The Kennedy Half-Century (108 page)

48
. Bringuier insists that the CIA contacted him on only one occasion,
after
the assassination. But in the 1970s, Isidor Borja, a former DRE leader, told the House Select Committee
on Assassinations that his organization briefed the CIA on the scuffle between Oswald and Bringuier. E. Howard Hunt, the former CIA officer arrested for the Watergate burglary, claimed that his agency had a close relationship with DRE. On his deathbed, without providing the necessary proof, Hunt claimed that LBJ and a handful of rogue CIA agents plotted Kennedy’s murder and hired a French gunman to pull the trigger. See Ryan Singel, “Who Killed JFK? Famous Spook Outs the Conspiracy,” Wired.com, April 3, 2007,
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/04/who_killed_jfk_/
 [accessed June 3, 2011].

49
. “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Chapter 7: Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives,” p. 407, National Archives and Records Administration website,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html#political
 [accessed May 9, 2011]; Posner,
Case Closed
, 150–55; Summers,
Kennedy Conspiracy
, 213–16.

50
. Marrs,
Crossfire
, 147–49; Summers,
Kennedy Conspiracy
, 229; Posner,
Case Closed
, 139; Newman,
Oswald and the CIA
, 308–9.

51
. Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 1348–49; Kurtz,
JFK Assassination Debates
, 163; Robert D. Morrow,
First Hand Knowledge: How I Participated in the CIA-Mafia Murder of President Kennedy
(New York: SPI Books, 1993); David Lee Miller interview with Robert Morrow,
A Current Affair
, YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watchTv=_3KmGN3gikA&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLAEDFA01CC49C6FA5
 [accessed May 9, 2011]. Gary Mack does not consider Morrow a credible source and referred us to Ulric Shannon’s biting review of Morrow’s book, “First Hand Knowledge: A Review,”
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/morrow.htm
 [accessed September 26, 2011].

52
. Ferrie was forced to relinquish his role as a CAP leader after he was accused of giving inappropriate political lectures to cadets.

53
. See Dave Reitzes, “Who Speaks for Clay Shaw?” at
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/shaw1.htm
, and Patricia Lambert,
False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison’s Investigation and Oliver Stone’s Film “JFK”
(New York: M. Evans, 2000).

54
. Posner,
Case Closed
, 141–48; Summers,
Kennedy Conspiracy
, 236–38.

55
. Douglass,
JFK and the Unspeakable
, 158–62; Posner,
Case Closed
, 176–77; “Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives,” National Archives and Records Administration website, pp. 137–39,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c.html#odio
 [accessed May 10, 2011]. Complicating the picture further, a man named Loran Eugene Hall told the FBI on September 16, 1964, that he and two of his associates (one of whom, William Seymour, bore a slight resemblance to Oswald) had visited Odio’s apartment on the night in question. Yet Hall recanted his story a mere four days later, and Seymour and another man, named Lawrence Howard, later denied ever being at Odio’s apartment. “Howard said Hall was a ‘scatter-brain, unreliable, emotionally disturbed, and an egotistical liar.’” Also, payroll records from the Beach Welding Supplies Company of Miami Beach, Florida, show that Seymour worked 40-hour weeks between September 5 and October 10, 1963. Posner,
Case Closed
, 177–78; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 1306.

56
. Some assassination researchers have speculated that the man who appeared at the Cuban and Soviet embassies was not the real Oswald, but an Oswald impersonator. For example, see Jim Marrs,
Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy
(New York: Carroll and Graf, 1989), 193–96. There is more speculation than proof about this, but as with so many other aspects of the Kennedy case, a fair person cannot make a definitive judgment.

57
. Robert Blakey of the House Select Committee on Assassinations said that Oswald may have offered to kill Kennedy for Cuba while visiting the Cuban embassy in Mexico City. Blakey also said the source of this information was none other than Fidel Castro. “We had a high-echelon informant in the Communist Party,” Blakey explained, “And that person had an interview with Castro, and Castro told him the story.” Castro has denied ever saying anything of the sort. Telephone interview with Robert Blakey, August 10, 2011.

58
. Douglass,
JFK and the Unspeakable
, 77–79; Posner,
Case Closed
, 180–86.

59
. The cable also explains why officials at the U.S. embassy in Moscow decided to return Oswald’s passport to him and grant his wife a visa: US EMB MOSCOW STATED TWENTY MONTHS OF REALITIES OF LIFE IN SOVIET UNION HAD CLEARLY HAD MATURING EFFECT ON OSWALD. The use of the adjective “maturing” in relation to Oswald is ironic in light of history. See “Cable Stating That Lee Oswald Who Called SovEmb 1 Oct Probably Identical to Lee Henry Oswald,” October 10, 1963, NARA Record Number: 104-10015-10048, Mary Ferrell Foundation website,
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1565&relPageId=3
 [accessed January 9, 2013].

60
. Oswald turned twenty-four on October 18, 1963.

61
. Oleg Nechiporenko, a KGB colonel who was stationed in the USSR’s Mexico City embassy at the time of Oswald’s visit, believes the mystery man in the photograph “was a former American serviceman, discharged for reasons of health.” “I cannot remember the date and purpose of his first visit to our embassy,” Nechiporenko wrote, “but in my conversations with him, it became clear that he was psychologically disturbed. Subsequently, he came to see us several times, and the intervals between each visit increased. I remember that during each visit something was explained to him in connection with his requests, and he listened calmly and left fully satisfied.” Oleg M. Nechiporenko,
Passport to Assassination
(Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press, 1993), 175. Assassination researcher Bill Simpich told me he is “virtually certain” that the man was a KGB scientist named Yuriy Moskalev. Telephone interview with Bill Simpich, May 23, 2013.

62
. Jefferson Morley, “John Brennan and the CIA’s Last JFK Secrets,”
Huffington Post
, January 11, 2013,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jefferson-morley/brennan-confirmation-hearings_b_2441856.html
 [accessed January 14, 2013].

63
. James Jesus Angleton was one of the CIA’s first officers. He joined the agency in 1947 after serving with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II and quickly rose to become chief of the counterintelligence division. Angleton became obsessed with finding spies after a Russian defector, Anatoliy Golitsyn, told him that the KGB had managed to infiltrate the CIA. His zealous hunt for moles alienated many of his co-workers. Angleton resigned from the agency in 1975.

64
. John M. Whitten, “First Draft of Initial Report on GPFLOOR Case,” Record Group 263, Box 17, Folder “OSW10:V10B,” Archives II, College Park, Maryland; Jefferson Morley,
Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 192; Kurtz,
JFK Assassination Debates
, 191–92; “1996 Release: Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City (‘Lopez Report’),” 87–88, History Matters,
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/html/LopezRpt_0101a.htm
 [accessed May 11, 2011].

65
. Morley,
Our Man in Mexico
, 192–99, and “What Jane Roman Said: A Retired CIA Officer Speaks Candidly About Lee Harvey Oswald,” History Matters,
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/WhatJaneRomanSaid/WhatJaneRomanSaid_1.htm
 [accessed May 13, 2011].

66
. Jefferson Morley, “Ray Rocca: ‘There Was An Earlier Cable,’” JFK Facts, January 10, 2013,
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/quote/ray-rocca-there-was-an-earlier-cable/
 [accessed January 11, 2013].

67
. Jefferson Morley, “January 7, 1963: Under U.S. Government Eyes, Oswald Goes to Work,” JFK Facts, January 7, 2013,
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/on-this-date/jan-7-1963-under-u-s-government-eyes-oswald-goes-to-work/
 [accessed January 11, 2013].

68
. Antonio Veciana Blanch, the founder of an anti-Castro group with CIA ties, told the HSCA that a Langley operative named “Maurice Bishop” introduced him to Oswald in September 1963. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Bishop was actually David Atlee Phillips, a CIA agent deeply involved in anti-Castro operations. Phillips denied the accusation and even filed libel suits against publications that tried to link him to the Kennedy assassination. See Gaeton Fonzi,
The Last Investigation
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1993), and the David Atlee Phillips Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. However, Larry Hancock, author of
Someone Would Have Talked
(Southlake, TX: JFK Lancer Productions and Publications, 2010) says that prior to his death, Phillips told an HSCA investigator that JFK was probably killed in a conspiracy involving rogue intelligence officers.

69
. According to Morley, who has long investigated the CIA’s links to 11/22, Joannides gave the go-ahead to DRE on 11/22/63 to link Oswald to Castro, which caused the Cuban dictator to put his forces on alert and go on the air that evening to deny any connection to Oswald. U.S. newspapers accepted the DRE story and headlined Oswald’s Castro connection. This might well have triggered a war had anything come out to substantiate a connection between Oswald and Castro agents. Joannides’s efforts with DRE resulted in the disbanding of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, the best-known pro-Castro group in the United States, in December 1963. See Will Lissner, “Pro-Castro Group Disbanding,”
New York Times
, December 28, 1963. Morley theorizes that the underlying goal of implicating the Cuban government in the assassination might have been to prompt an invasion of Cuba or another response that would have resulted in the overthrow of Castro. These actions, however, were undercut by both the Kennedy family and the Warren Commission. Neither the family nor the Warren Report fingered Castro. By using psychological warfare, however, Morley argues that the CIA still accomplished one of its primary goals: the destruction of the FPCC.

70
. There is no precise record of what President Johnson said to the CIA on this subject, but as journalist Jefferson Morley suggests, one can “infer” that Johnson expressed his fears about a connection between Oswald and the Communists to the CIA: “[LBJ] spoke with [CIA Director] McCone on the morning of 11/24/63 to find out more about [Oswald] in [Mexico City]. The Katzenbach memo [authored by Justice Department official Nicholas Katzenbach] written later that day after [Oswald] was dead reflects White House determination to quash all conspiracy talk. But did LBJ say that to McCone? That can’t be proven. As the week went on LBJ got more updates from CIA but I don’t think he ever ordered them not to look into certain things. Remember that he could be confident CIA info would not become public unless he chose to. He wanted to know everything they knew.” E-mail from Jefferson Morley, October 11, 2011.

71
. Telephone interview with Jefferson Morley, April 18, 2011; Jefferson Morley, “The George Joannides Coverup,” May 19, 2005, JFK Lancer website, President John Kennedy, Latest News and Research,
http://www.jfklancer.com/morley.html
 [accessed May 12, 2011].

72
. Telephone interview with Jefferson Morley, April 18, 2011. Morley was apparently the one who informed Blakey many years later of the CIA’s deceit. “They fucked you,” Morley says he told Blakey. Telephone interview with Robert Blakey, July 8, 2011. In a follow-up interview, Blakey said the CIA “had a duty” to disclose that Joannides had once worked with DRE since the agency agreed not to withhold anything from the HSCA. Follow-up telephone interview with Robert Blakey, August 10, 2011. See also Jefferson Morley, “Morley v. CIA: JFK at Issue in Federal Court Next Week,” JFK Facts, February 18, 2013,
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/morley-v-cia-jfk-at-issue-in-federal-court-next-week/#more-3023
 [accessed February 18, 2013].

73
. Telephone interview with Jefferson Morley, April 18, 2011; Jefferson Morley, “Revelation 1963,”
Miami New Times
, April 12, 2001,
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2001-04-12/news/revelation-19-63/
 [accessed August 4, 2011]. See also David Talbot,
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years
(New York: Free Press, 2007), and Larry Hancock,
Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History
(Southlake, TX: JFK Lancer Productions and Publications, 2003).

74
. George Lardner, Jr., “No Closer to Cracking the Kennedy Case: Meeting Yields Few Answers on Assassination,”
Washington Post
, November 21, 2005.

75
. “Former HSCA Chief Counsel on CIA Obstruction,” JFK Facts, March 23, 2013,
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/quote/former-hsca-chief-counsel-on-cia-obstruction/#more-3171
 [accessed March 28, 2013].