Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul Trejo,

You write:

"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."

Yep.

By about 1967 or 1968, there was a notorious play being performed in the U.S., "MacBird". The title said everything. College students, who hated LBJ, knew what the title meant, even if they never saw the play, and believed the Warren Report was unbelievable. Yet most college students (my anecdotal experience) didn't believe LBJ was behind the job. The preferred culprit at the time was the CIA. The assumption at the time, both here among college students and abroad, was that JFK had been killed by a domestic conspiracy.

[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...

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.

Yes, the argument of Jim Garrison was that LBJ benefited by becoming President. Craig Zirbel (1991) added that LBJ was facing prosecution for shady financial deals involving Bobby Baker, so LBJ benefitted in two ways from JFK's murder.

Whether this made LBJ "happy" instead of "miserable" is beside the point. He benefitted.

Yet the whole premise is weak. Way too many people benefitted from JFK's death -- the entire Right-Wing in the USA had a party that night -- millions of people.

Guy Banister's secretary, Delphine Roberts, expressed the glee of millions of Americans when she cheered at JFK's death. At an elementary school in a town in Mississippi, where the KKK was still big in 1963, a former student still tells the story about her class roaring with approval on the news that JFK had been killed.

We need a far better criterion than "Cui Bono."

It's far better, IMHO, to ask which JFK Killers would be kept secret for 75 years in 1964, only to see that date reduced to 53 years in 1992 by President Bush (two years after the USSR fell). That's a more solid criterion.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 9, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

All right, Paul Trejo. Who today has a vested interest in keeping the truth of the JFK assassination hidden?

I don't believe it's the right-wing guys.

I can believe it's the CIA, although I don't believe the CIA had a hand in killing JFK.

Which leads me to ask: Why if the CIA didn't have a hand in killing JFK does it continue to obfuscate the cause of his death?

The CIA has one ostensible master, the U.S. intelligence hub, which serves the president.

Someone here doesn't want the American people, in 2015, to know the truth. Why?

[Thomas Graves]

All right, Paul Trejo. Who today has a vested interest in keeping the truth of the JFK assassination hidden?

I don't believe it's the right-wing guys.

I can believe it's the CIA, although I don't believe the CIA had a hand in killing JFK.

Which leads me to ask: Why if the CIA didn't have a hand in killing JFK does it continue to obfuscate the cause of his death?

The CIA has one ostensible master, the U.S. intelligence hub, which serves the president.

Someone here doesn't want the American people, in 2015, to know the truth. Why?

Dear Mr. Tidd,

Are you trying to educate us?

Why don't you just tell us who you think had JFK killed, and why?

--Tommy

[Thomas Graves]

All right, Paul Trejo. Who today has a vested interest in keeping the truth of the JFK assassination hidden?

I don't believe it's the right-wing guys.

I can believe it's the CIA, although I don't believe the CIA had a hand in killing JFK.

Which leads me to ask: Why if the CIA didn't have a hand in killing JFK does it continue to obfuscate the cause of his death?

The CIA has one ostensible master, the U.S. intelligence hub, which serves the president.

Someone here doesn't want the American people, in 2015, to know the truth. Why?

Dear Mr. Tidd,

Are you trying to educate us?

Why don't you just tell us who you think had JFK killed, and why?

--Tommy

I got it!

I got it!

Barack Obama doesn't want us to know the truth!

The Kennedy family?

... Christina Onassis???

Oh that's right. She's dead.

Hmmm....

Edited April 11, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Brian Schmidt]

I think there's a risk of reading too much into the "why are they still hiding it in 2015" and using this question to gleam insight into who planned the assassination.

Pretend you are President and you found out definitively that Allen Dulles or Dick Helms planned it and the CIA carried it out. Or worse, it was LBJ and/or George Bush was involved. Would you tell the public? I probably wouldn't. It would undermine the whole US political system--there could actually be chaos in the streets. It wouldn't surprise me too much if Carter found out who it was but will never tell to legitimize the political system.

[Paul Trejo]

All right, Paul Trejo. Who today has a vested interest in keeping the truth of the JFK assassination hidden?

I don't believe it's the right-wing guys.

I can believe it's the CIA, although I don't believe the CIA had a hand in killing JFK.

Which leads me to ask: Why if the CIA didn't have a hand in killing JFK does it continue to obfuscate the cause of his death?

The CIA has one ostensible master, the U.S. intelligence hub, which serves the president.

Someone here doesn't want the American people, in 2015, to know the truth. Why?

JGT: Who today has a vested interest in keeping the truth of the JFK assassination hidden?

PT: Nobody, Jon. That's why the USA is going to see the truth in 2017, instead of 2039.

JGT: I don't believe it's the right-wing guys.

PT: Right -- it's nobody anymore. But even back in 1964, it wasn't the right-wing guys who wanted to push the LONE-NUT theory till it stank. Nor was it the left-wing guys. That leaves the middle of the road guys -- the US Government. The US Government had a vested interest in 1964 (but not today) in keeping the truth of the JFK murder hidden -- and they even told us what that interest was: National Security.

JGT: I can believe it's the CIA, although I don't believe the CIA had a hand in killing JFK.

PT: The CIA had zero capability of pulling off such a massive cover-up inside the USA. Without the FBI, the Pentagon, the State Department, RFK himself, Jackie herself -- the CIA would have been busted quick. The only group that had all that support was the middle of the road guys -- the US Government.

JGT: Why if the CIA didn't have a hand in killing JFK does it continue to obfuscate the cause of his death?

PT: This seems simple to me, Jon -- the CIA is loyal to the US Government. That's their profession. The Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren said in 1964 that the Truth about the JFK Assassination must be kept SECRET for 75 years because of National Security. The CIA believed him. The FBI believed him. Most loyal Americans believed him.

Maybe we should blame the whole thing on the 91 year old philosopher Bertrand Russell, who started the British "Who Killed Kennedy" Committee in 1964, and encouraged Mark Lane to go for broke, because ever since Rush to Judgment (1966) was published, a minority of loyal Americans has not let the LONE NUT fallacy have a single night's rest.

Most people are basically rational and fair, and when we see the shoddy medical evidence, and the shoddy ballistics evidence, and the shoddy eye-witness evidence -- we properly protest. Only those who were so "loyal" to the USA that they refused to even read anything that contradicted Earl Warren -- even after the HSCA -- only they can still accept the LONE NUT fallacy.

But even though many CIA folks knew better -- they were going to put on a show of LOYALTY. Very simple to me.

JGT: The CIA has one ostensible master, the U.S. intelligence hub, which serves the president.

PT: Yes, Jon, and President LBJ told the CIA to support Earl Warren in the interest of National Security -- and they did.

JGT: Someone here doesn't want the American people, in 2015, to know the truth. Why?

PT: I think you're mistaken, Jon. The US Government will reveal the JFK Truth in 2017, instead of in 2039 as Earl Warren had originally planned. The rest, sir, is simply the inertia of a half-century of bureaucratic nesting. It will take two years just to wake the US Government officials up, and let them know that Hoover's family jewels are going on display, by order of President GHW Bush.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typo>

Edited April 11, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

It's gonna be quite something when President Jeb Bush pushes that 2017 date aside.

Just a wild prediction

[Jon G. Tidd]

I imagine any 2017 releases won't be too revelatory. I think any such material already has been destroyed. If I had to guess, I'd say there will be stuff damning the FBI and the CIA but nothing that reveals why JFK was killed -- the central question.

I hope for some additional information about the autopsy and the rifle, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Paul Trejo]

I imagine any 2017 releases won't be too revelatory. I think any such material already has been destroyed. If I had to guess, I'd say there will be stuff damning the FBI and the CIA but nothing that reveals why JFK was killed -- the central question.

I hope for some additional information about the autopsy and the rifle, but I'm not holding my breath.

Jon, I'm still hopeful that we can benefit from your experience in an Intelligence Agency to try to understand Lee Harvey Oswald.

Evidently you don't doubt Earl Warren's admission that the US Government had evidence about Oswald that he refused to release to the American public on grounds of National Security.

Yet do you also think that Warren was lying when he said that the Truth was being "preserved" and would be released in 75 years?

Evidently you don't doubt that President GHW Bush signed the JFK Records Act of 1992 to decrease that sentence to 53 years.

Yet do you think that Bush was insincere in that Act?

Or have you given any thought (from an Intelligence perspective) about WHY President Bush changed that date?

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 11, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul,

You refer to my experience as an army intelligence officer (1970-72). It didn't make me an analyst or a historian, so I'm just not equipped to answer your questions about GHWB.

To the extent I can bring my intelligence officer experience to bear on the JFK case, I'd like to help everyone here who has not been a case officer, who has not run agents, who has not been deeply involved in the most secret workings of an army intel unit circa 1971 in a war, understand how to think about this question: Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

Because I'm not by experience an intel professional, I've had to dig back to the time and place and events of my military life.

I believe I know how intel professionals (commanders, case officers, etc.) at that time would have sized up Oswald had they been tasked with observing him. IMO, the intel professionals would have found Oswald most interesting because of his proclivities. Oswald could and would do things that would place him in situations in which he could obtain possibly valuable information.

The thing is, as I study Oswald, he did not really bring anything to the table. Nothing that wasn't already openly known. Ultimately, IMO, an intel officer seeking to use Oswald to obtain information would give up on Oswald.

But that's not the end of the story. Say you are an intel pro for some country's intelligence service. Your attention has been attracted to Oswald. You observe Oswald and discover U.S. intel services are following him. Maybe even at some low level making use of him. Bingo. You've got a nugget of gold. Which is the knowledge that Oswald, who is known to do very strange things, has been monitored by a U.S. intelligence agency. You've just discovered an ideal patsy.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul,

...I believe I know how intel professionals (commanders, case officers, etc.) at that time would have sized up Oswald had they been tasked with observing him. IMO, the intel professionals would have found Oswald most interesting because of his proclivities. Oswald could and would do things that would place him in situations in which he could obtain possibly valuable information.

The thing is, as I study Oswald, he did not really bring anything to the table. Nothing that wasn't already openly known. Ultimately, IMO, an intel officer seeking to use Oswald to obtain information would give up on Oswald.

But that's not the end of the story. Say you are an intel pro for some country's intelligence service. Your attention has been attracted to Oswald. You observe Oswald and discover U.S. intel services are following him. Maybe even at some low level making use of him. Bingo...You've just discovered an ideal patsy.

Thanks, Jon, for that interesting insight from the perspective inside an Intelligence Agency.

I would add here that this agrees with my non-expert hypothesis about Lee Harvey OSWALD, namely, that while OSWALD was probably working for an Intelligence Agency inside the USSR from October 1959 to June, 1962, he was no longer working for them after he abandoned that post inside the USSR.

This would explain, IMHO, why the Marines lowered his discharge status -- he abandoned his ONI post once he became a father through his teenage bride, Marina.

Once in the USA, Oswald started work as a welder (like Billy Seymour and Roscoe White) and decided that he didn't like the job. Long hours, low pay, and no adventure at all.

Enter George De Mohrenschildt (DM): George treated Lee Harvey OSWALD like a new toy, and meddled often in OSWALD's life.

George's first move was to find OSWALD a new job -- more suited to his experience in Atsugi. This job was at the Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall (JCS) map and printing company, which did work for the US Government.While at JCS, Oswald often used company equipment for personal purposes. We know, for example, that he created his "Alek J. Hidell" fake ID card on their equipment.

George's second move was to introduce the OSWALDs to the Russian Émigré community. Marina liked that, but Lee didn't like it much. He didn't like any of them, and they didn't like him. They liked Marina. This was the period when we receive reports that Lee began beating Marina.

George's third move was to find different places for Marina to live, apart from Lee, to protect her and her baby. Yes, George admitted this, and defended his meddling as "caring."

George's fourth move was to talk to Lee about Ex-General Edwin Walker, whom he called "General Fokker," to make Lee laugh. Their comrade in this joke was the young engineer, Volkmar Schmidt. They all went to a yuppie engineer party in Dallas, with the Paines. At that party, Volkmar Schmidt tried a psychological experiment on Lee -- to transfer his hostility from the Bay of Pigs toward "General Fokker". The experiment lasted for hours.

It worked. Within days, Lee ordered weapons through the mail, and instructed Marina to take one (and only one) Backyard Photograph of himself holding his weapons.

Then, IMHO, Lee used the advanced photographic equipment at JCS to make different poses of the Backyard Photograph, with his old Atsugi Marine associate, Roscoe White. (The chin, the right wrist, the thick neck and the slanted posture of Roscoe White are obvious in these fakes.) The face from Marina's single photograph was used.

Marina saw more and more photographs of WALKER at her house. She was told to mind her own business. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until 10 April 1963, when some local nut in Dallas tried to assassinate Edwin WALKER at his home on Turtle Creek Boulevard.

This was the low point for OSWALD so far. If he thought he could improve his chances of getting back into employment with the Intelligence Community, he was sorely mistaken.

George's fifth and final move with regard to OSWALD was taken three days after the attempt on WALKER's life. George DM and his wife Jeanne satisfied themselves that Lee Oswald was indeed WALKER's shooter, and they left Dallas, never to see the OSWALDs again in their lives.

Seven days after the attempt on WALKER'S life, Lee Harvey OSWALD chose to move to New Orleans, to begin the adventure that Jim Garrison described in his book, On the Trail of the Assassins (1988), which Oliver Stone made into the movie, JFK (1991).

Although the Intelligence Community was indeed watching OSWALD since he left the USSR, he was never again to be their employee -- he was too unstable. Yet OSWALD evidently thought that Guy Banister was his friend, and was going to give him another chance to become an Intelligence Agent.

Little did OSWALD realize that Guy Banister was actually connected politically to Edwin WALKER -- through their rightist political activities in the Southern States.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited April 15, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul Trejo,

The diary topic is, Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

Which is this question: Which intel agency recruited Oswald?

Your post #777 is most interesting. But does not answer, only argues, who was Oswald.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul Trejo,

The diary topic is, Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

Which is this question: Which intel agency recruited Oswald?

Your post #777 is most interesting. But does not answer, only argues, who was Oswald.

OK, Jon, I'll try to answer. The Intelligence Agency that originally recruited OSWALD was the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). His mission was to infiltrate the USSR as a "dangle" in a team of perhaps two dozen "dangles" in different geographical locations, to obtain slow trickles of realistic information for US Intelligence over several years.

As OSWALD admitted later, he got about 90 rubles monthly for his work at the USSR factory, and another 70 rubles monthly from the Red Cross, so that his combined salary was almost equal to the Director of the factory. He was pampered.

When OSWALD married Marina and had baby June, he also decided that he had "had enough" of the USSR, and he sped his family back to the USA to show off his manly success to his natal family.

However, in doing that, OSWALD broke his contract with the ONI, and so his Marine discharge was downgraded at that point. The ONI officers were displeased with OSWALD's quitting on them.

At that point, of course, the FBI and the CIA would need to create files on OSWALD to monitor his behavior in the USA -- but the ONI would no longer employ him. OSWALD had made a huge mistake, IMHO, and he always hoped he could get back into their good graces, because, as far as he could see, he had done nothing wrong.

The CIA, in fact, had considered the "laying on of interviews" for Oswald at some point in 1963, but of course, that was all dashed to smithereens by his attempt on the life of segregationist Ex-General Edwin Walker.

George DM, who talked OSWALD into hating Walker, was shocked to learn that OSWALD on his own had actually acted on this hatred -- and no doubt George DM had to confess to the CIA that he had fumbled his OSWALD babysitting mission.

The CIA would now only consider OSWALD at the same level of other expendable "assets" like Gerry Patrick Hemming, Frank Sturgis, Loran Hall and Larry Howard. In other words, they were content to cast OSWALD to the leadership of Guy Banister in New Orleans, with his rag-tag band of Fake CIA Agents.

In all this, we must remember that OSWALD was still 19 when he entered the USSR, and was 22 when he returned to the USA in June of 1962. He was young and naïve, and had authority issues.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 20, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Paul - do you no longer espouse the view that Walker and Banister, having figured out that it was Oswald who shot at Walker, blackmailed him into going to New Orleans (and later Mexico City) and working with their anti-Castro operations?