For Messrs. Hargrove, Zartman, Kowalski, et al...

[Jim Hargrove]

On 7/11/2021 at 4:59 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

To me it makes a lot more sense that the original Lee Harvey Oswald was used only to provide a childhood background for the defector/spy Harvey. After the Marines switcheroo, Harvey (the one later shot by Ruby) became the "one and only" LHO as far as U.S. intelligence was concerned.

Now, clearly there were Harvey impostors after the switheroo took place. And who knows, maybe some of these missions were fulfilled by the original LHO. But by this time, as an adult, the original LHO likely no longer looked so much like Harvey. There was no reason the CIA had to keep using the original LHO as an imposter.

Sandy,

We’ve discussed before that there is little evidence that both of the two LHOs active in and around Dallas in the weeks preceding the assassination were, in fact, the same two LHOs attending, for example, different schools simultaneously in the 1950s, and existing at different places in the USMC a few years later.  There are a couple of minor hints suggesting it, though, one of which I’ll describe below.

For a moment, though, let’s consider who would be the most likely candidates for the two LHOs in Dallas in October and November 1963.  One, we know, was the Russian-speaking LHO shot dead by Jack Ruby.  Who could the other have been?  Let’s speculate a little….

If you were a part of American Intel and knew about the Oswald project, and knew the American-born LHO had demonstrated loyalty to the operation, was familiar with Dallas and environs and also knowledgeable about the other LHO and his experiences, wouldn’t that LHO (the birth LHO) be the most likely candidate to recruit to set up the patsy to be?  Who else would be a better candidate?

Now to one minor hint about the identity of the second Oswald in 1963:

As you know, Myrtle and Julian Evans, both of whom had known Marguerite Oswald for years until a decade or so before their WC appearances, both testified that they couldn’t recognize “Marguerite” and that the Lee Harvey Oswald they had known was loud and boisterous, with a "foghorn voice."  That does not seem to describe the more taciturn Russian-speaking Oswald known to the world after the assassination as LHO.

Texas Employment Commission employee Laura Kittrell told  the U.S. Attorney in Dallas, and anyone else who would listen to her, including the FBI, that she interviewed two young men, both of whom claimed to be “Lee Harvey Oswald” just weeks before the assassination, at the very time one Oswald was obviously imitating the other. 

Kittrell told the HSCA’s Gaeton Fonzi that the second LHO she spoke to had “the same general outline and coloring and build, but there was something so different in his bearing…. He had this peculiar way of laughing and talking so that people all over the room could hear him” and added that the other LHO she interviewed “wasn’t like that at all.”  One Oswald was neat and quiet, the other boisterous and a bit sloppy.  Does that description of the two LHOs sound familiar?

[Jim Hargrove]

Mr. Charles-Dunne started this thread because he was alarmed that anyone would even speculate whether one of Marguerite Oswald’s husbands could have a relationship with American Intel. 

His concern is well founded.  After all, we have testimony from a CIA accountant that the “Oswald Project” was indeed funded by the CIA!  Who else could have been a part of the “Oswald Project”?  

Specifically, CIA accountant James Wilcott told HSCA investigators that money he himself disbursed was for the “Oswald Project” and that the CIA cryptonym for the “Oswald Project” was RX-ZIM.  

Who else could have been a part of the “Oswald Project?”  Mommie… her husband(s)…?  We were just speculating and sharing notes and, as I said days ago, we had found no hard evidence that Ekdahl was associated with American Intel, although LHO clearly was!  Many of us plan to continue to look for connections between Ekdahl and the intelligence services.  In the meantime,  let's talk more about Oswald and the CIA!!    

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Mr. Charles-Dunne started this thread because he was alarmed that anyone would even speculate whether one of Marguerite Oswald’s husbands could have a relationship with American Intel.

I expected better from you, Jim.

I never expressed "alarm” over anything.

On the contrary.  I supplied data of which you seemed unaware

"NOTE: Following the assassination of President Kennedy the FBI conducted a background search on Edwin Ekdahl. Their report states, "Records do not indicate where Ekdahl worked from 1943 to 1953. The company (EBASCO Services) will not be able to furnish this information." The only other identifying information included was Ekdahl's social security number which was 001-09-9471."

 

The FBI reported that for at least a 3 year duration, Ekdahl was based out of Fort Worth. So whether EBASCO’s files (on a man already ten years dead) regarding where he worked were incomplete, FBI found out at least a portion of that. A fact you don’t disclose. In fact, you suggest just the opposite, that the Bureau couldn’t account for his whereabouts for a decade. As previously posted by your humble scribe, the Bureau provided his place of employment for a third of the time you say has vanished. Fort Worth. Three years. Sorry, what was it you assured readers the Bureau couldn't find ten years of?

Two pages of antidote:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57725#relPageId=182&search=ebasco

I would presume if there was any reason to investigate him further, the Bureau would have done so. But since he'd been dead for a decade when the assassination occurred, it seems unlikely Ekdahl played a role in it.  If you can demonstrate otherwise, I'd be astounded.

As demonstrated previously, the quoted “NOTE” above was little more than purple prose signifying nothing but an attempt to convey Ekdahl was part of some type of intel plot.

 

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

His concern is well founded.

I have no “concern,” but thanks for trying to mock by fabrication.

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

After all, we have testimony from a CIA accountant that the “Oswald Project” was indeed funded by the CIA!  Who else could have been a part of the “Oswald Project”?  

Specifically, CIA accountant James Wilcott told HSCA investigators that money he himself disbursed was for the “Oswald Project” and that the CIA cryptonym for the “Oswald Project” was RX-ZIM.  

You know, I could have sworn that in the opening post of this thread, I asked specifically about Ekdahl. First you come back with Kittrell, and now with a Wilcott exhibit, a decade after Ekdahl's death. Does Wilcott mention Ekdahl? If not, why is this even here, where we're talking about Ekdahl and the assertions that he was in some way intel?  Which you now, eventually, admit don't exist. In passing, where fewer will notice.

Now you'd like to bait and switch with “The Oswald Project,” which couldn't possibly have been operative when Ekdahl was still alive. If Wilcott wrote or testified anything about Ekdahl, I'd welcome seeing it. If it doesn't exist, this is simply another cheap sleight of hand.

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Who else could have been a part of the “Oswald Project?”  Mommie… her husband(s)…?  We were just speculating and sharing notes

Jeez, how many people do you need to know about this TOP SECRET hush-hush doppelganger plot? In order for it to work by your assertions, just about everybody ever connected intimately with Oswald (family & friends) must have been made privy to this data. Rather defeats the purpose of a TOP SECRET hush-hush doppelganger plot, doesn't it?

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

and, as I said days ago, we had found no hard evidence that Ekdahl was associated with American Intel,

Then why do you need a hand addressed gilded invitation to share that fact, eventually, when there were no other gambits available?  Will you be appending such a corrective to your "NOTE" above.  Seems only right.

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

 Many of us plan to continue to look for connections between Ekdahl and the intelligence services.  In the meantime,  let's talk more about Oswald and the CIA!!    

I wish you success with your plans.  In the meantime, the issue here is Ekdahl, and those making against him unsupported charges of espionage.

Your analysis of the CIA does a disservice to everyone who has a serious case to make against the Agency.  Your metier is fostering a tale so tall, so internally inconsistent, so self-negating, so preposterous that all others with accusations against the Agency are tarred with your brush.  This isn't a serious investigation into the President's murder, or the role played in it by CIA.  This is masquerading propaganda that does CIA's bidding for it.

But, sincerely, thanks for bothering to reply.  I much prefer you the person to the re-re-recycled derp you have often sent in your stead.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Andrew Prutsok writes:

Quote

So, if someone answers the question directly and provides evidence, it still doesn't mean anything?

This is the comment of mine that Andrew is referring to:

Quote

Plenty of people in the immediate post-war period had intelligence connections. Even if Ekdahl was one of them, that by itself wouldn't imply that he was playing a part in a ludicrously improbable top-secret double-doppelganger project.

Andrew seems to have misunderstood what I meant, though I'm not sure how he managed it. I'll try again:

If someone provides evidence that Edwin Ekdahl had some sort of connection to US intelligence, that by itself does not allow us to conclude that he was involved in a 'Harvey and Lee'-like scheme.

That's because it is possible for Ekdahl, or anyone else, to be connected to US intelligence without being part of any scheme involving two pairs of doppelgangers. 

In the real world, plenty of people have intelligence connections, and none of them have ever been involved in an incoherent double-doppelganger scheme, for the simple reason that such a scheme could never have been implemented. 

Of course, if someone were to produce evidence that can only be interpreted as showing that Ekdahl was involved in such a scheme, that would be a different matter. But as things stand, no-one has even produced any evidence to support the speculation that Ekdahl had any intelligence connections, let alone that he played a part in a bizarre fantasy involving imaginary doppelgangers.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove has again brought up James Wilcott's use of the phrase 'Oswald project' to justify the 'Harvey and Lee' theory.

Wilcott's notion of an 'Oswald project' specifically contradicted the 'Harvey and Lee' theory in several important respects:

• Wilcott's Oswald was one person, not two. Wilcott's Oswald did not have a doppelganger, and Wilcott's Oswald's mother did not have a doppelganger. 
• Wilcott's Oswald was an English-speaking American, born and brought up in the USA, not a native Russian-speaking eastern Eurpean refugee.
• Wilcott claimed that Oswald was recruited by the CIA while in the Marines, not several years earlier while still a child.

Those are the three central elements of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, and they are all contradicted by James Wilcott.

You can argue about whether or not Wilcott's 'Oswald project' actually existed, but you can't use it to try and prop up a bizarre double-doppelganger scheme that could never have happened.

Jim really ought to stop misrepresenting Wilcott. His error has been pointed out to him at least once before. The 'simple misunderstanding' excuse might work the first couple of times, but it won't work if Jim tries that trick again.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Jeremy Bojczuk
Added a link

[Andrew Prutsok]

12 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Andrew Prutsok writes:

This is the comment of mine that Andrew is referring to:

Andrew seems to have misunderstood what I meant, though I'm not sure how he managed it. I'll try again:

If someone provides evidence that Edwin Ekdahl had some sort of connection to US intelligence, that by itself does not allow us to conclude that he was involved in a 'Harvey and Lee'-like scheme.

 

 I thought below was the question being asked in the initial post in this thread to which an answer was sought:

What evidence (needn’t even be proof, since the two words have different meanings) can any of the above muster for the assertion that Ekdahl did anything other than his traveling electrical consultant job for EBASCO?  As in, you know, intel?  And perhaps you could hazard a guess why he would take (a) Marguerite with him while doing this TOP SECRET work?

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

5 hours ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

17 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Andrew Prutsok writes:

This is the comment of mine that Andrew is referring to:

Andrew seems to have misunderstood what I meant, though I'm not sure how he managed it. I'll try again:

If someone provides evidence that Edwin Ekdahl had some sort of connection to US intelligence, that by itself does not allow us to conclude that he was involved in a 'Harvey and Lee'-like scheme.

 

Expand  

 I thought below was the question being asked in the initial post in this thread to which an answer was sought:

What evidence (needn’t even be proof, since the two words have different meanings) can any of the above muster for the assertion that Ekdahl did anything other than his traveling electrical consultant job for EBASCO?  As in, you know, intel?  And perhaps you could hazard a guess why he would take (a) Marguerite with him while doing this TOP SECRET work?

Jeremy is, of course, correct to draw the distinction between an Ekdahl intel affiliation, and participation in the hypothetical H&L scenario.  

Even if Ekdahl had intel connections and/or was a witting asset of same, it in no way requires that he was necessarily involved in any way with the H&L hypothesis.  Or that he would need to know of such a purported project.  When the boy was nine years old.

In the absence of proof to the contrary.  Which is currently lost at sea.

I had hoped to elicit from the H&L purveyors precisely what they knew about Ekdahl. And if it would support the strong implications made that there was something odd about his incomplete work record.  Implications of espionage!  Woo-woo!

Turns out Team H&L has bupkis to show for this.

I figured if they had something, this would become an interesting thread.

And if they had nothing - as seems to be the case - the thread would die.

Which it now should, until evidence shows that Edwin Ekdahl was something other than a devoted step-father, a potential adulterer, and a traveling electrical consultant.

Or if H&L confreres wish to bicker here in public about what each of them has or had wrong.

I’d pay to read that.

[Jim Hargrove]

There are two main issues about “Lee Harvey Oswald” that I have concentrated on in this forum.  

1. John Armstrong’s research showing that two LHOs were active not only during the weeks leading up to the assassination, but for more than a decade earlier.

2. Whether a person believes in one, two, or more LHOs, the Oswald Project was a creation of American intel.  

My post above with a portion of Gaeton Fonzi’s report on Laura Kittrell was in answer to a post made in this thread by Sandy Larsen, who pointed out that there is little evidence that the pair of LHOs active throughout the 1950s and beyond were, in fact, the same pair active in mid to late 1963.  

I followed the Kittrell post with a short write-up about James Wilcott, in support of his assertion that LHO was on the CIA payroll.  This is a separate issue.  It is not my intention to claim Wilcott had knowledge of two Oswalds; he clearly didn’t.

More than three years ago, in this 2018 post, Sandy asked me if anything Mr. Wilcott said supported Harvey and Lee, and I said the following:

Quote

Jim Wilcott probably didn’t understood the full dimensions of what he called the “Oswald project.”    He apparently believed that Oswald was given Russian language courses and double agent training at the military base at Atsugi, Japan, which, according to the HSCA notes above, he described as a “deep cover CIA base.”  But as you probably know, one of the most thoroughly documented episodes in Harvey and Lee shows that it was American-born LEE Harvey Oswald who spent time at Atsugi, not the Russian-speaking youngster who went to Russia and was eventually shot dead by Ruby.

I have made numerous posts over the years making the case that LHO (one or more) was a creation of American intel.  In support of that, I’ve posted several newspaper articles indicating that the Kennedy Administration was a war with the CIA just weeks before the assassination.  I’ve also maintained a list of 20 or so facts indicating Oswald or the Oswald Project was run by the CIA.  This hasn’t been posted in a while, so I’ll attach it here.  I consider this a separate issue from Harvey and Lee.

20 Facts Indicating 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, probably left his family to marry (and possibly monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death.

7. George Joannides, CIA 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 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 as a church mouse, 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 returns to the U.S. without punishment and is 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 edition of the New York Times. “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn.

 

[John Kowalski]

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

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…

CIA were desperate for information about the Soviet Union. It was a totalitarian state and this made it difficult to get information about them. The reason why it was so difficult for Soviets to emigrate was the Soviet leadership did not want emigres going to the west and providing US intelligence agencies with information about them. If Oswald was a true defector who acted on his own volition the US government would not allow him to return to the US without first been debriefed by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

10 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

20 Facts Indicating the Oswald Project Was Run by the CIA

And this, Dear Friends, is what happens in H&L world.

Ask a question about Ekdahl, receive stuff about Kittrell completely unrelated to Ekdahl, apparently addressed to other H&L acolytes.  On a thread about Ekdahl.

Ask the same question abut Ekdahl, receive stuff about Willcott completely unrelated to Ekdahl, apparently also addressed to fellow H&L acolytes.  On a thread about Ekdahl.

Ask a third time about Ekdahl, and get 20 reasons why H&L should not be pulped...  Again, on a thread abut Ekdahl.

And In the midst of such is slipped in a most innocuous line:

On 7/12/2021 at 3:59 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

We were just speculating and sharing notes and, as I said days ago, we had found no hard evidence that Ekdahl was associated with American Intel

I must have missed where you - days ago - said you had found no hard evidence that Ekdahl was associated with American Intel.

Would you mind please citing it for me, as missing it would make me look rather like a horse’s posterior?

[Jim Hargrove]

17 hours ago, Robert Charles-Dunne said:

I must have missed where you - days ago - said you had found no hard evidence that Ekdahl was associated with American Intel.

Would you mind please citing it for me, as missing it would make me look rather like a horse’s posterior?

Way back on June 22, in an H&L thread you were actively participating in, John K. asked if John Armstrong “has found any connection between Edwin Ekdahl and ONI?”

On June 27 I answered as follows:  “I asked John A. about this and he said no, he had found no direct evidence for that.” Here is the link. 

I’m think there was at least one other post in which I said something like we were a long way from having hard evidence linking Ekdahl and American intel, but I’m not going to bother looking for it.  No matter what is said, you will try to launch a personal attack about it.  It is clear that several posters here are trying to use hate speech and personal invective as a smokescreen to hide from the evidence in this case.

In summary, you broke out of an existing H&L thread to start this new thread calling me out by name, and then you insisted that only you can determine what subjects I present in your new thread about me?  Unless I hear otherwise from a forum administrator, I don’t think things work that way.

I try my best to avoid this kind of personal rancor,  preferring to focus on the evidence, which I’ll start doing again.  I won’t even agree with your observation that you look like a horse’s posterior.  If you or Mr. B. wishes to continue the hatefest, I can’t stop you, but I’ll continue to discuss the EVIDENCE in this case.  Almost all of it is related to intel and LHO-World, just like your original alarm that we were speculating about Ekdahl and American intel.
 

[Jim Hargrove]

On 7/12/2021 at 11:21 PM, Robert Charles-Dunne said:

Your analysis of the CIA does a disservice to everyone who has a serious case to make against the Agency.  Your metier is fostering a tale so tall, so internally inconsistent, so self-negating, so preposterous that all others with accusations against the Agency are tarred with your brush.  This isn't a serious investigation into the President's murder, or the role played in it by CIA.  This is masquerading propaganda that does CIA's bidding for it.

Ah, can you feel the **LOVE**?  Since he asked so nicely, here is some more "masquerading propaganda" for Mr. Charles-Dunne showing that the war between the CIA and the Kennedy Administration was so bitter it had spilled onto the pages of U.S. newspapers, all just weeks before the assassination of JFK.

And here is the Scripps-Howard piece that so upset Mr. 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.

# # #

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

4 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

22 hours ago, Robert Charles-Dunne said:

I must have missed where you - days ago - said you had found no hard evidence that Ekdahl was associated with American Intel.

Would you mind please citing it for me, as missing it would make me look rather like a horse’s posterior?

Way back on June 22, in an H&L thread you were actively participating in, John K. asked if John Armstrong “has found any connection between Edwin Ekdahl and ONI?”

On June 27 I answered as follows:  “I asked John A. about this and he said no, he had found no direct evidence for that.” Here is the link. 

But that statement only discounts ONI, not the multiplicity of intel, US or otherwise. And you seem determined to find evidence, whether it exists or not. As in:

 

On 7/12/2021 at 3:59 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

Many of us plan to continue to look for connections between Ekdahl and the intelligence services.

So you have absolutely no basis to believe Ekdahl had Intel ties, but you're looking for it anyway.  Solid police work.

4 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

No matter what is said, you will try to launch a personal attack about it.  It is clear that several posters here are trying to use hate speech and personal invective as a smokescreen to hide from the evidence in this case.

So now ridiculing the patently risible is “hate speech” and “personal invective?” Sad really. 

 

5 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

In summary, you broke out of an existing H&L thread to start this new thread calling me out by name, and then you insisted that only you can determine what subjects I present in your new thread about me?

 

Yeah, I broke out of an existing thread because that existing thread didn't answer my questions.   Couldn't get the time of day from you.  Or the others, Denny Zartman excepted.  Now that you've been given no choice but to answer those questions, we see the quality of the answers on display.

It's funny you should mention dedicated threads, actually, because repeatedly in the past when a thread did not go to your liking, you simply started another one.

Jim, you’re not a stupid man. If a post addresses members by name and asks ONLY for information about that topic, do you really think repeated requests to only discuss Ekdahl is an open invitation to drop info irrelevant to the topic?

5 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Unless I hear otherwise from a forum administrator, I don’t think things work that way.

If you’d like to know how this works, you could always ask a Forum admin. Or complain, as you’ve been wont to do in the past. Never seen so many people play to the ref in my life.  But I hazard the guess that if there is such rule, it would have been invoked. At your insistence.

5 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

 If you or Mr. B. wishes to continue the hatefest, I can’t stop you,

Again with the “hatefest” stuff. Playing to the ref again?

5 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

but I’ll continue to discuss the EVIDENCE in this case.

Fact is, I asked repeatedly what evidence you had that Ekdahl had any intel affiliations, after you and yours had implied it numerous times.

What evidence did you have?

Nothing. By your admission, and by Armstrong’s.

And it only took a week or so of trying before you quickly and quietly whispered there was no evidence.

Since this thread has demonstrated you have nothing substantive about Ekdahl, it should waft off into the ether. 

It has served its purpose.

[Bernie Laverick]

What's so funny is that Mr Hargrove repeatedly taunts his critics to debate the evidence, "here and now. On this forum." He does this every few weeks despite there being 20 years of debate with millions of words on countless threads on this very forum.

Yet he cries pitifully when one of his deliberate mistruths is painfully drawn out after, reluctantly, he is MADE to discuss the facts. 🤣

And what fact have we all learned about the methods used by H$L supporters?

What most folk will see when they read this particular thread is how appallingly unprincipled your methods are. They will draw inevitable conclusions. 

They will also snigger at watching the humiliating responses; the evasions, the distractions, the mistruths, all topped off with a self pitying tantrum.

I guarantee that within a month one of them (or all) will, in another thread, simply repeat the lie that Ekdahl was an "intel assest". I guarantee it 

Any evidence? Of course not. This is H&L. No need for that. We state what we think may look 'suspicious' and then that gradually morphs into being a 'fact'.

And when it's constantly and comprehensively debunked, we just move on to yet another aspect of H$L. A few weeks down the line the same story is repeated (in this case Ekdahl) and we are all goaded into discussing it again. 

Anyway, on this occasion at least, you have been well and truly rumbled. We know this. And you know this. Hence the childlike hissy fit to distract attention.

 

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

I trust that the next time Jim Hargrove brings up the subject of James Wilcott's 'Oswald project' in the context of a 'Harvey and Lee' discussion, he will include a caveat like this:

"James Wilcott specifically contradicted three essential elements of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. If James Wilcott's 'Oswald project' existed, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's double-doppelganger scheme did not, and vice versa."

After all, Jim wouldn't want to give people the wrong impression about Wilcott, would he?