Peter Dale Scott delves into one of the toughest questions about JFK assassination.In this WhoWhatWhy essay (also found on Global Research) he seeks “to show how Richard Helms first lied to the Warren Commission about the CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald.” Scott argue that “his performance, and that of other CIA officials up to the present, constituted significant obstruction of justice with respect to one of this country’s most important unsolved murder cases.
On the last page of his most recent book (“Where Angels Tread Lightly”), John Newman quotes DAP, “I know of no evidence that Fidel Castro, or the Soviets, encouraged Oswald.” John Newman then goes on to ask “Why would Phillips be in a position to make such a statement?. ” He quotes DAP again, ” I was an observer of Cuban and Soviet reaction in Mexico City when Lee Harvey Oswald contacted their embassies,” Newman goes on to say ” that Dulles operations (invasion of Cuba attempts) appeared to give Castro a motive to kill JFK– Phillips lets us in a bigger “unpopular”: the big secret was false. Getting Chief Justice Earl Warren to believe that it was true was one of the most successful deception operation in history”. And, I would add getting Gerald Ford to believe was a piece of cake.
What leads me to believe there was a conspiracy? As I very much do believe this,I thought I would list the simple issues that lead me to this conclusion.
There is minimal physical evidence of undoubted provenance. Can all the failings in the chains of custody be incompetence?(bullets, brains, rifles, cameras,documents etc), I find that highly unlikely.
Witnesses have changed their stories, and have talked of being persuaded to do so. There is no need to lean on witnesses in an honest investigation.
Robert Blakey is absolutely damning as to the conduct of the CIA. He is in a unique position to make that judgment.
The CIA’s project Mockingbird outlines how CIA media assets are to be exploited to manipulate news. Shockingly I think this has happened. In my eyes links between the CIA and media are established and have operated to stifle honest investigation.
The condition of JFK’s body on departure from the hands of civilian medical staff was established within the vagaries expected of witness testimony (and possible external persuasion at least of Dr Perry). Once in military control the evidential trail becomes a fog. My view is that the medical evidence is a mixture of lies(no large hole BOH), errors(face blown away) and fear induced silence(Burkley etc). I conclude there was a conspiracy to cover up JFK’s injuries, because the injuries fatally wounded the lone nut theory.
My final reason for believing in a conspiracy is unusual. The reaching of consensus as to what actually happened is taking an inordinate time. Why has it taken so long for the CIA to be placed centre stage? My conclusion is that they were and still are in a unique position to obfuscate eternally. No other culprit has the resources and the reach, and the contempt for democracy to keep the truth hidden.
I’ve come to the conclusion the research community should declare victory. They should come together to present a simple brief to the American people with full documentation proving the following:
o The overwhelming evidence of Oswald serving as an asset of the US intelligence services.
o The conditions for a coup were ripe in 1963 with a rabid JCS and a treacherous CIA.
o JFK personally felt a coup was possible during his presidency.
o The evidence of Oswald as the lone assailant in Dealey was bungled beyond any possibility of the suspect being convicted upon trial.
o The cover-up was real and massive and continues to this day with govt agencies refusing to provide key documents.
o WC lawyers alive today, the top 3 investigators for the HSCA, and heads of the ARRB are ALL in agreement the CIA stonewalled or obstructed their search for the truth.
I agree but would probably remove “JFK personally felt a coup was possible” as evidence. It’s his opinion, even though I agree that he said it and that it probably happened to him and to our government in 1963. I also would add the testimony of at least two doctors present at Parkland, one of whom was smeared for saying what he did by the LN camp, who tried to discredit him (Dr. Charles Crenshaw).
The problem is, this case is POLITICAL. From my experience, when arguments get political, there remains a core group who will always disagree, whether it’s arguing over the merits of going to war in Vietnam, desegregating the public schools, or even today, accepting the overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is driven by mankind’s carbon emissions. Our very own con-contributor, John McAdams refuses to accept the scientific consensus on global warming, so I remain doubtful that using logic and what facts we currently now know that contradicts the Warren Commission Report would sway the Professor to reconsider a conspiracy to take down JFK. With political arguments (and in our increasingly politically polarized society) you can argue facts and logic until you are blue in the face, but you’ll get about as far with the deniers as you would arguing Darwin in a fundamentalist church. I’ve encountered my personal share of “faith-based” believers that there was no conspiracy to take down JFK because they told me in effect, that “our military and CIA just would never do such a thing, so it didn’t happen, end of story.” They’ve got religion; and how do you argue with that??
“They’ve got religion; and how do you argue with that??”~JSA
Trotsky’s killer used an ice-pick.
\\][//
All true, JSA. All true.
I’m just continually amazed how the evidence is really there for all to see.
For instance, just came across this testimony from Davi Atlee Phillips being GRILLED by tough big city prosecutor Richard Sprague. In it, it puts a lie to everything McAdams and Jean have been maintaining about Oswald being this little blip on the radar in MC.
http://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/pdf/Phillips_11-27-76.pdf
Amazing stuff. And why no major media ever investigated this case purely as a major EFF-UP by the CIA and FBI, I’ll never know.
I’d be willing to guess that the reasons why the MSM haven’t fully investigated the JFK assassination case openly and honestly is because they can’t. Huh?
Well, they can’t because they are in bed with the military, with the CIA, and with the whole stinking incestuous “Homeland Security State” that cannot admit corruption of this magnitude, any more than Big Tobacco could admit that they LIED about nicotine and the cancer risk of smoking, that they hid the damning data from the public for so many years prior to the Surgeon General’s famous 1964 report. Secondly, when some media people actually did report with honesty (as NBC did when they aired Dr. Charles Crenshaw’s story early in the 1990’s on one of their nighttime shows with Hugh Downs), the Security State slaps back, HARD, issuing their own denials, and going after the few remaining people alive who were in a position to see discrepancies, like Dr. Crenshaw.
Finally, career-mindedness takes hold with journalists. Who would want to rock the boat and piss in the koolaid, by saying things about our military and intelligence agencies that put them in a bad light? That kind of muckraking takes guts, the kind Ida Tarbell had when she went after Standard Oil a century ago. Most career journalists don’t want to put themselves out on a limb, so they play it safe. They’d rather pay their mortgages and not get fired.
That’s my take on the situation. I think a century from now people will be laughing at how ridiculously naive Americans were to trust the Warren Commission, the CIA, Lyndon Johnson, Allen Dulles, and J. Edgar Hoover, to name a few men and institutions.
I’m with you on all the above, JSA.
Where the hell was the honest investigation of what happened and how it happened?
If it WAS simply a screw-up, there is no way there would be this much continuing subterfuge.
” I think a century from now people will be laughing at how ridiculously naive Americans were to trust the Warren Commission, the CIA, Lyndon Johnson, Allen Dulles, and J. Edgar Hoover, to name a few men and institutions.”
My only quibble with your comment is in this final paragraph. Opinion polls show that most Americans do not accept the official story, and these doubts were there from the very beginning.
Ruby’s murder of Oswald is, I think, what had people thinking conspiracy. It just looked too much like a professional hit carried out to keep someone from talking and a plot from unraveling. And every adult in the US knew that someone in Ruby’s profession either had lots of Mob contacts or was some kind of gangster himself.
In fact, journalists have been extremely hard on the military and intelligence agencies at various times and on various issues.
Think about how they dealt with the CIA and the FBI in the 70s.
Think about CBS and “The Selling of the Pentagon.”
Think about how the press provided a constant stream of negative coverage of the Vietnam War, and then in the 1980s bashed the Pentagon for wasting money on high-tech weapons.
The mainstream media simply don’t think there was a conspiracy to kill JFK.
The assertion that the press is in any way tough on the military, the CIA, or the FBI is absolutely ridiculous. The mainstream press regularly fawns over the military, praises politicians who take “tough” foreign policy stances, and treats the intelligence agencies with reverence. Anyone who goes against these institutions in any serious way is either completely marginalized or viciously attacked. Look at the way the press has treated Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald.
The mainstream press didn’t turn against the Vietnam War until it had already been going on for years. Even now, serious criticism of our reckless interventions in other countries’ affairs is rare in mainstream publications.
Nonsense, the mainstream media vilified Oswald as the assassin as soon as he was dead and before even the FBI report was released on Dec 9, 1963.
Times-Picayune Theory. Jean Davison in Oswald’s Game portrays Oswald as a committed Marxist and Castro partisan. Suggests he was in New Orleans when the New Orleans Times-Picayune published an AP interview Castro gave on September 7, 1963, in which the Cuban leader said he knew of U.S. plots against him and warned that those who instigated them would be subject to retribution. Davison believes that Oswald took this as inspiration to kill JFK in retaliation for the attempts to assassinate Fidel. – See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/they-cant-all-be-right/#sthash.x8jtikbJ.dpuf
Jsa:
You hit the nail on the head, the support of the LN theory is based on political and “theological” reasons. Liberals support global warming, so conservatives have to be against it. A political assassination of Kennedy would be good for liberals, according to some twisted logic, so conservatives have to be against it.
What really kills me is the argument that the investigators made innocent mistakes. This is ridiculous for a number of reasons.
First of all, arguing about the number of mistakes is a red herring. There is no data on the “normal” number of mistakes, so this is a way to distract from real issues and change the subject.
Also, arguing motivations for mistakes is a distraction. We should be focusing on facts because motivation puts one in the realm of theology and politics.
Moreso, the idea of mistakes is very misleading. Investigators are trained to perform procedures and follow protocols, in a normal investigation that they follow those protocols is not an issue and probably not much thought is put into it. If investigators don’t follow procedure, by say, not recording what a suspect says in custody, or not bagging evidence properly, they have to consciously break their normal pattern, which means it isn’t really a mistake.
You need to specify what part of his testimony shows Oswald to have been a bigger concern than the documentary record shows.
I would highly recommend reading the entire document for context but some highlights include:
——–
Sprague: Now with that additional information plus the fact of your having seen an intercept that this American was saying what you said. You saw in that transcript and had been trying to get out of the country with whatever the
arrangements the Soviets would make to Cuba and to Russia did this now become a most unusual situation
Mr Phillips: Yes sir it escalated the importance of it.
————-
Sprague: My question now is having first had your suspicions excited enough to send a cablegram to Washington in a situation that you say was somewhat unusual you now reach the most
unusual do you not go finding out that this person who was trying to get to Cuba and Russia and whatever places that you said turns out to have been a defector to Russia who was –
who had returned and come back to the United States. Now is that not unique, really?
Mr Phillips: It is.
—————-
My add: And Sprague doesn’t even mention Oswald is a self-admitted traitor (to the US embassy in Moscow).
More:
————
Mr Sprague: Did you ever have there in Mexico another American citizen who you were aware of giving an implication an offer of some information to the Soviets and wanted
to get to Cuba and Russia who had been a defector to Russia before
Mr Phillips: Not a package of this kind and a double-header of the Soviet Union. They were extremely unusual cases.
Mr Sprague: Did you ever have a case that had all of that in it?
Mr. Phillips: No, not all of that combination.
——————
Later on in the his testimony, as I suspected and DAP corroborates, there is no way in hell a traitorous defector comes to MC, visits both embassies AND speaks with the KGB, without being detained and placed under surveillance.
I should add: AND trying to illegally enter Cuba.
AND, as DAP related in a news article the day before and corroborated by the Russian translators, Oswald had also offered information to the embassies to help his cause.
You have Phillips saying this was “unusual.” But that proves what?
I think you need to prove that the CIA reaction is somehow “suspicious” or somehow proves a conspiracy.
Remember, I didn’t say what Oswald did was “usual.” I asked what “shows Oswald to have been a bigger concern than the documentary record shows.”
Well, I’ve been told by McAdams and Jean endlessly that there was nothing alarming about Oswald’s visit to the MC embassies.
It’s obvious from any objective reading of DAP’s testimony that it was highly provocative that a defector would act in this way.
It’s also obvious that DAP has no good answer why Oswald wasn’t immediately detained and then put under surveillance.
But we all know what did happen, per the CIA HQ response. Leave him alone. He’s “matured.”
And what I’m saying, professor, is the American public has been unaware of this chain of events due to a media blackout and CIA dilution, distortion and obstruction of the true facts for decades. And if they did understand them, I’m fine with letting the public what does and doesn’t lead to a conclusion of conspiracy.
BTW, Phillips first admitted it was “unusual” and later when pressed by Sprague admitted it was “unique.”
Unique. As in IT NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.
In the first place, he had not violated any law, so arresting him was out of the question.
As for “putting him under surveillance:” you are aware that Hosty got word of Oswald in Mexico City and did “put him under surveillance?”
But if you somehow think the CIA and then the FBI should have put a tail on him, you need some evidence that either agency had the manpower to do that to everybody who did something similar to what Oswald did.
The Professor: In the first place, he had not violated any law, so arresting him was out of the question.
Oswald was violating a law, actually. He was attempting to enter Cuba which was against the law at the time for any American citizen. Phillips acknowledges as much in the text and says he’s not sure if they notified FBI but it was a “grievous omission” if they didn’t.
McAdams: As for “putting him under surveillance:” you are aware that Hosty got word of Oswald in Mexico City and did “put him under surveillance?”
Better late than never, and after Oswald had been removed from the security watch list.
McAdams: But if you somehow think the CIA and then the FBI should have put a tail on him, you need some evidence that either agency had the manpower to do that to everybody who did something similar to what Oswald did.
As Phillips said, Oswald provocations at the embassy were unprecedented and if he had stayed in MC he would’ve been – should’ve been — found and questioned.
But beyond all that is Phillips incurious nature. He never asks Win Scott why they hadn’t notified the FBI immediately?
McAdams: But if you somehow think the CIA and then the FBI should have put a tail on him, you need some evidence that either agency had the manpower to do that to everybody who did something similar to what Oswald did.
Again, Phillips makes it clear in his testimony (with Sprague prodding) that the situation was unprecedented. A defector (a traitorous one at that) visiting the Communist embassies trying to illegally get a visa to Cuba and meeting with KGB. Phillips acknowledges it was that uniqueness that pushed the importance enough to contact HQ.
And then the CIA HQ notice, signed off by several high-ranking officials, was to lay off Oswald.
At the same time, somehow no one recalled Oswald had done similar provocations with the CIA-backed DRE in NO. Amazing.
For my part, I’ll believe the opinion of two big-city independent prosecutors with nearly perfect conviction rates over ANY federal investigation in this case.
Both Sprague and Tanenbaum thought the richest leads were in the CIA/Anti-Castro Cuban milieu. And their investigation was stymied once they started to mine this area for information.
And Phillips, after self-admitting he should’ve been more aggressive in making sure Oswald was detained and questioned, was rewarded with reaching the highest echelons of the CIA.
McAdams: As for “putting him under surveillance:” you are aware that Hosty got word of Oswald in Mexico City and did “put him under surveillance?”
More on this.
Hosty had already had the Oswalds under his purview as part of his defector status. He reopened the case in March 1963 according to his WC testimony. He was told about Oswalds visit to the Soviet embassy in Oct.25 but with apparently no additional detail (e.g. the attempt to get a Cubsn visa, his meeting with KGB).
From the WR:
Mr. HOSTY. Well, there were many questions to be resolved. I was quite interested in determining the nature of his contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. I had not resolved that on the 22d of November. We were still waiting to resolve that.
So while Phillips admits the unique and alarming nature of Oswalds embassy visits, stating that FBI should’ve been notified and Oswald detained, no such order or information reaches Hosty.
Trying to get a visa was not illegal, even if going to Cuba was.
But they did.
I don’t know what he means by “unprecedented.” It was not unprecedented for some American to walk into a Communist embassy and do something that would attract the interest of the CIA. The fact that you don’t know this is an example of “JFK tunnel vision:” once one gets into this case, one starts to believe that security agencies should have been as obsessed with Oswald as buffs circa 2015 are.
But the CIA knew perfectly well that KGB people were under “diplomatic cover” and also handled routine embassy business. There was no reason to think he was a Soviet agent.
You are going to need to explain this.
When Oswald returned to the U.S., it was the duty of the FBI to worry about him.
You don’t know much about bureaucracies, do you? Look at how the FBI handled information on the Boston Marathon bombers.
Do you have any evidence at all that the FBI shared the New Orleans thing with the CIA?
Both were fanatics whose thinking was dominated by their personal biases.
Detained? There was no basis for arresting him.
Hosty did try to question him, but failed to reach him.
How can you deny the FBI was notified and quote Hosty in the same post?
McAdams: How can you deny the FBI was notified and quote Hosty in the same post?
Hosty is on the record that he never knew the details of Oswald escapades in the Soviet and Cuban embassies, and especially that he had met with Kostikov.
Going to back to Phillips, this was a unique situation where a defector was obtaining a Cuban visa and speaking with KGB.
Why wasn’t Hosty told about the KGB contact?
In the first place, Sprague is leading the witness.
But in the second place, it was not unique, at least broadly considered.
You are cherry picking testimony, but you might check out the testimony of John Whitten. As recounted by Shenon:
A Cruel and Shocking Act, p. 110.
Maybe because the CIA was careful giving away sources and methods.
But what is your point? That Oswald was a Soviet spy, and the CIA wanted to cover that up?
McAdams,
When you read the exchange between Mr. Sprague and Mr. Phillips, do you keep in mind that Mr. Phillips is a spook? That Mr. Phillips is part of a Cult of Intelligence who’s main forte is deception?
You seem to read his testimony as though he was some Joe Schmoe citizen that would be intimidated by interrogation. As though Phillips wasn’t an expert at intrigue, rather than someone trained in giving subtle misleading testimony.
The side conversation with Mr. Thone seems to illustrate this. Do you recall what that was about Mr McAdams? A conversation on what the term “technically” means or implies in matters of giving testimony.
You seriously cannot detect Mr, Phillips dancing around the question as if he were some naive wide eyed Pollyanna?
I find it astonishing that you yourself seem to be so naive in such matters. Frankly I find it unbelievable that you could be. Your attitude seems to be that spies would never lie, which is a preposterous conviction given the nature of their craft.
\\][//
Your attitude seems to be that you can call a spy a liar merely because his testimony is inconvenient.
This started with Tannenbaum calling Phillips a “liar” because Phillips said the tapes of Oswald had been destroyed.
A ton of evidence supports Phillips on this.
If you have some other issue in mind, and want to call Phillips a liar on that, explain what the lie was and what your evidence is.
“Your attitude seems to be that you can call a spy a liar merely because his testimony is inconvenient.”~McAdams
No, actually it is because it is part of their professional MO to lie habitually on matters of so-called “national security”.
\\][//
Assassination Records Review Board Final Determination Notification
ORIGINATOR : HSCA
FROM : PHILLIPS, DAVID ATLEE
DATE : 11/27/76
PAGES : 135
DOCUMENT TYPE : TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECT(S) : OSWALD, LEE, POST RUSSIAN PERIOD, TRAVEL, TRIP TO
MEXICO; CIA, METHODOLOGY; PHILLIPS, DAVID A., TESTIMONY
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE;
CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
[…]
Mr. Phillips: He later contacted Mr. Miller, and that presumably triggered Mr. Miller’s call to me to talk about the secrecy agreement.
Mr. Sprague: And who was it that said to you that this technically applies?
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Miller.
Mr. Sprague: And what else was covered in that conversation, if anything?
Mr. Phillips: That was it, sir, it was very brief.
Mr. Sprague: Well, that is what my question is. Was the whole content of that conversation Mr. Miller’s telling
you that technically that agreement still was binding on you?
Mr. Phillips: I …Yes, sir, and also to tell me something like they weren’t going to tell me what to do or anything like that.
Mr. Thone: Excuse me, Mr. Sprague, but when they tell you technically, again, you are a thirty-year veteran of the CIA, aren’t they cautioning you to be very careful in your choice of language. Why would he bring up the language well, no, it doesn’t apply, but technically it does apply?
Mr. Phillips: Sir, I don’t know, but it was in the context of letting me know that they were not saying to me don’t go down and testify, and so that is why I did not see it as a threat.
. . . . .
WTF???~ww
http://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/pdf/Phillips_11-27-76.pdf
\\][//
“But I will tell you this, that when the record comes out, we will find that there was never a photograph taken of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City. We will find out that Lee Harvey Oswald never visited, let me put it, that is a categorical statement, there, there, we will find out there is no evidence, first of all no proof of that. Second there is no evidence to show that Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Soviet embassy.”
David Atlee Philips as quoted by Mark Lane
This was at a panel presentation in 1977 at USC and was in response to a question from a student in the audience. I have had read somewhere that there was a recording of the panel but I have not searched for it.
I don’t think that David Phillips was involved in a JFK conspiracy. I think he was involved in an operation to eventually get Oswald into Cuba. I think the purpose of impersonating Oswald was to lead the Cubans to think that the real Oswald was an authentic leftist. The thinking being if Oswald was a US intelligence asset then an impostor wouldn’t be needed. I think that what happened in late September and early October of 63 was shaping and priming for Oswald to enter Cuba at some point in the not so distant future.
“According to Larry Hancock, the author of Someone Would Have Talked, just before his death Phillips told Kevin Walsh, an investigator with the House Select Committee on Assassinations: “My final take on the assassination is there was a conspiracy, likely including American intelligence officers.”
From Spartacus David Atlee Phillips page
So it seems that David Atlee Phillips himself thought there was a conspiracy.
In the first place, Lane is entirely unreliable, and will spin anything to fit his purposes.
In the second place, the quote (which I would judge to be genuine) simply shows Phillips tangled up in his own syntax.
Did Phillips tell the HSCA that Oswald had not visited Mexico City?
McAdams: I don’t know what he means by “unprecedented.” It was not unprecedented for some American to walk into a Communist embassy and do something that would attract the interest of the CIA. The fact that you don’t know this is an example of “JFK tunnel vision:” once one gets into this case, one starts to believe that security agencies should have been as obsessed with Oswald as buffs circa 2015 are.
Phillips agreed with Sprague it was a unique situation he had never seen previously. That again refutes the CIA’s initial response that Oswald was just a blip on the radar.
But the CIA knew perfectly well that KGB people were under “diplomatic cover” and also handled routine embassy business. There was no reason to think he was a Soviet agent.
McAdams: You are going to need to explain this.
The Oswald has “matured” cable that Morley has posted here numerous times.
McAdams: Do you have any evidence at all that the FBI shared the New Orleans thing with the CIA?
Believe the CIA new about NO. That’s what they pulled out immediately following the assassination from JMWAVE files.
McAdams: Both were fanatics whose thinking was dominated by their personal biases.
Well that shows me your true colors, professor. Sprague and Tanenbaum both said they came into the case with no pre-conceptions – only to get to the truth. Both led exemplary legal careers.
Your turn to prove they were “fanatics” and not the best prosecuting attorneys in the country.
This was clearly drawn from Richard Snyder, in the Moscow embassy. So how was this sinister?
But your argument was that they somehow should have treated Oswald differently, since they knew about the New Orleans activities of Oswald. Did MEXI or Langley have that information in the Oswald file and accessible before the assassination?
[Posted in wrong thread, TomS]
McAdams: This was clearly drawn from Richard Snyder, in the Moscow embassy. So how was this sinister?
Oswald had just represented the FPCC on TV, radio and print in NO, taking on the CIA-backed DRE. As Castro said following the assassination, he would’ve loved for his FPCC to get that much coverage. That’s one reason he smelled a rat.
But as Jane Roman said, CIA HQ wrote MC station back with the old description of Oswald never mentioning his latest enterprise. And that she knew she was lying when she signed off on the memo.
So MC station downplays Oswald. FBI doesn’t learn about Kostikov, which Hosty said would’ve made Oswald high priority, until after the assassination. And he was told to not mention Kostikov during the WC hearings.
Either major eff-up or part of the plot. Your choice. But the CIA ain’t telling, that’s for sure.
McAdams: But your argument was that they somehow should have treated Oswald differently, since they knew about the New Orleans activities of Oswald. Did MEXI or Langley have that information in the Oswald file and accessible before the assassination?
Again, it’s obvious the information on Oswald’s NO activities was PURPOSELY withheld from MC station, which downgraded his alert status. And the Kostikov transcript is never relayed to FBI which Hosty himself said would’ve made the difference.
Again, eff-up or keep Oswald in the frame without getting too much heat on him before the assassination.
You can’t underestimate the Oswald/Kostikov interaction. It’s how Johnson was able to get Warren to head the commission.
And I don’t believe the CIA “maturing” memo, e.g. lay down on Oswald, was known by HSCA and definitely not WC.
This is what Morley and Newman maneuvered her into saying by showing her 30+ year old memos that she did not remember.
She wrote a letter to the Washington Post condemning the way they used her testimony.
Which of course makes sense under the heading “sources and methods,” and the fact that officials did not want to gin up theories of a Communist conspiracy.
Which was only sinister if you believe there was a Communist conspiracy.
Do you?
And how is that obvious? You can huff and puff and claim that it is, but you don’t know that.
Analysis of intelligence was a Langley, not MEXI.
And are you really assuming that bureaucracies process information efficiently? How did the FBI do with information on the Boston Marathon bombers?
And this proves conspiracy how?
Johnson was a master at bending people to his will. He would use any argument he could.
And Washington officials were wary of theories that Castro or the Soviets killed Kennedy, since that had dangerous foreign policy implications.
Do you fault them for that?
Bogman,
You have ignored this, which puts Oswald’s visit in proper perspective. Testimony of John Whitten:
Shenon, A Cruel and Shocking Act, p. 110.
McAdams: And Washington officials were wary of theories that Castro or the Soviets killed Kennedy, since that had dangerous foreign policy implications.
That is my point, and really the point of James Douglas and others before him. That was the “WWIII” virus that laid waiting for anyone in government wanting to delve too deeply into the spook stuff.
And you’ll have to explain to me how Oswald’s actions were fairly innocuous and normal and not really connecting him to a communist conspiracy, but after the assassination those same activities could’ve caused nuclear war.
I’ll have to research the context of Whitten’s response a bit more to have a reply.
But isn’t Whitten also the CIA man who told HSCA his investigation of the agency’s pre-assassination activities was stymied – much like Sprague’s and Tanenbaum’s – when he started looking at the CIA/Anti-Castro crowd? Think he said he would’ve heavily investigated the agents and assets of JMWAVE.
He was then removed from the investigation by Helms and Angleton and his career foundered after.
David Atlee Phillips, who by the opinion of Sprague and Tanenbaum, lied to Congress, later moved to the top echelons of the agency. Amazing how that worked out for him.
Delving into U.S. spook stuff would not have risked WWIII.
The notion that some communist power had Kennedy assassinated certainly would. Jeff Morley’s own account of the Alvarado thing in Mexico City shows the CIA people (Scott and Phillips) being pretty circumspect.
Mann, a strong anti-Communist, was a different matter.
Who said “innocuous” or “normal?”
Oswald was easily viewed as a communist (although he insisted he was only a Marxist), he had lived in the Soviet Union, been active in a communist front organization (even if only his one person rump chapter) supported Castro on New Orleans radio, and tried to get into Cuba.
And he was corresponding with the CPUSA.
So superficially, he looked like a communist assassin, and his “connections” with communist governments could certainly be spun to indicate one of them enlisted him as an assassin.
Think of the “logic” that the left-leaning conspiracists use to “tie” Oswald to the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, the FBI or any other group on the right?
Do you doubt that right-leaning types would use the same sort of logic to tie Oswald to communist organizations or governments?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/birch.htm
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/birch.gif
Just my paranoid pessimistic personal opinion from reading books primarily but I think Helms lied to cover up murders performed by the Company, his employer, the CIA. He was loyal to them, protecting us all from the communists in particular but in fact also protecting U S corporate interests also . What’s the old saying “What’s good for business is good for the people” (at least the stockholders). In spite of their charter prohibiting domestic operations there are unanswered questions they continue to ignore and retain records illegally about regarding the murders of US citizens John F Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and, witnesses to/involved in them.
In Warren Commission Transcripts, Commission Member and former CIA Director Dulles stated that he would expect CIA officials to lie under Oath to protect the CIA position, even at the expense of the truth. It has been demonstrated that the CIA had much to hide and Mr. Helms more than played his part.
Furthermore, despite saying that they handed-over all relevant records to the Warren Commission, the CIA later admitted that they had not, were not censured and yet still offered-up the same liaison officer to the HSCA who had helped mislead Justice Warren’s inquiry! You couldn’t make it up!
A fact not in dispute is that someone impersonated LHO in Mexico City. Lots of Lone Nuts were running around in 1963 but only the Krazy Kommie Kid was impersonated at the Cuban Embassy mere weeks before he was charged as being JFK’s sole killer. Who was behind the LHO impersonator and why did this episode take place? The U.S. government may never reveal what is known about the “who”. But as sure as 1+1=2 the “why” was that LHO was being set up as the pasty with the Cubans and Russians as his supposed sponsors.
“But as sure as 1+1=2 the “why” was that LHO was being set up as the pasty with the Cubans and Russians as his supposed sponsors.” ~Sandy K.
BINGO! Exactly Sandy, you hit it right on the bulls eye.
\\][//
But it is very much in dispute.
Do you want to claim all the evidence of Oswald in Mexico City is faked?
Go ahead.
Do you want to disclaim any evidence that Oswald was impersonated?
A Little Incident in Mexico City http://22november1963.org.uk/a-little-incident-in-mexico-city
That’s all just conspiracy nonsense.
It says, for example, that Duran identified the person who visited as somebody other than Oswald.
That’s not true. When she saw media coverage in the wake of the assassination, she thought she recognized the fellow, and check embassy files. She found out it was he.
You can see her in the 1993 Frontline documentary saying it was Oswald.
I think most on this site would feel the same about the content that is promoted on your blog in the spirit of CIA Doc. #1035-960. http://22november1963.org.uk/cia-warren-report-critics
Professor, have you actually met or interviewed any witnesses connected to the assassination?
According to interviews Anthony Summers conducted with Silvia Durán, ‘it had been not any visual image she initially saw but the name “Lee Oswald” in the newspaper after the assassination that made her think at once of the person who came to her office.’
The same can be said for Oscar Contreras, who along with other students at Mexico City’s National University, was befriended by a ‘Lee Oswald’ and like Consul Azcue, Contreras physical description did not match the man arrested in Dallas. (Not In Your Lifetime, Summers, pg 322-323,)
It emerged later that when Duran was interviewed by the Mexican authorities soon after the assassination she described the man who visited the Cuban consul’s office as being “blond-haired” and with “blue or green eyes”. Neither detail fits in with the authentic Oswald. But these details had been removed from the statement by the time it reached the Warren Commission.
Duran was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. This testimony is classified. However, in 1979 Duran told the author, Anthony Summers that she told the HSCA that the man who visited the office was about her size (5 feet 3.5 inches). This created problems as Oswald was 5 feet 9.5 inches. When Summers showed Duran a film of Oswald taken at the time of his arrest, Duran said: “The man on the film is not like the man I saw here in Mexico City.”
According to HSCA testimony of Eusebio Azcue López, he could also not identify Oswald as the man he encountered in the consulate http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954#relPageId=140
But Mirabal did. And so did Duran, in spite of her somewhat inaccurate description.
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800&search=Duran#relPageId=154
Duran said the same thing to “Frontline” in 1993.
But the best evidence is the handwriting. Do you think that was all faked?
Including the visa application that the Castro government gave to the WC (and then another copy to the HSCA)?
David,
“Duran was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. This testimony is classified.”
No, it isn’t. Who told you that? It was published by the HSCA.
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954&search=tirado#relPageId=10&tab=page
Yes, she heard the name before seeing the newspaper photo but she also checked the photo on his application in the Consulate records and it was the same man:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954&search=newspaper_AND+oswald+AND+tirado#relPageId=83&tab=page
She had helped him fill out that application.
“And so did Duran, in spite of her somewhat inaccurate description.”~McAdams
A short blond guy that turns red in the face when he talks… Hahahaha!! “somewhat” you say???
Give me a break McAdams, this isn’t Comedy Central here.
You SEEM to forget the Mrs Duran was tortured into compliance by the Mexican police.
But of course that is only an appearance.
You know full well what you are doing here with your screwy take on everything to do with the assassination of JFK.
A strategy of tension. A cognitive infiltration. A stirring of mud into the beaker of truth and clarity. Your MO is as clear as the monkeyboys who perpetrated the coup d’etat.
You and your sidekicks are not fooling anyone but yourselves here.
\\][//
Azcue had much closer contact with this Oswald than Mirabel did. Although Mirabal told the HSCA that the man identifying himself as Oswald on his two visits to the Consul was the same man in the photographs on Oswald’s visa application, Diaz admitted that he only caught glimpses of the man. http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=799&relPageId=219
Also, how do you refute Oscar Contreras and the fact his physical description of this ‘Oswald’ matches that of Azcue and even Duran’s description does not match the Oswald arrested in Dallas.
Jean, was this photo shown to her during her harsh interrogation by Mexican authorities on behalf of the CIA? https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Sylvia_Durans_Interrogation.html
I trust Summers to be honest about this, but Duran’s testimony is that she went down to the Embassy, got out the copy of the visa application, and saw that “Lee Oswald’s” picture matched the fellow who had been arrested in Dallas.
Do you want to claim that the CIA had sneaked into the Cuban Embassy and put a forged copy of the visa application into the files?
But then, Castro’s government supplied copies of the visa application both to the WC and (later) to the HSCA.
So go ahead. Include Castro in the plot.
And while you are at it, the three KGB guys at the Soviet Embassy. They identified Oswald as the fellow who visited.
This is the visa application supplied to the WC by the Cuban government with Oswald’s photo and signature:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/fc/f9/47/fcf94749e3a5572654892ffbeed75907.jpg
When Duran was shown this document she said that she’d checked the photo to see if it matched the person who handed it to her, and that the document would’ve been signed in her presence. She thought the number written at the top was in her hand.
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954&relPageId=43&search=tirado_AND check
Another lying witness, forged signature, fake photo?
Duran’s name and phone number were in Oswald’s address book, so add that to the list.
Note: her last name was Tirado by then, but it’s Sylvia Duran.
So, now you heartily accept the word of KGB agents? You wanted no part of that when I posted earlier the Soviets thought they were being set up as scapegoats and believed a domestic conspiracy killed JFK.
Castro being responsible would be Shenon’s axe to grind not mine. Like the Soviets, Castro immediately saw through the CIA’s ruse.
Castro: ‘Oswald Could Not Have Been the One Who Killed Kennedy’ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/11/castro-oswald-could-not-have-been-the-one-who-killed-kennedy/281674/
Really David, how can you possibly maintain this line after reading the Washington Post article of November 16,1993 by George Lardner and Walter Pincus? Kostikov , Nechiporenko ,Yatzkov, Duran and Azcue were all taken in by an imposter-or are members of a conspiracy? They all identified Oswald as the man at the Embassies in Mexico City.
Give it up. Oswald was there, the Cubans said he was, the Soviets said he was. What more do you want-a videotape?
Jean, the physical description Duran offered in no way resembled Oswald, yet it was similar to descriptions offered by Azcue and Contreras.
Why was this description by Duran deleted from subsequent reports and not at all included in the WCR? Yourself and the Professor need to have Duran (along with Brennan and Markham) propped up on a pedestal to prove your case, yet even the HSCA noted in light of inconsistencies in her testimony, she may not be the most reliable witness. http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=799#relPageId=260&tab=page
As for Oswald’s signature being on the application, “it does not by itself rule out the possibility that someone impersonated Oswald in contacts with the Cuban and Soviet Embassies.” The Cuban Consulate allowed visa applicants to take blank applications out of the Consulate to be returned when completed and Duran, while claiming to be certain that Oswald signed the application in her presence, gave a description of Oswald that did not resemble his true physical appearance; describing him as being about 5’6″, blonde, and over 30 years of age. http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=799#relPageId=256&tab=page
Obviously, given her treatment by authorities her statements in no way can be taken at face value, while those of Azcue and Contreras can. Not surprising, the WC failed to hear testimony from Azcue who had direct contact with ‘Oswald’, but they include Mirabel who admitted only catching passing glimpses.
Height = 5′ 3″ – 5′ 3 3/4″…..
HSCA didn’t question Silvia, quoted in 1967 report, details omitted from transcripts of Mexican
secret police 1963 interviews of Duran?: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=8186#relPageId=5&tab=page
Photon, Azcue said no such thing and you know he was never called by the WC. http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954#relPageId=140
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800&relPageId=280
The Russian Oswald Documents http://jfk-info.com/trans-1.htm
No, she was telling her family about Oswald visiting the embassy before she was picked up by Mexican police on Saturday evening.
In fact, she thought a cousin of hers had ratted her out.
The Mexican police subjected her to tough questioning, apparently trying to get her to admit she was part of a conspiracy with Oswald.
OK, so an impostor took the application out of the embassy, had Oswald sign it, attached Oswald’s photo to it, and then returned it to Duran.
That makes perfect sense.
And of course, she was precise enough in her testimony to accurately describe the impostor who looked very different from Oswald, but failed to notice that the photo on the visa application looked nothing like the impostor.
Why does this claim keep popping up?
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954#relPageId=10
Sorry, that was an error, I meant to type,
I quoted excerpts HSCA’s Cornwell questioning her, earlier in the same comment.
The suppositions of the Soviets in a Cold War context are different from the factual testimony of Russians in a post-Cold War context.
So, the WC failed to hear testimony from Duran, Azcue or Mirabel.
Who supposedly did Kostikov et al offer testimony to for the Soviets perspective?
David,
The Cuban government and Castro have said that Oswald came to the Consulate, not an imposter. The Cuban government submitted an official account of Oswald’s dealings with Duran for the WC.
Right side bottom of this page, Cuban official Raul Roa wrote, as Duran herself told the HSCA, that she gave Oswald her name and a phone number so that he could check back about the status of his application:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=616&tab=page
And here it is, Duran’s name and phone number in Oswald’s address book:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1133#relPageId=78&tab=page
Oswald also talked about his visit to the Cuban consulate in a Nov. 9 letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington.
It’s not in dispute, except in case of lack of mental hygiene, that Oswald was impersonated by phone.
John, on the matter of someone impersonating Oswald, I’d like to get your take on the “Odio Incident”-where Sylvia Odio and her sister recognized the alleged assassin of JFK as one of the 3 men who visited their home in late September of 1963.
Here it is:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/odio.htm
I think it’s mistaken identity, driven by a strong dose of suggestion. I have no doubt that some Anglo did visit her with two Cubans, and that she was later told he was “loco” and thought Kennedy should be killed.
In her own testimony, she thought “Leon did it” before she blacked out, and then when she woke up, Oswald was being identified as the chief suspect in all the media.
As she said:
There remains an ominous possibility that the CIA was aware that “things” were happening around Oswald (Mexico City) and while not directly involved they did not want to prevent the assassination as the agency would benefit. This keeps their hands totally clean but would be treason of the worst kind for not flagging Oswald as suspicious prior to Nov 22.
I agree with Peter Dale Scott on this subject of the CIA and the murder of JFK. To this day, they refuse to make public certain files relating to the JFK assassination. To me, this is, in and of itself, admission of guilt in the murder of JFK. If the “lone nut” LHO really did kill JFK then the CIA should have nothing to hide, but they do and that is why they refuse to hand over files relating to the JFK assassination.
Here are four FBI documents about what was sent to Dallas. I think everyone agrees that the CIA turned over material to the Mexico FBI Legat Clark Anderson, who had his aide Eldon Rudd carry it by plane to Shanklin in Dallas.
1.
Shanklin memo to his own file, 11/22, which says that arrangements had been made for the Legat to send “a transcript of the call, as well as pictures”:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1465&search=%22actual_tape+from+which%22#relPageId=27&tab=page
2. Rudd memo to Shanklin 11/23. (This is apparently the cover sheet and transcript Rudd brought to Dallas, 3 pp.):
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61085#relPageId=2&tab=page
3. Cable Shanklin to headquarters, 11/23:
“Set forth hereinafter is transcript of conversation received by Legat Mexico from confidential source…It should be noted that the actual tape from which the transcript was made has been erased.”
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1465&search=%22actual_tape+from+which%22#relPageId=13&tab=page
4. 11/25 cable from Anderson saying, “There seems to be some confusion in that no tapes were taken to Dallas but only typewritten transcripts…”
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=799#relPageId=12&tab=page
Who would know better what was sent to Dallas than the three people most directly involved?
Are they all lying? All the cables forged? Or what?
Someone should’ve asked David Atlee Phillips… oh that’s right. They tried. But he walked out of a Congressional hearing and was never brought back.
Then the two lead investigators – city prosecutors Sprague and Tanenbaum who were independent of the feds — were forced out and Blakey brought in who was more than happy to sign the CIA secrecy oath. And never confront Phillips.
Whatta crock.
Phillips should have been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for his behavior. Lying to Congress about matters relating to the assassination of a U.S. president is about as low as it gets.
Is this the Tannenbaum story were he called Phillips a liar for claiming the tapes had been destroyed?
If so, Tannenbaum acted shamefully, based on a bogus notion, and Phillips would have been foolish to continue.
Buffs seem to think that any kind of abuse of people they don’t like (even mild-mannered Goody Two Shoes like the Paines) is OK.
Uh, professor, I know it’s hard for you to believe, but the CIA doesn’t – or at least shouldn’t – have authority over a Congressional investigation.
With your “logic,” I suppose Hillary should’ve left her hearing as well?
Unless he had been subpoenaed, Phillips was under no obligation to put up with personal abuse.
And Tannenbaum was acting like an asshole in any event. He was just flat wrong about the supposed tape “not of Oswald.”
“Are they all lying? All the cables forged? Or what?”~Jean Davison
I will remind you of the part Shanklin played in the orders to destroy the note Oswald left for Hosty at the FBI office. Perhaps that incident can inform the answer to you question. (or was it really a question Jean? Rather than a covert assertion framed in incredulity)
\\][//
Is this your way of saying “yes, they were all forged?”
If so, be honest and say so directly.
Is this your way of saying “yes, they were all forged?”
McAdams
Yes, they were all forged.
A Counterintelligence operation.
As you point out the “the committee determined that CIA headquarters never received a recording of Oswald’s voice.” But, this does not say that CIA headquarters never received a recording of someone’s voice. That is the crux of the matter isn’t it McAdams, that by phrasing the conclusion in such a way as to say it was not Oswald’s voice, they have not precluded that there was an unknown voice that was taped.
Are official committees capable of such spurious rhetorical tricks? Are we to stand as credulous naive dupes in the face of a government known for such trickery?
\\][//
Willy: “Yes, they were all forged.”
Good, so once again your answer is, “Fake, fake, fake, fake…” Are you keeping count, Willy? I hope so.
Destroying Oswald’s note was inexcusable but at least it was possible to guess a motive — if Hoover found out the Dallas office had it and didn’t follow up, heads would roll.
But what would these agents’ motive be for lying to Hoover about this?
And to Bogman, I don’t trust Shanklin or anyone else. I’m going by what I think the evidence says.
Wasn’t it on just another recent thread you claimed that no one should trust what Shanklin says, professor?
What’s your point?
Belmont reported what he thought Shanklin said.
But the best evidence is the contemporaneous documents.
Ms. Davison, you have indicated in the past that you appreciate direct answers to your direct questions. I shall oblige.
“Are they lying?” No.
“Are all the cables forged?” No.
“Or what?” See below.
It is an assumption on your part that Hoover was referring to that particular shipment when he told LBJ that the FBI had “up here” photographs and tapes that did not match Oswald. After all, Hoover was undeniably in Washington at the time of the call. It’s possible that Hoover was referring to something else. The CIA in Mexico City was in the routine habit of transferring raw intelligence to the NSA.
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=2573#relPageId=31&tab=page
It’s possible that the tapes in question survive to this day in some NSA vault. It’s also possible that the tapes could have been copies retained by Win Scott and kept in his safe. At any rate I shall remain highly skeptical that the CIA was, as a matter of policy, in the habit of destroying raw intelligence.
JohnR,
Your answer to Ms Davison is of course your personal opinion, and doesn’t speak for the rest of the commentators here.
I respectfully disagree with your opinion.
I think it is clear that CIA has routinely destroyed and or hidden “raw intelligence”, as you call it. Especially so when it is fabricated “intelligence” they create out of whole cloth themselves.
\\][//
Mr. Whitten, you are welcome to disagree with anything I write. I don’t believe I have ever claimed to represent the opinions of anyone else.
I don’t think you understood my use of the term raw intelligence. I was simply referring to items gathered by the various field offices and sent to analysts, where it is evaluated for it’s veracity and placed in the proper context. Until then, it has very little value. Just as one wouldn’t burn a photograph or shred a report without first making a copy, I find it hard to believe anyone would erase a tape. What would be the point of gathering the intelligence in the first place?
Do you understand my point that intelligence gathered all over the world doesn’t stay where it is gathered?
“Do you understand my point that intelligence gathered all over the world doesn’t stay where it is gathered?”~JohnR
Yes I do. I am making exceptions for manufactured docs and images and tapes that are NOT actually “gathered”, but placed for a specific purpose, and never meant as something that would be exposed, even to the other departments within the same agency.
I did not mean to insinuate that you thought you were speaking for anyone but yourself.
\\][//
Let me put it this way JohnR,
“Intelligence” is gathered.”Counterintelligence” is disseminated.
\\][//
In the first place, the page you linked to talks about coded messages that NSA might be able to “break.”
In the second place, all the internal memos about the “tapes” at the FBI HQ refer back to Belmont’s conversation with Shanklin.
There is no evidence at all that Hoover had information from any source other than the “information” originating with Belmont.
Further, according to the HSCA:
And David Atlee Phillips walked out of a hearing when confronted with Hoover’s memo regarding the tapes because why….?
Because Tannenbaum called him a liar.
“Because Tannenbaum called him a liar.”
He was. A professional liar. You don’t rise to his rank in the CIA without being one.
BTW, this is another example of your reading someone’s mind to “explain” behavior of which you can’t possibly have any knowledge. You can guess this was why Phillips did what he did, but you cannot know for certain. The use of qualifiers like “probably,” “most likely,” or “possibly” are undoubtedly called for here.
Then you need to tell that to Bogman, who seemed to think Phillips walking out proves something.
Thanks for not dealing with the substance of my comment, i.e., you’re not being able to devine what was in DAP’s mind. And if I were to hazard a guess, it would be just what bogman thinks. And what most any person with no Official Story to uphold would conclude.
Oh, you admit you are just guessing.
And by a funny coincidence, your guess is what conspiracists want to believe about Phillips.
Again, Phillips was telling the truth about the tapes being erased.
And why does the transcription from the Oct. 1 call to the Soviet embassy say the caller spoke “broken Russian.”
Oswald spoke Russian well enough to fool the natives, including Marina.
Along with the mystery of the disappearing tapes, this is all the proof we need that someone was impersonating Oswald in MC.
Bogman,
“And why does the transcription from the Oct. 1 call to the Soviet embassy say the caller spoke “broken Russian.””
That puzzled me for a long time until it occurred to me that it may’ve seemed
“broken” to a professional translator because Oswald’s grammar was poor. He could communicate well but he made a lot of language errors, according to several witnesses. And he hadn’t been using his Russian as much since he’d returned to the U.S.
“Oswald spoke Russian well enough to fool the natives, including Marina.”
That’s what the books say, but it’s misleading. Oswald met Marina in 1961 after he’d been living and working in Minsk for almost a year and a half. He’d known very little Russian when he arrived, according to witnesses. His boss in Minsk assigned him a language tutor (whose name appears in Oswald’s address book along with other “teachers”) The tutor himself has talked about this, but I’d have to find the link.
Despite the tutoring, Marina didn’t think he was a native speaker but someone from a Baltic country, where Russian is spoken but not as a native language.
Actually, no. She thought he was from one of the Baltic republics, where Russian was not the native language.
Jean Davidson:
“That puzzled me for a long time until it occurred to me that it may’ve seemed
‘broken’ to a professional translator because Oswald’s grammar was poor. He could communicate well but he made a lot of language errors, according to several witnesses.”
I believe the phrase used to describe this was not just “broken,” but “barely recognizable” Russian. That’s a hell of a difference. So while you may be satisfied with that explanation, I’m not, and I doubt anyone else not hoping to explain away things that call the official record into question would be either.
George de Mohrenschildt noted Oswald’s problem with Russian grammar (which I’m guessing to be confusion over things like verb conjugation, correct pronouns, etc.), but he was highly impressed with his young friend’s facility with the language. The professional translator would probably have had a similar reaction.
Which reminds me, hadn’t Oswald obtained certification as a translator of Russian in the autumn of 1963? I know I’ve read several sources that claimed this.
“Actually, no. She thought he was from one of the Baltic republics, where Russian was not the native language.”
This is truly pathetic, John. Marina met Oswald in Minsk, the capital of Belorussia, in which there is a heavy ethnic mix including people whose ethnic origin is from the Baltic states, but who speak Russian from the time they are toddlers. Her comment had to do with his accent, not his overall command of the language. BTW, if you don’t think that by 1961 Russian wasn’t spoken by everyone in the Baltic states as a de facto native language, you’ve no business arguing with any authority on these matters. You might as well argue that English isn’t a native language to people in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Having visited Estonia in the not too distant past, I can assure you that in this day and age, everyone that you meet in that country speaks at least 3 languages fluently other than Estonian, and one of those 3 is Russian. The only thing that clues you in that it’s a foreign language to them is — THEIR VERY SLIGHT ACCENT. So it was to Marina’s ears with Oswald.
But when Oswald went over, it had not been nearly so long since Russia had invaded and conquered the Baltics.
You need to ask yourself this question: if the CIA was going to recruit an impostor for Oswald, would they not recruit somebody who spoke Russian at least approximately as well as he did?
Fearfaxer,
“I believe the phrase used to describe this was not just “broken,” but “barely recognizable” Russian. That’s a hell of a difference.”
Both were used to describe the same conversation so apparently there wasn’t a hell of a difference to the person who said it.
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=799&relPageId=90&search=broken_AND russian
“George de Mohrenschildt noted Oswald’s problem with Russian grammar (which I’m guessing to be confusion over things like verb conjugation, correct pronouns, etc.), but he was highly impressed with his young friend’s facility with the language. The professional translator would probably have had a similar reaction.
De Mohrenschildt was impressed with Oswald’s ability to converse in Russian at least in part because he thought it was “remarkable for a fellow of his background and education.” The translator wouldn’t know his background.
“Which reminds me, hadn’t Oswald obtained certification as a translator of Russian in the autumn of 1963? I know I’ve read several sources that claimed this.”
That was Peter Gregory: “It was in the middle of June 1962…. [when Oswald called him]… He knew I was teaching Russian at the library, that he was looking for a job as a translator or interpreter in the Russian and English languages, and that he would like for me to give him a letter testifying to that effect. He spoke to me in English, so I suggested to him, not knowing who that was, that he might drop by my office….I gave him a short test by simply opening a book at random and asking him to read a paragraph or two and then translate it.
He did it very well. So I gave him a letter addressed to whom it may concern that in my opinion he was capable of being an interpreter or a translator.”
Not a very rigorous test, I would say. The sources you mentioned didn’t describe it, I suppose? Translating written material is of course much easier than speaking it if it’s a second language.
Gregory’s son, a student of Russian, also knew the Oswalds in 1962:
Mr. GREGORY. He spoke a very ungrammatical Russian with a very strong accent.
Mr. LIEBELER. What kind of accent?
Mr. GREGORY. Well, I can’t tell you, because I am not that much of a judge. You would have to ask an expert about that. It was this poorly spoken Russian, but he was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea, I believe, that he wanted to in Russian. But it was heavily pronounced and he made all kinds of grammatical errors, and Marina would correct him, and he would get peeved at her for doing this. She would say you are supposed to say like this, and he would wave his hand and say, “Don’t bother me.”
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/grego_pr.htm
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that a year later a translator who probably heard mostly native speakers might think Oswald’s ungrammatical and heavily accented Russian was “barely recognizable.”
“He could communicate well but he made a lot of language errors, according to several witnesses. And he hadn’t been using his Russian as much since he’d returned to the U.S.’ — Jean Davison
hmmmm, evidently Peter Gregory’s son has a different recollection:
‘Earlier that morning, my father [Peter Gregory], A SUCCESSFUL PETROLEUM ENGINEER, received a call from a young man who wanted certification of fluency in Russian. Rather than tell him that there wasn’t much of a market for a Russian translator in 1960s Texas, my father, who fled Siberia during the civil war, welcomed the chance to meet this fellow Russian speaker in person. He told him to come in for a meeting. . . . Around 11 a.m., with the temperature climbing into the 90s, a slight, 22-year-old Oswald arrived, drenched with sweat and wearing a wool suit. My father asked Oswald to translate passages from a Russian book he chose at random, and HE WAS SURPRISED AT HOW WELL THE YOUNG MAN PERFORMED. He asked his secretary to type out a “to whom it may concern” letter stating that ONE LEE HARVEY OSWALD WAS QUALIFIED TO WORK AS A TRANSLATOR, but he also told him that he knew of no jobs in the area that required knowledge of Russian. To soften the blow, he invited Oswald to lunch at the Hotel Texas, a block from his office, AND ITS BUSTLING DINING ROOM FILLED WITH DEAL-MAKING OILMEN, BANKERS AND LAWYERS gnawing on Melba toast, a specialty. , , , if he [Lee]] allowed Marina to learn English, he said, his Russian would suffer, and it was very important that he RETAIN HIS FLUENCY’ — Paul Gregory, “NYTimes Magazine”, Nov. 7, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/magazine/lee-harvey-oswald-was-my-friend.html?_r=0
John McAdams:
“But when Oswald went over, it had not been nearly so long since Russia had invaded and conquered the Baltics.”
The Baltic States were part of the Russian Empire for well over a century before their brief period of independence between the two World Wars. I do not believe you don’t know that, which says a great deal about this particular comment of yours. The Russians also conducted a vigorous Russification policy in the region. As a result, the Russian language was and is widely spoken throughout the Baltic States. If this is in fact news to you, I can only wonder at an education system that produces a tenured professor, a man with a Ph.D. from Harvard, who such a huge gap in his knowledge.
As to the question of the Oswald impersonator who couldn’t speak Russian, you go with who’s available on short notice. This country is notorious for posting diplomats and spies who are hopelessly ignorant of the languages and cultures of the countries they’re sent to. But then I’m sure you’re not unaware of that either.
Jean Davidson:
“Not a very rigorous test, I would say. The sources you mentioned didn’t describe it, I suppose? Translating written material is of course much easier than speaking it if it’s a second language.”
And yet this passage you quote confirms that Oswald had excellent familiarity with the Russian language. As does everything else you quote there. Note please that Gregory’s son says that Oswald’s Russian was fluent, in spite of his grammatical errors. Your attempt to suggest that someone would categorize his Russian as being barely recognizable is absurd.
And just what is so easy about translating a written passage from a language which uses a completely different alphabet?
From all these accounts, Oswald’s Russian was probably no worse as that of a uneducated factory worker, or a peasant farmer. The fact that he could read the language doubtless made him better at it than countless thousands of illiterate Russian speakers who’d make the same kind of mistakes he did when speaking, but were still speaking a language anyone familiar with it would recognize as Russian.
Native Russian speakers attested to his facility with the language. That is an undeniable fact. Funny that you and others like you should hector WC skeptics so relentlessly about not accepting what you consider to be facts, while you engage in this hopeless attempt to deny something that is so obviously true.
Fearfaxer,
“From all these accounts, Oswald’s Russian was probably no worse as that of a uneducated factory worker, or a peasant farmer….”
No, I don’t think that’s true. Someone once showed a page written by Oswald to a group of native speakers. Someone commented that he made mistakes a native speaker, even a child, would never make.
I don’t want to argue about it, but I’d like to make it clear that several witnesses agreed that his Russian was fluent but very bad when it came to grammar and accent.
Ruth Paine’s description is like the others: “[Marina] at one point said to him on a weekend when he came out that my Russian was improving while his was getting worse, and I was embarrassed to have her say this… and just pointed out that I was getting more practice than he at that time was….
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/paine_r6.htm
This would’ve been shortly after he returned from Mexico, when he was visiting Marina at the Paine house on weekends.
Jean,
While I accept it is not practical or prudent to assign equal weight to all documents, I wonder how you’ve
developed such certainty in so many instances. I would assume you assign little weight to this, for example,
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9899&relPageId=46&search=marina_and%20exhibition
…or to this.: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=111351&search=marina_and+english#relPageId=16&tab=page
OK, you know more than Marina knew about what a native Russian speaker sounded like.
She thought Oswald’s speech was different from what a native Russian speaker’s would have been. She thought from his speech that he came from a Baltic republic.
Tom S.,
“While I accept it is not practical or prudent to assign equal weight to all documents, I wonder how you’ve
developed such certainty in so many instances.”
I feel certain of some things, yes, but that’s doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind if someone shows me I’m wrong. I’ve changed my mind before.
“I would assume you assign little weight to this, for example,
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9899&relPageId=46&search=marina_and%20exhibition”
I don’t give great weight to someone saying Oswald worked in a U.S. exhibition in Moscow because there’s no other evidence supporting it and a lot that contradicts it. If I remember correctly, after the assassination news stories appeared about other defectors, including one who did work in a Moscow exhibition. Maybe that’s where the witness heard this, instead of from Marina.
“…or to this.: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=111351&search=marina_and+english#relPageId=16&tab=page”
That is Marguerite defending her son. Several other witnesses described Marina’s ability (or inability) to speak English at various times and they didn’t all agree. The witness in your other quote, e.g., said that “Marina never learned too much English” because Oswald wanted to maintain his ability to speak Russian.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9899&search=marina_and+exhibition#relPageId=45&tab=page
In the other quote, Marguerite complained about the press saying that Oswald was “mean to his wife,” yet she herself testified that he’d given Marina a black eye.
For McAdams:
“In the first place, the page you linked to talks about coded messages that NSA might be able to “break.” TRUE
BUT, Do you really think that the CIA ONLY sent “coded” messages back to D.C.? Do you really think that everything the CIA accumulated in Mexico stayed in Mexico?
“In the second place, all the internal memos about the “tapes” at the FBI HQ refer back to Belmont’s conversation with Shanklin.” TRUE
“There is no evidence at all that Hoover had information from any source other than the “information” originating with Belmont.” TRUE
(Insofar as we know.)
“Further, according to the HSCA:
“Finally, on the basis of an extensive file review (which was not not manipulated by Joannides in any way) and detailed testimony by present and former CIA officials and employees, (who never lie under oath or otherwise) the committee determined that CIA headquarters never received a recording of Oswald’s voice. The committee concluded, therefore, that the information in the November 23, 1963, letterhead memorandum was mistaken and did not provide a basis for concluding that there had been an Oswald impostor. TRUE (Insofar as the report exists, and I can read it myself.)
Mr. Whitten is right. The above paragraph does not preclude the possibility that CIA HQ received an audio recording with someone’s voice other than Oswald.
Lastly, and I know this is nitpicky, but you wrote “…the page you linked to talks about coded messages…”
Paper can’t talk. I thought you went to college.
But you have no evidence of that, and plenty of evidence that Belmont’s account was circulating around FBI HQ in Washington.
If the tapes had been routinely erased, as the CIA claims, what were David Slawson and William Coleman listening to in Mexico City? It appears at least one recording existed as late as April 1964 when it was listened to by two representatives of the Warren Commission. https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/The_Mexico_City_Tapes.html
Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/oswald-the-cia-and-mexico-city/ via @frontlinepbs
I’ve posted on another thread how Slawson’s testimony has changes.
1.) To the WC, in a secret memo, he mentioned no tapes of Oswald, although he did listed to a tape of a Cuban official talking to Havana.
2.) To the HSCA, he said the tapes were erased. Coleman said the same thing.
3.) To Frontline in the early 90s, he said Win Scott had let he and Coleman listen to a tape.
4.) To Shenon, in the 2000s, he said he had not listed to a tape, that Coleman had. But then Coleman told Shenon he did not remember any such thing.
Let’s use some logic here: would Win Scott lie to the FBI, an everybody else, and then a few months later casually reveal a tape that showed that his story was a lie?
Dr. McAdams, who do you expect the audience is for your “treatment” of the “Oswald in Mexico City” claims?
See: http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=2624&search=slawson_and+tape#relPageId=3&tab=page
What’s your point?
[He asks, knowing that he’s not going to get any sort of coherent answer.]
My point is obvious. Slawson was persuaded to break the trust vested in him to contribute to an earnest and reliable account
of whether Oswald was in Mexico City in late Sept., 1963 and whether he was impersonated, and to cite the evidence supporting or
contradicting those key points. Instead, the record indicates he would not contest, and would lend support to a CIA cover up intended
to keep from the American people, at least that was the excuse first raised on 20 December, 1963, and repeated almost verbatim months
later in the report I linked to by aka John Scelso, what was common knowledge, that the U.S. routinely monitored the telecons of every
Cuban or Soviet diplomatic mission it possibly could.
December 20, 1963 : https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=8599#relPageId=2&tab=page
Johns Scelso reports months later that the ridiculous CIA strategy of presenting what Sylvia Duran claimed, instead of what the
CIA actually knew about Oswald being in Mexico City or being impersonated in Mexico City, had been successfully imparted on Slawson.
The Warren Commission did not even interview Sylvia Duran, instead relying on what the CIA said she said, and by information attained
through coercive Mexican secret police “interviews” of Duran and some who were close to her….. :
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=3025#relPageId=2&tab=page
Dr. McAdams, I accept that you have only a slim grasp of why you are not regarded as a serious actor in these discussions.
You complain about infringement of your own rights regularly on your blog, yet you defend the absurdity of the Oswald was in
Mexico and there was no taped or filmed evidence of his presence at Soviet or Cuban diplomatic missions there, conclusion,
as determined by the WC, the Lopez Report, or the HSCA. Present a record of his crossing the border either to, or from Mexico.
The records of such border crossing by WE Barnes and John Howard Bowen are very easy to locate, why not Oswald’s?
No, what your link showed was that Slawson was willing to conceal a secret CIA operation: LIENVOY phone taps.
He was willing to cooperate with the CIA in terms of concealing “sources and methods.”
You left some of the details out. I think it would be constructive to advise the faculty review board handling your hearing outcome
of what you consider fair and balanced fact finding….I expect it would be illuminating for them to fully understand what you stand for
and expect, as far as your own rights and protections…..again, the WC did not even interview Silvia Duran, instead, permitting the CIA
to script Slawson. five months after they planned to do just that.:
(…and maintain your concern that the Soviets and Cubans had no idea the CIA would be tapping their telecons and photographing comings and
goings….the CIA observation post across the street from the Soviet embassy was unnoticed and had to stay that way….right, Dr. M?)
(Does “official” used twice in the quote above, somehow sanitize Mexican secret police interrogation methods,
or their reports as a source replacing taped and photographed evidence? Or excuse US Amnassador Thomas Mann’s
“request” to the Mwexican government for the re-arrest re-interrogation of Duran on 26 November?)
Regarded as a “serious actor” by whom?
Do you think The History Channel or PBS NOVA would turn to you as a consultant on JFK assassination programs?
Since he was in Mexico City, he had to cross the border to get there.
So were all the witnesses who saw him there liars?
Was the handwriting evidence that put him there all faked?
Was the visa application that Castro gave to U.S. authorities forged? By Castro’s government!
Was Oswald’s letter to the Soviet Embassy forged too?
How much stuff do you have to dismiss to keep Oswald out of Mexico?
Read Shenon. It was an extremely sensitive issue with the Mexican government. Also, the phone intercepts were consistent with what Duran was saying, lending her credibility.
Yes, the Soviets and the Cubans would have assumed their phones were being tapped.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the CIA wanted LIENVOY kept a secret.
What is your point? Mann was a bit of a loose cannon, convinced that Castro was behind the assassination. Scott and Phillips were way more circumspect about that idea.
Are you saying that Mann was correct, and Duran should have been interrogated until she confessed a Communist plot?
Tom S.,
So you’re throwing Slawson into the cover-up bus? (It’s one of those big two-decker things, evidently, or a fleet of them.)
As you know, Duran talked to the HSCA and to Frontline. She said the man she dealt with was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Yeah Jean,
What was I thinking? Too bad the Warren Commission did not see the initial interrogation results supplied by Mexican secret police. (1.)
Duran’s freshest physical description of “Oswald” really captured the essence of the man….blonde, short….
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=3025&relPageId=7&search=blond
Jean, I thought my objection to Dr. McAdams’s lack of concern over the use of a Mexican woman who may or may not have been a Cuban agent, with the
word “official” pasted in front of reports of words attributed to Duran by Mexican secret police interrogators was “crystal” clear. Evidently you
have little or no problem with it, either. Duran is not a reliable source, Jean. Slawson could have served us and our government much better.
Did he not allegedly agree completely with a script the CIA had put to paper on December 20, 1963?
All I can recognize in your chiding of me is you embrace Duran because you need to. I want to embrace the truth, Jean, but thanks to the likes of
Slawson and Rankin, and Willens, the opportunity to get it into the WC report was squandered, and that is the most favorable way to assess how they did their duty. The only consistency I find in these studies is that when push comes to shove, there is Oswald’s handwriting, vouched for by government witnesses, on everything from the $21.45 postal money order, Klein’s order slip, and application for a Cuban visa.
Now you tell me, Jean, how did the short, blonde guy Silvia Duran described to Mexican secret police, nail Oswald’s handwriting characteristics on that visa application, so convincingly?
(1.) Handwritten on the bottom, “The only deletion is last sentence of last page of cover letter.” –
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=5643&search=short#relPageId=2&tab=page
You need to explain how the CIA knew anything about Oswald in Mexico City that contradicted what Duran said.
Tom S.,
Duran described her mistreatment by the Mexican police, yet her story to the HSCA and Frontline about meeting with Oswald remains the same, 15 and 30 years later. IMO, her ability to estimate and remember his height is minor, compared with her ID of his photo and maybe more important the photo of Oswald and his signature on the application itself.
“Jean, I thought my objection to Dr. McAdams’s lack of concern over the use of a Mexican woman who may or may not have been a Cuban agent, with the
word “official” pasted in front of reports of words attributed to Duran by Mexican secret police interrogators was “crystal” clear. Evidently you
have little or no problem with it, either. Duran is not a reliable source, Jean.”
Then why quote her on the “short blond” guy? Disregard her, fine with me.
“Slawson could have served us and our government much better.
Did he not allegedly agree completely with a script the CIA had put to paper on December 20, 1963?”
The Slawson/Coleman report to the WC says that the CIA didn’t want its surveillance of the embassies made public, for obvious reasons. They agreed to that. Is this what you’re referring to?
“All I can recognize in your chiding of me is you embrace Duran because you need to.”
No, I was chiding you for saying Slawson agreed to a cover-up (of an impostor?), if I understood you correctly. I don’t “need” Duran or any other witness. I don’t care what the truth is, I just want to know it. Just like you, I imagine.
“I want to embrace the truth, Jean, but thanks to the likes of Slawson and Rankin, and Willens, the opportunity to get it into the WC report was squandered, and that is the most favorable way to assess how they did their duty.”
Get *what* specifically into the Warren Report? Something that’s never been mentioned since then?
“The only consistency I find in these studies is that when push comes to shove, there is Oswald’s handwriting, vouched for by government witnesses, on everything from the $21.45 postal money order, Klein’s order slip, and application for a Cuban visa.”
Not only “government witnesses” but non-government witnesses. Do you think all that was forged? Duran’s name and number in his address book? His letter to the Soviets talking about his visit to the Cuban Consulate and complaining about Hosty talking to his wife? And more besides. All fake?
“Now you tell me, Jean, how did the short, blonde guy Silvia Duran described to Mexican secret police, nail Oswald’s handwriting characteristics on that visa application, so convincingly?”
That’s what I want to know. You tell me!
“(1.) Handwritten on the bottom, “The only deletion is last sentence of last page of cover letter.” –
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=5643&search=short#relPageId=2&tab=page”
I don’t know what your point is, Tom. Am I supposed to know what was deleted?
Jean,
Replying first to your last sentence, the document has a handwritten notation describing what is being left off of the cover
letter the CIA was submitting to the WC, “These materials were given to us by the Mexican police agency that performed the interrogation.” If you advance to the next page, you can see the cover letter with that very last sentence absent. If you
see no significance, ask yourself why they went to the bother of doing it, or affixing the handwritten comment. Could it be
they were attempting desperately to downplay the ridiculousness of foisting the Duran transcripts on the WC in place of the evidence?
Is it not reasonable to think that they left that sentence off because it emphasized what is also in the paragraph?
This goes to my core point which you also glossed over or actually did not grasp, which surprises me, but could be a
result of my poor communication.:
Tom S.: “…but thanks to the likes of Slawson and Rankin, and Willens, the opportunity to get it into the WC report was squandered, and that is the most favorable way to assess how they did their duty.”
For starters: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/The_Mexico_City_Tapes.html
Instead of being subjected to any investigation, the CIA wrote a script that presented its “story” through the alleged
assertion of a person who would not be interviewed by the WC, using transcripts resulting from interrogation of the surrogate, Duran, by unnamed Mexican secret police and translators. The WC was not more than a week old when this script
was written on December 20, 1963.
Jean, you or I is the defendant. Through discovery our defense attorney learns of a conversation between the director of the FBI and the POTUS describing FBI agents in Dallas who have heard your or my voice, listening to audio tapes that are represented as recordings of your or my voice, and the director informs the POTUS that the agents do not recognize the voice
on the tapes as your or my voice.
You or I risk a number or years in prison if the prosecution can make the case against you or I stick.
Your or my attorney has these details from discovery, but the prosecution says there are no tapes, the director was mistaken
in his comments to the POTUS, but there are transcripts of the audio tapes, but the CIA claimed the tapes themselves were routinely erased.
There are also transcripts of statements of a woman, Duran, translated from Spanish, but a foreign government’s police agency that vouches for the statements in the transcripts, but may have extracted them from Duran by putting her under duress.
If accused, I’d want my attorney to question the FBI director and the POTUS under oath, and also question the CIA officers who wrote that December 20, 1963 memo about using Duran as a substitute for the actual evidence, and Slawson, Rankin, Willens, and Scelso. The CIA has its own counsel and sometimes the POTUS as its advocate, but they also converted the WC to their advocacy.
Tom,
“If you advance to the next page, you can see the cover letter with that very last sentence absent.”
I went to the next page and see something
crossed out at the bottom. Is this what you’re referring to? If not, could you please give me a direct link?
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=5643&search=short#relPageId=3&tab=page
Thanks.
You are just huffing and puffing here, and ignoring the context. Having U.S. authorities interview Duran was a very sensitive political issue with the Mexicans. The Mexican government was basically pro-American, but faced criticism from an anti-American left. They did not want to too obviously do the gringos bidding.
And the CIA did not want LIENVOY exposed. But the WC had access to that material, and it confirmed Duran’s account.
And you seem to be ignoring that Duran testified to the HSCA, and then to “Frontline.” Her accounts in later testimony are essentially identical to what the WC reported her saying.
Tom S.,
“For starters: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/The_Mexico_City_Tapes.html”
We have a fundamental disagreement here.
For the reasons I’ve given I’m convinced that NO tapes were sent to Dallas. I’m still waiting for a scenario explaining the 4 contemporary documents that said exactly that, listed in my 12/26 10:27 p.m. post, and I don’t mean the usual “fake, fake, fake, fake,” which is mere hand waving.
I don’t know exactly how this misunderstanding arose but I’ll speculate that it may’ve gone something like this. Shanklin tells Belmont, “They sent us transcripts of the tapes made in Mexico and photos of someone that’s not Oswald,” and Belmont misunderstood him, thinking he was saying the tapes and photos were of the same person, i.e., someone Not Oswald.
The 1964 top secret Coleman/Slawson report to the WC also mentions NO existing tape of Oswald, only transcripts, even though it mentioned other things that were highly classified at the time.
Memories some thirty years later are notoriously unreliable. (That’s why, imo, Frazier now thinks he saw Oswald exit the back door on 11/22 even though that conflicts with all of his previous sworn statements and other evidence besides.)
IMO, this is the most plausible explanation of the most reliable evidence we have about the tape issue. Hoover’s often clueless statements to LBJ and Coleman/Slawson’s 30-year-old memories don’t carry much weight, imo.
Jean,
I would considerate it great progress if we could agree that it is not beyond reasonable doubt that Jack Ruby’s victim of 24 November, 1964, was the person who the Warren Commission concluded was in Mexico City in late September, early October, 1963.
16 October, 1963:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10418/html/124-10230-10418_0002a.htm
18 October, 1963:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10419/html/124-10230-10419_0002a.htm
22 October, 1963:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10419/html/124-10230-10419_0003a.htm
4 November, 1963:
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61081&search=105-3702-10A#relPageId=2&tab=page
25 November, 1963:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10434/html/124-10230-10434_0002a.htm
Jean, Dulles himself told the other six commissioners that CIA officers would be expected to deceive.
It is reasonable, considering the anomalies we are able to observe in the records of the WC and HSCA
and investigations and related deliberations, to accept we do no not have enough information known to be beyond
a reasonable doubt to be reliable and complete enough to eliminate reasonable doubt. I don’t need Oswald
to be innocent or guilty, in or not in Mexico City, or on or not on the sixth floor shooting JFK at 12:35 pm.
Jean, have you met or spoken with any of these gentlemen? (Frazier, Coleman or Slawson)
If not, some might consider it rather presumptuous of you to dismiss them all as suffering from age-related memory loss.
I certainly didn’t get that impression from speaking with Frazier in Dallas last month (or Bill Newman for that matter)
Tom S.,
“I would considerate it great progress if we could agree that it is not beyond reasonable doubt that Jack Ruby’s victim of 24 November, 1964, was the person who the Warren Commission concluded was in Mexico City in late September, early October, 1963.”
I understand that you don’t agree, but I personally have no doubt at all that Oswald was in Mexico City. The evidence for that is plentiful and comes from MANY sources, including the Cuban government. (BTW, Castro has said repeatedly that Oswald visited the Consulate.)
“16 October, 1963:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10418/html/124-10230-10418_0002a.htm
….”
It would help me a lot if you just told me what your argument is concerning these quotes, because really, I don’t know.
”Jean, Dulles himself told the other six commissioners that CIA officers would be expected to deceive.”
Of course, and I’m not relying on anything a CIA officer said. I’m looking at a variety of evidence from multiple sources that together all tell a coherent story, something the other side has never provided, I might add.
“It is reasonable, considering the anomalies we are able to observe in the records of the WC and HSCA
and investigations and related deliberations, to accept we do no not have enough information known to be beyond
a reasonable doubt to be reliable and complete enough to eliminate reasonable doubt.”
I think there’s more than enough evidence to establish that Oswald was in Mexico, again from a variety of sources.
I think it’s important to point out that there will *always* be anomalies in records of any size (the more records, the more anomalies). Every investigator who created a document or testified was fallible, just like every witness and everyone here. It’s that obvious?
“I don’t need Oswald to be innocent or guilty, in or not in Mexico City, or on or not on the sixth floor shooting JFK at 12:35 pm.”
I’m sure you don’t. What you don’t seem to understand is, neither do I! I don’t care what the answer is. I only want to know it, and that’s what the evidence says to me.
“Jean, have you met or spoken with any of these gentlemen? (Frazier, Coleman or Slawson)
If not, some might consider it rather presumptuous of you to dismiss them all as suffering from age-related memory loss.
I certainly didn’t get that impression from speaking with Frazier in Dallas last month (or Bill Newman for that matter)”
There’s no reason you should get that impression. I’m not saying these men are mentally defective, I’m saying they’re human. Memory errors like this are not unusual, according to scientists in this field. They say false memories can happen to anyone.
QUOTE:
Funny stuff happens when people think about the past. Sometimes, they replace reality with fiction. This is because we have poor episodic memories – a well-established fact in psychology.
Consider the famous study done by Ulric Neisser. The day after the Challenger disaster he asked Emory University undergrads to write a description of how they heard of the disaster – the time of day, what they were doing, how they felt about it, etc. Neisser then asked the same students the same set of questions two and a half years later and compared the two descriptions.
He found three things. First, the memories of the students had dramatically changed: “twenty-five percent of the students’ subsequent accounts were strikingly different from their original journal entries. More than half the people had lesser degrees of error, and less than ten percent had all the details correct.”
Second, people were usually confident that the accounts they provided two and a half years later were accurate. And third, “when confronted with their original reports, rather than suddenly realizing that they had misremembered, they often persisted in believing their current memory.”
The study, which is now known as the Challenger study, has been replicated with several notable events such as 9/11 and the Reagan assassination attempt. UNQUOTE
http://whywereason.com/tag/the-challenger-study/
There are many articles about false memories online, for instance this one from Time magazine:
http://science.time.com/2013/11/19/remember-that-no-you-dont-study-shows-false-memories-afflict-us-all/
Coleman and Slawson have reportedly said different things at different times about whether they heard a tape or not. Frazier’s latest version of where he saw Oswald on 11/22 contradicts all his earlier statements as well as testimony from other workers. One possible explanation is that Frazier recalled seeing Oswald walk out the back door on some other occasion but misremembered when this happened and put it on the wrong day. This can happen to anyone.
My Interviews With David Slawson Of The Warren Commission http://www.covertbookreport.com/my-interviews-with-david-slawson-of-the-warren-commission/
Jean,
It is funny how the LN side—whatever that means—uses and refers to the idea of “memory versus opinion.”
Two months ago, I asked you to respond to a quote by T. Jeremy Gunn. You replied that it was HIS opinion and he is entitled to his opinion. But, you said you preferred to go with the “facts.”
Here is the quote from Mr. Gunn again:
“There is substantial evidence that points toward Oswald and incriminates Oswald,” he says, “and the only person we can name where there is evidence is Oswald. But there’s also rather important exculpatory evidence for Oswald, suggesting he didn’t do it, and that he was framed.”
Some believe the Warren Commission did not resolve the mysteries because it was part of a giant cover-up, perhaps to hide a conspiracy that reached deep inside government itself.
Others point to a more benign explanation. The new president, Johnson, was pushing the Warren Commission to come to a conclusion quickly. He wanted to move the country forward, not dwell on its traumatic past.
Besides, Gunn says, the panel genuinely believed that Oswald had killed Kennedy. “So they wanted to write the document in a way that would reassure the American public that it was a single gunman acting alone, somebody who’s a little bit unstable, and that that’s the explanation for what happened.” Since the facts aren’t clear, though, that document can look like a whitewash.
For the Warren Commission, transparency had its own difficulties. “There are serious problems with the forensics evidence, with the ballistics evidence, with the autopsy evidence,” Gunn says. “And, in my opinion, if they had said that openly, it would have not put the issue to rest.”
Dr. T. Jeremy Gunn served as executive director of the Assassination Records Review Board.
Faced with that, the Warren Commission went with what it believed.
Gunn says that wasn’t enough. It’s not that he thinks all the loose ends needed to be tied up. “It wouldn’t be unusual if Oswald had done the crime — or not done the crime — to have evidence that’s inconsistent,” he says.
It’s the big mysteries that cause him the most trouble.
“If the president had been killed as part of a conspiracy, that needed to be known,” he says.
“The institution that had the opportunity to best get to the bottom of this, as much as it was possible, was the Warren Commission, and they didn’t do it,” he says. “Now it’s too late to do what should have been done originally.”
Then, two weeks ago, you used Mr. Gunn as a reference about memories being invalid or not the best thing to use. (It was something to that effect—your direct quote is not in front of me.)
So, Jean, which is it? Is Mr. Gunn’s quote that the WC failed to do its job—please see his last line in the above quote—his opinion, or is it a fact? Is his opinion on this matter his opinion, and therefore should be dismissed because it does not square with the “official version?” Or, is his reference to memories being faulty correct?
Steve,
“Two months ago, I asked you to respond to a quote by T. Jeremy Gunn. You replied that it was HIS opinion and he is entitled to his opinion. But, you said you preferred to go with the “facts.”
Here is the quote from Mr. Gunn again:
“There is substantial evidence that points toward Oswald and incriminates Oswald,” he says, “and the only person we can name where there is evidence is Oswald. But there’s also rather important exculpatory evidence for Oswald, suggesting he didn’t do it, and that he was framed.”
I’ve seen this quote online, but oddly enough I can’t seem to find anyone who has said just what this “rather important exculpatory evidence” is. What was Gunn referring to, do you know?
In all this time, has anyone here ever heard or read a detailed explanation of how Oswald might’ve been framed step by step, explaining how each piece of incriminating evidence might have gotten there if the obvious explanation for it is wrong? If so, please point me to it.
But again, what was the exculpatory evidence Gunn referred to?
“But again, what was the exculpatory evidence Gunn referred to?”~Jean Davison
You are now asking for us to make conjectures as to what Gunn was referring to?
Okay, I’ll bite; he is likely referring to the exculpatory evidence that has flooded this forum from our side of the isle for the past two or more years.
It is futile to enumerate this evidence time and again because of your convenient lack of memory on such items.
But you wanted a supposition, and there you have mine.
\\][//
“But again, what was the exculpatory evidence Gunn referred to?”~Jean Davison
The LNers make countless appeals to authority to support their theory. But when an objective, longtime attorney who has seen more secret documents probably more than any other single individual outside the security agencies says the evidence looks “disturbing,” it’s time ask questions.
Wait a minute!
I thought Dulles was this sinister character. Part of the cover-up. On the Warren Commission to hide the truth?
So what is he doing saying that?
“Wait a minute!
I thought Dulles was this sinister character. Part of the cover-up. On the Warren Commission to hide the truth?
So what is he doing saying that?”~McAdams
He DID say that, and after saying that they all decided the record of that meeting would be destroyed so as not to become part of the record.
Transcript of January 22, 1964:
p. 14
“I don’t even like to see this being taken down..”~Boggs
“Yes, I think this record ought to be destroyed. Do you think we need a record of this?” ~Allen Dulles
[…]
“The only copies of this should be kept right here..”~Allen Dulles
“I hope these records are not circulated to anybody.”~Boggs
“I would hope so too”~Dulles
We also give them to you Commissioners. Now if you don’t want them, those are the only ones to get them besides Sides himself: Off the record.”~Rankin
. . . . . .
It is the January 27 meeting where Dulles explains that there are agents that are so secret that only a ‘handler’ knows of them and the whole thing is filed in cryptograms. See page 27 in PDF [p. 14 … 152 at top of actual page.]
\\][//
Which is irrelevant to my point. If he was part of a cover-up, working on behalf of the CIA, why would he tell his fellow commissioners not to trust what they heard from the CIA?
Translation: you can’t cite any of the exculpatory evidence. You are just citing one fellow’s opinion, which is apparently based on the same evidence we all have available.
None of the members of the ARRB have claimed any explosive, exculpatory evidence in the few documents remaining secret.
As for appealing to authority: we LNs appeal to the authority of genuine technical experts on technical questions, such as the nature of Kennedy’s wounds, or the authenticity of photos.
According to the ARRB, they both claimed to have heard the tape. http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/cia_testimony/Goodpasture/html/Goodpasture_0148a.htm
The telephone calls now survive only as transcripts. One call, in which an English–speaking man identifies himself as Lee Oswald, no longer exists even as a transcript. Official sources claimed that all the recordings had been erased before the assassination, but documents released three decades later show that this was not the case. Some recordings existed at the Mexico City station shortly after the assassination, and copies had been sent to Washington as soon as they were made. An internal FBI cable, dated 25 November 1963, acknowledged the existence of the recordings: “If tapes covering any contacts subject [Oswald] with Soviet or Cuban embassies available forward to Bureau for laboratory examination and analysis together with transcript. Include tapes previously reviewed Dallas if they were returned to you” http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61089#relPageId=2
Fair enough, but that doesn’t change Slawson’s secret memo to the Warren Commission, his and Coleman’s HSCA testimony, or what both men told Shenon.
This is simply the bad information that Belmont provided. I trust you know that when bad information gets out there, it often takes a while for the correction to chase it down.
Among people who want to believe the bad information, a half-century might not be enough.
David Regan,
“Official sources claimed that all the recordings had been erased before the assassination, but documents released three decades later show that this was not the case.”
But that’s not what they show. Please notice the big fat IF in your quote:
“….An internal FBI cable, dated 25 November 1963, acknowledged the existence of the recordings: “IF [my emphasis] tapes covering any contacts subject [Oswald] with Soviet or Cuban embassies available forward to Bureau for laboratory examination and analysis together with transcript. Include tapes previously reviewed Dallas if they were returned to you” http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61089#relPageId=2
It doesn’t say a tape was available, it says “IF.”
This message illustrates the misunderstanding going on between Washington and Dallas. On the 25th the Legat cabled Washington and answered the question: “There seems to be some confusion in that no tapes were taken to Dallas but only typewritten transcripts…” That was #4 in my list. I found the original copy:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=5740&search=%22appears_to+be+some+confusion%22#relPageId=55&tab=page
The last page says it was received in Washington on 11/26, 7:17 a.m.:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=5740&search=%22appears_to+be+some+confusion%22#relPageId=58&tab=page
Don’t assume Hoover would know. His information on this was second- or third-hand hearsay. In the first day or two he unknowingly gave LBJ other bits of misinformation, e.g., that the A.J. Hidell alias was a woman, that there had been a gun battle at the Texas Theater.”
“Do you think The History Channel or PBS NOVA would turn to you as a consultant on JFK assassination programs?”~McAdams
It’s really funny that you don’t get how funny it is for you to say that!!
\\][//
Correction:
Actually, Slawson did not say he had listened to the tapes of the Cuban official, but only that he had been told about them.
So far no one has really answered my questions, unless I missed it.
In the linked article Prof. Peter Dale Scott wrote:
“… the FBI [i.e, Hoover and Belmont in Washington: my note] first reported truthfully to both LBJ and the Secret Service on November 23 that a recording of someone calling himself “Lee Oswald” in Mexico City had been listened to by FBI agents in Dallas, who were “of the opinion that [the man in Mexico] was not Lee Harvey Oswald”.[1] Two days later Dallas FBI agents, along with the FBI Legat in Mexico City, reported falsely on November 25 that “no tapes were taken to Dallas”.[2]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-jfk-assassination-why-cias-richard-helms-lied-about-oswald/5497663
Can anyone tell me how the author determined that Hoover and Belmont in Washington knew what happened better than the agents directly involved and “reported truthfully,” while the agents in Dallas and Mexico “reported falsely” to their bosses?
Ms, Davison, If you wouldn’t mind scrolling up a bit, I answered your questions on December 27, 2015 at 8:27 am.
Please let me know if I am mistaken, and you were referring to something else.
Shanklin’s claim was based on an FBI cable to him from Mexico City saying “CIA has advised that these tapes have been erased”
(FBI Cable of November 23 from Eldon Rudd to SAC, Dallas; FBI file MX 105-3702-12, NARA #124-10230-10430)
For the CIA’s erasure story to work, the FBI had to cooperate. FBI headquarters in Washington was still asking on the Monday after the assassination for the CIA tapes that had been sent from Mexico City to Dallas early Saturday.FBI headquarters in Washington was still asking on the Monday after the assassination for the CIA tapes that had been sent from Mexico City to Dallas early Saturday. The FBI office in Mexico City provided the cover on the Monday afternoon after the assassination, sending a cable to headquarters saying that the tapes had been destroyed. When Hoover learned of this lie, he was not amused. Eighteen days after the assassination, he censured, demoted or transferred everyone in the FBI that had been touched by the Mexico City story. Hoover was still fuming about it in January 1964, when his subordinates sent him a memo on illegal CIA operations in the US which stated that the CIA had promised to keep the Bureau informed. Hoover pulled out his pen and, in his characteristic large, thick handwriting scrawled, “OK, but I hope you are not being taken in. I can’t forget CIA withholding the French espionage activities in USA nor the false story re Oswald’s trip in Mexico City only to mention two of their instances of double dealing.”
David,
“Shanklin’s claim was based on an FBI cable to him from Mexico City saying “CIA has advised that these tapes have been erased”
(FBI Cable of November 23 from Eldon Rudd to SAC, Dallas; FBI file MX 105-3702-12, NARA #124-10230-10430)”
The Rudd document wasn’t sent, it was hand-delivered to Shanklin and includes the transcript Rudd brought from Mexico. This is the same document I listed above as #2.
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61085#relPageId=2&tab=page
There’s a notation at the bottom saying “delivered by hand” and the transcript follows on the next page.
Later that day (23) Shanklin sends Washington a copy of the transcript [#3 in my list above] and tells them,
“It should be noted that the actual tape from which the transcript was made has been erased.” Yes, that info had to come from Mexico, but without doubt Shanklin knew what Rudd had delivered to him.
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1465&search=%22actual_tape+from+which%22#relPageId=13&tab=page
Two days later the FBI’s Legat in Mexico tells Washington, “There seems to be some confusion in that no tapes were taken to Dallas but only typewritten transcripts.”
All lying, all fake documents? It’s much easier to explain this as a simple misunderstanding by Belmont that took several days to get cleared up.
Jean,
You have no doubt, you told me, and everything passes your smell tests? The conversation between Hoover and
LBJ, the 23 November report to Rowley, (see http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/html/LopezRpt_0011a.htm
and this, smell strongly, Jean.:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9951&relPageId=105&search=shanklin_and%20tapes
You have no doubt, considering the handwritten comment on the right,
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1465&relPageId=14&search=inasmuch_and%20listened
…. that Hoover did not cave to CIA insistence that the words “tapes” and “listened” must also be disappeared, even if meant Hoover ended up with a little egg on his face, if details of this “do over” vs, his conversation with LBJ and his memo to Rowley, ever were disclosed? (HSCA; “I don’t know if the Warren Commission saw this report.” – https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=50352&relPageId=59&search=rowley_and%20listened )
Considering all of the above, and the following, would you admit your adamance with regard to the “walk back”
about Dallas agents “listening to the tapes”, is reasonable? Is this reasonable?:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145362&relPageId=4&search=rowley_and%20listened
It is reasonable to doubt the “walk back” of Hoover’s claims to LBJ that there were tapes of an allaged Oswald’s voice in Mexico City.
For Tom S.:
“The caller from the Cuban Embassy was unidentified until headquarters sent traces on Oswald and voices compared by Feinglass.”
Who is Feinglass? What are traces? This seems to be an indication of what I’ve been writing about on this thread. Forget the FBI, and who wrote what in this or that memo. The CIA in Mexico City would have been in contact with HQ about the phone taps and photos. Where are those communications?
Douglas Feinglass was the cover name for Boris Tarasoff, the CIA MC station Russsian translator who, along with his wife, wrote the transcripts of the calls from Oswald to the embassies.
I’m maintaining it is unreasonable to admit to no doubt that Hoover was walking back his description of 23 November in a telcon with LBJ and in memo to SS chief Rowley, that
Tom,
Good catch! these tapes were listened to!!
And NONE of it the tapes or the photographs were of Oswald.
I refer to this one:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1465&relPageId=14&search=inasmuch_and%20listened
\\][//
Among first generation JFK researcher Sylvia Meahger’s Notes for a New Investigation c. 1968:
Oswald’s Interrogation: Although Dallas Police Captain Fritz “kept no notes” or transcript of the interrogation of Oswald, and the reports submitted by Fritz and Federal agents (primarily from memory) were incomplete and in some vital respects contradictory — e.g., Oswald’s TRIP TO MEXICO, where he was at the time of the shooting, and his “Hidell” alias — the following persons were not asked to submit reports or to testify:
Jim Allen, former Assistant District Attorney;
Secret Service agents Grant, Howard, Kunkel, Patterson, and Warner;
FBI agent Joe Myers;
U.S. Marshall Robert Nash;
Chuck Webster, Professor of Law.
Among other key witnesses not called:
(Note particularly to TomS): Mary Dowling, waitress at Dobbs House: She told the F.B.I. that Oswald and Tippit were in the restaurant at the same time, two days before the assassination, and that Tippit especially noticed Oswald when he complained about his food. The Warren Report says that the two men were not acquainted and had never even seen each other.
Sandra Styles, Depository office employee: With Victoria Adams, she ran down the back stairs of the Depository immediately after shots were fired but did not encounter Oswald — supposedly running down at that time — nor Roy Truly and policeman M. L. Baker, supposedly running up.
http://22november1963.org.uk/meagher-notes-for-a-new-investigation
rRelated to the aforementioned interviews of Oswald, Thomas J. Kelley, US Secret Service relates that the interview of Oswald on November 23rd at about 10:30 a.m. with SA Bookhout of the FBI, Captain Will Fritz of DPD Homicide Division, US Marshal Robert Nash, SAIC David Grant and SAIC Sorrels along with Officers Boyd and Bell of Captain Fritz’ detail: THE INTERVIEW WAS NOT RECORDED.
https://books.google.com/books?id=uSywAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA626&lpg=PA626&dq=robert+nash+u.s.+marshal+dallas+kennedy+assassination&source=bl&ots=pDqH_u6wz5&sig=sPxvMkntAbBU9LBn24QctLlpKN4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8r–QtIfKAhVS1WMKHQmGDmMQ6AEIJTAB#v=onepage&q=robert%20nash%20u.s.%20marshal%20dallas%20kennedy%20assassination&f=false
Tom,
“You have no doubt, you told me, and everything passes your smell tests?”
How do you define “smell tests”? Right now I’m convinced that no tapes were sent to Dallas. IMO that’s the most reasonable explanation for the evidence, but if you have a better one…
“The conversation between Hoover and
LBJ, the 23 November report to Rowley, (see http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/html/LopezRpt_0011a.htm”
The next page says, “The confusion about whether or not there was a tape apparently continued for several days…” The HSCA concluded that there was a misunderstanding and no tapes were actually sent to Dallas.
Who would more likely know what went to Dallas? The agents who sent, carried and received this material, or the bosses sitting in Washington, Belmont and Hoover?
“and this, smell strongly, Jean.:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9951&relPageId=105&search=shanklin_and%20tapes”
This was in 1976, after Hosty had testified at length to the Church Committee. Why should he talk to a reporter and risk being misquoted and incur Hoover’s wrath (again)?
“You have no doubt, considering the handwritten comment on the right,
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1465&relPageId=14&search=inasmuch_and%20listened”
What does the handwritten comment indicate, in your view?
“…. that Hoover did not cave to CIA insistence that the words “tapes” and “listened” must also be disappeared,”
I don’t see the “CIA insistence” that anything disappear. Please quote it. (If the CIA wanted the tapes to disappear, why did Win Scott supposedly play one for the WC lawyers??)
“Considering all of the above, and the following, would you admit your adamance with regard to the “walk back”
about Dallas agents “listening to the tapes”, is reasonable?”
I doubt I’m any more “adamant” than you are, Tom.
(continued in Part 2)
Part 2, to Tom,
“Is this reasonable?:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145362&relPageId=4&search=rowley_and%20listened”
Again you’re quoting Hoover/Belmont, not the agents directly involved.
“Not only did some members of the Warren Commission staff know about the Mexico City tapes, two of them, David Slawson and William Coleman, have admitted listening to such tapes during their trip to Mexico City in April of 1964.”
I have good reason to doubt either of them heard a tape in Mexico. Their top secret 1964 report to the WC about their trip doesn’t mention it –instead it says that they were shown transcripts of the secret CIA surveillance. Why would they lie to the WC in a document classified for 30 years? And again, why would Win Scott promote the idea that the tapes were erased and then play one for them??
Coleman and Slawson haven’t been entirely consistent over the years, as I understand it. Jeremy Gunn has pointed out (in another context) that memories decades old are “profoundly unreliable,” and he stressed the word “profoundly.”
IMO, all of the above makes more sense if no tapes survived, only transcripts, and years later Coleman and Slawson’s memories changed and wavered (as memories will, whether we like it or not).
But let me hear *your* explanation for the things I’ve mentioned. How do *you* explain all of that?
“In 1964, this little document pops into the record….It’s Ann Goodpasture’s [handwriting]. Now isn’t that something? And when we blow it up what does it say? ‘The caller from the Cuban embassy was unidentified until headquarters sent traces on Oswald and voices compared by Feinglass.’ [See Document # 104-10125-10001 from The Third Batch.]
But Feinsglass, if I remember correctly, was a translator who compared two Mexico City tapes, on one of which Oswald gave his name. If so, that’s not at all the same thing as someone familiar with Oswald’s voice recognizing it.
Of course not!! They are not lying at all. They are actually giving a quantum of proof about a conspiracy fact in itself: the CIA Station in Mexico City could not bring a tape of Oswald’s voice, against the most elementary protocol, although they knew since September 27, 1963, that an American citizen was visiting both the Cuban and the Soviet embassies, and in two further calls to the Soviets a guy identified himself as Oswald. And they could not get an Oswald’s photo either, although he entered and exited three times the Cuban diplomatic compound and two times the Soviet’s, both under heavy photographic surveillance.
Interesting photo of Helms there, BTW. He looks like a Mafia don whose carefully planned hit against a rival has just gone awry, trying to figure out if he dares to go have the bowel movement he so desperately needs to have, or if his bodyguards will rub him out while he’s sitting on the toilet.
“Why did CIA director Richard Helms lie about Lee Harvey Oswald?”
Because he had something to hide. Obviously.
Something that was at the very least, very embarrassing.
At the worst . . . well, just let your imagination work on that. It may not be entirely right, but it also won’t be at all wrong.
Helms lied because that was his job, to protect the agency.
As Dulles told his fellow Warren Commissioners he would Expect them to lie for the agency.
Mk ultra for the greater good.
Just another point in the long line of evidence that cumulatively proves Oswald was an intel asset of the USG beyond any shadow of any doubt.
Interesting read that summarizes his career. The Rise and Fall of Richard Helms http://rol.st/1EsL3MM via @rollingstone
Reading further in Newman’s book; it is very obvious that Kennedy was getting the runaround from everybody on Vietnam and the whole Southeast Asian theater. The military was trying to cover up how badly it was going militarily – the civilian advisers were simply jostling for political reasons. Bureaucratic bullshit stuck in the mud. That Kennedy finally got a handle on all of this and realized he was getting jacked around as early as he did is a wonder in itself.
And if you think about it, this is the way the system is set up. The president is supposed to be a puppet, he is not supposed to meddle in the affairs of the apparatus, that is for the apparatchiks. He was muscling in on their territory. That’s the reason he had to go. He actually thought he was “the President of the United States” like is described in the Constitution!
Whatta nut! Aye?? … or as McAdams would say, a “buff”.
\\][//
“…hmm……! Just as a sidebar; I must say that the photo of Mr. Helms looks almost as good as some of the frames in the Z film..,unless you believe that Mr. Helms photo is un..re-touched!
As for Mr. Helms “mis-leading” the Warren Commission: I don’t think that anyone one the commission was necessarily misled! I believe that DCI Helms was “doing his job” at that time: Protecting assets; operations; agents of CIA…as well as the foreign policies of that day, which were first put into motion by Director McCone…that Director Helms was “following orders,” and at the same time, protecting (not only his own Agency, but..)the Intelligence Communities of the United States! There is “no doubt” in my mind, that the command and control structure for the United States(all of them/it) was ‘well aware” of what happened in Dallas! That: aspects/elements of the Defense structure; rogue elements within CIA; those promoting the “Plutocratic” aspects of the U.S.; select members of both sides of the aisle(so to speak!), were all “protecting” themselves for various reasons…all of which had everything to gain by suppression, and everything to lose by disclosure.”-DM
Some parts of this essay throw a lot of doubt on Scott’s judgment. For example:
And then there is this:
So to make his case, Scott has to do the usual buff thing: posit a bunch of falsified documents and lying witnesses.
Oh, John, you just won’t give up, will you? Now, if you’re paid to post the LN findings, then I understand you’re just doing your job, just like I do my job when I post social media news and stories for a client of mine. But if you do it because you just really believe in the government’s findings, then you’re just as much of a buff as we are, because neither side is ever going to change their mind on what happened on 11/22.
I know you want to continue to believe (unless you’re a paid poster, of course) the LN theory that Oswald was just some wacko Communist who ordered a gun 6 months before, disturbed a gathering in NO, was arrested for it, got a job at the Depository, and just decided to bring his gun in to work and blow the President’s head off, even scoring a perfect shot with a bullet through the “neck,” out the front, hitting the governor, and the bullet being “magically” clean and unbroken. He then went on a murderous tear, gunning down a policeman, and being captured ranting and raving in a theater. You also want to believe that our slain president, much loved by all of the people who worked for him, including his faithful vice president and the leader of the national investigatory agency, worked hard – and shedding tears along the way – to find this horrible ex-Marine who killed our president guilty. Why even the upstanding ex-CIA chief wanted back in to find who killed our beloved president.
Then, an upright local citizen, the owner of a high-class cabaret, decided to spare the grieving president’s widow by breaking security and murdering the crazed assassin.
Sure, John, sure.
Again, if you’re not a professional (i.e., paid) poster of the official line, but just like to post the LN theory because you believe in your faithful government because all involved were upstanding citizens, and none of these gentlemen would ever do such a horrible thing, then I’d like to encourage you to watch the Netflix original series Making A Murderer. After you watch it, you’ll discover that, yes, even small county law enforcement personnel can pull off a conspiracy to blame a man for a crime he didn’t commit. And they can do it not once, but twice, to this same man.
I hope after you watch it, it will open your mind a little bit about 11/22. Unless you’re a paid poster, of course. Then we’ll know you’re just doing your job.
DG Michael,
I am approving your comment reluctantly because I expect making your comment visible will only encourage you. “Paid Poster” accusations, especially emphasized as you have presented, serve to weaken the relevant details related to your argument and indicate you may have nothing else to support your actual argument. Please pursue that approach elsewhere.
But let’s not forget that it was John McAdams who complained that “buffs want to censor anyone who disagrees with them”. This site seems to disprove his claim, if in fact the “pro-conspiracy side” is being censored or refereed with equal levity.
Tom S.,
I think DG Michael’s response to McAdams was spot-on and beautifully stated. Lone Nutters who persist in denying the very obvious are a bit strange. Some of their arguments have merit (there are some extremists on both sides, obviously) but illogic has its limits. In th face of the tsunami of evidence that LHO did not act alone, LNs continue to defend the WC explanation to a degree that either indicates duplicity or nonsensical denial. At some point, you, Tom, have to abandon your efforts to protect the “fairness doctrine” of this site and allow common sense to speak for itself. There are times when the desire to appear “objective” is simply silly.
If the buffs were confident they could win the argument in a fair and open discussion, they would seek that.
That they want to shut down the other side shows that, deep down somewhere, they fear having their arguments scrutinized.
Nonsense John! A fair and open discussion would demand tha the government make all evidence available. The government has refused to do that for 52 years. If you don’t find that, in the least, suspicious, then which side has a right to be suspicious? The “buffs,” as you disparagingly refer to sensible people, have been at a disadvantage for more than half a century.
Scott’s treatment of NSAM 273 did it for me. Since then I haven’t have any confidence in what he says.
This seems as good a plan as any to point out that Mr. McAdams himself is no less a “buff” than any of us, and that his continuing to dismissively refer to individuals who do not share his opinions as “buffs” should not fool anyone into supposing that he is somehow more of an authority on the case than the rest of us.
That’s exactly my thought too. The WC is so far from being an accurate report that just a little bit of research will show right away that Lee Harvey Oswald was not just some lone crazy person who wanted his moment of glory by killing the president. Far from it. The man was a counter-intelligence asset the minute he got off the ship in Europe on his “defection” trip.
Another thing to keep in mind is this – how in the world would the conspirators have been able to just pluck a random person out of the blue to kill the president? The point being, it would have been impossible to have done that without having their “crazy killer” be some kind of asset so they could guide him around unwittingly until 11/22. I suggest watching the “short and sweet” midnight press conference on YouTube. The man truly looks bewildered about what’s going on and is seeking some kind of legal counsel.
Then, during another conference with the DA, none other than Jack Ruby, the so-called “concerned citizen,” corrects the DA with the kind of Castro organization Oswald was supposedly involved in. How in the world would a merely concerned citizen know this, as they were still collecting evidence on the so-called assassin?
Prof. McAdams will no doubt give his standard reply to the Ruby question — Ruby undoubtedly heard it on the radio while he was racing around town not going to Parkland Hospital where he was not seen by reporter Seth Kantor, with whom he did not have a conversation.
Mind you, Ruby was such a news junkie he had to ask someone who Earl Warren was when he saw an “Impeach Earl Warren” billboard one day.
Kind of ironic, that last.
Anyway, I thought I’d beat the Prof to the draw on this one.
😉
Yes, it was broadcast on NBC a short time before 4:00 p.m. Central. And since NBC was working from wire copy, the presumption would be that most radio stations had it, especially KRLD, which was Ruby’s favorite.
It’s good if you admit this factoid has been debunked.
P.S. I wonder if Von Pein has the KRLD coverage. He seems to have about everything else.
Yes Johnny, and of course you know for a factoid that Ruby was listening in and taking precise notes, well informed citizen that he was. 😉
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=40#relPageId=199
I checked Ruby’s testimony, and it would have been KLIF.
Is it true that Helms had JFK autograph a picture of the soon to be assassinated President the last time he saw him alive? If true it doesn’t prove anything, but it does seem like an odd request to make of someone you really don’t like?
OH, THE BUFFOONERY
If this story is true, Dick Helms seems to have been a “Presidential Autograph” buff, in the same way that James Angleton was an “Orchid Buff”.
It’s my recollection that Helms actually brought a gun to his final encounter with JFK. Is that possible?
Well, considering Bill Harvey supposedly gave up more than one before entering the Oval Office but was proud of retaining one, entirely possible. But just based on Harvey’s bragging.
Well, Helms did too, then.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/upshot/when-jfk-secretly-reached-out-to-castro.html?_r=0 ]
[excerpt]
Late on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 1963 — the evening before President Kennedy’s final full day at the White House — the C.I.A.’s covert action chief, Richard Helms, brought J.F.K. what he termed “hard evidence” that Castro was still trying to foment revolution throughout Latin America.
Helms (who later served as C.I.A. director from 1966 to 1973) and an aide, Hershel Peake, told Kennedy about their agency’s discovery: a three-ton arms cache left by Cuban terrorists on a beach in Venezuela, along with blueprints for a plan to seize control of that country by stopping Venezuelan elections scheduled for 12 days hence.
Standing in the Cabinet Room near windows overlooking the darkened Rose Garden, Helms brandished what he called a “vicious-looking” rifle and told the president how its identifying Cuban seal had been sanded off.
Prof McAdams does not believe there was a conspiracy and in some areas makes a very good case against conspiracy. I find his evidence against there being tapes taken to Dallas pretty persuasive.
In other areas his case against conspiracy is abysmal. For example he posits that Joannides’s role is entirely unimportant and not worthy of justification.
His other great failing is his inability to stick to with an argument:
” Scott has to do the usual buff thing: posit a bunch of falsified documents and lying witnesses.”
This is a fairly typical lazy attack on the supposed conspiratorial mass of supposedly like-minded individuals. It troubles me greatly because it appears to be some form of tactic, suggesting that perhaps the arguments themselves need a smokescreen to help them along. I doesn’t suggest academic rigour, it mirrors the sort of rubbish a buff like myself might write!
It’s a truism that you can make any theory fit the data if you are willing to make a large enough number of ad hoc assumptions.
So it’s perfectly legitimate to point out that Scott simply rules out virtually every piece of evidence he finds inconvenient by declaring it fakes, forged, or suborned.
That’s what people sophisticated about theorizing point out. After a certain point, when way too many ad hoc assumptions have been piled on, one decides that the theory just doesn’t fit.
“After a certain point, when way too many ad hoc assumptions have been piled on, one decides that the theory just doesn’t fit.”~John McAdams
That sounds like a very good description of the Warren Commission.
\\][//
Dr. McAdams, considering your eminent qualifications, when dissing Dr. Scott please remember his. While his current status of Professor Emeritus is in English at the University of California he does have training and experience a a lecturer in Political Science as well as being a Guggenheim Fellow and diplomat dealing with the United Nations. Somewhere I read he had a little legal training or experience.
http://peterdalescott.net/cv.html
A little professional courtesy when addressing his assertions might be expected from a suspended associate professor rather than ad homeinm attacks.
There is nothing “discourteous” about critiquing Scott’s logic. What I said is simply the standard logic that applies to all social (and natural science) theorizing.
McAdams and Iacoletti fall into grouping everyone who disagrees with them by following disinformation behaviors: https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
“Richard Helms Lies to the Warren Commission, March 1964
Let us now look at Helms’s informative lies about the CIA and Oswald. On March 6, 1964, from Richard Helms sent an important memo to J. Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission staff. This memo was the first page of what we know as Warren Commission Document 692, the so-called “CIA’s Official Oswald Dossier.” In this memo, which was declassified in 1973, Helms wrote, “There is attached an exact reproduction of the Agency’s official dossier on Lee Harvey OSWALD beginning with the opening sheet dated 9 December 1960.”[7]
There was a lot concealed by this sentence. To begin with, the CIA did not have just one “official dossier” on Oswald but at least two. Helms was referring to the so-called 201 Counterintelligence file on Oswald. But there was at least one other official Oswald file, in the Office of Security. In addition we know of a so-called “soft file” on Oswald maintained in the Soviet Russia division of the CIA’s Department of Plans, and there may have been more.
Much more importantly, what Helms gave the Commission was far from “an exact reproduction” of the actual Counterintelligence Oswald file. Instead he transmitted a radically curtailed version of it in a new file of March 1964 (XAAZ 22592), which the CIA much later acknowledged was a file “prepared [the CIA’s word] for the Warren Commission.”[8] The word “prepared” is important. Like ONI, and almost certainly the FBI, Helms and the CIA did not deliver “an exact reproduction” of an original Oswald file, but of a file that had been belatedly “prepared” in March for others to see.[9]”~Peter Dale Scott
As per, “prepared”, I believe the phrase is “sanitized” is spook lingo.
\\][//