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National Archives release first batch of 2017 JFK documents


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David Talbot wrote on Facebook today:

Now that the National Archives has finally begun to release thousands of the long-withheld JFK documents, as they are legally required to do by October of this year, we'll see if any gaps in the assassination conspiracy are filled in. I've been pushing the CIA to release documents related to William Harvey, who was head of the agency's assassination program and a Kennedy-hater. As readers of "The Devil's Chessboard" know, Harvey's deputy in the CIA's Rome station -- which Har...vey took over in summer 1963 --later revealed that he spotted Harvey on a plane to Dallas not long before the assassination. Harvey's travel records, which are still in the possession of the agency, could confirm his itinerary in the key months and weeks leading up to the assassination of the president. I just received one CIA document dated August 1963 that indicates Harvey was indeed planning a return trip from Rome to the U.S. at that time.

Harvey was one of the prime suspects of House Select Committee on Assassination investigators in the 1970s. We need to know his exact whereabouts in fall 1963. The CIA must finally come clean about Harvey with this latest document release.

 As I've posted earlier, I believe Harvey's assignment was to recruit the professional snipers from the European criminal underground. Those he recruited were possibly connected to the Corsican Mafia and the far-right Secret Army Organization that tried for years to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. In fact, the French president was convinced that JFK was killed by "the same people who tried to kill me." I think Harvey went to Dallas sometime that fall, before the assassination, to scout the terrain so he could help select the sniper positions and confer with people on the ground there.

Despite CIA efforts to smear him during the 1970s Congressional investigations, Harvey was no rogue. Any assassination plotting he engaged in was approved by those above him in the chain of command. He was a loyal and highly regarded CIA officer, and a patriotic American, who no doubt believed that this act of treason was for the good of the country.

 

Edited by Douglas Caddy
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John Newman wrote on Facebook today:

I'm enjoying reading through the new NARA release--now that I have everything archived and can wade through specific areas, such as checking to see how I made out in Vol II (Countdown to Darkness). I came across a couple of big bingos a few minutes ago. The two attached documents--the first from the formerly redacted group, and the second from the newly declassified group, prove that my identifications of the AMIRE-1 cryptonym and the Eugenio pseudonym for Emilio Americo Rodriguez were correct. If you have Vol II, around p. 76 you can find the whole story, including the flight of Emilio and Sforza from Cuba along with my he identifications of the AMRYE-1 cryptonym and the Henry Sloman pseudonym for Tony Sforza.1f60e.png😎

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Edited by Douglas Caddy
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Is this the most ridiculous thing of all?

Or are they trying to tell us what we all suspected:  the assassinations are related?

No they are not, you can bet your life on that .

But this is really becoming a major screw up:  files that are still withheld being released, files that should be declassified not included, and now King files being released with JFK files.

I mean do  not get me wrong, its good we have these.  Anything that gets out on King fine.  But the only reason I can think of for these to be here is that they were part of the HSCA collection and were not properly separated.

This is really amateur night.  Why did they start if they were not ready?

Edited by James DiEugenio
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Joseph McBride wrote on Facebook today:

I'm just starting to wade through the government's new release of previously classified JFK assassination documents, now that the National Archives computer is working. Some documents seem not very informative except for what they show about the FBI. These demonstrate how the FBI seemed more interested in policing and suppressing dissent from the official version than in actually investigating the case. Examples are reports from infiltrators of small leftwing meetings in the ...U.S. that mention the assassination was discussed but mostly just list the names of those attending the meetings, hardly or not at all saying what was discussed (though in one case it's mentioned that someone blamed right-wingers for the shooting). As I write in my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE, MY SEARCH FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER J. D. TIPPIT, this pattern was already evident in the previously released documents: A vivid illustration of the federal government’s heavy-handed eagerness to shut down any genuine media investigation of the Tippit shooting and any possible role he may have played in the assassination plot -- especially if the publication was an American outlet -- can be found in a document in the National Archives about an incident that occurred less than three weeks after the officer’s death. The FBI contacted the managing editor of Chicago’s American, Luke Carroll, after Maggie Daly’s column on December 7, 1963, raised the possibility that Jack Ruby knew Oswald and Tippit, and that Tippit had botched an assignment to silence Oswald. The FBI’s Chicago Special Agent in Charge reported to J. Edgar Hoover on December 12, “CARROLL feels that the items should not have been printed, especially the portion which cast aspersions on Dallas police officer TIPPIT.” That same day, Daly ran a retraction and stated, “Actually, as is true of all Americans, we admire Officer Tippit and we sent a small donation to his widow.”
That incident of suppression of a Tippit inquiry by Chicago’s American and many other examples of direct FBI interference with the media were revealed in the 1977-78 release of FBI documents on the assassination, which roused even the Washington Post to criticize the FBI for seeming “more interested in investigating the motives and affiliations of its critics than in pursuing contradictions offered by the evidence at the scene of the crime.” Mark Lane and other critics have also charged that FBI agents engaged in surveillance of their activities and other forms of harassment. The FBI’s surveillance of Lane’s speeches and movements was confrmed in a February 24, 1964, memorandum from Warren Commission assistant counsel Howard P. Willens to J. Lee Rankin, which also indicated that the FBI was forwarding its reports on Lane to the commission.

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The first release consists of 3,810 documents, including 441 formerly withheld-in-full documents and 3,369 documents formerly released with portions redacted.

The Black Vault has archived them all below, and has created a much easier index to use.

http://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/withheld-jfk-assassination-documents/

 

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Joseph McBride wrote on Facebook yesterday (July 25, 2017):

Some smoking gun evidence does pop out in document releases, e.g., the Belmont (FBI) memo of Nov. 22, 1963, which by itself destroys the Warren Commission case by referring to a bullet "lodged behind the President's ear," which was never admitted into evidence (various witnesses, including Secret Service agents, said they saw a bullet hit Kennedy there). I discovered that memo buried among the 98,755 pages of FBI documents released to the public in 1977-78.

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11 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

I agree that the files should be released if at all possible. However, there still could be people alive that need identities protected and so forth. In these cases, the answer might be to release those documents with redactions.

If you were 20 years old on November 22, 1963 you would be 73-74 years old today. If you were 25 then, you'd be 78-79 years old today.  So who still needs to be protected? It's not as if they're still active in the spy game today.

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I could not agree more.

To my knowledge, the only exceptions in the JFK Act were 1.) Not to reveal an agent's name if he were still alive, and 2.) Not to blow an operation in place.  Am I wrong about this?

If I am not, can anyone think that some agent is still working after 54 years in the CIA? Or that an operation is still ongoing from 1963?

Many of these files, it is clear, should never have been withheld anyway.  And in fact, its beginning to reflect poorly on the ARRB that they were.

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Interesting find regarding the memo and the bullet behind the ear. . .

I have yet to find that reported on by major media.

I find prior posts above interesting as well.

Ignoring the anti Trump comments, I wonder, is it a coincidence that the press reporting on the release is focusing mainly on files related to Russia and specifically Yuri Nosenko? 

When one considers the political climate now and the strange History Channel show (which apparently will not finish its run in the U.S.) which was heavily focused on pointing the finger at Russia, I question whether this is a coincidence or something more.

Coincidences are a strange thing indeed.

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4 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

If you were 20 years old on November 22, 1963 you would be 73-74 years old today. If you were 25 then, you'd be 78-79 years old today.  So who still needs to be protected? It's not as if they're still active in the spy game today.

I disagree. There are still people that might need to be protected. A previous example was John Whitten. He lived in Europe and didn't want his name released. When he died it was. Even if all the individuals were deceased, there still might be sources or methods that need to be protected.

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