Michael Paine

[Paul Brancato]

Morales and Phillips were top operational, not likely rogues at all. Simpich did great work, but you are quoting him as if his word on this subject is irrefutable. I'd love to have him here joining this, because from my reading of his book it's not nearly as black and white as you make it.

[Paul Trejo]

Morales and Phillips were top operational, not likely rogues at all. Simpich did great work, but you are quoting him as if his word on this subject is irrefutable. I'd love to have him here joining this, because from my reading of his book it's not nearly as black and white as you make it.

Phillips is still not guaranteed as a JFK plotter, since his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald circled around the plot to murder Fidel Castro, first and foremost, and there's no proof of any other scenario.

David Morales was surely a JFK plotter, and fairly highly placed, but he still wasn't part of the CIA high-command.

Bill Simpich's book, State Secret (2014) is careful scholarship, painstakingly researched from the latest CIA releases of FOIA material. There simply is nothing better in print today. Highly recommended.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited October 15, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, it you consistently state things as if they were proven fact - there is absolutely no proof that Lee Oswald was involved with Phillips in a Castro murder plot. While that might be one alternative - and while Phillips himself played something of that card in a disinformation effort against the HSCA (he being the master of psychop spin) there are many other scenarios equally or more probable including his involvement in an AMSANTA related project with Oswald or a multiple set of operations against the Cuban embassy and its employees as well as setting up a propaganda op against the FPCC.

Beyond that, I do wish Bill would join in because based on my work with him I think you are sorely oversimplifying his study of events in Mexico City. The mole hunt was a CI operation and there may have been both CI/SIG and SAS/CI activities of a similar nature in play. That was independent of the tape impersonation event - which drove its own effort, most likely led by Phillips, to find out who knew enough about the system in MC to conduct a technically astute operation to place a call on a tape which should only have recorded calls from the Cuban office...on a day when the office was closed. I'm in no way going to devote time wading though this, if Bill joins in he can carry the ball and save me making any mistakes by doing so.

On another note, that's a major claim about proving Morales in a New Orleans meeting with Marcello....that deserves some details and some source citations including what Joan uses as sources. If you could provide that it would be really helpful in evaluating such a claim.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul, it you consistently state things as if they were proven fact - there is absolutely no proof that Lee Oswald was involved with Phillips in a Castro murder plot. While that might be one alternative - and while Phillips himself played something of that card in a disinformation effort against the HSCA (he being the master of psychop spin) there are many other scenarios equally or more probable including his involvement in an AMSANTA related project with Oswald or a multiple set of operations against the Cuban embassy and its employees as well as setting up a propaganda op against the FPCC.

Beyond that, I do wish Bill would join in because based on my work with him I think you are sorely oversimplifying his study of events in Mexico City. The mole hunt was a CI operation and there may have been both CI/SIG and SAS/CI activities of a similar nature in play. That was independent of the tape impersonation event - which drove its own effort, most likely led by Phillips, to find out who knew enough about the system in MC to conduct a technically astute operation to place a call on a tape which should only have recorded calls from the Cuban office...on a day when the office was closed. I'm in no way going to devote time wading though this, if Bill joins in he can carry the ball and save me making any mistakes by doing so.

On another note, that's a major claim about proving Morales in a New Orleans meeting with Marcello....that deserves some details and some source citations including what Joan uses as sources. If you could provide that it would be really helpful in evaluating such a claim.

Larry, I deny that I state matters as proven -- I consistently repeat that I have only a THEORY.

Yet it was David Atlee Phillips himself who said that he worked with Lee Harvey Oswald in a plot to murder Fidel Castro (in his 1982 book, Night Watch ). Further, Alpha 66 leader Antonio Veciana reported that he met Lee Harvey Oswald along with David Atlee Phillips together in Dallas in the context of a plot to murder Fidel Castro.

That's pretty solid evidence, Larry. I admit it's not PROOF, but it's pretty solid evidence.

Also -- even if Phillips was involved with Lee Oswald in a plot against the FPCC, the immediate target there was Cuba and Fidel Castro again -- obviously.

Beyond that, I also hope that Bill Simpich joins the Forum to discuss his new book, State Secret (2014), because I'd like to hear his opinion of my interpretation of his findings.

Surely there are other possible interpretations, but mine seems to me to be the most straight-forward, using Occam's Razor, so to speak. The Oswald tape impersonation is the critical factor under scrutiny. The CIA mole-hunt makes this clear.

If the mole-hunt was led by Phillips, then this suggests to me that Phillips didn't know that David Morales was trying to link Lee Harvey Oswald with the COMMUNISTS (in the same way that Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Ed Butler and Carlos Bringuier were trying to link Oswald with the FPCC in New Orleans that same summer).

It seems to me that Phillips was still trying to kill Fidel Castro, and didn't know that David Morales had switched gears to kill JFK.

As for Joan Mellen's claim (as I recall) about David Morales meeting with Banister/Walker in New Orleans during the summer of 1963, I'll dig that out of my notes as soon as I can.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 31, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

"Phillips is still not guaranteed as a JFK plotter, since his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald circled around the plot to murder Fidel Castro, first and foremost, and there's no proof of any other scenario."

Paul, if you cannot see that sentence from your previous post as definitive, then you just can't I suppose...it reads as proved with any other scenario unproven. I stated that it was simply one of several scenarios, probably the most radical of the alternatives.

"Larry, I deny that I state matters as proven -- I consistently repeat that I have only a THEORY."

Paul, you do indeed do that as to your overall theory - however some of hour more specific about people and events often don't carry much qualification.

"Yet it was David Atlee Phillips himself who said that he worked with Lee Harvey Oswald in a plot to murder Fidel Castro (in his 1982 book, Night Watch . Further, Alpha 66 leader Antonio Veciana reported that he met Lee Harvey Oswald along with David Atlee Phillips together in Dallas in the context of a plot to murder Fidel Castro."

Please give cite that Phillips statement in Night Watch. As to Veciana, what he said was that he was meeting to talk with Phillips about Castro assassination plans so when he saw Oswald he assumed that the two were involved in the same thing - simply speculation on his part and of course he had not idea of Phillips full range of CIA activities at that point in time...

"That's pretty solid evidence, Larry. I admit it's not PROOF, but it's pretty solid evidence."

Actually its not evidence at all, its pure speculation

"Also -- even if Phillips was involved with Lee Oswald in a plot against the FPCC, the immediate target there was Cuba and Fidel Castro again -- obviously."

A propaganda or psch warfare operationa against the FPCC would not be a plot - what it would be would be would be part of Phillip's normal job assignment.

"Beyond that, I also hope that Bill Simpich joins the Forum to discuss his new book, State Secret (2014), because I'd like to hear his opinion of my interpretation of his findings."

I would as well...

"Surely there are other possible interpretations, but mine seems to me to be the most straight-forward, using Occam's Razor, so to speak. The Oswald tape impersonation is the critical factor under scrutiny. The CIA mole-hunt makes this clear."

Paul, you fail to appreciate that Occams Razor does not work with covert and clandestine operations, especially CI - all of which are intentionally designed not to be straight forward.

"If the mole-hunt was led by Phillips, then this suggests to me that Phillips didn't know that David Morales was trying to link Lee Harvey Oswald with the COMMUNISTS (in the same way that Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Ed Butler and Carlos Bringuier were trying to link Oswald with the FPCC in New Orleans that same summer)."

Phillips would not have led a mole hunt although he might have cooperated in one conducted by SAS - Phillips reported to SAS not to Angleton and CI/SIG

"As for Joan Mellen's claim (as I recall) about David Morales meeting with Banister/Walker in New Orleans during the summer of 1963, I'll dig that out of my notes as soon as I.."

That would be appreciated; its a very strong claim since we know a good deal about what Morales was and was not doing that summer...as such it certainly needs some solid corroboration.

Hopefully there will be dates for the meeting...

-- Larry

[Paul Brancato]

Thank you Larry. It is a tough task you are attempting. I too hope Bill Simpich joins in. I read his book and did not come away with black and white interpretations of the mole hunt or with the role of various upper level CIA operatives.

[David Andrews]

Paul T., how is it that Phillips didn't know that Morales turned the Castro assassination plot against Kennedy? When Phillips found out that his operative, Oswald, was implicated as the sole assassin, why wasn't Morales punished instead of being given later operational roles in SE Asia and South America? How was Phillips promoted to Western Hemisphere chief and not demoted or dismissed for letting the plot be switched?

I feel that it is important to look at who was promoted and when, and who died conveniently and when. Call me melodramatic, but this is a business of murderous bureaucracies, and later CIA actions imply acquiescence at best, culpability at worst.

Is it more likely that Morales, working out of JM/WAVE in Miami, could bring about the Mexico City hoax, or Phillips, who had been Win Scott's second in MC, and had recently been empowered by Des FitzGerald to run anti-Castro ops throughout the hemisphere?

Edited October 16, 2014 by David Andrews

[Harry J.Dean]

Page 23,chapter 2, 1990 manuscript/book CROSSTRAILS

(an excerpt)

If Treason prosper...None dare call it treason.

Who then can ever by tried or convicted for this

awful crime JFK assassination, when the guilty

control, all legal and moral judgments, and

dictate their own version of history?

[Paul Trejo]

Please give cite that Phillips statement in Night Watch.

Larry, here's the citation. It wasn't in "The Night Watch" after all, but in Phillips' unpublished novel, "The AMLASH Legacy," as quoted by Jeff Morley in his 2008 book, "Our Man in Mexico," page 238, as follows:

"I was one of the two case officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald. After working to establish his Marxist bona fides, we gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba. I helped him when he came to Mexico City to obtain a visa, and when he returned to Dallas to wait for it I saw him twice there. We rehearsed the plan many times: In Havana Oswald was to assassinate Castro with a sniper's rifle from the upper floor window of a building on the route where Castro often drove in an open jeep. Whether Oswald was a double-agent or a psycho I'm not sure, and I don't know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the President's assassination but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt." (David Atlee Phillips, 1987, The AMLASH Legacy)

As to Veciana, what he said was that he was meeting to talk with Phillips about Castro assassination plans so when he saw Oswald he assumed that the two were involved in the same thing - simply speculation on his part...

Speculation? The context was clear -- Cuba and getting Fidel Castro out. That was the only business that Veciana shared with Phillips. They had no other business. Look at the context of those two men in the middle of US politics in 1963. It's not speculation to recognize that simple fact. (I cite Gaeton Fonzi as my support in this.)

...Actually its not evidence at all, its pure speculation...

I respectfully disagree, Larry. PURE speculation would be to imagine something without any material evidence whatsoever.

I am combining two material factors -- David Atlee Phillips defining of his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald in the context of the planned murder of Fidel Castro (AMLASH) and Antonio Veciana's eye-witness report of seeing David Phillips and Lee Oswald together in Dallas in September 1963 within this same context of Cuba and the murder of Fidel Castro.

That's only a theory, but it's more than PURE speculation, Larry.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited October 16, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

Paul T., how is it that Phillips didn't know that Morales turned the Castro assassination plot against Kennedy? When Phillips found out that his operative, Oswald, was implicated as the sole assassin, why wasn't Morales punished instead of being given later operational roles in SE Asia and South America? How was Phillips promoted to Western Hemisphere chief and not demoted or dismissed for letting the plot be switched?

I feel that it is important to look at who was promoted and when, and who died conveniently and when. Call me melodramatic, but this is a business of murderous bureaucracies, and later CIA actions imply acquiescence at best, culpability at worst.

Is it more likely that Morales, working out of JM/WAVE in Miami, could bring about the Mexico City hoax, or Phillips, who had been Win Scott's second in MC, and had recently been empowered by Des FitzGerald to run anti-Castro ops throughout the hemisphere?

Well David, it's my THEORY that David Morales knew that the CIA high-command would disapprove of his plans for HIGH TREASON.

Therefore, David Morales kept a low profile. As an expert CIA Agent, David Morales knew exactly what moves to make to remain below the radar of the CIA high-command, including people at the level of David Atlee Phillips.

Also, David Atlee Phillips was a propaganda expert -- he wasn't a field officer with a rifle and a team of assassins. David Morales was an expert assassin, and he knew how to keep a low profile while wielding his assassination teams.

David Morales was such an expert at assassination in Latin America that he is "credited" with assassinating "hundreds" if not "thousands" of left-wingers in Latin America.

David Morales lived in a world of life or death -- do or die. David Atlee Phillips also dealt in assassination -- but from a desk. The AMLASH plot to murder Fidel Castro is a case in point. David Morales was the man on the ground with a ground-crew. David Atlee Phillips was the man with a typewriter, a telephone, a taxi and an expense account.

I don't find it difficult at all to imagine David Morales keeping secrets from people like David Atlee Phillips.

Phillips might meet Morales at the CIA headquarters one day and ask him, "How's AMLASH going, David?" And Morales would answer, "Oh, fine, fine, Mr. Phillips."

And that would be that.

In fact, I believe that David Atlee Phillips had no clue at all that David Morales had gone over to the "dark side" to work with Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw from New Orleans, and Ex-General Edwin Walker from Dallas.

I take it as strong evidence that when David Morales and his crew IMPERSONATED Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City on 28 September 1963, that the CIA high-command (and probably David Atlee Phillips as well) started a mole-hunt inside the CIA to urgently find out who did this IMPERSONATION (as we learned in great detail this year from Bill Simpich) -- because they were CLUELESS.

This would explain why David Morales wasn't punished. The CIA high-command remained clueless for YEARS that David Morales was their radical right-wing "mole".

That's why David Morales kept getting promotions. Also, the CIA high-command never figured exactly how the AMLASH project was converted into the Kill JFK Team.

I don't see culpability, David, or even acquiescence. I SEE IGNORANCE. The CIA high-command couldn't act on what they didn't know.

It seems likely to me that David Atlee Phillips was kept on to run anti-Castro operations, because they had nobody else, and anyway, after JFK, the political importance of Cuba faded away into the night as Vietnam became more and more important.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited October 16, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[David Andrews]

"I was one of the two case officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald. After working to establish his Marxist bona fides, we gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba. I helped him when he came to Mexico City to obtain a visa, and when he returned to Dallas to wait for it I saw him twice there. We rehearsed the plan many times: In Havana Oswald was to assassinate Castro with a sniper's rifle from the upper floor window of a building on the route where Castro often drove in an open jeep. Whether Oswald was a double-agent or a psycho I'm not sure, and I don't know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the President's assassination but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt." (David Atlee Phillips, 1987, The AMLASH Legacy)

No conspiracy of "rogues" mentioned.

"What a dumba** I was, and my government kicked me upstairs for my ignorance."

Edited October 18, 2014 by David Andrews

[Larry Hancock]

Of course the quote is from a draft piece of fiction (the AMLASH Legacy) that Phillips roughly laid out and then circulated...unclear whether it was to be a play or a fictional book but it was certainly not positioned as fact (nor was he the individual being quoted). Of course Phillips didn't say anything like that in his own books on his career (of which he wrote two more after Night Watch that hardly anyone reads). Speculation is that the draft was circulated as a calculated warning to a number of figures - most likely within the Agency. Earlier he had also pursued the idea of a TV special highlighting CIA successes, sort of on the FBI Story model....with his entertainment friend Gordon McLendon out of Dallas (I think that is the right name, didn't check it). As an alternative to the warning, perhaps at some point in time he could do as well with fictional stories as Howard Hunt had done with his adventure books?

-- Larry

Edited October 17, 2014 by Larry Hancock

[Paul Brancato]

Fiction, Paul T. And self serving as well.

[Paul Trejo]

It's not fiction to try to guess what David Atlee Phillips meant when he wrote this draft from is quasi-novel memoirs:

"I was one of the two case officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald. After working to establish his Marxist bona fides, we gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba. I helped him when he came to Mexico City to obtain a visa, and when he returned to Dallas to wait for it I saw him twice there. We rehearsed the plan many times: In Havana Oswald was to assassinate Castro with a sniper's rifle from the upper floor window of a building on the route where Castro often drove in an open jeep. Whether Oswald was a double-agent or a psycho I'm not sure, and I don't know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the President's assassination but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt." (David Atlee Phillips, 1987, The AMLASH Legacy)

Here's my take on it:

(1) David Atlee Phillips was one of two CIA case officers who "handled" Lee Harvey Oswald. Who was the other one? Was it George De Mohrenschildt or Guy Banister? Doubtful, because they weren't CIA officers. We don't know who the second CIA case officer was who "handled" Lee Harvey Oswald.

(2) David Atlee Phillips worked to establish the "Marxist bona fides" of Lee Harvey Oswald. But when we look at the effort to make Oswald look like a "Marxist," we are drawn to New Orleans, and back to Guy Banister and his fake FPCC. Is it possible that Clay Shaw was the second "CIA case officer" handling Oswald?

This suggests the possibility that Guy Banister's sheep-dip of Lee Harvey Oswald was known by the CIA, blessed by the CIA, and perhaps even blessed by David Atlee Phillips himself -- specifically in the context of AMLASH and perhaps also Operation Mongoose.

(3) David Atlee Phillips says that the "we" (he and the second "case officer") gave Lee Harvey Oswald the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba.

This is the key, for me. This explains why Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to get into Cuba. This explains why Lee Harvey Oswald cooperated so earnestly with Guy Banister, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw (and proved by Jim Garrison).

Oswald wanted to be a hero -- he wanted a regular, salaried job in the CIA or some other intelligence agency. Oswald wanted to impress his peers. Oswald was going to pretend to be a Communist -- a Marxist -- an officer of the FPCC -- and with these "credentials" expected to be admitted into Cuba from the Mexico City consulate WITHOUT DELAY.

Guy Banister knew that this was ridiculous -- but Lee Harvey Oswald didn't know it was ridiculous. As for David Atlee Phillips, he was leaving Oswald in the hands of his New Orleans "handlers". It seems clear to me -- as far as David Atlee Phillips was concerned, Lee Harvey Oswald was being groomed to assassinate Fidel Castro. Lee Harvey Oswald also believed this. Only Guy Banister, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw knew of DIFFERENT plans for Lee Harvey Oswald.

(4) David Atlee Phillips says that he helped Oswald when he came to Mexico City to obtain a visa. But we know that Oswald made a mess of that Visa request. He lost his temper, yelled at clerks, took a gun into the USSR consulate, and cried like a baby. Clearly, Phillips is putting the best possible spin on the Mexico City incident.

(5) David Atlee Phillips says that Lee Harvey Oswald returned to Dallas to wait for his Cuban Visa. I think it is likely that this is exactly what David Atlee Phillips believed -- that Oswald was still in the running to murder Fidel Castro. After all, AMLASH was still a viable project.

(6) David Atlee Phillips says that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas -- twice, at that time. This matches the account that Gaeton Fonzi obtained from the Alpha 66 leader, Antonio Veciana, namely, that Veciana (also interested in the assassination of Fidel Castro) met with Phillips in Dallas sometime around September 1963, and Phillips was sitting with Lee Harvey Oswald at the time; Phillips introduced them within the context of a plot to kill Fidel.

(7) David Atlee Phillips says that he rehearsed the plan to kill Fidel Castro "many times" with Lee Harvey Oswald. The scenario for assassination was exactly like the assassination scenario that killed JFK -- 'a high-powered rifle from a high building.' Phillips says that the plan used to murder JFK was "precisely the plan" that they had devised against Castro.

(8) David Atlee Phillips says that the CIA was surprised when the Kill Team for AMLASH was diverted to Kill JFK. I think that this is plausible, possible and even probable.

Jim Garrison proved that Guy Banister was the leader of the effort to kill JFK in New Orleans. We shouldn't minimize this history.

David Atlee Phillips, we know today, was in charge of plots to murder Fidel Castro. He thought Lee Harvey Oswald was on his team. I say that Lee Harvey Oswald also believed that he was on David Atlee Phillips' team. The reason Oswald cooperated with Guy Banister, was because Oswald that that this was the way to kill Fidel Castro.

Instead, Guy Banister (we know with certainty) was plotting to kill JFK, and to use Lee Harvey Oswald as his patsy.

We need to identify all the known right-wing associates of Guy Banister in 1963 -- and in this way we'll complete the ground-crew for the JFK assassination.

It MIGHT turn out that David Atlee Phillips was really playing along with Guy Banister -- but there is a CHANCE that he was as fooled by Guy Banister as Lee Harvey Oswald was fooled by Guy Banister.

That's my take on David Atlee Phillips' writing in his unpublished manuscript.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 31, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Whenever someone points out an obvious flaw in your logic you double down. It's fiction, from a master xxxx/ psyche war expert.