DOES IT MATTER TODAY THAT JFK WAS KILLED?

[Paul Brancato]

So who, in your opinion Jon, is the CIA protecting if it's not it's own ass or its operatives?

[Paul Trejo]

I am not on a mission to absolve the CIA of anything.

I don't think either the CIA or its non-contract employees had a hand in killing JFK. Just my opinion.

The facts, not opinions or unsupported hearsay, show that the CIA and its non-contract employees have played a major role in covering up the truth relating to the assassination. Exhibit A is the George Joannides deception. There are many more such exhibits.

Along with facts there is lots of "noise." It's the job of everyone here, IMO, to identify the noise so that it can be filtered out. I believe, for the reasons I've given, that the Hunt, Morales, and DAP confessions are noise. Anyone who believes the confessions are not noise should give reasons why not.

I agree, Jon, that the Hunt, Morales and DAP confessions might be regarded as "noise" in this sense:

1. DAP never confessed, and his alleged guilt is based merely on his admission that he was in Dallas on 11/22/1963. Yet so was General Lansdale.
2. Hunt and Morales confessed -- but they gave no indication that the CIA high-command gave them their orders. This can suggest a Civilian Plot, IMHO.

Therefore -- if we are looking for the JFK Killers, and if there isn't enough data to keep pursuing the CIA after 50 long years, then we are justified in looking at a CIVILIAN PLOT.

Now, if the JFK Murder was indeed a CIVILIAN PLOT, then -- as you say -- the Hunt, Morales and DAP confessions are just "noise."

They don't get at the heart of the matter -- they don't get to the core of the matter. They are mostly a distraction.

Yet they could also provide valuable clues -- for example, Bill Simpich finds enough data in CIA FOIA releases to suspect David Morales of IMPERSONATING Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City on October 2nd, 1963 (IIRC).

This was done immediately after LHO took a Fake Resume affirming his Fake membership in the Communist Party, and his Fake Secretary job in the FPCC, to Mexico City.

Both the DATES and the CONTENT of the activities of both LHO and David Morales are a perfect match. And they both have Guy Banister's fingerprints on them. Both men were operating out of 544 Camp Street, if this is correct.

Also -- how did Guy Banister learn of the Fidel Castro outreach in August 1963 (when only the CIA had that information)? David Morales had that information. This is only a guess --but it also fits a general pattern.

So -- noise level? Yes, at the highest level, since a Dallas Plot by General Walker (supported by a New Orleans plot by Guy Banister) puts any mere CIA officer confessions in the shade.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited February 17, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Martin Blank]

The confessions of Hunt, Morales, and Phillips signify nothing to me. Hunt, for all I know, was bequeathing something St. John that St. John could use to make money. Morales made his confession after drinking heavily; drinking heavily is no guarantee of truthfulness. DAP may have been in Dallas, who knows, but surely he wasn't part of the kill team; his expertise was disinformation campaigns.

and god knows there was none of that involved in the jfk killing and none of it from phillips sources and assets in the media. nope not a bit

[Martin Blank]

I think this is my first post here, I've only been a member a couple of months.

I wouldn't call myself a JFK researcher but I've read quite a few books in the last couple years. My goal in life is to be a fiction writer.

James Douglass's book first got me interested.

I think the primary reason that I'm interested now is the idea that things could have been different. The idea people do have agency. Margaret Thatchers' "There is no alternative" comes to mind. There's a view of history that it's like a tidal wave, that there's nothing we can do, that what is now was inevitable and that no other decisions or realities were viable. The Vietnam war had to happen, neo-liberalism had to happen, etc. The idea that people can have agency. I think it's Talbot's book and discussion here that things could have been different if Kennedy lived, maybe even dramatically different. It's speculation, I know, maybe he would have kept us out of Vietnam and 58,000 Americans would never had died. Maybe the cold war would have ended much sooner. Maybe we wouldn't have caused so much trouble and destruction in the Middle East. Maybe neo-liberalism would never have become ascendant with the overthrow of Allende in Chile and the election of Reagan. Maybe we all wouldn't be so mired in private debt. The idea that things could have been different and that people have agency and can imagine different ways of doing things.

I do a lot of reading of other reading, so I think the JFK assassination/administration still is very relevant today.

Some things I find particularly interesting:

1. Economics - I read the blog Naked Capitalism everyday, it deals with Modern Monetary Theory/Economics/politics/etc. So the stuff about the Fed and monetary stuff interests me.

2. Economics/Third World/economic stratification - John Perkins and his Confessions of an Economic Hitman. The Rise of Neoliberalism and the extreme income stratification of society. I love David Graeber's book Debt.

3. The Drug War -

4. We used to assassinate foreign leaders now we assassinate and destroy entire countries.

5. I read a lot of Philip K. Dick so I love all the shifting realities, the creation of perception, the manipulation of the public opinion, counter-intelligence.

6. I've also read a lot of Rene Girard, so the idea of so many different groups had a possible hand in it, the CIA, military-industrial complex, the mob, the bankers, the white supremacists and then even the Mossad all gathering around the victim to start a new order or to set the newly arising order into stone.

Sorry for the rambling.

Bruce, since you're reflecting on US History, please also consider that JFK was murdered in the South, in the face of the New Reformation that was struggling in the movement of MLK Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement in general.

According to Dr. Jeff Caufield in his new book, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy; The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy (2015), the murder of JFK was first and foremost due to the pushback of the Radical Right in the South against JFK's domestic politics as he voiced in his June 11, 1963 speech in favor of MLK.

Only hours after that speech, after midnight (the earliest hours of 6/12/1963) Medgar Evers was shot dead in his driveway in Mississippi. Medgar Evers was the NAACP fighter who supervised James Meredith in his bid to be the first Black American to attend Ole Miss University in 1962, when General Walker started a massive race riot at that college, where hundreds were wounded and two were killed. Down to this day NARA will not release photo footage of that riot.

The Civil War remains the Great National Trauma. The Reformation was painful as well. The Second Reformation, led by JFK, made JFK the latest casualty of the Civil War, IMHO. I think we can justify this view on the basis of Caufield's work.

As for Vietnam, it is a coin-toss whether JFK would have entered Vietnam -- because his speeches spoke out on both sides of the issue. However, if JFK had entered that war, IMHO he would have ended it very quickly, since, being a Catholic, he would have recognized that the Catholic Church was the real problem in South Vietnam, i.e. when the government there banned Buddhism. That was the ship-wreck of the South right there. I think that JFK would have fixed Vietnam very quickly, healed the Catholic-Buddhist rift, and inspired the South Vietnamese to win their own Civil War, with minimal US losses.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

that would be Reconstruction or did martin luther and john wesley have a hand in it?

also please cite source that buddhism was banned

Edited February 17, 2016 by Martin Blank

[Martin Blank]

I am not on a mission to absolve the CIA of anything.

I don't think either the CIA or its non-contract employees had a hand in killing JFK. Just my opinion.

The facts, not opinions or unsupported hearsay, show that the CIA and its non-contract employees have played a major role in covering up the truth relating to the assassination. Exhibit A is the George Joannides deception. There are many more such exhibits.

Along with facts there is lots of "noise." It's the job of everyone here, IMO, to identify the noise so that it can be filtered out. I believe, for the reasons I've given, that the Hunt, Morales, and DAP confessions are noise. Anyone who believes the confessions are not noise should give reasons why not.

sorry but i work alone except for those whom i respect

and anyone who believes the confessions are noise should give substantiated reasons why.

it sure seems strange to put out all that effort for someone else don't it

Edited February 17, 2016 by Martin Blank

[Martin Blank]

Roscoe White; you're still buying that?

Edited February 17, 2016 by Martin Blank

[Martin Blank]

I neglected to mention the effect of the cover-up on the mainstream press.

The mainstream press swallowed whole the Oswald-did-it-alone story.

By the late 1960s, CBS was a major public supporter of the Warren report, even though by the late 1960s a clear majority of the U.S. public came to doubt the report's conclusion that there was no conspiracy. This was while a clear majority of the U.S. public supported the war; and in my estimation would have supported Operation Mockingbird.

The press shot itself in the foot over the Warren Report.

When "All the President's Men" came out in the mid-1970s, it caused lots of youngsters to want to become Woodward & Bernstein. That movie was great for journalism schools. It took Jim Hougan's "Secret Agenda" to dispel the holy myth of Robert Woodward and the Washington Post.

Today, name ten persons who believe in the truthfulness of the mainstream media, and if you can, award yourself a treat; maybe a piece of cheesecake, because you will have named the last ten individuals in the U.S. whose thinking resembles that of Americans circa November 1, 1963.

i wonder why the national media swallowed the story lone nut fantasy

[Jim Hargrove]

Seems to me we're making this more complicated than it was. Even the public biography of “Lee Harvey Oswald” is clearly that of a low-level intelligence operative, a Marine Corps veteran, U-2 observing Communist who, during the height of the Cold War, freely travels to Russia, tells our ambassador in Moscow he's going to tell the Russians everything he knows, travels back to the USA facing no penalties whatsoever and then, shortly before the assassination, is granted permission again to travel to Communist nations. Who's kidding who here?

Seems equally clear to me that the plotters handed off that low-level and now sheep-dipped intel operative to the cover-up-artists-to-be in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. In other words, the intel people running “the Oswald Project” put our boy in the loving hands of Banister and, therefore, Hoover, cognizant that putting “Lee Harvey Oswald” on the FBI payroll might make Hoover just a wee bit defensive after the assassination of a sitting president. (Gerald Ford did write that “Oswald” went on the FBI payroll in Sept. '62, but I believe that date was deliberately fudged.)

The obvious reason for the hit was to blame it all on Fidel and therefore invade Cuba, but the plotters ran into a real problem when Castro's friend and gun supplier Robert McKeown smelled a rat and refused to sell rifles to “Lee Oswald” for laughably high prices around Labor Day of 1963. The rifle became arguably the weakest point in the otherwise brilliant plot.

There were any number of State Secrets that the Warren Commission had to protect, but the two most important were surely:

1. That the plotters wanted to provoke an invasion of Cuba, and

2. The true biography of “Lee Harvey Oswald.”

The real reason the Kennedy Assassination is so very relevant more than half a century later is that it gives a rare glimpse into just how far our National Security apparatus, and the news media that serves it, will go to preserve State Secrets.

[Paul Trejo]

Seems to me we're making this more complicated than it was. Even the public biography of “Lee Harvey Oswald” is clearly that of a low-level intelligence operative, a Marine Corps veteran, U-2 observing Communist who, during the height of the Cold War, freely travels to Russia, tells our ambassador in Moscow he's going to tell the Russians everything he knows, travels back to the USA facing no penalties whatsoever and then, shortly before the assassination, is granted permission again to travel to Communist nations. Who's kidding who here?

Seems equally clear to me that the plotters handed off that low-level and now sheep-dipped intel operative to the cover-up-artists-to-be in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. In other words, the intel people running “the Oswald Project” put our boy in the loving hands of Banister and, therefore, Hoover, cognizant that putting “Lee Harvey Oswald” on the FBI payroll might make Hoover just a wee bit defensive after the assassination of a sitting president. (Gerald Ford did write that “Oswald” went on the FBI payroll in Sept. '62, but I believe that date was deliberately fudged.)

The obvious reason for the hit was to blame it all on Fidel and therefore invade Cuba, but the plotters ran into a real problem when Castro's friend and gun supplier Robert McKeown smelled a rat and refused to sell rifles to “Lee Oswald” for laughably high prices around Labor Day of 1963. The rifle became arguably the weakest point in the otherwise brilliant plot.

There were any number of State Secrets that the Warren Commission had to protect, but the two most important were surely:

1. That the plotters wanted to provoke an invasion of Cuba, and

2. The true biography of “Lee Harvey Oswald.”

The real reason the Kennedy Assassination is so very relevant more than half a century later is that it gives a rare glimpse into just how far our National Security apparatus, and the news media that serves it, will go to preserve State Secrets.

Actually, Jim, I agree with most of what you have posted here, with only minor changes:

(1) I agree that LHO was clearly involved in low-level Intelligence as a teenager in the Marines, and this explains his Russia sojourn quite well.

(1.1) Yet back in the USA, LHO plainly received no blessings from US Intelligence -- and LHO remained a wannabe; always trying to qualify for a full-time position in Intel, but always being snubbed. Perhaps he left his mission in Russia too early. Anyway, he's stuck with minimum wage jobs and he's very unhappy about it.

(2) I also agree with you that the JFK Killers exploited this low-hanging fruit.

(2.1) The open question, IMHO, is whether the JFK Kill-Team plotted to sheep-dip LHO in New Orleans, or whether LHO was "legitimately" being sheep-dipped by a Fidel Kill-Team (as DAP claimed in his 1988 manuscript, THE AMLASH LEGACY), only to be exploited by the JFK Killers starting in September.

(2.2) Thinking of a Civilian Plot here, I could see General Walker turning LHO over to Guy Banister for a thorough-sheep dip (perhaps in revenge for the April shooting).

(2.3) Otherwise, it is possible that DAP and Guy Banister considered using LHO to kill Fidel Castro by forging a Communist FPCC reputation for LHO in police records, news reports and film, radio and TV spots. LHO, at least, seems to have believed he was going to join a Team in Havana -- possibly for a big reward. (If this is true, then LHO working on the side for the FBI for a little extra cash also makes sense.)

(2.4) Either the JFK Kill-Team hijacked LHO (as DAP says) or the JFK Kill-Team was also running the Guy Banister/DAP operation without LHO's knowledge. Either way, the JFK Kill-Team in Dallas accepted delivery of the sacrificial lamb in October 1963.

(3) I emphatically agree with you, Jim, when you say that, "the obvious reason for the hit was to blame it all on Fidel and therefore invade Cuba."

(3.1) We are getting closer and closer to a true, scientifically based solution of the JFK murder with this realization, because it is the rational motive -- fitting the politics of 1963 -- and it has now been identified.

(3.2) In order to make this work, pawns from various groups were used -- and Civil Rights protesters (WCC, KKK, NSRP, Minutemen) were probably used as the shooters, because they would volunteer, not require payment, were beyond bribes, honor-motivated, and were plentiful in Dallas -- many inside the DPD itself.

(4) As for State Secrets, I believe that the American People will understand and forgive the US Government for the JFK Cover-up once they recognize that the Cold War was the motive. That was a hell of a time.

(4.1) Remember what Katzenbach wrote to Moyers:

2. ...Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting [the] thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right–wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists....The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he [Oswald] was shot and thus silenced.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited February 17, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

So who, in your opinion Jon, is the CIA protecting if it's not it's own ass or its operatives?

Paul, without doubt I believe the CIA is protecting itself, from unwanted investigations that might uncover all kinds of misdeeds.

I go back to the assassination weekend, during which John McCone received two sets of Z-film briefing boards, one prepared by Dino Brugioni's team, the other prepared by Homer McMahon's team; one the real deal, the other based on fabrications. McCone buried the real-deal set.

Why? IMO it's because the U.S. Government game plan was to pin JFK's murder solely on LHO, and because McCone knew very well he better play the game to avoid intolerable public demands for a full and un-fettered investigation that might uncover all kinds of stuff. Stuff ranging from private scandals to appalling government actions. McCone in my estimation was uninvolved in JFK's killing but surely saw the advantage of going with the flow and not fighting against the designated patsy. Today the CIA would surely want to conceal such behavior on the part of one of its directors.

[Paul Trejo]

So who, in your opinion Jon, is the CIA protecting if it's not it's own ass or its operatives?

Paul, without doubt I believe the CIA is protecting itself, from unwanted investigations that might uncover all kinds of misdeeds.

I go back to the assassination weekend, during which John McCone received two sets of Z-film briefing boards, one prepared by Dino Brugioni's team, the other prepared by Homer McMahon's team; one the real deal, the other based on fabrications. McCone buried the real-deal set.

Why? IMO it's because the U.S. Government game plan was to pin JFK's murder solely on LHO, and because McCone knew very well he better play the game to avoid intolerable public demands for a full and un-fettered investigation that might uncover all kinds of stuff. Stuff ranging from private scandals to appalling government actions. McCone in my estimation was uninvolved in JFK's killing but surely saw the advantage of going with the flow and not fighting against the designated patsy. Today the CIA would surely want to conceal such behavior on the part of one of its directors.

Since we're only guessing here --

IMHO the CIA is only being obedient to legacy directives. Hoover said that LHO must be the "Lone Nut" for National Security reasons.

LBJ signed off on that, and so did Earl Warren and Allen Dulles. That's some powerful authority behind this directive.

So, IMHO, the CIA is being conservative -- the POTUS said: don't challenge the "Lone Nut" theory of LHO, and so they're not gong to, until another POTUS countermands that order.

Well, another POTUS did countermand it, namely, President GHW Bush, on 26 October 1992, with the JFK Records Act, who set the date of Full Disclosure at Thursday 26 October 2017.

At that time -- AND NOT BEFORE -- the CIA will hand over all of its Top Secret Documents having to do with the JFK Murder.

IMHO, the CIA will not have anything to hide of any of CIA misdeeds regarding the JFK murder specifically.

There may be things that the CIA wants to keep hidden with regard to Fidel Castro (who is still alive) or about some other Foreign Nation with respect to Treaties or covert actions that remain politically sensitive. But not with regard to the JFK murder specifically.

My "evidence" for this is Bill SImpich's brilliant, ground-breaking eBook, State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City (2014) which, IMHO, has completely and totally absolved the CIA high-command of all conspiracy in the JFK murder.

This is not to take David Morales or Howard Hunt off the hook -- but the CIA as an organization is, IMHO, absolved by Bill Simpich.

I realize that Bill Simpich himself still leaves that possibility OPEN, and refuses to comment on my interpretation of his CIA "Mole Hunt" discovery. (Still, the CIA FOIA release about its Mole Hunt for the impersonator of LHO was probably their most secret secret.)

The FBI will also be blameless. LBJ will also be blameless. Hoover will be blameless. The Mafia will be blameless.

The guilty parties will almost certainly involve Dallas cops, like Roscoe White and J.D. Tippit, who were involved with the Radical Right in Dallas, as part of the larger groups of Radical Right activists in the South, led by folks like General Walker, Joseph Milteer and Guy Banister.

The FBI and CIA certainly did honor the Cover-up for more than a half-century -- but IMHO that will all be over on Thursday 26 October 2017.

I just haven't seen any material evidence that convinces me otherwise -- and I've seen a lot.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited February 17, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul Trejo,

I believe the plotters anticipated correctly the response of the U.S. Government to [1] JFK's murder, and Oswald's designation as patsy.

Those in positions of power, including RFK, in the U.S. Government had zero interest in a full investigation into JFK's murder. Zero.

The plotters knew this in advance.

There's no need to assume LHO had been recruited as an intelligence agent. He was being observed by U.S. intelligence agencies, no doubt. But so what?

[Paul Trejo]

Paul Trejo,

I believe the plotters anticipated correctly the response of the U.S. Government to [1] JFK's murder, and Oswald's designation as patsy.

Those in positions of power, including RFK, in the U.S. Government had zero interest in a full investigation into JFK's murder. Zero.

The plotters knew this in advance.

There's no need to assume LHO had been recruited as an intelligence agent. He was being observed by U.S. intelligence agencies, no doubt. But so what?

Well, Jon, I also think the JFK plotters anticipated incorrectly the response of the US Government to their claims that LHO was a Communist FPCC Secretary.

The JFK plotters flooded the FBI offices with such reports -- and Hoover saw through their game almost immediately. (There was no need to investigate deeply -- Hoover knew who the culprits were before the day was over!)

The plotters hoped that the US Government would take the JFK murder as a Communist attack from Fidel, and so would invade Cuba. When Hoover-LBJ-Dulles-Warren refused to do that, the JFK plotters stood there with their mouths open.

The JFK plotters prayed that they would not be discovered -- and they simply LUCKED OUT when Hoover decided that National Security was at stake, so we had to blame the "Lone Nut." Not the Radical Left, and not the Radical Right, either. This was expressed well by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, when he wrote to LBJ aide, Bill Moyers:

2. Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting the thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right–wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists...The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when Oswald was shot and thus silenced.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited February 17, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[David Andrews]

david phillips all but confessed to his brother

from jim dieugenio

It was also an issue within the family of David Atlee Phillips as to whether he (D.A.P.) was involved in the JFK assassination. David and his brother Jim had a huge fight over this possibility.

Shawn Phillips is the nephew of David Atlee Phillips and the son of James Atlee Phillips (deceaseed brother of D.A.P.). Email from Shawn Phillips:

“The “Confession”, you refer to was not in so many words as such. I cannot remember the time frames involved, but this was what was told to me by my father, James Atlee Phillips, who is deceased. He said that David had called him with reference to his (Davids), invitation to a dinner, by a man who was purportedly writing a book on the CIA. At this dinner, was also present a man who was identified only as the “Driver”. David told Jim that he knew the man was there to identify him as Raul Salcedo, whose name you should be familiar with, if your research is accurate in this matter. David then told Jim that he had written a letter to the various media, as a “Preemptive Strike” , against any and all allegations about his involvement in the JFK assassination. Jim knew that David was the head of the “Retired Intelligence Officers of the CIA”, or some such organization, and that he was extremely critical of JFK, and his policies. Jim knew at that point, that David was in some way, seriously involved in this matter and he and David argued rather vehemently, resulting in a silent hiatus between them that lasted almost six years according to Jim. Finally, as David was dying of irreversible lung cancer, he called Jim and there was apparently no reconciliation between them, as Jim asked David pointedly, “Were you in Dallas on that day”? David said, “Yes”, and Jim hung the phone up.”

.

Did the name "Raul Salcedo" that David Atlee Phillips and Shawn Phillips referred to have relevance to any other JFK-era investigation? Has the name occurred in any context other than in the e-mail quoted above? Is it "familiar" to anyone?

If not, is it possible that this tale of a dinner invitation and an identification attempt (which allegedly caused a rift between the Phillips brothers) is only a disguised version of Gaeton Fonzi's attempts to get Antonio Veciana to identify David Phillips as "Maurice Bishop"?

Edited February 18, 2016 by David Andrews

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul T.,

You may be correct. In which case I believe the plotters were amateurs who couldn't anticipate the reactions of LBJ. Hoover, McCone.

I don't believe the plotters were amateurs.