Ernie Lazar

All FBI records (HQ and field office files) pertaining to JFK's assassination are being transferred to NARA along with thousands of Civil Rights (series 44-) and Domestic Security (series 100-) and Civil Unrest (series 157-) case files. See: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Records - Record Group 65 - Master Location Registry - October 2017 <http://www.governmentattic.org/25docs/NARA-FBIrg65MLR_2017.pdf> The practical meaning of this is as follows: (1) NARA currently charges 80 cents per page for either a paper photocopy of a document OR for scanned PDF documents (onto a DVD). This means that virtually nobody will now be able to afford to obtain medium-size or large-size FBI or CIA or any other agency files. Example: a 1000 page file will cost $800 from NARA -- whereas the same file from the FBI would cost $15 or $20 for pdf files scanned onto a CD or DVD OR cost $90 for paper copies (first 100 pages free). NARA does not provide any free pages. [Actually, it is even worse because the FBI often sends previously processed files on a CD to a new requester at no charge - whereas NARA never does that.] (2) Typically, it takes NARA over 1 year to process a small request (under 500 pages) and 2-3 years for larger requests (over 500 to 1000 pages). EXAMPLE: When the FBI's HQ file on the John Birch Society (12,000 pages) is sent to NARA, it would cost $9600 to obtain it from NARA---and perhaps take them 2-3 years to process it. In effect: The entire purpose of the FOIA has now been subverted. It is not hyperbole to state that the FOIA is essentially dead. Historians, political scientists, journalists, students and other interested parties will now no longer have access to millions of pages of our history.

Looks like all FBI records (HQ and field office files) pertaining to JFK's assassination are now being transferred to NARA: NEW National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Records - Record Group 65 - Master Location Registry - October 2017 <http://www.governmentattic.org/25docs/NARA-FBIrg65MLR_2017.pdf> - [PDF 444 KB 06-Nov-2017] The practical meaning of this is as follows: (1) NARA currently charges 80 cents per page for either a paper photocopy of a document or for scanned PDF documents (onto a DVD). Which means that virtually nobody will be able to afford to obtain medium-size or large-size FBI or CIA or any other files. Example: a 1000 page file will cost $800 from NARA -- whereas the same file from the FBI would cost $15 or $20 for pdf files scanned onto a CD or DVD OR cost $90 for paper copies (first 100 pages free). NARA does not provide any free pages. (2) Typically, it takes NARA 1 year to process a small request (under 500 pages) and 2-3 years for larger requests (over 500 to 1000 pages). EXAMPLE: When the FBI's HQ file on the JBS (12,000 pages) is sent to NARA, it would cost $9600 to obtain it from NARA. In effect: The entire purpose of the FOIA has now been subverted. It is not hyperbole to state that the FOIA is essentially dead. Historians, political scientists, journalists, students and other interested parties will now no longer have access to millions of pages of our history.

Looks like all FBI records (HQ and field office files) pertaining to JFK's assassination are now being transferred to NARA: NEW National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Records - Record Group 65 - Master Location Registry - October 2017 <http://www.governmentattic.org/25docs/NARA-FBIrg65MLR_2017.pdf> - [PDF 444 KB 06-Nov-2017] The practical meaning of this is as follows: (1) NARA currently charges 80 cents per page for either a paper photocopy of a document or for scanned PDF documents (onto a DVD). Which means that virtually nobody will be able to afford to obtain medium-size or large-size FBI files. Example: a 1000 page file will cost $800 from NARA -- whereas the same file from the FBI would cost $15 or $20 for pdf files scanned onto a CD or DVD OR $90 for paper copies (first 100 pages free). NARA does not provide any free pages. (2) Typically, it takes NARA 1 year to process a small request (under 500 pages) and 2-3 years for larger requests (over 500 to 1000 pages). EXAMPLE: When the FBI's HQ file on the JBS (12,000 pages) is sent to NARA, it would cost $9600 to obtain it from NARA.

Much is being made about one document released today by NARA which is a lengthy FBI report regarding Martin Luther King Jr. See, for example, this CNN report: http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/03/politics/martin-luther-king-document-in-jfk-files/index.html However, there is nothing new in this newly released FBI document re: MLK Jr. except, perhaps, that the names of some individuals are not redacted. In previous years, some of their names were redacted because they were still living. Even then, because of the context of comments made it was possible to correctly surmise their identities (such as Stanley Levison and Hunter Pitts O'Dell.) Most of this information was previously released in the FBI HQ main files captioned: "Communist Infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference" HQ 100-438794 and New York City 100-149194 "Martin Luther King Jr." HQ 100-106690 "Communist Influence in Racial Matters" HQ 100-442509

Much is being made about one document released today by NARA which is a lengthy FBI report regarding Martin Luther King Jr. See, for example, this CNN report: http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/03/politics/martin-luther-king-document-in-jfk-files/index.html However, there is nothing new in this newly released FBI document re: MLK Jr. except, perhaps, that the names of some individuals are not redacted. In previous years, some of their names were redacted because they were still living. Even then, because of the context of comments made it was possible to correctly surmise their identities. Most of this information was previously released in the FBI HQ main files captioned: "Communist Infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference" HQ 100-438794 and New York City 100-149194 "Martin Luther King Jr." HQ 100-106690 "Communist Influence in Racial Matters" HQ 100-442509

Impress us with your knowledge. How many FBI docs remain to be released?

NARA releases another 676 JFK documents mostly never-previously-released CIA docs: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release

NARA releases another 676 JFK documents mostly never-previously-released CIA docs: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release

Nevertheless, neo-nazis in the United States typically associate themselves with right-wing causes and objectives. In fact, American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell's autobiographical memoir (This Time The World) opens with this acknowledgement: "Acknowledgements: The author gratefully acknowledges the inspiration he received in his political career from three great Americans: Senator Joseph McCarthy, General Charles Lindbergh, General Douglas MacArthur." These are hardly "socialist" heroes!

NARA releases another 676 JFK documents mostly never-previously-released CIA docs: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release

FROM WASHINGTON POST: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/11/02/tantalizing-mystery-of-missing-jfk-file-solved-23-years-ago/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories-2_jfk-945am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.d4682c1a3c75 Tantalizing mystery of missing JFK assassination file solved — 23 years ago By Ian Shapira November 2 at 4:00 AM President John F. Kennedy, left, was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine who was killed two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. (AP) Of the 2,800 files related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination released last week, one document seemed especially juicy. It was a previously classified 1975 deposition of former CIA director Richard Helms before the President’s Commission on CIA Activities in which Helms was asked about Lee Harvey Oswald, the former Marine who shot Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. Oswald himself was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby at Dallas police headquarters on live television, fueling decades of conspiracy theories. The 1975 testimony, taken by the commission’s counsel, David Belin, cut off right at the most tantalizing part. MR. BELIN: Well, now, the final area of my interrogation relates to charges that the CIA was in some way conspiratorially involved with the assassination of President Kennedy. During the time of the Warren Commission, you were Deputy Director of Plans, is that correct? MR. HELMS: I believe so. MR. BELIN: Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or an age[nt]… Several news organizations, including The Washington Post, seized on the truncated file as an example of the government’s continued secrecy about the assassination. Play Video 4:14 Three key documents from the newly released JFK assassination records The Sun newspaper in Britain wrote an article breathlessly headlined: COVER-UP? JFK files CUT OUT CIA director’s reply to whether Lee Harvey Oswald was a secret agent…so will we ever know the truth?” The Huffington Post reported the cut-off document and speculated that if Oswald had been a CIA agent, “it would stoke even more confusion” because of Oswald’s reported meeting with a KGB officer in Mexico City nearly two months before the assassination. The New York Times also found the abruptly finished document fascinating, saying it “may add to the questions” fueling conspiracy theories about the killing. On Twitter, the suspicious-looking deposition also earned some attention. After the faux account of President Richard M. Nixon tweeted about the Kennedy files, one user replied: “Sir, have you seen the partial deposition of the Richard Helms that mysteriously cuts off?” Here’s the thing, though. The rest of the deposition was released. Just not in this latest batch. The full testimony was declassified in 1994, according to the Mary Ferrell Foundation, which has been monitoring and writing about the Kennedy assassination records for years. So, what did Helms say? The rest of Belin’s question asked Helms whether Oswald was an “agent of the FBI or any other Government agency?” Here is how Helms responds: MR. HELMS: Mr. Belin, this question, and I think you may recall this, was raised at the time and the Agency was never able to find any evidence whatsoever, and we really searched that it had any contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. As far as the FBI was concerned, my recollection is not all that precise. I believe that Mr. Hoover testified that he had not been an agent of theirs either. He was certainly not an agent of the CIA. He was certainly never used by the CIA. Whether any CIA officer ever talked to him any place or not I don’t know but I certainly felt quite comfortable — I believe Mr. [John] McCone [a previous CIA director] was asked to testify before the Commission on this point. I believe he was asked to testify. It was a hot item anyway at the time. And my recollection is that I informed Mr. McCone that we could find no evidence that Oswald had any connection with the CIA. Belin didn’t challenge Helms any further on the matter. Instead, he pivoted and asked whether the CIA had withheld any information from the Warren Commission. On Saturday, Dale K. Myers, writing for his own blog on the Kennedy files, expressed his displeasure with the world’s news outlets and its reporters/aspiring historians. “If the Huffington Post, or the Sun, or any other news organization really wanted to know whether the Helms testimony transcript was new or available elsewhere, they could have found out with a few mouse clicks,” Myers wrote. “Does anyone know how to use Google over there?”

Historians who are extremely hostile toward Hoover have discounted the rumors about Hoover's sexuality. Most of those rumors are based upon assertions made by the wife of a Mafia figure who had been convicted of perjury. Anthony Summers, in his book Official and Confidential, claimed Hoover deliberately refused to crack down on organized crime because he was being blackmailed by the Mafia after Mafia boss Meyer Lansky, an associate of Frank Costello, obtained photographs of Hoover in drag. But the assertion that Hoover was gay did not originate with Anthony Summers. Summers's strongest source for Hoover's alleged homosexuality is Susan Rosenstiel, the fourth wife of mobster Lewis S. Rosenstiel. She claims to have witnessed Hoover in drag at two orgies at New York's Plaza Hotel in 1958 and 1959. Roy Cohn, a known homosexual, was (allegedly) also present. Rosenstiel's story could not be corroborated as all the participants present at the parties are now deceased. Hoover biographer Richard Hack quoted an interview given by Roy Cohn shortly before his death. Cohn said that Hoover "wouldn't do anything, certainly not in public, not in private either. Hoover was always afraid that someone who he saw, where he went, what he said, it would impact that all-important image of his. He would never do anything that would compromise his position as head of the FBI – ever. There was supposed to be some scandalous pictures of Hoover and Tolson – there were no pictures. Believe me, I looked. There were no pictures because there was no sexual relationship. Whatever they did, they did separately, in different rooms, and even then, I'm sure Hoover was fully dressed." Two of Hoover's most acclaimed and authoritative biographers. Richard Gid Powers and Athan Theoharis both believe Summers's sources were not credible. Athan Theoharis said that the popularization of Hoover's homosexuality was the result of "shoddy journalism." Powers also questioned the reliability of many of Summers's witnesses quoted in the book. Powers said that Hoover was such a hated figure that many people were prepared to believe the worst about him and to "badmouth" him. Powers cites John Weitz, a former wartime secret service officer, who, according to Summers, was at a dinner party in the 1950s when the host showed him a picture and identified Hoover having sex with another man. Weitz did not himself recognize Hoover and he refused to identify the party host. Nor did Summers ever see the photograph. Dr. Athan Theoharis demonstrated, in his book J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime, that Summers's claims were not credible. Theoharis stated that no evidence exists that would prove Hoover and Tolson were sexually involved. Theoharis also believes Tolson was heterosexual, citing reports by a number of Tolson's associates. Theoharis believes that the likelihood is that Hoover never knew sexual desire at all. Richard Hack, presented evidence in his 2004 book Puppetmaster – The Secret Life Of J. Edgar Hoover to prove Hoover had a sexual relationship with Hollywood actress Dorothy Lamour and a possible intimate relationship with Lela Rogers, mother of actress Ginger Rogers. Regarding Rosenstiel's claim that Hoover was homosexual, Theoharis observed: "Susan Rosenstiel…was not a disinterested party. Although the target of her allegations was J. Edgar Hoover, she managed as well to defame her second husband with whom she had been involved in a bitterly contested divorce that lasted 10 years in the courts. Her hatred of Lewis Rosenstiel had led her in 1970 to offer damaging testimony about his alleged connections with organized crime leaders before a New York State legislative committee on crime." Furthermore, she was a convicted perjurer and received a prison sentence. Theoharis's research is supported by the late FBI Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach who said Rosenstiel blamed Hoover for supplying her husband with damaging information used in her divorce trial. Furthermore, according to DeLoach, she had been peddling the Hoover "drag" story to Hoover's critics for years without success -- until Anthony Summers came along. DeLoach and Theoharis are also supported by writer Peter Maas who discovered a fatal flaw in Summers's version of events with regard to the cross-dressing story at the Plaza Hotel. Maas said that in the period following the alleged incident at the Plaza Hotel Hoover assigned FBI agents to investigate Lansky who supposedly had the photos of Hoover in a compromising position. When the FBI office in Miami complained that an investigation would be hampered by lack of manpower Hoover wrote back, "Lansky has been designated for 'crash' investigation. The importance of this case cannot be overemphasized. The Bureau expects this investigation to be vigorous and detailed." Maas also wrote that when he asked Lansky's closest associate about the photo, the old man replied, "Are you nuts?" Therefore, according to Maas, this memo severely undermines Summers's thesis that Hoover could not act against mobsters because they "had the goods" on him. And Susan Rosenstiel's credibility is also undermined by her interview to a BBC documentary team. When questioned by Anthony Summers about her observations at the Plaza Hotel she said the person in drag "LOOKED LIKE J. EDGAR HOOVER." (Emphasis added) After a prompt by Summers she agreed that it was definitely Hoover. It is clear that Rosenstiel's story is less than convincing especially when you consider the proposition that Hoover was allowing himself to be observed by someone who could have destroyed his career and compromised him for the rest of his life.

Thanks for your contribution but you totally misrepresent what I have presented.

FROM BREITBART WEBSITE: I guess one could make the observation that the Paul Trejo argument is essentially the same as the CPUSA argument: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/10/30/docs-cpusa-immediately-spun-conspiracy-theories-deflect-fact-communist-killed-kennedy/ Docs: CPUSA Immediately Spun Conspiracy Theories to Deflect Fact That Communist Killed Kennedy Associated Press by DANIEL J. FLYNN30 Oct 2017] The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) advanced conspiracy theories in the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination aimed to discredit the notion that a Communist killed the president of the United States, according to a Breitbart News review of memorandums released last week through the National Archives. The narrative pushed by the CPUSA within days of the murder of the president remains familiar to this day to anyone with a passing knowledge of the conspiracy theories surrounding the John F. Kennedy assassination. The documents show a clear propaganda effort, sans any evidence for it, to convince the public that the far right, not an extreme leftist, murdered the popular president. A December 4, 1963 FBI document cites “Who Really Killed Pres. Kennedy?,” literature issued by the Communist Party of Illinois and dated December 1, 1963, which claimed that “only the Ultra Right and the Southern Racists” benefitted from the assassination. “Dallas is the stronghold of the Ultra Right” and “the John Birch Society,” the literature reasoned in pushing the conspiracy theory. “The police say he was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” the flier read. “The police say he was pro-Communist, yet the anti-Castro Cubans in this country say he offered to work for them.” Later that month, FBI informants reported on a Communist Party meeting in Manhattan outlining strategies to show that Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill the president and that he did not believe in Marxism even if he did kill the president. “On 12/16/63, an informal discussion was held in at CP headquarters, NYC, and Irving Potash participated,” the FBI memo indicates. “It was stated that Mark Lane, former New York state assemblyman, has prepared a brief that will knock holes ‘in proof that [Lee] Oswald was guilty.’ George Morris said the prime thing to do was to prove he was not a Marxist. Potash said ‘The New Republic’ has an investigator trying to prove he [Oswald] was linked to the ultra-right.” Mark Lane, the chief Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist, wrote the 1966 bestseller Rush to Judgement and made a career out of representing fringe figures such as Jim Jones and James Earl Ray. He spent more than a half century before his 2016 death characterizing the official version of the events of November 22, 1963, as a hoax. Despite casting doubt on Oswald’s beliefs and affiliations, CPUSA leaders corresponded with Oswald before the assassination, encouraged his activism within that group, and acknowledged his work with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and his life inside the Soviet Union. Though portraying the Right as Kennedy’s deadly enemy after the murder, the party routinely conflated the anti-Communist president with right-wingers, including in “The Ultra-Right, Kennedy, and the Role of the Progressives for Peoples Unity Against Big Business Reaction and the War Danger,” literature sent by the CPUSA to Lee Harvey Oswald just months before the assassination. In a letter sent to Oswald by Johnson less than three months prior to the assassination, he suggests that Oswald “get in touch with us here and we will find some way of getting in touch with you” should he make it to Baltimore as the ex-Marine had hoped. While Johnson’s letter indicates the author did not know Oswald personally, he acknowledges at least two of his letters to the organization. Oswald wrote to party chairman Gus Hall and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union whose prestige on the Left eclipsed perhaps all other Americans belonging to the CPUSA. Johnson writes Oswald that “you have a right to participate in such organizations as you decide, but at the same time there are a number of organizations, such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which are of a very broad character and often it is advisable for some people to remain in the background, not the underground.” A bureau source recalled typing at least one of Johnson’s letters to Oswald. “Informant stated that she recalled the name Lee Harvey Oswald,” a memo released on Thursday explains, “and while at party headquarters this date, picked up several of her dictation notebooks. On searching these notebooks, she came upon her shorthand notes reflecting a letter to Oswald.” Despite the CPUSA acknowledging Oswald and encouraging his activism prior to the assassination, the group immediately shifted gears after the assassination. Oswald, they insinuated, served as a fall guy or an agent provocateur cynically infiltrating Communist groups. The flier issued by the Communists just days after the assassination questions whether authorities allowed his murder to silence him and criticizes law enforcement, which “kept [Oswald] for two days without the right to see counsel.” The party notes neither Oswald’s request for CPUSA chief counsel John Abt to represent him nor Abt’s admission that he did not think he would or could represent the accused murderer. In the documents released last week, Abt’s name comes up as the person who served as the go-between named to bring the Oswald correspondence from the Communists to the FBI. Both the Venona intercepts and the files of the former Soviet Union name Abt as an agent of the Kremlin. “On 12/3/63, John J. Abt, who has represented the CP, USA before the [Subversive Activities Control Board], as well as individuals before that board, advised the [FBI’s New York Office] of the desire of his client, Arnold Johnson, who is Legislative Secretary of the CP, USA, to make available correspondence between the subject and the CP, USA,” one FBI memo notes. “Such correspondence was turned over by Abt in the presence of Johnson at his office, 320 Broadway, NYC, on 12/3/63.” A December 8, 1963, memo on a house meeting of seven Communists in Wheeling, West Virginia, describes the same man who encouraged Oswald in his Communist activities through correspondence denying Oswald legitimately took part in such activities. After so recently emerging from a decade or so that witnessed a crackdown on subversive activity, the American Communists loathed the idea of the government, again, scrutinizing its activities, a situation which a Communist murdering the president of the United States figured to bring about. The FBI memorandums released last Thursday show a Gus Hall so frightened that he would not show up to work at party headquarters and Arnold Johnson and Irving Potash arriving at a meeting with the FBI “in an excited state.” Rather than live with the consequences that one of their own murdered the president of the United States, the Communist propaganda apparatus immediately went into overdrive to push the idea of a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy orchestrated by the party’s enemies. The campaign’s effectiveness if not truthfulness sees vindication in so many, to borrow from their own verbiage, “dupes” pushing CPUSA propaganda 54 years after the fact unaware that they push ideas initially advanced by the leadership of the CPUSA. “Who really was he?” the Communist literature dated nine days after the assassination asks of Lee Harvey Oswald. “An adventurer who was made the ‘fall guy’ by higher ups? A dupe? Or an innocent victim? What is the truth?”

FROM BREITBART WEBSITE: I guess one could make the observation that the Paul Trejo argument is essentially the same as the CPUSA argument: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/10/30/docs-cpusa-immediately-spun-conspiracy-theories-deflect-fact-communist-killed-kennedy/ Docs: CPUSA Immediately Spun Conspiracy Theories to Deflect Fact That Communist Killed Kennedy Associated Press by DANIEL J. FLYNN30 Oct 2017] The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) advanced conspiracy theories in the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination aimed to discredit the notion that a Communist killed the president of the United States, according to a Breitbart News review of memorandums released last week through the National Archives. The narrative pushed by the CPUSA within days of the murder of the president remains familiar to this day to anyone with a passing knowledge of the conspiracy theories surrounding the John F. Kennedy assassination. The documents show a clear propaganda effort, sans any evidence for it, to convince the public that the far right, not an extreme leftist, murdered the popular president. A December 4, 1963 FBI document cites “Who Really Killed Pres. Kennedy?,” literature issued by the Communist Party of Illinois and dated December 1, 1963, which claimed that “only the Ultra Right and the Southern Racists” benefitted from the assassination. “Dallas is the stronghold of the Ultra Right” and “the John Birch Society,” the literature reasoned in pushing the conspiracy theory. “The police say he was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” the flier read. “The police say he was pro-Communist, yet the anti-Castro Cubans in this country say he offered to work for them.” Later that month, FBI informants reported on a Communist Party meeting in Manhattan outlining strategies to show that Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill the president and that he did not believe in Marxism even if he did kill the president. “On 12/16/63, an informal discussion was held in at CP headquarters, NYC, and Irving Potash participated,” the FBI memo indicates. “It was stated that Mark Lane, former New York state assemblyman, has prepared a brief that will knock holes ‘in proof that [Lee] Oswald was guilty.’ George Morris said the prime thing to do was to prove he was not a Marxist. Potash said ‘The New Republic’ has an investigator trying to prove he [Oswald] was linked to the ultra-right.” Mark Lane, the chief Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist, wrote the 1966 bestseller Rush to Judgement and made a career out of representing fringe figures such as Jim Jones and James Earl Ray. He spent more than a half century before his 2016 death characterizing the official version of the events of November 22, 1963, as a hoax. Despite casting doubt on Oswald’s beliefs and affiliations, CPUSA leaders corresponded with Oswald before the assassination, encouraged his activism within that group, and acknowledged his work with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and his life inside the Soviet Union. Though portraying the Right as Kennedy’s deadly enemy after the murder, the party routinely conflated the anti-Communist president with right-wingers, including in “The Ultra-Right, Kennedy, and the Role of the Progressives for Peoples Unity Against Big Business Reaction and the War Danger,” literature sent by the CPUSA to Lee Harvey Oswald just months before the assassination. In a letter sent to Oswald by Johnson less than three months prior to the assassination, he suggests that Oswald “get in touch with us here and we will find some way of getting in touch with you” should he make it to Baltimore as the ex-Marine had hoped. While Johnson’s letter indicates the author did not know Oswald personally, he acknowledges at least two of his letters to the organization. Oswald wrote to party chairman Gus Hall and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union whose prestige on the Left eclipsed perhaps all other Americans belonging to the CPUSA. Johnson writes Oswald that “you have a right to participate in such organizations as you decide, but at the same time there are a number of organizations, such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which are of a very broad character and often it is advisable for some people to remain in the background, not the underground.” A bureau source recalled typing at least one of Johnson’s letters to Oswald. “Informant stated that she recalled the name Lee Harvey Oswald,” a memo released on Thursday explains, “and while at party headquarters this date, picked up several of her dictation notebooks. On searching these notebooks, she came upon her shorthand notes reflecting a letter to Oswald.” Despite the CPUSA acknowledging Oswald and encouraging his activism prior to the assassination, the group immediately shifted gears after the assassination. Oswald, they insinuated, served as a fall guy or an agent provocateur cynically infiltrating Communist groups. The flier issued by the Communists just days after the assassination questions whether authorities allowed his murder to silence him and criticizes law enforcement, which “kept [Oswald] for two days without the right to see counsel.” The party notes neither Oswald’s request for CPUSA chief counsel John Abt to represent him nor Abt’s admission that he did not think he would or could represent the accused murderer. In the documents released last week, Abt’s name comes up as the person who served as the go-between named to bring the Oswald correspondence from the Communists to the FBI. Both the Venona intercepts and the files of the former Soviet Union name Abt as an agent of the Kremlin. “On 12/3/63, John J. Abt, who has represented the CP, USA before the [Subversive Activities Control Board], as well as individuals before that board, advised the [FBI’s New York Office] of the desire of his client, Arnold Johnson, who is Legislative Secretary of the CP, USA, to make available correspondence between the subject and the CP, USA,” one FBI memo notes. “Such correspondence was turned over by Abt in the presence of Johnson at his office, 320 Broadway, NYC, on 12/3/63.” A December 8, 1963, memo on a house meeting of seven Communists in Wheeling, West Virginia, describes the same man who encouraged Oswald in his Communist activities through correspondence denying Oswald legitimately took part in such activities. After so recently emerging from a decade or so that witnessed a crackdown on subversive activity, the American Communists loathed the idea of the government, again, scrutinizing its activities, a situation which a Communist murdering the president of the United States figured to bring about. The FBI memorandums released last Thursday show a Gus Hall so frightened that he would not show up to work at party headquarters and Arnold Johnson and Irving Potash arriving at a meeting with the FBI “in an excited state.” Rather than live with the consequences that one of their own murdered the president of the United States, the Communist propaganda apparatus immediately went into overdrive to push the idea of a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy orchestrated by the party’s enemies. The campaign’s effectiveness if not truthfulness sees vindication in so many, to borrow from their own verbiage, “dupes” pushing CPUSA propaganda 54 years after the fact unaware that they push ideas initially advanced by the leadership of the CPUSA. “Who really was he?” the Communist literature dated nine days after the assassination asks of Lee Harvey Oswald. “An adventurer who was made the ‘fall guy’ by higher ups? A dupe? Or an innocent victim? What is the truth?”

FBI to release all of its JFK assassination files By HENRY C. JACKSON, 10/30/2017 08:45 PM EDT Share on Facebook Share on Twitter The FBI said Monday it has now authorized the release of all the previously withheld materials in its files about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The bureau said that the files would now be released by the National Archives on a rolling basis in the coming weeks. Last week, President Donald Trump delayed the release of an unspecified number of documents while also allowing the release of dozens of new files on events surrounding the 1963 assassination. The White House said at the time it was doing so at the request of the FBI and CIA while directing federal agencies to re-review remaining files. Officials cited national security concerns. The FBI said Monday that the remaining documents contain some redactions that relate to individuals who provided information during its investigation of the shooting, and whose lives may be at risk if they’re identified. The bureau said it would make every effort to lift those redactions going forward.

FBI to release all of its JFK assassination files By HENRY C. JACKSON 10/30/2017 08:45 PM EDT Share on Facebook Share on Twitter The FBI said Monday it has now authorized the release of all the previously withheld materials in its files about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The bureau said that the files would now be released by the National Archives on a rolling basis in the coming weeks. Last week, President Donald Trump delayed the release of an unspecified number of documents while also allowing the release of dozens of new files on events surrounding the 1963 assassination. The White House said at the time it was doing so at the request of the FBI and CIA while directing federal agencies to re-review remaining files. Officials cited national security concerns. The FBI said Monday that the remaining documents contain some redactions that relate to individuals who provided information during its investigation of the shooting, and whose lives may be at risk if they’re identified. The bureau said it would make every effort to lift those redactions going forward.

Jason has created a straw-man argument re: the FBI-Dallas and the Minutemen organization. 1. The Dallas field file on Minutemen (Dallas 105-1280) was opened on November 6, 1961. There were regular reports about the MM added to the Dallas file usually several times every month thereafter until a gap occurred from April 5, 1962 until September 6, 1962 -- when regular reports again occurred every month. There was another brief gap in November and December 1962, but then regular monthly reports again except for March thru June 1963. Then from July 5, 1963 through September 18, 1963 there were regular reports but none in October-November 1963. 2. Of the 80 serials contained in the Dallas field file on Minutemen up through April 1, 1964, 45% of them (36 serials) were dated between November 6, 1961 and September 18, 1963. 3. Kansas City was the "originating office" for the FBI's Minutemen investigation (Kansas City 62-7797). That field office routinely sent all other field office copies of memos concerning what they had discovered about Minutemen members and/or activities in their area. The FBI was able to obtain MM mailing lists and other documents from informants inside the organization. One of the problems confronted by the FBI was how to define a "member". Coincidentally, I recently had a discussion about this very matter with Laird Wilcox. If you are not familiar with him, check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_Wilcox AND http://www.lairdwilcox.com/ Here is what Laird recently wrote to me: "I'm reminded of estimates of Minutemen membership in the 60's, which ranged as high as 50,000 to 100,000 members. Your FBI files will show only 450 actual members of whom about 50 could be considered at all dependable. DePugh told me at one time that there may have been a couple thousand people who had been nominal "members" at one time or another but usually only for a year or so and then just drifted away." The leader of the MM (Robert DePugh) counted as MM "members" anybody who had requested literature from the MM, OR anybody who requested a membership application (whether or not they returned it and whether or not they were accepted and given a membership number). When FBI-Kansas City sent memos to Dallas re: MM in Texas (and especially about those people who lived in the territory covered by Dallas), they based their reports on information they received concerning people who had made financial contributions or payments to the MM (even if only very small amounts for a subscription to "On Target" or other MM literature) OR who were known to be active MM members at one point in time (even if they later were inactive). Some of the folks who were included as "Minutemen" were teenagers (see example mentioned below). So with all that in mind, it should be noted that when the FBI obtained a list of MM "members" from one of its informants -- the total number in the entire state of Texas was 43. Among the people whom Kansas City reported to Dallas were: Mundall L. Cole (El Paso), Jim Griffin (McAllen), Max Lutz (McAllen), James Fergus Byrne (Irving), Donald Wayne Herbert (Muleshoe), James M. Blackshear (Dallas -- but actually this was based upon his 19yo son requesting MM literature), David M. Nelson (Dallas), Homer L. Owen (Waco), Leo M. Rhodifer (Dallas), Dr. Elizabeth Rhodifer (Dallas), AND James H. Williams, Thomas Bigger, Robert Foreman, Daniel J. Marrin, Jerry E. Lunsford, and Dick Williamson -- no location listed but probably Dallas area. 4. The main problem with Jason's analysis is that Dallas field office had very little detailed knowledge about specific active Minutemen members in Dallas OR about specific activities which could definitely be attributed exclusively to the Dallas Minutemen. One serial (#33) dated 9/1/63 reported that Dallas businesses received a poster captioned "Wanted For Murder: Khrushchev" which was allegedly sent by Minutemen but no specific person or group took credit. In addition, the intelligence units of the Dallas Police Department and military intelligence units and the ATTF also did not have a lot of specific information about MM in Dallas. 5. Many MM members were also members of other organizations -- including the John Birch Society or White Citizens Councils or even American Nazi Party. So---if (for example) there was a letter-writing campaign OR if there was some organized activity (such as the demonstration against Adlai Stevenson) OR the posting of "Wanted For Treason" flyers around town ---- how does one determine if the person(s) responsible for those activities were acting as a result of their Minutemen membership or their JBS membership or because other right-wing or extreme right groups advocated such activities?

FROM AXIOS: https://www.axios.com/what-we-know-from-the-jfk-files-2502308689.html What we know from the JFK files Photo: Jon Elswick / AP The 2,800 newly released, previously classified files on President John F. Kennedy's assassination reveal the internal chaos and suspicion in U.S. intelligence agencies following the momentous event in November 1963. And President Trump announced Saturday that he will soon release the rest of the files, which were previously withheld. What they show: How agencies balanced their own concern that it all might be a part of a larger plot with their need to keep the public calm, the Independent points out. The latest findings: Former CIA deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc Division, Tennent Bagley, wrote a letter to Robert Blakey, chief counsel of the House Special Committee on Assassinations, in 1978 in which he identified several errors in CIA representative John Hart's testimony. His testimony regarded information on Oswald's time in the Soviet Union. One document reveals that a man named Henry Gourley of Vancouver called Bellingham, Washington, police the day after Kennedy's assassination, saying he had overheard three men at a hotel three weeks prior saying if Kennedy traveled to Dallas "he would never leave there alive." The men were traveling to Cuba. A man named Robert C. Rawls told a Secret Service agent that he heard a man bet $100 that Kennedy "would be dead within three weeks" while at a bar in New Orleans. Documents provide payment ledgers to Cuban exile groups working to overthrow Castro. The document also shows that the first attempt to kill Castro was in 1959. Another document shows a connection between Kennedy and Nixon: A man arrested trying to break into the DNC headquarters at Watergate attempted overthrowing Castro years earlier. The Secret Service had a 413-page document detailing everyone they suspected for killing the president, listing why they may have been mad at Kennedy and their threat level. Per the AP, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent out a memo saying he and an FBI deputy were concerned about "having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." The KGB alleged to have information indicating that President Johnson played a part in Kennedy's assassination. The CIA offered the mob $150,000 to kill Fidel Castro, but the mob insisted on doing it for free, according to a 1975 document. 25 minutes before JFK was shot, a British newspaper received an anonymous call in which they were told to call the American Embassy for "some big news," according to the AP. In one document, then FBI director J Edgar Hoover confronts the spreading conspiracy theories, writing, "There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead." President Lyndon B. Johnson thought that JFK's assassination was payback for the assassination of Vietnam President Diem, according to a 1975 deposition by then CIA director Richard Helms. Another file describes the Soviet Union's reaction according to a source who said the news was received with "great shock and consternation and church bells were tolled in the memory of President Kennedy." The FBI was carefully tracking Oswald's movements when he was in Mexico City a few weeks before shooting JFK, according to a 1964 cablegram. One memo suggests Oswald spoke with a KGB officer in broken Russian while in Mexico City. A day before Oswald was murdered, the FBI received a phone call from someone threatening to kill Oswald. An FBI report alleges that President Lyndon B. Johnson was a member of the KKK based on an informant's claim to have "documented proof," which was not included, according to BBC. The CIA had thought about sabotaging parts for planes headed to Cuba from Canada and considered assassinating Cuban President Fidel Castro by hiring mafia leaders, according to CNN. The files include memos about communist sympathizers, according to ABC News. So far, there haven't been any bombshells for the conspiracy theorists. But wait, there's more: It will most likely take weeks for researchers to go through the thousands of documents, and the remaining 300 documents won't be released (and will most likely be redacted) until April of next year due to national security concerns. President Trump tweeted this morning, "JFK Files are being carefully released. In the end there will be great transparency. It is my hope to get just about everything to public!" See for yourself, here.

From a very quick review of my notes, I list below just some of the “files” which the Dallas FBI field office opened on right-wing individuals, organizations, publications. Sometimes, however, a field office would not open a specific main file devoted exclusively to one person, organization, publication, or event. Instead, details about a person or organization or other subject were included in a larger file. Example: When Adlai Stevenson was assaulted after his speech in Dallas, two people were initially arrested: Cora Frederickson and Robert E. Hatfield. Stevenson asked that Frederickson be released. Hatfield was convicted of assault. The Dallas field office did not open main files on these two people but there is considerable information about them contained in other files – including the Dallas field file on the JBS and in the Dallas field file (89-43) which is “Threats Against Federal Officials”. One last point which I hope is obvious: I did not request every single file Dallas created on right-wing subjects during the 1960’s. There could easily be hundreds more files than just the ones listed below. The easiest way to discover them is to review large files about major subjects (including KKK-related, NSRP, JBS, Citizens Councils, and others) to see the notations on memos that identify file numbers on related subject matters. Often, when the FBI discovered the identity of the persons who were leaders in a particular organization, they would open files on them – even if only briefly. Also—when new organizations were created in some other state but they listed “endorsers” or a “Advisory Committee” that included Texas residents, then the relevant FBI field offices in Texas often would create a file on those persons or that organization – just to prepare a summary memo about the persons involved – especially if they were connected to any other groups which the FBI was monitoring regularly – such as KKK, American Nazi Party, National States Rights Party, etc. Also: every FBI field office opened generic files about major subjects to capture information about people involved in national or local controversies OR about people considered a security concern. So, for example, the FBI created a generic file on subjects such as: “Citizens Councils and States Rights Movement” and on “Anti-Communist Activities” and on “Segregation Matters” and on “Threats to Federal Officials” and on “Racial Situation” (enter city/county here) -- all of which contain Dallas field memos and reports. If I were to list all of these types of files, my list would be exponentially larger. Alger, Bruce (Cong.) Alleged Klan Participation in Insurrection Plot American Factfinders Committee American Independent Party American Mercury magazine American National Research Inc. (Karl Baarslag) Americanism Educational League Anti-Communist Activities Armstrong Jr., George Washington Association of Citizens Councils of Texas Austin Anti-Communism League Baarslag, Karl Bagley, W.R. (JBS) Beaty, John O. Bradford, Melvin E. Burchwell, Ashland F. Christian Anti-Communism Crusade (Fred Schwarz) Christian Crusade (Billy James Hargis) Christian Educational Association (Conde McGinley) Christian Nationalist Crusade (Gerald L.K. Smith) COINTELPRO: Disruption of White Hate Groups Committee Against Subversion in the Arts (JBS) Constitution Party Dallas Freedom Forum (Christian Anti-Communism Crusade) Darden, Ida (Southern Conservative) Desegregation of the University of Mississippi Evans, Medford Facts Forum Federation For Constitutional Government Friends of General Walker aka Walker Group Grinnan, Joseph P. Haley, J. Evetts Hunt, H.L. Indignant White Citizens Council (Joiner family) John Birch Society Knickerbocker, Harry (Maj.) Lee, William L. (Brig. Gen.) (JBS) Life Line Foundation Lively Jr., Earl W. Logan, Bard (JBS) McGehee, Frank B. McGinley, Conde J. Minutemen Morris, Robert J. National Indignation Convention (Frank McGehee) National Socialist White People’s Party National States Rights Party Oak Cliff Citizens Council Phillips, J.C. (Borger TX News-Herald) Racial Situation—Nacogdoches TX (Edwin Walker) Schmidt, Larrie H. Smoot, Dan and Dan Smoot Report Southern Conservative (Ida Darden) Stoner, J.B. (NSRP) Surrey, Robert Alan Texans For America Texas Conservative Party Threats to Federal Officials Totten Sr., Harold W. U.S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan United Klans of America Un-named Organization of Dallas TX Patriots Walker, Edwin A. Weissman, Bernard W. Western American Security Police White Citizens Council of Dallas (aka Texas Citizens Council)

Unfortunately for your theory, the actual empirical evidence does not support your conclusions. Here is what you would need to do in order to present a plausible theory. 1. Tell us the number of new files created on right-wing individuals and groups by the FBI-Dallas field office from 1961 to 1963 2, Then tell us the number of new files opened by the FBI-Dallas field office on right-wing individuals and groups from December 1963 thru, say, 1965 3. Lastly, tell us the total number of open files (new and old) on right wing individuals and groups in the Dallas field office in 1961, 1963, and 1965 Unless you can provide specific factual evidence along the lines described above -- everything you have written has absolutely no validity. With respect to your specific comment that the Dallas FBI field office claimed that there was no extreme right active in its territory after the assassination: IF you would like me to do so, I will be happy to review my binders which contain my MRI (Master Research Index). My MRI is a 3200 page summary of every FBI file which I requested and received and it includes specific notes regarding (1) each field office file I requested and obtained and (2) a listing of field office file numbers for possible future requests. Even without reviewing it for specific details == I can tell you with absolute certainty that your assertion is FALSE. The Dallas field office had dozens upon dozens of open case files on right-wing and extreme right individuals, organizations, events, and publications. In fact, almost every FBI field office had continually open cases on national groups like: National States Rights Party, American Nazi Party, Minutemen, John Birch Society, White Citizens Council chapters, Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, Christian Educational Association, and Ku Klux Klan. There also was a Dallas field file on "COINTELPRO: Disruption of White Hate Groups". And, of course Texas-based individuals and groups were of particular interest -- such as J. Evetts Haley and his organization (Texans For America), Gen. Edwin Walker (and Friends of General Walker and American Eagle Publishing Co.), Indignant White Citizens Council (and the Joiner family), Roy E. Davis Sr. (KKK), Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Marcia and Jason Matthews, George Washington Armstrong Jr., Association of Citizens Councils of Texas, American Independent Party, John O. Beaty, American National Research Inc. (Karl Baarslag) --- and the list goes on and on and on. I probably should also mention that (like all other FBI field offices) the Dallas FBI office would open a new case file on some controversial person or organization when they visited Dallas for some public event. Examples include: anti-communism schools organized under the auspices of Fred Schwarz's Christian Anti-Communism Crusade OR when Congress of Freedom came to Dallas for their annual convention OR when prominent people made speeches in Dallas -- such as former FBI Special Agents Dan Smoot and W. Cleon Skousen. IN ADDITION: Often a field office would open a new case file when FBI speakers came into town to deliver a speech about communism - because, in some cases, that speech would trigger a major local controversy over the content of the speech -- such as when the Bureau's Chief Inspector went on a national speaking tour to falsify JBS (and other extreme right) claims about significant Communist infiltration into our clergy and religious institutions.

BTW -- for those interested--- this is the summary regarding the zip files (PDF docs) shown in my previous message PDF FILE # documents # pages PDF-1............2230......................11,100 PDF-2............2230..................... 11,208 PDF-3............2224..................... 11,673 TOTAL: 6684 docs..............33,981 pages

If anybody would like zip files containing all of the JFK PDF documents and audio files (.wav files) released during 2017 -- here they are: Download times may be significant due to the large size. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-pdf1.zip (2.9 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-pdf2.zip (2.4 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-pdf3.zip (2.5 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-wav1.zip (1.9 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-wav2.zip (2.6 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-wav3.zip (2.3 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-wav4.zip (1.7 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-wav5.zip (2.3 GB)https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk-wav6.zip (2.0 GB)

BTW == in case you missed this: In addition, the National Archives is also releasing to the public the unclassified electronic records of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), including 52,387 emails and 16,627 files from the ARRB drives.

Well, if you consult the NARA listing of all docs released in 2017 -- it is 134 pages in length: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release 441 of the documents released in July were never released previously (fully withheld) about 500 of the documents released on October 26th were never released previously (i.e. fully withheld) Most of those fully-withheld docs pertain to CIA reports or FBI informant reports about matters un-related to what YOU want to see YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT up to now -- has been that there are TOP SECRET FBI documents which have never been previously released. But we now know that the FBI docs never previously released until July or October of 2017 -- do NOT contain anything which advances YOUR argument. WE ALSO KNOW that the documents being withheld until April 2018 are primarily CIA documents or FBI documents by informants whom, in some cases, may still be living and/or informants in other countries who expected that we would keep their names confidential. So, there is NO rational reason to believe that you are going to find ANYTHING to support your theory -- because we already have a NARA list which shows the file numbers of the fully withheld documents (and their classification status) and those file numbers DO NOT pertain to the JBS, Walker, or any related subject matter.