The Ultimate USAEC secrets per the JFK hit.

[Paul Trejo]

Regarding your theory tha Oswald allowed himself to be "framed" as an officer of the New Orleans FPCC in order to get into Cuba, why in the world would he have desired to go to Cuba in 1963? The only reasons I can think of are 1) as part of a CIA operation to test the Mexico City authorities and also possibly do some CIA dirty work in Cuba if he was able to get in, 2) To go to Cuba and then possibly Russia after informing them of the upcoming JFK assassination.

--Tommy

In my theory, Tommy, the reason Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to go to Cuba in 1963 was to take some part in the assassination of Fidel Castro.

According to Marina Oswald, when he was planning to travel to Cuba in mid-1963, Lee Oswald even considered hi-jacking an airplane to get there. (Possibly this was because Richard Case Nagell threatened Oswald that if he succeeded in getting passage to Cuba from Mexico City, that Nagell would shoot him dead.)

It was also during this period, according to Marina, that Oswald just sat in his kitchen in New Orleans, and wept.

Yet it was also during this period that Lee Oswald was often up-tone, and bragged to Marina that he was going to become the "USA Prime Minister." (She knew there was no such office, and that he was teasing her.)

But what could be the context? IMHO, the context was that Guy Banister, Clay Shaw and David Ferrie had promised Lee Oswald that if he was successful in his mission to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba, that his friends would help him escape from Cuba, and he would return to the USA to a "hero's welcome" including a fat reward, a parade and a chance to run for high office, or simply take a permanent, salaried job with the CIA.

It seems to me that this was the bait. Clearly it was all a lie, and these men were lying to Lee Oswald by telling him that they were all CIA Officers -- including Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Jack S. Martin and Fred Crisman. If so, then Lee Oswald obviously believed them.

So, perhaps Lee Oswald was planning to shoot Fidel Castro himself (remember that he was 23 years old -- and somewhat naive) and escape in an airplane flown by David Ferrie. Remember, too, that Lee Oswald was checking out lots of 007 novels from the local library at this time.

Again -- this was not a CIA operation -- it was a FAKE CIA operation.

Again -- Lee Oswald was working with Guy Banister, Clay Shaw and David Ferrie at this time. Jim Garrison PROVED this beyond any reasonable doubt.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited September 7, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Steven Gaal]

The Paines,Volkmar Schmidt and George DeMorschildt are part of the Dulles nexus.

Belief that David Morales could manipulate the above is pure fantasy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was Ruth Paine who produced much of the suspect evidence that Oswald was in Mexico. Even after the police had searched her house and they had not come up with anything. Yet, Ruth Paine found some incriminating evidence that the Police could not find (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 284). This is the same woman who arranged for Oswald's job at the Texas School Book Depository in October 1963. Ruth Paine had also claimed to have seen, on November 9, 1963, Oswald typing a letter referring to his meeting in Mexico with agent Kostin, apparently another name for Kostikov. This letter was sent to the Soviet Embassy in Washington (Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 233). Some think the letter is a forgery, planted in order to incriminate Oswald. The Warren Commission accepted the genuineness of this letter. Largely because of corroborating evidence in the form of a rough draft, said to be in Oswald's handwriting, which Ruth Paine also allegedly discovered. What is particularly suspect about the November 9th Kostin letter is its timing. After being intercepted by the FBI on its way to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, the letter was summarized and communicated to Dallas, where the news arrived on November 22nd (see Peter Scott, Deep Politics III). (http://www.ctka.net/reviews/corsi.html)

======

(http://www.ctka.net/reviews/jfk_unspeakable.html)

Michael Paine did not just work at Bell Helicopter. He did not just have a security clearance there. His stepfather, Arthur Young, invented the Bell helicopter. His mother, Ruth Forbes Paine Young, was descended from the Boston Brahmin Forbes family -- one of the oldest in America. She was a close friend of Mary Bancroft. Mary Bancroft worked with Allen Dulles as a spy during World War II in Switzerland. This is where Dulles got many of his ideas on espionage, which he would incorporate as CIA Director under Eisenhower. Bancroft also became Dulles' friend and lover. She herself called Ruth Forbes, "a very good friend of mine." (p. 169) This may explain why, according to Walt Brown, the Paines were the most oft-questioned witnesses to appear before the Commission.

Ruth Paine's father was William Avery Hyde. Ruth described him before the Warren Commission as an insurance underwriter. (p. 170) But there was more to it than that. Just one month after the Warren Report was issued, Mr. Hyde received a three-year government contract from the Agency for International Development (AID). He became their regional adviser for all of Latin America. As was revealed in the seventies, AID was riddled with CIA operatives. To the point that some called it an extension of the Agency. Hyde's reports were forwarded both to the State Department and the CIA. (Ibid)

Ruth Paine's older sister was Sylvia Hyde Hoke. Sylvia was living in Falls Church, Virginia in 1963. Ruth stayed with Sylvia in September of 1963 while traveling across country. (p. 170) Falls Church adjoins Langley, which was then the new headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, a prized project of Allen Dulles. It was from Falls Church that Ruth Paine journeyed to New Orleans to pick up Marina Oswald, who she had been introduced to by George DeMohrenschildt. After she picked Marina up, she deposited her in her home in Irving, Texas. Thereby separating Marina from Lee at the time of the assassination.

Some later discoveries made Ruth's itinerary in September quite interesting. It turned out that John Hoke, Sylvia's husband, also worked for AID. And her sister Sylvia worked directly for the CIA itself. By the time of Ruth's visit, Sylvia had been employed by the Agency for eight years. In regards to this interestingly timed visit to her sister, Jim Garrison asked Ruth some pointed questions when she appeared before a grand jury in 1968. He first asked her if she knew her sister had a file that was classified at that time in the National Archives. Ruth replied she did not. In fact, she was not aware of any classification matter at all. When the DA asked her if she had any idea why it was being kept secret, Ruth replied that she didn't. Then Garrison asked Ruth if she knew which government agency Sylvia worked for. The uninquiring Ruth said she did not know. (p. 171) This is the same woman who was seen at the National Archives pouring through her files in 1976, when the House Select Committee was gearing up.

When Marina Oswald was called before the same grand jury, a citizen asked her if she still associated with Ruth Paine. Marina replied that she didn't. When asked why not, Marina stated that it was upon the advice of the Secret Service. She then elaborated on this by explaining that they had told her it would look bad if the public found out the "connection between me and Ruth and CIA." An assistant DA then asked, "In other words, you were left with the distinct impression that she was in some way connected with the CIA?" Marina replied simply, "Yes." (p. 173)

Douglass interpolates the above with the why and how of Oswald ending up on the motorcade route on 11/22/63. Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission testified to having called the Paine household at about the time Oswald was referred by Ruth -- via a neighbor-- to the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) for a position. He called and was told Oswald was not there. He left a message for Oswald to come down and see him since he had a position available as a cargo handler at a regional cargo airline. Interestingly, this job paid about 1/3 more than the job Oswald ended up with at the TSBD. He called again the next day to inquire about Oswald and the position again. He was now told that Lee had already taken a job. Ruth was questioned about the Adams call by the Warren Commission's Albert Jenner. At first she denied ever hearing of such a job offer. She said, "I do not recall that." (p. 172) She then backtracked, in a tactical way. She now said that she may have heard of the offer from Lee. This, of course, would seem to contradict both the Adams testimony and common sense. If Oswald was cognizant of the better offer, why would he take the lower paying job?

The Paine’s Participation in the
Minox Camera Charade By Carol Hewett

(http://www.ctka.net/pr1196-minox.html)

==================================

http://jfklancer.com/pdf/Paine.pdf

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKpaine.htm

====

Back Issue Probe

Ruth Paine: Social Activist or Contra Support Networker?

The second installment in the Hewett-Jones-LaMonica investigation of the Paines. This one probes Ruth's strange odyssey after the assassination when she became a figure of intrigue in Nicaragua, seemingly in support of the Contra effort. Features new documents and a stunning letter.

+++++++++++++++++++++

(

http://www.ctka.net/reviews/certain_arrogance.html

)

Evica closes the book with a couple who emerged as character witnesses for the Paines during the Warren Commission inquiry: Frederick and Nancy Osborn. The Osborn family, including his father Frederick Sr., was significantly involved in the American eugenics movement whose intention was to "create a superior Nordic race." (p. 251) Frederick Sr. also worked with Allen Dulles in the organization of the National Committee for a Free Europe. (p. 254) The funding for this group eventually came from Frank Wisner's Office of Policy Coordination in the CIA. (p. 255) These were the connections of the friends of the kindly Quaker couple who befriended Lee and Marina.

########################## )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))########################

Beyond David Morales

(http://www.ctka.net/2014_reviews/killing_oswald.html)

Although Newman names Phillips as the man handling Oswald in Mexico, O'Sullivan for whatever reason, chose not to include Newman's view regarding James Jesus Angleton, the Chief of CIA's Counterintelligence. In the 2008 epilogue of his superb book "Oswald and the CIA" Newman names Angleton as the man who designed the Mexico City plot. In fact, the name of Angleton is not mentioned even once during the two hour duration of the documentary. The same goes with Anne Goodpasture, Win Scott's assistant in the US Embassy in Mexico. The very person that produced the "Mystery Man" photograph, that was supposed to be Oswald entering the Cuban and Soviet Embassies. He is not a mystery man though, because the Lopez Report has settled the issue many years ago. "Since the time of the assassination, this man has been identified as Yuriy Ivanovich Moskalev, a Soviet KGB officer" Lopez Report (p.179). These should have been included, since it is by now fairly obvious that it was Angleton in Langley and Phillips with Goodpasture in the field who choreographed Oswald's moves and set up the Mexico City charade.

Two others facts that are very crucial in the case are not covered by this documentary. The first was a memo that the CIA sent to FBI the day before Oswald got his tourist visa to visit Mexico. There, the CIA proposed a counter-operation against the FPPC. According to the memo, the CIA was considering "planting deceptive information to embarrass the organization in areas where it had support" (Newman, Oswald and the CIA, pp. 622-623).

The second fact had to do with CIA's reply to Mexico Station that included the statement that they had no information on Oswald after May 1962, which was a lie. Jane Roman, Angleton's subordinate who signed off on the bottom of the cable, admitted to John Newman in 1994 after seeing the cable that "I am signing off on something I know isn't true." She also told him that "the SAS group would have held all the information on Oswald under their tight control", and that "it's indicative of a keen interest in Oswald, held very closely on a need-to-know basis" (Newman, ibid).

[Thomas Graves]

Regarding your theory tha Oswald allowed himself to be "framed" as an officer of the New Orleans FPCC in order to get into Cuba, why in the world would he have desired to go to Cuba in 1963? The only reasons I can think of are 1) as part of a CIA operation to test the Mexico City authorities and also possibly do some CIA dirty work in Cuba if he was able to get in, 2) To go to Cuba and then possibly Russia after informing them of the upcoming JFK assassination.

--Tommy

Trejo replied:

" In my theory, Tommy, the reason Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to go to Cuba in 1963 was to take some part in the assassination of Fidel Castro.

According to Marina Oswald, when he was planning to travel to Cuba in mid-1963, Lee Oswald even considered hi-jacking an airplane to get there. (Possibly this was because Richard Case Nagell threatened Oswald that if he succeeded in getting passage to Cuba from Mexico City, that Nagell would shoot him dead.) "

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

It's my understanding that triple-agent Nagell was told by his KGB controller to kill Oswald if he couldn't dissuade him from participating in a plot to kill Kennedy, a plot designed to implicate Russia in the assassination.

I don't remember Nagell's threatening to kill Oswald "if he succeeded in getting passage to Cuba from Mexico City." Nor do I remember reading that Nagell suspected that Oswald wanted to get into Cuba "to take some part in the assassination of Fidel Castro".

How did you come up with those two doozies?

Maybe you know something that the rest of us don't know. But I rather doubt it.

Instead of saying "Possibly this [Oswald's telling Marina he was thinking about hijacking an airplane to Cuba] was because Richard Case Nagell [had] threatened Oswald that he would shoot him if he succeeded in getting passage to Cuba from Mexico City" , you should have said, "Maybe Nagell told Oswald..."

But even if you had said it that way, it still wouldn't make sense because it's hard to imagine how the hijacker of a plane to Cuba could "participate" in the assassination of Castro. Do you think Oswald was planning to kill Castro when Castro invited him to his headquarters to thank him for hijacking the plane?

LOL

Maybe Oswald was a little naiive, but he certainly wasn't stupid.

--Tommy

Edited September 7, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

Well -- you're partly correct, Tommy -- I don't remember where I read that Nagell told Oswald that he would kill him if he took part in a Mexico City based plot to kill Fidel Castro -- but I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere. I can't remember where just now, and I'm moving this week, so my notes are in disarray -- so I'll get back to you on this.

Until I can obtain that source, I'm willing to work with your wording: MAYBE Nagell told Oswald he would kill him if he succeeded in getting a Visa from Mexico to Cuba. MAYBE that's why Oswald told Marina he wanted to hi-jack an airplane to Cuba, and MAYBE that's why Oswald sat in his New Orleans kitchen and wept.

Now, you say that scenario doesn't make sense -- but I'm arguing that Lee Harvey Oswald was an emotional young man (especially if we believe Marina's testimony that Lee started beating her when they lived in Dallas, where George Bouhe was paying lots of attention to her).

An emotional young man might fantasize that if he hi-jacked an airplane to Cuba, with a handful of FPCC "street credentials" from New Orleans newspapers, that he might be welcomed with open arms by the Fidelistas. Youthful imagination has few boundaries.

After all, we have Marina's testimony that he actually did tell her he wanted to hi-jack an airplane to Cuba. That's a pretty stupid desire, all by itself. To Lee Oswald's credit, he finally decided against the idea. As I say, he was under stress. So, my theory about Nagell threatening Oswald isn't far-fetched.

Yet let's look at Richard Case Nagell again. His claims and evidence were important -- yet few JFK researchers know what to conclude about him. Jim Garrison decided against including Nagell among his witnesses, but still considered him a valuable source.

It's interesting that regarding the JFK murder, Richard Case Nagell identified many of the same people that Jim Garrison identified in New Orleans in 1967, including Guy Banister and the Cuban Exiles associated with the mercenary paramilitary training camps near Lake Pontchartrain.

At the same time, Nagell was a salaried CIA Officer -- yet Nagell NEVER accused the CIA of plotting to kill JFK. Instead, Nagell spoke about the "associates of David Ferrie" as central to the plot.

I doubt that Nagell was totally aware of all details of the plot, and all its personnel -- he could see some facts, perhaps, but not others.

For example, Nagell was probably unaware that there was a right-wing mole inside the CIA (i.e. David Morales) who was most likely working with right-wing civilians to exact revenge on JFK over the Bay of Pigs.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited September 7, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Paul - I find researchers like Newman believable. I find Marina's testimony completely suspect. If you had concluded that Marina lied under duress you would have to rework your theory. But instead you say you choose to believe that she testified truthfully. I think the obvious connections between Marina's handlers, who kept her closely guarded for weeks after the assassination, and guys like Jack Crichton, who supplied the interpreter, suggest that she was under enormous pressure. Protective custody my ass. She lost her freedom, and no one in authority in the US government did a thing about it. That is why I don't even think Oswald shot at Walker. The nexus of people that claim he did, such as Marina, George DeM, and Schmidt, who as you say put the idea into Oswald's head, are not trustworthy. So much effort was made to frame Oswald, and you have chosen to believe the framers to some extent.

I can safely say that I don't buy your theory. The obvious and clear connections between the CIA brass and the operational officers in charge of the anti-Castro Cubans is the nexus. Were Garrison alive today he would have undoubtedly concluded that the CIA was culpable. But unfortunately for him, his investigations were completely waylaid by operatives, by Governors, by liars planted on him to destroy his attempt to prosecute, and even by faulty witnesses.

I know you claim your theory is only that. But it relies on so many details that are suspect, so many witnesses with motives to lie. I find your explanation of Oswald as having confessed when he used the word 'patsy' laughable. Your evidence in support of his involvement, Hemming, was yet another xxxx that you choose to selectively believe.

I say all this knowing that you are an earnest believer, not an agent of some kind. You point out so many interesting connections, and your research into Walker is admirable. But then you reach conclusions that are pure supposition, not facts on the ground. You use words like hypnotize to describe how Oswald came to be convinced to shoot at Walker. You take Oswald's words 'I am a patsy' out of context, and there is no doubt what that context was, because we have Oswald's own words to prove it. You know Occam's law I am sure. Your theory is way too complicated. The nice thing about the passage of time and the partial release of documents and the incredible researchers who have combed through all of it is that we can now see a much simpler and more direct explanation than the one you suggest with your theory. Steven's recent post points out that Newman came to a conclusion which makes sense given Angleton's network in Mexico City. The Paine's are completely suspect. How else can one explain their connections? Just coincidence? Why ignore all the obvious connections in Oswald's short life and instead rely on Dean, or Hemming? That's a rhetorical question, no need to answer. I just don't believe your grand theory.

What I will say is that I don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. When I dismiss your overall theory it does not mean I find Walker or Banister innocent. For me that is an open question. What I don't buy, specifically, is the grandiose explanation for the setting up of Oswald. I just don't see Oswald the way you do, and I don't find your theory on how he was manipulated by Walker and the Minutemen and Schmidt and DeMohrenschildt believable. Btw don't hold your breath on the release in 2017 of Banister's files or the missing Oswald files. Ain't gonna happen.

[Steven Gaal]

Paul Brancato

Paul - I find researchers like Newman believable. I find Marina's testimony completely suspect. If you had concluded that Marina lied under duress you would have to rework your theory. But instead you say you choose to believe that she testified truthfully. I think the obvious connections between Marina's handlers, who kept her closely guarded for weeks after the assassination, and guys like Jack Crichton, who supplied the interpreter, suggest that she was under enormous pressure. Protective custody my ass. She lost her freedom, and no one in authority in the US government did a thing about it. That is why I don't even think Oswald shot at Walker. The nexus of people that claim he did, such as Marina, George DeM, and Schmidt, who as you say put the idea into Oswald's head, are not trustworthy. So much effort was made to frame Oswald, and you have chosen to believe the framers to some extent.
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Marina Oswald’s Credibility (ZERO) (http://22november1963.org.uk/did-lee-oswald-shoot-general-edwin-walker)

The Warren Commission was aware that many of Marina Oswald’s statements were contradictory and unreliable (see, for example, her evidence about Oswald cleaning and practising with his rifle). One of the Commission’s attorneys, Norman Redlich, wrote in a memo to J. Lee Rankin that “neither you nor I have any desire to smear the reputation of any individual. We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the [secret] Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world” (HSCA Report, appendix vol.11, p.126).

Redlich expanded on this when testifying before the HSCA: “She may not have told the truth in connection with the attempted killing of General Walker. … I gave to Mr Rankin a lengthy document*. … I indicated the testimony that she had given, the instances where it was in conflict” (ibid., p.127).

http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-marksman-sharpshooter

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=39732

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=39733

====

*I recall it was around 29 contradictions.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Paul Trejo]

Well, Paul B., as usual your objections are reasonable, courteous and challenging.

I'll try again.

(1) First, there's nothing I can do for readers who think Marina Oswald was lying under oath. That's unfortunate, but that is a breaking point between my theory and most others. The good news for me is that I'm not alone in believing Marina Oswald. Yet I suspect that I'm in a minority on this.

(2) Newman's book, Oswald and the CIA (1995), has too many holes for my taste. He assumes the CIA is guilty at the start, so it's no surprise that he winds up with that same conclusion. Newman fills in the holes with guesswork, and his guesses are inadequate, IMHO.

(3) You're absolutely right that without Marina Oswald's testimony, my theory takes a serious blow. But let me add something interesting here. She said that Oswald shot at Ex-General Walker -- but so did George De Mohrenschildt and so did Jeanne De Mohrenschildt. Do you say that they were also lying under oath?

We can say that Marina Oswald was under tremendous pressure -- but not George DM. Why would he lie about it? Why would Jeanne DM lie about it?

Remember that the Warren Commission starting asking about Ex-General Walker in volume one of the Report, and they even re-called Marina to ask her more about Walker, and then re-called George DM to ask him more about Walker, and then re-called Jeanne DM to ask *her* more about Walker.

The Warren Commission also asked Michael and Ruth Paine about Ex-General Walker -- and I was dissatisfied with their testimony -- I felt it was incomplete. They never called Volkmar Schmidt to testify, but he openly admits his limited role in the Ex-General Walker shooting -- to our own Bill Kelly, and even on Youtube. Why would Volkmar Schmidt lie about it?

So, Paul B., to accuse Marina Oswald of lying about Lee Oswald shooting at Ex-General Walker, you also have to accuse George DM, Jeanne DM and Volkmar Schmidt of lying about it, too. Why would they?

Especially if this was General Walker's own story. Let's say he was able to put pressure on the FBI and on Marina Oswald to lie and claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was the one who shot at Walker back in 10 April 1963. Hypothetically. OK, but we know that George DM just *hated* Ex-General Walker. He wrote to the HSCA that he and Lee Oswald would call him, "General Fokker," just to laugh at him. Why in the world would George DM be persuaded to spread General Walker's favorite story?

It doesn't add up. Marina Oswald was not alone in saying that Lee Oswald was Walker's shooter. That's one of the many reasons that I believe Marina Oswald.

(4) I myself have a lot more faith in the FBI and our US Government's handling of Marina Oswald than you do, evidently. Her intepreter was a professional, and anyway, the translations were written, so historians can check his work anytime they want. His work was accurate.

Marina didn't lose her freedom -- she became a free woman when she married Lee Harvey Oswald and stepped off the boat in New York City. She was arrested -- true -- and protected, too. But after reading all the material about her connections, I believe her testimony. At first she was terrified of the FBI. (After all, she knew about the KGB handling of suspects.) But then after a few weeks of talking with them, she relaxed, and realized that we Americans are a relatively honest bunch.

It's true that Marina told a different story when she was first arrested than she told later. That is to be expected. It's also true that George DM bent the facts to protect his own behind -- he'd never admit under oath that he pushed Lee Oswald to shoot at Walker. That was his lifetime secret (until his book, "I'm a Patsy" was written, and then he killed himself). But aside from that withhold, he told the truth to the Warren Commission. I find him believable, if somewhat self-righteous.

As for Volkmar Schmidt, he was a consummate professional and a Christian gentleman with no reason to lie to anyone. I don't see why you claim he was untrustworthy.

(5) I make a sharp distinction between the Kill-Team of JFK and the Cover-up Team of the JFK murder. In this belief I truly might be all alone. I haven't seen anybody else develop this distinction. Yet for this very reason I disagree with your effort to make the Warren Commission Cover-up into part of the effort to FRAME Oswald.

In my theory, the Kill-Team FRAMED Lee Harvey Oswald as a "Communist". In my theory, the Cover-up Team opposed the framing, and redefined Oswald into the "Lone Shooter."

These are very different portraits of Lee Harvey Oswald. So, no, I never believed the Framers. Nor do I believe the Cover-up Team.

There were three theories that hit the streets on 11/22/1963: (1) that Oswald was working with Communists to kill JFK; (2) that Oswald was working with the right-wing to kill JFK; and (3) that Oswald was a Lone Nut, with no accomplices at all.

According to me, theory #1 was invented by the Framers of Oswald. According to me, theory #2 was always the truth. According to me, theory #3 was the FBI response to Cold War pressures, and won the day.

So, Paul B., in my opinion, NONE OF THE WARREN COMMISSION TESTIMONY FRAMES LEE HARVEY OSWALD. Only a few, like Edwin Walker and Robert Allen Surrey, still dared to tell the Warren Commission attorneys that they should be investigating the Communists to find the accomplices of Lee Harvey Oswald. Nobody else pushed theory #1 in the face of the Warren Commission.

So -- I deny that I've chosen to believe the Framers.

(6) You're in sympathy with the NEXUS of power outlined by Larry Hancock, between JM/WAVE on the one hand, and the thousands of Cuban Exile militants being trained in civilian paramilitary camps all over the USA, on the other hand. Their involvement is clear -- I agree with you and Larry to some extent.

Our break, however, is not about their involvement, but about their LEADERSHIP. Apparently you wish to find the LEADERSHIP of the JFK murder inside the CIA high-command.

I say that neither Garrison nor Mellen nor Hancock nor Simpich have provided sufficient evidence to warrant an accusation of the CIA for the murder of JFK. On the contrary, Garrison and Mellen identified a bunch of mercenaries.

Lee Harvey Oswald had accomplices. On this point the Warren Commission conclusion was mistaken -- that is, deliberately mistaken (because I believe the Warren Commission knew the real truth, but insisted on withholding it for 75 years).

The CIA wasn't in charge -- but some CIA rogues jumped ship and joined violent types among civilians -- types with the John Birch Society philosophy that sitting US Presidents were in reality COMMUNISTS.

That is where we should be looking, according to my theory.

(7) As for the Jim Garrison tragedy -- he took a lot of heat from all levels of the US Government. He eventually blamed the CIA, but he was only guessing at that.

I think the FBI spent more effort foiling Jim Garrison than the CIA did. The reason was that the FBI had been responsible for the Warren Report in the first place.

According to my theory, J. Edgar Hoover conceived of the "Lone Nut" solution to the JFK murder one hour after Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. On that basis, Hoover commanded the entire FBI to begin falsifying all evidence of more than one shooter.

That was a nightmare task for the FBI, but they did their best. They falsified all the evidence they got their hands on. JFK reseachers have documented this for a half-century now.

But J. Edgar Hoover had a special reason for this -- it was National Security. If the American People found out that the right-wing had killed JFK in order to blame the Communists, then thousands of activists in the US left-wing in 1963 would have taken up weapons to attack the John Birch Society and their paramilitary arm, the Minutemen.

I'm not the only one who thinks along these lines, Paul B., because here's a quotation from Professor David R. Wrone of the University of Wisconsin on the same topic:

"There was almost an immediate concern among people that I know, that the JFK murder had been brought about by the right-wing. I know that in some communities where they had John Birch Societies, men went out with axes and chopped down the John Birch Society advertisements -- immediately." (D.R. Wrone, 2005)

I feel confident that J. Edgar Hoover felt the same movement in 1963. Some people would have violently attacked the right-wing in 1963, and the right-wing had uncounted THOUSANDS of armed Minutemen ready to respond at a moments notice.

We forget -- because it was a half-century ago -- how high the emotions ran in 1963. A Civil War in the USA was a likely result of the murder of JFK. Yet the Cold War was still raging. It could have truly exploded into something nobody could manage. J. Edgar Hoover, I have argued since last year, did the right thing.

So, getting back to Jim Garrison -- it was the FBI who really opposed Jim Garrison from all sides. They spied on him, stole his records, tampered with his witnesses, and on and on -- all by the order of J. Edgar Hoover, who was certain that the FBI was doing the right thing for the country.

Remember that in 1968 the Cold War was still raging! Hoover would not risk a Civil War in the USA. In his honest judgment, Jim Garrison had to be portrayed as another "mental case" in Hoover's long list of "mental cases."

(8) So, Paul B., I maintain that my details are more solid than yours, and that my witnesses are more reliable than the sheer guesswork of this or that writer. I also maintain that when Lee Harvey Oswald shouted to the whole world that he was a PATSY, that this was tantamount to a confession that he had accomplices who had betrayed him. It was a CONFESSION at least in part.

When I insist on the CONTEXT of his phase to be the whole summer of 1963 (rather than merely the single sentence preceding his phrase) I continue to maintain that this context supplies a more ACCURATE grasp of his phrase.

(9) As for Gerry Patrick Hemming, he is a valuable source of evidence, according to A.J. Weberman, though Weberman knew better than anybody how Hemming could stretch the truth any old way he liked. One needs to learn to read between the lines with Hemming -- and with any witness, frankly.

(10) When I used the word "hypnotize" to describe how Volkmar Schmidt convinced Lee Harvey Oswald to hate and despise Ex-General Walker -- I am not the first to use that term. Schmidt made a public show of his psychological techniques. He had grown up in a house of psychologists, and even as a young boy he learned many tricks of psychology and liked to show them off. Even George DM admits that "Schmidt" worked for HOURS on Oswald that night.

(11) As for Michael and Ruth Paine, IMHO they are like George and Jeanne DM because they knew far more about the shooting at Ex-General Walker than they ever admitted. Like George DM they have carried this withhold on their conscience for a lifetime. That's my opinion of it.

However, just because they had relatives who were in the US Government on the one hand, or in the Communist Party on the other hand -- none of that impresses me in the slightest.

We've seen this from other "researchers" who waste our time with the RELATIVES of the people under scrutiny, and their in-laws, and their adopted children, and so on ad nauseum. Get over it. The persons of interest are the only ones of interest -- NOT THEIR RELATIVES. Neither Michael nor Ruth Paine were salaried, CIA Officers.

Also, I find NOTHING suspect about Ruth Paine getting a job for Lee Oswald in the TSBD building. She had NO idea that JFK would be killed in Dealey Plaza, IMHO. Also, I doubt that the JFK Killers even decided on Dealey Plaza until two weeks before the murder. (They also contemplated the Dallas Trade Mart, as multiple sources have reported.)

So, unless you can PROVE that the Kill-Team planned to use Dealey Plaza two months ahead of time, then there's no reason at all to suspect Ruth Paine of conspiring to kill JFK in some half-baked CIA-did-it theory.

(12) The key to the murder of JFK -- despite 50 years and 400 books on the topic -- is Ex-General Edwin Walker.

Very few people have explored this avenue, but in late 1963 and early 1964 he was very much discussed, and his name appears more than 500 times in the Warren Commission volumes.

Edwin Walker GOT AWAY with orchestrating the abuse of Adlai Stevenson in Dallas during October 1963. I strongly suspect that Edwin Walker GOT AWAY with orchestrating the murder of JFK in Dallas in November 1963.

Today, only Harry Dean still survives from that era, and still continues to voice his 1965 claim -- he heard the words from the mouth of Edwin Walker himself, at a closed meeting of some John Birchers, to the effect that Lee Harvey Oswald, an FPCC officer in New Orleans -- was selected to be the PATSY for the murder of JFK in Dallas.

In 1964, only one person said words to that effect -- Jack Ruby -- in his testimony to Earl Warren himself.

After that, people have suspected EVERYBODY ELSE EXCEPT EDWIN WALKER, and have never solved the JFK murder.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited September 8, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

"MAYBE Nagell told Oswald he would kill him if he succeeded in getting a Visa from Mexico to Cuba."

Still doesn't make sense. Nagell must have known that If Oswald were to succeed in getting the "instant visa" from the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City, Oswald would go to Cuba immediately (instead of returning to the U.S to fetch his toothbrush and a clean pair of undies), thereby leaving Nagell "in the lurch". In your scenario, you have Nagell making a threat which he would have realized he couldn't follow through on.

"MAYBE that's why Oswald told Marina he wanted to hi-jack an airplane to Cuba..."

So he could "participate in some way in the assassination of Fidel Castro"? After hi-jacking a plane to Cuba??? I don't care how young, naiive, and emotional Oswald was -- that's an implausible combination for even him to consider.

It makes little sense that Oswald would hi-jack a plane to Cuba, but even less to do so to kill Castro...

--Tommy

Edited September 8, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Well Paul, you are right about one thing. It was the right wing that did the deed.

[Paul Brancato]

Yes Thomas I agree - the hijacking story makes no sense.

[Thomas Graves]

Yes Thomas I agree - the hijacking story makes no sense.

But you don't understand, Paul. That's what he told Marina and then later he wept !

--Tommy

Edited September 8, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[David Andrews]

My memory of The Man Who Knew Too Much is that Nagell told Dick Russell that he warned Oswald, at Jackson Square in New Orleans, that he was in with an element that was going to set him up for a fall - presumably Hall and Howard. I don't recall that Nagell told Oswald that he was under compulsion to kill Oswald, which would be a counterintuitive thing for a KGB counterespionage agent to reveal. ("These guys are setting you up, so if you don't quit them I'm gonna have to take you out." That's a confidence-inspiring line.) Nagell allegedly paid a tourist street photographer in Jackson Square to commemorate the meeting with Oswald, which photo was presumably in Nagell's self-preservation cache, and was lost with other evidence after Nagell died.

My feeling is that Oswald's express mission was to present himself as a perpetual dangle to interests left and right, and to report on anyone who took the bait. This put him into incriminating situations: the Walker shooting; the Mexico City trip (or into going elsewhere under orders while the Mexico City fraud was perpetrated in his name); and, finally - through the Paines' agency - into the TSBD on 11/22. To incriminate him, Oswald may have been ordered to encourage DeMohrenschildt's assumption that he shot at Walker, which DeMohrenschildt was instructed to ask him about: What is the sound of two dupes talking? Was Oswald ordered to "report" on George deMohrenschildt's overtures and influence, as if DeMohrenschildt was one of those who bit at the dangle?

Nagell may have never known if Oswald was actually going to Mexico City or not - Oswald may not have spilled all his involvements and movements to Nagell. Perhaps Hall and Howard babysat him while the imposture was perpetrated, and instead drove him to incriminating rendezvous like the one at Sylvia Odio's - other meetings that we've never heard of. But Nagell was warning him of bad company, regardless of whether he had full knowledge of Oswald's movements.

Edited September 8, 2014 by David Andrews

[Paul Trejo]

"MAYBE Nagell told Oswald he would kill him if he succeeded in getting a Visa from Mexico to Cuba."

Still doesn't make sense. Nagell must have known that If Oswald were to succeed in getting the "instant visa" from the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City, Oswald would go to Cuba immediately (instead of returning to the U.S to fetch his toothbrush and a clean pair of undies), thereby leaving Nagell "in the lurch". In your scenario, you have Nagell making a threat which he would have realized he couldn't follow through on.

"MAYBE that's why Oswald told Marina he wanted to hi-jack an airplane to Cuba..."

So he could "participate in some way in the assassination of Fidel Castro"? After hi-jacking a plane to Cuba??? I don't care how young, naiive, and emotional Oswald was -- that's an implausible combination for even him to consider.

It makes little sense that Oswald would hi-jack a plane to Cuba, but even less to do so to kill Castro...

--Tommy

Let's see, Tommy -- are you going to argue for the rationality of Lee Harvey Oswald, even down to his inner FANTASIES?

Marina Oswald testified (and I believe her) that Lee Harvey Oswald talked endlessly about hi-jacking an airplane to Cuba. Now -- are you saying that Marina Oswald is lying, or that I'm "inventing" this story? I'm saying that Marina truthfully reported this story.

I'm starting from Marina Oswald's testimony. Some JFK researchers believe her, and some don't. I believe her. I don't know how to convince anybody to believe Marina if their minds are closed with regard to her sworn testimony. But Marina Oswald is my starting point for this story.

(By the way, the book, Marina and Lee, by Priscilla McMillan (1977) is almost entirely based on Marina's Warren Commission testimony. When McMillan interviewed Marina, Marina mainly repeated her testimony -- what else? It was all Marina had to say. The Warren Commission got it all. (McMillan filled in some blanks with her American middle-class imagination, which forms the weaker part of her book.)

The Warren Commission testimonies are largely reliable, in my opinion. They comprise the most important body of testimony that we have concerning the JFK murder.

It is indeed unfortunate that the conclusions of the Warren Commission were deliberately falsified by the FBI (and by the Warren Commission by extension) because it allows one-sided thinkers to "throw out the baby with the bathwater."

We should recall what Allen Dulles told his clerk, Jacques Zwart: "The full answer to the JFK assassination is right there in the Warren Commission (WC) volumes -- but the reader must become an expert at 'hairsplitting'." This is why Zwart in 1970 published his book, Invitation to Hairsplitting.

Now -- given that Lee Harvey Oswald at least FANTASIZED about hi-jacking a plane to Cuba, we are right to contemplate the implications of that report.

I agree -- and everybody agrees -- that it was a dumb, childish idea. Lee Harvey Oswald rejected the idea himself!. But first he fantasized.about it. Remember that he was reading lots of 007 novels at the time. Also, Jim Garrison suggests that David Ferrie, Guy Banister and Clay Shaw were all manipulating Lee Harvey Oswald in some way -- probably filling his mind with CIA fantasies.

Also, remember that Ron Lewis in his book, Flashback: The Untold Story of Lee Harvey Oswald (1994), says that Lee Oswald tried to get him to help hi-jack the plane to Cuba. In this account, it was Ron Lewis who told Lee Oswald that Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, so it made no sense to hi-jack an airplane to Cuba -- and more sense just to commandeer a small airplane to get to Cuba, instead. These are the words that Lee eventually told Marina when he dropped the idea.

So -- it makes sense that Ferrie, Banister and Shaw told Lee Oswald that he could get a Visa into Cuba very easily through Mexico City, simply by showing that he was an FPCC officer. With these phony credentials of being an FPCC officer, the "dumb" Mexican consulate clerks would just give him a Visa, no questions asked.

This would be fairly common thinking for a rightist American Southerner in 1963.

That's also the most straightforward explanation for Oswald's bizarre behavior in Mexico City. He really expected the Cuban consulate clerk in Mexico City to just hand over a Visa upon the sight of these American newspaper clippings about this "FPCC officer". And Oswald expected this because his "friends" were lying to him. Otherwise, his behavior in Mexico makes no sense at all.

How much can we say about the rationality of Lee Harvey Oswald in the face of his foolish behavior in Mexico City? Oswald was rational to this extent -- he finally admitted that hi-jacking a plane to Cuba was a dumb idea.

Now -- the only question left is WHY would Oswald want to get to Cuba. I say that Oswald wanted to go to Cuba because his FRAMERS talked him into it. The simplest answer is that they told him he would be a big hero (and get a lot of cash) if he would participate in Operation Mongoose.

We know from Jim Garrison's investigations that Lee Harvey Oswald was active in New Orleans among low-level people involved with Operation Mongoose -- another plot to kill Fidel Castro.

You can mock the idea that Lee Oswald wanted to kill Fidel Castro, Tommy, but you don't seem to offer any alternatives to it. My theory still stands as plausible.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited September 9, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

My theory still stands as plausible.

[...]

It's fascinating that, according to your theory, in order to kill Castro, Oswald would consider infiltrating himself into Cuba by hijacking an airplane.

I'm just wondering if he was going to do this before or after he got that "instant visa" from Sylvia Duran.

--Tommy

Forum members -- Here's an interesting article by Dick Russell.

Note that Russell says that Oswald thought he was working for Castro...

http://www.assassinationweb.com/russell2.htm

Oswald and the CIA

by Dick Russell

[Emphasis added by T. Graves]

One day after receiving a letter from the Assassination Records Review Board, a key witness in the murder of JFK was found dead in his home in California. Meanwhile, new evidence continues to pile up regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's connections to the CIA.

At 9 PM last November 1, the landlord of a house in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles unsuccessfully tried the locks, then pried open a window and forced his way inside. Robert Lavelle had been alerted by a neighbor that his tenant, 65-year-old Richard Case Nagell, had not been seen for several days. Lavelle discovered the already-decomposing body of Nagell in the bathroom, and immediately alerted the police.

Only the morning before, in Washington, the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)--mandated by Congress under the JFK Records Act of 1992 to review for public release all still-secret files on the John F. Kennedy assassination--had mailed Richard Nagell a letter. The board was seeking access to documentation he claimed to possess about a conspiracy to murder the 35th President of the United States.

Although an autopsy performed by the L.A. County Coroner's office determined that Nagell had died of a heart attack, the timing triggered alarm inside the ARRB. More than a month earlier, based upon testimony of this writer at a public hearing in Boston, ARRB executives had decided to pursue Nagell's private files and use their subpoena power to call him to testify. Upon hearing of his sudden death, the ARRB issued a subpoena for any records he may have kept in his house and flew an investigator to Los Angeles.

What may surface next remains an open and very provocative question. As outlined in my 1992 book about Nagell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York), the ex-military intelligence and CIA operative said he had made arrangements for certain "smoking guns" to be divulged in the event of his death. These are likely to include a tape recording done surreptitiously by Nagell in the late summer of 1963, where at least four individuals--himself, Lee Harvey Oswald and two Cuban exiles--plotted the assassination of President Kennedy. A photograph of Nagell and Oswald, which Nagell had a vendor take in New Orleans' Jackson Square, was said to be stashed in a bank vault in Zurich, Switzerland.

In summary, what Nagell has chosen to reveal about his role in the conspiracy goes like this: Under contract to the CIA, he undertook an assignment as a "double agent" who would cooperate with Soviet intelligence beginning in the autumn of 1962. Under KGB instructions from Mexico City, for a year he monitored discussions among a group of embittered Cuban exiles who were seeking to assassinate Kennedy and make it look as though Fidel Castro's Cuba was behind it. He was simultaneously asked to keep an eye on Lee Harvey Oswald, recently returned to America after his alleged "defection" to the USSR.

Oswald was brought into the conspiracy in July 1963, deceived into thinking he was working for Castro. Soviet intelligence ordered Nagell either to convince Oswald he was being set up to take the rap--or to kill him in Mexico City before the assassination could transpire. While both U S and Soviet intelligence agencies were aware of the conspiracy, it was the KGB--not the CIA or FBI--that attempted to prevent it. The Soviets, who had reached a growing accommodation with Kennedy after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, were also afraid that the assassination would falsely be blamed upon them or the Cubans.

Nagell, instead of carrying out his assignment, sent a registered letter to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (which he also served as a confidential informant) more than two months before the tragedy in Dallas, providing enough information to warrant the arrest of Oswald and two Cuban exiles. While the bureau says it cannot locate any such letter in its files, it is likely that Nagell kept a copy and the registered-mail receipt among his effects.

Also alerting CIA officials of the plot, Nagell then walked into a bank in El Paso, Texas, on September 20, 1963, fired two shots into the wall and intentionally had himself placed in federal custody. He hinted to me in a series of meetings that right-wing extremists, including wealthy Texas oil interests and CIA renegades, were ultimately behind the assassination.

Considerable documentation, including a notebook seized by the FBI upon Nagell's arrest that contained listings remarkably similar to Oswald's own notebook, already lends credibility to his story. Yet he was ignored by both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The new ARRB thus became the first official government body to express an interest in what he might be able to reveal. And, like Oswald's friend George deMohrenschildt--who allegedly committed suicide hours before a House Select Committee investigator was to see him in 1977--suddenly, Nagell was dead.

Previously unavailable files released so far through the ARRB's process have already raised more questions about a high-level cover-up surrounding Nagell. After his arrest in El Paso, he was held without a trial for nine months in a county jail, where the FBI and Secret Service visited him on several occasions after the assassination. Although no mention is made of Nagell in the Warren Commission's 26 volumes, FBI reports from December 1963 clearly state that he talked of having known Oswald in Texas and Mexico City.

Transcripts of assassination-related telephone conversations with President Lyndon Johnson show that his friend Homer Thornberry, a federal judge who had been a Texas Congressman, was in touch with LBJ twice in the weeks following the assassination. Then, late in January 1964, Thornberry suddenly stepped in as the new judge in the Nagell case--where court transcripts indicated a concerted effort to suppress Nagell's efforts to describe his true motive for his alleged "attempted bank robbery." Thornberry handed down the maximum sentence upon Nagell's conviction in June 1964, a conviction that was later overturned on appeal. Nagell was released from prison in the spring of 1968, flying to Europe shortly thereafter, where he was arrested on a train by East German authorities and held for four months behind the then-"Iron Curtain" before being released to US authorities at the Berlin border.

Long before this, according to a just-declassified March 20, 1964 CIA file, the agency was pursuing the significance of six names of CIA employees found in the Nagell notebook taken by the FBI in September 1963. Another CIA memorandum, dated July 20, 1963 out of its Mexico City station, tells of an American using the name Eldon Hensen who wanted to establish contact with the Cuban Embassy there. Having picked up this information via a telephone tap, the CIA then dispatched someone posing as a Cuban Embassy officer to lure Hensen to a hotel restaurant. The file describes Hensen's expressed willingness to "help Castro government in US, willing travel, has many good contacts in States, can 'move things from one place to another' "--which carries overtones of Nagell's own "double" role.

Author John Newman, in Oswald And The CIA, his 1995 book based on the recently released files, uses this incident to highlight the CIA's capability "to enter surreptitiously into someone's life to control or manipulate it," a scenario Newman cites as a precursor to the agency's shenanigans when Oswald paid visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City two months later. What Newman fails to mention is the significance of the CIA file's stating that Hensen "agreed accept phone call with key word 'Laredo' as call from [deleted] contact."

In one of my interviews with Nagell in 1978, he discussed his own use of the same code name, "Laredo," when making contact with Soviet intelligence. When I last spoke with Nagell in April 1994 and gave him Hensen's physical description, he said only: "That fits somebody I'd run into at the time." Asked why he chose not to mention Nagell in his book, Newman responded: "My methodology made that impossible. If it wasn't in the new documents, it didn't make it into my manuscript. I wanted to keep everything focused on the CIA's internal paper trail. I still don't know what to make of the Nagell story; if it's true, it's dynamite."

What Newman sets down about the CIA's "paper trail" does, in fact, add credence to the Nagell revelations. Here, for example, is the author's summary analysis of the three months preceding the assassination:

"The CIA was far more interested in Oswald than they have ever admitted to publicly. At some time before the Kennedy assassination, the Cuban Affairs offices at the CIA developed a keen operational interest in him. Oswald's visit to Mexico City may have had some connection to the FBI or CIA. It appears that the Mexico City station wrapped its own operation around Oswald's consular visits there. Whether or not Oswald understood what was going on is less clear than the probability that something operational was happening in conjugation with his visit."

Noting the possibility of a CIA "renegade faction" manipulating Oswald, Newman concludes: "We can finally say with some authority that the CIA was spinning a web of deception about Oswald weeks before the President's murder," based upon an exhaustive survey of now-visible files that were denied to previous official investigations.

This dovetails with Nagell's earlier statements that the CIA's Cuban Task Force, then run by Desmond FitzGerald, as well as the agency's Mexico City station, were deeply embroiled in the Oswald affair. It also backs up his claim that Oswald did not know who was pulling his strings.

Newman devotes considerable attention, too, to Gerry Patrick Hemming, whose CIA files bear curious parallels to Oswald's. A former Marine who filed reports to the agency, Hemming claimed to have met with Oswald near the Cuban consulate in Los Angeles early in 1959. Hemming's trail into the Cuban exile community seems to have been followed by two CIA employees in Los Angeles, Joseph DaVanon and Ernest Liebacher. Both of their names appear in the notebook seized from Nagell by the FBI in September 1963, under the heading "C.I.A."

Also pertinent is Newman's tracing of earlier CIA interest in Oswald, from the moment the ex-Marine showed up at the American Embassy in Moscow trying to renounce his citizenship in October 1959. "I was particularly interested,"Newman says, "in trying to marshal evidence for Oswald having been a counterintelligence dangle. In other words, the CIA would have been using him to ferret out a 'mole,' who was first thought to be in the U-2 program before the focus very quickly changed to their own Soviet Russia Division." (A "mole" is a hidden asset of the KGB, such as Aldrich Ames; observing the then top-secret U-2 spy-plane program was part of Oswald's mission while a Marine in Japan.)

Newman observes that the "most pronounced fingerprints" on Oswald emanated from the CIA's mole-hunting unit, CI/SIG, run by the late superspook James Jesus Angleton. The existence of Soviet moles inside the CIA was among Nagell's key points about the assassination. He indicated that John Paisley, who was in charge of a CIA unit overseeing Soviet electronics at the time Oswald was employed in a radio-electronics factory in Minsk--and who died mysteriously in 1978--was one such mole. Nagell also hinted that his own case officer inside the Mexico City station had nefarious ties to Soviet intelligence, which he himself did not discover until the late summer of 1963.

This is not to say that the Soviets were behind the assassination, a theory that Nagell adamantly repudiated, but rather that the CIA hierarchy's cover-up of its relations with Oswald related to its ultra-secret mole hunt.

Norman Mailer, whose 1995 book Oswald's Tale offers fresh insights into Oswald's time in the USSR, conducted numerous interviews with ex-KGB agents there. After reading Newman's book, Mailer says: "I redid a little my thinking on what the KGB told us. They were very consistent, which made me suspicious as it made me confident. They said over and over they were not interested in Oswald because they had better information on the U-2. What is he, some kind of exotic dangle? they wondered. Did the CIA send him over here as just someone who they [CIA] could observe what's done to him? So we don't do anything to him, we won't debrief him overtly, we don't want to tip our hand."

I accepted that, when I got to know the KGB and how conservative they were, how terrified of making a mistake. The KGB is seen in America as a tremendous evil, adventurers. Yeah, they had a wing of 100 guys who were daredevils, like the CIA, but generally the outfit was exceptionally conservative. But reading Newman, I began to think they were afraid that the CIA was after a mole who was telling the KGB about the U-2. This is something I didn't think of while we were over there, I wish we had. We didn't see all the KGB files, no question. They didn't reveal a lot to us, saying they were protecting their sources, and there's no question we received an edited version of their files."

Taking up residence for three months in Russia, Mailer was granted access to much information gathered by the KGB during Oswald's tenure in the USSR, which his book quotes at length and proves that Soviet intelligence bugged Oswald's Minsk apartment and maintained constant surveillance of his activities. Mailer believes the KGB "never would have used Oswald. They had too much petty stuff on him. Once you've seen a man losing arguments and being stupid with his wife, it's very hard to pick him to go out and kill a President. In fact, their first fear was that the assassination was a provocation by the United States to start a nuclear war. But I used to quiz the KGB very hard about whether they didn't keep up with Oswald when he came back to the USA. Finally what they confessed was, they didn't have the resources. It was very difficult because their every move here was being watched."

This, of course, does not take into account whether the KGB could have utilized an American "double agent," like Nagell, to keep tabs on Oswald. On the US side, Mailer thinks the CIA/FBI cover-up was "to protect other things. They had a lot more relations with Oswald than they have allowed. This may have gone as far as [the FBI's] COINTELPRO, and even people inside the [CIA's anti-Castro] JM/WAVE operation knowing of his potential as a killer."

Mailer's book has been taken to task by conspiracy theorists as a sellout, as his research led him to offer a 75 percent conclusion that Oswald probably acted alone. "But I'm not totally convinced [of that]." Mailer says. "If somebody came along with exciting evidence, I'd be willing to chase down another direction. I don't feel the case is closed for me at all."

Mailer and Newman were scheduled for a debate at the Coalition for Political Assassinations conference in Washington last October, until certain preconditions set by Mailer were turned down by the coalition's chief organizer. This led Newman, a retired military-intelligence analyst, to take Mailer to task at the conference, especially over his failure to study the latest batches of CIA files. For his part, Mailer says he figured, "What's the point? We could only do a slipshod job on the new files and they'll be digestible for years to come."

As for Newman's work, Mailer adds: "I think the service he performed was to lay out what the intelligence agencies had not been wanting to give us. It's almost as if they were providing the outer husk of the onion, and we're going to have to keep fighting to get layer after layer after layer. But I'd have been much happier if Newman had used his knowledge of intelligence to give us a fighting chance at some idea of how the routing [of CIA/FBI internal information] really works."

While each of these latest books on the assassination unearths some new ground--particularly Newman's sometimes ponderous, but meticulous, scrutiny of the CIA's all-too-evident operational interest in Oswald long before November 22, 1963--the real breakthroughs are likely to follow in the coming months from the Assassination Records Review Board. The ARRB ran up against FBI stonewalling last August, after voting for full release of 15 records which the bureau then appealed directly to President Clinton to continue to withhold on "national security" grounds. The ARRB has come under fire from some assassination researchers for complying with FBI and CIA requests to keep back certain files "relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods."

Still, what's been publicly released so far--with the promise of much more to come before the ARRB mandate expires late in 1997--has given additional fuel to conspiracy researchers. We now know, for example, that David Phillips, the CIA's covert-action chief in Mexico City, was in Washington on October 1, 1963, waiting to pick up "bulk materials." These probably included transcripts of conversations between Oswald and Moscow's Soviet Embassy, some of which appear to have involved an Oswald impostor.

We also know that, as early as February 1961, Phillips was supervising a CIA operation against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a one-man chapter of which Oswald established in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Phillips was working in tandem with James McCord, a CIA agent later involved in the Watergate scandal. As far back as 1976, both Phillips and McCord were cited in cryptic comments by Richard Nagell as having played some role in the CIA's relationship with Oswald.

Until a CIA file release by the ARRB last September, the CIA had always refused to acknowledge its use of double agents against the Soviets. However, a November 29, 1963 cable relating to its Mexico City operations states that CIA "double agents have not had meetings with Sovs [soviets] since assassination." This is further substantiation for the agency's utilization of operatives like Nagell.

According to Noel Twyman, a San Diego researcher who was able to speak to Nagell twice over the telephone in the months before his death, he expressed renewed fear for his life but said his private files were in safekeeping. Nagell added that there are individuals still alive who would be greatly "embarrassed" in the event his materials should come to light.

Two police officers entering Nagell's residence after his body was discovered found no evidence of anything having been disturbed. A number of weapons were inventoried and the house was sealed off by the L.A. Coroner's office, pending the arrival of an executor named by Nagell for his estate. An LAPD officer was said to be watching the house to make sure that nobody broke in. Meantime, a curious message went from the coroner's office to the L.A. Public Administrator, which is in charge of estate arrangements. "When entering the house, beware of traps or pitfalls, due to deceased's CIA background connections," it said. Clearly, L.A. officials realized this was no ordinary case.

Richard Case Nagell died as he lived, alone and holding his cards close to his vest. The Assassination Records Review Board did make contact with his executor, but what transpired next is being held closely by Washington. Will the world soon know the full story of "the man who knew too much?" For now, it is a waiting game.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Steven Gaal]

Written by Zachàr Laskewicz

=====

The House I built was not of bricks,
Nor stone, nor wood, nor mud and sticks;
Made thus of cards
Its fall was self
Fulfilling…

Still, knowing it would all backfire,
I kept on, as I did desire:
Not ‘house-as-built’,
Instead, the act of
Building.

I worked on it for hours long,
So you would think it safe and strong;
Yet for every hour
Intact I kept on
Praying…

With the fragile beams I lay
I knew my house could blow away
Thanks to the weak
Foundations I was
Laying.

===

House of Cards = Marina Testimony

=

see http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7039&p=65063

=

see http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7039&p=65084

=

When Marina testified before the Warren Commission her convoluted testimony was reviewed by staff attorneys and compared with the numerous statements she gave to the Secret Service and FBI agents. Commission staff member Fredda Scobey wrote a memo to Commission member Senator Russell and said, "Marina directly lied on at least two occasions," and advised that she be cross examined.

Scobey wanted to discuss the subject of Marina's lying before the full Commission, but Chief Justice Earl Warren refused and told counsel J. Lee Rankin not to press the issue. Scobey then prepared a 7-page report and wrote, "Marina's testimony is so full of confusion that without the catalytic element of cross-examination it reads like a nightmare. By her own admission, Marina is a xxxx, and it is her voice that tells us how intensely she disliked the FBI and how she lied to that agency almost uniformly."

==========

also see http://www.giljesus.com/jfk/marina.htm
===========

Edited September 8, 2014 by Steven Gaal