Jim Hargrove

CIA agent George Joannides was given a medal for his work covering up Agency officials’ knowledge of “Lee Harvey Oswald.” As Jefferson Morley writes at JFKFacts.org: The language of the citation seems innocuous if you don’t know the details of Joannides’ undercover work. Joannides’ only assignment in the “domestic field” in his 28 year career was his tenure as chief of the psychological warfare branch of the CIA’s Miami station in 1962-64 A declassified version of Joannides’ ‘Fitness Evaluation’ of July 31, 1963 shows he was praised for his handling of the Cuban Student Directorate. Within weeks of the evaluation, members of the group publicized the pro-Castro activities of Lee Harvey Oswald. After JFK was killed, Joannides’ Cuban agents published the first JFK conspiracy theory, claiming Oswald and Castro were the “presumed assassins.” Fifteen years later, Joannides’ “diverse assignments of increasing responsibility” culminated in his assignment in 1978 as CIA liaison to the HSCA. In this position, Joannides concealed from Blakey and the HSCA what he knew about the events of 1963. In short, Joannides was honored for concealing material facts from JFK investigators. This fact does not benefit the CIA but it does benefit the American public. It tells us the JFK assassination cover-up was officially sanctioned by the CIA. For more from Mr. Morley, see: http://jfkfacts.org/cia-officer-received-a-medal-for-his-role-in-jfk-cover-up/

Megathanks to Al Fordiani for putting the “Was Marina Honest?” debate out of its misery. Let’s get back to work on "Lee Harvey Oswald's" relationship to the CIA. Can anyone here shed light on the following document? Does it offer a description of “LHO’s” CIA-sponsored adventure in the USSR?

To Paul Trejo: This is a profoundly stupid debate. It was and remains every bit as much of a criminal offense to lie to the FBI and the Secret Service as it was to lie to the Warren Commission. The person who did so, in both the legal and ethical sense, was a L-I-A-R. In order to misdirect attention from the CIA to General Walker, you choose to put your trust in a proven L-I-A-R. Do you think we’re stupid? Here, again, is the evidence I presented earlier that Marina repeatedly lied to U.S. authorities about her husband supposedly practicing with his rifle. There are many other subjects that she lied about as well. --------------------------------------------- Anyone who would like to theorize that General Walker, rather than the CIA, was instrumental in setting up the patsy for the Kennedy assassination had best rely on something other than the testimony of Marina Oswald/Porter. Even beginners at JFK research quickly learn that her stories were filled with contradictions that changed, and often changed back again, and back again…. and again. Just to take one example, let’s look at her statements about whether her husband ever practiced with his rifle before he allegedly shot JFK: * In April, 1963 Marina told George and Jeanne DeMohrenschildt that Oswald practiced ·with his rifle by shooting leaves in the park. * On November 28, 1963 Marina told SS agent Leon Gopadze that she never saw Lee carry guns away from the house nor had seen him practice shooting a gun.96 * On December 4, 1963 Marina told Secret Service agents she never saw Lee going out or coming in to the house with the rifle and that he never mentioned doing any practice with the rifle.97 * On December 4, 1963 Marina told the FBI that Oswald never told her that he was going to practice with his rifle or any other firearm. 98 * On December 16, 1963 Marina told the FBI she never saw Oswald leave with the rifle nor return with the rifle at any time from their residence in New Orleans and he never spoke of practicing.99 * On December 17, 1963 Marina said she could not recall that he ever practiced firing the rifle in either New Orleans or Dallas. She did not see him either take the rifle with him from the house in New Orleans or bring it back with him to the house.100 When Marina testified before the Warren Commission on February 3, 1964 her previous stories regarding Oswald's rifle practice changed: * When asked by Mr. Rankin about Oswald's rifle practice Marina replied, "He would say, 'Well, today I will take the rifle along for practice.’"101 Following Marina's Warren Commission testimony her statements to the FBI regarding Oswald's rifle practice changed once again: * On February 17, 1964 Marina was asked if she had ever seen Oswald take the rifle from the house and said she had not. When asked if the rifle was gone from the house at the same time Oswald was gone from the house Marina replied she could not recall any such incident. 102 * The same day (February 17) Marina told FBI agents that Oswald said (after the Walker incident) he had practiced with his rifle in a field near Dallas. She said, "I knew that he practiced with it there. He told me, later."103 * On February 18, 1964 Marina told FBI agents that one evening, while living on Neely Street, Oswald had wrapped his rifle in a raincoat. She walked with him to a bus stop where he boarded a bus to Love Field (the airport where President Kennedy landed on November 22). She said when he returned a few hours later he told her he had practiced with his rifle. * During the same interview (February 18) she told the FBI agents that she had never seen Oswald take the rifle from the house. 104 * On February 22 Marina told FBI agents that before the Walker incident she observed Oswald cleaning his rifle at their home on Neely Street. He told her he had been practicing with the rifle. 105 When Marina again testified before the Warren Commission on June 11, 1964 her story changed once again: Mr. Dulles: "How did he pack the gun or conceal the gun when he went out on the bus toward Love Field?" Marina: "Are you talking about the gun or the rifle?" Mr. Dulles: "I am talking about the rifle." Marina: "He used to wrap it up in his overcoat." Mrs. Declan Ford told the Warren Commission about a conversation she had with Marina regarding Oswald practicing with a rifle. Mrs. Ford said, "She (Marina) said that she didn't think that he went to a rifle practice. She told me that about a lot of things that people would say that it was not true, she thought that she didn't think it was true about Lee being at practice." 106 Marina told Secret Service agents at no time had she seen Lee carrying guns away from the house for any purpose or had seen him practice shooting with any guns.107 Notes: 96 WC Exhibit 1792, p. 8; Secret Service interview of Marina Oswald by Leon Gopadze, 11/28/63. 97 WC Exhibit 1785. 98 WC Exhibit 1401. 99 National Archives, FBI 124-10010-10443, HQ 105-82555-1172. 100 WC Exhibit 1403. 101 WC testimony of Marina Oswald, 1 H 15. 102 WC Exhibit 2694. 103 WC testimony of Marina Oswald, 1 H 94. 104 WC Exhibit 1156. 105 WC Exhibit 1404. 106 WC testimony of Mrs. Declan Ford, 2 H 317. 107 WC Exhibit 1792. --From Harvey and Lee, pp. 516-517, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - WC attorney Norman Redlich wrote in a 2/64 memo to J. Lee Rankin that “neither you nor I have any desire to smear the reputation of any individual. We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the [Secret] Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world.” (HSCA Report, appendix vol.11, p.126). ------------------------------------------ The HSCA prepared a 29-page report about Marina’s ever-changing stories. Here’s one page from it: Perhaps we should go on to cover other areas in which Marina lied repeatedly to U.S. authorities. If you'd like to continue this profoundly stupid "debate," I'll give dozens of other examples of how Marina lied to us. But I WILL get back to the CIA!

Only you used the word "perjury," Paul. I didn't. What I did say is that she lied again and again and again to U.S. government officials, just as WC lawyers said, just as several HSCA reports said. Either she lied to the FBI, or she lied to the Warren Commission, or she lied to both of them. We can only argue about which were lies and which were the truth, but we do know that her Warren Commission testimony supported the Official Lie. In the third post on the 21st page of this thread (currently this page), I gave you example after example of contradictory statements Marina made on the subject of "Oswald" allegedly practicing with a rifle. You refuse to recognize those examples as lies even though others here clearly did. Shall I repeat it again??? So you can ignore it again?? WC attorney Norman Redlich wrote in a 2/64 memo to J. Lee Rankin that “neither you nor I have any desire to smear the reputation of any individual. We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the [Secret] Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world.” (HSCA Report, appendix vol.11, p.126). Here, again, is one page of the 29-page HSCA report calling her out. The "whole world" is hardly watching this debate Paul. Can you possibly be more full of yourself? A few people have paid attention, though, and they have already declared that you lost. You have managed, however, to change the subject from the CIA to Marina, so I guess that's a minor victory for you.

Ah... so you want to pretend Marina’s testimony can be trusted based on which government officials she lied to and which she didn't... maybe, is that it? Marina told the Warren Commission what the Warren Commission wanted to hear. As demonstrated above, that was usually very different from what she told the FBI and the Secret Service. Title 18 of the US Code, Section 1001 makes it unlawful to lie to a government agent, even if you: * made the false statement without the obligations of an oath, * didn’t receive warning of the law or its consequences, * were not trying to cheat the government out of money, * or lied about something that was not materially influential to government matters. In Paul Trejo’s book, it’s just fine to tell one set of stories to the FBI and the Secret Service investigating the assassination of a U.S. President, and then to tell a completely different story to a blue-ribbon panel supposedly examining the same crime. No problem there! Let’s put all our trust in that witness, eh Paul? Most important, though, let's stop talking about "Lee Harvey Oswald" and the CIA and talk instead about Marina... or General Walker... or anything else, eh Paul?

Thanks, Sandy (and Paul B), IMHO, Real Evidence doesn't rely on Marina's testimony for anything. Real Evidence looks like this: 18 Reasons that “Lee Harvey Oswald” was a CIA Agent 1. CIA accountant James Wilcott said he made payments to an encrypted account for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.” 2. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963. 3. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962. 4. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 5. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child. 6. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and no doubt monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 7. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE. 8. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination. 9. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report. 10. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots. 11. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear. 12. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story. 13. CIA Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, but the CIA ignored his warnings. 14. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.” For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations. 15. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs…. 16. After he “defected” to the Soviet Union in 1959, bragging to U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow that he would tell the Russians everything he knew about U.S. military secrets, he returns to the U.S. without punishment and is then in 1963 given the OK to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union again! 17. Allen Dulles, the CIA director fired by JFK, and the Warren Commission clearly wanted the truth hidden from the public to protect sources and methods of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Earl Warren said, “Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security.” 18. President Kennedy and the CIA clearly were at war with each other in the weeks immediately before his assassination, and “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn. I'm trying to improve this list, including providing source notes. If anyone has any suggestions, including Mr. Trejo, please reply.

Anyone who would like to theorize that General Walker, rather than the CIA, was instrumental in setting up the patsy for the Kennedy assassination had best rely on something other than the testimony of Marina Oswald/Porter. Even beginners at JFK research quickly learn that her stories were filled with contradictions that changed, and often changed back again, and back again…. and again. Just to take one example, let’s look at her statements about whether her husband ever practiced with his rifle before he allegedly shot JFK: * In April, 1963 Marina told George and Jeanne DeMohrenschildt that Oswald practiced ·with his rifle by shooting leaves in the park. * On November 28, 1963 Marina told SS agent Leon Gopadze that she never saw Lee carry guns away from the house nor had seen him practice shooting a gun.96 * On December 4, 1963 Marina told Secret Service agents she never saw Lee going out or coming in to the house with the rifle and that he never mentioned doing any practice with the rifle.97 * On December 4, 1963 Marina told the FBI that Oswald never told her that he was going to practice with his rifle or any other firearm. 98 * On December 16, 1963 Marina told the FBI she never saw Oswald leave with the rifle nor return with the rifle at any time from their residence in New Orleans and he never spoke of practicing.99 * On December 17, 1963 Marina said she could not recall that he ever practiced firing the rifle in either New Orleans or Dallas. She did not see him either take the rifle with him from the house in New Orleans or bring it back with him to the house.100 When Marina testified before the Warren Commission on February 3, 1964 her previous stories regarding Oswald's rifle practice changed: * When asked by Mr. Rankin about Oswald's rifle practice Marina replied, "He would say, 'Well, today I will take the rifle along for practice.’"101 Following Marina's Warren Commission testimony her statements to the FBI regarding Oswald's rifle practice changed once again: * On February 17, 1964 Marina was asked if she had ever seen Oswald take the rifle from the house and said she had not. When asked if the rifle was gone from the house at the same time Oswald was gone from the house Marina replied she could not recall any such incident. 102 * The same day (February 17) Marina told FBI agents that Oswald said (after the Walker incident) he had practiced with his rifle in a field near Dallas. She said, "I knew that he practiced with it there. He told me, later."103 * On February 18, 1964 Marina told FBI agents that one evening, while living on Neely Street, Oswald had wrapped his rifle in a raincoat. She walked with him to a bus stop where he boarded a bus to Love Field (the airport where President Kennedy landed on November 22). She said when he returned a few hours later he told her he had practiced with his rifle. * During the same interview (February 18) she told the FBI agents that she had never seen Oswald take the rifle from the house. 104 * On February 22 Marina told FBI agents that before the Walker incident she observed Oswald cleaning his rifle at their home on Neely Street. He told her he had been practicing with the rifle. 105 When Marina again testified before the Warren Commission on June 11, 1964 her story changed once again: Mr. Dulles: "How did he pack the gun or conceal the gun when he went out on the bus toward Love Field?" Marina: "Are you talking about the gun or the rifle?" Mr. Dulles: "I am talking about the rifle." Marina: "He used to wrap it up in his overcoat." Mrs. Declan Ford told the Warren Commission about a conversation she had with Marina regarding Oswald practicing with a rifle. Mrs. Ford said, "She (Marina) said that she didn't think that he went to a rifle practice. She told me that about a lot of things that people would say that it was not true, she thought that she didn't think it was true about Lee being at practice." 106 Marina told Secret Service agents at no time had she seen Lee carrying guns away from the house for any purpose or had seen him practice shooting with any guns.107 Notes: 96 WC Exhibit 1792, p. 8; Secret Service interview of Marina Oswald by Leon Gopadze, 11/28/63. 97 WC Exhibit 1785. 98 WC Exhibit 1401. 99 National Archives, FBI 124-10010-10443, HQ 105-82555-1172. 100 WC Exhibit 1403. 101 WC testimony of Marina Oswald, 1 H 15. 102 WC Exhibit 2694. 103 WC testimony of Marina Oswald, 1 H 94. 104 WC Exhibit 1156. 105 WC Exhibit 1404. 106 WC testimony of Mrs. Declan Ford, 2 H 317. 107 WC Exhibit 1792. --From Harvey and Lee, pp. 516-517, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The HSCA prepared a 29-page report about Marina’s ever-changing stories. Here’s one page from it: Enough is enough, Paul! Why don’t you just go back to telling us in every post how terrible John Armstrong and I are and stop trying to prop up Marina’s testimony as if it was reliable in any way whatsoever. Find someone even a beginner can trust to point the finger at General Walker. This is ridiculous!

The belief by a so-called CTer that Marina’s testimony was credible is simply bizarre and really quite unique. Even in the early days of the WC, attorneys were stating quite plainly that she lied. WC attorney, Norman Redlich wrote in a 2/64 memo to J. Lee Rankin that “neither you nor I have any desire to smear the reputation of any individual. We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the [Secret] Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world” (HSCA Report, appendix vol.11, p.126). The HSCA also published a lengthy document describing scores of examples of Marina’s inconsistencies. In one of the earliest and best critiques of the Warren Commission, Accessories After the Fact, Sylvia Meagher did the same. Many of us have great sympathy for Marina’s plight after the assassination. She was alone with two small children surrounded by unfriendly professionals and clearly gave her testimony under severe duress. According to Robert Morrow, in 2010 she said to Jesse Ventura, “Would you sacrifice your children for the truth?”

Your words above are from page 11 of this very thread. Yet in the last paragraph of your post just above this one, you write: "Besides, the main evidence from Marina that I've posed in the current thread was that she was eight months pregnant with baby Rachel Oswald in September 1963, and had no money, no health insurance and no doctor. Are you saying that was perjury?" Why do you keep changing your story?

The Warren Commission was so anxious not to disclose that "Oswald" had been framed for the Walker shooting it didn't even bother to ask the Dallas cops who took the Walker bullet into evidence why that bullet was a steel-clad bullet instead of the copper-clad bullet now at the National Archives and supposedly retrieved from Walker's home. General Walker didn't put the U.S. Government to sleep for more than 50 years. Your insistence that Marina's testimony can be trusted is at odds not only with the vast majority of private researchers, but also contrary to the expressed opinions of both the Warren Commission and the HSCA.

Excuse me? By your own admission, he kept his job as a U.S. spy on a Mission to Moscow for two and a half years. It was a courageous and brilliant performance for such a young man! We all know exactly how his country rewarded him.

I’ve thought about this a lot and I’m afraid it was a brilliant choice for several reasons. 1. With his trip to Russia, staged FPCC activities, and commie-loving history going all the way back to the Marine Corps, it was easy to paint the Russian-speaking Oswald as a commie with ties to Castro, which is exactly what happened. LBJ had to intervene to prevent a possible war with Cuba and maybe even the Soviets. 2. Oswald’s ties to both the FBI and the CIA made G-men, especially J. Edgar Hoover, all too happy to enter full scale cover-up mode. 3. Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald had demonstrated that he would follow even difficult orders, critical in the days and hours before and immediately after the assassination. (He absolutely had to be in the right places at the right times to become a successful patsy. And a patsy was absolutely critical for the plot to succeed. Without one, the search for the plotters would have been relentless.) 4. The “Harvey and Lee” project (JA suspects it was controlled by David Atlee Phillips) made it simple to send around a fellow who looked like Russian-speaking Oswald in the weeks prior to the hit to set him up as the assassin-to-be. For example…. The Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target; Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth on Nov 2. The Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership also on Nov. 2 where he test drove a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car. The Irving Furniture Mart On Nov. 6 or 7 for a gun part where he was referred to the shop where Dial Ryder worked. The Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) on Nov. 15 to apply for a job and oh-so-subtly ask how high the Southland Building was and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas. Hitchhiking on Nov. 20 on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4-foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introducing himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald.” He discussed the President's visit, wondered if you could shoot a president, and asked to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” was already at work). I just watched the 1973 motion picture “Executive Action” with Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan. It does a great job showing how an “Oswald” look-alike traveled around Dallas in the weeks before the assassination doing many of the things listed above.

The trouble with your theory is that “Lee Harvey Oswald” was a spectacular success on his Mission to Moscow. He gained entry to the USSR through extraordinary personal effort, was permitted to work and mingle with other workers at a large radio factory in Minsk (enabling him to prepare a detailed report on the life of Russian workers), and he eventually brought back to America a young Russian wife with obvious connections to Russian intelligence. Pretty much a grand slam! His unique personal history (see HarveyandLee.net) obviously made low-wage jobs acceptable to him, giving him the appearance of being anything other than a Federal employee, although--no surprise here--when it came time to go on another Mission to Moscow (or Cuba) in 1963, he once again apparently had the money to do so. Remarkable on minimum wage, eh? Remarkable too that the United States government would allow this returning "defector" to travel back to Cuba and the USSR. Why don’t you take another stab at answering the issues below honestly. 18 Facts Indicating “Lee Harvey Oswald” was a CIA Agent 1. CIA accountant James Wilcott said he made payments to an encrypted account--code name RX ZIM--for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.” 2. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963. 3. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962. 4. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 5. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child. 6. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and no doubt monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 7. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE. 8. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination. 9. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report. 10. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots. 11. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear. 12. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story. 13. CIA Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, but the CIA ignored his warnings. 14. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.” For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations. 15. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs…. 16. After he “defected” to the Soviet Union in 1959, bragging to U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow that he would tell the Russians everything he knew about U.S. military secrets, he returns to the U.S. without punishment and is then in 1963 given the OK to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union again! 17. Allen Dulles, the CIA director fired by JFK, and the Warren Commission clearly wanted the truth hidden from the public to protect sources and methods of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Earl Warren said, “Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security.” 18. President Kennedy and the CIA clearly were at war with each other in the weeks immediately before his assassination, and “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn.

Chris, Are you sure you’ve got the right John Hurt? Here’s the slip Mrs. Swinney filled out at the Dallas jail: Note the 834-7430 phone number on top of the other one. In 1978 the HSCA contacted John David Hurt at 201 Hillsborough St. Apt 4 in Raleigh, NC (phone# 919-834-7430). Hurt received a law degree from the University of Georgia, but never practiced. He was formerly with the Army Counterintelligence corps in Europe and Japan (1942-1946) and was recently in the insurance business. Hurt was a short, middle-aged man who, as a result of severe arthritis, was missing most of his fingers from both hands. He was disabled in 1955 and received full government disability. John Hurt told HSCA investigators that he had phone number 919-834-7430 for the last 20 years. 249 --from Harvey and Lee, p. 931, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

Thanks, Paul. Unless he can come up with something better, I'm going to let Mr. Trejo have the last word in our debate.

I just finished watching “Executive Action” for the first time in decades. Thanks so much, Ron, for the heads-up that it was airing today. For such an old movie, it sure got a lot of things right. It’s kind of ironic that John Armstrong and I believe that the false Oswald depicted in “Executive Action” was really the American born as Lee Harvey Oswald while the man killed by Jack Ruby was the long-time false Oswald. It's a complex story.... Thanks again!

To Paul Trejo: (My responses are in red.) 1. CIA accountant James Wilcott admitted that his opinion was based on rumors by field agents. James just took their word for it. He was not a field agent, and knew nothing other than what the field agents told him -- and they teased him. Mr. Wilcott testified just the opposite to what you say above: Mr. Preyer. That was shop talk, speculation, I gather; people were saying that the CIA is somehow connected with it. Mr. Wilcott. Well, I believed it to be a little more than speculation, that the source at least of this kind of talk was, I believe, to be something more serious than speculation. Mr. Preyer. It was your conclusion from that talk that some of these people might have knowledge that he was a CIA agent rather than that they were speculating about it? Mr. Wilcott. Yes, sir. Mr. Preyer. And you did mention the case officer who came in and told you that the money he had drawn out a few weeks earlier was drawn out for Oswald? Mr. Wilcott. Yes, sir. Mr. Preyer. He stated that as a fact and not that he believed it was drawn out for Oswald or it could have been or something like that? Mr. Wilcott. It was stated as a fact -- Oswald or the Oswald project. 2. Antonio Veciana did see LHO in a meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963 -- in the context of killing Fidel Castro. That's what Alpha-66 was set up to do. They had no other purpose. David Atlee Phillips describes this Kill-Fidel project and LHO's involvement in his 1988 manuscript, "The AMLASH Legacy." Only you would believe anything Phillips had to say. Soon after the Phillips/Oswald meeting, the framing of the “Oswald” killed by Jack Ruby began in earnest in and around Dallas. The Phillips/Oswald meeting is further proof that Oswald was an agent. 3. Robert Webster and LHO were only two of scores of fake defectors to the USSR in 1959. This was revealed by former CIA Agent Victor Marchetti, who said it was an ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) "dangle" operation. It was for beginners. When LHO was recruited for this beginner's mission, he was still 19 years old (and a high-school dropout, and could not drive a car, and could hardly spell). LHO was being "tested." I did a quick web search and found several CIA-affiliated people who were with the Agency by the age of 20. You should have no trouble doing the same thing. By your account David Atlee Phillips was impressed enough with “Oswald’s” test to meet with him in Dallas in 1963. 4. All of the HSCA leaders, including Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough had nothing but their opinions to offer. They were not allowed to see the thousands of JFK documents that the US Government kept secret in the 1970's. All they could do was guess. Their opinion was no more valid than the average Congressman – useless. That’s your opinion. I believe the men listed above were far closer to the actual events being discussed here than you were. 5. Donald Deneslya read a lot of things. As Marchetti said, there were scores of fake defectors to the USSR in that program. It is certainly possible that many of them got married in Russia. They worked all over Russia. Donald made no positive identification. Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child. Are you suggesting there was a different CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child? 6. Kenneth Porter, worked for Collins Radio -- and some people try to force this into a CIA plot. Porter fell in love with Marina Oswald -- and some people try to make this into a CIA plot. It's naked fiction -- intended to sell books. Sure… Here’s what one those books written to tell the truth says: Collins Radio was located at 1200 North Alma Road in Richardson, Texas and held major communications contracts for the military and CIA, including the installation of communications towers in Vietnam. On November 1, 1963 the New York Times published a photo of a ship named the "Rex"and a story involving commandos that were sent ashore from the ship in Cuba on October 22-23, 1963. The Commandos were captured on a Cuban beach with high-powered sniper rifles and admitted they had been trained by the CIA to kill Cuban leaders. The "Rex" was leased to Collins Radio of Richardson, Texas. (Harvey and Lee, pp. 872-873.) 7. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was hired by the CIA to lie to the HSCA. Big deal -- *everybody* in the US Government lied to the HSCA. This is because the HSCA was merely Congress, and it was a Presidential mandate by LBJ in 1964 (along with Earl Warren, J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles) that the true JFK Records be sealed for 75 years. No act of Congress could change that. The Cold War with the USSR was still raging. Hey, you’re like the guy who gets pulled over for speeding and then tells the cop, “but everyone else was speeding too.” Do you expect that defense to work better here than in traffic court? The fact remains that the CIA put a fellow in charge of lying to the HSCA who had specialized knowledge—that he kept to himself—about “Lee Harvey Oswald.” 8. FBI took Oswald off the watch list in 1962, and so did the State Department. Hosty tried to put LHO back on the FBI watch list in early 1963, and failed. It was LHO himself who put himself back on in August 1963 in New Orleans in connection with the FPCC. But as Hoover and Belmont testified to the Warren Commission -- LHO never at any time showed any signs of political violence. Because of that crucial fact, the FBI took LHO off of their watch list in October. The CIA had nothing to do with it. Any shenannigans belonged to James Hosty alone. The fact remains that the FBI and the CIA—at exactly the same time just weeks before the assassination—made clear efforts to diminish Federal monitoring of “Lee Harvey Oswald.” And you, apparently, find nothing suspicious about this. 9. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay is dry writing, and he probably didn't write it alone. He usually had at least one misspelled word for each sentence, and the spelling in this essay is very good -- so somebody else helped him. LHO was a CIA wannabe. He was trying like mad to get their attention -- but he just wasn't smart enough. Proof: LHO became a Patsy. I agree someone helped him. After all, English wasn’t Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald’s primary language. But it is a fine report, and was surely of considerable interest for intelligence agencies at the time who wanted to learn more about the life of Russian workers. 10. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots because like a fool he included the word, "microdots" in his diary and personal papers. Nothing was found. If memory serves, there were some individual letters cut out of some of “Oswald’s” writings. Perhaps to remove microdots? Your lack of suspicion about “Oswald” as an intelligence agent is stunning! 11. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera; like many Private Detectives and other spy wannabes. The FBI mucked with all JFK evidence, starting on 11/22/1963, because of J. Edgar Hoover's order that everything must fit a "Lone Nut" scenario. This was for National Security purposes. Nobody denies that anymore. But the fact remains that owning a “spy camera” is hardly an indication that you are not a spy, eh? 12. The official cover story of LHO was explained fully by former CIA agent Victor Marchetti. LHO was a trainee "dangle" in the USSR. Amazing, then, that the CIA worked so hard to distance itself from him, and that David Atlee Phillips met with him a few weeks before the assassination, and that George Joannides, a CIA agent who should have had specialized knowledge about “Oswald,” was hired by the CIA to lie to the HSCA and hide his specialized knowledge of Oswald, and on and on. 13. CIA agent Richard Case Nagell was a double-agent and was neurotic as they come. Anything he said had to be taken with a grain of salt. Everybody who ever interviewed him admitted that -- even Dick Russell. That’s all irrelevant. All you have to do was look at the verifiable evidence of his case. 14. LHO was always poor as a church mouse in the USA. In the USSR however, in addition to his low radio factory salary, he got an equal amount from the Red Cross -- so that his salary was the same as a manager's salary. Also, LHO was allowed to stay in a new apartment complex in Minsk, which was reserved for privileged people. This was one reason Marina fell in love with LHO. In the spring of 1962, the State Department called LHO's mother and demanded that she search for funds to pay LHO's way back to the USA. Marguerite Oswald made a sweeping fund raising tour to beg for money. She came up empty-handed. The State Department, out of compassion, loaned the cash to LHO. Back in the USA, LHO again became as poor as a church-mouse. Wrong. LHO was staying at first class hotels on the way to Moscow and during his first days in Moscow. He also hired expensive private tourist guides at the very beginning of his stay. 15. It simply isn't the CIA standard operating procedure to bypass the State Department. LHO never defected. LHO never became a USSR citizen. Naturally, then, LHO could never join the KGB. The State Department grilled LHO for that, and gave him a clean bill of health. Also, when LHO returned to the USA, the FBI took charge of LHO, and debriefed LHO two times, and gave him a clean bill of health. You make it sound like the CIA had nothing better to do in the Cold War than to watch LHO. There were already enough people watching LHO. It's a fact. You sure talk as if you know a lot about the CIA. Why didn’t you know about the “family jewels?” To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs….

15 Facts Indicating “Lee Harvey Oswald” was an Intelligence Agent 1. CIA accountant James Wilcott said he made payments to an encrypted account--code name RX ZIM--for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.” 2. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963. 3. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962. 4. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 5. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child. 6. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and no doubt monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 7. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE. 8. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination. 9. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report. 10. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots. 11. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear. 12. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story. 13. CIA Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, but the CIA ignored his warnings. 14. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.” For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations. 15. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs…. More to come ….

David Josephs makes a damned good case in his CTKA Mexico City series that the whole LHO trip to MC boils down to a single Mexican officials' reports. John Armstrong thinks "LHO" may have traveled to MC, but then was probably hidden out in a hotel suite or somewhere else while the infamous melodrama unfolded at the embassies/consulates. My personal opinion is that Phillips and Goodpasture both deserve to rot in hell, along with at least a half dozen others from the Agency. John tells me that Mr. Lopez is back at work on the assassination. Good news!

15 Facts Indicating “Lee Harvey Oswald” was an Intelligence Agent 1. CIA accountant James Wilcott said he made payments to an encrypted account--code name RX ZIM--for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.” 2. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963. 3. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962. 4. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 5. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child. 6. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and no doubt monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 7. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE. 8. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination. 9. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report. 10. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots. 11. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear. 12. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story. 13. CIA Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, but the CIA ignored his warnings. 14. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.” For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations. 15. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs…. More to come ….

Are you really this uninformed about the history of Warren Commission criticism? In 1967, Sylvia Meagher published Accessories After the Fact, still highly regarded today. Her chapter entitled “No Conspiracy?” covers most of the impersonations I listed above and a number of others. Here is page 359 from that chapter. The 1973 Hollywood motion picture “Executive Action” featuring Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan presented a fictionalized account of these impersonations. The impersonations in my list above have been a mainstay of WC criticism for more than half a century, but now you all are so desperate to discredit John Armstrong’s work that you pretend he invented all of them. How pitiful! And by the way, play all the whack-a-mole games you want, the effect of that CIA cable was to give "Oswald" a clean bill of political health. Amazing, isn't it, that it happened at the exact same time the FBI cancelled the FLASH watch on Oswald.

At the very same time the FBI was taking “Lee Harvey Oswald” off the watch list, the CIA was giving “Lee Henry Oswald” (biographical data exactly matching LHO’s) a clean bill of political health in the infamous cable of 10/10/63 (see post #254 above). It was now no longer officially necessary for the FBI to monitor “Oswald’s” activities in Dallas. And the Secret Service would no longer be expected to investigate him prior to a presidential visit to Dallas. Although “Lee Harvey Oswald” had been arrested for a supposedly violent confrontation in support of Fidel Castro in New Orleans just two months earlier, the entire National Security apparatus of our Federal government now seemed to just stop worrying about him. What happened next, of course, has been documented by scores of writers and filmmakers for more than half a century. “Lee Harvey Oswald,” or more likely someone who looked like him, began making all kinds of appearances in and around Dallas. These appearances were clearly designed to attract attention. Here are just some: “Oswald” visits the Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target; On Nov. 2 “Oswald” visits Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth. Also on Nov. 2 “Oswald” visits the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership where he test drives a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car. On Nov. 6 or 7 “Oswald” visits the Irving Furniture Mart for a gun part and is referred to the shop where Dial Ryder works. On Nov. 15, “Oswald” goes to the Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) and applies for a job and asks how high the Southland Building is and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas. On Nov. 20 “Oswald” hitch-hikes on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4 foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introduces himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald,” discusses the President's visit, and asks to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” is already working). The set-up of “Lee Harvey Oswald” was almost complete. How could this possibly have been accomplished if the FBI and the Secret Service hadn’t been put to sleep just a few weeks earlier?

Sure. It's mentioned twice on the Wanted Notice Card.

I sincerely doubt it. The WC didn’t even bother to depose the Division 5 guy (Gheesling) who ordered the cancellation. “Lee Harvey Oswald” had been on that list for nearly four years, since the “defection.” Now that he was taken off it, he’d no longer be under FBI and SS surveillance on 11/22. What’s really unnerving is that similar steps were taken right around the same time by Mexico City CIA personnel. Newman called this “turning down the lights” on “Oswald.” It’s enough to make a fellow feel paranoid. Just to finish up on the above.... This probably isn't new information for many here, but it sure seems significant to me. At the very same time the FBI was taking “Lee Harvey Oswald” off the watch list, the CIA was publishing several confusing things about him. Responding to a query from the Mexico City station, four CIA officers signed a cable giving lots of accurate biographical data on our boy but calling him “Lee Henry Oswald.” The three page cable expressed no security concerns whatsoever about Oswald and, in fact, indicated the Moscow embassy felt “life in the Soviet Union had clearly had maturing effect on Oswald.” Nothing to worry about here! This cable was signed by Jane Roman (Angleton’s assistant), William Hood (also close to Angleton), Thomas Karamessines (assistant to Helms) and John Whitten who, according to Jefferson Morley, was the only CIA officer of the four signers who suffered any adverse consequences for this troubling cable. John Armstrong believes that Angleton ran the “Harvey and Lee” Oswald project.

I sincerely doubt it. The WC didn’t even bother to depose the Division 5 guy (Gheesling) who ordered the cancellation. “Lee Harvey Oswald” had been on that list for nearly four years, since the “defection.” Now that he was taken off it, he’d no longer be under FBI and SS surveillance on 11/22. What’s really unnerving is that similar steps were taken right around the same time by Mexico City CIA personnel. Newman called this “turning down the lights” on “Oswald.” It’s enough to make a fellow feel paranoid.