Brian Schmidt

Might we add Rufus Taylor? I was listening to Richard Helms' HSCA testimony and when he was on the topic of Yuri Nosenko, he mentioned that he had personally asked Rufus Taylor, who was Deputy Director of CIA when Helms was promoted to DCI, to intervene into the handling of Nosenko but that Rufus Taylor had just died the other day (September 1978). Seemed like kind of strange timing. Taylor graduated from the Naval Academy in 1933 and studied in Japan from 1938-1941. He became Assistant Chief of Intelligence for the Pacific Fleet and was in Japan in 1959 when Oswald was at Atsugi Air Base and was involved with U2 work. During the time of Oswald's defection, Rufus became Director for Foreign Intelligence in the Soviet Union. He was then Director of Naval Intelligence in 1963 at the time of the assassination until 1966 when he became Deputy Director of CIA. According to Victor Marchetti, who worked under Taylor in CIA, Taylor had personally come to him prior to the publication of CIA and the Cult of Intelligence to attempt to persuade Marchetti to halt its release. Also, throughout Helms' testimony, when asked about why they didn't peruse Oswald further or debrief him when he returned to the US, he repeatedly says because it was Naval Intelligence's responsibility and to ask ONI. Interestingly, Taylor's files from 1959 to 1964 "went missing."

Paul, Have you checked out Pat's website (http://www.patspeer.com/)? It exhaustively covers the physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, and official investigations over the years. I was very impressed. It is essential reading and is more efficient in understanding Pat's position if you really have the open mind you say you do.

That is very interesting. "Brilliant but erratic." Hah. Thanks, Ron.

I think if Hunt was captured in a photo that day, this is him: That's pretty neat, Ron. Around what year was it? I would have loved to have met Hunt; I have always been fascinated by him. He's such a Forrest Gump-type figure in that period. I've corresponded with his son and have read many of his spy novels. They are actually quite good and definitely worth checking out. The satanic ones during the Watergate-era are especially interesting. I don't think I've ever read an author who made a character changing clothes, drinking coffee and champagne, and doing other daily tasks as entertaining as Hunt.

Larry, turns out my source for the Lansdale/Hunt info was again Prouty, who said they worked closely in OSO (kind of turning into a feedback-loop with all this Prouty as a primary source). However, I'm pretty sure I've seen it in other sources as well--I'll look into it. In any event, I don't think there's any way that Lansdale wouldn't recognize Hunt if he saw him on the street.

Larry - Lansdale did work closely with Hunt for a period of time and would undoubtedly recognize him. Hunt did work directly under Dulles in the wake of the Bay of Pigs and until Dulles was let go, but the claims of him working on The Craft of Intelligence are exaggerated. Dulles gave Hunt a first pass at the book, and Hunt work tirelessly on it but could never make it work. Howard Roman in effect ghostwrote the book--not Hunt.

Exactly.

I think it could be, Ron. I remember looking at old posts and Jack White said it wasn't the same person--not sure why he was so convinced though. I think the person Duncan MacRae posted on #85 could be the Lansdale figure too.

In all fairness, Prouty did know Lansdale for over a decade prior to the first time he ID'ed him in the photo. They worked together on and off during this period--mostly off--but sometimes worked on a project quite closely for a short time. He exaggerated the extent of their contact, sure. He made other claims that were a stretch, such as him not mentioning Lansdale at all to Krulack before K's ID which makes people question his credibility. But Krulack really did ID Lansdale too. They are probably better judges than any of us, who have never met him and have only seen a dozen photos of him. I think it looks a lot like Lansdale, but others here don't. Barring some more nefarious motive for identifying the person as Lansdale--i.e. they didn't like Lansdale, which is true and certainly muddies the waters--I think you have to take it at face value as an ID coming from as close to an expert on the subject as you're going to get. Now, can a person who knows someone very well make an ID of someone's back definitively? Has anyone ever gone to a mall with family members, split up to shop and been behind someone who they thought was a family member only to discover they weren't when the person turned around? I know I have. We could argue forever about the credibility of Prouty. I think it makes more sense to debate Lansdale's character and connections and then try to come to some consensus as to whether he would have to capacity to assassinate JFK.

Agreed. Also off-putting that Nixon used Hunt to try to take political advantage of the potential Catholic-on-Catholic assassination, especially if either one of them were involved.

Yes. I think a lot of theorists are dismissive or don't understand the context and assume that Lansdale was CIA or Mongoose so therefore he had motivation to kill Kennedy. A while back on this thread, I posted a good summary by John Simkin, putting Lansdale into context and creating a strong argument for why he would not have been involved. Some points to suggest his complicity (some of which are tenuous and again come from Prouty) is his alliance with Nixon - according to Prouty, Lansdale was taken aback by Nixon's defeat in the election and it was then when he tried to influence JFK into giving him the role of ambassador to Vietnam (which he, of course, never got). He was also close to Henry Cabot Lodge, who according to Roger Stone had foreknowledge of the assassination. Lodge had "begged" for Lansdale to come to Vietnam before the Diem coup (of course, if you understand the context of this too, there's a lot more to it) but was denied by McCone. Also, there's Lansdale's close association with Conein. who oversaw the coup. According to most accounts, Lansdale was not in agreement with how Diem was handled, but was in close relation to the principals who oversaw the coup. It could be argued that this is reflective of the Kennedy killing. Perhaps Dulles ordered Lansdale, knowing how skilled he was, to carry it out and he was merely following orders (as was strongly implied in the movie JFK). Finally, there's his connection and access to all the players in Mongoose, which was a strange thing for him to be put in charge of. He was especially close to William Harvey, who many researchers believe to be directly involved. But, for the most part, I'm in agreement with you, Larry. I think a good parallel to Lansdale is the case of Godfrey McHugh, who strangely, was also fingered by Prouty as possibly being involved. On the surface, there are some curious pieces to suggest he might have been. He was close to Howard Burris, who was supposedly connected to George de Mohrenschildt. He dated Jackie before JFK stole her from him, and there's that tape of Kennedy berating him in July '63. He often rode in the presidential motorcade, but on 11/22 switched a few cars back. And finally, for all the body alterationists, he oversaw/protected the body on Air Force One and was present at the autopsy. In fact, I'm surprised more conspiracy theorists haven't accused him. But, upon closer research and understanding of the context, one would see that he wasn't who he appeared based only on those few facts. Pat Speer covers him a lot here: http://www.patspeer.com/chapter-21-things-that-make-me-say-hmmm.

Being a new member, I am reticent to create a new post on speculation rather than fact, but have been thinking about this concept lately and thought I'd get fellow members' take on it. I thought of this while I was reminded of/reading up on Kerry Thorney, who is one of the wilder subjects in the assassiniation conspiracy cannon. According to Thornley, he was encountered by someone he later believed to be E. Howard Hunt in disguise, who at first obtusely broached the subject of assassinating Kennedy and later became more explicit. Thornley wondered if the Hunt figure was even preparing him to be a fall-guy in the murder. This got me thinking (whether or not Thronley is trustworthy or not)--perhaps Hunt or some equivalent in the CIA was testing out impressionable young right-wingers or idealogues who could be groomed as assassins of Kennedy. We have already seen it demonstrated that the CIA has taken the path of least resistence when it comes to assassinations--removing security and passively allowing an assassination plot to occur or guiding principals to act rather letting an active US hand in a plot be uncovered. Perhaps this same train of logic could be applied to the JFK assassination. Maybe CIA rogues encouraged an already temperamental person to do the shooting. I imagine there are thousands of individuals who could be fairly easily convinced to take part in an assassination with a little guidance. Now, the conspirators couldn't take the chance of trusting the whole murder with this one individual; after all it had to succeed. Therefore, they would have someone else (or perhaps two teams) shoot from the Dal-Tex Building at the same time as Oswald to ensure success. If everything went to plan, the "fall-guy" would really shoot at the president and in the heat of the moment maybe even think that he really caused the murder. At worst, if he chickened out, he would still be in a compromsing position, and for all intents and purposes still guilty of the crime, and thus would cover his tracks. If he did talk in the meantime before they killed him, all he would know is some made-up identity of Hunt. I know this is controversial, as many conspiracy theorists believe Oswald was framed completely, but it would explain his incriminataing behavior immediately after the assassination.

Mark - thanks for posting the information. What source is that from? I don't doubt it's true. In the past, I have always understood that the tramps episode occurred shortly after the shooting and everything I have read supported this. I could never find a source for the nearly two hour time frame but have heard it by members of this forum.

Mark- It was not two hours after the assassination. If you can find a credible source for it being two hours please present it.

I think there's a risk of reading too much into the "why are they still hiding it in 2015" and using this question to gleam insight into who planned the assassination. Pretend you are President and you found out definitively that Allen Dulles or Dick Helms planned it and the CIA carried it out. Or worse, it was LBJ and/or George Bush was involved. Would you tell the public? I probably wouldn't. It would undermine the whole US political system--there could actually be chaos in the streets. It wouldn't surprise me too much if Carter found out who it was but will never tell to legitimize the political system.

Here's a link to that 12/12/63 Hoover memo: http://jfklancer.com/Hoover.html

As a general response to this thread, there has been decades of research that has uncovered evidence to suggest that Oswald had intelligence connections. Most of these researchers have not came out and said that he was a full-fledged CIA officer, but have put together a fairly convincing picture of how he fit into the assassination via the intelligence world and it's a lot more nuanced than just "the CIA did it." I agree that many studying the case have built upon these assumptions and in some cases accept it as fact. These assumptions need to be questioned and scrutinized, but it is a slap in the face to decades of research to say that there is "no indication" that Oswald may have been manipulated by the intelligence community.

Victor Marshetti, Helms' assistant in "those days," thought Oswald was probably a dangle and was working for Naval Intelligence or possibly the CIA. I'm sure you've heard the saying that there were "two CIA's" - one intelligence gathering & analyzing and the other obsessed with clandestine operations. I think this characterization is more or less true.

Paul T - First of all, I don't "faithfully accept" Jim Douglass. I was simply demonstrating that the kill team and cover-up team with seemingly different motivations could in fact be the same driving force. I pointed out in the first paragraph of my post that this was Jim Douglass' assertion. The next two paragraphs are my own speculation and have nothing to do with Jim Douglass. How are you so sure that the kill team were the ones actively making Oswald look like a communist for the purposes of pinning the blame on Castro in the first place? Couldn't the conspirators have intercepted Oswald closer to the assassination from a separate project? While I tend to agree with you that the conspirators were indeed the ones giving Oswald a communist identity, this is an assumption that isn't so different from ones you just criticized. Finally, can you lay out the basic premise of how the "cover-up team" would immediately know the motives of the "kill team" and decide to publicly announce that Oswald was a lone-nut if they didn't know there was an assassination plot in the works and some of these same peoples weren't the principals in that plot as well?

Paul Brancato - Very well said.

"I hope my question is finally clear. I'll repeat it: How could the KILL-TEAM, which promoted a COMMUNIST OSWALD, possibly be the same as the COVER-UP-TEAM, which promoted a LONE-NUT OSWALD?" I think these two could be reconciled. Perhaps the conspirators had used Oswald look-alikes in the months prior to the assassination to try to tie him back to Cuba, but it ended up being overdone -- too many Oswalds were used wherein it would become obvious he was in two places at the same time. Once they knew this would not stand up to scrutiny, they had to go with the lone-nut scenario. This is the thesis of Jim Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable. I've always wondered, too, if LBJ, knowing of the intense anti-Kennedy group in the CIA and Cuban exile community, took advantage of it for his own purposes. People like Robertson and Morales were already in place and willing to pretty much do anything for their cause. Perhaps he made a call to someone like Tracy Barnes and set the plan in motion. Once the assassination occurred, he was worried that the Oswald as Cuban agent angle was too sloppy and a domestic conspiracy might be more easily exposed, and maybe he would be implicated. It was safer for him to go with the lone-nut approach. Now, one might argue that the lone-nut approach happened too quickly after the assassination for this scenario. But maybe Johnson knew all along that he and his inner circle would immediately convince the public that Oswald was a lone-nut. He threw some red meat to the clique in the CIA and Cuban exile community by saying they could pin the assassination on the Cubans, knowing that they were ideologues, but also knowing this was too risky and he wouldn't go along with it. After all, he didn't really care about Cuba, he just wanted to be become president. Or maybe it was the other way - the conspirators agreed with LBJ to kill Kennedy but they never told him they were planting evidence linking it back to Castro. This would explain the CIA budget funding articles saying that Oswald acted on Castro's behest in the days after the assassination while Johnson was so worried about squelching talk of a foreign conspiracy.

St. John Hunt is coming out with a new book on his mom: http://www.amazon.com/Dorothy-Amoral-Dangerous-Woman-Watergates/dp/1634240375/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427902369&sr=8-1&keywords=st.+john+hunt+dorothy He did an interview recently with Jesse Ventura as well, but doesn't talk much about the upcoming book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OesbEiHLHY The interview is mostly stuff we've already heard, but there are a few parts that stick out: He says it can be heard on the Nixon tapes that Nixon specifically wanted Hunt for certain projects and that's why Colson hired him. Is this true? He's asked about theories that the Watergate operation was sabotaged or intended to fail. He denies his dad was part of this, but says McCord had different assignments from the CIA and probably sabotaged the mission (something I don't believe). He takes Judyth Vary Baker seriously which left a bad taste in my mouth.

These are great documents, Greg - Thanks for posting them. The May 26 letter back to Krulack has a lot of intriguing information and I have never seen it before. It's interesting that he mentions the "Hunt as a tramp" topic. I know he worked closely with EHH for a time, and I have heard him mention Hunt in relation to many things in interviews, but never heard him say whenever he thought Hunt may have been involved...I'll infer from the letter that he thinks EHH would have the character to be part of the plot. Another interesting thing is his mention of Lansdale's relationship with Nixon, which I had known about, but is worthy of more investigation. I think it's taken as a given for some researchers that Lansdale was strictly opposed to the overthrow/assassination of Diem, but I don't know if it's as cut-and-dry as that. Prouty alludes to this. It's even more curious given his close association with Conein, who was working in Vietnam under supervision of Nixon's running mate, HCL....and who's Hunt's first choice for CIA man in the plumbers? Conein. (Also, strangely, in Nixon's last phone conversation with Ehrlichman, he strongly denies ever knowing of Hunt prior to Colson hiring him - which is of course a lie - but specifically mentions knowing about Conein.) Finally, I'd like to find out more about who his friends were in the CIA and who hated him (as Prouty mentions, "During this extended period of long association I learned that EGL was either liked or violently disliked. He was a great behind-the-scene, solo operator. He traveled quite a bit. My CIA friends used to tell me about how many CIA men, and especially French Intelligence men, would gladly have shot him). Definitely some points worthy of further research.

Thanks, Larry. That is good information. I'm on the fence whether it is Lansdale or not in the photo. There are a lot of reasons to believe he was not involved. Below is a good and convincing summary of why he was not involved by John Simkin: "There is no evidence that Lansdale was involved in the assassination of JFK. Nor did he have a motive. JFK was influenced by Lansdale’s views on Vietnam. That is why he would have pulled out the troops if he had won the 1964 election. Lansdale was not sacked by JFK (although he did not intervene in the matter). It was Maxwell Taylor who arranged for Lansdale to have “early retirement”. The two men clashed about what should be done in Vietnam. Taylor took the view, as did virtually all the military top brass, that the war could be won by military power. Taylor and the Joint Chief of Staffs told JFK in the summer of 1963 that 40,000 US troops could clean up the Viet Cong threat in Vietnam and another 120,000 would be sufficient to cope with any possible North Vietnamese or Chinese intervention. His advice on Cuba was that the CIA should work closely with exiles, particularly those with middle-class professions, who had opposed Batista and had then become disillusioned with Castro because of his betrayal of the democratic process. Lansdale was also opposed to the Bay of Pigs operation because he knew that it would not trigger a popular uprising against Castro. Although JFK was highly suspicious of the CIA, as a result of the quality of Lansdale’s advice, he selected him to become project leader of Operation Mongoose. Lansdale had spent years studying the way Mao had taken power in China. He often quoted Mao of telling his guerrillas: “Buy and sell fairly. Return everything borrowed. Indemnify everything damaged. Do not bathe in view of women. Do not rob personal belongings of captives.” The purpose of such rules, according to Mao, was to create a good relationship between the army and its people. This was a strategy that had been adopted by the NLF. Lansdale believed that the US Army should adopt a similar approach. As Cecil B. Currey, the author of “Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American” pointed out: “Lansdale was a dedicated anticommunist, conservative in his thoughts. Many people of like persuasion were neither as willing to study their enemy nor as open to adopting communist ideas to use a countervailing force. If for no other reason, the fact makes Lansdale stand out in bold relief to the majority of fellow military men who struggled on behalf of America in those intense years of the cold war.” He argued against the overthrow of Diem. He told Robert McNamara that: “There’s a constitution in place… Please don’t destroy that when you’re trying to change the government. Remember there’s a vice president (Nguyen Ngoc Tho) who’s been elected and is now holding office. If anything happens to the president, he should replace him. Try to keep something sustained.” It was these views that got him removed from office. The pressure to remove Lansdale came from General Curtis LeMay and General Victor Krulak and other senior members of the military. As a result it was decided to abolish his post as assistant to the secretary of defence. He was not too upset because for some time McNamara had not been listening to Lansdale’s advice. His approach to foreign policy at once appealed to Kennedy and horrified the Joint Chiefs of Staff and politicians such as Dean Rusk. It is true that Lansdale was strongly anti-communist, but he was not a right-winger. In fact, although he was a conservative on some issues, he was liberal on others. Unlike most of the military leaders in Vietnam, he was not a racist. He had a deep respect for the Vietnamese culture and realised that you could not win by imposing American rule on the country. His second wife, Patrocinio Yapcinco, was from the Philippines. Out of office he continued to argue against LBJ’s decision to try and use military power to win the Vietnam War. When General William Westmoreland argued that: “We’re going to out-guerrilla the guerrilla and out-ambush the ambush… because we’re smarter, we have greater mobility and fire-power, we have more endurance and more to fight for… And we’ve got more guts.” Lansdale replied: “All actions in the war should be devised to attract and then make firm the allegiance of the people.” He added “we label our fight as helping the Vietnamese maintain their freedom” but when “we bomb their villages, with horrendous collateral damage in terms of both civilian property and lives… it might well provoke a man of good will to ask, just what freedom of what Vietnamese are we helping to maintain?” Lansdale quoted Robert Taber (The War of the Flea): “There is only one means of defeating an insurgent people who will not surrender, and that is extermination. There is only one way to control a territory that harbours resistance, and that is to turn it into a desert. Where these means cannot, for whatever reason, be used, the war is lost.” Lansdale thought this was the situation in Vietnam and wrote to a friend that if the solution was to “kill every last person in the enemy ranks” then he was “not only morally opposed” to this strategy but knew it was “humanly impossible”. Lansdale added “No idea can be bombed or beaten to death. Military action alone is never enough.” He pointed out that since 1945 the Viet Minh had been willing to fight against the strength of both France and the United States in order to ensure success of their own. “Without a better idea, rebels will eventually win, for ideas are defeated only by better ideas.” Lansdale was anti-communist because he really believed in democracy. Lansdale had been arguing since 1956 that the best way of dealing with the Viet Cong was to introduce free elections that included the rights of Chams, Khmers, Montagnards and other minorities to participate in voting. Lansdale said that he went into Vietnam as Tom Paine would have done. He was found of quoting Paine as saying: “Where liberty dwells not, there is my country.” He also distanced himself from the Freedom Studies Center of the Institute for American Strategy when he discovered it was being run by the John Birch Society. He told a friend: “I refused to have anything more to do with it… That isn’t what our country is all about.” Lansdale considered himself a “conservative moderate” who was tolerant of all minorities. Lansdale continued to advocate a non-military solution to Vietnam and in 1965, under orders from Lyndon Johnson, Henry Cabot Lodge, the new US ambassador in Saigon, put Lansdale in charge of the “pacification program” in the country. As Newsweek reported: “Lansdale is expected to push hard for a greater effort on the political and economic fronts of the war, while opposing the recent trend bombing and the burning of villages.” One of those who served under him in this job was Daniel Ellsberg. The two men remained friends until the death of Lansdale. Ellsberg liked Lansdale because of his commitment to democracy. Ellsberg also agreed with Lansdale that the pacification program should be run by the Vietnamese. He argued that unless it was a Vietnam project it would never work. Lansdale knew that there was a deep xenophobia among Vietnamese. However, as he pointed out, he believed “Lyndon Johnson would have been just as xenophobic if Canadians or British or the French moved in force into the United States and took charge of his dreams for a great Society, told him what to do, and spread out by thousands throughout the nation to see that it got done.” In February 1966 Lansdale was removed from his position in control of the pacification program. However, instead of giving the job to a Vietnamese, William Porter, was given the post. Lansdale was now appointed as a senior liaison officer, with no specific responsibilities. Unlike most Americans in Vietnam, Lansdale believed it was essential for Vietnamese leaders to claim credit for any changes and reforms. His attitude aroused antagonism in the hearts of many within the U.S. bureaucracy who didn’t like the idea of allowing others to receive credit for successful programs – although they did not object to blaming Vietnamese leaders for projects that failed. Most importantly, Lansdale thought that the military should be careful to avoid causing civilian casualties. As his biographer, Cecil Currey pointed out: “Lansdale was primarily concerned about the welfare of people. Such a stance made him anathema to those more concerned about search and destroy missions, agent orange, free fire zones, harassing and interdicting fires, and body counts.” According to Lansdale “we lost the war at the Tet offensive”. The reason for this was that after this defeat American commanders lost the ability to discriminate between friend and foe. All Vietnamese were now “gooks”. Lansdale complained that commanders resorted more and more on artillery barrages that killed thousands of civilians. He told a friend that: “I don’t believe this is a government that can win the hearts and minds of the people.” Lansdale resigned and returned to the United States in June 1968. Lansdale argued that the current strategy in Vietnam was not working. “I’m afraid that we’re being taught some savage lessons about a type of warfare that the next generation or so of Americans will have to face up to on other continents as on this one.” This is why he was very critical of US involvement in El Salvador in the 1980s and if he had been alive today, would have opposed the invasion of Iraq and the sending of troops into Afghanistan."

What's available on the internet isn't very good and never really mentions exactly when the pictures were taken. According to Reclaiming History, The sparse report says they were "taken off a boxcar in the railroad yards right after President Kennedy was shot." I tend to agree with this - that it happened much closer to the shooting than 2:30. The whole question of whether or not the tramps are suspicious hinges on when they were taken into custody, IMO. And Mark, you are right. The idea that Krulak independently identified Lansdale is often floated around, but the same video contradicts this. It can be clearly seen that Prouty makes reference to Lansdale in the letter he sent with the pictures and Krulak responds that it is indeed Lansdale.