Does Lifton's Best Evidence indicate that the coverup and the crime were committed by the same people?

[Thomas Graves]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Paul B.,

I can understand Phillips and Scott wanting to make a connection between Oswald and Leonov, just like they wanted to make a connection between Oswald and Kostiikov.

But why would they want to make it look like Leonov impersonated Oswald? In doing that, a connection isn't made... at least not a clear one. And in fact it makes it look like Oswald didn't even go to MC. If Oswald didn't go to MC, he couldn't have met Kostikov. And the whole thing unravels.

So this scenario doesn't look right to me.

 

Fwiw,

I for one will probably forever wonder if the photos of "a certain person known to you" weren't of KGB officer Nikolai Leonov instead of the traditional, husky, "Mexico City Mystery Man".

--  Tommy

Edited May 5, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. There was definitely an attempt by Phillips and Scott to pressure Duran, including torture, and to bring forward anyone that would buttress the left wing Castro or Russia conspiracy angle.

Paul B.,

I can understand Phillips and Scott wanting to make a connection between Oswald and Leonov, just like they wanted to make a connection between Oswald and Kostiikov.

But why would they want to make it look like Leonov impersonated Oswald? In doing that, a connection isn't made... at least not a clear one. And in fact it makes it look like Oswald didn't even go to MC. If Oswald didn't go to MC, he couldn't have met Kostikov. And the whole thing unravels.

So this scenario doesn't look right to me.

I want to clarify one thing about what I said. When I wrote,

"So this scenario doesn't look right to me."

I didn't mean only the part about Leonov impersonating Oswald. I meant both that and the part about David Phillips and Win Scott wanting to make fake connections.

It's a whole different matter if it was someone else's idea to have Leonov impersonate Oswald, or to frame him as the person impersonating Oswald.

 

 

[Thomas Graves]

On 5/4/2017 at 9:21 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

I want to clarify one thing about what I said. When I wrote,

"So this scenario doesn't look right to me."

I didn't mean only the part about Leonov's impersonating Oswald. I meant both that and the part about David Phillips' and Win Scott's wanting to make fake connections.

It's a whole different matter if it was someone else's idea to have Leonov impersonate Oswald, or to frame him as the person impersonating Oswald.

 

 

Before the above post, Sandy Larsen had written: 

Paul B.,

I can understand Phillips and Scott wanting to make a connection between Oswald and Leonov, just like they wanted to make a connection between Oswald and Kostiikov.

But why would they want to make it look like Leonov impersonated Oswald? In doing that, a connection isn't made... at least not a clear one. And in fact it makes it look like Oswald didn't even go to MC. If Oswald didn't go to MC, he couldn't have met Kostikov. And the whole thing unravels.

So this scenario doesn't look right to me.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

I chipped in:

 

Sandy,

I'm glad you clarified that, and I agree.

Maybe now you're starting to see why I don't have a particular "CT" or "take" on the assassination quite yet.  It's just too darn complicated and full of apparently contradictory evidence for my limited intelligence to get a "real good grip on," you know, like Jim Di Eugenio and Paul Trejo and your buddy, John Armstrong, apparently have got.

Heck, I don't know -- maybe it was just a bunch of regionally mobbed-up Intel Rogues manipulating their respective countries' intelligence agencies, which in turn were manipulating each other's intelligence agencies, which were ...

Or hey!  Maybe it was that evil, evil, evil James Jesus Angleton, and and and ... Allen Dulles, and ....

 

You know, ... everybody but the Russians.

5/09/18 EDIT ALERT:  Or .... Hmmm .... Fidel Castro?  

 

--  Tommy

 

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by Thomas Graves
Rewritten, and put at the top of the thread

[Paul Trejo]

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Paul B.,

I can understand Phillips and Scott wanting to make a connection between Oswald and Leonov, just like they wanted to make a connection between Oswald and Kostiikov.

But why would they want to make it look like Leonov impersonated Oswald? In doing that, a connection isn't made... at least not a clear one. And in fact it makes it look like Oswald didn't even go to MC. If Oswald didn't go to MC, he couldn't have met Kostikov. And the whole thing unravels.

So this scenario doesn't look right to me.

Sandy,

I agree with you.

At no point did the Mexican Police want to hear from Sylvia or anybody else that ANYBODY impersonated Oswald.

The Mexican Police wanted to hear a  Cuban Communist confession, pure and simple.

It was only stark terror that made Duran and Azcue distance themselves from Oswald as far as possible.  So they began their fiction that the guy who killed JFK looked totally different from Oswald.  The key is the timing of their fiction.   It came late.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited May 5, 2017 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

4 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Sandy,

I agree with you.

At no point did the Mexican Police want to hear from Sylvia or anybody else that ANYBODY impersonated Oswald.

The Mexican Police wanted to hear a  Cuban Communist confession, pure and simple.

It was only stark terror that made Duran and Azcue distance themselves from Oswald as far as possible.  So they began their fiction that the guy who killed JFK looked totally different from Oswald.  The key is the timing of their fiction.   It came late.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Dear Paul,

In your scenario I guess it's too bad "rogue" David Sanchez Morales (aka "Neck Scratcher") couldn't give the Mexican Police an accurate description of LHO (having monitored / mentored him so closely in New Orleans on 8/09/63) so they (they Mexican Police) could say to Duran and Azcue, "Describe the guy you allegedly dealt with on 9/27/63 like this ...", instead of letting Duran and Azcue describe poor little KGB officer Nikolai Leonov, instead.

--  Tommy

Edited May 5, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

On 5/4/2017 at 1:01 PM, Paul Trejo said:

Tommy,

You wrote: "So, the CIA (through the Mexican Police) forced Sylvia and Eusebio to describe the Oswald they'd dealt with on 9/27 as though he had been KGB officer Nikolai Leonov?"

So I remarked, "Not even close."   Then you asked for elaboration.

So, to elaborate: the CIA never forced anything.  They even asked the Mexican Police to refrain from brutality (they said).  The CIA just wanted to be extra-certain that they weren't dealing with a Communist Plot to kill JFK.   So they asked the Mexican Police to please (gently) ask Sylvia Duran again.

The CIA didn't ask about Eusebio Azcue, as I read it.

All the CIA wanted was to be sure whether Lee Harvey Oswald was or wasn't a Communist Agent working under the control of Fidel Castro.

Notice that Fidel Castro was their concern with Sylvia and Eusebio, because they worked at the Cuban Embassy.  Sylvia and Eusebio knew Communists in Cuba.  They worked well with them.  That's how they got those jobs.  Everybody knew that.

The CIA would focus on Sylvia Duran, because in 1963, the USA common sense was like the Mexico common sense -- that women were weaker and more fragile and more pliable, and they would crack more easily.  

If so, then the CIA got their answer -- Lee Harvey Oswald was a big fat NOBODY.  The Communists didn't know Oswald.  Azcue didn't even like Oswald.  Duran was more friendly to Oswald (that is, more feminine) which is to say that she didn't openly tell him that his "Fake FPCC resume was so obviously fake -- and there is no such thing as a Communist Membership Card, anyway, dummy."

Duran went through the motions.  She said if the Soviets said OK, then OK.  Oswald went to the Soviet Embassy and they told him, "no."  So Oswald went back to Duran and told her that the Soviets said, "yes."   So, Duran called the Soviets, and they told her that they told Oswald, "no."

Sylvia Duran knew she was dealing with a fruitcake at that point.  So she turned him over to her manager, Eusebio Azcue.  Eusebio openly told Oswald, "You're no friend of the Revolution -- just look at the way you behave!  Any real friend of the Revolution would have given us the name of a reliable person in Cuba to vouch for you!  Get out of here!"

The CIA knew all this -- they just wanted to double check.  The Mexican Police took this as some sort of cloak-and-dagger Hollywood scene.   Poor Sylvia Duran.   (And no wonder Eusebio Azcue was so worried.)

After the torture -- it was impossible to get a straight answer out of Sylvia Duran for the rest of her life.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

 

Dear Paul,

You seem to be saying that when the Mexican Police were interrogating Duran, the CIA didn't know if (CIA agent?) LHO had actually met, on his own initiative, with Duran and Azcue in the Cuban Consulate on 9/27/63, or if he had been impersonated there.

--  Tommy

PS  No need to give us another two-page "summary" of your "CT" in your greatly-looked-forward-to response, if any.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

16 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

Dear Paul,

You seem to be saying that when the Mexican Police were interrogating Duran, the CIA didn't know if (CIA agent?) LHO had actually met, on his own initiative, with Duran and Azcue in the Cuban Consulate on 9/27/63, or if he had been impersonated there.

--  Tommy

Tommy,

No. I'm saying that the Mexican Police were clueless.

I'm saying that the CIA was clueless, as proved by the Bill Simpich Mole Hunt.

I'm saying that David Morales went rogue.  So Morales wasn't going to say anything.

I'm saying that the CIA asked the Mexican Police to assure them that Sylvia Duran was not working with LHO.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited May 6, 2017 by Paul Trejo
signature

[Thomas Graves]

1 hour ago, Paul Trejo said:

Tommy,

No. I'm saying that the Mexican Police were clueless.

I'm saying that the CIA was clueless, as proved by the Bill Simpich Mole Hunt.

I'm saying that David Morales went rogue.  So Morales wasn't going to say anything.

I'm saying that the CIA asked the Mexican Police to assure them that Sylvia Duran was not working with LHO.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Dear Paul,

Please remind me why Duran and Azcue said (in so many words) that "Third Secretary" KGB officer Nikolai Leonov had impersonated LHO on 9/27/63?

Thanks,

--  Tommy

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

10 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

Dear Paul,

Please remind me why Duran and Azcue said (in so many words) that "Third Secretary" KGB officer Nikolai Leonov had impersonated LHO on 9/27/63?

Thanks,

--  Tommy

 

Tommy,

First and foremost, Duran and Azcue never said (in any words whatever) that "Third Secretary KGB officer Nikolai Leonov had impersonated LHO on 9/27/63."

What they did -- long after the JFK assassination -- is try to deflect the Mexican Police from their harsh suspicion that Duran and Azcue (who were Communist sympathizers working for Fidel Castro's Embassy in Mexico City) were accomplices of Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of the US President.

I think that Duran and Azcue were successful -- I think that they confused the Mexican Police -- who were easily confused, and eager to help the CIA blame the Communists, if they could.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited May 6, 2017 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

4 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Tommy,

First and foremost, Duran and Azcue never said (in any words whatever) that "Third Secretary KGB officer Nikolai Leonov had impersonated LHO on 9/27/63."

What they did -- long after the JFK assassination -- is try to deflect the Mexican Police from their harsh suspicion that Duran and Azcue (who were Communist sympathizers working for Fidel Castro's Embassy in Mexico City) were accomplices of Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of the US President.

I think that Duran and Azcue were successful -- I think that they confused the Mexican Police -- who were easily confused, and eager to help the CIA blame the Communists, if they could.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Dear Paul,

Didn't Duran tell the HSCA she'd dealt with a guy on 9/27/63 who was short, blue-eyed, and blond-haired?

What did she tell the Mexican Police the two times they so brutally interrogated her?

Do we know?

Thanks,

--  Tommy

Edited May 6, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

On 5/6/2017 at 9:59 AM, Thomas Graves said:

Dear Paul,

Didn't Duran tell the HSCA she'd dealt with a guy on 9/27/63 who was short, blue-eyed, and blond-haired?

What did she tell the Mexican Police the two times they so brutally interrogated her?

Do we know?

Thanks,

--  Tommy

Tommy,

I suspect that many American readers have little appreciation of the social culture of Mexico City in 1963.

First, it was fiercely Anticommunist.   Communism was simply illegal in Mexico.   There was no freedom of speech in this case.

Secondly, the culture was largely given to what we call in the USA, the National Enquirer level of reading material.  When JFK was assassinated, the Mexicans did not read USA news reports, but their own, sensationalized news reports.

The mass media in Mexico was filled with local stories -- stories about Mexican national Sylvia Duran -- the person who was last seen with Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) in Mexico City.

Fiction quickly arose -- National Enquirer style -- and she was portrayed as a sex maniac, with LHO as one of her many lovers.  

Her own friend, Elena Garro de Paz, a professional writer, decided to cash in the torrent of local fiction about Sylvia -- why miss a cash cow?  Elena claimed she saw Sylvia and Oswald at a "twist" party.  (For many conservative Mexicans, a "twist" party was code for a sex orgy.)  Gilberto Alvarado reported to the US Embassy that he saw Oswald take money inside the  Cuban Consulate to kill JFK.

Based on these money-making fictions, the 1963 Mexican Police arrested Sylvia Duran the second time, and beat her senseless to get a Communist confession out of her (with CIA approval of this interrogation).  Her bruises were photographed by a scandal-hungry Mexican press.

Gilbert Alverado later admitted to the FBI that he invented his story with good intentions, hoping it would be "helpful."

Tommy -- ask yourself -- if some woman you know was beaten by the police -- in the knowledge that the US Government supported the beatings -- would she just brush it off and trust reporters after that; telling everybody the Truth?

You don't know Mexican culture in 1963, Tommy -- that seems to be the root of all your doubts about Sylvia Duran.  She was TERRIFIED.  You don't seem to get it.

Anything Sylvia Duran said after 1963 must be taken with a grain of salt -- she didn't trust the Government to protect her.

The same may be said about Silvia Odio after 1964.   The US Government was dishonest about the JFK assassination in those years.  I think that historians today widely accept that.  Even Earl Warren admitted it.  How could any reasonable foreigner trust the HSCA attorneys and the FBI?

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited May 8, 2017 by Paul Trejo
typos

[Thomas Graves]

10 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

Tommy,

I suspect that many American readers have little appreciation of the social culture of Mexico City in 1963.

First, it was fiercely Anticommunist.   Communism was simply illegal in Mexico.   There was no freedom of speech in this case.

Secondly, the culture was largely given to what we call in the USA, the National Enquirer level of reading material.  When JFK was assassinated, the Mexicans did not read USA news reports, but their own, sensationalized news reports.

The mass media in Mexico was filled with local stories -- stories about Mexican national Sylvia Duran -- the person who was last seen with Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) in Mexico City.

Fiction quickly arose -- National Enquirer style -- and she was portrayed as a sex maniac, with LHO as one of her many lovers.  

Her own friend, Elena Garro de Paz, a professional writer, decided to cash in the torrent of local fiction about Sylvia -- why miss a cash cow?  Elena claimed she saw Sylvia and Oswald at a "twist" party.  (For many conservative Mexicans, a "twist" party was code for a sex orgy.)  Gilberto Alvarado reported to the US Embassy that he saw Oswald take money inside the  Cuban Consulate to kill JFK.

Based on these money-making fictions, the 1963 Mexican Police arrested Sylvia Duran the second time, and beat her senseless.  Her bruises were photographed by a scandal-hungry Mexican press.

Tommy -- ask yourself -- if some woman you know was beaten by the police -- in the knowledge that the US Government supported the beatings -- would she just brush it off and trust reporters after that; telling everybody the Truth?

You don't know Mexican culture in 1963, Tommy -- that seems to be the root of all your doubts about Sylvia Duran.  She was TERRIFIED.  You don't seem to get it.

Anything Sylvia Duran said after 1963 must be taken with a grain of salt -- she didn't trust the Government to protect her.

The same may be said about Silvia Odio after 1964.   The US Government was dishonest about the JFK assassination in those years.  I think that historians today widely accept that.  Even Earl Warren admitted it.  How could any reasonable foreigner trust the HSCA attorneys and the FBI?

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Dear Paul,

It seems you're skirting the questions I asked you in my most recent post, this thread, and my even more specific questions at the bottom of the first page of the "Sylvia Duran and Lee Harvey Oswald" thread.

--  Tommy

Edited May 6, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

On 5/6/2017 at 3:10 PM, Thomas Graves said:

Dear Paul,

It seems you're skirting the questions I asked you in my most recent post, this thread...

--  Tommy

Then you're either not paying attention, Tommy, or you just want to play word games here.

I'm not here to play word games.

Let's bring this back to Paul Brancato's thread, regarding whether the JFK Kill Team was the same as the JFK Cover-up Team.  What do Sylvia Duran, Mexico City and Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) have to do with this?

The connection is simple -- in perhaps most CT's, the CIA was both the JFK Kill Team and the JFK Cover-up Team.  So, the whole drama of LHO in Mexico City is supposed to show how the CIA framed LHO to be their Patsy.

It's sort of clumsy, but the CT usually says that the CIA Impersonated Oswald in Mexico City, in order to show that Oswald was dealing with the Communists.  The CIA tried to link LHO with KGB assassin Valery Kostikov, and with known Communists at the Cuban Embassy -- like Sylvia Duran and Eusebio Azcue.  The CIA said that LHO went to the USSR Embassy as well.

The trouble is that some CIA-did-it CTers say that LHO never really went to Mexico City (e.g. James DiEugenio) and some say that LHO really did go to Mexico City (e.g. Edwin Lopez) and was also Impersonated.

So -- they can't get their stories straight.

Any and all stories, from any and all sources, including the National Enquirer as well as Mexican tabloids -- are used as source material for these CIA-did-it fan clubs.

You, Tommy, seem to be trying to prove that KGB agent Nikolai Leonov was trying to impersonate LHO in Mexico City -- but you never explain why. 

It's really getting boring.  We should just get back to the theme of this thread.  Paul Brancato opened with David Lifton's 1981 book, Best Evidence -- and we have wandered far afield.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited May 8, 2017 by Paul Trejo
typos

[Paul Brancato]

Let's try to incorporate Mr. Graves' theory into my question. Tommy - if the KGB was behind the assassination, and actively set Oswald up as the patsy, If that is what you believe to be true, it seems quite a stretch to conclude that the autopsy shenanigans were part of that scheme beforehand. That goes to the essence of what my post was asking. There would have had to been other shooters arranged by the Soviets, Soviet moles inside the Secret Service, the DPD, and the TSBD. 

[Thomas Graves]

7 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Let's try to incorporate Mr. Graves' theory into my question. Tommy - if the KGB was behind the assassination, and actively set Oswald up as the patsy, If that is what you believe to be true, it seems quite a stretch to conclude that the autopsy shenanigans were part of that scheme beforehand. That goes to the essence of what my post was asking. There would have had to been other shooters arranged by the Soviets, Soviet moles inside the Secret Service, the DPD, and the TSBD. 

Dear Paul,

You're right.

So?

In other words, what makes you think I'm not as perplexed as you are about the assassination?

Regardless, I do have the right to follow certain pieces of evidence (the more mysterious the better) wherever it takes me research-wise, to point out things along the way (e.g. the fact that Stella Jacob, Gloria Jean Holt, and Sharon Simmons were mis-labled as "Gloria Calvery, Karan Hicks, and Carol Reed", the fact that drunk-on-11/22/63 Larry Florer really was who he said he was, and the fact that the retired ONI special agent I interviewed 1 ) said, in so many words, that JFK had been killed from the Terminal Annex Building, 2 ) admitted that he had "very probably" investigated LHO at El Toro in 1959, and 3 ) most interestingly, couldn't "for the life of him" remember, when I asked him, where he was when he heard that Kennedy had been shot...

.... and I do have the right to speculate about these things, and others, on this Forum, and even to do so, if I so chose, in the general context that, imho, one of mobbed-up KGB boy Vladimir Putin's "useful idiots," Donald Trump, was elected President of the United States of America with the help of ... The KGB Boy Himself, Vladimir Putin.

I mean I mean I mean ... What's up with that?

Or do you prefer to think that the miraculous ascension of Trump to the presidency is just another "Global Corporate Fascism Plot" by, you know, The Rothchilds, The Illuminati, and ...... George Soros?

LOL

--  Tommy

PS  et cetera, et cetera

Edited May 9, 2017 by Thomas Graves