Did it have to be Dallas? And Walker didn't do-it.

[Michael Clark]

.Mathias Baumann posted:

 

.......the assassination could have happened anywhere. Think of the plots that failed in Chicago and Tampa. It was probably just a stroke of luck that it worked in Dallas.

I just chanced upon his highly interesting article that gives a lot of background information on the previous plots I'd been looking for a long time:

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-three-failed-plots-to-kill-jfk-the-historians-guide-on-how-to-research-his-assassination

The similarities are striking:

Chicago

  Quote

November 2, 1963, JFK was scheduled to attend the Army-Air Force game at Soldiers Field. Plans called for him to arrive at O'Hare around 11a.m., motorcade down what was then known as the Northwest Expressway to the Loop. 

At Jackson the caravan would lumber up the Jackson exit, make a slow difficult left-hand turn onto the street and shuttle over to the stadium. The Jackson exit would be crowded with no fewer than 45 local school and civic organizations anxious to see the President.

As in Dallas, JFK's limousine would pass through a warehouse district —which Secret Service advance men considered 10 times more deadly than any office building corridor. 

As in Dallas, JFK's limousine would be forced to make a difficult 90-degree turn that would slow them to practically a standstill. 

As in Dallas, triangulation of fire would be simple because of the unobstructed view. 

As in Dallas, the crowd would panic, allowing the assassins to escape unnoticed. 

...

Another suspect picked up for questioning was a would-be patsy. Black describes him as follows:

The man's name was Thomas Arthur Vallee, a 30-year-old ex-Marine classified extreme paranoid schizophrenic by military doctors. Vallee worked as an apprentice at IPP Litho-plate at 625 West Jackson. As the patsy, he was perfect—as perfect for the Chicago assassination plot as Lee Harvey Oswald was for the Dallas assassination plot. 

Vallee was born and raised in Chicago. Like Oswald, he joined the Marines in the mid-50s during the Korean War period. Like Oswald, Vallee was assigned to a U-2 base in Japan (where he also worked as a radar operator – according to Jim Douglass). Oswald at Atsugi, Vallee at Camp Otsu. The cover reference for the U-2 project at these bases was Joint Technical Advisory Group (JTAG). Since CIA exerted a strong presence at these two bases, they were prime recruitment stations. 

Both Vallee and Oswald appear to have been recruited by CIA for "black missions" or otherwise unsavory, personally discrediting assignments. In Oswald's case, at the height of the Cold War, he was instructed and helped to defect to Russia. With him he carried top secret radar codes. Oswald's mission, probably unbeknownst to him, may have been to reveal this disinformation for some complex CIA intelligence stratagem. Warren Commission testimony documents that all these radar codes had to be revised because of Oswald's defection. 

Vallee was recruited about the same time to train members of a fiercely anti-Castro guerrilla group. Objective: the assassination of Fidel Castro. Training locale: in and around Levittown, Long Island. 

Neither Vallee nor Oswald received money for their clandestine duties. The surreptitious nature of the business was ego-building to their personalities... Inherently rewarding. Both Vallee and Oswald had recently taken jobs in warehouses at the planned assassination sites. Oswald at the fifth floor book depository on Elm Street in Dallas. Vallee on the third floor IPP printing company looking out over Jackson Street exit ramp where Kennedy's limousine would have been hit. 

Both Vallee and Oswald could be shown to have extremist political views. Both owned rifles. Both were basically loners. Basically drifters. Basically lowlife. The dregs of society. Perfect for the work they were recruited for. Perfect for a frame-up. 

They even resembled one another physically. 

 

Tampa

  Quote

Existing Secret Service files in the 1970s made it clear that the Tampa threat was posed by a single mobile sniper who would fire from a tall building using a high power rifle fitted with a scope. Other accounts however describe the plot as multi-person.

The motorcade route in Tampa was very long and presented Dealey Plaza quality opportunities. Other researchers chronicled how Lopez moved from the Keys to Tampa shortly before the motorcade, echoing Vallee and Oswald’s pawn-like pre-motorcade movements.

The HSCA described parts of what it called the Lopez allegation:

Lopez would have obtained a tourist card in Tampa on November 20, 1963, entered Mexico at Nuevo Laredo on November 23 and flew from Mexico City to Havana on November 27. Further, Lopez was alleged to have attended a meeting of the Tampa Chapter of the FPCC on November 17... CIA files on Lopez reflect that in early December, 1963 they received a classified message requesting urgent traces on Lopez... Later the CIA headquarters received another classified message stating that a source stated that "Lopes" had been involved in the Kennedy assassination ... had entered Mexico by foot from Laredo on November 13...proceeded by bus to Mexico City where he entered the Cuban embassy...and left for Cuba as the only passenger on flight 465 for Cuba. A CIA file on Lopez was classified as a counterintelligence case...

An FBI investigation on Lopez through an interview with his cousin and wife as well as document research revealed that... He was pro-Castro and he had once gotten involved in a fistfight over his Castro sympathies. 

The FBI had previously documented that Lopez has actually been in contact with the FPCC and had attended a meeting in Tampa on November 20, 1963. In a March 1964 report, it recounted that at a November 17 meeting... Lopez said he had not been granted permission to return to Cuba but was awaiting a phone call about his return to his homeland... A Tampa FPCC member was quoted as saying she called a friend in Cuba on December 8, 1963 and was told that he arrived safely. She also said that they (the FPCC) had given Lopez 190$ for his return. The FBI confirmed the Mexico trip (Lopez’ wife confirmed that in a letter he sent her from Cuba in November 1963, he had received financial assistance for his trip to Cuba from an organization in Tampa) ... information sent to the Warren Commission by the FBI on the Tampa chapter of the FPCC did not contain information on Lopez’ activities... nor apparently on Lopez himself. The Committee concurred with the Senate Select Committee that this omission was egregious, since the circumstances surrounding Lopez’ travel seemed "suspicious". Moreover, in March 1964 when the WC’s investigation was in its most active stage, there were reports circulating that Lopez had been involved in the assassination... Lopez’ association with the FPCC, however, coupled with the fact that the dates of his travel to Mexico via Texas coincide with the assassination, plus the reports that Lopez’ activities were "suspicious" all amount to troublesome circumstances that the committee was unable to resolve with confidence.

....................

 

You're right there had to be a leader. But why General Walker? Why not, say Santos Trafficante or Carlos Marcello? We know that Mafia boss Johnny Roselli was friends with both David Morales and William Harvey, the CIA's experts in assassination. And we know that quite a number of mafia big shots were "silenced" when investigators started asking questions about the CIA-Mafia plots against Castro.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 12, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

Mathias Makes a great case that Debunks Walker-did-it zealotry.

 

I was going to reply to the thread from which Mathias' came, but I decided to start a new one.

 

It wasn't Walker, and Dallas was the last shot at the possibility for a clean coup. Kennedy had to be killed before the Vietnam pull out was announced and before the Bobby Baker scnadal broke. If JFK had cancelled his trip to Dallas, something highly reckless, and possibly looking like an overt coup would have been implemented; something like a re-purposed Operation Northwoods, or backfired Operation Mongoose would have been put into play.

The Dallas-with-LHO plan, that did not devolve into fall-back plans B, C and D, in Dallas, was the last chance for a clean, deniable coup that could be covered-up. Walker had no control over the length, width and breadth of the Dallas set-up, hit, cover, or fall-back, in Dallas, or elsewhere, nor alternate, reckless Mongoose or Northwoods based faranken-hit and coup options.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Jim Hargrove]

Well said, Michael.  General Walker didn’t have the power to make a credible attempt to kill JFK in Chicago, or in Tampa, or, frankly, in Dallas nor did he, at the same time, have the connections to create a patsy affiliated with the U.S. National Security State who would ensure that any real investigation would be quickly shut down.  But Allen Dulles and active members of the CIA sure did.

In November 1963, the CIA was clearly at war with the Kennedy Administration.  To understand that, all you need to do is read contemporaneous newspapers.

 

 

Here's the original Richard Starnes piece from 10/2/63 that so appalled the Times' Arthur Krock:

The Washington Daily News, Wednesday, October 2, 1963, p.3

'SPOOKS' MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR AMBASSADOR LODGE

'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam

By Richard T. Starnes

SAIGON, Oct.2 - The story of the Central Intelligence Agency's role in South Viet Nam is a dismal chronicle of bureaucratic arrogance, obstinate disregard of orders, and unrestrained thirst for power.

Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, according to a high United States source here.

In one of these instances the CIA frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought with him from Washington because the agency disagreed with it.

This led to a dramatic confrontation between Mr. Lodge and John Richardson, chief of the huge CIA apparatus here. Mr. Lodge failed to move Mr. Richardson, and the dispute was bucked back to Washington. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA Chief John A. McCone were unable to resolve the conflict, and the matter is now reported to be awaiting settlement by President Kennedy.

It is one of the developments expected to be covered in Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's report to Mr. Kennedy.

Others Critical, Too

Other American agencies here are incredibly bitter about the CIA.

"If the United States ever experiences a 'Seven Days in May' it will come from the CIA, and not from the Pentagon," one U.S. official commented caustically.

("Seven Days in May" is a fictional account of an attempted military coup to take over the U.S. Government.)

CIA "spooks" (a universal term for secret agents here) have penetrated every branch of the American community in Saigon, until non-spook Americans here almost seem to be suffering a CIA psychosis.

An American field officer with a distinguished combat career speaks angrily about "that man at headquarters in Saigon wearing a colonel's uniform." He means the man is a CIA agent, and he can't understand what he is doing at U.S. military headquarters here, unless it is spying on other Americans.

Another American officer, talking about the CIA, acidly commented: "You'd think they'd have learned something from Cuba but apparently they didn't."

Few Know CIA Strength

Few people other than Mr. Richardson and his close aides know the actual CIA strength here, but a widely used figure is 600. Many are clandestine agents known only to a few of their fellow spooks.

Even Mr. Richardson is a man about whom it is difficult to learn much in Saigon. He is said to be a former OSS officer, and to have served with distinction in the CIA in the Philippines.

A surprising number of the spooks are known to be involved in their ghostly trade and some make no secret of it.

"There are a number of spooks in the U.S. Information Service, in the U.S. Operations mission, in every aspect of American official and commercial life here, " one official - presumably a non-spook - said.

"They represent a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone," he added.

Coupled with the ubiquitous secret police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, a surfeit of spooks has given Saigon an oppressive police state atmosphere.

The Nhu-Richardson relationship is a subject of lively speculation. The CIA continues to pay the special forces which conducted brutal raids on Buddhist temples last Aug. 21, altho in fairness it should be pointed out that the CIA is paying these goons for the war against communist guerillas, not Buddhist bonzes (priests).

Hand Over Millions

Nevertheless, on the first of every month, the CIA dutifully hands over a quarter million American dollars to pay these special forces.

Whatever else it buys, it doesn't buy any solid information on what the special forces are up to. The Aug. 21 raids caught top U.S. officials here and in Washington flat-footed.

Nhu ordered the special forces to crush the Buddhist priests, but the CIA wasn't let in on the secret. (Some CIA button men now say they warned their superiors what was coming up, but in any event the warning of harsh repression was never passed to top officials here or in Washington.)

Consequently, Washington reacted unsurely to the crisis. Top officials here and at home were outraged at the news the CIA was paying the temple raiders, but the CIA continued the payments.

It may not be a direct subsidy for a religious war against the country's Buddhist majority, but it comes close to that.

And for every State Department aide here who will tell you, "Dammit, the CIA is supposed to gather information, not make policy, but policy-making is what they're doing here," there are military officers who scream over the way the spooks dabble in military operations.

A Typical Example

For example, highly trained trail watchers are an important part of the effort to end Viet Cong infiltration from across the Laos and Cambodia borders. But if the trailer watchers spot incoming Viet Congs, they report it to the CIA in Saigon, and in the fullness of time, the spooks may tell the military.

One very high American official here, a man who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy, likened the CIA's growth to a malignancy, and added he was not sure even the White House could control it any longer.

Unquestionably Mr. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor both got an earful from people who are beginning to fear the CIA is becoming a Third Force co-equal with President Diem's regime and the U.S. Government - and answerable to neither.

There is naturally the highest interest here as to whether Mr. McNamara will persuade Mr. Kennedy something ought to be done about it.

 

[Joe Bauer]

Gee, what a coincidence. 

Chicago, the home base of Sam Giancana, Tampa, the home base of Santos Trafficante.

Both cities where these two JFK and RFK haters and their organizations had tremendous long term influence on probably every aspect of governance and policing.

Dallas was Carlos Marcello's territory.

[Mathias Baumann]

5 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Gee, what a coincidence. 

Chicago, the home base of Sam Giancana, Tampa, the home base of Santos Trafficante.

Both cities where these two JFK and RFK haters and their organizations had tremendous long term influence on probably every aspect of governance and policing.

Dallas was Carlos Marcello's territory.

Joe,

if Richard Case Nagell is to be believed there was also a plot in Los Angeles:

Quote

Los Angeles, June, 1963

Dick Russell in The Man Who Knew Too Much is perhaps the one who went the farthest in studying this plot to assassinate JFK, which would have culminated during the showing of PT 109 in Beverley Hills.

Russell had two key sources. One was Richard Case Nagell who provided Jim Garrison with information about Oswald and the Dallas plot. He talked to Russell about Vaughn Marlowe -his second source- who was the one plotters were "considering " for recruitment as the shooter in L.A., or more likely a patsy who could be linked to Castro, according to Nagell. He also said he witnessed Cuban exiles, including one "Leopoldo", who may have been present during the Sylvia Odio incident, scouting Marlowe’s store.

In the days leading up to the L.A. attempt, Nagell checked himself into a psychiatric ward so as to be isolated from the murder.

Nagell was a Korean war hero, who joined Army intelligence in 1954 and then, he said, became a double agent for CIA. He made claims that an anti-Castro Cuban exile group he was monitoring had set its sights on Kennedy and would make it look like Castro was behind it, and that David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Guy Bannister and Oswald were part of the conspiracy. Oswald however would be set up to make it look like Castro was behind him -and him alone.

Nagell, again fearing incrimination, faked a bank robbery in September of 1963 so as to be in jail when JFK’s assassination occurred.

According to Larry Hancock: The items in Nagell’s possession that are available are amazingly similar to items also in the possession of Lee Oswald. They include:

1. One miniature Minolta camera and developing kit.
2. Fair Play for Cuba leaflets.
3. The P.O. Box for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans, Louisiana. The committee which had only one member. Lee Oswald.
4. Cuban and Communist literature including the Crime against Cuba by Corliss Lament, one of the documents also being used in New Orleans by Lee Oswald.
5. A notebook containing the unlisted telephone number of the Cuban embassy, the same number as one found in Oswald's notebook.
6. The notebook also contained names of individuals who would much later be identified as CIA personnel from its Los Angeles office. (The names were submitted by the FBI to CIA in October '63 and eventually verified by CIA as being names of actual employees).

In addition, the trial files for Richard Nagell also contain an identification card, the card being a military ID with Nagell's photo and the name and signature of Lee H. Oswald.

Though Nagell’s mental competency has been put into question by detractors, Larry Hancock makes a strong case for his credibility in his Man in the Middle chronicle about him, where he shows that his written warnings of the assassination, knowledge of Cuban exiles and CIA persons of interest, and referencing of documents could not have simply been made up by a charlatan.

Other researchers have speculated that Richard Case Nagell himself was also being manoeuvred to be a potential patsy- something even he seemed to suspect, which is why he checked himself into a psychological ward during JFK`s visit to L.A. and got himself jailed before November 22^nd.

Marlowe, he too a Korean war vet, also spoke with Russell. He acknowledged knowing Nagell, having the reputation of being a good shot and being part of the L.A. Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) while having relations with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marlowe also travelled to Mexico on behalf of the FPCC in 1962, visited the Mexico City Cuban embassy to try and get a visa to travel to Cuba and met with Mexican communists while there. Even though the plot never materialized the profile of the would-be patsy as well as the blame it on Castro part of the said plan is intriguingly similar to what was planned for Dallas.

 

[James DiEugenio]

That is a very good article by Paul Bleau about the previous plots to kill JFK.

He does a nice job coalescing the common traits about them and putting them in an index.

[Ron Bulman]

"If Richard Case Nagell is to be believed."  Attempts have been made to discredit both him and Russell on another forum by a former member of this one.  I don't know what to make of it all but I thought "The Man Who Knew Too Much" was a bit deep to have been completely made up.

[Ron Bulman]

"Dallas was Carlos Marcello's territory".  Where to start?  LBJ and cash?  Ruby from Chicago, Roselli from Chicago.  CIA, FBI; Hoover: "There is no organized crime/Mafia".  JFK obtains National exposure in televised organized crime investigations featuring Bobby grilling mobsters.  Attorney General Bobby has Marcello picked up off the street in New Orleans and deported.  

The Mob did not kill JFK.  They did not have the control necessary to cover it up.  But they were involved in it.  Ruby was a mob wannabe from a teen running numbers for Al Capone.  Truth.  Check it out.  He was also a front man for them in Dallas after being sent there in the late 40's.  Paid off cops and politicians, set up poker games, racing and football bets for the oil men.

Jacob Rubenstien was not a "made" member of the Mafia due to his heritage if nothing else.  However he worked for and idolized them.  He understood the Code of Omerta. 

Such a deep aspect of the assassination. 

[David Andrews]

Once upon a time, I admired The Man who Knew Too Much very much, and dreamed of buying the option so I could write and pitch a screenplay.  (A thankless and unprofitable task in the Mockingbird universe ruled by Bob Baer.)   I still give the book the benefit of the doubt, as I do Richard Case Nagell, his obfuscations notwithstanding.  However, the portrayal of Oswald in the book is infuriatingly vague, and at odds with some of the later scholarship on Oswald in Mexico City, Oswald contra Kostikov, etc.  That's a timeline and a set of intentions that needs to be aligned with later research. 

Dick Russell:  Who was Oswald?  Did Nagell really confer with Raul and Fidel in Cuba because of him?

Edited August 14, 2017 by David Andrews

[Paul Trejo]

Yes, Dick Russell's work still stands the test of time.  Richard Case Nagell spoke in riddles, unfortunately, so people can pick and choose from his statements what to believe.

I accept that Nagell knew Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, when LHO was dealing directly with Guy Banister, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw.

LHO was a wannabe double-agent, hoping to get a regular job in the CIA.  Phony CIA "officers" like David Ferrie, Jack S. Martin, Fred Crisman, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Patrick Hemming kept LHO dreaming away as they sheep-dipped him into oblivion.

Richard Case Nagell knew that LHO was trying to Fake his way into Havana in order to assassinate Fidel Castro, and was assigned by the KGB to watch Oswald.  Nagell was an authentic double-agent, and in order to maintain his deep cover, he threatened LHO with death, just in case LHO was successful in getting his visa to Cuba.

This is one plausible explanation for Harry Dean's claim that Loran Hall and Larry Howard drove LHO to the home of Sylvia Odio (immediately before Mexico City), to see if JURE could get LHO into Cuba through some JURE double-agent in Havana.

It is to the credit of Dick Russell that he kept the door open to a Walker-did-it CT.

In all of New Orleans, perhaps, only Guy Banister, Gerry Patrick Hemming and Loran Hall knew that General Walker was the core organizer of the Dallas JFK plot (cf. Caufield, 2015).   I see no evidence that Richard Case Nagell knew that.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited August 14, 2017 by Paul Trejo

[Mathias Baumann]

Paul,

Loran Hall and Larry Howard were most certainly not the men who visited Silvia Odio. She never identfied either of them. However, in 1964 she confided to a Catholic priest that one of the visitors had been Eugenio Cisneros, a gun runner and leading member of JURE.

[Jason Ward]

On 8/12/2017 at 5:27 PM, Michael Clark said:

...

The Dallas-with-LHO plan, that did not devolve into fall-back plans B, C and D, in Dallas, was the last chance for a clean, deniable coup that could be covered-up. Walker had no control over the length, width and breadth of the Dallas set-up, hit, cover, or fall-back, in Dallas, or elsewhere, nor alternate, reckless Mongoose or Northwoods based faranken-hit and coup options.

I think your line of thinking here is well supported by the evidence.

I am not sure there's much evidence to suggest the Dallas-with-LHO plan was much considered before Oswald gets his job at TSBD.  Sure, he's some kind of intelligence player whose obviously been sculpted into a belligerent Marxist facade; and he's provoked the Cubans as ordered.  But LHO is in my view just kind of in limbo and held in low regard; but not low enough to cut him loose entirely.   He does have some small unexplained money, but the CIA pays well; all the valued CIA recruits at JM/WAVE get good money.  Oswald is poor.  Oswald IMO is almost accidentally selected as the patsy at the last minute and I don't think the TSBD job was anything but a random gift to the conspirators.   I think the level of planning and depth of detail is a little exaggerated in all this - there was a big element of luck (bad luck for the rest of us), some helpful coincidences, a thoroughly corrupt and/or incompetent local government... Yes, Oswald was some kind of operative for years, but the Dallas-with-LHO plan was last minute and required as much luck as sophisticated planning.    I don't think studying too much about Oswald before 1963 at the earliest is much relevant to the assassination at all.   Everything critical happens near the end - and in my theory, all the answers are in the very last month, after LHO's first day of TSBD employment.  Everything before summer of 63 just shows Oswald is somehow connected to US intelligence - no different than 10000 others.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Jason Ward

[Paul Trejo]

17 hours ago, Mathias Baumann said:

Paul,

Loran Hall and Larry Howard were most certainly not the men who visited Silvia Odio. She never identfied either of them. However, in 1964 she confided to a Catholic priest that one of the visitors had been Eugenio Cisneros, a gun runner and leading member of JURE.

Mathias,

You should post a source on that wild rumor.  

Sylvia Odio's sworn testimony was that she never saw these three men at her doorstep in her life.  However, Sylvia was a long-time member of JURE, and knew them all.

As for Cisneros himself, Odio's family had known him a long time.  So, you've got the wrong guy.   I've seen that rumor before, BTW.   It's bogus.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

[Mathias Baumann]

4 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Mathias,

You should post a source on that wild rumor.  

Sylvia Odio's sworn testimony was that she never saw these three men at her doorstep in her life.  However, Sylvia was a long-time member of JURE, and knew them all.

As for Cisneros himself, Odio's family had known him a long time.  So, you've got the wrong guy.   I've seen that rumor before, BTW.   It's bogus.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

The priest's name is Walter J. McChann. The source is Robert Blakey's book "Fatal Hour", page 198.

[Paul Trejo]

1 hour ago, Mathias Baumann said:

The priest's name is Walter J. McChann. The source is Robert Blakey's book "Fatal Hour", page 198.

Mathias,

Many thanks.  I'll look deeper into that.  

It seems that "Fatal Hour" is a re-issue of Robert Blakey's book, The Plot to Kill the President (1981).  I've ordered the book and will find your citation.

I remember the story from the Warren Commission testimony of Sylvia Odio.  One of the priests in whom she confided had told the US Secret Service that Sylvia Odio told him that of the three men, one of them was code-named "Leopoldo," the second was Eugenio Cisneros, and the third was Lee Harvey Oswald.

WC attorney Liebeler specifically asked Odio about it:

“MR. LIEBELER. Now, I have a report before me of an interview with Father McKann by a representative of the U.S. Secret Service in which it states that Father McKann told this Secret Service agent that you had told him that one of the men was Eugeneio. But you indicated now that this is not so?”

“MRS. ODIO. No. Perhaps he could have misunderstood me, because he has the same problem with names. Probably I did tell him that the man was not Eugenio.”

So, I think this has been asked and answered.   In any case, I'll soon find Blakey's take on it.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited August 15, 2017 by Paul Trejo