James Jesus Angleton

[Mark Stapleton]

Could any of you direct me to the best book about JJA or the book which may best chronicle his endeavors and exploits (even though it may also cover other CIA personnel and matters)?

Thanks.

You could try Tom Mangold's 'Cold Warrior--James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter', Simon and Shuster, (1991).

I haven't read it. Just excerpts.

FWIW

Edited September 11, 2008 by Mark Stapleton

[Larry Hancock]

In general, I not only agree with the role he gives to Angleton as assassination mastermind, I have just, quite independently, made much the same argument myself.

I too have a new book out, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War (for details see my website, http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q.html). I raised a more tentative argument there about how CI/SIG’s lies about Oswald in October 1962 enabled him to be a patsy on 11/22 (pp. 387-91) but mentioned Angleton only in passing for his subsequent lies to the HSCA. But ten days ago I finished a long article, which in the course of discussing Angleton’s underworld contacts, has this to say:

Moreover CI/SIG, the “inner sanctum” of Angleton’s “alternative CIA,” affected U.S. history significantly in 1963. Its so-called 201 or “personality” file on “Lee Henry Oswald” (the man known to the world as Lee Harvey Oswald), had been filled with false and falsified information since it was opened in December 1960. And two messages in the 201 file were falsified again in October 1963, in such a way as to allow Oswald to be a credible “designated suspect” in the assassination of John F. Kennedy one month later.[1]

The falsification of Oswald’s 201 file may have originated as a legitimate counterintelligence operation. I have argued that the uniquely falsified messages were part of a so-called “marked card” or “barium meal” test to determine if and where leaks of sensitive information were occurring. This was a familiar technique, and was the responsibility of the CI/SIG, which was responsible for the 201 file.[2]

But by October 1963 we see signs that CIA messages on Oswald were also being manipulated, in order to enable him to become a designated suspect in the November 22 assassination of President Kennedy. A CIA teletype to the FBI in October 1963 (drafted by a CI/SIG officer) withheld the obviously significant information that Oswald had reportedly met in Mexico City with a Soviet Vice-Consul, Valeriy Kostikov, believed by CIA officers to be an officer of the KGB. [3] This withholding helped ensure that Oswald would not be subjected to surveillance by the FBI after the alleged encounter, surveillance which presumably could have limited his ability to become a designated suspect by his presence at a particularly sensitive corner in Kennedy’s Dallas parade route. I have argued that similar CIA withholding from the FBI of information about two alleged 9/11 hijackers, Nawaz al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdar, likewise made it possible for them to play the role of designated suspects by preventing FBI surveillance, as well. [4]

I don’t agree with every word of what Newman writes. Our different approaches surface in his second sentence: “The plot required that Oswald be maneuvered into place in Mexico City.” I myself am not at all convinced that Oswald went to Mexico City; it is I think more likely that he was impersonated there. What really mattered was not what Oswald did, but what CIA documents said he did; and here I totally agree that the man in charge of controlling the information flow was Angleton.

[1] For details see Scott, War Conspiracy, 387; Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II: The New Revelations in U.S. Government Files, 1994-1995 (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2007), 30-33.

[2] See Scott, Deep Politics II, 17-18, 92; also Peter Dale Scott, “Oswald and the Hunt for Popov's Mole,” The Fourth Decade, III, 3 (March 1996), 3; www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=519798.

[3] Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II, 30-33.

[4] See discussion in Peter Dale Scott, "The JFK Assassination and 9/11: the Designated Suspects in Both Cases," Global Research, July 5, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=9511.

John Newman’s analysis sounds very similar to his remarks during his Lancer Presentation a few years ago – when he was just finishing reviewing many of the Mexico City documents for the first time. And of course it is very consistent with Peter Dale Scott’s work in Deep Politics II and III (which I heartily recommend).

Personally I think there is little doubt that Angleton and CI/SIG were involved in a heavily compartmentalized operation involving Oswald. Whether that compartmentalization was for true operational (CI or psychops or both) remains open to question as does to what extent Fitzgerald and Phillips were also involved.

Of course the ultimate question is whether it was “stolen” by the JFK plotters or whether it was created from scratch for use in the conspiracy.

PDS clearly raises all three options and indeed if it were a true covert operation any of the three men could have “stolen” it. All three could have had much of the necessary information outlined by Newman. But as Newman points out, Angleton would have to have been involved in managing the CI/SIG and at a minimum lied about that and covered up Oswald’s use.

Phillips’ efforts in his book to claim he had never even met Angleton suggest to me that there actually was a relationship and that certain activities involving the two had to be covered up.

I totally agree with Newman’s summary paragraph and the fact that Angleton was involved in a CIA project involving Oswald. However, I don’t know if we can determine whether that was a brilliant CI/psychops operation that got hijacked or whether it was a brilliant ploy to manipulate government response to the assassination.

If I were to bet, I would bet that it was a legitimate operation that was hijacked by some of the officers involved and aware of it, that Angleton realized that and preferred to cover up everything rather than damage his beloved Agency.

I have no problem viewing Angleton as a villain, I’m not sure that I see him as the driving force behind the JFK conspiracy.

[Jack White]

I agree with Larry about Angleton's role. In the CIA, Dulles, Phillips and Hunt*

were the JFK operators, not Angleton, whose role seemed to be protecting

agency operations, rather than running a rogue operation. But I am not a

CIA expert. I just look at photos.

Jack

* also Lansdale and Conein.

Edited September 11, 2008 by Jack White

[William Turner]

I'm glad to hear that John Newman is at it again. I admire his work. My experience with CIA files is that their system is much like the FBI's. There would be the main 201 file in Langley fed by information from Miami and other stations. Only the more significant info would be forwarded, leaving unprocessed material in the station files. An officer of Angleton's rank certainly could access Oswald's file in Langley. There would be no need to control it since since the principles in his scheme were the ones that contributed to it to begin with. I see Phillips as the main action officer. Oswald was an informant for more than one agency. I will follow up on this shortly.

[Robert Howard]

I'm glad to hear that John Newman is at it again. I admire his work. My experience with CIA files is that their system is much like the FBI's. There would be the main 201 file in Langley fed by information from Miami and other stations. Only the more significant info would be forwarded, leaving unprocessed material in the station files. An officer of Angleton's rank certainly could access Oswald's file in Langley. There would be no need to control it since since the principles in his scheme were the ones that contributed to it to begin with. I see Phillips as the main action officer. Oswald was an informant for more than one agency. I will follow up on this shortly.

I am very sympathetic to all the various views expressed in this thread, John Bevilaqua, I consider to have a keen understanding of the myriad relationships between the Sovereign Knights of Malta, the Shickshinny Knights in Philadelphia with all of the military personages, Opus Dei, General Charles Willoughby and others. I find it curious that after all these years, the higher level names of J Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles, Lyndon Johnson and James Angleton are almost like a mantra.......

Forty four years after the event, I believe that their connections and their activities and inactivity in critical moments, reveal their complicity in the management of how the post assassination events transpired;

The problem is that it is hard to differentiate between whether they are not only covering up the loose ends, i.e. commonly known as the "post-assassination cover-up," but whether they are also covering up their own tracks in the process...

If you are reading this and wondering if I have anything to contribute factually, I assure you I do.

But indulge me this last point. The last remaining pieces can be put together......

But even at this late juncture, I feel there is a tendency to label the assassination in terms of groups, which is, an over-simplification. If one leaves research and gets into labeling the guilty men as "the Jews," "ex-Nazi's," "fascists," or, the "military-industrial complex" just to cite a few, that is counter-productive, in my opinion. It should be remembered that this was the most sophisticated assassination of the 20th century, and specific individuals were involved in this event, to get mired in groups, I believe ultimately places the assassination in a more convoluted context. Hope I do not offend anyone's sensibilities in making that point.

Now with regards to Angleton, and this is just a, for further research type of post......there are a couple of items I would like to cite:

First is the following on James Jesus Angleton.........

May 12, 1987

JAMES ANGLETON, COUNTERINTELLIGENCE FIGURE, DIES

By STEPHEN ENGELBERG, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

James Angleton, the erudite Central Intelligence Agency officer whose search for Soviet agents inside the Government stirred an uproar in the murky worlds of intelligence for a generation, died here this morning of lung cancer. He was 69 years old, Mr. Angleton, who joined the C.I.A. at its inception in 1947, served for more than 20 years as head of its counterintelligence office.

James Angleton, the erudite Central Intelligence Agency officer whose search for Soviet agents inside the Government stirred an uproar in the murky worlds of intelligence for a generation, died here this morning of lung cancer. He was 69 years old, Mr. Angleton, who joined the C.I.A. at its inception in 1947, served for more than 20 years as head of its counterintelligence office. He was forced to resign his post in 1974 by William E. Colby, then Director of Central Intelligence, who had become convinced that Mr. Angleton's efforts were harming the agency.

The tall, donnish intelligence official remains one of the most fascinating figures in the history of the C.I.A. His counterintelligence office was considered one of the most secret in the agency, and the problems it analyzed resembled the multidimensional chess games depicted in the best espionage fiction.

With his departure, the agency cut the counterintelligence staff to 80 from 300, and turned away from some of the techniques he had pioneered. Today, some intelligence officials and members of Congress say this may have been an overreaction. They say that the recent disclosures about highly damaging Soviet espionage operations suggest that Mr. Angleton was more accurate in his suspicions than was once believed. Distrust of Soviet Motives

Counterintelligence is one of the most thankless jobs in spy craft. Its practitioners think the unthinkable, examining each operation, recruit or defector for the possibility that it may be a deception. Counterintelligence agents also try to recruit agents who work for hostile intelligence services, hoping to confuse opponents with cleverly packaged false information.

Friends and associates agree that Mr. Angleton, who wore glasses and had a pronounced stoop, was ideally suited for his life's work. His view of the world was characterized by an abiding suspicion - opponents called it paranoia - about the Soviet Union's motives and maneuvers.

When the Soviet Union and China split in the early 1960's, Mr. Angleton remained convinced that the widely reported antagonism was a ruse concocted by the two Communist powers.

The defection of Yuri Nosenko from the Soviet Union in January 1964 prompted a prolonged investigation by Mr. Angleton and his staff. Mr. Nosenko insisted that he had been the Soviet case officer for Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy.

Mr. Angleton was inclined to doubt Mr. Nosenko's insistence that the Soviet security agency, the K.G.B., had no connection to the attack on the President. Mr. Nosenko was released after being interrogated for more than three years, and the consensus at the C.I.A. was that he had been a legitimate defector. Mr. Nosenko was subsequently hired as a lecturer at courses given by the agency. Powerful Role in Agency

Mr. Angleton may have lost the battle over Mr. Nosenko, but he wielded great power inside the agency for decades. His section had access to more information than virtually any other because it was permitted to examine virtually all C.I.A. operations. The counterintelligence staff under Mr. Angleton could and did effectively end the careers of C.I.A. officers suspected of working for the Soviet Union. He often declined to explain why a particular officer had fallen under suspicion.

In addition, Mr. Angleton handled one of the agency's most sensitive relationships with an allied intelligence service, its ties to the Israelis. Mr. Angleton handled ''the Israeli account'' as it was termed in C.I.A. argot, for more than a decade. Indeed, Mr. Colby, the agency director who forced his resignation, earlier insisted that Mr. Angleton relinquish his control over Israeli matters.

Even with the passage of decades, it is difficult to compile a reasonably certain account of Mr. Angleton's espionage successes, which remain classified. For instance, by one account he was instrumental in obtaining, the text of Nikita S. Khrushchev's secret denunciation of Stalin in 1956.

He was also said to have been deeply involved in the unmasking of Kim Philby, the British double agent. Others say that for a time, at least, Mr. Angleton was deceived by Mr. Philby a man who had come to be his friend.

James Jesus Angleton was born in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, in Boise, Idaho. His father worked for the National Cash Register Company in Italy, and James Angleton spent summers in Italy while attending Malvern College in England. In 1937, he entered Yale University, where he roomed with E. Reed Whittemore Jr., the poet. The two founded a literary magazine, reflecting what would be Mr. Angleton's lifelong interest in the letters. His favorite poets, friends say, were T.S. Eliot and E.E. Cummings, and in Washington he was often found at lectures on the writings of James Joyce.

Two years after being graduated from Yale, he was recruited by a professor into the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II intelligence agency and forerunner to the C.I.A.

Senator Malcolm Wallop, a Wyoming Republican who was a strong defender of Mr. Angleton, said in a statement today: ''James Angleton lived long enough to serve his country before, during and after World war II. He was the architect of the best counterintelligence the United States ever had. In the mid-1970's, Angleton went out of fashion, but he lived long enough to see time and events vindicate him and show how little his accusers understood of the difficult and inherently thankless business of counterintelligence.''

In World War II Mr. Angleton directed agents working against Nazi Germany. In 1944 he traveled to Rome where he worked on operations aimed at the Italian Fascist intelligence service. After the war, he worked closely with Italian counterintelligence to uncover reams of data about Soviet operations.

When he returned to the United States, he began to specialize in studying the K.G.B. Mr. Angleton built huge files on the espionage operations of the Russians, and was authorized in 1954 by Allen W. Dulles, then the director of agency, to set up its first counterintelligence staff.

In 1975 Mr. Angleton was awarded the C.I.A.'s highest award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.

Mr. Angleton has been sharply criticized in recent years in the memoirs of some intelligence officials, including Adm. Stansfield Turner, the director of Central Intelligence under President Carter. Admiral Turner wrote that he had got Congress to appropriate money to compensate officers whose careers had been ruined because they had come under the suspicion of Mr. Angleton.

But his staff of counterintelligence operatives were quick to defend him and his methods to reporters and others.

''He was truly a Renaissance man, '' said N. Scott Miler, the chief of operations under Mr. Angleton. ''He had a remarkable amount of knowledge about world events, art, literature. most remarkable people I have ever known.''

Mr. Angleton is survived by his wife, Cicely d'Autremont; a son, James Charles Angleton, of Los Angeles, and two daughters, Guru Sangat Kaur, of Great Falls, Va., and Lucy d'Autremont Angleton, of New Mexico. He also leaves a brother, Hugh Angleton of Boise, and two sisters, Carmen Mercedes Angleton of Rome and Delores Guarnieri of Florence, Italy.

Services will be held Friday, at Rock Springs Church in Arlington, Va.

END

Again, the following information is only intended for informational purposes.....

I have always been very intrigued by a particular chain of events before the JFK assassination, in relation to the confrontation between Bobby Kennedy and William K. Harvey over the unauthorized raid into Cuba, that Harvey sanctioned, to a very upset White House.......Bearing in mind that according to Gaeton Fonzi, John Martino was a relative of Philadelphia Mafia Boss Angelo Bruno. 1

1 See The Last investigation page 324

Obviously, with Martino's relationship with Roselli, and his involvement in the casino business in Cuba, these two individuals, are an example of mob figures that are indeed significant. [also see Fred Classen]

While the mob or Mafia, or La Cosa Nostra are the favorite guilty men of the mainstream media darlings, second only to Castro, that does not mean they were not utilized to a great degree. But again, as mentioned before Philadelphia is a significant city in the JFK Assassination as John alluded to earlier......

In a Associated Press story dated December 14, 1963 entitled “FBI Arrests Philadelphia Gang Leader,” it was revealed that Angelo Bruno was arrested “as he stepped off the plane”, returning from....Italy...”Bruno said he had been in Italy since September.”

This is significant in my mind, since Italy was where William King Harvey, had been banished to, after the fracas with RFK.

Edited September 12, 2008 by Robert Howard

[Gerald McKnight]

Newman has done some critical good work on Oswald in the past and I think his reasoning here is nothing to sneeze at.

For example, an FBI Hq officer by the name of Marvin Gheesling, a supervisor in Soviet espionage section at FBI HQ, turned off the alarm system on Oswald on October 9, 1963. Had it remained on the Dallas office would have been alerted to warn the Secret Service and Dallas police of Oswald's presence and he would have been placed under observation before JFK came to Dallas. In short, Oswald would have had the best alibi in the world when the shooting went down.

Gheesling was one of 17 FBI agents who were disciplined for the Bureau's greatest intelligence failure (or perhaps, second, the other being its boggling the early warning of the Japanese atteck on Pearl Harbor.) That was the failure to alert the Kenendy White House. (I have to add parenthetically, that elements of the Secret Service had to be involved in Dallas by stripping away Kennedy's security. There can be no other explanation considering the serious death threats in November that the government---FBI and SS--knew about and conveniently ignored).

Newman was the one who brought Gheesling's name into the literature. The whole Gheesling thing illustrates that those who were involved in the planning and execution of the "Executive Action" against JFK could go behind Hoover's back and hit the right levers to make Dallas possible.

There are still over a 1,000 CIA documents related to JFK assassination that will not be released until 2017. That's just a statement of fact. It probably will have no meaning in that any pertinent documents supporting Newman will have been deep sixed.

But I applaude Newman and his work on this "The Who Done It" aspect of the case. I am totally convinced that JFK was a victim of the military-industrial-intelligence elements in American society.

Shine perishing Republic, shine.

[Adele Edisen]

I have harbored the thought for many long years about the CIA's responsibility in the murder of John Kennedy. One of the three Freedom of Information letters I first wrote, when I learned of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from my attorney, was to the Central Intelligence Agency to try to obtain information about Jose Rivera. Rivera had told me repeatedly and boastfully of his 'other job'; his 'other office' at Foggy Bottom in Washington. In 1963 the CIA offices were scattered in Foggy Bottom, and the agency moved to Langley, Virginia, in that year.

My other two letters were sent to the headquarters of the FBI and the US Secret Service.

Many military personnel were and are still recruited by the Agency, especially if they have some special skill or knowledge, such as biowarfare methods that are considered TOP SECRET. I did not know all this then, but it now makes perfect sense for Rivera to have been in on the plotting and execution of the assassination of John Kennedy. I would like to know who informed him, and invited him, to view the Autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on November 22, 1963.

Although a conclusion is not so much stated in his book, JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass gives plenty of evidence pointing to the CIA as being behind the assassination. John Newman gets specific by naming James Angleton as the mastermind and organizer of the assassination. I have no reason to doubt this could be true.

I consider the CIA (or certain fragments of it) as the operational part of a much larger organization of people and institutions opposed to our democratic system and against anyone like John Kennedy who would act to further the goals and benefits of democracy to the people of the United States. We could name such a group a Secret Government or The Establishment for lack of better terms.

Webster Griffin Tarpley, in his book, Obama, The Postmodern Coup, observes, on page 68, that the banking oligarchy was appalled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt acting as a real president as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The bankers resolved to never have anyone elected to that office exercise the full powers of the presidency, so they worked to limit the number of terms anyone could serve in that position, and thereby weakened a president to a position similar to an outgoing 'lame-duck' president. Roosevelt had been elected to four terms before his death.

When John Kennedy was elected, the oligarchy feared what he would do. They actually used the same words to describe him as they had Roosevelt - a traitor to his class, a socialist, a communist, and so on.

Although the plot to assassinate President Kennedy was in the works, possibly even before he was actually elected in 1960, it was in June of 1963 when John Kennedy made two moves that I think provoked Wall Street and the cabal of bankers to finalize their plans. Kennedy spoke of peacemaking with the Soviet Union, AND, possibly most important of all, to strengthen the economy, he created a Presidential Executive Order, Number 11110, that would allow the US Treasury Department to print 4.3 billion dollars worth of US Government Notes in $2.00 and $5.00 denominations, interest-free to the Government and to the Taxpayer. Other aspects of this Executive Order also spelled the beginning of the end of the Federal Reserve System of privately owned banks which lend monies (called Federal Reserve Notes) to the US Government which the Government itself prints! The interest paid to the Federal Reserve private banks by the US Government comes primarily from the people who pay their yearly income taxes to the US Treasury. About 40 cents per dollar goes to this loan's interest paid by taxpayers.

To the US bankers and their international banking colleagues, this was heresy and treason. John Kennedy would not have much longer to live or to be re-elected.

The CIA first pushed, as a reason for the assassination, that Castro and the Soviets did it with the aid of "communist" Oswald. Then it became the "lone nut, Oswald." (which may have saved us from a war with Cuba and the Soviet Union). Then the Mafia did it, and then Lyndon B. Johnson, the former Vice-President did it. Vice-Presidents are favorite scapegoats whenever a president is assassinated because their 'benefit' is so obvious to the public.

The CIA's versions were all ANYBODY-BUT-THE-CIA. Help for them came in part from the Warren (McCloy-Dulles) Commission, the FBI, the Secret Service, the State Department, the electronic and print news media, various individuals in the pay and control of the CIA (many 'working' for the Congressional investigative bodies over the years), or those acting as individuals in providing phony clues and testimonies by mistake or intent.as witnesses.

President Kennedy's murder deserved the best of investigations. The American and world's peoples deserve Justice and Truth. In a few more years it will be 50 years since that tragedy; two generations of the world's population have cycled through these years. It's time we know the Truth.

[Jack White]

I have harbored the thought for many long years about the CIA's responsibility in the murder of John Kennedy. One of the three Freedom of Information letters I first wrote, when I learned of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from my attorney, was to the Central Intelligence Agency to try to obtain information about Jose Rivera. Rivera had told me repeatedly and boastfully of his 'other job'; his 'other office' at Foggy Bottom in Washington. In 1963 the CIA offices were scattered in Foggy Bottom, and the agency moved to Langley, Virginia, in that year.

My other two letters were sent to the headquarters of the FBI and the US Secret Service.

Many military personnel were and are still recruited by the Agency, especially if they have some special skill or knowledge, such as biowarfare methods that are considered TOP SECRET. I did not know all this then, but it now makes perfect sense for Rivera to have been in on the plotting and execution of the assassination of John Kennedy. I would like to know who informed him, and invited him, to view the Autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on November 22, 1963.

Although a conclusion is not so much stated in his book, JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass gives plenty of evidence pointing to the CIA as being behind the assassination. John Newman gets specific by naming James Angleton as the mastermind and organizer of the assassination. I have no reason to doubt this could be true.

I consider the CIA (or certain fragments of it) as the operational part of a much larger organization of people and institutions opposed to our democratic system and against anyone like John Kennedy who would act to further the goals and benefits of democracy to the people of the United States. We could name such a group a Secret Government or The Establishment for lack of better terms.

Webster Griffin Tarpley, in his book, Obama, The Postmodern Coup, observes, on page 68, that the banking oligarchy was appalled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt acting as a real president as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The bankers resolved to never have anyone elected to that office exercise the full powers of the presidency, so they worked to limit the number of terms anyone could serve in that position, and thereby weakened a president to a position similar to an outgoing 'lame-duck' president. Roosevelt had been elected to four terms before his death.

When John Kennedy was elected, the oligarchy feared what he would do. They actually used the same words to describe him as they had Roosevelt - a traitor to his class, a socialist, a communist, and so on.

Although the plot to assassinate President Kennedy was in the works, possibly even before he was actually elected in 1960, it was in June of 1963 when John Kennedy made two moves that I think provoked Wall Street and the cabal of bankers to finalize their plans. Kennedy spoke of peacemaking with the Soviet Union, AND, possibly most important of all, to strengthen the economy, he created a Presidential Executive Order, Number 11110, that would allow the US Treasury Department to print 4.3 billion dollars worth of US Government Notes in $2.00 and $5.00 denominations, interest-free to the Government and to the Taxpayer. Other aspects of this Executive Order also spelled the beginning of the end of the Federal Reserve System of privately owned banks which lend monies (called Federal Reserve Notes) to the US Government which the Government itself prints! The interest paid to the Federal Reserve private banks by the US Government comes primarily from the people who pay their yearly income taxes to the US Treasury. About 40 cents per dollar goes to this loan's interest paid by taxpayers.

To the US bankers and their international banking colleagues, this was heresy and treason. John Kennedy would not have much longer to live or to be re-elected.

The CIA first pushed, as a reason for the assassination, that Castro and the Soviets did it with the aid of "communist" Oswald. Then it became the "lone nut, Oswald." (which may have saved us from a war with Cuba and the Soviet Union). Then the Mafia did it, and then Lyndon B. Johnson, the former Vice-President did it. Vice-Presidents are favorite scapegoats whenever a president is assassinated because their 'benefit' is so obvious to the public.

The CIA's versions were all ANYBODY-BUT-THE-CIA. Help for them came in part from the Warren (McCloy-Dulles) Commission, the FBI, the Secret Service, the State Department, the electronic and print news media, various individuals in the pay and control of the CIA (many 'working' for the Congressional investigative bodies over the years), or those acting as individuals in providing phony clues and testimonies by mistake or intent.as witnesses.

President Kennedy's murder deserved the best of investigations. The American and world's peoples deserve Justice and Truth. In a few more years it will be 50 years since that tragedy; two generations of the world's population have cycled through these years. It's time we know the Truth.

Adele...I agree with most of what you say.

However, it was not JUST the CIA. It was not JUST the international bankers. It was some SECRET group

superior to them. The only names that come to mind are Bilderbergers, CFR, TLC and Nazis, and maybe not

even just them. The identity of the group may be unknowable. I disagree that Angleton was a key player;

I think he was more an interested observer; Dulles, Phillips and Hunt were the CIA players, working with LBJ,

Hoover and certain military. The mafia, Castro and Kruschev, etc. were fall-back plausible patsies.

Jack

[Terry Mauro]

I have harbored the thought for many long years about the CIA's responsibility in the murder of John Kennedy. One of the three Freedom of Information letters I first wrote, when I learned of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from my attorney, was to the Central Intelligence Agency to try to obtain information about Jose Rivera. Rivera had told me repeatedly and boastfully of his 'other job'; his 'other office' at Foggy Bottom in Washington. In 1963 the CIA offices were scattered in Foggy Bottom, and the agency moved to Langley, Virginia, in that year.

My other two letters were sent to the headquarters of the FBI and the US Secret Service.

Many military personnel were and are still recruited by the Agency, especially if they have some special skill or knowledge, such as biowarfare methods that are considered TOP SECRET. I did not know all this then, but it now makes perfect sense for Rivera to have been in on the plotting and execution of the assassination of John Kennedy. I would like to know who informed him, and invited him, to view the Autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on November 22, 1963.

Although a conclusion is not so much stated in his book, JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass gives plenty of evidence pointing to the CIA as being behind the assassination. John Newman gets specific by naming James Angleton as the mastermind and organizer of the assassination. I have no reason to doubt this could be true.

I consider the CIA (or certain fragments of it) as the operational part of a much larger organization of people and institutions opposed to our democratic system and against anyone like John Kennedy who would act to further the goals and benefits of democracy to the people of the United States. We could name such a group a Secret Government or The Establishment for lack of better terms.

Webster Griffin Tarpley, in his book, Obama, The Postmodern Coup, observes, on page 68, that the banking oligarchy was appalled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt acting as a real president as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The bankers resolved to never have anyone elected to that office exercise the full powers of the presidency, so they worked to limit the number of terms anyone could serve in that position, and thereby weakened a president to a position similar to an outgoing 'lame-duck' president. Roosevelt had been elected to four terms before his death.

When John Kennedy was elected, the oligarchy feared what he would do. They actually used the same words to describe him as they had Roosevelt - a traitor to his class, a socialist, a communist, and so on.

Although the plot to assassinate President Kennedy was in the works, possibly even before he was actually elected in 1960, it was in June of 1963 when John Kennedy made two moves that I think provoked Wall Street and the cabal of bankers to finalize their plans. Kennedy spoke of peacemaking with the Soviet Union, AND, possibly most important of all, to strengthen the economy, he created a Presidential Executive Order, Number 11110, that would allow the US Treasury Department to print 4.3 billion dollars worth of US Government Notes in $2.00 and $5.00 denominations, interest-free to the Government and to the Taxpayer. Other aspects of this Executive Order also spelled the beginning of the end of the Federal Reserve System of privately owned banks which lend monies (called Federal Reserve Notes) to the US Government which the Government itself prints! The interest paid to the Federal Reserve private banks by the US Government comes primarily from the people who pay their yearly income taxes to the US Treasury. About 40 cents per dollar goes to this loan's interest paid by taxpayers.

To the US bankers and their international banking colleagues, this was heresy and treason. John Kennedy would not have much longer to live or to be re-elected.

The CIA first pushed, as a reason for the assassination, that Castro and the Soviets did it with the aid of "communist" Oswald. Then it became the "lone nut, Oswald." (which may have saved us from a war with Cuba and the Soviet Union). Then the Mafia did it, and then Lyndon B. Johnson, the former Vice-President did it. Vice-Presidents are favorite scapegoats whenever a president is assassinated because their 'benefit' is so obvious to the public.

The CIA's versions were all ANYBODY-BUT-THE-CIA. Help for them came in part from the Warren (McCloy-Dulles) Commission, the FBI, the Secret Service, the State Department, the electronic and print news media, various individuals in the pay and control of the CIA (many 'working' for the Congressional investigative bodies over the years), or those acting as individuals in providing phony clues and testimonies by mistake or intent.as witnesses.

President Kennedy's murder deserved the best of investigations. The American and world's peoples deserve Justice and Truth. In a few more years it will be 50 years since that tragedy; two generations of the world's population have cycled through these years. It's time we know the Truth.

Adele...I agree with most of what you say.

However, it was not JUST the CIA. It was not JUST the international bankers. It was some SECRET group

superior to them. The only names that come to mind are Bilderbergers, CFR, TLC and Nazis, and maybe not

even just them. The identity of the group may be unknowable. I disagree that Angleton was a key player;

I think he was more an interested observer; Dulles, Phillips and Hunt were the CIA players, working with LBJ,

Hoover and certain military. The mafia, Castro and Kruschev, etc. were fall-back plausible patsies.

Jack

Jack, I agree with your statement concering the involvement of "international" players in the murder of JFK The apparatus used to carry out the hit (along with the murder attempts made against Charles DeGaulle) was Permindex. Permindex was headed by British Special Operations Executive (SOE) Major Louis Mortimer Bloomfield of Montreal Canada. Clay Shaw was a director on the board of Permindex.

I believe this is what LBJ meant when he blurted out "we were running a damn Murder Inc. in the Carribean" LBJ was pointing his finger at Permindex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permindex

As late as 1963 Louis Mortimer Bloomfield was still a recruiting officer with the FBI's counter espionage "Division Five". Division Five had been created top to bottom by "Colonel Sir William "Intrepid" Stephenson, Colonel Mortimer Bloomfield, General Julius Klein and Walter Sheridan. Walter Sheridan was also known as RFK's right hand man inside the Kennedy justice department's criminal division. Sheridan headed up the highly irregular "Get Hoffa" unit. Division Five would play a major role in the Kennedy murder and cover up.

Walter Sheridan remained on the Kennedy family payroll up until the mid to late 1980's. Ted Kennedy eulogized Sheridan at his funeral in 1995. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C0A963958260

Strange bedfellows to be sure.

And of course this is the same Walter Sheridan who went to work under cover of investigative journalist for NBC in order to wreck Jim Garrison's investigation. Garrison had uncovered Permindex with his arrest of Clay Shaw.

Edited September 14, 2008 by Terry Mauro

[Christopher Hall]

I have harbored the thought for many long years about the CIA's responsibility in the murder of John Kennedy. One of the three Freedom of Information letters I first wrote, when I learned of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from my attorney, was to the Central Intelligence Agency to try to obtain information about Jose Rivera. Rivera had told me repeatedly and boastfully of his 'other job'; his 'other office' at Foggy Bottom in Washington. In 1963 the CIA offices were scattered in Foggy Bottom, and the agency moved to Langley, Virginia, in that year.

My other two letters were sent to the headquarters of the FBI and the US Secret Service.

Many military personnel were and are still recruited by the Agency, especially if they have some special skill or knowledge, such as biowarfare methods that are considered TOP SECRET. I did not know all this then, but it now makes perfect sense for Rivera to have been in on the plotting and execution of the assassination of John Kennedy. I would like to know who informed him, and invited him, to view the Autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on November 22, 1963.

Although a conclusion is not so much stated in his book, JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass gives plenty of evidence pointing to the CIA as being behind the assassination. John Newman gets specific by naming James Angleton as the mastermind and organizer of the assassination. I have no reason to doubt this could be true.

I consider the CIA (or certain fragments of it) as the operational part of a much larger organization of people and institutions opposed to our democratic system and against anyone like John Kennedy who would act to further the goals and benefits of democracy to the people of the United States. We could name such a group a Secret Government or The Establishment for lack of better terms.

Webster Griffin Tarpley, in his book, Obama, The Postmodern Coup, observes, on page 68, that the banking oligarchy was appalled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt acting as a real president as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The bankers resolved to never have anyone elected to that office exercise the full powers of the presidency, so they worked to limit the number of terms anyone could serve in that position, and thereby weakened a president to a position similar to an outgoing 'lame-duck' president. Roosevelt had been elected to four terms before his death.

When John Kennedy was elected, the oligarchy feared what he would do. They actually used the same words to describe him as they had Roosevelt - a traitor to his class, a socialist, a communist, and so on.

Although the plot to assassinate President Kennedy was in the works, possibly even before he was actually elected in 1960, it was in June of 1963 when John Kennedy made two moves that I think provoked Wall Street and the cabal of bankers to finalize their plans. Kennedy spoke of peacemaking with the Soviet Union, AND, possibly most important of all, to strengthen the economy, he created a Presidential Executive Order, Number 11110, that would allow the US Treasury Department to print 4.3 billion dollars worth of US Government Notes in $2.00 and $5.00 denominations, interest-free to the Government and to the Taxpayer. Other aspects of this Executive Order also spelled the beginning of the end of the Federal Reserve System of privately owned banks which lend monies (called Federal Reserve Notes) to the US Government which the Government itself prints! The interest paid to the Federal Reserve private banks by the US Government comes primarily from the people who pay their yearly income taxes to the US Treasury. About 40 cents per dollar goes to this loan's interest paid by taxpayers.

To the US bankers and their international banking colleagues, this was heresy and treason. John Kennedy would not have much longer to live or to be re-elected.

The CIA first pushed, as a reason for the assassination, that Castro and the Soviets did it with the aid of "communist" Oswald. Then it became the "lone nut, Oswald." (which may have saved us from a war with Cuba and the Soviet Union). Then the Mafia did it, and then Lyndon B. Johnson, the former Vice-President did it. Vice-Presidents are favorite scapegoats whenever a president is assassinated because their 'benefit' is so obvious to the public.

The CIA's versions were all ANYBODY-BUT-THE-CIA. Help for them came in part from the Warren (McCloy-Dulles) Commission, the FBI, the Secret Service, the State Department, the electronic and print news media, various individuals in the pay and control of the CIA (many 'working' for the Congressional investigative bodies over the years), or those acting as individuals in providing phony clues and testimonies by mistake or intent.as witnesses.

President Kennedy's murder deserved the best of investigations. The American and world's peoples deserve Justice and Truth. In a few more years it will be 50 years since that tragedy; two generations of the world's population have cycled through these years. It's time we know the Truth.

Adele...I agree with most of what you say.

However, it was not JUST the CIA. It was not JUST the international bankers. It was some SECRET group

superior to them. The only names that come to mind are Bilderbergers, CFR, TLC and Nazis, and maybe not

even just them. The identity of the group may be unknowable. I disagree that Angleton was a key player;

I think he was more an interested observer; Dulles, Phillips and Hunt were the CIA players, working with LBJ,

Hoover and certain military. The mafia, Castro and Kruschev, etc. were fall-back plausible patsies.

Jack

Jack, I agree with your statement concering the involvement of "international" players in the murder of JFK The apparatus used to carry out the hit (along with the murder attempts made against Charles DeGaulle) was Permindex. Permindex was headed by British Special Operations Executive (SOE) Major Louis Mortimer Bloomfield of Montreal Canada. Clay Shaw was a director on the board of Permindex.

I believe this is what LBJ meant when he blurted out "we were running a damn Murder Inc. in the Carribean" LBJ was pointing his finger at Permindex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permindex

As late as 1963 Louis Mortimer Bloomfield was still a recruiting officer with the FBI's counter espionage "Division Five". Division Five had been created top to bottom by "Colonel Sir William "Intrepid" Stephenson, Colonel Mortimer Bloomfield, General Julius Klein and Walter Sheridan. Walter Sheridan was also known as RFK's right hand man inside the Kennedy justice department's criminal division. Sheridan headed up the highly irregular "Get Hoffa" unit. Division Five would play a major role in the Kennedy murder and cover up.

Walter Sheridan remained on the Kennedy family payroll up until the mid to late 1980's. Ted Kennedy eulogized Sheridan at his funeral in 1995. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C0A963958260

Strange bedfellows to be sure.

And of course this is the same Walter Sheridan who went to work under cover of investigative journalist for NBC in order to wreck Jim Garrison's investigation. Garrison had uncovered Permindex with his arrest of Clay Shaw.

Did you see that Permindex Board of Directors?

Joe Bonnano, Roy Cohen.

What an interesting group.

[Adele Edisen]

Terry ascribed the following statement to President Lyndon B. Johnson:

I believe this is what LBJ meant when he blurted out "we were running a damn Murder Inc. in the Carribean" LBJ was pointing his finger at Permindex.

Terry, I am quite sure that LBJ was not referring to Permindex. He was actually talking about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

I'm glad you mentioned Walter Sheridan. There seems to be some evidence that he also had some connections to the CIA. We know he worked mightily to destroy Jim Garrison's investigations, and tried to keep Robert Kennedy from knowing what Garrison was learning about the CIA's involvement in the JFK assassination. After Robert Kennedy's death, he went to work for Ted Kennedy. I know this because I had cause to speak with Sheridan as the result of my contacting Ted Kennedy and his office.

We also know that Clay Shaw was a long-time CIA operator/agent/asset.

Jack and Christopher,

I think it most interesting that Robert Kennedy, upon learning of the shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby, immediately called John McCone, Director of the CIA, and and asked him, "Did you kill my brother?" (meaning did the Agency murder his brother). He also had contact with one other person (identity unknown) in the CIA to whom he addressed this same question.

Also, he and Jacqueline Kennedy sought out a good mutual friend, an artist who was leaving for the Soviet Union to attend some cultural event in Moscow, and asked him to speak to a KGB agent whom Robert Kennedy trusted when he had been in Washington at the Soviet Embassy before and during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and who had been instrumental in conveying messages between Khrushchev and President Kennedy through Robert Kennedy. Jacqueline and Robert wanted to learn what the Soviets knew and thought about the conspiracy behind the assassination. The Soviet's answer was that it had been a right-wing domestic action.

(Cited in JFK And The Unspeakable by James Douglass;

Original Source: One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964: The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy J. Naftali

1997, later editions in paperback)

Adele

Edited September 28, 2008 by Adele Edisen

[William Kelly]

Of Moles and Molehunters -

http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Of_M...Molehunters.htm

By://http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/D...2"]

By://http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/D...2"]

By Dr. Cleveland Cram

The late Dr. Cleve Cram was a professor at CI Centre courses and taught about the Angleton era. He had a long career with the CIA and one of his most important contributions to the Agency was writing a classified internal history of the Counterintelligence Staff focusing on the time Angleton served as chief from 1954 to 1974. In this essay, Dr. Cram writes about books published about the CIA and counterintelligence. Dr. Cram, a true counterintelligence hero, passed away in 1999 and he is greatly missed......

.....In 1991 an English writer, Tom Mangold, published Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter, to which he devoted three years of intensive work and $300,000 of Simon and Schuster's money. Mangold has carefully sourced his book, the research is impressive and impeccable, and the writing is good if at times a bit overwrought. But it is far more a history of the Agency's CI Staff for the last 10 years under Angleton's command than it is a story about the man himself. As history it is accurate and fair, although the absence of a chapter on liaison with Israeli intelligence (chopped out by the editor) is unfortunate.....

Has this chapter ever surfaced? - BK

Edited January 20, 2009 by William Kelly

[John Bevilaqua]

This is pure speculation, but the ultimate irony would be that this whole mole business was a KGB disinformation campaign. If so, then the Soviets succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and the plot is worthy of John le Carré and Robert Ludlum. Just imagine if the Soviets managed to manipulate Angleton (without his knowledge) into paralyzing the CIA.

Angleton was wrong, but I think he was basically a patriot. He was paranoid, for sure. And his thinking was more than a little twisted. He was probably too smart for his own good (and ours). And yes, he ruined many careers. He thought he was doing the right thing for his country. And it's unlikely that he himself was a mole. He was wrong, but probably not evil. There's a difference.

Just to summarize what Angleton REALLY WAS:

(1) He was not a Patriot, but a Fascist sympathizer just like his father who was a Mussolini supporter when he ran the NCR franchise in Italy before and during World War II according to David Mangold

(2) Angleton was NOT manipulated by anyone, he was way too smart for that. But he and Col. Philip Corso and Allen Dulles

and Bill Donovan manipulated the Papal Nuncio, Giovanni Batista Montini (LATER Pope Paul VI) into running the Nazi Rat Lines

for them to free those persons they wanted to be freed. Angleton WANTED to shred the Pink side of the CIA to pieces.

(3) "Senator Ole Banstoffsen, Washington" in "The Manchurian Candidate" deciphers into: J. Angleton Waffen SS Notsi

Richard Condon figured out this rotten, little Nazi dweeb in 1958, why can't we after 50 years?

(4) Angleton ran MKULTRA to train programmed assassins and 2 of his prize candidates were involved in the JFK hit

Robert Emmett Johnson as a shooter, and Lee Harvey Oswald, as patsy to force a coverup.

(5) Angleton was the Bonner Fellers contact in Rome from his station in Cairo, Egypt who sent translated messages

to Field Marshal Rommel in Northern Africa to help him find out all about Monty's troop and tank movements. Amazing.

[John Bevilaqua]

I'm glad to hear that John Newman is at it again. I admire his work. My experience with CIA files is that their system is much like the FBI's. There would be the main 201 file in Langley fed by information from Miami and other stations. Only the more significant info would be forwarded, leaving unprocessed material in the station files. An officer of Angleton's rank certainly could access Oswald's file in Langley. There would be no need to control it since since the principles in his scheme were the ones that contributed to it to begin with. I see Phillips as the main action officer. Oswald was an informant for more than one agency. I will follow up on this shortly.

Bill, could you elaborate on the information you gathered on Willoughby and Robert J. Morris as well as part of the Mae Brussel article? What did you think about my research on Anastase Vonsiatsky and Wickliffe Draper plus Willoughby and Morris? Any comments or asides? I plan on publishing a digital CD next month based eBook based on the manuscript you received titled: "Big Daddy" Warbucks (Draper) and "Little Orphan" Annie (Vonsiatsky) - Reich Wing Extremism in the 20th Century.

[Brad Glaze]

While James Jesus Angleton was, now doubt an interesting character, is it possible that the more interesting story begins with "the sins of the father"--James Hugh Angleton?

Much has been written about JJ, but little about his father who apparently got him into the business. Of what has been written about James Hugh Angleton, there appears to be some conflict.

Will the real James Hugh Angleton and Carmen Mercedes Moreno Angleton please step forward?

In Jefferson Morley's Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA, Morley states, in relevant part, "[James Jesus Angleton's] grandfather had founded National Cash Register Company, whose machines rang up the surpluses of the American Dream. His father, Hugh Angleton, built NCR into a multinational corporation." Morley, Jefferson

Michael Holzman, however, describes Hugh Angleton as beginning "his business career ina Horatio Alger vein. There are stories of muleback cash register deliveries to isolated fronteir towns, and with the boom and the modernization of the 1920s--a gradual rise through the National Cash Register Company ranks, first to sales manager and then to a vice presidency for international operations in Dayton (ca. 1927). [end note omitted] In 1933 he went to Italy to inspect the NCR operations there, liked what he saw, and--in lieu of a promotion--bought the Italian franchise from the company, moving his family to Milan in December 1933, when their eldest son was sixteen ." Holzman, Michael. James Jesus Angleton, The CIA, & The Craft of Counterintelligence (University of Massachusetts Press Amherst 2008) p. 9.

Tom Mangold describes much of the same beginning for Hugh Angleton in Cold Warrior at page 31 of that book.

Additionally, there appears to be some varying accounts of James Jesus Angleton's mother, and what her family background was. For example, quoting Cicely Angleton, Tom Mangold states that his grandmother, "lived in poverty." Mangold, Cold Warrior, p. 32 Mangold further states that his mother "had no schooling." Mangold, Cold Warrior, p. 32

In an article written comparing the movie The Good Shepard to the real life of James Jesus Angleton, author Pete Earley describes his mother as belonging "to an aristocratic Mexican family." see, http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrori...shepherd/4.html

Why all of the discrepancies in this man who was the father of one of the world's most [in]famous spies?

Are these discrepancies of Hugh Angleton's own making, or is this the JJ we all know and love playing the game that he played so well?

Edited April 8, 2009 by Brad Glaze