Oswald's Politics

[William Kelly]

http://jfkcountercoup.wordpress.com/

Oswald's Politics by Gary W. O'Brien (Trafford Pub., 2010) is one of a flurry of new books on the assassination but is one of the most imporatant for a number of reasons.

http://www.trafford....spx?Book=171619

Of all the political assassins in history, Lee Harvey Oswald - the accused assassin of President Kennedy is the greatest enigma, except among those who perceive him as a psychologically disturbed homicidal maniac. For those who really want to understand what happened at Dealey Plaza however, it is important to diagnose Oswald more accurately,something that Gary O'Brian at least tries to do by taking him out of the psychological and putting him in the political arena, where he squarely belongs.

Some years ago, around the time of the first releases of the records under the JFK Act, I met a young law student, MarkZaid, who over a few beers, agreed that there was a special need for the wordsof Lee Harvey Oswald to be put together in one place so as to make some senseof them and him.

Well Zaid and I never got around to putting together the complete works of Lee Harvey Oswald, but Gary W. O'Brien has done that, presenting just what is needed in the Appendices that take up more than half ofthe nearly 400 page book.

The first 138 pages comprise O'Brien's analysis and summary of his take on Oswald's politics, which correctly dismisses the Warren Commission's haphazard and superficial profile of Oswald as a disenchanted lonerand loser. Instead, O'Brien focuses on the political and some of the personal writings of Oswald, sometimes prolific, sometimes perceptive, and always with misspellings, said to be due to his dyslexia.

O'Brien is a Canadian, born in Toronto in 1951. Heearned his PhD in political science from Carleton University and has taughtcourses on the assassination of President Kennedy at Algonquin College inOttawa, Ontario. He also the distinguished Clerk of the Senate and Parliaments.

http://www.parl.gc.c...ers/Clerk-e.htm

http://www2.carleton...-of-the-senate/

As laid out by O'Brien, "Despite its inconclusiveness, the physical evidence has biased students of the assassination into deductive reasoning about the man accused of murdering the president. Mostare conditioned to analyze Lee Harvey Oswald from the perspective of either his involvement or non-involvement in the crime. There has been little attempt to set the physical evidence aside and examine him from the historical perspective, that is, what we reasonably know about Oswald before November 22,1963. Such analysis is integral to any speculation about both his possibleguilt or innocence and the most important question of all, which the physicalevidence is unlikely ever to answer: why was JFK killed?"

So in setting aside the physical evidence, and the psychological speculations as to what motivated Oswald to do things, O'Brien is right in saying, "That Oswald was consumed by politics is beyond doubt," andthe closer we look in that direction the more we will understand what motivatedhim.

As O'Brien puts it, "Because the act (of assassination) was so beyond the pale in traditional leftist thinking, other motivations that had nothing to do with politics are at work, or else they had the wrong guy."

Continue on - READ MORE: http://jfkcountercoup.wordpress.com/

Edited September 8, 2010 by William Kelly

[Jack White]

Any politics LHO had were provided in the LEGEND laid out for him by the CIA.

For the real LHOs, see Harvey & Lee by Armstrong.

Jack

[Michael Hogan]

Besides O'Brien's Oswald's Politics, Trafford is also publishing two new MLKassassination books, one by T. Carter, written with the cooperation of JamesEarl Ray's brother, and the other by Stu Wexler and Larry Hancock. Then there's Judyth Vary Baker's pulp fiction scrapbook about her supposed love affair with Agent-Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of '63.

Bill, I think Judyth Baker's book is being published by TrineDay: http://www.trineday.com/

[William Kelly]

Besides O'Brien's Oswald's Politics, Trafford is also publishing two new MLKassassination books, one by T. Carter, written with the cooperation of JamesEarl Ray's brother, and the other by Stu Wexler and Larry Hancock. Then there's Judyth Vary Baker's pulp fiction scrapbook about her supposed love affair with Agent-Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of '63.

Bill, I think Judyth Baker's book is being published by TrineDay: http://www.trineday.com/

Thanks Michael. I mistook them to be the same, thanks for straightening me out.

That makes more sense anyway. I stand corrected.

Any more mistakes like that and I'll correct them too.

So Judyth, T. Carter, Stu and Larry's books are being published by the same publisher, Trineday.

Another subject for another day.

And Jack, I don't think it was the CIA, just one branch of the government, was responsible for the Dealey Plaza operation, but believe it to be a full fledged coup that included more than just the CIA.

In fact, the head of the CIA, John McCone, appeares to be apparently clueless about the assassination as it was happening, as he was busy putting out little Public Relations fires while briefing the PFIAB at the time the Dealey Plaza operation was going down, so how is he and the CIA responsible, when the evidence seems to implicate them as much as it does Oswald - the Patsy, which to me, makes them a Patsy too.

And of course I have read John Armstrong's book years ago, and I hope we've progressed further than that in the interveining years, as I've certainly learned a lot more, and I hope you and Armstrong have too.

If you didn't notice, the PFIAB was briefed by McCone about Cuban operations, and a member (Mr. Coyne) learned from JEH that Sgt. Dunlap of NSA was a Soviet spy, recruited in Turkey during the construction of the NSA outpost there by a Hungarian KGB agent who was the foreman on the construction job. Doesn't Armstrong say something about Hungarian involvement in the control of Oswald?

And what was it that Hover told Coyne to tell McCone and the PFIAB and the President that he couldn't or wouldn't tell the President himself?

If Armstrong isn't resting on his laurals, he should be interested in these developements.

Bill Kelly

Edited September 9, 2010 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Here's one of three letters Oswald wrote to the IRC from USSR.

The founder and head of the International Rescue Committee, Leo Cherne, later became head of the Presidents Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), with his intelligence background acknowledged by numerous articles by Bill Buckley in his National Review and other sources. How did Oswald know of the IRC and they could possibly help him, and did they?

The IRC also bankrolled Tom Dooley and served as a intelligence collection net that exploited information from refugees from communist countries, originally started by Gen. R. Gehlen.

One of Oswald's letters to the IRC can be found in Oswald's Politics (p. 269) 2:28 To the International Rescue Committee, New York, NY, January 26, 1962 (CE 2680, 26 H 36-7)

Dear Sir: I’d like to request your aid in helping myself and my wife get resettled in the U.S.A. I am a citizen of the United States. I have lived in the Soviet Union since October 1959. My wife is a Soviet citizen, born in the USSR in 1941.

She has been classified under the immigration act of the United States and is eligible to enter the U.S. A. as my wife, for permanent residence.

However, in making the move, it incurs money expenses and inconveniences, this is where your fine organization can help.

Since July 1961 I and my wife have been working and waiting to get Soviet exit visa to leave the Soviet Union for the U.S.A. After all this time our visas have finally been granted. Thank God, but our troubles are not finished, only if organization steps in.

I would direct you to contact the American Embassy, Moscow, U.S.S.R. for information in regards to our case. A sum of $1000 is necessary.

Our need is urgent, please render all assistance you can,

Sincerely,

[William Kelly]

Gary W. O'Brien - Oswald's Politics (p. 7)

....When it came down to essentials, Oswald was pegged as a lone nut - mentially, socially and politically.

The Commission's portrait of Oswald as a psychologically troubled person has been echoed many times since then, often by credible authors. William Manchester wrote, "Since childhood Oswald had been threatened by a specific mental disease paranoia. In the end the paranoiac loses all sense of reality." Jean Davison, while conceding that Oswald's "conscious motives were political," felt that his psychopathy beter explained his politics than any environmental or intellectual influences. Gerald Posner entitled his first chapter, "Which One Are You? - Oswald's Formative Years," implying Oswald had a hidden, schizophrenic personality. Posner hypothesized that understanding the mentally disturbed Osawld is "the key to finding out what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963." John Loken speculated that Oswald's homicidal mind was set off from his watching two films prior to the assassination. Diane Holloway wrote that if Oswald had been evaluated in the 1990s as an adult, psychiatrists woul dhave placed him in the categories of paranoid personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Vincent Bugliosi concluded that Oswald was "a deeply disturbed and frustrated individual....there's little question in my mind that to do what Oswald did, one would have to qualify him as a first-class 'nut.' His act could not have been more irrational."

BK: Of course all this assumes that Oswald did in fact kill the President and wounded Connally and killed a police officer, things that a normal person wouldn't do. But what if he didn't do those things? Then the analysis doesn't hold water.

As O'Brien puts it: (p 6) Because this act was so beyond the pale in traditional leftist thinking, other motivations that had nothing to do with politics were at work, or else they had the wrong guy.

(p. 8) The greatest controversy about Oswald's politics comes from those researchers who dismiss his politics as a cover for covert dealings with intelligence forces. They see him as a hibitual xxxx whose politics were false and nothing but a front for "dirty hands" actions. As has been often noted, the work of the Warren Commission was almost derailed before it got started when a rumor circulated [by two confirmed CIA media assets] from Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr's office that Oswald was a paid FBI informer. FBI agent James Hosty's name was found in Oswald's address book along with his phone number andlicense plate number. The address of 544 Camp Street, the location where Guy Bannister and the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) had maintained their offices, was stamped on some of the leaflets Oswald distributed for the FPCC in New Orleans in 1963. John Newman speculated that while the evidence is circumstantial, Oswald may have served the local anti-Castro CRC retruiting program by flushing pro-Castro students out into the open where Bannister could identify them, and he may have been part of the CIA's penetration attempt to smear the FPCC. Jim Garrison held that Oswald's Marxism was, to say the least, suspect. The New Orleans district attorney who in 1969 charged Clay Shaw with conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy was convinced that Oswald worked for U.S. intelligence forces and was an agent-provocateur.

Despite the many mysteries of Oswald's alleged association with various people in Moscow, Minsk, New Orleans, Clinton, Dallas, Mexico City and elsewhere, the fact remains that there has never been probative evidence that Oswald's politics were carried out on behalf of state-security forces. The Assassination Records Review Board could not uncover any documentary evidence that suggested Oswald ever worked for the CIA in any capacity or that his activities served any intelligene purpose. Although it is important that researching his associations and clandestine strategies continue.....

BK: The ARRB made no such determination as their job was to identify and release assassination related records and not investigate, uncover or determine anything like that.

p. 11 O'Brien:

The bias against providing a serious analysis of Oswald's politics stems largely from the Warren investigation's conclusion that whatever politics he professed were merely a symptom of deeper psychological problems. If we are to get at what made Lee tick, the Commission put forward, it ws his psychological profile that neeed to be explored, not his political ideas.

The Lone Nut Theory has essentially two main tenets of thought. First, Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy and he acted alone. Second, and more important, the assassination was tragic and without reason.

Not only was one of the most popular U.S. presidents killed at a crucial time in world affairs, but the crime was senseless. Itw as committed by a deranged person who acted irrationally. The theory laid down the template for concluding Oswald's motives can be seen only thorugh a psychobiological prism.....

(p. 16) ....William T. Coleman Jr. and W. David Slawson....wrote: "The picture of Oswald that emerges from all of the evidence the staff has gathered is that of a man of average intelligence, but with a mind that was confused, dogmatic and unused to the discipline of logical thought. For example, his political writings, when read closely are seen to be little more than a series of vague assertions that something or other 'must' be done in this way or that way. The spelling and grammer are uniformaly bad...In sum, we believed that Oswald did not have any subtleness of mind, that he lacked a good understanding of human nature and that he had an unstable and neurotic character."

At the request of Commission Chairman Earl Warren, who apparently wanted the report to have a historical as well as a legal perspective, a professional historian, Alfred Goldberg from the Department of Defense, was brought on staff and started work at the end of February 1964. Goldberg had been at the London headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe during World War II. He did graduate study in history at John Hopkins University and received his Ph.D. in 1956......As a historian, undobutedly he was aware of the psychohistorical approach. His primary responsiblities were to assit in writing the report and to prepare a "Speculation and Rumor" appendix.

....Wesley Liebeler, who headed the third major area of study, called "Lee Harvey Oswald's Background," may have been exposd to psychobiography when he was managing editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He, along with Albert Jenner, interviewed Oswald's relatives and acquaintances in the hope of shedding light on motive. At some point it was agreed that a session with professional psychiatrists should be arranged to probe Oswald's state of mind more deeply. In July 1964 the Warren staff and Commissioners met with three psychiatrists to discuss the problem of the use of psychological terminology to describe Oswald's actions....but both Rankin and Norman REdlich, another Commission counsel, found it "too psychological." Goldberg had to re-write it.

Unquestionably, the six-paragraph Hartogs report ws the key element of the Lone Nut Theory. In many ways, that document ranks in importance with the Backyard Photographs as evidence of Oswald's guilt....

(p. 23) ....It is apparent that the portrait painted by the Commission of Oswald's character was one-sided and biased. It showed no understanding or sympathy for Oswald the dissident or that his anger with society might have been ideological.....

Edited September 29, 2010 by William Kelly

[John Dolva]

I hope this thread flourishes, BK.

Juast as a sideline to show what was possible. From a distance, (under Wild Bill I think, but someone like that) a psychological profile of Hitler was commissioned fairly early in the war that presciently predicted his response in a situation where he had lost the war. Other elements of the (lots of pages) analysis was very well done. So, that could be done if it was commissioned. I think from a global and domestic pov it was important for him to be a lone nut marxist which lets everyone off the hook, everyone can breathe easy, ie a political necessity in a politically charged world that was easier to assimmilate than any alternative. ie an indiaction of a manufactured persona on behalf of how the psych analysing went.

[William Kelly]

Bill Turner: “We know to a fair good degree of certitude what happened. First of all the motives were piling up – JFK had supposedly withdrawn air cover during the Bay of Pigs, JFK failed to invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962, and JFK proceeded to withdraw from Vietnam. Reason four; JFK was assassinated as he was on a second track to Cuba, which was to secretly carry on negotiations with Castro to bring about a détente. The motives were piling up to the point whey had to assassinate him, and I think it’s pretty obvious, with the compilations of the information that we have today, that the whole thing, the mechanism of it came out of the allegiance between the CIA and the web of Cuban exiles and the Mafia. They already had an assassination apparatus set up for killing Castro, and they just switched targets, and they killed Kenned instead.”

[Greg Parker]

I hope this thread flourishes, BK.

Juast as a sideline to show what was possible. From a distance, (under Wild Bill I think, but someone like that) a psychological profile of Hitler was commissioned fairly early in the war that presciently predicted his response in a situation where he had lost the war. Other elements of the (lots of pages) analysis was very well done. So, that could be done if it was commissioned. I think from a global and domestic pov it was important for him to be a lone nut marxist which lets everyone off the hook, everyone can breathe easy, ie a political necessity in a politically charged world that was easier to assimmilate than any alternative. ie an indiaction of a manufactured persona on behalf of how the psych analysing went.

John,

I touch on this in my upcoming NID presentation which Deb Conway will be giving on my behalf.

There was a psychological profile done on Hitler by the same person who developed the psychological tools for selecting intelligence agents.

There was also a landmark study done in the early thirties to determine the percentage of workers who would ( a ) actively resist Nazism; ( b ) go with the flow or; ( c ) actively support the Nazis.

Both were very accurate.

The latter study was being duplicated by the same person in Mexico City at the time of Oswald's alleged visit to determine the a - b - c as above, except this time in regard to indistrialization. This study has CIA written all over it, and it was also being supported by the Friends Casa de los Amigos whose president was extremely anti-Communist.

The Casa came into the assassination investigation when a person who had been hanging around there was reported to have given Oswald a lift on a motorbike to the Cuban Embassy.

[John Dolva]

That's very interesting, Greg. After six odd years I still don't have a firm opinion on much in this case except that again and again I see reason to think there was a conspiracy. I try to be objective while most are likely aware of my personal creed and how that may taint my analysis' , (however that goes both ways). One overwhelming theme is this push to portray Oswald as something he was not, and perhaps the truth is diametrically opposite of his portrayal. I cannot at the same time see him as totally unwitting.