Thinking Black Thoughts

[Pat Speer]

Having read a number of books on the CIA, and American foreign policy, along with large amounts of Church Committe testimony, I'm beginning to understand how a clandestine operator thinks. As a result I can easily discern a CIA role in the assassination.

1. You have a goal: stamping out communism in the western hemisphere.

2. You have an obstacle: Cuba, which seeks to spread communism.

3. You have a second obstacle: your President, who seems reluctant to fight communism head-on, and has made a deal not to attack Cuba.

3. You have a third obstacle: the Soviet Government has guaranteed Cuba it will provide it with protection. Nuclear war with the Soviets is not an option.

4. You need a plan whereby you can force your reluctant president to act against Cuba, while simultaneously forcing the Soviets to back off from helping Cuba. You need a provocation by Cuba so severe that the Soviets will not support Cuba, for fear of international disapproval. (Ironically, the Soviets had shown they could be bullied during the Missile Crisis.)

An assassination attempt on the President performed by a supporter of Cuba, on behalf of Cuba, is exactly what the doctor ordered. With this, the President will get riled up, the Soviets will back down, especially when they learn this agent for Castro also spent some time in their country, and had met with their top assassination expert in Mexico, and the world will approve of American action. The OAS' rejection of Trujillo after he tried to kill Betancourt demonstrates that they won't support Cuba.

If you can find the right assassin, who'll scare the Soviets into adopting a defensive stance, you can actually pull this off, one of the great black ops of all time. And you have that assassin: Oswald.

To make sure the President doesn't replace Fidel with some socialist Fidel imitator you arrange for Oswald to be seen with men pretending to be members of JURE. This will keep JURE out of any coalition ruling a post-Fidel Castro.

ONLY something goes wrong and someone actually kills the President. This messes things up as the new President is so determined to calm the people down that he refuses to act on the evidence pointing towards Cuba and/or Russia. You go into defense mode, trying to cover your tracks as best you can. You go along with the FBI's conclusion Oswald was the shooter. When Oswald is killed, however, you suspect someone in the operation turned it all around and fired additional shots. You go into a long period of denial. You're not sure but you suspect one of the agents working with the Cubans convinced them they would be better off killing Kennedy than hoping he would act on a provocation. But you never say anything because you suspect he may have done this on behalf of someone else, someone who wasn't supposed to even know about the operation, perhaps Marcello, perhaps Hoover, perhaps LBJ, perhaps all three. You don't know.

But you do know the names of many of those involved in the Cuban operation... and you suspect they're being silenced by someone in the know. And so you keep quiet. For years and years. Towards the end of your life, however, you admit to friends and family that you suspect someone in American intelligence was behind the assassination. You're buried at Arlingrton. Your name is David Atlee Phillips.

Edited March 15, 2005 by Pat Speer

[John Simkin]

To make sure the President doesn't replace Fidel with some socialist Fidel imitator you arrange for Oswald to be seen with men pretending to be members of JURE.  This will keep JURE out of any coalition ruling a post-Fidel Castro.

ONLY something goes wrong and someone actually kills the President.  This messes things up as the new President is so determined to calm the people down that he refuses to act on the evidence pointing towards Cuba and/or Russia.  You go into defense mode, trying to cover your tracks as best you can.  You go along with the FBI's conclusion Oswald was the shooter. When Oswald is killed, however, you suspect someone in the operation turned it all around and fired additional shots. You go into a long period of denial. You're not sure but you suspect one of the agents working with the Cubans convinced them they would be better off killing Kennedy than hoping he would act on a provocation.  But you never say anything because you suspect he may have done this on behalf of someone else, someone who wasn't supposed to even know about the operation, perhaps Marcello, perhaps Hoover, perhaps LBJ, perhaps all three.  You don't know.

Great posting. You could well be right. The interesting issue concerns what went wrong. Is it possible that another group that wanted JFK dead found out about this conspiracy. Maybe they were tipped off by some right-wing figure in the CIA (Morales, Harvey, Phillips, etc). They then knew that if they killed JFK the authorities would cover it up. If that is the case my bet would be on the Suite 8F Group.

[Tim Gratz]

I too found Pat's post very interesting.

I cannot recite all of the authors but some have sugested that Oswald was told he was to participate in a fake assassination plot against Kennedy to demonstrate to Kennedy that his Secret Service protection was lax (I think this is the premise of the McDonald "Appointment in Dallas" book). Others have sugested that Oswald may have been told he was to stage a fake assassination attempt to force Kennedy to invade Cuba (because the Russians still had missiles in Cuba). Don't remember for sure but this might be the premise of the fictional Libre.

Pat's point, however, is deeper than that: that the original plan was indeed to fake an assassination attempt but someone hijacked it and turned it into a real assassination. A very interesting premise. The theory is that the original plotter could hardly come forward to tell the truth, for who would necessarily believe his innocence? Whoever turned it into a real assassination, if Pat's scenario is correct, must have been aware of the original plot.

Unfortunately, unless a participant who is still alive confesses before his death, we may never know whether Pat's interesting premise is indeed correct. The reason why it is intriguing is that it appears to fit many of the pieces together.

Edited March 16, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Pat Speer]

One of the aspects which inspired this theory was LBJ's lack of response to the signs pointing towards Castro. If killing Kennedy had been the plan all along, and setting up Castro, what changed LBJ's mind? The thought occurred that maybe he hadn't been in on it.

I recently read Red Friday by Carlos Bringuier. (The copy I found was actually signed by him in 1971.) Before the assassination the DRE was writing stories that Kennedy and Khruschev were about to cut a deal regarding Cuba and that Castro was about to be sold out by the Soviets. To me this an obvious effort to separate Castro from Khruschev, so that Castro would be seen as acting alone when the assassination (or merely assassination attempt) took place. John Martino, who serves as the jumping off point in Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked, repeated this line shortly after the assassination. He also had ties to the DRE through the Bayo/Pawley raid etc. Since these stories seem now to have been made up out of thin air, and since the reality seems to be that Kennedy was at least thinking of making nice with Castro, I believe these stories should be seen as disinfo related to the assassination. One wonders about Joannides' and Phillips' proximity to these stories.

As to who may have turned the assassination around, it's intriguing that two men potentially involved in helping Oswald create his left-wing credentials in New Orleans, David Ferrie and Guy Banister, were working for Marcello during the months leading up to the assassination. Had they figured out what was up and told Marcello? It may be important here to remember that Marcello's bagman Jack Halfen, in 1955!!!! testified to business dealings with LBJ cronies Congressman Albert Thomas and Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark (Ramsey Clark's father) and that he subsequently admitted to a U.S. Marshal that he'd had many dealings with LBJ and Sam Rayburn as well, so much so that LBJ had written a letter on Halfen's behalf to the Parole Board. I've read of rumors that RFK was trying to reach Halfen when he was killed.

Outside of Pay-off by Michael Dorman, are there any other sources which cover the Halfen story and its implications? Is anyone aware of an interview of the man? Has anyone here read the transcripts of his trial? Is there any other evidence of LBJ having mob ties, specifically with Marcello?

[Tim Gratz]

Pat wrote:

One of the aspects which inspired this theory was LBJ's lack of response to the signs pointing towards Castro. If killing Kennedy had been the plan all along, and setting up Castro, what changed LBJ's mind? The thought occurred that maybe he hadn't been in on it.

Pat, the thought that ocurred to you was right. LBJ had nothing to do with it. Read "The Assassination Tapes"; read how LBJ cowered in fear after the assassination thinking he might be the next target.

One of the things that might have caused LBJ to wind down the war against Cuba was simple fear. If he was concerned (correctly or not makes no difference to this analysis) that Castro did it, he did not want to be Fidel's next target.

It is even possible that Castro had banked on that!

[Pat Speer]

Pat wrote:

One of the aspects which inspired this theory was LBJ's lack of response to the signs pointing towards Castro. If killing Kennedy had been the plan all along, and setting up Castro, what changed LBJ's mind? The thought occurred that maybe he hadn't been in on it.

Pat, the thought that ocurred to you was right.  LBJ had nothing to do with it. Read "The Assassination Tapes"; read how LBJ cowered in fear after the assassination thinking he might be the next target.

One of the things that might have caused LBJ to wind down the war against Cuba was simple fear.  If he was concerned (correctly or not makes no difference to this analysis) that Castro did it, he did not want to be Fidel's next target.

It is even possible that Castro had banked on that!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

While I find the tapes fascinating I always take into account that LBJ controlled the taping himself, and deliberately avoided taping some of the conversations a historian would be most curious to hear. Consequently, we can't be sure some of the tapes were not mini-dramas scripted and recorded for posterity. What I find most interesting on the tapes is Hoover's absolute lack of ability--the man seems utterly lacking in the instincts and insight one might expect from "America's top cop."

Edited March 16, 2005 by Pat Speer

[Shanet Clark]

Interesting thread.

I would be more inclined to think of the effort and the false effort as simultaneous, and part of the overall frame-up of Oswald, the Marine Intelligence Communist.

I have been reading Schiem's Contract on America, a very pure version of the HSAC Blakely revisions of the late 1970s.

It occurs to me that the limited hang out or exposure of the "Mafia" angle, really clings the Giancana Roselli interests, which is a very cunning game of Blame the Victim. Joe and John Kennedy's relations with unsavory Chicago, New York and Los Angeles figures was linked to the ROSELLI contracts in Cuba. For the HSAC to link Ruby to Chicago and GIancana, and Ovid Demaris to make hay with the JUDITH EXNER CAMPBELL maaterial all points back to Kennedy and blames him for his own murder. Johnson knew pretty early that this was the fallback, that some mafia figures, from the 1960 election, were angry at RFK, JFK and the District Attorney's policy .... And this is just misdirection, and blaming the victim.

I think people like Harrelson and Marcello played a role, and Ruby was obviously working for Mafia figures.

It may well be that Lansky and Trafficante worked with the opposition, but Roselli and Giancana were more Kennedy men.......

[Tim Gratz]

In my opinion, Joe Kennedy made the deal with the mob never intending to keep it.

There is scant evidence JFK or RFK knew of their father's deal with the devil.

From the Mafia's perspective, however, it was a doublecross.

To say that the Mafia killed Kennedy is not, in my opinion, tantanount to "blaming the victim".

And there had to be some mafia involvement in the assassination. For if there was a conspiracy, we can debate whether Oswald was part of it or a mere patsy. The only individual we can all agree on that had to be part of the conspiracy was Jack Ruby. And if Ruby was involved, he was ordered to whack Oswald by someone with sufficient clout in the criminal syndicate. My candidate is Santo Trafficante, Jr.

So on whose behalf was Trafficante acting?

a) The Mafia.

Jimmy Hoffa (who, per Frank Rogano, had asked him to).

c) Anti-Castro Cubans.

d) Fidel Castro.

Well, it may have been all of the above. Trafficante had associations with all of the above and multiple sponsorship may have guaranteed his safety.

I also believe that Pat's scenario is possible: that someone cleverly turned what was supposed to be a fake assassination into a real one. That could even support one of John's suggestions that there may have been innocent people in Dallas who had no way to explain their presence: they may have been part of the "fake assassination attempt" that Pat posits.

Whenever I try to type a b followed by a parenthesis I get that stupid smiley-face!

Edited March 16, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Mark Stapleton]

Pat wrote:

One of the aspects which inspired this theory was LBJ's lack of response to the signs pointing towards Castro. If killing Kennedy had been the plan all along, and setting up Castro, what changed LBJ's mind? The thought occurred that maybe he hadn't been in on it.

Pat, the thought that ocurred to you was right.  LBJ had nothing to do with it. Read "The Assassination Tapes"; read how LBJ cowered in fear after the assassination thinking he might be the next target.

One of the things that might have caused LBJ to wind down the war against Cuba was simple fear.  If he was concerned (correctly or not makes no difference to this analysis) that Castro did it, he did not want to be Fidel's next target.

It is even possible that Castro had banked on that!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

While I find the tapes fascinating I always take into account that LBJ controlled the taping himself, and deliberately avoided taping some of the conversations a historian would be most curious to hear. Consequently, we can't be sure some of the tapes were not mini-dramas scripted and recorded for posterity. What I find most interesting on the tapes is Hoover's absolute lack of ability--the man seems utterly lacking in the instincts and insight one might expect from "America's top cop."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Pat,

Yes I agree. Of course those tapes were "edited". LBJ was the most cunning of politicians. You need only research his career to know that.

[Tim Gratz]

Mark:

Have you read all of the tapes before you made this assessment?

I think you need to read all of the tapes before you can make an intelligent assessment if it was all just a game being played. The latter does not make sense because there was no plan to release them. So the idea that LBJ was just acting so he could use the tapes to prove he was innocent makes no sense.

I believe LBJ was a crook. I believed that in 1964. But he did not kill Kennedy. The tapes help demonstrate that.

Read the tapes.

Edited March 17, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Al Carrier]

Mark:

Have you read all of the tapes before you made this assessment?

I think you need to read all of the tapes before you can make an intelligent assessment if it was all just a game being played.  The latter does not make sense because there was no plan to release them.  So the idea that LBJ was just acting so he could use the tapes to prove he was innocent makes no sense.

I believe LBJ was a crook.  I believed that in 1964.  But he did not kill Kennedy.  The tapes help demonstrate that.

Read the tapes.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Very interesting thread, but one that has in common with the majority of the investigative threads that are being posted IMO. Too many are being influenced by what has been released to the researchers as playings in this operation. If one believes that, then they follow the same line in finding the motivation. This is where one needs to look closely and see that the motivation in the case of the overthrow of Castro was never carried out, or even continued in what was being laid out.

What we must realize is that intelligence/military covert operations utilizes a smokescreen both within and outside the element to hide what the true objective is, thus hiding the planners and players. A classic example is Iran/Contra for those who have followed my posts both here and on Lancer.

Johnson was running scared after the assassination and his primary concern was saving his own life in the days, weeks, months and years that followed. What did Johnson change after JFK's death? It certainly wasn't the Castro Operation as JFK was working on a detent' with Cuba and Johnson left Cuba alone. How about SE Asia? JFK was in the process of pulling out and two days after the assassination, Johnson signed an NSAM that was revised to mean the opposite of what JFK attended to sign in order to escalate the US involvement in SE Asia. Are we talking evidence of motive here?

This week I met with a contact in North Carolina who I was prepared to have the upper hand on in digging into a person whom I seriously to believe to be a hands-on conspirator in the assassination. To my surprise, this individual knew more about me than anyone I have come across and shut me down cold. It only further supports my belief that the assassination was carried out by military personnel in SE Asia. If you want to look for a link from the military to the intel community, look no farther than Lucien Conein.

To keep digging into the anti-Castro Cuban militants and soldiers of fortune like Hemming, is simply playing into the hands of what the smokescreen originally set out to hide. Hemming is simply making a name for himself in his dribble. If he knows so much, why is he saying so little?

Al

[Tim Gratz]

Re Al's post:

There is definitely a dichotomy between those who believe the assassinmation was related to Cuban politics (my view: I still believe it was most likely a Castro operation but my second most probable scenario is an anti-Castro operation perhaps (probably?) planned or abetted by "renegade" CIA agents); or related to Vietnam politics (Stone's view and Al's).

I believe there was a definite change in policy toward Cuba after the assassination. The strongest support for this may come from Joseph Califano, who was in charge of one of the Cuban task forces for JFK and helped close it down under LBJ. There is documentary evidence for the change. As has been discussed in other threads, the Kennedys were even planning a second invasion of Cuba, one that perhaps would have occured as early as December of 1963. I don't think it is subject to serious debate that LBJ stopped the "secret war" against Cuba, although it may have taken some time to wind it down.

This change does not necessarily prove the assassination was related to Cuban politics. In fact, if anti-Castro Cubans killed Kennedy, if their motive was more than simple retaliation for the BOP, the assassination backfired on them. If Castro was behind the assassination, his purpose was accomplished.

There is an interesting perspective on the alleged change in Vietnam policy outlined in "Triangle of Death". I will post it later. In a different thread, I posted a comment by embittered CIA former agent Victor Marchetti that Kennedy was no "dove" on Vietnam.

Re Al's comment on Lucius Conein, perhaps Al will remember that Hemming claimed that Conein collected funds that were used to support the assassination.

Generally, I just wanted to note the interesting dichotomy between those who link the assassination to Cuban policy and those who link it to Vietnam policy.

Then again, there is Hemming's claim that the assassionation was funded in part by Ramfis Trujillo and Johhny Abbes Garcia. Given the brutal manner in which these men tracked down, tortured and murdered any Dominican related in any manner to the assassination of Gen Trujillo, logic suggests their quest for revenge might have also reached the United States.

Edited March 17, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Lee Forman]

Pat,

A bit late, but I believe the author's Tim is referring to are Gary Wean and George Michael Evica. I posted a thread on the 'simulated' assassination concept here on the forum. I believe it has a lot of merit.

- lee

[Pat Speer]

Pat,

A bit late, but I believe the author's Tim is referring to are Gary Wean and George Michael Evica.  I posted a thread on the 'simulated' assassination concept here on the forum.  I believe it has a lot of merit.

- lee

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've read bits and pieces of Wean's and Evica's work, but don't remember reading their views on a simulated assassination. The main simulation theory I've come across is McDonald's, and it''s absolute b.s. I suspect McDonald was told the real purpose of the simulation ws to incite an attack on Cuba, but told the "Secret Service wants to scare the President into being more cautious" story because at heart he was a cold warrior and didn't want to spill the beans on our nation's darkest secrets.

[Lee Forman]

Wean

The first edition of There's a Fish in the Courthouse was published in 1987, and tells of an incredible meeting that Gary attended in late 1963.  One of Gary's friends was Audie Murphy, America's most decorated war hero who became a Hollywood movie star.  During World War II, Murphy took on hundreds of German soldiers and six tanks single-handedly near Holtzwihr France, while he was firing a machine gun from atop a burning vehicle filled with explosives.  It stands as one of the most heroic feats from any war.  Murphy suffered from “shell shock” (now called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) for the rest of his life. 

One of Murphy's friends was Bill Decker, the sheriff of Dallas County.  Decker came to California regularly on business, and when he came to town, Gary would arrange for Murphy, Decker, himself and his partner to dine at the Police Academy.  About two weeks after the JFK assassination, in early December 1963, Decker was in town and they all had lunch together.  The topic of conversation quickly turned to what arms experts across the nation were discussing: how could Oswald have made those shots with that poor shooting position and mediocre rifle to kill John Kennedy?  Nobody at that table thought it was possible for Oswald to have made those shots.  After they arrived at their conclusion, Decker told them that he knew Oswald had not fired the shots, and that a man in Dallas wanted to talk to somebody about it.  Oswald died while being transferred to Decker’s custody.  Decker knew somebody who could set the record straight, and wanted to talk to somebody not connected to Dallas or Washington.  Murphy was interested, and the next week, Murphy, Gary and his partner were flying to Ruidoso, New Mexico to meet Decker and his friend. 

They met at the airport and went to a diner to talk.  The man who came with Decker was named John.  According to John, Oswald was anything but a “lone nut.”  He was a U.S. intelligence agent acting under the direction of E. Howard Hunt.  Oswald had been recruited into military intelligence when he joined the Marines.  His hanging out in an expensive Tokyo nightclub as a private, his learning Russian at the highly sensitive U-2 base in Japan, his defection to the Soviet Union and other oddities were all part of his intelligence career (which probably began even before his Marine days, when he was a cadet in 1955 in David Ferrie’s Civil Air Patrol unit.  “Coincidentally,” Oswald began his “fascination” with communism at the same time).  Oswald was developing "communist" credentials for his future activities in infiltrating communist organizations.  It was a fairly normal American intelligence path.[4] 

Oswald was inducted into CIA covert activities and came under Hunt’s direction.  Hunt was a major player in mounting the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and he, as with many others in the military and CIA, blamed Kennedy for the failure (Kennedy refused to call in openly American air support).  Hunt dreamed up the crazy assassination attempts on Castro that the United States tried.  His mission in life was eliminating Castro.  Oswald came into his control, and was thrown into the cauldron of the Cuban exile communities in Miami and New Orleans.  Oswald did not initially know what his mission would be. 

Hunt was paranoid about Oswald's Russian wife, thinking that she might be a Russian spy, so Oswald could tell her nothing about his activities.  Oswald’s joining Fair Play for Cuba and his staged “murder attempt” on General Walker were all part of giving Oswald “credentials” that would make his upcoming performance more believable.  Hunt had concocted the most bizarre assassination intrigue of all time.  Oswald was going to participate in a fake assassination attempt on John Kennedy, and frame Castro for it.  Oswald’s apparent visit to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City was part of laying an elaborate trail to Cuba.  Hunt believed that if Castro could be implicated in an assassination attempt on JFK, the American people could be riled up into supporting an outright invasion of Cuba. 

JFK was not aware of the fake assassination plan, but high-ranking officials in the government and his administration were.  Military intelligence, the FBI and the CIA were all involved.  Oswald was initially leery of Hunt’s plan, but with assurances and after seeing the high-level people involved, he went along with it.  Oswald was to fire his rifle into the air, then go into hiding, and the false trail to Cuba was laid.  He could come home to a hero’s welcome and live a normal life after America had finished mopping up Cuba. 

But something went horribly wrong.  The fake assassination turned into a real one.  Somebody had infiltrated the operation, interposed the mission and killed JFK.  The real assassins tried killing Oswald after JFK was killed, but policeman Tippit was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed.  Oswald escaped, to be captured alive. John said that he knew that Oswald would not have shot a policeman under any circumstances. 

At the end of his mind-blowing tale, John handed over a thick manila envelope, sealed with wax with a thumbprint on it, that contained the documents John said would prove his story. 

Murphy, Gary and his partner went back to California.  They knew that the situation was too big and dangerous for them to pursue.  John said that if he went public with his story, he would quickly disappear, never to be heard from again.  A few days after that meeting, Decker called Murphy.  As John was telling his story, the CIA and intelligence community was in shock.  They did not know what to do, paralyzed with fear.  As they recovered from their shock, they saw themselves facing the firing squad if their involvement in the assassination intrigue became known.  The intelligence community decided they would do everything they could to cover their tracks, invoking “national security.”  Decker told Murphy that John had given him the envelope of documents in a moment of panic, and that if Murphy did not give the envelope back, he would be “destroyed.”  Murphy did some fast thinking and told Decker that they had torn the envelope into pieces and threw them out of the airplane as they were flying back to California.