Steven Hager: The Two Oswalds

[Jim Hargrove]

Mathias,

I agree with most of what you say above, and I'll try to get to some of your other points ASAP, but I wanted to point this out right away....

When you referred to "a disgruntled ex-employee" I assume you are referring to James Wilcott.  Of course, the fact that he said he was told by other CIA employees that he had himself paid the putative assassin of JFK might make an ex-CIA fellow a bit disgruntled, eh?  But Wilcott is hardly alone in accusing the Agency of employing the alleged assassin. From HarveyandLee.net:

• In 1996 former Deputy Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations Robert Tanenbaum testified at the ARRB hearing in Los Angeles by saying, "the Attorney General of Texas, Henry Wade the District Attorney and Leon Jaworsky counsel to the Attorney General, on the transcript spoke to the Chief Justice and said in substance, as I recall, that they had information from unimpeachable sources that Lee Harvey Oswald was a contract employee of the CIA and the FBI."
• Richard Sprague, chief counsel to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations said that "if he had it to do over again, he would begin his investigation of the Kennedy assassination by probing 'Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.'"
• Sen. Richard Schweiker said, "We do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there're fingerprints of intelligence." 
• CIA Agent Donald Norton said, "Oswald was with the CIA....'
• Former CIA agent Joseph Newbrough said, "Oswald was an agent for the CIA and acting under orders."
• CIA employee Donald Deneslya read reports of a CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child--that agent could only have been Oswald.
• Marvin Watson, an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, said that Johnson had told him that he was convinced that there was a plot in connection with the assassination. Watson said the President felt the CIA had something to do with this plot. 

[Jim Hargrove]

On 8/2/2017 at 10:40 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

To anybody who doubts Oswald was a CIA spy . . . .

In this article regarding the recent release of JFK assassination documents, Dr. John Newman is quoted as saying

"And in the 20 years that have passed since [the first release of documents], our understanding of the Kennedy assassinations has moved significantly. My latest book contains definitive proof that Lee Harvey Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union was a false defection, and it was part of a larger hunt for a mole inside of the CIA. A Soviet mole."

A false defector would be an intelligence agent, probably of the CIA.

Lest you think Dr. Newman is just some average joe with an opinion to share, consider his credentials:

• He's a retired major in the United States Army.
• He was an intelligence analyst for twenty years.
• He served as executive assistant to the director of the National Security Agency.
• He was a professor at the University of Maryland Honors College for twenty years.
• He is currently an adjunct professor of political science at James Madison University.

 

Sandy's post above should be repeated.  Here's the first sentence in the description of Dr. Newman's latest book on Amazon:

The book’s first chapter contains new revelations about how Oswald was a witting false defector to the USSR in a CIA plan to surface a KGB mole in the CIA.

[Mathias Baumann]

2 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

I'll try and keep an eye on his site to see if Parker wants to respond. He is no longer a member here.

Tracy,

I have some questions for you personally as well regarding your articles on Veciana. You seem to think that we should not trust anything he says. Fair enough, so do I. When reading the "Last investigation" I had the feeling that he was playing a false game of some sort. If Phillips was Bishop but Veciana didn't want to confirm for fear of his life why did he not just say so? Instead he just muddied the water with nebulous remarks.

But your conclusion that Veciana and/or Fonzi made the entire story up is not credible in my opinion. You seem to forget all the other pieces of evidence that link Phillips to Oswald and the assassination, such as his campaing against the Fairplay for Cuba Committee, the false stories he planted about Oswald's links to Castro, the repeated lies about the Mexico City story. And of course his close relationship to David Morales. In that context Veciana's story makes a lot of sense.

Let me ask you this: if you think there's nothing to the "CIA-did-it-story" then why did CIA counterintelligence have a top secret file on Oswald?

Who impersonated him in Mexico City? (And so linked him to Kostikov!)

Why did the CIA lie about destroying the tapes from this phone call?

Why are there no photos of Oswald when we know for a fact that the cameras were working?

Why did Phillips plant a false story linking Oswald to Castro?

Why has the CIA tried to sabotage the HSCA investigation? (even Robert Blakey has come to admit this --> see the addendum to the interview: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/interview-g-robert-blakey/

The CIA IS HIDING a dark secret about its relationship to Oswald, there can be no doubt about it, in my opinion.

 

 

 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

The CIA had a file on Oswald because of his unusual defection to the Soviet Union. If an impersonation of Oswald happened, it may have been done by the CIA in an effort to find out what he was up to. As far as the CIA lying and covering up, this is what they do. They don't give out any information willingly. Could you refer me to the information about Phillips planting a false story linking Oswald to Castro, I must have missed that.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

17 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

I'll try and keep an eye on his site to see if Parker wants to respond. He is no longer a member here.

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1389-hargrove-s-20-alternative-facts-for-those-who-prefer-their-conspiracies-devoid-of-any-reality

[Mathias Baumann]

1 hour ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

The CIA had a file on Oswald because of his unusual defection to the Soviet Union. If an impersonation of Oswald happened, it may have been done by the CIA in an effort to find out what he was up to. As far as the CIA lying and covering up, this is what they do. They don't give out any information willingly. Could you refer me to the information about Phillips planting a false story linking Oswald to Castro, I must have missed that.

Tracy,

the important thing about the file is that only a handful of high-ranking officers in counterintelligence were privy to its full content. In the file Mexico City received from headquarters recent events from Oswald's activities in New Orleans (in fact everything since he returned from Russia!) were deliberately left out. Jane Roman stated that this was evidence of "operational interest" in Oswald. ->https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/WhatJaneRomanSaid/WhatJaneRomanSaid_1.htm

And what about the fake phone call? Phillips could very well have been behind that. We know he'd played similar tricks before. What's your theory on this? Who made that call and why?

About the false story: I'm talking about Alvorado and his claim he saw Oswald in the Cuban embassy receiving money from a Cuban. Phillips played a decisive role in promoting his phony story. You can read about that in "Our Man in Mexico", starting at page 219. Phillips hid the fact that he knew Alvarado was working for both the CIA and Nicaraguan intelligence. He also embellished his report by claiming Alvarado possessed great knowlegde about the Cuban embassy's personnel while in fact Alvarado could not identify a single employee when he was shown photos.

So all in all the evidence suggests that this was another of Phillip's ruses.

[Mathias Baumann]

1 hour ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1389-hargrove-s-20-alternative-facts-for-those-who-prefer-their-conspiracies-devoid-of-any-reality

Thank you for that link Tracy. Greg Parker thinks that Oswald suffered from Asperger's. That is an intriguing idea that I guess might be the key to some puzzles surrounding Oswald, such as how he was able to learn Russian that quickly. On the other hand Asperger's patients are often described as socially reclusive while Oswald seems to have been quite outgoing. He often deliberately sought the limelight. Also there's scant evidence in his school records that he was particularly interested in languages, which you would expect. On the other hand he was an avid reader and indeed some people said that "he kept to himself".

So all in all I think that's a real possibility, although I don't think there's enough evidence available to decide this matter either way.

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

20 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

I'll try and keep an eye on his site to see if Parker wants to respond. He is no longer a member here.

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1389-hargrove-s-20-alternative-facts-for-those-who-prefer-their-conspiracies-devoid-of-any-reality

Greg Parker apparently not only believes the Harvey & Lee theory is wrong (something that I can understand), but also believes that Oswald wasn't affiliated with the CIA. And yet he believes Oswald was NOT in Mexico City!

Wow.

Plus he believes that Ruth Paine herself wrote that Oswald letter to the Russian Embassy.

Wow.

I wonder how he fits all that together. If he believes Oswald wasn't in Mexico City, then surely he must realize that that was an intelligence operation. Probably an American one. And when you consider that in combination to the Oswald letter to the Russian Embassy, isn't it obvious that the purpose of the operation and letter was to link Russia to the assassination? Even the KGB thought that was the purpose. (As was exposed in the package of documents Boris Yeltsin gave to Bill Clinton in 1999 that includes the Oswald letter.) It's rather obvious IMO.

Does anybody know who Greg Parker believes was behind the assassination? Was Ruth Paine involved in the plot?

 

Edited August 5, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Chris Newton]

14 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Plus he believes that Ruth Paine herself wrote that Oswald letter to the Russian Embassy.

In his defense, the handwriting on both letters is surprisingly similar. Ruth's copy was not accepted as evidence and was never given a WC exhibit number and you cannot find an image of it online. Oswald's alleged draft of his letter was given an exhibit number but it is not in the National Archives. It was returned to Ruth Paine along with her copy.

Why was the alleged Oswald draft returned to Ruth Paine?

[W. Tracy Parnell]

2 hours ago, Mathias Baumann said:

Tracy,

the important thing about the file is that only a handful of high-ranking officers in counterintelligence were privy to its full content. In the file Mexico City received from headquarters recent events from Oswald's activities in New Orleans (in fact everything since he returned from Russia!) were deliberately left out. Jane Roman stated that this was evidence of "operational interest" in Oswald. ->https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/WhatJaneRomanSaid/WhatJaneRomanSaid_1.htm

And what about the fake phone call? Phillips could very well have been behind that. We know he'd played similar tricks before. What's your theory on this? Who made that call and why?

About the false story: I'm talking about Alvorado and his claim he saw Oswald in the Cuban embassy receiving money from a Cuban. Phillips played a decisive role in promoting his phony story. You can read about that in "Our Man in Mexico", starting at page 219. Phillips hid the fact that he knew Alvarado was working for both the CIA and Nicaraguan intelligence. He also embellished his report by claiming Alvarado possessed great knowlegde about the Cuban embassy's personnel while in fact Alvarado could not identify a single employee when he was shown photos.

So all in all the evidence suggests that this was another of Phillip's ruses.

Or another explanation is Phillips simply misread the importance and veracity of Alvarado's story rather than "promoted" it as Morley claims. When he published his book, he tried to make it look like he had Alvarado figured out all along. Jane Roman issued a statement later saying that Morley and Newman took her remarks out of context.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

59 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Does anybody know who Greg Parker believes was behind the assassination? Was Ruth Paine involved in the plot?

Presumably, he will make that clear in volume 3 of his book.

[Sandy Larsen]

55 minutes ago, Chris Newton said:

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Plus he believes that Ruth Paine herself wrote that Oswald letter to the Russian Embassy.

In his defense, the handwriting on both letters is surprisingly similar. Ruth's copy was not accepted as evidence and was never given a WC exhibit number and you cannot find an image of it online. Oswald's alleged draft of his letter was given an exhibit number but it is not in the National Archives. It was returned to Ruth Paine along with her copy.

 

What I meant is that Greg Parker believes that the content of the letter is Ruth's concoction.

I say that the letter was written by someone in the CIA. Ruth may have copied it, but I doubt she was the original author.

 

BTW, out of curiosity, how do you know the handwriting on both the letters is similar, given that an image of Ruth's letter cannot be found online? Do you have your own copy of that?

 

[Chris Newton]

7 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Do you have your own copy of that?

yup. I have a hard copy and I'll be sharing sometime soon.

I'm not convinced Ruth didn't write it. I'm also not convinced that Oswald didn't write the draft attributed to him. I do think that the provenance, the origins of both handwritten drafts, is not what has been testified to. There are a number of possible scenarios. It's curious that Hosty, when finally asked, related being told an entirely different set of circumstances surrounding the discovery of the Oswald draft by Ruth than the story she told the WC.

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Does anybody know who Greg Parker believes was behind the assassination? Was Ruth Paine involved in the plot?

Presumably, he will make that clear in volume 3 of his book.

It just occurred to me that Greg might think the CIA did it, and blamed it on Oswald, but that Oswald wasn't a CIA asset. Perhaps the CIA blamed Oswald in revenge for his promise to reveal secrets to the Russians.

 

Edited August 5, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Jim Hargrove]

I'm going to respond to Mr. Parker's rebuttals to my list of reasons LHO was a CIA spy one item at a time, and in no particular order.  In this post, my comments are in black, Mr. Parker's in blue.

6. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA agent who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child.

Utter rubbish. Deneslaya claimed to have read reports about someone wanting to redefect. - an ex-Marine who sounds like Oswald. Nowhere but nowhere does Deneslaya refer to this person as an agent. He does indicate he may have been a "contact" for intel on the Minsk factory. That, does not an "agent" make.

It would help others check and assess this information if Mr. Parker spelled Donald Deneslya’s name correctly.  D-E-N-E-S-L-Y-A.  Here is an HSCA document describing the report Deneslya read in the summer of 1962, 

from Harvey and Lee:

CIA Debriefing Report

In 1962 CIA employee Donald Deneslya received a debriefing report from the
New York City field office concerning a Marine "defector" who recently returned with
his family from the Soviet Union. The report was approximately four to five pages in
length and provided organizational details about the Minsk radio plant, where Harvey
Oswald worked for 2 1/2 years. 62-07108 The report was signed by Major Andy Anderson,
who conducted debriefings for the CIA's domestic contacts division, and was filed with
the Industrial Registry Branch in the Office of Central Reference.46

In 1978 Deneslya was interviewed by the HSCA, who then requested the
domestics contact report and any additional information the CIA had concerning the
Minsk radio plant. Following is the context of a letter from the HSCA to the CIA's Scott
Breckenridge.

September 27, 1978

Select Committee on Assassinations

U.S. House of Representatives
3331 House Office Building, Annex 2
Washington, D.C. 20515

Mr. Scott Breckinridge
Principal Coordinator, HSCA
Office of Legislative Counsel
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505

Dear Mr. Breckinridge:

In connection with its investigations into the circumstances surround­-
ing the death of President Kennedy, the Select Committee on Assassi­-
nations has been informed that during the summer of 1962, a CIA con­-
tact report concerning the Minsk Radio Plant was routed to the Foreign
Documents Division in the Soviet Branch of the Directorate of Intelli-­
gence. The source of this contact report is believed to have been a
former Marine and defector to the Soviet Union who returned to the
United States with his family during the summer of 1962. The source
is believed to have stated that he had been employed at the Minsk
Radio Plant. The Committee has been further informed that this con­
tact report was filed in a volume of material concerning the Minsk Ra­-
dio Plant, and that this volume is retrievable from the CIA's Industrial
Registry Branch which, in 1962, was a component of the office of Cen-­
tral Reference. The Committee therefore requests immediate and com­-
plete access to the above referenced contact report and the volume of
materials regarding the Minsk Radio Plant....

                 -----      ------

NOTE: The CIA responded by providing materials on the Minsk radio plant.  But the
contact report, which would have identified the name ofthe CIA agent who provided the
information (probably Oswald), was missing. The HSCA reported, "The employee ad­-
vised the committee that the contact report had been filed in a volume on the Minsk ra­-
dio plant that should be retrievable from the Industrial Registry Branch, then a compo­-
nent of the Office of Central Reference. Accordingly, the committee requested that the CIA
provide both the contact report and the volume of materials concerning the Minsk radio
plant. A review by the committee of the documents in the volumes on the Minsk radio
plant, however, failed to locate any such contact report. "48 Once again the CIA had ma­-
nipulated their records and was content to "let the records speak for themselves. "

The HSCA reported, "The CIA has denied ever having had any contact with Oswald, and
its records are consistent with this position. "49

According to former CIA officer Robert Morrow it was Tracy Barnes, the Assistant
Deputy Director of Plans (under Richard Helms), who received Oswald 's information
from Minsk. Barnes later became head of the CIA's Domestic Operations Division (DOD).

--from Harvey and Lee, pp. 396-397, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong.  All rights reserved.

Would anyone care to speculate who was "source of this contact report" since the CIA and the HSCA did not produce it? Could it be anyone other than Oswald? 

So we have a former Marine, who supposedly once worked in a radar facility monitoring, among other things, top secret U2 flights, who suddenly "defects" to an enemy nation, telling a U.S. representative in that nation he planned to tell the enemy everything he knows. Instead, he gives detailed information to the CIA on his more than 2-1/2 years of work in an electronics manufacturing plant in that enemy nation.  That's called SPYING!

And "The CIA has denied ever having had any contact with Oswald...." [HSCA Report p. 208]  Is there any other name for this than spying?  The evidence clearly shows "Lee Harvey Oswald" was a CIA spy!