“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
The words of a wise man. It is one of my favorite quotes. As I make my way down the rabbit trails of the Kennedy Assassination, it becomes even more appropriate. As somebody once said it is not in the solving of a mystery, as it is the dancing with the mysterious. And you’ll find plenty of dance partners in Dealey Plaza. Hunter S. Thompson
Those familiar with the legend know that Lee Oswald in the summer of 1963 was fronting as a member the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. A pro Castro organization. After an altercation on Canal Street in New Orleans with an anti Castro Cuban émigré, he was arrested. While in jail, Oswald gave a handwritten note to police lieutenant Francis Martello. In the margins of the note was a number. For decades nobody knew what this number was or represented. Apparently it was not investigated at the time. Oswald was, after all, a nut. Declassified CIA documents years later eventually cleared the fog. It was the ID number of a CIA operative. It belonged to Michael Jelisavcic the manager of American Express in Moscow at the time Oswald was there. Oswald’s address book also contained Jelisavcic’s phone number as well.
Wake up now. For if Oswald is not a CIA operative, then how does he know Jelisavcic’s ID number? Conversely, if he is a CIA operative then how does he know a fellow CIA asset’s number? This incident is the equivalent of one employee at the shop knowing another employee’s Social Security number. It simply does not happen. The going just got weird.
The number now becomes a flag and Oswald is waving it. He’s letting the other players know what type of player he is and what team he is on. How else do you explain it? His mother was evidently correct when she huffed to the world that her son was an intelligence agent. She was written off as a kook. In this late day, his widow Marina implies the same, a blind kitten no more, saying he was being used by other groups. But she won’t say who those groups are. People like Marina, that are close the action, seem to keep it even closer to themselves. She leads us halfway down the rabbit trail and leaves us stranded there to find out way home. As if the truth would destroy our world. If it even could.
One of my favorite stories is the meeting, told by Antonio Veciana, head of anti Castro group Alpha 66, about his meeting in Dallas in 1963 with his CIA handler Maurice Bishop (alias for David Atlee Philips). As Veciana approached Bishop/Philips he noticed he was talking to a slim young man. Part of Veciana’s training was to memorize faces. A few months later he saw that face again when the news flashed around the world. It was Lee Oswald’s mug and Veciana knew instantly how deep he was in. Perhaps the CIA handler forwarded Jelisavcic’s ID number to Oswald? Oswald is not going to get the number on own. It is on file in the belly of the Beast. He could have been given the number to let everybody know who they were dealing with. Not just some malcontent having an altercation with people he argued with.
This whole incident grows from a seed planted here. Whatever information Oswald told the police lieutenant, and a bit later to the FBI agent Quigley, that we are not allowed to know, they both forwarded the information to military intelligence. Another mystery! For Oswald is the disconnected guy, the ultimate Nowhere Man. What is he in on that the Office of Naval Intelligence should alerted of? It is all like a dream now. The weird have turned pro.
And now the pro needs to go to work schooling everybody else. For after this incident Oswald tries to hook up with two different anti Castro, anti communist outfits. One outfit in particular, the DRE, trained and financed by the spooks at Langley, rebuffs Oswald’s attempts to offer his services to help train them. They issue a press release demanding a congressional investigation of Oswald—mind you this is months before the assassination. This is likened to killing a fly with a shotgun. A bit too much on the buckshot. Just how offended are these people and why make such an odd protest? Or for that matter, why does the pro Castro guy want to help train the anti Castro outfit to overthrow his man?
There are all kinds of theories on this. Obviously, the official story is at odds with the truth. That is to be expected here. After all, that experience is all over the place. What is of interest here is the strangeness of it all and what is precisely going on. And this is why the Kennedy assassination is such a fascinating thing to study! For you never know for certain, other than the President’s death occurred and Governor Connolly was wounded. It has been bandied about that Oswald could have been doing research for somebody to see if these anti Castro groups had any commies in them. Maybe. But then, who is the “somebody”? The usual suspects most likely. At any rate, none of that worked out and Oswald made his merry way to Dallas to fulfill his destiny, turning his back on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee forever.
But before that comes to fruition, Oswald mails a letter to the FPFC headquarters in New York City describing the scuffle and arrest. The letter is postmarked five days before the event actually occurs. Maybe after the weird turn pro they grow into something else even stranger. It did here with the letter. Perhaps it is too eerie to contemplate—Oswald turned psychic.
So we come back to the ID number. It is still sitting there, plain as day, staring us in the face. A steady reminder that things are not quite right here and there is something hidden from us. What we need is somebody to lead us on the right rabbit trail and not leave us stranded in an endless loop.
“I’m just the patsy,” he said. Well, we are all just a nation of patsy’s now.
Sources: Russell, On the trail of the JFK Assassins; McKnight, Breech of Trust; www.history-matters.com
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