The Ultimate USAEC secrets per the JFK hit.

[Larry Hancock]

Well let me give another it shot.....my view is that Angleton actively instigated the chain of events that resulted in the killing of JFK in Dallas. He did so in the same fashion that he did so many things, by conveying his own paranoia to senior officers such as Helms and likely a retired Dulles but most importantly to his associate, the man he had been assisting in Castro assassination activities - William Harvey. Angleton gave him a full does of the back channel Castro approach and no doubt a host of other dirt that he had on JFK, picturing him as a rogue president, conducting foreign contacts without even the State Department being involved and unwilling to accept the most basic cautions from people like Helms who continued to obstruct any and all Castro contacts. I suspect that Angleton had actually done wire taps on JFK, both with Meyer and on the calls to Castro from the apartment where they were being made. He may have even played sections which showed Castro was encouraging the contacts. Harvey was already fed up with the Kennedys and completely convinced that they were rank amateurs meddling with things that could blow up for the whole country. Angleton pushed him over the edge.

Beyond that, other than in his own black bag and tap work, Angleton was not an operational guy, a covert action officer. Harvey really had not been either but had become more so with his insertion into the Staff D work and with the assassinations assignments. However he knew just the people that would take Angleton's information to heart and do something about it - Morales and company. So he gave Morales the word, no doubt they railed about JFK in their lengthy meeting that summer, along with Roselli and no doubt they pledged to do something about it. At that point it became tactical, Roselli could offer some introductions and tactical assistance and money for that matter but at that point Angleton really had little to offer and actually neither did Harvey.

Do I think Angleton knew there was a conspiracy with CIA officers and exiles involved, yes I do. Was he tactically involved, most likely not. Was he headed into a period of metal problems, absolutely. In the end when he made the "who struck John statement" it was most likely correct ie. he had little idea of the actual details and didn't want one but he knew it was not Lee Oswald.

-- guilty of conspiracy, sure - obstruction of justice - absolutely, murder in the second degree - the thing is he may not have known anything specific was going to happen rather than some vague remark

form Harvey that it would be taken care of ....similar to Morales later remarks.... That's the way those things always worked....a few verbal conversations, head shaking, then total deniablity...

[Paul Brancato]

Thank you Larry - in other words, most likely guilty as charged, SOP, Harvey being the layer between Angleton and Morales. Funny how the myth of Angleton and Harvey being at odds is dissolving.

Who really cares if Angleton was operational? Of course he wasn't. But this goes to the heart of the Trejo argument that its the ground crew that matters, and if there is no document that proves they were following the wishes of their leaders that absolves the leaders. Of course it does not. Don't we really want to know who gave the 'orders'?

[Larry Hancock]

Harvey's biographer did a great job of shattering the myth about the two men, retrieving extended correspondence with Harvey and with Harvey's wife after his death. A couple of letters deal with things the two men shared including one or two secrets they would have to take to their death.

What was equally important to me was to find documentation that Angeleton worked on Cuban intel and CI after the BOP, getting an assignment that was reported all the way up to the NSC. In doing so he clearly made use of Morales and his AMOTS. After that, finding that Angleton had personally involved himself with Harvey on the Castro assassination project was key, Angleton not only worked with him directly trying to come up with foreign assets to do it including MI6 but later used his own third country intel assets inside Cuba to back up Harvey - all completely at h is own initiative.

That all came up in doing NEXUS as did the point that in the months before his departure to Italy Harvey was one of only perhaps three folks that Angleton would routinely discuss things with....

[David Andrews]

Point of Order: I believe that a CIA agent is strictly a recruited foreign national. A CIA officer is an American employee of CIA. The people we're largely speaking of - Sturgis, Hemming - would have been CIA operatives. CIA agent is a common misnomer for operatives or officers.

[Larry Hancock]

You have me there David, the CIA is a federal Agency so its employees are Agency employees. Many are not of GS level that would normally lead them to be called "officers", you have clerks, analysts, and technical staff of all sorts. Same would be true of any Federal Agency including the FBI whose field staff are normally called agents. Non salaried employees are generally called assets and exist at a variety of clearance levels. Then again, non employees can be cleared to a point where they become operational and receive tasking and stipends....so that adds some confusion. I've never seen any differentiation between American citizens and non-citizens in that regard. Sturgis would definitely have been called an informant and is described in CIA documents as a "source", which is probably the most accurate. Hemming was cleared for a time at a very low informant level and lost that clearance; afterwards his reports would be considered "source" reports. I think the operational difference between a true informant and a source is that an informant can be cleared at some level and as they move up the ladder they actually receive direction and tasking as Sturgis did. As far as the reports on Hemming go...once he lost his clearance they look a lot like Howard, Hall etc....just guys who contacted the Agency and provided information. As I recall they did that for both the CIA and FBI and I think you will find both CIA and FBI source reports from Hemming. All of which adds more confusion because you have to specify what role or status everyone is at a specific time since they do change.

The the term "agent", its probably misleading anyway since it sounds spyish, like secret agent and probably should be avoided. Most of the CIA guys we normally talk about were either case officers early in their career or operational officers - especially the paramilitary types in the P/P Directorate. Later some of them like Morales and Sforza moved up the management chain. People like Robertson would be called operations officers I think, Hunt was a political action officer.

Accuracy is certainly a good thing, painting with a broad brush leads to misunderstandings...I'll try to be more specific in my terminology. Of course if any CIA personnel types want to chime in and give us some official personnel terminology that would be a fine thing...

[Paul Brancato]

Excellent posts here from all.

[Paul Trejo]

...Phillips...started writing, lots of things, articles, op ed....he published multiple books even after The Night Watch...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...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....

-- Larry

This is intriguing stuff, Larry. My wild guess about why would be this: Phillips figured out that David Morales and Howard Hunt were involved in the JFK plot, along with a number of their regular "operatives", like Frank Sturgis, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall, Larry Howard, Johnny Roselli, John Martino, and sundry others in that circle.

In order to let David Morales know that somebody higher up in the CIA finally figured out that David Morales was leader of the ROGUES from inside the CIA, David Atlee Phillips sent an unsuspecting journalist to Morales' home with advice that Morales had some good "war stories" to tell.

Naturally, Phillips knew that David Morales would explode in rage. That was a dirty trick -- David Morales probably had more to hide than any other CIA Agent in the 20th century. And David Atlee Phillips knew that very well. Phillips did it on purpose, just to make Morales jump, and to let Morales knew what he *could* do if he only wanted to.

Making Morales jump was also a form of PROOF -- the sort of proof that Phillips was looking for, to confirm his suspicions. Anyway, that would be my guess. Perhaps this is what Phillips meant, IMHO he admitted near the end of his life that CIA people were involved in the JFK murder -- but he wouldn't name any names for history.

David Morales was a beaten man, IMHO, after he saw to it that the Kennedys were eliminated, but Cuba was STILL Communist! All of his efforts to liberate Cuba -- for decades -- proved to be futile. No matter what else Morales accomplished, he would always have Communist Cuba as a thorn in his side.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited September 1, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

...Do I think Angleton knew there was a conspiracy with CIA officers and exiles involved, yes I do. Was he tactically involved, most likely not...In the end when he made the "who struck John statement" it was most likely correct, i.e. he had little idea of the actual details and didn't want one but he knew it was not Lee Oswald.

Well, I still think this lets Angleton off the hook -- unless more proof is offered, it is still suspicious but inconclusive.

As for knowing it was not Lee Oswald (alone), that is nothing new anymore, since even in 1979 the official position of the US Government about the murder of JFK as told by the HSCA is that JFK "was probably killed as the result of a conspiracy."

So, that's not news anymore. No important researcher since 1979 has ignored the HSCA. No important researcher since 1979 has promoted the Single Bullet Theory -- as it's sad that 35 years after the HSCA the public is still debating about the "Lone Assassin." That's the sad state of JFK research literature today.

The second sad result is that suspects are just blamed willy nilly -- without even the circumstantial evidence that was produced to falsely convict Lee Oswald as the "Lone Assassin." We hear nonsense that LBJ killed JFK, or that the Mafia did it (on their own) or some such nonsense.

Thank you Larry - in other words, most likely guilty as charged, SOP, Harvey being the layer between Angleton and Morales. Funny how the myth of Angleton and Harvey being at odds is dissolving.

Who really cares if Angleton was operational? Of course he wasn't. But this goes to the heart of the Trejo argument that it's the ground crew that matters, and if there is no document that proves they were following the wishes of their leaders that absolves the leaders. Of course it does not. Don't we really want to know who gave the 'orders'?

Well, you're right about one thing, Paul B. -- the heart of my argument about the JFK murder is that the ground-crew matters.

Yet I should emphasize at this point that the ground-crew that we can definitely name today does not necessarily remove all suspicion about David Atlee Phillips. We know, for example, that Phillips (alias Maurice Bishop) was seen in the company of Lee Harvey Oswald by Antonio Veciana in Dallas in September 1963. So, Phillips touches the ground-crew. That increases our suspicion.

Yet Phillips responds to this in Night Watch by suggesting that he was training Lee Harvey Oswald for a hit on Fidel Castro. This is plausible because Antonio Veciana was a major supporter of attempts on the life of Fidel Castro. So, Phillips has a plausible alibi.

The ground-crew matters! Mainly those who want to make a political statement -- some sort of anti-Republican statement, perhaps -- will continue to ignore the ground crew and speak of the murder of JFK in broad, generic terms -- and claim that it doesn't matter who gave the orders, or who comprised the ground-crew.

Larry Hancock is willing to speculate on the ground-crew, however he finds them *all* to be close to the CIA -- as lower-level assets (i.e. not actual, salaried CIA Agents, but mercenaries under their control with "plausible denial.") Even that is too vague, IMHO. I want to see the names of *all* of the ground-crew, and also to see their ranking -- to see the captains among them, and the role they played in the Jim Garrison scenario.

Jim Garrison went to a lot of trouble to expose the New Orleans ground-crew -- and they need to be linked to the topmost leaders of the JFK plot at highest priority!

I find the ground-crew members whom we can name today to be suspiciously close to the John Birch Society -- and the Dallas arm of the John Birch Society is stinky as hell in this mess. The Warren Commission volumes (sans its pre-fab conclusion) should be revived again -- a half-century later -- to show the street-level detail about how this fit together, and how people in 1963 identified the puzzle pieces.

This is truly empirical evidence -- and only this evidence will finally resolve the JFK murder.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited September 1, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

Point of Order: I believe that a CIA agent is strictly a recruited foreign national. A CIA officer is an American employee of CIA. The people we're largely speaking of - Sturgis, Hemming - would have been CIA operatives. CIA agent is a common misnomer for operatives or officers.

OK, David, your point is well taken. If everybody else here agrees to this nomenclature, I have no problem adopting it from now on.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[David Andrews]

And I take Larry's points on various types of CIA employee, including analysts - Thank you, Larry.

Let us add that some domestics, such as friendly members of the press - are often referred to as CIA assets. That designation may be applicable overseas. Lines do get crossed, however, as we all know.

Edited September 1, 2014 by David Andrews

[Larry Hancock]

To take this a bit further - and this is all reverse engineering from reading way too many documents - one of the differences between a source and an actual "asset" would be the point at which the individual in question is not just a file but in which they are considered for some sort of ongoing tasking, even in information collection. At that point they normally would get at least a superficial security check and if passing a low level of classification. You can see that in Hemming's early file. Then there would be two sorts of tasking....if its information collection they get assigned a case officer. At that point they most likely get assigned a crypt and may or may not have to take a polygraph. I've seen files on a number of media folks - as David mentioned - who got on that track, sometimes with the individual knowing what was going on and sometimes not, in several instances CIA officers appear to have worked media types just by becoming known to them and leaking information. Even some of the unknowing ones were assigned crypts. Of course this assumes the contact is going on within the system - and regular office reports are being filed. There are also plenty of cases where you get to the asset level and the person is only in a local "soft" file, not in the general CIA system. There were also lots of businessmen who were handled the same way. In some instances I've seen documents where major business people even volunteered to use their international resources to collect information and share it....certainly they would be considered assets.

Where the whole thing changes is if an asset is given actual tasking - either to collect specific information or sometimes to plant information. Or if they are actually asked to go operational - as many of the Cuban exiles were. If they truly go operational it appears they were given a stipend, but were not necessarily CIA employees per se. Of course that's risky too, in one instance an exile infiltration guy bought a car and listed the CIA as his employer....the office of security was not amused. The operational types would report to a CIA office, such as JMWAVE and an operations officer such as Jenkins, Robertson, Sforza etc. They might have a case officer, not sure about that, but they would essentially be "in the system" at that point. One of the reasons the CIA was so worried about Garrison and New Orleans was that they had recruited fairly heavily there pre-BOP and there were a lot of folks from New Orleans that were "in the system"; you can look at their Garrison era memos when they keep going though the lists of names he surfaces and having to check their own files to see if somebody is in the system or not - meaning whether they would be faced to deal with legal issues of discovery.

I don't want to take this too far but it is dangerous to use generic terms and paint with a broad brush when talking about these folks - if nothing else because their true status at a given point determines what is known inside the agency - to what group - and what is in the files - and what type of files - and what is known at headquarters in one department or another. And the departments were legally authorized to keep secrets from each other, even during internal investigations. Its also important to remember that all this was designed to frustrate what were arguably some of the world's best intelligence agencies....the Soviets, the British and the Israeli intel folks - we just happen to have inherited the problem of dealing with it...

[Paul Trejo]

...I don't want to take this too far but it is dangerous to use generic terms and paint with a broad brush when talking about these folks - if nothing else because their true status at a given point determines what is known inside the agency - to what group - and what is in the files - and what type of files - and what is known at headquarters in one department or another...

I agree, and I think it's important to emphasize this point, so I thank you and David Andrews for this detour.

It's important because even great researchers like Jim Garrison and Joan Mellen would gather a motley of CIA mercenaries or "operatives" in a suspect list, and then refer to them in broad brush strokes as "all CIA".

That approach fails to break out the ground-crew from the leaders -- and it has the overall effect of presuming that the leaders were in the CIA high-command. This, IMHO, is the key weakness in the otherwise great research of Garrison and Mellen.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[David Andrews]

CIA policy advocates Stewart Alsop and Joseph Alsop being perhaps the prototypical assets, with Joseph, I believe, having crossed the line into returning information to CIA and influencing individuals personally, which he boasted of patriotically.

Edited September 1, 2014 by David Andrews

[Paul Brancato]

Paul - why are you so dead set on absolving high level CIA? You certainly know how the CIA works. You are well read on the subject, and are otherwise complementary of Garrison, Mellen, and others. No use countering this by suggesting that they, and many of us, certainly including myself, are fixated on laying blame at the top. They, we, myself, are just not able to ignore CIA SOP, plausible deniability. You have what you consider proof that Morales and possibly others, namely Phillips and Harvey, were involved, along with a cast of lower level operatives, informants, etc. You won't find proof that the ground crew was ordered, or 'encouraged', by top echelons. So what is the reason you choose to draw a hard line at Morales, who by the way was barely on your radar not too long ago? Lack of documented proof? You have no trouble believing Dean's story with so little FBI documentation, even claiming that lack of FBI documentation of his story means little. Do you view the FBI and CIA with different lenses?

Edited September 1, 2014 by Paul Brancato

[David Andrews]

One of the best things that could happen in this very useful thread is for the chains of command between upper-echelon CIA and the "rogue" and "mercenary" operatives to be plotted, verbally and graphically.

Remember that both CIA officers and operatives had involvements and allegiances to personnel beyond the spheres of their direct superiors.