Paul Brancato

My own theory about the wacky conspiracy nuts is that they are, witting or not, part of the disinformation campaign. I can't say for sure which nut is actually an agent and which a fool, I just know that there are some of each, and the earnest nuts feed off the intelligence plants, and the media picks up on their collective garbage and strews it around hoping to make all the real researchers look bad. You know how when there is a protest movement, such as prior to the first Iraq War, the national media shows pics of a small portion of the crown of demonstrators in SF, intending to smear the entire movement with shots of freaks in our streets. Some of those freaks are agents, but most are just along for the ride. Like Mr. Jeffries I knew from the moment Ruby shot Oswald that something was terribly wrong, and I have never wavered.

Did you read Mary's Mosaic? Some problems with the book for sure, but I have the strong impression that Mary was doing just what Leary said she was, and for noble reasons. She was no intelligence agent in my book. Yes she was connected to Angleton, and married to Cord Meyer for several years. But I think she was a true believer in world peace, was brought up in that idealistic milieu. The worst I could think is that she was a dreamer, and didn't realize who she was playing with. So was JFK, though its clear he did figure out how dangerous he was to the cold war establishment.

Thanks - any indication they were following orders? I know its a tall order, and you've done enough to prove complicity. I have to think if it was just the three you mentioned, they had to have been connected to a larger plot, and not just withdrawing protection hoping someone would shoot.

Great article and summary of your crucial research. Vince - are you willing to postulate how this all happened? In your opinion who are the guilty men? Who made the fateful decisions, such as not securing the buildings along the route, not putting an agent in the presidential limo, etc? There are so many instances of unprecedented security breaches. Could it have been just a few agents in charge on the ground in Dallas? Do you think the Big Brass of the outfit were culpable?

I love the line about Levinson doing this work hoping he would be compensated later. The three veteran CIA analysts and 7 others disciplined for this is also rather funny. Reminds me of Hoover's discipline of several FBI like Hosty for dropping the ball on Oswald.

Could you expand on that theory a bit David? I have always wondered about Leary's Weather assisted escape to Algeria, mainly because of his hooking up with Eldridge Cleaver there. Cleaver was surely an intelligence agent.

I see your point - the word supersede is not the best choice. I wonder if anyone reading this sees my point about intelligence agencies denials re Oswald. They mean little. Ernie Lazar has been back and forth with Paul Trejo for a while regarding veracity of FBI files regarding Harry Dean. I am not sure Dean is an exact parallel to Merritt, or Oswald to Levinson. But expecting further releases of CIA or other intelligence files regarding JFK to finally reveal a smoking gun is probably dreaming. There may be incremental improvements in our understanding of Intelligence ties to Oswald, and that's good.

Douglas - I just spent some time reading your previous posts on this subject and on Schoffler, and also Hougan's article. Don't you think the latest revelations regarding a US govt payoff to Levinson's family, the family's insistence that Levinson was on an intelligence assignment, and the AP investigation results regarding 'hip pocket' operations by CIA analysts supercedes your previous posts?

Former FBI agent Robert Levinson has been missing in Iran for 6 years. Our government denies he was working for the CIA when he disappeared, but a year long AP investigation now says that he was on a secret CIA assignment being run by three 'intelligence analysts' who had no CIA official authorization to do so. According to the AP, the US government paid Levinson's family $2.5 million to keep them quiet. I am posting this here because the story as presented by AP sounds very familiar re Oswald, who may have been working for the FBI and/or CIA/ONI out of someone's 'hip pocket'. How can anyone believe the files we extricate via FOIA can ever tell the whole story? When it comes to 'deep' history we have no choice but to use logical inference, like Newman and Scott have so ably done, when constructing the probable truth behind the JFK, MLK, RFK assassinations. The sheep dipping and framing of Oswald is proof of the conspiracy. We know enough. Our government will never come clean, and our media will never have the courage to tackle this.

Thanks Pat. I only got through 15 minutes. Bill Maher, who I enjoy most of the time, really disappointed when he had Rob Lowe on a few weeks ago. They barely touched on the movie, but Maher, on that episode or another one recently, made some lame ass comment about how the American public just couldn't come to grips with our great president having his life snuffed out by a low life nonentity. If only one person with a bully pulpit like Maher or Jon Stewart would have the courage to tackle the never ending propaganda. We continue to be called 'conspiracy theorists', continue to be marginalized in the media no matter how many impressive and factual books we write. Don't these media giants ever read? Or do they perhaps imagine that by their continued silence they are actually doing America a huge favor by not opening up such a massive wound in our body politic? The so-called left remains utterly ineffective at combating the national security state, and is culpable as hell in facilitating the continuing fascist takeover.

John - can't say I blame you for bumping this. There was so little interaction previously, yet the subject deserves closer inspection. Do you know any biographical details about Inspector Holmes? Key parts of the Oswald 'conviction' involve his purchase of mail order weapons. If memory serves, PD Scott suggested years ago that Oswald may have ordered the weapons as part of a covert investigation. Sorry I am fuzzy about this. Since there is so little direct evidence of Oswald having shot a rifle on Nov 22, but better evidence that he brought a rifle to work, there is an unsolved mystery. Did he shoot at Walker, and if so was it with the rifle he ordered by mail? The evidence is skimpy, relying mostly on Marina. If Oswald is innocent of both the Walker shooting and the JFK hit, why did he order a rifle? He supposedly used the name Hidell when doing so, and as far as I understand the only other time he used that name was when he was running his FPCC operation in New Orleans. To me that implies that ordering the rifle was part of some other intelligence operation. All of this might have nothing to do with Holmes. But still, anything that anyone here knows about Holmes would be of interest.

Paul - Walker is a key suspect in my opinion and obviously in yours. Researchers like Scott and Newman don't spend much time speculating on the ground crew - about that you are right. If Harry Dean is telling a true story, and let's assume now that he is, it does not mean that Walker and company were the top of the pyramid. If they were working with others like say Angleton, or Dulles, or Harvey, or Lemnitzer, or LeMay, or some combination of big wigs, that does not mean that they would have broadcast that to the JBS folks like Dean who heard the plot discussed. In fact I am quite sure they would not have done so if all this speculation is true. Walker might have even originated the plot, but he would have needed the assurances of those in power to continue. The thing about the hatred that was being spewn against JFK is that it was coming from many quarters, and they all had interlocks. The racist south and their nazi/rightwing soul brothers were motivated and making noise for sure, but so were the mafia/Cuban types and their CIA brethren, and the Generals and their MIC pals like the Suite 8F group and the Texas oil crowd. We agree that the operation had many parts and many people. All of those involved had to feel convinced that exposure after the fact was a slim possibility at best, so they had to be convinced that guys like LBJ, Hoover, Angleton, Helms, would take care of the coverup. And they had to have the help of some Secret Service, Dallas cops/Military Intelligence on the ground in Dallas. Who were the shooters and how were they armed and put in position? There are many possibles - Cubans, mafiosi hitmen, CIA guys - I would love to know. I just wish we would trust our eyes and believe that the Zapruder film tells us most of what we need to know to assume conspiracy. We spend so much time here on the life and actions of Oswald, the details of the shots. Important for sure, but somewhat of a misdirection. If you have read David Talbot's great book you would know that it was JFK himself that suggested to Frankenheimer that he make the book Seven Days in May into a movie, and that he was worried, and said so often, about his Generals staging a coup.

Anybody read it?

Paul - I don't buy most of your post. But just to be clear, despite my misgivings about your logic, and despite Harry Dean not having convinced me of his bonafides, I still consider Walker a prime suspect in the plot. I did not know that Madeline Brown claimed that LBJ met with local JBS leaders the night before the assassination. I am not able to access the thread on Brown here. I'll do some more looking.

Paul T - Here's one for you. Why on earth would the JBS Walker group think that LBJ would suddenly become something other than the Communist they thought he was? In their wildest dreams they could not have imagined LBJ would bomb Cuba or hit the USSR, unless their stated views on LBJ did not represent their real beliefs. LBJ did not give them what they wanted, though it is clear that the money boys got it all in spades. One thing for sure, no denying, that whoever killed JFK knew that they were putting LBj in the White House, and I think its fair to assume that the plotters were happy with that idea.

It must be maddening for Paul T to see his work compared to that of Ion Mihae Pacepa, whose point of view about the JFK stuff is easy to see through. But thanks for mentioning him, as I had not heard of him, and found his life story interesting. Quite a disinformation specialist, at least since his defection, and possibly for a long while before that. The whole Wiki article reads like a propaganda piece. Singlehandedly he brings down the Ceaucescu government and then goes on to claim the KGB was behind the JFK hit, and that the Soviets are behind the scenes funding terrorism, the Occupy movement, Saddam's WMD's. And of course he is wanted for death so the KGB sends Carlos the Jackal after him, who ends up bombing RFE headquarters instead. I realize that you weren't touting his work Ernie, but rather trying to show how is connecting of the dots is just as flawed as Paul Trejo. But you chose a terrible example.

Very interesting article.

Google could give us a fix. On craigslist you can narrow your search to 'by owner'. Google could allow one to do something similar.

Ernie - thanks for the response. I understand your argument about exceptionalism, and I agree that my choice of the word 'conventional' wasn't a good one. A question for you - do you think all conspiracies to commit murder are discovered? Of course many murders go unsolved, but they might or might not be conspiracies. Many murders are called suicide when the evidence suggests otherwise. One prominent example pertinent to this discussion is Henry Marshall. His death was ruled a suicide, but many believe that Mac Wallace, at the behest of LBJ, murdered Marshall. When I look at all the parameters of that case, I come to the conclusion that Marshall was murdered by a conspiracy of at least two, and possibly more, since it is unlikely that LBJ called Mac Wallace and said 'do this for me'. LBJ had guys like Cliff Carter to do that kind of thing for him. At least that's my take. If Henry Marshall was murdered, it was a conspiracy, one that remains hidden from officialdom. I think this goes to the heart of your dispute with Paul T regarding FBI files. We can never be sure we are getting the whole story, no matter how many documents they send us. So we are left having to read between the lines, or accept what files we see at face value. That's why I wish you would read a few books by authors who have gone to incredible lengths to decipher CIA files and who are very careful in their analyses. Its eye opening. I think the argument that the JFK conspiracy could not have been large because it would have fallen apart, or because the planners would have known it was dangerous to their longevity to involve too many people and therefore would have kept it small, may in this case be wrong despite your arguments and the weight of official history. We cannot know for sure how many large conspiracies go uncovered. We only know the ones that break down. And when you add up the dozens of suspicious deaths and the people that did talk on their deathbeds or to their children or wives... Is there a point when too many coincidences add up to something other than coincidence? If there is one thing most of us on this board share, its the belief that too many coincidences equals conspiracy.

But it did make the Vietnam war a certainty

I don't buy your logic. Hoover had a flash of insight and the rest is history? Scott has said many times over the years that he is not convinced that Oswald was in MC at all. It was the plotters you think were behind the assassination who were willing to fight a war. No war occurred, which to me suggests that the extreme ideologues were not the actual plotters. The 'why' was not 'let's have a war and blow Cuba out of the water and destroy the USSR. It was let's have a war in Vietnam and make lots of money. Its the money, not the ideology, that JFK's future actions threatened. The cold war, and the regional wars, are lucrative, and keeping us in that perpetual state, like we are now with the apparently endless war on terrorism, is what the military industrial establishment wants. We can agree to disagree on this.

It was Newman who proposed the Angleton theory, but Scott's research came to the same place, even if he was more tentative about a final conclusion. Read the addendum to the latest edition of Newman's 'Oswald and the CIA'. Don't forget, Angleton also knew he would have .LBJ, Dulles, and Hoover in place. Your counter theory implies that your sheep dippers were willing to risk ww3. Also, as it happened, it was the Kostikov coonection that bought about the lone nut theory in fact.

Robert - any idea who the young short guy is who is escorted into an office in the police station around 32 minutes into the film while the soundtrack is mentioning an arrest in Ft. Worth? It does not appear to me to be either of the two known arrests there that day - House and somebody else connected to House.

Paul - long email. Just a quick response - the whole point of the Kostikov Oswald sheep dip was that there would be no proper investigation once the Soviet connection was known, and Angleton made sure that they would not find out about Kostikov until after the deed was done. This is of course what did happen, and the reason why Earl Warren agreed to chair the commission. LBJ was able to say to him and others he asked to serve that the alternative to Oswald the lone nut was WW3, which is exactly P D Scott and Newman's point. That is why Newman lays the patsy plan on Angleton. Only he held those cards, and the presumption here is that he foresaw the impossible situation his plan would present to the investigating authorities. As Scott points out, the rhetoric in the first 24 hours after the assassination changed from calling Oswald a Communist to calling him a Marxist. The Soviet connection became known that quickly, and the kabosh was put on any talk of conspiracy, as per the plan., Ernie - your point is the conventional view. Thanks for responding. I know my postulate isn't, but despite all the logic you present I still find it possible for the reasons I gave, that this was an exceptional case and deemed necessary by those 'patriots' who took on the task.

Paul - I wouldn't get too worked up about who put what shoulder behind what wheel. The haters, and you mentioned most of the key ones, pulled together a plan that worked. If Dulles and Angleton were close that makes a lot of sense, because I think Newman has it right when he says that the ultimate sheep dip was tying Oswald to Kostikov, and that was Angleton and CIA Counterintelligence, as shown by Angleton's clever compartmentalizing of Oswald's files. No one on this board seems willing to engage me on something I've posted here and there - the idea that a large group of conspirators was in fact a safer way to operate. Conventional wisdom has been that the smaller the group in a conspiracy the easier it is to control. However this is no ordinary run of the mill operation. I have no problem now imagining several CIA guys (I would add Harvey to your list), several mafiosi, several Minutemen JBS types, some generals including the ex, HL Hunt, Clint Murchison and other oilmen (Bush, Brown) J Edgar, Secret Service, and of course LBJ. None of those people were going to crack. The smaller fry, such as the actual shooters and their support team, Dallas cops, Cuban exiles, and other on the ground types could be eliminated if necessary. An advantage of such a large group with tentacles in so many organizations is that they could keep close eye on each other in case weak links started to manifest. And in fact some links were eliminated - Roselli comes to mind. All of this has led to so many leads that many serious researchers have eventually decided one small group or another were guilty. It may be hard to imagine that there was a way to put such a large group together secretly, but to me the proof is in the pudding. Somehow they did do exactly that. We don't have to imagine it was the Mafia, or rogue CIA, or Walker and Banister. It makes more sense to me that it was all of them. What they all shared in common was that John Kennedy was a traitor, and needed to be eliminated. The compartmentalization of FBI, CIA, ONI, etc may serve to confuse and obfuscate, but by its very nature it leads one to conclude that there is little meaningful difference between actual agents, paid informers, contract agents, hip pocket operations (Phillips and Veciana, and Oswald as confirmed by Veciana). Guys at the top, like Angleton and J Edgar, LBJ, were able to oversee this complex maze with amazing authority. I personally would add Lemnitzer and LeMay to that group, and think that if Walker was in the middle of all this it was with Lemnitzer's knowledge and approval, possibly even direction. I know all of this is theorizing. But I prefer to stick with the 'why' rather than try to view the whole operation from the lens of what shooter was positioned where and how many shots they fired from what guns. Buchanan had the 'why' right. The concerned citizens and researchers on this and other forums have done remarkable research into the 'how'. But the American people were massively ripped off from their heritage, and until we really come to grips with that we will continue to devolve into debates about the minutiae and magnify our differences rather than come together as a unified voice.