Stringfellow cable

[Thomas Graves]

1 hour ago, Thomas Graves said:

I'm sure that the Active Army Counter Intelligence Corps would have been privy to that description of "someone". You called it a "purposefully-inaccurate description of LHO".

Steve Thomas,

Yes, as in a "marked card" / "barium meal" counter-intelligence operation.  Documents that have intentional mistakes in them so that when someone ("Mole X") who's not supposed to have it (and is unwitting that it's bogus) forwards it to someone else, said document can be traced back to "Mole X".

Now, what if there was a suspected "mole" in one of the Active Army Counter Intelligence Corps units in Texas, and that's why he or she had had the bogus LHO description sent (or otherwise made available) to him or her in the first place, i.e. to see if he or she would forward it to someone not "on the list"?

Or perhaps a "mole," who shouldn't have had such a document on Oswald, sent that unbeknownst-to-him "marked card" bogus description to someone at that Army Counter Intelligence unit in Texas, and then it was either used by him or "piggybacked" by someone else in his office who was privy to it and fed to DPD officer Sawyer, not knowing that the description of Oswald in it was bogus.

--  Tommy

Question for self: When did the "Popov's Mole" mole hunt end, anyway?

Edited February 18, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

Steve, Tommy really covered this already but my suggestion is to take a close look at the CIA cables out of MC which were copied to various different groups including military groups in different versions.  Bill Simpich covers all that in his book and of course the cables are available to us now and show the distributions.  Tommy described the issue of the mole hunt which was likely something in and of itself but I think the point in relation to this question is whether any group in Texas, either military or police would have been copied with the description you are seeking and of course on Harvey Lee.

From that point its a matter of a real close look at time frames to see how quickly, if the info was in Dallas, it could have gotten to DPD in time for your original reference to Lumpkin and Truly.  Good luck with the chase..

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

....Thomas Kelley wrote in his Oswald interrogation report of November 24th that's in Appendix XI of the WR, that Oswald supposedly said that he had been stopped at the front door by a policeman and his (Oswald's) boss.

Steve,

Are you sure Thomas Kelley wrote that. I can't find it in his report.

(BTW, Harry Holmes DID write that.)

[Steve Thomas]

6 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

Thomas,

Now, I don't know if Bright (or if not him, whoever was "sent down there" to impersonate Oswald) was 5' 10", 160 lbs (going from memory here), but I don't think it really matters much because, as we now know, the M.C. Station later claimed, truthfully or otherwise, that their camera was "broken" or "out of service" at that time, anyway, and let us also bear in mind that neither Sylvia Duran nor Ascue at the Cuban Consulate said that the "Oswald" they dealt with resembled someone with those physical measurements.

Also --

You seem to be positing that LHO was arrested in a case of semi-mistaken quasi-identity.

Sorry, but that sounds overly complicated to me.  

Regardless, when you say "Harvey Lee Oswald," above, can I logically infer from that that you subscribe to the "Harvey and Lee" theory, at least in part, or am I just getting all paranoid, again?  (lol)

Question:  Have you read "State Secret" by Bill Simpich?

Minor point:  LHO weighed only 131 lbs at autopsy.

--  Tommy

Thomas,

 

As far as Duran and Ascue, yeah, I really haven't read into that very much, so I didn't know how they described the "Oswald" they dealt with.

 

Positing the "quasi-identity", Yeah, I was toying with the idea that the 5'10" 165 lb guy was being used to set up LHO, but in turn, he was being used as the fall guy for the assassination. Sort of a double blind if you will. Like I said, my logic could be way off, and that's okay.  But how could the physical description be so way off? 131 lbs is a runty little guy.

 

No, I haven't read Bill's State Secrets. I have a lot to learn.

 

Steve Thomas

 

PS: I was reading some of Weisberg's stuff the other day, and he said that he believed that LHO was sent down to Mexico to investigate a drug deal that Tippitt and Rose Cheramie were involved in. Can't say I ever heard that one before.

[Steve Thomas]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Steve,

Are you sure Thomas Kelley wrote that. I can't find it in his report.

(BTW, Harry Holmes DID write that.)

Sandy,

 

Whoops. You're right. Sorry about that.

 

Steve Thomas

[Paul Brancato]

Thomas - I think there is confusion on whether there were deliberately false descriptions of LHO in one or another of his files in CIA or MI. One of those files reversed his names and called him Harvey Lee Oswald. Another had false height and weight biometrics. I asked if both of these mistakes occurred in the same file entry. Also, there were possibly two marked cards, one originating as you point out in 1960, and one after MC. I confess that without a lot of work I can't answer these questions, which is why I asked you. Clearly Angleton kept his knowledge close, and since he was looking for a Soviet mole he deliberately inserted into one file false info in 1960. But then after MC there was some effort to confuse things. One poster here who shall remain nameless for now is fond of calling this MC disinformation a mole hunt, which confuses things. I'm not sure if Bill Simpich also called it that. Can you help untangle this?

Edited February 18, 2017 by Paul Brancato

[Thomas Graves]

6 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Thomas - I think there is confusion on whether there were deliberately false descriptions of LHO in one or another of his files in CIA or MI. One of those files reversed his names and called him Harvey Lee Oswald. Another had false height and weight biometrics. I asked if both of these mistakes occurred in the same file entry. Also, there were possibly two marked cards, one originating as you point out in 1960, and one after MC. I confess that without a lot of work I can't answer these questions, which is why I asked you. Clearly Angleton kept his knowledge close, and since he was looking for a Soviet mole he deliberately inserted into one file false info in 1960. But then after MC there was some effort to confuse things. One poster here who shall remain nameless for now is fond of calling this MC disinformation a mole hunt, which confuses things. I'm not sure if Bill Simpich also called it that. Can you help untangle this?

Paul,

I believe the original mish-mashed LHO-Webster "marked card" info put together by Fain in a plausibly-deniable way ("Marguerite told me that!"), after having been told by CIA to do so and being given Webster's biometrics, was originally used for CIA's "Popov's Mole" mole-hunting purposes (after Bright had entered the info into the "Biographics Registry" computerized data base) and was later used for other "mole" hunts between early 1960 and, say, 11/24/63, including in Mexico City during the Fall of 1963, and was therefore "tweaked" quite a bit as it was bifurcated into different files along the way.

IMHO, we should consider the distinct possibility that Oswald really was a wanna-be spy, and from time to time "jacked around" certain FBI / CIA-types regarding his name, height, address, etc,  -- but especially his name.

Also, we shouldn't discount the possibility that honest "typos" were made on certain LHO-related Intelligence documents.  Which might explain some of the confusion regarding Oswald's name.

--  Tommy

Edited February 19, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Or that Oswald was working undercover, and not a wannabe. What are Bright's connections to guys like Angleton, Phillips, Scott, etc?

[James DiEugenio]

Does anyone here know that Popov was not uncovered by a mole?

He was uncovered by a mistake in tradecraft.  And Angleton knew this.

Everyone here talks about Angleton, but has anyone ever read anything about him?  There are three major biographies of Angleton.  The first and, as far as I am concerned, still the best, is Mangold's.  You will read about how Popov was actually uncovered on pages 250-52.

[Thomas Graves]

4 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Or that Oswald was working undercover, and not a wannabe. What are Bright's connections to guys like Angleton, Phillips, Scott, etc?

Dear Paul,

Believe it or not I'm not an expert yet on all of this, and answering complicated questions like this is quite time-consuming for me.  All I can suggest to you is that you google "state secret" (in quotation marks) and read it thoroughly, especially the parts including footnotes regarding Bright's possible connections to Angleton, Phillips, Scott, etc.

LOL

--  Tommy

In the context of what we've been talking about, Bill Bright's SR/CE /P colleague, Will Potocki, and Will's CIA-employed (under Bill Harvey) wife, Anita, are worth a good "look," too.

Bright is mentioned 27 times in this chapter, and the Potockis are mentioned 19 times altogether.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter2.html

Enjoy!

Edited February 19, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

12 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Does anyone here know that Popov was not uncovered by a mole?

He was uncovered by a mistake in tradecraft.  And Angleton knew this.

Everyone here talks about Angleton, but has anyone ever read anything about him?  There are three major biographies of Angleton.  The first and, as far as I am concerned, still the best, is Mangold's.  You will read about how Popov was actually uncovered on pages 250-52.

Good post, Jim.

--  Tommy

PS  Yes, I knew about the bungled tradecraft that led to Popov's being caught.  As to whether or not JAA was sufficiently un-paranoid to believe that, I rather doubt it.

 

Edited February 18, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Same here - not an expert or a researcher.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Paul Brancato

[Thomas Graves]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Same here - not an expert or a researcher.

Hint: When you're looking at a long text, press "ctrl" and "F" at the same time and type into the little drop-down "search box" the word, phrase, or name you're looking for, and wah-lah -- said word, phrase, or name will be highlighted everywhere it appears in said text, if indeed it's in said text.

It's a big time saver for me.  

Edited February 18, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

iPad here

 

[Thomas Graves]

1 minute ago, Paul Brancato said:

iPad here

 

How about a local library?