1964 Memorandum from John McCone, Director, CIA re: Oswald

[Douglas Caddy]

6 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

Sounds like an interesting book you have in the works. Hopefully you will start a thread on it when it gets released and give us a run down of your story.

Gerry: Thank you for your interest in my forthcoming book. As explained in the early part of the attached, I have had to post the first half of the book's chapters online after the CIA stole my manuscript and disabled my computer from functioning.  The Agency does not want my story told. Thru a modern miracle I got my manuscript back and my computer functionally restored. I am posting another chapter this week on the 1974 flawed U.S. Court of Appeals decision in U.S. vs Liddy. Historians and others are following my postings of the book. -- Doug

 

[Joseph Backes]

 "...I have had to post the first half of the book's chapters online..."

Where online?

 

Joe

[Sandy Larsen]

22 hours ago, Joseph Backes said:

The Classified stamp was put upon it by Dick Russell and not by anyone in the intel community.

 

Why in heaven's name did Dick Russel stamp the document as confidential?

This is the first time I've ever heard of Dick Russell doing a sneaky thing like that.

 

[Douglas Caddy]

29 minutes ago, Joseph Backes said:

 "...I have had to post the first half of the book's chapters online..."

Where online?

 

Joe

Joe: On the Forum's Watergate topic. Click on the link in my posting above. -- Doug

[Douglas Caddy]

22 hours ago, Joseph Backes said:

Thanks Larry for posting the site with my comments on this.  

I drove down to Archives II from Albany as soon as I heard of this doc.  A RIF # given to me for it did not match it at all.  NARA tried to find it in the Collection and they are of the opinion it is a fake.  The Classified stamp was put upon it by Dick Russell and not by anyone in the intel community.  That stamp is the biggest red flag.  I ran into Malcolm Blunt when I got to Arcchives II and I showed him my copy of it.  We both knew the stamp was definitely questionable and not anything like it on any doc we've ever seen.

It's provenance cannot be ascertained.

Robert Gordon unfortunately clings to it thinking it's real.  

I don't think it is real.  But It has not been 100% proven to be a fake as fas as I know.

Joe

Joe: Thank you for posting this. It qualifies as the final word on the topic as Larry Hancock earlier singled you out for your unique knowledge of and experience with the Memorandum. -- Doug

[Joseph Backes]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Why in heaven's name did Dick Russel stamp the document as confidential?

This is the first time I've ever heard of Dick Russell doing a sneaky thing like that.

 

Okay, this is part of the backstory of this document.  The copy people have and have been posting online was Dick Russell's copy of the document. He stamped his personal copy confidential because he knew this doc was too good to be true and wanted to research it further. That's the story I heard.  That's perfectly acceptable.

Many researchers scribble things onto their copy of a document. Bart Kamp is always putting "Not Online," on docs he's scanned from Malcolm Blunt when he finds one not on MFF or anywhere else online.

Dick Russell couldn't quite establish where he got this from, if memory serves. He got it way before the days of the ARRB when researchers would just get docs "from a guy," or in the mail.

In order to verify it you would have to find it in NARA, in the original NARA building, which would be very difficult to do in the 70's or 80's.  And I wouldn't take it into the original archives to do a page by page visual comparison if I was lucky enough to find it. I would be anxious about my copy being taken from me or someone asking where I got it. I'd leave it home and commit to memory what it looked like and try and hunt it down.  

Now anyone claiming it is real would have had to have seen it PRIOR to that stamp being there and they should have plenty of experience in looking at similar documents to know that that "Confidential" stamp is damn odd. I have that experience. I know it is unique. No other document had such a stamp mark. No agency uses anything that looks like that.  

So when anyone says they saw this document and they're ignorant about the stamp, in other words they do not say they saw it without the stamp, then I know they're lying.  

Joe 

 

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Joseph Backes said:

Okay, this is part of the backstory of this document.  The copy people have and have been posting online was Dick Russell's copy of the document. He stamped his personal copy confidential because he knew this doc was too good to be true and wanted to research it further. That's the story I heard.  That's perfectly acceptable.

Many researchers scribble things onto their copy of a document. Bart Kamp is always putting "Not Online," on docs he's scanned from Malcolm Blunt when he finds one not on MFF or anywhere else online.

Dick Russell couldn't quite establish where he got this from, if memory serves. He got it way before the days of the ARRB when researchers would just get docs "from a guy," or in the mail.

In order to verify it you would have to find it in NARA, in the original NARA building, which would be very difficult to do in the 70's or 80's.  And I wouldn't take it into the original archives to do a page by page visual comparison if I was lucky enough to find it. I would be anxious about my copy being taken from me or someone asking where I got it. I'd leave it home and commit to memory what it looked like and try and hunt it down.  

Now anyone claiming it is real would have had to have seen it PRIOR to that stamp being there and they should have plenty of experience in looking at similar documents to know that that "Confidential" stamp is damn odd. I have that experience. I know it is unique. No other document had such a stamp mark. No agency uses anything that looks like that.  

So when anyone says they saw this document and they're ignorant about the stamp, in other words they do not say they saw it without the stamp, then I know they're lying.  

Joe 

 

So the document at its earliest date can only be traced to Dick Russell? And the document emerges in the same time frame as the release of the first edition of "The man who knew too much"? And the document generally aligns with the hypothesis of that book, ie that LHO worked for naval intelligence in Japan and was a false defector to the USSR? 

[Cory Santos]

57 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

So the document at its earliest date can only be traced to Dick Russell? And the document emerges in the same time frame as the release of the first edition of "The man who knew too much"? And the document generally aligns with the hypothesis of that book, ie that LHO worked for naval intelligence in Japan and was a false defector to the USSR? 

Let us give credit where credit is due.   Along with several others we noted the reasons why this document appears false.   Certainly a validation of how some researchers carefully review the evidence in a balanced manner as opposed to jumping at sketchy evidence at best and drawing conclusions.

What are your thoughts?   I do seem to recall, if I am not mistaken, a Mr Posner stating that Oswald did not know Ferrie.  Well, we know how that turned out.

 

[Joseph Backes]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

So the document at its earliest date can only be traced to Dick Russell? And the document emerges in the same time frame as the release of the first edition of "The man who knew too much"? And the document generally aligns with the hypothesis of that book, ie that LHO worked for naval intelligence in Japan and was a false defector to the USSR? 

It's murky. Someone gave it to him.  I think when it was given to Dick Russell was some years before the publication of "The Man Who Knew Too Mush." Well, many people think LHO worked for the CIA or ONI or both when he was in Japan, and people have thought the "defection," to Russia was bogus the second they heard it.  The document seems to support EVERYTHING people think is the real truth of LHO.  So, naturally rational people are skeptical of the doc.  

It should not be used as if it's real until its provenance can be truly ascertained.  And that may never happen. 

Joe

[Larry Hancock]

Not to sound like a conspiracy type, but perhaps we should recall that Dick actually had the nerve to go to Moscow, to go to the KGB offices and present a request to review Soviet files on Oswald.  Never being one to trust the KGB or the CIA, one has to wonder if he might have become a target for disinformation - anything to make the CIA look bad would be to their taste.  

If anyone is in direct touch with Dick now it would be good to ask if he has any recollection of who, when and how he received this particular document?

 

[Douglas Caddy]

3 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

Not to sound like a conspiracy type, but perhaps we should recall that Dick actually had the nerve to go to Moscow, to go to the KGB offices and present a request to review Soviet files on Oswald.  Never being one to trust the KGB or the CIA, one has to wonder if he might have become a target for disinformation - anything to make the CIA look bad would be to their taste.  

If anyone is in direct touch with Dick now it would be good to ask if he has any recollection of who, when and how he received this particular document?

 

Tom Graves told me he talked to you about this, and you both agreed it was a possibility. Tom is obsessed with Russia and the KGB being behind everything. On some occasions he is spot on. I don't think this is one of them. Is hard to believe Dick fell for KGB disinformation on Oswald. 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Joseph Backes said:

Okay, this is part of the backstory of this document.

 

Thanks for the explanation, Joseph.

 

[Larry Hancock]

I don't necessarily see the KGB behind everything, but I have spent a lot of time studying both KGB and FSB disinformation operations and they are very real and very effective as I explore in my own study of political warfare and disinformation tactics ("Creating Chaos").  Generally far more so than equivalent CIA efforts.  The only country with a foreign intelligence service to historically have been nearly as effective as the Russians were the British - possibly because they have an equally long history at such things.

With Dick I consider it very much an outside possibility, but nobody is perfect, especially when somebody comes to you with what you were looking for in the first place (first hand experience on that and the old timers know that in regard to JFK disinformation Penn Jones articles turned him into a target in the Dallas area ), which is why I need to hear what he has to say on it....I'll drop him a note, sometimes he responds, sometimes it takes a week or a month. 

[Mervyn Hagger]

3 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I don't necessarily see the KGB behind everything, but I have spent a lot of time studying both KGB and FSB disinformation operations and they are very real and very effective as I explore in my own study of political warfare and disinformation tactics ("Creating Chaos").  Generally far more so than equivalent CIA efforts.  The only country with a foreign intelligence service to historically have been nearly as effective as the Russians were the British - possibly because they have an equally long history at such things.

With Dick I consider it very much an outside possibility, but nobody is perfect, especially when somebody comes to you with what you were looking for in the first place (first hand experience on that and the old timers know that in regard to JFK disinformation Penn Jones articles turned him into a target in the Dallas area ), which is why I need to hear what he has to say on it....I'll drop him a note, sometimes he responds, sometimes it takes a week or a month. 

Larry, you wrote: "The only country with a foreign intelligence service to historically have been nearly as effective as the Russians were the British  possibly because they have an equally long history at such things."

That is an understatement.

Everything began with SyOps in the United Kingdom, and the doyen of it all was Winston Churchill, a one time head of the Royal Navy, and Member of Parliament for Dundee in Scotland. He is the originator of the push to blame the overthrow of the Russian monarchy on "bad Jews" which he packaged into a 1920 full page promotion of what is today referred to as the 'Illuminati' conspiracy.

From Churchill we got terrorism as we know it packaged as SOE, and SAS and OSS and CIA.

From Churchill we got electronic misinformation on a massive scale via Sefton Delmer.

From Churchill in WWII we got Texas involvement in UK oil exploration that led to the North Sea gas and oil boom.

From Churchill we got the overthrow of the government of Iran in a bid to grab its oil.

The source of obscuration of all this was the so-called 'BBC' (which was two operations and not one, leading to the false claim last year that it was now 100 years old. It was 95 years old.)

The key to unlocking all of this is British Naval Intelligence and Churchill switching from a coal-powered Royal Navy to an oil-powered Royal Navy.

That is why following the links provided by you and Gary Murr regarding the mv Olga Patricia we have been able to trace a new and hitherto unreported and uninvestigated history of electronic misinformation and military operations. It includes the establishment of the US Polaris nuclear submarine floating base at Holy Loch in Scotland, and the man who inherited a war-mongering operation that almost destroyed the world in an atomic World War III. That was none other than John F. Kennedy with his own 'patsy', his brother Robert.

Or was it the other way around? Was Robert running the SGA which was in turn controlling the misinformation spewing from the mouth of his brother the President?

'Deep Throat' is alleged to have said "follow the money." But the key is really in following a ship, and it was thanks to Gary Murr and yourself ('Secret Warriors') that we eventually began to do just that. Suddenly a different story about the years from 1959 to 1963 began to emerge.

By the way. We took your publishing advice and yesterday we completed a three-book contract with Amazon.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Mervyn Hagger
Sentence structure

[Gerry Down]

47 minutes ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Larry, you wrote: "The only country with a foreign intelligence service to historically have been nearly as effective as the Russians were the British  possibly because they have an equally long history at such things."

That is an understatement.

Everything began with SyOps in the United Kingdom, and the doyen of it all was Winston Churchill, a one time head of the Royal Navy, and Member of Parliament for Dundee in Scotland. He is the originator of the push to blame the overthrow of the Russian monarchy on "bad Jews" which he packaged into a 1920 full page promotion of what is today referred to as the 'Illuminati' conspiracy.

From Churchill we got terrorism as we know it packaged as SOE, and SAS and OSS and CIA.

From Churchill we got electronic misinformation on a massive scale via Sefton Delmer.

From Churchill in WWII we got Texas involvement in UK oil exploration that led to the North Sea gas and oil boom.

From Churchill we got the overthrow of the government of Iran in a bid to grab its oil.

The source of obscuration of all this was the so-called 'BBC' (which was two operations and not one, leading to the false claim last year that it was now 100 years old. It was 95 years old.)

The key to unlocking all of this is British Naval Intelligence and Churchill switching from a coal-powered Royal Navy to an oil-powered Royal Navy.

That is why following the links provided by you and Gary Murr regarding the mv Olga Patricia we have been able to trace a new and hitherto unreported and uninvestigated history of electronic misinformation and military operations. It includes the establishment of the US Polaris nuclear submarine floating base at Holy Loch in Scotland, and the man who inherited a war-mongering operation that almost destroyed the world in an atomic World War III. That was none other than John F. Kennedy with his own 'patsy', his brother Robert.

Or was it the other way around? Was Robert running the SGA which was in turn controlling the misinformation spewing from the mouth of his brother the President?

'Deep Throat' is alleged to have said "follow the money." But the key is really in following a ship, and it was thanks to Gary Murr and yourself ('Secret Warriors') that we eventually began to do just that. Suddenly a different story about the years from 1959 to 1963 began to emerge.

By the way. We took your publishing advice and yesterday we completed a three-book contract with Amazon.

I didn't think Amazon did book contracts. I thought they were just a publish-on-demand service?