . . was directly involved before the assassination in the handling and reporting of Oswald’s visit to Mexico City.” Scott found that the temporary duty officer who picked up a special pouch related to the Mexico City episode was “Michael C. Choaden”, a name the Review Board understands, from the CIA, to be a pseudonym for Phillips.

    FBI and CIA Balk

    After the rather smooth going on the first release, both the FBI and CIA began to balk at what came next. From CTKA sources in Washington, the ARRB itself, and the AP newswire, PROBE will now outline the struggle going on in the capitol.

    When the ARRB moves to release a batch of documents from an agency’s files, that agency has the privilege to request a private conference with the Board to try to convince them of other options other than full disclosure e.g. postponement or non-release. A worst case postponement can last well into the next century. Our sources tell us that the original release pattern planned by the ARRB has been altered. The pattern originally held that another batch of solely CIA documents from Oswald’s CIA HQ file were to be released next. Then a combination of 15 FBI and 2 CIA documents concerning Oswald’s trip to Mexico City were to be third. The Board had originally agreed on this sequence. The CIA then requested another audience with the Board to request postponement on the CIA HQ release. This audience was granted. During this delay, the third release went ahead and will be uncontested on the CIA’s part. After their conference with the CIA, our information is that the Board is now reconsidering their original intent to release the documents in full. The FBI has been more overt about the scheduled release of 15 documents. They have appealed the release of 9 of these to President Clinton. According to the ARRB, the FBI contested files relate to Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party USA, and Ruby’s shooting of Oswald.

    Sources and Methods, yeah yeah yeah…

    The objections seem to be on the usual grounds of the sensitivity of “methods and sources” and damage to our intelligence relationships with foreign countries, i.e. intelligence sources and agents inside foreign countries. Since the Board has seen the documents and are well aware of the standard line on “national security” one can’t help but wonder how that antique warning could be sounded three decades later and with the Cold War finished.

    The Board’s Recommendation

    We quote from Mr. Marwell’s letter to President Clinton dated August 11th:

    Dear Mr. President:
    I have the honor of submitting to you the enclosed Reply of the Assassination Records Review Board to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s August 8, 1995 Appeal of Formal Determinations under The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
    There are two principal points made in our Reply. First, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has failed to provide the “clear and convincing evidence” required by the JFK Act; and second, much of the information that the Bureau now wishes to redact has already been officially released by the Bureau. We respectfully request that you carefully consider the merits of the arguments raised in our Reply.
    In making its formal determinations, the Board carefully considered the assassination records in question and determined that the public interest in the release of all of the information contained in them outweighted the insufficient evidence that the FBI had offered in support of continued secrecy. The Review Board has, and will, postpone the release of information in cases where the statutorily mandated “clear and convincing evidence” is supplied and that evidence outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
    A copy of the enclosed Reply, classified SECRET, is being sumitted under separate cover to Marvin Krislov, Associate Counsel at The White House.”

    The contents page of the 26 page reply to the FBI’s appeal shows that the ARRB has come down on the research community’s side on this issue:

    Part I: The JFK Act Presumes Disclosure of Assassination Records
    Part II: The FBI’s Informant Postponements
    A. The FBI Failed To Meet Its Statutory Obligation to Provide Clear and Convincing Evidence
    B. The FBI’s “Broad-Brush” Arguments Against Release of Information About Informants Should be Rejected
    C. In the Absence of Clear and Convincing Evidence to the Contrary, the JFK Act Requires Full and Immediate Release of the Appealed Documents
    Part III: The FBI’s “Foreign Relations” Postponements

    We back the belief in total candor. In fact we think its the only tenable view today. We trust the Review Board’s judgment since it is certainly not composed of fringe, or irresponsible professionals. In fact, in Graff and Hall, it contains two former intelligence employees. Does anyone believe they would vote to endanger “national security”? It is a critical time and we are glad it came early. Here and elsewhere, we urge everyone to call or fax the White House, and FBI Director Mr. Freeh to make their voices heard on this momentous issue. Mr. Clinton must back the ARRB in this first appeal by the FBI to the White House. These appeals for secrecy and non-review have led the Bureau into suspicion on the King case, and culpability in Ruby Ridge and Waco. Let this appeal fall where the previous ones should have: on deaf ears.

    ~ Jim DiiEugenio