WHEN does Oswald crystallize into the patsy?

[Jason Ward]

4 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

Jason,

IMHO, your position accords best with that of David Atlee Phillips in his manuscript, The AMLASH Legacy (1988), in which he claimed that he was in charge of Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans and Mexico City -- preparing him to kill Fidel Castro from an office building with a high-powered rifle.  

Sadly -- says Phillips -- "somebody" hi-jacked Lee Harvey Oswald in the JFK plot.  

The "somebody" in this text by Phillips, will always remain UNKNOWABLE.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

 I'm skeptical of Phillips to some extent but he no doubt provides some good clues.  Did you ever have a job where one boss told you to do one thing this was countermanded or contradicted by another boss ? Seems like this kind of thing can happen to Oswald, so that confusingly , there can be more than one explanation for the same event . As you maybe admit, I think we do have to see where the evidence makes explanations unknowable .  Of course we should speculate, I just think a lot of us are going too far to defend speculation when we should just say, " I've got speculation here that's unsupported or only slightly supported by primary sources, so I'm open minded to other ideas."  A lot of People here are busy fighting like hell to defend their speculations to the exclusion of all others ... I hope I've made it clear that all my words are just my ideas and that I want to solicit opinions ; I don't mean to lay down the law .

Thanks again,

Jason 

[Sandy Larsen]

12 hours ago, Jason Ward said:

Absent an evidence-based connection with the CIA and/or the conspiracy, everyone is assigning [Ruth Paine] a role based on conjecture.

 

Circumstantial Evidence + Reasoning = Good Judgement

Jason,

You are treating circumstantial evidence as though it is worthless.

According to this Wikipedia article:

Circumstantial evidence is used in criminal courts to establish guilt or innocence through reasoning.

Circumstantial evidence is often all there is available to prosecutors given that criminals often conceal evidence against themselves.

The lack of direct evidence indicating Ruth Paine worked for the CIA means nothing. Of course there is a lack of direct evidence.

Anybody who believes that the CIA was behind the assassination has no choice but to conclude that Ruth Paine was in some way under the influence of the CIA. Because she is the one who placed Oswald at the scene of the crime. When you add to that all the other circumstantial evidence pointing to Ruth Paine being a CIA asset, a strong case is made against her.

I'm astonished that any knowledgeable person can deny that.

 

Edited August 16, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Paul Trejo]

7 hours ago, Mathias Baumann said:

Jason,

I guess that exactly is the important question: did the conspirators possess the power and influence to move Oswald around at will, make him incriminate himself and did they have access to all the files and documents pertaining to him and could they get him off the FBI's radar? My hunch is: Oswald was just one of many possible patsies. He was NOT indispensable to the success of the operation. If the Chicago plot had worked we'd be talking about Thomas Vallee not Oswald. So Oswald being taken off the list was probably just a lucky coincident or possibly related to some other clandestine operation but not the assassination itself.

The conspiracy has not been exposed for more than 50 years. That leads me to the conclusion that the actual number of plotters was rather small, probably just a handful of people. Some of them certainly occupied influential positions (at least one of them must've been a high-ranking officer in counterintelligence with access to all of Oswald's files.) But they were neither all powerful nor omniscient. They chose Oswald because of his background, but they didn't create it.

Oswald was a wanna-be-spook. He was playing all sorts of spy games and actively seeking the attention of all sorts of intelligence agencies. And they used him for all sorts of purposes (Russia, New Orleans) but he was never on their official payroll, so they always had plausible deniability.

I think if people as powerful as Lyndon Johnson or Dulles had decided to plot Kennedy's death, they'd simply have poisoned him and make it look like a disease. So my bet is on "rogue" CIA agents, probably in cahoots with the mafia.

Mathias,

Your position here and mine are very close.  Here's my feedback:

1. The Walker Team had the ally of Dallas FBI agent James Hosty who could take Oswald off the FBI radar whenever he wanted.  They could not move Oswald at will, but they came very close.  Guy Banister and David Ferrie were the main manipulators, as Jim Garrison amply showed.

2. I agree with you 100% that Oswald was just one of many possible patsies, and was NOT indispensable to the plot.

3. I agree with you 100% that the actual number of plotters was only a handful of people -- mostly Dallas locals, and some New Orleans locals, and a few rogues from the Bay of Pigs era. 

4. J. Edgar Hoover had access and control of all Oswald files -- but the JFK plotters didn't want a LNer result.  Hoover insisted on it.  Hoover won.

5. I agree with you 100% that Oswald was a "wanna-be-spook."  That's what made him the perfect Patsy.

6. I agree about the "rogue" CIA agents -- since two confessed -- but the Mafia could never do what the local Minutemen in Dallas could do.  The rogues were in cahoots with Dallas paramilitary Right wingers, IMHO. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited August 16, 2017 by Paul Trejo

[Michael Clark]

Jason, I just wanted to take a second opportunity to bring two things to your attention, amidst this very active thread. They are key points in your inquiry as specified in the title of this thread.

- The David Atlee Phillips/Oswald/Veciana meeting

and

-The posittion of James McCord in the ranks of the CIA and his area of concern with regards to the FPCC in the relevant period.

Cheers,

Michael

[Sandy Larsen]

11 hours ago, Jason Ward said:

IMO the whole strange Mexico tale has no reasonable connection to the assassination . . .

Well, sure.... if you ignore the evidence that Oswald was paid $6500 to assassinate Kennedy. And the Kostin/Kostikov evidence.

Not that I believe any of that evidence is real. But the fact that it was planted indicates to me that the MC tale was indeed connected to the assassination.

 

Edited August 16, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[James DiEugenio]

GS: However when Hoover told anyone who would listen that Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City the CIA` and FBI had to back track and place Oswald in Mexico City after the fact. It was a necessity to deal with the impersonation.

I don't understand this statement.  The actual circumstances of what happened seem to me to be contrary.

From 11/23 on, Hoover had serious problems with the Oswald in Mexico City story.  As both David Josephs and John Armstrong prove in abundance, the FBI was going crazy trying to find evidence he was there.  This is why after she furnished the Walker Note, Ruth Paine then supplied artifacts that Oswald was in MC.  This was after a two day search by about eight officers who missed them.  Later on, much to Liebeler's chagrin, PJM was till presenting evidence Oswald was there.

Hoover understood in about six weeks that he and fallen for a CIA cover story about Oswald in MC.  John Newman first uncovered the marginalia in a memo Hoover wrote where he called the CIA story about Oswald in MC a "snow job".  Was Oswald there?  Maybe, maybe not.  But he did not do what the CIA said he did.  Which means they had to create a cover story that he did.  This included Phillips using his assets to incriminate LHO in a Cuban plot--another cover story that fell apart.

Part of that cover story  is  Goodpasture and Elden Rudd transporting that phony tape to the Texas border.  Except it was not even a good impersonation.  So Hoover wrote that fatal memo discrediting it.  When Mark Lane gave that memo to Bob Tanenbaum, he confronted Phillips with it.  Phillips read it, folded it, put it in his jacket pocket, and walked out of the room.  This led to the actual end of Sprague/Tanenbaum--the last chance to actually solve the JFK case.

Mexico City is the key to the crime. Just as figuring out who Oswald is in New Orleans is the other key.  Phillips and McCord were running the anti FPCC campaign for the CIA. Oswald was not a wannabe.  He was an undercover agent.  And anyone who resists that today does not know the whole story about him.

Edited August 16, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

Oswald crystalized for somebody before New Orleans.  He was being sheep dipped there and in Mexico City.  Who held his files on his time while in Russia?  Such files would have existed but would have been destroyed when the latter operation was complete.  In regard to this I still have hope regarding the release of the remaining files, and, the upcoming release of this:

 https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Secret-Spymaster-James-Angleton/dp/1250080614/

[George Sawtelle]

Jason

The CIA and FBI had nothing to do with the impersonation. That was a military intelligence caper.

The CIA lost nothing by calling off Oswald's Mexico City trip. However the impersonation had to be addressed since the patsy's lone nut case was compromised.How could Oswald be a lone nut if he's impersonated in Mexico City?

[Jason Ward]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Circumstantial Evidence + Reasoning = Good Judgement

Jason,

You are treating circumstantial evidence as though it is worthless.

According to this Wikipedia article:

Circumstantial evidence is used in criminal courts to establish guilt or innocence through reasoning.

Circumstantial evidence is often all there is available to prosecutors given that criminals often conceal evidence against themselves.

The lack of direct evidence indicating Ruth Paine worked for the CIA means nothing. Of course there is a lack of direct evidence.

Anybody who believes that the CIA was behind the assassination has no choice but to conclude that Ruth Paine was in some way under the influence of the CIA. Because she is the one who placed Oswald at the scene of the crime. When you add to that all the other circumstantial evidence pointing to Ruth Paine being a CIA asset, a strong case is made against her.

I'm astonished that any knowledgeable person can deny that.

 

Sandy, hello again and how’s your website going?

I respect your work and opinion but I disagree with what you say here.  Of course circumstantial evidence has value, but it is necessarily weighed against competing explanations apart from the one offered by those who rely on the circumstantial evidence to draw their conclusioins.  If NOT relying on circumstantial evidence leads to an equally reasonable conclusion, then the best we can say is “We don’t know, either explanation is valid from the facts at hand.”  In particular, the belief that Ruth Paine is Oswald’s puppet master is conditioned on the exclusion of Linnie Randle’s twice-given testimony that she introduced the TSBD job idea.  It also implies that Roy Truly and Wes Frazier are other than what they seem and somehow in aid of the conspiracy.   Ok, obviously you and many CTs exclude Randle and lasso Truly et al. into the conspiracy.  Fine.

vs.

The competing explantion for Ruth’s role which does NOT rely on circumstantial evidence is that she is what she says she is and that Linnie Randle’s testimony twice given is accurate as to how the TSBD entered into the job-hunting process.  Furthermore, the requirement to prove someone’s innocence is never required (only the proof of their guilt); even so, I add to my point that there is ZERO documentary or testimonial evidence placing Ruth in the service of the CIA/FBI/SS at any point in her life.  NOTHING.

In sum, a rational mind unsoaked in CT doctrine is quite reasonable to suggest the case for Ruth’s role in the conspiracy is circumstantial and outweighed by non-circumstantial primary sources (Linnie Randle; Roy Truly; Ruth herself).    By all means, keep looking at Ruth, but kindly don’t pontificate that your Point of View is the only rational explanation and that educated minds must agree with you.

I violently disagree with your assertion that those who have decided the CIA is behind everything “have no choice” but to spin all evidence in favor of their beliefs and discount all evidence that is not in support of their narrative.  The validity of evidence is not correctly judged by whether it does or does not support the desired conclusion of CIA control.  Ruth can be exactly as she claims and the CIA can still be behind it all; neither Ruth nor the TSBD job is essential to a CIA explanation.

Thanks again for the polite conversation,

 

Jason

Edited August 16, 2017 by Jason Ward

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Jason Ward said:

The impersonator fiasco is to my mind one of the biggest clues that the Mexico City trip is NOT part of the assassination conspiracy ....because it's just such a monumental screwup without an essential purpose to the assassination .

The purpose of Oswald's alleged MC trip was to draw a connection between Oswald the assassin, and Cuba and Russia. And the purpose for doing that was either 1) to use it as a prelude for war with Cuba or Russia; or 2) to frighten LBJ into covering up the conspiracy in order to avoid such a war, since it might lead to WW3.

I'm perplexed as to how this cannot be obvious. At least for those who are knowledgeable about the case.

 

[Ron Bulman]

3 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The purpose of Oswald's alleged MC trip was to draw a connection between Oswald the assassin, and Cuba and Russia. And the purpose for doing that was either 1) to use it as a prelude for war with Cuba or Russia; or 2) to frighten LBJ into covering up the conspiracy in order to avoid such a war, since it might lead to WW3.

I'm perplexed as to how this cannot be obvious. At least for those who are knowledgeable about the case.

 

Oh!  Now I think I get what your saying Sandy!  (Communist) Oswald, through Mexico, seeking passage through Cuba Back to the USSR might provoke an attack on either or both of them?  Wow, I'm amazed no one has thought of this before.  I've never read anything of it in newspapers or magazines or seen anything on TV.

[Jason Ward]

9 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

See below...

9 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Jason,

Your skepticism is healthy, but you should also offer a counter-scenario.  I don't see one.

If the New Orleans Fake FPCC was not intended to: (1) sheep-dip LHO; and (2)lead to the Mexico City effort to get into Cuba -- then WHAT WAS IT USED FOR?

If the Mexico City effort to get into Cuba was not intended to further sheep-dip LHO as a KGB agent -- then WHAT WAS IT USED FOR?

My theory connects the dots (without using the old and worn-out CIA-did-it CT).

You have a healthy skepticism -- but your outcome doesn't connect very many dots that I can see.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

 

Many thanks for your thoughtful and polite approach, Michael.  I'll try to respond to everything you say but ping me if I fall short.

In brief, I absolutely agree all FPCC actions were used to make Oswald into a [rather unlikely and unbelievable] pro-Castro Marxist.

This American Marxist legend has many useful benefits in the Cold War milieu, but the assassination role for Oswald is only one of them.  The more obvious role is counter intelligence or direct penetration. To the non-CT-drenched eye, the assassination role does not require Oswald's patsy status as crystalized until October-ish and everything before then evidentially only safely concludes that Oswald was building his communist bona fides; purpose as yet unknown.

In absence of documented evidence, Oswald's purpose does not default to assassination patsy.

thanks again,

Jason

 

[Michael Clark]

11 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The purpose of Oswald's alleged MC trip was to draw a connection between Oswald the assassin, and Cuba and Russia. And the purpose for doing that was either 1) to use it as a prelude for war with Cuba or Russia; or 2) to frighten LBJ into covering up the conspiracy in order to avoid such a war, since it might lead to WW3.

I'm perplexed as to how this cannot be obvious. At least for those who are knowledgeable about the case.

 

My take on the MC trip is that it (just like the DAP/LHO/Veciana meeting) was employed in order to give the hired guns, anti-Castro Cubans, confidence that the agreed-upon plan was being implemented. That plan was that a Pro-Castro Cuban conspiracy, including LHO, would be blamed for the hit, and Cuba would be invaded.

Why did the invasion not happen? Because the Anti-Castro Cubans got double-crossed. The radical right and industrialist were not interested in a free Cuba, with a Mafia presence, and the US Navy decided that Guantanamo's future could best be secured by an adversarial relationship.

My double-cross theory supplants the WWIII theory. It also explains why the same crew showed up at Watergate. They wanted follow-through on the invasion. They didn't get what they wanted.

[Sandy Larsen]

23 minutes ago, Jason Ward said:

....there is ZERO documentary or testimonial evidence placing Ruth in the service of the CIA/FBI/SS at any point in her life.  NOTHING.

Jason,

It is not necessary for there to be documentary or testimonial evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset. Again, you are avoiding the circumstantial evidence.

How do you think the CIA plotters got Oswald a job in a location where he could have shot Kennedy? Without influencing Ruth?

 

[Jason Ward]

1 hour ago, Paul Trejo said:

Jason,

Taking that position, you must then respond to the primary source, the Hardway-Lopez Report (2002).

Edwin Lopez admits that the lack of a photograph of LHO at the Mexico City Embassies is a major road-block.  Still, Lopez insists that Oswald was certainly in Mexico City, and that Oswald's New Orleans Fake FPCC resume was also there at the Cuban Consulate, complete with ID photos of Lee Harvey Oswald.

The connection with New Orleans is this primary source -- the New Orleans RESUME.  How would you answer that, in your evolving CT?

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

it's been years since I read Lopez although I am a little more favorably inclined towards Hardway as the more rational force in the duo.  I'll take a look at the report and get back to you.

I don't have an evolving CT as much as I have a demand that the received wisdom of The Establishment (CT Establishment) be brought down a few pegs and hear that they are not anywhere close to believable by unconspiracy-drenched souls whose lives don't revolve around the Kennedy assassination.   Let me put it strategically: the CTs are just spinning their wheels until they meet a very high court-room level of evidence in the court of public opinion.  Where they cannot produce the evidence, they should IMO stop beating a dead horse and either dig up the evidence OR move to a part of the conspiracy where evidence is more likely to exist - i.e., among still-living participants.

I'm afraid I don't undertand your last sentence...'the connection with New Orleans...." As I said I don't have an evolving CT to any level of certainty, but I will just try to answer you by saying that everything in New Orleans is undoubtedly Castro oriented only, there is only weak-to-non-existent connection to LHO in New Orleans and his role as the patsy; he could have just as well been in general Marxist legend building for as yet unknown anti-castro/anti-USSR pursuits unrelated to JFK.

thanks again,

Jason