David Atlee Phillips: Oswald never went to Mexico!

[Keyvan Shahrdar]

Watching a JFK conference from 2013, Mark Lanes states that David Atlee Phillips stated Oswald never went to Mexico.  Citing video upload by @Vince Palamara

Is there a video of DAP stating so?

 

[Micah Mileto]

 cool find

[Matt Allison]

During a publicly held debate with Lane sometime in the mid-70s, Phillips said that there was no evidence LHO ever visited Mexico City. The interaction is detailed in Lane's 1991 book Plausible Denial.

[James DiEugenio]

To expand on what Matt just said:

Mark is, I think, exaggerating this a bit.

If you read his book Plausible Denial, Phillips does not quite say that. (pp.  82, 83)

He says that there was never a picture taken of Oswald in Mexico City.

Here is the ambiguous statement: "We will find out that Lee Harvey Oswald never visited, let me put it, that is a categorical statement, there, there, we will find out there is no evidence, first of all there was no proof of that.

Then there is this: "Second, there is no evidence to show that Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Soviet Embassy."

There is a difference between saying he was not there and there is no evidence or proof he was there.

But all in all, Phillips agreed with Danny and Eddy in the Lopez Report. Namely, that Oswald did not visit either embassy.

Which makes the three KGB guys, and their book, kind of dubious.

As does this fact: if Oswald really talked to Kostikov why did it take that cable 7 days to get to Langley? It should have been there in 24 hours.

Edited December 25, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

This is very important. David Josephs has been saying for years that Oswald didn't go to Mexico City and I agree with him. (In addition, I've been saying for years that the faked MC trip story included a car with Oswald and some associates driving to and from MC, but this part was covered up early because it implied Oswald being in a conspiracy with his car mates.)
 

[Sandy Larsen]

 

If you analyze the Mexico City trip, knowing that the whole thing was completely fabricated (i.e. no Oswald there), and remembering the stories of Oswald having an affair with Sylvia Duran, and the twist party, and the $6500 initial payment for the Kennedy hit paid by the red-haired black man.... it is pretty easy to figure out the CIA's plot. It was to set up Oswald in a conspiracy with Cuba and Russia to kill Kennedy.

(I know that a lot of people already believe this. I'm repeating it here to help others see it too.)

Peter Dale Scott had to come up with his Phase-One/Phase-Two theory because he assumed Oswald was there in Mexico City, which complicates things. Had he assumed Oswald wasn't there instead, it would have been obvious and straightforward what the plot was, with no complicated Phase-One/Phase-Two stuff.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

 

Here's a transcript of the relevant part of the video. Mark Lane speaking:

Oswald was to go to Cuba from Mexico city and then fly on to the Soviet Union. That's the story that was told to the Warren Commission. And the CIA went on to say, however, we don't believe that the Russians or Cubans were in any way involved. But if the story gets out, people will not believe us and that's why hundreds of thousands of Americans will die in a war which is going to take place. That's what they told Earl Warren and scared him. He really was frightened by this.

The problem is, the story was a fabrication. Oswald had not been to Mexico City. The person who designed that whole story was a man named David Atlee Phillips who ran the agency from his office in Mexico City. And not long before he died, several years ago, he spoke at USC and I was on the program with him. He said that, in fact, Oswald never was in Mexico City, which destroyed the entire story which had been told to the Warren Commission.

And when that was reported, an apologist for the Warren Commission had said that yes, he said it. We can't deny that he said it but this is very well publicized, this statement, that Mark Lane had subjected him to a cruel, grueling, cross-examination and confused him and that's why he said it.

It was a meeting at USC. I was on the panel and he was on the panel. I directed no question to him at all. And a student got up at the end and raised the subject, which I had not, and was, can you tell us about Mexico City, Mr. Phillips? There was no cross-examination. It was just a kid asking the question and that's when, Phillips then said Oswald was never there.

And so the cover-up was that I subjected him to this cross-examination which I didn't ask him anything, it was a student that said it, but that became the mantra of the establishment to try to explain how the man who ran the Central Intelligence Agency for the United States and elsewhere, and did it from his office in Mexico City, made that statement because of my brilliant cross-examination, although I never asked him a question. And so here we are now, 50 years later -- almost 50 years later, and there still are files which are classified. We don't even know the number but we know they are in the tens and thousands of documents that are classified because of reasons of national security, which obviously makes no sense 50 years later.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Yes, but what I am saying is that I think there is a subtle difference between what Phillips actually said as recorded by the transcript Mark had from a tape of the actual debate. 

 

[Joseph Backes]

Don't get lost in the minutia of whether the real LHO went there or not.

He was impersonated in person.  John Newman gave an excellent presentation of this at Lancer in '99. There was a physical impersonation, and someone else impersonated him, and Sylvia Duran on the phone.  The Newman presentation is not online anymore due to a hack attack at JFK Lancer. The important point is it doesn't matter if the real LHO was there or if he was impersonated or not.  What matters is what CIA HQ did with the information. And you can see that in Michael Beschloss's first book on the LBJ tapes, "Taking Charge," pages 66 to 72. That phone call explains how MC was used to get Warren to chair the commission.  LBJ to Richard Russell, Friday, November 29, 1963 at 8:55p.m. - "And I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City." 

So, I do have John's 1994 presentation at A.S.K

Joe  

[Sandy Larsen]

19 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

There is a difference between saying he was not there and there is no evidence or proof he was there.

 

But Jim, if there is no evidence that Oswald was in Mexico City, wouldn't our conclusion be that there is no reason to believe he was there? I mean, sure, Oswald MIGHT have been there. I might have been there. Anybody might have been there.

Without any evidence of someone being there, I would conclude that he or she wasn't there.

 

[Lori Spencer]

He wasn’t always right (who among us is?), but God bless Mark Lane. If it wasn’t for Lane, we never would’ve had the HSCA… and so much more. 

I miss him dearly. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. 

[Denis Morissette]

Does not address the point, but I thought you'd be interested in listening a segment of the full HSCA interview that I have.

 

 

[Denis Morissette]

The Collectors' Archives sold this audio cassette as a debate between Lane and Phillips. It's actually an interview of Lane made by the same interviewer who did one with Roger Craig. There are two parts.

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Denis Morissette

[Gerry Down]

14 minutes ago, Denis Morissette said:

Does not address the point, but I thought you'd be interested in listening a segment of the full HSCA interview that I have.

 

 

Will you be posting the full interview you have online?

[James DiEugenio]

I hope everyone had a good holiday and I wish you all a Happy New Year.

I am sorry I did not reply to Sandy, but Mexico CIty is so complicated and so contingent on things  not reliable that I did not feel like working on it on a Holy Day.

But I will just add this: one reason we do not know the whole story is that Phillips and Goodpasture lied to the HSCA. And they lied on material points.

It was so bad that Danny and Eddy wrote up bills of indictment for them both.

The reasons being evident in the Lopez Report.

And I ask you to consult Gaeton Fonzi's book for the memorable scene when Danny confronted Phillips with the color coded chart of all the disinformation artists who came out of the woods to manipulate the aftermath of Oswald not being in Mexico City.

Danny knew they all related back to Phillips.  As he unveiled the chart, Phillips ended up going from one to three cigarettes in the ash tray, and apparently oblivious to how many he had already going..

Consciousness of guilt?

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by James DiEugenio