Was There a Set-up Distinct from the Cover-up?

[Jon G. Tidd]

Some students of the JFK assassination believe Oswald was set up to take the fall for the JFK assassination by his handler. The handler being a CIA case officer.

Oswald in the custody of the DPD opined he was being picked on because he had lived in the USSR. Suggesting he was trying to broadcast, "They're trying to frame me because they think I'm a commie." We've been told Oswald asked for John Abt as his lawyer. Abt apparently had represented communists.

There's a mis-match here. Oswald evinces nothing suggesting he's been sold down the river. Students of the assassination believe he was. I side with Oswald.

[David Josephs]

Some students of the JFK assassination believe Oswald was set up to take the fall for the JFK assassination by his handler. The handler being a CIA case officer.

Oswald in the custody of the DPD opined he was being picked on because he had lived in the USSR. Suggesting he was trying to broadcast, "They're trying to frame me because they think I'm a commie." We've been told Oswald asked for John Abt as his lawyer. Abt apparently had represented communists.

There's a mis-match here. Oswald evinces nothing suggesting he's been sold down the river. Students of the assassination believe he was. I side with Oswald.

There was 12 hours of interrogation over 3 days yet only 5 little pages of notes? Fritz even says that after all this the FBI knows more about Oswald than they did. We do not have a good avenue into knowing what he said during those interviews.

I happen to agree with the notion that Oswald truly believed he was going to be helped by his intelligence associates and most definitely not killed.

Many assume that the call to John Hurt in VA, a cut-out, sealed his fate for reaching out to his intel handlers.

I truly do not believe that this Oswald knew the details of the assassination and was played to be one possible patsy starting in New Orleans in May 1963. (Arthur Valle was Chicago's)

He was handing out Pro Castro lit while working with Anti-Castro intelligence personnel - most likely to conitnue the attack upon FPCC by gathering the names of those interested in the cause. that Oswald played games with the addresses on the flyers suggests to me he had more than one master.

One has to make speculate on what occurs to Oswald if JFK is killed in Chicago? Was Reily, Bannister, Ferrie etc in NOLA that summer really patsy planning? From My POV each action within the assets of the CIA/FBI would be played for many reasons. I believe that Oswald was put into a position to do the work he was asked to do while also leaving the breadcrumbs of self incrimination.

"Use him if we need to"...

Jon, when the SS tells the advance team that there are no threats to JFK in Dallas, one has to simply pause at the absurdity of it.

The TSBD was notorious for running guns and drugs - it was watched by the FBI, infultrated by many.

Most every contingency had been considered... the TSBD staff involved in these activities would most easily be "coerced" into incriminating Oswald.

William Shelley and Roy Truly remain very suspicious characters with Shelley POSSIBLY having been in NOLA with Oswald:

With Chicago only being a 3 weeks before and only a week after Oswald starts at the TSBD... one has to think that placing Oswald in the TSBD was the first step of the backup plan should Chicago not go off...

FWIW my $.02

DJ

From Edwin Black's The Chicago Plot:

THE PATSY

Meanwhile, two other agents had been following up a highly suspicious yet bum lead. The

man's name was Thomas Arthur Vallee, a 30-year-old ex-Marine classified extreme paranoid

schizophrenic by military doctors. Vallee worked as an apprentice at IPP Litho-plate at 625

West Jackson. As the patsy, he was perfect—as perfect for the Chicago assassination plot as

Lee Harvey Oswald was for the Dallas assassination plot.

Vallee was born and raised in Chicago. Like Oswald, he joined the Marines in the mid-50s

during the Korean War period. Like Oswald Vallee was assigned to a U-2 base in Japan;

Oswald at Atsugi, Vallee at Camp Otsu. The cover reference for the U-2 project at these

bases was Joint Technical Advisory Group (JTAG). Since the CIA exerted a strong presence

at these two bases, they were prime recruitment stations.

Both Vallee and Oswald appear to have been recruited by the CIA for "black missions" or

otherwise unsavory, personally discrediting assignments. In Oswald's case, at the height of

the Cold War, he was instructed and helped to defect to Russia. With him he carried top

secret radar codes. Oswald's mission, probably unbeknownst to him, may have been to

reveal this disinformation for some complex CIA intelligence stratagem. Warren

commission testimony documents that all these radar codes had to be revised because of all

the Oswald's defection.

Vallee was recruited about the same time to train members of a fiercely anti-Castro guerrilla

group. Objective: the assassination of Fidel Castro. Training locale: in and around

Levittown, Long Island.

Edited March 6, 2015 by David Josephs

[Larry Hancock]

David, could you share any material you have seen that corroborates the recruitment of Vallee by the CIA and his involvement in

training Cuban exiles in New York....any time frames for either would also be helpful...

-- Larry

[David Josephs]

David, could you share any material you have seen that corroborates the recruitment of Vallee by the CIA and his involvement in

training Cuban exiles in New York....any time frames for either would also be helpful...

-- Larry

I sent a note to Edwin yet he is terribly backlogged on replies.

Are you of the opinion that Edwin was wrong about this? Using uncorroborated sources?

I will do a little searching around and see what I can turn up on my own...

DJ

(Edit: it appears it came from the mouth of Vallee - I'd be interested to know what Edwin did to authenticate this tidbit.... be nice to find this as well: Secret Service master file on Thomas Arthur Vallee, memorandum of Nov. 6, 1963 by Special Agent Thomas D. Strong, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 2 (JFK Document 008581).)

Vallee told an investigative reporter that he had been assigned by the Marines to a U-2 base in Japan, where Vallee would have come under the control of the CIA, which commanded the U-2 program, just as Oswald would come under the CIA’s control as a radar operator at another U-2 base in Japan.

Vallee also told the reporter that he had worked with the CIA at a camp near Levittown, Long Island, helping to train Cuban exiles to assassinate Fidel Castro. Oswald participated in a CIA training camp with Cuban exiles by Lake Pontchartrain, near New Orleans.

Edited March 6, 2015 by David Josephs

[Larry Hancock]

David, years ago I obtained all the Chicago police, Secret Service and related files on Vallee that I could...including hundreds of pages of ongoing annual inquires the SS made on him simply because

he had been a person of interest in 63. Beyond that I looked into the HSCA review of various claims about Vallee/Oswald and found they had chased after claims that did not prove out. Beyond that

I made contact with Vallee's relatives who had remained interested in the stories about him and got a lot more details about his activities after his military separation, his move on from Chicago to

visit his father in LA, etc.

In doing all that I found a lot about how he came to the attention of the Secret Service, how he was investigated and the process by which he was picked up...however I was unable to find anything

that corroborated a number of the more sensational elements of what had been written and totally unable to find any of the training activities or even contacts with exiles. He was certainly

ultra right and opposed to anything Communist and outspoken about Castro, Cuba, JFK etc but in terms of doing much more than just talking - I couldn't find it. He was a major subject of

November Patriots and I've been interested in him for a long time so anything new or corroborative would be appreciated.. Larry

[Stephen Roy]

The TSBD was notorious for running guns and drugs - it was watched by the FBI, infultrated by many.

Do you have a source on that? The School Book Depository was running guns and drugs???

[David Josephs]

David, years ago I obtained all the Chicago police, Secret Service and related files on Vallee that I could...including hundreds of pages of ongoing annual inquires the SS made on him simply because

he had been a person of interest in 63. Beyond that I looked into the HSCA review of various claims about Vallee/Oswald and found they had chased after claims that did not prove out. Beyond that

I made contact with Vallee's relatives who had remained interested in the stories about him and got a lot more details about his activities after his military separation, his move on from Chicago to

visit his father in LA, etc.

In doing all that I found a lot about how he came to the attention of the Secret Service, how he was investigated and the process by which he was picked up...however I was unable to find anything

that corroborated a number of the more sensational elements of what had been written and totally unable to find any of the training activities or even contacts with exiles. He was certainly

ultra right and opposed to anything Communist and outspoken about Castro, Cuba, JFK etc but in terms of doing much more than just talking - I couldn't find it. He was a major subject of

November Patriots and I've been interested in him for a long time so anything new or corroborative would be appreciated.. Larry

Thanks for that Larry...

Curious, if Ossie was not set-up for Dallas do you suppose we would have had as much access to his Marines and Atsugi days? Plus, if the SS was destroying Oct-Nov documents while much of the Oswald evidence was created for the purpose of incrimination, can we assume that anything related to Vallee and the CIA would be "lost" to history?

If the Chicago hit went down I get the impression we would have known all about Vallee's USMC days and probably when he got his first pubic hair. As long as there was a mountain of crap inwhich to hide what little truth was offered.

It's akin to the fact that ther FBI could not find a way for Oswald from New Orleans to Houston in late September. It never happened so they backdated a Sept 1964 report to December and just created the evidence for a bus which COULD have made the trip on time. I truly believe that we are allowed to see evidence that has probably been prepared for us to see, especially on the critical issues, and is never going to reveal the working of the events, only the conspiracy which shrouds it.

No one is going to believe the crazy ex-Marine who says he was in Japan. Yet in this crazy JFK world I tend to take the word of the Patsy over those setting him up and investigating him...

Have you really been able to see the Rosters/Records for the Marines in Japan during those years like Armstrong and others found re: Oswald and made public?

Again, I think the records we were given from the military via the FBI were designed to merge two Oswalds into one. CE1961's 5-weeks of basic training is a conflct that cannot be explained away especially in light of Allen Feld's CE1962 statements.

If I do come across anything solid I will definitely let you know

DJ

[Stephen Roy]

The TSBD was notorious for running guns and drugs - it was watched by the FBI, infultrated by many.

Do you have a source on that? The School Book Depository was running guns and drugs???

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6017

I guess it depends on who/what you believe.... When I see Gratz and Parker falling over themselves to refute the info it signals to me that the information is reliable.

I happen to think Gaal is a very detailed and thorough researcher.

Finally, when Robert Charles-Dunne steps up to repreatedly show Mr Gratz for who he is, (as I've done to Parker numerous times) I take him at his word.

DJ

Wow. I read the EF article you linked, and it doesn't inspire confidence. It is very poorly sourced (Elzie Glaze??) and poorly reasoned and written. It does not support the original statement you made about the TSBD.

I am put in mind of one of Mark Lane's observations: "There are enough genuine mysteries about this thing, that we don't need to be inventing new ones."

Edited March 6, 2015 by Stephen Roy

[David Josephs]

Wow. I read the EF article you linked, and it doesn't inspire confidence. It is very poorly sourced (Elzie Glaze??) and poorly reasoned and written. It does not support the original statement you made about the TSBD.

I am put in mind of one of Mark Lane's observations: "There are enough genuine mysteries about this thing, that we don't need to be inventing new ones."

Stephen,

Would you please explain why you believe Mr. Glaze is not a reliable source... can you impeach the thrust of the accusations?

You may also want to read Armstrong's work on Ruby at harveyandlee.net - it appears that putting Oswald into the TSBD may have been designed as extra leverage for those who were involved in illiegal activity there to go along to get along. But that's just speculation on my part.

I'm fully prepared to admit I referred to something that did not prove its case - yet I have yet to see enough rebuttal not to blieve what is presented.

[Larry Hancock]

David, as to Vallee, I'm doing this from memory and one of these days when it gets warm enough I'm going to box up all my files on folks like Vallee, Beckham, Crisman etc and send them down to Ben for archiving

at Baylor so others can dig into them. But until then as I recall, the Secret Service did dig into Vallee in some detail and there was a good deal of information on his Marine Corps service including a lot on

his medical/psych problems. Based on that and what I know of the people the CIA did bring on board as paramilitary trainers there is no way Vallee would have passed security screening. The CIA did things

on a serious basis and it had ample access to truly experienced military volunteers for assignments. Obviously I can't prove a negative but from what I saw if Vallee had done any training of exiles it would

have been on a personal basis, to pursue his own political beliefs not an Agency program. There were some exiles that came down from New York, generally associated with Masferrer, but the records show

they were trained by volunteers in Miami, some of them by folks associated with Hemming and his crowd. And none of that really came to anything operationally, I think you would find some material on that

in Turner's book and that it was related to the Hati invasion fiasco....

In any event, my personal opinion is that there is a story in Chicago but it involved exiles the FBI was tracking and alerted the Secret Service about....and that is the original Bolden story, not the expanded

Vallee story that generally gets interconnected these days. I'm not sure that one even involved a patsy, it may well just have involved killing JFK, there is no doubt at all that one or more exile cliques

had that in mind and its very possible that there were multiple threats in play that fall.

-- just my opinion, Larry

[Stephen Roy]

Wow. I read the EF article you linked, and it doesn't inspire confidence. It is very poorly sourced (Elzie Glaze??) and poorly reasoned and written. It does not support the original statement you made about the TSBD.

I am put in mind of one of Mark Lane's observations: "There are enough genuine mysteries about this thing, that we don't need to be inventing new ones."

Stephen,

Would you please explain why you believe Mr. Glaze is not a reliable source... can you impeach the thrust of the accusations?

You may also want to read Armstrong's work on Ruby at harveyandlee.net - it appears that putting Oswald into the TSBD may have been designed as extra leverage for those who were involved in illiegal activity there to go along to get along. But that's just speculation on my part.

I'm fully prepared to admit I referred to something that did not prove its case - yet I have yet to see enough rebuttal not to blieve what is presented.

For starters, I can't find any evidence that Glaze was the journalist he was described as. Second, the key elements are based on a claimed interview with Shelley, but there is nothing to check to see if the interview ever actually occurred - no date, print reference, etc. Third, the EF article contains stuff I know about - relating to Ferrie, et al - and it's jumbled.

Can I "impeach the thrust of the allegations"? That's not how it works. The "allegations" need to be soundly sourced in the first place. Are you honestly telling me that, in reading this article, your BS detector doesn't go off???

In the early days of assassination writing, the writers were cautious to take it only as far as the evidence would reasonably allow; We are now in an era where the conclusion is foregone and any square peg is pounded into a round hole, regardless of source, so long as it supports "the cause." Most important, such carelessness dilutes the research in more solid areas!!! But having read these two threads for weeks now, I can see that my caution is falling on deaf ears.

[Thomas Graves]

Wow. I read the EF article you linked, and it doesn't inspire confidence. It is very poorly sourced (Elzie Glaze??) and poorly reasoned and written. It does not support the original statement you made about the TSBD.

I am put in mind of one of Mark Lane's observations: "There are enough genuine mysteries about this thing, that we don't need to be inventing new ones."

Stephen,

Would you please explain why you believe Mr. Glaze is not a reliable source... can you impeach the thrust of the accusations?

You may also want to read Armstrong's work on Ruby at harveyandlee.net - it appears that putting Oswald into the TSBD may have been designed as extra leverage for those who were involved in illiegal activity there to go along to get along. But that's just speculation on my part.

I'm fully prepared to admit I referred to something that did not prove its case - yet I have yet to see enough rebuttal not to blieve what is presented.

For starters, I can't find any evidence that Glaze was the journalist he was described as. Second, the key elements are based on a claimed interview with Shelley, but there is nothing to check to see if the interview ever actually occurred - no date, print reference, etc. Third, the EF article contains stuff I know about - relating to Ferrie, et al - and it's jumbled.

Can I "impeach the thrust of the allegations"? That's not how it works. The "allegations" need to be soundly sourced in the first place. Are you honestly telling me that, in reading this article, your BS detector doesn't go off???

In the early days of assassination writing, the writers were cautious to take it only as far as the evidence would reasonably allow; We are now in an era where the conclusion is foregone and any square peg is pounded into a round hole, regardless of source, so long as it supports "the cause." Most important, such carelessness dilutes the research in more solid areas!!! But having read these two threads for weeks now, I can see that my caution is falling on deaf ears.

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

Good post, Stephen.

"The Professor" comes to mind here.

As does a formerly very active member (and apparent amateur psychologist) who was practically insisting that the filmed scene on the TSBD steps after the assassination had been somehow "staged" at a later late, as does....

--Tommy

[Greg Parker]

The TSBD was notorious for running guns and drugs - it was watched by the FBI, infultrated by many.

Do you have a source on that? The School Book Depository was running guns and drugs???

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6017

I guess it depends on who/what you believe.... When I see Gratz and Parker falling over themselves to refute the info it signals to me that the information is reliable.

I happen to think Gaal is a very detailed and thorough researcher.

Finally, when Robert Charles-Dunne steps up to repreatedly show Mr Gratz for who he is, (as I've done to Parker numerous times) I take him at his word.

DJ

Summon the Devil and he is sure to appear, David. You still have difficulty with discerning facts, I see.

"When I see Gratz and Parker falling over themselves to refute the info"

Let's see my alleged refutation, shall we?

In June 2004, I was asked a question on aajfk about how the rifle got into the TSBD. Ths was my reply: "I've taken it one step further and wondered if weapons were coming in and going out in those book crates."

This article does add some evidence to that speculation. Much, much more would be needed to convince most, imo.

Strike one.

Let's see how the author responded to the above alleged refutation, shall we?

Hello Greg,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

Seems like he appreciated my comments, doesn't it?

Strike two

Strike three is not just that you have mischaracterized a past exchange between me and another poster - it is possibly the more egregious and low act of attempting to smear me by association with Tim Gratz and falsely claiming you have repeatedly shown me who I am.

Of course, you don't attempt to substantiate the claim. You can't. All you have done is remind me in spades why I dumped this place.

Mr Tidd... I have been following your posts here as one of the few bright lights in a sea of dreck. Your one unfortunate and near fatal error is aligning yourself with the Snake Oil Salesmen of "Harvey & Lee".

If I have understood you correctly, your one (or at least main) reason for your 2 Oswald beliefs is because of Lee's ability to learn Russian so quickly. There is a very non-spooky reason for it. It's called Asperger's Syndrome. It explains every "oddball" and out of kilter characteristic of Oswald - and that includes his assimilation of languages and accents.

http://www.reopenkennedycase.org/apps/forums/topics/show/13092947-was-oswald-an-intelligent-agent-

Lee Harvey Oswald's Cold War: Why the Kennedy Assassination Should be Reinvestigated

http://www.amazon.com/Harvey-Oswalds-Cold-Assassination-Reinvestigated-ebook/dp/B00IXOA5ZK

[Jon G. Tidd]

Greg Parker,

"Oswald" is a blur. So much so that I'm given to describing him as "Marina's husband". That way when I write about him, I'm writing about a person I can identify with certainty.

The blur exists for two reasons, I believe. One is that on more than one occasion, "Oswald" was in two places at the same time, if one believes certain witnesses. The other is that certain parts of the "Oswald" historical record are inconsistent with what's known of Marina's husband. For example, I have an old "Life" magazine in which there's a schoolroom picture of 13-year-old "Oswald" turned and smiling into the camera, missing an upper front tooth, which has just been knocked out in a fight. That would have been a permanent tooth. Marina's husband, as I understand, had all of his front teeth, naturally.

Maybe John Armstrong doesn't get everything right, but I give him credit for investigating the causes of the blur.

As for "Oswald" having Aspergers, what behaviors of his correspond to the syndrome's symptoms? In particular, to your knowledge, did "Oswald" have problems with eye contact, peer relationships, facial expressions, social gestures? Was he especially poor at social give and take? Was he unusually pre-occupied with certain subjects? Did he engage in repetitive behaviors or rituals?

As for assimilation of accents, that comes only from hearing the language spoken by native speaker. Oswald could not have developed the Baltic accent of which Marina spoke simply from studying books or newspapers. Question: With whom did "Oswald" interact in the U.S. or in Japan who was a native speaker of the Russian language?

[David Josephs]

..

Edited March 27, 2015 by David Josephs