JOACHIM JOESTEN How Kennedy Was...

[John Dolva]

Great. Soon everyone will have access to a copy. I gain an impression from the book that Joesten is careful around some matters one being the involvement of the MIlitary. He felt forced to clarify (in response to attacks on him on this particular matter) in a way that indicates a retraction. However the way I read it he doesn't really do so. He maintains his position that Generals were involved. Dallas Generals. What's 'new' is his inclusion or accenting of the CIA. He also tells the story of General De Gaulles immediately after the assassination statements. The OAS he refers has a group of disgruntled group of military men. This group had leaders and footsoldiers. Joesten has moved the leadership to the CIA and relegated Walker to a lower rung which I think is correct. I think it is easy to ascribe the same raisons d'etre (unless it's money and power) to all levels, but that is a flawed approach. For example the KKK type elements (minutemen et.c. , all secretive wings of public groupings eschewing violence) respond for one reason, very basic lumpen ones. The top layers act for others. The channels of money and instruction and communication involve many elements of society to ensure a successful coup. I say JJ's position evolved, not devolved. Walker still has a role and I think an important one.

edit typos

Edited January 28, 2013 by John Dolva

[Paul Brancato]

I just spent two days reading all of Oswald's writings. John - Oswald did mention the Minutemen at least twice, but both times making it clear that they would be the stormtroopers of the old military industrial establishment trying to regain control after the capitalist system had come to ruin by its own weight. He admired them but did not agree with them, and thought that both the far right and far left would have armed camps after the fall of capitalism who would be looking to reestablish the forms of government they were comfortable with. Then he went on to write about forming a new select group who would avoid military means until the new order was established, and thereafter guard that revolution with guns when necessary. The new order he describes looks quite utopian to me, and emphasizes the lack of federal bureaucracy and replaces it with local government from the ground up. This does resemble states rights thinking, but when combined with the rest of his vision of the future does not resemble the States Rights segregationist views of the time.

Paul - do you really think that Oswald would have written the things he did if he was an extreme right winger as you state? I have to say that I was very impressed with his ideas and his view of future history. He hated both systems, and had experienced both and had decided to live in the US as the lesser of two evils. I've been trying to identify Oswald through his public and private actions up until now, and they are a bewildering maze. But I find it hard to believe that his writings would be part of an elaborate cover, precisely because they are nuanced and not doctrinaire. If he was trying to establish a communist cover a la Philbrick, why would he choose positions which were radical but not Soviet inspired? You also portray DeMohrenschildt as a rightist with Nazi past and a racist wife. I don't think that is proven at all. to me he comes off more bohemian in his beliefs. I read his book, and have seen him on film. He repeated often that Oswald liked JFK. Your interpretation of events would have us believe that he hated JFK from a rightwing perspective for his failure to support the BOP. I think its more likely that he admired Castro, and that his associations with Walker, Bannister, Ferrie etc was because he was on assignment, either officially or in his own mind. He might very well have started the bogus New Orleans FPCC branch as part of a cover assignment to draw out the right. In other words, he could have been a marxist and still taken that action in support of a hidden agenda having nothing to do with trying to create a left wing history for himself.

As for the Paines, Ruth is mighty convincing to me as a genuine peacenik. Michael on the other hand is very suspicious. I would be hesitant to convict either of them bcause of their family backgrounds - same for DeMohrenschildt - but blaming Ruth for putting LHO in the path of the motorcade doesn't make nearly as much sense as someone deliberately leading the motorcade past LHO once he had the job in the TSBD in order to implicate him later.

None of this conjecture is meant in any way to lessen my suspicions regarding Walker. I read the letter that Rockwell wrote (to the FBI I think) right after the assassination in which he tried to distance the ANP from the assassination while suggesting that some violent members of the ANP might be persons of interest. He later changed his story, but that original letter names names, among them I believe two who were with Walker at the old Miss riots. Along with Surrey, it makes it plain as day that Walker was closely associated with the ANP.

[Paul Trejo]

I just spent two days reading all of Oswald's writings. John - Oswald did mention the Minutemen at least twice, but both times making it clear that they would be the stormtroopers of the old military industrial establishment trying to regain control after the capitalist system had come to ruin by its own weight. He admired them but did not agree with them, and thought that both the far right and far left would have armed camps after the fall of capitalism who would be looking to reestablish the forms of government they were comfortable with. Then he went on to write about forming a new select group who would avoid military means until the new order was established, and thereafter guard that revolution with guns when necessary. The new order he describes looks quite utopian to me, and emphasizes the lack of federal bureaucracy and replaces it with local government from the ground up. This does resemble states rights thinking, but when combined with the rest of his vision of the future does not resemble the States Rights segregationist views of the time.

Paul - do you really think that Oswald would have written the things he did if he was an extreme right winger as you state? I have to say that I was very impressed with his ideas and his view of future history. He hated both systems, and had experienced both and had decided to live in the US as the lesser of two evils. I've been trying to identify Oswald through his public and private actions up until now, and they are a bewildering maze. But I find it hard to believe that his writings would be part of an elaborate cover, precisely because they are nuanced and not doctrinaire. If he was trying to establish a communist cover a la Philbrick, why would he choose positions which were radical but not Soviet inspired? You also portray DeMohrenschildt as a rightist with Nazi past and a racist wife. I don't think that is proven at all. to me he comes off more bohemian in his beliefs. I read his book, and have seen him on film. He repeated often that Oswald liked JFK. Your interpretation of events would have us believe that he hated JFK from a rightwing perspective for his failure to support the BOP. I think its more likely that he admired Castro, and that his associations with Walker, Bannister, Ferrie etc was because he was on assignment, either officially or in his own mind. He might very well have started the bogus New Orleans FPCC branch as part of a cover assignment to draw out the right. In other words, he could have been a marxist and still taken that action in support of a hidden agenda having nothing to do with trying to create a left wing history for himself.

As for the Paines, Ruth is mighty convincing to me as a genuine peacenik. Michael on the other hand is very suspicious. I would be hesitant to convict either of them bcause of their family backgrounds - same for DeMohrenschildt - but blaming Ruth for putting LHO in the path of the motorcade doesn't make nearly as much sense as someone deliberately leading the motorcade past LHO once he had the job in the TSBD in order to implicate him later.

None of this conjecture is meant in any way to lessen my suspicions regarding Walker. I read the letter that Rockwell wrote (to the FBI I think) right after the assassination in which he tried to distance the ANP from the assassination while suggesting that some violent members of the ANP might be persons of interest. He later changed his story, but that original letter names names, among them I believe two who were with Walker at the old Miss riots. Along with Surrey, it makes it plain as day that Walker was closely associated with the ANP.

I will try, Paul B., to answer as many of your points as I can at once. You completed reading all of Oswald's writings - which is an excellent way to get insight into the mind of that young man. Yet let's be sure of our definitions. We must be sure that (i) we understand the terms of Marxism and Fascism; and (ii) we must be sure that Oswald understood the temrs of Marxism and Fascism.

I will argue, along with George De Mohrenschildt and Michael Paine, that Oswald was poorly read and did not fully understand the Marxist ideas. George DM was highly educated, and Michael Paine's father was a Trotsky leader, so their opinions matter, IMHO.

(1) Oswald was wrong about the Minutemen defending the interests of the "Military Establishment" that is, the Military Industrial Complex, that is, the Grande Bourgeoisie. (Nor did they defend the interests of the lumpenproletariat as John Dolva suggests.)

On the contrary, the Minutemen defended the interests of the John Birch Society, that is, the Petite Bourgeoisie. Robert Welch, a candy and grape jelly manufacturer was, like all small businessmen, green with envy of the Grande Bourgeoisie, and wished to return the American economy back to the good old days of small businesses, where employers could have their way with their employees, wives and children.

Those days were gone after World War Two, and the reactionary forces of the John Birch Society, along with the White Citizens' Councils were livid. They supported the Minutemen and like-minded paramilitary and secret organizations as insurance to protect their Petite Bourgeois interests.

On the contrary, it was the Kennedys and Big Business who now represented the Military Industrial Complex, and these large businesses (the Grande Bourgeoisie) were paradoxically seen as the Enemy by the small business interests of the JBS and their minions. In fact, any casual familiarity with the John Birch Society literature demonstrates clearly that they firmly believed that American Big Business was the True Communism. (One need only read Dan Smoot's, The Invisible Government (1961) to see this nonsense in black and white.)

(2) Furthermore, for Oswald to speak of the "fall of Capitalism" showed what a naive youth he really was. The Capitalist system, far from coming to ruin, had become bigger than ever after the end of World War Two. In 1961 it was stronger than ever, and its prospects were super bright. The problem of the JBS and the Minutemen was that Big Capitalism was so big that it was leaving the Petite Bourgeoisie in the dust, and they resented it. But Oswald was blind to this fact, and so his political theory remained naive.

(3) I agree with you fully, Paul B., when you say that Oswald's proposal of a new form of government was a Utopian dream. It wasn't even a Petite Bourgeois dream, it was more like a teenager's dream. Yet its closest approximation is the Petite Bourgeois ideal of small business leaders as the pinnacle of power, expressed in Small Governments, all ready to compete for leadership (with all the chaos and in-fighting that implies).

You're also right that Oswald's immature vision did not approach the ideals of the States Rights parties of his generation -- because the States Rights parties had only segregationist views on their minds and Petite Bourgeois politics on the brain.

(4) Oswald was lost in his own Utopia. Yet how did Oswald express his individual political ideals? Did he start a political movement? Not at all. To know the direction he was headed, we must examine more than his subjective writings, we must also examine his objective behavior, including the physical company that he kept. Who were Oswald's associates in Dallas? Who were Oswald's associates in New Orelans? Nobody can doubt that Oswald associated with the reactionary right-wing.

(5) That is, even though Oswald claimed to "hate both systems", he himself made a choice for the right-wing by associating with right-wing people. He did not hang out with workers, unions or with Communist Party or even Socialist Party members. He never met one face to face (that I know about). Instead, he would write them postal letters as diversion, but it never came to joining, or even to a meeting.

(6) Also, we must distinguish between Oswald's personal writings in his diary (which were private) and his public statements in public speeches, on the radio and on television in both New Orleans and Dallas. Oswald was a young man, and not well-read. His theory was half-baked. He was not ready to share his ideas, yet -- we don't know if he ever would be ready. We only know that he associated with the extreme right in New Orleans and Dallas.

(7) The consistent link between Oswald's writings and Oswald's associates was a total lack of Soviet affiliation.

(8) You doubt that Jeanne De Mohrenschildt was racist? But all you need to do is read her Warren Commission testimony to observe her disgust for mixed-race cities, and her total preference for all-white cities. I think that is easy to show.

(9) As for the Nazi past of George De Mohrenschildt, that is not my theory, that's been demonstrated. I've said that George DM was a mere opportunist -- to save his Russian inheritance he would have made a deal with the Devil himself. In the early 1940's it seemed to George DM that the Nazi Party was the easiest way for him to save his Russian inheritance. I have no doubt that he collaborated with the Nazi Party on that score, even if he personally had no Nazi loyalties. In fact, it seems to me that George DM had no loyalties to anybody at all but to George DM. (So, it seems to me that we agree that George DM was largely an amoral bohemian.) Still, this made it easier for him to spy for the Nazis, rather than more difficult.

(10) Again -- so what if Oswald said he personally liked JFK now and then? George De Mohrenschildt in his 1977 booklet, I'm a Patsy, I'm a Patsy!! clearly said that he was tired of Oswald complaining about JFK and the Bay of Pigs. Also, Volkmar Schmidt said exactly the same thing multiple times; even on film. Oswald, like a parrot, repeated the right-wing version about JFK, and believed the nonsense about JFK betraying the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. (JFK never promised the Cuban Exiles air cover.)

(11) There were many Marines and American civilians (beatniks) that supported Castro in 1959. That was the way to be popular with young people in those days. Gerry Patrick Hemming supported Castro in 1959, and he tried to kill Castro in 1961. Exactly the same thing can be said about David Ferrie. Also Frank Sturgis. Also Harry Dean. To the end of his life Gerry Patrick Hemming said he admired Che Guevara to the bitter end, and so did many others -- who yet continually raided Cuba! So, it was easy to play both sides of the Cuban question, and it is no puzzle that Oswald (the conformist) would do the same thing.

(12) If Oswald sometimes pretended to admire Castro, this only shows he knew how to play it "cool". But those times we have Oswald on film for such remarks, he was pretending to extol a fake FPCC chapter in New Orleans along with INCA officer Ed Butler and DRE officer Carlos Bringuier on the right-wing. That is documented history.

(13) We have no evidence that Oswald was on assignment (by the FBI or CIA) to spy on Guy Banister and David Ferrie. On the contary, George De Mohrenschildt stated very clearly to the Warren Commission that "there was no government agent so stupid as to trust Lee Harvey Oswald with anything important."

(14) Your defense of Lee Harvey Oswald, Paul B., just like the defense printed by Mark Lane and Jim Garrison, is sympathetic but it is unavailing. It remains most likely that Oswald made an elaborate media event out of being the chief of a fake New Orleans FPCC branch in order to take these street credentials to Mexico City's embassies and attempt to get easy access into Cuba, precisely to kill Castro for RFK's Operation Mongoose (just as Judyth Vary Baker claims). Marina said Oswald took all his FPCC news clippings to Mexico. He was not spying on somebody else here.

(15) Remember that Castro firmly refused to let Oswald into Cuba at that time. If Oswald really was a Castro agent, it is obvious to me that Castro would have gladly let Oswald into Cuba. Instead, Castro believed Oswald was a provacateur.

(16) It is impossible, IMHO, that Oswald was a genuine peacenik -- he simply did not associate with any peaceniks as any normal peacenik would.

(17) Finally, Paul B., as for that letter which Surrey wrote to the FBI about the ANP, I am extremely keen to see it. Do you have a link?

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 28, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Paul T. - Rockwell wrote that letter.

In Oswald's performance with Ed Butler he presented publicly the same views he wrote about privately.

It seems much more likely to me that if Oswald was angry with JFK policies it was his attempts to get rid of Castro, not his failure to get rid of him. I don't recall DeMohrenschildt saying that Oswald was sympathetic to the Cuban exiles. I'd hate to have to reread his book to double check that. In any case, if you think Oswald was a right wing pro Walker JBS type then why don't you think he shot at JFK as part of a Walker shooter team?

Could Oswald have been trying to get into Cuba to observe the revolution first hand and make up his own mind? I don't think he was trying to assassinate Castro, or being masterminded into trying to get into Cuba as part of a plan to frame himself as a pro-Castro sympathizer.

Oswald's syntax as a writer is not good. He had little education so that is not surprising. But his ideas are not at all shallow, and it is clear to me that Das Kapital was a book he read. Did he also read Mein Kampf?

[Paul Trejo]

Paul T. - Rockwell wrote that letter.

In Oswald's performance with Ed Butler he presented publicly the same views he wrote about privately.

It seems much more likely to me that if Oswald was angry with JFK policies it was his attempts to get rid of Castro, not his failure to get rid of him. I don't recall DeMohrenschildt saying that Oswald was sympathetic to the Cuban exiles. I'd hate to have to reread his book to double check that. In any case, if you think Oswald was a right wing pro Walker JBS type then why don't you think he shot at JFK as part of a Walker shooter team?

Could Oswald have been trying to get into Cuba to observe the revolution first hand and make up his own mind? I don't think he was trying to assassinate Castro, or being masterminded into trying to get into Cuba as part of a plan to frame himself as a pro-Castro sympathizer.

Oswald's syntax as a writer is not good. He had little education so that is not surprising. But his ideas are not at all shallow, and it is clear to me that Das Kapital was a book he read. Did he also read Mein Kampf?

OK, Paul B., I'll look up G.W. Rockwell's letters to the FBI. Thanks.

As for Oswald's performance with Ed Butler, he claimed to be a Marxist-Leninist but denied being a Communist! Gimme a break! Oswald was probably hired in New Orleans to get rid of Castro, the way most rightists were hired in New Orleans.

It's important to re-read George DM's, I'm a Patsy, I'm a Patsy (1977) to know his views on Oswald. Also, review George DM's s testimony to the WC on Oswald. He didn't respect Oswald -- but George DM did say he preferred Oswald's conversation to the conversation of his own children. George DM didn't really respect anybody. (He died a lonely, broken man, abandoned by everybody.)

Finally, Paul B., it's important to make nuances. I've said that Oswald was right-wing, but I also said that he was a youngster who was obsessively on the side of the underdog. That's why he sympathized with the victims of the Bay of Pigs. That's why he also sympathized with the Blacks and their Civil Rights struggle. Not because he had any Black friends -- he didn't. But Oswald was obsessively on the side of the underdog. That is not Marxist -- that's just naive (e.g. the Cuban Exile underdogs of the Bay of Pigs were very often racists who supported the KKK and the radical rightists in the South, because they found support there; so Oswald's position of pity was ultimately self-contradictory).

Thus, I said that Oswald was a right-wing extremist, but he was not a racist -- and I said it is possible to be an extremist without being a racist.

Walker, for example, was an extremist, and although he supported the White Citizens' Councils, yet I can never find any racist remarks in any of his copyrighted or recorded speeches. He was working with the racists, but he himself was not a racist, as far as I am able to discover so far.

I still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald took a shot at ex-General Edwin Walker at his home on 10 April 1963 -- and I believe he did this at the psychological suggestion of Volkmar Schmidt, Michael Paine and George De Mohrenschildt. That does not mean that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Liberal. (Schmidt and Paine were probably liberals, but George DM was an opportunist).

Lee Harvey Oswald was not therefore a Liberal, but merely a weak-minded individual who could be talked into doing ANYTHING, and I believe that George DM and Volkmar Schmidt have said as much (and to some degree so did Michael Paine).

In other words -- given an evening with strong-willed Liberals, Lee Harvey Oswald would buy weapons and try to kill ex-General Walker. HOWEVER, given an evening with strong willed Reactionaries, Lee Harvey Oswald would pretend to be an FPCC officer to forge fake FPCC credentials to try to sneak into Cuba to kill Fidel Castrol

What I'm saying is that Lee Harvey Oswald was mainly a weak-minded individual who was too easily influenced. He was a wannabe. This is what made him a loose canon. This is also what made him expendible.

If Oswald wanted to get into Cuba to "observe the Revolution" he could have done it far easier than hanging out with Ed Butler, Carlos Bringuier, Guy Banister and David Ferrie for the summer of 1963. As Dick Russell reports it, Richard Case Nagell spied on Oswald in New Orleans, and personally warned Oswald to stop hanging out with right-wing extremists, or else. This was no mistake that Oswald was making -- he knew exactly what he was doing.

I believe we should avoid thinking of Oswald in some either/or scenario. Either Oswald was left-wing or Oswald was right-wing and there is no middle ground. On the contrary. There should be a dialectics of Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was torn between both sides since childhood due to the television programs he watched (and IMHO due to the fact that he had no solid male role-model, and was always trying to win the favor of older males).

We tend to disagree on whether Oswald's writings were shallow, Paul B. It isn't difficult to fake a reading of Das Kapital -- Marxist vocabulary was bandied about on newspapers found on many streetcorners in the 1960's. I don't think Oswald had the brains to finish the first chapter of Das Kapital. I also doubt that Oswald finished Mein Kampf, or any serious book of any length. His library card records show that he liked 007 novels. He also read about the assassination attempts on the Long family in New Orleans.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited January 28, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Paul T - have you read Oswald's writings?

[Paul Trejo]

Paul T - have you read Oswald's writings?

Yes, I have read Oswald's writings. I was not impressed.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 28, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Marguerite Oswald on the likelihood her son Lee Harvey Oswald was U.S. intelligence

“We are a patriotic family. All my three children volunteered for service in the armed forces. Lee wanted to enlist in the Marines at sixteen years old – he was rejected as being too young. But he was a member of the Cadet Aviation Corps, and they wanted to make him a pilot – the American Air Force doesn’t normally recruit young people whose patriotism is in doubt. An officer often came by the house to talk to Lee. That’s how he came to read Das Kapital; but at the same time he learned by heart the big wordy manual, The Perfect Marine. At seventeen, he enlisted, and his letters said he was happy. He was decorated. He did not receive a medal for being a sharp-shooter; it was his battalion which received that distinction … but the police and the press lied, making the world believe that my son was a champion rifle-shot.

“I am sure that the Marines trained Lee to be a secret agent. True, he did not tell me so, nor does anyone say so today. But since when did secret agents tell their mothers what they were doing? Or the secret services acknowledge their members?

“Lee was never in contact with the Communists. If he became a Marxist, it was because the Marines made a Marxist of him …

“Lee decided all in a minute to go to Russia … as if he’d received an order. He, always so truthful with me, told me that he was going to get on a cargo-boat for Europe. How could he, in the two days he stayed with me after leaving the military base, have arranged so quickly to get a passport, a Soviet visa and a passage to Russia?

[Nerin Gun, “Red Roses From Texas” p. 206]

[Paul Trejo]

Marguerite Oswald on the likelihood her son Lee Harvey Oswald was U.S. intelligence

“We are a patriotic family. All my three children volunteered for service in the armed forces. Lee wanted to enlist in the Marines at sixteen years old – he was rejected as being too young. But he was a member of the Cadet Aviation Corps, and they wanted to make him a pilot – the American Air Force doesn’t normally recruit young people whose patriotism is in doubt. An officer often came by the house to talk to Lee. That’s how he came to read Das Kapital; but at the same time he learned by heart the big wordy manual, The Perfect Marine. At seventeen, he enlisted, and his letters said he was happy. He was decorated. He did not receive a medal for being a sharp-shooter; it was his battalion which received that distinction … but the police and the press lied, making the world believe that my son was a champion rifle-shot.

“I am sure that the Marines trained Lee to be a secret agent. True, he did not tell me so, nor does anyone say so today. But since when did secret agents tell their mothers what they were doing? Or the secret services acknowledge their members?

“Lee was never in contact with the Communists. If he became a Marxist, it was because the Marines made a Marxist of him …

“Lee decided all in a minute to go to Russia … as if he’d received an order. He, always so truthful with me, told me that he was going to get on a cargo-boat for Europe. How could he, in the two days he stayed with me after leaving the military base, have arranged so quickly to get a passport, a Soviet visa and a passage to Russia?

[Nerin Gun, “Red Roses From Texas” p. 206]

Marguerite's wishful thinking sounds plausible, but we should follow it to a logical conclusion. Although Oswald's USSR period does seem to be part of an intelligence operation, he was barely 20 years old - a child, really. He was being trained, but probably not used as a spy -- yet. He had to prove himself further. Yet things remained unclear to Oswald after he returned to the USA -- he seems to try hard to get a full-time job with the FBI, CIA or some legitimate company, but he is always kept at arm's length. He never makes the grade. He performs petty jobs for chump change on a contract basis.

The main difference between my theory and yours, Robert, seems to be this: I believe Marina Oswald's sworn testimony, and you don't. Because of this, my theory tells me that George De Mohrenschildt, Volkmar Schmidt and Michael Paine convinced Lee Harvey Oswald in January, 1963 to assassinate ex-General Edwin Walker for his crimes at Ole Miss in 1962, for which a Mississippi Grand Jury had recently acquitted him.

Oswald tried that. On the week that he got his weapons and made Marina snap a single photograph of him in renegade regalia, he made photographic variations of himself on the sophisticated photography equipment at his work at Jagger/Chiles/Stoval -- and he was fired for that. Nonetheless, Oswald (and at least one other person in a car) tried to kill ex-General Edwin Walker at his home on Wednesday 10 April 1963. He missed.

George De Mohrenschildt figured this out on Saturday 13 April 1963, and he told his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Igor Voshinin, early in the morning on Easter Sunday 14 April 1963. Mrs. Voshinin immediately told the FBI.

On that day, Easter Sunday, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald lost all his points to earn a steady job in the intelligence community. He was washed up. He would never get a job in the CIA or ONI or FBI, as he evidently had dreamed for many years (since he was a capable code-writer).

It was his hot-headed act of trying to kill ex-General Walker that ruined Oswald's chances for advancement in the US Intelligence community. That is why George De Mohrenschildt, in his testimony to the Warren Commission, said: "There was never any government agency so stupid as to trust Lee Harvey Oswald with anything important."

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited January 29, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Michael Hogan]

(13) We have no evidence that Oswald was on assignment (by the FBI or CIA) to spy on Guy Banister and David Ferrie. On the contrary, George De Mohrenschildt stated very clearly to the Warren Commission that "there was no government agent so stupid as to trust Lee Harvey Oswald with anything important."

Harry Dean thought that Oswald was recruited by the FBI in 1962. He claimed that Oswald was an "intelligence gatherer" and an "operative" for the FBI. He agreed that Oswald was a "top notch agent."

The main difference between my theory and yours, Robert, seems to be this: I believe Marina Oswald's sworn testimony, and you don't.

Harry Dean said that General Walker told him Marina Oswald was a terrible xxxx. Dean also said (Marina Oswald) "had been briefed by the agencies to low tone things and to keep things in the light of a continuing investigation, she sort of made statements that perhaps agent Oswald, perhaps for his own security, had made to her to keep her off his back during these operations. It is very difficult, often times sad situation to do that job. You have so many possibilities of personal dangers and it was necessary for him to make certain statements to her, and to certainly keep secret from her and everyone, to keep a tight mouth position. He knew. We were always warned of the dangers involved, from being beaten to a pulp, hit by a car, being shot or whatever the occasion calls for."

I believe we should avoid thinking of Oswald in some either/or scenario. Either Oswald was left-wing or Oswald was right-wing and there is no middle ground. On the contrary. There should be a dialectics of Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was torn between both sides since childhood due to the television programs he watched.....

Harry Dean played on both sides of the fence. He said: "At times, I appeared to be a minuteman, or a member of the John Birch Society, or I was an officer in the Fair Play For Cuba Committee, a member of the Castro espionage work in the United States with the 20th of July Movement. And you may end up suddenly changing the right to the left for intelligence reasons, you see."

We tend to disagree on whether Oswald's writings were shallow, Paul B. It isn't difficult to fake a reading of Das Kapital -- Marxist vocabulary was bandied about on newspapers found on many streetcorners in the 1960's. I don't think Oswald had the brains to finish the first chapter of Das Kapital....

Harry Dean called Oswald a "brilliant person."

(The Harry Dean attributions come from his appearance (as Mr. X) on NBC's June 9, 1975 Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder)

[Paul Trejo]

(13) We have no evidence that Oswald was on assignment (by the FBI or CIA) to spy on Guy Banister and David Ferrie. On the contrary, George De Mohrenschildt stated very clearly to the Warren Commission that "there was no government agent so stupid as to trust Lee Harvey Oswald with anything important."

Harry Dean thought that Oswald was recruited by the FBI in 1962. He claimed that Oswald was an "intelligence gatherer" and an "operative" for the FBI. He agreed that Oswald was a "top notch agent."

The main difference between my theory and yours, Robert, seems to be this: I believe Marina Oswald's sworn testimony, and you don't.

Harry Dean said that General Walker told him Marina Oswald was a terrible xxxx. Dean also said (Marina Oswald) "had been briefed by the agencies to low tone things and to keep things in the light of a continuing investigation, she sort of made statements that perhaps agent Oswald, perhaps for his own security, had made to her to keep her off his back during these operations. It is very difficult, often times sad situation to do that job. You have so many possibilities of personal dangers and it was necessary for him to make certain statements to her, and to certainly keep secret from her and everyone, to keep a tight mouth position. He knew. We were always warned of the dangers involved, from being beaten to a pulp, hit by a car, being shot or whatever the occasion calls for."

I believe we should avoid thinking of Oswald in some either/or scenario. Either Oswald was left-wing or Oswald was right-wing and there is no middle ground. On the contrary. There should be a dialectics of Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was torn between both sides since childhood due to the television programs he watched.....

Harry Dean played on both sides of the fence. He said: "At times, I appeared to be a minuteman, or a member of the John Birch Society, or I was an officer in the Fair Play For Cuba Committee, a member of the Castro espionage work in the United States with the 20th of July Movement. And you may end up suddenly changing the right to the left for intelligence reasons, you see."

We tend to disagree on whether Oswald's writings were shallow, Paul B. It isn't difficult to fake a reading of Das Kapital -- Marxist vocabulary was bandied about on newspapers found on many streetcorners in the 1960's. I don't think Oswald had the brains to finish the first chapter of Das Kapital....

Harry Dean called Oswald a "brilliant person."

(The Harry Dean attributions come from his appearance (as Mr. X) on NBC's June 9, 1975 Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder)

Michael, I should clarify that Harry Dean (whom I admire and respect) is certainly welcome to his opinion about Lee Harvey Oswald -- yet let's be perfectly clear -- Harry Dean never claimed to have met Lee Harvey Oswald in his life. That is, Harry Dean was surmising what he observed, and he extrapolated his personal experiences onto the biography of Lee Harvey Oswald as he read it and heard about it second-hand.

It doesn't phase my theory one bit that I clash directly with Harry Dean's opinion of Lee Harvey Oswald. Harry Dean, like L.H. Oswald and R.C. Nagell and G.P. Hemming -- played the risky game of a double-agent -- and all four men also had reason to fear being set-up to be the patsy for this or that conspiracy scenario (in case one failed, there was a Plan B, a Plan C, and so on).

I believe Harry Dean's eye-witness accounts as he spoke them. Yet that does not oblige me to accept all of Harry's opinions about things and people that he never saw in person -- that he only surmised.

Harry attended a John Birch Society meeting in Southern California in September 1963 -- a meeting in which ex-General Edwin Walker was present, along with Loran Hall, Larry Howard (Leonardo and Angel) as well as Guy Gabaldon and John Rousselot. Harry was eye-witness to the transfer of a large sum of money from Rousselot into the hands of Guy Gabaldon, who was tasked with the duty of leading Hall and Howard in a covert operation to help frame the patsy for their assassination of JFK.

Now, I'm well aware that there were many such meetings, and many such plots, all over the USA. We have ample evidence from many eye-witnesses. There were plots in Chicago, plots in Miami, plots at the Dallas Trade Mart and many other plots. However, the one and only plot that was actually successful was that plot that involved Lee Harvey Oswald as the patsy.

Harry Dean told me personally that he never heard the name of Lee Harvey Oswald before that JBS meeting, and he never heard it again until 22 November 1963, when the entire world heard it.

After that, Harry was free to form his own opinion. I am also free to form my own opinion, after mountains of research into the career of ex-General Edwin Walker. Nor is Harry Dean alone in his sympathy for Lee Harvey Oswald -- Nagell also sympathized with Oswald; so did Mark Lane and so did Jim Garrison. Harry is in good company.

Nevertheless, I'm not obliged to agree with Harry Dean on every detail simply because I propose that Harry is one of the most important eye-witnesses to the JFK assassination alive today.

On the contrary, I'm convinced that my theory about Oswaldf is correct, and there are others on my side -- Gerry Patrick Hemming thought of Lee Harvey Oswald as a bumbler. George De Mohrenshildt -- perhaps the closest companion to Lee Harvey Oswald in 1962-1963, regarded Oswald as unworthy of trust. It is a matter of opinion, of course, but my research about the personality (and the psychology) of Lee Harvey Oswald resonates more closely with Hemming and De Mohrenschildt.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited January 31, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

...Interestingly in the last chapter Hunt (in a 1966 Playboy interview) says, "I heard that the Justice Department had caused previous charges against Oswald to be dropped - which made it possible for him to shoot anyone he decided to shoot."'

John, it is obvious to me that H.L. Hunt's statement is nothing but a repetition of General Edwin Walker's most common account of the assassination of JFK -- that Lee Harvey Oswald tried to kill Walker on 10 April 1963, but RFK set Oswald free that same night so Oswald would be free to try again. Instead, Oswald killed JFK.

H.L. Hunt was close to General Edwin Walker, and paid for Walker's run to be Governor of Texas in 1962. Dick Russell (1993, TMWKTM) interviewed Hunt's butler, and the butler told Dick Russell that he heard Hunt and Walker discuss Lee Harvey Oswald before the JFK assassination.

At 7am on the morning after JFK was assassinated, General Walker told a German newspaper reporter that same story -- here's the first appearance of that story in a German headline:

http://www.pet880.co...d_DNZeitung.jpg

Soon after RFK was also killed in 1968, General Walker wrote a bitter editorial, and repeated that same story in the final paragraph, as you can read here:

http://www.pet880.com/images/19680612_RFK_released_Oswald.pdf

General Walker repeated this story many other times, but to save space I will jump to the final editorial that he wrote near the end of his life. (Walker died in 1993.) This version was printed in his hometown newspaper in 1992.

http://www.pet880.co...ld_arrested.pdf

The fact that H.L. Hunt repeated General Walker's story in 1966 is solid evidence, IMHO, that both men had foreknowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald's role as patsy in the plot to kill JFK. I see no plausible alternative.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited February 1, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[David Andrews]

I'll have to track down the Playboy interview with Hunt - but it's significant that a liberal-libertarian mag like 1960s Playboy would interview Hunt - especially as the Vietnam war was becoming unpopular in 1966, and Playboy had bigger fish to fry. Hunt's racism was falling out of fashion as well.

Why interview Hunt? How many other right-wing millionaires could they have been interested in interviewing in that period? Was it specifically to discuss the JFK assassination? What does the interviewer's headnote say about the reason for the interview, Paul?

I'm always interested phenomenologically in assassination-related events. Why do they happen when they do? What relation do they have to each other? With an overarching, Mockingbird-like program of press conspiracy denial, it's possible to plot the cause and effect of media events.

On the other hand - maybe Hunt just liked the centerfolds, and told his press agent he wanted his public image tarted up.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Playboy-Magazine-August-1966-H-L-Hunt-/261103215262

Edited February 1, 2013 by David Andrews

[Paul Trejo]

I'll have to track down the Playboy interview with Hunt - but it's significant that a liberal-libertarian mag like 1960s Playboy would interview Hunt - especially as the Vietnam war was becoming unpopular in 1966, and Playboy had bigger fish to fry. Hunt's racism was falling out of fashion as well.

Why interview Hunt? How many other right-wing millionaires could they have been interested in interviewing in that period? Was it specifically to discuss the JFK assassination? What does the interviewer's headnote say about the reason for the interview, Paul?

I'm always interested phenomenologically in assassination-related events. Why do they happen when they do? What relation do they have to each other? With an overarching, Mockingbird-like program of press conspiracy denial, it's possible to plot the cause and effect of media events.

On the other hand - maybe Hunt just liked the centerfolds, and told his press agent he wanted his public image tarted up.

http://www.ebay.com/...t-/261103215262

The occasion for that Playboy interview, IMHO, was a book by Joachim Joesten which accused H.L. Hunt of having JFK killed because JFK wanted to end the oil depletion allowance.

You're right, David, that Playboy was known for its political reporting in the sixties.

The interviewer asked Hunt point blank about Joesten's accusation, and Hunt denied it, saying that the Kennedy family themselves made a lot of money in oil.

Then Hunt volunteered that bit about Oswald being Walker's shooter and the 'Justice Department' knowing this and setting Oswald free to kill again. That was ex-General Walker's favorite story, and it proves to me a direct connection between Hunt and Walker in late 1963.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited February 2, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Guest Robert Morrow]

For more on the H.L. Hunt- Lyndon Johnson connection, I suggest reading "The Final Chapter on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy" by Craig Zirbel - http://www.amazon.co...ds=craig zirbel

By the way, Joachim Joesten's fabulous research and reporting on the JFK assassination in the 1960's sure has held up with the passage of time. Joesten may be the greatest commentator ever on the JFK assassination.

And if anyone has copies of his books - "The Dark Side of Lyndon Johnson" and "How Kennedy was Killed: the Full Appalling Story" please get them to me so we can get better copies of them scanned and up on the internet.

Edited February 2, 2013 by Robert Morrow