Oswald Obsession; a Study of the Murder, or the Cover-Up?

[Cliff Varnell]

I think the Oswald Forum here is the proper venue for these questions...

If Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing directly to do with the murder of JFK why is it assumed that his handlers had something directly to do with the assassination?

Greg Parker has mentioned that Oswald leads to "the frame," as well as "plotters" and "players" in the murder.

I ask which frame: Oswald the Red Agent, or Oswald the Lone Nut?

And LHO leads to the top plotters of JFK's murder?

Sloppy plotters...

Edited March 24, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[Jon G. Tidd]

"If Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing directly to do with the murder of JFK why is it assumed that his handlers had something directly to do with the assassination?"

Excellent point. I've reached tentatively the conclusion he had no handlers; that he pulled his own strings.

If Oswald did have handlers distinct from observers, your question is right on the mark, and I say there is no reason grounded in the verifiable facts to make such an important assumption.

[Brian Schmidt]

How would he be a patsy if he had no handlers?

[Ron Ecker]

How would he be a patsy if he had no handlers?

Exactly.

[Paul Brancato]

Cliff - you ask an interesting question. I think we should consider more than just whether he was involved in the assassination plot. He may have been aware of the plot but not involved in it. I think it is likely in fact that one or the other have to be true. Even if we have difficulty tracing his path on Nov 22 we do certainly know that he left the building and was arrested at a movie theater a few hours later. I guess it's possible that his actions were random, but I doubt it. My own feeling is that he was watching the plotters, and they were onto him and watching him. I am not convinced, as Jon posits, that he was pulling his own strings.

[Thomas Graves]

Cliff - you ask an interesting question. I think we should consider more than just whether he was involved in the assassination plot. He may have been aware of the plot but not involved in it. I think it is likely in fact that one or the other have to be true. Even if we have difficulty tracing his path on Nov 22 we do certainly know that he left the building and was arrested at a movie theater a few hours later. I guess it's possible that his actions were random, but I doubt it. My own feeling is that he was watching the plotters, and they were onto him and watching him. I am not convinced, as Jon posits, that he was pulling his own strings.

Paul,

I like your ideas as much as you like mine.

--Tommy

Edited March 24, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Cliff Varnell]

Cliff - you ask an interesting question. I think we should consider more than just whether he was involved in the assassination plot. He may have been aware of the plot but not involved in it. I think it is likely in fact that one or the other have to be true. Even if we have difficulty tracing his path on Nov 22 we do certainly know that he left the building and was arrested at a movie theater a few hours later. I guess it's possible that his actions were random, but I doubt it. My own feeling is that he was watching the plotters, and they were onto him and watching him. I am not convinced, as Jon posits, that he was pulling his own strings.

He knew enough about the cover-up plot to declare himself a patsy.

And that's the thing -- Oswald is a study of the cover-up.

And given the amount of work put into sheep-dipping Oswald as a Red Agent I'd have to say it's a study of the losers.

The Yalies who put out the Oswald as Lone Nut frame were the winners.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[David Andrews]

If he had no handlers, how did his name and description get to the authorities within twenty minutes after the assassination?

How and why did Ruth Paine and Robert Oswald keep the authorities supplied with incriminating material for weeks after Oswald's death?

[Thomas Graves]

Cliff - you ask an interesting question. I think we should consider more than just whether he was involved in the assassination plot. He may have been aware of the plot but not involved in it. I think it is likely in fact that one or the other have to be true. Even if we have difficulty tracing his path on Nov 22 we do certainly know that he left the building and was arrested at a movie theater a few hours later. I guess it's possible that his actions were random, but I doubt it. My own feeling is that he was watching the plotters, and they were onto him and watching him. I am not convinced, as Jon posits, that he was pulling his own strings.

He knew enough about the cover-up plot to declare himself a patsy.

And that's the thing -- Oswald is a study of the cover-up.

And given the amount of work put into sheep-dipping Oswald as a Red Agent I'd have to say it's a study of the losers.

The Yalies who put out the Oswald as Lone Nut frame were the winners.

Or he could have just put 2 plus 2 together.

Question: Did he say "I'm just a patsy" before or after he was told he had been charged with killing JFK at the Midnight Press Conference?

--Tommy

[Jon G. Tidd]

Have not many individuals who have been convicted of crimes in U.S. been framed but not handled by a case officer?

[Brian Schmidt]

Jon-

While that is, of course, true, the thrust of Oswald's background suggests that he was "handled." This is the whole reason early researchers suspected intelligence influence. For example, his friendship with George de Mohrenschildt as early as summer 1962 is very suspect. How would he have been guided to work at the TSBD and have the history he did if he wasn't actively handled?

Edited March 24, 2015 by Brian Schmidt

[David Josephs]

One of the more famous examples of being "handled" is the FPCC leafing at the ITM in New Orleans...

Everyone involved had intelligence backgrounds... the man Oswald pays a few dollars to hand out flyers is an informant Charles Steele Jr

The office where the flyers were kep - Bannister and Ferrie

The men who fake the fight - Cubans associated with Bannister - all anti Castro while their man Oswald hands out FPCC flyers to garner names of sympathizers - classic FBI.

Reily coffee was a CIA front

Mexico City. Period.

Ruth and Michael Paine are so "associated" as to be nauseating - Quaker Friends and cabinets of Cuban sympathizers

DeMohren and friends as Brian notes.

Shelley at the TSBD - Manager of the Misc. and ex intel

Oswald the cuban/soviet commie was imo designed to scare the piss out of anyone wanting to dig. If Johnson says it was a commie plot let's go get Castro - they may have. That they didn't and never again bothered with Cuba, that the Russians did not return missles to the island is pretty indicative that the plan all along with to keep prying eyes away and get rid of JFK.

A study of what occurs in the USA since then should convince anyone that CUBA had little if anything to do with what the MICC needed to have happen to JFK and what wealth and propserity followed - completely without the need to remove a communist from the Western Hemisphere

Edited March 24, 2015 by David Josephs

[Terry Martin]

Cliff - you ask an interesting question. I think we should consider more than just whether he was involved in the assassination plot. He may have been aware of the plot but not involved in it. I think it is likely in fact that one or the other have to be true. Even if we have difficulty tracing his path on Nov 22 we do certainly know that he left the building and was arrested at a movie theater a few hours later. I guess it's possible that his actions were random, but I doubt it. My own feeling is that he was watching the plotters, and they were onto him and watching him. I am not convinced, as Jon posits, that he was pulling his own strings.

He knew enough about the cover-up plot to declare himself a patsy.

And that's the thing -- Oswald is a study of the cover-up.

And given the amount of work put into sheep-dipping Oswald as a Red Agent I'd have to say it's a study of the losers.

The Yalies who put out the Oswald as Lone Nut frame were the winners.

"Oswald is a study of the cover-up."

I find that a most intriguing way to present the case.

If he was, as many suspect, entirely innocent of killing Kennedy then his presence in the affair can only be as part of the cover-up.

Most posit that the intelligence handlers used him to be the fall guy... but what if, they were caught off-guard by the assassination and once Oswald had been fingered by the locals, the intelligence community quickly washed their hands of him as quickly as possible to distance themselves from the undercover operation he had been involved in.

That way, they lost an operative, but were able to maintain the secrecy over the operation. Had Oswald talked, they may have lost so very much more.

But this does not mean they had to have been involved in the assassination.

Many researchers talk about the compartmentalizing of intelligence operations. Perhaps it would be best if we began looking at the case in the same light: as individual segments not necessarily linked together beforehand.

Just a thot.

[Mark Knight]

Cliff - you ask an interesting question. I think we should consider more than just whether he was involved in the assassination plot. He may have been aware of the plot but not involved in it. I think it is likely in fact that one or the other have to be true. Even if we have difficulty tracing his path on Nov 22 we do certainly know that he left the building and was arrested at a movie theater a few hours later. I guess it's possible that his actions were random, but I doubt it. My own feeling is that he was watching the plotters, and they were onto him and watching him. I am not convinced, as Jon posits, that he was pulling his own strings.

He knew enough about the cover-up plot to declare himself a patsy.

And that's the thing -- Oswald is a study of the cover-up.

And given the amount of work put into sheep-dipping Oswald as a Red Agent I'd have to say it's a study of the losers.

The Yalies who put out the Oswald as Lone Nut frame were the winners.

"Oswald is a study of the cover-up."

I find that a most intriguing way to present the case.

If he was, as many suspect, entirely innocent of killing Kennedy then his presence in the affair can only be as part of the cover-up.

Most posit that the intelligence handlers used him to be the fall guy... but what if, they were caught off-guard by the assassination and once Oswald had been fingered by the locals, the intelligence community quickly washed their hands of him as quickly as possible to distance themselves from the undercover operation he had been involved in.

That way, they lost an operative, but were able to maintain the secrecy over the operation. Had Oswald talked, they may have lost so very much more.

But this does not mean they had to have been involved in the assassination.

Many researchers talk about the compartmentalizing of intelligence operations. Perhaps it would be best if we began looking at the case in the same light: as individual segments not necessarily linked together beforehand.

Just a thot.

I think it's a pretty good thought.

[Greg Parker]

I think the Oswald Forum here is the proper venue for these questions...

If Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing directly to do with the murder of JFK why is it assumed that his handlers had something directly to do with the assassination?

Greg Parker has mentioned that Oswald leads to "the frame," as well as "plotters" and "players" in the murder.

I ask which frame: Oswald the Red Agent, or Oswald the Lone Nut?

And LHO leads to the top plotters of JFK's murder?

Sloppy plotters...

Yep.