Oswald as designated patsy; from Bart Kamp's new book

[Miles Massicotte]

I'm currently about halfway through Bart Kamp's Prayer Man book and I was struck by a document I hadn't seen before relating to but earlier than the Katzenbach memo. It is an FBI document from November 22nd where Clyde Towson states that Katzenbach wants to get a statement out asap confirming Oswald's guilt. "We are now persuaded that Oswald killed the President; however, the investigation by the Department of Justice and FBI is continuing.” 

Bart then notes "At that time there was no Hidell ID, not one line-up held at all, no backyard photo, no rifle and its fingerprints and revolver evidence developed and so on." (I am reading it on Kindle so I don't know how to give page numbers. It is page 220 of 407 on my mobile phone but that changes depending on font size.....it is under the heading "15:15 Katzenbach Wants to Release a Statement of Oswald’s Guilt"). 

I find this intriguing. Like many, my interpretation of the later more famous Katzenbach memo has always been that the government wanted to seal the deal on Oswald's guilt asap, guilty or not, for the sake of persuading the public consciousness that he was the lone assassin (and the Warren Report being the rubber stamp on that, that "no one will read" according to Dulles.) 

But that assumes that someone like Katzenbach, as well as Hoover, had at least something, some kind of evidence, convincing them that Oswald could be linked to the assassination, enough to be able to run with it as a public narrative. But this document shows that they didn't, it was too early, their intent to frame Oswald as the assassin was present right from the beginning. All they had at that time was a man in custody who, allegedly (I am dubious), pistol whipped a Dallas police officer in the Texas theater, and otherwise proclaimed his innocence of any and all charges. Bart does a great job going through the interrogations in the book and showing how Oswald seemed mostly clueless himself throughout. 

So in other words something, or someone, had already reached the highest levels of government enough to convince them to run with Oswald as Kennedy's assassin. This implies something far more nefarious, and for me is some of the best evidence I have seen implying a conspiracy to implicate Oswald at the highest levels. The state department was risking everything by running with Oswald as their lone assassin if they didn't have any solid evidence against him. What if solid evidence emerged that he wasn't on the 6th floor (*cough* Prayer Man *cough*)? What if the BYPs, rifle etc etc all never turned up? It strongly implies that they were quite confident they had their man. And someone had to know that. 

If my timeline is correct, Hoover 15 minutes before this memo tells RFK that he believes Oswald is the assassin. This is before any interrogations have even taken place (!), as Bart Kamp notes. I think it is highly likely then that this memo was created also without any knowledge of what Oswald said under interrogation, as it was issued about simultaneously to when Oswald was being interrogated for the first time. 

I had previously taken the interpretation that framing Oswald was an ad hoc job. But they literally just brought the man into the DPD, and the government is gearing up to plaster this man's face across the country as the lone nut assassin. The wheels were in motion to incriminate Oswald from day 1, perhaps from before day 1. Maybe I am reading too much into this. But I don't think so. 

(It is a great book by the way. When I am finished I will try to post a review, I am still not personally sold on Prayer Man but this book is going a long way to convince me). 

[Karl Kinaski]

It is not a good book. 

There is one huge flaw in Bart Kamps reasoning. In order to discredit witness statements by comparing it and pointing to contratictions he takes all Warren Commission testimonies for untainted. They ar not, as we know from Jean Hill etc. To compare tainted Warren Commission testimonies in order to discredit witness in order to make a fuzzy picture more credible is laughable. PRAYERMAN MORE THAN A FUZZY PICTURE is build on sand. 

[Miles Massicotte]

2 hours ago, Karl Kinaski said:

It is not a good book. 

There is one huge flaw in Bart Kamps reasoning. In order to discredit witness statements by comparing it and pointing to contratictions he takes all Warren Commission testimonies for untainted. They ar not, as we know from Jean Hill etc. To compare tainted Warren Commission testimonies in order to discredit witness in order to make a fuzzy picture more credible is laughable. PRAYERMAN MORE THAN A FUZZY PICTURE is build on sand. 

It doesn't sound to me like you have read too much of it to make such a blanket statement. Kamp uses Warren Commission testimony as it supports and correlates to whatever subject he is dealing with, just like any author writing about this case does. But he also does a better job of it. There is a lot of contradiction between testimonies in the WC and witness statements. Any theory is going to have to deal with that. That doesn't make it a bad book. That's just silly. 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Miles Massicotte

[Karl Kinaski]

That Warren Commission testimony, FBI and SS and DPD reports are tainted and contradictory is well established. The instrumentalization of a select few of witness contradictions to let a fuzzy picture of no forensic value appear like the JFKA Rosetta Stone, that is what Kamp does. 

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Miles Massicotte said:

I'm currently about halfway through Bart Kamp's Prayer Man book and I was struck by a document I hadn't seen before relating to but earlier than the Katzenbach memo. It is an FBI document from November 22nd where Clyde Towson states that Katzenbach wants to get a statement out asap confirming Oswald's guilt. "We are now persuaded that Oswald killed the President; however, the investigation by the Department of Justice and FBI is continuing.” 

Bart then notes "At that time there was no Hidell ID, not one line-up held at all, no backyard photo, no rifle and its fingerprints and revolver evidence developed and so on." (I am reading it on Kindle so I don't know how to give page numbers. It is page 220 of 407 on my mobile phone but that changes depending on font size.....it is under the heading "15:15 Katzenbach Wants to Release a Statement of Oswald’s Guilt"). 

I find this intriguing. Like many, my interpretation of the later more famous Katzenbach memo has always been that the government wanted to seal the deal on Oswald's guilt asap, guilty or not, for the sake of persuading the public consciousness that he was the lone assassin (and the Warren Report being the rubber stamp on that, that "no one will read" according to Dulles.) 

But that assumes that someone like Katzenbach, as well as Hoover, had at least something, some kind of evidence, convincing them that Oswald could be linked to the assassination, enough to be able to run with it as a public narrative. But this document shows that they didn't, it was too early, their intent to frame Oswald as the assassin was present right from the beginning. All they had at that time was a man in custody who, allegedly (I am dubious), pistol whipped a Dallas police officer in the Texas theater, and otherwise proclaimed his innocence of any and all charges. Bart does a great job going through the interrogations in the book and showing how Oswald seemed mostly clueless himself throughout. 

So in other words something, or someone, had already reached the highest levels of government enough to convince them to run with Oswald as Kennedy's assassin. This implies something far more nefarious, and for me is some of the best evidence I have seen implying a conspiracy to implicate Oswald at the highest levels. The state department was risking everything by running with Oswald as their lone assassin if they didn't have any solid evidence against him. What if solid evidence emerged that he wasn't on the 6th floor (*cough* Prayer Man *cough*)? What if the BYPs, rifle etc etc all never turned up? It strongly implies that they were quite confident they had their man. And someone had to know that. 

If my timeline is correct, Hoover 15 minutes before this memo tells RFK that he believes Oswald is the assassin. This is before any interrogations have even taken place (!), as Bart Kamp notes. I think it is highly likely then that this memo was created also without any knowledge of what Oswald said under interrogation, as it was issued about simultaneously to when Oswald was being interrogated for the first time. 

I had previously taken the interpretation that framing Oswald was an ad hoc job. But they literally just brought the man into the DPD, and the government is gearing up to plaster this man's face across the country as the lone nut assassin. The wheels were in motion to incriminate Oswald from day 1, perhaps from before day 1. Maybe I am reading too much into this. But I don't think so. 

(It is a great book by the way. When I am finished I will try to post a review, I am still not personally sold on Prayer Man but this book is going a long way to convince me). 

Fascinating. Katzenbach sure wanted to at least blame LHO in part, four or five hours (or earlier) after the JFKA. 

There is some hedging in the 11/22 memo, as you note. 

But sheesh, Katzenbach's proposed statement is miles from, "We have one man in custody, Lee Harvey Oswald, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence if and until proven guilty in an open court of law." 

You might get a chuckle out of this:

 https://ia902708.us.archive.org/33/items/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000400280028-1/cia-rdp75-00149r000400280028-1.pdf

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Miles Massicotte]

9 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But sheesh, Katzenbach's proposed statement is miles from, "We have one man in custody, Lee Harvey Oswald, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence if and until proven guilty in an open court of law." 

Exactly Ben. The timing and the nature of the statement is too suspicious for me. 

The link you posted is sure something, I did chuckle. Personally I don't think Katzenbach was some kind of CIA shill, no. It's more nuanced than that; he wanted a conviction for the sake of the country, whatever that means. But it is one thing wanting that conviction after you've been presented some reasonable evidence that the guy the DPD apprehended might have actualy had something to do with it. But 3 hours after the assassination? My tinfoil hat is tingling. 

[Benjamin Cole]

27 minutes ago, Miles Massicotte said:

Exactly Ben. The timing and the nature of the statement is too suspicious for me. 

The link you posted is sure something, I did chuckle. Personally I don't think Katzenbach was some kind of CIA shill, no. It's more nuanced than that; he wanted a conviction for the sake of the country, whatever that means. But it is one thing wanting that conviction after you've been presented some reasonable evidence that the guy the DPD apprehended might have actualy had something to do with it. But 3 hours after the assassination? My tinfoil hat is tingling. 

MM-

The more I think about Katzenbach, and the 11/22 memo...well my tinfoil hat is not just tingling, it is on fire.

Katzenbach was not just some mid-level political hack, or a PR guy in over his head, making an ill-considered or emotional statement. We all could understand and forgive that, could even happen to us. 

No....Katzenbach had the finest legal education the US had to offer, and was tops at that, and then became Deputy Attorney General of the US. 

"He (Katzenbach) received an LL.B. cum laude from Yale Law School in 1947, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.^[10] From 1947 to 1949, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford."

"From 1950 to 1952, he was attorney-advisor in the Office of General Counsel to the Secretary of the Air Force. Katzenbach was on the faculty of Rutgers Law School from 1950 to 1951; was an associate professor of law at Yale from 1952 to 1956; and was a professor of law at the University of Chicago from 1956 to 1960."--Wiki

Egads, top-drawer stuff. Obviously, Katzenbach knew that on 11/22 LHO must be considered only a suspect, and was entitled to the presumption of innocence. 

Not only that, how would LHO get a fair trial anywhere in the US, if the FBI declared him guilty on 11/22 in the most-heavily media-covered murder of all time? (Twilight Zone music) It is as if Katzenbach knew that LHO was not going to survive. 

OK, cut the music.

My guess is someone "got to" Katzenbach, and he was willing to play ball, show that we has part of the national security team, and to place certain Deep State prerogatives above even years of the best legal training possible, or his true professional and civic obligations as a government law man and lawyer. 

Then...McCone recommends Katzenbach, whose resume shows no intel-state background, to be CIA chief....really? 

As I have lamented 100 times, it is too bad the JFKA research community was stiff-armed so long, that few are alive for us to question today. 

It would be nice to depose or put on the stand Katzenbach, and ask him if anyone suggested the official narratives he advocated, and why he thought declaring LHO guilty on 11/22, a few hours after the JFKA, was a good idea. 

After reading the 11/22 memo, I need a new and bigger tinfoil hat. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

Here's what I think happened.

Elements of the CIA had already fabricated the narrative that Cuba and Russia hired Oswald in Sept./Oct. to kill Kennedy. (That narrative included Oswald being friends with the (Sylvia) Durans and his attending their parties; the Cubans paying Oswald a $6500 down payment for the hit; etc.) The purpose being to implicate the Cubans and Russians in the assassination plot so that the U.S. generals could get the wars they wanted with them.

Shortly after the shooting, the CIA reported to President Johnson and the FBI that it had just gathered intelligence on Oswald showing that he'd been hired by the Cubans and Russians to assassinate Kennedy. Knee-jerk reaction was to take action against the commies.

But cooler heads prevailed saying, look, if we attack Russia, for sure that will lead to nuclear war. Even if we attack only Cuba, who knows where that will lead? It is better to nip in the bud any talk of an international plot. We know that Oswald was involved. It's better to blame it on just one guy now. We can deal with the commies later when we have time to consider our options.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

14 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Here's what I think happened.

Elements of the CIA had already fabricated the narrative that Cuba and Russia hired Oswald in Sept./Oct. to kill Kennedy. (That narrative included Oswald being friends with the (Sylvia) Durans and his attending their parties; the Cubans paying Oswald a $6500 down payment for the hit; etc.) The purpose being to implicate the Cubans and Russians in the assassination plot so that the U.S. generals could get the wars they wanted with them.

Shortly after the shooting, the CIA reported to President Johnson and the FBI that it had just gathered intelligence on Oswald showing that he'd been hired by the Cubans and Russians to assassinate Kennedy. Knee-jerk reaction was to take action against the commies.

But cooler heads prevailed saying, look, if we attack Russia, for sure that will lead to nuclear war. Even if we attack only Cuba, who knows where that will lead? It is better to nip in the bud any talk of an international plot. We know that Oswald was involved. It's better to blame it on just one guy now. We can deal with the commies later when we have time to consider our options.

 

SL--

Certainly a reasonable scenario, you have outlined. 

My pet theory is LHO was part of CIA-planned false flag op, but no actual assassination. Some bad guys, elements within the CIA, piggy-backed on the op and shot for real. 

Very close to your outline. 

Like I said, what a shame these CIA guys and Katzenbach and whoever else were not grilled and hard after the JFKA, or certainly by the HSCA. 

Everybody played patty-cake with the CIA. 

 

[Jean Ceulemans]

Now, a lot of this is new to me, and I don't have a clue who shot JFK.

But I have a little trouble in seeing they planned it all in detail (incl. blaming Russia and Cuba), but somehow had forgotten about the part where they could be causing a nuclear war ?

Unless they planned an attack on JFK, but not an actual killing.

Hit him genlty, something like the shallow backwound would be acceptable, you know... scare him a bit....

Edited October 1, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Paul Brancato]

To be clear, if my assumption is correct, the memo is from Clyde Tolson, and he claims that Katzenbach, then Deputy AG, told him that the man in custody in Dallas was to be blamed for the murder. I would read that as coming from Hoover, who had already told Katzenbach’s boss the same thing. 
Sandy - refresh my memory - who in the CIA was communicating with Hoover prior to his phone call to RFK? 
It sure seems like the FBI and Justice department were at loggerheads with the CIA and Military from the get go. This seems like a good reason for LBJ to be sitting on the crapper on AF 1 freaking out. If the planners were in communication with AF 1, and they were prepared beforehand with a designated patsy who they had linked in any way they could to Soviets and Cubans, it must have been painfully obvious to LBJ what came next. So in this case Hoover and LBJ decided to clamp down on this purposeful conspiracy and enforce the lone gunman theory immediately. It might also suggest that RFK knew enough to side with Hoover and LBJ on this immediately, through Katzenbach. 

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

To be clear, if my assumption is correct, the memo is from Clyde Tolson, and he claims that Katzenbach, then Deputy AG, told him that the man in custody in Dallas was to be blamed for the murder. I would read that as coming from Hoover, who had already told Katzenbach’s boss the same thing. 
Sandy - refresh my memory - who in the CIA was communicating with Hoover prior to his phone call to RFK? 
It sure seems like the FBI and Justice department were at loggerheads with the CIA and Military from the get go. This seems like a good reason for LBJ to be sitting on the crapper on AF 1 freaking out. If the planners were in communication with AF 1, and they were prepared beforehand with a designated patsy who they had linked in any way they could to Soviets and Cubans, it must have been painfully obvious to LBJ what came next. So in this case Hoover and LBJ decided to clamp down on this purposeful conspiracy and enforce the lone gunman theory immediately. It might also suggest that RFK knew enough to side with Hoover and LBJ on this immediately, through Katzenbach. 

Hoover and LBJ made the decision to blame a lone gunman?

Or was that decision made earlier?

The President Has Been Shot, Charles Roberts  (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek, Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

<quote on, emphasis added>

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

<quote off>

 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

Didn’t the Dallas PD suspect Oswald’s involvement well before the FBI?

[Cliff Varnell]

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Hoover and LBJ made the decision to blame a lone gunman?

Or was that decision made earlier?

The President Has Been Shot, Charles Roberts  (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek, Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

<quote on, emphasis added>

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

<quote off>

 

 

The Assassination Tapes, Max Holland, (pg 57):

<quote on>

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association.

<quote off>

This was the genesis of the Lone Nut Cover Story.  Bundy called LBJ on AF1 and told him the lone assassin was in custody.  As soon as Johnson got to the White House he found out that all of his government’s top Kremlinologists concluded the Soviets were innocent.

But there was no such discussion among top Soviet experts on 11/22/63.

By reputation the top 3 Soviet hands were Charles Bohlen, George Kennan, and Harriman himself. According to his biography, Bohlen was traveling by train in Europe. According to Kennan’s biography, he spent the day quietly with Robert Oppenheimer up in Princeton.

By title, the US gov’t’s top Soviet guys were Llewelyn Thompson, Ambassador At Large for Soviet Affairs, and Dean Rusk, Secretary of State.

From their Warren Commission testimonies:

Mr. DULLES:  Did you have any conversations at any time while you were Ambassador or after you returned to the United States with any Soviet official with regard to the Oswald case?

Ambassador THOMPSON: I discussed with the Soviet Ambassador the desire of the [Warren] Commission to receive any documentation that they might have available, but I did not in any way discuss the case itself, nor did the Soviet official with whom I talked. 

Mr. DULLES:   And do you know of any conversations of that nature that any other official of the Department had in connection with the Oswald case?

Ambassador THOMPSON: I do not myself know of any. 

Mr. DULLES: You probably would, would you not, if that had taken place-of any importance? 

Ambassador THOMPSON: Off the record. 

(Discussion off the record.) 

Mr. DULLES: Your testimony is you have no knowledge of any other conversations other than that of the Secretary of State [Dean Rusk], in connection with communications to and from the Soviet Government on this case? 

Ambassador THOMPSON: That is correct.  I know of no other cases where it was discussed with Soviet officials. </q>

Thompson acknowledged discussions with Dean Rusk, but nothing about Harriman or other "top Kremlinologists".  Rusk didn't return to Washington until after Harriman's meeting with Johnson.

Here's what Rusk told the Warren Commission (Vol 5):

<quote on>. 
Secretary RUSK: As the Commission may remember, I was with several colleagues in a plane on the way to Japan at the time the assassination occurred. When we got the news we immediately turned back. After my mind was able to grasp the fact that this event had in fact occurred, which was the first necessity, and not an easy one, I then, on the plane, began to go over the dozens and dozens of implications and ramifications of this event as it affects our foreign relations all over the world. I landed briefly in Hawaii on the way back to Washington, and gave some instructions to the Department about a number of these matters, and learned what the Department was already doing. But one of the great questions in my mind at that time was just that question, could some foreign government somehow be involved in such an episode. I realized that were this so this would raise the gravest issues of war and peace, but that nevertheless it was important to try to get at the truth-to the answer to that question-wherever that truth might lead; and so when I got back to Washington I put myself immediately in touch with the processes of inquiry on that point, and as Secretary of State had the deepest possible interest in what the truthful answer to those questions would be, because it would be hard to think of anything more pregnant for our foreign relations than the correct answer to that question. </q>
 

Harriman and Bundy called the shots on the Lone Nut.

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Leslie Sharp]

Who Had the Power to Cover It Up? 

Thus asked the composite character, “X,” played by actor Donald Sutherland in Oliver Stone’s depiction of DA Jim Garrison’s investigation into the assassination, JFK (the movie). 

Much deliberation ensued between the authors of this book following the analysis of the “holdout” entries [appearing in a 1963 datebook maintained by intel contractor Pierre Lafitte]. A pertinent question surfaced as the pursuit of "holdout" grew more aggressive: “who within the domestic intelligence agencies would have the most influence over the investigation on the ground in Dallas?” Would Hoover have been a "holdout" in the final phase of the operation—someone who delayed signing a contract in hopes of gaining more favorable terms—not that it wasn’t widely known that Hoover wanted to see the Kennedys taken down but that any criminal operation on US soil was his turf, meaning that the buck would stop at his desk. Was he hedging all bets? Was he asking for something in return? He also knew that any successful conspiracy operation would require cooperation of elements under his control to assure that everything went smoothly and that the assassination would remain unsolved or unprosecuted, or, a patsy would carry the blame. Even the most skilled tactician, for instance SS Otto Skorzeny, would not be able to orchestrate a successful operation of this magnitude without the involvement of pivotal domestic forces (FBI) including those on the ground in New Orleans and Dallas; nor could the CIA’s James Angleton, at least not in the most practical of terms. Despite all the power Angleton could excerpt, he still could not intervene in an on-the-ground investigation on American soil and Dulles could only do so from a distance, under very specific protocol. The US military would have influence from behind the scenes, but they too would [be compelled to] liaise with Hoover’s FBI.

Those au fait with the culture will know that the Dallas contingency, responsible for the investigation in the aftermath of November 22, would preferably take their cue from “one of their own,” someone who had for more than a decade enjoyed the largesse of Texas powerbrokers with the financial bravado to buck the East Coast elites, including Allen Dulles and James Angleton at the CIA. Director Hoover, with his close personal friendships with Texas oilmen, and Clint Murchison in particular, could tilt the balance. Murchison, who is alleged to have ended up with one of the three copies of the Zapruder film produced by Jamieson Labs, was a long-standing client of Bobby Baker who had traveled to New Orleans earlier in the year in the company of the lovely Carol Tyler, and Kennedy’s recent object of desire, East German Ellen Rometsch. Murchison had over the years paid for Hoover’s annual retreats to the Hotel del Charro near La Jolla, California. According to Hoover’s appointment calendar, August of 1963 was no exception. Known to host some of Dallas’ finest card games in a condo located at 3535 Turtle Creek Blvd., an invitation to Murchison’s del Charro games was equally coveted. Had Hoover, long alleged to have been a heavy gambler, been known as "Holdout," and was the term refined by Lafitte to fit the context of Project Lancelot?

and this additional excerpt regarding the cover-up using Oswald as the designated patsy — from Albarelli's last investigation: 
 

EPILOGUE

Levine will deal w/ Marina e.t. 

[illegible writing] / ck

 JA

(coded [illegible])

call Madrid

  —Lafitte datebook, November 28, 1963

 

Levine   A  z-4   z

  —Lafitte datebook, November 30, 1963

 

This fellow Levine is in contact with Marina to break the story up in a little more graphic manner and tie it into a Russian business, and it is with the thought and background of a Russian connection, conspiracy concept. 

—John J. McCloy, Warren Commission Jan 21, 1964 

 

After much deliberation over the significance of Isaac Don Levine having closed out the assassination project manager’s 1963 datebook, Albarelli determined that, logically, Levine would also close out the investigation. Levine’s anti-communist dogma which would permeate his life’s work took shape prior to America’s entry into WWII, and thus serves as the symbolic bookend to the foundational chapters of this book. His writings, and in particular his networking—from the sensational Alger Hiss spy case, to the associations he developed during the reign of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the services he provided the CIA—gave us a keener grasp of why Levine was selected by Warren Commission members Allen Dulles and John McCloy to influence the propaganda surrounding Lee Oswald as a “Commie Lone Nut.” It is the political history of Levine and that of a young Manhattan attorney named Roy Marcus Cohn—Joe McCarthy’s lead counsel who serves as our foothold on contemporary US politics—that captures the decades-long repercussions of the assassination of President Kennedy and the Coup in Dallas. But first . . .

***

Ten years after the 1952 launch of the Skorzeny-Meadows oil scheme in Spain, which has served as a significant backdrop to this investigation, geologist Declan Ford, who spent most of that decade in Madrid consulting on the project on behalf of Dallas-based DeGolyer & MacNaughton, was living in Dallas when he and his new wife were introduced to the Oswald couple recently returned from the Soviet Union. Katherine Declan, who also emigrated from Russia, had become an active member of the White Russian community in Dallas. 

         In the aftermath of Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Oswald, Katherine and Declan invited the young widow Marina Oswald to spend time in their home in the north Dallas suburb of Richardson. While at the Fords’, Marina remained under US government surveillance as reflected in reports for February 1964 that identified Isaac Don Levine of Baltimore, Maryland as having been seen coming and going from the Ford address. 

         Numerous stories have circulated about how the conservative author, well-known in particular among right wing extreme anti-communist circles, was introduced to Marina with the intention of becoming the chronicler of choice to write her story. A persuasive argument is made that following the assassination, Declan’s brother, Joseph Ford, a professor in California, had bumped into Levine at the home of a mutual colleague and mentioned to him that Declan was living in Dallas and might arrange an introduction to Marina. Another version stemming from the testimony of Marina’s first “agent” who was the manager of the Six Flags Over Texas Motel where she was held virtual captive for several days, asserts that Meredith Press of Des Moines, Iowa, thought that because Levine was considered an expert on the USSR, having been born in Belarus, he would be most suited to the task of recording her story. (The reader is reminded that another well-regarded reporter of that era, Clark Mollenhof, was the first to break the story that President Kennedy had sexual relations with Ellen Rometsch, the woman suspected by many in Washington as an East German spy. Mollenhoff reported for the Des Moines Register.)

Established here for the first time is Levine’s official assignment in the cover-up ofProject Lancelot—the logistical plan to assassinate the president of the United States— rendering the various versions of his access to Marina Oswald irrelevant, except to implicate Declan Ford, whose professional history was tied directly to a Madrid scheme of the man who would eventually serve as chief tactician of the plot to kill Kennedy, Otto Skorzeny.

Lafitte writes on November 28, long before Levine was formally introduced to Marina Oswald, that Levine would “deal with Marina.” He also indicates that he [Lafitte] is going to check with James Angleton, custodian of intelligence files on Lee Oswald. There is also the suggestion that Lafitte means to revert to encryption:

JA

(coded cryp)

call Madrid

 

Two days later, Lafitte does just that, and pens what appears to be code, “Levine A  z-4 z”.

On December 1, Lafitte made another related note, “cable to NY & Madrid.” For the record, in 1963 former DCI Allen Dulles, who would promote Levine as the ideal chronicler of the communist conspiracy angle to the assassination, leased an office at 630 Fifth Avenue, the forty-story International Building in Rockefeller Plaza shared with British Intelligence as well as a small petroleum consortium that included East Texas oilman Joe Zeppa, an original member of the Skorzeny-Meadows scheme in Madrid.

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Leslie Sharp