On October 10, 1963, a man named Lee Harvey Oswald came to the attention of a group of senior CIA officers in Langley, Virginia. Oswald had recently visited the Cuban consulate and Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. A CIA wiretap captured a man identifying himself as “Oswald.”
…Oct. 10, 1963: Six top CIA officers discuss Lee Harvey OswaldRead More »
[ICYMI: Part I: A veteran CIA officer analyzes the death of a president.]
“Why am I doing this?” Rolf Mowatt-Larssen asked the audience at the Coalition Against Political Assassinations’ conference in Dallas. “As a CIA officer it’s a little controversial. What is my goal? My goal is to have an answer [about who killed JFK] for myself and my children.” That may sound overly ingenuous to some, but most people in the room, myself included, had the same agenda.
Mowatt-Larssen was nine years old when he heard the news from Dallas.
…CIA tradecraft & JFK’s assassination: ‘The very top people’Read More »
(This article, titled “Under CIA Eyes,” first appeared in Counterpunch, Vol. 25 published in January 2020.).
“I was struck by the intimacy and the smallness of the whole surroundings,” said retired CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen after his first visit to Dealey Plaza in November 2019.
Dealey Plaza, a grassy Art Deco entry point to downtown Dallas, is where President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed on November 22, 1963. Hundreds of thousands of people still come from around the world to see the spot where the popular liberal president was ambushed. Many of them have the same reaction to the crime scene: the intimacy, the smallness.
Mowatt-Larssen was not just any tourist.
…CIA tradecraft & JFK’s assassination: A veteran officer analyzes the death of a presidentRead More »
[Excerpted from Scorpions’ Dance: The President, the Spymaster and Watergate (St Martin’s Press, 2022)]
“At ten past six that evening, Miami station chief Ted Shackley sent a cable to Des Fitzgerald with a copy going to Helms’ office. The station had heard from Luis Fernandez Rocha, the secretary general of the Cuban Student Directorate, whom Helms had grilled in his office almost exactly one year before. The DRE boys said they knew all about the suspected assassin.
…The CIA’s favorite Cubans linked Oswald to CastroRead More »
Expressing concern about the delay in the release of thousands of secret JFK assassination files, three Congressmen are seeking a meeting with “the appropriate Executive Branch official with knowledge and relevant information of the decision to postpone the release of the remaining records.”
Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and JIm McGovern (D-Mass.) signed a March 29 letter to President Biden saying it was “imperative that the remaining documents be released as soon as possible.”
…Three Congressmen seek White House meeting on JFK filesRead More »
As for those 14,000+ JFK files that still contain redactions, some friends tell me, “There’s nothing in there of significance.” This is reassuring. But is it true?
We may find out later this year. President Biden has ordered all JFK files to released by December 15, 2022. I’m looking forward to seeing the unredacted files of those CIA officers most knowledgable about Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was killed.
For example, Birch Dilworth O’Neal. O’Neal’s 224 page CIA personnel file, released in April 2018, still has scores of redactions.
Why is Birch O’Neal significant?
…Nothing in the JFK files? Take a look at Birch O’Neal.Read More »
I explained what we know now about what the JFK files that the CIA refuses to release.
Here’s a list from the National Archives of JFK assassination files that are still withheld in their entirety.
…Peter writes:
Thanks for making yourself accessible. I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts on Biden following Trump and continuing to withhold classification? Stay well and all the best.
Thanks Peter. The only good news in President Biden’s October 22 letter is the announcement that the National Archives plans to digitize the entire JFK collection, which is welcome and overdue. In the digital age, the Mary Ferrell Foundation says the full record of JFK’s assassination should be available to anybody anywhere.
Otherwise, I have four observations for the press and the interested public on the 58th anniversary of JFK’s death.
…Four Points About Biden’s Decision on the JFK FilesRead More »
The CIA now has until December 15, 2021 to produce the last of its JFK assassination files. As I told the Washington Post, I suspect this second delay in the legally-mandated release of the files is a “ruse.” I hope the CIA proves me wrong. In any case, we will learn more about the Agency’s intentions in six weeks.
Meanwhile, although BIden’s JFK records embargo is an important development, what we have learned in recent years is just as important as what we might learn. Case in point: this new video from Vince Palamara, the JFK research community’s leading expert on the Secret Service. The video illuminates one aspect of the JFK story that the CIA is still hiding 58 years after the fact.
…JFK Redacted: CIA Counterintelligence and the Failure of DallasRead More »
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