Exposing the FPCC, Part One

[James DiEugenio]

On 8/13/2021 at 9:18 AM, Paul Brancato said:

Thanks Jim for posting these two essays and for all your work.

I was glad to see that at the very end of Paul’s second essay he broached the idea that perhaps FPCC was in itself an Intelligence Operation. That seems very likely to me. It may be impossible to prove, especially given the fact that FPCC files are still hidden. But it has the earmarks of an Intelligence front, a lighting rod to draw subversives out, and to use against the members.

Greg Parker waned to comment on this issue also:

"From an article I wrote and posted in 2004 at an old site and at the Ed Forum: "Having at least some control over both sides of the propaganda war on Cuba would have had its advantages. And who know what else that control may be turned to in other operations?"

It now  lives here https://gregrparker.com/wp-content/plugins/pdf-poster/pdfjs/web/viewer.php?file=https://gregrparker.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FACILE-EST-IMPERIUM-IN-BONISv2.pdf&download=true&print=false&openfile=false

I also have a separate old piece showing background information on some of those that made the FPCC trip to Cuba. Mostly infiltrators and informants for USG or private intel agencies.  One even wrote a paper for an MKUltra subproject under INTS cover. 

PS Oswald was not "in" the REDSKIN Program.He was supported by it, though.  A nitpick only..."
 

[Ron Bulman]

Notes I didn't know from part one.

Jane Roman reported CIA security concerns made it too dangerous.  Shades of What Jane Roman Said by Jeff Morley.  Her and Angleton turn up again.

The Red Scare, in 1919-20 was a result of the Russian revolution of 1917.  Didn't know the red scare started that early or that a "red" bomber blew himself up prematurely trying to Assassinate John Rockefeller and J P Morgan (where would we be today without them?).  This led to the formation of the General Intelligence Division then in turn to  the FBI and J Edgar Hoover being chosen to run it.

The SCLC was a Black hate group per the FBI.  I've a problem with that one.  Raised as a now backsliding Baptist in my youth I don't remember sermons about blacks at all.  I imagine some members were racist but the preaching I heard was about forgiving and peace.  I realize Dallas James Criswell had a more radical right wing  agenda.

1.4 million American Citizens potentially subversives.  Hoover/FBI (?).

Jane Roman and James Angleton monitoring the FPCC.  There we go again.  A bit suspicious ain't it?  Monitoring Oswald? 

[James DiEugenio]

I truly think Paul's article is a milestone.

Many people had approached the subject of the FPCC, but I am glad Paul decided to put that, plus much new stuff about it, into a two part essay.

IMO, this must be incorporated into new work on both Oswald and New Orleans in general.  But what is really something is that its clear now that what Oswald was going to do in New Orleans was mapped out way in advance before he got there.  By both him and people like Stuckey.

Like I said, Oswald did not know he was participating in a double Venus fly trap.  One that would end both him and the FPCC.

[James DiEugenio]

DOn't forget, Paul and Ben are on BOR this evening.

By far the  best broadcast there is on the assassinations of the sixties.

[Greg Doudna]

A followup on John Thomas Masen: there has been some confusion over a photo of Masen. There are two photos circulating on the internet claimed to be of Masen which are not of the same person (pretty clear from looking at them). One is the high school photo of Masen. That one looks like Oswald, in the sense that one can easily see how a witness who had no previous personal knowledge of Oswald, could see the real Oswald on TV and think Masen whom they remembered seeing, was Oswald. The other photo traces back to a claim of a surveillance video in Masen's gun shop. There is no certainty that is Masen, nor attributable secure identification by anyone at all that that is Masen. It does not look like Oswald, and has been the basis for some analysts thinking ATF agent Ellsworth's claim of astonishing similarity in appearance is not correct. The sequence in these photos seems to be: (a) an original stage in which the Ellsworth story was known but there was no photo of Masen and one was wanted; (b) an unidentified anonymous source leaks a photo said to be from a surveillance video of Masen's gun store, of an individual unknown, without claiming certainty that this individual is Masen. (An intentional misdirection?!? Who knows. The leaking source has never been identified. For all we know, it could have been Masen himself! [There is no law enforcement agency record of video surveillance inside Masen's gun store, but video surveillance would be extremely reasonable for the gun shop owner himself, Masen, to have had installed.]) This image is not of Masen, as items "c" and "d" subsequently to come forth will prove (but some researchers to this day continue to be influenced by "b"). 

(c) Finally, a verified, confirmed, real photo of Masen at age 18 in 1958, his Woodrow Wilson high school senior yearbook photo, is published, in Mark Bridger, 'John Thomas Masen: A Picture at Last", Dealey Plaza Echo 8/3 (Nov 2004): 24-37. Bridger's article dug out biographical information and school history records of Masen, also noting that Masen appears to have, for whatever reason, intentionally avoided having photos taken or published at the various schools he attended after high school. This high school graduation photo is now widely circulated, different from the "video surveillance" of an unidentified figure at the counter of Masen's gun store (probably some random customer from Masen's in-store video). This high school photo (the one I posted earlier above) shows the striking likeness to Oswald's face. There is obviously nothing planned about this: it is pure coincidence and random chance. Yet it had real consequences in the aftermath of the JFK assassination when people who had seen Masen and cronies at the Sports Drome Rifle range think with all their hearts they remembered seeing Oswald. (However that was not the case, which is verified by in one alleged "Oswald sighting" at the Sports Drome, "Oswald" [Masen] was seen arriving with another man who shot from the stall next to "Oswald" [Masen]. Others thought "Oswald" [Masen] was Oswald. But not the man in the stall next to "Oswald" [Masen] who had come with him. He told the FBI he never saw Oswald there, even though he was shooting right beside the one others thought was Oswald! The reason he was sure that he never saw Oswald even though he was shooting right next to him is because he knew who it was, had arrived at the Sports Drome with him, and it was Masen!

(d) Finally, and the reason I post this, is to give a second photo of the real Masen, this one from his sophomore high school class in 1956, which I have not found available otherwise on the internet, simply as a convenience for others interested. This photo is from the Mark Bridger 2004 article cited above, and this photo and that article are available on the Mary Ferrell site (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16255#relPageId=28). Although these photos are from 7 and 5 years before 1963, respectively, the facial similarity to Oswald, and the ease by which the Sports Drome witnesses, no less than ATF agent Ellsworth, could be confused into thinking they had seen Oswald when they had actually seen Mannlicher-Carcano dealer and crack shot Masen at the firing range, comes through.

(Finally, (e), in agreement with my suggestion that Masen himself may have been the unidentified source of the "video surveillance" image of an individual inside Masen's store, suggested by the anonymous source who leaked it to be an image of Masen, but who was not, Mark Bridger's article ends on this humorous note: "Today [2004], John Thomas Masen is a 64-year old father of five, a busy owner of a survival weaponry parts business in Grand Prairie, just west of Dallas, Texas. When I contacted him with some questions on the assassination he said that there were two or three 'John Masens' in the gun business and I had the wrong one! I don't believe him!")

(Also, I am convinced, as has been previously suggested by others, that Elrod's cellmate in the Dallas jail during the period Nov 22-24, said by the La Fontaines to have been Oswald, was not Oswald [which is clear] but was Masen, who is verified there in that jail from a fingerprint card dated Nov 22 and who was involved with the gun runners including the one with the smashed face seen by Elrod. On that I have a further detail to add that I notice: in the original interview report of Elrod by the FBI in 1964, Elrod is reported as telling that his cellmate knew Ruby, but Elrod was reported as being unsure--when asked by FBI--on the timing, whether that conversation occurred before or after Ruby had shot Oswald. Well, if Elrod thought the cellmate was Oswald, Elrod would have known a conversation with his cellmate Oswald would not have occurred after Oswald had been shot dead! This says to me that the cellmate of Elrod was not Oswald but was Masen, and that that conversation remembered by Elrod, to the extent that it was real, occurred following the shooting of Oswald by Ruby, when Ruby was a known name, i.e. not earlier than Sunday morning Nov 24. It removes the objection of implausibility that Elrod invented the Ruby detail in remembering such a conversation. Elrod was not released from the Dallas jail until I think Monday Nov 25, and if the Elrod conversation in which the cellmate spoke of Ruby is real, then Masen also would not have been released until after Sunday morning Nov. 24.)

 

[Steve Thomas]

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

(d) Finally, and the reason I post this, is to give a second photo of the real Masen, this one from his sophomore high school class in 1956, which I have not found available otherwise on the internet, simply as a convenience for others interested. This photo is from the Mark Bridger 2004 article cited above, and this photo and that article are available on the Mary Ferrell site (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16255#relPageId=28).

 

 

Greg,

I do not want to hijack Jim's article on the FPCC, but I was intrigued by the attire that Masen and the other two guys are wearing in this photo. They look like Army private's caps.

In his article, Mark wrote that Masen was "...a captain and received ribbons galore...", but he doesn't say a captain in what.

Mark also wrote that, "“He was also a Woodrow Wilson Ranger for two years and attended Camp Dallas for three years) p.26.

[Site map of Camp Wolters and Camp Dallas]

Portal to Texas History

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth288608/

Description

"Map shows original Camp Wolters Texas National Guard camp, Camp Dallas, and roads and facilities of enlarged Camp Wolters; includes segregated area for "colored" infantry regiment.”

I could not find any reference to “Woodrow Wilson Ranger” in Google, or The Portal to Texas History.

I'm wondering if Masen was in the Texas State Guard Reserve Corps or the Texas National Guard as an ROTC student.

Steve Thomas

 

[Greg Doudna]

Masen can also be identified as entertainer Wally Weston's "Oswald" in Ruby's Carousel Club in ca. late Sept/early Oct 1963. Wally Weston's story of the person he recognized from later photos as "Oswald": http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/N Disk/New York Daily News 6-76/Item 01.pdf, also http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/W Disk/Weston Wally/Item 02.pdf. 

That the incident recalled by Wally Weston was real is confirmed in the Warren Commission testimony of Andy Armstrong of the Carousel, in which Andy A. tells of the same incident. This was a patron in the Carousel, and was not Crafard (WC asked, and Andy A. said no, this incident happened before Crafard started to work for Ruby, which according to an FBI document began "sometime in early October"). Andy Armstrong confirmed Weston's story that this individual had heckled Weston and Weston had decked him with a punch, whereupon Ruby threw the person out of the Club. Weston, and dancer Kathy Kaye (according to Weston), later were certain this had been Oswald. But Andy Armstrong, in his WC testimony, said this individual was at a table with two others that night and the three said they were from Arlington State College (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=47#relPageId=355&search=arlington_college). Oswald had nothing to do with Arlington State College, but Masen was a student at Arlington State College. Just as was the case with ATF Agent Frank Ellsworth and at the Sports Drome, this is another case in which people who encountered Masen mistakenly thought in retrospect that was Oswald, based on resemblance to Oswald's photos after the assassination. 

 

[Stu Wexler]

Greg: this is really solid work on Masen. So do you think these are all innocent cases of mistaken identity?  Or do you think there is something more to the Masen angle?

 

Stu

 

 

[Larry Hancock]

I guess this shows how subjective photo ID can be,  with all due apologies to Mr Masen I've always found him - well distinctively not good looking - and not at all a look alike for Lee Oswald if you are anywhere close to them,  I put their photos side by side on my Web site long ago to illustrate that.   Perhaps from a great distance but certainly not up close.

Which of course is a totally subjective take on my part....I even asked Dick Russell how in the world he could comment on a similarity in his book and we had a laugh about it. 

 

 

[Steve Thomas]

To James DiEugenio:

Jim,

David Joseph replied to a Thread in the Education Forum entitled, “When was Oswald first ID'd as a government informant? (page 3 of that thread) I think he was replying to Jim Hargrove. back in 2018.

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24744-when-was-oswald-first-idd-as-a-government-informant/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-373751

“Jim... there's a 2nd page to that report in John's file

3114 Harlendale? “

 

This would only a couple of doors down from the 3126 Harlendale address where the Dallas Chapter of the SNFC/Alpha 66 people were meeting.

Steve Thomas