The Garrison Papers

New Orleans DA Jim Garrison

I am late to the party here.  Former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s files were scanned and released as one massive zip file of 180 PDF files uploaded in 2016.  There is a lot to go through here for both researchers and people with an interest in JFK assassination research.  This is truly a deep dive so set your time accordingly.  

The zip file is 1.9 gigs and the unzipped basically the same size.  

https://archive.org/details/GarrisonPapers/Additional%20Thornley%20material/

And I also highly recommend Kennedy and King’s “Creating the Oswald Legend: Appendix” by Vasilios Vazakas.  It’s a long and detailed look at the cast of characters involved in JFK assassination research.  

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/creating-the-oswald-legend-appendix

Also posted on my Substack.  https://open.substack.com/pub/georgebailey/p/the-garrison-papers
 

Double Vision

I’ve written often on the theory that Lee Oswald was impersonated. At first, I thought this was a fringe element of JFK assassination research. Really wacky. However, some many phases and events in Oswald’s life are so perplexing and in some circumstances, downright weird, that two Oswalds can be the only explanation to suss out the high strangeness of Oswald’s life.

It’s quite evident that there is a coverup in the JFK assassination from documents that remain sealed to the odd disappearances and deaths of witnesses. As at least one researcher has told me, the doppelgängers present a good reason for a coverup. The government had little problem telling the public that Abraham Lincoln was killed as a direct result of a conspiracy. Why this president?

There is no way to maintain order in a civil society if a government admits that a national leader has been slain and the accused assassin has a double on the loose. On the other hand, what a great way to run such an operation. Have one man develop a legend–making appearances in public places to create a personality type, especially an unlikable, undesirable one. In the meantime, set up his double to take the fall. And the arrested Oswald said such a thing before he was silenced–"I’m just the patsy.”

It all looks like fringe research till you read the June, 1960 memo that FBI Director Hoover sent the Department of State asking for more information regarding Lee Oswald possibly being impersonated. You can rest assured that Hoover sensed something wasn’t right with a former Marine defecting to the Soviet Union and he was developing leads on him early on. Ultimately, he knew the most about Oswald outside of the traditional rings of power and the intelligence agencies. (That memo also shows that Hoover lied immediately following the assassination of JFK when he said for the public record that Lee Oswald was somebody the FBI knew little about. And the FBI agents were showing up everywhere Oswald had worked or went to school in less than 24 hours collecting documents on him. Didn’t take them long did it? And many of those records quickly disappeared.)

There are many instances of Lee Oswald possibly being impersonated but what follows is a few of the many examples of a likely doppelgänger in play.

Arrival in New Orleans, 1963

Lee Oswald arrives in New Orleans supposedly in search of work but as will develop over that summer, he will pursue marxist political operations which will land him in jail resulting in a TV interview and a radio debate which will further build the public legend of a leftwing agitator, one of the forerunners of many more to follow in the decade of the 1960’s.

When Oswald turns up on April 24, he stays with his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Charles Murret. Lillian is his mother’s younger sister. 

Lee starts doing something peculiar. He starts researching Oswalds in the phone directory seeking to get in touch with his father’s brothers. He’s particularly interested in Harvey, the source of his middle name. He eventually makes contact with Hazel Oswald, the widow of William, one of his father’s other brothers. She informs him that all of his uncles are deceased. He then travels to meet her and she gives him a large, framed picture of his father, Robert Sr.

There are several odd things about this story. First, why doesn’t Lee know his uncles are all gone? All he has to do is ask his aunt Lillian. She’s a life-long resident of New Orleans and would probably know if any of the Oswalds were alive since her sister married into the Oswald family. It’s a common thing most people know, regarding families, both blood and by marriage. If anything, he could have called his mother to find out. Even his brothers, Robert and John Pic, might have known.

Apparently, Lee didn’t want anybody in his family to know that he was looking up Oswald family members that by all counts, he should have known were dead.

Maybe because this is the wrongLee, an impostor arriving in New Orleans with a sketchy history of the Oswald family. If he asked anybody in the know, for example his mother or his aunt, he may have been met with, “You don’t know that your uncles are all gone?” Although one would assume that in an operation utilizing doubles, they would both be well briefed in family matters such as this. It’s reminiscent of Marguerite Oswald giving a host of wrong answers when questioned by probation officer John Caro in 1953 regarding Lee being truant from school in New York.

Eventually, he meets up with Hazel Oswald who gives him a large, framed picture of their father, Robert Sr. It should be noted that this picture is not found in Oswald’s possessions after the assassination. Robert Oswald ends up with it. Interesting, because Robert maintains that he never had any contact with Lee after the 1962 Thanksgiving gathering (see below) until the day of the assassination. So how did he get it?

Here’s a bit of trivia. William Oswald had a son, also named William. Researcher John Armstrong discovered that William was working as a salesman at the Reilly Coffee company at the very same time Lee was working there (p. 554). It’s unknown what interaction Lee had with this cousin or if William helped Lee get the job there. He is supposed to have seen an ad for a job, applied, interviewed, hired, and went to work the following day. This would be his only job in New Orleans. At least for this version of Lee Oswald.

Thanksgiving Day, 1962

This was the last time all three brothers were together.  They met at Robert and Vada’s home and all of the   brothers had their wives and children present.  Home movies were made which can be easily found online.  Oddly, their mother Marguerite was not invited.  Robert later said in his Warren Commission testimony that her name never came up during the course of the gathering, although John Pic said she was mentioned by Lee.  Some family huh?

Of all the brother’s there, John Pic, the son from Marguerite’s first marriage, noticed the most changes in Lee.  John found Lee to look different than the 10 year old boy he had last seen (actually, in his WC testimony he got Lee’s age off by 2 years).  Seeing a difference would be understandable given that length of time, but there were other more adult features John did not see.  For example, their cousin Marilyn Murret had told him that Lee had developed a bull neck since joining the Marines.  The bull neck Lee can be seen from his Marine pictures.  John did not notice Lee’s neck being any bigger.  When questioned by Commission attorney Jenner, John testified Lee's eyes looked different, sunken in.  When shown the picture of Lee at the Bronx zoo in 1953, John said that it wasn’t Lee in the picture.  And lastly, he was upset that Lee referred to him as a “half-brother,” which of course he was, but Lee had never alluded to him in such a manner in the past or ever introduced him to anybody as a half-brother.

One thing researcher John Armstrong once told me that he had interviewed Rachael Oswald.  He asked her about what interaction she had over the years with her uncle Robert.  None, she said.  Perhaps Oswald’s daughters are fathered by an impostor?  In his actions and statements Robert seems to know more than he ever let on.  He is not approachable by researchers so we can never know for certain what he really knows. 

The Mexico City Trip

I don’t intend to take a trip down that confusing rabbit trail.  But it’s a path littered with references to Oswald being impersonated, and that’s long before he actually gets to Mexico City and is impersonated on the phone calls to the Russian Embassy and the Cuban Consulate  office there.

One instance is when Oswald arrives back in Dallas after his Magical Mystery Tour to Mexico, which was on October 3, 1963.  Simultaneously, four library books he allegedly checked out on September 19, in New Orleans, are returned to the library that day of October 3rd.  Those books were, Goldfinger and Moonraker, by Ian Fleming; Age and Essence and New World by Aldous Huxley.  It’s likely that he did not take the books with him on the Mexico City trip as Oswald would have to make a side trip to New Orleans after his return from Mexico, to deliver the borrowed books.  The apartment on 4905 Magazine Street, as stated by the manager, was cleared out leaving nothing behind.  Did Oswald know somebody in New Orleans to deliver the books to the Library?  And why on October 3rd, the very day that he arrives in Dallas?  Basically, Oswald couldn’t have done it.  Somebody else did.  And who? (p. 597)

There is the famous Sylvia Odio incident where she claims two Hispanic men and one gringo showed up at her sister’s apartment in Dallas either on September 26 or 27 seeking financial help from her father, imprisoned in Cuba, for running operations against Castro (i.e., assassination of the Cuban leader).  The gringo identified himself as Leon Oswald.  But on the day of the assassination, after Oswald’s arrest, Odio identified Lee Oswald as the “Leon Oswald” at her door.  (Her sister also identified Lee Oswald as well, although she was never interviewed by the FBI.) However, Oswald was on the bus in Mexico at this time.  Her testimony was discounted by the Warren Commission, using two ne'er-do-wells who later recanted their statements that they were ever at the apartment.

Then there is Antonio Veciana of Alpha 66, the anti-Castro group financed by the CIA.  Veciana’s story is famous in JFK lore as it accounts for a witness sighting of Lee Oswald with a major intel operative.  Veciana was in Dallas for the purpose of meeting with his CIA case officer Maurice Bishop (i.e., David Atlee Phillips as ID’d by E. Howard Hunt) in Dallas.  Before he gets there, he see’s Bishop/Phillips chatting with a young man of whom he is not introduced to.  Later, he’ll see this young man on the news charged with the death of a president and a police officer.  This sighting occurred in late summer/early fall, at a time when Oswald was supposed to be nowhere near Dallas.  In fact, not in Dallas anytime in the entire month of September.  But there are many witnesses who can account for Oswald in Dallas/Irving throughout the summer of 1963 such as Cliff Shasteen, the barber that saw Lee Oswald come to shop in Irving numerous times that summer. 

Other Sightings

Oswald, or Oswald #2, or even a #3 was leaving tracks all over the place.  In John Armstrong’s Harvey and Lee, he makes mention of an undercover agent, Roy Frankhauser.  Frankhauser claims to have met Michael and Ruth Paine in 1960 as all three were allegedly infiltrating The Socialist Workers Party.  He claims to have met Lee Oswald in New York city during the week of September 16th, as he and Ruth escorted Lee to an exposition hosted by David Rockefeller (p. 597).  He also claimed that Ruth Paine was Oswald’s “babysitter.”

Also on September 16, somebody in Hubertus, Wisconsin, left a Lee Harvey Oswald signature in a restaurant registry.  Then on the 24th somebody left an Oswald signature at a nightclub 30 miles outside of Milwaukee.  That day, President Kennedy spoke in Ashland, Wisconsin.  Was this to promote a legend of Oswald stalking Kennedy?  If so, this fiction was not used later (p. 595).

Even earlier that summer, on July 26, a Lee Oswald signed the guest ledger at the Atomic Energy Museum at Oak Ridge, Tennessee (p. 551).  This Oswald left dual addresses of Dallas and USSR.  How’s that for a cheap plant?

As you can see, the operators run threads all over the place from New York, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and back to Texas again.  They run a line of alternate scenarios that might be used later, or not, as the situation develops.  Most likely these are not actual physical impersonators at work, but instead, operatives trained in how to replicate Oswald’s signature.  Then send them out marking up guest books, building the legend.  The only real fault with this method is that it leaves a trail; Oswald signatures in diverse places where they should not be, at the wrong dates, making little sense, adding a flare of mystery to the whole shebang.  Meanwhile, Lee Oswald is being monitored and used in ways he probably had no knowledge of.

The poor rube.

Sources

All page numbers relate to John Armstrong’s Harvey and Lee.

Some James Garrison Reading

James Garrison

I know full well that Jim Garrison is considered by many in the research community to be the Patron Saint of conspiracy research.  But dig a little deeper and one will see that he was as flawed as the rest of us.  Some of his investigation was spot on and sincere and some of it was utterly unethical. 

Long-time researcher Jones Harris worked with Garrison for a bit in the Clay Shaw investigation.  He told me right up from that in his view, Jim Garrison was a “charming charlatan.”  I was surprised to hear this at the time as I had never heard or read of anybody that worked with Garrison utter some an evaluation.  The main incident that Harris remembered was asking Garrison if Carlos Marcello was in the Mob and he was told that Marcello was no longer in organized crime and was now a New Orleans businessman.  Obviously this is not true, since Marcello was a career mob boss in New Orleans. 

Below is a link to a 1992 New Yorker article by Edward J. Epstein about Jim Garrison and some of the shenanigans he pulled in the case he prosecuted against Clay Shaw.  Recommended reading before you start to feel inclined to see a halo around Garrison’s head.

Link

http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/garrison.htm

Book Review: Destiny Betrayed - JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case

Vincent Bugliosi in his End Notes for his book, Reclaiming History, calls Jim DiEugenio “a sincere conspiracy theorist.”  When reading DiEugenio’s second edition of his book, Destiny Betrayed, one is struck with just how little theory is involved.  It’s all a solid mix of history, fact, and proper historical context for the events that are to follow.  Jim DiEugenio said in a recent interview on Black Op Radio that he didn’t want to caught up in the minutia of details regarding the assassination in this new volume, but instead wanted to pursue an examination of how and why it happened and how it got covered up.  And that is what readers  will experience as they read this book.  

Destiny Betrayed begins in the Cold War shadow wars, a mix of skullduggery and dirty deeds where even the President is kept in the dark in regards to what is going on.  As DiEugenio shows, CIA Director Allen Dulles was attempting to dupe Kennedy into foreign policy and military actions he was not wanting to be a part of.  Dulles took the Central Intelligence Agency far from its original intent of intelligence gathering to a machiavellian, duplicitous outfit overthrowing democratically elected governments under the guise of combating communism, replacing them with controllable right-wing dictatorships, and for the most part, setting the stage for the profiteering of American corporations.  So manipulating Presidents for CIA objectives has become the modus operandi of the Agency that lasts to this day.  Meanwhile, the American public sleeps through these affairs being distracted with the communistic threat, the baby boom, pop culture, sports and so on.  The National Security State descends and much of American history becomes a secret locked away in warehouses.

As DiEugenio’s documents in the first part of his book, the leaders of the National Security State knew early on they had a problem with John Kennedy.  He wasn’t for war mongering, turning down attempts to pump troops into Vietnam and launch preemptive nuclear strikes.  Kennedy was not a believer in the Domino Theory.  The Bay of Pigs fiasco, well detailed in Destiny Betrayed, is a CIA run military op destined to fail so American troops could be called in it finish the job. Kennedy found out none of this till he ordered an inquiry into what happened and  the ever duplicitous Allen Dulles and other top CIA officials lost their jobs. 

The Pioneers Get All The Arrows

The star of the book is Jim Garrison.  His coming around from true believer in the Warren Report to a believer in conspiracy and pursuing a trial against an alleged conspirator is an compelling story.  He was flawed man, but a brave man who paid a terrible price for seeking the truth with his future career in politics destroyed.  The full weight of the federal government fell on his head like a ton of bricks.  His reputation was pillared by a hostile press, some of whom were government informants, who were to attack and expose his every move in the national media.  Kennedy bagman Walt Sheridan (former ONI, FBI, and NSA) was sent down to harass witnesses and later put together a slanderous, over the top attack on Garrison on NBC (which was so bad they had to let Garrison have an on-air rebuttal). And the attacks on his character raged from 1967 to this very day. (For example, Gerald Posner in his 1993 book named Garrison a child molester and Vince Bugliosi in his 2007 book labeled him, “symptomatically psychotic.”)  After the trial of Clay Shaw was over, and lost, Garrison was indicted twice and acquitted.  As you can see, charging headlong into the Status Quo is not for the faint of heart.

As Jim DiEugenio points out, in actuality, Jim Garrison’s attempt to prove conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination was flawed before it started.  Even his staff advised against it after lead witness David Ferrie died.  But Big Jim decided to press on. It didn’t help his cause much by trusting people that he should have left alone.  Men such as Bernardo Detorres, William Gurvich, and Gordon Novel. These men were not rubes–they were all experienced operatives and functioned as spies embedded within his investigative operatus, funneling information to Garrison’s chief tormentor, Walter Sheridan, and journalist/government shills such as Hugh Aynesworth and James Phelan.  DiEugenio documents in great detail how the FBI and CIA were formally engaged to see this Louisiana state trial of Clay Shaw fail.  

And this of course raises the biggest question of them all–if the Warren Report is correct and Lee Oswald is the only assassin, and there is no conspiracy, then why does the government, along with allies in the press, have to take these extreme measures to make sure a conspiracy verdict is not reached in a state trial?  The Justice Department sent down their lawyers to coach witnesses in how to answer questions at taxpayer expense, bug the District Attorney’s phones and transcribe everything said, plague his operation with informants, and have the DOJ successfully killed off subpoenas to top officials. It was a Federal government takedown from top to bottom.  If Garrison is wrong then why not let him fall on his own sword if their account of the President’s death is true?  What would they have to fear?

Plenty apparently.  It appears they overplayed their hand.

The Shaw Trial

Destiny Betrayed does a good job in describing the intricacies of the trial, the legal wrangling, and what Garrison could of done in hindsight.  Important witnesses either died or faded away; other witnesses were assaulted or intimidated into changing their stories by the Sheridan Machine.  Lots of witnesses were never called such as the 16 people Garrison had in regards to Clay Shaw’s Bertrand alias (something that he was never allowed to prove in court). 

While too intricate to go into here, there were some highlights.  One important incident was when autopsy physician Dr. Pierre Fink admitted that he, and the other two other physicians present at the Kennedy’s autopsy, were under control of another military authority, whose name he couldn’t remember.  Another was a screening of the Zapruder film that Garrison had to wrestle from Time-Life.  A film up to that point few had seen, and it was a shock for all witnesses present in the courtroom.  Too bad it took till 1975 before the general public got to see it on Geraldo Rivera’s TV show.  

The End

Jim DiEugenio paints a vibrant world of 1960's New Orleans, a place of clandestine activity, informants, intelligence operatives, down and outers, sexual adventurers, conspirators, Cubans, hookers, misfits, and suspicious entanglements.  It's quite a contrast to the worlds envisioned by the Warren Report defenders where everything suspicious is an illusion, where every contrary witness is wrong, and everything is conveniently explained.  Their selective harvesting of the details strips the soul out of how fascinating all of this is and how a conspiracy to murder a President could really take shape.  

Destiny Betrayed is fascinating work, well paced, expertly organized, and properly sourced.  New document releases from the ARRB and other sources bolster the narrative and explain who is telling the truth and who is not.  It’s the definitive book on Jim Garrison and how tantalizingly close he came to blowing the case wide open.

Available now in bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and in ebook format for the Kindle and iPad. 

Details

ISBN-13: 9781620870563

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

Publication date: 11/15/2012

Edition description: Second Edition

Edition number: 2

Pages: 496

The Oswald Psy-Op

Lee H. Oswald is an endlessly interesting person to study.  I've never seen anyone with such a maze of conflicts in his life story.  These discrepancies involve people who knew him, his personality, his movements, his interests, his looks and even the reams of documents that form a bewildering array of conflicts.

He is an example of a man that is built as a Legend.  Once he joined the Marines in 1956 he became a government possession and I don't think they ever let go of him until he got mixed up in the dirty deed and then started the long running, never ending, distancing.  He said he was the patsy and at least circumstantially was groomed to be one.  He just never knew when or how though he probably had an inkling towards the end.  Perhaps he envisioned for himself a method of escape.  If he did, it obviously didn't work.

I think if you dug into my past or even yours, they would find people who could give a consistent view of who you were when they knew you years ago.  With Oswald, we have conflicting witness testimony of what his character and interests were and even what he looked like.  One group knew a tall Oswald, the one with the bull neck that was the all American Boy of the 1950's.  Another group knew the misfit Oswald, the short surly kid that kept to himself and read books and studied Communism. We are told he possibly had dyslexia and learning disabilities yet he learned to speak Russian–no easy feat.  People with reading comprehension problems don't enjoy reading.  Oswald was an avid reader who maintained a library card.  It's like we are dealing with two separate people.  From here, comes forth the doppelgänger theories that populate their own weird vista.

At some hazy point the timelines start to intersect.  For example, in the fall of 1953 there are two sets of educational records for Lee Oswald.  One set has him attending school at PS44 in New York.  The other set has him attending school at Beauregard Junior High in New Orleans.  At the same time?  Either he is being impersonated at the age of 13 or else one set of the records is fabricated.  If the government's case is true, and Oswald is the loner in the killing of JFK, then why phony up documents and create this confusion?  Or maybe he was being impersonated as part of a long range project. 

What does The Establishment do if a president is elected that doesn't play ball with them?  He'll have to be guided along by stealth or put in his place.  Did they have a plan?  I think so as JFK proved to have a backbone.

Fast-forward to 1958 to Taiwan.  From his unit dairy they are on operations in Taiwan having left Atsugi, Japan.  Oswald's medical records indicate seven minor medical issues were treated in September through early October of that year (Armstrong, pp. 200-201).  They were, however, all treated at the Atsugi base.  Some have suggested that he was flown there for treatment but that seems impractical since there were medical facilities and staff on Taiwan to treat his ailments.  Would it be sensible to fly somebody back and forth just to treat hemorrhoids?  Once again, he is either being impersonated or else phony documents are being forged.  Robert Blakey, chief counsel to the HSCA was made aware of this during their investigation and chose not to dig too deeply into this morass.  I can see why.  It's another muddy rabbit trail to get bogged down in. 

Things Amp Up In New Orleans

Oswald is in various locations in the New Orleans area handing out the pro-Castro Fair Play For Cuba Committee (FPCC) pamphlets.  The most famous incident of this involves the pamphlets marked with the 544 Camp Street address.  That is the location of the Guy Banister's office.  Banister was the former head of the FBI's field office in Chicago, close friend of J. Edgar Hoover, staunch anti-communist, behind the scenes player and overall general tough guy known to pistol whip people.  Anybody sympathetic to Castro showing up at his office would probably leave with a bloody nose. 

So it's a very odd thing for Oswald, who under the official story is not supposed to be a known associate of Banister to be directing people there.  And if he doesn't know Banister then why do that?  Considering Banister's reputation that would be inviting trouble.  It appears that he and Banister were in cahoots with one another.  As researcher Bill Simpich has said, "I suggest that Banister was like a Triple A baseball manager training his player for the big leagues."  Spot on!  That analogy helps explain Oswald's oddball actions during this time.  Plus, he needed a coach and   Banister makes the perfect guide.  Unfortunately, the Big Leagues evolved into a sinister Cold War game, the secrets of which are yet to unravel.

However, some of these pamphlets didn't have a return address or a phone number printed on them.  (At the time of Oswald's arrest some of the handbills on his person featured two false sets of post office box numbers.)  So nobody was going to be able to get in contact with Oswald, the lone member of the FPCC branch in New Orleans and hook up.  It makes no sense and the only sense that can be derived from it is that Oswald is playing the role of a dongle.  That's a guy that is sent out to do some things to see how the other side is going to react or get under their skin.  It's a basic form of intelligence gathering.  Passing out literature where the USS Wasp was docked is gauging how many communist sympathizers might be onboard.

While Oswald is involved with these activities he is being closely monitored by the FBI.

It all culminates with Oswald's scrum with Cuban DRE member Carlos Bringuier and two other Cubans.  This all originates from Oswald's visit to the DRE to offer his military training services and a financial donation to this anti-Castro group.  Both offers are rebuffed.  As usual, Oswald is not invoking trust in these overtures like he failed to do while sojourning in Russia.  Later, when Carlos and his boys (Celso Hernandez and Miguel Marino Cruz) see Oswald handing out the pro-Castro literature they are incensed–what was this pro-Castro, pro-communist guy trying to do offering them help?  They exchange words and all are arrested for the scuffle that occurs.  (Some have suggested that it was a staged event, evidenced by Oswald mailing a letter to FPCC HQ in New York describing the incident, which is postmarked five days before the affair takes place.)

From this incident Oswald will be branded publicly as a communist.  This will play big after the assassination as the government builds the case against him.  What few people know at the time is that these episodes are loaded with players.  The DRE is supported by the CIA.  The Cubans Bringuier and Cruz arrested in the scuffle are FBI informants, with Hernandez affiliated with the CIA. After Oswald gets out of jail he will appear on the Carte Blanche radio program to debate issues with Bringuier and Ed Butler.  Besides Bringuier being an FBI informant, Ed Butler was the Director of Information Council of the Americas (INCA), a CIA funded propaganda organization.  Not to be undone, even the program's host, Bill Stuckey, was an FBI informant.  Players surround the whole thing.  And the public is totally oblivious to it.  Welcome to Psyop City.

The US Customs Office Comes In Play  

So who is Oswald with? Orestes Pena testified to the Church Committee that Lee Oswald was employed by Customs.  Indeed, his 1959 passport has his occupation listed as "shipping export agent" though that was the year he ended his duty in the Marines and would not long after, defect to the Soviet Union.  Hardly enough time for a 20 year old to be employed by Customs.  FBI informant Joseph Oster said that Customs Agent David Smith was Oswald's handler.  Was Oswald conducting fishing expeditions for Customs during the New Orleans Period?  It's hard to know what is true here as Oswald had a lot of cover stories and left false information in his wake.   

If he was a lone operator then he is really the odd man out.  But all of his eccentric actions to this point lead to only one thing–intelligence gathering.  He approaches the DRE to see if there are any Castro or communist sympathizers there.  Just as he did at the dock handing out pamphlets to passing sailors.  We know from released FBI docs that informants saw him regularly at many Cuban anti-Castro gatherings.  What was a communist doing at these meetings?  Sifting as always.  Being a Marxist is the cover.  He only plays one on TV after the assassination.  The Legend falls into place, piece by piece, just before the final act, the Big Event. 

The Psyop Oswald?

What we know about Lee Oswald is a mishmash of differing threads, some verifiable and some not.  A never ending but fascinating study.  There is the teenage Oswald peddling is junky bike in the trailer park in North Dakota;  the gung-ho Marine Oswald; the crazy Oswald that slashes his wrist in order to stay in the Soviet Union; the kind and thoughtful Oswald from the account of the Judyth Vary Baker; and finally, the cold calculated killer of a young and charismatic President. There are a lot of Oswald's here.  Enough to have a whole roomful of personalities. 

There are plenty of books about Lee Oswald probing the mystery of who he was.  There are the conventional lone gunman views of Vincent Bugliosi and Norman Mailer.  Both have to ignore inconvenient facts to arrive at their conclusions.  To be fair, there is a lot here to wade through and determine what is true and what is not.  On the other side, John Armstrong has Oswald the secret agent man involved in a complicated doppelgänger scheme, while alleged ex-lover Judyth Baker has her man involved with shadow warfare mixed with patriotic intent. 

In truth we really don't know him and he's buried in all of the layers of mythology created for him.  The mythology was created no doubt, by skilled hands.  But nobody can explain the motive to murder a man that the killer had nothing against.


Sources
Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Baker, Judyth, Me and Lee; Mailer, Norman, Oswald's Tale; Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History

Lee Oswald and Customs
https://www.opednews.com/articles/2/THE-JFK-CASE--THE-TWELVE-by-Bill-Simpich-120825-173.html

Book Review: Me & Lee: How I Came To Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald

“No one will ever know who or what Lee Harvey Oswald represented.”

Richard Helms, former CIA director

Here is how it all goes down. A cute, high school whiz kid Judyth Vary, gets interested in cancer research from the death of her grandmother and develops a series of science projects that quickly garners the attention of powerful people in science, the military, and politics. She gets publicity, supplies, and lab space do her ever expanding research. Not lacking in moxie, she later crashes an important scientific conference in Tampa and meets one of the prime movers in cancer research, Dr. Alton Ochsner, who flies down to personally meet her. Impressed with her work, he invites her to New Orleans to work on cancer research and continue her education at Tulane. Sounds like a fairy tale come true! A true Cinderella story for a 19 year old.

But things are not what they seem. It actuality she brought in not to work on a cure for cancer but a clandestine project to find and isolate a cancer causing virus for the purposes of assassinating American’s number one Cold War boogie man, Fidel Castro. In the process she comes into contact with every major figure of JFK assassination lore: David Ferrie, Jack Ruby, Clay Shaw, Guy Banister, Drs Ochsner and Sherman, and finally, Lee Oswald who becomes her lover. However, when they decide they want to test the cancer virus on human subjects, mental patients, Judyth balks and in the process sacrifices a promising career in medical research. She takes on the life of a wife and mother, lying low and eventually seeking political asylum in Europe where she now resides.

It’s an easy going narrative that quickly thrusts the reader into the hot, humid summer of 1963 New Orleans; a backdrop of Cold War intrigue and shadowy characters loaded with the sights, sounds, and smells of the era. Judyth puts the reader in the here and now. There is no, “I remember when...” It is a constant beat of events as if they are happening now, not nearly 50 years ago.

And probably the most surprising thing one can take away from this work is her account of Lee Oswald himself. In this portrayal, he is no longer a stranger in a strange land, the disgruntled ex-Marine living on the fringe of society unable to get along. Instead, we glimpse a warm, carrying and even compassionate man. A patriot that loves his country and willing to make any sacrifice to preserve the Republic. It takes a while for this to settle in. It’s like waking up from a dream or being told that Hitler or Stalin were really nice guys after all–just misunderstood. To say this book shows a completely different side of Lee Oswald is a major understatement. He is totally different!

It’s In The Details
Probably the most striking thing about the book is attention to detail. It’s both a blessing and a curse. The details of early 1960’s New Orleans are astoundingly revealing, but borders on being too much so. Apparently, this lady rarely throws anything away. There are photos of matchbook covers, trolly car tickets, newspaper clippings, letters, birth certificates, and check stubs. It is amazing what is retained. Everything is here but a love letter between the two, or a picture of them together. Even a fateful event, such as Judyth and Lee both getting employed at the Reily Coffee company has proof. She still has the original job wanted ad, with the jobs both of them got, circled. Who retains this kind of stuff? Perhaps she realized she was in over her head dealing with these spooky characters working on clandestine medical experiments and sought to protect herself in saving every scrap of paper associated with this world. And many of these events Judyth relates are so far-out that having those scraps of paper helps verify what she is saying.

Even more amazing is the attention to detail in the conversations. How anyone could retain this much dialogue from so long ago is hard to believe and my main uneasiness I have about her book. There are dozens of detailed exchanges recorded here. For example in her first meeting with Dr. Mary Sherman at her apartment (which included David Ferrie) the conversation flows on for seven and half pages as if there was a stenographer in the room to record it all. Obviously not–perhaps she was keeping a journal at the time to retain these discussions and that is hinted at with a photo of a typed diary page. I cannot say in good faith these numerous chats noted in the book (and there are dozens) are the result of literary invention. I simply don’t know and I find it troublesome.

What We Know Of Oswald
Studying what we know of Lee Oswald from a variety of sources and books, her account does not contradict what is known and overall, is quiet accurate. The other events surrounding the assassination are also well researched and presented. Judyth Vary Baker reveals herself as being well versed and knowledgeable on all subjects mentioned. I would endorse her as an expert on the case.

John Armstrong is the author of Harvey and Lee, the main book on the Oswald as doppelganger theory. Even if you don’t agree with Oswald being doubled by the CIA for clandestine service, its 900+ pages make a great source book for all things involving the Kennedy association. There are things in this one book you will not read elsewhere. A meticulous researcher, Armstrong lists hundreds of people that have came into contact with Lee Oswald throughout his life and especially the many people that encountered him in the summer of 1963 in New Orleans. Judyth Baker is not one of them; she is never mentioned once. Yet in Judyth’s account she and Lee were all over town, dining out often, hanging out in Ferrie’s apartment, having dinners with Jack Ruby, visiting Guy Banister’s office on Camp Street, among many other happenings of this nature. There is in effect, only one witness, Anna Lewis, that places her with Oswald in these other places outside of the Reily Coffee Company. There is no other researcher/author that has her with him outside of Reily Coffee either (there is Ed Haslam but he just repeats her story in Dr. Mary’s Monkey). Ultimately, it all lies in her version of the events. We have to trust her.

What Judyth Vary Baker succeeds at is making her amazing story ring true. She bluntly tells all including her own personal failings, such as cheating on her difficult, distant husband. She is as hard on herself as anyone else mentioned in the narrative. In regards to Lee Oswald her take is that he is a behind the scenes player, creating multiple false trails to cover his true identity, willing to do anything and sacrifice all for his country. Judyth also succeeds in filling in the missing bits of Oswald’s mysterious dealings in a logical sequence of events. The FPFC phase was nothing more than theater. Judyth tells us why, in a manner than makes sense with this and other phases, filing off the rough bits.

Of course love blinds. So her portrayal of Oswald in Me & Lee is sifted through those feelings of love, lust, and lost. It’s a romanticized vision. If the Oswald we experience here is totally different than the one we are accustomed to, it’s because he comes off as the noble hero out to slay the forces of evil as a warrior of the shadows, not the misfit alleged slayer of a famous man of power and prestige. Other than the admission of wife beating and forcing himself on Marina because she mocked his manhood, he has no obvious flaws in her description of him. (Ironically, these disgusting acts did not stop Judyth from falling madly in love with him either. But to her credit, she claims to have extracted a promise from Lee never to do this abuse again.)

Despite all that is written here about his character and the hundreds of words of conversations Judyth allegedly has with him I don’t really feel I know this version of Lee Oswald any better than the Warren Commission version. There is still much mystery in this man. But at least we have two full versions to think about.

Mission Improbable
I do think Judyth Vary Baker proves her early life as a science whiz, the attention she garnered, and the contacts she made that sent her to New Orleans. I think her evidence she provides frames this early period of her life truthfully. All events that we can double-check are well written and accurate which I think adds credibility to her story. Her meeting of Lee Oswald and her many moments spent with him, her interaction with all of the main characters and the behind the scenes skulduggery, one has to accept on face value or not. There are revelations here such as Jack Ruby telling her that he knew Lee Oswald from when he was a boy; Oswald receiving $200 a month in salary from the CIA; he maintains two apartments in New Orleans for use in operations; Lee states that his alias, Alek Hidell, was a “project name” used by other operatives. The list goes on and on and makes for fascinating reading but many of these disclosures are not documented, they are just what Judyth gleamed from conversations with others.

Probably the most striking thing about her book is that to the last page, it all makes sense. Despite so many improbable incidents, overall, her story has a ring of truth to it.

Perhaps Richard Helms was wrong. Perhaps we can know what Lee H. Oswald represented through this one book.

A Few Words on the Passing of Francis O'Neill Jr.

Retired FBI agent Francis X. O'Neill Jr., met the fate that awaits us all on February 6, at the age of 85. He, along with fellow FBI agent Jim Sibert (still with us, 90), were the only agents assigned to witness the autopsy of President John Kennedy. Their FD 302 report can be read at Mary Ferrell. He was a life-long supporter of the lone gunman theory despite stating in the report that surgery had been done to the top of Kennedy’s head. Words he would later regret and recant.

One controversial moment occurred when O'Neill seized film from a navy corpsman who allegedly did not have a proper security clearance. O'Neill exposed the film to light destroying the images. Did O'Neill not consider the man was under orders to take photos? And by exposing the unprocessed film he was destroying material evidence?

He had a full life from a War II as a paratrooper to FBI agent to being elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives. RIP, Mr. O’Neill.

Obituary in the Boston Globe.

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When The Going Gets Weird…

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Hunter S. Thompson

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.

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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Conspiratorialist…To Be Or Not To Be...

As I have delved into this I am not so much interested in the multiple phantom shooters laying down crossfire in Dealey Plaza, or the loser that gets lucky with two out of three shots, to an interest in how both sides, conspiracy and non, arrive at their conclusions. Both sides run down the same rabbit trails seeing different things, or missing them entirely. For me, the truth must lie somewhere in the middle.

Ultimately, we all see what we want to see as Vince Bugliosi does in Reclaiming History, where he accuses Nellie Connelly of having a faulty memory of the shooting sequence. Never mind that the Zapruder film verifies her testimony and that of her husband, John. To their dying day, both said that all three shots hit their targets—Kennedy first, then Connelly, then Kennedy last. In the mind of the Bugliosi’s out there, that first shot has to miss no matter what, because after all, that shot may indicate another shooter. That is the bullet that bounced off the curb at Commerce Street wounding James Tague on thee cheek. And never mind the bullet is passing 18 feet over Kennedy’s head, a sure sign that Oswald did not have the rifle pointing at his intended victim. Nowhere close. Surely, a dubious start for the former marine on his mission of infamy. But why? We’ll never know. Here, the conspiratorialist can lay claim to a second shooter. Of course it is laughable to assume a second gunman is going to be a bad a shot as Oswald is alleged to be. In ballistic terms it is a hell of a miss.

So herein lies the dilemma. The witnesses closest to the action have three shots fired at them and they know it as keenly as those close to death know it. But there is that other bullet that strikes the curb. Who do you believe? How do we resolve it?

The conspiracy believer says there is another unnamed shooter. The Warren Commission believer opts to ignore the witness testimony and go with the errant shot, bringing in the dubious Magic Bullet scenario—the bullet that does double duty wounding both Kennedy and Connelly.

And neither scenario is any good, leaving one with a sense of unfinished business. It is to accept one and deny the other, even when it is burning a hole in your head. And no, I don’t have an answer. I’ll post it if I ever do.

The conspiracy crowd tends to treat Oswald as the “innocent” patsy framed for the crime. As much as I love Jim Mars book Crossfire, he never addresses Oswald’s guilt when he lies to the police numerous times denying even the simple things, or his attempt to kill a police officer in the movie theater. All of these are the actions of a mind with a murderous intent. Also, Oswald’s path and timeline goes put him on a collision course with slain policeman Tippit, though the conspiratorialist believes him to be framed for this crime. Mars does not even suggest that Oswald may have been an accomplice to the crimes.

On the other hand, the Lone Nut crowd, offended at the notion of a conspiracy—will not have any sub conspiracies for side dishes either. In their worldview Oswald is an outsider incapable of fitting in, yet there is plenty of evidence to point him being just the opposite. He did join the Marines after all, hardly an anti social act. He was in the Civil Air Patrol as teenager. Pictures of him in Minsk show him laughing and enjoying himself at parties with the lovely Marina.

The sticky part is Oswald’s motivation to do the crime. He is not like Sirhan Sirhan with a notebook full of Robert Kennedy tirades. Oswald never speaks ill of Kennedy to anybody. Even his widow Marina says, to this very day, that Lee loved Kennedy. She now thinks he is innocent of the crime, and says that other groups were using him. Disappointedly, she will not say who those groups are but in our heart of hearts we know. The usual suspects. Just pick one out of the hat. The Cubans, the CIA, or the Mob. They all have more motivation to kill the President than Oswald ever did and everybody knows that.

Mind reading. The Warren Commission apologist’s notion of Oswald’s motivation is easily explainable once you try mind reading. A practice they are not embarrassed to practice. They place themselves in Oswald’s tormented psyche filled with delusions of grandeur, awful childhood memories, and constant failure at life. Norman Mailer claims to know Oswald, a man he never met, because he had studied his character in absolute detail and knows what his motivations are—delusions of greatness and fame, of course. It works for them like the crazy Magic Bullet does zig-zagging through space and time. If they would bend a little bit and bring Silvia Odio to the party they would have a more solid footing for motivation to kill Kennedy. But they cannot because Oswald is doing the unexpected. He is associating with an anti Castro group when he is pro Castro. Besides being a social butterfly. Speculation works here for them like the second shooter does for the conspiracy buff. It is still not tidy.

I guess I am not much of a conspiracy theorist. I’ve broken too many cardinal rules, two of which are Oswald being guilty and the cannon of the faith, the Grassy Knoll. I know, people heard shooting from there, they saw smoke, they smelled gun smoke. The angle is still off. A diversionary shooter maybe? What is his name? It probably does not matter because all that remains after the smoke clears (sorry) is the dilemma. The dilemma of so many witnesses (I’ve read over fifty) that experienced something that did not happen. And if it did, you have another shooter as lousy as Oswald is. How is that for a professional hit?

I guess I am not much of a “lone nut” theorist either. Oswald is more than he seems to be. He speaks Russian so well he can fool the locals with his regional accent, but flunks his language test before he gets there. He crafts an alias for himself, an Alek Hiddell. Then when he is arrested he has the alias ID card in his wallet along with another one with his real name on it. Dumb. When the police question him if he uses this alias he lies and says no. Even dumber. When he arrives in New Orleans and opens up a pro Castro support group, he is the only member. Then he goes about trying to help out anti Castro Cuban factions in town. He is fronting, obviously. But for whom? Whoever they are, they are not going to be admitting anything any time soon. Some have suggested he was playing “secret agent man” all by himself. That makes about as much sense as anything else making the rounds.

Richard Helms, former CIA director, and one of the foxes guarding the hen house, once said, “No one will ever know who or what Lee Harvey Oswald represented.” Except Helms of course, the ultimate insider and doer of dastardly deeds. Or, maybe he was revealing a tiny truth to us. That the Insiders did not really understand who Oswald was or how he slipped through. Whatever. It all lies buried in the ground now. They are all dead.

So I am wandering out in the no man’s land of this event. I want to believe in a conspiracy in the death of John Kennedy as much I want to believe in whatever crashed at Roswell came from intelligent life from outer space. We cannot have either. Evidence for both, if they happened the way the witnesses said, is locked up in a government warehouse along with the Ark that Indiana Jones found. And what an accurate metaphor that is for the current condition of the National Security State with its labyrinth of secrets.

The Long Knives of November

One thing that keeps me interested in examining the Kennedy assassination is the weirdness of it all. I have found that to be true in other events such as 9-11, TWA 800, or the assassinations of RFK and MLK. So much of the official story does not make any sense in any of these cases. Getting to the truth is impossible as long as political machines are doing the investigating. They are not digging for the truth anyway. They are instead, seeking a solution to a narrative as a fiction author does when his character is in trouble and needs to find a path out. Only, in the instance of real events, it never seems quite right. Like any good story, it is believable to a point, but it is still a story.

You cannot find a weirder character in this than Lee Oswald. He is at the crux of the whole thing. Oh sure, David Ferrie with his greasepaint eyebrows, his apartment lab with cages of white rats, is out there as well. But he was not pegged with a crime of killing a President, though he did associate with Oswald. You know the saying, show me who you run with and I will tell you who you are. Oswald the perpetual loner, effective Russian speaker, lost in his delusions of greatness, who just happened to be the most sociable loner ever. One with a wife and kids. A man who was all over the place leaving a trail as he went.

Oswald early on was playing fast and loose with all sorts of characters. He was a nobody that after he was arrested for a Canal Street altercation demanded to speak to an FBI agent. One did bother to show up for something that amounted to a misdemeanor, not normally on an FBI agent’s to-do list. Agent John Quigley, upon chatting with Oswald forwards the information to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Later, he gives vague testimony to the Warren Commission about this incident. Being a good G-Man, he only tells what they ask, not what he knows. In the early 70s the ONI destroys their files on Oswald. At some point in time so does the CIA. It’s all tidy now. As tidy as the eighty-six pages missing out of John Wilkes Booth’s diary.

You want to know why we can never get to the bottom of the Kennedy assassination? Because of affairs such as this. It is the gleaming of something out there, just outside of your field of vision. There are those who are powerful enough keep it that way and their ways are mysterious. Just as mysterious as Oswald’s letter describing the Canal Street altercation he mailed to the FFFC headquarters in New York. It just happened to be post marked five days before the incident actually took place. Another one of Oswald’s trails, or else he was showing his masters just how big of a screw-up they had hired? It is all part of the legend now.

Meanwhile, the handsome young President has his own legend. He stepped on too many toes. He governed as if he was the only King with no others about. Tragically, he found out that he was not the only King in Camelot. The Long Knives were not about to let this usurper appear and rearrange the chairs at the table. We know who they are and they mock us to this very day because they know we cannot catch them. Many have since passed on, but they left behind their machines to live after them.

Lyndon Johnson was a brute but he knew how the real game was played. He outplayed the Kennedy boys only to have the Long Knives outplay him and leave him stranded in the swamps of Vietnam. All of that lusted after power gone to waste. All of that blood on his hands, the same hands he used to grope women in the presence of his wife. How is that for a “thank you” Lyndon? You made a deal with the devil and he rigged your roulette table. A savvy player like you should have known that. You can’t trust anybody in this game, not even yourself.

The Discovery Channel is out there pumping out documentaries proving the Warren Commission’s conclusions over and over. The truth seekers are publishing their conspiracy books doubting Warren Commission’s conclusions over and over. The two sides will never come to terms. It has been a forty-five year head-butt that will never end. The truth is out there but only for a select few.

Just bear in mind ye Long Knives, we do not believe you and never will. Irksome, is it not?

Lee Oswald, International Man of Mystery

Much has been written over the years about the possibility of Lee H. Oswald being an intelligence operative. Oswald’s mother Marguerite believed her son to be an agent and stated so many times in her Warren Commission testimony. The CIA and other agencies of the Federal government denied hiring Oswald for any type of employment. But down through the years, declassified documents and witness testimony has come forth to show that Lee Oswald could very well possibly have been an agent. It certainly paints a different picture than what we were originally told. In fact, the evidence, though piecemeal, is quite substantial. He was most likely a low level operative. Oswald as “secret agent” helps fill in some of the mysterious and inexplicable events of his life. Let us take a look at what we know.

Marine Health Records
It’s been widely reported that Oswald’s health records document his contracting gonorrhea “in the line of duty” and “not of his own fault.” This makes no sense at all unless Oswald was involved with a covert operation, this being under the Office of Naval Intelligence. At this time, a serviceman found to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease was grounds for immediate dismissal from the military. Yet, Oswald slides by, just as he does when he is court-martialed twice and still remains in the Marines.

Oswald was known to frequent a “gentlemen’s club” in Tokyo when on leave. His fellow marines were surprised that he could afford to go there, as they couldn’t. It was known as an exclusive club and quite expensive. There was a geisha there that was allegedly a KGB agent. Perhaps the source of Oswald’s infection? We’ll never know for certain, but it makes more sense than the official explanation contained in Oswald’s medical records.

Years in Russia
Much has been written on Oswald’s entry into the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. John Newman’s Oswald and the CIA is a good book to cover that period in detail, as I don’t have the space here to plod through it all. Probably the most important point to examine is the CIA’s false defector program, headed by chief of counter intelligence, James Angleton, which was in operation at this time. Oswald, ever portrayed as a loser, never has any problems financing his trip to the Soviet Union, getting passports and visas in record time, obtains a job a radio plant, acquires a monthly stipend from the Red Cross, marries a Russian woman within a month of meeting her, and has no trouble in getting a loan from the State Department for his return to the USA. All of this, from a man that has proven himself to be as anti-American and unpatriotic as a person could be in this highly charged time. Meanwhile, his wife gets permission to leave with a foreign defector (within ten days—unheard of!), and he gets his new passport in 24 hours and off they go.

When his mother Marguerite asks him why did he return, Oswald replies, “…not even Marina knows why I returned.” Why the big secret? Why can’t you tell your wife, or your family about such a big turnaround of events such as this? Maybe to cover for his operations there?

One item of note is the stamping of Lee and Marina’s passports. Since they are traveling together their passports should confirm identical stamps. Marina says they were never separated during their long train journey to Rotterdam to board the ship. However, there is a discrepancy. When they crossed the East German border to the west, Marina’s passport is stamped at the Helmstedt crossing—Lee’s is not. His passport is not stamped till they get to the Belgium border crossing at Bentheim/Oldenzaal. Could he have been detained for questioning at this point? Other than a bureaucratic screw-up, there is no other explanation other than Oswald being held aside and debriefed. Especially since the FBI and CIA shown so little interest in chatting with him upon his return stateside. Perhaps that is because he was debriefed in west Berlin.

The Agents That Talked
Over the years several CIA agents have come forward with interesting revelations on Lee Oswald and his interaction with the Agency. Many others have given testimony in regards to Oswald to various investigations (Church Committee, HSCA, etc.) and their statements remain classified.

Some have broken the silence. One was Hunter Leake, formerly second in command at the CIA station in New Orleans. He gave an interview 1981 to historian Michael Kurtz, professor at Southeastern Louisiana University. In the interview he candidly stated that he had hired Oswald out as a low-level currier. Leake paid Oswald in cash for his efforts. Leake also said that Oswald moved to New Orleans in April of 1963 on behest of the CIA to work for them there. After the assassination, Leake reports he was ordered by the Agency to deliver all files on Oswald personally to the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia. And there, in the belly of the Beast, goes the evidence.

Former CIA officer Joan Roman, who worked directly under counter intelligence chief James Angleton, admitted to author Jeff Morley in 1994 that the CIA had an “keen interest” in regards to Oswald that was held in a “need to know basis.” She later regretted making the statement but never recanted it. An October 10, 1963 cable, now declassified shows there was a great interest in Oswald and his activities before the assassination. This information was never given to any of the investigations that have been conducted. So deep was the need to know that the station chief in Mexico City, Winston Scott, was kept in the dark about many of Oswald’s activities. So, a keen interest in Oswald but to what end? For his operational work? Maybe so. James Angleton was known to run operations under the nose of his station chiefs, leaving them in the dark. Jeff Morley, author of Our Man in Mexico, stated in an interview (www.maryferrell.org) that the reason for an interest in Oswald, and the deceptive nature of not telling all to Win Scott, belies an Agency use of Oswald for operations.

Winston Scott keep copies of everything in home safe that were later acquired personally by James Angleton. They stayed in the belly of the Beast till they were destroyed by written order in 1986. This is the destruction of material evidence in a murder investigation. Classic CIA cover-up.

Former CIA accountant James B. Wilcott gave his testimony in a secret session of the HSCA in 1978. It was kept classified for over 20 years till a FOIA request pried it out of the bowels of the Beast. In his testimony, under oath, Wilcott claimed that his role was furnishing money to Case Officers for reimbursement to their assets in the field. After the assassination of Kennedy, he learned from a Case Officer (name by this time forgotten) that Oswald was a recipient of payments. Critics have cited other witness testimony to discredit Wilcott’s claims but he did pass a lie detector test in regards to his statements. As one researcher once said, if he is lying then where is the perjury indictment? Also, why was the testimony taken in secret and held classified for so long, if not important? I believe Wilcott’s testimony is correct and collaborates the interview Hunter Leake gave in 1980. Perhaps Leake was the agent Wilcott was distributing cash to?

Antonio Veciana, head of anti Castro group, Alpha 66 had a meeting in Dallas in 1963 with his CIA handler Maurice Bishop (alias for David Philips). As he was walking up to meet Bishop/Philips he noticed his handler was talking to a young, pale, skinny young man. He took careful note of the young man’s looks as his CIA handler had taught him to do. Antonio Veciana hung around for a while till the conversation was over. Only then did he approach the CIA officer. Veciana conducted his business with Bishop/Philips and then left Dallas, never asking about the young man he had seen. Later, as the news flashed across the world that President Kennedy had been shot and a suspect had been arrested, Veciana instantly recognized the suspect. He was the same young man he had seen talking to his CIA officer in Dallas. Veciana then realized how deep he was in the matrix.

Finally, years later, David Philips would write an outline for a novel with Lee Oswald (named) as one of the main characters. It’s allegedly autobiographical with a CIA agent character as Philips. In the outline he states that Oswald had two handlers and was being groomed for an assassination mission against Castro. The Philips character can’t understand why Oswald shot Kennedy, as if this is an operation gone badly, forever a mystery to even those “in the know.” Of course it may all be very self-serving too—the words of a man with a guilty conscience. A man who spent the last years of his life dodging the question of what really happened on that day in Dealey Plaza in November 22, 1963.

Epilogue
The main argument of the Warren Commission apologists is that no government agency would ever be dumb enough to hire somebody Lee Oswald for espionage work. Well, they were dumb enough to hire out the Mob to kill Castro; weirdoes like David Ferrie; goofs like Frank Sturgess (of Watergate break-in fame). With that understanding, it seems perfectly plausible they would hire somebody like Oswald to do freelance work. I’ve read that the CIA likes to hire fringe types or people with criminal backgrounds so in the advent they are uncovered the CIA can disavow ever dealing with such a person. Oswald was just that type of person, with his two court-marshals, snarky personality, inability to hold down a job, and his arrest record in New Orleans.

All roads lead to Lee H. Oswald. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be so much covering up, destruction of evidence, files still classified, lying, and obstruction. We only have threads. But over time, collect enough threads and suit shall ye make.


Sources: Google, www.joanmellen.com, www.ourmaninmexico.com, www.history-matters.com, www.maryferrell.org. Books: Our Man in Mexico, Oswald and the CIA, Farewell to Justice, Reclaiming History

assassination

The Grassy Knoll Shooter Missed

As you can see by the diagram above, if there was a shooter on the grassy knoll, he didn’t make the kill shot. His angle would have made an exit wound on the left side of Kennedy’s head. Basically, ear to ear. As has been fully documented, Kennedy’s head wound was lateral, from the back to front, or front to back, depending on your orientation and beliefs. So if there were a second shooter he would have to be positioned at or near the railroad overpass in front of the motorcade. But that causes other problems too. If a shooter or shooters were positioned at the railroad overpass they don’t have a lateral angle either. In fact, a careful study of the angles will show that that the kill shot could only have been accomplished from behind.

I’ve always thought there could have been a shooter from the grassy knoll. Now, I am not so sure. There are the eye witness reports of Secret Service agents shooing people away from the area; there is the Newman family standing on the curb, seen later in photos on the grass covering their children claiming they heard shots over the heads (from the knoll); there is Senator Yarbrough’s comments on smelling gun smoke from the knoll; two of Kennedy’s aids said they heard shots from the knoll; eight men on the railroad overpass said they saw smoke coming from the trees in the knoll; there is the photograph of the motorcycle cop climbing over the short wall there as if he was in pursuit of a suspect; Zapruder claiming he heard shots from his right as he filmed the assassination; there are the photos and films of throngs of people rushing up the stairs to look behind the fence after the shooting.

From all of this, it is easy to conclude that something is going on there. The grassy knoll is deeply ingrained in the lore of the Kennedy assassination. In the end, it may turn out to be a straw man of conspiracy belief that leads many astray. So when I say the shooter there missed, I really mean if he were there to begin with, he would have missed, as he couldn’t have gotten the right angle for Kennedy’s fatal head wound. That applies to you, Mr. Files and your claim of being the grassy knoll shooter.

But even with the missing angle there is still the multiple witness testimony of hearing, seeing, and smelling something taking place on the knoll. Could someone have been there firing blanks as a diversion? I find it hard to believe all of these witnesses are mistaken. As Vince Bugliosi wrote in Reclaiming history, find me 10 witnesses that are all wrong. There are more than 10 witnesses here. That salient image of the Newman’s laying on the curb protecting their children means something. A parent does not do that lightly; there is a sense of fear in their faces from the danger they had just experienced and survived. It’s not fakery.

Of course, you can still have more shooters than just Oswald that have the right angle for the kill shot. There is another good position—the Dallas County Records Building, on Huston street. This location provides a bee-line to the limousine as it passes on Elm Street. Jim Mars in Crossfire, tells of a technician working on an air-conditioning unit atop of this very same building. On the roof he spots a large caliber spent cartridge. It’s weathered and has apparently be lying there for years. It also shows signs of being crimped to allow the use of a sabot, an insert used to allow the use of a smaller caliber bullet. This would allow for a higher velocity and higher impact shot. This piece of evidence was found years after the assassination and of course was never entered into evidence by the FBI. Proof of another shooter?

So here again we have another black hole. Loads of witnesses to an event that doesn’t add up. As with issues like this involving the Kennedy assassination one has to weigh all of the facts and try to draw a conclusion from it. And sometimes it’s just not possible.

Sources: Google; Mars, Crossfire; Buglosi, Reclaiming History

Lee Oswald: The Pamphleteer

Traveling down the rabbit trial again I keep crossing paths with Oswald handing out the Free Play for Cuba pamphlets on Canal Street in New Orleans. There are a lot of things at play here and many other things that remain a mystery to this day. As I trek down this trail I see there is a lot more going on here than just a guy handing out flyers; this story travels far and wide from New Orleans to Montreal.

First of all, Lee H. Oswald is the only member (and president) of the FPFC committee in New Orleans. An organization for the support of Castro and communist Cuba that was established in 1960 and went out of operation soon after the assassination. Even after all of the publicity Oswald gets on local TV showing him handing out the pamphlets, has his altercation with anti Castro Cubans, gets arrested, does his TV interview and radio debate—he’s still the only member. Nobody ever joins. After he later moved to Dallas, he never hooked up with the FPFC committee there.

The pamphlets he is handing out are stamped with “554 Camp Street” address. Warren Commission apologists maintain that Oswald had no rented office at the address. Guy Banister, the conservative, anti communist former FBI agent turned private eye, did maintain an office there. Under the official story, Oswald did not work for Banister, nor did they know each other. Independent researchers maintain they did, based on numerous eyewitness reports, including Banister’s secretary who said she saw Oswald passing through the office on more than one occasion. 

It is all self-defeating. Because if Oswald does not maintain any connections to the Camp street address, then nobody can get in touch with him after he passes out the pamphlets. Isn’t that one of the purposes? Besides spreading the word? And apparently, nobody ever does. 

Even more curious is Oswald’s letter to the FPFC headquarters in New York describing the altercation on Canal Street. The letter is postmarked 5 days before the incident occurs! This doesn’t make any sense, other than assuming the scuffle was a set-up, a covert undertaking, to craft a public image of Oswald as a Marxist. Or, a method to flush out Cubans with communist sympathies. If the scuffle was a prearranged event, then Oswald apparently mailed the letter on the day he thought the operation was to take place and for some reason, it was altered. Perhaps not enough Cubans on Canal Street that day to get into a quarrel with?

A side issue, but one of interest, is the printing of the leaflets themselves. It has been documented that they were printed at the Jones Printing Company of New Orleans. In the National Archives is the crude drawing Oswald did of the leaflet copy. The folks at the print shop recalled doing business with a man identifying himself as “Lee Osborne.” Neither the owner Douglass Jones, nor the secretary Myra Silver, could identify photos of Oswald as being the same man named Lee Osborne that ordered the pamphlets printed. Jones specifically said the man he dealt with had a huskier build, that of a laborer. So who was this guy? Another cog in the operation?

Osborne is a reoccurring surname. Oswald met a man named Osborne on his bus trip to Mexico City in September of 1963. And Osborne was from Montreal. (The significance of Montreal will be discussed below.)

After a while, the story starts to take a different turn. Oswald begins to show up handing out pamphlets in different places. He is spotted handing out leaflets at the port where the USS Wasp was docked. Here Oswald got into a heated debate with a port security official and was asked to leave, since he had no permission to be there. After a bit of arguing he did depart. There are surviving samples of the pamphlets he handed out at the dock and none were stamped with a return address. So once again, nobody is going to be getting in touch with Oswald.

It gets really strange when Oswald turns up again passing out pamphlets in Montreal, Canada! This suppressed story was never presented to the Warren Commission or later to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. It was chased down by researcher Gary Shaw who waged a long FOIA battle with the FBI, which resulted in a stalemate in 1984. Finally, the JFK Records act of 1993 forced the FBI to open their files and release photos and other documents about a possible Oswald trip to Montreal. 

What we now know about this account of Oswald in Canada comes from a reputable source—Jean Paul Tremblay, a U.S. Customs and Excise agent doing casework on Cuba in Montreal in the summer of 1963. In his documented report, he states that in August of 1963, he learned there was a fellow handing out leaflets for Cuba on St. Jacques and McGill Streets and walked up to the young man and got one, making note of his looks. He would later positively identify the man as Lee Oswald. He also took note that Oswald was not alone but accompanied by three individuals; two men and a woman. Two of three people, a blonde, freckle faced man and a short, heavyset woman, agent Tremblay would later identify from a photograph of participants in the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace, which had occurred in June of 1963. Both of these individuals would later be identified as Fred Moore and Erika Enzer. It is unknown if there were follow up interviews with these people. If so, we would have two more witnesses to Oswald being in Montreal.

Under the government-approved narrative, Oswald can’t be in Canada. He’s dirt poor, his wife does not acknowledge any trips during this period and if he does travel there, where does he get the money? How does he go via bus, train, or plane? However, as John Newman points out in his book Oswald and the CIA, the FBI acknowledges Oswald's whereabouts from April to June in 1963.  Oswald is supposed to be working at the William Reily Coffee Company during this time, being terminated for theft, on July 19.

More importantly, Tremblay’s report made it to the upper channels of the government. In one released document, an Airgram that was sent to the Department of State by the United States Consul General in Canada. Two sources are listed. Agent Tremblay, and an unnamed police officer quoted as a source in a Montreal Star newspaper article dated from November 27. At first they discount the affair, but then add: "However, there may be something to the story."

We may never know what led them to this conclusion and what they followed up on.

I respect Jean Paul Tremblay’s account of what happened. He’s no Johnny off the street, someone with years of changing statements for the Bugliosi’s of the world to chew up and spit out. In fact, he is virtually unknown in assassination investigation chronicles. Tremblay was a trained investigator, a professional in the examination of people and situations. His account stands. Too bad we don’t have his copy of the FPFC flyer he retrieved. It may exist in some file somewhere in the bowels of the beast.

Once again we have a story with evidence of a cover-up (FBI withholding documents and fighting to keep them withheld) and circumstantial evidence of Lee Oswald on covert operations. This is an event known to the FBI and kept from the public and all investigative agencies of the government for over 20 years. Once again, if there is nothing to it then why not release this information?

If we just had a photograph of him on the streets of Montreal as we do on the streets of New Orleans.

Sources: http://somesecretsforyou.blogspot.com/; Google; Newman, Oswald and the CIA, Bugliosi, Reclaiming History; www.history-matters.com