For 29 years and two months, the CIA redacted the words “with the Australia security service” from this JFK document on the grounds that its disclosure would cause an “identifiable harm” to national security.
The truth is this anodyne information could have been released long ago. Would it really threaten U.S. national security in the 21st century to know that the CIA made a phone call to their Australian counterparts a half century ago? Would any American adversary or enemy benefit today from learning this unsurprising fact? Is ISIS or the Chinese Communist Party going to gain some advantage? The logic is tortured.
Some people say this is an example of the secrecy system on autopilot. CIA types will argue, “It might be obvious that the U.S and Australian secret services communicate with each other but if we don’t acknowledge the relationship, we maintain the confidence of an ally.”
But in the context of JFK assassination records, where the CIA has a long record of deceit and delay, I see another dynamic at work. The purpose of this type of declassification is to generate headlines that give the impression that the CIA is in compliance with the JFK Records while delaying release of 90 percent of the still-secret documents for another year and maybe longer.
Meanwhile, documents on Operation Northwoods and AMSPELL remain redacted, along with files on the CIA officers who were informed about Lee Harvey Oswald’s politics, personality, and foreign travels before Kennedy was killed. As I told the Washington Post, the JFK declassification process is a “ruse.”
I just saw your C-SPAN interview on YouTube regarding the recent release of more JFK files. And, I’d like to share a some thoughts with you as well as a question.
1. After seening the memo to the Warren Commission from J Edgar Hoover stating they should produce only evidence that Oswald acted alone, I never took them seriously. This is a clear case of confirmation bias if I’ve ever seen one.
2. In JFK Revisited, several eyewitnesses stated that the last shot “sounded different”. Have you seen Mark Lane’s interview with former Dallas County Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig? He (Craig) claims the police searching the 6th floor found a 7.65 Mauser. Given that the last shot ‘sounded different’, I find this very interesting. Below is the video of the interview with Craig, what do you think?
https://youtu.be/-TLHx8dlGjE
I was 12 the night of the coup d ‘tat of JFK. We lived at 1312 Vandenburg Dr. on Andrews AFB. That was known as Generals circle.
My father an OSI agent being trained for his assignment to Badabar – the U2 base in the tribal region.
His FBI liason was Frank ONeill the head agent at Bethesda.
Uncle Frank stopped at our house on the way home from Bethesda and cried on out couch. He said he had never been ordered to lie in his career. They dismissed but I stayed on the stairs to listen.
He said there was evidence of a bullet from a second shooter. HULU released on Dec 11, 2021 a photo of the X-rays that showed the bullet dispersed in the brain. “JFK unsolved” is the movie.
A first-hand account by William Haynes pertaining to a significant individual such as Frank O’Neill, even after 58 years, is very important. We cannot return individuals from the grave but in many cases family members can provide testimony of great importance. Reference to a second shooter made on 11/22/63 by an FBI Agent is a window into the fraud that continues to this day. Thank you for coming forward. Could this information be captured by Mary Ferrell?
I have long suspected the reason the CIA and others with held key documents is purely an embarrassment factor and Jeff’s comment is right on point. I’m in the process of reading every recently declassified document and the reason given for redacting the words “with the Australia security service” is the Australian government did not want the Australian people to know that CIA had a base or presence in Australia! I’m sure everyone in the world knows the CIA is in every country just as everyone in the world knows Russia SVR is in every country yet we had to wait 60 years to find out the CIA is in Australia. So far, my reading says there is nothing in the new batch the should have remained secret all these year.
apparently, Australia did not want its citizens to know that we had a CIA station on its soil so this record was withheld until now. How anyone at CIA could view this concern as posing an “identifiable harm” to the security of our country and that this harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the strong public interest is mind-boggling.