Maria Hyde

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 minute ago, Mathias Baumann said:

So it appears all the more suspicious that the CIA maintains they never questioned Oswald when he returned. He'd lived in Russia for more than two years, he certainly had more valuable information to offer than any tourist.

The CIA may have debriefed LHO on his return. One thing to remember about the CIA-they never admit anything and they never release information of any kind unless forced to.

[Mathias Baumann]

4 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

The CIA may have debriefed LHO on his return. One thing to remember about the CIA-they never admit anything and they never release information of any kind unless forced to.

That's right, but they went very far in the Kennedy case.

Quote

G. Robert Blakey’s 2003 Addendum to this Interview:

I am no longer confident that the Central Intelligence Agency co-operated with the committee. My reasons follow:

The committee focused, among other things, on (1) Oswald, (2) in New Orleans, (3) in the months before he went to Dallas, and, in particular, (4) his attempt to infiltrate an anti-Castro group, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil or DRE.

These were crucial issues in the Warren Commission’s investigation; they were crucial issues in the committee’s investigation. The Agency knew it full well in 1964; the Agency knew it full well in 1976-79. Outrageously, the Agency did not tell the Warren Commission or our committee that it had financial and other connections with the DRE, a group that Oswald had direct dealings with!

What contemporaneous reporting is or was in the Agency’s DRE files? We will never know, for the Agency now says that no reporting is in the existing files. Are we to believe that its files were silent in 1964 or during our investigation?

I don’t believe it for a minute. Money was involved; it had to be documented. Period. End of story. The files and the Agency agents connected to the DRE should have been made available to the commission and the committee. That the information in the files and the agents who could have supplemented it were not made available to the commission and the committee amounts to willful obstruction of justice.

Obviously, too, it did not identify the agent who was its contact with the DRE at the crucial time that Oswald was in contact with it: George Joannides.

During the relevant period, the committee’s chief contact with the Agency on a day-to-day basis was Scott Breckinridge. (I put aside our point of contact with the office of chief counsel, Lyle Miller) We sent researchers to the Agency to request and read documents. The relationship between our young researchers, law students who came with me from Cornell, was anything but “happy.” Nevertheless, we were getting and reviewing documents. Breckinridge, however, suggested that he create a new point of contact person who might “facilitate” the process of obtaining and reviewing materials. He introduced me to Joannides, who, he said, he had arranged to bring out of retirement to help us. He told me that he had experience in finding documents; he thought he would be of help to us.

I was not told of Joannides’ background with the DRE, a focal point of the investigation. Had I known who he was, he would have been a witness who would have been interrogated under oath by the staff or by the committee. He would never have been acceptable as a point of contact with us to retrieve documents. In fact, I have now learned, as I note above, that Joannides was the point of contact between the Agency and DRE during the period Oswald was in contact with DRE.

That the Agency would put a “material witness” in as a “filter” between the committee and its quests for documents was a flat out breach of the understanding the committee had with the Agency that it would co-operate with the investigation.

The committee’s researchers immediately complained to me that Joannides was, in fact, not facilitating but obstructing our obtaining of documents. I contacted Breckinridge and Joannides. Their side of the story wrote off the complaints to the young age and attitude of the people.

They were certainly right about one question: the committee’s researchers did not trust the Agency. Indeed, that is precisely why they were in their positions. We wanted to test the Agency’s integrity. I wrote off the complaints. I was wrong; the researchers were right. I now believe the process lacked integrity precisely because of Joannides.

For these reasons, I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the Agency and its relationship to Oswald. Anything that the Agency told us that incriminated, in some fashion, the Agency may well be reliable as far as it goes, but the truth could well be that it materially understates the matter.

What the Agency did not give us none but those involved in the Agency can know for sure. I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.

I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside the Agency for its veracity. We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.

Significantly, the Warren Commission’s conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth.

We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency.

Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story.

I am now in that camp.

--> https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/interview-g-robert-blakey/#addendum

What they did to the HSCA was blatant obstruction of justice.

Do you really think that mere incompetence is a sufficient explanation? My guess is that they suspected the involvement of some of their own men. That would've been reason to sabotage the HSCA.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Mathias Baumann

[W. Tracy Parnell]

3 hours ago, Mathias Baumann said:

That's right, but they went very far in the Kennedy case.

What they did to the HSCA was blatant obstruction of justice.

Do you really think that mere incompetence is a sufficient explanation? My guess is that they suspected the involvement of some of their own men. That would've been reason to sabotage the HSCA.

Presumably, we will find out about any possible LHO-CIA relationship when the Joannides files are eventually released. If there is anything there it will likely be that Joannides instructed the DRE to take a look at LHO and see what he was up to. If that (or something like it) were true, then the CIA would naturally not want that information to come out. But the evidence shows that LHO killed JFK. So even if he had tenuous connections with the CIA or was even an agent or asset, at some point he became disillusioned and acted as he did. But because of his instability and tendency to act alone, the probability is that LHO was who he seemed to be and was acting in his own interests. And if he encountered the CIA or its operatives (as he did with the DRE) in his travels it was likely a coincidence.

As for the CIA and its operatives lying, they took an oath and considered that to be above all other oaths or moral obligations. Helms considered his conviction for lying to Congress in order to protect CIA secrets "a badge of honor." For better or worse, this was a common attitude of CIA men during this period.

[Mathias Baumann]

18 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Presumably, we will find out about any possible LHO-CIA relationship when the Joannides files are eventually released. If there is anything there it will likely be that Joannides instructed the DRE to take a look at LHO and see what he was up to. If that (or something like it) were true, then the CIA would naturally not want that information to come out.

We already know that the DRE "took a look at Oswald to see what he was up to". So that's not a big secret actually, especially in comparison to other really big secrets that were eventually unveiled, such as Iran/Contra, MK/Ultra or the CIA/Mafia plots against Castro. No, I think what the CIA is hiding has to be something much more sinister.

For instance, have you never wondered why Oswald falsely claimed to be a student of Tulane University? And why some of his FPCC leaflets ended up there? He was in cahoots with Banister, there's no doubt. Several witnesses interviewed by Summers saw him in Banister's office. I think that's what we would find in the Joannides files, if they still exist.

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Mathias Baumann

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 hour ago, Mathias Baumann said:

He was in cahoots with Banister, there's no doubt.

What were they up to, in your opinion?

[Mathias Baumann]

19 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

What were they up to, in your opinion?

Good question, I guess we'll never know. It could've been a plot to smear the FPCC, to identify Pro-Castro sympathizers or an attempt to get Oswald into Cuba by creating false Pro-Cuban credentials.

In any case, what Oswald did in New Orleans was clearly harmful to the FPCC. And they had warned him NOT to do it. Yet he went ahead and did it anyway. In fact the radio debate was the last nail in the FPCC's coffin. Oswald was the EXACT opposite of a clandestine Communist subversive. He was clearly an agent provocateur in my opinion. That would explain why he never got into any serious trouble before the assassination. What did Walter Moore say to George deMohrenschild? "Don't worry about Oswald. He's harmless".

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 hour ago, Mathias Baumann said:

In any case, what Oswald did in New Orleans was clearly harmful to the FPCC. And they had warned him NOT to do it. Yet he went ahead and did it anyway.

Yes, he tended to act on his own for his own purposes which actually supports the LN portrayal of him. In any case, I think we will see the Joannides files sooner or later.