When the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was released in 1964, hardly anybody read it. People took it as gospel that a lone nut had murdered an American president. Among the few who actually read the entire 26 volumes of evidence supporting the report was a Philadelphia lawyer named Vincent Salandria. He didn’t believe it.
Salandria challenged the report in a Philadelphia legal newspaper, which few read. One who did, however, was Gaeton Fonzi. Fonzi was early in a career at Philadelphia magazine, which would make him one of the best investigative reporters of our time. Fonzi suspected Salandria might be a bit of a nut himself, but thought he might make an interesting story.
Fonzi’s initial meeting with Salandria, which we happened to attend, convinced us both that Salandria was anything but a nut, and had identified major discrepancies in the Warren Commission’s findings. It was a natural Philadelphia story, for Salandria’s questions dealt mostly with the “magic bullet” theory, upon which the whole notion of a single gunman depended. The man who came up with that theory was Arlen Specter, an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia who would go on to become a longtime United States senator.
Fonzi interviewed Specter and was stunned that the man who developed the “magic bullet” theory could not explain it. Specter had not been questioned in detail before that, and he fumbled all over the place when confronted with specifics about the president’s wounds. Fonzi wrote about Specter in a piece for Philadelphia magazine. Although it created quite a local stir, the story was not picked up by Philadelphia papers or any national media. It seemed that a sensational development in the case had just died.
However, one who had read, and remembered Fonzi’s story was Richard Schweiker, a congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs who, a few years later, was elected a U.S. Senator. In his capacity as a member of a Senate intelligence committee, Schweiker did some personal investigating into the background of the alleged JFK killer, Lee Harvey Oswald. Schweiker concluded that the ease of Oswald’s movements, to Russia and back, and his subsequent activities as a high-profile pro-Castro figure, suggested a connection to U.S. intelligence. In Schweiker phrase, “he had the fingerprints of intelligence all over him.”
The idea that JFK’s assassin could be an American intelligence agent had enormous implications. Furthermore, Schweiker suspected an Oswald connection to the CIA and anti-Castro Cubans in Miami. When he learned Fonzi was living in Miami, he asked him to check some stuff out. In the next year, Fonzi discovered a prominent Miami anti-Castro figure who off-handedly told him he had seen his CIA handler, who used the name Maurice Bishop, with Oswald in Dallas shortly before the 1963 assassination. ****** More, this is from:
It's impossible so far to know if Oswald was in Mexico City or an Oswald impersonator was in Mexico City, and either way, who ordered them to travel there and for what purposes. Oswald's earlier activities in New Orleans connected with Fair Play for Cuba leaflets - leaflets with "544 Camp Street" stamped on them, inter alia, suggest this may have been part of a wider intel operation. Oswald's handlers wouldn't necssarily be telling him what all the goals were, or his role in those goals.
See also this and related articles on the JFK assassination at the spartacus-educational.com website
Thanks for all your work, Jeff, it obviously has led to documents that would have long ago been released but for extremely embarrassing details about CIA covert ops. Not "sources and methods," not after nearly sixty-one years, no, but covert ops and illegal coverups, maybe even links to a direct role
in the shooting via contract agents, agents and/or CIA officials "gone rogue" and hiding their chicanery from the rest of the Agency, etc.
Finally, for the case that Oswald shot no one on 11/22/63:
You already know quite a bit about this sprawling case, but who knows who shows up on JFKfacts and is more of neophyte? I figure links are good.
Plus despite the laughable claim from Bugliosi that this is fundamentally a "simple case," that's absurd - just the JFK shooting and the Tippit and Oswald killings within less than 48 hours of each other have no modern parallels.
You have to trace weapons used in both killings, consider witness testimony, Secret Service mistakes or even complicity, role of the Dallas police, Jack Ruby's mobbed up background (was even a "runner" for the Capone mob in Chicago, ran guns to Cuba, etc) Oswald's intel connections, likely "fake defection" to the Soviet Union, facility with the Russian language, bullets and on to the FBI and Warren Commission findings. Hardly simple.
I agree. Ironically, I remember reading or watching Bugliosi on TV say to the uninitiated, not to venture into this case, which is like a bottomless pit.
Congratulations, Jeff, on a truly ground-breaking article. Margot Williams & Chad Nagle should be commended as well — for their respective contributions.
I imagine that many JFK assassination researchers had long suspected the existence of a segregated CIA repository — for super-sensitive JFK assassination records. Perhaps that is where Miami-based JMWAVE’s internal investigation of the JFK assassination resides.
Does the truth about the JFK assassination still matter in 2024? Of course it does — if our Nation expects to right itself. I feel that the failure of our Republic to root-out & punish the perpetrators of November 22, 1963 — has resulted in the unbridled abuse of power — including the perpetual war & surveillance state, in which our citizens currently languish.
As to the CIA’s veracity: Much like the ‘smarter & wiser’ Robert Blakey, I don’t believe anything the CIA puts forth. Why should anyone? It should be apparent by now that the agency is not in the truth-telling business. Nor has the CIA followed its Congressional charter — which prohibits its covert activities from being carried-out on domestic soil.
In my opinion, there’s another U.S. institution worthy of criticism, in this troubling chapter of American History: The so-called ‘Free Press.’ Unlike Jefferson Morley, who strives to fulfill the Constitutional responsibility of a Free Press, to ‘speak truth to power’ — the majority of today’s media continues to parrot the long-discredited JFK assassination ‘cover story’ of the ‘lone nut.’ The media also frequently cites sources within the deceitful CIA — as justification for ‘debunking’ anything that goes against the government’s official narrative, regardless of subject…
The new revelations of this article regarding the CIA's collection of JFK documents are in a way, no surprise. That there is probably documentation and other evidence which was purposely left out from Congressional investigations seems perfectly logical in light of past CIA obstructions. This then begs the question- What else are the hiding? Are there in these secret archives revelations which could perhaps endanger the continued existence of the Agency should they ever be made public?
Its a likely possibility.
And this individual apparently seems to think so. That the source discovered these facts years ago but has waited until now is not unusual either. I myself was involved in special classified work during my military service over forty years ago, and only now I'm able to talk about some things as they have now been declassified. Make no mistake, the National Security Establishment does not look kindly on Whistleblowers. Even retired individuals can still be prosecuted for unauthorized disclosure, and the penalties would include loss of pension and benefits. In many ways this gives credibility to the belief that when you join the Company, you're in it for the rest of your life.
"Are there in these secret archives revelations which could perhaps endanger the continued existence of the Agency should they ever be made public?"
I assume that's what the CIA means when it says that disclosure would threaten national security. In other words, national security equals security of the CIA.
Do you know any such secrets even if not related to the JFK assassination? Just curious.
"Security of the CIA" is the key phrase - that is, institutional survival. Can you imagine if they know that rogues may have manipulated Oswald to frame him, but did nothing about it? Even so, nobody around back when is in control now. So why not let the truth set them free (says their unofficial motto at HQ, acknowledge that, apologize, and move on?
I have started to become convinced that the National Security Act of 1947 was a scheme to allow the Agency to achieve world domination from its inception.
I do think immunity for living participants (in various crimes) is likely a key element of any resolution. But the Agency itself has to go. “With extreme prejudice.”
I don't think we can crucify the current regime. That will keep the truth buried. So consider it a type of amnesty. We need an acknowledgement or full disclosure.
The assassination matters somehow? It matters that a sleuthing journalist decades into the story finds a nugget of truth and says nothing here about millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Congolese, and Latin Americans killed intentionally for the satisfaction of American policy contrary to JFK’s. And more to the point, the media have missed the story of their own journalistic naivety to this day. If this is the sociopolitical glue holding the current electoral narrative “together”, you better believe it matters. Bottom line is 11/22/63 was a coup. Americans are now sheltering in mediated place about it. Until we can walk the streets in the honest daylight of historical reality, we are nothing more than victims of the strategy of tension and targets of corporate media.
Blaming "the CIA" for JFK's murder is, in a word, nonsensical. It is the equivalent of crediting the chisel for the sculptor's creation.
We have established that officers, agents, and other CIA assets were indeed involved at the Faciltator level of the Sponsor/Facilitator/Mechanic conspiracy model. But the agency proper (improper?), an inanimate bureaucracy, has no agendas.
It is a tool.
FWIW I see the assassination as a supra-national operation. In the JFK op, "the CIA" is a patsy, albeit one deserving of immediate and permanent dissolution.
Who ordered the murder of JFK? Who facilitated the set-up and maintains the cover-up? Who did the shooting? We have partial answers to the second question. "The CIA" is not among them. Individuals connected to the CIA are.
Stunning. Too good to be true? I have always found the “lack” of photos of LHO in Mexico as confirmation he was never there. If such evidence exists, it is mind blowing as to what it all means.
I believe he crossed the border but was impersonated while he was there, which was necessary to incriminate him and blame it on Castro and the USSR too.
Evidently, there's not one true patriot like Edward Snowden in the entire CIA. Sad.
Whatever else you might think of her, good or bad, you know damn well Kamala won't disclose anything. If asked about JFKA disclosure, I fully expect to hear her cackle. She cackles when asked questions that she can't answer or doesn't want to answer, just like Hillary.
Can someone help me understand all the possible reasons why the CIA would (1) CLAIM and hold to the claim that LHO was in Mexico City WHILE ALSO (2) covering up and withholding photo evidence?
Here's what I can come up with:
1. It's not actually LHO in the photos but rather a very close lookalike - so the LHO impersonator story would be proven true and implicate the CIA in Kennedy's assassination.
2. It is LHO in the photos but he's with someone else that would be incriminating to the CIA - e.g. a CIA case officer or known contractor.
If it's #1 - why would they have preserved this alleged video/photo evidence at all??? Because that evidence would be extremely damming and confirm that the CIA was impersonating Oswald. Why would the CIA keep and store this evidence until the present day? This would've been the FIRST thing they destroyed, right??
If it's #2 - why not release the photo and crop out or blur the other person? That would prove LHO was there without any additional implications.
What I'm trying to get at is this - I can't figure out a single coherent explanation that makes these things make sense:
- CIA claiming and holding to the claim that LHO was in Mexico City
- CIA withholding/covering up photo/video evidence that LHO was in Mexico City
- CIA preserving that photo/video evidence to the present day
If it was actually LHO, they would release it and prove he was there. If it wasn't LHO, they would've destroyed it decades ago. Make it make sense!
Just a thought here about the CIA’s suspected motives, and arguably its numerous factions within.
The idea that there is a repository of JFK assassination related material stored and maintained by the CIA is intriguing at the very minimum. And the questions that arise from this have in my opinion the same recurring theme.
Why would they collect and save this material for decades?
To what end does this serve?
A little background to the JFK story might help with understanding this colossal action taken by the CIA.
My guess is that Kennedy’s assassination was a highly sophisticated, yet tightly compartmentalized roguish action.
In my opinion, there were a small number of people involved.
It’s highly probable that those involved were separated from each other, with minimum overlap. I believe many operatives and support staff did not know each other and were given tasks that didn’t allow them any chance to guess at the big show they were part of.
This was to maintain operational secrecy, and limit anyone divulging important information.
For the record, I believe James Jesus Angleton masterminded the whole operation.
There were arguably several important reasons for the assassination planners to go forward with their horrible goal.
I believe JFK’s foreign policy goals angered the National Security state.
Especially his early mistake with Cuba.
And his equivocation about sending combat troops to Vietnam. The JCS probably feared that Kennedy would pull us out of Vietnam during a second term.
The JCS and CIA probably worried that JFK would not stand up to the Communist forces allied against US interests around the world.
Yet, I don’t believe that was a sufficient enough reason for the perpetrators to decide on such a violent action.
Nor was JFK’s progressive civil rights and economic agenda for the country.
He clearly angered the south with his liberal and much needed support for civil rights activists. And also alienated many in the business community too, RE: US Steel.
Again, not a reason to assassinate the head of state.
However, these conflicts took a collective toll on the people and factions that opposed JFK.
I believe the forces that pushed for this violent coup also felt pushed into a corner themselves.
From what I’ve read, Kennedy threatened to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces, and scatter it to the wind”.
The Kennedy Assassination was basically an act of survival for those who planned, executed, and covered it up.
And there were those who benefited from Kennedy’s elimination from power-such as LBJ.
And J.Edgar Hoover.
I don’t believe they were involved at all in the planning of such a risky endeavor.
Taken together, this horrible action was the culmination of several important bitter political and national security disagreements that Kennedy’s enemies held against him.
Chiefly, JFK’s promise to splinter the CIA was the proverbial straw that broke the agency’s back. Those at the top of the CIA probably felt that they had to act, in order to save the agency.
Maybe some of them thought they were also being patriotic too. That might have helped their consciences….
Only one party was going to survive JFK’s first and only term in office.
The CIA believed they had to be the one.
Now, back to the storage of all this incriminating information 61 years later.
If true, I believe there might be a logical answer to the question, why has this damaging information been collected and saved??
I believe there were many CIA employees who strongly and forcefully disagreed with JFK’s assassination.
They may have been kept out of the loop early on.
But as time moved on, the enormity of what happened, how it happened, and probably why it happened dawned on them.
And possibly, there were enough quick thinking employees in the agency that quietly saved, made copies, assembled, stored as much incriminating information as possible.
And decided to safeguard it for posterity.
Basically for their own survival too.
Because knowledge is power. And knowledge wielded properly, can also serve as an important tool for survival.
I’m thinking there is probably some very sensitive and sensational information regarding the events surrounding 11.22.63 that has been saved, and will see the light of day eventually.
Langley, and all the CIA’s properties, are a huge house of mirrors.
Not by design I believe. But it has become a house of mirrors that holds many secrets.
I don't believe that Angleton was THE Mastermind. I believe it was a team effort by rogue agents. Bill Harvey probably was one of them, especially since he was connected to other regime change operations and the sordid figures associated with those.
As for the retention of incriminating documents or secrets, I don't know why. Some say this was an off-the-books operation, which makes sense. So maybe those not involved at the Agency questioned what happened and learned that it was from within, but that exposing those involved would be a self-destructive act. (Note that it was revealed recently that there were CIA officers at the Miami Station that questioned what really happened in Mexico City).
FWIW, I don’t believe LBJ and J Edgar Hoover were active participants in the planning of the coup against JFK. Too much operational risk involved to include people outside the agency so to speak.
I believe they may have been tipped off.
And agreed to coverup the crime as direct beneficiaries.
Whoa. More good stuff! Blakey sold us out when he took the job and promised not to go after the CIA. It was doomed to fail after that and he needs to come clean and admit it!
Great story, Jeff! I assume this piece will find it's way to Congressman Cohen and the language of his bill will be adjusted, as necessary, to make sure documents such as the IG report are included under the mandatory regime declassification he is set to propose.
If the CIA had proof Oswald was in Mexico City, they would have released it at the time or at least in ensuing years because it would bolster the narrative they tried to sell (commie Oswald working for the Cubans/Soviets killed JFK).
Maybe. Or maybe Oswald was wandering among elements like he did in New Orleans and met the wrong people--not necessarily CIA. Possibly he never entered the consul or embassy but I think he did. There were multiple shooters in Dealey Plaza and somewhere along the line there is a connection to Lee Oswald.
Bill Clinton offered the idea that he requested information on both UFOs and the Kennedy assassination. He was not given the information he asked for according to his statement. Maybe the president does not have control of every strata of American government.
That’s possible Ed. Or perhaps the president does have a lot of power, but, while exercising his authority, he may have certain costs that result in his decision making.
Costs that might make a president reactant to exercise.
Take for example the decision Nixon had before him when he confronted Richard Helms about the agency’s JFK information. The infamous “Who shot John angle?” story.
Nixon wanted all the info the agency had on that.
Helms stonewalled him.
Nixon was Helm’s boss. He could have ordered Helms to deliver everything to him.
Why didn’t he? Why did he play a cat and mouse game with Helms?
My suspicion is that Helms knew a lot about Nixon’s own culpability as Vice President regarding controversial decisions that were made regarding the nascent planning of the Bay of Pigs, and Cuba.
And I’m sure there were many more decisions that Nixon was into involved in that the agency knew about and was also a participant of.
Information, IF LEAKED, could embarrass Nixon, and the US Government.
So yes, I believe presidents have the authority to order different agencies to provide requested information.
But if it’s sensitive information that’s requested, then the cost could be a risk of collateral damage for the president.
Interestingly, I don’t think Nixon ever believed he was going to get an iota of information from Helm’s regarding the Kennedy Assassination.
I believe this was an example of Nixon signaling to the CIA that he suspected the agency was directly involved.
Your insights are excellent but perhaps not 100% valid. We do not know to what extent Nixon ordered/requested information from Helms. People talk and Nixon may have had as much information as Gerald Ford or more. Hoover may have provided Nixon with information we are unaware of. In between everything, I am paying attention to your thoughts.
IIRC, JFK told Kruschev that he has no control over the CIA. I suspect that never changed. I suspect the national security state hates Trump because he has the temerity to think the president controls the CIA when the truth is just the opposite
First thoughts after a single reading of a story that demands and will receive additional scrutiny.
As far back as the 1990s, I postulated what I termed in a paper delivered at the First Research Conference of "The Third Decade" journal the existence of a "trophy room" -- a closely guarded arsenal holding the most important, hitherto sequestered, smoking guns proving conspiracy and identifying key players.
I share this information not to boast of any rare prescience. Rather, my point is to underscore the novelistic qualities of the herein described secret room filled with long-sought treasures and awaiting penetration by members of a Howard Carter Brigade.
So compelling a fictive construct would be a foundational component in an intel op designed to misdirect, enhance cover-up-protecting uncertainty, test current levels of sophistication within upper echelons of the JFK research community, refine designs for next generation disinformation campaigns, and more.
I’m thinking that might be too enticing for inter-departmental warfare within the agency.
Too many factions could weaponize a cache of state secrets to further their own vested interests.
Perhaps most if not all of the truly sensitive Kennedy assassination info has been squirreled away among different groups within the CIA, along with other equally sensitive state secrets, to ensure long term secrecy?
When you have disparate groups of operatives guarding equally important state secrets, then you have shared the burden of blame, shame, or fame throughout the agency.
"When you have disparate groups of operatives guarding equally important state secrets, then you have shared the burden of blame, shame, or fame throughout the agency." - Indeed!
When the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was released in 1964, hardly anybody read it. People took it as gospel that a lone nut had murdered an American president. Among the few who actually read the entire 26 volumes of evidence supporting the report was a Philadelphia lawyer named Vincent Salandria. He didn’t believe it.
Salandria challenged the report in a Philadelphia legal newspaper, which few read. One who did, however, was Gaeton Fonzi. Fonzi was early in a career at Philadelphia magazine, which would make him one of the best investigative reporters of our time. Fonzi suspected Salandria might be a bit of a nut himself, but thought he might make an interesting story.
Fonzi’s initial meeting with Salandria, which we happened to attend, convinced us both that Salandria was anything but a nut, and had identified major discrepancies in the Warren Commission’s findings. It was a natural Philadelphia story, for Salandria’s questions dealt mostly with the “magic bullet” theory, upon which the whole notion of a single gunman depended. The man who came up with that theory was Arlen Specter, an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia who would go on to become a longtime United States senator.
Fonzi interviewed Specter and was stunned that the man who developed the “magic bullet” theory could not explain it. Specter had not been questioned in detail before that, and he fumbled all over the place when confronted with specifics about the president’s wounds. Fonzi wrote about Specter in a piece for Philadelphia magazine. Although it created quite a local stir, the story was not picked up by Philadelphia papers or any national media. It seemed that a sensational development in the case had just died.
However, one who had read, and remembered Fonzi’s story was Richard Schweiker, a congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs who, a few years later, was elected a U.S. Senator. In his capacity as a member of a Senate intelligence committee, Schweiker did some personal investigating into the background of the alleged JFK killer, Lee Harvey Oswald. Schweiker concluded that the ease of Oswald’s movements, to Russia and back, and his subsequent activities as a high-profile pro-Castro figure, suggested a connection to U.S. intelligence. In Schweiker phrase, “he had the fingerprints of intelligence all over him.”
The idea that JFK’s assassin could be an American intelligence agent had enormous implications. Furthermore, Schweiker suspected an Oswald connection to the CIA and anti-Castro Cubans in Miami. When he learned Fonzi was living in Miami, he asked him to check some stuff out. In the next year, Fonzi discovered a prominent Miami anti-Castro figure who off-handedly told him he had seen his CIA handler, who used the name Maurice Bishop, with Oswald in Dallas shortly before the 1963 assassination. ****** More, this is from:
https://www.mccormick-place.com/blog/senator-richard-schweiker-and-his-jfk-assassination-legacy
It's impossible so far to know if Oswald was in Mexico City or an Oswald impersonator was in Mexico City, and either way, who ordered them to travel there and for what purposes. Oswald's earlier activities in New Orleans connected with Fair Play for Cuba leaflets - leaflets with "544 Camp Street" stamped on them, inter alia, suggest this may have been part of a wider intel operation. Oswald's handlers wouldn't necssarily be telling him what all the goals were, or his role in those goals.
See also this and related articles on the JFK assassination at the spartacus-educational.com website
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbannister.htm
Thanks for all your work, Jeff, it obviously has led to documents that would have long ago been released but for extremely embarrassing details about CIA covert ops. Not "sources and methods," not after nearly sixty-one years, no, but covert ops and illegal coverups, maybe even links to a direct role
in the shooting via contract agents, agents and/or CIA officials "gone rogue" and hiding their chicanery from the rest of the Agency, etc.
Finally, for the case that Oswald shot no one on 11/22/63:
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/part-6-of-6-sixth-floor-evidence
Notice this is a six part series, each part worth reading.
Thanks for the links too.
You already know quite a bit about this sprawling case, but who knows who shows up on JFKfacts and is more of neophyte? I figure links are good.
Plus despite the laughable claim from Bugliosi that this is fundamentally a "simple case," that's absurd - just the JFK shooting and the Tippit and Oswald killings within less than 48 hours of each other have no modern parallels.
You have to trace weapons used in both killings, consider witness testimony, Secret Service mistakes or even complicity, role of the Dallas police, Jack Ruby's mobbed up background (was even a "runner" for the Capone mob in Chicago, ran guns to Cuba, etc) Oswald's intel connections, likely "fake defection" to the Soviet Union, facility with the Russian language, bullets and on to the FBI and Warren Commission findings. Hardly simple.
I agree. Ironically, I remember reading or watching Bugliosi on TV say to the uninitiated, not to venture into this case, which is like a bottomless pit.
What a load of you-know-what.
Congratulations, Jeff, on a truly ground-breaking article. Margot Williams & Chad Nagle should be commended as well — for their respective contributions.
I imagine that many JFK assassination researchers had long suspected the existence of a segregated CIA repository — for super-sensitive JFK assassination records. Perhaps that is where Miami-based JMWAVE’s internal investigation of the JFK assassination resides.
Does the truth about the JFK assassination still matter in 2024? Of course it does — if our Nation expects to right itself. I feel that the failure of our Republic to root-out & punish the perpetrators of November 22, 1963 — has resulted in the unbridled abuse of power — including the perpetual war & surveillance state, in which our citizens currently languish.
As to the CIA’s veracity: Much like the ‘smarter & wiser’ Robert Blakey, I don’t believe anything the CIA puts forth. Why should anyone? It should be apparent by now that the agency is not in the truth-telling business. Nor has the CIA followed its Congressional charter — which prohibits its covert activities from being carried-out on domestic soil.
In my opinion, there’s another U.S. institution worthy of criticism, in this troubling chapter of American History: The so-called ‘Free Press.’ Unlike Jefferson Morley, who strives to fulfill the Constitutional responsibility of a Free Press, to ‘speak truth to power’ — the majority of today’s media continues to parrot the long-discredited JFK assassination ‘cover story’ of the ‘lone nut.’ The media also frequently cites sources within the deceitful CIA — as justification for ‘debunking’ anything that goes against the government’s official narrative, regardless of subject…
The new revelations of this article regarding the CIA's collection of JFK documents are in a way, no surprise. That there is probably documentation and other evidence which was purposely left out from Congressional investigations seems perfectly logical in light of past CIA obstructions. This then begs the question- What else are the hiding? Are there in these secret archives revelations which could perhaps endanger the continued existence of the Agency should they ever be made public?
Its a likely possibility.
And this individual apparently seems to think so. That the source discovered these facts years ago but has waited until now is not unusual either. I myself was involved in special classified work during my military service over forty years ago, and only now I'm able to talk about some things as they have now been declassified. Make no mistake, the National Security Establishment does not look kindly on Whistleblowers. Even retired individuals can still be prosecuted for unauthorized disclosure, and the penalties would include loss of pension and benefits. In many ways this gives credibility to the belief that when you join the Company, you're in it for the rest of your life.
"Are there in these secret archives revelations which could perhaps endanger the continued existence of the Agency should they ever be made public?"
I assume that's what the CIA means when it says that disclosure would threaten national security. In other words, national security equals security of the CIA.
Do you know any such secrets even if not related to the JFK assassination? Just curious.
"Security of the CIA" is the key phrase - that is, institutional survival. Can you imagine if they know that rogues may have manipulated Oswald to frame him, but did nothing about it? Even so, nobody around back when is in control now. So why not let the truth set them free (says their unofficial motto at HQ, acknowledge that, apologize, and move on?
Apologies won't suffice. The CIA won't survive the truth, and they know it.
I have started to become convinced that the National Security Act of 1947 was a scheme to allow the Agency to achieve world domination from its inception.
I do think immunity for living participants (in various crimes) is likely a key element of any resolution. But the Agency itself has to go. “With extreme prejudice.”
~ ‘Defund the CIA’
I don't think we can crucify the current regime. That will keep the truth buried. So consider it a type of amnesty. We need an acknowledgement or full disclosure.
Almost sounds like being a member of the Mob, he he.
The assassination matters somehow? It matters that a sleuthing journalist decades into the story finds a nugget of truth and says nothing here about millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Congolese, and Latin Americans killed intentionally for the satisfaction of American policy contrary to JFK’s. And more to the point, the media have missed the story of their own journalistic naivety to this day. If this is the sociopolitical glue holding the current electoral narrative “together”, you better believe it matters. Bottom line is 11/22/63 was a coup. Americans are now sheltering in mediated place about it. Until we can walk the streets in the honest daylight of historical reality, we are nothing more than victims of the strategy of tension and targets of corporate media.
If we were going to ban disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation why wouldn’t we start with banning the Report of the Warren Commission??
Why wouldn’t we appoint a blue ribbon commission to investigate and decide whether to debunk and censor the Warren Commission?
Blaming "the CIA" for JFK's murder is, in a word, nonsensical. It is the equivalent of crediting the chisel for the sculptor's creation.
We have established that officers, agents, and other CIA assets were indeed involved at the Faciltator level of the Sponsor/Facilitator/Mechanic conspiracy model. But the agency proper (improper?), an inanimate bureaucracy, has no agendas.
It is a tool.
FWIW I see the assassination as a supra-national operation. In the JFK op, "the CIA" is a patsy, albeit one deserving of immediate and permanent dissolution.
Who ordered the murder of JFK? Who facilitated the set-up and maintains the cover-up? Who did the shooting? We have partial answers to the second question. "The CIA" is not among them. Individuals connected to the CIA are.
Stunning. Too good to be true? I have always found the “lack” of photos of LHO in Mexico as confirmation he was never there. If such evidence exists, it is mind blowing as to what it all means.
"What it all means," starting with who sent Oswald there and why, etc.
I believe he crossed the border but was impersonated while he was there, which was necessary to incriminate him and blame it on Castro and the USSR too.
Evidently, there's not one true patriot like Edward Snowden in the entire CIA. Sad.
Whatever else you might think of her, good or bad, you know damn well Kamala won't disclose anything. If asked about JFKA disclosure, I fully expect to hear her cackle. She cackles when asked questions that she can't answer or doesn't want to answer, just like Hillary.
Yes and what a cackle it is.
Can someone help me understand all the possible reasons why the CIA would (1) CLAIM and hold to the claim that LHO was in Mexico City WHILE ALSO (2) covering up and withholding photo evidence?
Here's what I can come up with:
1. It's not actually LHO in the photos but rather a very close lookalike - so the LHO impersonator story would be proven true and implicate the CIA in Kennedy's assassination.
2. It is LHO in the photos but he's with someone else that would be incriminating to the CIA - e.g. a CIA case officer or known contractor.
If it's #1 - why would they have preserved this alleged video/photo evidence at all??? Because that evidence would be extremely damming and confirm that the CIA was impersonating Oswald. Why would the CIA keep and store this evidence until the present day? This would've been the FIRST thing they destroyed, right??
If it's #2 - why not release the photo and crop out or blur the other person? That would prove LHO was there without any additional implications.
What I'm trying to get at is this - I can't figure out a single coherent explanation that makes these things make sense:
- CIA claiming and holding to the claim that LHO was in Mexico City
- CIA withholding/covering up photo/video evidence that LHO was in Mexico City
- CIA preserving that photo/video evidence to the present day
If it was actually LHO, they would release it and prove he was there. If it wasn't LHO, they would've destroyed it decades ago. Make it make sense!
Just a thought here about the CIA’s suspected motives, and arguably its numerous factions within.
The idea that there is a repository of JFK assassination related material stored and maintained by the CIA is intriguing at the very minimum. And the questions that arise from this have in my opinion the same recurring theme.
Why would they collect and save this material for decades?
To what end does this serve?
A little background to the JFK story might help with understanding this colossal action taken by the CIA.
My guess is that Kennedy’s assassination was a highly sophisticated, yet tightly compartmentalized roguish action.
In my opinion, there were a small number of people involved.
It’s highly probable that those involved were separated from each other, with minimum overlap. I believe many operatives and support staff did not know each other and were given tasks that didn’t allow them any chance to guess at the big show they were part of.
This was to maintain operational secrecy, and limit anyone divulging important information.
For the record, I believe James Jesus Angleton masterminded the whole operation.
There were arguably several important reasons for the assassination planners to go forward with their horrible goal.
I believe JFK’s foreign policy goals angered the National Security state.
Especially his early mistake with Cuba.
And his equivocation about sending combat troops to Vietnam. The JCS probably feared that Kennedy would pull us out of Vietnam during a second term.
The JCS and CIA probably worried that JFK would not stand up to the Communist forces allied against US interests around the world.
Yet, I don’t believe that was a sufficient enough reason for the perpetrators to decide on such a violent action.
Nor was JFK’s progressive civil rights and economic agenda for the country.
He clearly angered the south with his liberal and much needed support for civil rights activists. And also alienated many in the business community too, RE: US Steel.
Again, not a reason to assassinate the head of state.
However, these conflicts took a collective toll on the people and factions that opposed JFK.
I believe the forces that pushed for this violent coup also felt pushed into a corner themselves.
From what I’ve read, Kennedy threatened to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces, and scatter it to the wind”.
The Kennedy Assassination was basically an act of survival for those who planned, executed, and covered it up.
And there were those who benefited from Kennedy’s elimination from power-such as LBJ.
And J.Edgar Hoover.
I don’t believe they were involved at all in the planning of such a risky endeavor.
Taken together, this horrible action was the culmination of several important bitter political and national security disagreements that Kennedy’s enemies held against him.
Chiefly, JFK’s promise to splinter the CIA was the proverbial straw that broke the agency’s back. Those at the top of the CIA probably felt that they had to act, in order to save the agency.
Maybe some of them thought they were also being patriotic too. That might have helped their consciences….
Only one party was going to survive JFK’s first and only term in office.
The CIA believed they had to be the one.
Now, back to the storage of all this incriminating information 61 years later.
If true, I believe there might be a logical answer to the question, why has this damaging information been collected and saved??
I believe there were many CIA employees who strongly and forcefully disagreed with JFK’s assassination.
They may have been kept out of the loop early on.
But as time moved on, the enormity of what happened, how it happened, and probably why it happened dawned on them.
And possibly, there were enough quick thinking employees in the agency that quietly saved, made copies, assembled, stored as much incriminating information as possible.
And decided to safeguard it for posterity.
Basically for their own survival too.
Because knowledge is power. And knowledge wielded properly, can also serve as an important tool for survival.
I’m thinking there is probably some very sensitive and sensational information regarding the events surrounding 11.22.63 that has been saved, and will see the light of day eventually.
Langley, and all the CIA’s properties, are a huge house of mirrors.
Not by design I believe. But it has become a house of mirrors that holds many secrets.
I don't believe that Angleton was THE Mastermind. I believe it was a team effort by rogue agents. Bill Harvey probably was one of them, especially since he was connected to other regime change operations and the sordid figures associated with those.
As for the retention of incriminating documents or secrets, I don't know why. Some say this was an off-the-books operation, which makes sense. So maybe those not involved at the Agency questioned what happened and learned that it was from within, but that exposing those involved would be a self-destructive act. (Note that it was revealed recently that there were CIA officers at the Miami Station that questioned what really happened in Mexico City).
I agree Harvey had a big role for sure.
Angleton factored critically I believe.
He was one paranoid spy.
FWIW, I don’t believe LBJ and J Edgar Hoover were active participants in the planning of the coup against JFK. Too much operational risk involved to include people outside the agency so to speak.
I believe they may have been tipped off.
And agreed to coverup the crime as direct beneficiaries.
LBJ became president-his life long dream.
JEH got the Kennedy’s off his back.
And regained full control of the FBI again.
“Just a thought” …..Lol. I almost wrote War and Peace with that response!!
"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes
Whoa. More good stuff! Blakey sold us out when he took the job and promised not to go after the CIA. It was doomed to fail after that and he needs to come clean and admit it!
Great story, Jeff! I assume this piece will find it's way to Congressman Cohen and the language of his bill will be adjusted, as necessary, to make sure documents such as the IG report are included under the mandatory regime declassification he is set to propose.
If the CIA had proof Oswald was in Mexico City, they would have released it at the time or at least in ensuing years because it would bolster the narrative they tried to sell (commie Oswald working for the Cubans/Soviets killed JFK).
What if such a disclosure would simultaneously indicate that the CIA did nothing to prevent the assassination?
Exactly. They have tried desperately to convince us Oswald was in Mexico City.
If they had undeniable proof why would they withhold it?
Incredible story Jeff. Thanks again for all the stunning information that you have and continue to present to the research community.
My thoughts on Oswald’s alleged trip to Mexico City are this.
It was part of his sheep dipping process.
A way to set him up, and incriminate him down the road for Kennedy’s assassination.
I suspect something went wrong during his stay in Mexico City.
Either he didn’t do everything he was instructed to do, or the other players involved managed to screw something up.
And Oswald’s handlers-managers were left with a half baked operation that they couldn’t erase.
But they tried to downplay the operation as much as they could.
It’s definitely a mystery. One in which newer documents and photos would certainly help illuminate further to the US public.
Or a whistleblower that could provide even more explosive information against the CIA’s involvement in the Kennedy Assassination.
Maybe. Or maybe Oswald was wandering among elements like he did in New Orleans and met the wrong people--not necessarily CIA. Possibly he never entered the consul or embassy but I think he did. There were multiple shooters in Dealey Plaza and somewhere along the line there is a connection to Lee Oswald.
Bill Clinton offered the idea that he requested information on both UFOs and the Kennedy assassination. He was not given the information he asked for according to his statement. Maybe the president does not have control of every strata of American government.
That’s possible Ed. Or perhaps the president does have a lot of power, but, while exercising his authority, he may have certain costs that result in his decision making.
Costs that might make a president reactant to exercise.
Take for example the decision Nixon had before him when he confronted Richard Helms about the agency’s JFK information. The infamous “Who shot John angle?” story.
Nixon wanted all the info the agency had on that.
Helms stonewalled him.
Nixon was Helm’s boss. He could have ordered Helms to deliver everything to him.
Why didn’t he? Why did he play a cat and mouse game with Helms?
My suspicion is that Helms knew a lot about Nixon’s own culpability as Vice President regarding controversial decisions that were made regarding the nascent planning of the Bay of Pigs, and Cuba.
And I’m sure there were many more decisions that Nixon was into involved in that the agency knew about and was also a participant of.
Information, IF LEAKED, could embarrass Nixon, and the US Government.
So yes, I believe presidents have the authority to order different agencies to provide requested information.
But if it’s sensitive information that’s requested, then the cost could be a risk of collateral damage for the president.
Interestingly, I don’t think Nixon ever believed he was going to get an iota of information from Helm’s regarding the Kennedy Assassination.
I believe this was an example of Nixon signaling to the CIA that he suspected the agency was directly involved.
It was all about leverage.
Correct Ed. Nixon DID order it from him. TWICE! Frank Sturgis is on video confirming it and said that Nixon was lucky he didn’t get Killed!!!!
Is there a source on Sturgis’ remarks?
Your insights are excellent but perhaps not 100% valid. We do not know to what extent Nixon ordered/requested information from Helms. People talk and Nixon may have had as much information as Gerald Ford or more. Hoover may have provided Nixon with information we are unaware of. In between everything, I am paying attention to your thoughts.
IIRC, JFK told Kruschev that he has no control over the CIA. I suspect that never changed. I suspect the national security state hates Trump because he has the temerity to think the president controls the CIA when the truth is just the opposite
👍
First thoughts after a single reading of a story that demands and will receive additional scrutiny.
As far back as the 1990s, I postulated what I termed in a paper delivered at the First Research Conference of "The Third Decade" journal the existence of a "trophy room" -- a closely guarded arsenal holding the most important, hitherto sequestered, smoking guns proving conspiracy and identifying key players.
I share this information not to boast of any rare prescience. Rather, my point is to underscore the novelistic qualities of the herein described secret room filled with long-sought treasures and awaiting penetration by members of a Howard Carter Brigade.
So compelling a fictive construct would be a foundational component in an intel op designed to misdirect, enhance cover-up-protecting uncertainty, test current levels of sophistication within upper echelons of the JFK research community, refine designs for next generation disinformation campaigns, and more.
Or it's real.
If the latter, then a challenge rises before us.
What are we prepared to do?
Interesting concept about a Trophy Room per se.
I’m thinking that might be too enticing for inter-departmental warfare within the agency.
Too many factions could weaponize a cache of state secrets to further their own vested interests.
Perhaps most if not all of the truly sensitive Kennedy assassination info has been squirreled away among different groups within the CIA, along with other equally sensitive state secrets, to ensure long term secrecy?
When you have disparate groups of operatives guarding equally important state secrets, then you have shared the burden of blame, shame, or fame throughout the agency.
"When you have disparate groups of operatives guarding equally important state secrets, then you have shared the burden of blame, shame, or fame throughout the agency." - Indeed!
Groubert's discussion of E. Howard Hunt's revelations prior to his death in the just released installment of America's Untold Stories:
https://www.youtube.com/live/njWHfjJ_XyQ?si=1QSeTmpXVrQHVNix
L BJ was at the top of his list.
This article is discussed, and Groubert's opinion is persuasive IMO.
In my humble opinion, Jefferson Morley is a virtual (if not actual) KGB* agent.
*Today's SVR and FSB