As confirmation hearings for John Brennan as the new director of the CIA get underway this week, the Senate and the public face basic issues of trust and transparency. How does the director of a necessarily secretive multi-billion-dollar agency retain public trust and maintain accountability within the democratically elected government?
One way is to come clean on the JFK story, especially the role of top CIA officials in the JFK story. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is an important symbolic test of the CIA’s credibility. A poll taken in 2003 found 34 percent of respondents held the agency responsible for JFK’s death.
There’s no “smoking gun” proof of a JFK conspiracy, but there is a pattern of suspicious activity on the part of some senior CIA operatives that has never been clarified. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr, recently said in Dallas, even his father Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy privately feared “rogue CIA” operatives were involved in his brother’s assassination.
In the face of such widespread doubts, the CIA’s best option in 2013 — its only politically realistic option — is to be transparent, especially about one of Brennan’s most controversial predecessors, the late Richard Helms, the director of the CIA from 1967 to 1973.
As I noted last month in the Huffington Post, the next director of the CIA is going to face a season of cynicism and suspicion later this year. On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the agency is still withholding from public view more than 1,100 files related to JFK’s death, most of them dating from Helms’s tenure as deputy director in 1963.
CIA officials will no doubt tell Brennan what they have stated publicly: that the 1,100 files are “not believed relevant” to the JFK assassination story.
That is not accurate. These files are relevant. They were collected internally by agency officials in the 1970s as they prepared for JFK investigations. At that time, the agency itself determined that the records were related to JFK’s assassination. Now CIA officials have told the National Archives and JFK scholars that they do not have the “time or resources” to review and release these JFK files.
The National Archives data base and other sources identify the secret CIA files that are directly relevant to the JFK assassination story.
These are the files of Agency officers who who reported to Helms, the deputy CIA director in 1963, and his colleague, James Angleton, the chief of counterintelligence.
Both men figured prominently in the intelligence failure that culminated in JFK’s death on November 22, 1963. Angleton’s office had monitored accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald closely from 1959 to 1963 and failed to identify him as a threat. Four senior officers reporting to Helms were informed of Oswald’s travels and Cuban contacts six weeks before JFK was killed. None expressed security concerns about the accused assassin.
The Top 5 JFK files John Brennan should release are these:
1) Howard Hunt’s operational files. Notorious as the leader of the Watergate burglars, Hunt served at Helms’s behest as chief of the CIA’s Domestic Contacts Division in 1963. During the Watergate affair, Hunt all but blackmailed Helms by threatening to talk in court about “numerous Illegal conspiracies” in which he had participated. Late in life Hunt made cryptic remarks about a possible CIA plot to kill JFK in 1963 that he called “the Big Event.”
The CIA retains six files containing 332 pages of material on Hunt, who died in 2007.
David Atlee Phillips’s operational files. Phillips was a protege of Helms and colleague of Hunt’s, known for the ruthless cleverness of his psychological warfare operations. Working undercover in Mexico City in 1963, Phillips was involved in the pre-assassination surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald. There was a credible report he was seen in Oswald’s company. In 1998, the CIA acknowledged that Phillips worked with ultra-right-wing Chilean military officers responsible for a political assassination in October 1970. He later founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers to defend the agency’s reputation.
The CIA retains four files containing 606 pages of material on Phillips, who died in 1987.
3) Eladio del Valle’s personality file: Eladio del Valle was a drug smuggler and gunman who worked for Havana organized crime boss Santos Trafficante in the early 1960s. He also worked with CIA officials reporting to Helms in the covert war on Cuba. He was an associate of John Martino, a gambling security expert who acknowledged advanced knowledge of a plan to shoot and kill Kennedy in Dallas. The Cuban intelligence service later conducted an investigation of JFK’s assassination and concluded that del Valle was involved. Del Valle was murdered in Miami in 1967. Fabian Escalante, retired chief of the Cuban counterintelligence service, told me “We are certain del Valle was involved somehow.”
When historian David Kaiser, author of The Road to Dallas, asked the CIA for the del Valle file, he was not allowed to see any of it.
4) George Joannides’s medal memo. In 1981 a retired undercover officer George Joannides received the Agency’s Career Intelligence Medal in part for his operations in 1963. At the time, of JFK’s death, Joannides served as chief of psychological warfare operations in Miami. Working with Phillips, he handled contacts with the Cuban Student Directorate, an anti-Castro exile group whose members tangled with Oswald in the summer of 1963. Fifteen years later, Joannides hid what he knew about Oswald’s pro-Castro antics in 1963 from the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Did the CIA honor Joannides for running an undercover psy-war operation involving Oswald and concealing it from congressional investigators? A five-page memo written in March 1981 explains why Joannides was given the Career Intelligence Medal. Access to the memo is now “denied in full” — for reasons of national security. Joannides died in 1990.
5) Files of Birch D. O’Neal. A former CIA station chief in Guatemala, O’Neal ran the counterintelligence office that kept the closest track of Lee Harvey Oswald from 1959 to 1963. As chief of the Special Investigations Group, O’Neal reported to counterintelligence chief Angleton. If there was a CIA effort to manipulate Oswald, O’Neal likely knew of it. The CIA retains three files on O’Neal’s operations, containing 222 pages of material.
Seventeen hours of interrogation of LHO (after the assassination)and little or no records to account for?
How can you tolerate a so called functioning democracy whose successive governments and judiciaries do not call lawless intelligence agencies to account. With a mainstream press that accepts institutionalised propaganda without question. With intelligence agencies that profess loyalty to the nation but deny justice, truth, and integrity. Intelligence agencies that are so bloated and omnipresent that most organisations and citizens are afraid to speak up against corruption. Citizens trust these institutions and fund these institutions, yet receive little in the way of transparency or accountability.
So true. The records are scant and written in point form,after the fact. No simultaneous transcript or tape recording of interrogations for perhaps the most famous or important suspect in the history of U.S. crime. What a farce. What a joke. For all we know, maybe Oswald told them he was undercover or other significant revelation, and couldn’t say more, but they kept that to themselves and off the record. Shame.
“Medinah Temple” members in Chicago were a who’s who in Wealth Politics CIA, NSA and former military operators from Korea and WWII. This and organizations like this are the circuit boxes for all the missing connections. Poles, Jews, Sicilians, Cubans and Greeks, as well as “Americani” professionals were all found here. Remember we were fighting a Cold War and all of these soldiers, immigrants and patriots were united against evil oppression, or those that seemed to be surrendering our freedom to it. What better place to find like minded, talented individuals who knew how to carry out and keep a secret? JFK like some subsequent leaders, stood for undesired “change”. The guiding members were always there in plain view, greeting us and attending the same events and places where we were. From 1961 to 1966, they accompanied us everywhere; work, school, church and social events. They wanted to confirm that our “Neophyte” was committed to the betterment and preservation of our society and how far he would go to accomplish this goal. My respect for these people fifty years later, still does not allow me to post their names and the parts they may have played.
The truth is, that they were all patriots, and they were all very well mannered, social and pleasant to be with. They believed that they were doing the right thing, and so did our family as well as other families in our circle. This is why all the truths that many of you have touched on, will never be entirely revealed. They didn’t just work on one project. The Government Agency members were always looking for connections to help overthrow Communist leaders and to promote capitalism around the globe. Respect for those things larger than us such as “Duty, Honor, Country”, and repecting your fellow man. φιλότιμο.
1.Here’s part of my wish list for the release of all records pertaining to this FBI/CIA records on LHO including service and evaluation records.
2. CIA documents regarding service of George H.W. Bush
3. FBI/CIA. Files on John Melvin Liggett
4. FBI/CIA files on Jack Rubenstien
5.CIA/FBI files on Roscoe White
6.CIA FBI Files on Eugene Hale Braeding
7. CIA files and service records for William Harvey
8. CIA FBI files on James Files/Sutton
Great posts going on here. I think the fact remains that people have to get off there behinds and demand some answers. There is so much evidence that this is a big lie. Has anybody considered a nation wide petition to re-open the JFK case. I think in the social media world it is possible to start such an event. Every second that goes by the possibility of getting to the truth gets chipped away. The Zapruder film is all that is really needed if you have half a brain to realize that the head shot came from the front. The 1978 House Select committee’s results showing a probable conspiracy and the Justice department doing nothing!! I think it is time for a new film at the level of Oliver Stones “JFK” to be linked to a web site that has a petition to re-open the case and demand answers. 70% to 80% of Americans don’t believe the Warren Commission’s answers. That is enough people to over ride the system. Enough is enough!! What is national security if we don’t find out the truth about the JFK assassination and defend the constitution and our rights?
Macro question I have come to define after reading many books and your files and I have not seen an answer nor do I know who should ask the question. Who in our government is authorized to cover up the JFK assassination of JFK? does not the CIA report to the Executive Branch. If LBJ wanted it covered up, does not his expiration (after he gave up the office) mean his successor can demand the opening of the CIA Files? Why is the CIA that was under Helms allowed to continue to hide these files that were kept away from the Warren Commission and the Committee on Assassinations? Does the request have to come from the Legislative Branch (House or Senate or the Justice Department)? Cannot the executive branch suspend the CIA and have independent auditors go into the CIA. I feel the Killing of our Commander and Chief is the most treacherous crime in our history. I read “the Third Bullet”. It is just as confusing as the Warren Commission and committee on Assassinations. This crime is equal to HAMLET and or Suleiman the Magnificent taking power. American care when Bullets replace ballots.
If the US of A ever get a leader who is independent, and popular. A leader who is able to work for the working people (which happens to be about most of us out there) then for certain they would want to bring him down. There is a very organized and pervasive group that controls everything and have people everywhere. All you need to do is understand the nature of money creation, the income tax and the real reasons we go to war to see this. As technology improves these power groups are going to be at an advantage: Killer drones at their control. media control, counterfeiting abilities, methods of undetectable assassinations, and the means of keeping a watchful eye on anyone that knows the truth and rebel. I may not live to see this but we are leaving a bad situation for the children of tomorrow.
No mystery as to who killed our president really. Every U.S. president and attorney general is an accessory after the fact to murder since the assassination in Dallas of November 22, 1963, among others. Suspect that first bullet hit was posterior upper thoracic paraspinal 6.5mm sabot from Dal-Tex,causing small vertebral fracture/chip/projectile out JFK’s anterior neck and his
splaying of his arms. Other two shots were nearly simultaneous from behind the president and the knoll. Keep the faith.
R.D., where is posterior entrance wound for the so called neck wound?
It’s that time of year, reading (again) about JFK Assasination and just found this site. I was 9 years old in Richmond, VA in 1963. I did not believe the single bullet theory when I was 10 years old, it has been a journey of discovery and disillusionment ever sense. I do think that JFK and the Unspeakable nails the why and generally the who of the plot. I also do strongly believe that since CIA was involved, getting each and every Oswald file released is worth continuing to pursue, particularly since there are still people alive that participated in the plot and certainly that fave continued to cover it up. Keep up the good work!!
There is one point of contention I must make in regards to this article. The statement that says “There’s no ‘smoking gun’ proof of a JFK conspiracy” should also say “to the general public’s current knowledge”.
Let’s hypothicate, if the suspected Bethesda autopsy images were proven to be fakes, including the techniques used, the specific areas of manipulation and the order in which they were applied were available, would that qualify as a “smoking gun”? Where did these autopsy images originate? Who submitted them as evidence and insisted they were the true autopsy images? The answer to those questions is our Government, they could hardly deny that at this point.
If an entire CIA team were to be identified in Dealey Plaza on the day of JFK’s assassination, might this qualify?
If it could be proven the LHO did not and could not have taken the fatal shot, would that qualify?
Let me suggest that there is in fact “smoking gun” evidence in existence. Evidence that is not circumstantial, not indirect, but rather direct phsysical evidence. Now I have said enough….just food for thought.
I should have said “There is no smoking gun proof that any one individual participated in a JFK conspiracy”
If I take your meaning correctly, (evidence that points to specific individuals as shooters, etc)…I suppose one could make that summation as far as current knowledge is concerned.
I have recently and seriously considered sending to you a “key” piece of evidence, that is currently unrecognized. I think that you, more than anyone, would immediately recognize the significance of that evidence, as it directly ties and exposes the CIA’s connection to Dealy Plaza events, accurately.
I do think that with this evidence, the real shooters will be revealed, and they are not LHO, they are CIA.
Looking at this now, can or has Jefferson Morley discussed or posted this evidence you mention here by now?
The smoking gun for me is the pictures of the three tramps: two of ’em are dead ringers for e. howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. They were mentioned in the Warren Report, Lee Bowers saw them get into a railroad car, he held off the trains until sheriff “jacked some shells into his shotgun” and ordered them off the train. (They were cursing the sheriff.)
Rockefeller Commission (1975) examined the tramp pics and without publishing any of them declared they were not Hunt & Sturgis.
HSCA had forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow do an investigation and found them to not be Hunt and Sturgis but admitted, “it looks like Hunt had some plastic surgery to bring his rather protruding ears back closer to his head.” He also thought the pics of Sturgis looked like the tramp but of course he said it ain’t so.
We need another prominate forensic anthropologist to say is is Hunt & Sturgis. Clyde Snow was very well known, “expert.”
John,
Agreed. And in the words of Fletcher Prouty or was it Donald Sutherland? Who Benefited?
LS
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison at his press conference on 12/26/67:
“President Johnson is currently the most active person in the country in protecting the assassins of John Kennedy.”
“President Johnson must have known by the time of the arrest that Oswald did not pull the trigger.”
“You are being fooled. Everyone in America is being fooled. The whole world is being fooled.”
“Why? Because of power – because if people knew the facts about the assassination they would not tolerate the people in power today. Keep in mind who profits most. Who appointed the Warren Commission? Who runs the FBI? Who runs the CIA? The President of the United States.”
And Garrison said this later on 2/21/68. Netherlands Television broadcast and interview of Jim Garrison
Jim Garrison: “President Kennedy was murdered by CIA elements. Those who were involved in the murder worked laboriously to give such a presentation that the suspicion would rest on others. This manner of organizing a murder is standard procedure within the CIA.
Joachim Joesten, The Dark Side of Lyndon Johnson, p. 267: “Garrison also said in this context that he had to assume that President Johnson knew that the CIA killed Kennedy because he appointed an investigation committee composed of mainly pro-CIA persons.”
Robert Morrow,
I too believe that there are many aspects of the Garrison case against Clay Shaw that are valuable to any discussion about the assassination and that a good deal of credible research rests on the shoulders of his efforts.
But I think that the simplistic days of assigning the assassination to a “pro-CIA” element or even a “rogue CIA” element are over and that it’s essential to look beyond the convenient stereotypes.
To begin with, beyond the obvious CIA involvement, who were the members of the Warren Commission and who were their investigators and what were their ties to the establishment? Could it be that the CIA was “pro some other entity other than an elected government” and not the reverse?
Have you studied Peter Grose’s “Gentleman Spy?”
LS
The CIA/military intelligence were working on behalf of the outside government of Dallas, TX oil executives (Murchison, Hunt, Byrd) & Lyndon Johnson.
Hoover, Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, GHW Bush all likely candidates for involvement.
I think McGeorge Bundy quickly acceded to the coup and was not a plotter. McCloy and Ford covered it up. As did Nixon.
JSA,
You’ve probably seen the movie that alludes to the scenario you’re talking about where JFK is canceling a trip to Chicago but he and Bobby are fighting over who’s going to break the news to Daly because they’re both afraid of him. It’s a poignantly funny scene.
Perhaps the most significant consideration is just how vast the conspiracy must have been to have involved multi-locations from which to choose.
Undoubtedly the machine which killed Kennedy flourished in Dallas but of course there are significant overlaps of influence with Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Birmingham, NYC, DC, etc. so I’m not suggesting that the ability and brazenness to execute an assassination rested solely in Dallas.
However, wouldn’t that beg the question that if Oswald was in Russia at the behest of the CIA or some other agency, if he was primed as a patsy in New Orleans, or even if he was the lone shooter (which is a nonstarter in my view), was he floating from location to location just waiting for the heads up? We know that not to be the case.
So if the assassination was to be in say, Chicago and he hadn’t been positioned there, who then was the Chicago “Oswald?” (Interestingly enough, Leslie Welding in Ft. Worth is associated with a firm in Chicago, Hosty was once an employee of FNB Chicago which loaned money to a number of independent oil operators in Dallas, Henry Crown of General Dynamics was headquartered there, and of course there’s Ruby so it’s not difficult to develop a theory – many have.)
But the fact remains, Oswald was in Dallas (or at least men who looked like him). If we go down the rabbit hole of other cities, then wouldn’t a major percentage of research involving Oswald simply collapse? Obviously too much has been uncovered based on his direct of indirect involvement to seriously investigate the possibility that the assassination might have happened elsewhere and without him. And if the argument could be made otherwise, then are those remaining undisclosed CIA documents pertaining to him all that significant – unless of course they might provide insight into method and other “Oswalds?” Off the top of your head, do you know the alleged time periods of other possible attempts?
LS
>>Off the top of your head, do you know the alleged time periods of other possible attempts?<<
There were possibly two previous assassination setups in November 1963. One in Chicago, early November; the other in Tampa, a few days before the Dallas event.
Here's an interesting link citing, among other things, a 1967 taped conversation between LBJ and John Connally: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2004/06/holland.htm
Scroll down about midway. Connally discusses a rumor involving four, 4-man hit teams sent to the US by Castro. I wonder if the rumor was partly true, with the hit teams being created and controlled by the usual suspects rather than Castro. (Disclosure: I don't think Oswald fired at Kennedy or was an integral part of a hit team, although I believe he killed Tippit.)
Thanks Bill,
I’ll have a look.
Two more elaborate plans, possibly two more patsies and two more to kill the patsies, two different local media to control in the immediate aftermath, etc.? It boggles the mind.
LS
Bill, I agree with you on the Tippitt killing. Tippitt was about to murder Oswald, but I think the reason for that is that Tippitt was supposed to do on the 22nd what Jack Ruby ended up doing on the 24th. Tippitt most probably knew Oswald didn’t kill JFK, but could have told the nation who did.
The attempt in Chicago was set for Nov. 2 when JFK was scheduled to attend a football game at Soldier Field involving two of the service academies. The other was p[lanned Nov. 18 in Tampa
I think the guy in Chicago who was allegedly groomed to be the set up was named Thomas Arthur Vallee. I could have the spelling wrong. Another man who claimed to be groomed (but shot his gun into the ceiling of a bank in El Paso) was named Richard Case Nagell. I read his book too, which is pretty interesting.
Vallee was a marksman, btw.
Google those two names, Vallee and Nagell. Who knows how many people were groomed or worked on to have on hand, but it looks to me like the JFK assassination was extremely well planned—not perfectly, as Lee Oswald didn’t get killed the same day and lived to be “interrogated” and the Dallas doctors didn’t fall into line right away—but the cover up did it’s job and the agencies, people and LBJ got away with it. The public remained confused by the apparent inconsistencies, but they trusted their government back then to not lie to them.
JSA,
My copy of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” is mangled from years of study and cross referencing. I thought that one of Dick Russell’s premises was that Nagell was one of Oswald’s shadows, not necessarily being set up as a separate patsy let alone in another city but more in place to monitor Oswald’s activity and adherence to the plan (I’m paraphrasing there and may be misinterpreting).
Regardless, Nagell was not carefully positioned at TSBD as was Oswald, and as an aside, he was significantly taller than LHO to have been one of the alleged doubles in Dallas at the time, a theory posed by some.
I think my point is that if there were more than one assassination plan in play in November, had the assassination not occurred in Dallas, then the people around Oswald (particularly those named in this crucial FOI request proposed by Jeff Morley) who have been so significant to dozens and dozens of researchers over the last decade might not even be on the radar. Other characters would have taken on importance and become the focus.
Perhaps they too, the Vallees as you mention, would lead to the same source; or maybe Joannides in the Tampa area was involved with others beyond just Oswald as he related to the Dallas plan, but as yet I don’t think we have proof of that.
I’m trying to recall if Milteer named the location of the upcoming assassination that he knew about?
So not to beat this horse to death, but if the assassination had happened in Chicago or Tampa, where would the deMohrenschildt and White Russian community connection with Magnolia/Mobil Oil figure in; where would Michael / Ruth Paine’s connection to the Hyde family or Bell Helicopter fit into the scenario? How would the influence of the Dallas establishment on Marina’s and Marguerite’s lives immediately after the murder prove important?
It’s easy enough to follow common threads as mentioned earlier, ie. Crown and General Dynamics Chicago (whose president, Frank Pace sat on the board of ABC Paramount and Time) having commonality with Bell and Hilton Hotels for that matter – perhaps the Chicago patsy’s wife and mother might have been ensconced at the Hilton in Chicago rather than 6 Flags? Or another case in point: Nagell’s possession of a booklet composed by a black sheep as it were of the blue blood Lamont family, his brother being an executive with one of JP Morgan’s banks and board member of several Texas companies.
The spaghetti bowl of possibilities that emerges with multi-plans is what boggles the mind. I join many who believe that this was a vast conspiracy and I admit that I’m a bit wedded to my particular theory about Dallas and not simply because that is where the assassination occurred. But the possibility of plans for Chicago or Tampa is by no means unfathomable and only confirms the vastness and expense of the coup d’etat, and the capacity to silence those who knew.
I joined the discussion for several reasons: to acknowledge John Kirsch’s insight into the Texas psyche and because I think that it is critical to not lose sight of “THE crime scene.”
But I also joined because the prospect of a Brennan appointment given his involvement in the drone program early on is an example of ‘continuity of governing’ (with emphasis on ‘ing’) since Kennedy was murdered. Bell benefited from Viet Nam, and Bell/Textron has been a significant factor in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle development for years.
LS
Who was Joe Shimon and what would he have known about Dallas? In Peter Janney’s book “Mary’s Mosaic”, on the murder of Mary Meyer, he is presented as having been a D.C. cop who was a U.S. Government assassin. In Janney’s book Shimon tells his daughter that if anything happens to him she should watch the movie “Executive Action” (Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan) because it shows how the JFK assassination was carried out. I had never heard of Shimon until Janney’s book came out. What is known about him?
I’m a native Texan. I knew a man who interviewed the notorious Billy Sol Estes after he was released from federal prison, just as Oliver Stone’s “JFK” was very much in the news. In the interview Estes made many claims about LBJ, but one line in particular struck me: “Those Harvard boys just didn’t know how to handle Texan men.” Wish I’d secured a copy of the video; the interviewer is deceased, but I understand Estes is still alive (though his trustworthiness is always an issue).
Send me an email to Morrow321@aol.com and I will send Billie Sol Estes very valuable and rare book “Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend”
Does the law recognise compliance,merely by the release of the files in ANY form ? Or are there stipulations about the acceptable amount of , or the nature of , redacted material? Is the issue really as cut and dried as “release vs. withhold” ??
(BTW , minor point : the “F” in AFIO is ‘former’, not ‘foreign’)
Kilduff’s Finger: When Malcolm Kilduff announced JFK’s death at Parkland Hospital that Friday afternoon he told the press gathered that he had spoken with “Dr. Burkley,” the President’s White House physician who had told Kilduff that the president’s death was due to a “simple matter of a bullet to the brain,” at which point Kilduff, using his right index finger, points to a spot over his right eye. That is the shot that killed President Kennedy.
The first official U.S. Government statement on the president’s assassination told the simple truth. The truth itself was soon thereafter shot as well, but it is not dead. We will breathe life back into it this year.
The film clip can be seen on You Tube.
Would you like to see where the head kill shot to JFK occurred? Right about here. Except higher – right in the hairline over the front right temple of JFK, where there is hard bone: http://www.flickr.com/photos/infrogmation/4093189660/in/set-72157622728362077
I scrolled through those photos, and there’s one (http://flic.kr/p/7eGEFf) that so blatantly shows the unbelievable degree to which the president was left completely exposed.
No police, no secret service, nothing! I mean a wide open target and a clear shot, like he’s being served up on a platter, so to speak. Incredible!
Much-needed piece Jeff. Helpful in getting some interest from those unfamiliar with the situation. Public pressure can’t hurt. Many thanks
Great article. Although I believe David Sanchez Morales’s files should definitely be on any “top 5” list. Morales confessed involvement to two people; his death was mysterious (according to Fonzi’s work, and others who knew him); & it was commonly known among associates of Morales that he was the only one capable of organizing such a hit. Where does JFKFacts stand on Morales?
Good point Steve. I had not checked the NARA data base for unreleased Morales files. I did just now and it turns out there is one file containing 61 pages of material. I would certainly put this on my list.
CIA David Morales, David Atlee Phillips & William King Harvey were all heavy drinkers. And they all hated JFK as did Lyndon Johnson, another person with a drinking problem (cases of Cutty Sark, the cheap stuff).
Affirmative!
There’s a credible report that Phillips was seen in Oswald’s company? You want to believe this; that doesn’t make it so. Every time Fonzi asked Veciana if Phillips was Bishop he always said no.
Was Oswald even in Dallas on September 1, 1963? Wasn’t he in New Orleans? Is there timeline that shows LHO was in Dallas? Any corroborating evidence? Did Oswald take a bus? Who drove him to Dallas? Other witnesses?
Phillips, a highly trained intelligence official, took time to meet two agents he was allegedly running on separate operations, at the same time, in a public place on the streets of Dallas?
“Phillips, a highly trained intelligence official, took time to meet two agents he was allegedly running on separate operations, at the same time, in a public place on the streets of Dallas?”
There’s no doubt that’s a great point. What I’m stuck on though, is how completely convinced Gaeton Fonzi was of the story’s veracity. He seemed to believe Veciana, out of fear, wouldn’t finger Phillips as Bishop. And, Veciana was shot in the head for some reason, after which he clammed up entirely.
As the saying goes, ‘He got the message.’
Lat year VECIANA sent MARIE FONZI a note, stating unequivcoly that the man he saw with LHO WAS IN FACT DAVID PHILLIPS. Marie had it framed.
Bob Dorff
Google “George Joannides Bobby Ray Inman.” My neighbor down the street, Bobby Ray Inman, is the one giving Joannides the award for which reason the CIA will not reveal.
I interview Bobbie Ray Inman a few years ago and he told me that he would go to his grave thinking that Fidel Castro killed JFK. Inman told me that at every intelligence job he had, he checked the files to see if Lee Harvey Oswald was US intelligence and he had come up with nothing.
The utterly ridiculous “Castro did it” line is the self serving lie that Lyndon Johnson and the intelligence operatives who murdered JFK have been saying since … Day 1 after the JFK assassination. LBJ pulled that line on Ted Sorensen on 11/23/63. It has been used numerous times since by the usual suspects.
Inman and Joannides: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/10/17/us/17inquire2.inline.jpg
(No, I do not think Inman was involved in the JFK assassination; just institutionally covering it up like they all do.)
Those CIA and military intelligence officers who murdered JFK were not rogue. (No, I do not think John McCone was involved.) It was a matter of policy although personal agendas were clearly mixed into the JFK assassination.
These CIA and military officers were given a task to do by Lyndon Johnson and his shadow government of very powerful Dallas, TX oil executives. The Rockefellers, who LBJ was very close to as well, are legitimate suspects in the JFK assassination.
David Atlee Phillips – CIA officer from Fort Worth. Fort Worth is were Gen. Edward Lansdales travel records shows he was staying on 11/22/63. Ask DiEugenio about this fact. That is the same Lansdale (Air Force) who was photographed at TSBD on 11/22/63.
As for the CIA and National Archives’s behavior on this: it is outrageous. Folks, should contact their congressmen and senators about this.
E. Howard Hunt – very close to Allen Dulles, admits to being a “backbencher” in the JFK assassination which he pins on Lyndon Johnson.
I agree with you, Robert, that the CIA people involved were not “rogue”. Rogues don’t cover things up with a Warren Commission featuring “rogue” Alan Dulles.
McCone was of course not institutional CIA; he was a hired political appointee, just as Stansfield Turner was. Neither could get to the bottom of what was really going on, where people like Helms and Angleton operated.
I am convinced that the main reason why we the people aren’t getting answers from our tax-funded CIA is because they as an institution are terribly guilty and are covering their collective a*ses. It’s a deep wound in our history and to confront it means you have to be of flexible mind, willing to question authority. I would presume that many Americans don’t want to do this. It’s too scary and uncomfortable for them, so they look away and make jokes about it, or try to pretend it’s no big deal. When Rosa Parks stayed in her bus seat on that day in 1955, most of her black compatriots either kept silent when she was confronted by the police or got off the bus because they didn’t want to get in trouble. Questioning authority was scary.
Dead on!
I think the adjective ‘rogue’ can still apply in that these were dishonest or unscrupulous agents that would agree, involve themselves, or plan such a conspiracy, whether at the suggestion or behest of a higher authority.
They may not have been loose cannons or out-of-control agents as the term usually implies, but even if they were, then we still can have a cover-up by others because of TACIT COLLUSION and major CYA going on.
The CIA could’ve been dismantled or rendered impotent at the height of the Cold War when perhaps, it was not in the best interests of the nation to do so at the time.
(Perhaps this is what Hoover meant when he’s quoted as saying something to the effect that the truth would be bad for this country.)
Ergo, as Sylvia Meagher succinctly put it, there are Accessories After-The-Fact.
Wow! This is the kind of thing that just blows me away: “Now CIA officials have told the National Archives and JFK scholars that they do not have the “time or resources” to review and release these JFK files.”
If they have not the “time or resources” to serve the public interest, then what in the name of Sam Hill do they have time for?
It’s a bit like going into a restaurant, paying the tab first, ordering a meal, and then being told we have niether the time or the resources to serve you dinner!
The CIA has devoted more time and resoures to the Katyn Forest massacre of 1942. The Cuban Missile Crisis has got attention, appropriately.
The CIA simply wants to avoid the subject of JFK and the Archives has acquiesced.
If interested parties had accepted the “official” version, and had not demanded responsible parties in Russia (Formerly USSR) release the documents, the world might still believe, as it did until sometime around the early 90’s, that Lee Harvey…er, I mean the Nazis did it.
Jeff, the CIA has far greater reason to repress/hide/subvert any knowledge of JFK/LHO and the Mexico City/Cuba event than anyone currently realizes. I’m sure hundreds of people have seen the evidence, if only they realized what they were looking at.
Ask yourselves a simple question, if you were a murderer or an accessory to murder, would you willfully hand out the evidence that would convict you? You know that you wouldn’t, not if you had any sense or the priviledge of claiming “National Security” to hide evidence.
Now ask yourselves, what evidence have I missed? Evidence that is in plain sight, that can be viewed in a moments notice? Yet,no one has connected the dots. This is evidence that cannot be hidden by the CIA, far too many people have seen it, even if they didn’t understand the implications or meaning. What evidence is in plain sight that damns the CIA? Think, 😀
I cannot understand how people do not see what is right in front of them. The Zapruder Film, the singularly most critical piece of evidence in the entire film, has never been mentioned, researched or discussed in the history of the assassination. Thinks to think about until November. You’re on the right track Jeff, stay the course.