Stephen Roy

Sorry - I just read your article and realized that I was recalling from memory some of the same things you wrote about with more precision! Sorry!

A few years ago I was part of a wide-ranging discussion of Kurtz with some top-notch researchers of all points of view. We were troubled by several things. One was his claim to have seen (or been told about) certain Garrison characters consorting with Oswald and the fact that he never came forward with this info during the Garrison investigation, the HSCA investigation, and didn't even include it in his first book. Another troubling point was his claim, in his second book, to have interviewed a former CIA Domestic Contact Service employee who gave important, game-changing info about Oswald and others. The interview is said to have taken place before the publication of his first book, which never mentioned it. By the time his second book was published, the CIA guy was dead. When the ARRB materials were released, it turned out that, all along, the CIA guy was telling headquarters pretty much the opposite of what he is supposed to have told Kurtz, and only Kurtz.

This sort of thing makes one cautious. And others in the group agreed.

It is a HUGE leap, to go from "this person sees things differently than me" or "this person made a mistake here" to: "It's a massive conspiracy, they have to control the debate, so some major researchers must be agents." That's classic conspiracy thinking and I won't go along with it. It's not "presenting evidence" and seeing which hypotheses naturally flow from it; It's "arguing the evidence" to fit the conclusion.

No, the evidence does not add up to Lane being a plant, no.

I presume you've read Wilderness of Mirrors and other books on the Angleton spy wars. Mr. A used flimsy evidence to suspect one of his colleagues after another; Eventually, investigators thought: 'Who has been more disruptive, more likely to be dispatched? The colleagues, or Mr. A himself?" That way of thinking is very disruptive and divisive.

Forgive me for straying slightly off-topic: After decades of assassination research, I am starting to feel out-of-step with the current generation of assassination commentators. Ideas that were once considered possibilities have hardened into absolutes.

I think the practice of detecting and denouncing other researchers as "agents" is anti-intellectual claptrap, and it tells us more about the accuser than the accused.

I agree with Don that we don't have to present a counter theory and then be able to defend it with the same scrutiny we have applied over the decades to the WC case against Oswald. I also don't see where Don's subtle language regarding lone nutters crossed the line.

Paul, I'm not an LN demanding a theory. I'm trying to make sense of when he would have become a US agent. Surely not at 15?? I guess I'm asking to be convinced.

I do disagree with you about the language. Completely antithetical to serious research and discussion. None of us carry the flame of pure truth in our hip pocket.

There are, among people of good faith in this field, at least two orientations toward evidence. To generalize, one is quicker to see patterns and draw conclusions, while the other is reluctant to do so unless the evidence rises to a certain level. I guess I'm of the latter type: Very cautious and reluctant to take it beyond what the evidence reasonably allows. I believe, in fact, that the principal reason that mainstream media often fails to take us seriously is that dichotomy.

This is why I occasionally challenge widely-held beliefs. Things which were once suspected by the research community are slowly morphing into firmly enforced beliefs. It was once suspected that Oswald may have had some connection to US intelligence, but it is now regarded by some as a near-certainty.

Hi Roy...

What do we do as we discover over and over that it is the Evidence which is the Conspiracy... Expecting to have authenticated evidence which proves Oswald was connected to intel... when one need only look at his involvement with Bannister

An anti=Castro, anti-communist "group" dedicated to infultration and disruption in Cuba and within sympathetic groups in the US.

Whether Oswald was handing out FPCC flyers to gather names in an ANTI campaign, or was truthfully supporting FPCC and Castro is to me fairly substantial evidence that Oswald and Intel were connected.

We find each and every person in NOLA that summer was connected - can we cautiously conclude that Oswald's involvment with the charade of the FPCC, the charade of his arrest and fight, the hiring of Steele Jr to hand out flyers, etc, etc,etc...

When it smells like it, looks like it and tastes like it... we could not take steps forward unless the assumption that it IS it is investigated.

I would ask this of you Roy... what if anything has risen to a level of certainty in this case beyond the realization that Oswald did not shoot JFK and the majority of evidence offered to prove guilt is inauthentic and proveably so?

Thanks Roy, always a pleasure reading your posts.

DJ

David:

Thanks for a polite exchange. My first name is Steve, BTW.

I wasn't asking for authenticated evidence. I essentially asking proponents of the US intel theory when Oswald became associated with US intel. In intellectual terms, it has to make more sense than the theory it replaces.

I wouldn't be so sure that Oswald was working with Banister. Just my opinion, but based on lots of research.

I understand how you think the evidence against Oswald as a shooter is weak. Do you think he was completely uninvolved, and why?

I don't think it's a "put-down" to state that those who have studied this case simply have to come to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the assassin of JFK, if they are being intellectually honest.

I won't belabor it, but isn't the corollary that: a person who might have questions about Oswald's innocence is intellectually dishonest? Or "unfamiliar with the evidence"? Or that they are to be disrespected?

I guess I disagree with you about some things Don. Have a nice Christmas.

BTW, Don, in your phraseology, there are some put-downs of people who feel differently than you. Not a good idea.

I've never bought into the notion that critics of the official story have to present a counter scenario of their own. Since virtually all real investigation into this case has been done by lay citizens, without the backing of any media organ, without subpoena power, and without much background in journalism or law enforcement, I think it's unfair to expect them to do more than speculate.

But what if the counter-scenario makes no sense? What if it is open to challenge and has problems equal to the WC scenario? You're not suggesting that we accept any explanation for Oswald and the assassination as long as it's not the WC version, are you?

If the traditional version of Oswald, backed by lots of paper (his own writings) in many cases, can be challenged, so too must any counter-version. It would be foolish to replace one nonsense scenario with another nonsense scenario. Is it really too much to ask, in a matter of this gravity, for a scenario that makes sense?

Oswald was also associated with a number of other covet ops - including his defection, the Houma Arms bunker raid, the Walker shooting, the FPCC, the DRE in New Orleans and the Mexico City operation, each of which tells us something about him - he was not crazy or deranged and as all of the CI investigations have concluded - was not capable of committing the assassination alone, was not a shooter and as the evidence indicates - was probably framed as the patsy as he claimed to be.

BK

BTW: How was Oswald associated with the Houma raid??

Once again: The evidence allows speculation that Oswald might have had US intelligence connections. It does not rise to the level of certainty.

If you aren't certain Oswald was a covert operative just knowing his basic background - then you are only fooling yourself.

If it looks like a duck, walks like one, quacks like one - it's a duck.

Oswald was trained by the Civil Air Patrol and USMC, and such specialties as radar, electronics, communications and the Russian language, he used PO boxes, kept an apartment away from his family, used codes, ciphers, intelligence trade craft and counter - surveillance techniques that he utilized in the aftermath of the assassination.

He had intelligence associations with numerous others - deMornschildt-Paines-Phillips - all with intelligence agency connections - a domestic intelligence network that is only now being exposed - and one that is still functioning today.

Oswald was also associated with a number of other covet ops - including his defection, the Houma Arms bunker raid, the Walker shooting, the FPCC, the DRE in New Orleans and the Mexico City operation, each of which tells us something about him - he was not crazy or deranged and as all of the CI investigations have concluded - was not capable of committing the assassination alone, was not a shooter and as the evidence indicates - was probably framed as the patsy as he claimed to be.

Now I don't believe he was set up by Clay Shaw, David Ferrie and the New Orleans Yahoos who did the Houma Bunker raid - the Dealey Plaza Operation was a real slick job set up as a Northwinds type operation to blame Castro, a disinformation op only JFK's enemies in Washington and the Pentagon were capable of pulling off.

If you believe Oswald the psycho motivated lone nut assassin you can go home - or content yourself with your beliefs, but if you recognize Oswald for what he is - a Covert Operational Personality profile - and that the assassination was a covert intel op by a domestic intel network then you can participate in the Counter-Intelligence investigation that must be conducted to expose and counter that network.

This must be done for reasons of national security, the same reason the government is using to deny us the records they continue to with hold to protect that network.

BK

Once again: The evidence allows speculation that Oswald might have had US intelligence connections. It does not rise to the level of certainty.

If you aren't certain Oswald was a covert operative just knowing just his basic background - then you are only fooling yourself.

If it looks like one, walks like one, quacks like one - it's a duck.

Oswald was trained by the Civil Air Patrol and USMC, and such specialties as radar, electronics, communications and the Russian language, he used PO boxes, kept an apartment away from his family, used codes, ciphers, intelligence trade craft and counter - surveillance techniques that he utilized in the aftermath of the asElmer Jenkins, had organized the assassination. He also

named Rafael (Chi Chi) Quintero as one of the gunman. Up until that time

Jenkins name hadsassination. He had intelligence associations with numerous others - deMornschildt-Paines-Phillips - all with intelligence agency connections - a domestic intelligence network that is only now being exposed - and one that is still functioning today.

Oswald was also associated with a number of other covet ops - including his defection, the Houma Arms bunker raid, the Walker shooting, the FPCC, the DRE in New Orleans and the Mexico City operation, each of which tells us something about him - he was not crazy or deranged and as all of the CI investigations have concluded - was not capable of committing the assassination alone, was not a shooter and as the evidence indicates - was probably framed as the patsy as he claimed to be.

Now I don't believe he was set up by Clay Shaw, David Ferrie and the New Orleans Yahoos who did the Houma Bunker raid - the Dealey Plaza Operation was a real slick job set up as a Northwinds type operation to blame Castro, a disinformation op only JFK's enemies in Washington and the Pentagon were capable of pulling off.

If you believe Oswald the psycho motivated lone nut assassin you can go home - or content yourself with your beliefs, but if you recognize Oswald for what he is - a Covert Operational Personality profile - and that the assassination was a covert intel op by a domestic intel network then you can participate in the Counter-Intelligence investigation that must be conducted to expose and counter that network.

This must be done for reasons of national security, the same reason the government is using to deny us the records they continue to with hold to protect that network.

BK

Bill:

Holiday greetings. You are one of the people whose work in and devotion to this case I profoundly respect. My difference of opinion is really only one of degree.

David Wise - a savvy guy on intelligence and hardly a conspiracist - wrote in the Intelligence Establishment that the JFK case contains an undercurrent of intelligence, and he's right. If one looks at the empirical evidence (and presuming that it's all genuine), Oswald claimed to be a leftist from about age 15 until the day of his death, and empirical evidence carries a certain weight. He said these things himself. You're right about some of the clues that suggest that we can mirror-read some of them and infer that, at some point, or right from the beginning, he may have been playing the role of a leftist. As a specialist on New Orleans, I am not at all convinced that he had the associations that others insist that he had, but I do find some other things (deMohrenschildt) raise questions in my mind, too. I wouldn't be hugely surprised if evidence someday emerged to show that he was a US agent of some kind. So it's just a matter of degree: Empirical evidence vs. inferential evidence. You think it rises to the level of strong likelihood, I think it is one of several possibilities.

I don't accept the notion that all we need to do is to raise questions. I think we need to present a plausible counter-theory, timeline, etc., and subject it to the same scrutiny we apply to the WC scenario.

I find it hard to believe that he was an agent from age 15, so he would have had to "turn" in some way at a later point, and I don't know many leftists who could switch allegiance like that. I find it hard to believe that, if he had been set-up, he didn't hint at the truth while in captivity. Surely you see how a sincere and knowledgeable person might have such reservations. There is no monolithic consensus to the broader research community. Good people sometimes see things a bit differently.

Once again: The evidence allows speculation that Oswald might have had US intelligence connections. It does not rise to the level of certainty.

There are, among people of good faith in this field, at least two orientations toward evidence. To generalize, one is quicker to see patterns and draw conclusions, while the other is reluctant to do so unless the evidence rises to a certain level. I guess I'm of the latter type: Very cautious and reluctant to take it beyond what the evidence reasonably allows. I believe, in fact, that the principal reason that mainstream media often fails to take us seriously is that dichotomy.

This is why I occasionally challenge widely-held beliefs. Things which were once suspected by the research community are slowly morphing into firmly enforced beliefs. It was once suspected that Oswald may have had some connection to US intelligence, but it is now regarded by some as a near-certainty.

I'm confused. I found a reference in DiEugenio's book to Bancroft knowing Ruth's family; and I found a separate reference to Michael Levy, but I don't see anything about 1957 or a Navy memo. Do you know the page?

Do I infer correctly that you think Paine was some sort of government agent?

Stephen,

How would we logically explain the Navy Department memo that revealed Ruth Paine's interest in the Oswald family, from 1957? I don't see any ambiguity there.

We may never know what agency Oswald was associated with, but everything about his background and short life suggests he must have been employed by one of them. He certainly wasn't a lone rebel-Marxist without a cause.

I'm sure you see my point about the Hoover statement. I would like to see the Navy memo, if you could link it.

I can agree with your word "suggests," but not with "must have."

I think it's implausible to argue that Oswald was not some kind of intelligence asset. Remember, J. Edgar Hoover wrote an official memo about the problem of someone impersonating Oswald a few years before the assassination. It's doubtful that the director of the FBI would be wasting time writing memos about a wife-beating, minimum wage loser, or that anyone, anywhere, would be interested in impersonating such a nonentity.

Not to nitpick, but that phrase is open to other interpretations. There are a number of instances in intelligence lore of enemy agent using the birth certificates of others to create false identities. The Rudolf Abel case has a couple of them, and that was only a short time before Oswald's trip to the USSR. IF that's what Hoover meant, we could paraphrase it as "We should check and make sure that the guy using this birth certificate is really Oswald, not a Soviet agent who obtained it somewhere." It was among the possibilities.

We can't rule out other logical possibilities to help bolster the case. There's some degree of ambiguity in what Hoover said.

A bit hard to follow. I'm a believer in applying the same standards to alternate theories of Oswald. I'm looking for a theory of Oswald as agent which is supported by convincing evidence and internally consistent and logical.

I take it that your "person married to Marina" was not Oswald. Are you an Armstrong man?

What's your core theory, Jon? Was Oswald a leftist who was co-opted in some way by US intelligence? About when?

If Oswald was being used as an agent by some intelligence agency, his actions to an outside observer would not appear to be unusual for him. His actions would be in keeping with the pattern he had established. That way, nothing would easily catch the eye of a counter-intelligence operative.

What catches my eye -- I was trained as an army counter-intel officer during the Viet Nam war -- is his fluency in Russian. How did a poor, relatively uneducated kid who moved around, acquire such fluency? The fluency needs explaining.

I know, because I was trained in a language at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), that he didn't teach himself to speak and read Russian. You don't learn a language, especially a Level 5 (on a scale of 5) language like Russian, that way. It's impossible, unless you're a baby learning from your parents (or others) how to talk. In that situation, the learning is effortless. As an adult, one becomes a fluent speaker in another language only by listening and speaking to a speaker of that language.

When I was at DLI in 1970, the teachers were native speakers. The instruction was methodical and rigorous. Russian, one of the many languages taught at DLI, was a 47-week course. That's 5 days a week, 6 hours per day, another 2 hours at night, for 47 weeks. No way Oswald received such instruction. Just no way.

So as a counter-intel officer I would ask, how did he gain fluency, even with a Baltic accent? The only explanation is that he was a native speaker; that he learned to speak Russian as a baby; that he acquired written knowledge of Russian somehow and somewhere along the line, likely beginning in childhood.

Now as a counter-intel officer I'd ask, why did Oswald never admit he learned Russian from birth? Why did he keep this fact secret. Why did he lie about how he acquired facility with the Russian language? Big red flag here. Something important here.

Next, if it were 1963 and I was trying to figure out Oswald, I'd take a look at his defection to Russia. That might make sense to me. A speaker of a language naturally wants to be among people and in a culture where the language is spoken. It wouldn't puzzle me that he'd taken up with a Russian woman. Nor would it puzzle me that he didn't give up his U.S. citizenship. All of this would make sense to me.

If I somehow knew, as John Armstrong learned years later, that Oswald didn't go around speaking Russian in the Soviet Union but did converse with Marina in Russian, I would have wanted to know why. Was he some sort of controlling person? Was he encouraged by Russians to get along in English? Maybe so that they could sharpen their English speaking skills. Was there some extrinsic reason? Another red flag here, but not as big a flag.

Next, I'd want to check out his family situation and talk with some of the people who knew him. Standard counter-intel stuff. Here's where I'd get a shock: none of his family spoke Russian. Uh, oh. That big red flag has just become the overriding matter in my investigation of Oswald. Something's seriously incongruent. That's a signal Oswald is being used by some intelligence agency, His cover's just been blown.

More to come if readers here want more of the story.

And Oswald's claims - from about age 15 until the day of his death - of being a leftist of varying sorts: How do we interpret that?

Any evidence that he raised mice for cancer research?

Banister is far more interesting to me than Ferrie. Clearly you have done some first hand digging. I was sold originally on the possible Ferrie involvement with Oswald, but find the evidence flimsy. when he died suddenly before having to testify at the Shaw trial, and on the same day as Arcacha Smith (do I recall that correctly?), it seemed very suspicious. I suppose it was, but I am not sure what to be suspicious of. Perhaps a dead Ferrie was better than one under oath precisely because we are left wondering what he knew and what he did. What was the deal about the library card? I never quite got that. Another false lead?

On a related subject, I was very intrigued by Peter Levenda's work regarding wandering Bishops. He also drew links between wandering bishop Fred Crisman, Banister, and early UFO reports from 1947. I came away from Levenda's books thinking that the wandering bishops were performing intelligence operations. I also never believed that Banister was an out of control racist maverick unconnected to official intelligence. Something was going on in New Orleans in summer of 1963 that involved Oswald, the FBI, the CIA, possibly ONI. But - not Judith Vary Baker.

Mice: During the Garrison 1967 probe, one of his investigators recalled an incident in 1957, six years before the assassination and several homes earlier, when Ferrie had mice in cages and claimed he was searching for a cure for cancer. People who met him later do not recall mice in his last apartment.

Death: Ferrie died in February 1967, two years before the Shaw trial, but right after Garrison's probe became public. It is worth noting that he had been complaining of medical problems for about a year before his death.

Same day: The man who died on the same day was Eladio del Valle. The only link of Ferrie to del Valle was an article in the National Enquirer which made claims which seem to be contradicted. The other fellow you mention was Sergio Arcacha Smith. He was the New Orleans delegate of the CIA-created FRD and was pretty close to Ferrie from April to about September, 1961.

Library card: A bit complicated, but it all appears to track back to a misunderstanding on the part of Jack S. Martin, a friend (and later enemy) of Ferrie. It does not appear that any such card was found on Oswald, but Ferrie was rattled by the allegation.

Odd churches: Upon close research, there doesn't seem to be any special significance to the odd churches. Jack Martin used Ferrie in an investigation of "ordination mills," but Ferrie later found that one f those groups was actually a gay-friendly church, and he became involved with it.

Stephen - if this question shows ignorance of your work and research, please forgive me. If you have questioned personal friends of Ferrie over the years, some of whom were at his house frequently, what have you learned about Ferrie? In a nutshell of course...

Where to begin? First, since his friends, acquaintences and family tend to be deeply convinced that the allegations about him are not accurate, I haven't come across a smoking gun. I don't see any reason for them all the be dishonest after all these years, and, indeed, some of them believe there was a conspiracy - just not involving "Dave." I have come across a couple of interesting things: An acquaintance of his attorney who thinks he saw Ferrie, Shaw and Oswald together, and a mysterious package Ferrie left for a friend "just in case" in about 1964.

Some of the stuff against Ferrie seems to prove untrue. Some of the things linking him with CIA don't hold up, but he definitely was active with the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD) in 1961, a CIA-created group. Curiously, not a shred of paper has come out indicating that CIA knew who Ferrie was prior to Garrison's probe. Under a program called CLIP, the CIA, through the Justice Department, limited FBI investigation of the FRD. Ferrie's time with the FRD (and its successor CRC) was shorter than thought: After Ferrie was arrested on morals charges in August 1961, the Cubans dropped him (and shortly after, they dropped Arcacha). The claim that he flew Marcello back from Guatemala is problematic: It appears that he didn't, but that he bragged that he did.

Prior to his fall from grace, Ferrie had an uncanny ability to interact with local educators and he taught at aerospace seminars. Ferrie's brother (who recently died) was involved in the Atoms for Peace program, and he seems to have had some communications with the FBI about his brother. Ferrie also lost some money in a business scam. As far as the odd churches go, he helped investigate one as an "ordination mill," but he found a whole sect of "gay-friendly" churches and became involved with them. He could be paranoid, and he put on quite a performance when the IRS audited his taxes.

On the personality side, he was smart and well-spoken but not a genius. He went off on tangents. He was strongly anti-communist but had some liberal views. He was outspokenly misogynistic, mistrusting women. He was a braggart. He was apparently very funny, vulgar, and did good impressions of famous people. He was attracted to post-pubescent boys, 14-18. He gradually became slovenly about hygiene and appearance. A favorite meal was spaghetti with butter and salt (a Cleveland Irish classic), with some beers.

I can find zero evidence to support the Dr. Mary Sherman fantasy.

Lots of Banister stuff, too: He was approved as a CIA contact in late 1960; his wife threw him out of the house not long before the assassination; and at around the same time, there was/were one or more break-ins at his office.

Don:

I get what you're saying, and it's been suggested before. I've looked at this in great detail and, in my qualified opinion, the story is not partly true. It is entirely untrue (except that she worked at Reilly.) So I don't accept the idea.

I have spoken with numerous people who knew Ferrie well, and none of them recognize Baker by name, description or picture. Some of these people were at Ferrie's home very frequently.

Baker has failed to come up with physical evidence of any kind proving or even suggesting that she actually knew Ferrie. She claims to remember his words and personality traits: Some of this can be found on the Internet; the rest is things that cannot be proven.

When it was alleged years ago that she was vacuuming-up info from researchers and replaying it as if from her own memory, I was invited to test her. I gave her a barium meal, a false piece of Ferrie info, to see if she would claim to remember it. She did.

There are many other examples. I cannot believe that she would guess wrongly whether Oswald was circumcised. I cannot believe that she would mispronounce the nickname of the uncle Oswald introduced to her. (Dutz) I can't believe that she would claim to have written a credit report actually written by a man named Desmare. I can't believe her claim that the Secret Service consulted with Oswald on the motorcade route. An on and on.

I can't accept the view that we can never know if her story is true or untrue. All evidence is not created equal: There is good evidence and bad evidence. We have an obligation to prevent the contamination of the evidence stream with untrue stuff, to at least flag it as unreliable. Today, a Google search of David Ferrie returns nearly half Judyth Baker. What will the proportion be in a year? And what if it's untrue? The research community ought to take a stand on things like this. To abrogate that responsibility diminishes our credibility.

Annoying or not, me thinks there is much wringing of hands, rancor and way too much ENVY here... simply put, Judyth has it dialed in.

What if it's all untrue?

Now that her second(?) book is out, her tour is over, her conference is over, we may see a trail-off.

One thing that annoys me greatly is her new-ish tendency to imply that serious researchers who know the case and doubt her story are lone-nutter WC defenders or worse, part of a conspiracy to silence her. Reminds me a bit of what attorney Joe Welch said to Joe McCarthy in 1954: "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"