Muckrock: A brief debunking of the “James Angleton’s World War III virus” thesis

[James DiEugenio]

Michael:

 

In your précis above, I think you misrepresent two points.

John does not say he thinks Angleton is behind it because of his evil brilliance. He says he thinks this because Angleton was the one guy at CIA who had access to all of the LHO files.  This is in the afterword to his updated version.

Second, your discounting of a possible invasion of Cuba, is contradicted by what LBJ says on the tapes.  And this is in the Douglas book. LBJ is worried that there is going to be a nuclear war if all this stuff about MC comes out.  Thus began the spin to make LHO into a sociopath and that is why he killed Kennedy.  IMO, this is why Hoover did what he did with the Walker case.  

Prior to the FBI being given that case, the DPD never considered Oswald a suspect.  But within days of the FBI handling of it, presto, the bullet is changed, then a couple of months later, Marina then starts saying just about anything the FBI wants to hear, and you have the Baron piling on.  So now, we know Oswald killed Kennedy because he tried to kill Walker.  Thanks to LBJ's buddy J. Edgar Hoover.

[Michael Clark]

On 8/26/2018 at 1:55 PM, James DiEugenio said:

John does not say he thinks Angleton is behind it because of his evil brilliance. He says he thinks this because Angleton was the one guy at CIA who had access to all of the LHO files.  

Hi Jim, Thanks for the input.

To be sure, I can almost quote Newman without looking it up. In tha same paragraph, or breath, as the case may be, while he says " no one else had access to the files....." he also said "no one had the diabolical genius to......." . I am definitely not making that up. In fact, Newman is quoted in the article..... as such:

 

"In my view, there is only one person whose hands fit into these gloves: James Jesus Angleton, Chief of CIAʼs Counterintelligence Staff. ... No one else in the Agency had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot. No one else had the means necessary to plant the WWIII virus in Oswaldʼs files and keep it dormant for six weeks until the presidentʼs assassination "

 

I also think it is a fair critique that Newman is using some circular logic here. He is saying that no one else could have planted the virus, so he had to have been the one to do it. That leads us to the conclusion that it was done in the first place.

 

I am challenging the whole WW3 nuclear haulocaust notion. I don't think it's real. Certainly there was some risk, but I think the stakes and, as some surmised during the CMC in October of 1962, with a swap of Cuba for Berlin, with the loss of life involved but a hopeful restraint from the use of Nukes. 

 

Of course, lying behind my contention is the theory that some time in late 62 and early 63, someone decided that there was really no benefit in freeing Cuba, and handing it over to Spanish speaking Catholics and Mafia interests, and then having to negotiate for a long term maintenance of Guantanamo.

 

In these theories where LHO is well-planned, critical part of the operation, I fail to see how so much could be riding on  our quirky Ozzie showing-up for work that day. I fail to see how Angleton could be a prime mover in a scenario that relies on Oswald to to play this scripted part so far ahead of show-time.

 

I think it is more likely that JJA was blindsided by the assassination and horrified to find himself implicated by an association with LHO. Through the use of the Oswald Double, this could have been maintained, even if LHO was not in place.  

I am not laying this out as my theory that I stand on right now. I just see some probabilities, Hail Mary's, and overly complex situations that deserve some thought as to what-else could explain Newman's important observations regarding JJA "dimming the lights".

I also have to agree with Emma Best in that I do not see a motive for JJA. JJA is not, as I understand it, a rabid racist, anti Catholic, a radical moralist, a beneficiary of military commoditiy or hardware contracts. He was a Washingtonian and did not have an interest in the maintenance of industry in Dallas or any other place.

Edit... I went to fix some errors but there are too many; so I will leave it. My iPhone has a shattered face right now and if I post from it, it leads to more errors that I would typically leave in my posts. My apologies.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

dupe

 

Edited August 26, 2018 by Michael Clark

[James DiEugenio]

OMG Mike.  A motive for Angleton?

Did you read Cold Warrior?  That is still, in my view, the best book on Angleton. The guy was an over the top lunatic Cold Warrior.  With the stuff JFK was doing, I mean with Russia, Cuba, in his beloved Italy.  And now we know he was going to recognize Red China? And that is just for starters.

Secondly, Kennedy fired his beloved mentor, Allen Dulles.  Angleton owed everything to Dulles career wise.  It was Dulles who allowed him to run wild, literally create his own domain within the CIA so that his files were not integrated, in large part, with the main CIA system.

I mean, you do know that Angleton carried Allen Dulles' ashes at his funeral?

On page 636 of the resissue of Oswald and the CIA, John says that the person who did this had to have access and authority to the Oswald files and the MC files.  Its true that he then adds the thing about evil brilliance, but its that access and authority factors he puts forth first.

As per Oswald not showing up for work that day, I mean, do you really think the Paines were the innocent Good Samaritans that the WC says they were?  I mean not even Richard Russell bought into that one.

Final point: who did Helms appoint to run the CIA's cover up with the WC?  

 

PS: Why do you think Angleton had the RFK autopsy photos in his files?

Edited August 26, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Gene Kelly]

Jim/Michael

The more that I study Angleton, the more I believe he was not loyal to either the CIA or US interests.  I would not be surprised - if (and when) we reach full knowledge of this byzantine JFK story - that he was in cahoots somehow with Kim Philby, subverting the CIA at every turn (e.g. Golitsyn/Nosenko), and more aligned with Israel and Mossad than we could imagine.  

I look forward to the release of the Lisa Pease book on RFK.  Having studied Robert Kennedy's murder, there are legitimate suspects like Michael Wayne (real name Wien), Khaibar Khan and Maryam Koucham who point towards foreign intelligence involvement.  This could explain the RFK autopsy pictures in Angleton's safe.  Then there is the Turner and Christian book about RFK's murder, initially suppressed after its original 1978 publication, but updated and reissued in 1993 thanks to Oliver Stone's film.  The back story (laid out in Kennedy's and King) was a Random House ownership change, where Robert Loomis (married to Angleton's secretary) took control and removed the book from publication, including the incineration of copies, to "make space".   Perhaps Angleton was covering his tracks and protecting his foreign intelligence benefactors. 

I'm also struck by the suspicious death of William Colby is 1996 ... whose "nemesis" at CIA was James Angleton (whom he had fired).  Colby was considered "hostile" to Israel's interests, and opposed military aid, arguing that the US government was infiltrated and manipulated by Israeli agents.  Wolf Blitzer, a Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post: 'CBS News reported that Angleton had lost his job in December 1974 because of policy disputes over Israel, and not because of allegations of CIA domestic spying as originally reported.  Angleton was said to have argued with CIA director William Colby over Middle East policy questions as well (reference: Wolf Blitzer: Between Washington and Jerusalem, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).

Gene