Creating the Oswald Legend part 4

[Larry Hancock]

You are quite right Vasilios,  I had really only wanted to let Chris know that documents did exist on Vallee - way to easy to get sucked into a diversion, my apologies and I will cease and desist as of this post.

[Dan Rice]

9 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

In any event, I'll be discussing that more and how their appearance in Chicago relates to events in Dallas in my work that will be appearing on MFF in a month or so.  Of course that will just be my take on things.

Would this be the 'monograph' that you mentioned a while back?  I'm looking forward to that.

[Anthony Thorne]

Larry - I just ordered NEXUS for my Kindle, as a prelude to reading your new work next month. Looking forward to digging in to both. I did read an edition of SWHT some years back - if you think there's any other pieces of yours I should make an effort to look at before reading your imminent monograph I'm happy to have a look. Thank you.

[Vasilios Vazakas]

Thank you Larry, i have read both your books, Nexus and SWHT, i think both are great, i have used them as references a  lot, looking forward to your new work

I think Betsy Wolf's work is very valuable and not widely known and she should be given credit for her efforts and we learned all these thanks to Malcolm Blunt 

i would like to publicly thank Malcolm and Jim for making her work known

 

[James DiEugenio]

Jim Lesar just told me something I was completely unaware of. I told him to look at this article since it was the first one I knew of which mentioned Betsy Wolf's work at any length or depth. 

He then surprised me. 

He said he met Betsy.  Betsy Wolf was at a previous AARC function.  It was not the one from 2014.  It was the one prior to that, where Blakey called the NAA test junk science.  I did not go to that one.  He is going to look her up for me.  He said the last time he talked to her she was a lawyer in SIlver Spring Maryland.

Man, would love to talk to Betsy.  She was so far out there.

One thing I would like to know is why her memoranda were almost never typed up into a formal form.  I am not exaggerating when I say that in the 7 envelopes of material that Malcolm Blunt sent me, literally hundreds of pages, about 90 % of her stuff is handwritten.

Yet the stuff she was exploring was so crucial.  I mean, by keeping her stuff hidden for so long, it took literally decades for people like Morley and Newman to try and explore the bizarre circumstances of the Oswald file.  Someone knew how to rig the system.  And that person also knew that by diverting the paper on Oswald to Office of Security, no 201 would be opened.  Even when it violated the internal rule about five documents, which was something Morley talked about in his book on Angleton.  Betsy found out that Oswald had more than double that amount and still no 201 was opened.  So the idea that the CIA has always put out there, that somehow Oswald was of no interest to them, this is all belied by what Betsy was digging up.  I don't think she ever put it all together.  But clearly, this all deeply disturbed her because it violated both logic and rules.

 

[Richard Booth]

On 8/17/2020 at 3:33 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Vasilios keeps up his fine work on the Oswald legend in his now four part series, I think it will max out at six.

The first part of this deals with the Oswald file at CIA.  I cannot give Malcolm Blunt enough credit for what he contributed to this part.  It is a milestone in the sense that it uncovers an unknown heroine, Betsy Wolf.  What this woman did with the Oswald file at CIA has never been revealed before, not even in the work of John Newman. In fact, her name is not in Oswald and the CIA. But wait until you see what she discovered.  VV then continues with that angle with the Pedro Charles letters etc.  Very nice work. What an unadulterated cover up the WC was. And Belin lied his head off about it:  "I have seen every CIA document on Oswald."  He didn't even know he was being played, but Betsy found  out he had.

 

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/creating-the-oswald-legend-part-4

This is a good piece. What is obvious to me:

* Someone at CIA with a good understanding of how their records worked both wanted to (A) keep records on Oswald and (B) make it look like the CIA did not have records on this person, if it were looked at after-the-fact. This person was arrogant enough to think that this would not be figured out, but as we can see with Betsy Wolf, someone did start to figure this out.

* CIA was immediately carrying out a plan designed to frame Castro for the assassination: within 24 hours we have contacts with Duran and Elena Garro, both of whom would play key roles in a ruse designed to implicate Castro and frame Oswald as a Castro agent.

 

Meanwhile, we have letters being sent from Cuba to Oswald, in the second week of November, that also implicate him in the assassination.

I think it would probably be a wise guess to say that it was James Angleton who was manipulating Oswald's file and having it sent directly to Office of Security. Angleton is the prime suspect here, he obviously knew the conspirators and he obviously played a role in carrying out actions in furtherance of the conspiracy. 

[Ron Bulman]

8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Jim Lesar just told me something I was completely unaware of. I told him to look at this article since it was the first one I knew of which mentioned Betsy Wolf's work at any length or depth. 

He then surprised me. 

He said he met Betsy.  Betsy Wolf was at a previous AARC function.  It was not the one from 2014.  It was the one prior to that, where Blakey called the NAA test junk science.  I did not go to that one.  He is going to look her up for me.  He said the last time he talked to her she was a lawyer in SIlver Spring Maryland.

Man, would love to talk to Betsy.  She was so far out there.

One thing I would like to know is why her memoranda were almost never typed up into a formal form.  I am not exaggerating when I say that in the 7 envelopes of material that Malcolm Blunt sent me, literally hundreds of pages, about 90 % of her stuff is handwritten.

Yet the stuff she was exploring was so crucial.  I mean, by keeping her stuff hidden for so long, it took literally decades for people like Morley and Newman to try and explore the bizarre circumstances of the Oswald file.  Someone knew how to rig the system.  And that person also knew that by diverting the paper on Oswald to Office of Security, no 201 would be opened.  Even when it violated the internal rule about five documents, which was something Morley talked about in his book on Angleton.  Betsy found out that Oswald had more than double that amount and still no 201 was opened.  So the idea that the CIA has always put out there, that somehow Oswald was of no interest to them, this is all belied by what Betsy was digging up.  I don't think she ever put it all together.  But clearly, this all deeply disturbed her because it violated both logic and rules.

 

Jim, if Betsy didn't suspect malfeasance why would she bother to write that many pages by hand?  Regarding the lack of typing them up, this is from the ARRB? Inexcusable.  Obfuscation?  Or am I jumping to conclusions ?  I wouldn't put it past Angleton and a very few of his associates.  Input of Jefferson Morley and David Talbot would be appreciated here.   

[James DiEugenio]

Betsy knew something was wrong.  Boy did she ever.  That is why she tracked down and interviewed so many people about how a 201 file should be set up and what would trigger it, and how the incoming documents were to be routed.  But from what I have seen, she never put it all together.  In the next part by VV, he will talk about Malcolm Blunt and Bagley and how he knew what had happened the minute it was described to him.

It was the HSCA that did not make typed memoranda out of her notes. They should have but somehow did not.  As Malcolm said to me in a cover note, the only place where the Gambino interview appears is in her notes.  That is shocking because that is where Betsy got the key info about Mail Logistics.

And Richard, that is sure what it looks like to me. With Rocca in contact with Echeverria and then with Duran and Elena Garro. And then those Pedro Charles letters. 

The thing is Castro had this figured out in five days, that they were trying to blame him for it all. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Excuse me, he had it figured out in one day.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32401329.pdf

[James DiEugenio]

Another point about this installment is that VV shows just how fast everything was put in place even before the WC had its first meeting.

You have the CIA fooling around in Mexico CIty with Duran and Elena Garro on the 23rd.  And Echeverria being activated on that day.  And this is the guy who is going to lead the cover up about Oswald being in Mexico City.  And the CIA is in contact with him within 24 hours.  He is the guy who will refuse to let the WC talk directly to Duran. And he will give them--Coleman, Slawson and Willens--the brush off.  And later, the FBI will find out that Echeverria and his right had man Ochoa fabricated a record for Oswald coming down and leaving. But yet, Angleton is not even in charge of this for the WC yet.  Its supposed to be Whitten.

Then you have Belmont with his "settling the dust", and the FBI leaking stories to the press, and Ford serving as their stoolie.  Its always good to be reminded of just how bad the MSM was on this case.

Then the Pedro Charles letters, someone is trying to incriminate LHO with Castro. Don' t those letters remind you of the so called letter to the Soviet embassy that Ruth Paine gave to Hosty?

And the calls to LBJ by Rostow and Alsop. Who was the guy in the room with Rostow?  And why was Alsop so intent on sandbagging LBJ with this blue ribbon commission idea?

To me, VV sets up this awesomely fast dynamic really well. I mean, really it was all over in a week or so.  The WC was kind of anti-climactic.  

[Michaleen Kilroy]

A couple of things:

It appears Morley wrote about Betsy Wolf a bit, noting that Volume 5 of 7 volumes held by the agency's Office of Security, went missing after the HSCA closed shop and Betsy Wolf had accessed them.  Morley notes that Blount originally discovered the volume was missing.

On a related front, here is an excerpt from CIA's description of the purpose and responsibilities of the Office of Security apparently from the 1960s:

Quote

 

The OS prepares and executes the Agency security program and performs inspection functions.

The OS recommends Agency policies relating to security, and establishes procedures for implementation; obtains and evaluates pertinent information regarding the security acceptability of personnel for employment, assignment or association with the agency; develops and conducts internal counterintelligence programs...

 

My question:  What if Oswald was being considered for "employment, assignment or association with the agency?"

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Michaleen Kilroy

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks for that Mike.  I knew about the missing volume but I was not aware that Betsy had access to it.  And Morley was looking for her?  I will have to ask him if he found her.

As per your second comment, such might be the case.  But why would it take 13 months to do so?  But then, maybe it was supposed to be a secret.  Whichever, the idea that the CIA had little or no interest in Oswald is exploded by what Wolf found out about his file.

[Michaleen Kilroy]

22 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Thanks for that Mike.  I knew about the missing volume but I was not aware that Betsy had access to it.  And Morley was looking for her?  I will have to ask him if he found her.

As per your second comment, such might be the case.  But why would it take 13 months to do so?  But then, maybe it was supposed to be a secret.  Whichever, the idea that the CIA had little or no interest in Oswald is exploded by what Wolf found out about his file.

Yes, the fact that other defectors' files were NOT treated like LHO's should tell us something.

Wherever the CIA lies or hides information, that's obviously where the truth can be found.

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Michaleen Kilroy

[James DiEugenio]

Nice point.  In that new book on Robert Webster, his files did go to SR.

 I think I am right on this point: Betsy knew the difference.  But if I  recall, that is not noted in the HSCA report.

In fact, what is really interesting is how much of Wolf's work is not in the HSCA report.  And again, I might be wrong, but I do not think they show the opening document of his 201 file and the problems with it, which Betsy did point out.

[Ron Bulman]

On 8/17/2020 at 5:33 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Vasilios keeps up his fine work on the Oswald legend in his now four part series, I think it will max out at six.

The first part of this deals with the Oswald file at CIA.  I cannot give Malcolm Blunt enough credit for what he contributed to this part.  It is a milestone in the sense that it uncovers an unknown heroine, Betsy Wolf.  What this woman did with the Oswald file at CIA has never been revealed before, not even in the work of John Newman. In fact, her name is not in Oswald and the CIA. But wait until you see what she discovered.  VV then continues with that angle with the Pedro Charles letters etc.  Very nice work. What an unadulterated cover up the WC was. And Belin lied his head off about it:  "I have seen every CIA document on Oswald."  He didn't even know he was being played, but Betsy found  out he had.

 

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/creating-the-oswald-legend-part-4

I knew I'd read at least one of the other parts of the series, so just in case anyone else missed one of the articles...

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/creating-the-oswald-legend-part-1

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/creating-the-oswald-legend-part-2

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/creating-the-oswald-legend-part-3