Orwell & Oswald

[William Kelly]

ORWELL & OSWALD

George Orwell :

“For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of white paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of wire air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.”

“…with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to the flames.”

“What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed in the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance.”

“It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones….and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.”

“….What most afficted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious.”

“At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe the past is unalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief,….but the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.”

When the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) requested all the files on Oswald at the Department of Defense (DOD), it received the Orwellian reply:

1. Dossier AB 652876 Oswald, Lee Harvey, was identified for deletion from IRR (Intelligence Records and Reports) holdings on Julian date 73060 (1 March 1973) as stamped on the microfilm dossier cover. It is not possible to determine the actual date when physical destruction was accomplished, but it is credibly surmised that the destruction was accomplished within a period not greater than 60 days following the identification for deletion…

2. It was not possible to determine who accomplished the actual physical destruction of the dossier….

3. The exact material contained in the dossier cannot be determined at this time.

4. ….It was not until 1973 that the archivist changed the criteria to ensure non-destruction of investigative records that might be of historical value….

The HSCA orally requested the destruction order and was told that “Army regulations do not require any type of specific order before intelligence files can be destroyed.” The Final Report of the HSCA reads:

The committee found this “routine” destruction of the Oswald file extremely troublesome, especially when viewed in light of the Department of Defense’s failure to make this file available to the Warren Commission. Despite the credibility of Jone’s testimony, without access to this file, the question of Oswald’s possible affiliation with military intelligence could not be fully resolved. (HSCA FR p. 286).

It turned out that government files were not the best sources of information. One ZR/RIFLE project document on “executive action” capability – the ability to commit covert assassination – indicates that the CIA had forged documents to protect the programs from exposure (HSCA FR p. 258). The committee also found that a dual filing system was used on sensitive operations. The report concluded, “Nor was there any way to …verify that all materials had in fact, been provided. Agency personnel admitted that occupational and intelligence codes specifically prohibited indicating that a particular person was ….an employee….” (HSCA FR p. 256)

But the DOD insistence that Oswald’s file has been destroyed doesn’t mean that it was the only file on Oswald or that the file can’t be reconstructed from the records of other agencies and individuals who didn’t destroy their records.

John Newman, a former military officer who knows how to read government documents, once noted that the complete record of any individual couldn’t be destroyed by any one agency or department, because as we know how the government works, most records are kept in triplicates, and at different locations, so the loss of any one file would not be the end all.

“…Winston wondered whether Comrade Tilloteon was engaged on the same job as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece of work would never be entrusted to a single person; on the other hand, to turn it over to a committee would be to admit openly that an act of fabrication was taking place. Very likely as many as a dozen people were now working away on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. And this version or that, would re-edit it and set in motion the complex process of cross-referencing that would be required, and then the chosen lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth.” - Orwell.

The Warren Report: “Oswald demonstrated his thinking in connection with his return to the United States by preparing two sets of identical questions of the type which he might have thought he would be asked at a press conference when he returned. With either great ambivalence or cold calculation he prepared completely different answers to the same questions. Judge by his other statements and writings, however, he appears to have indicated his true feelings in the set of answers first presented and to have stated in the second what he thought would be least harmful to him as he resumed life in the United States. For example, in response to his question about his decision to go to the Soviet Union, his first draft answered, ‘as a mark of my discuss and personal sign of discontent and horror at the misguided line of reasoning of the U.S. Government.’ His second answer was that he ‘went as a citizen of the U.S. (as a tourist) residing in a foreign country which I have a perfect right to do. I went to see the land, the people and how their system worked.’”

“To the question of ‘Are you a communist?’ he first answered ‘Yes, basically, although I hate the USSR and socialist systems I still think Marxism can work under a different circumstances.’ His second answer to this question was, ‘No of course not. I have never even known a communist, outside of the ones in the USSR, but you can’t help that.’ His first set of questions and answers indicated his belief that there were no outstanding differences between the Soviet Union and the United States, ‘except in the U.S. the living standards is a little higher….”

Then there’s the report from USSR submitted by Ian Fleming on the final verdict of a spy trial in Moscow. In a successful effort to scoop the rest of the foreign correspondents covering the trial, Fleming wrote two conflicting versions of the verdict not yet reached by the court. While they were still in deliberation, Fleming convinced a government censor to approve both stories and when the verdict was reached, he merely sent the correct version and scrapped the other.

George Orwell, Lee Harvey Oswald and Ian Fleming, now were they exhibiting, in the words of the Warren Report, great ambivalence or cold calculation?

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[John Dolva]

"But the DOD insistence that Oswald’s file has been destroyed doesn’t mean that it was the only file on Oswald or that the file can’t be reconstructed from the records of other agencies and individuals who didn’t destroy their records.

John Newman, a former military officer who knows how to read government documents, once noted that the complete record of any individual couldn’t be destroyed by any one agency or department, because as we know how the government works, most records are kept in triplicates, and at different locations, so the loss of any one file would not be the end all."

unless it was systematic for 10 years? someone would have at least seen this group of files?

[Chuck Robbins]

"But the DOD insistence that Oswald’s file has been destroyed doesn’t mean that it was the only file on Oswald or that the file can’t be reconstructed from the records of other agencies and individuals who didn’t destroy their records.

John Newman, a former military officer who knows how to read government documents, once noted that the complete record of any individual couldn’t be destroyed by any one agency or department, because as we know how the government works, most records are kept in triplicates, and at different locations, so the loss of any one file would not be the end all."

unless it was systematic for 10 years? someone would have at least seen this group of files?

Of course the person who "destroyed" the file would have seen it...and that was the reason for not divulging his identity, IMO.

Also, to believe that officials in the military were not interested in, and did not review this file, is naive to say the least.

The two-faced tango goes on. And on. And on.

Chuck

[William Kelly]

As reported in Larry Haapanen and Alan Rogers KA Chronicles Vol. 8, #2, 2002 article on the Silver Dollar phone call, the flight reports were "corrected" and NARA "suggested that it was possible that the initital flight report was destroyed after the corrected one was received...."

Another example of destroyed records:

In response to a FOIA request ofr the trip reports made by USAF Major Charles F. Nedbal, Col. Charles T. Morland and Lt. Colonel Leonard for President Kennedy's trip to Texas in November 1963, the Air Force Mobility Command failed to locate any records.

"If the records ever existed at the office of the 89th Airlift Wing, they would have been destroyed years ago based on disposition instruction in Air Force Regulation 4 -20, Vol. II, Disposition of Air Force Records."

BK