Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul Trejo,

You write:

"I think there's general agreement on this, Jon, i.e. when OSWALD was in the USSR he was used as a "dangle" by the ONI or CIA or whatever Intelligence Agency sent him there."

Paul, in my experience, consensus thinking among members of any group is often in error. I say this not because I'm asserting my view is correct; only by way of expressing my belief that rational independent thinking is preferable to mere acceptance of a widely held conclusion.

As to whether the CIA dangled Oswald in Russia (i.e., dangled him as lure or as bait, as opposed to using him to gain access to information not publicly available), what facts indicate Oswald played the role of a dangle in the USSR? As I've studied Oswald in Russia, without any foregone conclusions, I see a guy who was of no great interest to the KGB, who was an oddball to Soviet bureaucrats, who never had access to anything or anyone of interest, who apparently never tried to offer knowledge he had gained in the Marines to the KGB, and who the Soviets were apparently glad to see go back home. If this portrait of Oswald in the USSR is accurate, he sure didn't produce anything of value to the CIA while in Minsk or Moscow.

Besides, the record of his life in the USSR is not filled with contradictions and gaps, as is his post-return life in the U.S. Norman Mailer was able, he believed, to obtain a fairly complete and accurate picture of Oswald in the USSR. It is, I understand, an unremarkable and dreary portrait.

I read somewhere awhile back the argument that the CIA sent Oswald to the USSR so that Oswald would divulge radar secrets that would enable the USSR to shoot down a U-2 and undermine Ike's attempt to create better relations with the Soviets. From what I know, this argument can't be correct. Any codes to which Oswald had access as a radar operator would have been changing periodically. Furthermore, what enabled the Soviets to shoot down Gary Powers wasn't knowledge of U.S. radar; it was the development of a new SAM.

[Greg Parker]

I read somewhere awhile back the argument that the CIA sent Oswald to the USSR so that Oswald would divulge radar secrets that would enable the USSR to shoot down a U-2 and undermine Ike's attempt to create better relations with the Soviets. From what I know, this argument can't be correct. Any codes to which Oswald had access as a radar operator would have been changing periodically. Furthermore, what enabled the Soviets to shoot down Gary Powers wasn't knowledge of U.S. radar; it was the development of a new SAM.

it's not.

[David Josephs]

I read somewhere awhile back the argument that the CIA sent Oswald to the USSR so that Oswald would divulge radar secrets that would enable the USSR to shoot down a U-2 and undermine Ike's attempt to create better relations with the Soviets. From what I know, this argument can't be correct. Any codes to which Oswald had access as a radar operator would have been changing periodically. Furthermore, what enabled the Soviets to shoot down Gary Powers wasn't knowledge of U.S. radar; it was the development of a new SAM.

it's not.

Greg's 100% correct. U-2 flights were ordered not to happen by Ike yet Dulles et al was not going to allow Ike's desire for a Peace conference with Russia to define the years to come. The real assumption was that Nixon would be POTUS and the plans to confront and provoke Russia would be ongoing and supported by the man in the big chair.

JFK winning screwed all that up and enraged the MICC. American University sealed the deal.

Where would we be as a nation if we did not have a THREAT with which to contend ..

Nazi's...

Communists...

Terrorists...

Greg has a better handle on this - didn't he just run out of gas or have mechanical failure?

https://politicalassassinations.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/cia-documents-show-us-never-believed-gary-powers-was-shot-down/

U-2 pilot Gary Powers, a few weeks before his suspicious death in a helicopter crash in LA, revealed that he did not believe his plane was shot down by the Soviets and indicated sabotage on the part of the CIA instead, in order to undermine the possibility of detente between Eisenhower and Kruschev. It is not a “conspiracy theory” that Lee Harvey Oswald, one of nine Office of Naval Intelligence fake defectors who went to the USSR in the same month, told ONI’s Richard Snyder at the American Embassy in Moscow that he was going to reveal the U-2 secrets to the Soviets. Oswald had been stationed, as a Marine, at every base the U-2 operated from, including Atsugi, Japan and tracked it by radar. He had a Crypto clearance. Those things are in the historical record. It is not likely that he gave up any such information or would have been allowed to. Snyder kept Oswald’s proffered passport and did not act on his renunciation of US citizenship. Snyder returned the passport to Oswald on his way out of Russia with his new bride Marina, transportation paid by the State Department. Nice treatment for a defector who gave secrets to the Soviets. Marina even got Oswald’s story confused with another ONI defector, Robert Webster, when she testified to the Warren Commission about how her husband got to the Soviet Union and where he lived in Moscow. However if sabotage of the detente was in the planning, it would have been useful to use the Oswald deception to explain how the Soviets could track and shoot down the U-2. This article suggests that Powers himself might have been a false defector as well. What is clear is that Powers did not buy the official story.

John Judge

The London Times

May 1, 2010

[Jon G. Tidd]

Why is it so difficult to figure out who had JFK killed?

i believe no one here wants to know.

Everyone here is willing to point a finger.

You want to know who I think had JFK killed. It doesn't matter what I think.

Greg Burnham said it: "Cui Bono?" Forget everything else.

[Greg Parker]

"Cui Bono?"

The list of those who didn't may be just as long... a little finesse is needed to narrow it down a tad more.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Greg,

Thanks. I prefer to think about who benefited and who didn't.

In this group, I think: not Egypt, LBJ, Israel, not the USSR, not Cuba.

[Thomas Graves]

Why is it so difficult to figure out who had JFK killed?

i believe no one here wants to know.

Everyone here is willing to point a finger.

You want to know who I think had JFK killed. It doesn't matter what I think.

Greg Burnham said it: "Cui Bono?" Forget everything else.

Dear Jon G Tidd,

That's right, we don't want to know that "Big Mac" McGeorge Bundy had JFK killed.

Respectfully,

--Tommy

Edited April 9, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

Why is it so difficult to figure out who had JFK killed?

i believe no one here wants to know...

Don't despair, Jon, your question is the right one.

The reason it's so hard to figure out who had JFK killed is precisely as US Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren said, in effect, 'We're going to keep that information secret for 75 years, due to National Security.'

That must be the truth. Yet that itself is a clue. Here is my variation on your question:

What assassins of JFK would need to remain National Security secrets for 75 years from the date of the Warren Report (i.e. 2039) ?

A related question is: Why would President GHW Bush sign the JFK Records Act of 1992, reducing that date by 22 years (i.e. 2017) ?

The Killers of JFK must fit that National Security profile.

In other words -- Secret -- but not that Secret.

That shortens the list.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 9, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Mark Knight]

Cui Bono?

NIxon, for one...but not immediately. That came about 5 years later. I don't think he was at the top of the pyramid by any stretch, but he clearly benefitted from the elimination of two Kennedys. In 1962, we "won't have Dick Nixon to kick around..." And in 1968, he's elected to the highest office in the land.

This would suggest to me that the sponsors of the JFK assassination were behind Nixon's election. But by '74, they had reason to leave him "twisting slowly, slowly in the wind."

Just an observation...

[Greg Parker]

Greg,

Thanks. I prefer to think about who benefited and who didn't.

In this group, I think: not Egypt, LBJ, Israel, not the USSR, not Cuba.

Jon,

Not sure if I was clear enough. The list of those who benefited is not a short one.

Out of curiosity, why is LBJ on your list of those who didn't benefit?

[Cliff Varnell]

That's right, we don't want to know that "Big Mac" McGeorge Bundy had JFK killed.

Respectfully,

--Tommy

McGeorge Bundy was a snot nosed kid.

So was George HW Bush.

So was David Rockefeller.

Averell Harriman, Prescott Bush, John D.Rockefeller III were older men who likely directed the younger.

Keen interest in Asia, those fellers.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul Trejo,

You write:

"I think there's general agreement on this, Jon, i.e. when OSWALD was in the USSR he was used as a "dangle" by the ONI or CIA or whatever Intelligence Agency sent him there."

Paul, in my experience, consensus thinking among members of any group is often in error. I say this not because I'm asserting my view is correct; only by way of expressing my belief that rational independent thinking is preferable to mere acceptance of a widely held conclusion...

Well, Jon, you're right to criticize the argument from consensus, especially since in the past half-century most JFK Research consensus (what little there is) has so often turned out to be mistaken.

The "dangle" angle was explained in detail by CIA Agent Victor Marchetti; just keeping tabs on those who approached the dangles, and what their questions were about -- the full scope of that spreadsheet was a valuable source of socio-political data for the CIA.

It strongly depended on having multiple dangles in strategic locations over a long period of time to work.

That's why I believe that OSWALD quitting when he did was bad news for the CIA (or ONI). The Marines downgraded OSWALD's discharge after that very move.

The evidence I would cite for my "dangle" opinion was the speed and facility with which the US Government lovingly recovered OSWALD and his teenage Russian wife -- even lending them money.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 9, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

Greg Parker,

Many believe LBJ benefited and some believe Israel benefited from JFK's death. LBJ because of his mounting criminal problems, Israel because of Dimona.

You ask me about LBJ. In my view, LBJ was taken aback completely by the assassination at first. It got him out of the frying pan, but because he was his own worst enemy, it merely opened the way for LBJ to do himself in another way. When he announced he wouldn't run for a second term, it was clear he was a defeated man. He died several years later, apparently isolated, alcoholic, and somewhat irrational. He was an execrable person in my view, who led a miserable life post-assassination and who died a miserable man. I don't see that he benefited from the assassination, even though he wanted to be president.

[Paul Trejo]

Greg Parker,

Many believe LBJ benefited and some believe Israel benefited from JFK's death. LBJ because of his mounting criminal problems, Israel because of Dimona.

You ask me about LBJ. In my view, LBJ was taken aback completely by the assassination at first. It got him out of the frying pan, but because he was his own worst enemy, it merely opened the way for LBJ to do himself in another way. When he announced he wouldn't run for a second term, it was clear he was a defeated man. He died several years later, apparently isolated, alcoholic, and somewhat irrational. He was an execrable person in my view, who led a miserable life post-assassination and who died a miserable man. I don't see that he benefited from the assassination, even though he wanted to be president.

Well, Jon, I tend to agree with Greg on this -- the List of BENEFACTORS to JFK's death is so long that one cannot reliably identify the actual JFK KILL-TEAM based on it.

Jim Garrison was among the first to say that LBJ benefitted from the JFK murder -- but Garrison by that time had become defensive and emotional; he had no solid reasons, just a nasty suspicion.

By the way, IMHO the best book that blames LBJ for the JFK murder was written in 1991 by Craig Zirbel, namely, The Texas Connection: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

IMHO, Zirbel nails all the key arguments, and is almost convincing. By contrast, the recent copycat books in the past ten years by Roger Stone, Barr McClellan, Phil Nelson, Joe Farrell, and so on have all been full of stuff and nonsense, by comparison.

Yet even Zirbel fails to make the case. One really has to hate LBJ for Vietnam to wear Zirbel's blinders.

I repeat: Without a Ground Crew theory, all JFK Conspiracy theories amount to political tracts, attacking some political enemy with bare emotion. This applies even to the most famous ones, including those by Scott, Newman, Douglass and so on.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 9, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Greg Parker]

Greg Parker,

Many believe LBJ benefited and some believe Israel benefited from JFK's death. LBJ because of his mounting criminal problems, Israel because of Dimona.

You ask me about LBJ. In my view, LBJ was taken aback completely by the assassination at first. It got him out of the frying pan, but because he was his own worst enemy, it merely opened the way for LBJ to do himself in another way. When he announced he wouldn't run for a second term, it was clear he was a defeated man. He died several years later, apparently isolated, alcoholic, and somewhat irrational. He was an execrable person in my view, who led a miserable life post-assassination and who died a miserable man. I don't see that he benefited from the assassination, even though he wanted to be president.

Jon,

you say he wanted to be president. Well, he got that without a vote being cast. All the rest is "benefit of hindsight". I don't think he was any mastermind. At most, he knew about it and let it happen. But I certainly understand anyone having him on a preliminary list of suspects.