The CIA vs. Rob Reiner's 'Who Killed JFK?'
The clandestine service rebuts the Hollywood producer's podcast — and he punches back
Last week, I asked the CIA about the popular “Who Killed JFK?” podcast, cohosted by Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien. The 10-part show, which has been downloaded 7 million times since November, asserts that President John F. Kennedy was killed by enemies in the CIA and Pentagon.
I asked the CIA 1) if the podcast was factually accurate in its depiction of senior CIA officers James Angleton, William Harvey and David Phillips; and 2) did Angleton, Harvey or Phillips surveil Lee Harvey Oswald?
On Monday, March 18, a CIA spokesperson called me, and an off-the-record conversation ensued. Ethically speaking, I cannot share the substance of what was said, but the Agency did give me this statement:
“The notion that CIA was involved in the death of John F. Kennedy is absolutely false.”
7 Million Downloads
I put my questions to the lords of Langley because “7 million downloads” adds up to a whole lot of public interest, more than double the 3.4 million followers of @CIA on Twitter/X. Those seven digits thrilled me personally because I was interviewed by Reiner and O’Brien for the podcast. It’s like all the people in the state of Tennessee (from Rep. Steve Cohen and The Two Justins to Sheryl Crow, Dolly Parton and Jason Aldean) heard me talking about the CIA’s surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald.
More importantly, a whole state’s worth of people heard what Reiner and O’Brien are saying about the contemporary importance of a pivotal moment in American history. Reiner is a prolific producer of popular movies such “A Few Good Men,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally.” O’Brien, a former network TV anchor, is a winner of three Emmys for her news reporting.
While I don’t agree with all of their podcast’s findings (which is inevitable on a complex subject), I do think “Who Killed JFK?” is the most serious and plausible account of JFK’s assassination to reach the general public in recent years.
The New JFK Record
If nothing else, the podcast shows that the persistent but dubious theory that Oswald killed JFK for no reason has never been more frail.
The podcast narrative traces the new fact pattern that has emerged from the best JFK researchers and the long-secret assassination files freed by the landmark 1992 JFK Records Act. As these records have been digitized and analyzed over the past 20 years (and put online by the nonprofit Mary Ferrell Foundation), they have yielded a new insight: The official story that a lone gunman killed JFK is not just highly improbable in forensic terms.
The new JFK record also shows the lone gunman narrative was developed by government officials to obscure the fact that senior CIA officers were concealing their deep and abiding interest in Oswald for four years [my emphasis] before the leftist ex-Marine supposedly shot JFK from the sixth floor of a Dallas office building.
The key figures in the CIA in late 1963 included Angleton, the chief of counterintelligence; Phillips, the chief of Cuba operations in Mexico City; and Harvey, the ousted chief of the CIA’s assassination program who, according to one State Department official, paid a visit to Dallas in November 1963.
Hence my two questions for the CIA.
— Is the podcast factually accurate in its depiction of senior CIA officers, James Angleton, William Harvey and David Phillips?
— Did Angleton, Harvey or Phillips surveil Lee Harvey Oswald?
Fact-Check, Please
Certainly, Reiner’s claim, summarized in Episode 10, that these CIA officers used Oswald in a plot to kill the liberal president deserves to be rigorously fact-checked.
In the course of the podcast, Reiner unspools his findings, with O’Brien asking the skeptical questions of Everywoman in the Street. Assisted by research chief Dick Russell, Reiner weaves together an array of evidence, new and old, that Angleton, Harvey, Phillips and former U.S. Army Gen. Charles Willoughby orchestrated a false flag operation that surveilled Oswald, ambushed JFK in Dealey Plaza and blamed the deed on the leftist ex-Marine. They make what I find to be a convincing case that Oswald was what he said he was: “a patsy” for others who committed the crime.
Reiner’s narrative, which follows and advances the work of other JFK authors such as David Talbot, Anthony Summers, Cyril Wecht and Douglas Horne, is buttressed by interviews from witnesses never heard before on major media platforms.
I can’t speak knowledgeably about Willoughby, but Angleton, Harvey and Phillips figure in all three of my CIA books. There’s no “smoking gun” proof that any one of them conspired to kill the president (just as there’s no “smoking gun” proof that Oswald shot JFK). But, if there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, all three are plausible suspects.
Harvey was exiled from Langley headquarters after a profane tirade against Robert Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Phillips knew of Oswald’s foreign travels and leftist politics when the itinerant ex-Marine contacted a known KGB officer in Mexico City six weeks before Kennedy’s assassination — and he took no action. Angleton, known for the ingenuity of his “black” operations, was informed that Oswald was in Dallas on Nov. 15, 1963, one week before Kennedy’s trip there.
All of this information came into public view after Oliver Stone’s 1992 movie “JFK.” None of it comes from “conspiracy theorists.” The story of Angleton, Harvey and Phillips is found in declassified CIA records and on-the-record interviews with credible witnesses. None of it is disputed by major news organizations or professional fact-checkers.
Indeed, most of these facts are not even disputed by the CIA.
Reiner Responds
To recap the story, on Friday, March 8, 2024 at 9:54 A.M., I wrote the following email to the CIA’s Public Affairs Office.
Dear CIA PAO,
For a story in JFK Facts on Substack:
Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brien's podcast, "Who Killed JFK?" has been downloaded
fiveseven million times. Reiner and O'Brien assert that three senior CIA officers — James Angleton, William Harvey and David Phillips — surveilled Lee Harvey Oswald as part of a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.— Is this podcast factually accurate in its depiction of Angleton, Harvey and Phillips?
— Did Angleton, Harvey or Phillips surveil Lee Harvey Oswald?
On March 18, a CIA spokesperson called me and authorized me to quote the Agency as follows:
“The notion that CIA was involved in the death of John F. Kennedy is absolutely false.”
That struck me as vague, so I asked Reiner for comment. He emailed back within 15 minutes.
My comment is: The fact that they didn’t deny that Lee Harvey Oswald was surveilled by James Angleton, William Harvey and David Atlee Phillips tells you everything you need to know about the CIA’s connection to Oswald.
"The notion that CIA was involved in the death of John F. Kennedy is absolutely false.”
What would be their response to their alleged involvement in all the assassinations, coups d'etat, and horrendous plans and programs (e.g. Operation Phoenix, Operation Northwoods, Operation Mockingbird, MKUltra, etc.) in which they are suspect?
The same.
Also, what does the CIA's "spokesperson" know about anything of consequence? Likely nothing.
Republican congressman Tim Burchett said recently that the intelligence agencies refuse to hand over even non-classified information that the Oversight Committee is lawfully entitled to. They just won't do it and won't even offer an excuse for not doing it. They are saying in effect that they are above the law, that they alone decide what they will do, and there's nothing we-the-people can do about it.
We're living in something akin to the Fourth Reich. That's not an overstatement.
All fine. But for the record, Lee Oswald was no leftist. He was an undercover provocateur in the mold of his hero Herbert Philbrick. Many many more puzzle pieces fit together when he is understood this way.