As I recall the first WC meeting in January 1964 was about many things but the Texas Attorney General, Wagoner Carr believed that Oswald was working as an informant for the FBI. Not often covered is that the FBI, James Hosty visited Marina looking for Oswald about 2 weeks before the assassination. Oswald then visited the Dallas FBI office and left a note for Hosty which Hosty destroyed. Having grown up in the 50's it was always absurd that the FBI/CIA had never heard of Oswald. They had good information on their chosen patsy. The liars tangled web of lies.
That the CIA was monitoring Oswald comes as no surprise and was in itself a routine matter. Oswald's defection, his later return to the US, and his association with Leftist organizations made him a person of interest because of his potential use by foreign intelligence agencies. As one can see, the intensity of their interest increased late in 1963. Then suddenly he drops off the screen and then ( Allegedly), shoots the President.
Reading this one can come to two possible conclusions.
First.
That someone at the CIA dropped the ball and inadvertently ignored the possible threat against the President's life. And also that the coverup was just CYA to save the Agency from embarrassment. This is the common fallback position that Warren Commission apologists always say, giving the institution the benefit of the doubt. However, the intensity of interest in Oswald by the CIA casts doubt on this. With all the effort they made to watch this man and then suddenly turn their back without any detailed reason for doing so is suspicious in and of itself.
Second.
There is the possibility that there may have been something involving Oswald that the Agency was keeping a close secret about , ( Possibly rogue elements committing illegal acts ). This operation may have been so sensitive that making it public could have damaged the reputation of the Agency and called its very existence into question. In other words, self preservation. The perjury of McCone and Helms in denying any knowledge of Oswald was likely done for this purpose.
One document that could help solve this mystery is the CIA's own internal investigation mentioned in a 1977 memo by former CIA Officer Donald Heath. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, it has yet to be found.
I appreciate your analysis of the CIA interest in Oswald, but your estimate of the CIA's involvement is merely a current cover story for the CIA, only the latest, and one of the weakest.
His CIA handler, Ruth Paine, got him his job at the TSBD, and kept other (better) jobs from him.
It was Ruth who "found" the camera that supposedly took the backyard photos of "Oswald" holding the Carcano rifle, though Marina swore she hadn't taken those pictures, but took hers from the opposite direction, and never with Oswald holding a rifle.
It was Ruth Paine who supposedly found that camera in a bag already searched by the FBI. Ruth Paine also claimed she owned the miniature Minox “spy camera” found (and photographed) by the Dallas police, which the FBI later tried to claim was only a light meter, despite the DPD removing a roll of film from it, along with four other rolls of film for the same camera.
It was Ruth Paine whose sister worked at the CIA (though the Warren Commission never asked her about that), and who offered to drive Marina and her daughter (and Ruth's two children!) from Dallas to New Orleans, conveniently allowing Oswald to travel to New Orleans early, where he worked for Guy Bannister in the same building that also conveniently held a CIA office.
It was Ruth Paine who "discovered" a letter supposedly written in Russian in Oswald’s hand, admitting to the shooting at the home of General Walker, in an incident where two men, neither of whom looked like Oswald, were spotted leaving the scene, both driving separate cars (though Oswald could not drive). The original of that letter was never found; instead, Ruth Paine claims to have copied it -- in Russian! -- and gave the copy to the FBI.
This ”Paine as CIA handler of Oswald” operation began in February, 1963, when Ruth, who spoke and taught Russian, was invited to a party by George de Mohrenschildt, a White Russian CIA asset who was “babysitting” Lee Harvey Oswald at the request of the CIA. It was de Mohrenschildt who introduced Oswald to other members of the anti-Castro elite in Dallas. And it was Ruth who inserted herself into Marina Oswald’s life, making numerous unannounced (and uninvited) trips to visit Marina in Dallas, often bringing along her own children.
According to Ruth Forbes Paine (the mother of Ruth’s fictionally estranged husband Michael), the Paine family were friends and neighbors on the same small Naushon Island, Massachusetts, community with Mary Bancroft, who was allegedly the mistress of CIA director and Warren Commission member Allen Dulles. Though Ruth denied ever meeting Bancroft, her mother-in-law Ruth Forbes Paine confirmed that Bancroft was her (the elder Paine’s) friend, and also confirmed Bancroft’s role as Dulles' mistress.
I believe it’s no coincidence that Ruth Paine spent September of 1963 traveling cross-country from Dallas to Naushon Island, where the Paine family had property close to the Bancroft estate. After that visit, she traveled later that same month to visit with her sister, Sylvia Hyde Hoke, at her house in Falls Church, Virginia. Sylvia worked for the CIA, as documents have confirmed, and Sylvia’s husband worked for the agency’s front, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Ruth claims she never knew her sister worked for the CIA.
Ruth Paine answered more than 5,000 questions before the Warren Commission, more than any other witness. How is it then that none of them were about her trips to the same island that Allen Dulles stayed at, nor of her visiting her CIA-employed sister, just months before the assassination? Or even how she knew enough Russian to supposedly hand-copy a letter from Oswald about the Walker shooting?
The web of CIA coverup after the assassination shows they were hiding far more than just “dropping the ball.” They were hiding their direct involvement in the assassination itself, from spending more than four years putting Oswald into place as the patsy, to coordinating the cover story that Oswald was a pro-Castro stooge. Combine these known involvements with the continual, almost daily updates on Oswald’s movements and affiliations that led directly to James Jesus Angleton, one of the CIA’s most notorious counterintelligence chiefs, and you have significant proof that Oswald was a cog in a larger CIA operation in assassinating the president, then covering up their involvement until none of them could ever be held accountable.
I would say first that my mentioning the CIA "Dropping the Ball" on Oswald was not made in any way to be a defense of the Agency or its supporters. I was instead pointing out that the incompetence excuse is the common response from those who defend the Warren Commission. They never question the motives of institutions and are instead quick to come to their defense when anything criminal is even suspected.
Regarding the matter of Ruth Paine, her involvement with Oswald and his wife Marina has been looked over and discussed by many researchers, the most recent being Larry Hancock's study- "The Oswald Puzzle". Mrs. Paine and her husband had previously met the Oswald's socially, and Ruth became good friends with Marina, assisting her when relations between she and Lee became estranged. One of the reasons she became close to Marina was that Ruth Paine herself spoke Russian and asked Marina to assist her in improving her grammar and vocabulary. Also, Ruth Paine had herself a Leftist background, ( Her father was a Trotskyist), which likely attracted her to the couple. Regarding her travel and other testimony, Ruth Paine did indeed cooperate with the Warren Commission, giving much information about the FBI and their visits to her home. While she may have herself known people who were with the CIA, that does not in and of itself bring on any reason to suspect her. Its true that are some interesting coincidences about her relationship with the Oswald's that need to be further examined. But to the best of my knowledge, there is at this point in time no direct evidence that Ruth Paine was herself directly involved as a part of a CIA covert operation.
It should be mentioned that Mrs. Paine is herself still alive and currently resides at a retirement home in California.
If the CIA indeed "Dropped the Ball", its reasonable to presume that this was done to cover up the fact that a covert operation designed to take out Castro went rogue and was instead turned against Kennedy. The recently declassified Heath Memo specifically looks at this very possibility. From what we know of the CIA's own internal investigation, it appears that Langley and specifically station JM Wave had suspicions that rogue elements from Anti Castro Cuban groups were the more likely perpetrators. This rogue group likely knew about Oswald and his Leftist leanings, and thus began manipulating him to suit their needs. If anything, Oswald could be described as a "Useful Idiot". The Agency's actions in the wake of the assassination, (Including McCone's and Helm's perjury), were a major effort at damage control by everyone at the Agency. While the Higher Ups at Langley likely had nothing to do with it, they also had their suspicions about who the real perpetrators were and saw the danger to the existence of the Agency should this ever get out. The revelation that a covert operation went off the tracks and was turned against the Commander in Chief would have been an unmitigated disaster for the CIA.
The best way to interrogate people, believe it or not, is to wine and dine those you interview or meet who potentially have information, you don't interrogate people who aren't privy to important information. You soften up the right people and permit them to open up and talk. Tough interrogation almost never works, and when it does, the interrogated ones usually give up less information. There is a famous example of how we wined and dined German military officers in Virginia during WW2, made them feel loose and comfortable and without them realizing it they easily opened up and gave each other the location of the V2 rocket manufacturing plant, we recorded their live conversations and we passed on the info to our Army Air Corps and bombed the living daylights out of it, and destroyed it. That is how you interrogate.
I absolutely believe that. You can catch more flies with sugar than you can with vinegar.
I was being facetious. The people at the CIA who torture people do it because they like doing it, not because it yields results. They should know better, but they don't.
The Luftwaffe also had a good record of interrogating Allied airmen. Their interrogators were relaxed, personable, and would put their charges at ease. They would push the "Brother Airman" message and covertly persuade Allied prisoners to lower their guard and reveal much valuable information. Cells in Luftwaffe holding camps were also bugged and specially trained Intelligence Officers would sometimes be placed there impersonating British or American flyers.
The WW II Brits put up senior German officers in a very country house, treated them well AND it was bugged and every conversation post-interrogation transcribed. Source: Helen Fry’ book on the subject.
Good comprehensive article. I understand from another researcher, that the reason that John McCone could claim not knowing anything about Oswald, is because all of the CIA people refused to give any substantive information to McCone. Because he was an outsider, who was appointed by JFK, McCone was consistently kept ignorant by everyone at Langley. Helms practically ran the agency after Allen Dulles was fired, not McCone. McCone, Monday to Friday, when CIA Director, in the warm months in Virginia often spent his post work hours swimming exercising in RFK's home swimming pool at Hickory Hill.
The snippet of the CIA document about LHO shown above also includes SR/CI/A Stephen Roll whom the Mary Ferrell website states: "Spent 26 years in CIA after joining in 1949."
We are skipping a step. Some years back, a gentleman in Minnesota, who never publicized his experience or followed through on it, told me he had met Oswald at Balboa, the naval base, and Oswald told him he was ONI (office of Naval Intelligence) and tried to recruit him. He told me this was in 1959, and I think it is the only direct testimony we have that LHO was in intelligence. I heard this in the early 1990s and tried to get Bill Simpich involved, and he was uninterested, without talking to this guy or investigating. I can only conclude was that he didn't want to look into a lead he had not developed himself, and so the most direct tie we have between LHO and intelligence was lost, to Simpich's eternal shame. This is what territoriality gets you. This guy was completely credible, never tried to make money off of this, and obviously knew nothing about Oswald beyond his own experience. He told me LHO "was always talking about Russia," and when I told him Oswald went there he was completely surprised, which gave him even more credibility. I tried to get some assistance following through (Gaeton Fonzi was interested) but I lost track of this guy. To this day I don't understand why Simpich was not interested.
I wish members of the task force could have participated in the class. They would have taken away a greater understanding of the importance of the materials that they are charged with getting released. They also would have come away empowered to ask better questions in the hearings.
You wrote, "[The CIA] knew [Oswald] had recently to (sic) Mexico City. They knew he had attempted to travel illegally to Cuba. They knew he had made contact with a presumed KGB agent."
I might be mistaken, but I believe the CIA knew Kostikov was a KGB agent and presumed -- based on what a Kremlin-loyal triple agent by the name of Aleksei Kulak (FEDORA) had told the FBI's NYC field office the previous year, i.e., that Kostikiov's charge at the U.N. (Igor Brykin) was a Department 13 agent -- that Kostikov, himself, was Department 13.
It's interesting to note that the CIA's official historian, David Robarge, wrote in 2013 that the Agency was never able to determine whether or not KGB officer Kostikov was Department 13.
As I recall the first WC meeting in January 1964 was about many things but the Texas Attorney General, Wagoner Carr believed that Oswald was working as an informant for the FBI. Not often covered is that the FBI, James Hosty visited Marina looking for Oswald about 2 weeks before the assassination. Oswald then visited the Dallas FBI office and left a note for Hosty which Hosty destroyed. Having grown up in the 50's it was always absurd that the FBI/CIA had never heard of Oswald. They had good information on their chosen patsy. The liars tangled web of lies.
That the CIA was monitoring Oswald comes as no surprise and was in itself a routine matter. Oswald's defection, his later return to the US, and his association with Leftist organizations made him a person of interest because of his potential use by foreign intelligence agencies. As one can see, the intensity of their interest increased late in 1963. Then suddenly he drops off the screen and then ( Allegedly), shoots the President.
Reading this one can come to two possible conclusions.
First.
That someone at the CIA dropped the ball and inadvertently ignored the possible threat against the President's life. And also that the coverup was just CYA to save the Agency from embarrassment. This is the common fallback position that Warren Commission apologists always say, giving the institution the benefit of the doubt. However, the intensity of interest in Oswald by the CIA casts doubt on this. With all the effort they made to watch this man and then suddenly turn their back without any detailed reason for doing so is suspicious in and of itself.
Second.
There is the possibility that there may have been something involving Oswald that the Agency was keeping a close secret about , ( Possibly rogue elements committing illegal acts ). This operation may have been so sensitive that making it public could have damaged the reputation of the Agency and called its very existence into question. In other words, self preservation. The perjury of McCone and Helms in denying any knowledge of Oswald was likely done for this purpose.
One document that could help solve this mystery is the CIA's own internal investigation mentioned in a 1977 memo by former CIA Officer Donald Heath. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, it has yet to be found.
I appreciate your analysis of the CIA interest in Oswald, but your estimate of the CIA's involvement is merely a current cover story for the CIA, only the latest, and one of the weakest.
His CIA handler, Ruth Paine, got him his job at the TSBD, and kept other (better) jobs from him.
It was Ruth who "found" the camera that supposedly took the backyard photos of "Oswald" holding the Carcano rifle, though Marina swore she hadn't taken those pictures, but took hers from the opposite direction, and never with Oswald holding a rifle.
It was Ruth Paine who supposedly found that camera in a bag already searched by the FBI. Ruth Paine also claimed she owned the miniature Minox “spy camera” found (and photographed) by the Dallas police, which the FBI later tried to claim was only a light meter, despite the DPD removing a roll of film from it, along with four other rolls of film for the same camera.
It was Ruth Paine whose sister worked at the CIA (though the Warren Commission never asked her about that), and who offered to drive Marina and her daughter (and Ruth's two children!) from Dallas to New Orleans, conveniently allowing Oswald to travel to New Orleans early, where he worked for Guy Bannister in the same building that also conveniently held a CIA office.
It was Ruth Paine who "discovered" a letter supposedly written in Russian in Oswald’s hand, admitting to the shooting at the home of General Walker, in an incident where two men, neither of whom looked like Oswald, were spotted leaving the scene, both driving separate cars (though Oswald could not drive). The original of that letter was never found; instead, Ruth Paine claims to have copied it -- in Russian! -- and gave the copy to the FBI.
This ”Paine as CIA handler of Oswald” operation began in February, 1963, when Ruth, who spoke and taught Russian, was invited to a party by George de Mohrenschildt, a White Russian CIA asset who was “babysitting” Lee Harvey Oswald at the request of the CIA. It was de Mohrenschildt who introduced Oswald to other members of the anti-Castro elite in Dallas. And it was Ruth who inserted herself into Marina Oswald’s life, making numerous unannounced (and uninvited) trips to visit Marina in Dallas, often bringing along her own children.
According to Ruth Forbes Paine (the mother of Ruth’s fictionally estranged husband Michael), the Paine family were friends and neighbors on the same small Naushon Island, Massachusetts, community with Mary Bancroft, who was allegedly the mistress of CIA director and Warren Commission member Allen Dulles. Though Ruth denied ever meeting Bancroft, her mother-in-law Ruth Forbes Paine confirmed that Bancroft was her (the elder Paine’s) friend, and also confirmed Bancroft’s role as Dulles' mistress.
I believe it’s no coincidence that Ruth Paine spent September of 1963 traveling cross-country from Dallas to Naushon Island, where the Paine family had property close to the Bancroft estate. After that visit, she traveled later that same month to visit with her sister, Sylvia Hyde Hoke, at her house in Falls Church, Virginia. Sylvia worked for the CIA, as documents have confirmed, and Sylvia’s husband worked for the agency’s front, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Ruth claims she never knew her sister worked for the CIA.
Ruth Paine answered more than 5,000 questions before the Warren Commission, more than any other witness. How is it then that none of them were about her trips to the same island that Allen Dulles stayed at, nor of her visiting her CIA-employed sister, just months before the assassination? Or even how she knew enough Russian to supposedly hand-copy a letter from Oswald about the Walker shooting?
The web of CIA coverup after the assassination shows they were hiding far more than just “dropping the ball.” They were hiding their direct involvement in the assassination itself, from spending more than four years putting Oswald into place as the patsy, to coordinating the cover story that Oswald was a pro-Castro stooge. Combine these known involvements with the continual, almost daily updates on Oswald’s movements and affiliations that led directly to James Jesus Angleton, one of the CIA’s most notorious counterintelligence chiefs, and you have significant proof that Oswald was a cog in a larger CIA operation in assassinating the president, then covering up their involvement until none of them could ever be held accountable.
Counterpoint.
I would say first that my mentioning the CIA "Dropping the Ball" on Oswald was not made in any way to be a defense of the Agency or its supporters. I was instead pointing out that the incompetence excuse is the common response from those who defend the Warren Commission. They never question the motives of institutions and are instead quick to come to their defense when anything criminal is even suspected.
Regarding the matter of Ruth Paine, her involvement with Oswald and his wife Marina has been looked over and discussed by many researchers, the most recent being Larry Hancock's study- "The Oswald Puzzle". Mrs. Paine and her husband had previously met the Oswald's socially, and Ruth became good friends with Marina, assisting her when relations between she and Lee became estranged. One of the reasons she became close to Marina was that Ruth Paine herself spoke Russian and asked Marina to assist her in improving her grammar and vocabulary. Also, Ruth Paine had herself a Leftist background, ( Her father was a Trotskyist), which likely attracted her to the couple. Regarding her travel and other testimony, Ruth Paine did indeed cooperate with the Warren Commission, giving much information about the FBI and their visits to her home. While she may have herself known people who were with the CIA, that does not in and of itself bring on any reason to suspect her. Its true that are some interesting coincidences about her relationship with the Oswald's that need to be further examined. But to the best of my knowledge, there is at this point in time no direct evidence that Ruth Paine was herself directly involved as a part of a CIA covert operation.
It should be mentioned that Mrs. Paine is herself still alive and currently resides at a retirement home in California.
If the CIA indeed "Dropped the Ball", its reasonable to presume that this was done to cover up the fact that a covert operation designed to take out Castro went rogue and was instead turned against Kennedy. The recently declassified Heath Memo specifically looks at this very possibility. From what we know of the CIA's own internal investigation, it appears that Langley and specifically station JM Wave had suspicions that rogue elements from Anti Castro Cuban groups were the more likely perpetrators. This rogue group likely knew about Oswald and his Leftist leanings, and thus began manipulating him to suit their needs. If anything, Oswald could be described as a "Useful Idiot". The Agency's actions in the wake of the assassination, (Including McCone's and Helm's perjury), were a major effort at damage control by everyone at the Agency. While the Higher Ups at Langley likely had nothing to do with it, they also had their suspicions about who the real perpetrators were and saw the danger to the existence of the Agency should this ever get out. The revelation that a covert operation went off the tracks and was turned against the Commander in Chief would have been an unmitigated disaster for the CIA.
Who is around for some enhanced interrogation about the continuing coverup?
The best way to interrogate people, believe it or not, is to wine and dine those you interview or meet who potentially have information, you don't interrogate people who aren't privy to important information. You soften up the right people and permit them to open up and talk. Tough interrogation almost never works, and when it does, the interrogated ones usually give up less information. There is a famous example of how we wined and dined German military officers in Virginia during WW2, made them feel loose and comfortable and without them realizing it they easily opened up and gave each other the location of the V2 rocket manufacturing plant, we recorded their live conversations and we passed on the info to our Army Air Corps and bombed the living daylights out of it, and destroyed it. That is how you interrogate.
I absolutely believe that. You can catch more flies with sugar than you can with vinegar.
I was being facetious. The people at the CIA who torture people do it because they like doing it, not because it yields results. They should know better, but they don't.
The Luftwaffe also had a good record of interrogating Allied airmen. Their interrogators were relaxed, personable, and would put their charges at ease. They would push the "Brother Airman" message and covertly persuade Allied prisoners to lower their guard and reveal much valuable information. Cells in Luftwaffe holding camps were also bugged and specially trained Intelligence Officers would sometimes be placed there impersonating British or American flyers.
The WW II Brits put up senior German officers in a very country house, treated them well AND it was bugged and every conversation post-interrogation transcribed. Source: Helen Fry’ book on the subject.
Good comprehensive article. I understand from another researcher, that the reason that John McCone could claim not knowing anything about Oswald, is because all of the CIA people refused to give any substantive information to McCone. Because he was an outsider, who was appointed by JFK, McCone was consistently kept ignorant by everyone at Langley. Helms practically ran the agency after Allen Dulles was fired, not McCone. McCone, Monday to Friday, when CIA Director, in the warm months in Virginia often spent his post work hours swimming exercising in RFK's home swimming pool at Hickory Hill.
The snippet of the CIA document about LHO shown above also includes SR/CI/A Stephen Roll whom the Mary Ferrell website states: "Spent 26 years in CIA after joining in 1949."
We are skipping a step. Some years back, a gentleman in Minnesota, who never publicized his experience or followed through on it, told me he had met Oswald at Balboa, the naval base, and Oswald told him he was ONI (office of Naval Intelligence) and tried to recruit him. He told me this was in 1959, and I think it is the only direct testimony we have that LHO was in intelligence. I heard this in the early 1990s and tried to get Bill Simpich involved, and he was uninterested, without talking to this guy or investigating. I can only conclude was that he didn't want to look into a lead he had not developed himself, and so the most direct tie we have between LHO and intelligence was lost, to Simpich's eternal shame. This is what territoriality gets you. This guy was completely credible, never tried to make money off of this, and obviously knew nothing about Oswald beyond his own experience. He told me LHO "was always talking about Russia," and when I told him Oswald went there he was completely surprised, which gave him even more credibility. I tried to get some assistance following through (Gaeton Fonzi was interested) but I lost track of this guy. To this day I don't understand why Simpich was not interested.
Do you remember who he was? Also curious, what was the context of your interacting with him?
I wish members of the task force could have participated in the class. They would have taken away a greater understanding of the importance of the materials that they are charged with getting released. They also would have come away empowered to ask better questions in the hearings.
Dear Jeff,
You wrote, "[The CIA] knew [Oswald] had recently to (sic) Mexico City. They knew he had attempted to travel illegally to Cuba. They knew he had made contact with a presumed KGB agent."
I might be mistaken, but I believe the CIA knew Kostikov was a KGB agent and presumed -- based on what a Kremlin-loyal triple agent by the name of Aleksei Kulak (FEDORA) had told the FBI's NYC field office the previous year, i.e., that Kostikiov's charge at the U.N. (Igor Brykin) was a Department 13 agent -- that Kostikov, himself, was Department 13.
It's interesting to note that the CIA's official historian, David Robarge, wrote in 2013 that the Agency was never able to determine whether or not KGB officer Kostikov was Department 13.
-- Tom