Is Oliver Stone Homophobic?

[Benjamin Cole]

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

In the long version, we do have Horne's secret revelation about Oswald that Oliver had to squeeze out of him.

But as for the SS and the stripping, we for whatever reason could not get Palamara.  But I think he talked about it in Coup in Camelot.

Malcolm Blunt talked with former CIA officer Tennent Bagley (an expert on Russian ops) who indicated to Blunt that Oswald was a witting agent when in Russia. 

 

[W. Niederhut]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Good luck on that William. I don't know that much about Oswald either. Maybe someone who does will let you know if your hypothesis resonates with what they know about Oswald.

The hypothesis may be impossible to test, in the absence of CIA records.

If Oswald had been an Estabrooks' protocol Jones A/Jones B subject, how could we know, if Helms destroyed the top secret MK-ULTRA records in 1973?

John Newman points out in Oswald and the CIA that there were, apparently, no known CIA files on Oswald prior to his defection in 1959-- and a 201 wasn't opened until December of 1960.

[Ron Bulman]

5 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Sandy,

     I probably know less about Oswald than most of the members here on the forum.

     What piqued my interest in Oswald's history recently was reading Dr. George Estabrook's 1943 commentaries about the potential applications of hypnosis to warfare and espionage.  One protocol that he described involved establishing an amnestic pro-communist alter personality in a Marine, which could be used to infiltrate and spy on communist organizations and/or Soviet bloc countries. 

      His WWII era case of Marine Lieutenant "Jones" sounded suspiciously like what we later observed in the case of Oswald, the false defector Marine who later posed as an enthusiastic communist member of the FPCC, Socialist Worker's Party, etc.

    Estabrooks ideas were, apparently, warmly welcomed by the U.S. War Department during WWII.

I'm no expert on Oswald, very few of those.  His conversion from patriotism as a marine enlistee to a communist defector is perplexing.  Then back to the USA.  Then a Castro purported supporter.

Dr, Bryan taught Ferrie hypnotism.  When?  Was Oswald  hypnotized?  Before going to Russia and/or the JFKA?  Others from Estabrooks to West's potential involvement should be considered.   

[W. Niederhut]

17 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

I'm no expert on Oswald, very few of those.  His conversion from patriotism as a marine enlistee to a communist defector is perplexing.  Then back to the USA.  Then a Castro purported supporter.

Dr, Bryan taught Ferrie hypnotism.  When?  Was Oswald  hypnotized?  Before going to Russia and/or the JFKA?  Others from Estabrooks to West's potential involvement should be considered.   

Ron,

   The reason I mentioned Estabrooks in relation to the Oswald case is because of Estabrooks' rather striking description in 1943 of his professed ability to induce a pro-communist alter personality in a suitable Marine, for the purpose of spying on communist organizations and/or countries.  (He also described a potential Manchurian candidate protocol.)

   But, if it happened in Oswald's false defector case, my hunch is that Angleton would have hidden any evidence.

[Bob Ness]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Good luck on that William. I don't know that much about Oswald either. Maybe someone who does will let you know if your hypothesis resonates with what they know about Oswald.

Try this:

Let's say Jimmy J has a suspicion that a mole resides somewhere in the CIA. He decides he needs to find the mole no matter what and finds some likely knucklehead to act as bait. The bait has to look good so that he attracts the game - in this case Ivan the Russian - to try something foolish.

He recruits a red herring "defector" that happens to have information on the U2 and whose background can be easily corroborated. The defector doesn't have so much knowledge it would risk giving Ivan super-secret information, just enough to wet his pallet. They furnish the defector anything he needs to defect including training, money, transportation etc. Jimmy holds most of the information on the defector within a few locations in the CIA where that information is cataloged or filed and maybe a few other, limited offices.

When our defector shows up at Ivan's, he gets debriefed and questioned and so on but Ivan probably thinks he's a dangle or at least it's a coin flip. Ivan says to himself "Gee whiz, maybe I should check this guy's bonafides with Frank the Mole in Arlington."

Frank goes nosing around in the places he knows such things will show up - like the office that routes information around among others - and lo and behold - gives himself away.

I think it's something like that. If you vary the description of the person or alter details such as a middle name, weight, hometown or whatever in the various places the source can be further narrowed. That's called "marked cards".

The whole thing gets so convoluted....

[W. Niederhut]

12 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

Try this:

Let's say Jimmy J has a suspicion that a mole resides somewhere in the CIA. He decides he needs to find the mole no matter what and finds some likely knucklehead to act as bait. The bait has to look good so that he attracts the game - in this case Ivan the Russian - to try something foolish.

He recruits a red herring "defector" that happens to have information on the U2 and whose background can be easily corroborated. The defector doesn't have so much knowledge it would risk giving Ivan super-secret information, just enough to wet his pallet. They furnish the defector anything he needs to defect including training, money, transportation etc. Jimmy holds most of the information on the defector within a few locations in the CIA where that information is cataloged or filed and maybe a few other, limited offices.

When our defector shows up at Ivan's, he gets debriefed and questioned and so on but Ivan probably thinks he's a dangle or at least it's a coin flip. Ivan says to himself "Gee whiz, maybe I should check this guy's bonafides with Frank the Mole in Arlington."

Frank goes nosing around in the places he knows such things will show up - like the office that routes information around among others - and lo and behold - gives himself away.

I think it's something like that. If you vary the description of the person or alter details such as a middle name, weight, hometown or whatever in the various places the source can be further narrowed. That's called "marked cards".

The whole thing gets so convoluted....

Bob,

     Interesting scenario.

     According to John Newman, Oswald had a remarkably detailed fund of knowledge about the U2 program-- including details about altitude, tracking, and even off-the-record surveillance of China from the Philippines.

     I wonder if any of the Oswald-ologists on the forum have an opinion about whether Oswald's defection played a significant role in the downing of Gary Powers and his U2 by the USSR.

[Bob Ness]

10 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Bob,

     Interesting scenario.

     According to John Newman, Oswald had a remarkably detailed fund of knowledge about the U2 program-- including details about altitude, tracking, and even off-the-record surveillance of China from the Philippines.

     I wonder if any of the Oswald-ologists on the forum have an opinion about whether Oswald's defection played a significant role in the downing of Gary Powers and his U2 by the USSR.

I don't think any of that information would be unknown to them. They knew they were flying over and the speed, altitude etc but technical aspects of the power, airframe, surfaces and avionics would probably be over Oswald's head. They sent him to Minsk apparently satisfied he could fix cold solders and bundle wire but not to some advanced engineering facility in the Urals or wherever.

The lapse in time (13 months) between his defection and the opening of his 201 file could be because his information was diverted (Malcolm Blunt) around the ordinary channels that would create the file, to minimize access. Frank the Mole wouldn't find him in the slush pile of 201s everyone (figuratively speaking) had access to. He'd have to dig around.

It's an interesting theory (I didn't originate it) and very plausible.

I'd think the "Oswald spilled the beans and the Russians shot down Powers" is less likely. I just don't know why the Russians couldn't come up with a way to hit a target at 60,000 feet on their own without the help of a Marine private. Predicting the flight path and schedule maybe? That would be useful.

[Joe Bauer]

Just thought I'd post this part of Lee's mother Marguerite Oswald's initial Warren Commission testimony. 

 

"So then I went back to Crowell, Tex., and I was not satisfied in my mind because the way they lived. They only had a two- bedroom house. As you know, Robert has two children. And there was another couple with another child.
So Lee immediately began looking for work.
So I decided that I would quit this job and help the children all I could. So I did. I gave notice. And I came to Fort Worth, and I rented an apartment at the Rotary Apartments, which is on West 7th and Summit. And Lee and Marina then came to live with me.
Mr. RANKIN. How long did they stay at Robert's?
Mrs. OSWALD. They stayed at Robert's approximately 2 or 3 weeks, sir. So then they came to live with me.

While there, I said to Lee I am ahead of my story.

Lee and Marina had sent me wonderful gifts, and I have the gifts, from Russia. A box of tea, very fine tea, a Russian scarf, pure linen napkins, embroidered with my initial, a box of candy for Christmas that has a Russian Santa Claus on it.

>>> I said to Lee, "Lee, I want to know one thing. Why is it you decided to return back to the United States when you had a job in Russia, and as far as I know you seemed to be pretty well off, because of the gifts that you have sent me. And you are married to a Russian girl, and she would be better off in her homeland than here. I want to know." <<<
 

He said,

>>> "Mother, not even Marina knows why I have returned to the United States.<<<

And that is all the information I ever got out of my son."

>>> "Not even Marina knows why I have returned to the United States." <<<

 

We all know of Lee Oswald's mother's extremely aggressive mother's bias in promoting and defending her son's innocence. Mixed with her pushy, bossy nature she was a very unpleasant and off putting person.

Still, I can't dismiss this intriguing quote she recited and attributed to her son ( she WAS right there with him 1 on 1 ) any more than hundreds of other contradictory and suspicious thought provoking ones shared by countless other's in Oswald's world.

The Oswald enigma continues.

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

I think the reason for the return that most students of the Oswald file put forth is that once LHO was confined to Minsk, and he was surrounded by both humint, and found the listening device in his kitchen, he decided his usefulness was minimal to zilch and wanted to return.  John Newman mentioned this to me in my second interview with him. (Oliver did the first one.)

As per the filing system, that is really an interesting story.  And if not for Malcolm Blunt and his discovery of the Betsy Wolf notes, I am not sure we would have ever found out about it. From her notes, its pretty clear that someone rigged the filing system on Oswald in advance. She did not discover this until October of 1978. So therefore she could not begin the second part of her journey as to why it was rigged and who did it. 

But the very fact that this happened shows you that Oswald was not unnoticed in the CIA.  Someone had his eye out for him as he defected to Russia.

 

 

[Bob Ness]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

But the very fact that this happened shows you that Oswald was not unnoticed in the CIA.  Someone had his eye out for him as he defected to Russia.

Yes. Prior notice at that. As much as anything I find the inattention in other aspects telling also. I realize claiming that is sort of arguing a negative, but I doubt any other commie-lovin, GI quiting, Ruskie marrying, officer punchin, Russian speaking traitor on the planet got less attention or friendlier assistance and a lilly-white reception than Oswald. 

I have met and known several of the PTSD addled WW2 vets (as I know you have too) that made up the vast majority of the National Security apparatus and their sympathizers and a guy with Oswald's pedigree wouldn't last a minute with them. It would be pretty bad now but was a hundred times worse in 59.

[Ron Bulman]

So, someone would have been Dulles, and Angleton?

[James DiEugenio]

Well, that is an interesting question Ron.

That is what Betsy did not get to pursue.  Who rigged the system so that:

1.) Oswald's file went to the wrong place, and

2.) No 201 file was opened for 14 months.

She only found this out in October of 1978.  Two months before the HSCA expired.

Ben, we do have the Bagley recitation in the long version, namely that Oswald was a witting false defector.

Its really something that Betsy was on to this over 15 years before Newman.  Yet its not in the HSCA volumes, as far as I can see. In fact Betsy's notes never made it into typed memoranda  form.  Yet, her work I think is of extreme  importance. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Bob Ness]

On 2/14/2022 at 7:34 PM, Ron Bulman said:

So, someone would have been Dulles, and Angleton?

Maybe lower to begin with. Angleton had CI/SIG. He could have taken over somebody else's hobby project if it looked fruitful. Maybe the other way around? Hard saying but we all know where the buck comes to a halt.

MALCOLM BLUNT: ... when the State Department send their stuff (ie Oswald's info-BN) a lot of these other agencies – they come in multiple copies so there would have been – if you checked the aerograms and the stuff that came in from the State Department on Oswald, there were fifteen copies sent to CIA. Fifteen, you know! They didn't go anywhere except to the Security Office; in fact, they went to that one component; they went to the Security Research staff. And the Security Research staff, as we discussed maybe earlier, was – there was a bridge between the Security Research staff…

ALAN DALE: And SIG.

MALCOLM BLUNT: …and CI/SIG, so…

ALAN DALE: Right.

MALCOLM BLUNT: …for what reason – the question you ask is: "What reason was there for SIG – CI/SIG and SRS to…

ALAN DALE: Special Investigations Group and Security Research Staff.

MALCOLM BLUNT: Yes. …to keep that information to itself?"

JEFFERSON MORELY: ...I went back and re-read the (his and Armstrong's I believe - BN) interview with Jane Roman, and something jumped out at me that I had not noticed at all, which was when we asked her about the opening of the Oswald file she said that Ann Egerter had restricted access to it when it was opened in December 1960. So this is a woman who's remembering 34 years after the fact, and she remembers that this file was restricted to this one woman in CI/SIG...

They were playing a little bureaucratic game by routing to sections that had no remit to act on it. Malcolm explains that information held in such a way is either actionable or passive. The Office of Mail Logistics, responsible for distributing (more like funneling) information to the appropriate offices, skipped the Soviet Russia group (SR) who would ordinarily ACT on the information and sent it to Security Research and SIG. That meant SR had to know about the defection before it happened! SR wasn't on the distribution list! A defector to Russia but SR wasn't alerted?

IOW the routine "customer" for such info was the Soviet Russia group but they didn't request it as is normal, like every other defector. But it went to a passive office, Research Indexing Division (RID) where you would go to do a name search (it also went to the CI liason - another passive entity).

Anyone searching for files on Oswald would be obvious. Anyone not asking for files on Oswald means they didn't need to.

Dale, Alan; Blunt, Malcolm. The Devil is in the Details: Alan Dale with Malcolm Blunt (and J Morely - BN) on the Assassination of President Kennedy (pp. 30-31). Kindle Edition. 

Edited February 16, 2022 by Bob Ness

[James DiEugenio]

The interview with Roman was done with Newman, not Armstrong.

IMO, the importance of Betsy's discovery is not that SR did not request the files, it was that someone rigged the system in advance so it would not go to SR.  As Malcolm mentions, there could be up to 16 copies of a document, one of them had to be destined, probably even stamped, SR.  But it did not get there.

The questions that never got answered are:

1.) Who rigged the system?

2.) And for what purpose?

Since Betsy did not get that far, we can only speculate.  But it looks like they did not want a 201 file opened on Oswald.  This was the other question that Betsy was trying to answer.  Because she found out that the unofficial rule was that after five documents, the 201 was opened. Well Oswald had that many in his file after about two weeks post defection.  But there was no 201 opened.   Betsy found out that the main reason for this was that OS does not open 201 files.  So was this the reason for the rigging of the file in advance?

Unfortunately, we do not know that for sure.  It sure seems like a distinct possibility.

This is why I wanted her work in the film.  With the combination of Wolf, Bagley and what Horne says in the long version, I think it would have been pretty clear that Oswald was, at the very least, an asset of the CIA from the start.  And then the stuff that Morley and Newman say about New Orleans would have shown the end result.

 

 

Edited February 16, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Bob Ness]

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The interview with Roman was done with Newman, not Armstrong.

IMO, the importance of Betsy's discovery is not that SR did not request the files, it was that someone rigged the system in advance so it would not go to SR.  As Malcolm mentions, there could be up to 16 copies of a document, one of them had to be destined, probably even stamped, SR.  But it did not get there.

 

Right my mistake, Newman. Yeah I get it. SR is always on that list, somebody had to proactively divert it around them so they wouldn't act on it. Haha at least I think that's what you're saying.

Edited February 17, 2022 by Bob Ness