Warning to Jimmy Carter.

[Ron Ecker]

Oswaldo Ortiz was not the only mysterious "Ortiz" referenced in the JFK case. In doing an otherwise fruitless search on the name, I found this quote (on the Lancer Forum) from The Kennedy Conspiracy by Anthony Summers (Warner Books, 2001), p. 327:

"Martino ... claimed that Oswald had been paid by Fidel Castro to kill the President. Pressed by the FBI to reveal his source, Martino named him as Oscar Ortiz, a member of an anti-Castro group 'too sensitive to name.' He said 'Ortiz' was known in Washington D.C., and could even be a double agent. The FBI could locate no 'Ortiz.' "

[Blair Dobson]

TIM GRATZ: your post # 34 in this thread...

Of the some odd 20 books I have read on or about the CIA, most mention that various media assets were used to plant false ads, false personals and false stories as coded entires to activate sleepers or get messages out to rogues.

This procedure is also mentioned liberally in a number of reputable and not so reputable books on or by spooks themselves.

There was a man writing a book about this a few years ago that had a website up where he showed specific cryptonyms being used in the "roomate wanted" sections of the New York Times and a number of other U.S. papers. There were a bunch more examples.

Since I dont have those materials to show you, I will draw your attention to the fact that every three weeks the right wing media machine in your country draws attention to the fact that THE AXIS OF EVIL is posting the same messages, trying to reach their own cels.

Wow, the Commie plot thickens...

Another example I have seen which was simple and more bold, was to typeset the message running down the edge of a story about whatever.

The first letter of every sentence down the first row would give you the message.

So if I wanted to send a message to you in this way, I would send you the following as a famous bbs acronym:

So Carter getting a coded message isn't

That far fetched according to some of those who have been in the

Field using these techniques while

Undercover.

See what I mean?

Have you ever heard about book code?

Read any Graham Greene?

The whole of spycraft is riddled with techniques like these.

Planting a story whether the the names were real or not isn't the point.

The message got through.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Ron, its strange is it not, makes you wonder if "Ortiz" wasn,t an Agency name,who's use in certain situations alerted others to a change in the political weather perhaps like "Bishop."

Blair, good points, As someone said "Were though the looking glass people, Black is white, and white is etc, etc.

[Blair Dobson]

Another point I failed to mention:

It wasn't just newspapers delivering the messages.

It was also Random House and the like.

During the period from 1946 to 1971, most of the straight to paperback bestsellers were spy novels or espionage titles. These were not top tens but they were distributed en masse creating a climate for the public perception of what spooks do and don't do: thus, the public sees all spies to be like James Bond and not murderous bastards a large number of them were.

The CIA also paid handsomely to produce a number of films in the same way the DOD produced Civil Defense Propaganda and the CIA propaganda was meant as disinfo to quell the public in the same manner as was the "tuck, drop, roll, burn to death" films of the DOD . The CIA sanctioned stuff went into mainstream theatres however and not the schools.

I will need some time to get some specific examples, names and details...

An interesting sidebar, look into a guy named Jack Valenti.

Do some homework on his involvement with the French and British film communities in post war times... You'll see he was a strong proponent of the Marshall Plan in regards to how it affected the exports of major pro American films (propaganda) into the European theatre after the war to the extent that it killed the indigenous film indusrty in both those countries.

The Cold War stopped because the Commies wanted Levis and Pepsi..

Jack Valenti was on airforce one when Kennedy was shot.

To write off things of this nature as "coincidence" is not only foolish, it's unscholarly. I'll dig up what I need to prove my point if it's challenged but I won't do someones homework for them.

Spycraft is as old as a Roman Road. It takes many forms. That is the whole point.

"What is the point of a Doomsday Machine if you keep it a secret?"

Cheers

Dobson.

Edited September 9, 2005 by Blair Dobson

[Tim Gratz]

Blair wrote:

These were not top tens but they were distributed en masse creating a climate for the public perception of what spooks do and don't do: thus, the public sees all spies to be like James Bond and not murderous bastards a large number of them were.

James Bond was a murderous bastard. What do you think his "license to kill" was all about? Granted, he was a glamourous one.

As I am sure you know, JFK was a big Bond fan and wanted to know what Fleming's ideas were re how to get rid of Castro. I forget who Fleming was dining with when he articulated his ideas how to deal with Castro. Fleming, of course, actually had a background in intelligence.

Remember the comment when JFK was introduced to William Harvey (stated with incredulity) "This is our James Bond?" But if rumors are right, Harvey was as much a womanizer as JFK and Bond.

[Ron Ecker]

The Newsweek article about the alleged plot in 1979 by Raymond Lee Harvey, Oswaldo Espinoza Ortiz, and two others to assassinate Carter in Los Angeles includes this:

“Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Etra was expected to make a decision on the case this week. ‘Unless it’s clear that the defendant (Harvey) has committed the crime with which he is charged (conspiring to kill the president), we’re not going to present the case to a grand jury,’ he said.”

I did a Google search on Donald Etra (Assistant U.S. Attorney, Central District of California, 1978-1981), and found that he is a close friend of George W. Bush, going back to their days together at Yale.

Ronald Kessler’s book A Matter of Character: Inside the George W. Bush White House relates that Bush and Etra (a liberal Democrat and orthodox Jew) were among 15 inductees into Skull & Bones during their junior year at Yale, and that they became close friends. Etra went to Bush’s wedding in Midland, Bush went to Etra’s wedding in Los Angeles, and Etra and his family have been overnight dinner guests at the White House.

It’s interesting that the alleged plot against the life of Jimmy Carter happened to take place in a jurisdiction in which a close friend of the Bush family would decide whether or not the case was worth pursuing. Apparently it wasn’t.

[Duke Lane]

Taken from Conspiracy Nation, by Dave Emory.

"One thing I really noted it got little publicity, but he (Carter) said, We are going to have to go all the way back to the assassination (JFK) to get this country right. No sooner was Carter doing that than in May, summer of 1979, on a trip to L A there was an aborted attempt on the Presidents life. Two gunmen who had come up from Mexico named, Ray Lee Harvey, and Oswaldo Ortiz (Love the names were arrested for stalking Carter with a rifle,then they just disappeared, fell of the radar screen, no follow up on the prosecution or anything. I suspect a message was being sent to Carter."Anybody got any more on this, or is it B/S..Steve.

See AlienZoo Conspiracy Theory for more info in an account by Jim Marrs. A synopsis:

Raymond Lee Harvey was a "grubby transient" who the SS noticed "acting nervous" as Carter's appearance was approaching. They were found to have a .22-cal 8-shot revolver and 60 rounds of blank ammunition, a "cap gun" in other words. A Secret Service spokesman called it "as nothing as these things get."

Apparently, Harvey fingered 21-year-old Osvaldo Espinoza-Ortiz as a "co-conspirator," the two of them "local street people" supposedly hired by a couple of Mexican "hit men" to create a diversion while the Mexicans killed Carter. They took authorities to a nearby hotel where they found an empty rifle case and three(!) rounds of live ammo. The room was rented under the name of Umberto Camacho, who had checked out on the day of the Carter visit.

Elsewhere on the net, in the Vanderbilt Television News Archives, we find that Walter Cronkite devoted two full minutes to this episode on May 11, six days after it occurred. On May 29, Cronkite gave it another 20 seconds' coverage noting that a federal prosecutor in Louisiana was seeking dismissal of the charges against the pair due to "insufficient evidence."

It strikes me that if someone wants to take the time (someone who lives nearby, that is), they should be able to visit LAPD or other court/law enforcement archives and get more in-depth information on this. The SS is who took these guys into custody, so info may also be available at NARA. The SS considered it a "nothing" event, and it might well have been just that: nothing.

A warning, or more likely a prank? I think it odd that any "hit men" would tell "street people" what it is they ultimately planned to do; more likely, they'd have just recruited them to shoot off the blanks with no real idea why they were doing it. They even let these "street people" know where they were staying - not just the hotel, but the particular room!

This does not seem to be a good practice for anyone really planning anything of the sort: what would have prevented the "decoys" from running right to the cops? And why would someone leave behind a rifle case? So they could carry a rifle out in plain public view? And then what, after they'd hit Carter? Have nothing in which to conceal a weapon in the area where the President was just killed? (Well, I suppose it has happened before, eh?)

The empty rifle case - which is not a weapon, of course - and the three live rounds is pretty allusional, don't you think, tho', especially when coupled with the names of these guys (which, if they were street people, were probably fictional, and they probably didn't have ID as is the case with most of them). But then, who knows?

Rather than speculation, some hard data would be useful and probably more instructive. We can't just assume that since nobody's produced it, it therefore doesn't exist. Any takers?

[Ron Ecker]

Today I emailed Los Angeles attorney Donald Etra, who was the Assistant U.S. Attorney quoted in the Newsweek article, and asked for any info on the case. Etra's reply:

"The U.S. Attorneys Office and the federal agents were not able to come up with further information to warrant the filing of a federal criminal case, so none was filed. I believe the usual practice in such instances, even if no formal charges are filed, the Secret Service still keeps track of the individuals involved to ensure they do not get close to any president."

[John Simkin]

During the period from 1946 to 1971, most of the straight to paperback bestsellers were spy novels or espionage titles. These were not top tens but they were distributed en masse creating a climate for the public perception of what spooks do and don't do: thus, the public sees all spies to be like James Bond and not murderous bastards a large number of them were.

Three writers of these popular spy novels included E. Howard Hunt, William F. Buckley and David Atlee Phillips.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Today I emailed Los Angeles attorney Donald Etra, who was the Assistant U.S. Attorney quoted in the Newsweek article, and asked for any info on the case. Etra's reply:

"The U.S. Attorneys Office and the federal agents were not able to come up with further information to warrant the filing of a federal criminal case, so none was filed. I believe the usual practice in such instances, even if no formal charges are filed, the Secret Service still keeps track of the individuals involved to ensure they do not get close to any president."

Ron, thanks for following this up. I may shortly be able to add something of further interest as regards this matter. As you say, how strange that the Secret Service, and other agencies, just allowed these men to disappear down the rabbit hole.

[Allan Lowe]

so what we have is a non-plot to kill no one and no evidence to support it and no arrests or evidence - I think it's time to let this particular non-event rest -

[Dawn Meredith]

so what we have is a non-plot to kill no one and no evidence to support it and no arrests or evidence - I think it's time to let this particular non-event rest -

I disagree. When a president is "warned" in such a manner to potentially silence him- if this is what occurred- I don't think qualifies as a "non-event". I will never believe that these are true names. A name that is a composite of Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray- talk about in your face.

Dawn

[Gary Buell]

Ron you might know, who was it who said "The vice presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm spit"

Supposedly they cleaned that quote up. I've read he actually said "bucket of warm piss."

[Allan Lowe]

"if this is what occurred- I don't think qualifies as a "non-event".

that's just it - it never occured -

[Ron Ecker]

Cronkite gave it another 20 seconds' coverage noting that a federal prosecutor in Louisiana was seeking dismissal of the charges against the pair due to "insufficient evidence."

"A federal prosecutor in Louisiana" caught my attention, my first reaction being, "Was Jim Garrison involved in this too?" (Of course Garrison was state, not federal.)

Etra has advised that the report summary on the Vanderbilt news site is erroneous, someone apparently mistaking L.A. (Los Angeles) for LA (Louisiana). There was no Louisiana connection in the case.

Edited January 20, 2006 by Ron Ecker