Disinformation in Oswald's CIA File - For molehunt purposes or for Oswald patsification purposes?

[Matt Cloud]

 

 

As Board Member William Kelly wrote, in 2008:

 

"http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry159840

Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union and the downplaying of his 201 File, in perspective, suggests the possibility that the downing of Francis Gary Powers and the failure of the Paris Summit may have been an event that was manipulated by a very powerful force within US Intelligence. Adding to this speculation we find that Richard Helms, who would be managing Oswald's 201 File was working with Whitney Shepardson (friend of Demitri de Mohrenschildt) as he collected information about Helsinki, Finland in the later half of 1959. In the Dulles biography it is pointed out the Richard Helms maintained a "private" intelligence network. Since Helms had been part of SI (as was Shepardson) and SI had been created under the watchful eye of John J. McCloy during WWII we find an interesting network of people surround this Oswald guy."

 

 

[Michael Kalin]

On 3/20/2024 at 4:55 PM, Matt Cloud said:

This is good.  Consider: The persons who ran the Oswald Project were themselves the persons who created -- who enticed -- the mole hunt, by sending over, or causing to have sent over, defectors alleging the existence of a mole.  Popov and the U-2 plans, then Golitsyn out of Helsinki (Frank Friberg) where Oswald had also recently passed through, Nosenko out of Geneva denying the mole, and so on.  By getting CI/SIG to bite on Oswald -- something which the Soviets didn't do, or knew not to do it seems -- and then having him blamed for the assassination, the mole hunt was paralyzed.  Indeed, there was mutual interest all around in having Oswald take the blame, including from the White House and DOJ.  "The Mole" you see is not a mole in the spy novel sense; he was rather a KGB interlocutor, a backchannel between Washington and Moscow, known in both places at the highest levels.  But revealing his existence would be a difficult explanation to the American people, to put it mildly.  And it would terminate its purpose moreover.  In any case, tying the mole hunt to the assassination foreclosed serious investigation into the assassination as well as the matter that had started the affair off in the first place -- the U-2 plans getting into the hands of the Soviets.

An impenetrable pile d'assiettes sans silver linings. Please feel free to expatiate on the use of marked cards in connection with an interlocutory mole.

[Matt Cloud]

9 minutes ago, Michael Kalin said:

An impenetrable pile d'assiettes sans silver linings. Please feel free to expatiate on the use of marked cards in connection with an interlocutory mole.

Such elaboration would take over this thread.  You can get some flavor for it, here:

 

As well as follow me on Twitter @realmattcloud

 

And for starters consider "those backchannel" negotiations during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Who was really serving as the intermediary?  Where did this occur?  Did this person do same all the way through the 80s and 90s?  

 

It's vast and important -- the vast and import -- secret of the Cold War.  

 

[Michael Kalin]

On 3/23/2024 at 11:41 AM, Matt Cloud said:

And for starters consider "those backchannel" negotiations during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Who was really serving as the intermediary?  Where did this occur?  Did this person do same all the way through the 80s and 90s?  

 

It's vast and important -- the vast and import -- secret of the Cold War.

Re-reading Newman's Uncovering Popov's Mole -- almost done -- apart from mole hunt paralysis not getting your drift.

Why ask me questions to which you know the answers? It's like chewing the fat with a philosophy professor.

[Matt Cloud]

My telling you, experience hath shown, generally results in reactionary rejection.  'Tis more prudent then to drop hints and ask questions which get you to the information on your own.  Then when you have processed and absorbed you will be hungry for more.  

 

As to Newman, does he mention John N. McMahon as among candidates for the "mole-hunt?"  How can he not?  He essentially ran COMOR -- the overhead surveillance section -- and the U-2 program in the late 1950s and into the early 1960s.  He debriefed Powers -- the transcript of which suggests Powers gave his name to the Soviets - and he debriefed Golitsyn and Nosenko.  All well before Bruce Solie came into the picture.  

[Michael Kalin]

49 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

My telling you, experience hath shown, generally results in reactionary rejection.  'Tis more prudent then to drop hints and ask questions which get you to the information on your own.  Then when you have processed and absorbed you will be hungry for more.  

No, I'm not playing ask me another with anybody.

49 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

As to Newman, does he mention John N. McMahon as among candidates for the "mole-hunt?"  How can he not?  He essentially ran COMOR -- the overhead surveillance section -- and the U-2 program in the late 1950s and into the early 1960s.  He debriefed Powers -- the transcript of which suggests Powers gave his name to the Soviets - and he debriefed Golitsyn and Nosenko.  All well before Bruce Solie came into the picture.  

Negative, but I cannot answer the question, "How can he not?" The case he makes against Solie is formidable, not airtight, but nothing about any of this strikes me as airtight.

[Matt Cloud]

23 minutes ago, Michael Kalin said:

No, I'm not playing ask me another with anybody.

Negative, but I cannot answer the question, "How can he not?" The case he makes against Solie is formidable, not airtight, but nothing about any of this strikes me as airtight.

I can't answer it either, on behalf of Newman or anyone else who has purported to deal with the allegation of the Mole in the U-2 program.  That's the point, but clearly it should be dealt with.  John Hart, in his testimony before the HSCA on Angleton's "Monster Plot" deliberately obscured McMahon's name from the report.  I know this -- we know this -- because two versions are presently available, one with McMahon and one without, wherein the latter all "McMahon" references are substituted for "this handler."

 

You can find the relevant links in the images here, at this Twitter post by me.

 

 

[Bill Simpich]

I again want to give my appreciation with Sandy Larsen for starting this thread - and setting up this as a discussion, while admitting that he had his own opinion on the subject and didn't know much about molehunts...I do question why he refused to read my book State Secret while he critiques it?

The other day, Sandy posted the following:

"So, why is it that the CIA's October 10, 1963 cable to the State Department, FBI, INS, and Department of Navy did the following:

1. Gave the wrong name, Lee HENRY Oswald, for the man who had visited (KGB Assassination chief) Valeriy Kostikov?
2. Gave a completely wrong description for the man who had visited Kostikov?
3. Made it sound like the CIA was unsure of the identity of the man who had visited Kostikov?

I believe that the answer is that the CIA didn't want to raise any red flags regarding Lee HARVEY Oswald, who would be working in a tall building located along the future path of President Kennedy's motorcade."

Let's look at it a little more specifically - when Sandy writes "CIA" - the person he is referring to is Charlotte Bustos, who wrote both of the 10/10/63 letters.

If Sandy had read my book State Secret, he would realize that Charlotte Bustos' prime source was Ann Egerter, Jim Angleton's analyst at CI-SIG.  Egerter had been closely monitoring Oswald during his time in the USSR years earlier, and she was one of the two officers who was involved in the draft of the cable.   It is documented that Egerter handed Bustos the file that Bustos relied on to write her two cables.

CI-SIG was described by Egerter as "the office that spied on spies".  Molehunts were CI-SIG's specialty.  

As Paul Garbler, the CIA’s first station chief in Moscow, told a researcher: “You know what CI-SIG was? Find the mole. That’s all they had to do.”

After the Mexico City station found out a man calling himself Oswald was in Mexico City, a decision was made at the HQ level for the Mexico City station to make no reference to Oswald’s visits to the Cuban consulate. All of Mexico City’s references to the Oswald case would use the LCIMPROVE indicator of an operation designed to counter the Soviets, rather than the TYPIC indicator that would refer to Cuban operations.

Oswald’s biographical file (known as his “201 file”) would be stripped of any reference to his pro-Cuban activities, as well as any reference to any attempt to obtain a visa. These documents were removed from the 201 file and placed inside Oswald’s FPCC 100-300-011 file tightly held by CI-SIG.[ 24 ]

As a result, Bustos didn't know much about Oswald, other than what Egerter told her - Egerter had all the important Oswald documents in her FPCC file - what John Newman has called "the smoking file".  Bustos' own file lied to her about the story of Oswald.  

Many documents still bear this original FPCC file number today, crossed out and replaced by the 201 number. This was done to create a plausible reason to prevent FitzGerald’s Cuban desk at HQ and Shackley’s Miami station from receiving any cables or dispatches about this molehunt. The Cuba operations officers had access to the August 1963 FBI report about Oswald based on his real name Lee Harvey Oswald, his actual slender build of “5 foot 9, 140 pounds”, and his current status as a US resident; as you will see, they would have known that the molehunt descriptions of Oswald were inaccurate.

One question Sandy posed was why one of Charlotte Bustos' cables gave the wrong name  "Lee Henry Oswald"? 

A number of us have made the case that the phrase "Lee Henry Oswald" was bait for the molehunt.   Egerter had named Oswald's 201 file "Lee Henry Oswald" when she created the file in December 1960.  That was no accident.

Sandy didn't mention that Bustos' other 10/10/63 cable described him as "Lee Oswald", not "Lee Henry Oswald".  There's a reason why - molehunts are designed to see who takes the bait and uses it in another post.  Many times, a clerk is the culprit.  But it could be an agency official.   In either instance, the molehunter finds out the identity of the leaker.

Another question Sandy asked is why the memo "gave a completely wrong description of the man who had visited Kostikov?"

The memo Sandy focused on was the 10/10/63 memo that described Oswald as "six foot, athletic build" when seen on October 1.  (It relied on a 10/8/63 memo where Barbara Manell relied on Ann Goodpasture's description of the photo log as portraying the man who met with Kostikov as "six foot" and with an "athletic build".   As shown below, the six foot man with the athletic build was "the Mystery Man".

The question Sandy should have asked is why Goodpasture said that the photo of the Mystery Man was taken on October 2 when the call from the man calling himself "Lee Oswald" was clearly on October 1.  The reason is that Goodpasture wanted people to believe that she and Barbara Manell believed that the man who called on October 1 was the Mystery Man.   

For what reason?  I think it was a molehunt, to try to figure out who had faked the voices of both Oswald and Silvia Duran in the Cuban consulate on Sept. 28.  Duran was militant in declaring that such a meeting never happened.  Silvia Duran was never questioned by the Warren Commission.  If it happened, the whole thing would have fallen apart.  Ray Rocca, Angleton's right-hand man, wanted Duran to be questioned - like many other people - in his case, because he wanted proof that Castro's Cubans had killed Kennedy!

I do not think these two memos of 10/10/63 were written to "patsify" Lee Oswald as the shooter of JFK.   I think it was to kill the CIA's ability to conduct an effective investigation into Oswald, because the agency did not want its employees to lose their jobs, their families to be harmed, their agency to be discredited and maybe even shut down.   If you think about it, Sandy didn't offer any evidence.  Evidence of a molehunt and a cover-up is what I am offering here.

If you look at the photo log for October 1, there are no entries, but look right underneath it for October 2 is a six minute sighting of the "UAM" (Unknown American Male) - that was the Mystery Man - clearly not Oswald.   

Look at the photo of the man photographed during those six minutes on October 2:  Clearly the Mystery Man.

You can even see a note on the memo Sandy read (probably from a CIA officer):  "As I recall, this description (athletic build, about six feet tall, with a receding hairline) was of the individual in Helms' affidavit of 7 Aug not Oswald!   Wrong!"

The August 7, 1964 affidavit of Helms cites Warren Exhibit No. 237 - a photo of the Mystery Man - that the photo was furnished by the CIA to the FBI on "November 22, 1963", and then states "the original photograph was taken outside of the continental United States during the period July 1, 1963 to November 23, 1963."

Helms then writes that this photo is the same photo given to FBI supervisor James Malley - and Malley explains that this photo was then trimmed to remove the background and shown to Marguerite Oswald by Special Agent Bard Odum on November 23, 1963.   Odum affirmed this story, adding it was "almost dark" on the 23rd when he showed it to Marina.

What I do agree with Sandy about is that at least two people decided to lower the "security flash" on Oswald - one day before the October 10 cables were sent out.  Those two people were FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling, who placed the original security flash on Oswald four years earlier in 1959, and Lambert Anderson - the "Nationalities Intelligence" desk man who covered Cuba.   

If you wanted to look at two people who certainly lowered the spotlight on Oswald and may have kept him off the Security Index - which might have put the spotlight on Oswald on Nov. 22 - Gheesling and Anderson would be your men.  Hoover was angry at them, and they were two of the 18 agents that he disciplined.   (FWIW, I think Gheesling and Anderson were manipulated by more powerful forces - a separate discussion).

These two FBI officers turned off the security flash on Oswald.  That's a far cry from saying - as Sandy did - that "the CIA didn't want to raise any red flags regarding Lee HARVEY Oswald, who would be working in a tall building located along the future path of President Kennedy's motorcade."

Sandy, you do good work and I don't want to pick a fight with you - but I put a lot of work into my thinking in this matter.  Next time, could you name your sources and read the book before you challenge it?    And I think we all agree that "the CIA" is not a monolith.   I think we are dealing with a powerful network of forces from several different entities that took out JFK - what some have called a "gray alliance".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stu Wexler]

Could they have been trying to find a mole in the get-Castro regime change/assassination efforts? Given how often said operations had failed? 

Stu

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said:

I do question why [Sandy] refused to read my book State Secret while he critiques it?

 

I quit reading State Secret when I got to the part where you wrote something to the effect that Oswald was a CIA-wannabe. I knew there was no further reason for me to read your theory because it would be completely at odds with mine.

My theory is that Oswald was a CIA agent and false defector to the Soviet Union. And that he'd been used by the CIA to implicate Cuba and Russia in the assassination of Kennedy.

As for my "critiquing" State Secret, I've said only that I disagree with its premise, and that I disagree with you as to the reason the October 10 cables were worded the way they were. I don't see that I have to read the whole book to know I disagree with those things.

But, as I said, I am no expert on the "mole hunt" angle espoused by you and John Newman. One reason I created this thread is so I could learn more.

Though it appears that you are the only active forum member who is an expert on this topic. So I'm left debating the other side even though I'm no expert.

 

1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said:

CI-SIG was described by Egerter as "the office that spied on spies". 

 

Yes, and Oswald's 201 file was in CI-SIG. Which is evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was a spy.

 

1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said:

Molehunts were CI-SIG's specialty.  

 

While that is true, that doesn't necessarily mean that Oswald was being used in a molehunt. Perhaps Oswald was suspected of being a mole.

I happen to believe that Oswald's 201 file was in Angleton's CI-SIG office because he was a part of a special Angleton project, known to us as the Oswald Project.

 

1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said:

Sandy didn't mention that Bustos' other 10/10/63 cable described him as "Lee Oswald", not "Lee Henry Oswald".  There's a reason why - molehunts are designed to see who takes the bait and uses it in another post.  Many times, a clerk is the culprit.  But it could be an agency official.   In either instance, the molehunter finds out the identity of the leaker.

 

I don't now what you mean, that I didn't mention a cable that described the man as "Lee Oswald," not "Lee Henry Oswald."

Here is what I said about the two cables, each of which talk about both "Lee Oswald" and "Lee Henry Oswald:"

 

October 10, 1963 Cable from CIA Headquarters to Mexico City

On October 10, 1963, CIA Headquarters sent a cable to the CIA's Mexico City station stating that Lee Oswald is PROBABLY the same person as Lee Henry Oswald, who had defected to Russia in 1959. The cable stated that Lee Henry Oswald was 5 ft 10 in and 165 lb.

 

October 10, 1963 Cable from CIA Headquarters to Other Departments

On October 10, 1963, CIA Headquarters sent a cable to the State Department, FBI, INS, and the Department of Navy stating that Lee Oswald MAY be the same person as Lee Henry Oswald, who had defected to Russia in 1959. The cable stated that Lee Oswald (NOT Lee Henry Oswald) had been described as being age 35, athletic build, 6 ft, receding hairline.

 

1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said:

I do not think these two memos of 10/10/63 were written to "patsify" Lee Oswald as the shooter of JFK.

 

As a reminder, in the title of the thread I use the phrase "Oswald Patsification" as a short way of saying this: "A way to keep Oswald's profile low so that he could get a job in a high-rise building along the route of a presidential motorcade." And in that way he could perform the role of patsy.

 

1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said:

If you think about it, Sandy didn't offer any evidence.  Evidence of a molehunt and a cover-up is what I am offering here.

 

I did so give the evidence... the three cables, the latter two being dated October 10, 1963. I just happen to interpret the reasoning behind their disinformation differently than you do.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

If you wanted to look at two people who certainly lowered the spotlight on Oswald and may have kept him off the Security Index - which might have put the spotlight on Oswald on Nov. 22 - Gheesling and Anderson would be your men.

 

Yes, Marvin Gheesling issued an FBI "security flash" on Oswald in 1959, and Lambert Anderson removed it with a "flash cancelled" on October 9, 1963.

The CIA sent their two cables the following day, October 10, 1963.

 

So my argument is that an element of the FBI took Oswald off of it's watch list on October 9, 1963. And an element of the CIA did effectively the same thing the following day, by issuing the misleading cable to the various government agencies. Both of which were done so that Oswald could get a job at a high-rise building along a presidential motorcade route without having any red flags raised.

 

[Bill Simpich]

Sandy, I wish you would take a few minutes to read at least my chapter 5 so that we have a similar data base.

I think you would find that although you believe LHO was a CIA agent and I think he was a spy wanna-be (at least as of 1963, I think he was a puppet on a string), and although we disagree about "the Oswald Project" our thinking about this case is similar.   I am just more conservative about concepts that I don't think I can prove.

Edited March 25 by Bill Simpich

[Benjamin Cole]

7 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

Sandy, I wish you would take a few minutes to read at least my chapter 5 so that we have a similar data base.

I think you would find that although you believe LHO was a CIA agent and I think he was a spy wanna-be (at least as of 1963, I think he was a puppet on a string), and although we disagree about "the Oswald Project" our thinking about this case is similar.   I am just more conservative about concepts that I don't think I can prove.

Bill S.--

As you know, the three KGB'ers who met with LHO in MC identified him as the "real" LHO, or at least the one they met in MC. There is controversy, but contemporary Russian cables also ID LHO, and no one on the Russian side ever said, "Oh no, the man we met in MC was not the LHO seen getting shot by Ruby." 

Is it possible, in fact, the real LHO was handled into MC, for the explicit purpose of meeting Kostikov, and building the LHO biography? 

The CIA at that time was not planning the JFKA, but merely a non-lethal false flag op, perhaps starring LHO.  

In the hubbub after JFKA, the CIA was desperate to conceal this true story of the CIA, that it had been guiding or manipulating a CIA asset, LHO, who later (in the eyes of the world) perped the JFKA.

Who knows what false documents were created and back-dated, and other documents destroyed. 

IMHO, this is a likely scenario. 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

A number of us have made the case that the phrase "Lee Henry Oswald" was bait for the molehunt.   Egerter had named Oswald's 201 file "Lee Henry Oswald" when she created the file in December 1960.  That was no accident.

 

I agree that it was no accident for Egerter to name Oswald's 201 file "Lee Henry Oswald" in December 1960, which is when it was first filed in Angleton's CI-SIG office.

I, like John Armstrong, believe that the Oswald Project was so sensitive that details of it were held only in memory. When Otto Otepka of the State Department requested in October 1960 that the CIA identify which of the American defectors to the Soviet Union were double agents, this prompted Egerter into opening the Lee Henry Oswald 201 file. The middle name "Henry" was used due to the sensitive nature of the file.

 

[Matt Cloud]

 

http://joanmellen.com/wordpress/kennedy-assassination/otto-otepka-robert-kennedy-walter-sheridan-and-lee-oswald/

 

"Bobby Kennedy’s hostility to Otto Otepka surfaced in December 1960, even before the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, but after Otepka had begun to evaluate Lee Oswald. At 7 P.M. one evening, in the gathering winter darkness, Dean Rusk, Kennedy’s Secretary of State designate, requested that Otepka meet with him. Otepka assumed that the purpose of the meeting was a discussion of security clearances for Kennedy appointees. What turned out to be the troubling reality was that Rusk, whom Otepka had only just cleared, was functioning as an intermediary. It was Bobby Kennedy who wanted to meet with Otepka.

Bobby was late. Otepka and Rusk sat twiddling their thumbs in the deserted building until Robert Kennedy finally appeared. Offering no apologies, he complained that he had become lost in the labyrinthine corridors. It was in these same corridors, nearly three years later that Bobby’s “confidential assistant,” Walter Sheridan, would be handed the tapes of the illegal surveillance of Otepka’s telephone and office."

 

https://www.adst.org/OH TOCs/Sonnenfeldt, Helmut.toc.pdf

"SONNENFELDT: He was told to keep the effort going because the Kennedy people had raised this whole issue in the first place - that there were thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, [of] people working on war and only fewer than a hundred on peace; and so this was the U.S. Disarmament Administration. Kennedy was quite interested in it right from the start. The idea developed in the transition period before Kennedy’s inauguration that relations with the Soviets were bad because of the U-2 and some other things, and that we really needed to find a way to get a new disarmament forum going again with the Soviets, to pick up some of the threads that had been tattered in the previous year. John McCloy was brought in to head the Disarmament Administration after the inauguration in 1961 ....

SONNENFELDT: …but anyway, there were people who were obsessed with guilt because of Hiroshima, and so on. Congress wanted to have a rather tough man, not exactly as a supervisor, but a monitor of what the agency was doing. That was all put into this statute. I think by October 1961 or so, the Arms Control Agency was established by Congress. Mr. William Foster, a very prominent, respected Republican and a former industrialist who’d been in the Defense Department, was the first head of the Agency. His appointment was a way for Kennedy to tell the more skeptical Republicans that he had two tough guys in this arms control business. John McCloy was made the head of this advisory group, the General Advisory Committee. In the meantime, a friend of mine, Roger Hilsman, had become head of INR. He approached me and asked me whether I didn’t want to come back to INR. I figured that that’s where I really still belonged. I had enjoyed the experience of being in a more policy-oriented job, and also being more exposed to high-level Soviets. I think in October or November of 1961, I went back to INR, with a promotion and a rather friendly and sympathetic Director and a Deputy Director, Thomas Hughes, who later became Director when Hilsman became Assistant Secretary for Asian affairs. They were all people that I knew. They also finally forced a resolution of the security allegations that were still there somewhere in the files, and that re-appeared occasionally. They arranged for me, finally, to be interviewed and confronted with what I was being charged with by Otto Otepka and the Security Bureau. The SY people gave me that lie detector test, and the upshot of it was that eventually I was cleared.

 

 

Louis Weinstock, mentioned in the thread here on the Elizabeth Bentley call to the Tippits of Connecticut, had visited with the Soviet AND Czech embassies in October 1960, along with with Mary Metlay Kaufman, carrying information from Powers trial in Moscow.  P. 203, here:

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/fbifiles/historical/MaryKaufman-fbi1.pdf

 

See also, for contrast:

Otto Otepka: Victim of the New Team.

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP71B00364R000500280003-0.pdf

 

 

 

 

Edited March 25 by Matt Cloud