New Essay by Bill Simpich - The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend

[David Boylan]

In defense of Bill, he is a meticulous researcher and references everything. Here's one of his earlier works. I'm still sorting through this... 🙂

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret.html

  

[Anthony Thorne]

James. Fair comments. I've had a quick look at an earlier version of Bill Simpich's essay, and it's very heavy on the footnotes and annotations. So - this is taken from what was published as part 10 (Mexico City), several years ago - you'll eventually be getting stuff like this - 

 

Quote

 

       Bright was with the counter-espionage unit that reviewed Oswald when his file was used in a molehunt during May 1960:   Routing and Record Sheet, opened 5/31/60.    Oswald 201 File, Vol 1, Folder 2 .    http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=988914 

[ii]          She would process the take between 8-9 am, and have any items of unusual significance on Scott's desk by nine:    Memo by Paul Levister, October 1963,  HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 23: LIENVOY, LIFEAT, LIONION) / NARA Record Number: 104-10188-10447.    https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=43466&relPageId=38 https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=43466&relPageId=39 ("highlights report, transcripts, and translations")

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=5874&relPageId=199 ("items of unusual significance") 

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=525795 ("processes take")  

[iii]  Transcripts on the Cuban and Soviet wiretaps arrived every day :   Request for Renewal of LIENVOY Project,  HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 23: LIENVOY, LIFEAT, LIONION) / NARA Record Number: 104-10188-10049. https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=34021&relPageId=8 

[iv]  She would also disseminate the take from the three cameras trained on the Soviet embassy compound:       The LIFEAT tap and Soviet photographic take was obtained by Goodpasture, http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=32941&relPageId=9

A memo in September 1964 says that Goodpasture would continue to analyze the finished take from the photo surveillance sites:    http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=224442  

Soviet data was provided to Frank Estancona  http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=240020 and Tom Keenan.  http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=32941&relPageId=10 ,

The Cuban data went to John Brady. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=240020  

[v]  Oswald made one final pitch to the Soviets at about 10 am on Saturday the 28^th, which also ended in failure:   Read the first-hand account in Oleg Nechiporenko's Passport to Assassination.  

[vi]     A few days later, CIA covert action chief Richard Helms went so far as to write that  "we do not want any Americans to confront Silvia Duran or be in contact with her" :   Memo from Richard Helms ("Knight") to Win Scott ("Curtis") 11/27/63 .   HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 7: Duque - Golitsyn) / NARA Record Number: 104-10169-10451. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=473876 

Also see  https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=31669&relPageId=16 

[vii]     Goodpasture knew that LIENVOY was insecure:    Comments on Book V, SSC Final Report, Goodpasture memo, created in 1977, p. 3.     HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 36 / NARA Record Number: 104-10103-10360. https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=442377 

[viii]     A CIA memo -- almost certainly prepared by Goodpasture -- describes the section of DFS working with the CIA in Mexico City as a "hip-pocket group run out of the Mexican Ministry of Government. This Ministry (Gobernacion) was principally occupied with political investigations and the control of foreigners.  Its employees were cruel and corrupt":    Id.,    http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=45912&relPageId=164  

[ix]     After Scott saw the photos of Oswald on TV the night of the assassination, he wrote HQ saying that he suggested to Gustavo Ortiz (LITEMPO-2) that Duran be arrested and held incommunicado until she gives all details on Oswald":   Memo from Win Scott to HQ, 11/23/63,  Russ Holmes Work File / NARA Record Number: 104-10422-10090. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=227659

 

 

 - and this is just a small portion of the footnotes from that segment, and there are twelve segments. So I think you can be confident that substantial documentation will be coming in this case too, as we're getting a revised version of Bill Simpich's original essay.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Anthony Thorne

[Ron Bulman]

I need to re read this and let it sink in.  It's deep for me.  I've never read of people referred to as guides.  I'm at least familiar with the majority of the names mentioned, e.g. I've got Morley's Ghost and Our Man In Mexico, but some are new for me.  Overall very informative but a little confusing, hard to wrap my head around completely.  It makes me think, and that's a good thing.  I look forward to reading the future essays.  

One part that made me think was about Oswald being possibly unwitting about being used when he went to Russia.  First, I've thought for some time that Oswald was trained in his speaking/reading/writing the language.  So he gets this idea on his own to seek the hardship discharge and go to Russia via Helsinki, the only place in the world he could get in to the USSR the way he did?  Somebody funded his trip, and, he was welcomed back with open arms (financial assistance, and more).

Another part that made me wonder a bit about my previous thoughts regards Angleton or Dulles not being part of the planning.  Because Angleton in particular kept the files on Oswald I figured he did play some role in the direction of Oswald's sheep dipping in New Orleans for example. If neither was involved in the planning were they possibly aware of an operation in the works to eliminate JFK but wanted to maintain distance/affiliation with it and were unaware that Oswald was to be used as the fall guy in it?

Maybe I misunderstand.  Like I said, I should re read and think on it some.

[Mark Stevens]

Here is a link to the other parts.

https://www.opednews.com/articles/THE-JFK-CASE--OSWALD-AND-by-Bill-Simpich-100315-5.html

[Anthony Thorne]

Those parts are from several years or a decade ago. I'm personally going to skip re-looking at those as the revised versions are all coming out imminently. 

[Jim Hargrove]

On 5/27/2020 at 12:48 PM, Paul Brancato said:

Jim - Maybe I missed something, but I didn’t read it quite that way. I hope Bill Will clarify in more detail when he has a moment to do so. My take is that Oswald simply didn’t know nearly the full extent of his operational uses, or the motives of various intelligence contacts that guided him.

Paul,

I hope you’re right, but it worries me when Mr. Simpich publishes brilliantly detailed descriptions of Agency activities around Oswald and then says:

Oswald “was a spy in his own mind” and that Oswald “wanted to be involved in espionage” but “As many have pointed out, he didn't have the credentials.”

These are direct quotes from Mr. Simpich's recent writings. Perhaps I'm not as well informed as Mr. Simpich, but in my own simple way I think Oswald was a spy paid by U.S. Intel, and it looks to me like he was a good one.  Here is a list of reasons to believe this that I've been compiling for several years.

20 Indications the Oswald Project Was Run by the CIA

1. CIA accountant James Wilcott testified that he made payments to an encrypted account for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.”  Contemporaneous HSCA notes indicate Wilcott told staffers, but wasn't allowed to say in Executive session, that the cryptonym for the CIA's "Oswald Project" was RX-ZIM.

2. A 1978 CIA memo indicates that a CIA operations officer “had run an agent into the USSR, that man having met a Russian girl and eventually marrying her,” a case very similar to Oswald’s and clearly indicating that the Agency ran a “false defector” program in the 1950s.

3. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962.

4. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 

5. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA "contact" who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child.

6. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, apparently left his family to marry (and perhaps monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death.

7. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE.

8. For his achievements, Joannides was given a medal by the CIA.

9. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination.

10. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay, or whatever we call it,  reads like a pretty good intelligence report.

11. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots.

12. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear.

13. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story.

14. CIA's Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, and he said that the CIA and the FBI ignored his warnings.

15. LHO always seemed poor, at least until it was time to go “on assignment.”  For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations.

16. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs....

17. After he “defected” to the Soviet Union in 1959, bragging to U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow that he would tell the Russians everything he knew about U.S. military secrets, he returned to the U.S. without punishment and was then in 1963 given the OK to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union again!

18. Allen Dulles, the CIA director fired by JFK, and the Warren Commission clearly wanted the truth hidden from the public to protect sources and methods of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Earl Warren said, “Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security.”

19. CIA's Ann Egerter, who worked for J.J. Angleton's Counterintelligence Special Interest Group (CI/SIG), opened a "201" file on Oswald on December 9, 1960.  Egerter testified to the HSCA: "We were charged with the investigation of Agency personnel....”  When asked if the purpose was to "investigate Agency employees," she answered, "That is correct."  When asked, "Would there be any other reason for opening up a file?" she answered, "No, I can't think of one."

20. President Kennedy and the CIA clearly were at war with each other in the weeks immediately before his assassination, as evidenced by Arthur Krock's infamous defense of the Agency in the Oct. 3, 1963 New York Times. It sure looks to me that “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn.

[Paul Brancato]

It would be good to see his income tax records - might clear up the income issue. 
in any case it might be good to quote the entire paragraph in question, in which Mr. Simpich’s view is more nuanced than your excerpts suggest.

[James Norwood]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

 in any case it might be good to quote the entire paragraph in question, in which Mr. Simpich’s view is more nuanced than your excerpts suggest.

Paul,

Here is the entire paragraph that appears early in the essay:

"Oswald was different in another way - he wanted to be involved in espionage. As many have pointed out, he didn't have the credentials. But many people in the espionage business were glad to use him in one way or another. If nothing else, Oswald was a valuable witting or unwitting asset to US intelligence. All the more reason to endow him with a legend."

There is nothing "nuanced" about this writing.  It is pure opinion/speculation, supported by no source, quote, or link.

As I indicated in earlier posts on this thread, I am not impressed with the author's preface to his essays.  At the same time, I want to keep an open-mind to his work and read the essays with care when they appear.  I have written on the legend topic myself, and I am interested in his findings and whether they will include detailed examination of the twenty points enumerated by Jim Hargrove above, as well as how Simpich will support the "why," the "how," and "by whom" Oswald was endowed with the legend.

[Paul Brancato]

I find it very nuanced, and it is an opinion - no source needed. The rest of the article has plenty of sources. 
I suggest, kindly, that you drop your criticism of his style and pay more attention to the quite original research, gleaned from careful detailed analysis of primary sources. You’ve made your point, and you’ve stood on it. 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Paul Brancato

[James Norwood]

6 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I suggest, kindly, that you drop your criticism of his style and pay more attention to the quite original research

My criticism has nothing to do with the author's "style."  Simpich surmises that Oswald "wanted to be in espionage," which flies in the face of the evidence that Oswald was as deeply engaged in espionage as humanly possible, as apparent in the so-called defection to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. 

In a preface, we should be able to see the author's thesis being developed.  In asserting that Oswald only "wanted to be in espionage," the writer is engaging in equivocation.  Thus far, I see nothing original in this research. 

I suggest, kindly, that you stick to analyzing the content of the essay, as opposed to misdirecting the discussion to a question of style.

[Jim Hargrove]

11 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

It would be good to see his income tax records - might clear up the income issue. 

Yes, we would all like to see them.  But can we trust them if they are ever truly released in readable form?

The one 1040 form that we have seen for more than half a century is demonstrably false.

There are many things wrong with this form, but the most obvious is the fact that Oswald's 1956 Marine Corps income is not shown on it.  It should have shown USMC income from the last two and a half months of 1956, but it doesn't.  Why?

Probably because the U.S. Navy took so long to untangle the Legend of Lee Harvey Oswald that it couldn’t “certify” his military pay records “starting 24 October 1956” until September 15, 1964, long after the bogus 1956 tax form was created. 

[John Butler]

On ‎5‎/‎28‎/‎2020 at 11:58 PM, James Norwood said:

Here is the entire paragraph that appears early in the essay:

"Oswald was different in another way - he wanted to be involved in espionage. As many have pointed out, he didn't have the credentials. But many people in the espionage business were glad to use him in one way or another. If nothing else, Oswald was a valuable witting or unwitting asset to US intelligence. All the more reason to endow him with a legend."

There is nothing "nuanced" about this writing.  It is pure opinion/speculation, supported by no source, quote, or link.

Ditto.

The character of Harvey Oswald (an unknown person) and Lee Oswald (the original Lee Harvey Oswald) were merged to form one Identity, Lee Harvey Oswald by government agencies before and after the assassination of President Kennedy.  Although these government agencies tried, not everything was successfully merged between these two individuals.  Things were missed or couldn't be merged.

For whatever reasons I process information in Word docs better than information in Excel spreadsheets.  David Josephs has prepared an excellent spreadsheet timeline of the events of Harvey and Lee's lives.  It is well documented and in my opinion irrefutable.

From this timeline, I went over the years 1959-1963 to see how many times Lee Oswald could be identified during those years.  I transferred that info into a word doc for my preferences.

The end result is that there are 65 occurrences of Lee Oswald during that period through records of various kinds and witness statements.  These are occurrences where Harvey Oswald has also been identified as being in another place or the same place as Lee Oswald at the same time.

These events cannot be explained as something other than a government agency operation running two individuals identified as the same person in matters involving intelligence operations.  In other words Harvey and Lee were government intelligence agents run by the CIA, FBI, and military intelligence agencies such as the ONI and Army Intelligence.

 Neither Harvey Oswald or Lee Oswald were wannabe spies, lacking in credentials, and used by the government as useful idiots.

These two men were part of a government project years in the making.  The origin of this program goes back to the end of WWII when folks like Allen Dulles and other high ranking OSS personnel, and later CIA people, conceived a means to strike at the new enemy that had emerged after WWII, the Soviet Union.  It started as a false defector program and became something else when that program ended.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by John Butler

[Paul Brancato]

perhaps ‘asset’ would be a better word for it. And I don’t see the point of making this thread about Harvey and Lee. 

[Joe Bauer]

I'm the least knowledgeable here about any of this deep research material but it is fascinating and important and I am reading it all in bits and pieces for my own informing.

I am only posting about a single point made by Jim Hargrove regards his "20 Indications The Oswald Project Was Run By The CIA" list. This specific subject has been one of particular interest for me. And that is Oswald's constant stressful poorest financial situation.

"15. LHO always seemed poor, at least until it was time to go “on assignment.”  For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations."

 

I have posted in the past my observations of and thoughts about just how poor Oswald and his family were most of the time after his return to the U.S. in 1962 until 11,22,1963.

I think it is one thing to believe paid assets would purposely not portray themselves as too well off relative to their cover job incomes, but in Oswald's case this deception apparently was so extreme it was ludicrous.

It went so far as to seriously endanger the physical, mental and marriage stress well being welfare of the Oswalds to the point of desperate dependency on others for basic needs such as shelter, food, clothing, medical help for Marina ( her teeth, pregnancy, battering injuries and even depression with suicidal thoughts at one point) plus transportation and moving needs, baby needs such as baby June having only an opened suitcase for a crib? And on and on.

Oswald had been humiliated time and time again by the White Russians having to help Marina in all these ways and I am sure the Paine's as well with their moving and shelter and even food help and being regulated in his visit time with Marina and their baby there.

And Oswald living in what...YMCAs and $8 a week rooms sharing toilets and bathrooms?

Oswald was a prideful person.  He wanted to blow when the DeMohrenchildts came to pick up Marina's belongings to get her into a safe and more providing living situation away from Oswald himself. Only DeMohrenschildt's intimidating physical prowess and stern warning to Oswald to step aside and not do anything kept Oswald from doing so.

Having to ask another poor person for free weekly rides to the Paines from work ( Frazier) and taking buses and walking everywhere right up until 11,22,1963 had to have been less than pride boosting for Oswald.

Getting only the lowest paying bottom rung jobs or even being on measly unemployment was just another aspect of Oswald's just above homeless existence that must have been eating him up inside.

Any intelligent 24 year old man who loves his wife and baby wants more than this hardscrabble existence.

With this in mind, how far can someone go in trying to hide income from some secret covert source? 

Oswald didn't even have enough money for at least some small expenses at times. He ran out of typing service money for his Russian life story after what...$10 or $12 dollars? He couldn't finish paying Dean Andrews for legal work on his Marine Discharge status work. Didn't he also walk away from the last days of rent due on his place in New Orleans when Marina and baby June left with Ruth Paine?

I know that Oswald was frugal to the point of extreme cheapness.

And during this incredibly financially stressed time for his family, he managed to buy guns, ammo, cameras, binoculars, Russian newspapers and go to local movie houses.

Plus he had enough to travel to and stay at hotels in Mexico City, bring Marina back a silver bracelet and he even had over $100 cash to leave Marina the night before 11/22/1963 ( and I think he may have given Marina small amounts of cash while she stayed at the Paines ) and he never pawned his wedding or Marine rings.

These are small but debatable contradictions to Oswald's extreme poverty situation I admit.

Still, Oswald could easily have saved $100 dollars from his Texas School Book Depository pay check after paying Earline Roberts such small weekly amounts in rent and only eating peanut butter and baloney sandwiches and milk for his meals. A single indulgence for Oswald may have been his Doctor Pepper soda bottle purchases from the TXSBD lunch room machine.

But the idea that in some or any way Oswald was ever compensated for any even part time peripheral agency asset work seems illogical imo due to the extremes of financial stress Oswald was willing to go through for himself and his young family the whole time he was back in the states from 1962.

Does anyone here who thinks Oswald was ever employed by any intelligent agencies have a more logical explanation as to why he lived so poorly if he was?

Or was occasional asset work income about as much as one would earn mowing a few lawns a week or cashing in bottles?

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Jim Hargrove]

Joe,

Thanks for that thoughtful post.  I’ve thought a lot over the years about the very issue you raised above.  My take on this is that before “Oswald” had a wife and family, the prospect of adventure was often, but not always, sufficient pay. 

After he returned to the States and had a family, though, he would surely be looking for more income than he apparently had.  At the same time, as 11/22/63 grew ever closer, it would be absolutely imperative to avoid any kind of money trail leading to him from anyone involved in his handling.

The best solution for this might well be setting up, or pretending to set up, some sort of escrow account promising payment in the not too distant future. This solves both the problem of motivating him to keep working and following your instructions for little more than peanuts while, at the same time, avoiding any possibility of a money trail to the patsy-to-be.

I’m aware of no evidence whatsoever for this scenario, but I still think it is reasonably likely.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Jim Hargrove