The Oswald Files

[Jim Root]

In 1964, the Warren Commission requested all military files on Lee Harvey Oswald. Army Intelligence provided nothing. In 1978, it was learned that there had been an Army Intelligence file on Oswald, even before the assassination. The file, according to the Army, had been "routinely" destroyed in 1973.

Questions concerning the destruction of Oswald’s Army Intelligence File were asked of G. Robert Blakey in 1993:

“Is there significance in the fact that the military intelligence file on Oswald disappeared? What happened? Many people would see a far more sinister significance to the fact that the military destroyed a file of obvious historic significance.”

Blakey responded with:

“In 1972, largely as a result of the investigations into military intelligence activities in the United States, the Defense Department destroyed all of the military intelligence files that they had about American citizens and things in the United States, which was shocking from the point of view of the committee. This general order resulted in the destruction of historically very valuable files.’

“Most disturbing was the destruction by the Army intelligence of Oswald's Army intelligence file. The suspicion immediately was that this was part of a cover up. We interviewed all of the officers who were responsible for the order to destroy it, and while we have the testimony of these individuals, we do not have the file.’

“Again, our ultimate conclusion was that in the United States, more often than not, the better explanation for government action is not hob nailed boots, but Keystone Cops. It's incredible how our bureaucracy simply responds in a mindless way without any regard to the historical significance of what they have.”

Coincidence?

The FBI files on Oswald still exist and we now know that information about Oswald was being added to as late as November 4, 1963 (Hosty note).

The CIA files on Oswald still exist and we now know that information about Oswald was being forwarded to Richard Helms Office in “real time.”

The State Department files on Oswald still exist and were being supplemented on a regular basis up till the assassination of JFK.

Is it logical to believe that the destroyed Army Intelligence File on Lee Harvey Oswald was also being kept up to date and read at the highest levels of the Military? I wonder, just what did it contain? I wonder why it's contents were not made available to the Warren Commissioners?

Just one more reason I continue to suspect that General Maxwell Taylor may be the “Big Fish.”

Jim Root

[Tim Gratz]

For what it is worth, Maxwell Taylor was very much against the coup in South Vietnam (as were Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ("the odd couple" here).

Edited February 9, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Jim Root]

Tim

I dealt with the subject of Taylor and the coup in the thread "Seven Days in May" and feel confident that Taylor was in fact supportive of the overthrow of Diem. I believe that Shanet posted information that suggested that the Phoenix Program was OKed within hours/days before the assassination, suggesting that a major change in policy was in effect at the time of the assassination. If Kennedy was not supportive of these changes who would be in a position to both know and to act upon that information. I continue to suggest Taylor was and also continue to point to Taylor's close relationship with Edwin Walker as a key connection to this whole mess.

Jim Root

[Shanet Clark]

Jim,

I meant to get back with you on that.

I thought I had it in my library, but I don't. Other memebers

should know what it is I have, and I haven't looked on the net,

maybe something there.

The memo sequence is a series of drafts between 11/21 and 11/24

of the BUNDY national security memorandums.

These were raw Presidential Directives concerning VIETNAM objectives,

nothing specific to the Colby program.

However, I believe it was MARK LANE, unearthed the NSC directive drafts

and shows a premonitional upgrade of strartegic objectives in southeasst

asia concurrent with the events in Dallas. McGeorge Bundy I believe was

the Nat/Sec/Adv at the time, and did a pitiful job of co-ordinating or controlling

anything and is indicted in this whole mess, with his brother William. (Wm advisor?)

I thought I could present this stuff, I can't find it...but it exists...book appendix..

overall strategy picture, not a PHOENIX draft, (although that did stem from tha

Johnson strategy. ) 1965 was the big year, Johnson said in 1969 that 1965 was

as much about Indonesia as Vietnam, and he had to keep the pressure on...

so militarily, 1964 was the set up for the big push in 1965.

Kennedy was killed late 1963...with Diem...

QUOTE:

Tim

I dealt with the subject of Taylor and the coup in the thread "Seven Days in May" and feel confident that Taylor was in fact supportive of the overthrow of Diem. I believe that Shanet posted information that suggested that the Phoenix Program was OKed within hours/days before the assassination, suggesting that a major change in policy was in effect at the time of the assassination. If Kennedy was not supportive of these changes who would be in a position to both know and to act upon that information. I continue to suggest Taylor was and also continue to point to Taylor's close relationship with Edwin Walker as a key connection to this whole mess.

Jim Root

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Edited February 9, 2005 by Shanet Clark

[Steve Thomas]

Jim,

I

“Most disturbing was the destruction by the Army intelligence of Oswald's Army intelligence file. The suspicion immediately was that this was part of a cover up. We interviewed all of the officers who were responsible for the order to destroy it, and while we have the testimony of these individuals, we do not have the file.’

This is from an interview with Christopher Pyle - who testified before the Ervin Committee around 1970:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/...ohide/pyle.html

Pyle: "Oh yes. And in 1973 I was on the committee staff that wrote it. We wrote the Privacy Act. It was a funny thing. After all these disclosures: the COINTELPRO disclosures, the FBI [disclosures], the Watergate disclosures, the Army disclosures - and the Army was just the lead up to all this stuff. The beginning of Watergate, so to speak. After all those disclosures, there was a general consensus among the politicians in Washington that we needed a law protecting privacy.

But among other things, we had a provision in there saying that the Army - that the government - that no government agency will maintain files on wholly lawful political activity of citizens. And in anticipation of that law going into effect in 1974, in late '73 the Army started burning all its files. And I interviewed some the agents who did the burning over the Christmas holidays because the Army didn't want people filing Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requests for the documents.

And so I went into that giant warehouse at Fort Holabird, that big, black building I told you about, which had enormous files. And to get a sense of it, these things were on racks. It looked a Home Depot with all these racks. And they had a cherry picker on rails that rode down the aisles - up and down the aisles, computer run by a console in the corner - picking off the shelves. They had 108 linear feet of files on the Communist Party U.S.A. just to give you a sense of the quantity of paper files they had on political activity. All of that had to be burned. "

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

Jim,

The FBI files on Oswald still exist

The CIA files on Oswald still exist

The State Department files on Oswald still exist

Is it logical to believe that the destroyed Army Intelligence File on Lee Harvey Oswald was also being kept up to date and read at the highest levels of the Military? 

I guess there will always be lingering doubts that the Army files were in fact destroyed.

This from: SENATOR SAM ERVIN AND THE ARMY SPY SCANDAL OF 1970-1971: BALANCING NATIONAL SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES IN A FREE SOCIETY

Karl E. Campbell

http://cmhpf.org/senator%20sam%20ervin.htm

Although Pyle succeeded in bringing the secret CONUS program to the public's attention, he left many apprehensive Americans wanting to know more, including Sam Ervin.[11] The Senator joined more than a dozen other congress­men from both political parties in ordering the Army to issue "an immediate explanation." [12] From the floor of the Senate Ervin declared, "Clearly, the Army has no business operating data banks for surveillance of private citizens; nor do they have any business in domestic politics." He went on to question the constitutionality of an "ever‑curious" Executive Branch secretly watching and maintaining files on law‑abiding Americans. He called the Army's surveillance program "a violation of the First Amendment rights of our entire nation."[13]

Instead of answering Ervin's concerns, the Army chose to cover up. Robert E. Jordan III, Army General Counsel, froze all responses to congressional inquiries. Agents received orders to gather only "essential elements of information," and not to discuss the CONUS operation with any civilian.[14] Behind the scenes intelligence officers at Fort Holabird removed from the files the embarrassing items to which Pyle had referred in his article.[15] Officers also telephoned agents across the country telling them to hide, but not destroy, any files until the controversy blew over.[16] To organize its response to the crisis, the Pentagon formed a "task group" which met in the "Domestic War Room" deep in the basement of the Pentagon. As one member of that group later recalled: "[We] proceeded from the start to deny any and all charges, factual or otherwise."[17]

The military intelligence bureaucracy fought back tenaciously against members of Congress, reporters, or any other American citizen who wanted to know more about their highly questionable domestic surveillance system. In the name of defending democracy and freedom, the officers in charge of the secret national security program acted in a manner more consistent with totalitarian regimes. In order to cover up the excesses of their domestic spying, CONUS commanders throughout the country began to replace all of their newer agents with older career soldiers.[18] Intelligence units received orders "to just hide it, get it out of the way, this will all blow over."[19] At some bases they destroyed the data but kept the "input" (the computer keypunch cards), or copied the information onto microfilm before destroying it.[20] As one clerk later recalled, "The order didn't say to destroy the information, just destroy the Compendium [a computer data bank]."[21] Typical were the actions of the officers in the 116th Military Intelligence Group at Fort McNair in Washington D.C. who classified all of their files and threatened anyone disclosing anything about their domestic surveillance would be court‑martial or prosecuted in civilian court for violation of national security."[22]

Steve Thomas

Footnotes:

[11]. Typical was the North Carolinian who wrote to Ervin: "I hope you will investigate this situation and bring the power of the Senate to act to protect the citizens of this nation from further encroachment of their rights." Cong. Rec., 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 2226. All of the participants in Ervin's hearings with whom I spoke confirmed Ervin's frequent claim that the subcommittee received hundreds of letters in reaction to Pyle's revelations. See U.S., Congress. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, a report of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., 1973, 2 (hereafter cited as "Military Surveillance Report, 1973").

[12]. Ervin to Stanley R. Resor, 22 January 1970, Samuel J. Ervin Papers, southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (hereafter cited as “Ervin Papers”), box 408, folder 458. This letter and other correspondence between Ervin and the departments of Defense and Justice concerning military surveillance may also be found in Cong. Rec., 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 26333‑26350; and in U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Federal Data Banks, Computers, and the Bill of Rights, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Part II, Documentary Analysis, 92nd Cong., 1st sess., 1971 (hereafter cited as "Documen­tary Analysis, 1971").

[13]. Cong. Rec., 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 2227.

[14]. Christopher H. Pyle, "CONUS Revisited: The Army Covers Up", Washington Monthly 2, July 1970, 50. Pyle combined this article with his January article to form the basis of his testimony before the committee's hearings in 1971 (hereafter cited as "Pyle Testimony"). See U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Federal Data Banks, Computers, and the Bill of Rights, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Part I, 92nd Cong., 1st sess., 1971 (hereafter cited as "Ervin Hearings, 1971").

[15]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 98; Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972).

[16]. Donner, The Age of Surveillance, 317.

[17]. Edward Sohier, Testimony before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, February 24, 1971, Ervin Hearings, 1971, 278‑279. Sohier's testimony, along with sections of other ex‑intelligence agents' testimony, appears in Barth, Uncle Sam is Watching You.

[18]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 99.

[19]. Donner, The Age of Surveillance, note 78, 508.

[20]. Joseph Hanlon, "Army Drops Data Banks but Keeps Data Banks," Computerworld, 11 March 1970, Documentary Analysis, 1646. Pyle also cited this in his testimony before the committee, and added that officials at Fort Holabird destroyed some computer tapes but hid others and filed some under different names.

[21]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 100.

[22]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 99. Also cited in Pyle testimony, Ervin Hearings, 1971, 209.

[Jim Root]

Steve

Great info.

We must remember that before Pearl Harbor, the Smith Act required the registration of aliens in America. This was enacted shortly after John J. McCloy was brought to the War Department by Henry Stimson to upgrade and enhance the US Military Intelligence system (McCloy's backround with the Black Tom case made him a good choice for this assignment). Even earlier, during the days of the CCC programs of the Depression era, the US Military was processing American Citizens into appropriate work situations (Edwin Walker was involved with this work, a form of gathering information on American citizens by the Army). Historical events such as the famous Zimmerman Telegram (before the US involvement in WWI) were tied to an effective and alert Army Intelligence program.

While I do not intend to debate the questions surrounding National Security or argue the merits or demerits of obvious intrusions into the privacy rights of individuals my point here is to observe that the Army Intelligence File on Lee Harvey Oswald was "officially" destroyed!

Of the four major files, it is the one that was destroyed! I continue to follow a track of research that leads me to believe that Military Intelligence may have been the major player in Oswald the "patsy" who may have been used as an "orchid man" in the "game" of international political intrigue (and who may have figured out that he had been a pawn).

Jim Root

Edited February 9, 2005 by Jim Root

[Shanet Clark]

The Orchid Man is really a typical cold war counter intelligence program.

Operation ARTICHOKE and the MK series ULTRA program would do this

and more. Under cover of truth serums, the research went into mind

control, hypnosis, psychedelic suggestion, auto-post hypnotic suggestion,

triggered sociopathic deniable agency, and the hypnosis of coded information

for transmission across cold war borders.

Since the Colby releases show that 100,000 dosages of Sandoz CIA LSD

was stored in the Atsugi Japan military counter-intelligence MK ULTRA offices,

then it is safe to say that LEE HARVEY OSWALD was a program subject.

His post Marine attempted defection into Minsk and Soviet society is a second clear

clue...

His counter defection back into the arms of the Paines, the DeMorenschildt's and the Welcome Wagon show a clear pattern of international intrigue.

Jim, have you got the whole file on the Marcano Il Duce rifles, the black

combat quality sniper rifles with no serial #'s ? the 6.5s the Americans

took out of Italy in 1943, the evil Roman Mussolini rifles....those were the ones...

[William Kelly]

Steve

Great info.

We must remember that before Pearl Harbor, the Smith Act required the registration of aliens in America. This was enacted shortly after John J. McCloy was brought to the War Department by Henry Stimson to upgrade and enhance the US Military Intelligence system (McCloy's backround with the Black Tom case made him a good choice for this assignment). Even earlier, during the days of the CCC programs of the Depression era, the US Military was processing American Citizens into appropriate work situations (Edwin Walker was involved with this work, a form of gathering information on American citizens by the Army). Historical events such as the famous Zimmerman Telegram (before the US involvement in WWI) were tied to an effective and alert Army Intelligence program.

While I do not intend to debate the questions surrounding National Security or argue the merits or demerits of obvious intrusions into the privacy rights of individuals my point here is to observe that the Army Intelligence File on Lee Harvey Oswald was "officially" destroyed!

Of the four major files, it is the one that was destroyed! I continue to follow a track of research that leads me to believe that Military Intelligence may have been the major player in Oswald the "patsy" who may have been used as an "orchid man" in the "game" of international political intrigue (and who may have figured out that he had been a pawn).

Jim Root

Steve and Jim,

I want to bring this issue back to the table.

Now that the Congress is conducting oversight hearings, if we get an oversight hearing on the JFK Act, we will want them to focus on 1) the records destroyed, 2) the records still withheld, 3) the records missing that are refered to in other records but have never been located.

Will you guys help out on the referencing to the US Army / military records?

As John Newman has said, the files are triplicated and in many physically separate places so they couldn't have destroyed them all. I belive they do exist, and can be located.

Also see: Jones test. as to location of military records.

BK

[JL Allen]

“Again, our ultimate conclusion was that in the United States, more often than not, the better explanation for government action is not hob nailed boots, but Keystone Cops. It's incredible how our bureaucracy simply responds in a mindless way without any regard to the historical significance of what they have.”

Keystone Cops, indeed. This is the highest echelon of our intelligence community. The perception that they are bunglers and half-wits allows them to deep-six a multitude of issues and circumstances without ever having to explain or address their relevance or importance. It's absurd that they would initiate such a defense - and even more absurd that we would ever believe them.

[William Kelly]

Steve

Great info.

We must remember that before Pearl Harbor, the Smith Act required the registration of aliens in America. This was enacted shortly after John J. McCloy was brought to the War Department by Henry Stimson to upgrade and enhance the US Military Intelligence system (McCloy's backround with the Black Tom case made him a good choice for this assignment). Even earlier, during the days of the CCC programs of the Depression era, the US Military was processing American Citizens into appropriate work situations (Edwin Walker was involved with this work, a form of gathering information on American citizens by the Army). Historical events such as the famous Zimmerman Telegram (before the US involvement in WWI) were tied to an effective and alert Army Intelligence program.

While I do not intend to debate the questions surrounding National Security or argue the merits or demerits of obvious intrusions into the privacy rights of individuals my point here is to observe that the Army Intelligence File on Lee Harvey Oswald was "officially" destroyed!

Of the four major files, it is the one that was destroyed! I continue to follow a track of research that leads me to believe that Military Intelligence may have been the major player in Oswald the "patsy" who may have been used as an "orchid man" in the "game" of international political intrigue (and who may have figured out that he had been a pawn).

Jim Root

Steve and Jim,

I want to bring this issue back to the table.

Now that the Congress is conducting oversight hearings, if we get an oversight hearing on the JFK Act, we will want them to focus on 1) the records destroyed, 2) the records still withheld, 3) the records missing that are refered to in other records but have never been located.

Will you guys help out on the referencing to the US Army / military records?

As John Newman has said, the files are triplicated and in many physically separate places so they couldn't have destroyed them all. I belive they do exist, and can be located.

Also see: Jones test. as to location of military records.

BK

[Mark Knight]

Steve

Great info.

We must remember that before Pearl Harbor, the Smith Act required the registration of aliens in America. This was enacted shortly after John J. McCloy was brought to the War Department by Henry Stimson to upgrade and enhance the US Military Intelligence system (McCloy's backround with the Black Tom case made him a good choice for this assignment). Even earlier, during the days of the CCC programs of the Depression era, the US Military was processing American Citizens into appropriate work situations (Edwin Walker was involved with this work, a form of gathering information on American citizens by the Army). Historical events such as the famous Zimmerman Telegram (before the US involvement in WWI) were tied to an effective and alert Army Intelligence program.

While I do not intend to debate the questions surrounding National Security or argue the merits or demerits of obvious intrusions into the privacy rights of individuals my point here is to observe that the Army Intelligence File on Lee Harvey Oswald was "officially" destroyed!

Of the four major files, it is the one that was destroyed! I continue to follow a track of research that leads me to believe that Military Intelligence may have been the major player in Oswald the "patsy" who may have been used as an "orchid man" in the "game" of international political intrigue (and who may have figured out that he had been a pawn).

Jim Root

Steve and Jim,

I want to bring this issue back to the table.

Now that the Congress is conducting oversight hearings, if we get an oversight hearing on the JFK Act, we will want them to focus on 1) the records destroyed, 2) the records still withheld, 3) the records missing that are refered to in other records but have never been located.

Will you guys help out on the referencing to the US Army / military records?

As John Newman has said, the files are triplicated and in many physically separate places so they couldn't have destroyed them all. I belive they do exist, and can be located.

Also see: Jones test. as to location of military records.

BK

Bill, I have long believed that Oswald was run by Army intelligence. After all, running LHO under ONI would have been too transparent...USMC to Department of the Navy to ONI...too easy to connect the dots. When it comes to intel, it seems to me that a lot of servicemen were run by a branch other than the one under which they initially [or officially] served. BUT...such information wasn't exactly common knowledge in 1963. Therefore, you could stall any inquiries if USMC officials, and then Navy officials, could [semi] honestly deny that Oswald had any intelligence connections through THEIR channels. HOWEVER...since Oswald was never "officially" Army, it would make the most sense that his cover was least likely to be blown if he was run by ARMY intel.

So the best place for Ozzie Rabbit's activities to have been controlled, and kept under wraps, would've been through Army intel. IF--and it's a gargantuan IF--someone managed to keep a copy of LHO's Army file, I think it would blow the lid off Dallas, and answer all the questions we've wondered about for nearly 50 years. Since the AF1 tapes held by Clifton are recently surfacing...perhaps someday the Oswald Army file will, too. Just hope that it happens in our lifetime.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Mark Knight