JMWAVE, anti-Castro Cubans and LHO

[Jim Hargrove]

Groups conducting illegal operations against Castro out of JM/WAVE in the early 1960s were run by CIA officers including David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, and William Harvey.  These names, of course, are familiar to JFK researchers, but proof of a direct connection between “Lee Harvey Oswald” and the huge Miami station has yet to be found, and I think I know why.

Just a couple of hours after JFK was killed, Hoover wrote a memo to top FBI officials that said, "Oswald went to Russia and stayed three years; came back to the United States in June, 1962, and went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for.”  According to the Warren Commission, Oswald never went to Cuba.  Why were these simple facts suppressed so thoroughly?

[Jonathan Cohen]

6 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

According to the Warren Commission, Oswald never went to Cuba.  Why were these simple facts suppressed so thoroughly?

Huh? Just because Hoover put them in a memo means they are "simple facts?" Are you now telling us that every word of what is in the FBI files on the assassination is a "fact?"  That's pretty rich coming from you, when you also claim virtually every piece of evidence in the case has been faked to hide the truth of the Oswald doppelganger project. You don't get to pick and choose which documents are legitimate and which ones aren't. It is perfectly plausible that in this instance, Hoover was either mistaken or covering his own behind.

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Huh? Just because Hoover put them in a memo means they are "simple facts?" Are you now telling us that every word of what is in the FBI files on the assassination is a "fact?"  That's pretty rich coming from you, when you also claim virtually every piece of evidence in the case has been faked to hide the truth of the Oswald doppelganger project. You don't get to pick and choose which documents are legitimate and which ones aren't. It is perfectly plausible that in this instance, Hoover was either mistaken or covering his own behind.

That's right!  You have to look at the evidence AS A WHOLE and decide what the true facts are.  There are quite a few false documents in this case, but the overwhelming majority are surely legit.  If it was easy, the JFK assassination would have been deciphered years ago.  But we're getting there!

Now,  Would anyone else care to consider the possibility that Mr. Hoover was right when, two hours after the assassination, he wrote:

"Oswald went to Russia and stayed three years; came back to the United States in June, 1962, and went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for.”

[Jonathan Cohen]

4 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

There are quite a few false documents in this case, but the overwhelming majority are surely legit.

That's not what John Armstrong says, and it's surely not the position advocated by "Harvey & Lee" adherent John Butler...

5 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Now,  Would anyone else care to consider the possibility that Mr. Hoover was right when, two hours after the assassination, he wrote:

"Oswald went to Russia and stayed three years; came back to the United States in June, 1962, and went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for.”

No, because there is not a shred of evidence to support such a claim.

[Jim Hargrove]

FROM: SAC (New York)
TO: Director FBI

Enclosed for each recipient is one copy of a self-explanatory Army communication dated 12.30.63 captioned Harvey Oswald.

Enclosed Army communication alleges that Oswald was in Cuba in the company of Robert Taber, former head of Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), approximately three weeks after the April 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

[Ron Bulman]

So Lee Harvey Oswald returned from Russia in June 1962.  While he was gone Harvey Oswald was in Cuba 3 weeks after the Bay of Pigs in April 1961.  With the head of the FPCC at the time.

Hmm.  I thought the FPCC was created by the CIA.  Something is a little fishy here.  

[Jonathan Cohen]

4 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

FROM: SAC (New York)
TO: Director FBI

Enclosed for each recipient is one copy of a self-explanatory Army communication dated 12.30.63 captioned Harvey Oswald.

Enclosed Army communication alleges that Oswald was in Cuba in the company of Robert Taber, former head of Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), approximately three weeks after the April 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

See below from H.P. Albarelli's "A Secret Order." Below, click to download or click here for direct access to a PDF of the FBI's Feb. 12, 1964 interview with Haber, where he categorically denies ever knowing anyone named "Harvey Oswald."

Item 01.pdf

Edited January 14, 2022 by Jonathan Cohen

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Enclosed Army communication alleges that Oswald was in Cuba in the company of Robert Taber, former head of Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), approximately three weeks after the April 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

 

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

See below from H.P. Albarelli's "A Secret Order." Below, click to download or click here for direct access to a PDF of the FBI's Feb. 12, 1964 interview with Haber, where he categorically denies ever knowing anyone named "Harvey Oswald."

 

Well, let's see... Jim chooses to believe the earlier FBI report before the JFKA coverup is in full swing, and Jonathan chooses to believe the late FBI report which was used to write the Warren Commission report.

IMO Jonathan's goal isn't to determine the truth, but rather to argue with Jim.

(My assessment is based on the assumption that Jonathon is a CTer, not an LNer.)

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Jim Hargrove]

Hi, Sandy,

I hadn’t seen Mr. Cohen’s document before, and it is interesting, though it certainly doesn’t prove Luace’s ID was wrong.  Nevertheless, I’m perfectly willing to concede the possibility that the report was a case of mistaken identity or something like that, but as always in this case, you have to look at all the evidence and not just some of it.

How can Hoover’s 11/22/63 statement can be regarded as a “mistake.”  According to Hoover, not only was the FBI aware of “several” LHO trips to Cuba, but agents had clearly questioned Oswald about those trips and Oswald refused to say why he visited.  How could Hoover make a “mistake” like that?

So, what else was happening in 1961?  For one, the Bolton Ford incident, in which “Lee Oswald” and a man named “Joseph Moore” visited the dealership and asked for quotes on trucks to send to Cuba.  The sale was on behalf of “Friends of Democratic Cuba,” an organization headed by, among others, W. Guy Banister and Gerard Tugague.

In late 1960 or early 1961, KBOX news director Raymond Carney said he met Lee Oswald several times when Oswald was trying to get a list of pilots’ names who had volunteered to fly missions over Cuba.

Also in 1961, State Department official Edward Hickey sent a written memo to fellow official John White informing him, “it has been stated there is an imposter using Oswald’s identification data…"

This same time frame, late 1960 and/or 1961 is when numerous people worked with “Lee Harvey Oswald” at anti-Castro training camps and safe houses in Florida and Louisiana.  Many of these activities, I believe,  were funded by JM/WAVE, and “Lee Harvey Oswald” was intimately involved with them.

The HSCA was so upset by the testimony of Marita Lorenz that lawyers threatened her with prison time if she didn’t retract the following testimony:

Mr. Fithian: "Now is it your testimony that the first time you saw Oswald would have been in the camps in the Everglades?"
Marita Lorenz: "The very first time, no. I saw him in the Safehouse and then in the camps."
Mr. Fithian: "And that first meeting at the Safehouse would have been within a year of the Bay of Pigs?"
Marita Lorenz: "I would say 1960."
Mr. Fithian: "It would be some time during 1960?"
Marita Lorenz: "Late 1960."
Mr. Fithian: "All right. Now I want to be sure that I have your dates correct. You said the first meeting of LEE Harvey Oswald, the first time you saw him, was at a Safehouse in Miami in 1960."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "The next time or times that you saw him were during training at a camp in the Everglades, various places in the Everglades, in early 1960, 1961 period?"
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "And after that you saw him at the Safehouse the second time?"
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "What makes you so sure of the dates. Within a year of the first meeting in the Safehouse and the meeting at the camps in the Everglades, is there anything else you could match that up with?"
Marita Lorenz: "The photographs, the events that took place. the photographs that Alex (Rorke) took. Everywhere we went Alex took pictures."
Mr. Fithian: "This was prior to the Bay of Pigs?"
Marita Lorenz: "Yes, April, 1961, was the Bay of Pigs."
Mr. Fithian: "And you are sure you saw him (Oswald) before April, 1961."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes, because Alex took the pictures."
Mr. Fithian: "And the whole purpose of the training was to somehow participate or help in the Bay of Pigs.
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "Did you see Oswald at any time in the intervening two years between early 1961 prior to April of 1961 and the September-October Safehouse meeting in 1963?"
Marita Lorenz: "No, but Frank (Sturgis) kept in touch with me. Alex kept in touch with me."
Mr. Fithian: "Mrs. Lorenz, has your attorney explained what perjury before a congressional committee is all about?"
Marita Lorenz: "That is right, yes."
Mr. Fithian: "In any way do you want to change your testimony on these dates?"
Marita Lorenz: "No, I do not."
Mr. Fithian: "There is adequate documentary evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald did not indeed return from the Soviet Union until June of 1962.
Marita Lorenz: "I don't know about that."
Mr. Fithian: "Therefore you could not have met him at the Safehouse in 1960, you could not have seen him in the Everglades in 1960 and 1961, and you could not have taken a picture in those areas and could not have a picture for the dates of that time."
Marita Lorenz: "No?"
Mr. Fithian: "It is not possible."
Marita Lorenz: "I don't know about that."
Mr. Fithian: "Now can you explain to the committee why you gave us this false information as far as dates?"
Marita Lorenz: "I did not give you false information."
Mr. Fithian: "Mrs. Lorenz, I went over your testimony very carefully a moment ago and you assured me that you met Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the Bay of Pigs."
Marita Lorenz: "I did."
Mr. Fithian: "On two occasions."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "Lee Harvey Oswald was in Russia during that entire period."
Marita Lorenz: "I do not know that. I did not know that. The Lee Harvey Oswald that I met was the same in that picture, the one in the Safehouse. the same one that Frank knows. I do not know where he was according to your information. I do not know. I never read up on anything about these theories that are coming out about him."
Mr. Fithian: "This is not a matter of theory."
Marita Lorenz: "I know I am telling the truth. If you don't want it, that's too bad, you know. I am here to gain nothing, you know. Nothing. Nothing at all. You are trying a homicide investigation that should be solved, you know. Don't dispute me or put me on trial."
Mr. Fithian: "Only if we can have full and truthful testimony."
Marita Lorenz: "You have got it. You have it from me. I don't know about the other people. I have nothing to lose and nothing to hide-nothing.
Mr. Fithian: "And it is your testimony that you are certain that the person you met at the Safehouse and at the camps of the Everglades is the same person that you met in Dallas."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes, it is."
Mr. Fithian: "Do you have any explanation for how we come up with two Lee Harvey Oswalds during this period?"
Marita Lorenz: "I have no explanation. I know the man I met; he was a creep. I didn't like him. I don't have to be here at all. I have nothing to gain.
Mr. Fithian: "Thank you. That is all."

It seems quite obvious, from the evidence above and more, that Lee Harvey Oswald was intimately involved with the very sorts of anti-Castro activities funded and organized by JM/WAVE.
 

[Steve Thomas]

On 1/13/2022 at 7:30 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

Groups conducting illegal operations against Castro out of JM/WAVE in the early 1960s were run by CIA officers including David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, and William Harvey.  These names, of course, are familiar to JFK researchers, but proof of a direct connection between “Lee Harvey Oswald” and the huge Miami station has yet to be found, and I think I know why.

Just a couple of hours after JFK was killed, Hoover wrote a memo to top FBI officials that said, "Oswald went to Russia and stayed three years; came back to the United States in June, 1962, and went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for.”  According to the Warren Commission, Oswald never went to Cuba.  Why were these simple facts suppressed so thoroughly?

Jim,

I'm curious about the line in Hoover's memo that says Oswald, "...went to Cuba on several occasions, but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for."

Who is us?

This memo is dated at 4:01 P.M on November 22nd.

Who would have had time to talk to Oswald by 4:01 P.M.?

Bookhout? Hosty?

I'm reminded of the Stringfellow cable that went out around 11:00 P.M. That also said that Oswald went to Cuba, if I remember right.

For anyone who suggests that Oswald went to Cuba three weeks after the Bay of Pigs... He was still in Russia.

I've never seen any documents that allowed Oswald to go traveling outside of Russia in that time period.

There is this possibility though... Didn't I read somewhere that Oswald supposedly went to Cuba in 1959?

In 1959, he was still in the Marines. If he had undergone some kind of intelligence training while he was in the Marines, could he have gone under the aegis of the U.S. Government (CIA) and did not want to tell the FBI about it?

Steve Thomas

Edited January 14, 2022 by Steve Thomas

[Jim Hargrove]

Hi, Steve,

In the same memo, Hoover wrote, “we have had a case on Oswald as he has been involved in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.”  Seems highly unlikely that Hoover would have concluded that Oswald “is not a communist but has communist leanings” based on anything that came out of Dallas so early that afternoon.

When Hoover wrote that Oswald “went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for,” the most logical reading, to me at least, is that “us” refers to the FBI or even to Hoover himself and that it came from the Bureau's case file on Oswald

Quote

For anyone who suggests that Oswald went to Cuba three weeks after the Bay of Pigs... He was still in Russia.

Ah, but besides Luace's statement, there’s lots of other evidence suggesting “Lee Harvey Oswald” was active in the United States at the same time “Lee Harvey Oswald" was in the Soviet Union.  I tried to briefly summarize some of it above, but it includes the Bolton Ford incident, the meetings with KBOX news director Ray Carney, the 1961 State Department memo saying that “an imposter is using Oswald’s identification data” as well as the testimony of Marita Lorenz, and quite a bit more that I haven’t presented here.  

Edited January 15, 2022 by Jim Hargrove

[Steve Thomas]

45 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Hi, Steve,

In the same memo, Hoover wrote, “we have had a case on Oswald as he has been involved in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.”  Seems highly unlikely that Hoover would have concluded that Oswald “is not a communist but has communist leanings” based on anything that came out of Dallas so early that afternoon.

Ah, but besides Luace's statement, there’s lots of other evidence suggesting “Lee Harvey Oswald” was active in the United States at the same time “Lee Harvey Oswald" was in the Soviet Union.  I tried to briefly summarize some of it above, but it includes the Bolton Ford incident, the meetings with KBOX news director Ray Carney, the 1961 State Department memo saying that “an imposter is using Oswald’s identification data” as well as the testimony of Marita Lorenz, and quite a bit more that I haven’t presented here.  

Jim,

I'm almost sure that the FBI was intercepting Oswald's mail while he was in New Orleans.

(... anything going to the Communist Party, and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York, etc)

I forgot about the 1961 incidents of "Lee Harvey Oswald" being in the United States. If "Lee Harvey Oswald" was trying to buy jeeps for anti-Castro Cuba efforts, it's conceivable that "Lee Harvey Oswald" went to Cuba undercover.

Steve Thomas

[Lawrence Schnapf]

Ben- I am of course only speculating and drawing inferences to cobble together a theory in the absence of smoking gun documentation.

I think the mafia either through Marcello or Trafficante (who had much less FBI electronic coverage than Giancano) funded the training of the exiles and that some rogues middle manager in CIA became aware of the plot and orchestrated LHO movements that day,

Regarding keeping LHO in the right spot. my operating thesis is that he was told by his handler to hang by the first floor phone for a call. LHO may have been told there was going to be some demonstration and he would receive his instructions. when that call didnt happen and he realized the president was shot, he then went home to get his pistol and meet his contact at the theater which was probably a  pre-arranged meeting location. 

Note that after the DPD was told they saw a gunman on the upper floor, did they rush to that floor? no, they commenced a floor by floor sweep from the ground up- giving the pretend shooter on the sixth floor to plant evidence. (yes- Baker went up to the roof but the later systematic search was from the ground up).  

This is work in progress. looking forward to you poking holes for me to drill down further...

 

[Steve Thomas]

On 1/15/2022 at 9:11 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

When Hoover wrote that Oswald “went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for,” the most logical reading, to me at least, is that “us” refers to the FBI or even to Hoover himself and that it came from the Bureau's case file on Oswald

 

Jim,

Was it Marina who said that the FBI came by their house and took Oswald outside where they sat in a car for a couple of hours? Was that in 1962?

We'll never know what they talked about.

Steve Thomas

[Chuck Schwartz]

Lawrence, I believe the CIA took the premier role in the JFKA and the mafia was more of a support role.  I do believe that LHO was taking direction from his CIA handler (DAP?) on that fateful day.