Angleton, the evil mastermind of the CIA. Jeff Morley talks to Lew Rockwell.

[Douglas Caddy]

Angleton, the evil mastermind of the CIA. Jeff Morley talks to Lew Rockwell.

 

https://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/james-jesus-angleton-ghost/

[Michaleen Kilroy]

It’s a really good interview and summary of Morley’s book.

That said, I think the implications of Angleton’s surveillance of Oswald went past Rockwell.

If you look at the goals of Cointelpro - of spying and messing with ‘dangerous’ leftist groups and individuals - then LHO was a perfect candidate for their close monitoring and harassment.

Yet somehow this guy who rings every alarm bell you could - defector, traitor, FPCC supporter, meeting with head of KGB assassination program in MC, falls through the cracks and kills the president. In some ways not even falls thru the cracks, he appears to be assisted in his activities and travels or at the very least used for an intelligence purpose.

Makes the conclusions of both the WC and HSCA look like a joke.

[Jim Hargrove]

A very bad joke, at that.

The evidence seems to indicate elements of both the FBI and the CIA helped to clear the way for the patsification of Oswald.  Six weeks before the assassination, the FBI canceled the wanted notice on Oswald, this just two months or so after he was arrested in New Orleans for allegedly violent pro-Communist activities.  Who is kidding who, here?

At exactly the same time the FBI is turning down the lights on Oswald, the CIA issues it's infamous "LEE HENRY OSWALD" cable, which essentially gave him a clean bill of political health.  This took Oswald out of the spotlight of Federal authorities who otherwise would have been all over him in Dallas on and before 11/22/63.

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

I agree Jim.

Very interesting how the lights were being dimmed so that Oswald's profile would not go to threat level.

 

[Ron Bulman]

As he says in the interview "Ghost" is not about the JFK assassination.  It's a biography of Angleton.  But it's very important in understanding the big picture regarding the assassination.  From Italy to Dallas.  Angleton < Dulles.  The CIA was keeping files on Oswald 4 years before JFK was murdered.  Do you think we've seen all of the ones Angleton had? He had a good working relationship with Hoover in spite of the perceived adversarial one between the FBI and CIA.  They worked together on the cover-up. 

[James DiEugenio]

I have not read Morley's book yet for a couple of reasons: working on the new version of RP, and going through new files.

But there is no chance that all the files Angleton had on Oswald survived.

In the landmark book on Angleton by Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior,  it was revealed that Angleton had his own private filing system, outside CIA's central system.  Why he was allowed to do this has never been explained.  

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Michaleen Kilroy]

11 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

A very bad joke, at that.

The evidence seems to indicate elements of both the FBI and the CIA helped to clear the way for the patsification of Oswald.  Six weeks before the assassination, the FBI canceled the wanted notice on Oswald, this just two months or so after he was arrested in New Orleans for allegedly violent pro-Communist activities.  Who is kidding who, here?

At exactly the same time the FBI is turning down the lights on Oswald, the CIA issues it's infamous "LEE HENRY OSWALD" cable, which essentially gave him a clean bill of political health.  This took Oswald out of the spotlight of Federal authorities who otherwise would have been all over him in Dallas on and before 11/22/63.

 

 

Never saw the Wanted Notice on Oswald with the flash cancelled.... how the hell isn't that in every history book?  

If not initial suspects, the FBI and CIA should have at least been under immediate investigation following the assassination... even if behind closed doors by Congress.  

When you add Oswald's threatening note to the FBI and "Comrade Kostin" letter to the Russian embassy two weeks before the assassination, what else do you need to at least pin criminal negligence on these agencies?

Some heads should've rolled, conspiracy or not.  And Congress and DOJ should've got to the bottom of why both of the above documents happened at all.

[Jim Hargrove]

Marvin Gheesling, the FBI agent mentioned in the handwritten note on the flash cancellation ("per r/s from Gheesling, Div 5") was censured by Hoover, but only AFTER the assassination.  It is so fitting that no one from the WC showed any interest whatsoever in asking Gheesling why the alert on Oswald was cancelled.  If memory serves, he died before the HSCA had a chance to ignore him.

[Michael Walton]

Very interesting. Looks like that actually confirms there's  only one Oswald and actually  debunks the HL nonsense.

But of course Team H will totally deny it or disagree.

[Jim Hargrove]

 

This was all covered 15 years ago in Harvey and Lee.

The graphics I've posted here are from the CD accompanying Harvey and Lee.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Jim Hargrove

[Rob Couteau]

I just finished Morley’s “Ghost” book and am really disappointed by it. He actually cites the Timothy Leary (“Flashbacks”) and Peter Janney (“Mary’s Mosaic”) b.s. about JFK doing LSD with Mary Meyer as if it’s factual. Also includes the Mimi Beardsley dubious quote of JFK saying “I’d rather my children be red than dead.” (I think James DiEugenio has already done a splendid job of discrediting this nonsense, and Morley should have been aware of that.) He makes no mention of the likelihood of Oswald having been part of a fake defection program to the USSR masterminded by the U.S. intell services and instead presents Oswald’s defection as if he did it on his own and was _subsequently_ monitored by Angleton and the CIA. Also there is no mention here about how Dulles continued to exert influence on the CIA after he was canned by JFK and that he was even on CIA premises when the assassination went down. Dulles's influence on Angleton is extremely minimized in this account. Oswald is portrayed in such a way that we are led to believe he probably played a key role in killing the president rather than serving merely as a patsy. (This is also echoed in the leadin to Morley’s latest Salon piece: “The latest batch of JFK assassination files, released December 15, illuminate a story that the CIA still denies: the surveillance of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the years before he shot and killed President John F. Kennedy.”) There is also no mention of Richard Case Nagell or of the many crucial discoveries made by Dick Russell in his Nagell bio. No mention of how, above the CIA, there were the powers-that-be pulling strings; and no mention of the enlightened JFK foreign policy that was costing them plenty. Throughout the bulk of the book there is no hint that the CIA at the highest levels may have engineered the assassination. Eight pages before the books ends Morley finally asks: “Was Angleton running Oswald as an agent as part of a plot to assassinate President Kennedy? He certainly had the knowledge and ability to do so.” That’s about as far as he goes. At the bottom of the page he concludes: “Whether Angleton manipulated Oswald as part of an assassination plot is unknown.” “Whoever killed JFK, Angleton protected them.” These are questions that a good editor might have placed towards the beginning of a book, and a good author might have exerted a more serious effort in attempting to answer them. I have to say I learned very little about assassination-related information from reading this book. More importantly, readers who don't have the background of serious JFK research will be seriously misled by all this. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Rob Couteau

[Rob Couteau]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

But there is no chance that all the files Angleton had on Oswald survived.

Jim, Morley does note that when George Kalaris replaced Angleton, "Kalaris ordered some of them [Angleton's JFK files] to be shredded and the rest integrated into the Agency's file registry." (Page 239.) As I mentioned above, I was deeply disappointed by this book. It's Angleton and JFK "Lite." Lisa Pease's lectures on Angleton for example are far more illuminating as far as the bigger picture is concerned. The book has nowhere near the amount of detail that one finds in Talbot's work on Dulles. After I finished reading it, I tried to find out if anyone else had similar misgivings. If I had known that Morley had listed John McAdams's JFK website as one of the three "best" and Len Osanic's as one of the worst I probably wouldn't have purchased this text. Morley's reasoning behind this decision is fatuous at best: http://jfkfacts.org/lisa-pease-reads-me-the-riot-act-on-john-mcadams/#more-5978

Edited January 8, 2018 by Rob Couteau

[Ron Bulman]

When Dulles was getting Nazi's out of Germany through the ratlines in https://www.bing.com/search?q=operation+paperclip&form=PRUSEN&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&refig=42c9e1601d6e4d09af55da5d676fdf27&sp=-1&ghc=1&pq=operation+paperclip&sc=10-19&qs=n&sk=&cvid=42c9e1601d6e4d09af55da5d676fdf27 behind Truman's back through Italy Angleton was there on the ground handling the details.  They worked hand in glove and developed a similar outlook as well as a unique working relationship.  He also assisted many Jews from Germany and Poland to sail from Italy to Palestine earning their eternal (statues)  gratitude. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Ron Bulman

[James DiEugenio]

Rob, thanks for those comments.

I had no idea that Morley had fallen for Janney--Mr Gregory Douglass is credible--book, and, OMG Tim Leary? And geez Mimi B.  Better Red than Dead, when JFK had moved something like 190, 000 troops into Florida?  But Morley also posted comments from Harvey's  widow on his site, talking about JFK's trysts in Italy in 1963.  Lisa read him the riot act on this, saying he had no corroboration and it was a biased source.  As everyone knew how Harvey hated the Kennedys. Talbot later showed how it was utter and complete BS.

I have no idea why Morley does this stuff.  I think he sees it as a way to keep one foot in the MSM camp.  They always like that stuff.  (BTW, Greg Parker did some nice work on the Mimi B stuff.) 

And he minimized  the Dulles/ Angleton tie?  How can you do that?  Angleton carried Dulles's ashes in an urn at his funeral!  Angleton owed his career and his power to Dulles.

[Rob Couteau]

Jim, I remember reading somewhere, years ago, how Dulles and Angleton would begin each day by combing over all the wiretapping info that came in the night before from every congressman's house in Georgetown, where they'd managed to have all their phones and bedrooms bugged. You get none of that in this book. (Yet Lisa Pease mentions something similar in a lecture that is posted on Morley's site!) He acknowledges in a cursory way how Dulles helped him get into the Agency, but there is very little about their interaction during all those years that they worked together. Or I should say, plotted together against JFK. Check the index: Dulles appears on just 11 pages, and most of those mentions are fleeting. (The word "ghost" in the title should really refer to the invisible specter of Dulles, who is rarely incarnate here.) One gets the sense that Angleton is working within a bubble that is rarely punctured by Dulles. Then we have this description of Dulles contacting Angleton right after the assassination: "...the phone rang. It was Allen Dulles calling. He said that President Johnson had asked him to serve on a blue-ribbon commission that would investigate the assassination. Dulles wanted to talk about the history of such commissions, and whether he should accept. Angleton wasn't fooled. 'I could tell very easily that he wanted to be on it,' Angleton recalled. 'He was looking for approbation from me and not criticism....He said he wanted tips on anything relevant to the Agency.'" I mean, I really had to laugh when I read that. (As if these guys were completely out of touch until that very moment!) Mary Meyer and her diary, however, get ten full pages of attention. Morley not only quotes Leary's line from "Flashbacks" about JFK supposedly dropping acid - "They couldn't control him anymore" - he repeats it and underscores it in dramatic italics to end a section on Mary diary (the one supposedly filled with ribald tales of their "affair"). Then I had a flashback: about how you had to comb through all of Leary's prior books (talk about a bad trip) to see if he'd ever mentioned this before. Which of course he hadn't. Morley also doesn't fail to mention that JFK had a tryst with Mimi in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I also read Mimi's book and, like most accounts based on b.s., the prose has a certain cardboard quality. There's just too much missing: a lack of vital, visceral detail that would otherwise exist if the author had really done all that. More importantly, I could think of many other authors who would have been more important to cite here, rather than Mimi Beardsley and Tim Leary. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Rob Couteau