Max Holland Says Enough!

[James DiEugenio]

I am beginning to think that since John McAdams had been discredited for endangering the life and health of a student teacher at Marquette, Holland has now amped up his efforts and been embraced by the rightwing media as his replacement.

His latest is really one of the silliest articles on the JFK case that I can remember in recent times.  And talk about misrepresentations!  Frank Drebin lives.

 

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/max-holland-says-enough

[Joe Bauer]

Consider what Holland is saying: Oswald was a former defector to Russia who returned to America with a Russian wife, whose uncle was in the Soviet NKVD. Oswald then goes to Mexico City seven weeks before the assassination. There, he reportedly talks to the alleged KGB head of assassinations in the Western Hemisphere, Valery Kostikov. While there, Oswald arranges for a visa that would take him from Cuba to Russia. He then returns to Dallas and gets a job on the President’s parade route about a month in advance of Kennedy arriving there. And somehow, none of that should have been reported by the CIA to the FBI or Secret Service. Even though the CIA had about seven weeks to process it before the assassination. With this, Holland resembles the late Leslie Nielson as Lt. Frank Drebin, telling the spectators, “Nothing to see here!” as the building behind him explodes in flames.

But we would not be dealing with Max Holland if something written by him did not mention the late Mark Lane. Holland found space to actually repeat his ridiculous charge about Lane’s volunteer Kennedy research group being funded by the KGB. If anything shows just how irresponsible Holland is, this phony charge does, because it was effectively demolished by Lane himself. (See “How Max Holland Duped the Daily Beast”) But Holland then extends this to say that it was Earl Warren who decided to take the ideological charge out of Kennedy’s murder by saying he was only a lonely communist and there was no Cuban or Russian control.

Even for Holland, this is pretty bad. As anyone who has read the declassified record of the Warren Commission, it was President Johnson who told Warren that he had to remove Oswald from any sphere of influence by Cuba or Russia, or else nuclear holocaust was threatened. After that pronouncement, Warren was reported leaving the White House in tears. Warren was effectively neutralized after this. He did not want the Warren Commission to perform any kind of active investigation at all. He even ventured that maybe they should not even call any witnesses. (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, p. 359) As recently revealed by Bill Davy at a talk at VMI, Warren told a judicial colleague at a conference in Florida that he bitterly resented what Johnson had done to intimidate him. He admitted that the Commission had been a cover-up, and he was ashamed of it. (See “Bill Davy at the VMI Seminar”) One should add that to Gerald Ford’s later conversation with French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 1976, where Ford revealed that there was an organization that killed Kennedy. We already knew that Warren Commissioners John Sherman Cooper, Hale Boggs and Richard Russell publicly defected from that original verdict within just a few years. In fact, as Gerald McKnight revealed in his book, they had to be duped into going along with it in the first place. (James DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, pp. 317-20) Which means that of the original seven members of the Warren Commission, five of them were either intimidated or conned into going along with the 1964 verdict. This leaves Holland siding with the likes of Allen Dulles and John McCloy, because they are the only two who are left today.

Because of his rigorous use of censorship, Holland can close with both an unwarranted assumption and a large crevice in his argument. Concerning the latter, he does not detail the fact that even to this day, NARA is issuing documents that are heavily redacted, sometimes illegible, with many containing pages that are completely blank, as well as issuing cover pages that have no accompanying report attached. If Holland was not going to detail all of this, then what was the point of his article?

Secondly, he now says that the two-week publicity binge given to the issue was so unwarranted that it reveals something has gone a bit mad with the country. This idea seems swiped from Kurt Anderson’s historically phony article that made the cover of Atlantic Monthly from September 2017. (See “How The Atlantic Monthly and Kurt Andersen Went Haywire”)

To somehow blame the state of America today on the still classified state of the record in the JFK case tells us very little about the former. But it tells us a lot about Max Holland’s JFK mania.

[after Frank is relieved of duty, Ed looks at the newspapers in dismay]

Ed: It's disgusting the way they splash this stuff all over the newspapers! What is journalism coming to? You're laying on top of the queen with her legs wrapped around you. And they call that news. They can't kick you off the force, Frank! It's just not fair!

Frank: I know, Ed. Life isn't always fair. Just think. The next time I shoot someone, I could be arrested.

[he looks through his files and finds a piece of evidence]

Frank: Hey! Look at that. The missing evidence in the Kelner case. My God! He was innocent!

Ed: He went to the chair 2 years ago, Frank.

[Frank defeatedly discards the evidence and all his files into the file cabinet]

Frank: Well, what's the use?

 

You always have to suspect someone ( in this case Max Holland) who spends so much time ( decades ) and expends so much energy and effort saying (and promoting in the national media ) much ado about something that this same person basically says is ... much ado about nothing!" ???

 

Isn't the bigger story here the ominous growth in power and influence of our secret non-transparent intelligence agencies from the 1940's to 1963 and beyond, to the point of competing with our much more transparent constitutional and elective 3 branch government on often equal and sometimes even disadvantaged in their favor terms?

 

And with sometimes competing agendas?

 

Wasn't this power and influence dynamic a major and ever growing concern of JFK during his term as President? 

 

And didn't Bill Clinton once mention this other "secret government" on Jimmy Kimmel's talk show?

 

 

 

 

Edited December 14, 2017 by Joe Bauer

[Michaleen Kilroy]

The CIA has deliberately withheld material evidence from every single investigation and records release body, and now are in violation of the JFK Records Act to release the final records.  Not to mention, both Helms and Angleton can be proven to have lied under oath to Congressional investigators in the '70s with the knowledge we now have.

So much subterfuge for a lone nut shooting a POTUS from a warehouse window.  As Morley has said, you have to be willfully naive to believe the CIA isn't hiding a major revelation that's highly embarrassing if not fatal to the agency.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Mike Kilroy

[Michaleen Kilroy]

On 11/14/2017 at 1:43 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Mike,

 

I see Oswald as an agent provocateur working on behalf of someone else:

• an effort to infiltrate the DRE and then pick a public street fight in an effort to discredit them in August. The first thing he does is ask to see an FBI agent.
• visit to Sylvia Odio of Jure in September (I personally believe she was involved in trying to smuggle guns into Cuba).
• Oswald's role as a possible informant in the Lawrence Miller/Darnell Whitter case.
• visits to the house on Harlendale "in the last several months" where Alpha 66 is holding bi-weekly meetings.

I think I see a pattern here.

 

Steve Thomas

Yes, there's tons of 'smoke' around Oswald's activities... but no honest investigation ever took place into his intelligence connections.  The WC gave the CIA and FBI a pass, then the HSCA was undermined by a CIA operation to remove Sprague, who was on the right track with a no-holds barred investigation where Blakey cut a deal with the agency (to his everlasting regret).  Then the CIA made sure the JFK Records Act kept Joannides' very existence secret - who was hired by Helms and reported directly to him.  

Edited December 14, 2017 by Mike Kilroy

[James DiEugenio]

I have to say Mike, the indefatigable Malcolm Blunt is building on that revelation made by Bagley to him about the Oswald files.  The one I mentioned in my article which he emailed me about.  

He told me that Betsy Wolf of the HSCA was actually working on that.  He is going to send me her work file on this soon.

But if that is true, it again goes to the point that the HSCA really concealed more than it revealed in its published volumes.

Or course, Max would say, "So what? Why is that important?"  

In the real world of course, its always good when you get these revelations from guys inside the CIA.  In this instance, a guy who closely worked with Jim A. himself.

Edited December 14, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Michaleen Kilroy]

Thanks, James.  I'll check it out.

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, I am surprised that no one picked up on the info in this article from Peter Bagley via the intrepid Malcolm Blunt.

Bagley worked hand in hand with Jim Angleton for years in CI at CIA.

Before he passed on, he said that the routing trail on the first Oswald files indicate that Oswald's defection was prepared for at CIA and he was a witting defector.  

This is not John Newman saying that.  Its not me saying it.  Its not Malcolm saying it.  Its Angleton's assistant saying it!

Malcoln Blunt is a real gem.  There are a lot of people in this critical community who, in my view, get a lot of attention for doing not very much.  I call them show horses.  But then there are people who do a heck of a lot and get little attention at all.  I call them workhorses.  Malcolm is one of those.

OK, boys and girls, let us go back now and argue about how the Radical RIght killed Kennedy. Who cares that the CIA was preparing itself for Oswald's defection and routed his files accordingly.  

Edited December 17, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

Angleton's assistant Bagley said in essence the CIA knew of Oswald's defection before it happened, prepared for it (how?), and Oswald was a witting defector?  Damn!  That's up there with What Jane roman Said to me.  Warren Commission, Nope (of course not Angleton was waiting them out).  HSCA, nope (Hardway and Lopez were being stonewalled by Joannidies),  ARRB?  Not that I've read of before.  A revelation in the Main Steam media Now? Ha,ha,ha.

[James DiEugenio]

The unusual routing of Oswald's files through the CIA when they got there was the tip off to Bagley.

John Newman first pointed this out in public in his milestone book, Oswald and the CIA.  But that is not the same as Angleton's assistant saying it.

And as Malcolm told me, he now has files from the HSCA which show that Betsy Wolf had done a lot to figure that  out back in the late seventies, since the HSCA had access to internal CIA files through that deal Blakey made.  He is sending me her work notes and I will write about them when I get them.

I mean how much do you need?  When you add this to the fact that Phillips ran the CIA's anti FPCC campaign (with McCord), and the fact we now have INS agents testifying to the Church committee they saw Ferrie go into Banister's building, and Oswald had an office there.  Really, I cannot wait for them to release the last of the files.

 

Edited December 17, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

On 12/16/2017 at 7:10 PM, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, I am surprised that no one picked up on the info in this article from Peter Bagley via the intrepid Malcolm Blunt.

Bagley worked hand in hand with Jim Angleton for years in CI at CIA.

Before he passed on, he said that the routing trail on the first Oswald files indicate that Oswald's defection was prepared for at CIA and he was a witting defector.  

This is not John Newman saying that.  Its not me saying it.  Its not Malcolm saying it.  Its Angleton's assistant saying it!

 

Oh, I picked up on it Jim. It's just that I don't know who Malcolm Blunt is. And I haven't seen a copy of Peter Bagley's e-mail to him. So this info doesn't carry the same weight for me as does other evidence I've seen for Oswald being CIA.

If we had a copy of their e-mail exchange, I'd suggest to Jim Hargrove that he add this to his list of evidence showing Oswald was a CIA agent.

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[James DiEugenio]

He is putting together a package for me.

Amazing what Malcolm does, and he lives in England.

[Michaleen Kilroy]

The glaring"fact pattern" of CIA lies, subterfuge and obstruction around the assassination points to an agency cabal to me featuring Harvey, Phillips, Morales, Helms and Angleton with Dulles playing clean-up.  Would love to see any additional info from Malcolm, a dedicated fact-based researcher.

The facts of the actual shooting are so in dispute because of the rush to judgment on a lone shooter behind the president, and the FBI mangled so much evidence and clearly never investigated any other possibility, the "best evidence" to my mind are in the "document forensics" that Blunt, Newman, et al do.  

I think it would be great to put together a clearly presented, brief declaration of where the facts stand on agency guilt with links to real documents that gets sent to every single media person every single time they cover the assassination.  I've done that in my own way with several reporters and did get some positive feedback, but no breakthrough stories, of course.

Edited December 18, 2017 by Mike Kilroy

[Thomas Graves]

On 12/16/2017 at 10:17 PM, James DiEugenio said:

The unusual routing of Oswald's files through the CIA when they got there was the tip off to Bagley.

John Newman first pointed this out in public in his milestone book, Oswald and the CIA.  But that is not the same as Angleton's assistant saying it.

And as Malcolm told me, he now has files from the HSCA which show that Betsy Wolf had done a lot to figure that  out back in the late seventies, since the HSCA had access to internal CIA files through that deal Blakey made.  He is sending me her work notes and I will write about them when I get them.

I mean how much do you need?  When you add this to the fact that Phillips ran the CIA's anti FPCC campaign (with McCord), and the fact we now have INS agents testifying to the Church committee they saw Ferrie go into Banister's building, and Oswald had an office there.  Really, I cannot wait for them to release the last of the files.

 

 

James,

 

For what it's worth, Bagley wasn't Angleton's assistant.  He worked in a different part of the CIA called the "Soviet Russia Division," which at some point had its name changed to the "Soviet Block Division."

--  Tommy 

 

PS  I've read in one of Bagley's works recently that he didn't take false defector Nosenko's claims about Oswald (i.e., that the KGB hadn't interviewed Oswald, or monitored him very closely) to necessarily mean that the Soviets had killed JFK, but that it did indicate to him that the Soviets had had some kind of special relationship with Oswald before he "defected," and that that was one of the things they were trying to cover up when they had Nosenko "defect" to the U.S. in January, 1964.

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[James DiEugenio]

Bagley was Angleton's man on Nosenko.

And he would stay that way during the entire three year ordeal.

From Mangold, page 193, " By April 1967. . . . The Fundamentalists led by Jim Angleton and Pete Bagley, had refused to loosen their grip..."

Helms was now advised to take the case away from Bagley and Angleton.  It was eventually turned over to Bruce Solie.(p. 194)

Everyone and their mother knows that the imprisonment and torture of Nosenko was started and run by Angleton; and Bagley was his man on the case during the three years Nosenko was locked  up.  Just look at the number of references in Mangold's book to Bagley. 

Your other statement about the SR division makes Bagley's statement about Oswald's false defection even stronger.  Because as Newman originally wrote in Oswald and the CIA, that is where the files on LHO should have gone when he arrived in Russia.(Newman, p. 27)  

This, of course, makes it even odder why you should remain silent on that point.

Bagley: Oswald was a false defector and his defection was preplanned and routed within the CIA.

Graves:  Sound of crickets in the night.

 

Ten minutes later: Even though Oswald was a false defector, hey the KGB killed Oswald.  I got it from Bagley. And those active measures he talks about is how we got Putin in collusion with Trump to get him elected.

Thus ignoring the fact that the whole Trump and Putin collusion story is now falling apart.  And also ignoring that by the end of his book, Newman had concluded that the whole CIA WW 3 scenario that did so much to stop a real inquiry was stage managed by Angleton who had the most control of all of Oswald's files at CIA. (pgs. 636-37)

But all of that is OK.  Why? Nosenko was not a real defector.

Whew.  What a detective.

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Paz Marverde]

4 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Whew.  What a detective.