Jim Root

William Kelly wrote: "Among the things PJM says she left out of her book is the fact that Oswald sent a letter to Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany, saying that he could get their signal in Minsk, an interesting tidbit given the fact that Mrs. Paine met Lee and Marina at a party at the home of the son of a Radio Liberty broadcaster." A few weeks ago I wrote about PJM in my Whitney Shepardson Thread. I pointed out that Whitney SHepardson, besides being a close friend of John J. McCloy, was a founder of the Free Europe Committee and Radio Free Europe (Radio Liberty) along with Allen Dulles, and Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt (brother of George De Mohrenschildt). It was also pointed out that just prior to PJM going to Russia and her meeting with Oswald she would spend time in the offices of Radio Liberty as well. My first question would be, "Did PJM say when Oswald wrote to Radio Liberty?" This Shepardson connection is intriquing to me because 4 months before Oswald was to enter Russia via Helsinki, Shepardson was getting together with the old OSS gang that had great connections in Helsinki. The problem I'm finding is that the Stockholm OSS Station (which ran operations in Finland) is not even mentioned in William Donovon's biography. Recently I have learned that several persons in OSS Stockholm were part of a super secret operation known as "The Pond" that was known only to the highest persons in governement during WWII which would have included John J. McCloy. Richard Helms was also a member of the OSS Stockholm team and it is Helms that is monitoring the movements prior to the assassination of JFK. A documented letter to Radio Liberty could be used to support a suggestion that Whitney Shepardson may have been a player in Oswald's movements into and out of the Soviet Union while providing a plausible connection to both Richard Helms and Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt (and his brother George) as well as a connection to John J. McCloy. Thoughts? Jim Root

GPH RIP Thomas Several years ago GPH contacted me after I had written a post that I felt was important. He provided me with a piece of information that I had uncovered myself from government records but had never shared with anyone (information that had prompted me to write the post). His confirmation of that material, without knowing that he was confiming it, led me to believe that GPH was aware of more detail about obsure information than he is usually given credit for. Our communication continued for a period of time, sporatically, ususally initiated by GPH based upon some post that I made. I know that John Newman (Oswald and the CIA) confirms a great deal of CIA activity and interest in GPH beginning at an early stage and makes reference to two identification numbers, one for Hemming and one for Oswald, that are so close in numerical order that it suggests a relationship to how these two very different people were being handled. Newman goes on to point out that if the numerical relationship could be proven to relate to dates of CIA interest it would move Oswald's original CIA file up to a date that would have began long before his "defection" to the Soviet Union. If true this would also seem to confirm, at least the possibility that Hemming did meet Oswald while he was in California circa September 1959. It should be pointed out that in Newman's book, Newman only speculates on this because he cannot assign a date to the Oswald number while Hemmings file was opened at a much earlier date than Oswald's official 201 file. It would be interesting to try to organize all the information that GPH "distributed" to various people. Having become the recipient of some interesting "mail" from Hemming I can only believe that others received the same curtesy. Most of that received by me was rather point specific. Some has led to further investigation and confirmation. Other bits and pieces remain somewhat elusive to my simple mind and without being able to confirm them it remains in my speculation pile. One of those pieces I find profound (if true)! And we continue to search and dig, Jim Root

Interesting article by Mark Stout titled: "The Pond: Running Agents for State, War, and the CIA, The Hazards of Private Spy Operations" https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-.../article07.html I have drifted into information concerning "The Pond" over the past few weeks and have began to cross check information that I have gathered over the years with these new revelations. Just scratching the surface it seems. The Pond was the name given to a super secrete spy organization ran by John V. "Frenchy" Grombach for a period of about 13 years between 1942 and 1955. This organization originally worked under the auspices of Military Intelligence although Grombach was on loan to OSS at times during WWII and the information points to the fact that John J. McCloy, if not the father of the Pond was in fact its wetnurse. After the war Grombach's group worked for the military, the State Department, the CIA and provided information to Joseph McCarthy during the days of the Red Scare and the McCarthy hearings. Grombach led crusades against Alfred MacCormick, Allen Dulles, William Donovan and even John J. McCloy, depending upon his priotities at the time. He fought for the abolition of the OSS and tried to destroy the CIA after he was bypassed for the leadership position within that organization. While much about The Pond remains a mystery what is for sure is that Grombach was a powerful person in the field of intelligence and continued to peddle his wares, information and influence beyond what would be officially considered his time of usefullness. Some areas that are of interest for myself: Grombach was closely associated with the creation of OSS/SI which was headed by Whitney Shepardson (I have started a topic on Shepardson that I hope to continue adding to). OSS/SI seems to have been the group that watched over OSS Stockholm Station during WWII and Grombach can be/is being tied to members of the OSS Stockholm team. This was a surprize so I reviewed Anthony Cave Brown's book "Wild Bill Donovan the Last Hero" (Times Books, 1982). Stockholm receives no mention whatsoever from the OSS Chief/Brown although that particular station can be credited with some very important successes of the OSS. For example, Fortitude North (allied deception planning prior to the D-Day landings), Himmler's peace feelers to the Allies in 1944, negotiations leading to the survival of 100-200,000 Hungarian Jews, tracking of ball bearings into Germany, German production of oil and synthetic fuels, piece feelers from Japan, etc. including the interception of the Finnish Intelligence corp and cryptological team that began the Venonal Project (ie. Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner, Oswald investigators). A member of this OSS Stockholm team was Richard "Dick" Helms. When I cross checked Grombach to the book by Peter Grose (Gentleman Spy, the Life of Allen Dulles, Houghton Mifflin, 1994) I found five entries dealing with this mysterious fellow. Each entry sparked interest but two really caught my eye. First, on pages 276-279 we have a discription of the testimonys three men gave at a secret hearing in congress on June 27, 1947. The three men, in order, were Hoyt S. Vandenber, then head of the Central Intellligence Group, followed by John V. "Frenchie" Grombach who is described by the author as a "shadowy freelancer under contract" but whose invitation to this hearing shows obvious importance within the intelligence community. The final speaker was Allen Dulles who, "minced no words in puncturing the simple-minded prescriptions of the freelance sleuths and the notion that collection of intelligence and its analysis could be so neatly disconnected....Allen worried about 'these private collectors of information...I think it is impossible to continue with a series of agencies engaged in the work of secret inteligence...You are going to cross wires, and you are going to find that these various agents will become crossed.' he urged that control of secret collection operations be assigned exclusively to theproposed central agency.. "Vanenberg, though loyal to the uniformed services, whet even further that Allen in complaining about contract entrepreneurs like Grombach....." Two paragraphs later (page 279)we read..."a loosely defined Central Intelligence Agency was established by law on July 26, 1947. The new agency assumed the functions of the galtering CIG, and absorbed the few OSS veterans remaining in the field - the PERSONAL NETWORKS (capital letters mine) NUTURED BY THE LIKES OF (RICHARD) HELMS and (JAMES JESUS) ANGLETON, who had been conserving their intelligence assets in Germany and Italy under the supervision of the War Department." The use of the phrase "PERSONAL NETWORKS" says a lot considering the information that I am researching dealing with Helms at this time. The second piece of information that I found most interesting upon cross checking Grombach in this context was on pages 405 - 408 of Grose's book. It deals with Dulles fight to maintain control of the U-2 within the hands of the CIA vs the Airforce. "General Curtis LeMay, chief of the Strategic Air Command and renowned in his day for tough-talking bravado, told a staff meeting, 'We'll let them develop it (the U-2) and then we'll take it away from them.' They tried; even a year later, in July 1955, as a prototype U-2 was checked out for its first test flight, Bissell warned Allen that the air force still had designs on the project. As the CIA men left the briefing room, Bissell remembers giving a final message to the director: 'Don't let Le-May get his cotton-picking fingers on the U-2.' Having brought his agency this far, Allen needed no such reminders." "...Eisenhower had more confidence in the CIA than the Pentagon.... "Notably on the offense against CIA was Frenchie Grombach, pursuing his eight-year vendetta against the presumptuous civilian intelligence service. The agency, having tired of Grombach's flow of unevaluated barroom gossip, had canceled the contract that had kept him in business for the past three years, and he was seeking new buyers for the secrets uncovered by his private networks." Grombach then passed information to "Major General Arthur Trudeau, an engineer and gifted battle commander from WWII and Korea, who had no particular background in intelligence. An admirer of MacArthur, he fell easily into his service's suspicions of CIA. Numerous reports were coming in from Grombach...Trudeau had asked the West German ambassador in Washington for an opportunity to discuss intelligence concerns with a couterpart from Bonn's armed forces... (Trudeau) was escirted into the embassy garden and introduced to the ambassador's house guest, Konrad Adenauer. Trudeau plunged in, confiding to the West German Chancellor his concers...and the dangers of NATO secrts being passed to Moscow. He pulled a packet of seven index cards from his uniform jacket and read out some of the derogatory reports coming in to military intelligence. Adenauer heard him out, then asked to have the general's cards for his own review.' "Returning to Bonn, Adenauer and his aids went throug Trudeau's file cards with the local CIA station chief, James Critchfield, who recognized familiar half-baked accusations (from Grombach) that had already been checked out and dismisssed. He cabled a report to Allen, who reacted with a rate burst of outrage...at the audacity of the Pentagon general in passing unevaluated field reports, on his own initiative, to a foreign head of state. In July the new army chief of staff, GENERAL MAXWELL TAYLOR, summoned Trudeau for an explanation, and they went over the same seven index cards....A power struggle between a journeyman chidf of army intelligence and the revered head of the CIA was no contest at all, and within days Trudeau was transferred to another command in the Far East." (I might point out that, according to Grose, six years later the information passed by Grombach to Trudeau/Adenhauer proved to be correct) Private intelligence organizations controlled by the Grombachs, Helms and Angeltons of the world along with Military Intelligence infighting with CIA over projects like the U-2....... What are we to make of this? I will admit that this area is opening so many doors for me that it is overwelming my time and limited mental capabilities, It does seem that this long dusty trail that I am following continues to lead to the same people...McCloy, Taylor, Helms, Dulles, U-2, Signals Communications, etc., etc. Thoughts about the Pond? Jim Root

Tim Some thoughts about your comments: "How likely is it that if there had been a plot at the highest level to assassinate JFK, it would have been put in writing by the conspirators, and then left around sitting in the files available for someone to chance upon, until the files were destroyed some ten or fifteen years later? Not too likely, I submit." Perhaps you are right! But at present there are large amounts of documents that do exist that are still not being released to the public. As long as this refusal to release documents continues we must consider that the chance remains that there is a document that may still exist that will point to a conspiracy to assassinate the President that was carried out by persons associated with the Government of the United States. For example: Hosty's third note that was (just as his two previous notes were) sent to the State Department. We are expected to believe that the State Department forwarded the first two of these three notes to the office of Richard Helms but we are then expected to believe that the third Hosty note was not provided to Helms. We know for a fact that the third Hosty note identified exactly where Lee Harvey Oswald worked and (following the example of the two previous Hosty notes) should have made it to Helms office before the motorcade route was decided upon. This third Hosty note was not given a Commission Exhibit Number and has never turned up on Oswald's 201 File documents list althought Hosty's other two notes do show up on that list. Now, I ask, why would this note disappear? For what reason would it be destroyed or at a minimum why has it been extracted from Oswald's file. If we are to automatically rule out the potential for any involvement in the assassination by any Government agency should we not expect those same agencys to be forthcomming with evidence as simple as the "who" had access to Hosty's third note and what happened to that note? But of course you have pronounced; "The crime was indeed monstrous, but the US government was certainly not involved." And the next point you make: "A far more likely scenario is that LHO was in fact working for one or more agencies of US intelligence and that is why it was necessary to destroy the files lest the official line that Oswald was not working for any agency of the US be proved to be a lie." Wouldn't that be complicity in the crime? While not pretending to be an expert in the field I do believe that it is resonable to think that if a government agency destroys evidence that is pertinent to the investigation of a crime (especially the assassination of a President) then that agency and the people involved are participants in some form of criminal behavior that is associated with the crime being investigated. Tim, isn't this what happened to Nixon after others broke into the Watergate Hotel? But then, with that group, evidence had to be destroyed to protect the highest levels of government, right? Or was it to protect National Security as was claimed at the time? I would find it hard to believe that evidence would be destroyed by persons at a lower level of government without them being ordered to do so by someone higher in government. I would also believe that anyone higher in government that would participate in the distruction of evidence would do so only to protect themselves or as you suggest would do it in the interest of National Security. You seem to accept this position of National Security..... so I ask, How does the destruction or disappearance of the third Hosty note, the one that identified exactly where Oswald was working, become necessary for the protection of National Security? How would it lead to the knowledge of Oswald having been an agent or asset of US Intelligence? Is it not possible that the destruction or disappearence of the third Hosty note was designed to protect the identities of those who had access to the knowledge of where Oswald was working prior to the motorcade route being finalized? What would motivate those persons to eliminate Hosty's third note from public scrutiny? And, once again, how does the destruction or disappearance of Hosty's third note protect National Security? Jim Root

Lee Harvey Oswald sails for Astugi, Japan in March of 1958. The following is information taken from "Oswald and the CIA" by John Newman (pg 65): "On April 10, 1958 CIA headquarters sent a cable to a place that is still classified but which, from all indications, was one of its stations in Western Europe. It conatained (a) detailed ... descritption of Pricilla (Johnson)..." "The releasing official listed on the bottom left of this cable was then the CIA's chief of Investigations and Operational Support. His name was Cord Meyer, Jr." "Cord Meyer's cable in April occured after her (Pricilla Johnson) visa application, during the period she was waiting for it to be approved. 'I went to Cairo in February 1958,' Pricilla remembers, 'to see a boyfriend. Then in March of 1958 I went to Paris, and did a little translating in a building on Haussmann Boulevard.' There she worked for 'someone I knew either for Radio Liberty or the Congress for Cultural Freedom." ("The Congress for Cultural Freedom is widely considered one of the CIA's more daring and effective Cold War covert operations." from Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-50) Radio Liberty was of course operated by Whitney Shepardson. On June 11, 2007 this article appered: By Priscilla J(ohnson). McMillan After decades of speculation about a grassy knoll, the Zapruder film, and an acoustical tape, the man behind it all is too often overlooked. Lee Oswald was not a cardboard figure but a human being, and although he had barely turned twenty-four at the time he killed President Kennedy, he had a motive. Oswald was a believing Marxist, and his motive was to strike the deadliest blow he could imagine at capitalism in the United States. Oswald had been headed that way most of his sentient life. He had, by his account, become seriously interested in politics at fifteen or sixteen, when someone on a street corner in the Bronx handed him a leaflet about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had been executed two years earlier as spies for the Soviet Union. At eighteen, huddled in his Marine Corps barracks in Japan, he studied Russian from a Berlitz phrase book. And at nineteen, he wangled a hardship discharge from the Marines and made the arduous journey by steamship and train to the USSR. Arriving there as a tourist, he immediately proclaimed ­ to Russian authorities and officials of the U.S. embassy in Moscow ­ that he intended to relinquish his U.S. citizenship and become a citizen of the USSR. It was at that moment in his life, November, 1959, that I happened to meet and talk with him. I was a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance in search of a human interest story and he had just marked his twentieth birthday. I had no way of knowing that this boy ­ dressed in a dark gray suit, white shirt, and dark red tie—he looked like an American college student—had, two weeks earlier, slashed his wrists in his hotel bathtub in a gesture of desperation after being informed by Soviet officials that he could not remain in the Soviet Union. Throughout our conversation, which took place over several hours in my room at the Metropole Hotel, I asked Oswald why he was defecting to the USSR, while he tried to engage me in a discussion of Marxist economics. When I asked what would become of him if he returned to the United States, he replied that his lot would be that of “workers everywhere.” He would be ground down by capitalism as his mother, a practical nurse, had been. He spoke bitterly of racial discrimination in the United States, but did not disclose that as a schoolboy he had taken action against it by riding in the black section of the segregated buses of New Orleans. While I realized that Oswald was angry at the country he was hoping to leave behind, I also sensed that his desire to live in the Soviet Union had something theoretical about it. He had traveled thousands of miles to get there, but had ventured no more than two blocks on his own and preferred to sit by himself in his hotel room rather than go sight-seeing in Moscow. So far as I could see, his enthusiasm for the Soviet Union was based on neither knowledge of, or curiosity about, everyday life there. The Russians refused Oswald’s plea for citizenship but allowed him to remain in their country. He, whether from anger at the way he claimed to have been treated by U.S. consul Richard E. Snyder, or from desire to leave himself an “out,” refused to return to the American embassy to reclaim the passport he had left behind. In early 1960, a couple of months after I met him, Oswald was sent to the provincial city of Minsk and given a job at the Minsk Radio Plant. There he distinguished himself as a below-average worker, but embarked on an eight-month romance with a woman named Ella German of which he seemed to be proud. But Ella jilted him, and Oswald, to spite her, married nineteen-year-old pharmacist Marina Prusakova. Her friends and his co-workers quickly taught him the daily realities of Soviet life. His disenchantment with the poverty, lack of amusement, and ubiquitous spying can be found in what he called his “Historic Diary” and in “The Collective,” an essay he started to write in the USSR. After less than two years in Minsk, Oswald opened a correspondence with the once-hated U.S. consul, Richard E. Snyder, in Moscow, seeking to return to the United States. Snyder’s superiors in Washington determined that, having left his passport at the embassy that angry autumn of 1959, Oswald had retained his citizenship. In June, 1962, he was allowed to return to America, bringing Marina and their three month-old daughter, June. That summer and fall, and throughout the following winter, he held a series of menial, disheartening jobs, first repairing houses in Fort Worth, then as apprentice at a printing plant in Dallas. Oswald’s criticisms of the society around him returned with a vengeance, and his reading of two left-wing publications, The Worker, mouthpiece of the U.S. Communist Party, and The Militant, newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, helped focus his discontent. Oswald said of The Militant that “you can see what they want you to do by reading between the lines.” That winter the two newspapers were filled with diatribes against the far-right John Birch Society and a like-minded figure, Major General Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army), who happened to live in Dallas. Although Oswald was barely able to feed his family, he nonetheless ordered two guns by mail, a revolver and a $19.95 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with a scope. On a Sunday afternoon in late March, 1963, he had Marina photograph him in their Dallas backyard holding both guns and copies of The Militant and The Worker. Ten days later, on April 10, 1963, Oswald fired a shot at General Walker that missed Walker’s head by only an inch or two. And a few days after that, Oswald, his pistol strapped at his waist, told Marina that he was going to “have a look” at former Vice-President Richard Nixon, who he said was in Dallas that day. Marina managed to keep him at home, and when Oswald subsequently announced that he meant to leave Dallas and seek a job in New Orleans, she was relieved, thinking that he might get over his obsession with politics there. She was wrong. Within days of his arrival in New Orleans, Oswald was standing on the docks, handing out “Fair Play for Cuba” leaflets. New Orleans, despite what Marina hoped would be the restraining influence of his cousins and aunt, proved to be no more salutary than Dallas. Oswald read books about Mao Tse-tung, John F. Kennedy, and Fidel Castro that he found in the public library, and spent the long summer evenings sighting his rifle on the porch, and working the bolt action. He explained to Marina that he wanted to go to Cuba to teach Fidel’s army how to repel an American invasion. And he sketched out his newest scheme. He would hijack an airplane headed to Florida and redirect it to Cuba. While he was in the cockpit, she was to stand at the rear, holding June with one hand and pointing Lee’s pistol at the passengers with the other, and together they would join Fidel. Marina was alarmed by this latest “crazy” scheme, but succeeded in laughing Lee out of it. Go to Cuba if you must, she said, but do it a legal way. And so, in late September, 1963, he boarded a bus to Mexico City, where he attempted to secure entry visas for Cuba and the USSR. After failing on both counts he returned, crestfallen, to Dallas, where Marina ­was expecting their second child, having been taken in by a generous couple, Ruth and Michael Paine. Oswald’s intentions were now a jumble: that fall he wrote to the Soviet embassy in Washington, requesting visas for Marina and June to enter the USSR. As Marina was to analyze it later, he meant to stash his family in Russia and then travel by himself to China, to see whether Communism there was less bureaucratic and closer to the ideal than the Cuban or Soviet varieties. But things worked out differently. Oswald found a job at the Texas School Book Depository and lived by himself in Dallas while Marina and the children ­ (their second daughter, Rachel, was born in October) lived with the Paines in the nearby suburb of Irving. On weekends Oswald would come to visit. A new political vista opened for Oswald on Tuesday, November 19. That day he spotted a story in either the Dallas Morning News or Times Herald that described the parade route of President Kennedy’s upcoming visit to Dallas. The presidential motorcade would be passing directly by the windows of the Texas School Book Depository. The precise moment when Oswald made up his mind is not known, and never will be, but the first external manifestation of what he was thinking occurred on Thursday morning, when he asked a co-worker, Buell Wesley Frazier, for a ride home after work. Frazier was accustomed to giving Oswald a ride to Irving on Fridays, but thought nothing of this change in plans. On departing for work Friday morning, Oswald left behind his wedding ring and nearly all the money he had. He brought to work the rifle he had originally purchased for the purpose of killing General Walker, but unlike the previous April, this time he did not miss his intended target. At almost exactly 12:30 CST, he fired three shots and assassinated the embodiment of the American polity he despised. Everything in Oswald’s life proclaims that this was a man prepared to take dangerous and dramatic action for the sake of his political beliefs. Joining with others in street demonstrations or precinct work were not for him. He wanted no part of the “system.” To the contrary, he wanted to bring it down. He considered himself a “Marxist” or a “Socialist.” He was attracted to socialism in Cuba and the USSR, but repelled by the bureaucratic reality. And despite his disappointments with both, by the autumn of 1963 he was still hoping to find the Socialist paradise in China. The possibility that Oswald’s political convictions may have played a decisive part in his shooting John Kennedy was downplayed in the early sixties because President Johnson and other officials did not want the assassination to become a casus belli with the Soviet Union. And to the public, this explanation, at a moment when capitalism was riding high, appeared ludicrous. Besides, for a Marxist, killing this president appeared wildly inconsistent. Kennedy was a liberal. Shooting at him, unlike the attempt on General Walker, appeared to conflict with Oswald’s beliefs about racial discrimination and better relations with the USSR. But to Oswald the believing Marxist, it did not matter much whether the president was liberal or conservative. What mattered was that he was leader of the greatest capitalist nation on earth. Oswald wanted to decapitate capitalism as he, almost literally, decapitated the president of the United States. Seen in this light, an observation by Marina, the person closest to him at this period of his life, makes perfect sense. Had her husband survived to be tried for the president’s murder, Marina believed, not only would he have confessed—he would have boasted about what he had done and proclaimed that it was all for the Socialist cause. Oswald did not succeed, of course, in bringing down American capitalism, any more than Timothy McVeigh succeeded in sparking a national uprising when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. But Oswald’s act of violence indisputably ushered in an era of unease and suspicion in American life that was not there prior to the Kennedy assassination. Oswald was not responsible for all of the damage that has befallen American society since 1963, much as he would have wished to be. Some of that damage is the result of events related only tangentially to the assassination of President Kennedy. But some of the injury can, with justice, be attributed to conspiracy theorists who have gone to superhuman lengths to avoid facing the truth. They have constructed wildly-implausible scenarios, far-out, fictitious “conspirators,” and have scandalously maligned the motives of Kennedy’s successor, rather than take a hard look at the man who actually did it. They have, ironically, done more to poison American political life than Lee Oswald—with the most terrible of intentions—was able to do. © 2007 by Priscilla J. McMillan Priscilla J. McMillan is the author of Marina and Lee (Harper & Row, 1977), and more recently, The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (Viking, 2005). Interesting, Jim Root

Tim I would like to reflect a little on my current thoughts and make a few corrections or advancements to a post in this thread that I made on Feb. 12, 2005: Feb. 12, 2005, I posted: "While Helms is more than an interesting character I do not make him out to be the "big fish." I continue to believe that the trail leads to Maxwell Taylor. The work by Jefferson Morley proves that information about Oswald was making it to the Office Richard Helms but I do not rule out the possibility that that information would also have made it to the ultimate head of Military Intelligence (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Taylor). But the Army Intelligence file on Oswald has been destroyed....suspicious in itself. Chester Victor Clifton, Jr.l, senior military aide to President John F. Kennedy, would be in a position to influence the motorcade. Appointed to this position by Taylor, Clifton was in the motorcade on November 22, 1963. It is also interesting to point out that Clifton's first commanding officier, upon graduation from West Point , was Edwin Walker. The other piece of the puzzle that I believe is important, whoever planned the route past where Oswald was working would also need to be familiar with and suspect that the attempted assassination of Walker could be attributed to Oswald. I believe this narrows the focus substanially." First: I have been corrected by Jefferson Morley that it was not his work that "proves... information was making it to the Office of Richard Helms..." The fact is that it was the work of John Newman in his book "Oswaald and the CIA" that provides the pertinent documentation that the Office of Richard Helms was the recipient of reports dealing with the actions and movements of Lee Harvey Oswald in the months preceding the assassination. Second: John Simkin wrote: "It was George De Mohrenschildt who brought the Oswalds into contact with Ruth Paine." In a recent post undert the topic Whitney Shepardson, I pointed out that Demitri De Mohrenschildt was closely associated with Shepardson, Demitri of course being the older brother of George. What I did not disclose is that as a leader of the SI branch of the OSS in WWII Richard Helms came under the control of Whitney Shepardson. In June of 1959 Shepardson was involved in the collection of a great deal of information that centered on Sweden and Finland and was involved in meeting with "Dick" Helms while this effort was in progress and was apparently sharing the information that he was gathering with Helms. While not conclusive in and of itself this information does lead to a connection between Demitri De Mohrenschildt, Helms and Shepardson. Third: I posted: "I do not rule out the possibility that that information would also have made it to the ultimate head of Military Intelligence...Taylor" During WWII another SI/OSS leader was a mysterious fellow named John "Frenchy" Grombach who headed an organization known as "The Pond." This super secrete organization was the creation of the War Department (which from everything I can gather up to this point would have placed "The Pond" under the guidence of John J. McCloy). Iformation about "The Pond" is currently just becomming available and I have been directed by Antii Hynoonen toward one of the few experts in this particular area of emerging research about this organization. It seems that while "The Pond" operated undercover within the OSS it was in fact controlled by Army Intelligence (General Strong) suggesting, as I have long guessed, that the military has always maintained their own intelligence organizations that can work in conjunction with other organizations such as the OSS/CIA or on a contractual basis. Without going into my source it has been suggested to me that Oswald's entry into the Soviet Union was under the cover of an ONI operation but that the operation was in reality controlled by others outside of ONI. It is interesting to note that when the Army/ONI discussions dealing with "The Pond" became public that ONI was upset to learn that Army Intel had never shared "Pond" Intelligence with ONI. During WWII several of my Stella Polaris (OSS Stockholm) participants have been associated or directly linked to "Pond" activities. From the information that I have recently gathered, it seems to me that "Dick" Helms (who played a major role in OSS Stockholm and was still in direct communications with identified "Pond" members in June ot 1959) would fall into the catagory of having been a "Pond" member. Fourth: I posted: "the Army Intelligence file on Oswald has been destroyed....suspicious in itself." I would like to repeat, "the Army Intelligence file on Oswald has been destroyed....suspicious in itself." If these connections hold then the introduction of the Paines to the Oswald's by De Mohrenschildt would provide a more direct link to monitor Oswald than even the FBI was providing to Helms.... That is: If the supposedly defunct "Pond" was still opperating in some form or other, well that is another thread.... Jim Root

It seems NO ONE remembers this event! Just thought I would post a reminder. John Newman's "Oswald and the CIA" spends a great deal of time on the U-2 Program, the intelligence ramifications of Oswalds defection to the program, the steps that the CIA took to investigate Oswald's defection and potential damage to the U-2 Program, the downing of Francis Gary Powers on May 1, 1960 and attempts to piece together newly released (at the time) information dealing with the potential of Oswald as a defector whos actions were controlled. The account is factual and filled with first hand reports and interviews. I reccommend that every assassination researcher read this fine book. Jim Root

A little futher digging: Whitney Spepardson, besides being a close friend of John J. McCloy, was a founder of the Free Europe Committee and Radio Free Europe along with Allen Dulles, and Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt (brother of George De Mohrenschildt). I know some of you have had some thoughts on the Free Europe Committee before but I have never seen the name of Dimitri Von Mohreschildt so closely related to some of my targets of research before. Dimitri and family have suddenly gotten a little more intersting for my research along these lines. Father was Swedish and associated with the Nobel family and the Baku Oil fields in Russia........... Small world.... and I'm thinking the hole may get deeper. Jim root

James Do you have more information about when Harrod Miller was in Panama? Plot thickens....maybe! Jim Root

Greg Great post! "He is technically right in saying Pro-Blue was not a program created by the JBS - regardless of when it began. It remains true, however, that the distribution of JBS material in Germany was part of it - as was his use of American Opinion as a guide for his troops as to who they should vote for. " And the author of the Overseas Weekly article believed that Walker should have been tried for "his use of American Opinion as a guide for his troops as to who they should vote for." Needless to say, from the information that I have gathered Walker seems to have allowed whoever he put in charge of his "Pro Blue" program at any given time to run that program with our without a great deal of supervision. If it is Roberts and Roberts intorduces JBS material it remains Walker who is ultimately responsible for the program. It is not my point of what was going on in 1961 that is of importance. My point is that this or a similar program was in place for many years and only seems to have become a problem at exactly the same time that Oswald announces his intentions to return to America. THIS is the coincidence that standing alone would not seem to have much relavence. COLLECTIVELY this single coincidence seems to fit within a puzzle that presents an interesting picture of the importance of Oswald's "defection" to the Soviet Union. An importance that to this day, I might suggest, that we do not fully understand. Yet if the Oswald defection was of such great importance then the "new" 201 File in Dec. of 1960 can be fully explained, especially in light of the fact that it seems that up until late 1960 the position of the CIA was that Oswald had renounced his citizenship and would never be allowed to return to the US. "The men of the 24th Infantry seem about equally divided in their respect for him" As do men who served under him throughout his career, even back to the 1930's. "I really can't follow the logic here. If Walker helped Oswald in this quest to stop the summit by giving radar information enabling the Soviets to bring down a U2, why would that assistance give rise to Oswald believe he was an evil person?" I believe that Oswald made reference, in a conversation with his wife, something about if Hitler had been stopped at an early date, to explain his attempt on the life of Walker. I believe that there was also a reference to DeMohrenschildt where Oswald refers to Walker as "evil." I do not believe that it was Walker's "quest to stop the summit," but do believe that the US nuclear negotiations team did express a fear for the negitive position that the US could be placed in if the US were forced, by international pressure, to sign a limited test ban treaty at the Paris Summit in May of 1960 (November 1959). McCloy was one who expressed this fear and I believe that NSC 68 provided the means whereby US Intelligence would have the authority to provide a nexus for that summit to fail, which it did after the U-2 Incident. Oswald was a radar operator who may or may not have provided the Soviets with information that was then used to down the U-2. Oswald was very aware of the association between the two events (U-2 - Summit failure) as his speech at Spring Hill College shows. The point here is that "IF" Walker did help Oswald enter the Soviet Union and "IF" later Oswald himself felt guilt for the failure of the Paris Summit he would have a reason to express a hatred toward Walker and could easily have believed that Walker was the head of an "evil" organization (which he seems to have expressed to at least two different people) bent upon bringing about a war between the two super powers. This could lead us to many conjectures about Oswald's mental state at that time but lets not go to far here. "Yes. But unless you can verify Walker's route and mode of travel, that part remains conjecture. The rest, as you know, I agree is a little too coincidental." Still working upon that! "I may have been under a misapprehension regarding one of your central tenets. Didn't at some stage, you postulate that Walker was only acting the role of an extreme right winger in Germany; this, largely based on the fact that he kept the peace in Little Rock? If so, has your recent interview in which it was claimed he was running Pro Blue as early as 54/55, changed your opinion about that?" No. I hve postulated that once back in the United States and after he had become a "Right Wing" celebraty that Walker was THEN positioned to spy upon the right wing in America. Walker himself was very concerned about the WHY that he had been persecuted by the press with what he felt was official sanctioning. He believed it was intelligence organizations that had set him up and did a great deal of investigation into this possibility when the whole Overseas Weekly and Muzzeling hearings were going on (numerous written records support this hypothisis). Then Walker joined in on the right wing speaking tours and would have been a great asset to US Intelligence in this field. Since, and I believe this strongly, Walker had always been involved in intelligence/counter intelligence operations throughout his career he would have accepted this destiny without question! When the President was assinated I might suggest that Walker, at least until Oswald's death, may have feared that he was about to be set up once again.... And yes, "With that in mind, we now journey through those correlations: hints for future inquiries to ponder and investigate." Jim Root

Greg "His Pro Blue program had not been going for years since his influence seems to have been the relatively new organization, the John Birch Society. The program itself was in response to instructions that the Army should be pro-active in educating the populace about communism. Walker took it way too far by disseminating JBS material, showing color-coded maps to troops indicating which areas of the US were under communist influence, naming Truman, Acheson and others as being pinkos and generally pushed conservative candidates for office. The fact that he failed to understand why he was in trouble shows only shows his mental state was deteriorating - something that was certainly obvious to most later in his life. Look around the web. You'll find blogs by some of his troops saying they thought he was truly crazy even as he instructed them in this program." In the last few weeks I had an opportunity to interview a retired college professor who, in 1954/55, was running Walker's Pro Blue program. He makes the same comment as you have suggested but his take is that the John Birch Society had nothing to do with it because that organization did not even come into existance when he was provided with Walker's materials which he used to present the program. According to this person he was hand selected by Walker because he had graduated from a "conservative" university with a degree in Political Science/History. He was a Pro Blue instructor for 18 months (until his enlistment was over) in 1955. The same gentleman provided several antedotes about the time he was working for Walker including a story about Christine Jorgensen's visit to the base. While there was scuttlebutt about sexual orientation Walker was apparently respected by his men who were well aware of his combat record. This same person reports that he researched the John Birch material issue after Walker's resignation from the military and found information that suggests that the Birch material was not used, at least not to the degree that it was reported. He stood by his position that Walker's program was in full swing before he left Korea and had begun as a result of Walker's belief that his troops in Korea did not understand the threat of international communism, therefore they did not undersand what they were fighting for. At the time the First Straits of Taiwan Crisis was unfolding and Walker's unit would have been the first sent to Formosa. Walker wanted them to understand what they were about to be placed in harms way for.Jim, some timing events really are just coincidental. "Even assuming for argument sake that you're right about Oswald's source on Helsinki being Walker, I don't see any nexus between that and Walker's troubles with Pro Blue." According to Newman, the CIA seems to have believed that Oswald had given up his US Citizenship when he entered the Soviet Union. Coincidence or not, Walker's Pro Blue program problems do coincide with Oswald's earliest attempt to return to the US. Coincidence or not the US was aware of that fact although there is no evidence that they had received Oswald's December letter where he first requested to return to the US. The greater coincidence is that the CIA claims they did not intercept the letter but took the action of opening the 201 File on Dec. 9 based upon Oswald attempts to return to the US. Two things are for certain; First, Oswald's earliest attempt to return to the United States was known by the CIA in early December and (Second) Walker's Pro Blue debacle began shortly thereafter. If Oswald, as Newman suggests, could have provided the Soviets with U-2 secretes and if Walker provided Oswald with the necessary information to enter the Soviet Union via Helsinki, Walker would have helped in the downing of a US spy plane. By coincidence this would provide Oswald with a reason to believe that Walker was an evil person and that he was involved with an evil organization, both things that Oswald supposedly believed. Another "coincidence" in this sequence of coincidences is the failure of the CIA to provide passenger lists for Oswald's trip from London to Helsinki. While many have speculated (led by Chris Mills) that a sensitive name may have been on one of the planes, with the help of Antti Hynonen we have shown that it is possible, just by coincidenc that both Walker and Oswald could have traveled from London to Hamburg or London to Frankfurt on the morning of October 10 in time to be on one of the two planes that would carry passengers from London to Helsinki in time to check into the Torni Hotel. We also have the coincidence that Ambassador Hickerson had provided the State Department with information about entry into the Soviet Union via the Russian embassy in Helsinki the day before Oswald arrives in Helsinki. By "coincidence" Hickerson had also nsent a previous memo that arrived at State on the Same day that Oswald would later apply for his passport in Santa Ana, Calif. listing Helsinki as a possible destination. By coincidence Oswald would follow the Hickerson directions to the "T" when he applied for his visa in the Soviet Union and would receive his entry papers to Russia within 24 hours. You are correct that some things are just coincidental but a sequence of coincidences raises the proportional probability to ever higher numbers with each addition to the number of events in the sequence of coincidences. For instance the chances of flipping a coin and having it come up heads is 1:2 For a flip of a coin to come up heads 10 times in a row is 1:1024 attempts at 10 flips in a row. For the 10 heads in a row flips to actually happen could resonably require about 5100 attempts. While any one of the ten flips being heads is easy enough to explain as a coincidence if viewed as a string of single events one loses the impact of the algebraic impact of the sequence comming true. At what time does one start to suspect that a sequence of events is less than coincidental but rather the result of a controlling influence? "Not sure about Kennedy, but it was certainly fatal for Oswald." Agreed For myself, as I have researched the life of Edwin Walker, the sequence of "coincidental" events continues to mount and for my bet the odds are that his relationship to this story is not just coincidental. Jim Root

James Doesn't look like it. In June of 1959 Fred Seaton was Sec. of Interior attempting to balance his budget for Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was Asst. Sec. of Defense in the early 1950's but he seems more of a political appointment then someone who had been active in intelligence work. Thanks for the try. Jim Root

Update on Tikander/Stella Polaris information I posted information under the title Whitney Shepardson earlier this week. I took the liberty to begin that particular thread because it was Shepardson who began collecting information form various former OSS agents that were involved in Operation Stella Polaris under the guise of writting a book in 1959. The information provided to Shepardson by Tikander can now be located in the National Archives: Record Group 226, Entry 210 Box 344 (which, by the way, is not where I got it from). I have a copy of the original and can only prove that there were two other copies. If I had my guess it would be that it was Shepardson's copy that ended up in the National Archives with an Entry date, if you can imagine this, of May 1960. In the Shepardson Thread I made reference to one particular quote: "Unfortunately some of Ty's (Tikander's) successors in CIA have not given heed to some of the warnings he left behind in the "Memoranda for the Files." In sone such instance, Ty's (Tikander's) successors launched an operation which was successfully carried through, but was then "blown"--with rather unfortunate results. The "grapevine" says that this case is due for a "re-play" in the year, 1960." Upon doing further research on the Tikander papers I found more information on his "Memoranda for the Files." It appears to have been written about 1945 but the CIA's inability to follow the directions that Tikander had left behind in 1945, it seems, by 1959 was creating a situation caused by the CIA where, "the fat could really be in the fire' because of OSS complicity in the Stella Polaris affair." He finishes this paragraph by saying, "and the end of this case is not in sight yet after more than a dozen years!" This seems interesting but where it fits?????????? Jim Root

Jan Might suggest you contact Shanet Clark about MK/ULTRA. He has been going in your same direction for a long time. I have always found Shanet to be helpful, informative, detatiled and willing to cooperatively share research. The Warren Commission provided a great deal of detail on the Psyco side of Oswald and had available many documents from his childhood. Then there is the CIA letter to David Belin from the HSCA era (Thread available on the forum titled, "CIA Letter to David Belin'). It suggests that had the CIA et.al. known about Oswald's mental state they could have predicted that he would be capable of assassinating the President. My bet is that "IF" Oswald were either a CIA intelligence asset or a subject for MK/ULTRA research there is the possibility that a mental profile of Oswald would have been available to US Intelligence. And since the Belin letter suggests that if the information HAD BEEN available Oswald's proclitivy toward assassination could have been predicted it is not difficult to move toward a position that suggests that if this information WAS available then Oswald's provlity toward assassiation just needed a target to be placed before him. Good luck, Jim Root

Jan Welcome to the forum. You concluded: "that certain key intelligence officers were aware of, and exploited, this situation." Interesting conclusion. I tend to agree although I have arrived at it from a different direction. I would like to correct something from Lee's original post: "~150 scientists and their families with aerospace expertise - right to NASA." The number, 150, is correct and the idea is correct but in reality the 150 German aerospace experts went to the Army Missile Program which later became NASA. In Historical context, Eisenhower wanted the Navy Misslie program or an Air Force Program to launch our first rockets into space. We had at that time several competing military programs. Eisenhower was afraid of how the world would perceive a US Space program, led by an Army Team that was made up of former NAZI scientists. When hit with the Soviet success of Sputnik and the Navy's highly publicized failures at missle launches, Eisenhower nationalized the Army Misslie Program into the Civilian organization called NASA. The theft of the Army Missle Program is part of what led the then Army Chief of Staff, Maxwell Taylor to resign in the final months of the Eisenhower administration and write his famous book, The Uncertain Trumpet." The publication of Taylor's book, created a major stir in the military and political community because it was published so soon after Taylor's retirement and that it was so critical of the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy picked up on the theme and exchanged letters with Taylor developing a friendship and trusting relationship that led to Taylor being put back into uniform as Kennedy's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff following the Bay of Pigs failure. The relationship between Taylor and the Kennedy family became so strong that Robert Kennedy named a son Maxwell Taylor Kennedy. The relationship between Maxwell Taylor and Maj. General Edwin Walker was so strong that Taylor had repeatedly called upon Walker to do his toughest jobs throughout Taylor's career. Both Taylor and Walker were involved in Paperclip associated projects at the end of WWII. Lee also posted: "John J. McCloy -- A High Commissioner of Germany after the war who pardoned key Nazi criminals like Krupp, Abs, Dohrnberger, Schacht, and others.[42] His long career has made him a "Godfather of the American establishment." He sat atop the World Bank, directed construction of the Pentagon, worked with Earl Warren to set up the Japanese concentration camps in America, blocked any military attacks on the Nazi death camps as Assistant Secretary of War. He stopped the summary execution of Nazis in favor of the Nuremberg Trials which he later thwarted, and also sat as a member of the Warren Commission." Maxwell Taylor was McCloys hand picked Military Governor of Berlin during his tenure as High Commissioner. Small world. Jim Root

Tim My research has never been about who or how many people fired a shot or shots at President Kennedy but rather an attempt to identify conspirators who had the motive and the ability to arrange the assassination as well as the ability to insure that they would not get caught or be identified. I have read, heard about and seen on television dozens if not hundreds of theories explaining the events of November 22, 1963 and using those explanations to then "prove" a conspiracy without ever seeing or hearing consensus on any one theory or more than speculation about who may have been responsible for placing one shooter or another in one particular place or another. It seems to me that this approach has never been successful in providing answers to the conspiracy question, the WHO, although it has proven devisive to forums such as this when individuals attempt to pit one theory vs another theory to explain the events of Nov. 22 or to discredit one researcher or another. Most of the information in this thread can be found in John Newman's book "Oswald and The CIA." In his introduction Newman makes this comment on the first page, "We will not address the assassination of President Kennedy. We will not discuss Dealey Plaza. This book is content to explore the subject of Oswald and the CIA without regard to who is right and who is wrong in the larger debate about the Kennedy assassination." In the final 71 pages of "Oswald and the CIA" Newman deals with information provided by FBI agent James P. Hosty on over a third of those pages. I would suggest that Newman recognizes the importance that was placed upon Hosty's information within the intelligence community as Hosty observed and recorded the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald leading up to the assassination. I believe that Newman has done a great job of proving how closely the Hosty information was followed by those in the CIA! Yet we once again find that Hosty's third note of November 4th is nowhere to be found in these released records. That note, of course, tells the FBI and the CIA that were receiving copies of Hosty's notes, exactly where Lee Harvey Oswald was working in the days proceding the development of the motorcade route through Dallas that would have Kennedy pass, one final building. That final building on the motorcade route, before backtracking to the Trade Mart, was where Lee Harvey Oswald worked! As Vincent Bugliosi said in "Reclaiming History," "More often than not in a criminal case, the means a criminal employs to conceal his guilt are the precise means that reveal his culpability." (pp 965) Although questioned by the two attorneys, McCloy and Dulles when Hosty alluded to his third note of November 4, 1963, neither McCloy or Dulles entered that note into the evidence that was collected by the Warren Commission. Nor did the CIA produce that note, although it produced the other two that were given Commission Exhibit Numbers, when the JFK Assassination Records Review Board released the information that Newman's book was based upon. The information about who exactly had access to Hosty's third note, which states exactly where Lee Harvey Oswald was working, it would seem, would have no resonable reason to be exocised from the record unless it could be expected to point toward the quilt either directly or by association of those persons who may have been responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. To me, Tim, this is much more important than who the shooter was. Would you agree? Jim Root

I have recently stumbled accross a large amount of collected information written by a man named Wilho Tikander. For those of you who have been interested in some of my posts I would suggest you recall the information that I have written about the role of Tikander in Operation Stella Polaris. Tikander is recognized for his contributions in the early events surrounding the "Venona" project and the breaking of Soviet Codes. Closely connected to the Venona project are Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner who would later investigate Lee Harvey Oswald for intelligence connections. Of special interest is that both Rowlett and Gardner had worked with a man named John Hurt who, at a minimum, shares a name with a man whom Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to contact within hours of his own murder. Tikander's Operation Stella Polaris was set in motion by information that was collected by the same John Hurt. With that in mind please add these tidbits to the Wilho Tikander story..... In June of 1959 there was a flurry of activity generated by Whitney Shepardson. For background: Whitney H. Shepardson (1890-1966) "Whitney Shepardson was an international business executive, editor, and author whose strong interest in international affairs began when he attended the Versailles peace conference in 1919. He returned to New York and helped found the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921. From 1934 to 1940, he was the principal editor of The United States in World Affairs, the Council’s annual review of world events. During World War II, Mr. Shepardson headed the Secret Intelligence unit of the Office of Strategic Services (which became the CIA). From 1953 to 1956, he served as president of the Free Europe Committee, operator of Radio Free Europe." (Information from the Council on Foreign Relations web site) This Shepardson activity took the form of numerous letters and personal meetings with a number of former OSS agents that had been involved in Sweden and Finland during WWII. In particular they had been involved in Operation Stella Polaris, the penetration of Finnish Intelligence agencies and had gathered information about Soviet codes and intelligence networks in the region. There also seems to have been interest in Japanese intelligence operations in the area and how Japanese, and Soviet intelligence agencies cooperated during the war. The information was being gathered under the guise of writting a book although there seems to be no publication that resulted from the gathering of this information. Five years later, on March 17, 1964, TiKander was questioned about some of the material that he had supplied Shepardson (let me just say for dramatic effect, by a known CIA asset) and Wilho Tikander makes this comment, "You must remember that when I supplied this to Whitney Shepardson (of which I sent you a copy) I understood that he was preparing to write a book under official auspices and I had no hesitation in supplying it to you as you had personal knowledge of all of it anyway. If then, Washington has no objection, it is O.K. with me...but be sure Washington authorites approve any mention of codes!!" Other persons that Shepardson gathered information from in 1959 include, Calvin Bryce Hoover, R. Taylor Cole, Walter Surrey, Mr. Seaton, Alexander Klein as well as information about the true activities of Eric "Red" Erickson (whom Klein had written about in a book titled, The Counterfeit Traitor"). Apparently the information contained in "The Counterfeit Traitor" lacked a geat deal of information about Ericksons penetration into Japanese intelligence operations during World War II and Shepardson was interested in Tikanders take on this facet of Ericksons espionage activities. It seems that Richard Helms was involved in the collection of this material as well. Little is published about Helms activities in Sweden and Finland during WWII but Tikanders association with Richard Helms during WWII gave him the ability to refer to Helms as "Dick." I was aware of Helms activities in Sweden during WWII but did not realize that Tikander and Helms remained close associates for a long period of time thereafter. There is a document that suggests that Tikander has a conversation with "Dick" just prior to meeting with "Whitney." The next morning Tikander receives a "letter from Col. Steve (Col. Martin Stewen, a former Finnish military attaché)". The subject of the letter is that a "wartime chief of Russian Intelligence, RADO, (Alexander Rado) at Geneva, Switzerland, who was of Hungarian birth, subsequently disappeared in K(?)airo in 1945 and was presummed to have been liquidated in Russia, has currently reappeared in Stockholm at an international conference of scientists..." Prior to this information is this statement, "If you will check my 'history' bottom of page 40 and top of page 41 (using Preface as page 1) you will note references to material which was supplied to us without a request." The "history" is contained in the documents that I have aquired and the information is about an intelligence cell in Finland that was believed to be working for US intelligence during WWII when it was discovered that they were in fact working for the Soviets. The information from this cell was then no longer considered useful by Tikander. Why is this information about RADO attached to a letter that also states, "I shall pass this on to you as you may wish to pass this on" written in a manner that requires the reader to have a second document to understand the whole of the information that was provided to the reader years before?" Of particular interest to me is a statement # 32 made by Tikander in 1959 to Shepardson. "It is quite likely that a considerable part of one's wartime experience issecret intelligence work could be employed in a peace time or cold-war period. Experience acquired can at times play the role of a trstraining hand whereas those who lack the experience tend to lunge forward without heed to unseen torpedoes. Merly as an illustration: (I) had had a good coverage of developments in Finland during the time othe Finns were fighting the Russians. Then came the Armistice and with it a Russian control Commission to Helsinki. to determine what policies the Russians were to pursue in Finland, (I) arranged for a surveillance of the Russian Control Commission. this enterprise turned out to be far more successful than could have been anticipated. In a short time OSS was getting reports directl from the home office of the Russian Control Commission at Leningrad. The atmosphere in Russo-Finnish relations settled down. (I) decided it was time to discontinue the surveillance of the Control Commission because of the catastrophic consequences which could ensue were the operation exposed. Hardly had (I) done so, however, when (I) was called upon by ONI to assist ONI in installing an effective surveillance on Russian Naval movements, with the help of the Finns. (I) proceeded to voice (my) protest on the grounds that the operation as planned was extremely dangerous. (I) called attention to a provision of the Armistice Agreement which evidently had been overlooked by the Navy braid, to-wit: That should official organs of the Finnish government be discovered in a conspiracy with foreign intelligence services conductin espionage against Russia, such a violation would give the Russians a right to occupy all of finland. On this particular occasion the ONI project was called off.' "Unfortunately some of (my) successors in CIA have not given heed to some of the warnings (I) left behind in the 'Memoranda for the Files.' In one such instance, (my) successors launched an operation which was successfully carried through, but was then 'blown:--with rather unfortunate results. The 'grapevine' says that this case is due for a 're-play' in the year, 1960." Interesting, Jim Root

Nat, I haven't read the book, but I'd have to agree with the above. Dec, 1960 - Ops REDCAP/RED SOX ceased, LHO 201 file opened Jan, 1961 - LHO notes desire to leave Feb, 1961 - LHO contacts Embassy informing them of decision to return Jul, 1961 - Snyder transferred to Japan Greg You may want to add to your timeline what I consider another important piece to this particular puzzle. By early January, 1961 Overseas Weekly reporters began investigating Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker's "Pro Blue" Program. Newman does not mention this coincidence but does make a wonderful case that the CIA was fully aware of LHO's attempts to return to the Us by December, before Overseas weekly began their investigatin, and the CIA did begin to take immediate action on the Oswald case. Newman proves (201 File) that a "new" file was created and what Newman refers to as "the Black Hole" begins being covered up by the creation of this new 201 File. For myself I had read Oswald's February letter and believed that it was possible that he had written the December letter that he speaks of (although the Warren Commission suggests that the Dec. letter never existed). It made the timeline for Walker's fall from grace fit into the package as a necessary event if it had been Walker that provided Oswald with information that would allow him to end up at the only Soviet Emabassy in the world that could issue him an entrance visa into the Soviet Union within in 24 hours. Oswald's missing flight information and the passenger lists that were still available in 1964 for flights between London and Helsinki in October of 1959, the fact that the day before Oswald arrived in Helsinki US Ambassador Hickerson penned a note to the State Department that provided classified information about how to apply for the Soviet visa and how to insure success for that application (which Oswald followed to the "T"). These pieces of information, I felt, supported the hypothisis that Walker may have met Oswald while Oswald was in the process of deffecting. The State Department, via the role played by Hickerson, could also have suspected that Oswald's arrival in Helsinki may have been "special." According to Newman, the handling of the Oswald case at the time, especially the actions of John McVickar, seem unusual and for our study, worth further scuitiny. Newman's research can be used to support this senario as well. In my study of the Walker papers (which is far from complete) I was surprized by how hard Walker was working to understand why his "Pro Blue" program had suddenly become so controversial. Walker attempted to contact several people with CIA connections to ascertain the reason he was being prosecuted in the press for something that he had been doing for years. In my opinion (supported by letters that Walker wrote seeking information), Walker seems to have understood that the Overseas Weekly article was officially sanctioned by US Intelligence but he did not understand why he had become a target. Walker, at that time, was gropping for answers as his ordeal unfolded and his military career was destroyed. I suggest that Walker's problems began when Oswald, who according to the documents Newman quotes, the CIA believed would not be allowed back into the US was then faced with the real problem of Oswald's return to the US. The CIA, it seems, began covering their official tracks even within the CIA. As Newman points out, Oswald's CIA files generate new activity which seems to be designed to "cover" previous activity by opening new files that should have been opened in 1959, and depositing only the information that is generated after Dec. 1960 although, in contridiction to this there are newspaper articles and State Dept. memos from 1959 included that had to have been somewhere between Nov. 1959 and Dec. 1960. I do have some new thoughts based upon this information, reminding you that they are just new thoughts. The US State Department and the Defense/Intelligence community were many times at odds over what US Policy should be. They both approached problems from their individual perspectives that did not always overlap. Of special interest to my study is the events leading toward the 1960 Paris Summit and the Limited Test Ban Treaty that State endorsed while Defense was scared to death off (even McCloy suggested that the US was going to be pressured into signing this treaty that he did not feel was good for the US). The Paris Summit fails because of the U-2 incident. Newman provides a detailed study of the investigation that was done by the CIA and other intelligence organizations based upon Oswald's U-2 connection. It seems to have been much more indepth than what we were/are led to believe by the Warren Commission and other investigations since. Suffice it to say that the amount of information that Oswald could/did provide the Soviets about the U-2 may have been significant. One fact is for sure, a U-2 went down after Oswald's defection and that incident led to the failure of the Paris Summit which was an event that McCloy wanted to see fail. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.......Oswald's renunciation of his US Citizenship did not occur and it was the State Department that makes this point official overidding what the CIA believed to be true. This internal duelism and infighting is perhaps significant to this investigation. State and defense seem to be at it again in 1963 with the "new" Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. This time State gains the upper hand with the signing of this treaty which was vigorusly opposed by McCloy and Maxwell Taylor. Some also speculate on the question of Vietnam and the role of State vs Defense at this point but that seems fuzzy at best to me. Kennedy has set up his own program to eliminate Castro (ran by his brother via the office of Attorney General) that seems to go contrary to the guarentees that McCloy gave to the Soviets during his negotiations surrounding the Cuban Missle Crisis. One could argue or speculate that it was perceived that Kennedy was not playing by the "rules" and his personal handling of the many issues confronting the US outside of the offical channels made him a target. But then Kennedy is killed and Intelligence/defense is again top dog, McCloy is positioned upon the Warren Commission, etc. etc.......Just thoughts. The internal battles between the State Department and the Defense community seem to be ongoing throughout this period (following the end of WWII). The infighting at these high levels is, I might suggest, unimaginable with both sides believing that only they can save the world from nuclear destruction. I can also imagine that both areas, defense and State had been infiltated to a degree that would alow the stage to include intrigue at the international level. Within this show I see Oswald as just a "patsy" or, as Angleton might have us believe, an insect that unknowingly is used to provide the pollen necessary to allow the Orchid to continue to exist as a species. According to Newman one thing is for certain, Oswald's decission to return to the US created a big stir within the CIA and we can suggest that the State/Defense Departments decission to allow Oswald to return to the United States without being prosecuted was fatal to the life of John F. Kennedy. Jim Root

Steve Found this information that Ron Ecker has previously provided to me: Document # 180-10070-10273 Is a 7 page document dated 1/19/78. It is an interview of Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden by HSCA staffer Jim Kelly and Harold Rese. The HSCA staffers thought Bolden could provide details on a possible conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy in Chicago on November 2, 1963. . . . Bolden recalls Tom Mosely's name mentioned in the office around that period (Nov 1963). He said when Agent Tom Kelly arrived in Chicago from Dallas on or about 11/26/63, he mentioned a John Heard or Hurt. They searched the office card files for a similar sounding name. http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_...ue/arrb_12.html Bolden was still curious about John Heard or Hurt as late as 1992. (Was Bolden even aware of the “Raleigh call”?) This is from Bernice Moore’s post in the recent Bolden thread, quoting Palamara’s book: "Abraham Bolden also stated the following in his letter to Ohio Congressman Louis Stokes, former Chairman of the HSCA..." who is John Heard ? If the name John Heard (Hurt) has not been documented in the files of the Warren Commission then the files of the United States Congress are far from complete regarding the assassination of the President. Less than 24 hrs after the assassination of the President and while Lee Harvey Oswald was still in custody prior to his own assassination by Jack Ruby, all Secret Service offices across the nation were instructed to determine the whereabouts of a John Heard and any name phonetically sounding like Heard whose name was in the Secret Service files. At a time when the nation's attention was focused upon the name Lee Oswald ,the Secret Service was investigating John Heard all across the nation."... ( 1/26/92 Letter to Congressman Stokes provided to the author .This information was provided by Bolden ,regarding John Heard to the HSCA during the agents interview 1/9/78.)" http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6064

Here's a link to a very interesting interview between Jefferson Morley and Jane Roman. http://www.history-matters.com/essays/fram...RomanSaid_2.htm Jane Roman was a high ranking CIA officer also working in the C.I. office. During the interview, unlike her colleague Ann Egerter , Roman makes it plain that there was in fact a file on Oswald in 59. A quote from the interview: "She did this by checking to see if the agency had ever opened a so-called 201 file on anyone named Lee Oswald. (A 201 file, sometimes known as a personality file, is opened on anybody of interest to the agency.) Because of his defection to the Soviet Union in 1959, Oswald already had a 201 file at CIA headquarters." Denis Once again the main point is, "What was the pressing need that generated the creation of a 201 File in December of 1960 when there was already some sort of file by November 1959?" Pressing the matter further, "Why did the people who had access to the Oswald files in 1959 become so involved in the Warren Commissions investigation of the assassination in 1964?" Newman's book, Oswald and the CIA, suggests that Oswald's association with the U-2 program was of great interest to those were monitoring Oswald shortly after his defection to Russia. It seems that there is a great deal of information that suggests, based on interviews done by Newman as well as released documents, that Oswald had access to a great deal of information on the U-2. Newman also suggests that Snyders report generated a great deal of activitiy within the agency when Oswald suggested that he was willing to share information with the Soviets. For myself the downing of Powers on May 1 and the failure of the Paris Summit on May 15, 1960 may well be connected. If true it is not hard to imagine that Oswald played a role in the first event that then led to the second, perhaps without his knowledge. There are at least two reasons why the above rings true based upon action by Oswald himself: 1. His fear of being proscecuted when he returned to the United States. 2. His speech at Spring Hill College where he himself tied the two events together. Continuing thoughts that bug the heck out of me. Jim Root

Steve Sorry about my misstatement of dates, I stand corrected. Jim Root

Paul I posted this on May 5, 2005. Perhaps it will help: Re: George Polk case It has never come up as a topic of research for me to investigate. A couple of names/thoughts that come up are of interest. William Donovan, former leader of the OSS who was brushed aside in the development of the new National Security Council structure of 1948 got involved, why? "Polk had been critical not only of the Greek government but also of the newly released Truman Doctrine which made defeating the Communists in Greece a priority. In an article published in Harper's in December 1947, Polk called the $300 million in aid to Greece "a poor investment." Most importantly, Polk claimed, the money was being terribly misused. Indeed, immediately before his murder, Polk, in an interview with Constantine Tsaldaris, the head of the Royalist Party, threatened to expose Tsaldaris' illegal bank accounts in the United States. Polk's widow, Rea Polk, later claimed: "I am surprised he lived for three days after that interview." Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives The highlighted portion could attach to Walker's position in the Pentagon where he was "running the Greek desk." The Tuman doctrine was not without its critics in 1948 (Amoung whom were Donovan supporters and "left leaning" groups). Any revelations about how "intelligence funds" were being laundered during this early period of operations by the NSC could have been objectionable and perhaps even considered a threat to national security. Interesting groups of people we deal with. Jim Root

Steve If my memory serves me correctly, the call was for a John Heard or a "phonetic" variation on that name. The use of the word "phonetic" is what has led people to believe that it may have been "phonetically" the name "John Hurt" that was uncovered during the HSCA. Your dates are interesting, if correct, because the Oswald call to John Hurt did not occur until the late evening of, I believe, the 24th. If a call went out to any "Chicago Office" on the 23rd or early on the 24th for information about a John Heard it would be difficult to associate that name with the "Hurt" that Oswald attempted to contact late on the 24th. Jim Root

John wrote, "The key to understanding Oswald’s 201 file is the date it was established. He defected in October 1959, yet the file was created in December 1960. Richard Helms was also unable to answer this question. He told the HSCA: 'I can’t imagine why it would have taken an entire year. I am amazed.” I am a late commer to John Newman's book, "Oswald and the CIA" but have been plowing into it in my limited spare time. As most of you know, that have been lurking here for years, I began my research by looking into the life and times of Maj. Gen. Edwin Anderson Walker. Without going into many of the details of that research there are aspects of Walker's fall from grace in the US Army and in particular, for this post, his timeline which overlap events in the timeline of the events in the life of Lee Harvey Oswald in general. Until early 1961 and the pulication of the Overseas Weekly Pro Blue article, the military career of General Walker is the story of an American hero. He is repeatedly at the forefornt of newsworthy events both during WWII and the Cold War years, not to mention the successful, integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. In Taiwan, Korea, development of special forces, covert operations in Greece, etc. we find Walkers name (although now somewhat hidden and tarnished) etched in the annuals of successful operations throughout his lifetime. Then suddently "Pro Blue" and Walker is forced out of the military and becomes, in our current rendition of history, some sort of racist nut. In the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to discus the developement of the Walker's Pro Blue Program in the early 1950's. It seems that Walker's involvement in this sort of "indoctrination" did not begin in Germany in 1959. In reality it was an ongoing program that had been developed throughtout the 1950's (as early as 1954 it was in full swing) with the full knowldege and the sactioning of the US Military and without the help of any John Birch literature. So what changed in early 1961? As Newman explains, "Oswald had written to the American Embassy in December, asking to return to America, as we will establish in Chapter 10. Howerver, the KGB intercepted that letter and Oswald wrote the embassy again on February 5, 1961, asking why there had been no response to his firs letter. His second letter arrived on Richard Snyder's desk on Feebruary 13, 1961..." (pg 146 Oswald and the CIA) Newman later continues, "By assuming that the CIA had not known where Oswald was in December 1960, the HSCA disconnected his 201 (file) from the event which might have opened it, Oswald's request to the US geovernment to let him come home. Oswald had put his request in a letter to the embassy that was pinched by the KGB. The KGB never put the letter back in the mail to the US Embassy and did not reveal its existence until 1991, after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union." (pg 169 - 170 Oswald and the CIA) Newman sites no source for the fact that the "KGB never put the letter back in the mail to the US Embassy..." but goes on to speculate that the CIA did in fact know that Oswald was planning on returning to the US no later than December 9, 1960 when the 201 File was opened. Without getting to deep into the particulars of these facts it is interesting to point out that it has been my speculation all along that the beginning of the Overseas Weekly investigation of Walker's Pro Blue Program and the arrival of information about Oswald's attempts to return coincided. Newman's book comes to the same conclusion, not based upon the life of Walker of course, but based upon CIA documents and the way they were handled. While Newman in no way suggests or my Walker hypothisis, his interpetation of the timming of the CIA document creations fits nicely with what I had uncovered by following a different path in researching the life of Walker. It seems news of Oswald's attempt to return to the US did in fact create a stir to action within the CIA that led to the opening of a 201 File that should have been open in November of 1959. Newman points out throughout his book that information about Oswald was repeatedly circulating around the CIA prior to the 201 opening and he refers to the "black hole" where this information was going. Was Walker somehow involved in the defection of Oswald to the Soviet Union? Was Oswald involved in some covert mission, perhaps a mission that Oswald did not even begin to understand? Was Oswald Angelton's Orchid Man? With this new information (at least my reading of Newman's book is a new event for me) I will continue to suggest that Walker's fall from grace was an orchestrated event designed to provide cover in the event that Oswald returned to the US. I will also continue to suggest that the reason that Walker's demise was necessary was that as Oswald traveled between London and Helsinki there was the possibility that he and Walker may have met. Information that I have speculated upon for years, based upon my study of the life of Edwin Walker, collides with the speculation of John Newman based upon his research into CIA documents. The CIA knew Oswald would be allowed to return to the US and the CIA needed to cover itself in case he did in fact return......Hence the creation of Oswald's "official" 201 File. John also wrote, "This explains why the conspirators set up Oswald as a patsy. They knew that as a result of this, both the CIA and the FBI would take part in the cover up." I will go one step further, whoever the conspirators were would have to know "that as a result of this, both the CIA and the FBI would take part in the cover up." Perhaps this need to insure participation in a cover up also explains the letter from John J. McCloy to Edwin Walker in June of 1963. Jim Root

John wrote, "The key to understanding Oswald’s 201 file is the date it was established. He defected in October 1959, yet the file was created in December 1960. Richard Helms was also unable to answer this question. He told the HSCA: 'I can’t imagine why it would have taken an entire year. I am amazed.” I am a late commer to John Newman's book, "Oswald and the CIA" but have been plowing into it in my limited spare time. As most of you know, that have been lurking here for years, I began my research by looking into the life and times of Maj. Gen. Edwin Anderson Walker. Without going into many of the details of that research there are aspects of Walker's fall from grace in the US Army and in particular, for this post, his timeline which overlap events in the timeline of the events in the life of Lee Harvey Oswald in general. Until early 1961 and the pulication of the Overseas Weekly Pro Blue article, the military career of General Walker is the story of an American hero. He is repeatedly at the forefornt of newsworthy events both during WWII and the Cold War years, not to mention the successful, integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. In Taiwan, Korea, development of special forces, covert operations in Greece, etc. we find Walkers name (although now somewhat hidden and tarnished) etched in the annuals of successful operations throughout his lifetime. Then suddently "Pro Blue" and Walker is forced out of the military and becomes, in our current rendition of history, some sort of racist nut. In the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to discus the developement of the Walker's Pro Blue Program in the early 1950's. It seems that Walker's involvement in this sort of "indoctrination" did not begin in Germany in 1959. In reality it was an ongoing program that had been developed throughtout the 1950's (as early as 1954 it was in full swing) with the full knowldege and the sactioning of the US Military and without the help of any John Birch literature. So what changed in early 1961? As Newman explains, "Oswald had written to the American Embassy in December, asking to return to America, as we will establish in Chapter 10. Howerver, the KGB intercepted that letter and Oswald wrote the embassy again on February 5, 1961, asking why there had been no response to his firs letter. His second letter arrived on Richard Snyder's desk on Feebruary 13, 1961..." (pg 146 Oswald and the CIA) Newman later continues, "By assuming that the CIA had not known where Oswald was in December 1960, the HSCA disconnected his 201 (file) from the event which might have opened it, Oswald's request to the US geovernment to let him come home. Oswald had put his request in a letter to the embassy that was pinched by the KGB. The KGB never put the letter back in the mail to the US Embassy and did not reveal its existence until 1991, after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union." (pg 169 - 170 Oswald and the CIA) Newman sites no source for the fact that the "KGB never put the letter back in the mail to the US Embassy..." but goes on to speculate that the CIA did in fact know that Oswald was planning on returning to the US no later than December 9, 1960 when the 201 File was opened. Without getting to deep into the particulars of these facts it is interesting to point out that it has been my speculation all along that the beginning of the Overseas Weekly investigation of Walker's Pro Blue Program and the arrival of information about Oswald's attempts to return coincided. Newman's book comes to the same conclusion, not based upon the life of Walker of course, but based upon CIA documents and the way they were handled. While Newman in no way suggests or my Walker hypothisis, his interpetation of the timming of the CIA document creations fits nicely with what I had uncovered by following a different path in researching the life of Walker. It seems news of Oswald's attempt to return to the US did in fact create a stir to action within the CIA that led to the opening of a 201 File that should have been open in November of 1959. Newman points out throughout his book that information about Oswald was repeatedly circulating around the CIA prior to the 201 opening and he refers to the "black hole" where this information was going. Was Walker somehow involved in the defection of Oswald to the Soviet Union? Was Oswald involved in some covert mission, perhaps a mission that Oswald did not even begin to understand? Was Oswald Angelton's Orchid Man? With this new information (at least my reading of Newman's book is a new event for me) I will continue to suggest that Walker's fall from grace was an orchestrated event designed to provide cover in the event that Oswald returned to the US. I will also continue to suggest that the reason that Walker's demise was necessary was that as Oswald traveled between London and Helsinki there was the possibility that he and Walker may have met. Information that I have speculated upon for years, based upon my study of the life of Edwin Walker, collides with the speculation of John Newman based upon his research into CIA documents. The CIA knew Oswald would be allowed to return to the US and the CIA needed to cover itself in case he did in fact return......Hence the creation of Oswald's "official" 201 File. John also wrote, "This explains why the conspirators set up Oswald as a patsy. They knew that as a result of this, both the CIA and the FBI would take part in the cover up." I will go one step further, whoever the conspirators were would have to know "that as a result of this, both the CIA and the FBI would take part in the cover up." Perhaps this need to insure participation in a cover up also explains the letter from John J. McCloy to Edwin Walker in June of 1963. Jim Root