Can I get some feedback on "the cover-up chapter" of State Secret before I write the second edition? I will serialize the chapter here.

[Bill Simpich]

A couple more quick responses:

Steve, your question about the Oswald letter is a good one because after many years I came around to the view that he did write it.   He may have had help of course.  You mention (regarding the security index issue) that he wrote that "he was not of interest to the FBI" - but he was telling a whopper there, Hosty had just come to the Paine home a few days earlier, talking with Ruth at length, trying to communicate with Marina, and getting LHO so concerned that he wrote a note to Hosty saying that he would take "appropriate action" after sending the letter to the Soviets. 

Why he told that whopper?   I'll go out on a limb and say that I think he knew the letter might wind up in the FBI's hands, and he wanted the FBI to know that he was a cagy operator and could be trusted.  My overarching theory is that LHO really wanted his discharge upgraded and would do pretty much what it took to make it happen, including ingratiating himself with other federal authorities like John Quigley in New Orleans, who he sought out and spoke to for hours while in jail in August.  He wasn't pleased with Hosty and gave him some "guff", as Hosty put it.

On "why didn't Fain say something" when Marguerite allegedly told Fain that Oswald was 5 foot 10?  Agents are allowed to put false information in a report as part of a molehunt - Oswald's file was used as part of a molehunt more than once throughout his short lifetime by both the CIA and FBI.   Peter Dale Scott nailed this down in his article "The Hunt for Popov's Mole", one of my favorite articles on this case.  I am convinced that Fain made up this false description as part of that effort.

On Sandy's question - I think Greg Parker got it right - Oswald was keeping an eye on Joe Molina, who worked at the TSBD.  William Lowery of the local Communist Party - and an FBI informant - had kept an eye on Molina for years as a possible recruit because of his long advocacy within the local Latino community.  Thanks to Lowery, Jim Hosty also kept an eye on Molina.  Molina was actually on the conservative side, but he had a long history of activism.   I think Oswald was watching Molina even during lunch on 11/22, and may have followed him right out to the steps during the motorcade.   Molina was the only other person who was detained by the Dallas police, and he got a midnight visit from DPD intelligence chief Pat Gannaway and his boys the night of 11/22 where they tossed his home and interrogated him throughout the day of 11/23.  Molina lost his job and filed a suit against various entities who publicized his detention.

There is some connection that I am still trying to understand between this Molina story and the coffeecake conversation with Buell Frazier's sister Linnie Mae Randle and Ruth Paine where Ruth got wind from Linnie that there was a job available at the TSBD and Ruth told Lee about it.  The story goes - recounted by Jim Douglass and others - that a better paying job was called in to Ruth by Robert Adams at the Texas Employment Commission, and Ruth didn't pass that information on to Lee before he took that job.  Robert Adams is also believed to have had some connection was "Bob" Odum better known as Bard Odum of the FBI who was Ruth's handler.   The Texas Employment Commission is one of the least-studied and most-important aspects of the Lee Oswald story.   

It may have been that the Robert Adams-story was designed to put LHO closer to the motorcade route then the TSBD job.  After LHO wound up at the TSBD, greater effort was needed in order to move the motorcade towards the TSBD.

 

 

Edited March 15 by Bill Simpich

[Paul Cummings]

Thanks for sharing Bill. What a resource and what real journalism looks like!

[Bill Simpich]

Thank you, Paul.

I appreciate the communications and the questions. 

To keep the thread coherent, I ask that questions focus on this "feedback on the cover-up" text that is where I am seeking scrutiny.

Any other off-thread questions?  Please feel free to send me a private post.  

[Sandy Larsen]

31 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

On Sandy's question - I think Greg Parker got it right - Oswald was keeping an eye on Joe Molina, who worked at the TSBD.  William Lowery of the local Communist Party - and an FBI informant - had kept an eye on Molina for years as a possible recruit because of his long advocacy within the local Latino community.  Thanks to Lowery, Jim Hosty also kept an eye on Molina.  Molina was actually on the conservative side, but he had a long history of activism.   I think Oswald was watching Molina even during lunch on 11/22, and may have followed him right out to the steps during the motorcade.   Molina was the only other person who was detained by the Dallas police, and he got a midnight visit from DPD intelligence chief Pat Gannaway and his boys the night of 11/22 where they tossed his home and interrogated him throughout the day of 11/23.  Molina lost his job and filed a suit against various entities who publicized his detention.

There is some connection between this Molina story and the coffeecake conversation with Buell Frazier's sister Linnie Mae Randle and Ruth Paine where Ruth got wind from Linnie that there was a job available at the TSBD and Ruth told Lee about it.  The story goes - recounted by Jim Douglass and others - that a better paying job was called in to Ruth by Robert Adams at the Texas Employment Commission, and Ruth didn't pass that information on to Lee before he took that job.  Robert Adams is also believed to have had some connection was "Bob" Odum better known as Bard Odum of the FBI who was Ruth's handler.   The Texas Employment Commission is one of the least-studies and most-important aspects of the Lee Oswald story.  

 

Huh?

Are you saying that you don't know how it came about that Oswald just happened to get a job where the plotters wanted him to be working so that he could take the blame for the assassination?

You do believe that the plotters designated Oswald to be the patsy prior to 11/22, don't you?

 

[Bill Simpich]

Yes, Sandy, I do believe that LHO was lured to work at the TSBD before 11/22 in order for him to become the designated patsy.

Your question is an important one, and I don't have a full answer, but this is what I think.   

My conclusion is that there are three balls in the air - Buell Frazier's sister Linnie Mae Randle passed on a tip in to Ruth Paine that there was a job opening at the TSBD which Ruth passed on to Lee;  Robert Adams' subsequent tip to Ruth Paine about a more-profitable job at another location which it appears Ruth may or may not have passed on to Lee (we see Adams' phone number in Lee's phone book); and indications that Lee may have been spying on Joe Molina at the TSBD.   (I mentioned more about this in my previous post, which I edited for clarity.)

I think, but can't prove, that Roy Truly was one of the planners of the 11/22 operation and enticed Linnie to pass the tip on to Ruth.  Similarly, I think Lee was enticed to take the TSBD job because he could gain some extra cred by spying on Molina.

I do renew my request for questions about the cover-up text that is the basis of this thread to be asked here, and for other questions about the case to be directed to my email or as a message here.  Thanks.

 

Edited March 15 by Bill Simpich

[Sandy Larsen]

Okay, thanks Bill.

I must say, your line of reasoning is way, way different from mine.

But so it is, as forum member Ben Cole would say.

Good luck!

 

[Michael Kalin]

3 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

The planners' cover-up began when Jerry Hill "found" three spent shells on the sixth floor at 12:55 and immediately ran off towards Oak Cliff.  Tippit died about 1:07 in Oak Cliff, with the final shot to the head as a coup de grace.

Evidence for the "coup de grace" does not exist, indicating it was a concoction by the HSCA.

1. There is no reason to believe the purported source, Jack Tatum, was present at the murder scene.
2. Even if he was there he said nothing about a coup de grace.
3. Dr. Rose's autopsy does not support a coup de grace.

See this comment in the "The 1:22pm DPD radio message translates as The jacket was planted and the witness transplanted (revision)" thread for details and the gunshot wound chart. 

Edited March 15 by Michael Kalin

[Bill Simpich]

Michael,

I have problems with Jack Tatum too.

My focus is simply the head shot.  My understanding is that the head shot came last, and separate from the first three shots to the body.  Alaric Rossman offers a good analysis that the head shot split Tippit's brain stem, and would have rendered the other three shots superfluous, among other points.

Edited March 15 by Bill Simpich

[Michael Kalin]

Thanks -- I've long wondered why the coup de grace idea persists, but Alaric Rosman's analysis is not entirely persuasive. Are his conclusions drawn mainly from the photograph? If so, damn insightful.

Per Dr. Rose shots 1-3 were all fired at an upward angle (2 was slightly upward), and there is no indication of sequence.

Also, Tatum's HSCA statement is the one that does not indicate a coup de grace, only the position from where a final shot was fired (after running behind the car and stepping into the street). The Myers reference is no longer pertinent. In 2018 Myers deleted "in the head" from his 1983 Tatum interview.

As to the question of deflection, I'll leave that to the experts.

Edited March 15 by Michael Kalin

[Bill Simpich]

Again, thank you very much for the insightful comments.   To avoid de-railing this thread, please send any comments or questions not addressing the text to me by private message.

This is the third posting of the five sub-chapters promised.

This third posting will be the first part of a three-part chronology of the cover-up - starting with November 22.

The other two parts will address November 23, and November 24 and the aftermath.

This early draft focuses mostly on the national security cover-up, but offers the outlines of the planners' cover-up.

After your feedback, I will add more details on the planners' cover-up.

With appreciation,

Bill Simpich

A Chronology of the Cover-Up

November 22: The planners' cover-up and the national security cover-up 

The planners' cover-up began when Jerry Hill "found" three spent shells on the sixth floor at 12:55 and immediately ran off towards Oak Cliff.  Tippit died about 1:07 in Oak Cliff, with the final shot to the head as a coup de grace.   Jerry Hill did his best to take control of the Tippit crime scene.  Tippit was in the middle of a hunt in Oak Cliff - after monitoring the Trinity River viaduct and failing to find his quarry, he ran inside the Top Ten and tried to place a phone call, finally resorting to stopping and searching a car in the middle of the street moments before his interaction with his killer.  The Tippit killing was done to enflame the Dallas police and the populace.

In the moments after Tippit's death, TSBD manager Roy Truly and deputy chief George Lumpkin put their heads together and identified Oswald as the key person "missing" from the book depository.   (ALL OF THIS WILL BE GREATLY EXPANDED)

By 1:30 pm, the national security cover-up began when Secret Service had wrestled JFK's body away from the custody of Dallas medical examiner Earl Rose.   Whether or not LBJ gave the Secret Service orders to take such action, the result was pre-ordained.  No forces in the executive branch were willing to entrust the autopsy in the hands of the Dallas authorities in the middle of a national crisis.   JFK's body was going to immediately return to Washington - period.

What went wrong was when Oswald wasn't killed in the theatre 45 minutes after Tippit.   Oswald played it smart, waiting till the very minute to punch the cop and got into a clinch where it was impossible to shoot him, shouting "I protest this police brutality".  Oswald wasn't supposed to live.  Now what?

Two different sets of decisions were going on - the national security cover-up and the planners' cover-up.

To me, the interesting thing is simply that the federal government controlled the autopsy and determined that evening that one man killed JFK.

Why?  Because Hoover and Bundy had both already decided by 4 pm that Oswald acted alone.   Why?  For the same reasons above - the executive branch did not want a destabilizing situation to develop.  Between 2 pm-4 pm, that decision was made by those two government actors in coordination with LBJ's people and immediately became the government's party line.

I love Vince Salandria.  I just don't agree with him - as much as I would like to - that McGeorge Bundy was the Great Satan in this affair.  He was an apparatchik.

When Bill Alexander tried to introduce "the Communist conspiracy" the night of Nov. 22, LBJ's aide Cliff Carter got on the line with Henry Wade and immediately slapped that down.

The role of the Planners in the cover-up will be greatly expanded - the remainder of this sub-chapter will focus on the National Security cover-up.

a.  At Parkland Hospital, the Secret Service’s first response was to wash blood and brain debris off the presidential limousine

I would say that the most important items of evidence are the President's body, the autopsy of the President's body, and the fate of the crime scene within the President's limousine.   (In that context, Connally's wounds are also critical, and will be addressed at a later date).

Shortly after the presidential limousine pulled into Parkland Hospital, a bucket of water was used by a Secret Service man to wash blood and brain debris from the vehicle. 

Before the convertible top was put back up and the limousine was driven away, people reported seeing holes emanating right through the front of the windshield and elsewhere that did not match up with the holes that were documented on the following day.  The controversy over the fate of the windshield is contested and continues to this day. 

The limousine was then loaded on a cargo plane and taken to Washington before the Dallas police evidence unit was able to conduct an inspection. The limousine was then driven from Andrews AFB to the White House Garage, causing its contents to shift and thus causing further damage to the integrity of the crime scene. Only by 1 am on November 23 did an FBI evidence team arrive, nor was any diagramming of the evidentiary items begin prior to this time. We will never know the true status of the evidence offered by the limousine.[ 20 ]

b.  In Langley, CI/SIG chief O’Neal’s immediate response was to hedge

During the afternoon of the assassination, the first thing that CI-SIG chief Birch O’Neal did was to lie to the FBI’s counterintelligence man in Washington, Courtland Jones. O’Neal was Ann Egerter’s boss. O’Neal had to know about the lead role Egerter played in preparing the twin 10/10/63 memos. When Jones asked O’Neal what was in the file, O’Neal responded that “there is nothing in CIA file regarding Oswald other than material furnished to CIA by the FBI and the Department of State.”[ 21 ]

As discussed in Chapter 5, Oswald’s biographical 201 file had been stripped of all references to the pro-Cuban Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), as well as other FBI memos that were dated after May 1962. Those memos were tucked away inside the FPCC file – what John Newman calls “the smoking file” – the file that had the good stuff about Oswald and Cuba. Anyone who read Oswald’s stripped 201 file would not know about Oswald’s pro-Castro background, or that he had even returned to the United States.

Once Oswald was captured, Whitten said that the “effect was electric” on the top CIA officials in Langley – many of them knew who Oswald was. O’Neal’s immediate instinct was to hide from the FBI any personal knowledge of the CIA’s memos about Mexico City and the transcripts and tapes of Oswald’s adventures during that time. O’Neal also had to be thinking about the routing sheets for documents that showed how the CIA had monitored Oswald throughout his time with the Soviets, during his time with the right-wing White Russians and the left-wing Paines in Texas, as well as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the Cuban exiles in New Orleans.

...Once he learned about the shooting, O’Neal knew that a plan had to be made about how to deal with the Mexico City evidence. As the head of CI/SIG and Egerter’s immediate superior, O’Neal should have known about the molehunt.

c. Hoover immediately wanted to declare Oswald as the lone assassin

At 6 pm on 11/22/63, Dallas District
Attorney Henry Wade was telling the
world: "Preliminary reports indicated
more than one person was involved
in the shooting. The electric chair
is too good for the killers."

Hoover made it clear to Bobby Kennedy by 3 pm CST that he believed the Dallas police had captured “the man who had killed the President”. This was in stark variance to what Dallas, District Attorney Henry Wade was telling the world at 6 pm: "Preliminary reports indicated more than one person was involved in the shooting. The electric chair is too good for the killers.” LBJ’s aide Cliff Carter got on the horn and made sure that the D.A. did not charge Oswald with conspiracy.The Johnson team had been nervous about a military attack all day, and did not want to give any signals that could lead towards a conflict with the Soviet Union.

Hoover knew that the Bureau was compromised dealing with Oswald as the assassin, and that the enormous blowback might spell the end to the FBI’s future. We have seen the record that revealed show Hoover’s fears that Oswald might have been impersonated while he was a Soviet defector back in 1960. Hoover probably knew that the Mexico City wiretaps had picked up Oswald, and he certainly knew the national security implications of having to reveal the existence of the wiretaps. 

Hoover’s response was to demand that the Dallas police turn over their evidence to him. Dallas officer J. C. Day delivered two of the three alleged hulls to the FBI by 2:15 pm CST on November 22, even though Hoover admitted that he had no jurisdiction over the case until after Johnson landed in Washington about 5:00 pm CST.  (Fritz held on to the third hull for several days.)  Dallas police chief Jesse Curry told the Warren Commission that due to FBI insistence, on “Friday night we agreed to let the FBI have all the evidence and they said they would bring it to their laboratory and they would have an agent stand by and when they were finished with it to return it to us.” Curry was upset about the chain of custody problems.[ 23 ] Dallas FBI chief remembered the intensity of the effort to get the evidence to Washington DC by Saturday morning.

The only inventory for 11/22/63 that I can find contains the rifle, the pistol, bullet fragment, shell casings, a blanket, Oswald’s shirt, prints, and paper and tape samples. An evaluation of the above evidence was sent from the FBI Laboratory to the Dallas police chief the next day. A few other items came in separately during the first 24 hours, but not many. I can’t find an inventory for the “four or five hundred” other evidence items that the FBI evidence technicians received during the initial twenty-four hours – the lack of an inventory would break the legal chain of custody for all of these items.[ 24 ] How was the Dallas district attorney going to get a conviction against Oswald, who was still alive at this point?

The evidence technician James Cadigan affirmed that it was “many, many items…a very large quantity of evidence that was brought in.” Cadigan also testified that “time was of the essence and this material, I believe, was returned to the Dallas police within two or three days.” Someone drew lines through the original transcript of Cadigan’s deposition and wrote “delete”.[ 25 ] This portion was excised from the official transcript, in an ultimately-futile effort to hide this original transport of evidence during the evening of November 22. The public was informed by the media that Tuesday the 26th marked the beginning of the transfer of evidence to Washington.[ 26 ] As journalist Jim Marrs put it, rather indelicately, “Wouldn’t any criminal be delighted if he could have complete, secret, and unsupervised control over all the evidence in his case for two full days?”

d.  In Mexico City, Win Scott’s immediate response was to hedge

During that fateful afternoon, Mexico City chief Win Scott wrote a memo saying that he would “forward soonest copies of only visitor to Soviet Embassy 28 Oct who could be identical with Oswald.”[ 27 ] Trained as a mathematician, Scott prided himself on being exact in all matters of substance. Why did Scott blend the two dates of the Oswald calls of September 28 and October 1 into “October 28” at a critical moment like this? Like O’Neal and Dallas homicide chief Will Fritz, Scott was hedging his bets while feigning ignorance about Oswald. Like O’Neal and Fritz, Scott was buying time to figure out what his story about Oswald was going to be. A CIA analysis states that “the Agency and its field stations, particularly Mexico City and Miami, were not unmindful of the possibility that Oswald did not act alone.”[ 28 ] While Mexico City was on the move, there were no sudden moves in Miami.

e.  During the evening of November 22, the Mexico City station sent the Mystery Man photos and a wiretap transcript to the Dallas FBI and to CIA HQ

In the moments after the assassination, Mexico City chief of station Win Scott asked Ann Goodpasture for the station’s information on Oswald, as she understood the tape and phone set-up better than anyone.[ 29 ] For many years, Goodpasture went to great lengths to deny that she gave a tape of the man who called himself Oswald to Scott, even at deposition.

Goodpasture finally admitted in 1995 that she gave Scott a duplicate tape of the Oct 1 conversation, the last of the Oswald phone calls.[ 30 ] She claimed that the master tapes were erased. "I don't know what happened to the tape after I brought it in. I think I...gave it to the (deleted)". I surmise that the nine-letter deletion says “FBI legat”, which would mean that she gave the tape to the FBI legal attaché Clark Anderson. What we don’t know is when she gave it to him. We also don’t know if the tape made it onto the airplane to Dallas.

We know the Mystery Man photos and a wiretap transcript made it on the plane. Before any discussion about the transcript, take a look at how the photos were handled.

We know Goodpasture provided Scott with photos of the Mystery Man, who gave them to the legat Clark Anderson. CIA HQ sent a message at 7:36 pm CDT and asked for the photos to be sent on the next available flight. Anderson called Alan Belmont and told him that the photos were coming by airplane to Dallas with his aide Eldon Rudd. This raised two problems for Goodpasture.

The first problem was that Goodpasture had led everyone to believe that the Mystery Man was Oswald, as seen in the October 8 memo to CIA HQ. I am convinced that Goodpasture originally chose the Mystery Man as fodder for the October molehunt, not to convince anyone that the Mystery Man was Oswald. The Mystery Man’s description was useful for the molehunt. Like Oswald, the Mystery Man looked like an American. The Mystery Man was also similar to the “5 foot 10, 165, 35 years old” Webster-like description that the CIA had been using for Oswald since 1960. Now she was stuck with this story.

The second problem was that Goodpasture had also led everyone to believe that the Mystery Man photos were taken on October 1 at the Soviet embassy, when they were actually taken on October 2.[ 31 ] Since she also had available photos of the man taken on the 4th at the Soviet embassy and the 15th at the Cuban embassy, Goodpasture tried to obscure this second problem by giving Scott photos of the Mystery Man on all of these dates.

The evidence indicates that at the request of Ambassador Thomas Mann, Win Scott sent the Mystery Man photos of “October 1” and October 4 during the evening of November 22 with the naval attache and the FBI legat’s aide Eldon Rudd for the FBI to review. Did either Rudd or the naval attache carry the tape? Rudd denies it, but I see no record about whether the naval attache who was flying the plane might have had it. That would have been good compartmentalization. Rudd had no need to know.

f.  Scott needed to get the bad news about the Mystery Man out of the way

Scott needed to send the Mystery Man photos to Washington, DC and get them out of the way. Given the Mystery Man description of Oswald that Goodpasture provided to Whitten’s office back in October, it was time to get the bad news out there.[ 32 ] I do not think that Whitten knew about the molehunt, even if his subordinate Bustos did.

By the time the plane left off Mexico City, photos and TV footage of Oswald had been disseminated throughout the world. Any reasonable station officer would have realized that the Mystery Man was not Oswald. Like Goodpasture, I believe that Scott knew that the Mystery Man was not Oswald back in October. Oswald was arrested shortly before 2 pm CST, and his picture was all over the television in the USA by 4 pm CST. Mexico City and Dallas were in the same time zone. Before Scott sent the Mystery Man photos to the USA, all he had to do was pick up a telephone and ask someone to describe what Oswald looked like. Mexico City admitted seeing Oswald on TV the night of 11/22 and “obvious photos sent to Dallas were not iden with Lee Oswald held Dallas”.[ 33 ]

Eldon Rudd left with Scott’s package at 10:00 pm CST, with the naval attache flying the plane.[ 34 ] Probably for reasons of security, the photos were mailed to WH chief J. C. King from Dallas – there was no hurry, an accompanying memo showed Scott telling King the photos were of “a certain person who is known to you”. Whitten sent a post at midnight CST saying to send a staffer with all photos Oswald to HQ on next available flight and to call him upon arrival.[ 35 ]

This was immediately countermanded in the next post sent moments later by “PWO”, saying “No need send staffer with photos. We have asked Navy for photos again, but Mexi can see Oswald’s picture sooner on the press wire.”[ 36 ] But it was too late to stop the delivery of the Mystery Man photos to the USA. The photos were already enroute. 

Dallas FBI chief Shanklin’s colleague Kyle Clark then sent on the photos to Hoover’s office during the early hours of the 23rd, saying the photos were of the individual “known as Lee Oswald as obtained from confidential source”

In any case, the best thing for Scott was to get the Mystery Man photos that he had supposedly relied on in October to all of his bosses at CIA HQ right away. The pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald were all over the world by 4 pm Central Standard Time. 

g.  Was the tape flown to Dallas, or did someone phone it in?

FBI agent Wallace Heitman was the Spanish-speaking agent in Dallas and was close with counterintelligence chief Bill Branigan. Heitman wrote a report about how Eldon Rudd picked up the package and proceeded to Dallas in the naval attache’s plane. Look how everyone mentions the transcript but Heitman: Heitman’s memo mentions the photos, but no transcript. Rudd’s memo mentions photos and a transcript.[ 37 ] Heitman’s partner Bob Odum reported that Heitman handed Rudd a transcript as well as photographic material.[ 38 ] The legat Clark Anderson wrote that Rudd delivered transcripts as well as photos.[ 39 ] Dallas FBI chief Gordon Shanklin said that Mexico City legal attaché Clark Anderson gave Rudd a transcript to bring. People have wondered if Anderson also gave Rudd or the naval attache a tape, or if a tape was played for the FBI agents in Dallas.[ 40 ]

Another indication that the tapes may have been on the plane to Dallas can be found in a memo written by Bureau supervisor Burt Turner to the legal attaché Clark Anderson in Mexico: “If tapes covering any contact subject [Oswald] with Soviet or Cuban embassies available forward to Bureau for laboratory examination. Include tapes previous reviewed Dallas if they were returned to you.”[ 41 ]

Burt Turner was considered one of the very best FBI agents of that time. When Hoover tried to demote Turner, Turner successfully faced Hoover down. How often did that happen? Turner’s memo indicates that Heitman sent “tapes” as well as photos with Rudd to Dallas. In any swearing contest between Turner and Heitman, Turner would win. No contest.

Edited March 15 by Bill Simpich

[Roger Odisio]

9 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

 

The planners at the top?  I assume - like many of us - a tight network of military, intelligence, anti-Castro, and fascist elements that wanted to keep American policy focused on building the national security state and away from international cooperation.

 

 

 

BS:  Roger, totally agree that the planners had to have a plan, a few thoughts:

 

You refer to the quick arrest of Oswald - yes, he had to be taken off the street immediately, but I think he and Tippit were both supposed to die immediately as part of the planners' cover-up.  What went wrong was when Oswald wasn't killed in the theatre 45 minutes after Tippit.   Oswald played it smart, waiting till the very minute to punch the cop and got into a clinch where it was impossible to shoot him, shouting "I protest this police brutality".  Oswald wasn't supposed to live.  Now what?

 

RO: I agree that the plan probably was to kill Oswald quickly, probably in the theater. Your description of how Oswald foiled the plan is apt.

 

BS:  The government had its own separate national security cover-up - a visceral response to an attack on the center of American power that had to be stabilized as soon as possible.  Two different sets of decisions were going on - the national security cover-up and the planners' cover-up.

 

RO:  Here is where we diverge.  There was only one plan.  It was the national security state itself that planned and attacked the "center of American power" by killing JFK. The killers, the same people, then ran the "investigation" that absolved themselves and framed Oswald. There was no need for a stabilization of fears that e,g., the Russians or Cubans did it. The planners of course knew who did it!  Talk of such was a diversionary tactic.  This is what Salandria meant when he said the purveyor of messages to the planes was speaking for the killers who were  too powerful to be challenged. The killers were about to investigate themselves and frame Oswald.

 

BS:  In terms of the national security cover-up, it was decided by 1:30 pm - before Oswald was in custody at 1:50 - there was absolutely no way JFK's body was going to remain in the possession of the local medical examiner.  The country was in the middle of a national crisis, and LBJ and his advisers were not going to allow a destabilizing situation to develop.  JFK's body was going back to Washington - period.    To me, the interesting thing is simply that the federal government controlled the autopsy and determined that evening that one man killed JFK.

 

RO:  I'm not sure what the original plan was about control of the body and particularly the autopsy.  The planners knew that an autopsy would reveal their Oswald story was false.  They knew Dr. Rose had jurisdiction over the autopsy. Yet they went with the Oswald as the sole shooter anyway.  Control of the autopsy was the obvious choice for their dilemma, short of operating on the body to eliminate all indications of a shot from the front. Turns out they did both.  

 

Many fine researchers have pondered why they would go with a single shooter from the front story that was so at odds with what happened. It also turns out the choice they made has worked for 60 years.  They had a good sense of their power and off they went murdering others standing in their way, even using the same fake lone nut explanation..

 

The planners had the same problem with the Zapruder film. I'm convinced they altered the original that weekend at Hawkeye Works, and it has been forever lost.  Another choice they have so far gotten away with.

 

BS:  Why?  Because Hoover and Bundy had both already decided by 4 pm that Oswald acted alone.   Why?  For the same reasons above - the executive branch did not want a destabilizing situation to develop.  Between 2 pm-4 pm, that decision was made by those two government actors in coordination with LBJ's people and immediately became the government's party line.

 

RO:  Oswald as patsy was decided before the murder and not by Hoover and Bundy.

They were pushing the Oswald story on several fronts and had arrested him before the time you cite.

 

BS:  I love Vince Salandria.  I just don't agree with him - as much as I would like to - that McGeorge Bundy was the Great Satan in this affair.  He was an apparatchik.

 

RO:  I don't think Salandria thought Bundy was the Great Satan. The calls to the planes coming back to DC from Bundy's post in the WH were clear evidence that Bundy was deeply involved. He knew the plan. But he was not running things. 

 

I do disagree with Salandria when he absolved LBJ, saying  he could find no evidence he was involved.  I don't know if he ever changed his mind about that. See below.

 

BS:  When Bill Alexander tried to introduce "the Communist conspiracy" the night of Nov. 22, LBJ's aide Cliff Carter got on the line with Henry Wade and immediately slapped that down.

 

That was the problem for LBJ that came up repeatedly over the next few days - that people like Bill Alexander, Win Scott (who espoused the Alvarado story), the DRE, and many other provocateurs kept cooking up stories designed to beat the drums of war with the Cubans or even the Soviets.  The World War III blackmail card was used by LBJ to get Earl Warren to sign on to the national security cover-up that culminated with the Warren Commission.

 

RO:  Yes, Johnson was never going to agree to go after the Cubans or Soviets. He had chased the presidency for too long to have his chance go up in smoke in a war like that.

 

BS:  Here's the big problem that the planners' cover-up people had to deal with:

 

As you say, the Dallas Bar representative got all the way into Oswald's cell by Saturday night.  If Oswald had decided to talk with him, the story would have broken wide open.  (I have often wondered if the Dallas Bar attorney was part of the plot to make sure Oswald didn't talk to a lawyer!)

 

For whatever reason, Oswald didn't trust the Dallas Bar attorney enough to talk with him.  To me, that indicates that Oswald was given strong directions not to deviate from his provocative demand for the Communist Party's trusted counsel, John Abt - with the troublesome American Civll Liberties Union as a backup.

 

RO: Oswald knew how right wing Dallas was and wanted no part of one of the Bar's lawyers "defending" him. The Bar's motive for offering one is unclear. Could have been a simple stalling tactic before they could kill him.  Even if Oswald had agreed to take a Dallas lawyer at some point, chances are he wouldn't actually get to talk to one before they could murder him. The police knew Oswald was entitled to a lawyer and they had to do something to protect their case.

 

BS: The planners at the top?  I assume - like many of us - a tight network of military, intelligence, anti-Castro, and fascist elements that wanted to keep American policy focused on building the national security state and away from international cooperation.

 

RO:  There were two men who were essential to the success of the plot.  Allen Dulles and Lyndon Johnson.

 

Dulles was still running essential parts of the CIA after Kennedy fired him.  He had access to a world-wide roster of trained killers. Kennedy stood in the way of how he wanted the CIA to run foreign policy, which he and his brother had been doing since the early 50s, until his brother died near the end of Eisenhower's second term.

 

Johnson wanted to be president.  He would be responsible for the fake investigation and coverup as president, which were essential to the plan's success.  The others had to know where he stood on what they wanted to do.  Also, they needed his ideas about how he was going to do his part, to reach a consensus. 

 

The idea of using the murder as a pretext for going after Cuba and the SU quickly was squelched by Johnson after the murder. My guess is he had told the planners he worked with before the murder that it was off the table.  

 

Everything was heavily compartmentalized.  Each had people to work with on their part of the plan. I'm not sure it's necessary to pin down those details to have a clear idea about what happened.

[Robert Morrow]

10 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

A couple more quick responses:

Steve, your question about the Oswald letter is a good one because after many years I came around to the view that he did write it.   He may have had help of course.  You mention (regarding the security index issue) that he wrote that "he was not of interest to the FBI" - but he was telling a whopper there, Hosty had just come to the Paine home a few days earlier, talking with Ruth at length, trying to communicate with Marina, and getting LHO so concerned that he wrote a note to Hosty saying that he would take "appropriate action" after sending the letter to the Soviets. 

Why he told that whopper?   I'll go out on a limb and say that I think he knew the letter might wind up in the FBI's hands, and he wanted the FBI to know that he was a cagy operator and could be trusted.  My overarching theory is that LHO really wanted his discharge upgraded and would do pretty much what it took to make it happen, including ingratiating himself with other federal authorities like John Quigley in New Orleans, who he sought out and spoke to for hours while in jail in August.  He wasn't pleased with Hosty and gave him some "guff", as Hosty put it.

On "why didn't Fain say something" when Marguerite allegedly told Fain that Oswald was 5 foot 10?  Agents are allowed to put false information in a report as part of a molehunt - Oswald's file was used as part of a molehunt more than once throughout his short lifetime by both the CIA and FBI.   Peter Dale Scott nailed this down in his article "The Hunt for Popov's Mole", one of my favorite articles on this case.  I am convinced that Fain made up this false description as part of that effort.

On Sandy's question - I think Greg Parker got it right - Oswald was keeping an eye on Joe Molina, who worked at the TSBD.  William Lowery of the local Communist Party - and an FBI informant - had kept an eye on Molina for years as a possible recruit because of his long advocacy within the local Latino community.  Thanks to Lowery, Jim Hosty also kept an eye on Molina.  Molina was actually on the conservative side, but he had a long history of activism.   I think Oswald was watching Molina even during lunch on 11/22, and may have followed him right out to the steps during the motorcade.   Molina was the only other person who was detained by the Dallas police, and he got a midnight visit from DPD intelligence chief Pat Gannaway and his boys the night of 11/22 where they tossed his home and interrogated him throughout the day of 11/23.  Molina lost his job and filed a suit against various entities who publicized his detention.

There is some connection that I am still trying to understand between this Molina story and the coffeecake conversation with Buell Frazier's sister Linnie Mae Randle and Ruth Paine where Ruth got wind from Linnie that there was a job available at the TSBD and Ruth told Lee about it.  The story goes - recounted by Jim Douglass and others - that a better paying job was called in to Ruth by Robert Adams at the Texas Employment Commission, and Ruth didn't pass that information on to Lee before he took that job.  Robert Adams is also believed to have had some connection was "Bob" Odum better known as Bard Odum of the FBI who was Ruth's handler.   The Texas Employment Commission is one of the least-studied and most-important aspects of the Lee Oswald story.   

It may have been that the Robert Adams-story was designed to put LHO closer to the motorcade route then the TSBD job.  After LHO wound up at the TSBD, greater effort was needed in order to move the motorcade towards the TSBD.

 

 

I very seriously doubt that FBI agent John Fain fabricated Marguerite Oswald's description of her son Lee. I think people are better served focusing on the before the event framing of Lee Harvey Oswald for the JFK assassination than any hunt for a Soviet mole who had penetrated U.S. intelligence.

So you are telling me FBI agent John Fain was working on behalf of James Angleton of CIA CI in a molehunt and using Oswald do to that? Doubt it.

[Bill Simpich]

Robert, I don’t think any of us can seriously evaluate the role of Oswald without evaluating the mole hunts that occurred using his file.  
 

In 2012, I spoke to Peter Dale Scott, who wrote The Hunt for Popov’s Mole” in the 1990s, an analysis of the various mole hunts conducted using Oswald’s file.  
 

Peter’s article walks through all the inaccurate information carefully inserted into his file by highly intelligent people - “Lee Henry Oswald” “5 foot 10, 165” “Robert Edward Oswald” just three of many - I told him that several of us thought it was the most important article ever written about the assassination.  He sighed and said, “yes, and no one has ever reviewed it”.

That has finally changed.  John Newman’s latest book is “The Hunt for Popov’s Mole”.  But you know what?

The comments on this forum focus primarily on what happened in Dealey Plaza, which is fine and has its place.

However, although Newman and Scott (to name just two) have provided well-documented analyses that  mole hunts were conducted with Oswald’s file…

…in the JFK critical community it seems like no one cares.  No one criticizes Scott or Newman for discussing the mole hunts conducted with Oswald’s file.  
Instead, they simply shy away from a serious discussion of mole hunts and the Oswald file.

Why?  In my opinion, because it is not as exciting as trying to figure out who fired the guns in Dealey Plaza.

One of my favorite quotes:  “They want to have their dessert without eating their vegetables.”

So I am pleased that Robert “doubts” my contention that Fain made up a tiny portion of his report.  

I just wish he had said why he doubts it.  Then we could have a real discussion.

In that vein, I wish someone had commented on my long analysis of how the 5 foot 10/165 description of the defector Robert Edward Webster entered into the Oswald file.

Or how the 5 foot 10/165 pound description of the Dealey Plaza shooter went out over the radio 15 minutes after the assassination.  It was called in by detective Herbert Sawyer, who later said he got the description from a witness - he couldn’t remember his name.  
 

When asked to describe this key witness?  “He wasn’t too young, he wasn’t too old.”  What happened to the witness?  Sawyer turned him over to a deputy sheriff.  Who was he?  Sawyer didn’t know.

Did any of the investigating agencies ever comment that the shooter description ever matched the intelligence agencies’ faulty description of Oswald?  Hell no.

Did anyone in the JFK critical community besides Peter Dale Scott and myself ever comment on the importance of this 5 foot 10/165 description?

To my knowledge, only Robert Morrow.  That’s to his credit.

So I will broaden my request - any analysis about the coverup or the molehunts gratefully appreciated.  Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

On 3/14/2024 at 12:07 AM, Ron Bulman said:

4.  By Unknow Man to DPD inspector Sawyer 1st report of suspect, DPD Inspector, 5' 10", 165 lbs.   The exact same as recorded by the CIA per Ann Ergeter, and the FBI in 1960?  

6.  Unknown man, Tippit's shooter to DPD officer Gerald Hill 5'10, 160-70 lbs.  Callaway to Summers, 27 rears old, 5'11", 165 lbs., wavy black hair.  The wallets, I defer again to K & K.

The unknown men arouse suspicion and are not easily dismissed. 

And they all seem to know of a 5'10" 60-170 Lb. Oswald/Suspect.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

Bill,

Is it your honest opinion that all the FBI/CIA  disinfo about “Lee Harvey/Henry Oswald” on Oct. 10, 1963 was about a “mole hunt?” Or ….

Wasn’t it more likely about turning off the federal spotlights on LHO and setting him up a patsy for the JFK assassination?

Would you agree that, if you're going to assassinate the President of the United States, you absolutely must HAVE A PATSY!

Otherwise, the search for you will be relentless, and you will be captured!

EDIT: The patsification of LHO started before 10/10/63, but those documents were an important part of it.   
 

Edited March 17 by Jim Hargrove