The Ultimate USAEC secrets per the JFK hit.

[Larry Hancock]

OK, I must be feeling obsessive today but lets get a bit more detailed. Sturgis was a covert source providing information to the US embassy in Havana before it got booted, later he began passing info to the CIA including an early offer to kill Castro - which they rejected. After moving to Miami he became a much more active informant, run by Barker. He got to be so widely know for doing that - as noted by Hemming - that his usefulness eroded and he was left on his own....did some interesting charity scams after that among other things.

Martino was an FBI informant after the assassination, pointing suspicion at Castro. He wanted nothing to do with the CIA and even during the Bayo Pawley operation they wanted nothing to do with him and would have dumped him if Alpha 66 had not insisted on his coming along.

Hemming was an actual CIA informant after he returned from Cuba - for a time he even had low level clearance - but was released over a gun incident and from then on anything he provided the CIA and FBI - which he did often just as Hall and Howard did - was strictly at his initiative.

Johnny Roselli was in a totally different category - actually recruited by the CIA and known at the highest levels. He was operational but totally compartmentalized. And he was given money, lots of money, most likely for operational use including bribes but we really have no idea.

Ferrie and Oswald I'll leave to others, certainly Ferrie would never have passed an office of security screen as an approved asset. What he may have done for others who did have stronger connections is another story entirely.

My point is that you just can't lump all these folks together and make broad statements about them. And their relationships with intelligence agencies and each other changed dramatically over time, sometimes at a month by month level. So you also have to put in the timing element when you talk about them, their motives or their actions. I'm sorry but you really do tend to paint with a very broad brush.

[Paul Trejo]

OK, I must be feeling obsessive today but lets get a bit more detailed. Sturgis was a covert source providing information to the US embassy in Havana before it got booted, later he began passing info to the CIA including an early offer to kill Castro - which they rejected. After moving to Miami he became a much more active informant, run by Barker. He got to be so widely know for doing that - as noted by Hemming - that his usefulness eroded and he was left on his own....did some interesting charity scams after that among other things.

Martino was an FBI informant after the assassination, pointing suspicion at Castro. He wanted nothing to do with the CIA and even during the Bayo Pawley operation they wanted nothing to do with him and would have dumped him if Alpha 66 had not insisted on his coming along.

Hemming was an actual CIA informant after he returned from Cuba - for a time he even had low level clearance - but was released over a gun incident and from then on anything he provided the CIA and FBI - which he did often just as Hall and Howard did - was strictly at his initiative.

Johnny Roselli was in a totally different category - actually recruited by the CIA and known at the highest levels. He was operational but totally compartmentalized. And he was given money, lots of money, most likely for operational use including bribes but we really have no idea.

Ferrie and Oswald I'll leave to others, certainly Ferrie would never have passed an office of security screen as an approved asset. What he may have done for others who did have stronger connections is another story entirely.

My point is that you just can't lump all these folks together and make broad statements about them. And their relationships with intelligence agencies and each other changed dramatically over time, sometimes at a month by month level. So you also have to put in the timing element when you talk about them, their motives or their actions. I'm sorry but you really do tend to paint with a very broad brush.

Well, Larry, although I agree that there are many differences between these characters, and their ranking in an authoritative hierarchy is quite wide -- still, by the rules of logic, I actually can make a few broad statements about them.

For example: despite their varying levels of usefulness to the CIA, not one of them was an actual, salaried CIA Agent.

That's important for historians, IMHO. Jim Garrison and Joan Mellen are only two of the well-known JFK Researchers who have taken this motley of characters, and added a few more, like Clay Shaw, Jack S. Martin, Fred Crisman and Thomas Edward Beckham, and tried to make a CIA conspiracy out of these characters, none of whom was an actual, salaried CIA Agent.

In my view that's pretty important. It points away from the CIA, rather than toward them.

Now, when it comes to actual, salaried CIA Agents, even you yourself are unwilling to name James Jesus Angleton in the JFK plot.

It is still unproven whether David Atlee Phillips was involved in the Kill-JFK plot (although it is guaranteed he was involved in the Kill-Fidel plot, and also involved Antonio Veciana and Lee Harvey Oswald in that task).

It is still unproven -- and even doubtful as you yourself said -- whether Edward Lansdale was involved in the Kill-JFK plot.

It remains unproven whether Bill Harvey was involved in it, and in fact, Bill Harvey was drinking himself to death in quasi-exile in Italy when Oswald was being framed.

It remains unproven that Allen Dulles was involved in it -- and in any case Dulles was no longer a salaried CIA Agent in 1963.

As far as actual, salaried CIA Agents, the only confessions we have are from Howard Hunt and David Morales. That's it. It's important, IMHO, that all the other confessions we have are from these lower-level motley of characters named above. And actually lots of them confessed in roughly this order:

1. Lee Harvey Oswald (when he declared, "I'm a Patsy!")

2. Jack S. Martin (to Jim Garrison)

3. David Ferrie (to Jim Garrison)

4. Johnny Roselli

5. Frank Sturgis

6. John Martino

7. Loran Hall (in a way)

8. Gerry Patrick Hemming (to A.J. Weberman)

There's a fair chunk of the ground-crew, Larry. And not one of these was an actual, salaried CIA Agent.

Now, in order to identify the rest of the ground-crew, we must naturally research the known ASSOCIATES of these men, and especially those people who were known to MORE THAN ONE of them during 1963. That's where we find Guy Banister, Clay Shaw, Edwin Walker, Carlos Bringuier, Ed Butler -- and various other rightist mercenaries and activists, and those in the Cuban Exile community.

And not one of these was an actual, salaried CIA Agent, either!

So, Larry, I think I can logically and correctly make a few broad generalizations about these men -- and paint them all with that same brush. And furthermore, I think it tells historians something very important about this ground crew. Their very plethora tends to argue against a central role for the CIA in the murder of JFK!

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited August 29, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, I'm certainly not going to spend time deconstructing your logic. My only comments will be made in regard to descriptive or factual error or when someone asks my opinion. In that regard In my opinion your list is meaningless since only two people on it were involved in the plot...Martino and Roselli...and both rather peripherally, not part of the tactical team per se. But we each get to make our own list so good luck with yours..

My one other point would be that you said you had read NEXUS and if so you know that there are virtually no know instances of an actual CIA employees ever conducting an assassination, standard practice was for that to happen only with very deniable third parties, normally not even informants and certainly not listed and security cleared assets. Such things were always done via case officer cut outs so if an attempt was investigated the case officer and the Agency could always deny that they actually told anyone to do such a thing (well sure they might have talked with them or been approached by them but they certainly never gave them orders to do such a thing)....the Lumumba attempt is the only one that was a bit different and that was so screwed up it hardly counts as SOP.

[Thomas Graves]

Paul, I'm certainly not going to spend time deconstructing your logic. My only comments will be made in regard to descriptive or factual error or when someone asks my opinion. In that regard In my opinion your list is meaningless since only two people on it were involved in the plot...Martino and Roselli...and both rather peripherally, not part of the tactical team per se. But we each get to make our own list so good luck with yours..

My one other point would be that you said you had read NEXUS and if so you know that there are virtually no known instances of an actual CIA employees ever conducting an assassination, standard practice was for that to happen only with very deniable third parties, normally not even informants and certainly not listed and security cleared assets. Such things were always done via case officer cut outs so if an attempt was investigated the case officer and the Agency could always deny that they actually told anyone to do such a thing (well sure they might have talked with them or been approached by them but they certainly never gave them orders to do such a thing)....the Lumumba attempt is the only one that was a bit different and that was so screwed up it hardly counts as SOP.

Larry,

It's interesting that Professor Trejo suggests that since Dulles, Angleton, Phillips and / or Harvey have not yet been proved to have conspired in the assassination of JFK, they mustn't have.

I fail to understand his logic.

After all, one wouldn't expect such career CIA pros to have left behind much self-incriminating evidence, if any.

--Tommy

Edited August 29, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

I wouldn't expect it but rather than that just being an opinion, there is a great deal to prove it - as the Church Committee and the Kerry Committee - among others - learned. One of the reasons I wrote NEXUS and then Shadow Warfare was to try and really document what Agencie's practices were, in particular NEXUS looks specifically at political assassinations to see how such things happened in and around the Agencie's operations and missions. During the very first years you actually did find such practices discussed and documented and rather amazingly, CIA internal history folks collected and recorded such documents in regard to PBFORTUNE and PB SUCCESS, but that practice stopped early on and never returned. As time passed, the practice of using "soft/destroyable" desk files rather than putting things into the official filing system became common and even later there are good examples of entire parallel sets of action between what was going on in the field and what the field was officially reporting.

Circa 1963 you would never find documentation on anything about such an action on paper, the most seminal discussions of his being a national security risk would all be verbal. And from there on anyone deciding to do something about it certainly would not write anything down. And down at JMWAVE, anything done using actual Agency money or materials would easily be piggybacked on another operation. The Castro assassination op was totally black, no records, no paper trail, all down far away from JMWAVE standard practices and accounting - skimming what might be needed would be no trick.

Which means that participation by CIA officers in any fashion will never be proved - the best you've got are anocdotal remarks - but when Phillips finally admitted there was a conspiarcy and intelligence officers were involved that's pretty much enough for me....

-- Larry

[Paul Trejo]

...It's interesting that Professor Trejo suggests that since Dulles, Angleton, Phillips and / or Harvey have not yet been proved to have conspired in the assassination of JFK, they mustn't have...

--Tommy

So, Tommy, two things.

1. I'm not a Professor here at the University. I work on computers on the staff of an ITS department.

2. No way did I say that these CIA Agents "mustn't" have conspired -- what I said was that in the absence of convicting information, we should suspend judgment and not rush to judgment. Just set them aside until more data comes in.

We have plenty of CONFESSIONS already in our history to work with -- and logically speaking, that should be the starting point. If we garner more EVIDENCE about these suspects in our search, then these names will be placed back into play. I never ruled them out of play entirely.

But we can't use the LACK of evidence to make a case, just because it's the CIA. We still need EVIDENCE. Bill Simpich did the ground-breaking work on this, and I think he deserves a medal.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited August 29, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

Paul, I'm certainly not going to spend time deconstructing your logic. My only comments will be made in regard to descriptive or factual error or when someone asks my opinion. In that regard In my opinion your list is meaningless since only two people on it were involved in the plot...Martino and Roselli...and both rather peripherally, not part of the tactical team per se. But we each get to make our own list so good luck with yours..

My one other point would be that you said you had read NEXUS and if so you know that there are virtually no know instances of an actual CIA employees ever conducting an assassination, standard practice was for that to happen only with very deniable third parties, normally not even informants and certainly not listed and security cleared assets. Such things were always done via case officer cut outs so if an attempt was investigated the case officer and the Agency could always deny that they actually told anyone to do such a thing (well sure they might have talked with them or been approached by them but they certainly never gave them orders to do such a thing)....the Lumumba attempt is the only one that was a bit different and that was so screwed up it hardly counts as SOP.

...Which means that participation by CIA officers in any fashion will never be proved - the best you've got are anocdotal remarks - but when Phillips finally admitted there was a conspiarcy and intelligence officers were involved that's pretty much enough for me...

--Larry

Larry, I fully agree that John Martino and Johnny Roselli -- both of whom confessed to involvement in the JFK murder plot -- were actually "on the sidelines" and not part of the tactical team as such.

I also agree that we each get to make our own list, and I also wish you good luck with yours.

Also, I have read your excellent book, NEXUS (2011) and yes, I do know that the CIA (like the FBI) will typically hire mercenaries to do their dirty work. It's all part of "plausible denial."

I think we agree that this makes discovery far more difficult -- yet I wonder if you agree that we can never use this LACK of evidence to build a positive case.

Finally, as for the remarks of David Atlee Phillips, that there was a JFK murder conspiracy, and that CIA officers were involved -- that is indeed important -- HOWEVER -- using a modest, minimalist approach to this statement, we can at best (today) conclude that Phillips later found out that David Morales and Howard Hunt were involved.

Nor does "involvement" mean "leadership." Your theory in NEXUS (and even in your other works) still leaves the Dallas Connection unsatisfactorily resolved, IMHO. Jack Ruby could never have organized the DPD and City Hall the way that a bona fide leader of the Dallas Right-wing could have done.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited August 29, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

... [P]articipation by CIA officers in any fashion will never be proved - the best you've got are anecdotal remarks - but when Phillips finally admitted there was a conspiarcy and intelligence officers were involved that's pretty much enough for me....

-- Larry

Larry,

What's particularly interesting about Phillips, as you point out in SWHT, it that he may have been wearing three "hats" in 1963, in three "interesting" CIA "departments".

From page 351 of SWHT's Appendix C: Barnes, Hunt and Friends:

"Peter Dale Scott relates that David Atlee Phillips was cross-posted as Chief of Cuban Operations in Mexico City, and as Chief of Psychological Operations (i.e. propaganda) in Miami at JM/WAVE. Scott also feels it very possible that Phillips held down three posts in 1963, also serving as a member of Angleton's [sic] Special Affairs Counter-intelligence (SAS/CI) staff. 18"

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

footnote 18: " As noted in Peter Dale Scott's "The Three Oswald Deceptions: The Operation, The Cover-Up And The Conspiracy" originally published in: Deep Politics II: Essays on Oswald, Mexico and Cuba, and available at http://www.assassinationweb.com/scottd.htm "

--Tommy

P.S. I just now put the "sic" in, above, because after reading PDS's essay I realized that SAS/CI was run (I think) by Dez Fitzgerald, not Angleton per se. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong here...

Edited August 30, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

Tommy, I definitely agree and I think the historic view of Phillips has probably been way to simplistic. I elaborate a good bit on what Philllip's role was in the fall of 63 in NEXUS and Bill Simpich and I worked that issue jointly for some time, especially based on new things we have learned about Angleton's push to establish his own CIA presence in Mexico City and along side Fitzgerald at SAS as well. Angleton didn't really trust anybody to do CI except his group and given the horrendous penetrations of the Cuban operations he was right on that point. Actually he was making a similar play against in Saigon at the same time and he was certainly dead on there - Shackley proved as inept at CI in Saigon as he had in Miami.

The point of that tangent is that in 63 Phillips was working both CI and psyops - in Mexico City for his boss there, then under Fitzgerald at SAS and very likely at least aiding and abetting Angleton's CI activities. Simpich points out that Phillips and one of the MC staff both got relatively poor performance reviews for 63 and it may well be because they were suspected of having been less than totally "loyal" to the MC Station Chief. So, you have Phillips working actively to penetrate the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic staff in MC; you have him joining SAS and undertaking psyops against Cuban activities and in particular the FPCC and you have him acting as a mentor to SAS activities in Miami. Above and beyond that, we have the now well established point that as Maurice Bishop he was running his own vest pocket operations with Veciana and others - and continued to run Castro Assassination plots in Latin America for another full decade, apparently totally on his own initiative. At that point he had all the necessary authorial to do those sorts of things and I go into that in detail in Shadow Warfare. Given all that, there is plenty of reason to think that he was very much aware of Lee Oswald in the fall of 63 and indeed manipulating his visit to MC for very possibly multiple agendas.

By the way, I should note that on more than one occasion Phillips was given demerits for running his own little games - I ran across a fascinating disciplinary note pertaining to one of those he played against the Soviets in MC, involving stolen radioactive materials. The man was far more creative than we will likely ever know. On the other hand, he played so many hands and so many games that at some level those who knew about some of them - like Morales - could easily have taken advantage of him.

[Thomas Graves]

Tommy, I definitely agree and I think the historic view of Phillips has probably been way to simplistic. I elaborate a good bit on what Philllip's role was in the fall of 63 in NEXUS and Bill Simpich and I worked that issue jointly for some time, especially based on new things we have learned about Angleton's push to establish his own CIA presence in Mexico City and along side Fitzgerald at SAS as well. Angleton didn't really trust anybody to do CI except his group and given the horrendous penetrations of the Cuban operations he was right on that point. Actually he was making a similar play against in Saigon at the same time and he was certainly dead on there - Shackley proved as inept at CI in Saigon as he had in Miami.

The point of that tangent is that in 63 Phillips was working both CI and psyops - in Mexico City for his boss there, then under Fitzgerald at SAS and very likely at least aiding and abetting Angleton's CI activities. Simpich points out that Phillips and one of the MC staff both got relatively poor performance reviews for 63 and it may well be because they were suspected of having been less than totally "loyal" to the MC Station Chief. So, you have Phillips working actively to penetrate the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic staff in MC; you have him joining SAS and undertaking psyops against Cuban activities and in particular the FPCC and you have him acting as a mentor to SAS activities in Miami. Above and beyond that, we have the now well established point that as Maurice Bishop he was running his own vest pocket operations with Veciana and others - and continued to run Castro Assassination plots in Latin America for another full decade, apparently totally on his own initiative. At that point he had all the necessary authorial to do those sorts of things and I go into that in detail in Shadow Warfare. Given all that, there is plenty of reason to think that he was very much aware of Lee Oswald in the fall of 63 and indeed manipulating his visit to MC for very possibly multiple agendas.

By the way, I should note that on more than one occasion Phillips was given demerits for running his own little games - I ran across a fascinating disciplinary note pertaining to one of those he played against the Soviets in MC, involving stolen radioactive materials. The man was far more creative than we will likely ever know. On the other hand, he played so many hands and so many games that at some level those who knew about some of them - like Morales - could easily have taken advantage of him.

"The man [David Atlee Phillips] was far more creative than we will ever know. On the other hand, he played so many hands and so many games that at some level those who knew about some of them - like Morales - could easily have taken advantage of him." --Larry Hancock

Absolutely. Terrific point, Larry.

Perhaps a niggling question here, but I wonder if Phillips would have worked for Fitzgerald or Angleton while wearing his counter-intelligence "hat"?

As regards the JFK assassination, would / could Fitzgerald and Angleton have been equally culpable?

Thanks,

--Tommy

Edited August 30, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

To go along with that, I should point out that there was a serious rift between Morales and Phillips which occurred after Phillips early retirement. Phillips actually conducted his own personal and highly sophisticated psyop operation following the work of the Church committee and though the inquiries of the HSCA. And he started writing, lots of things, articles, op ed. Most folks don't know he published multiple books even after The Night Watch. Not to mention his floating his little draft manuscript on Oswald, the CIA and the JFK assassination....real teaser there. But along the way, a journalist showed up on David Morales doorstep, indicating he had been referred to Morales as a great source for CIA war stories. Of course Morales went ballistic, he wrote to the Agency and requested Phillips be investigated for security violations. I found copies of the documents in both men's files as I recall. It generated a fair amount of paperwork, nothing came of it in the end but Morales was really hot.

Actually it looks like Phillips may have indeed sent a journalist to Morales, if so you have to wonder why.....wild speculation might suggest that eventually Phillips had figured out he had been played and had a good idea who would have known enough to do it....and was either getting a point across or just engaging in some minor revenge.

-- Larry

[Thomas Graves]

To go along with that, I should point out that there was a serious rift between Morales and Phillips which occurred after Phillips early retirement. Phillips actually conducted his own personal and highly sophisticated psyop operation following the work of the Church committee and though the inquiries of the HSCA. And he started writing, lots of things, articles, op ed. Most folks don't know he published multiple books even after The Night Watch. Not to mention his floating his little draft manuscript on Oswald, the CIA and the JFK assassination....real teaser there. But along the way, a journalist showed up on David Morales doorstep, indicating he had been referred to Morales as a great source for CIA war stories. Of course Morales went ballistic, he wrote to the Agency and requested Phillips be investigated for security violations. I found copies of the documents in both men's files as I recall. It generated a fair amount of paperwork, nothing came of it in the end but Morales was really hot.

Actually it looks like Phillips may have indeed sent a journalist to Morales, if so you have to wonder why.....wild speculation might suggest that eventually Phillips had figured out he had been played and had a good idea who would have known enough to do it....and was either getting a point across or just engaging in some minor revenge.

-- Larry

Fascinating stuff, Larry. Your "wild speculation" at the end actually makes a lot of sense.

Question: Do you think it would have been obvious to Phillips that it must have been Morales that had played him?

Thanks,

--Tommy

EDIT: I was just now thumbing through Oswald and the CIA, looking for references in it to Phillips, and I stumbled upon this passage by Newman on page 374: "Who in the [Mexico City] CIA station figured out that Oswald had visited the Cuban Consulate? At the end of Goodpasture's career, David Phillips, not Win Scott, wrote up her retirement award in 1973. It contained this passage: 'She was the case officer who was responsible for the identification of Lee Harvey Oswald in his dealings with the Cuban Embassy in Mexico.' (64) Besides her role 'in support of the successful coup against the communist government in Guatemala in 1954,' her identification of Oswald in the Cuban Consulate was the only specific action in her entire career singled out by Phillips in her award."

What's interesting in the context of this thread is that not only had I drawn a big "X" with a circle around it years ago in the margin next to this passage (in pencil of course!), but I had also written there, "Maybe he told her!"

LOL

--Tommy

Edited August 30, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

Actually yes I do Tommy, and Bill Simpich and I agree on that point. It all goes back to the voice impersonation in MC. There is a good case to be made that Oswald's visits would have served a number of agendas that Phillips had concurrently in play - ranging from an evolving anti-FPCC propaganda effort to the testing and possible recruitment of Cuban staff. What makes this very complex is that all those were in play concurrently; Phillips was driving some of them but SAS was also pulling the strings on some as well and we can't be sure which may have been compartmentalized from even Phillips. At the same time Phillips was supporting a very important exfilitration effort involving both Morales and Sforza and Castro's sister. The complexities are mind boggling...my mind at least.

But to the point, the phone calls were key to establishing a much closer connection between Oswald and the Cubans than ever really existed - combined with some very accurately planed false stories they made a good case for connecting Oswald to a Cuban plot. And the phone calls were driving the station up the wall, all this involves a special package which was sent via diplomatic pouch to DC, to be hand delivered in person to only David Phillips there. This gets to be a long story which Bill tells far better than I, but the point is once everybody had time to look back at how the calls had to have been made to show up on the taping systems which they did, it becomes pretty suggestive that only someone with inside knowledge of the complex phone tap system could have known just how to get those calls on tape when they were not actually made by Duran and Oswald. And it just so happens that the wire tap monitoring guys had been visited and trained by Morales personally trained AMOTS - who were taken over by Sforza and worked as much for Morales and Sforza as they did for the Agency, sort of a private counter intel and strong arm unit. I should note that it was Sforza who was ordered to conduct an investigation of exile participation in the JFK assassination - and whose report mysteriously never made it outside Miami...it seems. For reference, a number of these guys had been in the original OP40 effort and some made it back into what became a longer term thing and led to everything from assassinations to drug running, mostly in Latin America.

So...long winded answer, by Sunday morning Bill and I both think that there were already suspicions that CIA officers might have been involved - and that ultimately Phillips would have figured out just who might have known enough to plant a Castro link in MC via the telephone tap system....telephone calls which actually turned into a poison pill for the CIA, intended or not. And of course, given his other had - not sure how many that makes - Phillips was the primary user of info from the tap system on the Russian and Cuban diplomatic facilities.

-- sorry, perhaps I should have just responded with "yes"....grin

[Thomas Graves]

To go along with that, I should point out that there was a serious rift between Morales and Phillips which occurred after Phillips early retirement. Phillips actually conducted his own personal and highly sophisticated psyop operation following the work of the Church committee and though the inquiries of the HSCA. And he started writing, lots of things, articles, op ed. Most folks don't know he published multiple books even after The Night Watch. Not to mention his floating his little draft manuscript on Oswald, the CIA and the JFK assassination....real teaser there. But along the way, a journalist showed up on David Morales doorstep, indicating he had been referred to Morales as a great source for CIA war stories. Of course Morales went ballistic, he wrote to the Agency and requested Phillips be investigated for security violations. I found copies of the documents in both men's files as I recall. It generated a fair amount of paperwork, nothing came of it in the end but Morales was really hot.

Actually it looks like Phillips may have indeed sent a journalist to Morales, if so you have to wonder why.....wild speculation might suggest that eventually Phillips had figured out he had been played and had a good idea who would have known enough to do it....and was either getting a point across or just engaging in some minor revenge.

-- Larry

Fascinating stuff, Larry. Your "wild speculation" at the end actually makes a lot of sense.

Question: Do you think it would have been obvious to Phillips that it must have been Morales that had played him?

Thanks,

--Tommy

EDIT:

According to John Newman in Oswald and the CIA, Oswald arrived in Mexico City on September 27 but his name wasn't on any of the phone transcripts until an imposter (who first called on Saturday, September 28) called the Soviet Embassy on Tuesday, October 1 and identified himself as "Lee Oswald." Newman points out that the transcripts of about eight phone calls involving Oswald were circulated out of sequence inside the Mexico City C.I.A. station, including the never officially acknowledged and now apparently missing Monday, September 30 transcript of a phone call to the Soviet Embassy (probably by an impostor) which "Mrs. T". said she personally processed and on which, she claimed, the caller spoke only English, asked the Russians for financial assistance in exchange for information, and said his name was "Oswald".

On page 374 Newman says:

"This leads us to the most important question of all: How did the [Mexico City] impostors learn of Oswald's name in the first place?

In this connection, we are drawn back to Mr. T's speculation ... that Oswald's name first came to the station's attention through his contacts with the Cuban Embassy. If he is right, then the CIA's knowledge of what happened inside the Cuban Consulate is the key to the puzzle. Did the CIA station learn Oswald's name through an informant inside the Cuban Consulate? From a bug in the wall? From photographic coverage of the entrance? For thirty years the CIA has claimed they did not know Oswald was inside the consulate until after the Kennedy assassination. In the next chapter we will demonstrate that this is a lie - a cover story to protect CIA sources inside. For now it is sufficient to stay focused on the fact that it was Goodpasture who walked into the CIA station with the Cuban Consulate transcripts in her hand on Tuesday [October 1st].

Who in the [Mexico City] CIA station figured out that Oswald had visited the Cuban Consulate? At the end of Goodpasture's career, David Phillips, not Win Scott, wrote up her retirement award in 1973. It contained this passage: 'She was the case officer who was responsible for the identification of Lee Harvey Oswald in his dealings with the Cuban Embassy in Mexico.' Besides her role 'in support of the successful coup against the communist government in Guatemala in 1954,' her identification of Oswald in the Cuban Consulate was the only specific action in her entire career singled out by Phillips in her award."

What's interesting to me in the context of this thread is that in the margin (in pencil of course) I had written years ago, "Maybe he told her!"

I had totally forgotten about that particular "wild speculation" on my part, but given the fact that Antonio Veciana has recently (within the past year?) admitted that David Atlee Phillips was indeed the "(Maurice) Bishop" who had summoned him from Miami to Dallas for a ten-minute meeting in the summer of 1963 and that this "Bishop" was in the company of Lee Harvey Oswald at the meeting, added to the fact that this meeting took place just a couple of weeks before Oswald went to Mexico City, all leads me to think that maybe my speculation wasn't so "wild" after all.

--Tommy

edited and bumped

Edited September 3, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Larry - Trejo says you whitewashed Angleton. I didn't read what you wrote that way. I think for you it is an open question. Is that correct?

Enjoyed reading this exchange between you and Graves.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Paul Brancato