Seth Jacobsson and graphic artist Oliver Hint want to pass along a true JFK story to the next generation over the course of the next year.
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What the graphic novel will dramatize, according to Jacobson.
*JFK being setup by Allen Dulles during the Bay of Pigs debacle and the fallout
*LeMay and others pushing JFK towards attacking Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis
*JFK’s efforts and strategies to make peace with the Soviets, including 21 secret correspondences with Khrushchev
*Kennedy’s secret efforts to establish normal relations with Cuba and the fury that it caused within the CIA and amongst Cuban exiles
*JFK’s determined efforts to get U.S. troops out of Vietnam and the forces within his administration that resisted and ultimately prevented this effort.
*Kennedy standing up to U.S. steel interests and the bitterness that this lead to among U.S. business leaders, including Henry Luce, publisher of Fortune.
*The overwhelming evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was on the CIA payroll and had an assortment of handlers.
*The CIA plot that painted Oswald as a communist sympathizer and lunatic with ties to the Soviet Union and Cuba.
And so on:
This looks like a very worthy effort and I hope you will consider supporting it.
The sheer coolness of this project give me hope that the Internet can decisively clarify the story of President Kennedy’s assassination between now and November 22, 2014.
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See also:
JFK Facts’ guide to the Best JFK Web Sites.
My Opinion Is, That When The President Was Struck In The Head He Was Struck From Behind With Two Different Shots Almost Simultaneously From Two Different Directions.
Jean, why was Oswald’s Army intelligence file “routinely destroyed” without it being shown to the WC? Why wasn’t Oswald debriefed by the CIA after living in the USSR for 2.5 years? For that matter, why wasn’t he debriefed after his alleged trip to Mexico City, where he (or an imposter) talked to Soviet and Cuban embassy personnel (including a KGB assassination specialist)? Why wasn’t his fraudlent early discharge from the USMC prosecuted in some way? Or threatening to give secrets to the USSR? How does he have so little trouble geting his early discharge, or getting a new passport in New Orleans? How does he order a rifle and handgun without the FBI knowing this, at the same time his mail is being watched by the Post Office and FBI informants like Harry Holmes? How does he DO all these things and MANY more, at a time when the FBI and CIA were going after even the moderate leftists?
TLR,
Many of these questions were answered by the HSCA in 1978. An Army intelligence officer in San Antonio, Robert Jones, checked his files on 11/22/63, found a file on Oswald and called the FBI to report what he had (secondhand reports from other agencies, mostly):
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=69264http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=800&relPageId=252
Why was Oswald’s file “routinely destroyed”? In the early 1970s the media found out that the Army had been creating files on many thousands of U.S. citizens, causing a big public uproar. In 1973 the Dept. of Defense ordered that *all* Army files on civilians be destroyed. Oswald’s happened to be one of them.
The HSCA found that it wasn’t unusual for the CIA not to debrief returning defectors, relying on the FBI to talk to them. The FBI interviewed Oswald twice soon after he returned (he was uncooperative).
The HSCA Final Report covered many of the other questions also. It and many other JFK documents are available at this excellent site provided by one of our moderators, Rex Bradford:
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/JFK_Assassination_Documents
Why not do the research instead of letting suspicion fill in the blanks with the wrong answers?
We’re supposed to be brief here, but if you want to bring up anything I skipped, that’s okay with me.
Can we rely on the HSCA when its own chief counsel, Mr Blakey, has stated that the whole process “lacked integrity” due to George Joannides?
Really Jean, do you actually believe all of that? At a time when the CIA was debriefing tourists and businessmen who visited communist countries for a day or two, they had no interest in all of these defectors? Don’t you think they’d want to debrief Marina, a Russian citizen? This was obviously a fake defector program – these people were debriefed, but they can’t admit to it because if they had to produce the reports it would prove what Oswald really was.
I have read JFK and The Unspeakable.This graphic novel is a perfect intro to the case.
What a great idea and great medium for telling the story of JFK to younger generations!! Not sure what this particular version of the assassination will be, but this concept is outstanding.
I wondered the same thing, Jean. I just pulled your book off the shelf and started looking for a chapter I might have missed.
Thanks, Jon.
I don’t think Jeff Morley is saying there is overwhelming evidence Oswald was on the CIA payroll, he is describing the content of another author’s book. He is much more cautious than to make such a conclusion.
Jean Davison’s book came out around thirty years ago, right? I would say that much evidence has come to see the light of day in the interim. On balance, it looks like Oswald did pay a role for US Intelligence – witting or not.
Nor do I think Jean was asking for Jeff to provide that; she was expressing incredulity at the claim of incontrovertible evidence being offered, because there is nothing incontrovertible out there.
And despite the age of her book, it holds up well because it still forms a full portrait of LHO from birth to death, something most books are all too happy to gloss over in order to render Oswald into a meek figure in the shadows capable of being molded. If anything, a reading of his personality through history indicates a person who would be utterly unfit for taking and following orders.
I’m still open to the potential, but to say what’s out there is incontrovertible is silly. Since one of Douglass’s sources for the claim in the print version was James Wilcott, whose story has been debunked numerous times over the years, I can only guess that will be one of the offered proofs.
Jon, I am also open to the potential.
I feel that Oswalds confrontation with the DRE was significant in some way, it meant something.
From the OCT 10 cable, and the omission of this information to the Mexico city station, to the failure of the CIA to inform either the WC or HSCA of their sponsorship of the DRE, to the breathtaking decision to use George Joannides as liason to the HSCA without declaring his role in 1963.
The George Joannides files really should be released and I totally support Mr Morleys efforts in this regard.
This certainly seems like a fascinating project.
I am glad it will look at the role of Allen Dulles and the CIA, due to their suspicious behaviour which has not yet been explained.
I feel they were definitely trying to hide something when you consider that neither the WC or the HSCA were informed of the CIA sponsorship of the DRE.
And George Joannides being liason to the HSCA without declaring his role in 1963? What was all that about?
Who knows what is in the files that the CIA are still illegally withholding after 50 years, particularly the files relating to George Joannides?
What would the CIA be hiding? Ohhh…..just possibly their involvment with a group of individuals intended to take out JFK….and assisting in the framing of Lee H. Oswald. In collusion with certain members of organized crime and the FBI. Nothing much…….
PS: Just the CIA doing what it did best back in the day…and covering their tracks….SOP.
“The overwhelming evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was on the CIA payroll and had an assortment of handlers”? Really? What evidence is that?
Explain how a poor High School dropout loser:
– Learns Russian while in the Marines
– Gets stationed at a base that conducts Top Secret U2 flights and has a CIA base nearby
– With no money and no job, travels to the Soviet Union
– With no money and no resistance from the State Department, returns to the US with a Russian wife
– Spends his spare time trying to infiltrate anti-Castro groups
– Writes to a pro-Castro group about getting arrested before he gets arrested
– Travels to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City without being photographed
– Returns to Dallas without setting off alarm bells with local law enforcement
Are you saying that none of the facts above scream at you that Lee Oswald might have been working for one or more intelligence agencies?
The HSCA looked into the “Oswald was an intelligence agent” claim:
“Oswald’s Marine Corps records bear no indication that he ever received any intelligence training or performed any intelligence assignments during his term of service. As a Marine serving in Atsugi, Japan, Oswald had a security clearance of confidential, but never received a higher classification.
In his Warren Commission testimony, John E. Donovan, the
officer who had been in charge of Oswald’s crew at the El Toro Marine base in California, stated that all personnel working in the radar center were required to have a minimum security clearance of secret.—–
The committee …reviewed files belonging to four
enlisted men who had worked with Oswald either in Japan or California and found that each of them had a security clearance of confidential.”
Oswald’s return to the US was delayed by his attempts for a loan, and by the State Department asking for an assurance that Marina Oswald would not become a public charge.
Neil,
No offense, but I can tell that your “facts” come from conspiracy sources, because virtually all of them are untrue. For instance:
–Oswald knew very little Russian when he arrived in the USSR. He was provided tutors there and learned by living and working with Russian speakers (an ideal way to learn a language).
–Many, many servicemen served at Atsugi during those years. All of them on the CIA payroll, you think?
–It took Oswald over a year to arrange a return to the United States and he had to borrow money to get to Texas. Many other defectors returned to the U.S. during that period. See the HSCA study of these defectors starting here:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=40639
I think what you’re saying is, People *suspect* Oswald was on the CIA payroll. This graphic novel supposedly provides “overwhelming evidence” that he was. I ask again:
What evidence is that??
– If Oswald let the Russians know that he was fluent or at least knew more than basic Russian they would’ve been more suspicious of the possibility that he was a spy or a sleeper agent. So the fact that he got Russian lessons while in Russia doesn’t prove or disprove anything
– the fact Oswald was stationed at Asatugi alone doesn’t prove Oswald worked in intelligence but combined with all the other evidence, it raises the possibility that he could’ve been in contact with the CIA or other intelligence agencies while in the Marines
– other defectors received more scrutiny than Oswald
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to conclude that Oswald was probably an agent of some kind for one or more intelligence agencies. One thing doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the other…
Try reading “Me and Lee.” The author makes a pretty good case.
Jean,
A large number of people have reported seeing Oswald with Guy Bannister and David Ferrie, both of whom were working with the anti-Castro Cubans and the CIA. This was reported as early as the HSCA investigation, although the Warren Report was completely silent on this.
After the HSCA report of the 70s several persons with intelligence contacts have stated the Oswald definitely was working with US intelligence. These include Sergio Archaca Smith, William Gaudet (CIA asset), Hunter Leake (CIA agent), Raymond Broshears, Rolando Otero, Santos Miguel Gonzalez, Geologist Hamilton Johnson, James B. Wilcott, Antonio Veciano, Jack Martin and others. Those people with Latino names were anti-Castro Cubans working with the CIA.
In addition to these direct statements of LHO as CIA, there are many pieces of circumstantial evidence reported in the JFK literature, such as Oswald’s Minox camera, Hoover’s conclusion that someone was impersonating Oswald in Mexico City, the Bolton Ford incident and many others too numerous for this e-mail.
I’ve been accumulating information for several years, toying with the idea of writing yet another LHO book. I’d be very happy to discuss this with you in more detail if you’re interested. Admittedly most of these reports come from private researchers and some may be questionable. But there’s a huge amount of LHO-as-CIA information out there.
Dennis B.
Thanks, Dennis. Many people have alleged that Oswald worked for the CIA, but how credible are these stories?
People can *say* anything, but what is it based on?
Gaudet apparently only gave an author his opinion and had no personal knowledge of Oswald. Hamilton Johnson claimed he’d seen Oswald with CIA people in Houma, La., in summer 1963, but how many of us can accurately ID a stranger we saw three months ago? I think this applies to Veciana, as well. Oswald was so average in appearance that he had many “look-alikes” — Lovelady, e.g.
The HSCA concluded that Wilcott’s allegation was “not worthy of belief.” I think that’s true of others you list — Raymond Broshears, e.g., claimed that the assassins fled in a light plane that crashed near Corpus Christi:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=8213&relPageId=3
Since we need to be brief, instead of going down the list…. What do you consider the best evidence that Oswald was on the CIA payroll?
Jean,
We need to brief when typing an e-mail on the fly, but a thorough discussion of this issue cannot be brief.
But in this brief e-mail I can say there is no one piece of “best” evidence, because as you said, people can say anything and not every report will be true. Some pieces of evidence seem very strong but more importantly the cumulative effect of large numbers of witnesses and other evidence tend to make the case. One person can lie or be mistaken or be misreported, or two or three, but as the numbers mount, the likehood that they are all wrong gets very small.
I need to make a brief disclaimer here. I joined this discussion in which someone other than myself said there was overwhelming evidence that LHO was “on the CIA payroll.” I personally believe Oswald was involved in intelligence operations, but not necessarily for the CIA and I don’t know if he was “on the payroll” or even what being on the payroll means exactly.
I now know that you are apparently very familiar with the details of the JFK assassination, have a book on the subject, etc. so you probably know what I know about the assassination and likely more.
Clearly the exit wound behind Kennedy’s right ear and the entrance wound in his throat are all that are needed to prove that Oswald was not the lone assassin. You’ve moved beyond that position, I hope?