Rogue and Sub-Rogue?

[Thomas Graves]

Sandy Larsen and I have been tossing around the idea (mostly in private message mode) that the assassination plot was started by a group of rogue CIA officers / agents, and that their plot was in turn "hijacked" or "piggybacked" by a sub-rogue group of CIA guys who knew about the original plot and wanted to use it to not only kill JFK, but to also precipitate the invading of Cuba and the overthrowing of the Castros.

Thoughts?

-- Tommy

Sandy: please correct me if I've misstated your theory.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

I basically concur but...

I think it was an ad hoc cabal made up of like minded individuals that represented different organizations.

Rogue Intelligence Agents provided the patsies, the security and the shooters.

Mob provided cleanup services after the fact.

Pinning the act to a lone LHO after his assassination was a separate "conspiracy" that grew from Johnson's Kibosh of "blame it on Castro and the Commies".

[Guest]

Is this different from the theory of the conspirators all being individuals directly involved in the planning and training for what became the Bay of Pigs fiasco - i.e., Larry Hancock's theory, as I understand it? The planning and training, and those who would have been bitterly disappointed by the Bay of Pigs fiasco, included representatives from all of the Usual Suspects but without the need for an elaborate and frankly unbelievable conspiracy involving everyone from LBJ and Hoover on down. A tighter conspiracy involving those enraged by the Bay of Pigs fiasco is far more believable and far more consistent with the way conspiracies actually operate. When I mentally disconnected the Assassination Conspiracy from the clumsy Cover-Up Conspiracy, everything fell into place for me (and a great deal of the silliness fell by the wayside). If there was an Assassination Conspiracy, I would bet my life savings it was along the lines Larry has suggested. What you are suggesting seems to me to introduce a level of complexity that isn't necessary and is simply less believable.

[James DiEugenio]

What is the evidence for this?

How did those low level guys influence the Pentagon brass at Bethesda that night? Or before that, since it appears that LeMay was flying in that afternoon?

How did those low level guys manage to stop the CIA from doing an inquiry into Mexico City from when Oswald left to the day of the assassination?

How did those low level guys manage to split Oswald's file at Langley?

How did those low level guys influence the Paines to do what they did? Did someone like Ricardo Davis come over from New Orleans, knock on their door, and say can I have a word with you? Over tea and crumpets, he then lays out their plot to kill Kennedy and then says, " I know you are Quakers but would you like to help frame Oswald while we kill Kennedy? We'll give you the pictures."

Did someone like Davis or Manuel Garcia Gonzalez then call Forrest Sorrels and ask, "Hey we plan on killing JFK tomorrow, can you change the motorcade route for an L shaped ambush?"

Edited September 7, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Chris Newton]

Jim, I was inarticulate when I wrote "Agents" and I didn't mean to suggest that "low level guys" were leaders in the cabal I suggested.

I have my sights on Angleton and Dulles (especially Dulles) as prime movers and shakers.

P.S Glad you have taken some time to understand and point out the basic mechanics of an ambush as taught to every infantryman.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Chris Newton

[Thomas Graves]

What is the evidence for this?

How did those low level guys influence the Pentagon brass at Bethesda that night? Or before that, since it appears that LeMay was flying in that afternoon?

How did those low level guys manage to stop the CIA from doing an inquiry into Mexico City from when Oswald left to the day of the assassination?

How did those low level guys manage to split Oswald's file at Langley?

How did those low level guys influence the Paines to do what they did? Did someone like Ricardo Davis come over from New Orleans, knock on their door, and say can I have a word with you? Over tea and crumpets, he then lays out their plot to kill Kennedy and then says, " I know you are Quakers but would you like to help frame Oswald while we kill Kennedy? We'll give you the pictures."

Did someone like Davis or Manuel Garcia Gonzalez then call Forrest Sorrels and ask, "Hey we plan on killing JFK tomorrow, can you change the motorcade route for an L shaped ambush?"

Dear Jim,

Wouldn't the high-level boys and girls wanted to have influenced the Pentagon brass at Bethesda that night, anyway? (Et Cetera)

Btw, would the commandeering or piggybacking of the plot by the sub-rogues somehow make the big boys less culpable in the assassination of JFK?

Wouldn't the knowledge of the big boys' culpability (and the ability to document it) give the sub-rouges an enormous amount of leverage before and after the fact?

Isn't it possible that at least one of the big boys was, unbeknownst to the rest of them, also a member of the sub-rogue group?

-- Tommy

Edited September 7, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Sandy Larsen]

Jim,

What I and Tommy have been discussing is a hypothesis that is a work in progress. It is an attempt to explain a couple of problems that I (and maybe Tommy too) see in currently held theories.

1. First, some believe that the Mexico trip, Kostikov, and letter to the Soviet embassy allegedly written by Oswald, where he treat them like comrades, as a whole were designed to get Johnson to perform a Lone Nut (i.e. anti-conspiracy) cover-up. While this seems interesting and superficially reasonable, it strikes me as odd that a planted conspiracy would be used to cover-up the possibility of a conspiracy.
   
2. The transition from assassination conspiracy to post-assassination conspiracy seemingly got off to a poor start, in spite of the fact that there were apparently some plans in place for the post-assassination part to take hold. For example, Tippit's role seemed to have been messed up. A Mouser was discovered instead of the Carcano. Other things like those.
   
   The emergence of an unexpected sub-plot may explain the mess-up in plans.

You raise some good questions that this hypotheses, in order to be viable, needs to answer. I don't have time right now to think through your questions. But I'll offer up the following right now.

Tommy didn't present the hypothesis quite the way I would have. He was close, but not quite right. What I had envisioned were 1) a main group of like-minded plotters -- close associates who trusted each other 100% -- among the CIA whose goal it was to eliminate Kennedy, who they viewed as a traitor and a danger to United States (i.e. Dulles's and Friends') interests. And 2) a sub-group of these conspirators who were also sympathetic to the desire of some among the JCS to fight the Russians before their military power surpassed that of America's. (Or perhaps a goal a little less grand than that, like an invasion of Cuba.)

I need to leave. But just quickly, it occurs to me that the subgroup sympathetic to the Military might have included Angleton himself. A person who could have altered the Langley files.

Tommy's point is also a good one... that any one of the plotters could have fingered the others had he been fingered himself.

Edited September 8, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[Dan Doyle]

Sandy Larsen and I have been tossing around the idea (mostly in private message mode) that the assassination plot was started by a group of rogue CIA officers / agents, and that their plot was in turn "hijacked" or "piggybacked" by a sub-rogue group of CIA guys who knew about the original plot and wanted to use it to not only kill JFK, but to also precipitate the invading of Cuba and the overthrowing of the Castros.

Thoughts?

-- Tommy

Sandy: please correct me if I've misstated your theory.

I'm of the same thinking that one "sanctioned" covert operation was in play on 11/22/63 in Dallas and the purpose of the operation was to create a pretext for military action against Cuba. This sanctioned operation was then "hijacked" by rogue operatives into the assassination of the sitting president. What exactly was the sanctioned operation that day? I don't know, but LHO was involved. LHO's pro-FPCC activities in N.O. and his supposed visits to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City were designed to implicate Castro in whatever was planned to go down in Dallas. Jeff Caufield in his book, Gen Walker and the Murder of the President proposes that the sanctioned operation was to be a "shoot and miss" at JFK with the Walker "shoot and miss" incident of the previous April as a precedent. Of course, I don't buy into Caufield's larger thesis that Walker and the John Birchers along with assorted anti-Integrationists of the time, especially in the South, were the plotters of both the sanctioned and rogue operations. As I wrote in another post, Walker et al didn't have the national political capital to avoid prosecution or to manage a Cover-Up that is now well into its fifth decade. In my mind, the most likely party behind this ingenious scheme was James Angleton of the CIA. As head of Counter-Intelligence for the CIA, Angleton was well versed in this "wilderness of mirrors" reality; where things aren't what the seem to be. Now the bigger question is who were Angleton's master's and that leads to what group directed the policy of the national security state? And that's where 'big picture" authors like James Douglas, Jim DiEugenio and David Talbot come in.

One final thought. I think that Operation Northwoods is key to understanding the mindset at the time of the national security state. This operation, which was the last operation proposed to JFK in his attempts to deal with the Cuba question, was way beyond the pale of legitimate statecraft as we citizens understand it. It was proposed by Gen Lemnitzer & the JCS along with Landsdale in March of '62; JFK did not sign-off on it. Op Northwoods was a laundry list of false flag operations to be used to create a pretext for the invasion of Cuba. Some of these false flag proposals even suggested killing US citizens and making it look like Castro did it. So if the military/security brain trust of the late 1950's and early 1960's were willing to kill ordinary citizens in order to achieve certain foreign policy goals how much of a stretch is it for them to consider assassinating a sitting president for the same reason?

One final final thought and only somebody like Angleton could have come up with this. The beauty of the rogue operation within the sanctioned, covert operation scheme is that the participants of the sanctioned operation would immediately begin a cover-up least they be held accountable for the actions of the rogue operation.

[Sandy Larsen]

Sandy Larsen and I have been tossing around the idea (mostly in private message mode) that the assassination plot was started by a group of rogue CIA officers / agents, and that their plot was in turn "hijacked" or "piggybacked" by a sub-rogue group of CIA guys who knew about the original plot and wanted to use it to not only kill JFK, but to also precipitate the invading of Cuba and the overthrowing of the Castros.

Thoughts?

-- Tommy

Sandy: please correct me if I've misstated your theory.

I'm of the same thinking that one "sanctioned" covert operation was in play on 11/22/63 in Dallas and the purpose of the operation was to create a pretext for military action against Cuba. This sanctioned operation was then "hijacked" by rogue operatives into the assassination of the sitting president. What exactly was the sanctioned operation that day? I don't know, but LHO was involved. LHO's pro-FPCC activities in N.O. and his supposed visits to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City were designed to implicate Castro in whatever was planned to go down in Dallas. Jeff Caufield in his book, Gen Walker and the Murder of the President proposes that the sanctioned operation was to be a "shoot and miss" at JFK with the Walker "shoot and miss" incident of the previous April as a precedent. Of course, I don't buy into Caufield's larger thesis that Walker and the John Birchers along with assorted anti-Integrationists of the time, especially in the South, were the plotters of both the sanctioned and rogue operations. As I wrote in another post, Walker et al didn't have the national political capital to avoid prosecution or to manage a Cover-Up that is now well into its fifth decade. In my mind, the most likely party behind this ingenious scheme was James Angleton of the CIA. As head of Counter-Intelligence for the CIA, Angleton was well versed in this "wilderness of mirrors" reality; where things aren't what the seem to be. Now the bigger question is who were Angleton's master's and that leads to what group directed the policy of the national security state? And that's where 'big picture" authors like James Douglas, Jim DiEugenio and David Talbot come in.

One final thought. I think that Operation Northwoods is key to understanding the mindset at the time of the national security state. This operation, which was the last operation proposed to JFK in his attempts to deal with the Cuba question, was way beyond the pale of legitimate statecraft as we citizens understand it. It was proposed by Gen Lemnitzer & the JCS along with Landsdale in March of '62; JFK did not sign-off on it. Op Northwoods was a laundry list of false flag operations to be used to create a pretext for the invasion of Cuba. Some of these false flag proposals even suggested killing US citizens and making it look like Castro did it. So if the military/security brain trust of the late 1950's and early 1960's were willing to kill ordinary citizens in order to achieve certain foreign policy goals how much of a stretch is it for them to consider assassinating a sitting president for the same reason?

One final final thought and only somebody like Angleton could have come up with this. The beauty of the rogue operation within the sanctioned, covert operation scheme is that the participants of the sanctioned operation would immediately begin a cover-up least they be held accountable for the actions of the rogue operation.

Dan,

Your idea is the opposite of what Tommy and I were talking about. You didn't comment on that so I'm not sure you fully understood what we described.

Your idea is interesting. One potential problem with it comes to mind. It seems to me that both the JCS and CIA knew by1963 that Kennedy wasn't interested in invading Cuba. So why even propose the false flag operation? Or suppose they did proposed it... would JFK have signed it? He didn't go along with the first invasion, at least not fully. Would he have had a change of heart after the Cuban missile crisis had been resolved and he'd signed an agreement with Khrushchev? (I'm certainly no expert on this point so someone else might want to chime in.

Also, it should be kept in mind that what happened in Mexico City, with Kostikov, and the letter sent to the Russian embassy allegedly written by Oswald, together seems to have been designed more to paint Russia as the villain and less so Cuba. It seems that the pretext for war was aimed at Russia, not Cuba.

[Sandy Larsen]

Suppose the planted conspiracy between Oswald and Russia were done to get Johnson to orchestrate a Lone Nut cover-up. One would think that, by the time it was clear that Johnson was indeed doing a Lone Nut cover-up, there would be no further need for the CIA to continue with the fake conspiracy.

My question is, after it was clear that Oswald was being made the Lone Nut, was any more evidence showing up implicating Russia in the crime? What about the letter to the Soviet embassy, allegedly written by Oswald, where he mentions Kostikov and is talking to the officials there like they are his comrades? That was certainly part of the Russian Conspiracy operation. When did Ruth Paine give her copy of the letter to the FBI?