THE GREAT JFK ASSASSINATION SCAVANGER HUNT

THE GREAT JFK ASSASSINATION SCAVENGER HUNT

ARE MORE RECORDS OUT THERE?

Discovering and Recovering Missing JFK Assassination Records

The Great JFK Scavenger Hunt is On!

What gems of the missing and secret Family Jewels are still out there, in a basement file, in a box in a garage or attic or suitcase under a bed or in a closet?

Maybe its owner has died and it has been passed on to unknowing relatives who don’t even know its there?

Not real gems, but historical documents, records and artifacts related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

It is quite apparent that with the discovery of the previously unknown Clifton copy of the Air Force One transmission tapes and the acknowledgement by former Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine that he had copies of the Tampa advance reports that were said to have been destroyed, some historical records have escaped destruction and there are still significant government records related to the assassination of President Kennedy that are still “out there.” 

- List of Missing Records and Artifacts

Top Ten Missing Items 

1)      The original, unedited reel to reel audio tape recording of Air Force One radio transmissions on November 22, 1963. An edited cassette version was released by the LBJ Library in the late 1970s and a longer, but still edited version was recently recovered from among the effects of US Gen. Clifton, the President’s military aide.

2)      Complete transcript of the unedited audio recordings of AF1 radio communications on November 22, 1963. This document was known to exist because a number of journalists, including T. White and William Manchester, were permitted to read it while visiting the LBJ White House and former JFK cabinet member Pierre Salinger was permitted a copy while writing his memoirs.

3)      The ONI records related to the assassination of ONI Director Rufus Taylor, who is known to have exchanged extensive memos and letters regarding Lee Harvey Oswald, his navy career and activities in Texas and Louisiana previous to the assassination. Although samples of documents of Taylor’s assassination files have been located and released from the files of other agencies, the Navy maintains that they could not locate any of Taylor’s records related to the assassination. This might take a WikiLeaks type of insider cooperation or someone who maintained them or some of them.

           [ JFKcountercoup: Rufus Taylor & Dallas ONI SA J. Mason Lankford, Jr.]

4)      RFK’s datebook diary for the year 1963 is missing from the records of RFK’s secretary at the JFK Presidential Library. This had to take someone very connected to purloin and for good reason – most likely to conceal RFK’s meetings and phone conversations with anti-Castro Cubans in the months and days leading up to JFK’s murder. The suspects are limited as to who took this and has it today, if it wasn’t destroyed.

5)      George DeMohrenschildt’s film and report to the government of his 1961 walking tour of central America where he stumbled across the anti-Castro Cuban commando training camp of those destined for the Bay of Pigs. DeMohrenschildt says he filed a report to a US government agency about this trip, and even asked President Kennedy to write the forward to the book version of the report, but it is not among the government’s assassination, and neither is the home movie type film of the trip.

6)      The film clip of the anti-Castro Cuban commandos training at a Louisiana camp, which former House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigator Tannenbaum viewed after it was retrieved from the library at Georgetown University. Tannenbaum believes that Oswald and David A. Phillips can be seen in the film, which is not among the government’s records today.

7)      The “Wink” photo negative of LBJ aboard AF1 moments after his swearing in. While hard copies of this photo have survived, the negative is missing from the vaulted records at the LBJ Library.

8)      JFK’s missal. LBJ was not sworn in on a bible, but JFK’s Catholic Missal book of prayers, after which the Judge handed to someone next to her, the last it has been seen. But it must have been taken by someone who was on the plane, probably one of those local Texans who got off the plane after the swearing in, a very short list of suspects.

9)      Autopsy x-rays, photos and possible film of the autopsy. Those military technicians and official photographers who took the photos at the autopsy claim that the photos now in evidence at the JFK Collection at the National Archives (NARA) are not the ones they took. Where are the originals? And did a Bethesda film and video technician record the autopsy as it occurred?

10)  JFK’s brain. While most of those who saw the president’s head say that half the brain was blown away, autopsy records show there were two, post autopsy brain exams, the brain wasn’t buried with the body and at least one vile labeled JFK’s brain was passed on through administrators and flushed through a food processor. It is possible that portions of JFK’s brain were placed in the casket by RFK during the secret 1968 exhumation, a military operation conducted at night.

11)  Some LBJ telephone and oval office audio recordings of conversations were said to have been destroyed, and some are missing, and we know because the transcripts have survived but not the tapes, which someone in the LBJ administration may have privately saved, as one of his secretaries was known to have saved everything.

12)  OTHER ITEMS – to add to this list please notify me of the record or artifact and I will add it to the list – bkjfk3@yahoo.com 

If you think that these items will never be found or don’t exist anymore, then consider the following examples of items that were ordered destroyed or were headed for destruction and were saved by good and honest people who recognized their historical significance.

TOP JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS SAVED

1) New Orleans Grand Jury records and transcript of testimony, which DA Harry Connick had ordered destroyed but were instead saved and passed on to the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) after the passage of the JFK Act.

2) Andrews Air Force Base Log book for 11/22.63 and the day RFK was shot. A special book keeping track of all related incoming and outgoing plane traffic was kept for both days, in the same book, which was saved from being disposed in a dumpster by a base civilian employee and turned over to the ARRB for inclusion in the JFK Collection.

3) Clifton Air Force One Tapes. Despite the assertions of the LBJ Library and the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) that no such tapes exist, two reels of the AF1 radio communications of 11/22/63 were discovered among the effects of the late Gen. Clifton, the President’s military aide. The discovery of these tapes give rise to hope that the original tape still exists and will be found.

4) Secret Service advance reports for Tampa and Chicago, said to have been intentionally destroyed by the Secret Service after the passage of the JFK Act, were found among the private papers of former SS agent Gerald Blaine, who wrote about them in his book. These records were turned over to the NARA for inclusion in the JFK Collection but are not yet available to the public.

5) When Richard Sprague was fired as the first chief counsel to the HSCA, he took his office files with him and didn’t turn them over to his replacement, G. Robert Blakey, and good he didn’t because Blakey had all of the HSCA records locked away and they were sealed until the JFK Act was passed. Although the ARRB was notified of this, they never sought to reclaim Sprague’s HSCA records and he ostensibly still has them.

6) If you know of an historical records, document or artifact related to the JFK assassination that has been saved, I’d like to hear about it – bkjfk3@yahoo.com

NOTE re: #8: The Roman Catholic Missal is a liturgical book outlining the instructions and prayers necessary for the celebration of the Catholic Mass throughout the year. The word 'Missal' is taken from the Latin word 'missa', meaning 'sent'. There are a variety of Catholic Missals available, such as Daily Missals, Weekly Missals, or Sunday Missals. Aside from the standard Roman Missal one can also find Marian Missals, Spanish Missals and children’s Missals. With your personal copy of the Roman Missal you are able to reflect on the Mass readings at your leisure. In many cases your Missal can be personalized, so be sure to check out personalization options on the version you choose.

JFKfacts.org

JFK FACTS

http://jfkfacts.org/

JEFF MORLEY WRITES - 

Friends

I want to let you all know about a new Web site, JFK Facts, that Rex Bradford and I just launched.

The mission of JFKfacts.org is to bring the kind of spirited and deeply informed debate we have in this listserve to the World Wide Web. We want to become the preeminent site for discussion of the JFK story. Is anybody outside of our little group interested? We think so, especially as the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaches.

JFKfacts.org is a social media Web site, meaning that readers' contributions are not just welcome, they are fundamental. So we hope that you will consider contributing your expertise.

We're looking for people to answer specific factual questions about the JFK story in a concise and responsible way. (For more on our contributors policy, click here). If we achieve our fund-raising goals, we will have an editorial budget to pay for solicited articles that break new ground on the JFK presidency and assassination story.

We're also looking for memories of November 22, not to flog conspiracy/lone nut theories, but to capture the experience and emotions of that day and its aftermath. You can share yours here.

And we are raising money via Indiegogo, the fund-raising Web site. Check out my introductory video and our prospectus for the site. Please circulate this link with anyone interested in supporting an informed and civil debate about the JFK story.

Comments, corrections, complaints, and suggestions are welcome.

Happy Thanksgiving.

JEFF

About

JFK at 50: Memory Truth Meaning (JFKfacts.org) is dedicated to improving public discussion and media coverage of the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 2013.

Contact us.

The site is a repository of memories of life and death of President John F. Kennedy and discussion of its meaning.

We fact-check news stories, blogs, YouTube videos, books, and movies about JFK with the goal of dispelling confusion and establishing an accurate historical record.

We answer questions for high school and college students, as well as the general public.

The moderator is Jefferson Morley, former Washington Post reporter and author of Our Man in Mexico; Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA. 

The webmaster is Rex Bradford, creator of MaryFerrell.org, the most comprehensive Web site of government records on the assassination of JFK, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

We are looking for informed, civil contributors.

Our comment policy.

Contributors

Contributors to JFKfacts.org are expected to address readers’ questions about factual issues related to JFK’s assassination in a fair and balanced way. That is to say, the differences of opinion about evidence and logic must be aired fully. To the extent possible, differing positions are presented without prejudice.

All posts to JFKfacts.org require linked documentation to credible Web sources and, where possible, original documentation. The Mary Ferrell Foundation website www.maryferrell.org is an excellent resource for locating and linking to these references.

Posts under 500 words will receive preferential treatment.

JFKfacts.org is dedicated to elevating media coverage of the JFK assassination story, educating the young, and demanding release of still-secret government records related to JFK's murder. 

We aim to be the premier site for informed and civil discussion of the JFK tragedy. If you share these goals, consider supporting us.

We are raising money on Indiegogo,com, the crowd-funding Web site. Check out Jeff Morley's introductory video which lays out our plans. We need your help.All donations are tax-deductible.

Joan Mellen’s “Our Man in Haiti”

Joan Mellen’s “Our Man in Haiti” – George DeMohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic (Trine Day, 2012)

                                                                                 

As we approach the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy we can expect a slew of books on the subject and Joan Mellen’s “Our Man in Haiti” is one of the first out of the gate. .

This book is not about the assassination of President Kennedy, but it does add some interesting pieces to the puzzle of Dealey Plaza – the Haitian intrigues of the accused assassin’s “babysitter” George DeMohrenschildt, who many believe assisted in setting up Lee Harvey Oswald as the patsy to take the fall for the murder of the president.

Nor is this book about “our man” in Haiti in the sense that Win Scott was “our man in Mexico” or Gram Green’s comic spoof “Our Man in Havana,” as Mellen herself attests – “our man in Haiti” in this story could be DeMohrenschildt, Haitian banker Clem Charles or even the greaser I. Irving Davidson, all featured characters in what also turns out to be a somewhat sad but comic and frustrating spoof on everyone.

While most of the action takes place in Haiti from the time of the assassination up until the strange death of DeMohrenschildt in 1978, it does often refer to the crux of the matter - the earlier association in Texas between the regal, distinguished and shifty DeMohrenschildt and the repatriated ex-Marine defector Lee Harvey Oswald.

When Oswald first arrived home from behind the Iron Curtain he was befriended by the charismatic baron George DeMohrenschildt, who recounts his relationship with Oswald in the unpublished manuscript “I’m a Patsy,”

As noted by Mellen, DeMohrenschildt sought out Oswald and in the company of Col. Lawrence Orlov, a equally mysterious character who subsequently seems to just disappear. DeMohrenschildt then became a mentor to Oswald and introduced him into a unique network of friends, who provided Oswald with places to stay, jobs, gifts and even took care of his family’s dental needs.

Then, shortly before DeMohrenschildt moved on to Haiti, he “passes” the responsibility for caring for the Oswalds off on to Ruth and Michael Paine, who assume the same “babysitter” and patron role as DeMohrenschildt previously played leading up to the assassination.

Since I am of the belief that Oswald didn’t shoot anyone on November 22, 1963, and was framed as a patsy as he himself claimed, he also plays the distracting role of the “rabbit,” who leads investigators astray while the real assassins slip by unnoticed.

If Oswald actually did shoot the President, DeMohrenschildt would have been a primary “person of interest” and suspected as a collaborator or facilitator in the crime, but as Mellen accurately describes him, DeMohrenschildt is one of those who helped frame the patsy for the crime of the century.

While the real assassin(s) would lead directly to the sponsors of the Dealey Plaza operation, Oswald and the detractors, including DeMohrenschildt, also lead to them, but in a more roundabout way, one with many detours and dead end alleys, which is one of the reasons why Oswald was designated as the principle patsy in the first place. 

As his son-in-law told the Warren Commission, no one had more influence over Oswald than DeMohrenschildt, but putting a trace on the shifty and smooth operator is not an easy thing to do. Since he had so many secret and powerful associations, it’s difficult to know which intelligence agency was running him at any one time. George was associated with the Polish, German, Mexican and French intelligence services during World War II, and applied for a job with the OSS, while his brother Dimitri was even more influential. Having served in OSS, as did their father, Dimitri helped found the CIA’s Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, edited the Russian Review, was a professor at Dartmouth and worked at the Hover Institute at Stanford at the time of the assassination. .

Before George DeMohrenschildt met up with Oswald, and set him on the path to Dealey Plaza, he had worked for a number of major players - mainly Colorado, Texas and Louisiana oil men, and had three rich and influential wives, all of whom are colorful characters in Mellen’s book.

In 1957 DeMohrenschildt went to Yugoslavia on behalf of the US government International Cooperation Administration (ICA, aka CIA), but was asked to leave the country, accused of drawing secret military fortifications, just as he came to the attention of authorities in 1941 for photographing and drawing the Coast Guard facility at Corpus Christi, Texas.

Back home DeMorhrenschildt was interviewed by J. Walton Moore, the head of the Dallas Domestic Contacts Division of the CIA, which routinely debriefed American businessmen when they returned from abroad.

But DeMohrenschildt filed ten separate reports with Moore, and later said that Moore gave his okay and encouraged his association with Oswald, a point later denied by Moore, although he too was a friend and handball partner with Col. Lawrence Orlov, who accompanied DeMohrenschildt when he first sought out Oswald. Although not mentioned by Mellen, Moore was also a OSS agent who served in China with Charles Ford, the Princeton man who later took a leave from the CIA’s office of training to be RFK’s liaison with the mobsters involved in the JMWAVE plots against Castro.

Although Gaeton Fonzi and Dick Russell came close, Bill O'Reilly, when he was a young and hungry TV reporter in Texas in the late 1970s, almost got the elusive interview with DeMohrenschildt’s CIA contact J. Walton Moore, but came away without a cigar. [See: David Talbot review of O'Reilly’s book “Killing Kennedy”: Bill O’Reilly wimps out - Salon.com ].

After taking care of the material needs of Oswald and his family for about a year, DeMohrenschildt introduced them to Ruth and Michael Paine, who then fulfilled the Oswald’s needs previously taken care of by DeMohrenschildt, while he took off for a new mission in Haiti.

What was George up to in Haiti while his squire Oswald was getting tangled up in the assassination of the president in Dallas? It was pretty much the same game – as DeMohrenschildt was involved in an attempt to take over the presidency of Haiti in a coup that could have also included assassination. While Oswald is generally recognized as a pawn that was put into position to checkmate the president at Dealey Plaza, DeMohrenschildt was a more powerful and maneuverable rook or bishop in the same game, though an equally dispensable one.   

According to Mellen George DeMohrenschildt was “a tall, comely man, who spoke with a pronounced accent that to some sounded German. There was nothing straightforward about him…He was a handsome man who used his sexuality as a weapon to dominate and degrade people…an easy man to discard when his usefulness expired. His life illustrates how CIA treated its assets and contacts when their activities rendered them inconvenient.”

While Mellen and others keep saying Oswald, and DeMohrenschildt were being run by the CIA, from my readings of the same material, they could have just as easily been operating, knowingly or unknowingly with Army Intelligence or the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), as both were heavily involved in these nefarious affairs, as the recently released government records attest.

Besides meeting with CIA officers, DeMohrenschildt and his Haitian sidekick Clem Charles also meet with Dorothe Matlack, Assistant Director of the Office of the Domestic Exploitation Section, Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence. Mellen is the first to point out the significance of 66^th Military Intelligence Group (MIG) and 902 MIG – “90 Duce,” the mysterious and secret units that kept track of all these nefarious activities.

Smack in the middle of things is our old friend Col. Sam Goodhue Kail, an office associate of Matlack who we know from his days as the Military attaché in the American embassy in Havana (June 3, 1958 -  Jan. 4, 1961) when he worked with such Dealey Plaza luminaries as David Morales, Antonio Veciana and David Atlee Phillips.

In the course of her work Mellen also utilized the tenacious research of Bruce Adamson, whose chronology and dozen books on George DeMohrenschildt certainly makes him an authority on the man, and the cryptic files of the late J. Harrison, a former Texas policeman and JFK assassination researcher whose boxes of records she had access to. Mellen also draws extensively on the official files and records released under the JFK act, although many of the government’s records on DeMohrenschildt and his associates remain sealed for reasons of “national security.”

And Mellen has interviewed a few important characters who are still alive, especially Joseph F. Dryer, though few others live to tell their tales.

What I didn’t understand at first is why she left out some important well-known details, and figured, just as she wrote a follow up biography on Jim Garrison after “Farewell to Justice,” there was another book in the works. And indeed there is as I have since learned there are two more books on the way, all three of which utilize some of the same sources and general material, but focus on different geographical locations. Also in production is a book on the Texas Mafia, and a third - “The Great Game in Cuba,” which rounds out the trilogy and uses “the Cuban Revolution, as a backdrop to examine the CIA’s inner workings during the fifties and sixties.”

Besides Joan Mellen’s series of books, David Lifton, Russ Baker, Bill Simpich and Greg Parker are among the serious JFK assassination researchers who are also diving into these subjects and trying to make sense of it, and should be published in the coming year.

Thanks to Joan Mellen and the other researchers for helping to outline an accurate roadmap of the JFK assassination game board and the intelligence webs that operated on it, so we can follow the patsy’s mentor back into the guts of the intelligence network responsible for the assassination of the President.

Now we just have to get down to the nitty-gritty, fill out the map’s side roads, back alleys and gutters and shine some light in to the murky darkness to see what’s there.

You go first, I got your back.

William Kelly

Bkjfk3@yahoo.com

Jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com

                                                                       J. MELLEN 

Three JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS

THREE JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS, KNOWN TO EXIST, THAT ARE NOT AMONG THE RECORDS TURNED OVER TO THE JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS COLLECTION AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

The three records JFK Assassination Records that should have been turned over to the NARA under the JFK Act but were not include the complete radio communications from Air Force One and the records related to two articles published in newsapapers and in news reports that mention the assassination.

RECORD #1 – The complete transcript and complete, unedited tapes of the radio communications of Air Force One from Love Field, Dallas, Texas to Andrews AFB, Washington D.C.

While JFK ordered all such radio communications recorded, and the White House Communications Agency was responsible for those recordings, and the edited tapes and edited transcripts exist, a number of reporters – T. White, W. Manchester included, were permitted to read the unedited transcript in the LBJ White House, and there are references in their reporting and on the existing tapes to excerpts that are not available today. Besides the WHCA and the Department of Defense and NSA, the Collins Radio defense contractor was responsible for the radio relays from their Cedar Rapids, Iowa HQ and should have recorded the transmissions and maintained the tapes.

Since these tapes and transcripts once existed, the NARA should at least make the attempt to determine what became of them, and since the transmissions were on an open frequency, it is possible that some amateur radio club or buff or a foreign intelligence service (Canada, Cuba, Israel, USSR) may have recorded them and could provide a copy of the unedited tapes to us, since it appears we’ve lost ours.

RECORD #2 – NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA)

On March 22, 1996, The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper reported on the arrest of a Soviet spy, former NSA clerk Robert Stephen Lipka, who was identified by the FBI counter-intelligence and British MI5 from information supplied by a former KGB archivist (Mitrokin) and defector. While the Millersville, Pennsylvania man was being arranged in court, Lipka claimed that while at NSA he saw documents that identified the real assassin of President Kennedy.

When a reporter asked Lipka, as he was being led away, what was the assassin’s name, Lipka responded, "Luis Angel Castillo."

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/luis-angel-castillo.html - comments

RECORD #3: NSA REPORT OF RADIO BROADCAST

Scripps-Howard News Service – By R. H. Boyce. Thursday, March 12, 1981

Washington – The National Security Agency has alerted the CIA, the White House and State Department to a Latin American newspaper report saying Cuban President Fidel Castro is plotting the assassination of President Reagan, Scripps-Howard News Service has learned.

The NSA, which monitors published and broadcast information around the globe, does not makes such “alert” messages available to the press. But SHNS obtained a copy, which was marked “for official use only.”

            It included the text of the newspaper report as well as a garbled message about the news story directed to the head of Castro’s controlled news agency, Presna Latina. Without revealing its sources, the news report, published yesterday in the Caracas, Venezuela, newspaper El Mundo, asserted the assassination plot called for the slaying to be carried out by Illich Ramirez Sancho, an international terrorists known as Carlos the Jackal. Carlos is said to have organized the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, and has been involved in dozens of terrorists acts.

            U.S. officials said the NSA’s action in alerting the U.S. intelligence community “suggests that while they are not necessarily ready to believe the report of an assassination plot, nevertheless they (NSA) find it at least worthy of looking into.”

            The Caracas newspaper story said the assassination plan, “was discussed in a meeting of the International Trust of Crime in Cojimar, an exclusive beach club east of Havana, with the participants of Montonero and Tupamaro thugs, Illich Ramirez, Ramiro Valdez, Cuban Police Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Fidel Castro.” No identification was found of Ramiro Valdez. Montonero “thugs” are terrorists operating primarily in Argentina while Tupumaros thugs operate in Uruguay. The article said Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat also participated in the plan.

            Presna Latina (Latin Press) often has been used by Castro for political ends. The Pressa Latina correspondent in Caracas, at 9:47 a.m. EST yesterday, began transmitting the El Mundo article by cable to Prensa Latina headquarters in Havana. NSA monitored it. At the close of the text, Prensa Latina Caracas began adding what appears to be commentary on the El Mundo report. It reads:

            “Everything seems to indicate that Fidel Castro is planning the assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the same way that he previously ordered the assassination of John F. Kennedy and whose participation the high-ranking U.S. government circles hid…”

            There the Prensa Latina cable transmission stopped. Had it been ordered broken off by the Venezuela government, say U.S. officials, NSA would have added the words: “transmission interrupted,” to show Venezuela’s action. There was no such NSA notation. Officials provided no explanation of why the transmission ended in mid-sentence. 

CASTRO PLOT TO MURDER REAGAN

CASTRO PLOT TO MURDER REAGAN – by R. H. Boyce, Scripps-Howard News Service – Thursday, March 12, 1981.

WASHINGTON – The National Security Agency has alerted the CIA, White House and State Department to a Latin American newspaper report saying Cuban President Fidel Castro is plotting the assassination of President Reagan, Scripps-Howard News Service has learned.

The NSA, which monitors published and broadcast information around the globe, does not make such ‘alert’ messages available to the press. But SHNS obtained a copy, which was marked “for official use only.”

It included the text of the newspaper report as well as a garbled message about the news story directed to the head of Castro’s controlled news agency, Presna Latina.

Without revealing its sources, the news report, published yesterday in the Caracas, Venezuela, newspaper El Mundo, asserted the assassination plot called for the slaying to be carried out by Illich Ramirez Sancho, an international terrorists known as Carlos the Jackal.

Carlos is said to have organized the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, and has been involved in dozens of terrorists acts.

U.S. officials said the NSA’s actions in alerting the U.S. intelligence community “suggests that while they are not necessarily ready to believe the report of an assination plot, nevertheless they (NSA) find it at least worthy of looking into.”

The Caracas newspaper story said the assassination plan, “was discussed in a meeting of the International Trust of Crime in Cojimar, an exclusive beach club east of Havana, with the participants of Montonero and Tupamaro thugs, Illich Ramirez, Ramiro Valdez, Cuban Police Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Fidel Castro.

No identification was found of Ramiro Valdez. Montonero “thugs” are terrorists operating primarily in Argentina while Tumpumaros thugs operate in Uruguay.

The article said Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat also paraticiapted in the plan.

Presna Latina (Latin Press) often has been used by Castro for political ends. The Pressa Latina correspondent in Caracas, at 9:47 a.m. EST yesterday, began transmitting the El Mundo article by cable to Prensa Latina headquarters in Havana. NSA monitored it. At the close of the text, Prensa Latina Caracas began adding what appears to be commentary on the El Mundo report. It reads:

“Everything seems to indicate that Fidel Castro is planning the assassination of U.S. Persident Ronald Reagan in the same way that he previously ordered the assassination of  John F. Kennedy and whose participation the high-ranking U.S. government circles hit…”

There the Prensa Latina cable transmission stopped. Had it been ordered broken off by the Venezuela government, say U.S. officials, the NSA would have added the words: “transmission interrupted,” to show Venezuela’s action. There was no such NSA notation. Officials provided no explanation of why the transmission ended in mid-sentence.

END OF STORY

[Research Notes: This is a classic Black Propaganda operation, stemming from leaked NSA documents, but attributed to Castro’s “controlled” agent-reporter in Caracas, and is carefully labeled as coming from the enemy, even though it really doesn’t. The whole story is a hoax, and not a funny one. It is a continuation of the Black Prop Op that was set in motion BEFORE 11/22/63, the purpose of which was to try to blame and make it appear there was evidence to indicate that Fidel Castro was behind the assassination of JFK. I wonder if these docs were among the few that NSA released under the JFK Act?

While I’m roaming around Fort Meade, maybe I’ll check out their records and see if I come up with anything. I know how to get around security, I’ll rent a third rate car and deliver a $14 pizza to somebody inside. Security at the gate will never come up with the bucks and let me in. If it doesn’t work, maybe Gus and his friends will come over and bail me out. – BK, on the lose, underground and roaming around.]

LUIS ANGEL CASTILLO

SECRET

COMMISSION ON CIA ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

Washington, DC 20500

May 19, 1975

MEMORANDUM

To: David W. Belin

From: Mason Cargil – MC

Subject: LUIS ANGEL CASTILLO

            In the afternoon of May 12, 1975, I talked with Scott Breckenridge of the Inspector General’s office. He told me that the Agency’s files concerning Castillo were finally located in the East-Asia Division of the DDO. Those files dealing with Castillo are files of the “201” type. However, these files were not filed with normal 201 files. Breckenridge could give no explanation for this anomaly.

            He gave me a brief overview of what he said the documents in the file demonstrated. According to him, Castillo left the United States, probably Chicago, in late 1966 or early 1967 for the Philippines. He was traveling under a Philippine passport which he borrowed from a Philippine national illegally in the U.S. Apparently he did so to make the U.S. authorities believe that the illegal Filipino had left the country and therefore to assure that he would not be deported.

            In the Philippines he was arrested by the security service and interrogated extensively. At first he claimed to be a Castro agent whose purpose was to establish contact with the Huk guerrillas in the Philippines. Later he said that he had been part of an effort by Cuban Premier Castro to assassinate President Kennedy. He stated that he was one of fourteen Cuban agents stationed at various points at Kennedy’s parade route in Dallas. Breckenridge also said that the documents indicate that during his interrogation Castillo would occasionally go into some type of hypnotic trance. Further, the Philippine interrogators administered truth serum to him during his interrogation.

RMC: Clb

SECRET

DECLASSIFIED with portions redacted

JFK Assass. Rec. Collection Act of 1992

FAI, NSC, CIA Concurrence

NARA date 2/2/00 By KBH

PHOTO COPY FROM GERALD R. FORD LIBRARY

SECRET

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In the opinion of Breckenridge, Castillo’s story as documented in these files, probably cannot be dismissed out of hand as inherently incredible. Breckenridge still has no present memory of how the team preparing the 1967 IG report on assassinations came to be aware of Castillo or what follow-up action, if any, was taken on the basis of these documents. He suggests that another person who worked on the 1967 report, Ken Greer, may have worked on this Castillo angle and would be the person to contact for such information. He stated that Greer is now retired and living in Wisconsin. Breckenrigdge also stated that these files do not indicate whether or not Castillo was ever actually deported to the United States and if so whether the FBI ever interrogated him. (But see item 12 below, which indicates Castillo returned to Chicago on February 10, 1968, and evaded authorities.) Apparently the Agency has no knowledge of Castillo’s present location.

            The Agency’s documents on Castillo are contained in two manila-type folders, legal size. The first is entitled “Luis Angel Castillo, 201-817248, thru April 1967.” The second bears the identical title except for the date, which is May 67 - .”

            The first file, though April 1967, contained the following items of interest:

1. Filed immediately after a cable, dated March 3, 1967, from [Redacted] to Headquarters, is a copy of an interrogation of Luis Castillo by a Philippine agent of the National Bureau of Investigation. This document is about 20 pages long and in it Castillo outlines his story.

His parents were Cuban nationals. He left Puerto Rico to attend school in Cuba in about 1960. He states he was trained for several years as a Cuban intelligence agent. In late 1966, he changed identities with a Filipino living in Chicago named Antonio Reyes Eloriaga, at the direction of the Cuban Intelligence Service, for the purpose of using Eloriaga’s Philippine passport to go to the Philippines, where he was supposed to contact the Huk guerrillas.

Castillo stated that on July 2, 1962, during a speech, Fidel Castro threatened to retaliate against President Kennedy. He said Castro said Kennedy had made two attempt on

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his life and he was prepared to order that Kennedy himself be assassinated by Cuban intelligence agents. Castillo also claims to have been in Dallas at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy, although he is unclear as to exactly what he was doing. He claims he was taking pictures of buildings and people in Dallas. There is one other reference to the assassination of President Kennedy in this long transcript. On the last page of the transcript, below a large blacked-out area, is the question, “What other information do you have in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy?” Castillo answered that all he knew was that Fidel Castro had made these threats against Kennedy in his speech of July 7, 1962. It appears that the blacked-out portion of the transcript may contain certain questions and answers dealing with the Kennedy assassination.

            My personal impression from this transcript is that Castillo was not in control of his faculties. He is at times quite rambling, incoherent, and sometimes inherently incredible. He states that in the Philippines he wrote a letter to the President of the Philippines offering to assassinate the leader of the Huk guerrillas.

2. A cable, dated March 8, 1967, from [Redacted] to Headquarters. In this cable the [Redacted] gives headquarters a brief outline of the transcribed testimony of Castillo described in paragraph one. Essentially the [Redacted] is giving certain details of what Castillo claims was his history, for the purpose of allowing headquarters to attempt to independently corroborate these details, in order to establish Castillo’s credibility. The cable states that Castillo is in effect telling a “pretty wild story.”

3. An FBI report, dated April 13, 1967, Subject: Luis Angel Castillo. This report contains factual statements made by Castillo in the Philippines, and reports on the FBI’s attempts to corroborate these events, which Castillo alleged to have taken place primarily in the Chicago area. With some exceptions, the FBI could not corroborate these events. They concerned basically hospital and employment records which Castillo claimed would show that he had been treated by a certain hospital or employed by certain organizations.

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            4. An FBI Report, dated April 13, 1967, on Luis Angel Castillo. This report summarizes a Newark, New Jersey arrest report on Luis Castillo. He was arrested for robbery and given a sentence in a reformatory [Bordentown, N.J. – BK], from which he was paroled. One statement in the report was: “There were strong indications of homosexual tendencies on the part of Castillo, and he was described as being of low average intelligence with an unstable personality.”

5. Cable, dated April 19, 1967, from [Redacted] to Headquarters. Paragraph one of this cable reads as follows:

                              During first two weeks of April, subject underwent consecutively truth serum, truth serum-hypnotism, and hypnotism during interrogations at [Redacted].* While confirming some earlier points in his sworn statement, subject consistently maintained he among 14 other Cuban intel agents who deployed along street in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. He stated that after assassination accomplished by people other than Oswald, he and a companion flew to Chicago. He said pilot and operation were directed by Russian looking women named Jean Dole of Two Chipawa Court, Madison, Wisconsin. [Redacted] cannot vouch for professionalism of [Redacted] interrogators and above seems patently spurious.”

            Paragraph two reads in part: “LNYMA** representatives indicated he would eventually have to effect subject’s travel to the U.S. since he deported by error and according to LNERGO *** subject is wanted by Bureau of Parole, Trenton, New Jersey, for violation of parole.”

· [Redacted] appears to stand for the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation.

· ** “LNYMA” probably stands for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

· *** “LNERGO” probably stands for the U.S. FBI

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                        6. Cable, dated April 21, 1967, from Headquarters to [Redacted] (signed by William E. Colby, Chief, Far-East Division) Paragraph one reads:

                                 “Par 1 [Redacted] 9456 [Cable referred to in paragraph five above] has created strong reaction here. Although inclined to agree [Redacted] evaluation Castillo aka Eloriaga Reyes case, there are disturbing verifications of story and lines to other individuals. Believe we cannot allow case to idle along. Case primarily LNERGO LNYUMA responsibility here, but we want [Redacted] actively and directly involved so long as locus remains Phils.”

Paragraph three reads: “Unless LNYUMA plans effect travel to U.S. in near future, headquarters still prepared send qualified officer assist [Redacted] investigation.”

            7. Cable dated April 24, 1967, from [Redacted] to Headquarters. This cable transmits a verbatim transcript of two interrogations of Castillo by the Philippine NBI. This interrogation contains Castillo’s recitation of the details of his activities on the day President Kennedy was killed. He claims to have been working for one Jean Dolf who placed him under hypnosis in Chicago. He was on the second floor of a building with a rifle when Kennedy was shot by someone else. The rifle had been given to him by a man who had taken its pieces from a bowling bag and assembled it.

            8. Newspaper articles of April 1967 from the Philippines indicate that Castillo’s story of participation in the Kennedy assassination received wide publicity. For instance, an article dated April 22, 1967, in the Saturday Chronicle gives practically all the details that Castillo gave to the Philippine NBI during his interrogation. An even more detailed account of Castillo’s story is contained in an article in the April 22, 19676 edition of the Philippines Herald. These newspapers contain the statement that NBI psychiatrists had examined Castillo and found him to be sane. An article on Castillo and his story appeared in the Washington Post on April 22, 1967.   

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            9. One press item of interest was published by the AP on April 23, 1967, from Washington. One paragraph of the report reads as follows:

            “A spokesman for Representative Gerald R. Ford, Republican-Michigan, a member of the Warren Commission, said the congressman would not comment until he had more information. He said Ford might have a statement if the reported confession of Luis Angel Castillo, described as a communist agent for Cuba, was made officially.”                       

            10. Cable, dated April 25, 1967, from the American Embassy in Manila to the Secretary of State in Washington clearly indicates the State Department considered Castillo to be unbalanced. Paragraph three of this cable reads:

“Apart from question of delicacy and prudence, one reason why embassy has not sought to offer good offices to alleged American citizen is that he appears, in some respects, be irrational, and has created most of his own problems here. Shortly after arrival he telephoned Chief of Staff MATA with offer to establish contact with Huks in order to assassinate prominent Huk leaders. (When asked how he would recognize leaders, he replied that they could supply him with description). MATA referred him to one of army intelligence agencies which after two interviews concluded he was both unbalanced and semi-illiterate before turning him over to NBI.”  

            11. FBI report on Castillo, dated April 24, 1967, forwarded to the CIA on April 25, 1967. This contains a complete FBI report on Castillo (i.e., his background, U.S. criminal record, etc. ) Only the last paragraph of the FBI report deals with Castillo’s allegation that he was involved in a plot to assassinate President Kennedy. This paragraph reads:

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“With reference to subject’s allegations concerning the assassination of President Kennedy, it is to be noted that the extensive investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination developed no indications that anyone other than Oswald was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.”

                                                      

The second file, beginning with documents of May 1967, contain the follow items of note:

12. Memorandum, dated May 3, 1967, for the record,

Subject: Luis Angel Castillo by [Redacted] , FE/PMI/P.

This gives the CIA’s version of the events beginning with the arrest of Castillo. It substantially agrees with all of the documents discussed above.

13. Cable, dated June 20, 1967, from [Redacted], to Chief, Far-East Division, Subject:: Current status of Illegal Immigrant Luis Castillo. This cable states that the Philippine NBI was still holding Castillo incommunicado in a hospital in the Philippines. The cable indicates that the Philippine officers strongly suspect “subject could have been conditioned by someone to attempt assassination of President Marcos.” Paragraph three of this cable reads as follows:

[Redacted] officer who mentioned that a Russian hypnotism expert Libidev or Libibed, visited Manila while on World Health Organization business in February 1967 when subject had just come to Philippines and was still at large before his arrest. [Redacted] suspected this Russian might have contacted subject to “maintain hypnotic control” which allegedly subject has been placed under before leaving WOLADY.”

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Paragraph five of this cable reads: “While we are minimizing time devoted to this case, [Redacted] will keep in close touch with [Redacted] and report further developments.”

14. Cable dated June 26, 1967, from [Redacted] to Headquarters. This indicates that a [Redacted] within Philippine NBI had reported indicated that Castillo had signed a new statement on June 26, 1967, identifying himself as one Manuel Angelo Ramirez. In this statement Castillo claimed to have been a WOFACT (Probably referring to the CIA) employee who participated first in Bay of Pigs invasion, then in the assassination of President Kennedy. He also indicated that he had been sent to the Philippines to attempt to assassinate President Marcos. Cable indicated that the NBI did not believe Castillo’s claim about his CIA status and its involvement in assassinations, but needed to “clear up” the subject’s claims. Paragraph three contains the statement that, “We briefed minister and will brief FBI and INS on FYI only basis, at first opportunity.”

Paragraph four of this cable reads;

“Subject’s story getting more absurd and we frequently point this out to [Redacted]. Nonetheless, Par 1 [referring to assassination allegations referring to CIA] is a leak to local press, no matter how far fetched the story, it could be embarrassing.”

15. FBI report dated February 15, 1968, indicates that Castillo had arrived at Chicago O’Hare International Airport from Manila at approximately 11 p.m., February 10, 1968. On February 14 officers from the Sheriff’s Department of Cook County, Illinois, visited Castillo’s mother’s home in an effort to arrest him with a warrant charging him with parole violation. They were advised that on February 13 Castillo left his mother’s home in an automobile with a number of unidentified male individuals. His mother added that she did not expect to see her son again.

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16. FBI report, dated December 30, 1967, on Luis Angel Castillo. This report contains the text of a letter which Castillo sent to his mother in Chicago on December 4, 1967, while he was still under interrogation by the NBI in Manila. In the letter he claims that all of his confessions were the result of NBI torture and none of them were true. He explains that since the NBI recently got a new director who is anti-American, he was then being tortured to force him to claim that he is a CIA spy who was sent to the Philippines for the purpose of assassinating President Marcos. His mother turned the letter over to the FBI as soon as she received it.

17. Memorandum for the record, dated June 18, 1969, by J.F. Devanon of the Los Angeles Field Office, Subject: Victor Arcega, Hermosa Beach, California. This memorandum describes contact the Los Angeles field office had with Arcega. Arcega, on May 26, 1969, telephoned the Los Angeles field office of the CIA on the listed telephone number. He claimed that he had information on a Cuban Communist in the Philippines and he agreed to mail the particulars to the CIA’s P.O. Box. The letter he subsequently wrote is attached to this memorandum. In it Arcega claims to have been the hypnotist used by the NBI in its interrogation of Castillo in 1967. He claims that he used the name Vicente Sanchez.

Arcega, in 1969, was a proofreader for the Los Angeles Times, who was about to be deported to the Philippines because his visa was expiring. He claims that Castillo had been subject to prior hypnosis and he had been programmed to undertake certain actions when certain key words were said to him. One key word dealt with the assassination of President Marcos of the Philippines. The letter does not state why Arcega is providing this information to the CIA at this time. The file does not indicate what follow-up if any CIA undertook as a result of this letter.

It should be noted that the summary of the interrogation cabled to headquarters on April 24, 1967, discussed above, included a report on Castillo, signed by one “Vicente Sanchez, Hypnotist.” It is not clear how Arcega would have known the name used by the hypnotist in 1967 had he not either been the hypnotist or been associated with the NBI in some other capacity.

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FROM
GERALD R. FORD LIBRARY