RFK assassination program on BBC2, Nov. 20

[John Simkin]

Re-Open RFK assassination

by Michael Carmichael

Global Research, November 22, 2006

Planetary Movement

Planning to write a film script about the case, Shane O’Sullivan, an independent researcher, investigated the assassination of RFK. But, O’Sullivan found much more than he had hoped.

On Monday night, the BBC broadcast O’Sullivan’s report on their high-profile programme, Newsnight. O’Sullivan’s findings shocked many people. Working through an exhaustive analysis of videotapes made at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of RFK’s assassination, O’Sullivan identified three figures as former agents of the CIA. Two of the agents O’Sullivan identified could be seen moving away from the hotel pantry shortly after the shooting of RFK.

Following his preliminary identifications, O’Sullivan presented the video images to more authoritative sources, men who knew the three agents personally. While there was a slender degree of uncertainty (circa 5-10%) the men in the videos were positively identified as the former CIA agents:

David Sanchez Morales;

Gordon Campbell and

George Joannides.

Morales was known to be involved in coups d’etats throughout Latin America and he had a reputation of a dangerous man with an explosive temper who was capable of violence. To entertain his friends, Morales would tell stories about his involvement in the killing and capture of Che Guevara, coups in Latin America and other nefarious covert activities.

Two of the CIA agents in the Ambassador Hotel: Morales and Joannides are now dead, while the whereabouts of the third, Campbell, are presently unknown.

O’Sullivan interviewed Bradley Ayers, US Army Captain retired, who had been stationed at JM-Wave, the Miami base for the CIA. In 1963, David Morales was the Chief of Operations at JM-Wave. Ayers and Morales trained Cuban exiles in the arts of sabotage to be deployed in covert action against the regime of Fidel Castro. On camera, Ayers identified Morales and Campbell with what he described as 95% accuracy. Following that positive identification, Ayers introduced O’Sullivan to David Rabern, a freelance mercenary who had been contracted by the CIA to participate in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Rabern had been in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel on the fateful night in 1968.

While Rabern did not know Morales and Campbell by name, he had noticed them talking to each other in the hotel lobby prior to the assassination. Earlier in the same year, Rabern had noticed Campbell in and around several police stations. If true, this report is rather odd considering that the CIA has no jurisdiction on US soil. Another bizarre fact: Morales was officially stationed in Laos in 1968.

O’Sullivan found video images of Campbell with another figure who has now been identified as George Joannides, a pivotal figure in the CIA and the re-investigation of the assassination of JFK.

Joannides had been the Chief of Psychological Warfare Operations at JM-Wave. He had retired from his CIA post, but in 1978 he returned to active duty, as it were, as the liaison between the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) during its re-investigation of the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King.

Puzzling, perplexing and problematic, Joannides failed to inform his colleagues at the HSCA that he had ever worked at JM-Wave. This is a troubling enigma for it suggests that he intended to maintain his covert identity – a fact that would compromise his involvement in the HSCA and jeopardize the entire congressional investigation.

A former researcher with the HSCA, Ed Lopez, identified Joannides as the person in the Ambassador Hotel video with what he described on camera as 99% accuracy. More. Lopez recalled Joannides obstructive practice of denying the HSCA access to crucial documents in the re-investigation of the assassination of JFK.

O’Sullivan did not stop there. Moving to Washington, he met Wayne Smith a veteran State Department official who worked with Morales at the US embassy in Havana in the final year of the Batista regime through the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and 1960. When O’Sullivan asked him to respond the Ambassador Hotel video, Smith immediately stated, “That’s him, that’s Morales.” From a conversation in 1975, Smith recalled that Morales stated that JFK deserved to be assassinated. From Smith’s testimony, O’Sullivan learned that Morales “hated the Kennedys” – because of their cancelling the air support for the failed Bay of Pigs invastion of 1961.

In a hotel near the CIA headquarters (now named the George H. W. Bush Center for Central Intelligence) in Langley, Virginia, O’Sullivan met with a former agent, Tom Clines who said that all of the men in the Ambassador Hotel videos had been misidentified as former CIA agents. When O’Sullivan informed him that Ayers and Smith had positively identified the men as Morales, Campbell and Joannides, Clines became “disturbed,” and he refused to go on camera for the interview.

Following his interview of Clines, senior journalists in Washington advised O’Sullivan to take his testimony with a grain of salt as he was known to “blow smoke” deliberately as a routine function to dissemble facts for the press and public.

Gaeton Fonzi was the lead investigator of the HSCA investigation of the assassination of JFK. In his book, The Last Investigation, Fonzi reported the testimony of Bob Walton, a man who met Morales and discussed JFK with him. According to Fonzi’s account, Morales asserted his direct involvement in the assassination of JFK as revenge for the Bay of Pigs.

On the Watergate tapes, Richard Nixon always referred to the assassination of JFK as, “the Bay of Pigs thing.” During Eisenhower’s presidency, Nixon served as the White House liason with the CIA. As Vice-President Nixon worked directly with Allen Dulles and other senior staff at the CIA on the planning of the Bay of Pigs operation. It should be noted that George H. W. Bush has been known to have been integral to the Bay of Pigs operation since the publication of the enormously popular bestselling book of 1991, Plausible Denial, by Mark Lane.

During his campaign for the presidency in 1960, Nixon was shocked that JFK made public the contents of his top-secret intelligence briefings – and had moved to Nixon’s right to advocate overt military intervention against Cuba. The CIA planned to overthrow Castro in an invasion manned with exiled Cubans trained by the staff at JM-Wave. From our perspective today, it is perfectly understandable why JFK would have been compelled to make this policy position public in his presidential campaign. Had he not done so, JFK could have been tarnished with a charge of being, “weak on communism,” by Nixon who had been one of the leading witch-hunters of the disgraceful McCarthy Era.

Upon his inauguration as president, JFK continued to support the plans to attack Cuba with the force of exiled Cubans – a project that Nixon had nurtured, supported and managed for the Eisenhower White House. However, JFK decided to withhold US air support in order to maintain an arm’s length separation from the Cuban invasion.

The Bay of Pigs became a fiasco. JFK accepted the blame, and he immediately ordered a thorough-going reorganization of the CIA. A few months later, Allen Dulles, who had been a free-wheeling manufacturer of coups d’etats while serving as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), ‘retired’ after a formal conversation with JFK. JFK promptly named a new director, and John McCone who had been the director of the Atomic Energy Commission soon took Dulles’s place as DCI.

JFK’s reorientation of the CIA did not stop there. Recognizing that the agency’s mission to wage a covert Cold War was dangerously counterproductive, JFK ordered the CIA to make nuclear non-proliferation its top priority. Eventually, JFK would successfully negotiate the Test Ban Treaty with Nikita Khruschev in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis - by far the most significant strategic confrontation of the entire Cold War.

While rogue elements in the US intelligence community have long been suspected of meddling in his assassination and those of his brother and Martin Luther King, Shane O’Sullivan’s identification of three CIA agents in the Ambassador Hotel on the night of the assassination of RFK suggests strongly that the case should be reopened. The third agent in the Ambassador Hotel, George Joannides, now appears to have been engaged in a sabotage mission during the HSCA investigation of JFK’s assassination.

The assassination of JFK would seem to be an eternal mystery that has long since passed into the realm of myth, however that is not the case for today, technology has provided a wealth of new tools with which to examine evidence in criminal cases – even cold cases over forty years old.

While O’Sullivan is calling for a re-opening of the case of RFK, it is only reasonable to re-open JFK’s case, as well.

In 1968, I was in my final year at the University of North Carolina. From my meeting with a close associate of RFK, I worked as a college and university organizer in his presidential campaign. At the time of his assassination, RFK was the leading candidate for the presidency – far ahead of his nearest rival in the polls and definitely on track to win the November election.

Seeing the BBC broadcast of video tape evidence of three unassigned CIA agents in the Ambassador Hotel Ballroom at the time of RFK’s assassination shocked me. The federal government, Congress and the criminal justice system of the United States failed to protect the president of the United States and its leading presidential candidates. Worse. They have failed to tell the truth to the American people.

Today, on the anniversary of one of the most tragic dates in American history – I propose that he cases of RFK and JFK should be re-opened in either the 110th or the 111th Congress.

We must follow the evidence exhaustively and relentless, leaving no stone unturned and no document unexamined regardless of its current status: Sensitive; Secret, Top Secret or Above Top Secret. To do any less would be to become complicit in the lies and cover-ups that have denied the American people of the truth.

References

CIA role claim in Kennedy killing

Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy?

DID CIA KILL RFK? - Screenwriter Finds Evidence Implicating 3 CIA Officers

David Morales/spartacus

The original article can be found here:

http://www.planetarymovement.org/

I will ask him to join the forum.

[John Simkin]

Re-Open RFK assassination

by Michael Carmichael

Global Research, November 22, 2006

Planetary Movement

Planning to write a film script about the case, Shane O’Sullivan, an independent researcher, investigated the assassination of RFK. But, O’Sullivan found much more than he had hoped.

On Monday night, the BBC broadcast O’Sullivan’s report on their high-profile programme, Newsnight. O’Sullivan’s findings shocked many people. Working through an exhaustive analysis of videotapes made at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of RFK’s assassination, O’Sullivan identified three figures as former agents of the CIA. Two of the agents O’Sullivan identified could be seen moving away from the hotel pantry shortly after the shooting of RFK.

Following his preliminary identifications, O’Sullivan presented the video images to more authoritative sources, men who knew the three agents personally. While there was a slender degree of uncertainty (circa 5-10%) the men in the videos were positively identified as the former CIA agents:

David Sanchez Morales;

Gordon Campbell and

George Joannides.

Morales was known to be involved in coups d’etats throughout Latin America and he had a reputation of a dangerous man with an explosive temper who was capable of violence. To entertain his friends, Morales would tell stories about his involvement in the killing and capture of Che Guevara, coups in Latin America and other nefarious covert activities.

Two of the CIA agents in the Ambassador Hotel: Morales and Joannides are now dead, while the whereabouts of the third, Campbell, are presently unknown.

O’Sullivan interviewed Bradley Ayers, US Army Captain retired, who had been stationed at JM-Wave, the Miami base for the CIA. In 1963, David Morales was the Chief of Operations at JM-Wave. Ayers and Morales trained Cuban exiles in the arts of sabotage to be deployed in covert action against the regime of Fidel Castro. On camera, Ayers identified Morales and Campbell with what he described as 95% accuracy. Following that positive identification, Ayers introduced O’Sullivan to David Rabern, a freelance mercenary who had been contracted by the CIA to participate in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Rabern had been in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel on the fateful night in 1968.

While Rabern did not know Morales and Campbell by name, he had noticed them talking to each other in the hotel lobby prior to the assassination. Earlier in the same year, Rabern had noticed Campbell in and around several police stations. If true, this report is rather odd considering that the CIA has no jurisdiction on US soil. Another bizarre fact: Morales was officially stationed in Laos in 1968.

O’Sullivan found video images of Campbell with another figure who has now been identified as George Joannides, a pivotal figure in the CIA and the re-investigation of the assassination of JFK.

Joannides had been the Chief of Psychological Warfare Operations at JM-Wave. He had retired from his CIA post, but in 1978 he returned to active duty, as it were, as the liaison between the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) during its re-investigation of the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King.

Puzzling, perplexing and problematic, Joannides failed to inform his colleagues at the HSCA that he had ever worked at JM-Wave. This is a troubling enigma for it suggests that he intended to maintain his covert identity – a fact that would compromise his involvement in the HSCA and jeopardize the entire congressional investigation.

A former researcher with the HSCA, Ed Lopez, identified Joannides as the person in the Ambassador Hotel video with what he described on camera as 99% accuracy. More. Lopez recalled Joannides obstructive practice of denying the HSCA access to crucial documents in the re-investigation of the assassination of JFK.

O’Sullivan did not stop there. Moving to Washington, he met Wayne Smith a veteran State Department official who worked with Morales at the US embassy in Havana in the final year of the Batista regime through the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and 1960. When O’Sullivan asked him to respond the Ambassador Hotel video, Smith immediately stated, “That’s him, that’s Morales.” From a conversation in 1975, Smith recalled that Morales stated that JFK deserved to be assassinated. From Smith’s testimony, O’Sullivan learned that Morales “hated the Kennedys” – because of their cancelling the air support for the failed Bay of Pigs invastion of 1961.

In a hotel near the CIA headquarters (now named the George H. W. Bush Center for Central Intelligence) in Langley, Virginia, O’Sullivan met with a former agent, Tom Clines who said that all of the men in the Ambassador Hotel videos had been misidentified as former CIA agents. When O’Sullivan informed him that Ayers and Smith had positively identified the men as Morales, Campbell and Joannides, Clines became “disturbed,” and he refused to go on camera for the interview.

Following his interview of Clines, senior journalists in Washington advised O’Sullivan to take his testimony with a grain of salt as he was known to “blow smoke” deliberately as a routine function to dissemble facts for the press and public.

Gaeton Fonzi was the lead investigator of the HSCA investigation of the assassination of JFK. In his book, The Last Investigation, Fonzi reported the testimony of Bob Walton, a man who met Morales and discussed JFK with him. According to Fonzi’s account, Morales asserted his direct involvement in the assassination of JFK as revenge for the Bay of Pigs.

On the Watergate tapes, Richard Nixon always referred to the assassination of JFK as, “the Bay of Pigs thing.” During Eisenhower’s presidency, Nixon served as the White House liason with the CIA. As Vice-President Nixon worked directly with Allen Dulles and other senior staff at the CIA on the planning of the Bay of Pigs operation. It should be noted that George H. W. Bush has been known to have been integral to the Bay of Pigs operation since the publication of the enormously popular bestselling book of 1991, Plausible Denial, by Mark Lane.

During his campaign for the presidency in 1960, Nixon was shocked that JFK made public the contents of his top-secret intelligence briefings – and had moved to Nixon’s right to advocate overt military intervention against Cuba. The CIA planned to overthrow Castro in an invasion manned with exiled Cubans trained by the staff at JM-Wave. From our perspective today, it is perfectly understandable why JFK would have been compelled to make this policy position public in his presidential campaign. Had he not done so, JFK could have been tarnished with a charge of being, “weak on communism,” by Nixon who had been one of the leading witch-hunters of the disgraceful McCarthy Era.

Upon his inauguration as president, JFK continued to support the plans to attack Cuba with the force of exiled Cubans – a project that Nixon had nurtured, supported and managed for the Eisenhower White House. However, JFK decided to withhold US air support in order to maintain an arm’s length separation from the Cuban invasion.

The Bay of Pigs became a fiasco. JFK accepted the blame, and he immediately ordered a thorough-going reorganization of the CIA. A few months later, Allen Dulles, who had been a free-wheeling manufacturer of coups d’etats while serving as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), ‘retired’ after a formal conversation with JFK. JFK promptly named a new director, and John McCone who had been the director of the Atomic Energy Commission soon took Dulles’s place as DCI.

JFK’s reorientation of the CIA did not stop there. Recognizing that the agency’s mission to wage a covert Cold War was dangerously counterproductive, JFK ordered the CIA to make nuclear non-proliferation its top priority. Eventually, JFK would successfully negotiate the Test Ban Treaty with Nikita Khruschev in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis - by far the most significant strategic confrontation of the entire Cold War.

While rogue elements in the US intelligence community have long been suspected of meddling in his assassination and those of his brother and Martin Luther King, Shane O’Sullivan’s identification of three CIA agents in the Ambassador Hotel on the night of the assassination of RFK suggests strongly that the case should be reopened. The third agent in the Ambassador Hotel, George Joannides, now appears to have been engaged in a sabotage mission during the HSCA investigation of JFK’s assassination.

The assassination of JFK would seem to be an eternal mystery that has long since passed into the realm of myth, however that is not the case for today, technology has provided a wealth of new tools with which to examine evidence in criminal cases – even cold cases over forty years old.

While O’Sullivan is calling for a re-opening of the case of RFK, it is only reasonable to re-open JFK’s case, as well.

In 1968, I was in my final year at the University of North Carolina. From my meeting with a close associate of RFK, I worked as a college and university organizer in his presidential campaign. At the time of his assassination, RFK was the leading candidate for the presidency – far ahead of his nearest rival in the polls and definitely on track to win the November election.

Seeing the BBC broadcast of video tape evidence of three unassigned CIA agents in the Ambassador Hotel Ballroom at the time of RFK’s assassination shocked me. The federal government, Congress and the criminal justice system of the United States failed to protect the president of the United States and its leading presidential candidates. Worse. They have failed to tell the truth to the American people.

Today, on the anniversary of one of the most tragic dates in American history – I propose that he cases of RFK and JFK should be re-opened in either the 110th or the 111th Congress.

We must follow the evidence exhaustively and relentless, leaving no stone unturned and no document unexamined regardless of its current status: Sensitive; Secret, Top Secret or Above Top Secret. To do any less would be to become complicit in the lies and cover-ups that have denied the American people of the truth.

References

CIA role claim in Kennedy killing

Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy?

DID CIA KILL RFK? - Screenwriter Finds Evidence Implicating 3 CIA Officers

David Morales/spartacus

The original article can be found here:

http://www.planetarymovement.org/

I will ask him to join the forum.

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Francesca,

I can't get any screen captures that reveal clear details. I think one has to do this off the original film itself.

BTW, I would like to congratulate Shane on this excellent piece of work. As to Gran, he will lead one on many a wild chase but it is worth the pursuit.

As for information on Morales, an attempt to track down Nester Moreno and Ramon Thomas Guin may bear fruit. I do not know if they are still alive. Also, there is a man by the name of Rafael Sanchez who I believe was at the Ambassador on the night. In the 1960's, his main connections were with Col. William Bishop and Rolando Masferrer. As of 3 years ago, he was still alive.

FWIW.

James

Thanks, James. Do you have any more information or images of Moreno, Guin or Sanchez? Can you explain why you think Sanchez may have been there that night?

Best,

Shane

[James Richards]

Francesca,

I can't get any screen captures that reveal clear details. I think one has to do this off the original film itself.

BTW, I would like to congratulate Shane on this excellent piece of work. As to Gran, he will lead one on many a wild chase but it is worth the pursuit.

As for information on Morales, an attempt to track down Nester Moreno and Ramon Thomas Guin may bear fruit. I do not know if they are still alive. Also, there is a man by the name of Rafael Sanchez who I believe was at the Ambassador on the night. In the 1960's, his main connections were with Col. William Bishop and Rolando Masferrer. As of 3 years ago, he was still alive.

FWIW.

James

Thanks, James. Do you have any more information or images of Moreno, Guin or Sanchez? Can you explain why you think Sanchez may have been there that night?

Best,

Shane

Hi Shane,

Sorry, no images of Moreno or Guin but this image below shows Sanchez on the right. That is Frank Sturgis on the left, Pedro Diaz Lanz next to him and Rolando Masferrer next to the woman.

As to Sanchez, for many years I have been looking into him and his connection with a militant exile (a young woman) who had connections to David Morales and who was utilized on several covert operations (in my opinion of course) including the Ambassador Hotel, the hunt for Che Guevara and Dealey Plaza. Sanchez was related to her somehow, maybe a cousin. I submit that she was the woman in the polka dot dress.

She was killed in 1970 but Sanchez ended up associating with Rafael Villaverde and was involved with the various activities there (allegedly).

I have pieced this together via conversations with various covert operators and their families over the years of which none want to be named. Several of these guys crewed with Rip Robertson in the early 1960's and a couple of them went to the Congo with him in late 1964.

In the last few months, Ryan Crowe, Lee Forman and I teamed up to go after one of these operators (who would know some of the dark secrets behind Dealey Plaza and the Ambassador Hotel) but this turned out to be not such a good idea. I do not plan to take this research any further.

James

[John Simkin]

Shane: Someone has sent me a question for you: "Are you aware as to whether any of the key witnesses, Robert Walton, Ed Lopez, Wayne Smith, have put their recollections in the form of sworn affidavits?"

[John Simkin]

Several contributors to the BBC Newsnight have criticised Shane O’Sullivan for bringing up the death of Robert Kennedy. There have even been comments about letting him rest in peace. Would RFK have wanted this? If he had been murdered because he posed a threat to the status quo, would he not have wanted us to get this out into the public domain? Remember what Edward Kennedy said at RFK’s funeral on 8th June, 1968:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us, who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

[William Kelly]

Shane: Someone has sent me a question for you: "Are you aware as to whether any of the key witnesses, Robert Walton, Ed Lopez, Wayne Smith, have put their recollections in the form of sworn affidavits?"

John, While we await Shane's response on this, a few years ago I wrote an article saying that what is needed now is another round of sworn testimony, under oath, of JFK assassination witnesses, especially the Paines and new witnesses that were not previously called. The Paines did not testify at HSCA or ARRB, despite the problems with their previous testimony and the many unanswered questions.

What is needed is a legal venue for such testimony.

BK

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY APPROACH – Our approach is that of normal, independent

homicide investigators whose responsibility is to identify, locate and preserve evidence

of crimes that can be presented in a court of law.

PLAN A – OBTAIN A NEW ROUND OF DEPOSED TESTIMONY UNDER OATH –

What is needed and what all independent researchers should be able to agree on is that we need another round of deposed witness testimony, which the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was legally capable of doing, but only did extensively in regards to the medical evidence.

Obtaining sworn testimony from the many witnesses who have never been properly questioned under oath can be accomplished in a number of different ways, the easiest through Congressional Hearings to review the JFK Act, to oversee the work of the now defunct Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) and determine how the government agencies have responded to or failed to comply with the law.

“The provisions of this joint resolution…shall continue in effect until such a time as the Archivist certifies to the President and the Congress that all assassination materials have been made available to the public in accordance with this Joint Resolution.” So the JFK Act is still in effect even though the ARRB has dissolved, until the Archivist of the United States certifies to the President and Congress that all of the relevant records have been released, probably sometime in 2017.

Concerning Oversight the law was written so, “The appropriate committee of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate shall have continuing oversight guidance with regards to the official conduct of the Review Board.”

Now is the time to evaluate the performance of the ARRB and the compliance of the agencies and departments to the ARRB requests for information and records.

The list of witnesses is long, and the topic at a Congressional Hearing would necessarily be limited to the tenants of the law – that is the focus must be on the records released, with-held, missing and destroyed, and not on “investigating” the assassination, although some significant witnesses could be required to testify, if not before Congresses, then at a civil trial and/or Washington D.C. federal grand jury.

A number of House and Senate committees held public hearings on the JFK Act before it was enacted, and a number of standing committees or joint sub-committees would necessarily be interested in being the legislative body responsible for conducting them - including Government Operations Committee, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and those subcommittees chaired by Representative John Conyers (D. Mich.), John Glenn (Ohio) and Arlen Specter (R. Penn.). The Senate Government Affairs Sub-committee on Inter-governmental Relations is one possibility, while joint Senate-House Judicial (Conyers in the House/Specter in the Senate) subcommittees are a more likely probability. Once everyone generally recognizes the need to hold these hearings, those with a stake in the matter will pull strings to participate and control the proceedings, especially Specter.

In testimony before the Congressional Hearings before the JFK Act was passed, Sen. Specter said, “I hope we will move with dispatch on the subject. It has languished too long and the essence of our democracy is openness, and we ought to be about it, and put these facts on the table and try with a very, very presumption of full disclosure.”

Most committees are known or nicknamed after their chairmen, ie. Church, Pike, Aspin and Boland Committees. The committees oversee government agency operations, evaluate performance, control budgets, hold hearings, issue reports and propose or approve new resolutions and laws.

According to “Congress Oversees the U.S. Intelligence Community” (2nd Edition, 1947-1994, basically a matter of approach, with institutional oversight being traditional, friendly and scholarly, while the investigative approach is prosecutorial in outlook and is run by lawyers rather than scholarly academics.

A joint House-Senate subcommittee hearing on the JFK Act would necessarily begin as a traditional institutional oversight hearing, though it has the capability of moving into an investigative phase, especially in regards to agency non-compliance and the destruction of records.

In his testimony during the Congressional public hearings on the JFK Act, John Judge foresaw this when he said, “The release of documents is very likely to reveal a trail of information that will lead to intentionally and possibly illegally, misclassified, tampered with or destroyed documents or hard evidence…There should be some penalty for such actions which frustrate public access, protect agency embarrassment or misdeeds, and facilitated a cover-up that made individuals accessories after the fact, encouraged perjury, facilitated blackmail or obstructed justice in a murder case. The individuals or agencies responsible should not retain positions of powers of public trust and criminal charges or penalties (should be applied).”

Unfortunately, the penalty for non-compliance with the JFK Act is less than that of a parking ticket, a significant loophole that should be fixed.

The Joint Committee staff that holds such hearings will also play a major role in the proceedings, setting schedules, deciding on which witnesses are to testify, and the order in which they will be called.

Dennis Bartholomew adds some possibilities of what a Congressional Hearing could accomplish:

“1.A. Request Congressional hearings related to either reviving the

Assassinations Records Review Board to continue their work to collect all

relevant documents, or to propose some less elaborate method to continue

the collection of relevant documents.”

“1B. Focus on the lack of cooperation or failure to comply with the JFK Act

by certain agencies, and request Congress to take steps to remedy that.

This may include allegations that agencies have falsely signed the ARRB’s

affidavit which affirmed that they fully complied. Do we have conclusive

proof that any agencies having knowingly withheld relevant JFK documents?

If so, that might be a powerful argument that the Congress needs to take

steps to require compliance.”

“1.C. Focus on the false evidence already delivered to the National

Archives and/or ARRB. By this I mean evidence that the photos and x-rays

are not the authentic autopsy materials. Researchers, and ARRB staffers as

well, have assembled considerable details of instances of falsifications or

fabrication of JFK evidence. We could make the argument that Congress needs

to determine how, and by whom and for what purpose the evidence

falsification took place. Note, the issue is how, by whom and why this

happened, and whether or not it did happen. Determination of the details of

the evidence falsification might be addressed by a revived ARRB, but maybe

we should argue it requires more than a panel of scholars, but rather a new

Congressional investigation. But like the ARRB, any new investigation must

be headed up by non-government personnel, perhaps including prominent JFK

researchers.”

“1.D. In view of the fact there is conclusive evidence (in my opinion) of a

JFK conspiracy, a cover-up and illegal evidence tampering, we may want to

request that Congress take steps that go beyond continuation of document

gathering. I suggest that any extension of the JFK Act or other new

legislation, should be broaden to include all testimony (not just existing

documents) by persons that have a direct knowledge or information related

to the JFK assassination or subsequent cover-up. In other words, solicit

information such as that already provided by [whistleblowers ]. But to

facilitate the volunteering of information, I think we also need a grant of

immunity from prosecution. Most people will not acknowledge their

participation in illegal activities if they think they may be prosecuted as

a result. We also need Congress to issue a release from all secrecy oaths

as they apply to assassination related matters. It is likely that many

people involved in the assassination or cover-up were acting for the CIA or

other intelligence operatives who are bound by such oaths.”

“The above is an ambitious list of goals, and we are likely to not be able to achieve all of them. However, I think they are worth discussing at least. I have no experience in lobbying Congress, while….others were successful in getting the JFK Act passed, so they would have a much better idea of what is possible and what is not. But I think an important first step is to discuss what our objective should be then and develop a precise statement of what actions we want Congress to take.”

According to Barry R. Rubin in A Citizen’s Guide To Politics In America – How The System Works & How To Work the System (M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, N.Y./London, 1997), there is a difference between the legislation of laws and their implementation, an important distinction when discussing the enforcement of the JFK Act.

Rubin: “For every page of federal laws there are dozens of pages of

regulation and administrative interpretations of the law. For every

legislator…there are thousands of bureaucrats busily writing regulations

and implementing the laws those legislators pass. These bureaucrats toil in

the executive or administrative branch of government and are in many ways

the source of the greatest power in government. It is no surprise,

therefore, that issue advocate devote considerable attention to influencing

and persuading them. But what do bureaucrats do? They, and the agencies and

departments and offices for which they work, interpret, enforce, and

administer the law.”

“The thousand daily decisions bureaucrats make administering

laws can cause issue advocates more consternation – and require more time

and attention – than the legislative process. Hard-fought legislative

success can turn to pyrrhic victories in the hands of unfriendly or

unresponsive bureaucracy. Indeed, issue advocates who win legislative

battles barely have time to pop the champagne corks before they must turn

their attention to how the law, for which they fought so are, will be

implemented. Or those who thought they had tamed the legislative process

may learn that the executive branch has implemented policy changes that

accomplish the goals they sought to avoid. As one commentator observed,

‘Nothing in law ever seems finally settled because there is always one more

step in the process where both winners and losers may try to negotiate

different terms…”

“Administrative discretion may be broad, but it is far from

absolute. First, administrative action is limited to the authority afforded

the agency by the legislative branch. By contrast, Congress is limited in

its lawmaking activities only by the Constitution.”

“Second, agencies afford the public opportunities to make their

views known to, and considered by, the agency. Congressional committees may

chose to hold public hearings on legislation, but they need not do so, and

they are free to ignore all the witnesses and all the evidence presented to

them.”

“Third, agency action,…can be reviewed by the courts to ensure

the actions comply with all applicable laws and procedures. When Congress

passes a law, it can be challenged in court only on the grounds that it

violates the Constitution.”

“The main vehicle to control agency discretion at the federal

level is the Administrative Procedures Act. The law requires agencies to

make most decisions in the open and to afford the public meaningful

opportunities to comment on proposed agency actions. It also allows those

who disagree with the agency decision to ask courts to invalidate them if

they are not in accordance with applicable law and procedure or if they are

not solidly grounded on the facts and the law.”

“These limitations on administrative discretion reflect the

fact that agencies can exercise their discretionary powers by issuing rules

and regulations. These ‘mini-laws’ codify administrative interpretations

and establish clear guidelines for bureaucrats and the public.….The broad

policy discretion afforded bureaucrats provides issue advocates good

reasons to attempt to influence how laws are enforced and administered. And

the process of administrative decision making – the requirement that, for

the most part, it be open to the public and subject to judicial review –

provide advocates important tools to accomplish that goal…”

“….The courts are most often the last resort of those who seek

to influence public policy. Litigation is costly and time-consuming,

appeals can drag on for years, and tangible results are often hard to

achieve. Yet, the federal and state courts provide critical outlets –

safety valves – for issue advocates who are unable to get a full and fair

hearing before the administrative or legislative branch of government. The

doors to the courthouse are open to all. Legislatures are accountable only

to the electorate and only at the ballot box. Bureaucracies can be slow and

unresponsive. But advocates who seek redress in the courts are guaranteed a

hearing by an impartial arbiter who will decide a case on its merits.”

Sen. Specter agreed when he testified that the JFK Act and ARRB actions and thus agency responses should be open to judicial review when he testified that, “I think there should be judicial review of the (ARRB) decisions. When all of the facts are taken before a judge in a court in according with due process, and analyzed and considered in a way which we cannot do in the

legislative branch, and where people along he way may have predilections.”

Besides Congressional Hearings on the JFK Act, JFK assassination witnesses can be called to testify at a libel trial that can be initiated, or more preferably, a Civil Suit can be brought to trial, much like the MLK case in Memphis, in which the attorneys have more say in who is called to testify. Civil Suits can be initiated by the family of Lee Harvey Oswald against the Dallas Police Department or the City of Dallas for the failure to protect him when in their custody, or on behalf of James Tague, a living, wounded victim of the same person(s) who shot the President and Governor Connally.

MLK civil suit attorney William Pepper, Esq., was sued for libel by one of the U.S. Army Intelligence officers he named in his book, who was thought to be dead. While they cannot show malice, or prove that Pepper knew he was alive and withheld this fact, both necessary to convict him of libel, Pepper’s publisher decided to pay off the plaintiff from insurance funds.

It would be better to go to trail, and call more witnesses to testify under oath, especially when they refused to talk to Pepper before publication.

In discussing the possibility of bringing a civil suit in the JFK assassination case, Memphis Judge Joe Brown, noted that such cases, must show “undue harm” and are usually brought to court by the victim’s family. In this case the Kennedy family will not do that, though it is possible one of

Oswald’s daughters or James Tague would be willing to file such a civil suit against the government.

There is also the possibility of a federal grand jury reviewing the case in Washington D.C., similar to the grand jury that is currently reviewing the Dupont Circle bombing and assassination, which was exposed as a covert operation that included a number of JFK assassination players – i.e. Cubans, David A. Phillips and Michael Townley.

Other similar legal cases provide precedents to follow, including the Christic Institute’s Iran-Contra RICO case of the 1980s, the indictment of the assassin of Medgar Evers, 30 years after his murder, a case that an assistant DA took to a grand jury and obtained a conviction at trial. Although not open to the public or press, a grand jury can require witness testimony, obtain answers to relevant questions and request the introduction of records that are still being withheld from inclusion in the JFK Assassination Records Collection. A grand jury can also, would automatically order a proper forensic autopsy of the victims (JFK, JBC, JDT and LHO) of any suspicious death, without the permission of the victim’s family.

The best of all possible worlds would be to have grand jury members to take interest in the case – rather than just listen to prosecutors present evidence – and begin to ask questions themselves – what’s called a “runaway grand jury,” like the Rocky Mountain Flats grand jury that investigated the military weapons disposal operations in Colorado and tried to indict those responsible for environmental contamination and mismanagement, etc., and leaked their own report, which the government tried to censor.

There are also a dozen unsolved homicides that are related to the assassination of President Kennedy (Rose Cheramie, G.G. Underhill, Karen Kupcinet, Jim Koethe, Mary Meyer, Elidio Delvalle, Sam Giancana, John Rosselli) in which witnesses could testify if a local asst. district

attorney would reopen any one of these unsolved, cold case murders, and review them, as they are periodically required to do.

There is also a bill before Congress that should be resubmitted in the 110 Congress to establish a Justice Department Task Force to investigate and prosecute the civil rights murders of the 50s and 60s, which would most certainly include the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy.

What is needed in the case of the assassination of President Kennedy is a new round of witness testimony, deposed under oath, which could occur in Congressional Hearing or a grand jury action, both of which would lead to further legal actions.

PLAN A – Obtain new round of deposed witness testimony either:

1) Congressional Hearing (House Government Operations Committee)

2) FOIA Suit – JFK Act. – (See COPA v. DOD over MLK AAR and Morley v. CIA)

3) Civil Suit – Ala MLK – (Oswald family or James Tague)

4) Grand Jury – A D.C. Fed. Grand Jury, would immediately require a

new, independent forensic autopsy of victims. ( In North Dallas Federal, New Orleans or DC)

5) Homicide – On-going related homicide investigations (See Related Unsolved Homicide List)

6) Instigate a libel case.

7) Other possibilities…?( - List)

xxxx

Edited November 25, 2006 by William Kelly

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Shane: Someone has sent me a question for you: "Are you aware as to whether any of the key witnesses, Robert Walton, Ed Lopez, Wayne Smith, have put their recollections in the form of sworn affidavits?"

An excellent point. Sirhan will shortly have a new attorney and I'm sure this is one of the first things he will want to do. I have advised him of this new evidence and he is very interested.

Shane

[John Simkin]

Interesting post by David Carter on the Newsnight forum:

"The possible involvement of CIA personnel in Robert Kennedy's assassination is not new. Bill Kurtis did an "Investigative Reports" presentation on the A&E network about 14 years ago where he brings up the presence of CIA "investigators" who happened to be right on the scene as it occurred and one of them intimidating a witness about who she saw and what she heard. They were there to control the evidence of course. In all that time, nothing has been done to re-open the investigation by an independent body (surely not the FBI, CIA or any U.S. government agency). The two Kennedy assassinations were carried out on the orders of high level people within the CIA bureaucracy using low level agents and "patsies" to minimize their involvement. These people and their backers have too much power to ever worry about being brought to justice. They will die of old age before anyone in the U.S. wakes up to the fact that their government is in the hands of an elite right-wing cabal and always will be."

Does anyone know anything about the Bill Kurtis investigation?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2006/..._1.html#c271618

[Ashton Gray]

In the last few months, Ryan Crowe, Lee Forman and I teamed up to go after one of these operators (who would know some of the dark secrets behind Dealey Plaza and the Ambassador Hotel) but this turned out to be not such a good idea. I do not plan to take this research any further.

I feel, perhaps inappropriately (but when am I not?), that the Aussies may have just stolen the crown from the Brits in the noble and refined Art of Understatement.

Ashton

[John Simkin]

Shane: Someone has sent me a question for you: "Are you aware as to whether any of the key witnesses, Robert Walton, Ed Lopez, Wayne Smith, have put their recollections in the form of sworn affidavits?"

An excellent point. Sirhan will shortly have a new attorney and I'm sure this is one of the first things he will want to do. I have advised him of this new evidence and he is very interested.

The lawyer has replied:

"I raise the point of affidavits because the identifications and Morales statements could be legally sufficient to base official investigative action. I don't put a lot of hope in officialdom at this point given their record on these cases, but I have had the reaction from prominent persons not in the research community that if we come up with evidence, they hope it would be investigated and prosecuted by the authorities, in the interests of justice. There are a series of prosecutions from the Civil Rights era taking place now because the crimes were covered up at the time, so it would not be that unusual for a crime of the 1960's to be reopened. Obviously the stronger the evidence the more likely it would be taken seriously."

[Joseph Backes]

Interesting post by David Carter on the Newsnight forum:

"The possible involvement of CIA personnel in Robert Kennedy's assassination is not new. Bill Kurtis did an "Investigative Reports" presentation on the A&E network about 14 years ago where he brings up the presence of CIA "investigators" who happened to be right on the scene as it occurred and one of them intimidating a witness about who she saw and what she heard. They were there to control the evidence of course. In all that time, nothing has been done to re-open the investigation by an independent body (surely not the FBI, CIA or any U.S. government agency). The two Kennedy assassinations were carried out on the orders of high level people within the CIA bureaucracy using low level agents and "patsies" to minimize their involvement. These people and their backers have too much power to ever worry about being brought to justice. They will die of old age before anyone in the U.S. wakes up to the fact that their government is in the hands of an elite right-wing cabal and always will be."

Does anyone know anything about the Bill Kurtis investigation?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2006/..._1.html#c271618

There is no such thing as a "Bill Kurtis investigation." What this person is referring to is a TV program on American cable television that was narrated by Bill Kurtis, an anchorman from Chicago, who's star is on the decline. (If anyone remembers the first South Park think of the line, "Hey Ike, do your impression of David Caruso's career!" Mind you, that was well before CSI.) He's narrated many programs on A & E (that's the Arts and Entertainment Channel) which is a kind of commercial/cable TV version of PBS. (Hint for you Brits, ask an American what a "pledge week," is.) A lot of BBC imports and god awful documentaries, such as the case with this one. The poster is talking about the treatment Sandy Serrano received by a retired CIA goofball the LAPD brought in to brow beat Serano into refuting her own story, one Enrique Hernandez.

Bill Kurtis is the voice narrating the "Mew Who Killed Kennedy," five part series first aired in the U.S. in 1991.

The poster is not, repeat not, referring to or addressing anything presented by Shane O'Sullivan

Joe Backes

[James Henry]

Congrats to O'Sullivan for stirring the pot with this provocative story!

However, I submit that this is at best "case reopened;" we still have a long way to go before we pronounce this -- as Shane does in the BBC News version that I saw -- "case closed."

For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that he has verifiably placed at least 3 key former JM/WAVE types at the Ambassador that evening back in 1968 -- my high school prom night, BTW.

To be sure, these three were certainly no run-of-the-mill covert operators, much less ballroom spectators. They were hard-core anti-Comms, professionally-trained assassins, psy ops specialists, and at least in Morales' case, a close acquaintance of John Roselli & Co. So you've got our attention.

Where do we go from here?

(1) There are obviously scads of detailed defense attorney-type questions about how this crew actually pulled it off -- whether they were at all connected to Sirhan, or to anyone else in the fatal kitchen (like the security guard who was supposedly standing behind Bobby and later reportedly lied about when he sold off his .22.) We're a long way from filling in those missing links....

(2) Why would these three "old hands" -- at least two of whom were still employed by the Agency (not sure about G. Campbell) risk showing up and hanging around together at a mass event where some of their former collegues were bound to recognize them -- as a couple apparently did? Was that just agency hubris?

(3) There are lots of interesting questions that pertain to motives. As noted, Joannides and Morales were both still working for Shackley (in SE Asia) at the time, so that suggests there may have been Agency condonation. However, Morales, at least, was also notoriously hostile to the Kennedys on a personal level, and may have detested the idea of an RFK presidency for strictly private reasons.

Third, as Shane suggested, anyone involved in JFK would have worried that RFK would have reopened the WC investigation. Again, Morales is the most prominently-mentioned of the three in that regard.

However, for my money, the key factor was not so much the speculative possibility that the WC would be reopened, and reach a different conclusion, but the NEAR CERTAINTY that an RFK presidency would have ushered in a new round of tough anti-Mafia prosecutions -- which the Nixon Administration (with Helliwell/ CBT/Hoffa, etc) most assuredly did not.

This suggests there is an "agency-led/condoned" version of the story and a "hired moonlighter/ mob-led" version. Of course there could be overlaps, but the "well-paid moonlighter" version has firmer economic foundations.

If so, it is unlikely that these three "bureaucrats" would have been willing to do this for nothing. So someone needs to look at what happened to these 3 agents' finances during this period. One might have thought that our extraordinarily-well-managed intelligence agencies would be monitoring their own agents' finances/ income tax records/ estate valuations -- but does anyone know if they do/ did so during this period?

(4) Has anyone bothered to ask the loquacious Gerry Patrick Hemming about this new video evidence? After all, he claims to have been working (along with his brother and a niece, I believe) for the LAPD from 1967-70! Indeed, he was also supposed to have been one of the first officers to arrive at the house of Sirhan Sirhan's mother the morning after. (...How strange was that? BTW, I understand that GPH was also employed as a Popemobile driver in St. Peters Square in Rome in 1981, and visited Mehmet Ali Hagca in his jail cell the day after Pope John Paul II got whacked...)

So since GPH was "in LA" that week, did he happen to see any of these former fellow Miamians hanging around? Presumably he would have known them, back at JM/WAVE or before or after? Does he recognize Shane's pictures of them, or of any of their compadres? And, heck, while we're asking, where was GPH hanging out that evening?

Again, Shane's delivered is a "good start," sorta like 200,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean. java script:emoticon('',%20'smid_4')Now let's get back to work.

[Thomas Graves]

[....] (like the security guard who was supposedly standing behind Bobby and later reportedly lied about when he sold off his .22.) [....]

____________________________________________

James,

Welcome to this Forum!

In your quote (above), you must be talking about Thane Cesar.

BTW, can anyone remember the name of the San Diego mafia guy who, acording to David Scheim in his book "Contract on America," supposedly had connections with Cesar? I can't remember his name, but I think I read somewhere that this mafia guy/businessman was a protege of one Meyer Lansky...

--Thomas

____________________________________________

Edited November 28, 2006 by Thomas Graves

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

BTW, can anyone remember the name of the San Diego mafia guy who, acording to David Scheim in his book "Contract on America," supposedly had connections with Cesar? I can't remember his name, but I think I read somewhere that this mafia guy/businessman was a protege of one Meyer Lansky...

--Thomas

John Alessio reportedly "fixed" Cesar's multiple arrests in Tijuana, Mexico.