FROM MARY FERRELL

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State Secret

Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald

by Bill Simpich

Conclusion: Only Justice Will Stop a Curse

When someone in Mexico City entered the place where counter-intelligence analyzed wiretapping, they entered the Holy of Holies

I wrote this book to figure out why Oswald was impersonated, not to try to solve the assassination. I learned a few things on the way that I didn’t expect. After studying the NSA for many years, I finally read Richard Arlich’s book about its British counterpart, GCHQ. Arlich’s humbling meditation on the importance of signals intelligence. It made me think about the NSA’s history from its inception after World War II, to the drama in Mexico City in 1963, to Obama’s January 2014 speech announcing a new presidential directive for signals intelligence…Arlich explains the background in the following three paragraphs.

…The astonishing achievement of signals intelligence allowed Allied prime ministers and presidents to see into the minds of their Axis enemies…However, shortly after VJ-Day, something rather odd happens. In the words of Christopher Andrew, the world’s leading intelligence historian, we are confronted with the sudden disappearance of signals intelligence from the historical landscape. This is an extraordinary omission which, according to Andrew, has ‘seriously distorted the study of the Cold War’. Intelligence services were at the forefront of the Cold War, yet most accounts of international relations after 1945 stubbornly refuse to recognize the existence of code-breakers who actually constituted the largest part of this apparatus.

…Signals intelligence also matters to political leaders because it allows them to hear the authentic voices of their enemies. Although Winston Churchill was the most famous recipient of such material, his predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, was also offered some remarkable insights into the mind of Adolf Hitler. In 1939, shortly after the Munich appeasement, Chamberlain was given an intelligence report which showed that Hitler habitually referred to him in private as ‘der alter Arschloch’, or ‘the old arsehole’. Understandably, this revelation ‘had a profound effect on Chamberlain’.

…With the onset of the Cold War, ‘sigint’ as it had become known, seemed equally important for a dangerous new era of nuclear confrontation. Atomic weapons and equivalent breakthroughs in biological and chemical warfare, together with ballistic rockets such as the V2, against which there was no defence, were the new currency of conflict. World leaders were required to comprehend strange new threats and the accompanying possibility of surprise attack – which Lord Tedder, the British Chief of Air Staff, called a potential ‘nuclear Pearl Harbor’. The precarious world of early warning, deterrence and ‘targeting’ had arrived. Military chiefs demanded better intelligence, and concluded that global sigint coverage was indispensable to the Western allies.

Sigint is crucial if you hope to protect the physical security of your leaders

In order to avoid horrors such as a loss of presidential protection or a first strike nuclear attack, each side felt that they had to have better sigint than anyone else. Sigint is crucial if you hope to protect the physical security of your leaders with organizations such as the Secret Service. Any serious discussion of sigint has always been pretty much off-limits for the media, because it’s a matter of national security.

The work of the National Security Agency falls squarely into the off-limits world of sigint, and specifically into the sigint subset known as communications intelligence (comint). Wiretapping is fine as a local affair when discussing crime and graft, but it is not a topic of general conversation in national policy circles. In 1963, what would it happened if the world saw the extent of our government/civilian comint against Mexico? They would have learned about US monitoring of the phones and teletypes used by foreign businesses, governments, and individuals. Is it any wonder that the JFK assassination has been such a taboo subject among policymakers?

The principal author of the Warren Report, Alfred Goldberg, said that when Warren said that some secrets would only be revealed “not in your lifetime”, Warren was making a “precise” reference to the NSA.[ 1 ]

The need for better sigint and the need to conceal sigint explains why the story of Lee Oswald keeps leading back to Mexico City. Any discussion of Mexico City inevitably leads back to discussions about the wiretapping and the efforts to learn more about it. As Edward Snowden knew all too well, a serious discussion about wiretapping and other sigint activities is something that is not permitted in any culture – it’s an unveiling of the Holy of Holies. A 2012 memo on sigint refers to the halcyon pre-Snowden era as “the golden age”. Mexico City was the perfect place to plant evidence, right in the midst of the wiretaps and the photosurveillance of the Soviets and Cubans. This would ensure that any serious investigation of the JFK killing would never happen.

It took a constellation of forces to kill the President

Besides a no-holds-barred analysis of the impersonation of Oswald and how it is tied in to the black world of sigint, my other goal in this book has been to uncover the world of counter-intelligence during the early sixties and how it compromised the investigation in the JFK case. My goal has never been to solve the assassination – the best insights are usually attained when you are looking for something else.

My original intention was to thoroughly analyze the cover-up, but I have decided to cover just a few of the central issues. I wanted to avoid losing the focus on how Oswald was framed. Even if you believe that Oswald was guilty – and I don’t – guilty men can also be framed. That’s what happened to O. J. Simpson, if you remember how the glove, sock and blood evidence contradicted the prosecution’s version of the facts in the criminal case. That’s why the jury acquitted him on that round.

As several participants have admitted their roles in killing Kennedy – including the prominent David Morales – these admissions should be examined. The following is based on well-vetted documents and interviews, but my conclusions may be right, or a little wrong, or a lot wrong. Further investigation will enable us to tighten the analysis.

Who were the planners?

It’s just about a sure thing that someone inside the CIA in Miami learned about the Tilton-Anderson anti-FPCC operation monitoring Oswald by late September 1963. Anderson had a good-sized FBI headquarters file on Oswald. Tilton was active with maritime operations in the Miami area and may have shared his knowledge with someone. Will Potocki knew that the Hosty memo revealed Oswald’s FPCC membership and Communist Party newspaper subscription before the man calling himself Oswald arrived in Mexico City. Bill Harvey was the man who started the whole operation to probe Azcue. If Potocki knew about the Hosty memo, Harvey knew.

Harvey and a few men ran the assassinations for the CIA. David Morales, Tony Sforza and Rip Robertson were Miami officers that specialized in operations and assassinations projects against Castro. Johnny Roselli was a ZR/RIFLE officer and no stranger on how to take somebody out. Commander Hal Feeney was part of the hunt to kill the Castro brothers in 1962. These six men had both the skills and the motivation to kill the President. Most of these men had a military background and were intimately familiar with special operations. Their training alone mandates their inclusion as among the most likely suspects for the planning of the assassination. Here’s a letter from Harvey to Angleton, expressing his pleasure at how many newspapers in Italy were willing to go along with the Warren Report.

The planners could count on a certain degree of support from within the ranks, despite the extreme nature of a presidential assassination. As Cuba operations executive officer Sam Halpern told Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley, “the deceptiveness of Kennedy’s policy virtually justified extraconstitutional correction”. After hearing that McGeorge Bundy had reported in a May 1963 meeting that “we can give an impression of busy-ness in Cuba and we can make life difficult for Castro”, Halpern was incredibly angry just thinking about it. In short, many of the troops in Miami were angry at JFK.

“I’ll tell you one thing, I didn’t know that word ‘busy-ness’. It was never mentioned by Des (FitzGerald) when he came back from that meeting, and it’s a good thing he didn’t, because you might have had a Seven Days in May at that point…If that word ‘busy-ness’ had gotten out to the military forces as well as to all of our troops and everybody else in the U.S. government that was knocking their balls off trying to do this nonsense (of pinprick raids of the autonomous groups), there might have been a revolt of some kind. I might have led it.” [ 2 ]

I think things heated up when Sforza wrote up his report for the Cuba desk chiefs in early September 1963. The chiefs sized up Azcue for recruitment, while taking a hard look at the irreverent and sexy Silvia Duran. A man calling himself Oswald was being monitored by Tilton and Anderson. Oswald did his best to rattle Azcue at the Cuban consulate, and Kostikov at the Soviet consulate.

Somebody got in the middle of the operation, and faked the voices of both Oswald and Duran in the tapes of 9/28 and 10/1. Anne Goodpasture knew that it was imperative to find out if the integrity of the LIENVOY operation had been compromised. Phillips knew of the importance of this event to Cuban operations, and left for Langley and Miami to get together with his higher-ups.

The decision was made to have Egerter conduct a molehunt, just as a long-time CI officer like Morales could have predicted. Morales was Shackley’s number two man – it stands to reason that if Phillips confided in Shackley, Shackley would have confided in Morales. Whether Shackley tipped him off or not, I think Morales would have assumed that Angleton and Mexico City would launch a molehunt.

Even by June 1964, the Mexico City
station wasn't sure if Oswald had
ever seen Kostikov.

I don’t think that Phillips and the Mexico City station officers ever had a very clear sense of what had happened with Oswald during his visits to the Soviet consulate. On November 22, they weren’t sure who Oswald had seen on September 27th or the 28th, other than Duran at the Cuban consulate on the 27th. Even in June 1964, they weren’t sure if Oswald had met with Yatskov or Kostikov on September 27th, and discussed how “Oswald claimed” he had visited the Cuban embassy on the 28th. Let me be clear, however, that the surviving Mexico City officers and monitors represent a treasure trove of information that should be immediately subpoenaed. Anne Goodpasture is still alive and well into her nineties, and she might be willing to give up a few more secrets with a grant of immunity.

One thing the Mexico City officers would tell us is that Kostikov was not a big deal to anyone before JFK was killed. Before November 22, no one came forward with any proof that he was an assassin or sabotage artist. Again, Angleton thought that Kostikov had nothing to do with the supposed assassination bureau at Department 13. That story was made up by Golitsyn, and it only sprang into play in the hours after the assassination.

In his recent book Spy Wars, Pete Bagley makes it clear that he still claims that Kostikov was a member of Department 13, responsible for sabotage and assassination.[ 3 ] He does not address the Kostikov evidence presented here. It’s hard to imagine, but maybe this evidence will change his mind?

It is hard to tell if Oswald ever went to Mexico City or not. It is hard to tell if Oswald ever visited the Cuban consulate or not. The evidence that I feel I can rely on is that Oswald didn’t call from the Cuban consulate on the 28th. I am also certain Tilton and Anderson were running an anti-FPCC operation, an operation that was not designed to assassinate the President, but was used as protective cover by the group that impersonated Oswald. Did it make the FPCC look bad? Yes. Right during the time that Scott was probing and trying to recruit Azcue? Yes.

The important thing is that Morales had all the needed connections to get wind of this anti-FPCC operation. Morales and his cohort Sforza ran the AMOTs, JMWAVE’s own intelligence organization, kept in the shadows as JMDUSK. Bring in a few people from Johnny Roselli’s organized crime pals to assist with the gunplay – after all, Morales, Johnny Roselli, and the disgraced Bill Harvey had spent many months scheming on how to kill Castro – and there is the “dark quadrant” where intelligence networks, the underworld of mobsters and Cuban exiles, and corporate interests come together. Was Bill Harvey himself part of this group? That’s a subject that deserves further study. What’s important is to watch the movements of Harvey’s people.

There is a long and confusing paper trail about a Mexican operation with Morales, Sforza, and Phillips trying to help get double agent AMLEO-3’s wife out of Cuba during the last few days leading up to November 22, one that should be untangled sooner rather than later.[ 4 ] During that operation, Phillips did a frantic tap-dance on paper about whether he would be in Mexico City or Dallas on the 22nd. As his nephew Shawn has told us, Phillips was in Dallas that day.[ 5 ] Phillips was one of the great cover-up artists of all time. I’m unconvinced that Phillips was privy to the assassination plans, mainly because his cover-up operations were so poorly done. For example, Alvarado’s cover story was based on Oswald being in Mexico City on September 18, which took almost no time at all for the FBI to disprove. Nonetheless, it would have been advantageous for Morales or Sforza to convince Phillips to be in Dallas on November 22, which may have happened, as indicated at the end of the lengthy endnote 4 in this chapter. There was a long paper trail displaying Phillips’ movements after Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City. Phillips was highly motivated to make sure that the questions about Oswald were hushed up, and he had the skills to do it.

Men like Morales and Sforza were experienced in special operations. Their buddy Rip Robertson was an adventurer that defied authority and did what he pleased off the books. Commander Hal Feeney knew how to work within the confines of authority, and then did as he pleased. Feeney is a possible assassination planner – I’m always reminded that the planners needed someone in the Navy to smooth the way for the controlled autopsy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Roselli knew where to find more men with the ability and the motivation to conduct a hit job. Morales, in particular, had motive, means and opportunity.

Shackley described Morales as his Chief of Operations in 1963.[ 6 ] Bradley Ayers, who was stationed at JMWAVE, said that Morales “ran all the station’s activities with a heavy hand and was famous for his temper. We soon learned that no one, save Ted Shackley, argued with Dave.”[ 7 ] Larry Hancock has heard that even Shackley was scared of Morales and did not try to micromanage him. Sforza worked under Morales at JMWAVE in 1963, and saw Morales as his brother.[ 8 ] In late 1961, Morales was seconded to ZRRIFLE, Harvey’s program of political assassinations. During this period, Morales worked closely with William Harvey, Johnny Roselli, John Martino, Rip Robertson, Hal Feeney, and many others.[ 9 ]

Morales had all the skills to get the job done. In the years after the assassination, Morales recruited Félix Rodríguez to train and head the team that captured Che Guevara. Guevara was attempting to persuade Bolivian tin miners to join his revolutionary army. When Guevara was captured, it was Rodriguez who interrogated him before his execution was ordered in October, 1967. John Tilton was the station chief in La Paz and aided Morales in Guevara’s capture. CIA agent Tom Clines agreed that Morales helped Felix Rodriguez capture Che Guevara:

"We all admired the hell out of the guy. He drank like crazy, but he was bright as hell. He could fool people into thinking he was stupid by acting stupid, but he knew about cultural things all over the world. People were afraid of him. He was big and aggressive, and he had this mystique. Stories about him permeated the Agency. If the Agency needed someone action-oriented, he was at the top of the list. If the U.S. government as a matter of policy needed someone or something neutralized, Dave would do it, including things that were repugnant to a lot of people.” [ 10 ]

Researcher John Simkin adds:

In 1966 Ted Shackley was placed in charge of CIA secret war in Laos. He recruited Morales to take charge at Pakse, a black operations base focused on political paramilitary action within Laos. Pakse was used to launch military operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1969 Morales moved to Vietnam where he officially worked as a Community Development Officer for the International Development Agency. [ 11 ]

Morales, Shackley and Tilton were leaders in the PHOENIX program in Vietnam, an operation that killed about 30,000 Vietnamese civilians while trying to find out the loyalties of villagers to the Viet Cong.[ 12 ]

Morales, Sforza, and Phillips were in the thick of the Chile coup in 1973. During this period, former AMWORLD chief Harry Hecksher was the chief of station in Chile.[ 13 ] Phillips and Sforza were part of the group involved in the assassination of Chilean General Rene Schneider in 1970 in a failed effort to instigate a coup when the socialist Salvador Allende was elected.[ 14 ] When journalist Seymour Hersh got wind of Sforza’s role in Chile, the word was that Shackley said, “Don’t worry about Sforza – he is loyal – anyway, he can be trusted, even if we have to dump him. Of course, he will not be able to do the good that Phillips has done.” [ 15 ]

Phillips knew how to conduct an assassination, although I put him in the cover-up role because I don’t think he would have been comfortable leaving a paper trail showing his visits to Langley and Miami in the days prior to the molehunt of October 1963. As recounted in Chapter 3, Phillips and Antonio Veciana almost killed Castro with a bazooka in 1961. He got better at it over the years. Phillips played a role in the assassination of General Rene Schneider in Chile in 1970 in a failed effort to prevent President Salvador Allende from taking power. During the early seventies, Phillips created a grisly “Quartered Man” legend based on a torso found at the national soccer stadium that he skillfully turned into a metaphor of leftist plans to decapitate the Chilean military. Two years of developing this theme in the mass media helped create the conditions for the coup in 1973. [ 16 ]

There are various stories about Morales’ role. One version is that Morales was in the presidential palace at the time of Allende’s death. Another version is that Morales boasted to a close friend that he helped kill President Allende in the midst of the coup. While the CIA claims that Allende committed suicide, many members of Allende’s family and colleagues still believe that he may have been murdered and had an autopsy done in early 2011. [ 17 ] Morales and his buddies, in every sense of the word, were monsters.

Morales is also one of the few men who made provocative admissions of involvement in the Kennedy assassination before several credible and articulate witnesses. HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi wrote the initial account of Morales’ admission, a stunning slip by Morales during a drunken tirade about JFK’s cowardice during the Bay of Pigs. During that night, Morales told his lawyer Bob Walton, Walton’s wife, and his best friend Ruben Carbajal about his “killing in Vietnam and Laos, about being involved in the capture of Che Guevara in Bolivia, of hits in Paraguay and Uruguay and Venezuela”. Morales called JFK “that no good son of a bitch motherfucker”…

“He started yelling about what a wimp Kennedy was and talking about how he had worked on the Bay of Pigs and how he had to watch all the men he had recruited and trained get wiped out because of Kennedy. Walton says Morales’ tirade about Kennedy, fueled by righteous anger and high-proof booze, went on for minutes while he stomped around the room. Suddenly he stopped, sat back on the bed and remained silent for a moment, Then, as if saying it only to himself, he added, “Well, we took care of that son of a bitch, didn’t we?”

I looked at Morales’ (best friend) Ruben Carbajal, who had remained silent while Walton (Morales’ attorney) was telling me this. Carbajal looked at me and nodded his head. Yes, he was there, it was true. But, in all the long hours we had spent together and all the candid revelations he had provided, it was a remembrance he couldn’t bring himself to tell me about his friend Didi (Morales).”[ 18 ]

That was the end of the party. The group broke apart and went to bed.

In evaluating Morales’ confession, HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi gave his opinion after many years of first-hand interviews and research.

“What I find credible were the people who told me that’s what he said. And these were the people who had no connection to the work that Morales was involved with. Who were very close friends of Morales. And who had very legitimate backgrounds. One was a Harvard law school graduate. So on that basis, yeah. I find that what was told to me about what Morales said credible.” [ 19 ]

Wayne Smith, a 25-year man at the State Department, knew Morales during the Bay of Pigs era:

I knew Morales quite well, he worked at the CIA station in Havana when I was third secretary of the political section. And I got to know him fairly well, and saw him again a number of items, he came to Buenos Aires when I was political counselor down there and we had dinner at a friend’s house one evening…”[ 20 ]

Smith has affirmed Morales’ hatred of JFK. [ 21 ] Smith has also said that “if (Morales) were in the mob he’d be called a hit man.”[ 22 ]

Morales’ father left the family when Morales was only four and known as “Didi”. The Carbajal family ran a popular Phoenix restaurant, and treated Morales as family. Didi and Ruben played high school football together, and traveled together constantly throughout their boyhood. Author David Talbot recently conducted yet another revealing interview with Carbajal: “Carbajal does know who killed JFK – it was the CIA, he said, without naming any individuals. Morales and his close colleague Tony Sforza both told him the agency was behind the Dallas plot…if the son of a bitch caused the deaths of all these people (at the Bay of Pigs), he deserved to die.”[ 23 ]

Harvey and Roselli claimed knowledge about how "Castro killed JFK"

Another person who admitted knowledge about the JFK assassination was the mobster Johnny Roselli. He was the kind of guy who spelled his own last name “Rosselli” even though his birth name was “Roselli”. [ 24 ] Roselli only admitted it to his lawyer and friend Tom Warden, who then passed it on to his former law partner William Hundley, the man who used to run the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Section. [ 25 ]

Shortly before Roselli died, Washington Post columnist Jack Anderson wrote: “(Roselli) hinted to associates that he knew who had arranged President Kennedy’s murder. It was the same conspirators, he suggested, whom he had recruited earlier to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro…Snipers were dispatched to a Havana rooftop. They were caught… According to Roselli, Castro enlisted the same underworld elements who had caught plotting against him (to go to Dallas).” [ 26 ]

Think about it. Harvey and Roselli know who was recruited to kill Fidel and who might have been captured. Why didn’t they tell anyone who it was? I am convinced that they made up this entire story. Opening his mouth like this – even though I think Roselli altered a couple important details - is probably what got Roselli killed a few months later during July 1976. Bill Harvey had unexpectedly died the previous month.

After these two men died, Jack Anderson admitted that both of them were the main sources for his stories about how Castro killed JFK to retaliate for the ZRRIFLE assassination plots. Harvey and Roselli told Anderson that the CIA withheld the supposed Castro-killed-JFK revelation for two reasons: The Agency didn’t want to reveal the ZRRIFLE program, and “had a legitimate concern” that the American people might be enflamed to take “rash action”, such as an attack on Cuba.

Serving as sources to columnist Jack Anderson
in the Washington Post, Harvey and Roselli
played the famous journalist like a violin.
Did they use their role in ZRRIFLE to divert
attention away from their role in JFK’s assassination?

This is highly significant, because Harvey hated the media. David Martin, the author of Wilderness of Mirrors, said that Harvey hung up on him whenever he tried to talk with him. Others had similar experiences. Here is Harvey acting as the source to the famous liberal Jack Anderson about the most sensitive program he had ever worked on. Harvey and Roselli played Anderson like a violin. Did they use their role in ZRRIFLE to divert attention away from their role in JFK’s assassination?

By 1978, David Morales had died without warning. [ 27 ] Tony Sforza was dead by 1984. Hal Feeney, who was more successful in avoiding public scrutiny, recently died in 2012. Feeney’s pal, the Rev. Jack Modesett (see Chapter 3), officiated at his funeral. Rev. Modesett left the Navy in 1964 and joined the ministry, apparently putting his faith in a higher power than assassinations. [ 28 ]

Peter Dale Scott suggests that the rooftop event referred to above was probably a 3/13/63 bazooka attack in Havana organized by Morales and Roselli, where Samuel Moreno was arrested. Scott then offers a pithy analysis of Roselli’s story:

“Whether or not one believes Castro’s intelligence networks to have been involved, one can entertain the hypothesis that a shooter team, in effect licensed by the CIA to kill Castro, might then have come back from Cuba and killed the President…the mere appearance that a CIA team had been “turned around”, while other killers took care of the actual job, would have been enough to coerce the CIA and its friends into the ranks of those claiming to be true believers in a lone assassin.” [ 29 ] (emphasis added)

For years, there had been a need to insulate all of the Castro assassination stories from the Warren Commission and the mass media. Information on Cubela had been kept within Bill Harvey’s Staff D. Cubela was given poison and a delivery device to kill Castro designed by Staff D in the moments just before the JFK assassination. That was a story that was not going to be allowed to run in the New York Times during the 1960s - especially when you consider that Castro was discussing rapproachement with the journalist Jean Daniel during those same moments of November 22.

The motive to kill JFK

The motive to kill JFK is pretty clear. Many exiles, CIA and Pentagon officials were furious at Kennedy’s refusal to rescue the Cuban exile forces at the Bay of Pigs. When JFK issued a no-invasion pledge after the missile crisis, the anti-Castro forces were livid. When JFK ordered the exiles to halt launching attacks from the United States, relations went from bad to worse. When JFK began to parley with Castro for a durable peace, many of these people just wanted to kill him. The Cuban exiles were always looking for a way to trigger a provocation that would result in an invasion of Cuba. I think most CIA officials and others who knew American politics would consider an invasion to be a long shot, but some would be willing to make the effort. JFK’s killers wanted future Presidents to know who was boss and to stay out of their turf. All signs are that the message was heard loud and clear. LBJ’s chief of staff Marvin Watson said in 1967 that Johnson believed that “the CIA was involved” in the JFK assassination.

Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department had made life hell for the mob and their friends. Jimmy Hoffa, pals with Chicago’s Sam Giancana, was in perpetual hot water. New Orleans boss Carlos Marcello had been shipped to Guatemala without notice. Miami boss Santos Trafficante was losing his investments in Cuba.

For Roselli and his buddy Sam Giancana, their problems with JFK were very personal. All three of these men shared a sexual relationship with Judith Campbell. The strong feelings that come up in such a situation should be taken into account.

Roselli and Giancana were also part of the CIA operations to kill Castro. What better act of extortion was there than to turn around the CIA-Mafia plans to kill Castro and to kill Kennedy instead? The CIA would be shamed into silence. Similarly, the Kennedy family would not want JFK’s memory tarnished with the tawdry story of Judith Campbell made public.

Shortly before his death in 1975, Roselli associate John Martino admitted to former Miami Newsday reporter John Cummings that he had disseminated phony stories tying Oswald to the assassination of JFK. Martino said that two of the gunmen were Cuban exiles. Cummings told this story to journalist Anthony Summers, adding that: "He told me he'd been part of the assassination of Kennedy. He wasn't in Dallas pulling a trigger, but he was involved. He implied that his role was delivering money, facilitating things.... He asked me not to write it while he was alive." [ 30 ]

Martino’s business partner, Fred Claasen was interviewed by Earl Golz of the Dallas Morning News. His story was that Martino told him that he was a courier delivering money for the group.

“The anti-Castro people put Oswald together. Oswald didn’t know who he was working for – he was just ignorant of who was really putting him together. Oswald was to meet his contact at the Texas Theatre. They were to meet Oswald in the theatre, and get him out of the country, then eliminate him. Oswald made a mistake… There was no way we could get to him. They had Ruby kill him.” [ 31 ]

Martino’s wife Florence Martino told Anthony Summers that her husband said to her on the morning of the 22nd of November, 1963: "Flo, they're going to kill him (Kennedy). They're going to kill him when he gets to Texas." [ 32 ]

Clark Simmons and Richard Cain: Possible assassination participants that merit close scrutiny

Morales had a close relationship with Clark W. Simmons, who served as C/WH/4/CI (chief of Western Hemisphere counterintelligence, Cuba) in 1961 and Chief, WH/SAS/IOS (investigations and operational support for the Cuban division SAS) in 1965. Simmons was intimately familiar with the duties of the various AMOT teams in Miami.[ 33 ] During September 1963, SAS/IOS was in the thick of the AMTRUNK operation as well as trying to get Azcue’s colleague (AMLEO-3’s wife) out of Cuba. I think it is crucial to learn much more about Simmons, and specifically everything we can about SAS/IOS. If you are conducting an assassination, operational support is exactly what you need. Simmons had the know-how to get it done.

SAS/IOS knew a lot about Richard Cain, the crooked cop in Chicago who worked with Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. The CIA’s Office of Security chief was so nervous about Cain in 1967 that he lied and said that the Agency had never “employed or utilized” him, while the Chicago field office referred to Cain in 1961 as “our private eye”. During 1962, Cain also claimed to work for “Gyrose” (Bill Harvey’s Task Force W), although Whitten’s branch reported that Cain’s claim could not be substantiated. In October 1963, the Office of Security disapproved any use of Cain as a source as it repeated the finding of “no substantiation”. I conclude that Cain was an inside source for Harvey himself. Cain’s skills with wiretaps, as well as his myriad connections with the Chicago criminal underground, were just what Harvey and Roselli needed. In the words of Peter Dale Scott, “a CIA component willing to collaborate with Giancana’s men in assassination would certainly have no problem in recruiting Giancana’s electronic expert for a wiretap operation.” [ 34 ]

Cain had reason to be mad at Mexico City station chief Win Scott. Cain had been deported from Mexico in June of 1962, based on a tip to interior minister Gustavo Diaz that Cain was investigating Mexican citizens. This tip came to Diaz after Cain visited Scott at the Mexico City station, looking for work and telling him how he was training Mexico government agents in investigative techniques. Just one of Cain’s classes alone included 23 students; approved by the federal police, he described the participants as “representing every law enforcement agency in Mexico, from the equivalent of the FBI on down to the local police.” [ 35 ]

Diaz’s tip led to the discovery that Cain was impersonating a treasury agent – probably a DFS officer - while he was working at the treasury department and conducting these trainings. Cain spoke Spanish, had a Mexican wife, and enjoyed living in Mexico much of the time. He had wiretapped the Czech embassy in Mexico City.[ 36 ] The odds are good that Cain trained one or more of the very DFS and Mexican army officers that worked inside the intercept center in Mexico City. A connection with any of the officers at the intercept center would have been an ideal way for someone like Harvey or Morales to introduce false information about Oswald within the insecure LIENVOY wiretap system. Cain’s efforts to wiretap the County Building on behalf of the sheriff’s office was a staple in the local Chicago news. Stanley Figolak (pseudonym Horace Goelet) of the Special Affairs Staff specifically sought out Cain for a meeting about a month before the Oswald visit to Mexico. Days later, Staff D took a long look at Cain. So did John Tilton.

During the midst of his reports on the Chicago FPCC in the fall of 1963, Cain was closely in touch with Juan Salvat, the DRE’s military coordinator who was busy shopping for heavy weaponry. Although the Miami-based DRE is best known as being sponsored by the psychological warfare chief George Johannides, Salvat reported that his group was secretly being sponsored by “the Pentagon, which is in competition with CIA”. Figolak told Cain to get away from the DRE.

Allegedly an ex-Army Intelligence officer, we know Cain helped out the CIA during the early sixties as an informant. Cain had gone to Cuba to assassinate Castro in late 1960, and barely escaped with his life.[ 37 ] Tilton learned about Cain’s work just days before starting his own anti-FPCC program. Both Simmons and Cain had a history of investigating the FPCC. What we don’t know yet is whether Cain worked with Simmons or Tilton.

We do know that Simmons worked with CIA security official Joseph Langan in the outrageous attempt to cover up the American origin of the planes that conducted the surprise attack on Castro’s planes right before the Bay of Pigs.[ 38 ] Ambassador Adlai Stevenson publicly claimed that this surprise attack was the work of internal Cuban defectors, and was furious to find out that he had been lied to by his own people.

We also know that Simmons and Harvey’s people had access to highly sensitive information in 1962 – the deficiencies of the Secret Service. Simmons joined Richard Helms, Ghosn Zogby (Bill Harvey’s predecessor at the Cuba desk), and Victor Wallen (Harvey’s CI chief) for a scathing review of the Secret Service by one of its prominent agents, Ernest Ignacio Aragon.[ 39 ] Aragon had a lot of inside knowledge, which can be seen in his reports as an emissary on Cuban affairs for Bobby Kennedy.[ 40 ] As mentioned in the previous chapter, Angleton’s CI staff also had access to much of this material.

After the assassination, Aragon wrote one of the first memos about “the violently anti-Kennedy” Manuel Rodriguez Orcarberro. [ 41 ] Rodriguez was five foot nine, 145 pounds, and identified as “Oswald” during one of his visits to Sulfur, Oklahoma. [ 42 ] Rodriguez deserved then and deserves now much closer scrutiny as a possible Oswald double.

Given Simmons’ attempt to hide the American origin of the planes at the Bay of Pigs - which, if true, was an act of treason - how could Simmons be trusted with the practices of the Secret Service? The internal procedures of the Secret Service are among the crown jewels of the United States. If you can’t protect your leaders, you can’t protect anything. These procedures are just as important as the nuclear bomb codes. These procedures, like the codes, are vulnerable to the masters of sigint.

Complicity of the Secret Service

The first signs of Secret Service complicity in the JFK assassination can be seen in Chicago three weeks before 11/22/63. Like Oswald, there was an ex-serviceman in Chicago who had odd political beliefs and a history of work on the U-2 in Japan. This ex-serviceman, Thomas Arthur Vallee, had rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his home. He landed a job in the downtown area overseeing a major transportation artery, just weeks before JFK was scheduled to travel to an address at Soldier Field.

Just before JFK was to arrive in Chicago, the Secret Service got a tip that a four-man right-wing sniper team was planning to kill the President on a slow stretch of the road as he was riding on his motorcade into the Chicago Loop. William Greer had been assigned to be JFK’s limousine driver; Greer would receive the same assignment three weeks later in Dallas. One of the agents who heard the news was the first African American Secret Service agent to serve at the White House Detail – Abraham Bolden. Bolden would pay dearly for his knowledge. [ 43 ]

The Secret Service also received a second tip that the ex-serviceman Vallee had threatened to kill Kennedy. Vallee was picked up by two Chicago police officers after hours of surveillance, under the pretense of an improper turn signal, just two hours before Kennedy’s arrival at O’Hare Airport. The four-man sniper team was never captured, but JFK’s people had got the word and his trip was cancelled.[ 44 ] Richard Cain was outrageous enough to position himself as “deeply involved” in the JFK assassination investigation in the days following November 22. Was Cain involved in the Chicago attempt?

JFK had a speaking engagement in Tampa on November 18, just four days before his Dallas trip. The authorities were alerted about an Tampa FPCC member named Gilberto Policarpo Lopez, a Cuban national with an American wife. The story is that Jim Angleton always believed that Policarpo may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination. Policarpo was reportedly in Dallas on November 22, was in Mexico by the 23rd, and within a week had returned to Cuba. Whether Jim Angleton ever figured it out - or knew all too much about it - FPCC member Policarpo was almost certainly being set up as a possible fallguy if JFK was killed in Florida.

JFK had a speaking engagement in Miami on the same date as Tampa – days after the assassination, the authorities were alerted by Anita Potocki about Santiago Garriga (AMKNOB-1), who had just started a Miami FPCC chapter the previous month. Harvey’s people may have been trying to set up Garriga as an alternate patsy.

In the days after the events in Dallas, the Chicago field office of the Secret Service received some tips about Homer Echevarria, a Cuban exile who had threatened Kennedy on the day before the assassination. Despite an investigation, no action was taken by the field office against Echevarria. This did not go unnoticed by Abraham Bolden, the first African American Secret Service officer to serve at the White House. Bolden had earned that honor by being personally singled out by JFK. He had become friends with the President and his family, and he was very loyal.

After learning that someone flashing Secret Service credentials at the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza immediately after the shooting to officer Joe Marshall Smith had been allowed to proceed on his way unchallenged, although no agents were on the scene, Bolden concluded that the White House detail’s protection of the President “was a complete sham. The detail was an unhealthy conglomeration of cocky senior agents, few of whom showed much respect for Kennedy, and inexperienced probationary agents and trainees who may or may not have fully understood the gravity of their assignment…I suspected the responsible parties set up the agents on the president’s protection detail by exploiting their reputed weaknesses for women and booze. Somehow, I theorized, they had managed to get the identification of one of those agents…

I firmly believed that the officer who confronted the unknown suspect behind the picket fence immediately after the assassination was indeed shown an authentic Secret Service commission book, the book that had been lost by, or taken from, an alcohol-impaired agent the night before. Further, I was convinced that the Secret Service leadership acted to conceal or at least obfuscate this facts by providing new commission books for all the agents in the Service. The Service has, of course, publicly denied this. Finally, it seems an inescapable conclusion that high officials in the U.S. government…have concealed or altered supporting evidence (about the assassination).” [ 45 ]

On May 17, 1964, while in Washington DC, Bolden attempted to report to counsel J. Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission his knowledge about the Secret Service’s drinking on duty on the night before the events in Dallas, as well as the Chicago and Tampa attempts. The next day, Bolden was arrested on a phony bribery charge and wound up in prison until 1969. [ 46 ]

In the days after the assassination, the Secret Service and the Dallas police took possession of a set of metal file cabinets of “Cuban sympathizers” from the home where the Oswald family was staying. Those file cabinets have never been seen again. In 1995, the ARRB asked the Secret Service to provide the presidential protection survey reports for some of JFK’s trips during the fall of 1963, as well as the FPCC file and reports of threats to JFK in Dallas. The response of the Secret Service was to destroy all of these records.

When everything is put together, the conduct of Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman and William Greer is very troubling

Given this background, I am very troubled by the conduct of Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman and William Greer, who rode in the front seat of the presidential limousine on November 22. I don’t like accusing anyone without strong and telling evidence, and this is an instance where no one item of evidence will tell the story. Given that four million pages were released in the late nineties, and Palamara's eighty Secret Service interviews have been conducted only since the eighties, the role of the Secret Service has to be reviewed as if it was the first time.

When Palamara reported that the tall buildings were not checked in Dallas - which violated the Secret Service guideline that mandated inspection whenever the motorcade route was one that had been used in the past, as was the case here - the hairs went up on the back of my neck. U. E. Baughman, the former chief of the Secret Service referred to this as a rigid rule.

After reviewing the various roles they have played, I believe that Greer and Kellerman deserve close scrutiny. Although I am not an expert on this aspect of the case, Vince Palamara has studied the Secret Service for many years. Although Palamara describes himself as a great admirer of the Secret Service, he considers Greer to be a prime suspect. For the reasons set forth below, I am concerned about several Secret Service officers, including Greer and Kellerman.

The way to stop an assassination attempt is to immediately protect the body of the President, like Agent Rufus Youngblood who hurled his body on top of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Many assassination cases involve a breakdown in security, and this case is no exception.

Just look at the Zapruder film. Greer was JFK’s driver. Greer was trained to accelerate and swerve if the President was in danger, but he did just the opposite. The consensus of 59 witnesses indicates that Greer slowed down the limousine after the first shot was fired, and that Greer accelerated after he looked back twice at the President and the last shots were fired.

The best witness of all was Jackie Kennedy. She said that Greer had not acted during the crucial moment, that he might just as well have been Miss Shaw” (the children’s nanny), and if Greer had hit the gas “Jack might still be alive.” Greer’s son indicated that his father was one of those people who had no respect for John F. Kennedy. Greer was a servant for JFK’s rival Henry Cabot Lodge for many years, and was a Northern Irish Protestant in an era where the Protestant-Catholic hatred was palpable. When Greer’s son was asked “what did your father think of JFK?”, the son was silent. When the question was repeated, Greer responded: “Well, we’re Methodists ... and JFK was Catholic.”

Roy Kellerman was the assistant special agent in charge of security, the Secret Service's #3 man for the White House Detail and the agency's official in charge of the entire Texas journey. Although the Warren Report stated that Kellerman sent a tentative schedule for the trip on November 8, Kellerman claimed that he was not even informed of the assignment until November 17. On the 22nd, Kellerman was in the front seat, while William Greer drove the limousine.

The Secret Service informaed the Warren Commission that there were “two general principles in emergencies involving the President. All agents are so instructed.” The first principle was to shield JFK with his body at the first sign of danger. Kellerman barely moved a muscle during the seven seconds of shooting. The second principle was to “remove the President as quickly as possible from known or impending danger.” Only after the fatal head shot seven seconds later did Greer hit the accelerator. Why?

Kellerman admitted that Connally’s position between him and the President did not present a serious obstacle. Greer was reduced to telling Jackie Kennedy how sorry he was that he never swerved the car. Granted, even trained agents can freeze in a confusing situation such as this ambush. It is also well-documented that a number of Secret Service agents had been drinking in the early morning hours before the assassination. But there are more problems.

Gerald Blaine, the author of the popular book The Kennedy Detail, bases much of his story on the claim by Kellerman's advance man Winston Lawson that JFK asked the Secret Service agents to not ride along on the rear of the limousine so that he could more easily engage with the public. Researcher Vince Palamara has collected statements from more than twenty Secret Service agents saying that Kennedy never said anything of the kind.

When Kellerman heard the first shot, he claimed that he told Greer to accelerate and that Greer immediately did so before a “flurry of shots” were fired. A complete lie. After the first shot, Kellerman froze and never even tried to shield the President with his body for the next seven seconds. The kill shots then took JFK’s life. Greer looked back at JFK twice and slowed down the limousine before the kill shots. Only after those shots did Greer step on the accelerator.

Again, the failure of these two agents is not enough to indict them. However, Kellerman and Greer have consistently muddied the waters. The men told some people that the shooter was a lone gunman, while telling others that there was “more to the assassination than what was officially pronounced”. Kellerman insisted to the Warren Commission that there were more than three shots, and then abruptly changed direction in the middle of his testimony and said there were only three shots. The two men baffled anyone who tried to analyze their actions on that fateful day.

Kellerman also led the charge to prevent the Dallas coroner Earl Rose from conducting any kind of autopsy of the President. Kellerman’s play was fully backed by White House medical officer George Burkley, who did his best to control the autopsy later on. When Rose protested that moving the President would break the chain of evidence in the hour after the assassination, Kellerman drew his gun on Rose. At a minimum, a battery of photographs could have been easily taken. Kellerman and his Secret Service colleagues took not only the President’s body, but the second-most important evidentiary item - the limousine, filled with loose and unphotographed bullet fragments and organic matter that was not properly protected.

Although Kellerman was with JFK's body for many hours after the assassination, he denied seeing any wounds that emanated from the front or ever believing that the shots came from the front. Patrolman Hurchel Jacks saw an entrance wound over the President’s right ear or near the temple as he was removed from the limousine. Dr. Robert McClelland, a trauma surgeon at Parkland, has said publicly for many years, “I think he was shot from the front…I think that the rifle bullet hit him in the side of the head and blew out the back of his head.”[ 47 ] Parkland neurosurgeon Robert Grossman and trauma surgeon Charles Crenshaw also concluded that at least one head shot came from the front. In the moment announcing JFK’s death, press secretary Malcolm Kilduff said that it was his understanding that the cause of death was a bullet entering the right temple, and that he was relying on White House medical officer Dr. George Burkley. These conclusions are backed up by the twenty-one officers who reported shots emanating from the front of the motorcade.

Kellerman went so far as to tell FBI agents Sibert and O’Neill on 11/22/63 that JFK had said “take me to a hospital” immediately after he had been shot in the neck. Kellerman denied saying such a thing, changing the quote to “My God, I am hit” five days later. No one else heard JFK say anything after the first shot. An FBI supervisor told Alan Belmont that Kellerman “had decided to paint the most favorable picture possible, under the circumstances, for the Secret Service.”

Strange conduct at the autopsy

Kellerman and Greer parked themselves right in the middle of the autopsy room, where the pathologists on the scene were intimidated into conducting what has been called a controlled autopsy. Who was leaning on the pathologists James Humes, Thornton Boswell, and Pierre Finck? Kellerman himself? Other Secret Service agents? The FBI? Or the doctors’ superiors? And was it planned before the assassination, rather than an after-the-fact reaction?

I would say Kellerman was doing some leaning, and that he had some help from White House doctor Burkley. Although we don’t agree on Kellerman, I am indebted to my friend Larry Hancock for his observations about the autopsy - and especially his observation that Burkley was answering to Lyndon Johnson, and not the Kennedy family. Kellerman offered his admittedly-uninformed opinions about the location of the bullet in the back to wounds specialist Dr. Pierre Finck, who had two good eyes, many years of expertise, and didn’t need Kellerman’s help. Kellerman inaccurately referred to it as a wound to the “shoulder”. Kellerman admitted in 1977 that Secret Service agent Richard Johnsen had told him at Parkland that he had received a near-pristine “magic bullet”, purportedly found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. This is a far different story than Kellerman told the Warren Commission. Kellerman said in 1964 that he didn't know about the bullet until Chief Rowley called him at 9 pm during the autopsy. Why did Kellerman lie in 1964? I think it was because Kellerman did not want to give the impression that he was interfering with the autopsy in any way. But Kellerman did interfere. Kellerman “suggested” to Finck - and Dr. Humes thereafter assumed - that the stretcher bullet would account for the back wound. This was the only bullet that matched the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor. The magic bullet looked most like the bullets that had been shot through cotton wadding.

Since the wallet has been positively identified as planted evidence by agent Barrett, isn’t it logical to assume that there is a lot more?

In other words, this bullet looks like a plant, fired through the thrown-down Mannlicher-Carcano before the events at Dealey Plaza, designed to bring down Oswald. Perpetrators plant evidence in order to get away with their operation. When you come across planted evidence, you are coming across some of the most important evidence imaginable.

When FBI agent Barrett went public last November and accused Paul Bentley of lying about finding the wallet in Oswald’s pocket, that was an enormous break in the JFK case. If a Dallas police officer would plant evidence on an accused assassin less than two hours after the President was killed and less than an hour after a police officer has been killed, it is fair to assume that other evidence has been planted as well. Why would someone stop with planting just one piece of evidence?

Barrett condoned Bentley’s lie in his official report by saying that too many officers handled the crucial piece of evidence at the shooting scene, which had identification for both Oswald and the supposed FPCC head “Alex Hidell”. Incredibly, the reporter refers to the wallet as “the first hard evidence placing Oswald there on that day”. Actually, it’s strong proof of the planting of evidence. Why would Oswald shoot the cop dead, complete with a coup de grace to the head, and then leave on the ground the wallet that he had given the cop just seconds earlier? Anyone with any sense of self-preservation would not do that. Oswald may or may not have had a wallet on him when he was arrested, but no other wallet had the “Alex Hidell” Selective Service card identification in it that the Dallas police confronted him with during interrogation.

The history of the magic bullet indicates a plan to frame Oswald

Now that we’ve reviewed the history of Oswald’s wallet, let’s look at the history of the magic bullet. This amazing story has been carefully pieced together by analysts such as Sylvia Meagher in the sixties and John Hunt in the last few years. Johnsen’s initials are nowhere on the magic bullet, despite regulations mandating Secret Service agents to initial forensic evidence. Johnsen handed it to his chief James Rowley at Andrews Air Force Base, who didn’t initial it either. Neither Johnsen nor Rowley could identify it when shown it later. The positive ID was finally made by FBI agent Elmer Todd, who swore that he initialed the bullet - but his initials are not on it either. Todd has a written receipt from Rowley dated at 8:50 pm, which doesn’t jibe with the FBI lab’s claim that Todd delivered it to them by 7:30 pm!

Neither of the Secret Service officers
who handled "the magic bullet"
initialed it, nor could they later
identify it.

Johnsen was given the bullet by Parkland hospital security director O.P. Wright, after orderly Darrell Tomlinson found it by a stretcher. Like Johnsen and Rowley, neither Wright nor Tomlinson could identify the bullet. In a 1967 Josiah Thompson interview, Wright was described as a professional law enforcement officer with “an educated eye for bullet shapes”. Wright told Thompson that the bullet looked like a 30-30 round and had a pointed tip, not a blunt tip like the 6.5 mm magic bullet. It looks like someone originally planted a 30-30 bullet on or near a stretcher before the bullet was found some time between 1:30 and 1:45 pm, in an effort to align the evidence with the Dallas police dispatcher's report at 12:44 pm that the 5 foot,165 pound shooter used a 30-30 or some type of Winchester. (30-30 ammo has been used in Winchesters since the 19th Century.)

Many years after Thompson’s interview with Wright, a FBI memo was found which said that both Wright and Tomlinson thought that the bullet in evidence “appeared to be” the same one that they had seen on November 22. Thompson and his colleague Gary Aguilar sought out the memo's author, FBI agent Bardwell Odum, and interviewed him about this contradictory evidence in 2002. Incredibly, Odum said that he never had possession of the magic bullet. Odum added that even though it was highly unlikely that he forgot such a significant event, the established procedure was to write up a report about something that important. No such memo has been found in the Archives, despite numerous searches. The use of Odum’s identity is another astonishing piece of fabricated evidence.

If someone planted a 30-30 bullet by a stretcher minutes after the shooting, this indicates a plan that pre-existed the assassination. It also means that an actual switch with the magic bullet was made when someone decided that a bullet fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano was needed to tighten the chain of evidence incriminating Oswald. [ 48 ] This decision may have been made after Oswald emerged from the Texas Theatre alive. The Mannlicher-Carcano was not revealed as the murder weapon to the public until 11:45 pm on the 22nd, allowing for plenty of time for switching the blunt tip 6.5 magic bullet in place of the pointed tip 30-30 bullet...and well after the reported time that Johnsen, Rowley, and Todd had custody of the bullet. Given that the magic bullet supposedly went through both men seven times with little sign of damage – and left more metal in Connally than was missing from the bullet – the evidence is very strong that this was a planted bullet. This is not a cover-up. This is a frame-up.

Dr. Finck said that one of the higher-ups ordered the autopsy doctors not to dissect either the back or the throat wounds. Nonetheless, medical technician Paul O’Connor said that all the doctors knew full well that the back wound did not exit from Kennedy’s throat. They were later able to figure out that the track of the bullet ended at the President’s ribs when the body was eviscerated.

Kellerman said the doctors never examined the throat wound, based on the order of hospital commander Admiral Calvin Galloway. Medical technician Paul O’Connor said that Galloway told them, “Leave it alone. Don’t touch it. It’s just a tracheotomy”. O’Connor’s account of Galloway ordering no probes of the throat wound was corroborated by his colleague James Jenkins. Pathologist Pierre Finck also blamed Galloway, claiming without corroboration that he was passing on the wishes of the Kennedy family. Dr. Thornton Boswell said that they did know about the throat wound even though it was obscured by the tracheotomy. In contrast, Dr. James Humes said that they had no idea that there was a throat wound until the next morning when it was too late to dissect it.

Dr. Robert Livingston, the scientific director for two of the National Institutes of Health, sought out Humes by telephone after he heard media reports about the throat injury. Livingston told Humes all about the throat wound during the afternoon of the 22nd, until he was cut off by “an FBI agent” at the very moment that he told Humes that a frontal throat wound would mean that there was more than one gunman. Livingston was a recognized expert in the field, and should have been treated with far greater respect. More importantly, Livingston’s statements label Humes’ claim that he didn’t know about the throat injury until the 23rd as a flat-out lie. Commander Galloway stated that JFK was hit by only two bullets, both of them from the rear. Galloway would never address the throat evidence. Who got to Galloway?

The Kennedy family didn't realize that the autopsy records would be the center of controversy

On the head wounds, the best thinking is that there were at least two, one entering from the front and one from the back. Although the three pathologists backed each other up and denied the front head shot, the two technicians and others in Bethesda had no problem seeing these wounds. James Jenkins, one of the medical technicians at Bethesda, saw a gray substance over the right ear which he concluded was an entry wound caused by a bullet fragment. The other medical technician in Bethesda, Paul O’Connor, believed the bullet came in from the front right. The mortician Tom Robinson saw a small hole in the President’s temple. This jibes with FBI’s Alan Belmont report of a finding that a bullet was lodged behind the right ear. (See Chapter 6). Virtually everyone in Dallas and Bethesda saw the right rear of the President’s head blown out, which is strong evidence of an exit wound. The pathologists also saw a small entry wound at the base of the rear skull.

In any normal case, this evidence would be central. Why did Kellerman take possession of the autopsy photographs, the unprocessed negatives and the X-Rays during the night of the autopsy? What legal authority did Kellerman have to possess these materials and then turn them over to Robert L. Bouck, the head of the Protective Research Service of the Secret Service? Even though White House doctor Burkley retained titular control, this evidence should have been held by the naval hospital or the District Attorney.

It looks like they were the scene of an internal power struggle. The Secret Service did have an investigation going, but they had little right to these records at all. Nor did the Kennedy family, but an FBI official claimed that RFK used his powers as attorney general to sequester them with Bouck. Was there some kind of compromise? Initially, the Kennedy family had no idea how controversial the autopsy records would become. It’s understandable that the Kennedy family wanted the autopsy records away from the mass media, and that they made arrangements for these materials to be turned over to JFK’s secretary Evelyn Lincoln in 1965. Earl Warren said he didn’t want the autopsy records public because he wanted to avoid a “carnival”, and that he and the Kennedy family were satisfied with the pathologists’ testimony.

There’s no real doubt about where the Kennedy family stood on the causes of the assassination. Both RFK and Jackie felt that the assassination was a domestic operation, and sent an emissary to tell the Soviets that within a week of the assassination. RFK said on the campaign trail that only when he had the powers of the presidency would he be able to adequately investigate his brother’s death. Unfortunately, that day never came.

Elmer Moore of the White House Secret Service detail admitted to a researcher that it was a shame that Jack Kennedy had died, but that he was a “traitor” for giving things away to the Russians. Moore also admitted that he was the one who had badgered Dr. Malcolm Perry into changing his testimony to say that there was no entrance wound in the front of the President’s neck. A 1963 news headline affirmed that “After Visit by Agents, Doctors Say Shot was from Rear”. Four other agents expressed “dismay” over Kennedy’s dalliances with women, which they were often forced to cover up. Kellerman, Greer, and their colleagues have earned withering scrutiny.

Both RFK and Jackie felt that the assassination was a domestic operation,
and sent an emissary to tell the Soviets that within a week of the assassination.

Two Dallas police officers and a colleague should also be considered prime suspects

Two Dallas police officers and a colleague should also be considered prime suspects. The planners couldn’t run this operation without friends inside the Dallas police who had access to the evidence.

One of them is Captain “Pinky” Westbrook, who was at the scene of the Tippit slaying and the Texas Theatre. I have a few problems with Westbrook. He was a personnel officer in charge of internal investigations. Westbrook had access to all of the police officers' internal files. Such a person has a lot of power. He would know who could be recruited to do a job, as well as who could be pressured to be quiet. Also, Westbrook generally wore no uniform. No one has ever offered a satisfactory explanation why Westbrook was out in the field at all that day, much less how he suddenly appears at the Tippit crime scene. More importantly, there is no explanation for his handling of Oswald’s wallet. He wrote no report explaining how he received the wallet from Officer Kenneth Croy, who received it from “an unknown man”.

Westbrook goes on to become the man in charge of the arrest scene at the Texas Theatre. As discussed in Chapter 6, a videotape shows that the wallet was in Westbrook’s possession at the Tippit crime scene. Then it disappeared until it reappears in Oswald’s pants pocket after his capture, where it was supposedly found again by suspect #2, polygraph chief Paul Bentley.

This funny business with the wallet is part of the set-up of the Kennedy assassination. No explanation was ever provided for the mysterious presence of the wallet at the Tippit crime scene for more than thirty years. My reading of the evidence is that Westbrook passed the wallet to Bentley, who then pretended to find it in Oswald’s pocket. The other cops who saw the wallet at the Tippit crime scene knew it was a problem and conveniently forgot all about it. Westbrook also lost the list of theater patrons who were present at Oswald’s arrest. Some of the patrons who have been found have provided some of the best evidence that Oswald was in the theater by 1:15 or so. Researcher John Armstrong reports that Westbrook took early retirement by 1966 and was working with the secret police in South Vietnam.[ 49 ] Most big city departments have a liaison officer with federal intelligence – was Westbrook that man?

Besides Westbrook and Bentley, one other suspect is affiliated with the Dallas police - Tippit’s close friend Carl Mather. Mather did high-security communications work for Collins Radio, a major contractor for the CIA. Researcher Jones Harris conducted interviews and learned that Mather and Tippit were on the phone together during the morning of November 22. At about 2 pm, a man later identified as Oswald was spotted in a car eight blocks from the Texas Theatre. (The problem, of course, is that Oswald was already in custody.) Fearing that the driver was about to conduct a robbery, a mechanic named T. F. White took down the license plate. When White saw Oswald on television later, he spoke to Dallas newscaster (and future mayor) Wes Wise and gave him the license plate number. When Wise ran a make on the number, it turned out that the license plate belonged to Mather.[ 50 ]

There’s more. After Tippit was killed, Mather and his children went to Mrs. Tippit’s home to comfort her, while Mather’s wife stayed at home. It’s unusual to see a man adopt the caregiver role in this moment of grief. Carl Mather knew that Marie Tippit had to be handled very carefully.[ 51 ] Fifteen years later, Mather was finally questioned by an HSCA investigator, but only after he received a grant of immunity. Mather still couldn’t explain why the Oswald-like character was driving a red car, because he didn’t own one. But the red car had Mather’s license plates.

One final suspicious event revolves around Wesley Buell Frazier, the only Oswald acquaintance who was arrested in Dallas on November 22, and how chief polygraph examiner Paul Bentley claimed to know nothing about him. Bentley was the man at the Texas Theatre arrest scene who lied about taking Oswald’s wallet from his back pocket. Frazier sometimes gave Oswald a ride to or from work, and drove him to work that morning. Frazier was the only man to claim that Oswald had carried “curtain rods” in a bag to the Texas School Book Depository. Frazier owned a British Enfield 303, a rifle mysteriously identified by NBC as the murder weapon on November 22 before the story settled around the Mannlicher-Carcano. At about 6:45 pm, Frazier was arrested and picked up for questioning by the Dallas police. Was Frazier being set up as a possible patsy? One pristine Enfield 303 bullet on a stretcher would have done the job.

Frazier was taken into custody right after Oswald had vehemently denied Frazier’s curtain rod story during interrogation. Oswald said the only package he carried to work was his bag lunch, containing cheese, bread, fruit and apples. An FBI report shows that Frazier was given a polygraph at about midnight by R.D. Lewis, the other examiner for the police department, and was then released. We do know that Frazier stated that he did not think that the paper bag found by the police was what Oswald used to carry his curtain rods. As Frazier and his sister were the only ones who ever saw Oswald carrying any kind of brown paper package, and as Frazier by far had the best look, the handmade paper bag “found” at the book depository could not be used as evidence. Several members of the Dallas police methodically lied about knowing about the “phantom polygraph” even though it was a matter of public record.

A voice stress analysis conducted by George O’Toole, a former chief of the CIA’s Problems Analysis Branch, showed chief polygraph examiner Paul Bentley lying about not knowing that Frazier was polygraphed. Even if you don’t accept voice stress analysis, it’s impossible to believe that Bentley would forget such a significant incident. Why would Bentley lie about this polygraph, even when someone else actually conducted it? The man who conducted the polygraph, R. D. Lewis, claimed he couldn’t remember it either. As stated in the FBI report, “the Dallas Police Department (was) of the opinion the brown, heavy paper was used by Oswald to carry the rifle into the building where he was working.” The results of Frazier’s polygraph killed that theory. Bentley wanted to see Oswald go down.[ 52 ] As mentioned in Chapter 6, even FBI agent Barrett has now labeled Bentley as a liar.

A review of the lead planners

Let’s review the lead players in this sketch of an assassination plan with a short list of probable participants. The stories of Morales, Roselli, Martino, Simmons and Cain would explain why SAS, JMWAVE and FBI’s Nationalities Intelligence were kept out of the assassination investigation. These agencies knew the Cuban side of the story. This would explain why Sforza, Charles Anderson and the AMOTs were given the only known assassination investigation tasks in Miami – they would ensure that it would go nowhere.

Helms, Angleton and Hoover were united around one central theme – cover-up to preserve their agencies and their reputations. They were extremely worried about what they might find among the shadow intelligence network that was run by Morales, with military intelligence, the AMOTs, the AMCHEERs, the AMFASTs. As we have seen throughout this book, these three men were the ones who had most of the evidence in their lap. Everyone else could only see very small parts of the proverbial elephant. These men and all other hands would be forced to participate in the cover-up to save their careers and their agencies from going under. The role of Phillips and Scott – were they conspirators, or mere cover-up artists? – is an intriguing discussion for another day. For some reason, Phillips gave Morales’ name to author David Martin as a source when Martin was writing his biography of Angleton and Harvey, the brilliant Wilderness of Mirrors. You can imagine how mad Morales was at Phillips when he found this out.

Was Bill Harvey the mastermind behind Morales, or a lost soldier to be avenged? What I can say is the evidence on Harvey and his allies near the end drove me to think much harder about him than I had before.

I think this is what happened, or something close to it – while the Angleton-Egerter-Scott-Phillips-Goodpasture crowd was conducting molehunts around a confused adventurer like Oswald, the friends of the Morales-Roselli-Martino axis at SAS and JMWAVE used trusted sources within the AMOT shadow intelligence network to hijack Angleton’s Oswald legend and commit the ultimate act of extortion.

If the CIA had tried to solve the JFK assassination, JMWAVE, SAS, the Mexico City station, Angleton’s own CI division, and top officials like Dick Helms at Headquarters would have been tarred with a broad brush. Angleton’s team had carefully watched Oswald for several years. Mexico City and Helms had used Oswald’s file in the molehunt operation during October of 1963. JMWAVE and SAS were up to their ears in Castro assassination plots, which any reasonable person would assume might have backfired against them.

Whether or not Angleton was in on a plan to kill JFK, he was foisted with the job of having to cover up the murder of President Kennedy. It looks like Angleton himself got played as a patsy. He knew - in the most intimate ways possible - the impact of this terrible event on the world. Angleton, not Oswald, became a thoroughly unstable person. By all accounts, Angleton’s increasingly erratic behavior after 1963 made it virtually impossible for the CIA to conduct a counterintelligence program against the Soviets for many years. Angleton could no longer take the offense against the Soviets. He would reject their defectors as unworthy or double agents. He hunkered into a defensive mode, and wound up constantly accusing his own men as Soviet traitors. As mentioned earlier, Congress was forced to pass what was informally known as the “Mole Relief Act” to compensate all the agents whose careers were destroyed by unfair charges. Angleton tore the Agency apart.

Conclusion

I want to start this wrap-up with a caveat. Reasonable people disagree about whether a group of people conducted the assassination or whether Oswald acted alone. Most people do not have the time to investigate this case in depth. I find that when people engage in a serious investigation, they are shocked by the state of the evidence. That is why I don’t get mad or discouraged when casual observers don’t accept my analysis of the assassination. I am confident that the facts are continuing to come out. For example, I am convinced that the impersonation of Oswald is a historical fact, but I do understand why people who are unfamiliar with the evidence refuse to draw the same conclusion.

The molehunt remains a theory. Further analysis is required to see if it holds up to scrutiny. If insiders like Morales spurred on the molehunt – or if they simply knew about it - they had great material to use for blackmailing the CIA and FBI. And even if the molehunt didn’t happen – which I find very hard to believe - take it one more step. By having Lee Oswald as the sole suspect, just the possibility of being forced to expose the role of the wiretapping in Mexico City to the world was great blackmail material. How about being forced to expose the photosurveillance? Revealing to the entire world CI/SIG’s key role in conducting in-house investigations of the CIA itself? How Harvey and his people at Staff D did second-story jobs around the world to crack codes and set up taps for the NSA? Remember how Warren Report author Alfred Goldberg said that Earl Warren’s caution that some files would only be revealed “not in your lifetime” was “precisely” a reference to the work of the NSA.[ 53 ]

Any one of these things alone was a major barrier to a reasonable investigation. When all these obstacles are put together, the cover-up was the only possible result. Oswald was a great person to frame, because all of these tender spots came immediately into play.

Once the background is understood, this is not a complicated analysis. The czars of counterintelligence had created a complicated legend around Oswald. When the assassination happened, huge areas of terrain were deemed too sensitive to investigate. This terrain included the impersonation of Oswald, the September 28 and October 1 phone calls, the documented travel of David Phillips, the ensuing molehunt set forth in the October 8 memo and the twin memos of October 10, and the tale of the tapes. It also included the Castro assassination plots, the Cubela story, the FPCC, and just about anything to do with double agents or Cuba.

There is no way to justify these mighty agencies folding their arms and refusing to look at the role of the pro-Castro Cubans, much less the angry and belligerent anti-Castro underground. The top intelligence chiefs such as Ted Shackley at JMWAVE and Ray Wannall and Richard Cotter at the FBI testified at great length that they believed or were told that there was no need for them to get involved.

When the accusations began that the Agency had a
role in JFK’s death, it’s no accident that the
pseudonym used by the CIA to refer to itself
switched to JKLANCE.

The JFK story has always resonated for the Agency. Interviews with CIA officers reveal the deep emotions running during those times. Many of them liked JFK, while many others hated him. The pseudonym for JFK used by the Secret Service was Lancer – he was the knight on a white horse. When the accusations began that the Agency had a role in JFK’s death, it’s no accident that the pseudonym used by the CIA to refer to itself switched to JKLANCE. At a minimum, the CIA chiefs knew that the JFK assassination did not receive an adequate investigation.

What will it mean when the impersonation of Oswald is accepted as a historical fact? That day is rapidly approaching. It’s a reasonable corollary to the Mexico City tapes surviving the assassination, which has finally been accepted by most historians after decades of denial. If the impersonation is accepted, that leads to the conclusion that the CIA knew Oswald was impersonated before the assassination, with everything that implies.

It leads to a second conclusion: Forces in the CIA made sure that the post-assassination investigation covered up the existence of the tapes, which made a meaningful investigation impossible.

The third conclusion? Forces in the CIA covered up the impersonation because of their fear that the killing of John F. Kennedy was an inside job, done with the assistance of CIA officers who knew what action to take to make sure that the assassins got away with it.

In my opinion, we already have enough facts to embrace these conclusions as true. We will continue to learn a lot more as we analyze the existing documents and new documents are released. The watchdog group OMB Watch issued a report in 2002 saying an ARRB employee reported that "well over a million CIA records" related to JFK's assassination remain outstanding. That number doesn't include FBI, Secret Service, Naval Intelligence and other records.

We know virtually nothing about the history of military intelligence in the United States; it should be no surprise that these agencies provided very few documents. While the FBI and CIA provided hundreds of thousands of documents to the ARRB, the NSA provided less than 400. We are only gradually learning how the NSA built the surveillance state in America since World War II, with the JFK case providing a bird's eye view into this story.

Although we should keep fighting hard for the rest of the documents, it’s just as important that we read and analyze the ones we have. It's the right time to put together a counter-narrative. We need a process to break down the evidentiary facts that we can easily agree on – based on the documents themselves. Compared to acoustics, firearms, blood spatter, motion studies, and a host of other technical subjects, document analysis is a snap.

I’ve always liked Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, and I’ll tell you why. To defeat a myth, you need a better story. I believe in the power of the story. If you don’t have a story, you’re going to get beat. After many years, we finally have most of the documents. For many years, the researchers were trapped with few documents and were working in the dark. That’s why it’s taken so long. We have been methodically kept in the dark. It wasn’t the fault of the American people. But if we continue to stay in the dark, we will have to blame ourselves.

The surviving SAS officers, Nationalities Intelligence officers, CI/SIG officers, and others described in this manuscript – and there are a surprising number of them still alive - should be permanently relieved of their oaths re the JFK case and asked many more questions. Ever since 1963, these officers have been forced to honor their oaths except on very specific circumstances when they are questioned during a congressional inquiry.

Similarly, the informants in this case should be exposed to the sunlight while they are still able to be questioned. How can we expect to get to the truth of many of these events when the informants continue to be hidden by the government? People like LITAMIL-9 and Victor Vicente can answer thousands of questions about such operations as the LIENVOY wiretaps in Mexico City and the FPCC break-ins in New York City, and they are almost certainly still alive.

Like in the nineties, it’s time to return the power to subpoena statements and documents to an independent board of citizens. We can do this by passing a new version of the 1992 JFK Records Act, which the courts have refused to enforce since the Assassinations Records Review Board shuttered its doors in 1998. I ask all readers to review and comment on this proposal, which I will circulate. New board members, historians chosen by the executive branch, can interview the remaining witnesses before their deaths and ensure continued compliance by agencies and individuals with the 1992 legislation. This model can be used in other cold cases. This is the path to restore the world’s history to the people themselves. There is no reason to hide the documents in these cases from the light of day.

With the release of the documents, the American public has now a better place to view the mechanics of this tragedy than even Angleton, Helms and Hoover had in their prime. No one ever imagined that these documents would reach the public, much less be scanned and cross-indexed on the Internet. These documents are filled with stunning revelations. Much of the reason for this book was to let others know how much new information is at our fingertips.

Illuminating the dark fields of the republic

Many people have resigned themselves to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s vision of the future. Author H. Lloyd Goodell notes that The Great Gatsby came into fashion after World War II as a codebook to the Cold War.

And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further.... And one fine morning----

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past…

As a friend of Fitzgerald told him, "Living well is the best revenge." All of us have the power to change the outcome of the JFK story, and many other stories like it. One researcher has described the JFK case as “a jigsaw puzzle the size of a football field.” As far back as in 1967, David Lifton and other researchers had big parts of the puzzle put together in publications such as Ramparts. Large sections of the story now fit into place, as the JFK Act has enabled ordinary citizens to actually read the files. There’s no reason to reduce it to a series of frightening freeze-frames and arid cliches. Powerful changes result from a people asking never-imagined questions, taking a long, unblinking look at themselves, and absorbing valuable and important truths at the end of the journey. The JFK case is history in the making.

I believe that the impersonation of Oswald is a historical fact that has brought us to a critical turning point in the investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We can now turn our collective attention to who impersonated Oswald and why. This is a key to actually resolving the question of the assassination itself. I have offered my findings on it, like others in the past – now is the time to analyze these findings and move the discussion forward.

Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple, addresses what we face with no small eloquence: “Only justice will stop a curse.” This case will haunt America and the world unless and until we resolve it. There is no government agency or corporate benefactor that can do it all for us. It falls to each one of us to shoulder our share of the load on this case. Just as with the Sixties cases such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, and more recent cases such as Tupac Shakur. Just as with the history of lynchings, abuse of power, and wrongful convictions. Just as with the legacy of slavery and the wars waged on the original inhabitants who lived on this land. There is no other way. We can move together towards a morning that bathes light on the dark fields of the Republic.

This work is integral to all movements that build civil society in the United States and around the world. Assassinations are a heinous tool used to prevent individuals and movements from realizing their potential. Assassinations are designed to break the spirit of the people.

Do we want to maintain our integrity as a people? The only way is to stand shoulder to shoulder and get it done. Many champions fighting for social change have fallen to forces that avoid the light. The path to justice is to name those forces and to take decisive action.

NOTES

1 The principal author of the Warren Report, Alfred Goldberg, said that when Warren said that some secrets would only be revealed “not in your lifetime”, Warren was making a “precise” reference to the NSA: Tim Wray, Meeting Report, 1/30/96, re interview with Dr. Alfred Goldberg on 1/29/96, obtained from National Archives by Malcolm Blunt on 4/3/09. Document in Malcolm Blunt’s possession.

Wray met with Dr. Alfred Goldberg in his officer for approximately one hour. At the time of the Wray interview, Dr. Goldberg was the historian for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In 1963-4 he was on the staff of the Warren Commission. (He acknowledged that he wrote some of the Commission report and played a major role in editing the rest.)

2 As Cuba operations executive officer Sam Halpern told Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley, “the deceptiveness of Kennedy’s policy virtually justified extraconstitutional correction”: Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico (2008) p. 166.

3 In his book, Bagley makes it clear that he believes that Kostikov was a member of Department 13, responsible for sabotage and assassination: Tennent Bagley, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2007), p. 79.

4 There is a long and confusing paper trail about a Mexican operation with Morales, Sforza, and Phillips trying to help get double agent AMLEO-3’s wife out of Cuba during the last few days leading up to November 22:

Below, see background on AMLEO-3/Jose Ricardo Rabel and his story:

AMLEO-3 is the man that Phillips was working on helping his family getting out of Cuba at the same time that Sloman and Phillips were working on getting out AMCANOE-3 following his landing in Cuba in mid-1963. AMLEO-3 was the Director of Rural Housing in Cuba after Azcue left as Director to become the Cuban consul in Mexico City. His full name was Major Jose Ricardo Rabel Nunez (201-249386) He refused to work in place but was willing to defect.

Rabel defected in Dec 1962 and was recruited by JMWAVE. Interviewed at JMWAVE in Feb. 1963 re target personalities of interest to AMTRUNK. He was the brother of Luis Rabel, the New Orleans leader within the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC), who he worked with back in 1957 (in bio memo).

It’s hard to tell if this a wild goose chase story or not, so I’ll include it with hopes that someone else can untangle it.

Here is AMLEO-3's debriefing in March 1963, talking about the size of Viviendas Campesinas (Rural Housing), and actions taken after the Bay of Pigs to increase Cuba's security. He believed that if Castro was killed, the military would kill the Communists in a many-factioned civil war.

CIA researcher thought Rabel may have been a provocation agent sent by Castro to study American plans to assassinate Fidel.

Azcue is described in Dec. 1959 as the "former director" of the peasant housing program Vivendas Campesinas/Rural Housing as he left for Mexico City.

Rabel was chief of Viviendas Campesinas, (aka Rural Housing) appointed in Feb. 1960. Azcue's friend AMKNOB-1 also worked in this group (see Chapter 3).

Rabel’s uncle was Emilio Portunado Nunez, ex-Cuban ambassador under Batista - Rabel said he was the worst, and said he had no desire to see him when he defected in December 1962.

July 63, FitzGerald (aka Dainold) personally met with AMLEO-3. He said
we'll go all out to try to get your family into asylum - aim for Mexican embassy in Cuba. Was this real, or a double agent game using AMLEO-3's wife as a pigeon?

Rabel was used to pitch something in 1963, and also to check out leads for the AMTRUNK operation during July 1963.

One of Rabel’s leads led to the recruitment of Amtrunk-10 - Ramon Guin. Amleo-3 was so blue during August 1963 that Shackley sought him out on 9/8 to offer support.

In Sept. 63, there was discussion about having AMHALF-2 transport AMCANOE-3 into the Uruguayan embassy in Cuba, and then have the wife of AMHALF-2 try the same stunt with AMLEO-3's family in Mexico.

As of fall 63, Amleo-3 was a consultant in the MHAPRON program. MHAPRON was "penetration of the power centers and armed forces of the cuban regime, worldwide" (last page) 9/8/63. If amleo-3 were to re-defect it would be a disaster for the mhapron program.

In early Sept, Amleo-3's wife supposedly approached Fidel in the water at the beach in a chance meeting. The story is that she engaged him in conversation, found out Amleo-3 defected w one of fidel's ten special soviet pistols, thought she should give it back, CIA wasn't willing to part with it...

After this talk between Amleo-3's wife and Castro, Amleo-3 was morale at rock bottom and there was fear of a-3 re-defecting.

Helms sent a note on 9/23/63 to Alfonso Rodriguez asking him to keep in contact with Szulc so we know what they're doing.

10/30 memo says: "AMSAIL-1 gave memo from AMSUPER-1 to case officer night 28 October concerning commo with AMDAMP-3. Following summary: "Perez (subj ufga 8557) is close trusted friend of Amsuper-1." some time ago amdamp-3 asked REDACTED to be a letter drop for mail from Cuba, mail to appear as innocent love letters. told to send it to miami beach, fla (to amsail-1?) (Pedro Perez is agent used in past by Bernard Barker and others, see his work in 1960)

WAVE 7525 indicated need for maximum security for amleo-3 ("most desirable keep amleo3 out of sight given mexi situation)
WAVE c/o should be first out of customs, amleo-3 should be last out, c/o should look for staffer marvin a cabot (who worked frequently with lifires) known for this as "monty coolidge". MC will introduce two lifires (4 and5?) to wave c/o. amleo3 and lifires in one car, cabot and wave c/o in separate car. lifires will escort a3 from safehouse to desired spots.

On 11/15/63, memo was sent from Mexico City to director re traces on Pedro Pablo Perez, and how he was ok's in April 7 61 by AMSAIL-1 as a fine member of AMIRON active in mexi exile operations. Onetime traveling agent Remington Rand Nava.

"Station will await telephone confirmation from "James D. Magrane early morning Nov. 16. emergency contact is Mr. David Phillips home phone 26-96-24".

"MEXI can of course handle twenty four hour surveillance for reasonable period. Suggest this may not be continually necessary if station can provide safehouse to which c/o and Amleo-3 can move from Continental Hilton. Surveillance/protection can then be provided during any periods outside safehouse."

Here's one 11/16 memo, MEXI 6924: "Case officer and amleo-2 arrived on schedule and registered Hilton as planned. Under protective surveillance Marvin A. Cabot and LIFIRES from airport. A/3 apparently regards this as last chance and determined handle own way. While appreciative kubark assistance, appears will brook no interference his plans. Thus refused leave hotel for safehouse as wished avoid unusual actions which might prejudice success his mission, welcomes protection but not his escort for same reason. Best we can do under circumstances is keep LIFIRES near as possible in event trouble. No room for them in Hilton, but will billet in vasco de quiroga nearby. Only hope a/3 will alert them to time of meeting with Perez and not try slip out. Will stay as close to A/3 as situation and he permit.

"Have not informed LIFAGOT/1 hotel security officer as believe this could lead unforeseen complications view a/3 attitude. Attitude seems be one of firmness and determination not unreasoning anger...no money be passed without HQ approval...hold off further LITENSOR talks this time."

Nov. 16 - MEXI 6930 amleo-3 and sister talked, satisfied deal is on the level a- 3 and Pablo Perez talked late nov 16 - perez only middleman. Amleo-3 called REDACTED and asked for a meeting without clearing with c/o...may have blown things - no meeting will take place, station will see to that...

On Nov. 16, Amleo-3 is described as trusted not to redefect in this lengthy memo -
Choaden/Phillips and case officer decide that case officer and Amleo-3 should stay where they are at the Hilton in Mexico City The case officer is from WAVE, it could well be Sforza.

"(MEXI 6924) written after brief Choaden Hilbrake (Welbrake?) (Wildrake?) meet morning Nov. 16. Wish correct apparent misconception A-3 resistant guidance...as result above conversation c/o and Choaden decided A-3 would continue reside Hilton with LIFIRES residing at Hotel Vasco de Quiroga (five minute drive from Hilton) on 24 hour call under control of c/o.

"LIFIRES being used insure A-3 given full protection during critical periods when he meeting with Perez. amleo-3 not installed in safehouse since desire maintain some semblance cover story he? mexi independently with no odyoke (US) connections. Will move A-3 to safehouse with C/O, LIFIRES resident, if any indications danger from GOC (Govt of Cuba)."

Then there is a 11/16/63 meeting between Amleo-3 and Amleo-2 (his sister).
A-3 debriefs A-2 till 1700, then contacts case officer "and reported full details debriefing". A-2 told A-3 that (Mexican ambassador to Cuba) Bosques says he is willing to give asylum to a-3s wife and family. A-3 wife and A-3 both believe offer legit without any connection to cuban govt.

"a-2 able confirm general plan outlined ref g, but unable confirm or add details since she did not participate in meeting with Mrs. Bosques and wife. A-3 told her what basic elements plan were but refused supply details, names, etc.stating it better A-2 not know too much since she in process leaving Cuba and could be subject last minute interrogation or be refused permission depart by DIER.

"A-2 also noted A-3 wife confused re course action follow re asylum up until meet with Mrs. Bosques, but now feels offer legitimate if A-3 carries out his part of action (i.e. paying ransom) and will be glad after asylum."

"After talk with A-2, AMLEO-3 called Pedro Perez who informed A-3 everything fine and invited A-3 to party he going to. A-3 refused invitation party and told Perez he only desired discuss business at hand and wished consummate deal quickly as possible. Perez said arrangement would be for cash on delivery (payment to be made after wife in asylum) but that he did not have full details and would have to contact another individual (not named) who out of town and planned return mexi nov. 19. Perez said A-3 to contact him after 1800 hrs Nov. 18 by "wire?" and added after agreement reached between himelf and (illegible - p2 a2?) does not have to see unnamed party above) five to seven days would be needed send word into Bosques and asylum A-3 wife."

There was an Amleo-3 letter of 11/17/63 that caused great suspicion, it was delivered to Amleo-2's daughter in Miami and daughter didn't know the courier.
One aspect of the letter suggested that Amleo-3 pay some money, and he would see his family in a week. Another aspect of the letter suggested that amleo-3 should give back the pistol and offer to give back the plane to the Cubans at the UN.

CIA/MOB officer Paul Maggio writes: "We went thru the crack in the door.
We sent AMLEO-3 and a WAVE Case officer to Mexico. (Probably Sforza?)
AMLEO-3 contacts the cut-out who we learned was known to AMLEO-3 and an old friend. About the time AMLEO-3 and his case officer were en route to Mexico we learn that AMLEO-2 arrives Mexico from Cuba AMLEO-3 met with AMLEO-2 in Mexico and got the story from her about his family In my opinion, he may well have received work at this time from Fidel thru his sister AMLEO-2.
In any event, after making payment to the cut-out, amleo-3 and case officer return to Miami.”

A-3 then met with the cutout Pedro Perez to arrange ransom, payment on delivery only, after family in asylum. Perez told A-3 to contact him after 1800 hours on 11/18 for further details by phone.

Couldn't find any traces on "Pedro Perez Giron" - run by Maggio, Fitzgerald in the loop. But here's a memo to Pedro Perez back in Feb. 63. A Pedro Perez Fonte looks like Castro's aide-de-camp. Also see here.

They talked at 1815 and Perez and his contact agreed to meet at A-3s room at Hilton at 0900 on 11/19, b/c contact of Perez would
not arrive in Mexico City till late 11/18. LIFIRES and c/s will provide A-3 with cover during meet Hilton. Will advise results meet.

"Re Ref C and D (note: DIR 83238 and WAVE 7693 aka IN 62512), when A-3 returned Hilton after meet with A-2 and call to O1, he immediately contacted C/O and informed him he had called 01 at home from phone bar Del Prado Hotel. A-3 claimed he did not use true name or alias conversation and that 01 recognized him through details conversation. A-3 said call short and that 01 agreed meet him Del Prado bar 1900 hours 18 Nov 63. 01 reportedly told A-3 his political views still varied from A-3s (he still loyal GOC) and agreed see him only as personal friend with no politics involved. A-3 agreed. There had been no contact since between A-3 and 01 since phone call. A-3 did not make meet with 01 scheduled for 1900 hrs 18 Nov Del Prado Bar."

"After imparting info para five above to c/0 AMLEO-3 racked over by c/o and told he should pack and prepare leave MEXI immediately and forget ransoming wife since he had probably ruined whatever chances she had for asylum. A-3 told not call nor see 01 and not contact anyone again MEXI without clearing with c/o first. A-3 claimed he made call 01 because A-2 brought word from A-3 wife that he should contact 01 MEXI since IDEN A (who still reportedly anti-redihe?, anti-fidel, and still helping a-3 wife) desired have A-3 establish commo channel to her via 01 (reasons unstated). Background this op lead known addressee G? In early 63 A-3 told by 01 (as per Mexi station instructions) that 01 not approachable for recruitment, unstable, etc. A-3 always believed KUBARK previous assessment still correct, 01 definitely loyal GOC and should not be contacted. A-3 agreeable to instructions.

"In summary c/o believes A-3 cooperating fully (with one exception unauthorized action para five above). A-3 knowledgable LIFIRE protection, knows them by sight, and pleased and in full accord with protective support to be given him. A-3 will in no way attempt shake or deceive LIFIRE team and only desires they stay in background and not burn themselves to Perez during A-3 meets. His main desired (sic) is to maintain his cover to Perez as negotiating independently re asylum with no ODYOKE connections. Perez also aware A-3 reportedly came Mexi help Amleo-2 on arrival. C/O has made all decisions this case re type protection to be given A-3, his cover while in Mexi, etc."

Amsever-2 and brother of subj and case officer will meet for lunch nov 20 - at that time bio data on subj and extent of access to intel info will be obtained.

11.20 memo, DIR 84082: "exercising due caution b/c of amleo 3 case and subject (201-726614?)'s alleged collaboration with Ambassador Bosques, suggest amsever-2 attempt solicit subject cooperation without revealing odyoke interest." 201-726614 arriving MC 11/21. MC wants to recruit. SAS/EOB D. Ronis.

11/21 Agreement between Perez and amleo-3 consummated. A lot more going on involving Flores and others...

Looks like A-3's wife's name is Khalina, and that he sent her a message saying don't send letters to Flora Sotolongo.

Amcanoe-2 learned that call from "Virginia" on 11/21 (DIR 84284) was really Emma Cowley. "This good evidence contact between Emma and Gerardo (Cowley) with whom amcanoe-3 was staying with at that time, according angler-9".

On 11/22, Tilton was involved in the attempted exfiltration of AMCANOE-3 from Cuba, one of the most sensitive operations going, called off due to "heavy seas".

On 11/22, the story is that Sloman leaves WAVE this day to meet with amhalf-2.

"Henry J. Sloman arriving Mexi 22 Nov order meet with AMHALF-2. WAVE expecting priority message, *concerning maritime exfil of Headquarters asset*, in (Digraph-deleted)EXIT pouch which presumably will arrive MEXI 22 Nov.

Sloman will contact Choaden (Phillips) by phone either at station or home 23 Nov arrange pick up any material EXIT-3 may have received 22 Nov." AMCANOE-3 killed by Cuban government by Jan. 1964.

July 64: relations fell apart, AMLEO-3 was mad about failed asylum with his family. Shackley to Fitz on amleo-3.

Amleo-3 returned to cuba, and captured in sept 1965.
Mitch Werbell asked CIA to help, maybe by returning the pistol and the plane.
Referred to exfil of A-3's family as "a cover story" for his return to Cuba!

AMLEO-3's uncle Emilio Nunez Portunado was asked to help in 65 by amleo-3's sister after his capture.

This memo by CIA says he was freed in 1967. Gus Russo’s Live by the Sword, at Chap. 8 and p. 549, says Jose Ricardo Rabel died in prison in 67. Both can't be right...

Even in 1977, Shackley not sure if Amleo-3 was loyal or a Cuban agent.

The CIA’s Latin American Division in 1977 thought it was possible that Rabel was a CIS provocation agent whose mission was to convince the CIA or some exile group to try to undertake a plot to assassinate Fidel.

Fabian Escalante confirmed that Rabel was a Cuban agent in his 2004 book, pp. 32-35. (David Kaiser, Road to Dallas, p. 474)

5 As his nephew Shawn has told us, Phillips was in Dallas that day: E-mail from Shawn Phillips to Gary Buell, January 2003.

6 Shackley described Morales as his Chief of Operations in 1963: See Waldron and Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice, pp. 60, 206.

7 Bradley Ayers, who was stationed at JMWAVE, said that Morales “ran all the station’s activities with a heavy hand and was famous for his temper. We soon learned that no one, save Ted Shackley, argued with Dave.”: Bradley E. Ayers, The Zenith Secret (Brooklyn: Vox Pop, 2006), p. 19.

8 Sforza worked under Morales at JMWAVE in 1963, and saw Morales as his brother: Legacy of Secrecy, p. 208.

9 In late 1961, Morales was seconded to ZRRIFLE, Harvey’s program of political assassinations: See Debra Conway, JFK Lancer website, "Three Phases of Assassination".

10 CIA officer Tom Clines agreed that Morales helped Felix Rodriguez capture Che Guevara: See the Clines quote reprinted at the Spartacus Educational website, Biography of David Sanchez Morales.

11 In 1966 Ted Shackley was placed in charge of CIA secret war in Laos: Spartacus Educational website, Biography of David Sanchez Morales.

12 Morales, Shackley and Tilton were leaders in the PHOENIX program in Vietnam that killed 23,000 Vietnamese civilians: See Biography of David Morales, Spartacus Educational website, also Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, p. 449. See Biography of Ted Shackley, Spartacus Educational website.

See summary of interview with John Tilton by Douglas Valentine, Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University. Tilton is referred to as the “third and final director of the Phoenix Program. Tilton served most of his career in Central and South America, and oversaw CIA operation that captured and killed Che Guevara in Bolivia. Blamed for the unapproved release of a photo taken of Che's spread-eagled corpse - which depicted the revolutionary as a crucified Christ figure - Tilton was exiled to Saigon, the end of the line. Tall and thin, gaunt and gangly, Tilton was a true cold warrior.”

13 Morales, Sforza, and Phillips were in the thick of the Chile coup in 1973. During this period, former AMWORLD chief Harry Hecksher was the chief of station in Chile: Larry Hancock, Somebody Would Have Talked (Lancer, 2010) , p. 114.

14 Sforza was part of the military group that was involved in the assassination of Chilean General Rene Schneider in 1970 in a failed effort to instigate a coup: “CIA Efforts to Promote a Coup”, Church Committee, Interim Report – Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, p. 244, Church Committee Reports.

“Alfred Sarno” was an alias used by Sforza. See the Church Committee’s Deposition with Alfred Sarno, 6/25/75. NARA Record Number: 157-10005-10250.

15 When journalist Seymour Hersh got wind of Sforza’s role in Chile, Dave Phillips reported that Shackley said, “Don’t worry about Sforza – he is loyal – anyway, he can be trusted, even if we have to dump him. Of course, he will not be able to do the good that Phillips has done.”: Memo from REDACTED, Operations Support Branch to Deputy Director of Security (PSI), 3/14/77, p. 2. NARA Record No. 104-10128-10223.

16 Phillips created a grisly “Quartered Man” legend based on a torso found at the National soccer stadium that he skillfully turned into a meme about leftist plans to decapitate the Chilean military…: See Donald Freed, Death in Washington (1980) and The Quartered Man (1988). Phillips took Freed to court and sued him for how Freed had portrayed him in Death in Washington. With no money for adequate legal counsel, Freed was forced to relinquish the claim. Freed then fictionalized the story and turned it into a remarkable play.

17 Morales was in the presidential palace at the time of Allende’s death: Anthony Summers, The Arrogance of Power, (Penguin, 2001).

Morales boasted to a close friend that he helped kill President Allende in the midst of the coup…: Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, p. 728; Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, p. 467. Forensic experts concluded in 2012 that Allende committed suicide rather than be taken alive by the Chilean junta.

18 HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi writes about a revealing moment by Morales during a drunken tirade about JFK’s cowardice during the Bay of Pigs: Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, pp. 388-390. Fonzi’s book should be read by anyone with questions about the structure of the forces at play in the Kennedy assassination investigations.

See Monte Evans, "The Last Investigation: A Review", The Fourth Decade, March 1994.

Morales’ attorney Bob Walton says that Morales told him “I was in Los Angeles also when we got Bobby.”

19 What I find credible were the people who told me that’s what he said. And these were the people who had no connection to the work that Morales was involved with…: Fair Play magazine, Interview with Gaeton Fonzi, 10/8/94.

20 I knew Morales quite well, he worked at the CIA station in Havana when I was third secretary of the political section. And I got to know him fairly well, and saw him again a number of items, he came to Buenos Aires when I was political counselor down there and we had dinner at a friend’s house one evening…: Transcript of BBC “Newsnight” program, 11/20/06.

21 Smith has affirmed Morales’ hatred of JFK: “Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy?”, Guardian, 11/20/06.

22 Smith has also said that “if (Morales) were in the mob he’d be called a hit man.”: Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, p. 99.

23 Carbajal does know who killed JFK – it was the CIA, he said, without naming any individuals. Morales and his close colleague Tony Sforza both told him the agency was behind the Dallas plot…: David Talbot, Brothers (New York: Free Press, 2007), pp. 398-400. I have relied on much of the final chapter of this book, which offers further supporting evidence on the Morales story described here.

24 He was the kind of guy who spelled his own last name “Rosselli” even though his birth name was “Roselli”: Memo from SA Harold F. Dodge to Director, FBI, 7/31/58, p. 3, FBI - HSCA Subject File: John Roselli/NARA Record Number: 124-10224-10022.

25 Roselli only admitted it to his lawyer and friend Tom Warden, who then passed it on to his former law partner William Hundley, the man who used to run the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Section: Richard D. Mahoney, Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (New York: Arcade Press, 1999) pp. 295, 408.

26 Roselli hinted to associates that he knew who had arranged President Kennedy’s murder: Jack Anderson and Les Whitten, Washington Post, 9/7/76, reprinted at HSCA Report, Volume 5, 365.

27 Unexpected deaths of Harvey, Roselli, Morales: For deaths of Harvey and Roselli, see Stockton, Flawed Patriot, p. 296. For the death of Morales, see Spartacus Educational website, Biography of David Sanchez Morales.

28 Hal Feeney’s pal, the Rev. Jack Modesett, officiated at his funeral. Rev. Modesett left the Navy in 1964: Personal communication with researcher Zack Robertson, 2013.

29 Peter Dale Scott offers a pithy analysis of Roselli’s story: Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II (Mary Ferrell Foundation Press: Boston, 2003 edition), pp. 68-69.

Arrest of Sam Moreno: HSCA, Volume 5, p. 298. He had been using the name Serafin Burgas Sablon. Miami Herald, 7/31/78.

Also see monograph from Fidel Castro to George McGovern, 1975, “The Black Book”, pp. 33-34 (unpaginated), HSCA Numbered Files/NARA Record Number: 180-10090-10232.

Participation of Morales and Roselli: See Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice, p. 435.

For a good article about the PMs (paramilitaries), read the following section on “Cowboys of JMWAVE”, from a longer article entitled “The Kennedy Vendetta”, Taylor Branch and George Crile III, Harper’s Magazine, sometime in 1975, DDP (Deputy Director for Plans) Files/NARA Record Number: 104-10310-10203.

30 Shortly before his death in 1975, John Martino from the Bayo-Pawley affair admitted to former Miami Newsday’ reporter John Cummings that he had disseminated phony stories tying Oswald to the assassination of JFK…: Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime (1980), p. 373.

31 The anti-Castro people put Oswald together: Article by Earl Golz, Gallery, December 1982. See page 6 of 8.

32 Martino’s wife Florence Martino told Anthony Summers that her husband said to her on the morning of 22nd November, 1963: "Flo, they're going to kill him (Kennedy). They're going to kill him when he gets to Texas.": Anthony Summers interview with Florence Martino, recounted in his article with Robbyn Swan, “The Ghosts of November”, Vanity Fair, December 1994.

33 Simmons was intimately familiar with the duties of the various AMOT teams in Miami: C/WH/4/CI William Simmons said during 1961 that there were 97 staff and clerical AMOTs, 34 security CI AMOTs, and 43 AMCHEERS (senior citizens involved in banking, commercial and ranching), all in Miami.

Simmons' 1961 memo also has a reference to an Agency-controlled agent “with access to leftist and Communist circles in the Western Hemisphere, now in New York City.” This may be a reference to T-3245-S* (almost certainly Victor Vicente) in New York City who was active within FPCC from 1961 to late 1963 and had loyalties to the FPCC and the CPUSA, as well as both the CIA and the FBI. T-3245-S* is the guy who had access to Oswald's FPCC records, and twice provided them to the FBI. He is probably Victor Vicente, who Anita Potocki and Lou De Santi helped get into Cuba in July 1963.

Simmons is the buddy of Morales whose name is redacted in p. 1 of this 1961 memo. See how Simmons’ name accidentally appears on the following page in a reference to an interview with him that discusses the microfilming of the AMOT cards, as well as a passing reference to the chief of WH/4/CI (Simmons himself). In this vein, here is the memo of the 1961 interview with Simmons, which contains the discussion of the microfilming of the AMOT files.

Philip Agee describes Simmons as his former trainer at the CIA’s boot camp at Fort Peary, and says that he was the deputy chief of station in Lima, Peru as of November 1962. Philip Agee, Inside the Company (1975), p. 313.

34 A CIA component willing to collaborate with Giancana’s men in assassination would certainly have no problem in recruiting Giancana’s electronic expert for a wiretap operation: Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II, p. 134.

35 Just one of Cain’s classes alone included 23 students; approved by the federal police, he described the participants as “representing every law enforcement agency in Mexico, from the equivalent of the FBI on down to the local police: Michael Cain, The Tangled Web (2007), pp. 91-93.

36 He had wiretapped the Czech embassy in Mexico City: Michael Cain, The Tangled Web (2007), p. 96. Also see Cain’s obituary in the Chicago Tribune, 12/28/73, p. 16.

Michael Cain cites a 1962 Yucatan newspaper that describes Richard Cain as ex-Army intelligence, at p. 93.

37 Cain had gone to Cuba to assassinate Castro in late 1960, and barely escaped with his life: Michael Cain, The Tangled Web, p. 81.

38 We do know that Simmons worked with CIA security official Joseph Langan in the attempt to cover up the American origin of the planes that conducted the surprise attack on Castro’s planes right before the Bay of Pigs: Peter Kornbluh, editor, Bay of Pigs Declassified (New York: New Press, 1998), p. 18.

39 One of the other things we do know about him is that Simmons had access to highly sensitive information in 1962 – the deficiencies of the Secret Service: HSCA interview with Secret Service agent Ernest Ignacio Aragon, 3/25/78, 180-10078-10450. Also see this summary by researcher Joe Backes.

40 Aragon had some kind of personal relationship with Bobby Kennedy: Cable, JMWAVE to Director, 12/1/62, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 63: CRC)/NARA Record Number: 104-10298-10134.

Also see Memo from Campanong to Director, 1/25/63, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 70: AMBUD)/NARA Record Number: 104-10236-10350.

Aragon also tried to solve the Odio case, but he couldn’t find Father Machann.

41 He wrote one of the first memos about “the violently anti-Kennedy” Manuel Rodriguez Orcarberro: Secret Service report, Ernest I. Aragon, 1/31/64, final page. Commission Document 853 - SS Rowley Memorandum of 24 Apr 1964 re: Manuel Rodriguez w/Attachments

42 Rodriguez was five foot nine, 145 pounds, and identified as “Oswald” during one of his visits to Sulfur, Oklahoma: Philip H. Melanson and Peter F. Stevens, The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency (2002), p. 85.

43 Just before JFK was to arrive in Chicago, the Secret Service got a tip that a four-man right-wing sniper team was planning to kill the President: James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 200. The original research was done by Edwin Black, Chicago Independent, November 1975. Black is best known for the groundbreaking book IBM and the Holocaust. One of Black’s sources was Abraham Bolden. Douglass, p. 429.

44 Vallee was picked up by two Chicago police officers after hours of surveillance, under the pretense of an improper turn signal, just two hours before Kennedy’s arrival at O’Hare Airport: James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (2008) pp. 200-207. One of Vallee’s arresting officers, Daniel Groth, was deployed in a counterintelligence capacity with an early focus on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Groth was believed to work in a cross-designated capacity with the CIA or military intelligence.

Six years later, Groth led an FBI/police team that broke into the Chicago apartment of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and assassinated both men. Groth was one of the defendants in a lawsuit filed by the Hampton and Clark families. In an out-of-court settlement, the families were awarded $1.85 million. Id., at p. 204.

45 After learning that someone with Secret Service credentials had waved Dallas police away from the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza, which may have allowed shooters to escape, Bolden concluded that the White House detail’s protection of the President was a complete sham: Abraham Bolden, The Echo From Dealey Plaza, pp. 72-74.

46 On May 17, 1964, while in Washington DC, Bolden attempted to report to counsel J. Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission his knowledge about the Secret Service’s drinking on duty on the night before the events in Dallas, as well as the Chicago and Tampa attempts…: Abraham Bolden, The Echo in Dealey Plaza, pp. 72-73, 106; Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, p. 309. Bolden claims to this day that he was framed. Bolden was convicted based on the testimony of two known counterfeiters, one of whom later admitted in court that he had committed perjury when testifying against Bolden. Bolden’s book makes a compelling case for his innocence, and that he was “shut up” for his knowledge about the JFK killing.

47 Dr. Robert McClelland, the lead surgeon at Parkland, has said for many years, “I think he was shot from the front…I think that the rifle bullet hit him in the side of the head and blew out the back of his head”: See Anthony Summers, Conspiracy (1989 version), p. 486.

48 If someone planted a 30-30 bullet by a stretcher minutes after the shooting, this indicates a plan that pre-existed the assassination: See Douglas Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, pp. 1089-1095. Horne’s book offers not just a great analysis on the magic bullet evidence, but also incredible insights on the autopsy evidence from his vantage point as an ARRB staffer.

49 Westbrook also lost the list of theater patrons…researcher John Armstrong reports that Westbrook took early retirement by 1966 and was working with the secret police in South Vietnam: John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, pp. 885-886.

50 Besides Westbrook and Bentley, one other suspect is affiliated with the Dallas police - Tippit’s close friend Carl Mather…: James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 294-298. The source for the Tippit-Mather conversations of November 22 is interviews conducted by researcher Jones Harris. On more on Collins Radio, see William Turner and Warren Hinckle, Deadly Secrets, p. 153.

51 After Tippit was killed, Mather and his children went to Mrs. Tippit’s home to comfort her, while Mather’s wife stayed at home: The story of Mather visiting Mrs. Marie Tippit is based on interviews conducted by researcher Jones Harris.

52 A psychological stress evaluator (PSE) test conducted by George O’Toole, a former chief of the CIA’s Problems Analysis Branch, showed chief polygraph examiner Paul Bentley lying about not knowing that Frazier was polygraphed: See George O’Toole, The Assassination Tapes (1975) pp. 168-206.

53 The primary author of the Warren Report, Alfred Goldberg, said that Earl Warren’s caution that some things in the files would only be revealed “not in your lifetime” was “precisely” a reference to the work of the NSA: Tim Wray, Meeting Report, 1/30/96, re interview with Dr. Alfred Goldberg on 1/29/96, obtained from National Archives by Malcolm Blunt on 4/3/09. Document in Malcolm Blunt’s possession. (See endnote 1 of this chapter)

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