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3 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Ernie,

If you can find the actual Q&A exchange from 2012 that we exchanged for the "Billy James Hargis" thread, then please share it with everybody.   Otherwise, this is all just a tempest in a teacup, as the bard said.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

I have told you THREE TIMES that I have done exactly what you want.  The PDF file of our ENTIRE DEBATE is attached to my previous message.  Do you have a reading comprehension problem?

The FIRST comment regarding that Hargis article was posted on November 3, 2012 at 9:27pm.  The LAST comment was posted a year later on November 23, 2013 at 5:09am AND ALL OF OUR messages between those two dates appear in the PDF file whose link I gave to you.  The PDF file totals 28 pages.

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On 8/2/2017 at 2:01 AM, Ernie Lazar said:

I have told you THREE TIMES that I have done exactly what you want.  The PDF file of our ENTIRE DEBATE is attached to my previous message.  Do you have a reading comprehension problem?

The FIRST comment regarding that Hargis article was posted on November 3, 2012 at 9:27pm.  The LAST comment was posted a year later on November 23, 2013 at 5:09am AND ALL OF OUR messages between those two dates appear in the PDF file whose link I gave to you.  The PDF file totals 28 pages.

Ernie,

You think nobody is reading your long, furious screed?   A few of us are.  I saw that PDF, and it clearly cannot be the one you have referred to above, which makes me sound like some sort of demon from Hades.

My demeanor is polite and respectful -- and yet you aren't satisfied.   You implied that I wrote like some horrible person -- and then the PDF you supplied shows me to be as gentle as a lamb.  Surely, you must have posted the wrong PDF.

In any case, I continue to maintain -- gently and politely -- that Harry Dean is an unspoken hero, who told the FBI in September that some rogues in the Southern California John Birch Society were plotting to kill JFK, and exactly who the rogues were.

You continue to deny this with vigor, force and even insults -- year after year.  I think the readers can see this, Ernie.  I myself am keeping a cool head under all your pressure.

If you want to continue ranting, that seems to be your right (although if I myself ranted the way that you are ranting, the Moderators would have banned me long ago, I feel sure).

It seems to me that you're making a Federal case out of a simple matter of opinion in the context of the controversial JFK Conspiracy.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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34 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

Ernie,

You think nobody is reading your long, furious screed?   A few of us are.  I saw that PDF, and it clearly cannot be the one you have referred to above, which makes me sound like some sort of demon from Hades.

My demeanor is polite and respectful -- and yet you aren't satisfied.   You implied that I wrote like some horrible person -- and then the PDF you supplied shows me to be as gentle as a lamb.  Surely, you must have posted the wrong PDF.

In any case, I continue to maintain -- gently and politely -- that Harry Dean is an unspoken hero, who told the FBI in September that some rogues in the Southern California John Birch Society was plotting to kill JFK, and exactly who the rogues were.

You continue to deny this with vigor, force and even insults -- year after year.  I think the readers can see this, Ernie.  I myself am keeping a cool head under all your pressure.

If you want to continue ranting, that seems to be your right (although if I myself ranted the way that you are ranting, the Moderators would have banned me long ago, I feel sure).

It seems to me that you're making a Federal case out of a simple matter of opinion in the context of the controversial JFK Conspiracy.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Paul -- I never said ONE WORD about your demeanor or style of writing in that Hargis thread.  You just invented that.  What I said is that you do not like to be corrected regarding your errors.  I spent considerable time during our debate in that Hargis article explaining FBI policies and procedures and explaining exactly why Harry's narrative could not possibly be true.  EVEN YOU recognized (in writing) that I had made serious points which deserved consideration.

It is astounding that you think Harry Dean's 50-year campaign of self-promotion through his lies and mis-representations along with your utter falsehoods which have repeatedly been revealed during our debates amounts to nothing more than "a simple matter of opinion".   I guess that is your new omnipresent intellectual escape hatch -- i.e. no matter how many times your arguments are proven to be delusional falsehoods, you will dumb-down the dispute to nothing more than "a simple matter of opinion".

What appears to be the case is that you received your college degree from Trump University -- and you majored in "Alternative Facts"

 

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53 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

I saw that PDF, and it clearly cannot be the one you have referred to above

AGAIN PAUL:  

Then contact Leroy Chapman (email address previously supplied to you) and TELL HIM that you think he is a l-i-a-r because that PDF file "clearly cannot be the one" I referred to in my messages.  

Your use of the term "clearly" ALWAYS precedes some new delusional falsehood which you wish to disseminate -- such as when you have previously declared boldly that Harry's 11/63 letter to Hoover was a "forgery" by the FBI-- and then you "clearly" assured us that....

"There is no other conclusion that ordinary common sense can make..."    AND

"It therefore appears to me that the FBI has conducted a well-orchestrated smear campaign against Harry Dean regarding Harry Dean's claims about the JFK assassination."   AND

"Your bias against Harry Dean amounts to a blind spot in your vision, Ernie. Your lack of objectivity is probably obvious to everybody on this thread except yourself."   

 

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26 minutes ago, Ernie Lazar said:

Paul ...It is astounding that you think Harry Dean's 50-year campaign of self-promotion through his lies and mis-representations along with your utter falsehoods which have repeatedly been revealed during our debates amounts to nothing more than "a simple matter of opinion".   I guess that is your new omnipresent intellectual escape hatch -- i.e. no matter how many times your arguments are proven to be delusional falsehoods, you will dumb-down the dispute to nothing more than "a simple matter of opinion".

What appears to be the case is that you received your college degree from Trump University -- and you majored in "Alternative Facts"

Ernie,

After years of bantering with you about Harry Dean, I can see that you are simply biased against him.  Your insults really have no end.  Reading your rant over the past week, a reader might easily conclude that you merely enjoy insulting people over the Internet.

At long last your insults have gone too far.  To respond to you in kind would almost certainly get me banned.   So, to protect my privilege of posting to this august JFK Forum, which hosts such literary luminaries as David Lifton, Larry Hancock, Bill Simpich, William Kelly and many others, I refuse to respond to you in kind.

I remind readers that this thread, started in 2015, is about the "New Book" by Dr. Jeffrey Caufield, namely, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: the Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy (2015).

I remind readers as well, that the first person to publicly accuse General Walker of the JFK assassination was none other than Harry Dean, in January, 1965, on the Joe Pyne  Show.  Since 1965, the most popular JFK CT has been the CIA-did-it CT.  This remains the main reason that the Dean-Caufield Walker-did-it CT has not yet had its full and proper hearing. 

These insults by Ernie Lazar are not the key reason why this "New Book" by Dr. Caufield has floundered since 2015.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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28 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

Ernie,

After years of bantering with you about Harry Dean, I can see that you are simply biased against him.  Your insults really have no end.  Reading your rant over the past week, a reader might easily conclude that you merely enjoy insulting people over the Internet.

At long last your insults have gone too far.  To respond to you in kind would almost certainly get me banned.   So, to protect my privilege of posting to this august JFK Forum, which hosts such literary luminaries as David Lifton, Larry Hancock, Bill Simpich, William Kelly and many others, I refuse to respond to you in kind.

I remind readers that this thread, started in 2015, is about the "New Book" by Dr. Jeffrey Caufield, namely, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: the Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy (2015).

I remind readers as well, that the first person to publicly accuse General Walker of the JFK assassination was none other than Harry Dean, in January, 1965, on the Joe Pyne  Show.  Since 1965, the most popular JFK CT has been the CIA-did-it CT.  This remains the main reason that the Dean-Caufield Walker-did-it CT has not yet had its full and proper hearing. 

These insults by Ernie Lazar are not the key reason why this "New Book" by Dr. Caufield has floundered since 2015.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Paul -- I have a confession to make to you.  I am "biased" against ANYBODY who presents falsehoods and expects us to accept them.

Everybody in EF is looking forward to your comments in October 2017 when you finally have to admit that the narrative you and Harry have promoted for years is FALSE.

HOWEVER -- I predict that you will NEVER acknowledge your error.  Instead, you will dumb-down your final comment to:  "Well, everything I wrote over the past 8 years regarding Harry was simply a matter of opinion -- and at least I was never 'biased' against him."

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8 minutes ago, Ernie Lazar said:

Reading your rant over the past week, a reader might easily conclude that you merely enjoy insulting people over the Internet.

What you describe as my "rant" -- was me carefully dissecting everything YOU have written over the years and demonstrating through empirical evidence (including direct quotations by you and Harry) that you both are incapable of admitting error.

Frankly, I cannot imagine ANYBODY whom could penetrate the bubble you have created around your falsehoods.  As I have stated before -- you create self-sealing and circular arguments (often based upon entirely false predicates) and then you have the gall to complain and whine when someone reveals and quotes your numerous falsehoods.  

EVEN WORSE---you sometimes claim that you have acknowledged your errors when you have NEVER actually done so.  Example:  I recently asked you to specify WHEN and WHERE you publicly stated that your original arguments against the FBI were NOT TRUE.   As usual -- you REFUSED to answer --- because THAT is your standard method of operation, i.e. you make absurdly false statements, accusations, and conclusions and when someone categorically falsifies what you present, you NEVER acknowledge that your basic argument was DELUSIONAL!  Instead -- you berate and malign the integrity, common sense, and character of whoever is your critic!

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So, it seems the conclusion to this week's exchange is rather obvious.

Harry Dean is the true, unsung hero of the entire JFK assassination saga.  His heroism -- his truthfulness toward the FBI -- will go down in US history as a milestone of upright, moral citizenship.

Now -- why did the FBI treat Harry Dean with such harsh words?   The answer is clear to any reader of JFK CT literature -- the FBI was committed to the "Lone Nut" theory of the JFK assassination, and any evidence of any "conspiracy" in the JFK assassination had to be squashed with extreme prejudice.

That's the real reason.  That's the only reason.

Now -- anybody who respects the FBI must regret this sorry episode in its otherwise illustrious career.   Yet those who remain adherents (or even impartial, or just plain ignorant) towards the "Lone Nut" nonsense that the FBI has been protecting for more than 50 years, will remain blind to the moral benefits of criticizing the FBI in this regard.

And so they will blindly defend the FBI's rant against Harry Dean.  

After 2017, however, when all the JFK records are finally revealed by the US Government pursuant to the JFK Records Act of 1992 -- the shoe will be on the other foot.   And then -- at long last -- the heartfelt apologies to Harry Dean will finally be heard, far and wide.   

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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12 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

So, it seems the conclusion to this week's exchange is rather obvious.

Harry Dean is the true, unsung hero of the entire JFK assassination saga.  His heroism -- his truthfulness toward the FBI -- will go down in US history as a milestone of upright, moral citizenship.

Now -- why did the FBI treat Harry Dean with such harsh words?   The answer is clear to any reader of JFK CT literature -- the FBI was committed to the "Lone Nut" theory of the JFK assassination, and any evidence of any "conspiracy" in the JFK assassination had to be squashed with extreme prejudice.

That's the real reason.  That's the only reason.

Now -- anybody who respects the FBI must regret this sorry episode in its otherwise illustrious career.   Yet those who remain adherents (or even impartial, or just plain ignorant) towards the "Lone Nut" nonsense that the FBI has been protecting for more than 50 years, will remain blind to the moral benefits of criticizing the FBI in this regard.

And so they will blindly defend the FBI's rant against Harry Dean.  

After 2017, however, when all the JFK records are finally revealed by the US Government pursuant to the JFK Records Act of 1992 -- the shoe will be on the other foot.   And then -- at long last -- the heartfelt apologies to Harry Dean will finally be heard, far and wide.   

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Well, Paul, as is often the case with your argument, it is based upon a totally false predicate.  There is no evidence that the FBI treated Harry with "harsh words" -- and that is according TO HARRY!

Let's briefly summarize what happened:

1.  The FBI never heard of Harry Dean until HE started contacting the FBI in the summer of 1960.  

2.  According to Harry's 11/63 letter to Hoover, he was treated with respect and he explicitly stated that all of the Agents he dealt with "were my kind of people. They went by the book, they were patriots..."   And then, in June 1961, when Harry was told by Chicago FBI Agents that he could "no longer continue as an undercover agent, I was saddened to tears, the fact that they were sorry about the whole thing turning out as it did made me realize they are not only human but also dedicated to the same principles as we are."

3.  Then, circa July 1961, Harry moved to Los Angeles.  In August 1962, Harry contacted the Los Angeles-FBI office by phone.  He told an FBI Agent during that phone conversation that he had been an FBI informant in Chicago and he declared at that time that "...while he himself is personally not averse to resuming informant activities in behalf of the FBI, he hesitates to do so because of his wife’s feeling in the matter.”

4.  Harry continued to contact the FBI-Los Angeles office by phone or by letter.  The FBI politely listened to everything he had to say and an Agent memorialized on paper whatever Harry wanted to tell the FBI---just like the FBI does for any person who contacted the FBI.

5.  HOWEVER, when Harry started a major self-promotion campaign around southern California (particularly with respect to contacting media outlets) and Harry claimed through newspaper interviews and other contacts that he was some kind of FBI undercover agent or political spy, then those media outlets began contacting the FBI to ascertain whether or not Harry's claims about his status were accurate and truthful.

6.  EVERY FBI reply was the standard type of FBI reply to all such inquiries when the person seeking publicity mis-represented their association with the FBI.  The FBI simply told inquirers that Harry had never worked for the FBI or been asked to do anything for the FBI.   Period.  End of story.  [See 1977 letter by Assistant Director of Los Angeles office for example of how the FBI replied to ALL incoming inquiries.]

7.  When Harry would NOT stop describing himself as an FBI undercover agent or spy -- the FBI wrote letters to Harry asking him to cease and desist doing so.  There were no threats and no harsh words.  Just a request that Harry change his behavior.   Harry did not change -- but the FBI took no actions against Harry.

8.   LONE-NUT THEORY:  

YOUR argument is that:  

"Now -- why did the FBI treat Harry Dean with such harsh words?  The answer is clear to any reader of JFK CT literature -- the FBI was committed to the 'Lone Nut' theory of the JFK assassination, and any evidence of any 'conspiracy' in the JFK assassination had to be squashed with extreme prejudice."

This is where your argument crumbles into total absurdity -- for the following reasons:

(1)  Harry had 16 contacts with the FBI in the period from November 1963 through December 1966.

(2)  Of those 16 contacts, ONLY ONE pertains to JFK's murder.  ONE!

(3)  NONE of Harry's contacts with the FBI mention the Birch Society or Edwin Walker or any "JBS plot".

(4)  Consequently, how could the FBI be motivated against Harry (as you claim) because of the Bureau's obsession with protecting the "Lone Nut theory" -- when Harry's contacts with the FBI never involved him disputing the "Lone Nut Theory" in his communications with the FBI??

POSTSCRIPT:

1.  The ACTUAL subject matters which Harry wanted to discuss with the FBI during his 16 contacts with the FBI from November 1963 onward had nothing to do with JFK's murder.

2.  Of those 16 contacts which Harry had with the FBI,  FOURTEEN of them (92%) pertained in some way to FPCC or pro-Castro/anti-Castro Cubans.  ONE of them (11/19/64) pertained to LHO's contacts with Mexicans and Cubans.  Here is the summary of that contact--which Harry described as his "speculation". [NOTE:  by definition, speculation means:  "conjecture without firm evidence"

"Special Agent Ferd Rapp stated that Harry “was interviewed at his request and in response to his telephone call to the Los Angeles office.”  Harry told Rapp that he read the Warren Report’s comments about Oswald’s “alleged association with various Mexican or Cuban individuals”.  Specifically, Harry mentioned testimony by Sylvia Odio re: Lawrence Howard and Loran Eugene Hall. 

Harry told Rapp that he had met Hall (Monterey Park CA) and had heard him make an anti-Castro speech in Covina CA in September 1963. Harry also met Lawrence Hall Jr. (Pico Rivera CA) about this time but Harry stated he “had no contact with either of these persons since the time of the assassination” and he has not heard “either of them make any anti-Kennedy statements.”

Harry stated that it “was interesting to speculate that it might have been Oswald actually with these two men in Dallas” and that “both Hall and Howard who are anti-Castro leaders of the Cuban underground, actually wanted President Kennedy removed from the scene because of the failure of the 1960 Cuban invasion.”   Harry told Rapp that “in his opinion Hall and Howard would be capable of entering into conspiracy with Oswald to commit the assassination” and the FBI might want to check out that possibility.

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37 minutes ago, Ernie Lazar said:

 POSTSCRIPT:

1.  The ACTUAL subject matters which Harry wanted to discuss with the FBI during his 16 contacts with the FBI from November 1963 onward had nothing to do with JFK's murder.

Ernie,

It remains my position that those 16 contacts with the FBI from November 1963 are not the only FBI contacts that were recorded -- merely the only ones released to date.  So, I'm still expecting to see more from the FBI about Harry Dean.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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8 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

Ernie,

It remains my position that those 16 contacts with the FBI from November 1963 are not the only FBI contacts that were recorded -- merely the only ones released to date.  So, I'm still expecting to see more from the FBI about Harry Dean.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

But what is your basis for that assumption?  

Have you asked Harry if he had other contacts (by phone, mail, or in person)?

WHY would the FBI decide to delete from its own internal indexing system -- contacts from Harry Dean but they chose NOT to delete comparable contacts from all sorts of people who actually DID dispute the "Lone Nut Theory"?

 

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29 minutes ago, Ernie Lazar said:

But what is your basis for that assumption?  

Have you asked Harry if he had other contacts (by phone, mail, or in person)?

WHY would the FBI decide to delete from its own internal indexing system -- contacts from Harry Dean but they chose NOT to delete comparable contacts from all sorts of people who actually DID dispute the "Lone Nut Theory"?

Ernie,

Of course Harry Dean and I discussed other FBI contacts, including contacts with FBI agent Wesley Grapp -- which you consistently smash every time the topic is raised.

WHY would the FBI decide to alter its own internal indexing system?   Because this was the JFK Assassination, that's why.   Snoopy FBI agents were always snooping around internal FBI files, even after they were ordered not to do so.

FBI agents Wesley Swearingen and Don Adams are two cases in point.

It is well known that J. Edgar Hoover had private files that nobody else was allowed to see.  I am convinced that the JFK assassination files were precisely of this nature, and that this plot by General Walker (as reported by Harry Dean in 1965 and Jeff Caufield in 2015) was hidden by these very FBI files. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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FROM POLITICO:  

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/03/jfk-assassination-lone-gunman-cia-new-files-215449 

How the CIA Came to Doubt the Official Story of JFK’s Murder 

Newly released documents from long-secret Kennedy assassination files raise startling questions about what top agency officials knew and when they knew it. 

By PHILIP SHENON and LARRY J. SABATO  August 03, 2017 Read more 

 

After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, the CIA appeared eager, even desperate, to embrace the version of events being offered by the FBI, the Secret Service and other parts of the government. The official story: that a delusional misfit and self-proclaimed Marxist named Lee Harvey Oswald killed the president in Dallas with his $21 mail-order rifle and there was no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic. Certainly, the CIA’s leaders told the Warren Commission, the independent panel that investigated the murder, there was no evidence of a conspiracy that the spy agency could have foiled.

But thousands of pages of long-secret, assassination-related documents released by the National Archives last week show that, within a few years of Kennedy’s murder, some in the CIA began to worry internally that the official story was wrong—an alarm the agency never sounded publicly. 

Specifically, key CIA officials were concerned by the mid-1970s that the agency, the FBI, the Secret Service and the White House commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren had never followed up on important clues about Oswald’s contact with foreign agents, including diplomats and spies for the Communist governments of Cuba and the Soviet Union, who might have been aware of his plans to kill Kennedy and even encouraged the plot. (There is no credible evidence cited in the documents released so far that Cuban leader Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders had any personal role in ordering Kennedy’s murder.)

The CIA documents also offer tantalizing speculation about the chain of events in late 1963 that explained Oswald’s motives for killing Kennedy, which have previously never been established with certainty—how he may have become enraged after reading a detailed article in his hometown newspaper in New Orleans in September suggesting that his hero Castro had been targeted for assassination by the Kennedy administration. According to that theory, Oswald, who had rifle training in the Marine Corps, then set out to seek vengeance on Castro’s behalf—to kill Kennedy before the American president managed to kill the Cuban leader.

If that proved true, it would have raised a terrible question for the CIA: Was it possible that JFK’s assassination was, directly or indirectly, blowback for the spy agency’s plots to kill Castro? It would eventually be acknowledged the CIA had, in fact, repeatedly tried to assassinate Castro, sometimes in collusion with the Mafia, throughout Kennedy’s presidency. The CIA’s arsenal of weapons against Castro included a fungus-infected scuba suit, a poison-filled hypodermic needle hidden in a pen—and even an exploding cigar. The Warren Commission, never told about the CIA’s Castro plots, mostly ducked the question of Oswald’s motives, other than saying in its final report that he had expressed a “hatred for American society.”

JFK historians and the nation’s large army of private assassination researchers are still scrambling to make sense of the latest batch of tens of thousands of pages of previously secret CIA and FBI documents that were unsealed last week by the National Archives. The documents—441 files that had previously been withheld entirely, along with 3,369 other documents that had been previously released only in part—were made public under terms of a 1992 law that requires the unsealing of all JFK assassination-related documents by October, the law’s 25-year deadline.

Since the release last week, researchers do not appear to have identified any single document that could be labeled a bombshell or that rewrites the history of the assassination in any significant way. Many of the documents, which were made public only online, are duplicates of files that had been released years earlier. Other documents are totally illegible or refer to CIA and FBI code names and pseudonyms that even experienced researchers will take months to decipher. Several documents are written in foreign languages.  

Still, the newly released documents may offer an intriguing glimpse of what comes next. The National Archives is required to unseal a final batch of about 3,100 never-before-seen JFK-assassination files by the October deadline, assuming the move is not blocked by President Donald Trump. Under the 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, the president is the only person empowered to stop the release. (Congressional and other government officials have told us in confidence that at least two federal agencies—likely the CIA and FBI—are expected to appeal to Trump to block the unsealing of at least some of the documents. Even after 54 years, some government officials apparently still want to keep secrets about this seminal event in U.S. history. The CIA and FBI acknowledged earlier this year they are conducting a final review of the documents, but have been unwilling to say if they will ask the president to block some from being released.)

None of the files released last week undermines the Warren Commission’s finding that Oswald killed Kennedy with shots fired from his perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza—a conclusion supported by 21st century forensic analysis—and that there was no credible evidence of a second gunman.

But the new documents do revive the question of why the CIA, so skeptical internally of many of the commission’s other findings by the 1970s, never acknowledged those suspicions to later government investigators—or to the public. Documents released decades ago show that CIA and FBI officials repeatedly misled—and often lied outright—to Chief Justice Warren and his commission, probably to hide evidence of the agencies’ bungling in their surveillance of Oswald before the president’s murder. The CIA appears also to have been determined to block the commission from stumbling on to evidence that might reveal the agency’s assassination plots against Castro and other foreign leaders. 

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB493/docs/intell_ebb_026.PDFNew Window

The CIA historian's report from 2013 that refers to the "benign coverup." (Click to view full document.)

In 2013, the CIA’s in-house historian concluded that the spy agency had conducted a “benign cover-up” during the Warren Commission’s investigation in 1963 and 1964 in hopes of keeping the commission focused on “what the Agency believed was the ‘best truth’ — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/f/?id=0000015d-a4cc-dd39-a75d-afdfd18d0001 New Window

Labeled “SECRET” and stamped “REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED” on each page, this 1975 memo lists several important clues about Oswald that went unexplored in the months and years after Kennedy’s death. (Click to open full document)

But what if the “best truth” was wrong? According to documents made public last week, the CIA was alarmed by the mid-1970s to realize that no one had properly followed up on clues about an especially mysterious chapter in Oswald’s life—a six-day, apparently self-financed trip to Mexico City beginning in late September 1963, two months before the assassination. The reason for the trip has never been determined with certainty, although he told his wife, Marina, that he went there to obtain a visa that would allow him to defect to Cuba, much as he had once attempted to defect to the Soviet Union. 

The CIA acknowledged long ago that the agency’s Mexico City station had Oswald under surveillance during the trip, and that he met there with Cuban and Soviet diplomats and spies. The CIA station chief said later he was convinced that Oswald had a brief sexual relationship with a Mexican woman who worked in the Cuban consulate. Although there is no credible evidence of Soviet involvement in the assassination, Oswald’s other contacts in Mexico included—shockingly enough—a KGB assassinations expert who doubled as an accredited Soviet diplomat. A top-secret June 1964 FBI report, made public in the 1990s but apparently never seen by key investigators for the Warren Commission, suggests that Oswald was overheard threatening to kill Kennedy during his visits to the Cuban diplomatic compound in Mexico.

The files released last week also show that the CIA and other agencies failed to pursue clues that Oswald, who publicly championed Castro’s revolution even while serving in the Marine Corps, had been in contact with Cuban diplomats years before the Mexico trip—possibly as early as 1959, when he was deployed to a military base in Southern California. The information initially came to the FBI and the Warren Commission from a fellow Marine who recalled how Oswald boasted about his contacts with Cuban diplomats in Los Angeles, where Castro’s government then had an office.

The account from the fellow Marine was of “a lot more possible operational significance” than was realized in the months after the assassination but was never “run down or developed by investigation,” according to a 1975 CIA internal memo released last week. “The record of the beginning of OSWALD’s relationship with the Cubans starts with a question mark.”

That 27-page memo, which does not identify its author, is among the most intriguing of the documents in last week’s batch unsealed by the National Archives. Copies of the document were found inside larger CIA files released last week, including thick agency files labeled HELMS HEARING DUPLICATE. That seems to suggest the memo was given to former Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms, who led the agency from 1966 to 1973, when he was later summoned to testify secretly to Congress about his involvement in the CIA assassination plots against Castro and other foreign leaders. Similar documents about the Kennedy assassination and Oswald were written in the 1970s by a senior CIA counterintelligence official, Raymond Rocca, who had served as the agency’s chief liaison to the Warren Commission.

Labeled “SECRET” and stamped “REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED” on each page, the 1975 memo lists several important clues about Oswald that went unexplored in the months and years after Kennedy’s death. (Versions of the same CIA memo were part of the flood of millions of pages of documents released after the 1992 law, although it has never attracted detailed attention outside a small circle of assassination researchers. Brian Latell, a respected former CIA analyst on Cuban intelligence, cited a version of the document in his 2012 book Castro’s Secrets, which suggested much closer links between Oswald and Cuba than had previously been known.)

The 1975 document noted the failure of the CIA, FBI and the Warren Commission to interview a key witness in Mexico City—Silvia Duran, the Mexican woman who worked in the Cuban consulate and was reported to have had the affair with Oswald. She is the “sole live witness on the record regarding Oswald’s activities,” yet her testimony “was taken and presented, solely, by the Mexican governmental authorities,” the CIA memo said. Duran, who is still alive, has repeatedly insisted she had no sexual relationship with Oswald, although she readily acknowledges that she helped him with his unsuccessful visa application for Cuba.

It was that same CIA memo that offered a detailed theory of the chain of events that led Oswald to kill Kennedy—how Oswald, who lived in his hometown of New Orleans for much of 1963, may have been inspired to assassinate the president if, as seemed probable, he read an article on Monday, September 9, in the local newspaper, that suggested Castro was targeted for murder by the United States.

The article, written by a reporter for The Associated Press in Havana and then published prominently in the Times-Picayune, was an account of an AP interview with Castro two days earlier, in which the Cuban strongman angrily warned the Kennedy administration that he was aware of U.S. assassination plots aimed at Cuban leaders, presumably including him, and was prepared to retaliate. The article quoted Castro as saying: “U.S. leaders would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba.”

timespicayune.JPG

The September 1963 Times Picayune story. (Click to view full-size image.)

The CIA memo suggested that if Oswald, who was known to be an “avid reader” of the Times-Picayune, saw the article, it might have put the idea in his head to kill Kennedy as retaliation for the threat the United States posed to Castro—an idea that would have been in his mind as he left for his trip to Mexico that month. The possibility that Oswald read the article “must be considered of great significance in light of the pathological evolution of Oswald’s passive/aggressive makeup” and “his identification with Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution,” the CIA memo said.  

Immediately after the assassination, the CIA’s Mexico City station warned CIA headquarters that the AP article might contain a vital clue about Oswald’s motives for killing Kennedy—and even about possible Cuban involvement. But according to the 1975 analysis, “There is no evidence in the files on the Kennedy assassination that the Castro interview was considered in following up leads or in dealing with the Warren Commission, although Mexico Station specifically directed headquarters to the AP story very shortly after the Dallas killing.”

Previously released internal documents from the Warren Commission show that one of the commission’s most aggressive staff lawyers believed that Castro’s remarks to the AP—and the possibility that Oswald read the article—might be of great significance in explaining Oswald’s motives. But the internal files show that more senior staff members decided against any reference to the AP article in the commission’s final report for fear of feeding conspiracy theories about a possible Cuban link to Kennedy’s death. It does not reflect well on the legacy of either the CIA or the commission that, half a century after those gunshots rang out in Dealey Plaza, the newly released documents suggest that at least some of those conspiracy theories might be true.

Edited by Ernie Lazar
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31 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

Ernie,

Of course Harry Dean and I discussed other FBI contacts, including contacts with FBI agent Wesley Grapp -- which you consistently smash every time the topic is raised.

WHY would the FBI decide to alter its own internal indexing system?   Because this was the JFK Assassination, that's why.   Snoopy FBI agents were always snooping around internal FBI files, even after they were ordered not to do so.

FBI agents Wesley Swearingen and Don Adams are two cases in point.

It is well known that J. Edgar Hoover had private files that nobody else was allowed to see.  I am convinced that the JFK assassination files were precisely of this nature, and that this plot by General Walker (as reported by Harry Dean in 1965 and Jeff Caufield in 2015) was hidden by these very FBI files. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

1.   So why are you keeping us in suspense?  Exactly what other contacts does Harry claim he had with the Los Angeles office?  I "smash" Harry's alleged contacts with Grapp because Harry claims he had those contacts when, it turns out, Grapp was NOT even in Los Angeles.  He was still SAC of the Miami office.   So unless you have some NEW information to report, there is NO reason to believe Harry about Grapp.

2.   Your second point makes absolutely no sense.  As stated previously, the FBI did NOT delete contacts it had from other persons who disputed the Lone Nut Theory....so what was so special about Harry's alleged unreported contacts?

3.   Swearingen and Adams had NO access to FBI files at HQ or at any field office they did not work at.  So what possible "snooping" could they do?  MORE IMPORTANTLY:  Tell us as clearly as you can -- how you went about confirming that assertions made by Adams or Swearingen were factual?  Be specific.  LIST the specific research you did.  Tell us what you reviewed or who you interviewed, etc.

4.  Hoover's "Official and Confidential" files are available online.   In addition, there are copies of "private" communications by Hoover available in other locations -- including, for example, Associate Director Tolson's files.

5.  As I have stated many times, FICTION WRITERS can propose ANYTHING that comes into their mind.  They are NOT constrained by rules of evidence.  They DO NOT have to review actual empirical evidence nor do they have to interview anyone.  Instead, fiction writers can just fabricate ANY scenario that they think might be plausible to some audience.

6.  Your last sentence is what I have always asserted will ALWAYS be your argument.  The "hidden files" scenario can NEVER be refuted or falsified.  That explanation becomes an all-purpose intellectual escape hatch whenever you cannot PROVE something being disputed.

FOR EXAMPLE:  

(1)  How many "hidden files" are there?  

There is no conceivable methodology which ANYBODY can use to answer that question.  By definition, something which is "hidden" is UNKNOWABLE because it is concealed.

(2)  This is indicative of the self-sealing nature of YOUR arguments.  ANY scintilla of contradictory evidence will ALWAYS be rejected by you because there is no possible way to know, with certainty, that one has found and identified whatever has been "hidden".

For example:  suppose I said that there are 150 "hidden" files pertaining to the JFK assassination.  Could YOU refute my contention?   How would you even START to disprove (or confirm) my numerical statement?   What possible method could you use?   The answer is NONE -- and that is how the typical political conspiracy theory is constructed, i.e. they are based upon assumptions which can NEVER be falsified by any normal method of reasoning and logic.

Edited by Ernie Lazar
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Question for PAUL:

1.  Let's assume you are correct.  Let's assume that (as you assert), Harry Dean had contacts with the FBI office in Los Angeles (and specifically with SAC Grapp) BUT the FBI memos about those contacts were never serialized or put into the FBI's indexing system.

2.  That must mean (according to your argument) that the FBI may have circulated their original copies of those memos about Dean's reports to some people within the FBI -- BUT -- they must have destroyed all those memos -- right?  

The reason they must have destroyed them (perhaps within a few days?) is because (again, according to your scheme of things), the Dean documents were so sensitive that they were NOT even given a serial number and they were never even entered into the FBI's indexing system for future reference, i.e. none of the subjects mentioned by Harry (personal names or organizations) were cross-referenced into the FBI's indexing system.

That also explains why it is that when FBI employees subsequently did a Name Check on Harry Dean, none of his JFK-related or JBS-related reports were found and, consequently, his search slips DO NOT contain any references to such reports.

3.  The ONLY way ANY FBI employee -- whether that is a lowly files clerk or a Special Agent in Charge of a field office, or an Agent assigned to a case, or an Assistant Director or even Hoover himself could ever know anything specific about what Dean reported OR anything about what dates Harry made his reports OR which FBI employees Harry spoke to OR which FBI employees read his letters is IF the FBI entered that information into their filing system so that, in subsequent weeks, months, years, or decades there would STILL be some kind of paper trail that could be reviewed.

4.  Consequently, how would the FBI be able to find those unrecorded reports made by Harry in order to release them in October?  They do not exist in their indexing system nor are there any references to them in the hundreds of pages of Harry's FBI files released in 1981 or in the millions of pages of JFK-related files already released.

5.  IF the FBI were to magically release some documents re: Harry  which YOU think will be released in October how could we know that those were the only "hidden" serials relating to Harry?   And WHY would the FBI be willing to let it be publicly revealed that they have deliberately lied for 50+ years?

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