Does most every JFKA researcher agree with John Newman's conclusions regarding David Phillips and Alpha 66?

[Sandy Larsen]

1. Was there no substantial tie between David Phillips and Alpha 66?

2. Did Antonio Veciana lie about Maurice Bishop being David Phillips?

3. Did Antonio Veciana lie about Maurice Bishop meeting Oswald?

 

I'm just wondering if there might be holes in Newman's analysis. For example, that he potentially could be depending on a document reporting incorrect information, a document with no corroboration.

Or is Newman's case quite solid?

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[James DiEugenio]

I don't think everyone does.  Because although John makes a strong case through documents, he never talked to Veciana, Fonzi's wife or Veciana's sister..

Someone should just to give them a fair reply. 

But I should state here, Fonzi's book is not reliant on that  meeting, nor is the case against Phillips reliant on that meeting.

 

[Matt Allison]

+1 to what Jim said. And the idea that Phillips had no connection to Alpha 66 is just laughable.

[Sandy Larsen]

Thanks guys. (If anybody else wants to chime in, please do.)

Matt, I thought that the only evidence we have of Phillips' connections to Alpha 66 was Veciana's testimony. The HSCA "found it probable that some agency of the United States assigned a case officer to Veciana, since he was the dominant figure in an extremely active anti-Castro organization."[1]  But they didn't go so far as to say the case officer was CIA. Do you know of other evidence linking Phillips to Alpha 66?

I'm asking about this because on another thread Rob Clark is saying that there is no "documented proof" of Phillips' connection to Alpha 66. And he seems to feel strongly about it. This doesn't ring true to me because I've always read that the CIA funded anti-Castro Cuban groups.

[1] HSCA Report, p. 136

[Paul Brancato]

Newman and others have made a convincing case that Alpha 66 was run by the military, and that Veciana was not truthful.

[Sandy Larsen]

42 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Newman and others have made a convincing case that Alpha 66 was run by the military, and that Veciana was not truthful.

 

If Alpha 66 was connected solely with the military and not with the CIA, why would Veciana lie about that? There had to have been a motive.

 

[Larry Hancock]

As far as I know and have read, John's published analysis extends only though the period prior to Veciana's departure from Cuba.  I consider it a great deconstruction of Veciana's book and his claims for an in depth relationship with the CIA during that period.  However I don't see that it eliminates any possibility of some limited contact between Phillips and Veciana inside Cuba. 

Veciana's claims in his relatively recent book were so far beyond anything he had ever said before (and so relatively sensational)  - including his dialogs with to Gaeton Fonzi - that they needed a thorough examination and John did fine work on that.

Yet Phillips himself wrote of covert contact with anti-Castro groups (that was part of his tasking) including one with intentions of killing Castro - which would be true of the group Veciana was associated with at the time.  Phillips also wrote of using aliases and disguises in those contacts.

As to Alpha 66 and any possible contact by Phillips or the CIA with it, I assume that is yet to come from John - hopefully that will include a study of Veciana's claims to have later gotten a job with USAID during the period Phillips was assigned to a number of activities in Latin America. 

We do know the CIA had at least one source on Alpha 66 activities, I wrote about that years ago.  In fact JMWAVE knew of Alpha 66 attacks in advance and let them proceed - against Kennedy administration directives.  And we know about the Army intelligence connection to them and exactly what their interests were - and again have for some time. 

Hopefully when John moves on to the formation of Alpha 66 we will learn a great deal more - and I'm eagerly awaiting that.

 

 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

1. Was there no substantial tie between David Phillips and Alpha 66?

2. Did Antonio Veciana lie about Maurice Bishop being David Phillips?

3. Did Antonio Veciana lie about Maurice Bishop meeting Oswald?

 

I'm just wondering if there might be holes in Newman's analysis. For example, that he potentially could be depending on a document reporting incorrect information, a document with no corroboration.

Or is Newman's case quite solid?

 

Veciana’s composite sketch of Bishop looked so much like Phillips his niece ID’d him.

How is that explained away?

[Matt Allison]

There are definitely issues with Veciana's book though. Has Newman or anyone else contacted him recently? He won't be around much longer, and he is likely still under the impression that everyone believes everything in his book. I wish Tony Summers would talk to him and thoroughly question him as he did back in the late '70's, as Veciana knows much more than what he has said so far.

[Robert Montenegro]

John Newman's research is eloquent, however, I do not agree with the idea that David Atlee Phillips had no contact with Antonio Veciana Blanch after 1961.

David Atlee Phillips was made the commander all Cuban operations in 1962 by Richard McGarrah Helms, the Chief of Covert Action.

The idea that Philips never reached out to the founder of anti-Castro terrorist organization Alpha 66, is ludicrous.

And of course the United States Army was using Alpha 66.

United States Army executives Alexander Haig, Joseph A. Califano Jr. and Cyrus Roberts Vance were all focal-point officers to the CIA's terrorist activities against the Castro government.

David Atlee Phillips may or may not have been aware of Antonio Veciana Blanch before "Operation ZAPATA", but sure as hell knew who he was after the fact.

And according to Comandante Fabian Escalante of the Cuban Revolutionary Department of State Security, David Atlee Phillips was a member of "Operation 40", and purportedly helped create "stay-behind" assassin forces that operated in the provinces of Sancti Spíritus, Cienfuegos and Villa Clara.

You know, all of those spots where Alpha 66 was operating in.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Pat Speer]

On 6/5/2020 at 9:04 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

1. Was there no substantial tie between David Phillips and Alpha 66?

2. Did Antonio Veciana lie about Maurice Bishop being David Phillips?

3. Did Antonio Veciana lie about Maurice Bishop meeting Oswald?

 

I'm just wondering if there might be holes in Newman's analysis. For example, that he potentially could be depending on a document reporting incorrect information, a document with no corroboration.

Or is Newman's case quite solid?

 

I've had several chats with John about this, and have witnessed several of his presentations, and I believe he's heading towards claiming there was no Maurice Bishop, and that Veciana made up the whole story.

The dynamite in all this is that he thinks Veciana did this upon orders from the military. And that the military did this to cover up their own involvement in...something.

In our talks, I have tried to point out to John that none of this would make any sense unless Phillips was indeed Bishop, and that Veciana had been asked to point the finger at Phillips in particular. I mean, the drawing, and the overlap between Phillips and Bishop's career, is uncanny. As I recall, John said he hasn't got to this yet, but is convinced all the background info provided by Veciana about Bishop--about their meetings, etc--is an orchestrated lie.

 

Having met Veciana and his son briefly, and having witnessed their appearance at the Bethesda conference, and having had several long talks with Marie Fonzi, however, I am not as yet convinced Veciana was lying as part of some master plan, however. It just strikes me as odd that a man at the end of his life would go public and admit he knew the CIA was somehow involved with Oswald, and that he failed to say anything about this for years afterwards because he used to think JFK had had it coming. This isn't what one would call a heroic story. The only motivation, then, would be that he was either still being run (which seems doubtful) or that he had a sincere desire to come clean (and show some respect for his friend, Fonzi).

As far as flaws in John's analysis, yeah, I think there's a BIG one. John leaps upon every inconsistency in Veciana's recollections as evidence of lying. What he needs to do, IMO, is read some books on cognitive psychology and human memory. If he did so, he would realize that inconsistencies are to be expected, and are not signs of lying, but of the passage of time, and our susceptibility to outside influence.

I have studied the medical evidence and eyewitness evidence as much as anyone, and I can tell you that if one was to apply John's standard re Veciana to the Parkland and Bethesda medical witnesses and closest Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses, one would be forced to conclude many of them were XXXXX, and probably not the actual witnesses we know them to be. It's that bad.

So, in short, I tend to give Veciana a break on all this.

1. He may have exaggerated his relationship with Phillips, and concealed his much closer relationship with the military, for the presumed reason he was still cultivating a relationship with the military when he spoke to Fonzi, etc. And then decided to leave this out of his book.

2. He may have seen someone with Phillips he thought was Oswald, but was mistaken.

3. More credible to me, and perhaps more important, then, is Veciana's claim Phillips tried to use Veciana's cousin (as I recall) for propaganda purposes...to dummy up evidence for a Cuban connection to Oswald. (I'll be interested to see if John can find any evidence for this one.)

Perhaps Larry knows more on this last matter... Larry?

 

 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

44 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

 

I have studied the medical evidence and eyewitness evidence as much as anyone,
 

 Not a feather in your cap, Pat. 

Does Marie Fonzi know you dispute Gaeton’s jacket experiment with Arlen Specter?

[Matt Allison]

Thanks for the good points, Pat. If I''m understanding this so far, it sounds like Newman's hypothesis is that essentially Phillips was a patsy. I obviously do not agree.

Why would Veciana and Phillips be chosen for roles in such a scenario?

How does he explain away all the other people that confirmed the existence of a Maurice Bishop?

[Ron Bulman]

19 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Thanks for the good points, Pat. If I''m understanding this so far, it sounds like Newman's hypothesis is that essentially Phillips was a patsy. I obviously do not agree.

Why would Veciana and Phillips be chosen for roles in such a scenario?

How does he explain away all the other people that confirmed the existence of a Maurice Bishop?

Some people call me Maurice, 'cause I speak of the pompatus of love.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=steve+miller+some+people+call+me+maurice&view=detail&mid=FA743C28A89C83E0C256FA743C28A89C83E0C256&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dsteve%2bmiller%2bsome%2bpeople%2bcall%2bme%2bmaurice%26form%3dPRUSEN%26mkt%3den-us%26httpsmsn%3d1%26msnews%3d1%26rec_search%3d1%26refig%3d0c728d1809aa43a0a7ac8be4206360a1%26sp%3d1%26qs%3dAS%26pq%3dsteve%2bmiller%2bsome%2b%26sk%3dPRES1%26sc%3d8-18%26cvid%3d0c728d1809aa43a0a7ac8be4206360a1

[Chuck Schwartz]

John Newman, in his last sentence of chapter 11 of "Into the Storm" says " I will have much more to say about these events and rest of Veciana's story in Volumes 4 and 5."  So, John has not closed out the book on Veciana. I am not sure where he will land on this topic.