Ex-CIA Director Jim Woolsey Dead at 84
He wrote a conspiracy-theory book accusing the Soviets of assassinating JFK
Robert James “Jim” Woolsey Jr. served as the 16th director of Central Intelligence (DCI) under President Bill Clinton from February 1993 to January 1995.
Partially prompted by the massive intelligence failure of Sept. 11, 2001, the title DCI was downgraded to CIA director in 2005. The CIA was formally placed under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). In practice, however, the head of the CIA has continued to wield more power than the DNI.
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Woolsey received degrees from Stanford University, the University of Oxford, and Yale University Law School before holding a series of government positions related to arms control negotiations from 1969-1991. He also served as President Jimmy Carter’s under secretary of the Navy from 1977-1979.
Describing himself as a “Scoop Jackson Democrat” who rejected the “neoconservative” label as “silly,” Woolsey endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president in 2008.
During his tenure as DCI, the FBI arrested CIA officer Aldrich Ames for treason after uncovering his espionage for the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation. Woolsey came under fire for a lack of vigilance, then prompted a public outcry by refusing to fire or demote anyone at the CIA for the oversight.
Woolsey resigned on Dec. 28, 1994, and entered the business milieu of the Washington establishment. But at age 79, he published a book about the JFK assassination that included a conspiracy theory, namely, that both Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina, were KGB agents, and the Kremlin had used Oswald to murder the president.
Woolsey’s JFK Book
Full Disclosure: I haven’t read Woolsey’s book about the JFK assassination. Entitled “Operation Dragon: Inside the Kremlin’s Secret War on America” (2021), it is co-authored with ex-Soviet bloc intelligence officer Ion Pacepa, a 1978 defector from Ceaușescu’s Romania. Amazon describes the thin volume as an exposé on JFK’s death based on evidence “decoded by a top U.S. foreign intelligence leader and a former Soviet Bloc spy chief familiar with KGB patterns and codes.”
In short, the book claims that Oswald assassinated JFK under the orders of Premier Nikita Khrushchev, “acting through what was essentially the Russian leader’s personal army, the KGB (now known as the FSB).”
Meanwhile, dozens of conspiracy theorists have written books about the JFK assassination during the past fifty-six years. Most of these theories blame America and were largely triggered by the KGB disinformation campaign implemented in the intense effort to remove Russia’s own fingerprints that blamed in turn Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, secretive groups of American oilmen, Howard Hughes, Fidel Castro, and the Mafia.
As Russian propaganda has sown “hatred and contempt for the U.S.,” the aftermath of JFK’s murder has resulted in “false conspiracy theories, that set the model for blaming America first.” The blame — the book says — should really be directed at Russia.
In other words, the book enlists the murder of the 35th president into a post-Cold War Western propaganda initiative against post-Soviet Russia. That doesn’t sound like honest scholarship, whatever the merits or demerits of Russia’s government today.
Dubious Theory
The Soviet government ranks low on the list of myriad suspects with motive to kill JFK. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Khrushchev, who lauded Kennedy’s “Peace Speech” of June 10, 1963. It appeared almost in full in Pravda, official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, on June 13. Two days later, Pravda and Izvestiya, the Soviet government paper, published Khrushchev’s positively responsive interview.
The Russian government dossier released in October and entitled, “The Assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet-American Relations,” likewise gives no cause for suspicion of Soviet culpability. It chronicles interactions between Moscow and Washington before and after the ambush in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963.
JFK Facts published it at the request of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who had received it from the Russian Embassy during a U.S. government shutdown, when no public agency could offer the service. We also translated and analyzed key documents in this interesting archival collection. Nothing in its nearly 400 pages suggests that any U.S. official — as opposed to private interests or media outlets — ever suspected a Soviet KGB plot.
Three documents do indicate Soviet skepticism of the Warren Commission’s lone gunman conclusion. One was composed before the Commission had even issued its final report concluding that Oswald had acted alone and unaided, with no discernible motive.
The June 1964 Russian document (No. 73) reflects a conversation between Warren Commission member John McCloy and the USSR’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Nikolai Trofimovich Fedorenko, that took place at a function in New York. It notes that in response to the Soviet diplomat’s expression of doubt in the already-evolving lone-gunman verdict, McCloy almost seemed to issue a veiled threat:
To my remark that the theory of the president’s assassination by a lone individual unconnected to certain forces raises doubts that have been widely reflected in the American press and unpublished books, McCloy responded to the effect that “any assertion of any conspiracy surrounding the assassination of Kennedy is not supported by the facts.” If we were to uncover the killer’s connections to any hidden forces, McCloy continued, then “I weigh my words carefully — the threads could lead beyond the borders of the United States, especially since, as is known, Oswald lived for a certain time in the USSR, from where he returned with a Russian wife and behaved in the United States in a very suspicious manner.”
We know very well, added the interlocutor, that the time Oswald spent in the Soviet Union itself was “unusual, and he could not have avoided surveillance by the Soviet organs of state security.” McCloy noted that the American side did not have comprehensive data that would allow him to reconstruct a full picture, including the period during which Oswald resided in the Soviet Union.
In response to my remark that our embassy in Washington, as is known, had at one time passed on materials to the State Department, McCloy said that he was familiar with these materials, but they were “very laconic and did not allow us to create a complete picture of Oswald’s stay in the USSR.”
Fedorenko cites McCloy as “well aware of Soviet views on the Dallas tragedy, which see a conspiracy and the work of secret forces in Kennedy’s assassination.” The commissioner noted such views were also “common in Western European countries,” where many believed “Kennedy was assassinated by his opponents.” But, Fedorenko reported, McCloy insisted that such views were “not supported by any evidence or facts.”
In sum, the Soviet plenipotentiary formed an impression that McCloy’s statements — characterized by a “rigidity and categorical quality” — reflected “a desire to demonstrate the validity of the conclusions of the Warren Commission about Oswald’s sole guilt in the murder of Kennedy and the non-participation of any internal or external forces in it.”
The document conveys a sinister message from the American side: Do not question the budding new orthodoxy — or else. The Soviet government rejected the lone-gunman conclusion anyway, with little public speculation. But charges that Westerners questioning the Warren Report were agents — witting or unwitting, paid or unpaid — of a Russian disinformation operation arose among U.S. establishment circles and continued for decades.
Expert Views
In May, the “Solving JFK” podcast hosted by Matt Crumpton published an interview with assassination researcher and prolific author Larry Hancock, a principal of the Mary Ferrell Foundation. On Woolsey’s JFK book, Hancock notes that “several levels at the CIA were quite frankly trying to point towards the Soviet Union in the two weeks after the assassination and longer.” In other words, Woolsey’s thinking was “nothing new.”
Hancock compares it to a book by Hugh McDonald, written in 1979 and entitled, “L.B.J. and the J.F.K. Conspiracy.” It alleges that “the Soviets corrupted LBJ and brought him into a plot.” It also claimed to present official Politburo documents proving that the Soviet Union’s highest policy-making organ authorized the assassination of Kennedy over Cuba.
As such, Woolsey was “way behind the curve on this,” according to Hancock, who says it is commonplace for CIA officers to point the finger at the Soviets for JFK’s death.
Author James DiEugenio’s lengthy review at Kennedys and King describes the lightweight work as “an outdated, slightly humorous propaganda effort.” If that doesn’t convince you that the late ex-CIA director’s volume lacks integrity, maybe you should hear it from a socio-political conservative. Ronald Radosh of the Hudson Institute has this to say:
Why a well thought of businessman and intelligence chief would lend his name to this project remains a mystery, since almost everything in the book is pure fantasy presented without compelling evidence.
In sum, while it’s beyond the scope of JFK Facts to evaluate James Woolsey’s life as a whole, it doesn’t look as if he contributed anything significant to the cause of truth over our core subject. “Operation Dragon” doesn’t sound worth the time or the money.
RIP, Robert James Woolsey Jr. (1941-2026).
Well written Chad. Exposing nonsense like that contained in Woolsley’s book is important to allow focus on legitimate JFK discussion.
Chad, you have enriched my life. Your investigative journalism is in an elite category. I will seek you out in your new venture! Good luck!