On this day 55 years ago, a strange American visitor appeared at the Soviet and Cuban consulates in Mexico City. His name would soon be world famous: Lee Harvey Oswald. Within 24 hours, a joint US-Mexico intelligence gathering operation received wiretap reports on his unusual actions.
The story of what happened next is told in Bill Simpich’s groundbreaking new book, “State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald,” which is being serialized by MaryFerrell.org.
In a season of JFK sotries distinguished by ill-informed experts, bogus revelations, and a Fox News fibber, Simpich’s book qualifies as the most important piece of JFK scholarship to be published this year.
An attorney in San Francisco, Simpich sidesteps the tired debate over conspiracy (and anti-conspiracy) theories for a granular and factual account of how the CIA’s upper ranks responded to Oswald’s visit.
Using the latest JFK declassified records, Simpich lays bare a story that has long been obscured by official secrecy: why senior CIA officers concluded that someone impersonated Oswald seven weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy. You don’t have to agree with his interpretation of the causes of the assassination to recognize that he has established a new factual foundation for understanding Oswald’s mysterious trip to Mexico City.
The book’s preface is available now and new chapters will appearing weekly.
In the preface Simpich notes, “The JFK case is not an insoluble mystery, but more of a steeplechase. What we need is access to our history and a passion for tough-minded analysis.”
Why you should buy this book: because it is about facts, not theories.
We know the Oswalds contacted the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., seeking a visa in the Spring/Summer of 1963. Were Oswald seeking to enter Cuba via Mexico City, this action, in/of itself, presents a clue concerning his “fake” handlers who, post-JFK assassination, wanted Oswald to appear as Castro’s dupe. In 1963, few Americans knew of the subterranean depths from which the Cold War with Cuba was being waged, or by the many self-styled “patriots” with CIA/Military/Mob/Anti-Cuban connections, or prominent business people and socialites who lent their resources, voices, and financial backing to secret anti-Castro efforts. Owners, publishers, and editors of MSM outlets were co-opted to blanket the news with “supportive propaganda” favoring the CIA’s global anti-communist efforts in general, but anti-Castro efforts in particular. Oswald was well played as a pawn in a high-stakes winner take all gambit. The most prominent reason for Ruby to silence Oswald, in police custody, would be to protect Oswald’s direct handlers and associates in New Orleans, Mexico City, and in Dallas – places where the CIA/Military/Mob/Anti-Castro Cuban nexus thrived. The real Oswald denied going to Mexico City when questioned by DPD (Fritz). The CIA/FBI/ONI all surveilled Oswald during the summer of 1963, as Oswald made contacts with anti-Castro Cubans (DRE), mob associates (Oswald’s uncle), FBI agents (Quigley), probably Mr. Hurt at Nags Head, and CIA assets (Bringuier/Ed Butler/Guy Banister/Ruth Paine). Out of these subterranean groups emerged the JFK assassination. The ONLY group that could invoke total secrecy was the military, as CIA/FBI and Anti-Castro Cuban groups were compromised by Castro’s double-agents/informants. Once the “lone-nut” solution was agreed upon, getting a consensus on the necessary evidence required the heads of, and assets within investigating agencies, to produce the desired products: a lone nut communist sympathizer without confederates. That’s how you get away with murder; control of the bureaucracy from top assets down through the rank and file. In 1963 America, this is how things ‘worked’.
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Just a follow-up. In the context of the 1970s — Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, HSCA — wouldn’t CIA just have throw Harvey & Morales overboard in a “modified limited hangout” type thing?
Mitchum22…..what was it that William George Gaudet had to say about that? (Gaudet who at one time worked for and answered to N.Rockefeller)
“I feel certain that the Rockefeller Commission will not call me as a witness”
The same Gaudet who was in front of LHO applying for his Visa, same Gaudet who went to Mexico City, and who was in New Orleans the same time as LHO. The same Gaudet (CIA asset) who was in Dealy Plaza, (Tramp known as “Frenchie”? Recall the “Tramp” photo’s were not shown to the WC.
You’ve asked a very significant question, one that needs to be heavily examined. Maybe the answer is a simple one like….the risks outweighed the rewards. Personally, I feel there were enough agents/assets involved that to attempt to burn them was far too great a risk of everything becoming unraveled. So, the course to silence events was selected.
PS: From FBI report on W.G. Gaudet as possible source of information…
“he (Gaudet) appears to be the type of individual whos activities in behalf of the Bureau could not be controlled or directed and might cause the Bureau embarrassment.”
“Bill Gaudet……is a happy-go-lucky person who is only interested in making money with the least amount of effort…”
Is W.G. Gaudet a source of embarrassment for the CIA?
Probably also included elements of the mob, Harvey and Morales were close to organized crime figures like Johnny Rosselli who was close to Santos Trafficante (also an ally of Carlos Marcello) The medical coverup was not probably part of the actual plot, but a national security reaction to contain it to Oswald. Johnson, Hoover, etc. goal of Oswald did it alone wouldn’t fit with a truthful autopsy that would show more than one shooter, so they fudged the autopsy results.
Didn’t Simpich claim that Oswald worked on the U-2?
When you say “worked on the U-2”, do you mean the actual planes? If so, I don’t recall that claim appearing in Simpich’s writings. However, Oswald’s work as a radar operator is discussed in the “Legend” series of articles at OpEdNews (if I remember right it’s one of the early sections, maybe part 1 or part 2).
Been following Simpich’s series for years now on OpedNews. Great stuff and really looking forward to the book.
His conclusion that Dallas was the result of a Bill Harvey/David Morales “piggyback” plot — mousetrapping David Phillips, Angelton, Goodpasture, Helms et. al — does seem way too limiting. How could such a plot explain Ruby’s silencing of Oswald, the “SS men” on the knoll, the tampering either with Kennedy’s wounds or the autopsy photos (or both), the involvement of the DPD, and other things?
re: “too limiting”
I think it depends how wide you’re prepared to draw the net in terms of a conspiracy.
re: Ruby “silencing” Oswald
For Oswald to be an effective patsy, and given the level of expertise that was possessed by the conspirators according to some researchers, surely out of basic necessity he would have been insulated from the actual details of the plot and the identities of the protagonists? You’re not really a patsy if you know everything. To be a worthwhile patsy Oswald would presumably have been provided with some kind of version of events or explanation of what he was doing that would make sense to him at the time, but, was also an explanation that when provided to the authorities after the event would not offer any clues as to the actual perpetrators. In which case, if time and effort was expended setting Oswald up in this role, why would you then kill him? Why silence a patsy? It defeats the purpose of having a patsy in the first place.
Sorry, I realise I’m going off on a tangent there from from the topic of this post. But, in my view, the more organisations and people you include in the conspiracy, surely the more unwieldy the whole thing becomes in terms of the organisation and implementation? Whether it’s the DPD, Ruby, the doctors, whoever else you might want to add, each time you bring more people into the conspiracy the complexity increases in terms of the planning, co-ordination and execution.
Hence, I think it’s far more likely that if there was a conspiracy, surely it must have been a very small team with a very limited operational scope. I don’t see how in practical terms you can co-ordinate all of things you mention without a cast of dozens and dozens of people in a wide range of positions and roles.
That’s not to say that at face value some of these questions you mention don’t seem fishy. But really, when you try and imagine how all these things could be woven together into some kind of plan (even if some parts evolved or were made up on the spur of the moment), I struggle to imagine how that could be done.
To my way of thinking, a more “limited” theory immediately seems more plausible than a kitchen sink type of approach where everything has to be linked together into a massive theory of everything.
Yet another analysis that finds a key connection to the anti-Castro Cubans and their supporters in the spy community.
I’d like to toss in my endorsement as well, knowing first hand how deeply Bill has researched the documents I’m sure readers will be impressed with how much new information he is bringing to the fore. Reading his work will take you take deep into cold war counter intelligence and in particular the efforts being waged against the Cubans – its a level of detail few have seen up to this time.
I’m interested in those Cold War efforts that were in place some four or five years prior to Oswald’s original defection, and the intelligence unit in charge of that program. If you read E.H. Cookridge, it is apparent that a serious counter-intel operation was employed to infiltrate what were known as V-Men beyond Soviet borders via parachute. Why couldn’t that operation have morphed into a young Marine walking through customs?
This is getting good, really good. We all know the Warren report’s version of events: LHO was fed up with the USA & wanted to return to mother Russia via Cuba. Castro said no way, Jose. We know about the alleged payoff to kill JFK that J. Edgar Hoover spoke to LBJ about in a phone call shortly after the ambush of JFK. We know Lee’s brother believes he was just playing mind games in ‘spookville’ for lack of anything better to do.
Was Lee really in Mexico City? Was an impersonator also there at the same time? What’s up with that? Will Bill Simpich’s book fill in the blanks?
With an endorsement from Jeff Morley, it seems it delivers the goods. I will read it.
Thanks for the heads up, really looking forward to reading this. As I’ve commented here before, I think Simpich’s work with the primary source material is first class. His series of articles on the Oswald “Legend” are easily some of the most interesting, fresh and insightful material I’ve read on the assassination in a very long time.