39 Comments

I didn't learn anything in this interview.

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I learned there is so much trash written about this topic by ignorant people.

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Jefferson is very patient.

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I’m skeptical. A non researcher gets access to notes. We learn nothing new, no insight from the notes and I’m sorry but the guy seems to know nothing about Ruby and assasination. Most of us researchers had to be kind of shocked by the lack of expertise. Jeff was very patient and kind as he should be, but this was a terrible showing for Mr Fingeroth. It made me not want to buy his book, and a bit skeptical as if this was a put up whitewash…

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Don’t buy the book - I did, read 50 pages, then returned it to Amazon. Lots of repetition and some egregious errors - the one I particularly remember is having Connelly wearing an off-white suit when he was shot… though having listened to this podcast I can believe that Fingeroth has never seen the Zapruder film.

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Between the audio issues and the somewhat scattered and evasive answers I found this a tough listen, but some interesting nuggets in here for sure.

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Tough indeed. Kind of reminded me of the Dude trying to tell his story to the Big Lebowski in the limo.

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Hat’s off to Jefferson for doing his best with a very trying and disappointed author. The guy can’t even properly phone in! And don’t you love his reason for not being a subscriber- “I can’t bother with the paperwork.” Nor with facts, clearly! Spider-Man Comics have more credibility IMO

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Fingeroth should be changed to FingerGRIFT...hate that Jeff had to waste his time with this grifter...

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And Hoover admitted Ruby was their informant for a while around the time he went to Cuba. Makes me wonder if he was also a police informant. the Dallas attorney general said Ruby would say he represented the Jewish Press to gain access. All the cops knew Ruby and he gave them special treatment at his club. So no problem getting into the basement to kill Oswald.

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Did Ruby go the Cuba about Trafficante? The night of the assassination to know that Oswald was leafletting for Fair Play for Cuba and not Free Cuba shows he knew that story before it was told by the CIA Cuban Revolutionary Students Group and isn't there some FBI knowledge that he was doing a little Fair play for Cuba stuff before he went to New Orleans? Didn't he also think that Earl Warren was in danger in Dallas because of the right-wing Impeach Earl Warren Billboards?

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Yes

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Huh?

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I agree that there were some interesting nuggets in Jeff’s interview of Fingeroth whose memory lapses might be explained by nervousness, blood sugar levels, fatigue, age, etc. or simply failure to explore all avenues of possibility. (When contrasted to Jeff’s encyclopedic recall of facts many JFK researchers will seem a little ditzy.) The discussion of the Texas Campisi brothers brought to mind an extraordinary NY Times article about the New Jersey Campisi brothers which lays out various tactics used by Mafia hitmen.

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/30/archives/10-in-gang-in-jersey-indicted-in-5-killings-10-indicted-in-5.html?smid=url-share

The second paragraph below could describe Jack Ruby.

The Campisis — two brothers and their sons and nephews—are associated with the Mafia family of the late Vito Genovese, according to law‐enforcement officials, although only one, Anthony Campiti, 53 years old, of Newark, is believed to be a Mafia family member.

An Essex County law enforcement official said the Campisis were used as enforcers and “hit men” by the Mafia but generally were considered “too whacked out” and unreliable to be given full Mafia family membership.

Jeff’s interview also reminded me of my first father-in-law who in the 1960s was a Southside of Chicago Jewish bookmaker whose partner Leon Marcus had loaned $100,000 to Sam Giancana. When Sam repaid Marcus, one of his errand boys, Moretti, while delivering the repayment decided to keep it for himself and killed Marcus. Moretti was killed after Sam learned what he had done.

My father-in-law who said “we own all the aldermen in Chicago” and like Ruby hated RFK because he was going after organized crime and couldn’t be bought. He even wanted to know if my father (an environmental lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers) could find the right person to intervene on his behalf with the IRS. He eventually went to trial. My FOIA request to the FBI for more than 1100 pages was reduced by me to 500 so that I might receive them before I’m senile. Decades ago I spoke to William Roemer of the Chicago FBI who assured me that my father-in-law was not violent person like some of those mentioned above but he did shoot himself after shingles became too painful. Decades earlier William Douglas Pawley had ended his shingles pain the same way preventing Gaeton Fonzi from having him as one of the first witnesses before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

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Rather spotty interview. Very much like a stew, a few tasty morsels in a lot of gravy. However, the author does confirm that Jack Ruby had a vicious Jekyll and Hyde personality, as well as confirming his ties, however tenuous, to Organized Crime.

What I found distressing was that many tantalizing leads regarding Ruby's ties to the Mob were not thoroughly explored.

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Hillel Silverman, the rabbi of Jack Ruby, died recently in in 2023. Here the memorial written by himself

https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/memorial-book-2023.pdf

He says that "In 1974, Menachem Begin awarded him the Prime Minister's Medal at an Israel Dinner of State in recognition of his distinguished service to Israel and the Jewish people.", but I can't find this fact anywhere in the web (only some Israel media mention this after Silverman's death, with the same words). The memorial doesn't say explicitily what kind of services he did, but he also asserts that he "served ... the Nuclear Arms Control Council". Perhaps the service was in this misterious and unknown Nuclear Arms Control Council...

Jewish humor, I guess.

all the best

Ramon

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Jeff says "thank God', m I'm about to swallow my tongue, I gotta go 07:10 in. I may be back to finish.

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With all due respect I really understand what Jefferson goes through.

I have other priorities that do not allow me this luxury, besides it's not all about me!

Much respect to Jeff,one thing is for sure you are a very fair person.

Tanks Jeff!

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Author seemed that he had little new to offer on Oswald

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Jefferson Morley is a virtual, if not actual, KGB* disinformation agent.

*Today's SVR and FSB

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Huh?

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Russia, Russia, Russia!

Check your closets and under your bed. There may be Russians hiding there.

Russia derangement syndrome.

Is there a medication for these people?

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You're the (bad) joke, dude.

Question: Does Vladimir Putin pay you, or do you do it for free?

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Vladimir Putin totally agrees with you.

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Thanks for the laugh.

There might be one or two people here who share your cold war Russia paranoia, but you should consider taking it somewhere else.

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What do you not understand?

The big tipoff that Morley's a "useful idiot" (or worse) is that he claims Yuri Nosenko was a true defector.

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Not useful to base an opinion on being KGB or close on a matter that the CIA and FBI were themselves in conflict about. Oswald could have been working both sides but evidence and most researchers and some witnesses is that he was working with CIA, ONI and FBI. They tried to break Nosenko with Isolation and mistreatment for years but failed by those who thought Russia Cuba made Oswald shoot Kennedy while it still has not been proven. Are you a CIA Useful Idiot? probably not.

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FWIW, despite what Nosenko claimed, he wasn't tortured.

Question: How should the CIA treat someone it very strongly suspects is a false defector?

Put them up in a Hilton Hotel and politely ask them a question or two once a week?

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I did not say he was tortured but he did not break.

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I didn't say you said Nosenko was tortured, Glover. Regardless, he did come very close to breaking once:

Bagley: “You recently told us [in 1964 in the U.S.] about tailing Embassy security officer John Abidian and observing him setting up a dead drop on Pushkin Street.”

Nosenko: “Yes, we staked out the place but no one came. I was getting the reports week after week.”

Bagley: “When was that?”

Nosenko: “I remember exactly. At the end of 1960.”

Bagley: "And you left the American Embassy section at the very end of 1961?”

Nosenko: “Yes, I’ve told you that.”

Bagley: “But in 1962 you were telling us about your systematic coverage of Abidian. Why didn’t you tell us then about seeing him set up a dead drop?”

Nosenko looked blank, speechless.

Bagley: “Are you absolutely sure of the date?”

Nosenko: "Absolutely.”

Bagley: “But you’re wrong, and so is your story. Abidian went to that drop at the end of 1961, not 1960. How could you be getting the stakeout reports if you were no longer in the American Embassy Section?”

Nosenko: "That’s not true. I know it was 1960.”

Bagley: "No. We know. It was our dead drop [Penkovsky had set it up himself before he was recruited].”

Nosenko was flabbergasted. He fell into a sullen silence.

Bagley: “Your job was to watch over John Abidian. Would you know of any trips he took outside Moscow?”

Nosenko: “Of course. We had him under full-time surveillance. Any travel by Embassy staff was reported in advance to us. In the case of Abidian, and of the code clerks, I would be told and we would prepare coverage where they were going.”

Bagley: “Did Abidian make any trips outside Moscow?”

Nosenko: "None.”

Bagley: "Think hard.”

Nosenko: "Of course I would have to know.”

Bagley: "He made a very big trip. Where did he go?”

Nosenko: "He did not travel.”

Bagley: "Not only did he travel, but he traveled to the land of his Armenian ancestors, to Armenia itself.”

Nosenko: "Impossible. That would be big news to us. It would offer opportunities.”

Silence. Nosenko, morose, remained sunken in thought. We waited. Suddenly we heard him muttering, as if talking to himself.

NOSENKO: "If I admit I wasn’t watching Abidian, then I’d have to admit that I’m not George, that I wasn’t born in Nikolayev, and that I’m not married.”

.

That strange sentence -- recorded on tape -- might have been nothing more than rhetoric, but to all evidence Nosenko was not serving in the American Embassy Section and of course was not watching Abidian. Such were the contradictions in his life story and his seeming forgetfulness of wife and children that we doubted he was telling the truth about them. His odd reaction suggested that now, for some reason, we had struck a chord

that might impel him to confess. The silence continued.

.

Finally, perceptibly, he shook himself out of his near-trance and refused to answer any more questions. He tucked himself into a sort of crouch on his chair, his face closed and grim.

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The FBI had already been penetrated by probable "mole" Bruce Solie in the CIA's mole-hunting Office of Security and Kremlin-loyal KGB officers Aleksei Kulak (Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA) and Dmitry Polyakov (TOP HAT) at the Bureau's NYC field office when Nosenko walked into the CIA in late May 1962 in Geneva to discredit what recent true-defector Anatoliy Golitsyn was telling James Angleton (and which Angleton was naively confiding to Solie) about possible KGB penetrations of the Agency and the intelligence services of our NATO allies.

Read John M. Newman's "Uncovering Popov's Mole," but disregard his claim that Sergi Papushin was a true defector (he wasn't -- just ask Sandra Grimes who helped uncover Aldrich Ames), that Oswald was a Ukrainian (sic) KGB officer when he lived in Minsk, that some evil high-level military officers killed JFK because he refused to nuke Moscow and Peking in 1963, and that they somehow duped Oswald into framing himself, Khruschev and Castro for the assassination.

Just concentrate on what Newman has to say about Solie, Nosenko, Edward Ellis Smith, James McCord of Watergate fame, Vladislav Kovshuk, Mikhail Tsymbal, and Igor Kochnov, et al.

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You say Probable and "PS The “mole” Bagley and Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton were looking for was very probably “dour, plodding and risk-averse” Bruce Leonard Solie, Angleton’s confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting boss in the Office of Security, and another one may have been Leonard V. McCoy in the Soviet Russia Division’s Reports & Requirements section." So you have an uncertain theory to base your insult to Morely. Where does this get you? Nowhere for me.

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Regarding Solie and McCoy, I'm sure in my own mind that they were KGB "moles" in the CIA, but it behooves me to be a little diplomatic from time-to-time when it comes to possible legal issues.

Why don't you read Newman's "Uncovering Popov's Mole," watch Malcolm Blunt's 9/10/21 YouTube interview about Nosenko (and Solie), and read Tennent H. Bagley's free-to-read* book, "Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries and Deadly Games," and decide for yourself?

*Just add the word "archive" to your Google search for "spy wars".

PS And read Bagley's 35-page follow-up PDF, "Ghosts of the Spy Wars," while you're at it. It's free-to-read, too. Just add the word "archive" to your Google search for "ghosts of the spy wars".

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