Jim Hargrove

Again -- LHO was a high school dropout; LHO could not drive a car; LHO could hardly spell. Yes, LHO had other talents, but while LHO was a teenager, he was almost certainly not CIA material.

LHO certainly was, according to CIA Agent Victor Marchetti, an appropriate candidate for the ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) -- but only as a "dangle" as a part of a large team of "dangles" -- which is a beginner's mission.

So, according to your explanation, because “LHO” was a high school dropout, couldn’t drive, and wasn’t a good speller, he wasn’t CIA material at any level. But he could qualify for low-level ONI activities because… uh… the U.S. Navy was filled with uneducated losers who couldn’t spell or drive either, eh?

Thank you for this clarification. It’s good to know the CIA had such High Standards® compared to the lowly U.S. Navy.

Jim,

The CIA leaves domestic politics to the FBI. You should know that by now.

Jim,

You're quite mistaken that LHO was a CIA agent. Just because the teenage LHO was on an assignment from the ONI inside the USSR, this hardly qualifies LHO as a CIA agent.

I see. So now your "CIA wannabe" is actually spying in Russia for our Office of Naval Intelligence, but he wants to transfer to the CIA? Is that the story du jour?

And as Mark Knight pointed out: "Lee Harvey Oswald was born on October 18, 1939. He arrived in Moscow on October 16, 1959. So he was a teenager for all of TWO DAYS while in the USSR."

You are aware of all the evidence that "Lee Harvey Oswald" did have a driver's license, right?

...Of course, when all this came out in the 1990s, HSCA general counsel G. Robert Blakey said: “The CIA not only lied, it actively subverted the investigation.”

Other than to protect it’s relationship with Oswald, why would the CIA have done that, and why would it have specifically picked Joannides as its liaison to the HSCA, and why would it have hidden the fact that Joannides funded the DRE?

Wait… I know! I know! The CIA lied about all this to protect General Walker!

What hogwash!

Jim,

The CIA leaves domestic politics to the FBI. You should know that by now.

The problem with the HSCA was that they held their tribunal from 1977-1979, when the Cold War against Communism was still raging.

There was no way that the CIA was going to make any of their secrets about Fidel Castro and Cuba public for the benefit of these politicians in the HSCA.

Get real.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

The Soviet Union had dissolved and the Cold War had been over for nearly a decade when, in 1998, the CIA once again lied about Joannides, this time to the Assassination Records Review Board.

In 1998, the Agency again responded inaccurately to public inquiries about Joannides. The Agency’s Historic Review Office informed the JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) that it was unable to identify the case officer for the DRE in 1963. The ARRB staff, on its own, located records confirming that Joannides had been the case officer.

--From a letter signed by G. Robert Blakey, Jefferson Morley,

Don DeLillo, Paul Hoch, Norman Mailer, Gerald Posner,

Anthony Summers, Richard Whalen, and six others.

Can you find an excuse better than the Cold War for the CIA's treachery?

As for your endless tap dance pretending the CIA stays away from active operations in the U.S., we're waiting for your response to the overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the document Chris linked:

LHO was clean -- because he was never a real defector -- he never relinquished his USA passport. He never became a USSR citizen.

Thank you, Paul, for finally admitting the truth about agent Oswald. It's been a long time coming.

When LHO returned to the USA, he was now the FBI's problem. The CIA handles international Intelligence, while the FBI handles national Intelligence.

The FBI interviewed LHO, twice, and found him to be clean. So did the State Department.

LHO was clean -- because he was never a real defector -- he never relinquished his USA passport. He never became a USSR citizen.

LHO was a "dangle," but his real problem was that he was a show-off. He wasn't supposed to return home to the USA with a Russian bride in a snow-storm of publicity. This made many US officials privately upset.

It also upset one former US General, namely, Edwin Walker in Dallas.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

I see… that’s why the CIA brought their agent George Joannides out of retirement and put him in charge of lying to the HSCA… so the Agency could protect General Walker?? You’ve got to be kidding, right?

The Miami-based Joannides, who supplied our tax dollars to the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE) at the very time “Lee Harvey Oswald” was involved with DRE’s New Orleans office, was perfectly informed with all the details he needed to cleverly mislead the HSCA about our boy and his undercover agent operation.

HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi wanted to know what CIA agent was in charge of monitoring and paying the DRE in 1962 and 1963, but he made made the mistake of asking the CIA. “Damned if we know!” lied the CIA. Apparently, according to you, they lied about this in order to protect General Walker.

Of course, when all this came out in the 1990s, HSCA general counsel G. Robert Blakey said: “The CIA not only lied, it actively subverted the investigation.”

Other than to protect it’s relationship with Oswald, why would the CIA have done that, and why would it have specifically picked Joannides as its liaison to the HSCA, and why would it have hidden the fact that Joannides funded the DRE?

Wait… I know! I know! The CIA lied about all this to protect General Walker!

What hogwash!

"Oswald,” the DRE and CIA’s Joannides

One of the best pieces of evidence that “LHO” was a CIA operative is offered by the Agency itself.

Many people with even a passing interest in the Kennedy assassination know that “Oswald” had what appeared to some as a “staged” altercation in New Orleans with Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban exile and an official of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE), an anti-Castro organization. Oswald, as we all know, was passing out pro-Castro literature when he was encountered by Bringuier.

What many people don’t realize is that Oswald had earlier dropped by the DRE office in New Orleans and had offered to help them with their anti-Castro activities, probably as an effort to infiltrate the organization. At the time, DRE was being funded to the tune of $25,000/month (one knowledgeable researcher claims it was more like $50,000/month) by the Central Intelligence Agency.

By the time the HSCA was organizing, the mystery of why a supposed pro-Castro leftist would have offered to help (or spy on) the anti-Castro DRE just a few months before he allegedly assassinated JFK was a subject that should have been carefully investigated. But as soon as CIA officials realized the HSCA would be demanding information, they brought one of their agents out of retirement to act as a liaison to the House committee.

This CIA agent’s name was George Joannides, and his appointment was one of the most treacherous moves the Agency made in it’s efforts to hide Oswald’s connections to the CIA. The true nature of that treachery was not made apparent for years.

Not until the 1990s, if my memory serves, was it discovered that Joannides was not just ANY retired CIA agent. In the early 1960s, in fact, he was the CIA’s man in charge of monitoring AND FUNDING the DRE! His later job, of course, was to lie to the HSCA, to lie about Oswald’s relations with the DRE, and to lie about his own relationship with the DRE.

Discovery of this treachery eventually caused former HSCA general counsel G. Robert Blakey to make the following statement: “The CIA not only lied, it actively subverted the investigation.”

Other than to protect it’s relationship with Oswald, why would the CIA have done that, and why would it have specifically picked Joannides as its liaison to the HSCA, and why would it have hidden the fact that Joannides funded the DRE? The DRE disbanded soon after the Kennedy assassination.

Chris,

Have you ever encountered a legal transcript that was “corrected” the way Cadigan’s testimony was, with no hint of the editing process that led to the final version?

Most of the FBI reports in the Kennedy assassination collection are unsigned (but have the agent’s named typed in at the end). Do you know if that was/is standard procedure for FBI reports?

Below is page 19 from Gerald Ford’s Portrait of the Assassin. This is one of the pages CIA reviewers were complaining about as described in Charles Briggs’ handwritten note Chris posted above. The bottom half of the page is the most relevant here.

Megathanks to Chris Newton for finding the Richard Mosk interview indicating that, when he worked as a Warren Commission attorney, he searched “Oswald’s” documents for microdots, an obvious indication that he suspected “Oswald” worked as an intelligence agent. Here’s what Mosk said near the top of page 31 of the PDF file Chris pointed to.

I also worked with the cryptologists in connection with seeing if any documents had microdots in them.

Q: What does that mean?

A: I guess there’s a way of communicating through using microdots. So we wanted to see if any

of Oswald’s materials had them. I prepared some of the attorneys for witnesses. So it was a full

range. I roamed through all areas. My office mate was John Hart Ely. He died not too long ago,

but he has written some important books.

Mosk said his office mate at the WC was John Hart Ely. Among other things, Ely was tasked with researching the early life of “Lee Harvey Oswald” and his mother. After reading Ely’s report, WC attorney Albert Jenner wrote to General Counsel J. Lee Rankin and said that details in Ely’s report “will require material alteration and, in some instances, omission.”

Pretty spooky guy, this “Lee Harvey Oswald!”

Wow!

Ely found and wrote things that would require "material alteration and, in some instances, omission." And that was before Oswald entered the military, so it cannot be said to be military secrets.

But I want to clarify one thing, James. You or anybody correct me if I'm wrong, but Richard Mosk in the interview made it clear IIRC that he didn't think there was anything conspiratorial going on. Or that Oswald was an agent. I'm not sure now, but I think he accepted the WCR wholeheartedly. It wasn't he who wanted to look for microdots. Apparently it was the Commission who did. (Or at least that's the impression he wanted to make.)

Chris pointed out that a fellow named Gary Murr actually spotted the microdots reference in the Mosk interview. Thanks, Gary!

There are hundreds of pages of material generated by John Hart Ely for the WC in the John Armstrong collection at Baylor University. One of the most thorough Ely files is here:

http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/13961/rec/49

(For anyone interested in going through this material, the best way is to click the “Download” button near the upper right and read it locally.)

Yes, Mosk pretty much backed the WC conclusions in his interview, but as you know, that feeling was hardly universal among WC members.

So, Tommy, how do you explain why the murderer of J.D. Tippit just happened to look like the guy killed by Jack Ruby according to so many witnesses? Just another odiferous coincidence, eh?

I imagine the CIA doesn't normally tell the public who they have or haven't debriefed.

But this is not a normal case.

They told everyone for ages that they had NEVER contacted Oswald. We all assume that's not true, but it is what we're supposed to believe.

Tommy,

Phil Melanson (Spy Saga) speculated that Oswald was debriefed by CIA during a two-day stay in Amsterdam on his way back home, but I don't think anyone in the USG has confirmed or denied that. If anyone knows otherwise I'd love to hear about it.

The official denials have been going on for decades.

Just knowing the word, "microdots" doesn't prove that person was a CIA Agent. Also, owning a spy camera doesn't prove it either.

Actually -- Jim Hargrove and John Armstrong never show real proof that LHO was a CIA Agent.

Oswald's Spy Camera…

The FBI tried to pull a vanishing act because… well… owning an expensive “spy camera” when you’re supposedly as poor as a church mouse might just make you seem to be a spy! Wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea!

Megathanks to Chris Newton for finding the Richard Mosk interview indicating that, when he worked as a Warren Commission attorney, he searched “Oswald’s” documents for microdots, an obvious indication that he suspected “Oswald” worked as an intelligence agent. Here’s what Mosk said near the top of page 31 of the PDF file Chris pointed to.

I also worked with the cryptologists in connection with seeing if any documents had microdots in them.

Q: What does that mean?

A: I guess there’s a way of communicating through using microdots. So we wanted to see if any

of Oswald’s materials had them. I prepared some of the attorneys for witnesses. So it was a full

range. I roamed through all areas. My office mate was John Hart Ely. He died not too long ago,

but he has written some important books.

Mosk said his office mate at the WC was John Hart Ely. Among other things, Ely was tasked with researching the early life of “Lee Harvey Oswald” and his mother. After reading Ely’s report, WC attorney Albert Jenner wrote to General Counsel J. Lee Rankin and said that details in Ely’s report “will require material alteration and, in some instances, omission.”

Pretty spooky guy, this “Lee Harvey Oswald!”

So back to the thread premise... Yes, Oswald was an intelligence agent.

Name me one murder suspect, other than Oswald, whose correspondence and notebooks were thoroughly searched for "microdots".

See pages 256 & 257 for reference:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55092#relPageId=256&tab=page

Chris,

"Oswald" had "micro dots" written under the JCS address in his book. Is that what you're referring to?

Marina Oswald could only tell what she was told by LHO, namely: (1) that he shot at Walker: (2) that he had no accomplices: (3) that he was on foot; and (4) that he buried his rifle.

Marina Oswald honestly reported those four claims -- but she had no idea that the last three claims were deliberate falsehoods by LHO himself.

Your error here is assuming that the Walker bullet is behind my statement.

How many times do I need to repeat that the Walker bullet was too mutilated for identification? The so-called Walker bullet has nothing to do with the charge that Oswald shot at Walker.

Gosh, the Walker Bullet (on the left) sure looks like a copper-jacketed bullet to me!

Why do you think the Dallas Police would say this was a STEEL-JACKETED BULLET when the WC said it was copper-clad?

Again -- it's too easy to blame the CIA, because the CIA never fights back, because they never say anything, ever.

CIA people often don’t have to fight back or talk. They have a near endless supply of elite media assets to do their fighting and talking for them.

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

--William Colby, former CIA Director, cited by Dave Mcgowan, Derailing Democracy

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month."

--CIA operative, discussing the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. Katherine the Great, by Deborah Davis

"There is quite an incredible spread of relationships. You don’t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level."

--William B. Bader, former CIA intelligence officer, briefing members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein

"The Agency's relationship with [The New York] Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. [it was] general Times policy ... to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible."

--The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein

"Senator William Proxmire has pegged the number of employees of the federal intelligence community at 148,000 ... though Proxmire's number is itself a conservative one. The "intelligence community" is officially defined as including only those organizations that are members of the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB); a dozen other agencies, charged with both foreign and domestic intelligence chores, are not encompassed by the term.... The number of intelligence workers employed by the federal government is not 148,000, but some undetermined multiple of that number."

--Jim Hougan, Spooks

"For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the government.... I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations."

--former President Harry Truman, 22 December 1963, one month to the day after the JFK assassination, op-ed section of the Washington Post, early edition

--Above from mtracy9.tripod.com/cia_instructions.htm

To see the infamous CIA document dated 4/1/1967 about how to counter criticism of the Warren Commission, CLICK HERE.

Bump!

But Lee Harvey Oswald had a special place in General Walker's vision, because Walker knew that Oswald was his shooter on April 10, 1963 -- only four days later.

But as you can see in the original report filed by Dallas police, it was a steel-jacketed bullet dug out of Mr. Walker's house. Somehow, perhaps while at the National Archives, it transformed itself into a copper jacketed bullet!

Another magic bullet!

Is this thread now going to be hijacked by a lengthy discussion about how General Walker killed JFK, distracting all attention from the CIA?