Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

[Paul Brancato]

Jon - I would point out that we really don't know what Oswald said or wrote to Hosty other than Hosty's word on the matter. So really, all we know for certain is that there was some kind of relationship.

[Paul Brancato]

Jon - I would point out that we really don't know what Oswald said or wrote to Hosty other than Hosty's word on the matter. So really, all we know for certain is that there was some kind of relationship.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul Brancato,

I agree. A fair interpretation of Hosty's words is that the relationship was not good.

Question: Do you think Hosty lied about the nature of his relationship with Marina's husband?

I believe Hosty, along with Wade, all the DPD officers, Allen Dulles, Hoover, LBJ -- all of them -- were liars at times and knew lying was part of their jobs.

So maybe, I don't know, Hosty had a cozy relationship with Marina's husband. The record sure doesn't indicate this was the case.

[David Andrews]

Delete, see post below.

Edited April 5, 2015 by David Andrews

[David Andrews]

"I hope my question is finally clear. I'll repeat it: How could the KILL-TEAM, which promoted a COMMUNIST OSWALD, possibly be the same as the COVER-UP-TEAM, which promoted a LONE-NUT OSWALD?"

I think these two could be reconciled.

Perhaps the conspirators had used Oswald look-alikes in the months prior to the assassination to try to tie him back to Cuba, but it ended up being overdone -- too many Oswalds were used wherein it would become obvious he was in two places at the same time. Once they knew this would not stand up to scrutiny, they had to go with the lone-nut scenario. This is the thesis of Jim Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable.

I've always wondered, too, if LBJ, knowing of the intense anti-Kennedy group in the CIA and Cuban exile community, took advantage of it for his own purposes. People like Robertson and Morales were already in place and willing to pretty much do anything for their cause. Perhaps he made a call to someone like Tracy Barnes and set the plan in motion. Once the assassination occurred, he was worried that the Oswald as Cuban agent angle was too sloppy and a domestic conspiracy might be more easily exposed, and maybe he would be implicated. It was safer for him to go with the lone-nut approach.

Now, one might argue that the lone-nut approach happened too quickly after the assassination for this scenario. But maybe Johnson knew all along that he and his inner circle would immediately convince the public that Oswald was a lone-nut. He threw some red meat to the clique in the CIA and Cuban exile community by saying they could pin the assassination on the Cubans, knowing that they were ideologues, but also knowing this was too risky and he wouldn't go along with it. After all, he didn't really care about Cuba, he just wanted to be become president. Or maybe it was the other way - the conspirators agreed with LBJ to kill Kennedy but they never told him they were planting evidence linking it back to Castro. This would explain the CIA budget funding articles saying that Oswald acted on Castro's behest in the days after the assassination while Johnson was so worried about squelching talk of a foreign conspiracy.

The Donald Gibson-Jim DiEugenio segment on Black op Radio this week is useful for examining Dulles and McCloy as the lone-nut masterminds on the Warren Commission.

http://blackopradio....chives2015.html

[David Andrews]

David - I know a lot of the back story. What I should have wondered aloud is whether the back story we know is the entire one? Was it just DeM calling on then CIA director Bush to help an old friend? Or does it imply that DeM had something on Bush that he thought he could use as leverage? Or perhaps something else?

The plain vanilla is probably that G DeM knew GHWB from the oil business. Much depends on whether we believe the FBI memo allegedly by Hoover, citing a visit from "Mr. George Bush of the CIA." I may have more to add later based on my recent reading.

[Jon G. Tidd]

The question here is, Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

I ask everyone here, do you see Oswald as having been recruited, trained, and sent on target...to tell all here what Oswald was recruited to do,

BTW, the notion Oswald was a "dangle" is baloney. Intelligence services in those days just did not, did not, work that way.

Intelligence services wanted information.

[Brian Schmidt]

Victor Marshetti, Helms' assistant in "those days," thought Oswald was probably a dangle and was working for Naval Intelligence or possibly the CIA.

I'm sure you've heard the saying that there were "two CIA's" - one intelligence gathering & analyzing and the other obsessed with clandestine operations. I think this characterization is more or less true.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Brian Schmidt

[Cliff Varnell]

Paul, I don't think the JFK Kill Team had anything to do with Lee Oswald.

The men who pulled the triggers on JFK and their direct handlers didn't need to know anything about Oswald.

If they didn't need to know -- they didn't know.

The Oswald Kill Team failed to murder Oswald in a timely manner so the major perps pulled the plug on Ozzie the Red Agent.

What did the Oswald kill team need team know about the JFK assassination other than time and place?

They only knew what they needed to know.

Sorry, Cliff, I didn't define my terms to start.

In my parlance: KILL-TEAM means anybody connected with the plot to kill JFK -- from planners to executors. This includes those who worked from April 1963 to September 1963 to "sheep-dip" or frame Lee Harvey Oswald as a COMMUNIST.

Paul, I don't see how you can assume that the "executors" of the plot to kill JFK were the same as the "executors" of the plot/s to sheep-dip and kill Oswald.

I find it makes more sense to view these operations as compartmentalized.

There may have been any number of operations involved in "sheep-dipping" Oswald.

Three different agencies may have run operations involving Oswald -- ONI, CIA, FBI.

Was setting Oswald up with housing and employment thru Ruth Forbes Paine the same operation as connecting "Oswald" to alleged KGB assassin-master Valeriy Kostikov in Mexico City?

Let's game this out a bit: Oswald was sheep-dipped as a Red Assassin, a frame which required him to be murdered within an hour of JFK (dead men don't cry patsy).

Had this operation succeeded Ruth Forbes Paine would go down in history as the woman who harbored the Communist Agent of Fidel & the KGB.

Is that a fate she'd sign up for?

In my parlance: COVER-UP-TEAM means anybody connected with Hoover's 11/22/1963 concept to COVER-UP the fact that there was a plot to kill JFK -- and insisted instead on framing Lee Harvey Oswald as a LONE-NUT.

I think you have this all wrong. At 5:15est Hoover called Robert Kennedy to claim that Oswald had been in Cuba (see Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked)

Hoover was a very reluctant recruit to the "lone nut scenario" -- much less the mastermind!

Edited April 6, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[David Andrews]

The question here is, Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

I ask everyone here, do you see Oswald as having been recruited, trained, and sent on target...to tell all here what Oswald was recruited to do,

BTW, the notion Oswald was a "dangle" is baloney. Intelligence services in those days just did not, did not, work that way.

Intelligence services wanted information.

Jon, with respect: did Oswald really go to Russia and easily return, sans consequence, without connivance from above?

Would someone who had defected and returned with a Russian wife not be useful in stateside intelligence as an infiltrator of both left groups and right groups? This is what I have meant in using the word "dangle."

If this is a unique situation in intelligence work, then perhaps it existed singularly to motivate Oswald and steer him toward set-up as a patsy for any action that could be blamed on a right group or a left group (or left government). Or blamed on a lone-nut, wannabe political player.

Was Ruth Paine an intelligence agent? Was George De Mohrenschildt? What is Oswald doing playing political footsie with them? Ruth had a filing cabinet devoted to pro-Castro groups in her home. Her husband attended Walker rallies with Oswald. All of this is innocent of intelligence agency involvement?

Edited April 6, 2015 by David Andrews

[Brian Schmidt]

As a general response to this thread, there has been decades of research that has uncovered evidence to suggest that Oswald had intelligence connections. Most of these researchers have not came out and said that he was a full-fledged CIA officer, but have put together a fairly convincing picture of how he fit into the assassination via the intelligence world and it's a lot more nuanced than just "the CIA did it."

I agree that many studying the case have built upon these assumptions and in some cases accept it as fact. These assumptions need to be questioned and scrutinized, but it is a slap in the face to decades of research to say that there is "no indication" that Oswald may have been manipulated by the intelligence community.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul, I don't see how you can assume that the "executors" of the plot to kill JFK were the same as the "executors" of the plot/s to sheep-dip and kill Oswald.

I find it makes more sense to view these operations as compartmentalized.

There may have been any number of operations involved in "sheep-dipping" Oswald.

Three different agencies may have run operations involving Oswald -- ONI, CIA, FBI.

Was setting Oswald up with housing and employment thru Ruth Forbes Paine the same operation as connecting "Oswald" to alleged KGB assassin-master Valeriy Kostikov in Mexico City?

Let's game this out a bit: Oswald was sheep-dipped as a Red Assassin, a frame which required him to be murdered within an hour of JFK (dead men don't cry patsy).

Had this operation succeeded Ruth Forbes Paine would go down in history as the woman who harbored the Communist Agent of Fidel & the KGB.

Is that a fate she'd sign up for?

I think you have this [about Hoover] all wrong. At 5:15est Hoover called Robert Kennedy to claim that Oswald had been in Cuba (see Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked)

Hoover was a very reluctant recruit to the "lone nut scenario" -- much less the mastermind!

Well, Cliff, the blaming of Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of JFK occurred within one hour of the JFK murder -- and that is strong evidence, IMHO, that the executors of JFK were also the executors of OSWALD.

The framing of OSWALD is plain from many accounts, but especially from Gerry Patrick Hemming to A.J. Weberman, when Hemming claims that he called OSWALD from Miami the day before the JFK murder, and offered OSWALD double the price of his Manlicher-Carcano rifle if only OSWALD would bring it to the 6th floor of the TSBD building the next morning.

There's the conspiracy right there. Hemming, Hall and Howard (who were all close to Ex-General Walker) sat very close to the circles of control in the JFK murder.

The true leader, IMHO, was Ex-General Edwin Walker (who is named more than 500 times in the Warren Commission volumes). Walker had only one month prior to 11/22/1963 carefully orchestrated the humiliation of Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas.

Walker hated JFK (because of the 1962 Ole Miss scandal, especially) but he also hated Lee Harvey OSWALD (because of the April assassination attempt, which Walker connected to to 1962 Ole Miss scandal, as wel learn from his personal papers).

OSWALD was not run by any Intelligence Agency -- he was too green, too independent, too headstrong. Besides, if they knew he was Walker's shooter, then he was disqualified for life. Yet they had files on OSWALD going back to Atsugi.

Further, OSWALD was never set up with housing by Ruth Paine -- OSWALD found his rooming house on his own. Further, OSWALD was never set up with employment by Ruth Paine -- but the sister of Wesley Buell Frazier was the referral for that job.

We seem to agree on one point: Oswald was sheep-dipped as a COMMUNIST assassin, and was also doomed to die.

Ruth Paine's alibi was rock solid -- she was a Quaker lady with a big heart who felt pity for Marina Oswald and her babies.

Finally, Brian, you doubt my hypothesis that the JFK Coverup-Team began with the need to frame Lee Harvey Oswald as a LONE-NUT assassin, instead of as a COMMUNIST assassin, as the JFK Kill-Team had framed him, on the basis that Larry Hancock wrote (SWHT/2010) that at 4:15PM CST Hoover called RFK to claim that Oswald had been in Cuba; and you take this as evidence that Hoover was "very reluctant" to adopt the "Lone Nut" scenario.

Yet, you're misinterpreting the Hancock scenario, IMHO. Rather, Hoover had told only LBJ (through McGeorge Bundy) before 3PM CST about his "Lone Nut" scenario, and it was still unclear whether LBJ was going to buy into it. Hoover didn't want to include RFK in this fiction -- RFK was a lame duck at this point. So, Hoover had no problem feeding RFK baloney -- namely, the baloney that the CIA had already fed Hoover.

It isn't only my theory that Hoover was the mastermind of the LONE NUT theory, rather, that theory was proposed by a renowned historian, Dr. David R. Wrone from the University of Wisconsin.

That's strong support, IMHO.

Only a few hours later, however, Hoover learned that LBJ was going to back his "LONE NUT" scenario all the way, and all FBI men in the field were ordered to begin tampering with the JFK murder evidence IMMEDIATELY. That tampering started before the day was over, and ran as a 7/24 operation.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typo>

Edited April 10, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Cliff Varnell]

Paul, I don't see how you can assume that the "executors" of the plot to kill JFK were the same as the "executors" of the plot/s to sheep-dip and kill Oswald.

I find it makes more sense to view these operations as compartmentalized.

There may have been any number of operations involved in "sheep-dipping" Oswald.

Three different agencies may have run operations involving Oswald -- ONI, CIA, FBI.

Was setting Oswald up with housing and employment thru Ruth Forbes Paine the same operation as connecting "Oswald" to alleged KGB assassin-master Valeriy Kostikov in Mexico City?

Let's game this out a bit: Oswald was sheep-dipped as a Red Assassin, a frame which required him to be murdered within an hour of JFK (dead men don't cry patsy).

Had this operation succeeded Ruth Forbes Paine would go down in history as the woman who harbored the Communist Agent of Fidel & the KGB.

Is that a fate she'd sign up for?

I think you have this [about Hoover] all wrong. At 5:15est Hoover called Robert Kennedy to claim that Oswald had been in Cuba (see Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked)

Hoover was a very reluctant recruit to the "lone nut scenario" -- much less the mastermind!

Well, Brian, the blaming of Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of JFK occurred within one hour of the JFK murder -- and that is strong evidence, IMHO, that the executors of JFK were also the executors of OSWALD.

It's Cliff.

The scenario I'm describing posits one team tasked with the murder JFK and a separate team tasked with the murder of Oswald.

Controlled from the very top and compartmentalized.

The framing of OSWALD is plain from many accounts, but especially from Gerry Patrick Hemming to A.J. Weberman, when Hemming claims that he called OSWALD from Miami the day before the JFK murder, and offered OSWALD double the price of his Manlicher-Carcano rifle if only OSWALD would bring it to the 6th floor of the TSBD building the next morning.

How do we know Hemming wasn't BS'ing Weberman?

There's the conspiracy right there. Hemming, Hall and Howard (who were all close to Ex-General Walker) sit very close to the circles of control in the JFK murder.

Back up patsies, in my book.

The true leader, IMHO, was Ex-General Edwin Walker (who is named more than 500 times in the Warren Commission volumes). Walker had only one month prior to 11/22/1963 carefully orchestrated the humiliation of Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas.

Walker hated JFK (because of the 1962 Ole Miss scandal, especially) but he also hated Lee Harvey OSWALD (because of the April assassination attempt, which Walker connected to to 1962 Ole Miss scandal, as wel learn from his personal papers).

OSWALD was not run by any Intelligence Agency -- he was too green, too independent, too headstrong. Besides, if they knew he was Walker's shooter, then he was disqualified for life. Yet they had files on OSWALD going back to Atsugi.

Further, OSWALD was never set up with housing by Ruth Paine -- OSWALD found his rooming house on his own.

She housed his family and Lee himself on occasion, did she not?

Further, OSWALD was never set up with employment by Ruth Paine -- but the sister of Wesley Buell Frazier was the referral for that job.

It was Ruth Paine who pursued the TSBD job opening for LHO.

From Roy Truly's WC testimony:

<quote>

[Ruth Paine over the phone] said, "I have a fine young man living here with hiswife and baby, and his wife is expecting a baby - another baby, in a few days, and he needs work desperately." ...And I told Mrs. Paine that - to send him down, and I would talk to him - that I didn't have anything in mind for him of a permanent nature, but if he was suited, we could possibly use him for a brief time. <quote off>

We seem to agree on one point: Oswald was sheep-dipped as a COMMUNIST assassin, and was also doomed to die.

A couple of days late for the Red Assassin frame.

Ruth Paine's alibi was rock solid -- she was a Quaker lady with a big heart who felt pity for Marina Oswald and her babies.

A lot of elite family connections many find fishy, and many find down-right dispositive that the Quakerlady's family and friends whacked LHO and JFK.

Finally, Brian, you doubt my hypothesis that the JFK Coverup-Team began with the need to frame Lee Harvey Oswald as a LONE-NUT assassin, instead of as a COMMUNIST assassin, as the JFK Kill-Team had framed him, on the basis that Larry Hancock wrote (SWHT/2010) that at 4:15PM CST Hoover called RFK to claim that Oswald had been in Cuba; and you take this as evidence that Hoover was "very reluctant" to adopt the "Lone Nut" scenario.

There is other evidence as well.

Hoover memo to senior staff, 12/12/63:

<quote>

I said I personally believe Oswald was the assassin; that the second aspect as to whether he was the only man gives me great concern; that we have several letters, not in the report because we were not able to prove it, written to him from Cuba referring to the job he was going to do, his good marksmanship, and stating when it was all over he would be brought back to Cuba and presented to the chief; but we do not know if the chief was Castro and cannot make an investigation because we have no intelligence operation in Cuba; that I did not put this into the report because we did not have proof of it and didn't want to put speculation in the report; that this was the reason I urged strongly that we not reach conclusion Oswald was the only man. <quote off>

Yet, you're misinterpreting the Hancock scenario, IMHO. Rather, Hoover had told only LBJ (through McGeorge Bundy) before 3PM CST about his "Lone Nut" scenario, and it was still unclear whether LBJ was going to buy into it. Hoover didn't want to include RFK in this fiction -- RFK was a lame duck at this point. So, Hoover had no problem feeding RFK baloney -- namely, the baloney that the CIA had already fed Hoover.

What proof do you have that Hoover dictated anything to Bundy?

It isn't only my theory that Hoover was the mastermind of the LONE NUT theory, rather, that theory was proposed by a renowned historian, Dr. David R. Wrone from the University of Wisconsin.

Dr. Wrone is wrong unless he or you can show where Hoover contacted Bundy.

That's strong support, IMHO.

Only a few hours later, however, Hoover learned that LBJ was going to back his "LONE NUT" scenario all the way, and all FBI men in the field were ordered to begin tampering with the JFK murder evidence IMMEDIATELY. That tampering started before the day was over, and ran as a 7/24 operation.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 6, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[Larry Hancock]

Cliff, could you put in a link to that Hoover senior staff memo....I've referred to it several times but when I need it I can never find it quickly.

I'm afraid I've pointed out to Paul that there are a number of incidents which prove that Hoover was very open to pursuing a conspiracy - as long as it could tie

Oswald to Cuba or to commies in general. On Saturday morning he was telling Johnson about an impersonation in Mexico City, obviously suggesting that

if Oswald was being impersonated there a broader conspiracy could be in play. Viewing Hoover as the sole instigator of the Lone Nut concept is just not

accurate....he was being pressured in that direction by Johnson if anything. It is true that he was quickly focused on Oswald as the shooter but not

necessarily on Oswald as an isolated, lone nut. That was coming from elsewhere. And certainly Hoover was not driving the commentary coming from

the Situation Room to Air Force One.

[Cliff Varnell]

Cliff, could you put in a link to that Hoover senior staff memo....I've referred to it several times but when I need it I can never find it quickly.

Ouch! I was hoping no one would call me on that...I'm hoping someone could chime in and bail me out...

I'm afraid I've pointed out to Paul that there are a number of incidents which prove that Hoover was very open to pursuing a conspiracy - as long as it could tie

Oswald to Cuba or to commies in general. On Saturday morning he was telling Johnson about an impersonation in Mexico City, obviously suggesting that

if Oswald was being impersonated there a broader conspiracy could be in play. Viewing Hoover as the sole instigator of the Lone Nut concept is just not

accurate....he was being pressured in that direction by Johnson if anything. It is true that he was quickly focused on Oswald as the shooter but not

necessarily on Oswald as an isolated, lone nut. That was coming from elsewhere. And certainly Hoover was not driving the commentary coming from

the Situation Room to Air Force One.

Thank you!

&TIA for the Hoover memo link...