Phillips WAS Bishop!

[Jon G. Tidd]

When an intelligence asset meets with someone, there is an apparent reason for the meeting. The apparent reason isn't the real reason. It's a cover story. It's a lie. A plausible story. It protects both parties.

Here's an example. It's 1968. There's a big anti-war protest. One of the protest leaders meets with Jack, a bearded long-hair of about the same age, who says he has documented evidence of FBI misbehavior. Jack and the protest leader meet ostensibly to trade a little cash for a little pot. Jack asks the protest leader where the next protest will be and who are Mary Smith and Jim Wickes. They seem odd to Jack. The protest leader tells Jack what he wants to know. They exchange cash and pot, and that's that. The protest leader may or may not know who Jack is.

Jack is an army counter-intelligence officer.

[David Andrews]

One could always run J. Walton Moore's picture past Veciana, while there's still opportunity.

Did Moore more closely resemble the Veciana-approved sketch of Bishop that appears in Gaeton Fonzi's book? Phillips' relatives said "That's Uncle David!' when they saw the sketch.

[Greg Wagner]

Hi Pat, thanks for weighing in. Those emails sound interesting.

I heard you on a podcast recently. I believe it was Night Fright with Brent Holland. Does that sound right? You did a good job. I need to listen to it again though (takes a lot to absorb info through this thick skull).

I've been thinking through this Phillips/Oswald meeting again. Clearly Phillips played a key role in the misdirection and cover-up following the assassination. And I've long been convinced that he had a role - managing Oswald as the patsy, at a minimum - in the Dealey Plaza operation. But I've recently begun to wonder what this meeting tells us about Phillips and what his relationship might have been with Oswald at that time.

I'd be interested to know what Forum members think of my thoughts below. Perhaps I'm overthinking this whole thing and you can straighten me out.

On March 2, 1976, Antonio Veciana told Gaeton Fonzi that two months before the assassination he rendezvoused with his CIA contact David Atlee Phillips (who used the pseudonym “Maurice Bishop") in the lobby of the Southland building in Dallas late in the summer of 1963. He arrived for a meeting with Phillips fifteen minutes early and found Phillips talking with a young man he later identified as Oswald. Phillips and Oswald talked privately for a while, and then they walked to a nearby coffee shop and Oswald departed, agreeing to meet again with Phillips later on. Veciana attributed this - of his seeing Phillips with Oswald - to his being early and to a slip-up by Phillips.

But as I turn that over in my head, I wonder about another possibility.

Why would an operator with David Phillips’ experience expose himself to the patsy who could then ID him, as well as to the public at large (in addition to Veciana, as it turned out) in downtown Dallas? If he were setting up Oswald as the patsy for a presidential assassination that would occur in roughly two months, is it reasonable to think he would arrange to meet personally with this soon-to-be globally recognized “assassin” in two very public places less than one mile from the kill zone? Operators like Phillips use cut-outs explicitly to manage such risks. Why not use a cut-out? Why not a secure – or at the very least, obscure – location? If Phillips was managing something of this magnitude and sensitivity, is it reasonable to think that he would forego such basic operational security?

Is it possible that Phillips was running Oswald on some garden variety anti-Castro op that Morales piggy-backed once he recognized Oswald as an ideal patsy? Knowing more about the relationship between Morales and Phillips leading up to 1963 would be really helpful here.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Greg Wagner

[Thomas Graves]

Hi Pat, thanks for weighing in. Those emails sound interesting.

I heard you on a podcast recently. I believe it was Night Fright with Brent Holland. Does that sound right? You did a good job. I need to listen to it again though (takes a lot to absorb info through this thick skull).

I've been thinking through this Phillips/Oswald meeting again. Clearly Phillips played a key role in the misdirection and cover-up following the assassination. And I've long been convinced that he had a role - managing Oswald as the patsy, at a minimum - in the Dealey Plaza operation. But I've recently begun to wonder what this meeting tells us about Phillips and what his relationship might have been with Oswald at that time.

I'd be interested to know what Forum members think of my thoughts below. Perhaps I'm overthinking this whole thing and you can straighten me out.

On March 2, 1976, Antonio Veciana told Gaeton Fonzi that two months before the assassination he rendezvoused with his CIA contact David Atlee Phillips (who used the pseudonym “Maurice Bishop") in the lobby of the Southland building in Dallas late in the summer of 1963. He arrived for a meeting with Phillips fifteen minutes early and found Phillips talking with a young man he later identified as Oswald. Phillips and Oswald talked privately for a while, and then they walked to a nearby coffee shop and Oswald departed, agreeing to meet again with Phillips later on. Veciana attributed this - of his seeing Phillips with Oswald - to his being early and to a slip-up by Phillips.

But as I turn that over in my head, I wonder about another possibility.

Why would an operator with David Phillips’ experience expose himself to the patsy who could then ID him, as well as to the public at large (in addition to Veciana, as it turned out) in downtown Dallas? If he were setting up Oswald as the patsy for a presidential assassination that would occur in roughly two months, is it reasonable to think he would arrange to meet personally with this soon-to-be globally recognized “assassin” in two very public places less than one mile from the kill zone? Operators like Phillips use cut-outs explicitly to manage such risks. Why not use a cut-out? Why not a secure – or at the very least, obscure – location? If Phillips was managing something of this magnitude and sensitivity, is it reasonable to think that he would forego such basic operational security?

Is it possible that Phillips was running Oswald on some garden variety anti-Castro op that Morales piggy-backed once he recognized Oswald as an ideal patsy? Knowing more about the relationship between Morales and Phillips leading up to 1963 would be really helpful here.

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

Greg,

I think that makes perfect sense.

--Tommy

PS I might be wrong, but I don't think Phillips was an experienced operator per se. I think he was more of an administrator and propagandist. He might have been meeting publicly with Oswald in some kind of unauthorized-by-CIA action against Castro which Morales got wind of. Regardless, I think Phillips screwed up by allowing himself be seen in the presence of Oswald. He probably wasn't expecting Veciana to show up fifteen minutes early (as Veciana himself has said he did) after flying in from Miami especially for the sit down with Phillips.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

It took so long - 37 years - for Veciana to confirm what Fonzi strongly suspected, not to mention that Veciana waited 13 years before he mentioned Maurice Bishop at all. Sounds like a cautious man finally telling the truth. Greg's surmise that Phillips level of caution regarding meeting Oswald reflected the relative sensitivity of the meeting is logical, more logical than either assuming Veciana was mistaken or worse, or that Phillips was being stupid.

[Greg Wagner]

Hi guys...thanks for your comments.

Paul, you summed up what I was trying to express very well. Phillips’ level of caution regarding meeting Oswald reflected the relative sensitivity of the meeting, as he saw it. In my opinion, this is more logical than assuming Veciana was mistaken or that Phillips was being stupid.

Tommy, regarding Phillips' level of expertise as a covert operator, I agree that much of his work was in psychological warfare and administrative capacities. My estimation of his tradecraft experience comes largely from Win Scott's assessment: "Phillips worked under Winston Scott, the head of the CIA station in Mexico. In April 1963 Scott wrote that: 'His (Phillips') comprehensive understanding of human beings combined with a thorough knowledge of covert action techniques and his fluent Spanish make him unusually valuable... He is the most outstanding Covert Action officer that this rating officer has ever worked with.' " And also from what Morley writes in Our Man In Mexico, that Phillips was running an anti-Castro covert operation out of the US Embassy in Mexico City. He also spent a couple years undercover in Havana in 1959 and 1960, although I'm not sure what that entailed. I suppose what all this means in terms of his level of expertise running agents, and the tradecraft associated with doing so, is open to debate.

With regard to Morales getting wind of Oswald and what he may have been up to, Simpich mentions in State Secret that Bill Harvey’s Staff D was monitoring Oswald’s activities. Harvey was close to Morales, of like mind on Kennedy and in a perfect spot to have provided such information on Oswald. Just speculation, but it seems logical.

If Phillips did not have prior knowledge of the plot, he likely pieced it together pretty quickly after the shots were fired and Oswald was arrested.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Greg Wagner

[David Andrews]

Remember that, as he was dying, Phillips was asked accusatively by his estranged brother whether or not he had been in Dallas on November 22nd, and he answered Yes. Phillips knew why his brother had broken off relations for several years, and knew what he was affirming. It was not a "Yes, but..."

Edited December 16, 2014 by David Andrews

[Jon G. Tidd]

Greg Wagner, you write:

"Is it possible that Phillips was running Oswald on some garden variety anti-Castro op that Morales piggy-backed once he recognized Oswald as an ideal patsy?"

Some scenario like this is what happened, I believe.

[Greg Wagner]

Hi David,

That was one of the things I was trying to reconcile with this Phillips business. I always thought that was a strange way to ask the question - being in Dallas vs. being involved in the plans to kill Kennedy. The wording just seems indirect and open to interpretation. I was talking to someone who offered the idea that Phillips was in fact involved in the plot, but at the time he was meeting with Oswald in public places (late Sept) he was not yet part of the operation. Or perhaps he was but the Oswald patsy angle just hadn't been developed at that point. That seems plausible.

[Pat Speer]

It's important to note that in his Bethesda talk Veciana went into great detail about his admiration for Phillips. He thought of him as a hero. When Kennedy was killed, moreover, and he realized Phillips was probably involved, he thought little of it, because he thought little of Kennedy, and thought Kennedy an impediment to his and Phillips' goal of over-throwing Castro.

It was only over time that he came to like Kennedy, and to think of his death as a tragedy. Veciana said, moreover, that he'd looked forward to the Fonzi-arranged confrontation with Phillips, only to be saddened by Phillips' behavior during the confrontation. Veciana said something about the super-spy Phillips shrinking before his eyes. His hero was made of clay.

Assuming Phillips knew how much Veciana admired him, he may very well have been less cautious than usual when arranging meetings with other operatives, in which Veciana was the second meeting.

[Paul Brancato]

Phillips, Harvey, Morales, Angleton, Helms, Dulles, JC King. Rogues? No, CIA. Trying to analyze whether any of them would have been more careful than they were in their handling of Oswald, or in their actions or memos if they had been actively planning to assassinate JFK, and using the answer to determine the chances of their actual involvement, begs the question. Whatever level of care one or another of them exercised, the fact remains none of them were prosecuted, or even questioned, and yet here we are continuing to look for smoking guns in exactly this area. Why is that? Because the signs, the footprints, are everywhere. We don't know who the ground crew was, but we do know that the guy who took the blame and was silenced was a person of intense secret interest to Angleton, and the rest of this 'rogues gallery' was either very close to Angleton, or can be linked directly to Oswald operationally. So if Morales ran the actual details of the operation, which seems likely, it begs credulity to think he operated on his own. I don't believe we will ever find hard proof.

I put this paragraph here not only to point out that with guys like Phillips and Angleton, no level of subterfuge is too deep for me to imagine. For instance, why is it hard to imagine that Angleton could run a 'mole hunt' (in Mexico City after the Oswald impersonation) when he already knew who the 'mole' was? Or so difficult to imagine that Phillips would supply false leads after the assassination that he knew would lead back to him? Or be seen meeting with LHO?

[Greg Wagner]

That's a fair point, Paul. When in its history - right up to current day events - has that agency or its operatives ever been held accountable for anything? What exactly would they have to fear? My thoughts on Phillips were not an attempt to absolve him, but merely an effort to understand his role.

Kennedy attempted a measure of accountability and control over CIA by firing Dulles, Bissell and Cabell, along with signing NSAM 55.

[David Andrews]

Q: What do we call it when persons of influence are misled by their inferiors but accept the results, while the actors go undiscovered and unpunished?

A: A limited hang-out. That's more pleasant than collusion or treason.

[Paul Brancato]

Greg - I know you weren't trying to absolve Phillips. It may seem like I am trying to indict him. My gut feelings about the whole mess is that it was treason. I have no idea how many here feel the same. It was imo as David describes it, but not clear where the line is between the actors and the misled persons. What is it called when a person of influence makes his wishes known to an inferior that knows how to get things done? When is a suggestion an order?

[Chuck Schwartz]

I believe DAP maintained communication with Allen Dulles after Allen Dulles was fired by President Kennedy. And, when it was announced Kennedy was going to Dallas, where Charles Cabell's (who was fired by Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs fiasco) brother was mayor, plans were put in place to murder Kennedy with LHO taking the fall . I believe it was DAP that told LHO to go to the Movie theatre and LHO did that because that is what his handler told him to do. Then, Dulles told Charles Cabell to tell Earl Cabell to tell the chief of police to go to the theatre to arrest the killer. As soon as LHO said he was a patsy, in public, he was targeted for murder by Allen Dulles. By Dec. 1, 1963 all evidence linking LHO to the CIA was deleted.